Hitting Several Roads
As the dominion prepared to depart from the area of Akinipo, Damira and her advisors made the decision to divide their forces. The Brisk River tribe, along with a few guides from Wooded Bend, were sent upriver to recruit the Sunset Peaks tribe and bring them back to the Stone Cradle. In anticipation of their arrival, Damira sent her parents (Irada and Tolegan) back to the Stone Cradle in order to prepare the tribe for the new arrivals. Both groups were also given instructions to spread the word of Damira's birth to any gadlings they came across.
The dominion's next target was the Salted Earth tribe—a name they apparently earned by salting the earth themselves in order to make the area unattractive to humans. Still traveling at night, they were forced to circumvent the crossroads village of Lindis by passing the rocky terrain to the south (took longer but more sneaky) as opposed to the marshland to the north (faster, more exposed) or just rolling through town.
Peacekeeping Along the Road
Upon returning to the main road, their scouts reported got word that Lindis had sent a warband toward the Salted Earth tribal village to deal with "the tribe" before they became more of a problem. Damira and her advisors took the golems and a small squad of kobolds and hurried ahead of the dominion, hoping to beat the humans to the tribe and set up fortifications.
From the air, Qazir and Damira spotted the warband attacking a group of goblins; the kobolds and caryatids hurried to their defense, hoping to cow the humans into surrender. Mursili and the caryatids loomed menacingly, Qazir glided overhead and dropped fire between the forces, and then finally, Damira flew in and demanded an end to the hostilities, which the frightened forces granted. Nazgul was eventually able to communicate with the leader of this goblin band—Purnaq—through their common secondary language of Kerranic. From what she gathered by listening to both sides, the humans had started
this attack, but the goblins had done their fair share of unprovoked attacks as well—the "tribe" that the scouts had overheard a plan to attack was in fact the
goblin tribe, not the Salted Earth tribe.
Through Nazgul, Damira extended an offer to the goblins to join their dominion; Purnaq said he couldn't answer that himself, but invited them to come to the goblin camp and give the same spiel to Quamaniq, chief of the broader goblin tribe. The discussion was briefly interrupted when Purnaq disciplined another goblin—Nukilik—for attempting to eat a dead goblin (later revealed to be Nukilik's brother as punishment, Nukilik was assigned to the dominion as a guide. Meanwhile, Nazgul negotiated with the humans, promising them that if they went home and kept the details of this encounter to themselves, both the kobolds and the goblins would clear out of the area within a matter of days.
Unexpected Allies
The dominion's advance squad waited for the rest of the forces to catch up, then began making their way to the goblin camp. Along the way, Nukilik casually dropped that the goblin camp
was the Salted Earth tribal village, though he implied that the village had already been empty and they had simply moved in. This was understandably upsetting for Damira and her advisors, as the tribe they had hoped to collect was now missing.
The goblin camp sprawled beyond the walls of the previous kobold village, and the wooden walls of the village now bristled with sharp spikes and other defenses. Damira, Nazgul, and Qazir ventured into the encampment to speak with Quamaniq, who was waiting in a very large tent, flanked by burly goblin shamans and wearing a skull headdress that looked vaguely draconic. Damira introduced herself, and a shaman responded by introducing Quamaniq
to her, which put her at a diplomatic disadvantage. She pushed past it and extended the offer to join and fight alongside her dominion, but Quamaniq merely responded with boasts and pride, playing to the other goblins and claiming to be better than just another kobold tribe. Damira chided him with the boasts, challenging him to
prove himself better than the kobold tribes if that was true.
While this posturing was taking place, Qazir had found a weakness in the tent's architecture, a single point of failure that would cause the whole thing to collapse. He subtly signaled this to Damira, who ended her challenge to Quamaniq by telling him "you can't even keep your own house in order"; as she said so, Qazir collapsed the entire tent around them in such a manner that the small hole in the roof fell directly around Damira while the fabric pinned everybody else. As Quamaniq struggled back to his feet in front of an untouched Damira, his laughter was tinged with respect, and he agreed that he and his goblins would fight alongside the dominion in order to prove their worth.
In Fate: Minor Milestone
PCs
- Qazir: Changed The Most Arguably Literate to The Most Arguably Knowledgable
Quick Notes
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