Troubles in Otari

Four young people have gathered outside the Otari Fishery, where stands a panicked-looking Tamily Tanderveil.

"Oh, you're finally here! Good!" Then she pauses to collect herself, clearing her throat. "...Sorry, I mean, thank you for coming. The town guard was too busy to help with this, but it's kind of important. Something has been in the basement storeroom, helping itself to our fish. Will you please find out what's going on down there and take care of it? You'll each get some gold for your trouble - oh, and here, you can have these, too." She smiles as she offers each of you a minor healing potion.

"Always happy to help," Says a young woman with a distinctive fox mask, a local huntress named Mienna. "Probably just some vermin, so it shouldn't be too difficult to clear them out."

Ayanda takes a moment to inspect the potion. "Thank you for the potion. Do you know anything about the fish thief? It would be... less than ideal to go down completely unprepared."

"I dunno, but whatever it is, I think there's more than one of them," says Tamily. "They've made a mess of things down there."

“You know,” Fritz says, offhandedly to all around. “This reminds me of stories me granddad used to tell about how he got started on his adventuring ways. Hope it’s the same for us, eh?” He says, unsheathing his bastard sword, checking the straps of his shield, and then standing ready to descend into the basement and begin his life as an adventurer. After a moment he glances from the blade down to the Halfling woman. “erm…Miss Tanderveil…about collateral damages?…” He trails off, a bit worried about hacking up the ceiling of the basement…and any furniture. Or walls.

Tamily chuckles somewhat nervously. "Um, yeah, try to keep it to a minimum, OK?"

"Should be easy enough," Parul shrugs, one hand on the hilt of her longsword and the other on her hip. "Probably just some wild animals that got in somehow."

The stairs leading into the basement creak with age as you descend. In the center of the room, between stone support pillars, are barrels filled with salted fish. Two of the barrels have been smashed open, spilling their contents on the floor. As you get closer, you hear what sounds like someone eating quite messily - and you see a small reptilian humanoid helping itself to one of the barrels' contents.

Fritz gives a wide smile and nods jauntily to himself. A lone beast – likely some sort of goblin – may not be the best first step but – “Hold!” He whispers sharply, lifting his shield arm in a closed fist and then points beyond the two barrels behind. “I think I saw something else moving there.” He tenses himself, glancing about to the corners of the basement.
Smart goblins.

"YOU! Troublemaker!" Ayanda yells, leveling her gun at the small creature. "Stop right there! You have violated the law. Place your hands above your head and surrender quietly, or else pay with your blood."

Startled, the creature reaches for its spear, but it falters and drops the weapon. It screeches something in a language none of you understand, and two others emerge from behind the barrels, each brandishing a spear of their own.

The party kills two of the creatures and badly wounds the third, who then throws its hands up in surrender. "Stop! No more hurt!" it says in broken Common. "Just want fish! We maybe make deal?"

Ayanda sighs and places her palm over her forehead. "You talk before you get two of your friends killed attacking the people trying to stop them from committing a crime. Deal or no deal, you're going to be brought to jail at this point."

The kobold looks crestfallen, but nods anyway. "Jail better than dead."

"Before jail though, answers," Ayanda states, tossing some rope from her bag to Mienna. "While she ties you up, tell us why you wanted to steal fish."

"Need food," it says matter-of-factly. "Hunting too hard. Too many big meanies. So ... take fish."

"Don't adventurer normally kill goblins?" He says with a little shrug and arm cross. "But I suppose we should go up and let Miss Tanderveil know that here problem is dealt with." And he turns to the 'goblin'. "It is done, right? There aren't any more goblins' who want fish?"

"Kobolds, not Goblins," Mienna corrects. "Goblins aren't so draconic. And there aren't more of you, are there?" She directs the question to the prisoner.

"No ... no more," says the kobold. They're very obviously lying.

Parul raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, bull. Where are they, and how many," she says, twirling her kukri in her hand for intimidation... only to completely drop it as she does so. "... damnit."

“No, no, you need to let the handle roll against the tip of the middle finger. ” He says and makes the movement, without the blade, with his hand. He walks over and, kneeling to pick up Parul’s kukri. “It’s a little harder with the curve, but you almost had it. ” He says, walking over to lean over the not-kobold’s head and starts twirling the blade with minimal wobble. “And you have to be careful, if you drop it, you can really do some damage with one of these blade.” He looks down to the goblin he was leaning over. “Tell the lady what she wants to know. ”

The kobold growls, but then gestures with their snout (since the rest of them is tied up) toward the eastern wall. There's a sizeable crack in the wall - easily large enough for the kobolds to have squeezed through. "Many, many of us," they say. "You attack, you die."

“That looks like a call to adventure if I’ve ever seen one. Who wants to prove this…Kobold, right? Not Goblins?...Wrong?” Fritz asks, carefully returning the blade to Parul with a short bow of thanks. He then turns to their prisoner, stroking his chin.
“ We should deliver this go- kobold to Miss Tanderveil. I’ll go and make sure nothing comes through that crack while you’re out.” Then a huge smile cracks of his face, walking to the crack and rubbing his hands together. “Adventure here I come!”

Ayanda steps upstairs very quickly. "Tamily!" she calls out. "Your problem is kobolds. We captured one and killed others. Please alert the town sheriff or guards or whatever to come grab this one. We have to go deal with the rest of them."

Mienna bodily lifts the restrained kobold and carries them up the stairs, depositing them in the room above. "If you'll see to getting this one squared away, you seem to have a crack in your wall that they were using to get in. We're gonna investigate it and see if we can't get a more long-term solution in place."

Tamily looks crestfallen. "Kobolds!? Oh, no, what will I ... wait, you're going back?" Her expression then turns to surprise. "That's brave of you, but please be very careful. There's no such thing as a small group of kobolds..."

You hand over the prisoner, then return to the storeroom. The crack in the wall isn't yet big enough for anyone (besides maybe Ayanda) to get through ... still, it's probably better to do some property damage than to let those kobolds go unchecked.