Speaking of monsters…
Today we were approached by another local woman who asked for our help, but this time the monster turned out to be real. Unbeknownst to them (before now, anyway) one of the goblins from the Swallowtail Festival fight had been injured too badly to escape with the rest of ’em and instead managed to sneak into the their house and shimmy into a hole in the floor of her son’s bedroom closet. He’d been hiding out there since the fight, unable to escape or even sneak out and feed himself because the family’s yappy dog had been keeping him at bay.
The dog’s all-night barking was annoying the hell out of her husband, Alergast Barett, and so he tied it up out in the yard and went to investigate – insisting that he do so on his own so as to protect his family from whatever he might find. The woman said that she’d heard some big bangs and then the sounds of a serious scuffle and then… nothing. That’s when she grabbed her son and ran to come find us.
Turned out to be a pretty bad move on his part. We found him face-down on the floor with his head in the hole. We pulled him out and just about had enough time to notice that 1) he was definitely dead, and 2) he was definitely missing his face when the the goblin leapt up out of the hole – bloody-mawed and evidently still hangry as hell.
We managed to make short work of the goblin, but weren’t quite quick enough to keep the wife and son from running into the room just after. No one should ever have to discover anyone they love in such a state. The look in that poor boy’s eye as he looked down at his father’s flayed face definitely gonna stay with me for a while…
Sheriff Hemlock showed up then. No amount of soothing was gonna be enough for Mrs. Barett and her son, but Hemlock did his best. We left him to it.