World Converged: 4
Journal Entry 4: Benoit’s Job
It happened again, that weird dream of that feather filled dark void. I’ve had this dream so often, there’s usually more to it, but all I can ever recall is the feathers. Not this time, though. There were 3 enormous skulls that emerged from the inky void. They surrounded me and opened their jaws, dark energy pooled in their mouth. The pools turned into beams of energy and I was engulfed. I woke up.
I struggled to get back to sleep after that, so I just meditated until the morning came. I met Encore downstairs for breakfast, but before we could place our order, Francine entered, telling us that Benoit wanted to see us. She asked if we knew where the others were; we knew they had camped out last night, but not exactly where, but we told Francine we would find them and bring them to Benoit’s place.
We cancelled our breakfast order and headed outside, Encore trying to get some gossip out of Francine, who seemed more than please to spill over her boss. Turns out Benoit is a bit of a pest towards the women of the town, especially Francine, thinking an infatuation with her may be the reasoning behind her hiring. Benoit had a wife, but she had passed several years ago, but being married didn’t stop his adulterous ways.
With gossip shared. Encore and I went to the woods nearby to find the others. They weren’t too far out of town, so we found them pretty quickly. Ty had kept the warg with them, not sure how friendly it was though, as it was chewing on a corpse of a goblin from yesterday.
We told them that Francine had spoken to us and that we had a meeting with Benoit to discuss another job for us. They packed up their gear and joined us. Ty tried to bring the warg, but it growled and continued gnawing on the goblin.
While we walked, Goodflower came up to me and started berating me again for killing the goblins. And that maybe next time I should try resolving the conflict with mercy and words. Must really be nice to come from somewhere where that’s an option. Cow would be dead in a day if they went to Raziel City. Hells I would probably be an only child now if I had that type of mentality. I didn’t want to hear any more of his crap, so I walked off ahead.
Back in town, we went to Benoit’s… mansion. I guess you could call it, it definitely stands out amongst the rest of the town. I started seeing ghost children again, so clearly Seraph was going through her weird tricks again. Ty took that moment to tell me that the spirit of one goblin joined her… collection? I hope it’s voluntary. I would hate to die around her and have my soul forced to join her ghost menagerie.
The inside of the mansion clearly matched the personality of Benoit… extravagant and extra. An enormous portrait of the halfling filled one wall. We were led into his office and offered a seat. Goodflower sat on the floor while the rest of us took chairs. Benoit thanked us for our help yesterday, claiming he could have fought everyone off himself had he not been shot (I strangely kind of believe him) and then told us the reason he wanted to speak to us, was that during the wedding, someone had broken into his mansion and stolen a very important document from him.
Benoit wouldn’t say what was in the folder, only that it was very important that no-one else read it and that it be returned to him as soon as possible. He offered us 100g for the job (as a group… again) but warned that if the folder had been opened at all, we would lose payment. I have to say, just not being paid is probably the easiest punishment I’ve ever been threatened with for not reading documents. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told “read it and you’re dead”. Kind of refreshing.
Seraph piped up saying that they knew goblins were very prideful creatures and that offering them well prepared good quality food would offend them to their core and they would leave (I honestly didn’t know that). Benoit scratched his head for a moment before he yelled for Francine to get the chefs working on some bags of food for us to take.
Mr Peppercorn then followed up with a second proposal: 1 gold for each confirmed goblin kill and an additional 20 gold for killing Patron (from what I’ve seen, not nearly enough). This got under the skin of Goodflower who, once again, nattered on about if the contents of the document could help others, they should share its contents, maybe it could help other businesses in creating superior products, Benoit took it as a joke at first, but his smile quickly faded when he realised, he was being completely serious.
The mood in the office turned sour at that moment. Benoit’s feigned jovialness was completely replaced by… almost malice in his voice. He didn’t care about helping the goblins or doing anything for the “greater good” he wanted that dossier back, and he wanted us to get it for him unread. He didn’t care if we were too chickenshit to kill some more goblins for coin, just for us to get our arses to the Tumerine gorge where the goblins had made camp and get his stuff back.
Francine meets us at the front door with several bags of food to see of the goblins with, she also hands us a map of the local area, Tumerine gorge being a short way to the north-east.
A while into the walk, once again Goodflower preaches to me about not killing (Cow knows me for all of half a day and somehow thinks he can spout like advice like he knows what I’ve been through). I informed him, once again, that I’m not some derange killer, and that I will only do so in self-defence. If they try to kill me, I will kill them first. He makes a comment about just using a shield or something to defend myself? I summoned some daggers and told him to attack me. He looked confused and said no. I said that this was all I needed to protect myself, a deterrent. Seraph then threw a dagger at my back! No-one berated her for that. Fucking hypocrites, the lot of them.
Shutting out Goodflower, we continued scouting. There was screaming coming from the woods. We ran towards the sound where we entered a clearing. We saw one goblin yelling for help, and a second one, dead and being thrown around like a chew toy by a large jaguar like creature with tentacles sprouted out of its back.
Fuck you Goodflower, try talking your way out of this… Infinite out
