graldia meeting

[adlantisag]

Hellboy, Kida, Lancer, Papyrus and Riza will come together to try and make an ally out of Graldia, the goblin leader. Having been effectively banned from the castle, Riza and Kida have some form of credibility among the goblins; Kida's actually been living in the goblin district since the jailbreak. Papyrus and Hellboy form the nonhuman contingent of the party, both of them living among goblins and Hellboy in particular having spent a lot of time at their church. Lancer is acting bodyguard, backing up his wife the group with some extra muscle. Some of Graldia's troops might recognize Lancer and Hellboy from the bar...

Their intention isn't to intimidate, but Graldia's a warrior, not an aristocrat, and presumably surrounded by fighters: they do want to show some backbone. They hold themselves straight, weapons not drawn but also not hidden. The seven-foot-tall Hellboy spearheads the group, not afraid to look a little menacing to get them in. At Hellboy and Papyrus' suggestion, they bring a gift of cereus flowers harvested from the cavern, as a sign of goodwill. Papyrus brings along a swan: as the goblin creation story goes that the universe came from a swan egg, it seems like an appropriate offering. Hellboy will be wearing his goblin religious token to cement the whole 'envoy' look.

Two possible routes:

A. the easy road: If Graldia is receptive and offers them an audience, Hellboy will express his sympathy at being considered an outsider, but posits that a long-term resolution to the friction between the races requires some compromise. He has a wealth of personal experience to draw on as examples, of course. Riza concurs that the king being particularly intransigent, the biggest middle finger they could give him would be to up-end his plans at goblin elimination. [HOW? MYSTERY.]

Specifically, they'd like to know [THINGS. THINGS GO HERE. WHAT THINGS I DON'T KNOW].

A. the rocky road: If Graldia does not offer them an audience or otherwise dismisses them, all bets are off. Kida, with Lancer's backing, challenges the goblin leader to a one-on-one fight, with the condition that if she wins, Graldia must listen to them and take their suggestions into consideration. If this is successful, her demands will be more brusque: that Graldia fight openly against Christophe's plan to foster inequality and friction between humans and goblins. Following that, see A.