With suspicion at first.

Arete and the goblin we was travelling with both drew weapons as we approached-daggers and a shortsword pointed in our direction. Frankly, the goblin's display was almost comical-a doughy body holding an oversized weapon for it. I hold up hand far to show I'm unarmed. "Hey-why the aggression? Staking your claim that aggressively?" Arete took the lead in replying. "Show up with a couple monsters in tow, don't blame me if people are suspicious. Especially with that, where did you find them?" He used a digger like a pointer, seeming to indicate their midsection. Oh. Right, he knows my Mark. Gonna have to come up with some explanation.

"I mean, I could say the same of you-though paling around with a goblin and a harpy says something quite a bit different about you than these two do about me." I instantly felt my mistake after the words slipped from me-going on the offence would not be a way to keep things peaceful. He gripped his dagger tighter, but had more wisdom than me in holding his tongue as I tried to right the ship. "As for me-I managed to acquire them from a...very unique individual who wanted to disappear. Figured a guide and some muscle could both be of use. How about you?" I indicated the cervitaur and the dragon, respectively, as I explained.

He didn't seem particularly satisfied with the answer, but at least his stance seemed to relax slightly. "Well, one was the result of who's apparently a mutual acquaintance. The other, well, she wasn't like this-a bit of a friend before her unfortunate incident." "Wasn't always like this-so she got zapped by some kind of trap and cursed?" A couple of confirming nods, and then silence again. Nobody quite knew ho to proceed, or quite trusted-so i take the effort to be the one to stick out their neck first, keeping my hands far from my body as I close in.

"Look, criticisms of company aside, we're both clearly here for the same thing-to crack this thing open for the prize inside. Twelve eyes work better than six." The greed-driven man instantly rebukes, like he'd seen this coming, a smile slowly crossing his face as he lowered his weapon-thankfully, as it had started to poke against me uncomfortably with how close we'd gotten. "And six ways is smaller than 3. 75-25." Well, if appealing to his cupidity can get him to focus on something that isn't question of trust, two can play at that. "More of use means you'll go deeper-But frankly, we function well so far. So, fifty fifty, but you choose your half, and we get what's left over." The goblin looked worryingly at him as he considers before grabbing one of my hands to shake. "Acceptable." That he didn't seem to hesitate too badly told me that there was probably going to be a bunch of useless garbage I'd be stuck with, but frankly, I was basically here for XP, not GP.

The shortest among us, however, soon pointed out a more than minor issue with agreeing to a loot split already. "All well and good-but it's a moot point unless we can actually get in there." And so, attention is drawn to imposing doors, still firmly shut.