"You want kill T'ree Snakes Merchants. Maybe Karikanti help you then. Meet the tribe, yes?"
Jim grins and nods. "Oh, yeah. Mates, let's have a palaver with the Karikanti 'fore we do anything too rash, hey?"
Kaul mulls Jim's words - particularly Karikanti and rash...
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The thug hisses an aside to Jim and Dibbs, pulling them close;
"Hur. Ain't too sure 'bout this lot. Them Kari-kantee are tribes o' lost folk, runaway slaves, an' shipwrecked maroons... Be wary o' them poppin' us in a pot fer supper! What say I Lopp one tae show we ain't fer eatin' like?
Jim shakes his head. "No, they sound like our sort of folks. And they don't think much of Aspis, so I'm inclined to start out friendly."
Kaul shrugs with a nod;
"Hur. Meet the tribe..."
Dibbs shrugs "Aye, less go meet tha natives. Worse comes worse at least they shows us how tae find em eh?"
Bron wordlessly turns and leads the way followed by the woman. The group heads deeper into the jungle single-file on the narrow trail. After a while, the trail ends at a muddy river about twenty feet wide with a sluggish flow. "Careful here," Syndi says. "Watch out for crocodiles." She and Bron hop into water which looks about three and a half feet deep and push forward across the stream.
Jim follows in their footsteps, trying to watch for hidden deep spots.
Kaul also follows cagey like, conscious of keeping himself betwixt Dibbs and any lurking crocs...
Dibbs rolls his eyes before motioning Kaul close to him. Taking a firm grip on his matey's jerkin he looks to get dragged across the surface rather than try and make his way across the deep-to-him waters.
As Dibbs attempts to use Kaul as a mule, the thug scowls and hooks his mechanical claw onto the grubby oracle's belt.
"Better idea... The claw'll lift ye easy matey..."
He then hoists his shipmate up carrying him as he lumbers along.
Kaul lifts Dibbets up into the Clawsnest and hops into the river pushing forward after Jim. The high water tugs at clothing and forces the crew to brace against it as they slowly wade after their guides. Suddenly, Bron throws up his arms and shouts as he disappears under the water.
:
As Bron goes under Kaul scowls, and bellows a warning;
"E's croc food lads! Make for the bank while the scaly basterd noshes down its supper!"
Irrespective of anyone else's decision, the thug plows onward...
Midget Nous:
In tune with the weft of the murky wave, Dibbets narrows eye and scrunches nostrils in prognostication....
Jim looks around, paying particular attention to the woman's reactions.
Dibbets and Jim sense something of high drama in Bron's fall and aren't surprised at the sudden inevitable betrayal when Syndi turns revealing glowing green eye, an unnaturally broad grin filled with sharp teeth, and thick gray-green scaly patches on her arms and face while a pair of lizardmen crash through the jungle on the opposite shore.
Keelhaul Kaul-
Madman Jim-
foe-
Kaul plows obliviously forward, surprised when an croco-man suddenly lunges out of the water to bite and drag him under! Jim feels a rock or something bounce off his boot and then the croco-woman hexes him. The lizardfolk cast javelins at the swashbuckler, but miss in their haste.
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"Arse'n giblets" is the call as Dibbs cuts himself loose to free Kaul's arms for carnage. A moments pause before the ornery bastard fades to mist.
Jim shakes his head. "Shouldn't have done that." He slogs through the muddy water to close with the woman, trusting that Kaul can take care of himself.
The crocodile-jawed woman grins broadly and settling back into the water swims out of reach and casts another spell. "Stay where you are," she hisses. The pair of lizardfolk warriors dive into the water and reappear at Syndi's side.
Meanwhile, the muddy river effervesces as Dibbets comes bubbling out of it in gaseous form. Below, the crocoman tries to pin Kaul to the river bottom, but fails.
Under the murk, Kaul grins in the knowledge that distrust and bloodshed will be the way forward... He twists in the croc-man's embrace attempting to escape its scaley clutches;
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"No hole in my head anymore, b1tch." Jim powers through the spell's effects and follows after, targeting one of the lizardfolk. The muck offers little in the way of secure footing for his usual agility, though.
Kaul interposes the Claw between himself and the great toothed maw of the man-odile. The hydraulic prosthetic pushes the bestial figure's head back and away loosening its grip on the thug. Kaul slips away and surfaces. Jim gives the lizard-witch the what for, as well. Giving her a zipping slash as she backs away though he can see that her tough hide resists the bite of the steel blade, he shakes away her hexes and runs through one of the lizardmen. The creature thrashes as it falls into the muddy river leaving a red trace as the body begins to float downstream.
Dibbs floats through the ether towards the safety of the bank, seeking a landward re-coalescensce.
A small Cumulodibbets cloud floats over the river to shore. The remaining lizard warrior lunges at Jim wounding him with his spear. Syndi ducks beneath the surface and disappears beneath the murky water.
Bron-odile lunges out of the water at Kaul again, but the toothy jaws miss.
As he ducks the snapping jaws Kaul responds in kind with his own "bite" - chopping with his fell hatchet;
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Jim hisses as the spear strikes him, then retaliates with a quick feint that turns into a lethal thrust. "I think I got the better of that passage, hey?"
Lopper skitters off thick crocodile hide. Storm-eyes' blade flashes with an electrical discharge leaving a ragged hole in the lizard warrior's chest. Another corpse drifts downstream.
Dibbets...
The odiferous vapor mists turgidly through the air like a poisonous fume until he finds soggy ground to make a half-ling's reappearance.
Dibbets precipitates out on the bank. The witchy-dile resurfaces thirty feet downstream of Jim. "Your luck will fail you sooner or later!" she croaks and casts another spell. The other werecrocodile is back at Kaul with a ferocious bellow. Jaws clamp on the thug and heavy tail smashes into Kaul's knees painfully causing them to collapse as he is pulled under again!
The witch's magic once again fails to bite on Jim, who chuckles and slogs towards her. "I'd think about running away, if I were you."
Pulled under again, Kaul attempts to prise himself out of the croc-chops for a second time;
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Calling out, Dibbets implores "Get tae ground Kauly, I'm nae much good inna shallows." as he turns attention to his musket and attempts to get his powder dry enough to make beautiful music.
Dibbets drives a breeze over the powder drying it out while he keeps an eye on Kaul or at least the boiling water where his mate went under. Kaul doesn't resurface and the water ominously quiets back into the usual ripples of the current.
A tinge of fear crosses the unblinking golden eyes of the Karokanti witch as Jim shakes off another hex and advances. She moves out of reach and bares a wide toothy grin. "You lucky, but not your friend. Don't think that the pig-man be rising again." She suddenly spits a long black dart, but it is off target and zips past Jim's cheek.
Under the murky waters Kaul attempts to pull himself free from the killer croc's embrace;
:
Shaking his head and trusting Kaul to be a hard bastard to put down Dibbs levels the boomstick towards more open and available target. A beam is taken on the hag before eruptation of flash and fury...
Musket (deadly aimed): for
Jim has a moment of uncertainty and then a bullet strikes the witch. The werecrocodile shrieks even as the bullet is expelled and bleeding stops though a hole remains. She ducks away underwater again in retreat. Jim activates his ring and swims upstream back toward where Kaul disappeared. In the murky water, he can just make out the dark shapes struggling along the muddy bed.
The savage jaws tear at Kaul releasing fresh blood into the water.
As the croc-man begins to tear the thug asunder, it dawns on Kaul how much **** he's in...
He once again attempts to jam his claw between himself and the snapping jaws;
:
Dibbets sees his boomstick reloaded and stands sentinel over the muck.
Jim stabs blindly into the muddy murk, feeling a tingle from the aura around his blade.
Kaul manages to get the squeeze back on the croco-phile by grabbing its snout and keeping it closed as he slips out of the scaly cur's grasp. Kaul breaks the surface to grab a breath and Jim drives his tingling blade into the were-reptile's side sorely injuring it before it thrashes out of the claw's grasp and dodges Jim's next thrust. It turns on the swashbuckler, but its jaws catch only water and Jim yanks his legs out of the way of the heavy tail's path. On the bank, Dibbets sees only Kaul's head pop up out of the muddy flow.
Free of his scaley protagonist Kaul attempts to scrabble to shore in order to lick his wounds;
Seeing Kaul emerge and scurry shorewards, Dibbs stumps his way yonder to see if he can administer some scarring indifference.