Mandus briefly sizes Skorabor up, imagining him dead. With a slightly wistful expression, he glances about himself. He raises his nose to the air, sniffing down one path and the other, studying the dirt for tracks and seeking not to overlook a single detail.
What here is useful to me?
Useful? There isn't much here that you could use in a physical sense, unless you plan to take up some sort of woodworking hobby. Not far from the path that continues forward, however, you find a collection of various animal bones. They all seem clumped together in a ball of fur and crushed bones: a half skull here, some ribs here, part of some antlers here.
If you wanted to dissect it, you might be able to assemble something you could reanimate I suppose, if you would find a raccoon or boar particularly helpful. If so, let's hope you're good at anatomy puzzles.
"Some form of monstrous owl?" Gil said with a mixture of disappointment and contempt in his voice. "Not exactly what I was expecting."
Horn, deeply unsettled at every turn, finds himself glancing about for animals as he walks. If he sees some, he'll call out to them in their tongue, curious for their own tales of this forest -- and of the Elk and the Oak.
If he doesn't see any, he'll hoot out in the language of the owls, calling on those who can hear his call.
Djack doesn't say anything at this juncture. He is uncharacteristically quiet, based on the short time you have known him.
He seems in over his head.
Skorabor walks up to the bones and rummages through them. "Is this someone's lair?" he asks Horn.
You don't find anything particularly noteworthy within the tangle of fur and bones, save for enough bones to make up a handful of small to medium sized forest animals.
Astonishingly, Horn doesn't see any animals as he walks, which is unheard of for the Halfling. While others may traverse a forest and never notice the life around them, you are often almost supernaturally aware of when a squirrel is nearby, or a vole is expanding it's burrow just beyond the brush. Here, however, things seem eerily silent and vacant. There must be animals in this forest, as where would these bones come from, but you are unable to find them currently.
As you call out in the language of the owls, the flickering lights that you had seen earlier dancing and flitting within the shadows of the brush begin to appear once again. You hear a rustling in the trees above as five separate owls come from a handful of different directions to rest in the upper branches of nearby trees at your call. And the sight of them makes you sick.
One of them, a great horned owl, has its left eye dangling from the socket, down near where its beak is. Another, a speckled barn owl is missing most of its feathers, and black fur is beginning to grow to cover the bald patches. Still another is unidentifiable beyond the basic bone-structure of a bird of prey, as the flesh is so mangled. You can't help but wonder how it takes flight. They look down at you from their purchases, silently questioning you with their eyes.
"Gah, wretched creatures and ill omens!" Skorabor exclaims with a powerful voice that travels through the woods. "Take us to your master that we shall end this horrible blight upon the earth!" he commands.
Mandus merely narrows his eyes at the sight of the birds, saying nothing.
He waits a few moments. If nothing happens in response to Skorabor's challenge, as he expects...
He will choose the right path and begin to follow the guiding pulse of the stone.
Horn shakes his head sadly at Skorabor. "If I'm right, these owls don't serve the Oak any more than you do-- but certainly their fate is an ill omen, likely a portent of what is in store for us if we don't defeat this abomination soon."
Raising his chin toward the owls, he looks them over. Do they seem corrupted in spirit, or in body only? Do they still follow the Way of the Root of All Trees?
Calling to them in their native language, Horn hoots, "I am grieved to see your injuries. Let me sing to you of That Which Has Been Hidden, Yet Will Return. Let us see if I can ease your suffering.
"While I do, tell me. What happened to your wood, and to you? We seek the evil that poisoned you. Can you point us toward it?"
He then begins to tap out a rhythmic beat on a hollow snag, and sings a melody in an unfamiliar tongue, hoping to grant healing or at least respite to the corrupted owls.
Mandus stops what he is doing and watches Horn with undisguised interest, rubbing his chin with one finger thoughtfully.
Gil simply snorted derisively at the halflings apparent music act, following Mandus. As Mandus stopped, he continued past him, but when it became apparent that he was the only one still going forward, he stopped, crossed his arms and scowled. "Can we get things moving?" He asked with obvious annoyance.
Mandus grins at the impatient elf, making an "after-you," gesture with his tail in the direction of the path on the right.
Skorabor's suspicious eyes keep darting up and down the path and all around as if expecting an ambush at every turn.
Horn's melody seems to be doing something, as the great-horned owl with the dangling eye begins to furl his feathers as if shaking something off. Before he can finish the question, however, the flickering lights that have been filling the shadows around you release into chaos like wasps from a rattled hive.
Horn immediately feels a flash of pain as something pricks his right ear. A hand that moves there reflexively reveals a bit of his own blood. He's finding it incredibly hard to focus on maintaining his song, let alone converse with the owls.
Four of the owls dive down at the adventurers, screeching in their descent with talons outstretched. But causing greater alarm are the lights that begin to dash out of the darkness, leaving small gashes in your clothing and tiny openings in your skin where something has sliced open the tissue. Skorabor and Djack both begin to feel the tiny pricks as well, as these mysterious lights assault you through a thousand papercuts.
Mandus and Giltharon, who are a few yards down the mossy path instead watch as tiny streaks of light swirl and dart across the path where the others are standing.
What do you do?
Mandus will immediately leap to the halfling's aid, trying to fend off the owls with wild swings of his dagger.
Should we attack the owls?! Djack positions himself so that he and Mandus block the lights from the Halfling, so that Horn may continue singing.
Elf! Dwarf! Protect the druid!