Juno can also feel more thunderstorms coming - probably around 3-5 pm, today. She also predicts that the heat will keep up on the 9th of Lamashan, with rising nighttime temperatures and continued thunderstorms. The 10th will see more of the same.
In this case, it is indeed +2.
Juno takes no damage and is Unimpaired. Adi takes 6 nonlethal damage and is Impaired (3 failed saves).
The DC is still 16. Reminder of exhaustion levels:
- Unimpaired – The character has not taken any nonlethal damage from heat. After failing their first save against heat, the character advances to Fatigued. (0)
- Fatigued – the character is fatigued. Any character who takes heat damage begins on this stage. After failing two more saves, the character advances to Impaired. (1-2)
- Impaired – the character is fatigued, and takes a -5 penalty to all speeds (after armor and other modifiers). After failing two saves, the character advances to Exhausted. (3-4)
- Exhausted – the character is exhausted. After failing two saves, the character advances to Heat Exhaustion. (5-6)
Adi has at this point broken out in an awful sweat, and is lagging behind enough to slow down the rest of the party.
Juno figures, since Adi is having some trouble, they should take a rest around the hottest part of the day. She will take that opportunity to forage for food.
Juno discovers that the orange tree has been picked almost clean - she finds only a few underripe fruits near the tree's apex. She also finds a bird nest in a bush along the track. One of the eggs seems to contain a developing embryo, but the other three seem palatable enough. Unfortunately, they're perishingly small. Only two people can get any significant nourishment from the oranges and eggs.
Track reminder:
Unimpaired – The character has not taken any nonlethal damage from heat. After failing their first save against heat, the character advances to Fatigued. (0)
Fatigued – the character is fatigued. Any character who takes heat damage begins on this stage. After failing two more saves, the character advances to Impaired. (1-2)
Impaired – the character is fatigued, and takes a -5 penalty to all speeds (after armor and other modifiers). After failing two saves, the character advances to Exhausted. (3-4)
Exhausted – the character is exhausted. After failing two saves, the character advances to Heat Exhaustion. (5-6)
Heat Exhaustion – the character is exhausted and sickened, and must make a save against the current heat DC to take a standard action. After failing two saves, the character advances to Heatstroke. (7-8)
[ooc]Sunt takes no damage during the rest but has a total of 6 nonlethal, 14 lethal (Fatigued 2 saves).
Most of the party settles in to rest in the cave. Juno returns after several hours with her meager finds, and just as the group is finishing eating, a distant thunderclap is heard. The worst of the day's heat has passed, though the humidity is still exhausting.
Sunt gestures towards the path. "We continuing, then? Gonna be slow going with the dog and the gnome so worn out."
Juno suggests that, if she can find enough food to make tomorrow a bit easier, she might as well gather as much as she can. However, she advises that the group should try to rest while it's raining, since half the group is already in a bad way, and they're going to have heat and a thunderstorm to contend with.
For the whole morning, Sunt only finds one clayey seep from which to fill the waterskins. However, as soon as the first lightning strikes, she spots a herd of antelope on the ridgeline above the cave. Springing up the hill with clearly supernatural speed, she lobs a rock at one of the animals, knocking it in the head so that it rolls down towards her. She then drags her catch down to camp, slits its throat, and hangs it from the rock to bleed out into an empty potion vial. She dresses the kill, cuts some sticks from the orange tree, digs out a pit, and begins cooking the Nesica-sized antelope over a fire. The fire doesn't go out from the storm - it's protected from the wind, and no rain comes despite the noise and spectacle.
The food's ready by the time the storm's stopped and the sun has set, and the party gathers around the spit to slice off pieces of meat with their daggers. It lacks salt, but is still very crispy and edible with the orange leaves and wild onions Juno crushed and rubbed over it. Everyone still awake can eat 'til they're full and 'til the pockmarked white moon has risen.
If Nesica gets a 13-17, she takes 4 nonlethal damage and accrues one failure interval, remaining Fatigued.
If Nesica gets an 8-12, she takes 7 nonlethal damage and accrues 2 failure intervals, becoming Impaired.
Juno tends to Whimsy, laying him out to cool down and splashing him with some water, refilling her canteen with rainwater.
.
Otherwise, Juno suggests everybody hunker in, ignore the rain, and get as much shuteye as they can.
Nesica watches the storm and claps merrily when lightning strikes. While the rest of the party appears to not be having a good time in the stormy weather, Nesica seems utterly bemused with herself. She feels a pretty strong urge to greet the rain.
"How heavy do you think the downpour will be? Or are the clouds saving it for the waves?"
The rain never ends up coming, and the clouds continue up onto the Bandu Hills. Sunt speaks up several hours later, after everyone's forgotten the original context. "Seems like they were saving it for the mountains."
Whimsy doesn't seem much refreshed by Juno's ministrations, but the cool of evening does seem to help a bit. He recovers consciousness about an hour after supper, and gets a bit of food and water then.
As Sunt noted, the thunderstorms pass without dropping any moisture worth mentioning. The darkness is broken by flashes of light on the horizon now and then, but everyone gets a decent sleep thanks to their full bellies and relative shelter. Adi takes the last watch and wakes Juno, Nesica, and Sunt shortly before sunrise. "I think we should get packed up. We didn't make much progress yesterday, 'cause of me."
"It's alright, Adi. We brought you for your magic, not for your durability. If anything, it's my fault for being unprepared - I'm the daughter of a ranger, for gods' sake, and I didn't take any precautions for heat, I didn't consider transport, I didn't even bring enough rations so we didn't have to live off the land. It is not a mistake I intend to make again, believe me."
She relays that they have about 35 miles left to Eleder. They could make faster time if she didn't collect food, but nobody but her has rations so she recommends they just accept it'll take a little longer.
She relays that it'll be warmest from 11 to 3, and that there'll be thunderstorms afterward until 5 but with little rain. Another day, perhaps, where we'll only make a few miles of progress if we don't want to risk bad weather.
Juno collects enough food for four medium-sized creatures, including some lizards she caught for Adi. She is going to keep her two remaining elf rations in reserve in case there's a day where her scavengers run a little thin.
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Juno finds a roselle hibiscus bush in full bloom on the roadside, and harvests a sack full of aromatic red flowers. When the party arrives at the boab tree, the frogs are gone, but Juno takes the time to climb up into the branches and pluck some hand-sized fruits. After cracking them open with her new longsword (which doesn't have quite as good an edge as she'd hoped), the party has a brief pleasant brunch on the tart fruit. They also find water in hollows in the tree's trunk, and Juno flavors it with the fragrant hibiscus blooms.
Unimpaired – The character has not taken any nonlethal damage from heat. After failing their first save against heat, the character advances to Fatigued. (0 failure intervals)
Fatigued – the character is fatigued. Any character who takes heat damage begins on this stage. After failing two more saves, the character advances to Impaired. (1-2)
Impaired – the character is fatigued, and takes a -5 penalty to all speeds (after armor and other modifiers). After failing two saves, the character advances to Exhausted. (3-4)
Fatigued – the character is fatigued. Any character who takes heat damage begins on this stage. (1-2)
Impaired – the character is fatigued, and takes a -5 penalty to all speeds (after armor and other modifiers). (3-4)
Exhausted – the character is exhausted. (5-6)
Heat Exhaustion – the character is exhausted and sickened, and must make a save against the current heat DC (16, not 28) to take a standard action. (7-8)
Juno asks Sunt to help with tending to the worse-off members of the group. She will tend to Adi, and asks her to tend to Whimsy. While they do that, she also asks if Sunt recognises the skull cairn. While it had initially seemed just another jungle curio, she has gained a degree of paranoia regarding these things.
Adi is feeling down. She hasn't felt like she's contributed much for a long while, and that she's been more of a burden, despite her friends/coworkers reassurances. In fact, she resolves to fix this, and jots into her spellbook her ideas for how to improve the group's chances of getting back to Eleder.
Juno suggests the regular roster for watches, she taking the darker part of the night because she can see further in dark than the others. Adi, uncharacteristically, demands the first watch. She is going to need a good solid chunk of sleep to process the spells she has learned.
Edit:
As she asks Sunt about the skull pile, she thinks about whether she knows anything it reminds her of.
Fatigued – the character is fatigued. Any character who takes heat damage begins on this stage. After failing two more saves, the character advances to Impaired. (1-2)
Impaired – the character is fatigued, and takes a -5 penalty to all speeds (after armor and other modifiers). After failing two saves, the character advances to Exhausted. (3-4)
Exhausted – the character is exhausted. After failing two saves, the character advances to Heat Exhaustion. (5-6)
Heat Exhaustion – the character is exhausted and sickened, and must make a save against the current heat DC to take a standard action. After failing two saves, the character advances to Heatstroke. (7-8)
Heatstroke – the character is disabled and sickened. After failing two saves, the character advances to Comatose. (9-10)
Sunt sees Adi fumbling to even lift the waterskin over Whimsy, and takes over. "You should not be trying to help a pack animal right now, gnome. Have you drunk any water today? You left temperature homeostasis an hour ago!" She sits Adi down, soaks her poncho, and drapes it over the gnome, and regularly plies her with springwater thereafter. Whimsy doesn't really get any attention, unfortunately. It seems to have fallen asleep.
Juno doesn't have much of a clue about the skull pile. Sunt shrugs when asked. "Bandu are into bone sculptures like that. It's sort of a memorial for if a lot of people die in one place - like a colonial graveyard. But to most other tribes it's a sign of bad luck. Not least because they don't like the Bandu. Personally, I thought it looked rather artful."
Juno doesn't think the Zenj and Ekujae she grew up among had a similar tradition, but she can at least respect the burial rites, and gives a low bow to the skull pile, hoping any lingering spirits see they mean no harm.
The sky is dark, the moon covered by clouds, when everyone wakes with a start. Adi is shrieking, "Zombie!"
Sunt immediately stands up and pulls out her greataxe, moving up to the strange assailant.
Adi uses Arcane Strike, and tries to deliver a blow with her sword.
Adi swings her sword towards the monster's broken-looking neck, but she stumbles with the weight of it - her muscles are simply exhausted. She does manage to block the creature from getting close to her, using the oversized weapon as a shield.
Waking, Juno looks out, sees a creature attacking her friend, and swiftly reaches for her gun, loads it as fast as she can, and fires it, taking care to not hit her friend.
She yells "We're under attack! Adi, get out of there, you'll get yourself killed!"
Juno lines up the perfect shot. A boom echoes through the ravine, and a puff of smoke goes up. As it clears, Juno sees that the monster's head has been blasted all across Adi. Of its head, only the lower jaw remains. Something about that seems off, though - a shot that direct should've completely destroyed the monster's head, and if this was any natural creature it would be collapsed by now.
But the lower jaw moves, working up and down slowly, despite the necessary tendons being missing. Everyone can hear a gasping sound coming from its windpipe - Adi notices that it has no tongue.
Nesica focuses, and suddenly the creature's body distorts as magical force punches into it's form.
Nesica's spell sends the monster's form flying into the ravine wall. Pieces of rotten flesh and maggots rain from it as it moves, and then it hits the wall with a thick thud. The zombie has ceased moving.
Upon investigation, the party sees that the monster's chest had been caved in by Nesica's spell. Though no one remembers doing anything of the sort, they also find that its legs had been cut off at the knees.
Adi collapses. Between the terror of being accosted by the undead and her regular exhaustion, she just passes out. Juno looks annoyed, but finishes off the rest of Adi's shift and then takes her own, spending it moving the zombie downwind. She asks Nesica to quickly clean up Adi with her magic before she goes back to sleep.
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With a whoosh, the horrible bits of gore disappear. Nesica tries to make sure Adi is comfortable by tucking her back into her bedroll. Maybe Adi should stick to secretarial work...
Seriously, why did Nesica let an intern come along on this extremely unsuccessful mission of vengeance for a man who literally stabbed her friends and had her arrested.
Nesica really misses Ilisa...
Juno comes back from dumping the body (a truly stomach-turning task) outside of the ravine and looks around a camp of sleeping companions. She realizes she hasn't arranged the watch schedule past her own.
Juno finishes off Adi's watch and takes her own, and then wakes Sunt, asking her to wake Nesica to take a watch as the sun is rising. She then settles in and, like her father taught her, falls asleep instantly.
As the sky is just starting to gray, Adi looks up from her book and notices something. The floor of the ravine is darker than it should be. She's beginning to pick out a reddish-brown color (darkvision is useless for this, but the fire facilitates color sight) when she realizes what she's seeing - a stream of ants about 30 feet long moving downhill towards the camp.
Also, some rumors claim that army ants are venomous. But the rumor is unconfirmed, because so few people have been attacked by a swarm and lived to tell.
Adi calls out to the rest of the group, warning them about the ants. However, she has no spells she thinks would work on a swarm, so she looks expectantly at Nesica.
Adi suddenly remembers the campfire, and has an idea. She wants to cast Pyrotechnics, and let Nesica use her Windy Thing to try to smoke the ants away. She relays this to Nesica, and moves 40 feet away from the ants, past the fire, hoping to get them close to it.
Sunt seems to jerk awake from the raised voices. "What? Smoke? A brushfire?"
"I...guess. The wind is going to blow them away though. I've got lots of wind to use though, so I'll keep them out of the camp! But we'd best back up first!"
Nesica, with a flick of the wrist and loudly yelling her verbal components, calls forth a great torrent of wind through the crowd of ants.
Nesica moves back 30 feet, whistling as she does to get the sleeping party awake.
The center of the swarm is displaced slightly backwards, but a flood of ants on either side rises to replace it. The army seems to compact, forcing itself against the wind but not making any progress against it.
Whimsy awakens to the whistling and bounces up to stand behind Nesica.
Juno wakes, and sees the ants.
"Aw hell."
She looks over at Adi and asks, "You have anything to use on these things? I don't think musket shot or a longsword will do anything."
Adi shrugs. If I get enough time, I could prepare a Create Water cantrip to drown them? At a stretch, I guess we could just outrun them. Nesica, you able to keep this up until we've packed up to leave?