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Ajjira's swings her knife, a distancing move driven by pain and desparation and lacking her ususal grace and precision. The big fighter watches the blade go by and steps inside its arc. He brings down his sword and it is all that Ajjira can do to bring up her offhand sword to catch the furious blow. Metal rings against metal as the blades grind against one another, the force of the blow making the woman's wrist numb and rubbery.

Gillad turns and calling out his rebuke against the mercenary guard, nearly forgets about Ajjira in his desire to harm him. He sees her at the last minute and throws his hands upward in mid casting, sending the acid orb up into the folliage, burning a path through the trees and causing an awful stench and the froth and spit drip of dangerous caustic droplets down from above.

With a whistle, Isaeldan's arrow plants itself in the small of his accuser's back. It bites through the armor, causing him to cry out in rage and pitch forward, but his guard goes up almost immediately as he limps back and turns to defend himself against his attackers.

I'll wait to see what Kutok does before advancing the attack on the cart

Move action to stand up, standard action to cast true strike as he anticipates shooting the man next round. Am I within 30 feet?.

Easily.

*grimace* This is exactly why I wanted player location prior to the last post...

The blade goes whirling over his shoulder and he turns blade out and with a roar charges the rogue. He brings the blade up and across her chest, launching the attack just a moment to soon--too eager for blood--for it to do all it might have. Still it leaves a bloody slice across her chest from hip to shoulder skidding over rather than breaking ribs, but bleeding furiously. [9 HP]

First Genji sprints off to stop the wagon, the others following behind him, until all have sprinted off. Isaeldan hurries along, last in line and trailing as they all run ahead. From behind he can hear footsteps hot behind him, and a swift and angry blow that knocks his legs out from under him, bringing the tangle of rough underbrush and wet soil up to meet his face. Dizzy he turn to face the older caravan guard, who kicks the elven cleric onto his back with a foot on his chest.

"Blame me? I knew that kid's family. His father and I were friends." he spits a gobbet into the elf's face "I'm the one's gonna' have to tell him! I'll be spit roasted by an ogre before I let you defile that boy's memory with your elf mumblings!" He holds close his sword, recovered from where he left it, the point under Isaeldan's chin. "You expected a surrender? While your friends were licking their chops deciding who would kill us, and by arrow or by blade? We did what we had to. Murderer."

The voice rings out to the slowest few of the party--too far away for Gengi and those with him to know about, and too unclear for any but perhaps Gillad to make out the words.

Gengi crushes through vines and big palm leaves, leaping and sprinting through the thick vegetation. As he passes by, all in the caravan see the disturbance. He breaks out of the jungle onto the road and takes a swing at the axle with his axe. It bites into the wood and causes splintering, but the wheel is intact. The guards and workers are caught off guard and for the moment are caught scrambling to ready themselves for action. The two leaders up atop the wagon spring into action. One drinks a potion and disappears. The other turns with a hateful scowl and levels a wand at Gengi, then raising it toward the female druid as she breaks through the foliage, releasing a stream of globes of energy. Two of them peel off toward Gengi and three toward the druid. The impacts hit the gnome like hammerblows, leaving burns clean through his armor to the skin beneath 7 HP

The unfortunate druid takes the other three, two to the body and one to the side of the head, knocking her flat into the brush.

"Miss I'd hate to drag you into this but we could use your help," Genji turns to the halfling druid. "If you have any spells that could disable their wagons or liberate their horses we might have a chance at stoping them in time. Either way I suggest half of us run and try to get a ahead of them. We'll either be aiming arrows or trying to break a few wagon wheels whatever seems best at the time. That should leave them plenty distracted for Harumn and the second group to hit them from behind."

The halfling girl finally lets her shoulders drop and unballs her fists, nodding with a quirked half grin. "May as well. They're probably used to it by now..."

The last half of the sentence is said to his back as he charges off full tilt, crunching through the palms and ivy alongside the road. She scowls a playful scowl and then shifts her eyes to the sobbing man. "Should have my bird beck out your eyes...but later." She gently strokes the side of the beak of the hawk perched on her shoulder, hands it a gobbet of meat and flashes off into the forest after the dwarf and gnome.

How many of the rest of you are assaulting the wagon? I take it Isaeldan is planning on sticking around to say rites over the dead fighter.

Like chopping through a treebranch Harumn's axe follows through a bloody arc across the young man's outstretched arm, and it drops into the leaf strewn mud cut clean at the elbow. The fighter doesn't scream, his eyes just go wide in dumb amazement and he stumbles backward. With a ripping sound Ajjira's blade comes out through his chest, bulging against the layer of chain. His eyes roll back and he falls to his knees. The bigger, older fighter throws down his weapons and backs away from them, hands in the air, not even looking at the monk--his eyes fixed on his fallen cohort. After a few faltering steps backward he rushes to the lad's side, scooping his head up and murmoring over the body--big tears welling up between the worn leathery creases in the older man's face.

Meanwhile Genji and Isaeldan track their way after the wagon, staying out of sight. It rolls on, much as it did before, the various folk accompanying it seeming very much oblivious to what might have happened to their other two guards. Only the two elaborately dressed and cowled men seem to have taken notice--seeming distracted and even more grim than before. The horid smell on the air seems distinctly worse. Whatever foul pit they are headed to, it would seem they are drawing closer.

Kutok's hand smashes through the bottle, just as the bearded caravan guard upends it, spraying a splash of thick dark liquid and shattered glass. Furious the man glances at the now broken vial stem and tosses it aside, shield bashing the monk with a metal shod backfist and a shout of frustration 4 HP. "Do you know how much that blasted vial cost me!!"

Meanwhile Harumn closes with the younger fighter, who spreads his arms out wide, waiting for the attack to come. As the axe comes down, the kid's footwork pays off only a little, turning his knee and twisting away so that a blow that would have likely cost him a leg, instead cuts deeply into the side of the opposite knee, not quite stopped by his shinguard. He turns the knife over for a downward stab when a shout comes to him from his partner, still busy with the monk. "What are you doing, messing with him for! The wizards lad! I said go for the wizards!"

He drops the knife further into his hand, holding the flat and with a grunt of pain and a self-conscious nod, slings it at Gillad, sticking him in the shoulder up to half the length of the blade 2 HP.

Seeing an opportunity to give the monk a hand and noticing that the guards are no longer intent on harming the spellcasters, Harumn charges forward and attempts to knock the younger one out of the fight completely.

The dwarf charges the younger of the two attackers, shield out to try and knock him onto his rear and out of the fight with the monk. The kid turns steps out of the way of the shield, colliding plate to chain in a bone rattling collision from which both stagger back nearly unmoved. With a frustrated glance over to his friend, thick in battle with the monk, he squares himself against the dwarf, pulling a bootknife out from its sheath.

The second guard indeed drops his weapon, but only to jump into the fray where his older friend is being mauled by the wild orcblooded monk. Gengi releases his arrow, but its flight is delayed by the unexpected action. It hits, but not deeply--it's payload of poison not immediately having any great effect on the young fighter. Between the two, they are able to pull Kutok off of his opponent and engage him in a tight quarters brawl. Once free the guard who lost his shield reaches into his belt and opens a reinforced leather compartment, pulls out a dangerous looking flask and drinks it down...

Harumn imposes himself, drawing the complete attention of the pair of fighters, leaving them both open to Kutok's attack from the shadows. Kutok knocks the shield away and snakes an arm under the throat of the first man, squeezing hard enough to wrench the breath out of him with a wheeze. The second guard is left to wheel away wide eyed into open sight of archers and spellcasters alike.

The druid takes a talisman from her rag clothes, circles it in the air around her head and makes a cry like a bird of prey. In almost instant answer a hawk breaks through the treetops, fluttering down, eyes fixed on the young halfling girl.

The leftmost caravan guard scrambles to raise a large round shield. His compatriot dives behind his shield. Both crouch low to get maximum coverage. They draw swords defensively.

"Hey, we're just hired muscle!" says the one "Like you've never guarded a wagon or two in your day?" leaning out without loosing the protection of his friend's defenses.

"Shuddap! We're cooked. Let's just get as many as we can! Remember kid, magic users first! Then archers, then we take the melee fighters!" the one with the shield calls back to his friend, and sword out begins to stalk forward into the folliage "We may just live through this..."

Harumn, Gengi and Isaeldan take their turns appologizing as Kutok gets into position, behind good cover outside the radius of grasping vines but still another round from being able to flank their assailant. Suddenly bright laughter breaks out from the treetops and a young halfing girl leaps down, legs going out from under her as she lands, splaying out in front of her. The vines relax their grasp, uncoiling and receeding into the soil.

The girl gets up, rubs her head and scowls up angrily at the tree. Her hair is a gnarled mess of woody brown, her clothes look like the rags of a street urchin quite in contrast to the elegantly carved and ornimented shortspear over her back.

The flittering bogun lands perched on the edge of Harumn's shield and full of apparently a kind of new smug bravado, leans forward and sticks out it's tongue at him--actually an owl pellet carefully placed in it's frog skull head.

"Okay, okay. I get it. You're friends. Right." she says, smiling. "So what were you saying about orcs?"

Suddenly two men come busting through the brush--"Gotcha!"

It's two of the caravan guards. They look around from the dwarf and ranger, to the cleric and magic user, to the bard and exotic female rogue...they don't even seem to see Kutok. Their faces blanch and they both curse.

"I mean, nice day...my friend here meant to say. We'll just be going now..." says the other meepingly.

The slimy wet bogun leaps up like a frog through Harumns hands before he can close them around the little creature. It lands on the top of his helmet and scampers on all fours down his back, leaving a foul smelling trail of goo in its wake. It scrabbles down his back and leaps off his posterior, big wings catching air and starting to buzz. It circles once, then begins to zigzag like a housefly. Suddenly just as Genji returns to the group, the undergrowth springs up with thorny vines which run up the legs and lower bodies of all those who remained behind, gripping tight and threatening to cut and lascerate any who try to escape their coils.

"Leave my friend alone you...city hooligans!" shouts a distinctly girly voice from the cover of the trees "Or my next spell will do more than give you a hug!"

Move silently (25) Hide (28)

No problem. You're good.

Keria watches intently as the little creature begins a panicked flight. Her dabbling studies of religion and the arcane lead to some interesting conclusions. It's said that in much the same way that arcanists occasionally fashion artificial servants out of ash, clay and their own blood--that druids have been known to create nearly identical creatures from the rotting things of the wild. These creatures, known as boguns to academics, are willful and somewhat disobedient but nonetheless are of one flesh with their masters such that killing a bogun has been known to kill it's druid as well. Also they will never willingly stray outside a certain radius of their druid, though how far that is remains uncertain--though it clearly means the druid is somewhere nearby.

The little creature jumps as though stuck from behind with a pin as the cleric indicates it. It spins and flutters it's wings about to flutter into the folliage and disappear. Harrumn, wheeling around is able to act before the creature takes off. Keria has slightly less time, and is slightly further away, but has a moment to do something as well.

Any information?

Isaeldan stares, but nothing comes to mind. There are stories of wilderness spirits that look like little men made of forest-stuff. It could be a little elemental or mephit of some sort--but of what? Most are pure something: fire or water or smoke or ash. This one isn't--it's just a hodgepodge of detrius: bones and moss and pebbles and dry vines. One thing is obvious, it's no natural living creature.

Isaeldan listens intently. Vaedryn he prays silently, may my eyes and ears inform me of what dangers may lay ahead. He keeps his bow out, with an arrow knocked.

In answer to the prayer for watchfullness, Isaeldan feels his eyes refocus over the area he'd just been watching, shifting from deep penetration of the foliage to suddenly snap in close to something right near him, not even ten feet away! Hardly a little over a foot tall, the creature's head looked to be a mossed over frog skull, it's body a collection of brambles and rocks patched over with mold--its shape and posture like a tiny hunchbacked goblin. On it's back are two barky wingcovers like a beetle and a pair of large reed dragonfly wings. It lurks there partly concealed behind some rocks, staring at Harumn and looking as if it might be readying itself to move.

Ajjira, Kutok and Gengi make their way closer to the wagon, creeping as quietly as possible--the heavy folliage and steep incline harrying their attempts at stealth. At nearly every step the adventurers must tiptoe over a mucky spot to avoid splashing or hold the fronds of jungle plants to keep them from rocking and swishing with their passage. Every misstep sets teeth on edge, but there's no sign that the three adventurers have been noticed.

Suddenly they see the road--a muddy path of wagon ruts through the uphill terrain. Ahead of them, easy to stay out of sight of, is a large overstacked wagon full of barrels. Four men travel alongside it as escort, swaggering and sweaty. Two wear breastplates, one wears scale, another wears a chain shirt. They swat bugs and grumble unpleasantly to each other. As a hot breeze picks up it carries with it a waft of unwashedness and drunkeness as well as something truly fetid but much further off. In addition to the guard there are five men riding with the wagon itself. Three look like stout laborers, one of them--a dwarf, picks his ear absently. The other two are more important and sinister looking, in robes and cowls. Their faces look like they might be painted or perhaps tattooed, their clothes are dark and look extremely well made, and while the others seem to be cracking under the sweltering heat the two men look as though they are totally unmoved, cool and emotionless. The wagon is stacked with big barrels, like the huge alebarrels you'd see in a tavern, roped together and stacked two high and maybe four across with three on top.

The next night is a whirl of revelry, rich and exotic and full of the throbbing life of a village pulled back from the brink of awful death by adventurers to whom they owe their lives. None of the foods that are brought forth are recognizable in the least, but they are steaming hot and served in beautiful earthenware bowls, passed down from person to person as they sit around a massive fire. The food is a savvory mix of unfamiliar tropical spices and the hearty smoke flavor of campfire cooking. There is sweet and succulent glazed fruit and some kind of gooey homemade bread (or something like bread) and a myriad other sensations. The liquor of choice is a pulpy brew with little black seeds in it, reminiscent of kiwi seed, thick and very sweet but citrus enough to not be syrupy. Armor is politely taken and repaired, likely by magic since the town has no obvious forge. Injuries are tended with medicinal plant salves and the holy smoke from slowburning plants. All night there is dancing around the fire, all color reduced to shades of orange and black beneath a velvet sky full of diamonds.

The next morning it is difficult to arise, the sweat and smoke of the party the night before still clinging to everyone's bodies. The alchohol leaves everyone lethargic and oversensitive, swollen-feeling and reeling. The party has been taken to sleep to the most luxurious appointments at crown of the uppermost giant mushroom blooms in elegantly worked gazeebos thatched with palm fronds and huge pink flowers. Everyone is left sprawled about on the floor swathed in silky sheets on soft cushions. Everyone's equipment is there, as well as several days fresh supplies. The view from the top of the village, down onto the late morning misted jungle, is breathtaking. Several lifts carry the party down to the ground level and out once again into the wilderness.

The tracking isn't hard. A mob of that size even without an ettin with them would make their passage clear. As the slope of the hike begins to turn more rocky and steep it becomes clear their destination is near. Suddenly Gengi hears something, a party of surly folk mumbling nervously and the squeak of wagon wheels...

As the dwarf's question is passed to the orc, he shakes his head solemnly. "Giant two heads is always alone. Hates his own kind. Only lets orcs near him. Tries to kill others or run them off. That is why the humans run when they bring the barrels. They know he will slay them if he can. No friends, giant two heads, just his two heads which yammer always, babble to each other when giant two heads is alone...and giant two heads is always alone. Hates all but orcs and his two heads."