Hylar is mildly unnerved by the grass and the wide open spaces. "If you should like to ride, I have the space for it. Do not make a habit of it however."
Rokas moves a bit forward in the grass, then turns around to the group. "So shall we go? We can't spend all day here?" He tries to sound confident, but you can hear the emotion in his voice.
Thanks, Hylar, Terex 'says' gratefully, darting over to him and landing on his back.
He feels better not seeing quite so much empty space at once. I should be fine in a little while, I'm sure. Just... need a little time to get used to it being so... so big.
Seeing that Terex was looking a little better, Kincaid announced, "Right lets get this started, we'll go East and South just like the lady said. Terex when you're up to it I'd appreciate if you can fly up briefly and see if there's any landmarks on the horizon."
With that he starts walking into the sea of grass...
A few hours of walking in the grass, and eventually Terex feels like going up and doing some scouting.
Terex notices something moving through the grass to the south, about a mile away, but can't tell exactly what it is from this distance, other than it's big. Either one really big thing, or multiple smaller things.
There's something moving to the south! Terex telepathically exclaims, then dives back down into the grass. Let's get a bit closer, then I'll take another look.
"Possible enemies or scouting parties from the town we are trying to reach? I'm hoping for the second, because I'm not sure I should use my bombs in this grass." Rokas study more the grass and the wind direction, trying to judge if he could "safely" use his bombs and if his back is to the wind or if he is facing it.
Standing back up from studying the grass, Rokas as a bit of a worried look on his face. "Yeah, can't use my bombs here. So unless we get desperate, I'm out of my best weapon. Even my bow might not be optimal." Turning to the small dragon. "Terex, how long you think before they get here?" Mentally going through his option, Rokas start thinking of contingency if a battle can't be avoided.
I'm not really sure, Terex admits. That far away, it's hard to tell how fast something is moving.
Deep from within his fluted armor, Kincaid rumbled, "There's something I've been wondering, does a Centaur town have a fixed location? What if they're nomads? That might be advantageous given the terrain, I doubt there's enough food and water for even a small village otherwise."
"Speaking for myself, I'm well able to move quite a lot, and would see no trouble being nomadic, and a group of my kind would be easily able to travel consistently. Not that I recall us having been so..." Hylar trails off, memory of the time before not being his strong suit.
Well, we'll have to meet them and find out, right? Terex suggests. Let's keep going! I can pop up and take another look when we're closer.
Xaeken bobble along as best he can, his height a bit of a liability in the terrain, he tries to focus his efforts on staying close enough to Rokas to follow.
After moving closer to the other group for half an hour, Terex can tell that the group is a trio of Minotaurs, along with something else that's too short to see moving through the grass. It could be dogs, or goblins, or baby terrasques for all Terex can tell.
Terex darts back down to his squad.
There's three minotaurs ahead! he silently exclaims. They had some smaller things with them, too. Didn't the gnolls say something about some nasty minotaurs around here? We should probably try to avoid them.
"I'm curious what the smaller things are. They could be captives. Helping them would be a good thing to do. However, we don't know the strength of those Minotaurs. If only we could render you invisible Terex, you could fly in for a better look."
Kapitan Bel'gra'grah said the minotaurs kept goblin slaves, right? Terex responds. That's probably what they are. She also said the Lathan lands were kind of around on the other side of the minotaur lands.
"Do we honestly fear a few minotaur? Speaking of, is minotaur the plural of minotaur?" Hylar waxes mildly philosophical. "Either way, what is to be gained from hiding?"
Kincaid looks around and all he sees is league upon league of grass and of course the trail they made getting here, plain as day.
"Hiding seems pretty futile." agreed Kincaid, "Can't say I'm a fan of slavers either. Lets see what happens if they approach - of course we'll be nice and spread out so if it comes to a fight they can't catch all off of us in some spell."
Um, I fear three minotaurs, when there's only five of us, they're as big and at least as strong as ogres, and they have an unknown number of crazy goblin slaves that will also attack us if what the gnolls told us is true, Terex nervously broadcasts. I don't like slavers either, but our job is to stay alive and bring back word of what's outside of Kotelia's walls, right? It's not like we could attack an entire town of them, anyway. I still think we should avoid them.
Kincaid hadn't ever seen a Minotaur up close so he didn't have a good idea how tough they were. Still Terex had a point about the numbers, any fight could end badly. From within his armour, Kincaid rumbled, "So what do you suggest Terex? Should we change direction for a while, say due east?"
Yeah, if we go straight east for a while we can probably avoid them. But we should be really careful and be ready in case something goes wrong, Terex replies.
Xaeken nods mentally at the proposal.
"I agree with the idea. No point of losing resources over a fight that won't improve our situation."
It was decided, east they would go. Kincaid started walking in what he believed was due east, he motioned the others to following saying, "Right then, that's enough jaw-ing, lets get a move on."
He set a fair pace through the grasslands, it was possible the Minotaurs would follow their trail, but he felt confident knowing Terex would give them advance notice if that happened. Should it come to that, Kincaid mused the best tactical thing to do would be to spread out and pelt them with missile fire. They could of course try diplomacy before shooting, it would be worth a try but who knew how the minds of such strange creatures worked?
As they walked through the long grass Kincaid mused that the sound it made as it scraped across his armor was like rain, the one thing they probably wouldn't encounter out here. He glanced up and saw, or thought he saw, the tiny shape of Terex gliding above them. "Can you see them still Terex?" he asked, "I suppose we should keep going east for a good while, just in case, before turning south east again. A couple of days ought to do it."
The group spends two days travelling east, until on the horizon they can again see small dottings of trees instead of the endless sea of sawgrass. Terex thinks it would take another day and a half to reach the area where trees are interspersed with the grass again.
When he flies high enough, he can see a large hill with glints of stone that might be a fortress of some type, to the distant south. Most likely where the Minotaurs come from.
Kincaid listens to Terex's report and asks the others, "What do you think? Should we go as far east as the trees before heading south? That way we should stay well away from the Minotaur fortress." He can't help but think how lucky they where to have a flying scout, without Terex they would almost certainly blunder into various patrols.
That seems like a good idea, Terex agrees, Or maybe even further, since they seem to have scouts and hunters out around them for a while.
"I agree with the plan too. I don't feel like spending the rest of my days in chain or die this early in our new carrier. But maybe we should send a report about this place before continuing... Just in case something bad happens, they will at least have a clue of what might have happened."
"We should check in every several days, I have energy to spare for it as we tend not to need it." Hylar supplies, especially as he hasn't been much use as yet.
The group continues on for another couple of days, until they reach the tree line. The tree line ends up being less a forest than a series of tree clusters that grow in tight small clumps with open grass land between as if someone had taken a giant brush and dabbed over and over, making them grow, but was too lazy to actually join them together.
The layout does, unfortunately, lend itself to ambushes...
Terex eyes the trees dubiously. I can scout ahead a bit, but stay in telepathy range, he suggests. I guess we need to decide if we're going through or around the wooded patches.
Rokas looks at what's in front of them, feeling discouraged at all the possibilities of ambushes that lie ahead. "A flying ship... I swear the moment I get back home, I'll look into any reference of flying ships I can find." He grumbles a bit but keep on walking with the group, while trying to keep an eye on every possible ambush spot.
Kincaid smiles within his fluted helmet, not that any of the squad could see it. "Indeed that would be most useful Rokas. Still for now we'll have to make do with a flying Terex. You feel at home in the forests don't you Terex? Ambushing us will be easy enough, but ambushing him will be anything but. Still lets not be complacent - lets send out scouts like we did before. If there really are ambushers here, command will want to know about it."
Kincaid wasn't being reckless, he felt the squad could handle most probable encounters. They'd avoided the Minotaurs true, because they where known to be formidable fighters and the numbers where not in their favor. Here the risk seemed mostly theoretical. Of course should there be any sign of anything dangerous, they'd change tack.