"Ubagub, slime crazy man!" Gorruum stands his ground and attacks the puma.
Hearing Gorruum's command, Ubagub's eyes flood red, and the slurk grows before rushing toward the tree. When the slurk closes behind Wilhelm it nodule on its back breaks open and a spray of slime flies toward the crazy old man.
Gorruum hits the armored cat twice, drawing blood both times. The cat yowls in anger as it's hit, but stays on it's feet.
The gnome finishes casting, and it's eyes flash with electricity. A bolt of lightning flashes down from the heavens and slams into Wilhelm!
The Gnome suddenly shrinks, and becomes a hummingbird that hovers in front of Wilhelm for a second, before zooming up inside the stump. It flies up through a hole in the top of the stump (chimney hole) and ends up 50 ft above the ground, far outside Wilhelm's reach.
The puma, seeing this, withdraws from combat, moving off behind the stump and out of sight.
Gorruum hits the cat again as it leaves, and hits it solidly, sending blood flying. The cat still withdraws, but looks much worse before it vanishes behind the stump.
The cat looked dead, the armor seems to have been moving it
"Puma is magically animated by it's armor. Think it's dead."
Raising her well worn symbol of Pharasma, Anastacia intones: "Great Pharasma, grant us your life-force. Your healing power.
Meanwhile the shimmering force dagger follows the gnome into the sky.
Wilhelm, anticipating another lightning strike, skips a pace to the side nimbly despite his heavy armor as the gnome finishes casting. He avoids the brunt of the blast. He's still jolted and the close proximity of the blast disorients the young Baron. Smoking slightly, he shakes his head trying to clear the ringing in his ears, but is unsuccessful.
As the gnome flees in the form of a tiny hummingbird, Wilhelm drops his falchion and draws his longbow. He knocks and arrow and takes a step away from the door, looking up and preparing to fire if the gnome reappears in his sight.
Anastacia's blade tries to hit the humming bird, but if the gnome was hard to hit, the darting humming bird is even harder. Wilhelm, seeing where the blade attacks, tries to hit the tiny thing, and his arrow goes through the force dagger instead, sending off sparks. The dagger appears unharmed. The arrow, on the other hand, appears to have been trashed.
"I suggest we find some overhead cover!" Fhârn states matter-of-factly once the great bolt of lightning almost fries Will. Taking his own advice, he heads towards the stump. While getting there he pulls out both a javelin and a wand and waves the later around a little bit as he goes. [Skaldi]My aim be true![/Skaldi]
As Natalie is no good in ranged combat she will try to hide behind a nearby tree from the thunder.
Suddenly lightning comes down all over the field, slamming into multiple people.
Wihelm is the target of two strikes...
Natalie stays hidden in the forest, but draws her sling and prepares to attack the hummingbird, if it gets wihtin 30 ft. of her.
"Run. Hide. Ubagub!" Not knowing anything about trees and lightning, Gorruum heads for cover in the trees. Presumably Ubagub follows.
Stumbling out of the way by luck rather then skill, Fhârn avoids the brunt of the weak lightning aimed at him. The electricity that does strike him causes a few glimmering runes to ignite and swiftly burn to ash in the air around him leaving the mage-knight unharmed.
Somehow Anastacia manages to avoid the full force of the lightning. It still leaves her with spotty vision, ringing ears and painfully singed though. This gnome is truly a pain.
Still, Anastacia attacks with the spiritual weapon, while she scurries for the shelter of the trees.
Anastacia's weapon again misses the nimble darting bird.
Still smoking and disoriented by the last blast that had struck him, Wilhelm is just slightly too slow to avoid the first lightning strike directed at him. On pure instinct, he commits himself further to the dodge and narrowly avoids taking the brunt of a second strike. Laying hand to his chest, he barks a quick prayer to Iomedae, "Aid me, my Lady!" Snarling in anger that the situation had spiraled out of control so quickly, he leans back and takes a snapshot at the crazed gnome with his bow. He then ducks away towards the cover of the forest.
Wilhelm's arrow again goes wide, missing the dodging hummingbird.
Fharn's magically guided spear hits, however, knocking the bird up and back. But it seems the small hummingbird is much tougher than a normal hummingbird, as the big shaft doesn't split it in half, merely pulls some feathers and blood free.
"I knew I should have bought a bow the last time I was in town. Natalie mumbles while staying hidden waiting for a chance to strike the bird with her sling.
Gorruum and Ubagub take cover in the woods attempting to find a location where the hummingbird won't be able to see them.
Lightning comes down over part of the field, slamming into multiple people.
Wihelm is the target of two strikes...
Anastacia takes the full stoke of lightening, luckily it's not such a strong burst. The cleric moves out of the woods and closer to Wilhelm, then lifts her symbol high.
"Cemetery mists, fog that shrouds the grave, by Pharasma, I summon thee!" Anastacia has had about enough of the electrocution. It's time for a convenient mist to fill the area, and a quick escape.
A thick gray mist seems to flow out of the holy symbol held by Anastacia, quickly filling the area around her.
Continuing to dodge, surprisingly nimble despite hiss armor, Wilhelm bites back a scream of pain as another pair of lightning crash into his body, arcing from his armor. Smoking and unable to hear, he lays a hand to his chest and begs his Ladies help. He calls out to his companions, "Fall back! This is too much for us to continue to take." He pauses makes his way into the forest, taking cover behind trees.
Natalie makes a retreat under the cover of the forests she is hiding inside.
Hearing the call for a retreat, Gorruum signals Ubagub, mounts and heads out with the others using the trees for cover.
As people begin to run, the lightning strikes drop to one every 6 or 7 seconds, and hit a few feet behind the straggler (Wilhelm) until he's out of sight of the stump, at which point they taper off and vanish.
Coming to a halt Natalie says "That was one crazy gnome! We should mark this area as dangerous, and perhaps return later to set up a warning sign."
"Crazy and dangerous. Not a good combination."
The cleric channels some of Pharasma's healing power to ease the pain of the electrical burns.
Wilhelm checks for each of his companions, ensuring that no one was left behind in the chaos of the ongoing lightning strikes. Panting with exertion, he feels a sense of calm and relief wash over him as his singed wounds are healed by Anastacia's channeling. "Thank you, Anastacia. A few more lightning strikes like that and I might have been meeting the Lady of Graves. He was right about one thing, he had in fact lost his marbles. Poor bastard, it's a shame we couldn't help him see reason. I think some sort of warning would be a appropriate. I suspect that more will be required before this area is safe for settlement, though."
"Yes. Warning good. Not want to get fried by crazy lightning from bird again!" Gorruum and Ubagub look relieved to be clear and receive the healing from Anastacia. "Next part of land less crazy Wilhelm?"
Finally the group finds a place to rest and heal up. The scorch marks on their clothing are the only reminders of their recent near death experience.
Fiddling with his wand sheath, Fhârn chimes in.
"Lost a lot more then his marbles, I'd say. I shall make a note to bring a lightning and bird net ..."
With a click the mechanism of the spring loaded device locks in place and Munin returns to his master's shoulder. Quickly petting the bird Fhârn also brushes away some soot from his armour and shrugs.
"If we are to return in the future, I think there is some preparations I can take ... Preferably with the library back home."
"Perhaps he has a rather bad memory... and we can try talk to him another time? ...with the prober precautions ofcurse!" Natalie says sitting on the ground and catching her breath.
"What do you think we should do now Wilhelm?"
Anastacia calls on her deity for healing power, then lays a gentle hand on the knight's arm, removing the last of his hurt.
"I've never tried to cure ailments of the mind, but it might be possible..."
Anastacia's eyes flash green fire. "I feel more like exacting revenge, than healing him, at the moment." Anastacia's fury blows away as quickly as it had arrived.
"Wisdom will prevail once again after the pain is forgotten, no doubt."
Wilhelm fights the urge to scratch at his rapidly healing wounds as Anastacia goes about her healing work. "I'm not sure how he'll react if we were to show our faces again. With a mind that far gone, I wouldn't place any bets on it. As for now, I'd say we make our way back to the capitol after setting up some form of warning. I seem to recall this is the last region we were to explore before we returned. We can resupply and perhaps dispatch some soldiers to gather what they can from the tower, though we may need to return with them. That murderous elven thing is still lurking about." He reaches above his shoulder, and grasps where his sword used to be. "And I have need of a new blade."
"On it." Fhârn nods and starts looking for some dead wood to turn into a sign or something. "Anyone knows how to write 'deranged gnome' in sign language ?"
Gorruum smiles broadly. Perhaps his grasp of the language is getting a smidge better. "Gorruum draw picture! Little person. Big lightning."
"Hmm. Better then my idea of simply leaving a cup with a few loose screws in it ..." Fhârn shrugs and nods, rummaging trough his pack for some ink so that Gorruum can get to work.
"I kinda like both ideas, maybe leave some loose screws next to the little person!" Natalie says laughing.
As the group heads north toward the capital, they come across a village and find that the other group had just left after capturing a werewolf. Apparently Ikit attacked the town as well, throwing explosives at the crowd.
The next day, the group catches up with the other group, who have a man tied up on the ground who's spitting at them in a foreign language.
The groups split up, with Dante's group heading north east from the capital, and Wilhelm's group heading south toward the old Stag Lord's fort.
The group makes decent time, seeing new settlers, new building, and signs of taming of the wildlands.
The new construction at the fort is going well, although it's not complete yet.
After staying the day and looking over things, the group heads west, to hex G18.
The hex is typical forest, and hasn't been anything other than cursory surveyed by the remnants of the Stag Lord's forces, they'd avoided the forest and the fae. So little is known about it in detail.
What is known is that it's known for cursing in Gnomish! However, the group on the second day of exploration hears cursing...
-------------------------
The sound of unintelligible cursing echoes through the woods. Just visible through the trees, a small wagon sits mired in the middle of a swiftly flowing river as the waters threaten to overwhelm its sides. Two ponies hitched to the wagon flounder in the swirling waters, close to panicking. Two more wagons sit safely on the far bank.
Fhârn arrives to the designated meeting spot just a minute late, apologizing profusely. He quickly adds an explanation
"I just had to see off my sister."
Fhârn seems somewhat impatient during the first day and a half, seemingly eager to move out and explore new uncharted lands! And - you could almost swear - one of his newer saddlebags seems to be moving time to time, as if to adjust itself...?
Once they leave the Stag Lord's old fort the explanation is revealed. Or rather, after a tap on the bag by Fhârn, it flies out in a burst of dust. It has the shape of a small pale grey winged woman in a robe, complete with a pair of small pointy horns and all! Fhârn speaks hurriedly, as to clear up any misconceptions.
"Uhm. She's a Mephit , but I see why there could be some confusion - that's why we agreed to keep her hidden until we were away from people. And I thought it would be handy to have some help around now that Munin is spending most of his time carrying messages. Lumnia, meet the party. Party, meet Lumnia!"
The mephit flies around a bit, curiously looking everything and everyone over while Fhârn talks/mumbles. Once she hears her name, she hovers in place seemingly completely ignoring gravity. First she brushes away a bit more of dust from her robes, then sneezes, makes a quick curtsy, sneezes again and finally speaks.
"Hello!"
"Seems as if we better act with Haste!" Despite the serious situation, Fhârn can't help but chuckle a little at his own pun. Drawing upon the new runes he practised, the air around the party hummed with energy as the spell took affect.
"Lumnia - see what you can do. And don't spook the horses!" Fhârn commands his familiar and starts rummaging trough his pack.
*
"Mmmm!" the Mephit hums and flies swiftly trough the threes, dodging branches and trunks with ease, and soars out of the river.