Round 3
Order : Palomia, Scorpion, Everyone Else
"Put me down, you overgrown sand-lobster!"
Order : Palomia, Scorpion, Everyone Else
The scorpion squeezes Tolla with it's gripped claw.
It then attempts to sting Abbas, as he's close enough and being an annoyance.
The heavy tail darts forward, and Palomia and Gniel see 3 inches of stinger protrude from Abbas's back, piercing a kidney. Dark poison drips from the tip as it withdraws, and the poison obviously enters Abbas's abdomen.
Abbas grunts as the stinger pierces his midsection but the Suli stays on his feet. No longer interested in letting this last any longer than necessary, Abbas peers into his minds eye and calls forth the elemental fury of his hidden heritage, his arms erupting in hissing acid and coating his faclhion's blade. Enough of this creature, die!
Tolla feels herself grow weaker from the poison, and groans in pain as the scorpion squeezes her despite her greased clothing. Seeing Abbas' acid-coated arms (in both senses), her eyes widen as she shouts, "What in the nine hells is that?" Not letting herself be too distracted from the task at hand, though, she lashes out at the beast holding her.
The scropion finally slumps with a rattle, it's tail twitching as it uncoils onto the ground. The claw holding Tolla releases enough for her to slip out with the grease spell, but she's not sure she would have been able to without it.
The acid dissipates from the Suli with no indication of its presence. As Tolla slips out of the scorpion Abbas will offer to help her up. This land is rife with creatures of ferocity. I begin to understand why the only marker of civilization we have seen are husks and broken. If someone lives around here they are powerful or well protected.
Gniel goes about harvesting crystals from the body of the scorpion.
All the more reason to try and find them, if they exist. We can't survive forever like this.
Tolla slides out of the scorpion's claws, willing the her blood to stay hot and angry until the poison stops hurting quite so much. She then lays limp on the ground, breathing heavily. When she gets her breath back, she raises her head to look at Abbas, her brow wrinkled. "What...the hell...are you?" she asks, before lying back again and trying not to hurt herself by moving too much. "...Somebody get me the healer's kit..." she mumbles.
Relas comes charging up on the scene, out of breath. "Palooooo! There was a big scary lizard back there but I think I lost him! It was big and fast and had a funny frill on its neck and- wow, what happened here?" he says, suddenly taking notice of the dead scorpion.
Gniel puts the nodule with the others in his pack, then goes to get the healers kit.
I suspect our dear compartriot Abbas is a suli-jann, one of the Geniekin. Strong connection to elements, if I remember correctly. They can channel it through weapons and such.
Abbas offers a grin and nod at the gnome, Indeed I am so touched. Blessing or no I am more robust and occasionally am able to tame my blood to serve my purposes. Looking at Tolla, But I am still just a man, and your comrade and no threat to you...
"I don't know! I was doing my best to be quiet and stealthy; maybe it didn't notice my steps," Relas grumbles, sounding irritable for the first time. "It probably didn't have any trouble hearing any of you, the way you all stomp around."
I am fine with using whatever we must to keep us moving, I don;t know thatwe can plan "ahead" with things being the way they are...
We can rest as long as necessary, but we should keep traveling. And hope we find some semblance of civilization soon.
Having failed to repair her wounds in any significant manner, Tolla lets out a long, frustrated breath. Turning to Abbas, she asks incredulously, "Geniekin? I swear, are Palomia and I the only humans here?" This rhetorical question having been declared, Tolla seems to have vented off some of her annoyance and now feels mostly just her injuries.
"I don't think it's safe to camp here, if there are more beasts around, but we also have no clue as to where would be safe. I don't know if I could survive a fight with a goblin, let alone the monsters we've been fighting. I could really use one of those potions, at least to get me a little further from dying."
Gniel checks the potions, and one is a potion of Neutralize Poison. The other is a potion of Cure Serious Wounds.
Drinking the potion results in Tolla healing...
...about 2/3rds of the wounds she's taken.
Let's keep moving then! Gniel says brightly as Tolla's condition greatly improves.
The group continues on to finish exploring, bypassing the lizard Relas saw before.
Random ENcounter
As they explore the next area, they find that they have gotten out of the wild area, and are back into a relatively sparser vegetation area, with fewer trees and dried grass. Even so, Relas somehow manages to stumble over an absolutely massive animal, that moves on 2 legs. It has two stubby arms, and a head with a massive mouth full of fangs. The thing chases him until he almost reaches his maximum distance from Paloma before giving up and letting him go. Relas then returns and the group makes a wide berth around the creature.
You find the remains of someone who was killed. You are not sure what race they were, they don't look human, or any race you are familiar with. They are just bones, with scraps of leather attached, probably several years dead. Medium sized. Nothing is of use on the corpse, except for an odd red dagger. The dagger looks to have been forged in one complete piece, and the handle and blade seem to be made of the same oddly translucent material. It is warm to the touch. It looks a lot like cloudy red quartz, but feels like neither stone nor metal nor wood, but some odd mix of the three.
As the group continues on , Relas again spots a danger, and ends up being chased by a pack of Hyenas, who nip and bite at his flank until he can't take the damage anymore and he finally vanishes as one rips his throat out.
Paloma and the group give the area ahead a wide berth, and then they finally find some real signs of life. An entire battle field. It looks to be several hundred years old, as the wooden stakes are rotting, and the trenches falling in on themselves, but it's obvious someone fought here, and fought hard. It looks like they used the black wall as a back stop defense position. There are lots of bones, but very little other usable materials, as if someone has stripped the battlefield of anything useful. The skeletons are a mixture of humanish and humanoid skeletons.
Poking out of a ruined lean to, a horned humanoid raises a worn crossbow cautiously. His tone goes ominous, ancient, and vaguely lizard-like.
"Who...Who are you?! Are you with the hobs?! If you are, I swear I will kill you, even if I have to die on this cursed soil!
Obviously, to those familiar with any bit of body language, the tiefling doesn't seem to eager to shoot, considering his dirt cakes face and the slight quivering of his loaded crossbow.
Good, intelligent life. Bad, they like to kill each other...
As the tall Suli looks over the area he is taken aback by the sudden threat of violence. Holding his hands high above his head to show he does not have a weapon the Suli offers a half smile, We are not here to harm you. We are explorers, nothing more...
The fighter moves his hand slightly to emphasize they are empty.
Baru hears a bunch of random noises coming from the human man. At least he doesn't look hobgoblin.
Baru looks them over, still keeping the crossbow trained, as he tries a couple more languages. Only one seems to come up as familiar, as his frustration grows.
"I'll say it again. Who are you?! And are you aligned with the hobgoblins?!"
Abbas LAUGHS and puts his hands down and gestures to himself and the others in the hard tongue of Terran.
Seeing the woman respond, he shakes his head in disbelief.
"You've never heard of hobs? You know, hobgoblins? Big ugly things that look like goblins, only bigger and less green?" Well, you all certainly don't look the part of them...Especially with those weird crystals in your heads...What Hectate are you from?"
He then looks to the man who speaks, lowering his crossbow, but keeping it at the ready and coming fully out of his hiding spot, showing a couple of weapons at his hip and a battle worn chain shirt covered mostly by a mud stained cloak.
"Strangers, huh? Newcomers? You come from the Center Hectate, I bet? Nothing is quite so barren after spending time there."
After responding to each, he gives them his name, in both languages.
"My name is Baru."
"We're...not from around here. We have been wandering around this place for days. Is this place called Hectate?