Anthony is about to strike when the little Kobold screeches about his "victory". He snarls at the red scaled cretin, " Unless you can speak Wolf, she will not be capable of understanding you, kobold." Nonetheless, save inching toward it to stand over Soroza's body, he makes no further attempt to injure the Wolf. His blade is ready, furthermore, his intent to kill is ready, should she continue to fight.
"Are you so weak that you can't stand up to a single injured wolf without fear?!" Miirik barked, looking back at the animal and urging it to come to him with his bag claw, while his other waved the mace he held threateningly at the paladin.
Jansen walks up to the wolf and beheads it with a wet thwack, a sound only the god of death could love.
Combat Ends
Miirik watches as Jansen kills the final wolf, as his neutral expression is finally broken... and is replaced with something that looks hurt and heartbroken. He stares sadly at the body, before changing expressions once more and snarling at Jansen. He drops his mace as he holds up the bag of mushrooms, his now free claw igniting in flames.
"No." he ordered bluntly, holding the mushrooms dangerously close to his lit hand. "Now, you will do as I say. If you wish to keep these mushrooms safe, you will not move."
"DROP! IT!" Miirik snapped, glaring angrily at Jansen and moving his lit hand even closer to the mushrooms. "I don't trust you, or any of you, to not go back on your word right now... and as you put so well, 'there is no shame in fear'."
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"Idle threats are not hardly the way to establish mutual trust. Those mushrooms apparently represent the difference between life and death for a good many people, including you and me apparently." Jansen paused while that sunk in. "I'm willing to live or die for them, but these people I'm with need to leave here with intact mushrooms. So what's it going to take?" Jansen finishes talking as he finishes loading.
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Jansen thinks hard for a moment, "you wanted the wolf's pelt, it is yours. You wanted us to slink away as if beaten by you, fine. But you said for us to leave after you had given us the mushrooms. So mushrooms it is, the arrangement now hinges on you keeping your word to us, not us keeping ours to you. We are to the point in the arrangement where you give us the mushrooms, and we leave, so let's have them."
Anthony glowers at Miirik but remains silent for a time as Jansen tries to talk him down. He pauses a moment before speaking, "Miirik, you don't want to do that. Just give us the mushrooms and no one gets hurt. You've got our word, and once you give us the mushrooms we have no reason to harm you. We'll feign weakness and run away. You can appear powerful in front of your tribe and everyone walks away relatively unscathed. This only works if you put. the mushrooms. Down."
Davi sits down next to Soroza. She pulls out a potion, opens Soroza’s mouth and slowly pours it in.
As the potion starts to work she looks up at Miirik. “I've never understood the point of these standoffs. I mean one, we've kept our word so far and two, you met some of our party hurrying back to the village so you know that we're not sticking around. Well, no, we are staying until this one-" she nods at Soroza "-is out of danger. But then we're out of here so I can go pour alcohol down my throat until I forget my own name. Hell of a day."
Davi stretches her legs out, double checks Soroza then sighs. "You ran out on us and that was wrong. But I'm tired, sore and bruised. There's worg blood under my nails, half my shirt is gone and I need to go feed my fox. I just want to leave. Please don't turn this into a fight"
"Indeed, I did want Greypelt's hide... but why should his followers suffer because I quarrel with him? I offered her a choice... and you defied my draconic rule by killing her! I should the paladin would be the most eager to end something without a fight." Miirik snarled, glaring daggers at Jansen.
...and, perhaps a trick of the light, one of his scales seems to lose its glitter... but another two gain the same sheen.
"Your defiance calls my trust of you into question - not to mention, it is always wise to mistrust a devil spawn - but I have no intent on breaking my word. True dragons never do." Miirik's fire hand lowers a little, as he juggles the bag in his other hand. "But you will do one more thing for me... take back a message. Two, actually. The first is for the old one: tell him I do not see the potential he spoke of in you. Either I can't see it, or he is delusional and sees something that isn't there. And the other..."
His tone suddenly shifted to one of triumph as he held his hot claw up in the air, now yelling in Draconic. "Foolish softskins! You thought summoning a devil to aid you and poisoning Greypelt's food would grant you access to our home!? Impudent peons! You cannot so easily fool a divine dragon! I have uncovered your ruse and my tribe will be here to repel your intrusion... but they need not risk themselves. I will send you running myself! Take back your poison-" He chucked the mushroom bag at Jansen. -and tell your pitiful kind this: do not return, or I shall set you on fire! For I am Miirik Dragonchord! My voice is fire itself!"
His speech finished, he lowered his burning hand towards the group and pointed at them, as a cone of fire erupted from it. However, it stops just shy of actually hitting anyone... though it comes a tad uncomfortably close, to be sure.
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Jansen gathers the mushrooms, trying to put on a sheepish look as he does so. "Oh mighty dragon, your power is manifest, and we apologize for having angered you. We will take these fungi with us, and thank you for sparing our lives." Grovelling and scraping before the kobold, Jansen places the mushrooms into his beltpouch, rises, and looks at his companions, "shall we leave the great dragon to rule his people?"
The healing potion does its work, rapidly accelerating the healing of Soroza's throat wound, but hardly completing it.
She groans awake, clearly remembering her last few seconds of consciousness. She lifts a hand to her throat and grimaces when she feels little other than torn flesh and dried blood.
She still finds cause to croak out a snide remark: "The way that overgrown lizard fuels himself on his delusions of grandeur is almost impressive."
Her tone turns serious and she reaches a hand towards Davi's shoulder, "If you drag me out of here, you'll be the closest thing to family I have." She pauses, and reverts to her usual jovial demeanor, "And you'll never pay your own bar tab for as long as I manage to live."
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Anthony slides his rapier back into place then tilts his head in thanks. He answers Miirik in Draconic, in quietly so that Kobolds in the next room would hopefully not hear, <"Dragonchord, I have called it upon myself to rid this land of cancers such as you and your tribe. If we meet again, I won't be so friendly as this."> He looks to Soroza and asks in common, "Can you stand?" If she can't, Anthony will work with Davi to carry her out.
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Jansen points at Anthony, "stand aside you, I would be the laughing stock of the Andoren Navy were I not to aid this lady, not when a lifetime of bar tabs is on the line!"
As he takes her outside, Jansen recounts to all who will listen:
"There is an old tale within the Andoren Navy, told about an admiral, although which admiral it was changes with each telling, so I will tell it as I first heard it."
Admiral Brelan showed no fear in facing his enemies. One day, while sailing the Inner Sea, a look-out spotted a Chellish ship and the crew became frantic. Admiral Brelan bellowed, "Bring me my red shirt." The cabin boy quickly retrieved the admiral's red shirt and whilst wearing the bright red frock he led his men into battle and defeated the Chellish.
Later on that day, the look-out spotted not one, but two Chellish ships. The captain again called for his red shirt and once again, though the fighting was fierce, he was victorious over the two ships. That evening, all the men sat around on the deck recounting the day's triumphs and one of the them asked the Admiral, "Sir, why do you call for your red shirt before battle?" The Admiral replied, "If I am wounded in the attack, the shirt will not show my blood and thus, you men will continue to fight, unafraid."
All of the men sat in silence and marveled at the courage of such a man as Admiral Brelan. As dawn came the next morning, the look-out spotted not one, but two Chellish ships. The crew stared at the Admiral and waited for his usual command.
Admiral Brelan calmly shouted, "Get me my red shirt."
Shortly after, the lookout corrected his assessment, saying there were ten enemy ships on the horizon, not just two.
Admiral Brelan calmly yelled after the cabin boy, "and don't forget my brown trousers!"
Miirik stared back at Anthony, before huffing loudly. <"If you have the misfortune to meet me again, I will set you on fire. Farewell, devil.">
"<I'd like to see you try, reptile. ">
He startles as Jansen moves to take the wounded woman from him. He shrugs and replies, " Alright then, let's get a move on. We have a village to save.
Davi squeezes Soroza's hand. "Let's get you out of-" is all she can get out before Jansen swoops in and whisks Soroza away. She barks out a laugh. "Don't worry, you can still buy me a drink."
Being the dignified woman she is Davi blows a raspberry at Miirik before following the rest of her party.
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Soroza does her best in her current state to attempt directing the party back to Falcon's Hollow.
Soroza, Jansen, Anthony, and Davi head south and away from Droskar's Crucible. After having spent the past few days in this forest, Soroza navigates it with confidence. They are battered, though, and it is dark out. It isn't very long before they are fatigued. Do the heroes want to press on in the dark in an attempt to get back to town sooner, or do they want to rest?
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"Agreed." Anthony nods. "We can't tarry any longer. Too many lives are on the line. "
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"For the record, I think pushing on when we're exhausted and injured and half of us can't see in the dark is...bad. Gods help us if we run into something nasty right? They ought to have enough stuff to make some cure potion things and really if we all get eaten then nobody gets the mushrooms and that would be bad but let's just push on because if Soroza agrees then we go and if she disagrees we're tied and we argue about it blah blah blah and that's just a waste of time so let's get the heck out of here I'm sick of being the party pooper and really I just want pancakes and...wow I lost a lot of blood I'm rambling."
Davi takes a deep breath, smacks herself in the face and then starts walking again. "When we get there we need to um...my fox is still healing...have someone take a look at him? Right."
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Maybe he finally snapped under all of the stress of fighting being pressed on a time limit. Maybe Davi's adorable rambling was actually just that amusing. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Whatever the case, Anthony burst out laughing, chuckling at first, until it rose into a full and boisterous noise. "HA HA HA HA, PANCAKES? Ah, that's the best thing I've heard all day Davi. Pancakes... hahaha. Hilarious." He wipes a tear from his eye before he continues laughing uncontrollably, babbling incoherently about how amusing her choice of comfort food was or somesuch. It doesn't stop him from walking, just slows him a bit as he stumbles along holding his sides together.
Soroza hacks out some laughter, and follows it up with a nod of agreement.
"I'm all for closing the distance between myself and some alcohol as quickly as possible."
"I'll have you know that pancakes are serious business" Davi sticks her nose in the air and affects a snobbish tone. "And I am discerning conisour if I do say so myself. The pancakes at Jak-A-Napes have exceeded my expectations, and I'm going to stuff them in my face until I fall over."
She turns serious at Jansen's words. "Are you sure? I don't see anything. It could be regular forest noises"
Soroza makes a defeated sigh at Jansen's overtures of imminent danger.
"My throat is barely even healed closed at this point, but sure, once more unto the breach. Why not?" She un-enthusiastically draws her whip.
They came just in time to overhear you loudly threaten the softskins, and their retreat.
They didn't like Greypelt either, so they do not miss him.
Anthony retrieves his own blade and scans the area with his darkvision. He says to Davi, with a calm at odds with his tense posture, "I have no interest in verifying whether or not you are actually a pancake connoisseur or whether there are pancake connoisseurs in the world at all. Regardless, I will have to agree with you on the account of Jak's pancakes. They may well be the best in Andoran."
His earlier bravado gone, he remains tensely locked and ready for danger in silence.
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"Perhaps they will serve them at our rapidly approaching funerals!"
The heroes manage to rush back to Falcon’s Hollow without much delay. By the time they arrive, it is already late in the evening, and the heroes have not slept. They are exhausted, but still moving.
They arrive at Roots and Remedies, where they find an enormous line out of Laurel’s shop. The people in the line look upset and anxious.
Anthony works here, so the group can take the back door in, if they wish.
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"Well, at least we know it was worth it," Soroza muses as she surveys the long line of people. However, tired as she is, the words come out a bit flat.
"Let's make sure Laurel's got everything she needs and then sleep for a year. I'm less concerned about being big damn heroes at the moment than I am with how much sooner I'm going to go grey after all of this business."
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"This way, Anthony motions the group. He leads them to a shabby looking back door which takes them to Laurel's lab, consisting of shelves, shelves and more shelves filled past the edges with all manner of raw ingredients, alembics, beakers and other whatsits. Hopefully Laurel is home so they can give her the goods and hibernate away the rest of the day. Or few days. And also make sure Herral and Adrac got back okay.
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"I am pleased we were able to get the materials you needed for this worthy task. I may need to go out and ensure that the forest is safe for logging again. I don't, necessarily believe the tribe of kobolds will hurt the loggers, and now that the wolf threat is handled, perhaps things will be better, but I do want to make sure before I report back to my superiors."
"Yeah. Gotta keep the loggers safe. I got lots of plans for that. Just need to sleep for a week first" Davi follows the group into the back of the shop. She's holding the bag with the injured fox in her arms. "Laurel must be super busy, but maybe she can look at my friend here"