"We will stay", Natalyah says. Not in the heated irritated tone she usually reserves for Setebo but instead with ice, calm and calculating. "We are not going to tell them that we can disable their traps. If they are to know that we are here, they will now that we can kill them." She continues to watch the trail from the shadows, waiting patiently for the savages to come and check on the trap.
Atzi was quiet, she was torn between continuing forward and seeing where the trail eventually led, but striking the first blow against whoever setup the trap was tempting as well. Finally she nods to Natalyah in quiet agreement and takes up position near a treee near the creek so that her movements and sounds were more easily masked by the burbling water. She kept her hands free and ready to summon natures wrath if she needed it.
If there is a good tree nearby.
Setebo hands his pike to Amisi and scrambles up abiut 20 feet to see if he can get an ofer look on the area. If he can find a good perch he will settle in to watch the trail.
If no tree.
Setebo settles down to wait with his back to a fallen log. He pulls a nearly ripe mango out of his bag and his sharp teeth rip into it's flesh. While he eats he keeps a weather eye on the group's backtrail.
The heat off the day dissapates slowly and the rain clouds sweep in as is usual. here on the western side of the island there is less cover from the weather and you get soaked through..though thankfully the water is warm. Nothing happens during the rain periaod tat lasts about an hour and afterwards the sun beats down out of clear skies again.which dies you off quickly.About an hour after the rains stop as the sun is nocieably westering a group of half a dozen cannibals make their way along the trail.
Helga quietly strings her bow and notches an arrow.
Noticing the troop of garish humans Setebo slowly and silently reaches for a Javelin.
About 1/4 mile..the path is quite open and your vantage point in the tree gives you a decent sighting range.
About 1/4 mile..the path is quite open and your vantage point in the tree gives you a decent sighting range.
Setebo waits silently somewhere overhead.
Her bow prepared, Helga slips out a wand and readies it also, getting ready to target the back of the group with it.
Atzi keeps a low profile, using the tree and surrounding bush for cover as she watches the coming humans. Quetza had bedded down near her and was sleeping out of boredom, with a light tap to his muzzle Atzi was able to wake him and shushed him before he made too much noise. As the cannibals got closer she found her suspicions confirmed, they were in their enemies territory and it was going to bode well if any of this group escaped...
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"Don't act before I'm able to cast. I will try to put as many of these as possible to sleep."
With this words Amisi tries to hide behind some trees and starts chanting. Trying to time her spell so it will coincide with them being just 50 feet away.
DC 16 10 foot radius burst. If she can't target all then she will target the once behind to leave the front to be taken down via missile.
Natalyah's eyes narrow as the savages appear in the distance. She grabs her bow and prepares to nock an arrow to fire.
"Don't act before I'm able to cast. I will try to put as many of these as possible to sleep."
Helga raises her wand.
"We think alike," she whispers.
Caithan awaits crouched in the bushes not too far from the trap itself . Rollo waits with the others farther behind so the excitable warhound doesn't leap before its time.
The straggling group of savages approach the area of the trap, They do not seem to be particularly alert to any danger which might suggest they regard this area as part of their home ground.
Natalyah quietly nocks a arrow and is ready to strike at any savage that proves resistant to Amisi's or Helga's magic.
In his not quite lofty perch Setebo slowly readies a javalin. Waiting, watching them get closer and closer.....
They cross the ford taking care to avoid one area of it, the ford is in range for a javelin cast.
As they clear the ford Helga will target the forward group with her wand of sleep as soon as Amisi starts casting.
As confusion at the cannibals crossing the ford in the creek, she takes the time to summon forth a ball of flames and cast it towards the soon to be panicing Cannibals. As natures cleansing flame daces along her arm she spins and with a guttural shout lobs the ball of flame towards the closest cannibal.
Caithan's going to wait for the actual conclusion of said spells before posting an action.
Both sleep spells manage to encompass the entire group.
Cannibal 1 Will save vs Amisi
Will save vs Wand
Cannibal 2 Will save vs Amisi
Will save vs Wand
Cannibal 3 Will save vs Amisi
Will save vs Wand
Cannibal 4 Will save vs Amisi
Will save vs Wand
Cannibal 5 Will save vs Amisi
Will save vs Wand
Cannibal 6 Will save vs Amisi
Will save vs Wand
Only one savage remains standing after the spells.He stands dumfounded for a moment before Natalyah's arrow, Setebo's Javelin and Atzi's fire all hit him simultaneously and he collapses( at -12 hp)
Whistling cheerfully Caithan gets to the grizzly work of beheading all the sleeping cannibals. "Quite merciful actually compared to being torn apart by wild animals or pissing off Stebo. We should all be so lucky."
As he finishes that last sentence his sword comes down with a sickening crunch on one of the cannibals necks.
"Oh ... I thought this would be more of a fight than that," Helga shakes her head in surprise at how affective their assault has been.
Setebo drops from his perch.
Watching the grisly proceedings, watching the clear stream turn red. Setebo's dark eyes fill with tears. "I suppose we have to..." As the Captain's heavy blade nearly severs one of the cannibal's heads Setebo blanches then turns green. He stares at the blood pouring from the wound, spouting from above and below. Setebo turns away tears running into his beard and is comprehensively sick.
"Don't worry too much over it man." Caithan says as he prepares to execute another. "If the positions were reversed they'd likely do something far more grisly to all these fine women around us. I imagine they prefer there meat fresh. I wasn't joking when I said this was mercy."
Rollo comes over and gives an investigative sniff of the bodies but a harsh hissing noise from Caithan pushes the dog back before he could take some investigative bites as well.
For a couple of minutes Atzi' hands burned, as she looked at the downed Cannibals. As Caithan went about his grisly work she remained composed, she had seen much worse during tribal battles in he Mwangi. During one of those battles she lost two of her brothers and found them later, well... Their heads at least, stabbed upon spears as a warning. As the second head came off her eye twitched and the flames dancing around her hands disappeared.
"Lets keep one of them alive and see what they can tell us. If they refuse to speak... I will deal with them myself but perhaps we can learn something useful."
"A splendid idea if you think you can make it work. Might I suggest however that you get theatrical with it?"
She chuckles at Caithan. "Thetrickle? This I do not know, I could have Quetza speak to them first..." She looked over he shoulder and shouted something to Quetza, who slowly trundled over. His interest was perked until he laid eyes on the sleeping savage, he dropped his head low and gave a low angry hiss at the stinking humans. Atzi waved Quetza back before he accidentally woke the savages up, she quietly pulled out her silk rope and carefully started tying the savage up.
With the savage secured she looked to Caithan. "What do you suggest?"
"That we do not let him see how many we are," Helga suggests. "Just in case, yes?"
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Amisi turned around her work done. No need to see Caithan do the bloody work. Had it been really necessary.
Shelyn did see beauty in everything and she was sure even these savages would have been able to produce something of beauty - alas no longer.
But she was here to escape the island and it was important to work as a group.
"I was suggesting coming off to them like something to fear." Caithan says. "When that chap wakes up he needs to think that he's woken up in hell, surrounded by the bodies of his comrades and that it's only the grace of the gods themselves that he lives. He needs to believe that ghosts from the jungle came for his group and murdered everyone before they even know what happened. When adn if you let him go he'll go back and tell the rest. Suddenly they won't be looking for us. They'll be staring at the shadows expecting ghosts and monsters to leap for their throats. Kill their morale. Keep them pent up in whatever hole they come from."
Natalyah advances with another arrow nocked to her bowstring. A brief smile actually escapes her lips as she witnesses the efficiency of their assault. She walks up to the dead savage and examines the arrow to see if she can retrive it in working condition.
"We don't know how they will respond to such trickery. I say kill it."
After what Caithan and Helga say Atzi's grim features becomes harder, for the first time her face looked like it was carved from stone. She wasn't inclined to killing for no reason and it wasn't in her nature but survival was, these savages had brought hell down on survivors like them before. She wasn't going to allow that to happen to them, even if that mean't she did something she would possibly regret. "No, No tricks. All of you go on ahead then, I will be with you shortly. Somehow I don't believe that they will say much... Still doesn't hurt to ask."
Quetza sat nearby, still aggressive and hissing in the direction of the downed savage.
Arrows that hit are Destroyed..arrows that Miss can be recovered 50% boff the time..but I'll let you save the heads and re-use them.
Before departing Helga searched the bodies of the fallen, taking anything that may serve as weapons or ammunition.
Perception:
The cannibals are all carrying their standard compliment of 2 javelins and a broken Scimitar
"Well, we have more weapons," Helga appropriates what she can and distributes it among the party to carry. "Maybe we can fix these curved swords."
Atzi waits until the others had gone, once they were a ways off she approached the still sleeping cannibal. Slowly drawing her Scimitar before kneeling next to the still sleeping savage. She had no malice for this cannibal, they were clearly outmatched this day and lost to her and her comrades. She had no mercy for them either, not after all the death they had caused on this isle. At this point she planned on the others surviving and leaving this island, but these cannibals were in the way of that goal. She felt empty and numb as she did what she had to...
She took a piece of her extra clothing and jammed it into the cannibals mouth roughly, as the cannibal started to come around from the sudden roughness. She stood and quickly followed the tight gag with a swift kick to the cannibals ribs. She watched as the cannibal spasmed and came to with a muffled grunt.
She watched the Cannibal struggle against the bindings that held their hands and feet tightly behind their back, it would be difficult for them to escape she had made sure of that. Atzi stalked around them as she let them look wildly about at the blood and gore of its dead comrades that surrounded it. As it turned to glare at Atzi it was momentarily stunned by the lethal looking scimitar she held, along with the large Saurian stalking just behind her in an extremely aggressive fashion.
She kneeled and looked the cannibal in the eye, her gaze was steely and emotionless as she spoke menacingly. "Your going to tell me where your people live, you are going to also tell me how many of you there are and if you so much as raise your voice when I remove this gag..." In a flash of she brought the tip of her scimitar within inches of the cannibals right eye, emphasizing her words. "I will make you suffer... Now tell me what I want to know and I won't kill you..."
Natalyah removes the ruined arrow from the savage, takes the metal tip and throws away the rest. "I am not leaving you alone with that one", Natalyah informs Atzi. She had seen the druid fight and was not going to take a chance should the savage somehow escape. The ranger has made up her mind and no argument could sway her now. She positions herself far enough not to interfer with Atzi's interrigation but close enough should anything unexpected happen.
The savage looks at Atzi with an expression of incomprehension on his face and snarls something at her in a language she cannot understand.
Atzi stands, looking down at the savage with a mixture of disgust and pity. "Dhulumu jibu..."She grabbed the cannibal's jaw roughly forcing it open and jamming the gag back in. "Inaweza mama kubwa kuchukua huruma mimi na mtu wa kutoa." She raised her blade and swung it downward as she tried to end the savage in one blow.
"Wrong answer... May the great mother take pity for I have none to give."
Fortitude save for the Cannibal
Atzi's blow merely serves to wound the savage and she has to take another blow to kill him
2nd CDG
After the Savage was no more Atzi loses her resolve and staggers, she hated needless killing but there was no choice. The Belhyar forced her hand and these cannibals were by far worse then them. "No good choices..." She kneels and recovers the remaining lengths of silk rope that are still useable and washes her blade off in the stream before walking away from the grisly scene she had added too. The blood would invite a predator sooner or later and she didn't want to be there when it arrived.
She walked upto Natalyah unsteadily and nodded. "Thank you my friend and you were right, I should have just let Caithan finish this. It was pointless to even try..." Quetza merely followed behind Atzi, strangely quiet now that the cannibal was no longer among the living.
Atzi rejoins the group and says very little as she starts leading them forward again, ghosting the active trail from the relative safety of the ridge as they pused to see where the trail might lead.
Caithen