"Show yourself, show yourself,
me! foolish singer seeing a welcoming palm,
you! mischievous imp hoaxing my calm,
now a foolish singer is angry,
an imp skull he will be smashing,
when claws in his neck be squeezing,
foolish singer will be happy" Svog recovering from the sneezes starts humming and begins singing with a heavy voice, he shapeshift his hands for claws and show his shark teeth, anger in his eyes, he sings the song with a darker tone than the others he had singer before.
Aifric says, "I heard once that they'll go back to where they came from if you can trick 'em into saying their name backwards. Like Kaicric. No. Fric... No. Aaaai. Frrrric. Kriffric. Argh! Backwards."
"Don't worry, Aifric... I don't know how to say Mazatl backwards, either. At least the sneezing is gone." she acknowledged of the were-shark. "But... It really wasn't your best work."
Aifric looks at his own palm when Svog Kos sings about the imp offering his. For a moment he considers the connection between singing and magic. He wonders whether Svog Kos would be able to use his singing medallion in some way. Maybe there will time to talk to him about it later. "Yeah, later. I'll talk to him about it later," thinks Aifric. "No need to be giving this thing away just because I got caught up in a song." He wraps his scarred palm around the shaft of his spear and tries to think about something else. "Lazam, shazam, bottle, lobotomazl," he says. "I can't say Mazatl backwards, either."
Well it could have been worse, he could have used E. Athena checks her pocket to make sure her gem is still there.
Svog Kos quickly figures out what's happening - the cause and effect makes it easy for his quick wit to figure out. Grasping for special consonants and unfamiliar word structure, the bard, sweating slightly from the mental effort, manages to clear the demon's enchantment from his mind.
The slight distortion in the air moves off in the direction of the rising column of smoke. You can see two tall figures off in the distance, coming down from the hills toward the source of the smoke, carrying bundles. Their limbs look long. You're too far away to make out good details, but you could get closer without being seen quite easily.
"Maybe if we stay back, Athena could get a better look this time... and us not introduce ourselves until we know what's actually going on..?"
"I'll stay back, let the experts do their job at stealth" Svog suggest, not wanting to get involved in too fast.
By the way, Athena - your gem is still there, though the compulsion to keep it secret feels more like a strong impression rather than a command. The magic must be weaker than before.
"If you'd like I'll try to sneak ahead."
Athena creeps through the tall grass toward the fire and the long-limbed figures approaching it. There's a small trail leading up into the hills where the smoke is coming from, and as you cautiously follow it up, you can hear two rumbling, low voices conversing with each other. What they're saying doesn't sound too significant - one of them is laughing at the other one for stubbing his toe on that boulder, and the other one is just growling - but you hear another sound as you get closer. The sound is a weak whimpering, as if in pain. You smell wood burning.
You climb the path and situate yourself behind some rocks to get a better look, cautiously peeking out. You see the two figures - tall, brutish humanoids with warty faces and knobby limbs - sit down around the fire and poke it with a metal poker. To your shock, there's a figure burning inside the fire, that feebly tries to bat away the poker. The figure on the far side of the fire, with the poker, chuckles and continues prodding the figure, forcing it to roll over on the coals. Pained sounds can be heard under the sound of fire crackling.
The shock you feel upon seeing that the two figures are burning something that's alive forces an involuntary gasp out of you. You duck behind the rocks quickly, but not before you see the nearer of the two brutes grunt and look over his shoulder in your direction. You can clearly hear him rise curiously from his seated position, and the other brute ask him what's going on. What do you do?
Athena wanted to run back to her allies but feared That would only lead these creatures to them, she'd try to hide in this area until she could safely make it back without alerting them.
You quickly duck under the rock you're hiding behind just in time to avoid being spotted. You see the brute's fingers, bigger than kielbasa sausages and covered in coarse brown hair, inches from your hiding place under the rock as the brute curiously examines the area where you just were.
"What is it, Tom?" you hear the other voice call. "Naught but some of those damn shrews eating an egg," the first one says, his voice coming from just two feet over your head, separated by a rock overhang.
You hear a grunt, and suddenly a big knife flies out of the brute's hand and embeds itself in a shrew a few paces away from you, pinning it to the ground. You can hear it squeaking from here. Leaving his knife planted in the ground, the figure overhead - Tom - chuckles a cruel chuckle and turns back to his fire. What do you do?
If she though she could get away without being noticed she would grab the knife and sneak away.
Going to go ahead and let you get away with that one - you make a noise by breaking a stick with your foot as you grab the dagger, and that makes you wince - but after a moment, you notice that the brutes haven't changed their sounds at all. You scoop up the dagger and swiftly make your way back down the path to report what you saw to your friends.
Once she returned to the others she would report what she found showing the knife as proof.
"they don't sound friendly at all, what should we do?"
"Well... we should rescue them, of course!" Mazatl, as up for excitement as ever, proposes. "It's what I'd want if I were being burned alive.." She said as she rushed in the direction of the smoke.
"I'm all for that!" says Aifric, rushing along with Mazatl, hoping their new opponents don't have any magic.
"We can try but the creatures seemed to be powerful and well armed.
"Well... we can't just let them torture folks. That'd be just as evil as doing it ourselves." she said as she hurried onwards.
"If they are only 2, we are more. We could make up some strategy to face them" Svog pulls out his bow and readies some arrows.
You all make your way nearer to the hills that the smoke is coming from. The knowledge of the fuel that is creating the fire makes the smoke seem more sinister than before.
Athena points out the path she took up the hill to spy on them unnoticed. The brutes are cooking something over the fire - you can see one of them reaching out to stir a pot even from the bottom of the hill - and the smell of cooking meat touches your noses, making you remember that you haven't eaten in at least a few hours.
You approach the hill cautiously and see that the brutes are sporting hideous deformities. Malignant growths, tumors, and purulent boils cover their faces, necks and shoulders. What do you do?
Once in position, Mazatl shifts out of the cover, and pulls on her conduit, seeking to summon forth a life elemental with the strength to defend her allies, three verdant strands looping around her antlers and stretching out to the elemental as it manifests.
"Let the creature go."
Aifric sets Mazatl as his fulcrum, granting her Confidence (+1 damage when she attacks, which she probably won't be doing, considering the elemental).
The elemental appears out of the air itself, summoned from somewhere else on this very Plane of existence. This looks very different from how it normally looks when you summon an elemental, Mazatl. The shaggy elemental, made from tall spears of grass, roars in fury as it manifests, standing at shoulder height to the tall brutes looking over at you. The growth-covered tall men-like figures gape in confusion, then they hear your words and their expression hardens. One of them grasps a club that appears to have living leaves still growing off the sides, and points it at you menacingly. "'Ey, you, shove off. You can summon your own elementals, you don't need to take our firewood. This here was hard to catch, damnit! Leave us alone!"
This close, you can hear the pained sounds coming from underneath the crackling sound of a burning fire. The other brute turns its ugly head behind it and mutters harshly, "Shut up, you!"
"Have it your way." Mazatl says as she attempts to conjure elemental vines to rip and tear the creature with the club towards the fire, even as she commands her elemental to surge forward to do the same to the other.
Lose 1 control, unless Aifric aided the elemental.
I will accept the negative impact that occurs, and allow my channel to complete.
"Go brave champion! Help those in need!" Svog beings chanting targeting his Arcane power to Aifric to help him in combat,
Your grass-hulk charges the first brute and rears both of its huge arms back over its head for an overhead slam. Your elemental hits the brute, and with a cry of pain, its pustules all over its face and shoulders open up, spraying your elemental with spores that burn and blacken the grass!
Your channel goes through but it's too much, and you are knocked backward and prone by the shockwave! You fall a short distance down the hill after your channel completes, take 1d6 damage or negate it and lose 1 Control.
Svog, as you chant, the magic responds to you too quickly! Whereas normally you would have to chant a few lines for the magic to begin gathering, this time it gathers immediately! Your spell doesn't have its intended effect, instead boosting the far brute! The talkative brute with the living club, the one who isn't currently brawling with Mazatl's elemental, gains +1d4 damage forward! He roars in growing exultation and fury as your spell empowers him.
Mazatl is sent end-over-end with what appears to be the worst sneeze the group has seen in quite some time before crashing onto her backside with a loud thump.
Aifric did indeed make the elemental his Fulcrum. As the elemental attacks, Aifric makes a Flanking Maneuver as an Opportunity Strike, stabbing at the creature from the side.
Athena uses one charge of her bloodweed posion on her dagger then moves to attack the brutes that are distracted by her party.
Hulking Brute #1: 11/20
Hulking Brute #2: 8/20
The vines that Mazatl summons (at cost to her own safety) combine with the massive swinging limbs of the grassy Elemental to knock Brute #1 backward. He stumbles back, his spores spilling out over the earth from the mushrooms growing out of his shoulders. The flames lick at his backside as the vines yank him and the elemental pummels him back, and he screams in pain, taking another from the flames. At the same time, Aifric leaps in and uses the distraction from the Elemental to quickly jab at the brute, opening a shallow wound in the thick rubbery skin. The brute screams in rage and jumps backward over the fire. Then, he does something strange; he kneels and puts his forehead to the ground. This reveals a large growth on the brute's back, which begins to pulse and grow! It's whitish in color, shot through with red veins of blood that pulse sickly as the brute's body trembles beneath it!
The second hulk was feeling empowered by Svog Kos' buff, about ready to swing its living club at someone and cleave off their skull, but Athena is too fast. Moving quickly, the were-fox leaps up and stabs the brute right in the lower back! The poison begins to take effect immediately, canceling out the increased strength that Svog's spell gave him. It's clear that Athena gave the brute a dire wound, from the way it clutches its lower back and collapses to one knee. "I give, I give!" he cries out, motioning to the fire. "Take the stupid elemental and go! We'll get our own fuel!"
Mazatl regards the one with the exposed mushroom cooly as she lets her elemental retrieve the other elemental, rising back to her feet as she does so.
Aifric backs away but stands ready to respond to any attack.
Mazatl: the first brute with the massive white growth on his back has begun laughing. You can tell that something bad is going to happen, very very soon. You have to spend 1 control to have your elemental reach into the fire, but it does so, scooping the burned body out of the fire and getting out of the way...
Just as the white growth coming out of brute 1's back explodes. Fungal tissue and acids spray in a geyser from the kneeling brute. You got knocked far away already by your spell, and Aifric backed away already, but Athena - give me a Defy Danger roll! The brute that Athena stabbed uses the distraction to flee, bolting off higher into the hills! What do you do?
"What the--" Svog jumps back when the brute explodes.
Control spent!
+1 if '+1 forward' applies to aiding.
As the thing begins to laugh, Mazatl calls out to Athena, "Look out!" but it may well have been too late, by the time she realized.
Athena hits the ground in an attempt to avoid the blast.
The goop and fungal tissue that spray everywhere out of the brute's back sail overhead harmlessly, spattering on the rocky hillside. Athena's reflexes serve her well, allowing her to evade the explosion completely. The other brute, that Athena wounded, sprints off into the upper slopes, dripping blood from his back wound as he runs. The brute whose back exploded is still chuckling, faintly, but it gradually tapers off as the brute goes unconscious.
After a few tense moments, the elemental that Mazatl summoned has the burned elemental in its arms, and it approaches Mazatl with heavy steps. It kneels before her, setting the burned elemental on the ground. Its skin is blackened from the flames but it's still alive.
Its shape is like that of a tree sapling given legs and arms, but the details of its form are difficult to make out, burned as it is. You can see its lips moving, trying to form words, but if it's making any sounds, they're very faint. What do you do?
"Can any of you folks heal?" Mazatl asks as she pulls the balm she uses on her conduit out... it soothes pain, but would it do anything for the sapling? Hopefully someone else could do something. She knew Chaney could, but...
"Calm down, little child,
they monsters are gone,
do not fear, little child." Svog sings a small lullaby to the elemental to heal him.
Athena joins the party once the explosion has pasted not wanting to risk chasing the troll on her own, she shakes her head at Mazatls question.
Aifric hefts his spear and considers hurling it at the escaping brute, but he decides the main thing was to rescue the burning elemental. "We'll need to stay on the lookout in case that thing tries to get back at us," he says.