Aroden's searing fire sears thousands of ants, creating a peculiar, acrid smell and a rapid, crackling noise. As the flames subside, the surviving ants can be seen scattering and swarming away!
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...Instrument's holy fire...
"Let us thank Aroden for his benevolence," the Taldan declares in triumph as the ants scatter away. He draws a small orb from a pouch and cups in his hands, whispering to it in an unknown language . Fire flows into his hands from the surrounding aether, but does not burn.
After driving off the ants, the party carefully surveys the scene and investigates the corpse. Blayne and the Instrument can discern the tracks of about a half dozen humanoids that ran quickly through this area and don’t appear to have returned. As Torriki focuses his attention on the corpse, he notes that ant bites mar the dead man’s swollen face so badly that he would be unidentifiable even by his nears and dears. A careful search, however, does turn up a secret flap on the corpse’s belt pouch, inside of which is a note. In addition, the following gear lies in the undergrowth near the ant-ravaged body: a rapier, a masterwork composite longbow, a potion of invisibility, a potion of cure moderate wounds, two oils of magic weapon, two sleep arrows, and two flasks of alchemist’s fire.
From where the body lies, the Pathfinders can see that the path continues on, sloping slightly downward.
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"oh! Hey can I take these? " Torriki shakes the invisibility potion and an alchemists fire.
"also, read this. "
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Blayne will look Bastion over to see if the bugs were venomous and offer some healing.
"Bastion, let me take a look at those bites. "
Also casts a CLW from his wand.
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Blayne will also take an oil of magic weapon and an alchemist's fire, and will unfold and read the note Toriki found.
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The floor of the ravine slopes downward slightly and the foliage overhead gradually thins. After a few hundred feet, one can see that the ravine’s north wall is heavily eroded, creating a relatively shallow slope that might be used to climb in and out of the gorge; it leads to the cliff opposite the Krihirik village, so presents no particular advantage to the party. However, even a casual inspection reveals deep tracks left by a truly massive, three-toed saurian that ascended the slope only hours before.
The ravine widens, and numerous boulders scattered throughout the area attest to steady erosion. Some of the boulders bear strange carvings and are even hewn into rough pillars, but they jut at odd angles out from the landscape and don’t seem to be a part of any surviving structure. Nestled in the shadow of two such pillars is a shallow pit scraped out of the earth by some massive creature’s claws. The nest contains several branches, the half-eaten body of a leather-clad humanoid, several broken shells, and a half-dozen large, intact eggs. In the trampled foliage near the nest lies the corpse of a massive, bipedal dinosaur, its tooth-lined maw agape and its hide pierced with dozens of crude javelins.
As the Pathfinders come in sight of the nest, they notice two lizardmen, crouched amongst the broken egg-shells and happily gorging themselves on the embryonic dinosaurs. The lizardmen turn and look at the newcomers, egg-juice dripping from their jaws!
The lizardfolk tip their heads, listening to the approaching giant half-orc with little sign of comprehension, still a bit surprised by the unexpected company.
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Blayne moves up with his crossbow readied and says "We probably need to move this along. Momma will likely be back soon. "
After a 30 foot move he aims his crossbow and readies an action to shoot the further lizard man if either does anything but respond verbally. Including taking or harming more eggs.
Readied action.
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The lizardfolk snarl and draw weapons, with the closer one swinging at Bastion! Sadly for the fierce lizardman, he's a bit too sated with dinosaur egg to attack very effectively.
The Instrument’s curse bites on the lizardman! Wayne misses but Bastion’s strike connects, injuring the red-scaled lizardman badly!
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Blayne will move forward to attack with his rapier! He'd like to flank the one Toriki is engaged with if possible.
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Blayne moves up and stabs the closest lizardman! The two reptilians strike out at Bastion, but they still can’t penetrate his defenses.
One lizardman resists much of the Instrument’s attempt to instill discipline in him, while the other discovers that Blayne’s blade has slipped between his ribs! The long-tailed creature falls to the jungle floor, his ferocious snarl fading quickly.
Wayne nimbly dodges past the remaining foe, but can’t get through the thing’s tough, scaly hide.
Bastion downs the last of the lizardmen, who have failed to defend their territory against the visiting Pathfinders.
With the lizardfolk defeated, the Pathfinders take a look through the nest. Strewn around the nest are the possessions of the half-eaten dead woman: a climber’s kit, 100 feet of silk rope, a grappling hook, a longbow with 20 arrows, a potion of hide from animals, and two tree feather tokens.
The dead tyrannosaurus clearly died from the numerous javelins that stick out of its body, but the broken foliage nearby shows it didn’t die without a fight. Blayne is able to determine that the mangled body in the nest was a human, who died only an hour before. Looking around a bit, Bastion notices footprints that must have been left behind by the woman’s companions as they fled, both up the sloping the ridge and farther down the ravine—the latter accompanied by more lizardfolk footprints.
With eggs in hand, the party takes a few steps in the direction of the humans and their lizardfolk pursuers. Almost right away, the ravine suddenly falls silent—no birds, monkeys, or other jungle creatures are audible. A few heartbeats later, a bellowing roar echoes through the ravine, causing countless small birds and animals to abandon their hiding places and scatter as quickly as possible. A series of great shuddering cracks herald the downfall of several trees in the distance, and a second thunderous roar pierces the air, followed by the frantic shouts of panicked humanoids. Suddenly, a massive dinosaur bursts out of the jungle to the southwest, pursuing a dozen leather-clad explorers through the ravine. The furious creature sweeps up a straggler into its massive jaws and flings the screaming victim off into the jungle, roars, and rushes toward its next target.
Escaping the ravine uses a variation of the chase rules, but unlike a typical chase in which the PCs are pursuing a target, in this encounter they are fleeing for their lives! Furthermore, the PCs work as a team to overcome each obstacle rather than addressing each hurdle as individuals. Several obstacles also allow the PCs an opportunity to succeed just by sabotaging their Aspis rivals; after all, getting away only requires the PCs be a little faster than their foes.
For every obstacle, each PC should choose between one of two options: attempt a check or use an ability (such as casting a spell). At the end of the turn, use the highest check result, and treat any other checks with a result of 10 or higher as though that PC had instead used the aid another action to assist that roll. If any PC rolls a natural 1 while attempting one of these checks and also carrying an egg, she must succeed at a DC 15 Reflex save or accidentally break one of the eggs. If a PC uses a spell or ability that seems especially appropriate to the situation, such as casting shatter to destroy an obstacle or creating a barrier to block the tyrannosaurus, grant the highest check result a +2 or +4 bonus (depending on how effective the action was). If the PCs fail to overcome a particular obstacle, they still proceed to the next one, but their failures allow both the dinosaur and the Aspis agents to make headway.
The rival agents flee in the face of the stampeding dinosaur, heading straight towards the party! Can the Pathfinders outrun them, or trip them up so they fall prey to the dinosaurs?
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The Taldan points at the doom barreling towards the party. "Hey, I didn't know any of you were familiar with illusion magic. That's pretty good! And ghost sound, too." Realization comes slowly to his expression. "Ohhhhh, it's one of the Aspis doing it to scare us! Fools!" It takes Wayne grabbing him by the collar and yanking him along before gets what's actually happening.
Instrument has no interest in trying to grapple with the Aspis, and shuffles along awkwardly (but confidently!) out of the saurian's path.
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Blayne grabs an egg and quickly moves away from the giant dinosaur while looking for the best path.
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Torriki holds his egg like an awkward father holding a baby, reverting to his natural form. Thankfully, he's more dexterous than most. When the eruption of action hits, his toothy grin is in stark contrast to the egg.
"CAYDEN'S CODPIECE! Let's fly!" The kitsune takes off like a zephyr, his red fur nearly a blur in the jungle sun.
Finyik holds up two hands and cups them in the air, moving them around to illustrate a sphere about the size of a large grapefruit or very small watermelon.
Torriki and Wayne dart far ahead, their companions hustling to keep up as they leave the Aspis agents slipping through a muddy patch of the valley! The towering saurian catches up to the slowest of the agents, who screams in terror as a massive, three-clawed foot comes down and grinds him into the mud, with a sound not unlike a grape being stepped on, but on a larger, bloodier scale. The tyrannosaur roars in rage and continues its pursuit!
Blayne, bringing up the rear of the Pathfinders, glances over his shoulder and is relieved to see the dinosaur has not gained any ground on them. He hears a loud rumble ahead, somehow different from Rex’s ragings, looks forward, and is startled to see that the dinosaur’s thunderous rampage has caused a small landslide from the cliffs above. A pile of boulders and smaller rubble has blocked the path!
It appears possible to find a path around the boulders or try to just shove enough of them aside to get by .