Seeing more goblins rushing to join the fray, Liera continues to hurry forward as best she can. One ankle catches on a root and she stumbles, but she continues to move.
Jin breaks from cover and scrambles over to flank a goblin with Tshilaba.
Lou simply struggles to get through the terrain to reach the others.
Archibald staggers over to Shelby's side, seeing as she is about to befacing two monsters.
Awd comes in from the north, petals wide as it moves up to the goblin threatening Shelby.
Datura makes his way through the underbrush towards the fighting.
Dark Red vs. Tshilaba
Yellow vs. Shelby
Sinspawn vs. Shelby
The goblins nearly behead themselves as the flail about in a frenzy. The monster, though, it steps up to the Iomedaean and goes for her neck. Razor sharp teeth rip into her neck and shoulder, sating its thirst with her blood.
Archibald waves his weapon at the monster and successfully creates an opening for Shelby's retaliation.
Shelby contemptuously knocks aside the blow of the remaining goblin, eyes turned away but for a moment from the monstrosity. The creature takes advantage, though, lunging and tearing into the warpriestess's neck and shoulders. The immediate loss of blood and the thing's foul aura causes her to nearly retch, but she holds it in check, instead waiting for Archibald to create an opening and then swinging with her diminished strength. Her heart is not in it, the swing barely making it to the beast.
"Shelby!" Liera gasps in alarm, clapping a hand over her mouth as the creature begins savaging her foster sister. Her eyes narrow in hatred, her hands contorting themselves into wickedly bent claws, all bony knuckles and nauseating angles.
Hissing and spitting in an acidic voice, she reaches out to the darkness within her, wishing ills and misfortune on the creature.
Having used Tshilaba's position to outmaneuver the goblin, Jin slashes at it with her sword. Unfortunately, the little creature ducks under the blow and Jin nearly cuts the Varisian card-slinger.
Lou continues to slosh through the marsh to reach the others.
Datura moves up some more, and prepares to fire at the same one he sent Awd after, but with her in the way, his shot was too strained and he couldn't get a clear line.
Tshilaba continued his assault, especially now that he has help. As he prepares his card swing, Jin nearly stabs him and it throws off his movements. He stumbles back in the soft ground and nearly goes down but manages to regain his footing. Even then he still managed to nearly down the goblin as his card slipped inches from the goblin's belly. He sent a quizzical eyebrow at the Tian, but didn't really wait for a reply. He didn't think she really was that mad at him from before. Or maybe she's jealous... no that couldn't be it.
Awd, as is her wont, is really looking forward to this meal. With all the chaos, she just can't get a good bite.
The goblin in front of Jin and Tshilaba begins to hop and dance about.
"Wesa gonna keel you! Wesa gonna keel you! Yousa gonna die," he sings as he moves closer to Shelby.
The goblin near Awd leans in closer to sniff at the flower.
"What flower is this? Grok no know," he says as he leans in to take a whiff.
The monster, meanwhile, continues to attack Shelby.
Sharp teeth dig into the blocking arm the Iomedaean throws up, and more of her blood spills to the ground.
Shelby throws up her arm to block the blow, and punches the creature's bite aside.
The front of her white tunic a bloody mess, the warpriestess collects herself, planting her feet and getting a measure of the creature in front of her before she swings again, trying to make it count as she waits for the halfling to again distract the creature. She grunts loudly with the effort, the heavy blade swerving towards the abomination.
Archibald bravely distracts Shelby's target with his little sword.
With a shrill laugh, Liera sees her hex take effect, vexing the creature attacking her foster-sister. Seeing that one of the goblins is about to be introduced to Awd in a rather gruesome way, she turns her attention to the other, fixing black eyes on it and dripping Infernal curses from her lips.
Jin slashes at the goblin again, shouting "Behind you, Shelby!"
As the goblin ignores him, the fortune teller does a near vertical acrobatic spin with the card in his hand, catching the goblin on the top of it's large green head, carving out a four inch deep paper thin cut right into the center of the skull, behind the ear. It crumpled in a heap next to him, and suddenly he found himself free from entanglements. It was time to sweep into action.
He ran with high knees through the underbrush, swinging the eclipse card sidearm as soon as he got a clear shot. It slid right into the strange creature like the one from before through the armpit to rattle about in it's chest cavity. "Your darkness has come, You're outnumbered and you're terribly ugly. It's time for you to be put out of our misery."
And with that, the last two goblins are dead, and the monster is wheezing from a ruptured lung.
Datura moves up to the core of the group, and fires down the front of them gathered around the remaining creature. Standing just so, in order to not have any of them in the way, he tries to get a clear shot.
Barring any commands, Awd sets in to continue her most recent meal. She begins to slurp and chew mnoisily on on of the goblin's limbs.
The arrow scratches the monster's skin, failing to do more than cause it to glare at Datura before laying into Shelby again.
And not doing much beyond adding a rip to her clothing.
The fortune teller watched the poor creature clawing at Shelby, but feeble in it's attempts, he actually felt a little pity. Drawing another card, he spoke "Succumb to our desires. Obey, sleep and receive your comfort." As the card spun toward the creature, the ant queen on the card reached toward the target with accepting arms, and the card itself embedded itself in the monster's skull.
After a pitiful moan, the monster collapses into a heap.
Although her sister's misfortune keeps the worst at bay, Shelby takes another claw across her stomach, the filthy thing raking across, talons digging into skin and the muscle beneath. Staggered, barely able to lift her sword, having to work hard to not be sick, the dark-haired woman watches as her companions take down the creature.
Head swimming with blood loss and pain, she sinks to her knees, laying her sword on the ground in front of her. Calling upon Iomedae's blessing, she casts a curative spell on herself.
The worst of the wounds begin to knit up, only the liberal amounts of blood covering her pale skin and all over her tunic evidence of the mauling she just received. She looks down, noting the large, red patches on her shirt, tears rimming her eyes. "Great! That's just great!"
Liera takes a rushed step forward when she sees Shelby sink, hesitating when she realizes her foster-sister did so of her own volition. Eventually, she makes her way forward slowly, hesitantly shrugging off a her shawl and outermost blouse, offering them to her in one clawed hand. "Here," she mumbles, averting her eyes. "I, um... I can clean those for you."
Lou finally comes sloshing through the mud toward the group. panting a little finally made it, everyone ok? what happened to you guys?
Tshilaba smiled at the reunion with the raging signal fire behind him. "I think we're fine barring the laundry issue. Nothing that can't be mended in any case. We simply got separated from you fine forward fellows along the nearly non-existent trail. I'm glad you found us, or we would have been wandering around for quite a while."
"Good news though. We found some goblins!" He pointed down at the dead green little creatures, and noticed Awd nibbling away. "Hey, don't let her eat the ears!"
Archibald staffers back to his log and plops down. I do believe the heat is getting to me. He gasps.
After helping Archibald cool off and letting Awd finish her snack, everyone treks back through the underbrush to find the trail again.
Accepting Liera's garments without a word, Shelby offers her a quick smile, trying not to scowl in the card-reader's direction. Waiting for the male companions of her group to gain some distance from her, she changes into Liera's items after stripping off her blood-soaked blouse, almost immediately regretting it.
The items of the smaller woman strained almost indecently against her bosom, a couple of inches of muscled stomach visible even at rest. Sighing, she smiles again at the woman, handing her the bloodied blouse, before drawing her sword once again and following after the others.
+1 vs traps
Archibald is almost entirely concerned with keeping cool, but he does manage to keep an eye out for trouble.
Liera flushes red at the sight of her own clothes straining across Shelby's figure. "Sorry," she mumbles, ducking her head. "Um, the shawl might help. Guess I'm smaller than I thought." She gives a high-pitched whistle and Speckle emerges from the undergrowth, hopping eagerly into her arms, nose twitching.
"Oh." As an afterthought, she pulls the book from her pack with her free hand. "I, um... Assume you didn't mean to lend me this one. Sorry."
As the group sets out, she keeps glancing distractedly at the ground, at her own hooves, silently hoping her skirts are long enough to cover them from casual eyes. The distraction proves, well... distracting.
The fortune teller was primarily interested in helping clean the shirt. He was able to do it at a distance, and in about six seconds. Mending it was something she was able to do herself, he'd seen that. But then he noticed her new garment was terribly revealing and suddenly decided it was better to wait for her to ask for help. Yes, that was the best plan.
Nodding to Liera, Shelby drapes the shawl across her shoulders, allowing the fabric to flow in front of her and cover the generous pale expanses of flesh. Accepting the book, her eyes widen, her cheeks and most everything else turning a bright red. "Ummm, right. Yeah, uhhh, Iomedae teaches us that we should always guard ourselves against temptation, you know. Just something to keep me tempted, that's it."
She quickly stows the book in her pack, rearranging the shawl before setting out once again. Could this day get much worse?
don't know what Lou was looking at but it wasn't the trail. or the surroundings or for danger.
He found himself walking behind Shelby though.
As Tshilaba voices his concern, Datura reassures him, "Don't worry about her eating the ears, she goes for the meatiest parts first, generally legs arms and chest." As he says this, he moves over to the goblin just in case, and takes the ears for turn in. Soon after, he collects all of them and hands them to the fortune teller. "You wanted these? Here you go."
Datura looks the goblins over for anything useful and collects any still intact arrows, but there was one that went too far off into the murky underbrush to get back.
Back toward the trail, Datura is determined to make sure they don't get lost again. He keeps his eyes focused on their surroundings, ignoring most of the idle chatter that they persistently engage in.
Awd, only able to eat half of the meal before being called away, follows master morosely. Despite having eaten most of one whole goblin her size, she still searches the territory for more food.
Jin whistles lewdly when Shelby emerges in Liera's clothing.
Shelby glares at her friend, cheeks reddening once again as she shifts the pitiful shawl a bit. "Glad you're enjoying the show, Jin."
You notice that this is not the trail you were on before. This one seems older, and far less traveled.
The heat lessens somewhat as the sun begins to set.
Datura looks frustrated, but turns to the others and explains, "This is not the trail we were on previously. This one is older, but I see no reason to hare off into the swamp looking for signs of our previous trail. We should follow this toward in the direction that seems most likely to meet back up with our previous path."
With that he gauges north based off many years of training, and uses that to determine which direction on the current trail will take them closer to their intended destination. "Stay close. Hold hands if you have to, just don't wander away from the group again."