Adara moves forward and hurls one of her javelins at the approaching crustacean.
Adara rushes over to where Mizu struggles with the crab and attempts to give relief.
Sharpmaw advances , trying to circle the creature, and bites at it.
Hana struggles against the giant crab's claw!
...to no avail!
Lawdrak plucks a stone from the beach, drops it into his sling, and hurls it at the crab.
Edit for potential crit
Mizu stands her ground and lets out a fierce kiai as she strikes at the crab again.
Corrected Round Two Action
Adara rushes to Mizu's side and casts guidance to burn away the distractions and provide clear battle focus.
Dereje hurries forward and lines up a shot, aiming high so as to avoid accidentally hitting one of his allies. The crab was not quite in the pistol's optimal range, but luckily, it was a big target.
Mum moves up closer, and fires a sliver of ice from her outstretched finger.
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Dereje unloads into the crab, chipping away another portion of the creature's shell. Estietre focuses her cantrip at the opening created by Dereje, and freezes a small portion of the crab's flesh.
Seeing Sharpmaw as a more of a threat than the samurai, the crab claws at the dinosaur, grabbing the t-rex around the neck and squeezing.
Hana brings her katana down again, though it's a suboptimal weapon against a hard carapace.
Grimacing at Sharpmaw's precarious situation, Dereje rapidly reloads his pistol and fires. There was little more he could do but hope that they finished off the crab in time.
Cursing furiously at the pathetic sight of Sharpmaw dangling from the crab's claw, Lawdrak darts across the beach, laying his hand on the dinosaur's flank and calling on his healing power.
Sharpmaw, roused by the healing spell, twists in the grip of the claw, attempting to bite the creature.
Adara moves to assist in keeping Lawdrak's companion alive.
Mum pulls out her crossbow as she moves over next to Dereje. She then fires another sliver of ice from her finger.
Hana steps in and swings again!
As Sharpmaw's body convulses before losing all animation, Adara's face goes from shock to sadness to anger in a very short time. She draws a javelin and hurls it at the crab with gusto.
One thing Adara doesn't count on is the fact that crabs walk sideways, so her attempt to predict the crab's path goes awry. The javelin strikes the wet beach just past the tide line while soapy swirls of ocean waves adapt to the new obstruction instantly and create new patterns in the sand.
...just as the dangling limbs and tail of Sharpmaw do as he is dragged away by the Giant Crab.
A tear of sorrow rolls down Adara's cheek despite the rage which fills her face.
Sharpmaw's demise is too upsetting to process... Mum is in a grim-faced state of shock as she loads and fires her crossbow.
"How lethal.. this world...."
His face contorted in a sneer of rage, the young Kellid, heedless of his own safety, draws his spear and charges the murderous crustacean.
With a deep sigh, Dereje holsters his weapon, feeling no sense of triumph over their victory.
"I am sorry, Lawdrak," he says to the young Kellid with a pained expression. Thus far, the island had been far crueler to him than to anyone else.
As the crab drops, Lawdrak drops his spear, head down, clenching and unclenching his fists.
The young druid suddenly throws his head back with a howl of rage. His jaw distends impossibly wide, revealing a mouthful of inch-long fangs, and his flexed fingers now taper into black claws. Screeching incoherently, the transformed youth hurls himself on the corpse of the crab, tearing into the carapace and burying hsi teeth in the flesh below.
His frantic assault continues for only a few seconds, until he rears his head back, teeth carrying a chunk of the creature's flesh, when he stops, suddenly still, licking is lips.
THe druid's eyes clear, and the claws and fangs retract to nothingness, as he turns to look at the rest of the party, taking the chunk of raw crabmeat from this mouth.
"This stuff is good! We should take this thing with us!"
Then he sighs, and trudges over to Sharpmaw's corpse. He regards the dinosaur ruefully for a few moments, then stoops to the creature's jaw, grasping and wrenching at one of Sharpmaw's dagger-like teeth, placing it in his belt pouch.
He stands, sighing quietly.
"I'm going to need to take him back to camp as well, if I'm going to call him back."
Adara doesn't attempt to stop the grief-stricken young man as he vents his rage on the dead crab. Once he's composed and ready, she places a comforting hand on his arm.
"Of course, we're all willing to help you however you need us to, Lawdrak," Adara says softly with a small smile.
She glances at the others, her unspoken question about returning to the camp in light of the past moments' events hanging in the air.
Hana flicks her blade, wipes it and sheathes it. "Your companion was a fierce fighter," she says with a nod. She pauses for a moment of silence, then says, "We should look for shade."
"We haven't made much progress in our exploration," Adara says shaking her head. "But considering we should be able to salvage something from this crab and Lawdrak's current condition as well as the loss of his companion, I suggest we return to camp."
Hana nods curtly. "Very well. This crab will provide us with much-needed sustenance for the day. Survival is, itself, progress of a sort."
"We had a distressing battle that yielded supper," says Hana.
"And a fallen companion," Dereje adds somberly, eyeing Sharpmaw's corpse, and then Lawdrak. "The wildlife here is more formidable than I imagined. We will have to exercise more caution."
"We won't be able to cover any more ground today, unfortunately."
After taking a quick inventory of how much black powder he has left in his horn, Dereje takes out his gunsmithing kit and opens it up, pulling out a number of small vials. The island was not likely to yield the raw materials necessary to craft more powder from scratch, but fortunately, an entire barrel of the stuff - his precious cargo - had accompanied him on the Jenivere. Though it had been ruined in the shipwreck, it was not utterly useless. As such, he had been sure to take some with him back to camp.
With a bit of time and the addition of a few reagents, a small portion of the black powder would be as good as new. His trade mission was a failure, but it was a failure that could still yield some profit.
Expressing his gratitude to his colleagues for helping him bring Sharpmaw’a body back, Lawdrak drags the dead dinosaur of onto the nearby beach. He spends the next hour collecting firewood, building a pyre.
He kneels beside the scaly body, chanting in the most primitive dialect of Hallit known to the Scale Rider’s wise ones, gesturing and occasionally laying his hands on the Sharpmaw. After nearly an hour, he moves the body to the pyre and lights it. For the next several hours, he alternately tends the fire and sits, cross-legged, beside it, chanting or calling out in harsh, reptilian-sounding hisses all the while.
When the fire has reduced his friend to ash and bones, he rises, stretching, takes a little water and crab-meat, and, muttering about ‘the first half being done’, moves to the edge of the jungle. He fishes Sharpmaw’s tooth, that he had removed after the fight with the crab, from his pouch and resumes his seat, this time facing into the jungle. As the sun starts to set, he begins a slow, sonorous , repetitive drone, rocking slowly back and forth. Observes note his eyes are rolled back in his head, only showing whites through the half-opened lids.
At sunset, the chant stops with the suddenness of an axe-blow. Lawdrak is silent for about a minute, then, as he raises his arm, tooth held like a reversed dagger in his fist, straight above his head, he lets out a blood-curdling, saurian shriek that echoes into the darkened jungle. After a few minutes, he repeats it.
Three more times, he repeats the call, until it is answered, off in the night. When it is, a look of triumph crosses the young druid’s face, and he plunges the gripped tooth downward , point plunging nearly an inch into his thigh. The pain raises barely a grunt, barely a flicker across the young Kellid’s face, though, as he patiently waits for a quarter hour. Then, the sounds of an approaching creature are clearly heard – something of a decent size, not bothering to conceal its approach.
The head of a small Tyrannosaurus Rex pokes out from the foliage, turning sideways to regard Lawdrak curiously. The exhausted Kellid’s face breaks into a broad grin, and he rises, pulling the strange lizard into a rough hug.
Lawdrak spends the next few minutes making friends with the dinosaur, and eventually coaxes it into lying down, stretched out – a little unnaturally – before him, as he resumes chanting and laying hands on the creature. He removes the tooth from his thigh, allowing the new T-Rex to lick the blood from it, a spart of the ritual.
Night has come and gone, and they are well into the morning when Lawdrak finally leans back on his haunches and lets out a long, tired sight of relief.
He stands, shakily, and leads the dinosaur back to the main camp. The animal is similar to the departed Sharpmaw, but not identical. The snout is slightly longer and thinner, the eyes a darker gold, the coloration more green than brown. But Lawdrak is as easy with it as he was with the last.
”My friends and fellow castaways…I have called Sharpmaw back to us. “ he croaks with a broad smile, then fetches himself a skin of water.
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A confused look crosses the face of Gelik. "Sharpmaw? Really? You can't possibly be serious. That creature only bares a passing resemblance to you previous companion."
Shaking his head, the rude gnome continues, "The coloration is completely off and that one has a longer snout. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy you have a new friend, but that creature is not your Sharpmaw."
Lawdrak gives a tired smile to the Gnome.
"Of course the body is different. That's the magic. With fire, the spirit of Sharpmaaw was released into the night, and with fang, it was recalled to a new host. He looks a little different, but be sure; that is him within."
Dereje spends much of the next day in front of his tools and reagents, melting scrap metal into bullets and refining some usable gunpowder. The chemistry was somewhat complicated, but by now it was second nature to the paladin. Every now and then he looks over at Lawdrak, intrigued by his ritual, and somewhat curious about what he said before, about Sharpmaw returning. An impossibility, surely - magic of that nature was far beyond any of their means.
When Sharpmaw II emerges from the jungle and complacently approaches the druid, Dereje raises a brow. He shared in Gelik's skepticism, but it was not in his place to question such barbaric rituals. Not out in the wilderness, at least. The new dinosaur seemed tame, and evidently Lawdrak was happy with it. That would have to be enough, for the time being.
"Splendid! I am sure that he will be every bit as fierce as his former self," he says amiably, humoring the young druid, though not out of inconsideration.