Gwenhwyfar gets out her sling and a pebble and flings it at a fungus.
One fungus drops to the ground. The other two slowly move towards the group.
"Shall I help you or can you finish them off on your own?" Abomentolor asks patronizingly.
Tauriel gives Abomentolor a glare and shoots two more arrows at the incoming fungi.
"Oh f*!%. How hard can it be to hit stupid creeping plants." Tauriell cusses as she again misses one of the fungi.
With all the talking and the fence collapsing from the fire damage it becomes known that there is an attack on the tribes cave. Some voice from behind the chamber shouts something in draconic.
"<Alarm. We are under attack. These stupid boggards for sure. Everyone who can hold a weapon comes to me immediately!>"
Darthdy shot an arrow to the remaining violet fungi
"<That's Uggilo!>" Azoresh tells hiding herself behind Gwenhwyfar.
The last fungi drops to the ground as Darthdy shoots a second arrow into it.
Behind the chamber in the next cave many feet can be heard.
Abomentolor casts shield on himself and walks towards the noise. "Everyone who wants to ask questions of Uggilo has to hurry. I'm going to do some burning."
Darthdy takes an arrow and follows Abomentolor.
As Abomentolor (and anyone who follows) enter the cave they see five troglodytes in a 15 by 50 meters large cave. One is standing behind some kind of stone altar with a bound troglodyte lying on top of it. The others are guarding the scene. At the side of the altar lies a angry looking large crocodile.
"<Hi. I'm Abomentolor Goblinburner. And today I'm here to free this tribe from the evil reign of Uggilo. Everyone else is free to go. If you stay you die with him.>"
Abomentolor stays as far away as possible from the opposition. As soon as anyone does something that looks like an attack he throws the fireball making sure to include the large crocodile and the guy behind the altar.
The crocodile is not impressed by Abomentolors speech. It charges the gnome. As that triggers Abomentolor to throw the fireball all try to duck away.
The four troglodytes drop to the floor unconscious and Uggilo also gets a good burning. Only the crocodile manages to avoid some of the flames.
It continues with it's charge towards the gnome.
But luckily for Abomentolor it misses.
Niamh stands behind everyone and starts to play her violin.
"Looks like I must save our gnome again." Tauriell says as she moves into flanking position drawing her blade and cutting the animal.
After Tauriell's mighty swing with her blade there are only two twitching crocodile halves are left.
Uggilo suddenly feels very lonely. But that doesn't dimmish his anger.
Gwenhwyfar moves closer to Uggilo to get into reach for her slumber hex.
Uggilo casts spiritual weapon to Attack the gnome.
Abomentolor looks at Uggilo and decides he is not worth another fireball. He jumps over the dead crocodile and marches towards the soon to be dead cleric.
Tauriell decides that between Gwenhwyfar and Abomentolor they will take care of that and readies herself for additional attackers.
Uggilo charges Abomentolor to hit him with his war hammer.
And his spiritual weapon he sends after the gnome too.
Gwenhwyfar uses her sleep hex on the cleric
Uggilo drops to the floor snoring.
Abomentolor looks at Gwenhwyfar "You know that kind of ruins the moment. I wanted to burn an enemy. Not put that victim out of it's misery."
Nonetheless he gets the job done. But with this changed circumstances he casts shocking grasp and uses it to coup de grace the troglodyte cleric.
Niamh stops the playing. "You know. If someone would look it would seem like we're killing creatures for sport. Like a hobby. It doesn't look dangerous or difficult anymore." The halfling turns to Tauriell and gurns. "Maybe it's time for the next level."
Gwenhwyfars stomach revolts at the stink. But that doesn't hold her back. "We don't do killing for sport. We don't do killing at all if we don't have to." Gwenhwyfar replies. She walks over to the troglodytes and heals them back to consciousness.
"Well. The hydra didn't do anything. It just slept." Niamh replies. "And nobody asked us to kill this cleric we had never heard anything about before." she clarifys.
"The hydra was a monster that killed many as you saw by what Tauriell found in the cave's entrance. And that cleric was evil and also responsible for many deaths." Gwenhwyfar replies.
To the troglodytes she says "<Welcome back to life. Please don't give us reason to regret that.>" She then moves over to the altar and frees the troglodyte lying on it and heals it too.
The troglodyte on the altar was not at it's best to start with and didn't survive the fireball.
"Probably the hydra just wanted to eat something. Like you and me. And if I remember right for your food animals have to die. They aren't evil. And probably the man or women that kill them for you to eat them aren't evil too. Nevertheless they're killing animate beings." Niamh counters dry and follows Gwenhwyfar. "So do you want to kill them too?"
"No. I won't." Gwenhwyfar replies a bit crestfallen. "For this one all help comes too late." she says about the troglodyte.
Azoresh comes out of the tunnel and is happy to see that the members of her tribe are ok. "<Hi. I'm back and I brought some friends with me. She can heal this disease the boggards gave us."
"I hope you don't think about killing yourself now." Niamh says remembering that Tauriell asked to cut off her hands last time Niamh tried to comfort the elf. "I didn't want you to feel too bad. I just think we should know that we decide about life and dead of people."
The troglodytes stand around not sure what to make of this situation.
"I know that we don't get the perfect result. But I still believe we change it for the better." Gwenhwyfar replies to Niamh "<Would you lead me to the other sick troglodytes.>" she asks Azoresh.
Azoresh shows the way. "<Be careful here is a pit trap.>"
She leads Gwenhwyfar into the part of the cave where the sick are placed.
There are 14 troglodytes lying in the room. They are in a bad shape. Most are not even able to get up.
Gwenhwyfar casts diagnose disease on one of them. Looking around she decides "We need to clean all of this up."
She turns around and shouts
"Ey, no reason to shout. I stand right behind you." Niamh says and casts prestidigitation. Immediately everything is clean.
"Oh, sorry. Gwenhwyfar says looking down at the halfling. "Would you please clean out the room with your spell? I need that done before it makes sense to start healing these poor creatures."
"It's already done." Niamh replies impatient waving her hand to navigate Gwenhwyfar's glance.
"I think I'm standing somewhat besides me." Gwenhwyfar replies.
She kneels down next to a troglodyte and casts remove disease.
and then the next
She thinks if she would manage to heal them all enough to get them to the next day without dying. But she can't cast enough spells. She uses the wand on lesser restoration on all the troglodytes. After that the wand is empty.
"<These two are healed. Please bring them to another room. They need some more days to regenerate but they shouldn't be together with the one still sick.>"
Azoresh helps one of her kin up and leads it to the next cave.
"It would take a week to get all these back to good health. How should I manage to do that?" Gwenhwyfar asks.
"You just come back every second or third day and heal them." Niamh shrugs.
"No, I mean it would take all my highest spells for a whole week to cure them from their disease." Gwenhwyfar replies.
"Then we'll obey Jimmy's plan and nobody gets hurt." Niamh shrugs again.
"What do you mean? I also use these spells to heal our wounds if someone gets badly hurt. Also I don't know if I can come back here every day if we go further on our search into the Lady's Light. It's stupid. I would need more people able to take care of the sick. Doing all that alone is not really good. And I can't even do that full time as they would need." Gwenhwyfar replies. She is not happy about the situation.
"As long as we don't get a disease everything's great." Niamh smiles to ease Gwenhwyfar a bit. "Jimmy can heal and I think Tauriell could do that too. In the last resort you stay here and send your cat to find out what we're doing." she says with a mellow voice more joking than everything else.