Jararaca takes a step back and calmly looses his blade again at the hobgoblin he is engaged with.
SHOONK! The blade cleaves the raider nearly in half.
Kaye realizes the foe he would have targeted is quite dead!
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Ma’Huuk circles the Gaspar melee, staying clear of Vargo’s attack lane to approach the traitor from an open angle. Then he looses the predator within, smashing his enhanced club down viciously on the man’s head.
”You talk too much.”
As he does so, he commands Moto to attack Gaspar, as well.
Moto continues to eat his kill.
Ma'huuk strikes a powerful blow, the club striking like an avalanche. Gaspar gasps, reeling a step, but is still standing, despite his helm being visibly crumpled where the enchanted club had struck.
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Kaye turns to nonchalantly toss a spear at the hobgoblin, but Jararaca quickly cuts his target in twain. "Goodness! Money can't buy you good minions, Gaspar. That's why I do things myself!"
Kaye bounds over and draws his longspear.
Kaye tried to prepare himself against Gaspar's charge, but Kaye is clearly better at throwing than lunging.
Red-faced, Gaspar grits his teeth. His injuries appear to be telling on him; there's no more taunts or insults. The middle-aged knight grunts as he steps forward and swings wildly at Erevan, seeking to drop at least one foe.
The blade has all of the old warrior's strength behind it, but fortunately Erevan manages to dodge to the point that the blade merely bites into one shoulder rather than burying itself in his chest.
Over the writhing desert scrub, you can all see that Jamila has drawn a sharp scimitar and is laying waste among the hobgoblin raiders from above, swooping from foe to foe.
One of Hush's blades hit; the other just passes by the Taldan. In his youth, Gaspar must have been a formidable foe indeed, for despite the damage he's taken thus far, he is still standing... at least until Ma'Huuk brings his club down again.
Kaye perforates the body, just to be sure...
You take a moment, standing and catching your breath. Aside from Erevan's injuries, you are all unscathed. Over in the entangling shrubs, Jamila has cut down several of the raiders; the rest are frantically trying to run, at turns getting caught again in the shrubbery and then breaking free. They are easy potshots for slings or arrows, and Moto and Jararaca's speed let them catch up with those few who manage to emerge on the far side. With their leader dead, the battle becomes a one-sided rout in short order.
Jamila swoops through the air before you, landing lightly, and wiping her scimitar clean of of hobgoblin blood. The desert woman's eyes seem a more vivid gold-green than they were when you first met; she looks over through the rocks, to Pashket and the others, and your remaining camels, and nods when she sees Targos's body still present.
"Well fought... and well traveled! I admit, when we were separated in the storm, I feared the worst; I did not expect to you see you again. This desert is a harsh place, to the unprepared... and sometimes, even to those of us who consider ourselves prepared," she adds ruefully.
"I owe you all some explanation. I was not at all ignorant of the man you carry; he and I knew each other for many years. Together, we worked to try and clear the sands of scum such as this--" she nudges Gaspar's body with one foot, "--but, unfortunately, my dear Targos... grew old, and saw his end before him. Even in this, he thought of a way he might strike a blow against the latest bandits who had risen, the so-called Scorpions; we knew their leader was no goblin, but had narrowed the field of the suspicious down to three: Pashket, Mahmoud, and Gaspar. I proposed that when Targos's fellow Pathfinders came for his body, that I would take you into a caravan of the same-- in the hopes that treachery would be revealed over the journey."
She takes a breath, then grimaces. "And it was... though for all my cleverness, this worm caught me off-guard all the same. Had you not survived, and arrived, I would now be a corpse on the sands, or bound hand and foot on my way to slave market. I can only offer my gratitude, and say that you are the equals of Targos as I remember him, Targos in his youth: a man of honor and courage."
Jamila offers you a deep bow.
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As Kaye retrieves his spears and listens to Jamila, he tries to put the pieces together. She knew Targos, but is clearly much younger than him. And what equipment did she use to fly? Gaspar should have stripped her of any...bombs...no equipment. Stupid mutagen! Who u make me dumb?
Kaye quickly shakes his head. "Ah, what else did you know about Targos's death?" Kaye blurts it out loud. Not really as a question, but rather as a fact that she could be more specific on.
Jamila looks startled at Kaye's blunt question, then smiles sadly.
"Ah... I take it you detected the poison, then." (Well, no, you didn't, but she doesn't know that.) "Targos knew he was near death's door, but he did not relish waiting for the slow failure of his body. Already his eyes were going, and..." she shrugs, gazing off at the horizon with deep emotion on her face. "He requested I bring him the poison of the deepest desert scorpion. Among my people, it is noble to take command of your own life-- and your death, also. I honored the request of my old friend, though it pained me to lose him. So, yes, his death was hastened... but by his own will and wish."
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Ma'Huuk lets the power go from his veins as well as his club, listening to the strange woman as he surveys the final death throes of the fight.
He scowls at he briefly at her belated revelation, but nods once the further truth is revealed. "I can understand this thing. A man has the right to choose the way of his death, should he want to. We will tell his old friend of his passing, and that he did so serving the Society and the people of the sands."
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Hush cleans and sheaths his blades. A worthy fighter, and a challenging harvest indeed, he thinks as he watches Gaspar's body fall to the sands. But a harvest nonetheless.
He listens to Jamila's story with surprise, and is deeply impressed by the man he never knew except as a corpse. Now there's someone who deserves respect, he thinks. He didn't fear his own death like the timid, or challenge it like the foolhardy. To him, it was just another tool in his arsenal.
With the true nature of Targos's death revealed, and the Scorpions broken and scattered, there is nothing to stop the remnants of the caravan from making a way back to Katheer. Atmar tells anyone who listens of the heroics of the Pathfinders, and how, someday, he too will follow in their footsteps. Jamila, at some point, satisfies Kaye's curiosity as to her nature by explaining that is she is one of the desert janni-- aside from having certain elemental powers, they are also long-lived.
The agents of the Katheer Lodge, including its Venture Captain, receive you with honor. Targos Min-Katheer is laid to rest in fine state, a full two dozen agents, including yourself, in attendance. Katheer's Venture Captain congratulates you warmly, and writes a glowing recommendation of your performance to be delivered back to Adril Hestram:
An unexpectedly hazardous task... executed with courage and diligence. Targos would have approved.
-fin-