Aki hold still in the bush, trying to stay hidden. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy, not necessarily my friend... and her companions might need someone on the outside if these frog-people weren't friends.
Suddenly realizing, Celebeth's dying, Echo hurries over to pour a healing potion down her throat. Afterwards she drinks one herself.
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Why’d he have to be so impulsive? All this carnage, because he jumped the gun. Nothing to make you feel helpless like being shipwrecked on a island and caught up in a war between savage tribes. When he sees Celebeth amongst the bodies bleeding out, Pharithstilis loses his grip.
”HEEEEEELP!”
He rushes over to her but doesn’t know what to do. His brand of magic is trickery and entertainment, and this is far from entertaining.
As most of the mobile combatants have left, and you tend to your wounded, it gets very quiet. Aki believes she is well hidden as a fox in the underbrush, and while all of you wonder if the newcomers are friends, no one seems to be making any attempt at contact.
Celebeth rolls onto her side, coughs up some blood, and finally painfully sits up. She looks terrible, with her garb ripped and filled with holes from multiple spears.
"Did we win?" she murmurs, dazed.
"The grippli did," Echo informs her.
Echo stands and turns to the frog-people. She sheathes her dagger and holds up empty hands.
"Thank you," she says loudly. She nods her head at them in thanks.
A single grippli climbs down from the tree and cautiously approaches you.
A long tongue licks the air, and then it makes some noises that come out as croaks, gulps and a hissing sound.
"Can you understand me?" she asks in Common, then Dwarven, then Elven, then Gnome and finally halfling, in the hopes that they share a common tongue...
The grippli does not appear to understand you.
You can't tell, but if you had to guess, you would say not.
Echo nods her head at them again in thanks and starts to back away.
They watch you carefully, but they do not prevent you from picking up your stuff and moving on.
Malothor also sneaks off into the jungle, and disappears from view.
"Out of the frying pan, into the jungle," quips Celebeth.
Nathan makes no threatening moves. He takes some burn on to heal himself.
Aki stays in fox form and keeps watching until the rest of the group leaves.
So you move on through the jungle, except for Aki who stays behind.
"What a mess," mutters Celebeth. "And without Malothor it's gonna be even harder to survive in the jungle. What do we do?"
"I have no idea. I guess we head for the hills and hope for a cave. "
Aki trails the grippli trailing the group for now.
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Pharithstilis is mainly following Echo's lead and staying on her heels. He tries to remain helpful to the group as they make their way through the jungle.
He uses a bit of magic to repair and clean up his fancy coat.
After remaining quiet for a long while, he looks up to Echo and whispers, "I'm sorry."
Echo ensures everyone eats some of the food she had scavenged, then leads them further uphill.
"I'll try to find someplace safe for us to sleep tonight," Echo remarks in response to the questions about their shelter.
Looking down at Pharithstillis in surprise, Echo whispers back, "Whatever for?"
The day is long, and the journey is hot, muggy and often results in backtracking around obstacles, but Echo does a decent job of navigating your way.
As darkness falls, you find a small clearing that looks as good as any to make camp.
You all wonder where Malothor or Aki has gone, but you have caught no sight of either of them since the last encounter.
Nathan will stay with midwatch since he doesn't cast.
Echo shakes her head at the sad little gnome.
"Oh, they would have attacked us sooner or later, Pharithstillis. Those people were horrible. And honestly?" She smiles gently. "I would have attacked if you didn't. I'll not go back in a cage."
Figuring she's seen about all she's going to see, Aki slips around the Grippli and rejoins the group.
A fox steps out of the forest and shifts into the form of a familiar Tien woman. "We'd better be on our best behavior," she says as she walks over to the others. "There are still a couple of those grippli watching."
Aki rejoins the group, and you setup 2 hours watches.
Pharithstilis - all is quiet. well, quiet for a jungle.
Nathan - calm, nothing of concern.
Echo - hears some rustling in the trees, but doesn't see anything.
Aki - hears a low growl, and about 20 minutes later, sees eyes shining in the dark! Suddenly, she hears a few psst - psst sounds, and the eyes disappear.
Dawn breaks, and you all survived the night. You are about as well rested as you can be, given the few comforts that you have. But it is sufficient to regain your spells.
Echo stretches, then quickly sets out to get some food for the group...
...When she comes back with food she starts to cook it, making everyone a hearty breakfast despite the circumstances.
As she cooks she speaks with Nathan an Pharithstillis, the pair who don't have their noses in books.
"I wonder if Malothor will try to meet up with us on the mountain..." she remarks. "He seemed in such a panic. I hope he didn't accidentally run towards the cannibal village."
"Have any good dreams Pharithstilis?"
"And you, Nathan? What's waiting for you when we get off this island?"
"Waiting for me? Hmm, well I do have a nice home back in Almas to return to if I ever get sick of killing slavers. When I get too old for this life, I'll probably take over my father's shipbuilding business. " and gets a hard look in his eyes
"But there's plenty of slavers I still want to deal with, so that's not any time soon. "
"Oh, great chow. " he says after losing the hard look.
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Pharithstilis spends the morning tending to his still open wounds. It’s too bad his mending spell doesn’t work on gnome flesh. His dreams were of boogie men trying to capture him and boil him alive, and so he shakes his head and answers Echo with a simple, ”No.”
He’s unusually quiet while they eat and pack up to continue their journey.
As Echo forages, she finds a black panther very close to came, sound asleep. 4 darts can be seen sticking in its side. Aki notes that this is the location she saw eyes in the dark.
Nathan will top himself off with another self heal before he goes to sleep at night and offer to heal anyone else as well (they just have to take the burn which will go away come morning).
"Looks like the grippli took down a panther for us last night." Echo remarks as they eat.
"A pity we can't speak with them," Aki notes. She's again in human form--it's just more comfortable for tromping through the jungle. "They might be willing to help us if we could communicate."
Echo :
Aki:
since the burn will go away anyway, he'll do it again
sleep will get the rest
"What a lovely idea, Pharithstilis," Echo replies as he leaves his necklace for the grippli to find.
After they've eaten and the others have studied their spells, Echo tidies up and puts on her pack. "Ready?" she aks.
Echo leads the way into the jungle, still aiming for the mountaintop.
Aki keeps a wary eye out as she follows Echo's lead.
Nathan will follow keeping an eye out for trouble (though he's proven a bit less than good at it).
You make your way through the jungle. It is another hot and muggy day, but you aren't in a hurry and rest a lot. Echo leads you well, and finds fresh water along the way, so you can cleanup, drink and refill your canteens.
Just after midday, you find an large, odd-looking creature moving somewhat slowly toward you.
This creature looks like a large massive version of a normal snail whose head has been replaced with four man-sized tentacles, each ending in a mace-like ball. Its shell is striped in bright colors of red, blue, yellow, and green. Its flesh is gray-blue.