Mayla would rub her arms frowning as they got further and further from the crypt.
"Does anyone know where this trail leads? And Essa are we getting any closer?" She asked a worried tone in her voice. "I want to find my brother but if we are loosing ground...." It was clear by her tone she was conflicted. Though more of the guilt she felt was that her brother may be a part of Steve's murder.
Something occurred to her though. Maybe.....they got Steve for trying to hurt the ape? Could be....she hoped. Something that didn't paint her brother as a bad person.
Away from the Crypt of Everflame by my guess. Perhaps after the death of Steve, they have abandoned mischievousness to go someplace to lay low for a time. Real question is what do we do with them once we find them? Assuming they of course don't decide their own fate by answering to us with violence. Selene stretches her arms with a yawn. They keep was trouncing around out here in these woods for much longer though and boredom may be the death of me.
"Malya I am not sure, they aren't that far ahead of us. We know now that they camped and ate some food, so they are at least not completely without ability to survive out here. What they are planning is anyone's guess."
Big, dark clouds are speeding over your heads, and the wind is colder than before. The sun is high in the sky, but its feeble rays don't do much to warm you.
You proceed through the forest for half an hour again. The tree are nearly naked, and the ground is softer and muddy. It's easier for Essa to follow the tracks, but you have all an hard time to walk... and the situation is worse for Enev, who sometimes has mud nearly up to the knees.
Selene reaches out to catch one of the falling leaves and watches it turn from bright yellow, to brown, to rotted, to dirt, and as the wind sweeps the earth from her palm as the snow begins to fall. She shivers as ice crystals web their way over her armor just before retreating as the air fills with pollen making her sneeze and scattering nearby butterflies from their cocoons. The butterflies die just as quickly as they were born as the air becomes still and heavy with humidity, drawing beads of sweat from Selene's brow.
This looks very strange to anyone noticing Selene, as they don't see any of the anomaly; only Selene's dazed look with outstretched hand, a sneeze, and reaction to the varied temperatures.
"Selene, what are you doing?" Takeshi says, as she is standing there with an outstretched hand, followed by "Bless you!".
Takeshi startles Selene out of her daze, "Wha... Oh, thank you. Must be allergies."
Mayla looks up having been lost in thought. "Bless you. Allergies? I figured all the rain would have caused the pollen to be washed away. I'm sorry. It sucks you have those."
Essa kneels down again into the mud and inspects the ground. Roguk comes in too and smells around as Essa looks for tracks.
Essa and Rogurk find back the tracks. You follow the muddy trail for another half an hour, without any incident
Suddenly, Rogurk stops, and grabs some nuts on the ground, then chew a few dead, brown leaves.
"Roguk don't eat that! Essa stop him! he's eating a piece of parchment" Enev yells at Roguk while trying to move closer to him but the mud is way to high for him to walk normally,
"I thought they were leaves...Roguk spit them out" Enev keeps saying as he looks like an armored snail walking slowly through the mud.
"Roguk DROP it! Don't eat that, icky!"
Essa springs toward Roguk and dangles a large crumpled head of lettuce in front of him that she hastily pulled from her food bag. Hopefully the green crunchy leaves falling apart entice him so that she is able to gently pull the parchment from his mouth and large hands.
If needed:
After a short struggle, Rogurk finally finds the lettuce more interesting. He gives the bit of parchment to Enev-still all sticky with its saliva.
The words are blurred, the parchment is torn. Finally, after a few minutes of deciphering by Malya, you read a few words and something like cabalistic signs:
Leaning in, "What does it say?"
Mayla would cast detect magic on the parchment to make sure there wasn't anything hidden on it or such before sighing.
"It is the word You're then an arrow pointing right. And then the word We and an arrow pointing left." She bit her lip.
"If what this is saying is what they have done then they have doubled back somewhere or are trying to get us to go back by saying they did. Either way we have lost a lot of time if they have indeed gone back." She took a deep breath trying to calm her nerves. She was on the verge of tears and rage and didn't have an outlet. Her mother always told her to be calm an composed.
Taking deep breaths she would point it out to the others.
"What do you want to do?"
Malya detect no magic on the parchment.But the writing looks familiar to her.
She studies the writing to see if she could recognize who wrote it.
Mayla seemed to be pondering it for a long time. "NABU!" She shouted as if saying Eureka.
"That little......" 'Deep breath Malya, deep breath, composed, calm..... now you need to try to figure out what message or cryptic he was trying to send here. Focus'
Mayla worried her thumb across the ring on her middle finger of her left hand. Taking slow measured breaths.
"Nabu is fond of cryptic messages, rebuses, and play on words." She stated out loud to the group.
"Is anyone good with those? Oh, a rebus is a picture to represent a sound or word. Mother use to love teasing me with them."
You're right, We are not right. Selene guesses.
The thing about these is you have to write them with the reader's thinking in mind. Otherwise there are too many ways to read them.
Is sense motive any good here to translate a secret message?
Takeshi snaps out of his train of thought, and looks over at Malya.
"What you got there, girl?"
When she asks about the rebus, his brain goes mental.
"I love those! Let's see, he probably meant... But no, that can't be..."
Takeshi takes control of the paper, not even aware he is walking away from the others. He mumbles a lot to himself, trying to work out the meaning of the rebus on paper. He mutters, and you can hear him whisper "Eureka!".
"Couldn't be they mean they are back there on the crypt and we are here going nowhere? Instead of left and right" Enev says shrugging after thinking about Mayla's words
As nearly everyone is pondering about the meaning of the cryptic message, Essa rises her head, surprised by a reflection of a feeble sunray on something metallic. They are ambushed!
Goblins are surrounding you, and they seem ready to attack. Some of them (3 out of 5) have slings, the two other have short spears.All carry a small, home-made sickle
"You're Right, We left." She murmured thinking on it and would look at everyone. "Seem's he is saying that our assumptions are correct. This also must mean they have been listening maybe."
Shrugs idly focusing beyond the group to late.
Essa shouts. "Goblins!"
Essa casts Shillelagh, making sure Roguk is by her side. "Roguk STAY here...for now.." She has fought goblins before. A shiver goes down her spine, recalling the previous incident.
"Hey! You figured it out" Enev would have tried to pat Mayla in the back but at his height he would pat her rear, so he stopped his hand realizing that,
"Uh? Goblins?!"
So that's Selene (22), Goblins (15), Malya&Ah Mera (12), Rogurk(10), Takeshi (9), Enev (6), Essa(4)
Two sling stones fly away, missing their target.
A bird, who was just minding his own birdy business so far, isn't so lucky.
A few feathers fall to the ground.
One spear hit Rogurk. The goblins start to scream and to punch each other, each one blaming the other for messing with his own throw, each one claiming to be the one who hit...
Option 1 (melee)
Option 2 (entangle)
80' circle ( will be careful to keep us clear). DC 13 Reflex save or gain entangled condition. Terrain becomes difficult. See spell for more details.
Essa will try to remember anything she can about goblins that may be of use.
Roguk actions:
If goblins have moved to melee us, (as a free action) Essa has Roguk attack one. If they have not attacked us, she has Roguk take cover behind a tree or log, or behind some thick foliage ( for cover/concealment).
Here's the map! Hope it will help!
Essa remembers nothing of importance against Goblins, except they are a pest, stupid but vicious little beasts.
If they are that close, Roguk and Essa can attack the two nearest us on the path there. Perhaps if they are busy with each other we will get a bonus to hit them. Otherwise our rolls were fairly decent and hopefully we can demolish them.
Essa will save her scroll since there are so few of them. If they are dead by the time Essa an Roguk go, we will move to melee the ones to the east, down the path.
Selene dashes towards the closest goblin and thrusts here spear at the little pests oversized melon.
"Su'koamku!" she curses.
"Kafaamve ne’kuxule sale’ka vaspsale’bo kukome!" she yells motioning Enev forward.
"You talk funny when you are doing magic, Selene" Enev draws his sword and prepares his shield,
"Erastil, lead my sword"
Enev prays while approaching carefully the goblins on the east side, ready to attack them.
Essa and Rogurk switly kill the two goblins, Essa by a mighty blow of her enlarged oaken club, Rogurk by means of bite and claw.
Enev moves cautiously toward the Goblins, but comes short, and can't hit anyone
Selene quickly run to a goblin, but miss it by inches
Takeshi, on his turn, will aim carefully to find a nice spot to stick his arrow in one of those oversized heads. The log is in the way however, and he kills the log... He facepalms, while looking at Selene in a funny way.
"Selen, what the hell?"
Selene's goblin takes its dirty, rusty sickle out of its belt, and tries to plant it into the oracle's belly
Meanwhile, Enev is targeted by the last two sling bearers, but the halfling is missed
Ah Mera shouts a battle cry, getting in shooting range
For the glory of Aroden!
and throw her chakram, which pass in a buzzing sound over Enev's head and cuts a sling bearer badly in the chest
Mayla moved up 25 ft to where she could cover the most individuals and called on her protective ward.
Light shimmered around the three around her as the image of a lotus appeared faintly around Enev, Takeshi, and Ah' Mera?
The two sling bearing goblins, one badly wounded, realise they are losing the fight, and starts to run away, singing badly
Goblins eat you later!
Now fight don't matter!
Krabok tribe will chew your bones
your time is nearly done!
There is only one Goblin left, fighting Selene stubbornely, his sickle viciously aimed at her belly
Getbo will eat you alive...
Am naelkisoke kisu sa kohale'ke xuamkuko J'okune'el hofa!
Stubborn goblins are dangerous. Selene fights with caution
Essa and Roguk will double move to assist Selene as their round 2 action. "RAAAAAAUUUGGGHH" shouts Essa as they move to join the others.
The goblin's blade flashes toward Selene's belly
Had the oracle not parry the blow, she would sport a scar by now...
Enev moves closer to the remaining goblins.
Takeshi drops his bow, andwalks around the crowd, drawing his dagger, while mumbling.
As he nears the back of the goblin, he waits for it to attack Selene and dropping his guard, before slicing the goblin's back.
>
Selene bides her time.
The battle was destined to fail before it had begun. This is no time to get sloppy. At least Takeshi was listening, all be it slowly.
Mayla moves up to allow her aura to cover everyone. She wasn't sure interfering in this fight would be needed so she held her standard action.
Neither Selene nor Takeshi manage to land a solid blow on the goblin, even if they nearly hit it.
Enev and Ah Mera watch the two other goblins running away, and the warrior from Aroden asks
Should we pursue them, Enev? Or do you think it's a trap?
"I think we should let them be, we have lost a lot of time searching for the other group..." Even breathes deeply and turn around to face the remaining goblin.