Ialda can do nothing except attack the ape beast and try to inflict enough damage to put it down, hoping the others aren't going to leave she and Grugg alone for long.
Claw attack with rage, power attack and Left Ear's bonus.
Damage
Claw two
Damage
Inspired by his leader, Gruug also joins in on the ape assault.
Greatly weakened, Gruug's wild swing misses the girallon and smashes into the side of the building next to him. The momentum of the swing, also pulls Gruug off his feet as he passes out from exertion and crashes to the ground to lie motionless beside his falcion.
Aeronniell peeks out from the building, shocked to still see Gruug and Ialda standing toe-to-toe with the massive girallon.
"Ialda! Gruug! Fall back bef---"
The elf winces as she watches Gruug crumble to the ground before she can complete her sentence.
"Blessed Dreamer..."
She looks briefly at the doorway and considers the strategic value of it as a chokepoint but recognizes Ialda seems unlikely to fall back. She glances at her own wounds, wondering how many arrows she could take before she herself falls to the ground.
Quickly, she mends her own wounds and looks Louis in the eyes, hoping the sailor has some sage wisdom for how to get their allies out of the death trap they stumbled into.
Baolo steps back out from behind the building and seeing the leader still poised on top of the roof, fires two more thistle arrows with the intent of taking him out. His first arrow punches through the elf's shoulder. The second takes him right in the throat but Baolo let's out a cry as the blood scarab bites ferociously into his chest.
Baolo's last arrow catches the surprised elf leader in the neck, wiping the smile off his face, and his eyes close for the last time, as his corpse tumbles off the roof and falls with a splat on the bridge!
Left Ear continues his singing, keeping his bolstering abilities up for his friends.
He also heals himself of his arrow wounds, using a Cure Moderate Wounds spell.
CMW
He currently has 32 HP and has used one second level spell, and hopefully has no more bleed damage going.
Round 4:
The two elves look at the corpse of their leader and move out of line of sight of the party.
The girallon beats his chest with his 4 arms, when Gruug falls, but screams in pain and anger when Ialda mercilessly stains his white fur with his own blood! He screams and proceeds to full-attack the frothing barbarian!
Ialda girds herself, feeling weaker and weaker after every blow from the ape. If she falls, the creature would feast on she and her buddy, Gruug, so she had to hold him off as long as possible.
Claw w/ PA, rage, and bardic bonuses
Damage
Claw
Damage
Seeing the elves vanish, Baolo thinks to himself Not good mon, not good. Dey are coming' fa me or fleein' an I bet it's comin'. He sends a couple arrows flying toward the girralion on a trajectory to avoid Ialda and then steps back behind the house hoping to use it for cover.
Feeling like she can attempt a gamble, Aeronniell darts back out into the street and takes up a position on the far side before firing an arrow of her own at the mighty gorilla-beast.
"Ialda! Fall back if you need your wounds tended!"
for
for
She watches in mild disbelief as her arrow strikes truer than she expected.
One of Ialda's claws rips through the Girallon's hide but the hideous gorilla still lives. Two arrows strike it, then another, blood spurting over the barbarian, until the four armed gorilla collapses to the ground, dead! You all see Ialda covered head to toe in blood!
As you move to close in on the other 2 elves, they decide to jump off the roof into the water below! One miscalculates and kills himself on impact, his limp body floating on the surface of the river. The other elf disappears under the surface.
Ialda keeps raging as she is afraid her wounds might consume her if she didn't stay focused. She takes one of her healing potions and prepares to feed it to Gruug at her earliest opportunity.
CMW
Upon hearing the fall of the girallion, Baolo races back out from behind the building. "Is he goin' ta make it Ialda?" Baolo extends a hand toward Gruug and casts a spell.
As Gruug regains consciousness, a look of concern appears on his face but then quickly fades as he sees that all of his companions are alive. He sits up and looks at the girallion corpse with deep claw gashes all over it. Gruug grins at Ialda, "Good kill boss! Do you want it's head as a trophy?"
"I'm glad you made it, big fella. That ape was tough. Nah, no reason to take a trophy. Where would we even keep it," she says with a weak smile as she comes out of her frenzy.
"Now what was the deal with that ambush? Perhaps there is a clue on the bodies of one of those elves. Why would they just attack us out of the blue?" Ialda casts Detect Magic, as she looks at the girallion, and goes to collect the remains of the elves for further study.
The party finds the following on the elves:
MW Composite Longbow (+2 Strength) on leader
10 thistle arrows on leader
MW shortspear on leader
+1 amulet of natural armor on leader
Longbow on elf
4 thistle arrows on elf
You search the rest of the station but find no other bodies. You find a battered door to the armory, which manages to have held up. You also find elven tracks, which Ialda tells you lead into the jungle and they seem weighted down.
"Perhaps the elves carried everyone away. That would account for the heaviness of their footsteps. My ancestors aren't normally that clumsy," Ialda says as she stoops over to inspect the tracks even closer.
Otherwise, what else do you do? You can always go back to boat.
Gruug will take a look for tracks.
"Thanks, Gruug! Feeling much better now. See anything?"
Survival aid another
Gruug does not find any tracks even with the barbarian's help. It looks like the elves covered them.
"Befah we give up, lemme see if I can find da tracks." Baolo goes over where Gruug and Ialda were having difficulty and looks closely at the ground seeing if the elves are using any of the techniques he is familiar with to hide their way.
Once the elves are defeated and her companions conscious, Aeronniell lingers near the girallon for several moments.
"That creature... do you think it knew what it was doing? Or was it just some sort of pet?"
Her eyes move to the edge of the jungle.
"There could be more... a lot more. At least it wasn't corrupted like the other animals we've been seeing the past few months."
Despit the the inquisitor's skill, even he cannot find the elves' tracks. Now what?
"Back to the boat? Perhaps we could leave some sort of marker warning any travellers to be careful of ambushes here. Those elves had clearly done this before, and will do so again."
"I agree with you mon, but let's look around dis place really carefully in case we've missed some clues ta what is going on. Then let's post a warnin' flag over the river and get back ta the boat."
"Let's get to searching then! I don't want to be here any longer than we need to be. This place is one big death trap."
"Ya mon, ya might be right. But at least we were da ones dat dealt death dis time."
The party makes its way back to the River Queen only to find that the ship itself has been attacked. You see signs of battle and the body of one of the crew. Captain Esteban and Faruq are outside cursing when you appear. "Damn elves! They tried to ambush us and we killed the lot but not before one of them did damage to the protean engine that propels the ship. Hurg says he can try and fix it but we have to find some special algae or something like that. We have some power right now but if we don't find it soon, we might be stranded out here. Anyway, you guys look like hell. What did you find at the Whitebridge station?"
"We found a bunch of the same elves. Along with a big ugly girallion. Made it out by the skin of our teeth. There was nothing left in the town...deserted,,picked clean by the elves."
"A few o' dem got away too mon. Prolly not da ones dat got ya, but we bettah figah sometin' out befah dey get back."
Satisfied that there's nothing more to do here, the Captain continues the River Queen's trek. "I elect to forge on upriver to try and recover
any of the arcophages (power sources). Even with the energy supply aboard the ship dwindling, I know of a place where we can likely find a replacement arcophage with a short detour."
The River Queen enters the jungle proper, rising a like the wall of a green fortress, the Vanji River issuing from its dark gatehouse. A little more than 10 miles into the jungle, Captain Esteban steers the wheelboat into a tributary he calls the Kurka River rather than following the main artery of the Vanji. He explains that this stagnant rill flows from Kurka Swamp, in turn fed by the Brimstone Falls on the opposite side. "The Kurka Swamp is rife with plantlife of all kinds, including the mobile plant creatures that serve as hosts for the badly needed arcophages. It should only take the boat a few days off of its schedule, and the only alternatives are to swim or walk once the current arcophage gives out."
The swamp stretches out as far as the eye can see. Hummocks of tangled trees and plant life grow among hundreds of water channels overgrown with reeds and showing only the slightest trace of a current in their stagnant surfaces. The ever-present rumbling of the River Queen’s engine suddenly ceases, leaving an unnatural silence over the scene, with only the sounds of the creaking vessel, the faint whisper of a breeze through the tree tops, and the occasional cry of some strange marsh animal. The boat slowly drifts to a halt at the very edge of this marshy labyrinth.
Captain Esteban gathers the party and his crew. "The good news is we're not out of power...yet. The bad news is that due to tangled plants and drifting debris of the swamp, it is not safe to use the sternwheeler, lest it becomes snarled and damaged. Therefore, the only way for the River Queen to traverse the swamp is to be pulled with ropes by crewmen walking ahead of the boat. Fortunately, the water looks to be only about 4 feet deep in the swamp. Two heavy ropes, each 20 feet long, will be attached to the boat’s bow and then two pullers walk ahead in the swamp to pull the craft. We'll alternate shifts. Any volunteers to go in first?"
Ialda shakes her head, and prepares to hop into the swamp. "I'll take the first shift. I'm beginning to hate this swamp," she says with a laugh.
"Ya mon, I'll take de first shift too unless ya want me arrows covering ya." Baolo hops out to volunteer unless everyone decides they'd rather have him for ranged support.