Lorenz looks warily at the lighthouse. "How far are we from the village?"
As they move off the path, Lorenz starts scanning the area. "I suppose the rest of us should try and take up ambush positions somewhere in case the two of you have to run. You can lead whoever might be chasing you right to us and we'll just pick them off."
Lorenz breaths a sigh of relief when Douena successfully talks some sense into Pezock and follows behind with his bow drawn and ready.
"Look, Urza, it's the lighthouse," Douena points out unnecessarily. "Do the cannibals live up there on the cliff, Pezock? We'd better be extra careful; they may have trapped the way up to their village."
Mahjik peers to see if the lighthouse is inhabited and in what state of repair it appears to be.
"Wise man would seek to determine his fortunes even before he finds them."
Mahjik peers to see if the lighthouse is inhabited and in what state of repair it appears to be.
From this distance, you can't tell whether the lighthouse is inhabited or not. You can only see the upper portion rising above the trees. There does appear to be a balcony or some other construction on the side just below the light.
"Do the cannibals live up there on the cliff, Pezock? We'd better be extra careful; they may have trapped the way up to their village."
"They live in a village around the lighthouse," Pezock snaps. "The lighthouse is up on the cliff, so of course the cannibals must be up on the cliff! They trap the trails, so we will travel through the jungle, out of sight."
Pezock waits for the rest of the party to hide themselves (possibly commenting disparagingly on how poorly they do it). He then motions to Douena and slinks into the jungle and heads towards the lighthouse.
Stealth
Douena looks at the others anxiously before following Pezock. "If I come running, I'll be running fast."
Mahjik nods at Douena, "We'll be ready, don't worry."
Lorenz looks for a good place to melt into the jungle, gripping his short bow in his hands.
Once he finds a good spot, he presses into the jungle canopy, shifting uncomfortably as branches poke and prod at him.
Douena and Pezock carefully make their way through the jungle alongside the trail, which runs up the side of the low cliff. It's a slow journey and takes about a half hour, but they don't see any cannibals coming along the trail in that time.
As they reach the top, they see that the trail curves away from the edge into a what appears to be an open area. Douena can see the side of a large wooden hut and behind that, the lighthouse rises above it. A Shiv Dragon is tethered to a tree near the large hut. It's alert, peering along the trail and the jungle.
Its head suddenly turns in the direction of Douena and Pezock, its nose carefully sniffing the air. It begins to tug on the rope holding it, trying to move towards the source of what it smells, but only making it a short distance.
Beyond the Shiv dragon and the hut, Douena can just make out more buildings, but the tree cover makes it difficult to see them. She can notice some movement, that increases as the Shiv dragon gets agitated.
"Fall back!" Pezock whispers.
Douena's eyes light up when she sees the Shiv Dragon. "My riding lizard!" she whispers. "Maybe it has eggs around here somewhere." She obediently falls back with Pezock as the dragon reacts to their presence. "Can we circle around and come in another way?" she asks.
Pezock nods, and the two of you fall back into the jungle, circling round to the south. After a few minutes, you make it round to the southeast side and approach from that direction.
From this direction, you see a smaller hut in a clearing. An old woman with a monkey on her shoulder and carrying a walking staff is coming out of the hut. There is also a cannibal approaching her from the east. To the north, you see a wooden pen containing what appear to be a half-dozen animated skeletons. They jerk about within the pen, carrying broken scimitars. Neither the old woman nor the cannibal seem to notice Douena and Pezock.
Douena puts a finger to her lips to motion Pezock to be quiet; she wants to try to overhear anything the cannibal and the old woman might say to each other.
"What is it?" the old woman asks. The monkey on her shoulder tilts its head as if to listen intently to the cannibal's reply.
"The sentry lizard became agitated as if it sensed something," the cannibal answers. "But the guards in the tower saw nothing. We think something may have been in the jungle but withdrew. Klorak sent me to inform you."
The old woman nods. "It could be the ones the woman warned us of," she says. "There has been enough time for them to find their way here from the crazed tengu's crab. We must be prepared for an assault. I will let loose the dead ones to aid in the defense. We will feast well tonight!"
The cannibal shivers at the mention of the "dead ones". He nods his head and hurries off back towards the rest of the village. The old woman stands and watches for a moment.
Douena listens intently, a slight frown of concentration on her face. After the man withdraws, she will wait and see if the woman goes back into the hut before daring to move again.
After the cannibal withdraws, the old woman stands in thought for a few moments. Then she begins to waddle along the path towards the skeleton pen. The monkey hops down off her shoulder and scurries about the path in front of her.
Douena waits until the woman is moving away, then leans over to Pezock and hisses, "She's going to let the skeletons out. Should we go back now or keep scouting?"
Pezock's hand goes to the hilt of his sabre, and he hisses, "We kill the old--" He stops suddenly and lets go of the hilt. "No. There are too many of them for just the two of us. Unless you think your goddess can grant us enough luck?" His eyes look hopeful, but resigned to the fact that he's probably not going to get to attack right this moment.
"She may not look like much," Douena whispers back, "but that cannibal was terrified of her. There's more to her than just an old woman. Plus, that monkey will have the whole camp on us with its screaming, even if we could eliminate her with one blow." She shakes her head. "We've learned too much to risk not getting the information back to the group. All of us together are your best chance at revenge," she insists.
Douena and Pezock push further west through the jungle, around the hut the old woman came out of. From here, they are able to see what appears to be the centre of the village. There is a firepit and several cannibals around it. They can make out a couple more huts as well.
Douena gives Pezock a glance to see if he is satisfied with what they've seen of the town; unless there's another angle he's determined to see, she is ready to head back, cutting straight south through the jungle until well away from the village before turning back toward where the others are waiting. "If the lizard scents us again, they might come out looking for us," she explains, "and I don't think the skeletons will wander far from town. If we do happen to run into one in the jungle, at least we know they can't raise a ruckus."
"So," Makoa asks, "What are the chances those two bring the entire cannibalistic tribe straight to us?"
Mahjik chuckles quietly, before adding: "That depends if Pezock can curb his killing lust or Douena sees a shiny."
"We're doomed then." Makoa states simply, though the corners of his mouth twitch up in what could be a smile.
"I suspect the cannibals can outrun the both of them. If it becomes a race, we're more likely to have to save them."
Lorenz shifts uncomfortably as another branch jabs him in the small of the back.
Douena and Pezock withdraw into the jungle, keeping far back from the village and the Shiv dragon. Eventually, they make it back to the rest of the party, just as the hottest hours of the day are about to settle in.
"Hi!" Douena calls out cheerfully as they approach. "Did you miss us?"
"Good thing I didn't bet any gold.." Makoa mutters. "We missed you plenty. How was your trip to the village?"
"Oh, we learned a lot," Douena tells him, beginning to count off the tidbits of information on her fingers. "There's one of those lizard things tied up at the top of the trail as a guard; it must have smelled us, because I know no one saw us. And it's an old woman who's in charge of all those cannibals; who she is, I don't know, but the cannibals are all scared of her. And she knows Ieana -- at least I think that's who she was talking about: a woman, she said, who warned them about us, although I don't know how Ieana knows we made it off the Jenivere. They know about you and your crab, Pezock, and they know we were there; but they don't know we're staying with Aycenia yet. They've got a pen full of skeletons, like sheep or something, and they let them out to wander around the village. They expect us to attack tonight; if we go back to Aycenia and wait for Aerys and everyone to get well, we might make them wonder, although whether that will make them pen up the skeletons again or just make them come looking for us, I don't know." Looking down at her six uncurled fingers with satisfaction, she goes on, "I don't know how they teach the skeletons not to attack the cannibals; the old woman must be an evil cleric who can control them. Do you think she could be Nylithati herself? She was old, but she didn't seem to be quite that old."
Lorenz smiles and extricates himself from the jungle tangle, not noticing the vines, leaves or insects in his hair.
"I'm glad you made it safely back," he says, as he scans the area behind the two in search of anyone who might have followed them.
"Well if they expect us to attack tonight, that's definitely the last thing we should do. I'm all for letting them try to find us. I wonder if they're planning to stay on extra watch tonight? If so, maybe we should attack in the morning when they're all tired?"
"Wise man would consider carrying a small burden each day. Any chance of us thinning their numbers some more? Patrol-ambushing maybe?"
"I wouldn't mind thinning her skeleton herd," Douena says with narrowed eyes, her disapproval of the undead evident. "I wish I could get up there while they were all penned up in one place and let Desna just get those bones back to lying down like they're supposed to be. I don't know where she's sent them -- not far from the village; she said they would 'aid in the defense' if we were preparing to attack. I'd like to eliminate them ahead of time, if we could, but we couldn't raise a ruckus fighting them or we'd have the whole town out on us."
"Unless the skeletons leave the village, I don't think we can attack them separately," Pezock says. "Unless you have a way of destroying them very swiftly before anyone else notices. I say we gather the rest of our numbers and attack en masse. There are twelve of us and only a few dozen of them. We are sure to triumph!"
Douena lays a calming hand on Pezock's feathery arm. "Let's go back to Aycenia's hill and let the others know what we've found out. We can build that model of the village we were talking about and plan our attack."
"They will probably be on alert for a few nights. If we wait long enough, they will begin to send out hunting parties. Eventually, they WILL send one to the grove. We must be cautious even in waiting."
"Pfff." Douena dismisses that concern with a flick of her fingers. "They can send all the hunting parties they want to our hill. I'm not worried about them there; we've fought them before with fewer numbers and won. Even if they bring the old lady and the skeletons, I'd rather face them there on our own ground than in their village. Too many huts and us not knowing what's in them. And Ieana is somewhere...." She trails off. "I think Mahjik is right: The more of them we can fight away from the village, the better. No, Pezock, we'll still come here and bring the fight to them," she precludes an angry outburst. "But while we're planning and waiting for people to get well, wouldn't it be fun to draw off a few of them at a time and ambush them, like earlier on the path?"
Pezock clenches the hilt of his sabre. "Fine," he grumbles. "Just so long as we don't wait too long. Just until everyone is recovered from their illnesses."
"No longer," Douena promises him solemnly. "We'll all be much more comfortable when we're not sharing this island with evil cannibals. We don't want to prolong our neighborship any longer than necessary."
"Then back to the tree woman's grove!" Pezock declares and begins marching along the trail away from the village.
Douena looks up at the sun at its highest point in the sky. "I know it's hot," she says, "but they suspect we're out here. They might come looking. We probably should go ahead and get further away."
"Not the first time we done it this way, let's go," Mahjik rummages in the plantlife a bit, finding something to chew on while traveling to help keep the heat at bay.
Lorenz sighs at the heat and takes a few minutes to remove his armor before trudging after the rest. He also follows Mahjik's lead in using the environment to aid in cooling him.
Urza is very comfortable at this time of the day.
You begin the journey back to the grove. Even before you make it back to where you need to cross the river and climb the cliff, Pezock is already complaining about slow progress. "Hurry up!" he snaps at Mahjik and Lorenz. "What's taking you so long?"
The current in the river turns out to be particularly strong at the moment. Lorenz, Mahjik, and Makoa have no difficulty reaching the rope, but Douena finds her initial progress difficult, and Urza and Pezock are swept away!
Douena soon makes it to the rope, but it takes a bit longer before Urza and Pezock (possibly aided by others) reach the rope. Pezock glares angrily at anyone who even dares mention his difficulty swimming against the current.
The climb up the cliff is relatively easy, and then you continue on your way. Pezock continues to grumble at the slow progress.
Pezock's grumbling decreases after two hours of travelling through the heat, but it doesn't stop entirely.
At last, there is a crackle of thunder and the afternoon rains start to pour down, relieving the heat. About an hour after that, you reach the grove.
Lorenz turns his face up gratefully into the rain.
"This is a more difficult walk than I'd anticipated," he admitted. "Next time, let's just take a break during the heat of the day."