Denair's arms combine into a massive tree stump, and she slams down upon the Festrog.
She then takes the opportunity to climb on top of the cart.
"Ewww, it smells really bad." Denair pouts. "And I'm covered in... yucky stuff!"
Laiashi and Denair advance on the horrible creatures from multiple angles, pressing the attack with a well-placed stab of the fiery young woman's blade and a slam of a fist the size and hardness of a knot in an old oak tree. Both creatures seem severely weakened from the rapid attacks of the Pathfinders, perhaps this confrontation will be over before it really got started!
Denair attempts to climb up on the cart next to her in order to gain the advantage of elevation, but her foot slips on some residual gunk in the cart, and she is unable to clamber up for the moment.
"Eww!" Denair begins to climb the cart, but instead scrapes the undead flesh off of her arms.
With all of the movement, Farshaya's first strike glances off of the festrog's thick, leathery flesh. The second blow, however, connects with the creature's left temple, scrambling what remains of its brains and dropping it to the ground, dead.
Schlllunk!
Saritirnen's arrow sinks into the rotten flesh of the zombie as it stands to attack his allies, but the creature's new posture reveals that it must, indeed, but one of the living dead, for Saritirnen's arrow is not the only one protruding from this walking corpse. The shot was a powerful one, but ultimately did little to harm the creature.
Now, as the zombie of the miner once known as Steve stands, and its cold, dead eyes turn upon Laiashi, perhaps some deeply buried memory of Steve's widow drawing its gaze toward the only woman standing before him. With a moan, Steve raises an arm and brings it down upon Laiashi to take her in his embrace.
The zombie's powerful slam comes down, hard, on Laiashi's shoulder, dislocating it leaving what will surely turn into a massive bruise! Still, the woman is resilient, and she remains standing, perhaps plotting how she will take her revenge.
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Jann watches the carnage unfold passively. He nods when the dog-corpse goes down and then watches as the poor pretty woman gets whacked, hard. He moves up behind Lai and murmurs a few words of a strange tongue. He hand glows with an odd blackness as he touches her.
"There, there. The dead are simply jealous that we have yet to experience the glorious end of all things as they have. Don't take it personally. I'm sure in light he would have been quite enamored of you."
Meredith's bolt flies past Willem and Farshaya and sinks into the zombie's flesh, just as Saritirnen's arrow had moments before, leaving a gaping wound, but Steve the Zombie still stands!
Jann, seeing the terrible attack inflicted upon Laiashi, moves up and provides some healing, the magic coursing from his fingertips resetting her shoulder and lightening the bruise that has begun to form.
Denair yelps as the Zombie slams into Laishai. "Okay, you go squish now!"
But the slime is still messing with her footing.
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"What Tha..." Farshaya had seen dead bodies before, but had never known a corpse to stand back up after taking so many arrows to the vital organs.
He hops up and levies a soft boot off of the corpse's chest, trying hard to ignore the nauseating squish of its chest cavity caving in, and delivers a hard kick with the opposite foot to its face.
He lands on his feet, grinning in expectation to see how a walking corpse manages with no head.
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No sooner had the undead thing dislocated Lai's shoulder than Jann gets to work fixing the wound. It still smarts, but at least her arm is usable. So that's the strange man's talent, she thinks, having wondered what he brings to the Society. She can only assume his magic is of the godless variety-- would a death god want him healing me? Then again, does it matter? She applies both her daggers directly to the problem.
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Laiashi's daggers cut two deep furrows across the zombie's throat, loosening the attachment of head to body. Willem's sword goes wide of its mark, as does Denair's powerful slam, and Saritirnen moves into position to give further aid, but Farshaya's kicks both connect, first collapsing the creature's chest, then completely detaching its head from its body. And with that, Steve the Zombie was returned to eternal rest.
As the dust begins to settle and you begin to wipe the gore of battle from your various weapons, you hear the sound of weak voices crying out from a supply shed on the opposite end of the mining camp. A few piles of mining equipment also remain around the camp, though someone might need to sort through some of it to determine if there's any salvageable equipment among them.
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"Yeah, I hear that. Denair, go back up Mister Willem." Meredith calls upon the organization of the ant to raise a new Unseen Servant.
"Unseen Servant, start sorting through the mining equipment. Return anything that isn't broken too badly."
Meredith pulls out a wand. "Laiashi, I have a wand that will cure wounds quickly. I can try to use it, but Sartinen and Jann are better at it than I am."
Denair cleans the sludge off her long skinny branch-like fingers and then moves behind Ser Willem. Meredith takes the time to reload her crossbow.
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Farshaya follows Sir Willem over toward the shed. "Aye, we do. Better there be livin' folk in there'n more of them juju men." Farshaya steps to the side of the structure, inspecting around it for signs of any danger and listening harder to the sounds emanating from within. "Hey now, what have we inside? You livin', breathin'? Or are you more zombies?" He pounds his fist on the wall, ready to spring away like a scared hare.
Meredith's Unseen Servant begins to root through the piles of equipment and quickly discovers that some of it is indeed still in excellent shape. Among the piles, it discovers two finely crafted heavy picks and an ornately carved heavy wooden shield bearing the insignia of the Golden Crown painted in bright, reddish-gold on the boss.
While the invisible helper is searching through the camp's leftovers under Meredith's supervision, the rest of the team makes its way to the shack from which the shouts were heard moments before. The structure is little more than a large, free-standing closet, only about 100 square feet in size at most, and as you draw nearer to it, you are quickly able to see signs of the kobold attackers's attempts to force entry into the shed.
When Farshaya knocks on the wall, a short scream rings out in surprise at the sudden noise, but the voices quickly go quiet again, except for a few hushed whispers. A moment later, a woman's voice calls back, "Yes, we're alive. We're miners from the camp here. We hid in here when the kobolds attacked, and began to come out when that Festrog showed up. Is it...is it gone? Are...are you here to help us? Oh please say yes!"
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"Yes." Faryshaya responds as directed. "We're Pathfinders, sent t'find man by name 'o Sharrowsmith. We ain't gon' harm ya, so come on out now. Coast's clear. For now."
"I'm tha Freewheeler, and this my shipmates'n friends Meredith, Denair, Willem, Saritirnen, and um, Jann. And o' course this precious thing, Laiashi. How long you folk done be hidin' 'n there?"
"Oh, hi! I'm Denair! You guys are safe now!" Denair uses Prestidigitation to clean the grime off of people. "My boss is sorting through some of the debris, looking for usable tools."
"Are you guys alright? What happened here, anyway? Why are kobolds attacking you? Oh, did you guys see someone named Sharrowsmith?" Denair has a million questions, but she's rambling a mile a minute.
Meredith meanwhile keeps filtering through the debris. The invisible force brings a pair of pickaxes and a shield. Meredith looks at them, curiously. "These are pretty good...You'd need some training to use this as a weapon. And shields... ugh." She shakes her head. "Let's see what the party found. Follow." She hoists the gear and approaches the party, hoping Denair hasn't embarrassed herself yet.
As Farshaya assures the miners that the coast is clear, you hear sounds of scraping and banging as they begin to clear away the makeshift barricade they had set up to block the door. A moment later, a dirty, pale-looking woman pokes her head out and looks around. She screams briefly when she sees Jann's unusual condition, mistaking him for a zombie at first, but soon realizes that the man must have some kind of really horrible jungle rash. She emerges from the shed followed by two younger men. All three of them are pale and sickly looking, and look as if they haven't eaten or had anything to drink in days. Once they are all out of the shed, they make their way to a nearby table with some overturned chairs, right the chairs, and sit down. "Thank the gods you lot showed up when you did," the woman says, "I'm Cecilia, and these are Baldwin and Aeric. Like I said before, we're miners for the Gold Crown company. A few nights ago, some kobolds ambushed the camp. They killed or captured most everyone. We only escaped because we made it to the shed in time. We've been in there ever since."
Cecilia looks over at Denair when she begins to fire off her barrage of questions, and her face twists into a look of shock and bewilderment. "Uh...um...well...as for why the kobolds attacked, I couldn't tell you, but I know we hadn't had an attack like that until after your Sharrowsmith came through here a couple weeks back. Now the little buggers are attacking in droves, and this last time they took captives. When they left after this last attack, we could see through a crack in one wall that they were marching off eight or ten of our folks. There's a forested valley further off into the Hills, maybe 15 miles or so from here. We think that's where they took 'em. Could be that's where your Sharrowsmith went off to as well."
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"Sorry about that. Denair gets a little too excited sometimes." Meredith catches up. "At least she can get rid of the sweat of ya."
"I'm really sorry to hear about the kobold attacks. No idea why they would capture workers from here," Meredith considers. "But that does mean they are alive. All I have to offer are some trail rations. That would last you long enough to reach Fort Bandu. It's a 20 mile hike though... you could stay with us, but were planning to find the kobolds in the valley and rescue everyone. Your choice."
"If you need help cleaning or filtering something, my uh...Unseen Servant here can help sort through debris. Just tell me what you're looking for."
The miners gratefully accept Meredith's rations (I'm assuming you'd also offer some water). After getting some food and drink in them, they look much better off, though they still do show some knicks and bruises from their flight to the shed. Cecilia stands and gives a short bow to you all, "Thank you all. I think we'll be alright now that we've had some food and water. We'll head back to the Fort. I think a bunch of kobolds is probably the last thing we want to see right now. If any of you lot ever want to deal with the Gold Crown company, you just mention our names and I'm sure you could find a good arrangement." The three of them begin looking around the camp, collecting a few logbooks and journals in sacks, and also grabbing some crude spears left over from the kobolds' attack. They wave to you all as they head back the way you came, making their way back to Fort Bandu.
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"Rats! I forgot to tell them about the heat." Meredith shrugs. "They'll be alright, they know the route."
Jann mentions the Old Ones again. "Before we turn to mulch though, how 'bout you finish helping Laishai? Her shoulder still looks a little funny."
Meredith and Denair take one last look around the camp for any clues. The unseen servant is more than willing to sift through gunk, dirt and debris, although the bodies are much too heavy.
"Good job cleaning them up. Just remember you like a tree covered in fox fur. Slow down before you greet yourself."
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Ser Willem notes the Gold Crown Mining Company for a future endeavor with his own business. "It would be a pleasure to work with you again, perhaps under more auspicious circumstances. That being said, we will see to your fellow miners and about those kobolds. Something has happened to rile them up."
After they've left, he looks to the others. "Let's see about those miners. These three left in a hurry without much worry about them, but I'm hoping it's just the fact that they've been trapped for days."
After checking his armor and his blade, he is ready to move.
On that dour note, you make your way into the wilds of the Bandu Hills. The directions the miners gave you steer your course in a general direction, but there are no trails through this part of the country, and it takes some cunning navigation to make sure you stay the course correctly. Despite the rough going, however, you do have one relief, as the day has passed into late afternoon, and the heat of the day has diminished to a more comfortable level. The potions you gained from Praetor Sylien earlier have done their job to help you endure the worst of the day's heat!
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Working her shoulder, marveling at how easily the wound had been healed, Laiashi tries to make careful note of their direction-- peeking at the sun through the trees, noting the wind, hoping they're moving in the right direction.
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Meredith holds her pack tightly and goes through the jungle. The heat wears off and Meredith exhales. She's clearly relieved for the heat to wear off, but it makes her too complacent. Her sense of direction is ruined.
Denair follows closely, her eyes noting every detail in the jungle, her nose picking up on every scent and her feet tasting the water and soil. It's so engrossing, Denair keeps quiet except to give basic survival ideas.
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Farshaya plucks the juicy caterpillar from the enormous romrom leaf hindering the view of the valley, popping it into his mouth without hesitation. A few disgustingly wet chews and he swallows, sucking his teeth. "A little prickly, but nothin' ta fear, say. Next'ne's for you, Jann! Anyway, any time now we're bound t' break through. Feelin' it in ma bones!"
With a great cleave he hefts his sword and slices down the dense foliage before him, barely making a dent in the irrepressible jungle.
Departing from the mining camp, you begin you difficult trek through the trackless wilds of the Bandu Hills. Despite the twisting dales between the dry, rocky hills and the dense undergrowth of jungle that creeps among them, you manage to keep your bearings and make your way toward the hidden valley of which the miners spoke.
A few hours later, you finally reach the top of a particularly treacherous hill and come to a drop-off at its summit. The hard climb is reward, however, with a view of the valley you seek. This ancient valley nestled in the Bandu Hills is well hidden, being almost impossible to spot from more than a mile away. Ancient megalithic stones—most of which are toppled and partly buried—ring the border of this deep valley. These stones, long since weathered by time and encrusted with vegetation, serve as the only indication that humanoids may have at one time settled this region. The thick forest canopy of the valley below hides any sign of civilization—ancient or otherwise—from outside observers.
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Jann sighs deeply, taking in the sight. "This place is nice. The forests have take back any civilized influence. After the Darkness Between the STars arrives, many cities will also fall to nature again. Of course, our descendants, if they live, will crouch like rabbits before the wolf, but we will be long dead or hopelessly insane. So there's a bright side!"
"Oooo, pretty!" Denair looks around the rocks as they travel towards the Valley. "Wow, a big kitty! I think it's stalking after us." She runs her leafy tongue across her lips.
Meredith turns when she hears this. "Damn, we don't have time for this." She loads her crossbow and readies her mace. "Everybody, stay alert."
Hearing Jann talk about the fall of civilization, Denair gives a curious glance at Meredith. "Why does he get to talk about the fun stuff but I can't?"
Denair decides to hang around undergrowth and bushes, trying to keep up with the party, but stay hidden at the same time.
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"I don't know about all that, but it is pretty. And yeah, I noticed her awhile back. Maybe if we don't attack, we'll be left alone?"
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x10= 160ft
Based on it's lean frame, long legs, and distinctive spotting, Denair is able to identify the cat as a common cheetah.
When you finally arrive at the edge of the valley, those of you watching out for the cheetah spot the creature as it rushes out from behind a rock on its way to duck behind a tree. It sees that it has been spotted, however, and turns to face you. It fails to notice Denair, however, who has masterfully blended into the treeline just beside the path a short distance behind the group. It would seem that the cheetah was finally trying to make its move against you as you find yourselves on the edge of a steep descent into the valley.
"I spot a spotted cheetah!" Denair whispers to the party. "I'm gonna slam it if it gets close."
Denair waits quietly for the cheetah to approach within 40 feet of her, where she will charge forward.
Denair's AC is 13 this round.