Oomlowt, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during the past four days, surveys his surroundings to start the brand new day.
Gird stretches, glad that her wounds seem to have not become infected. She can also now move around without gritting her teeth at the pain. And while she is by no means healed, she feels that she could actually hold a sword or fire a bow. It was a nice feeling.
"♪N-n-now that that don't kill me, can only make me stronger!♪"
Gird looks at her partners. Strangely enough, healing with them over the past four days has endeared them to her. Well, perhaps endeared is too strong a word. But at least she doesn't want to strangle them all of the time anymore.
"Morning Goat boy, Omelet. Want some meat?" Gird turns and looks at them, and seeing that they both are surveying the landscape, doesn't bother. If something were to come up, they would undoubtedly see it.
Woden slowly rises from his sleep, feeling better than ever. While his comrades are not in the best condition, they are much better today. He gathers his supplies and stands, stretching out.
"Ahh...Good morning everyone!"
Specifically, what appears to be a partially disturbed patch of earth, right here.
Oomlowt noticed the earth and smiled for the first time in days. "Garhan, do you see that?"
Garhan nodded.
"Indeed, I've been looking there for a while now. It looks like someone's been digging there."
Oomlowt grinned and flexed his talons. "I think we should finish where they left off," he said before moving to the spot to get a better look at it.
Garhan followed Oomlowt - but not before he waved Woden and Gird a good morning-greeting with a hearty smile.
"I think we'll do some morning exercise before any meat!"
Arriving at the spot of dirt, Garhan examines it a bit better. It looks like whoever digged here did a good job - you really have to get closer to the spot to see it's been digged.
"Uh... So, do you have a shovel, Oomlowt? I... Don't."
"I am the shovel," Oomlowt announced. "It's me."
And then he just started full on digging with his clawed hands, because he was a kobold and that's what they do.
Garhan watched Oomlowt with a surprised smile, and decided to join in after watching his Kobold friend dig for a while. He could defenitely try to dig even without mighty claws..!
After about ten minutes of digging, and attracting the interest of at least Gird, Garhan and Oomlowt managed to uncover their prize!
It's a leather cloak, folded neatly and very fat in the center. Unfolding it reveals a number of various treasures, including:
- A Beautifully carved dagger
- A small rod-like object with a sculpted head of flame on one end, a hand carved into the center of the inferno.
- A silver ring
- A rain-damaged, but still somewhat serviceable, spellbook
What do you do with this promising bounty of booty?
Gird looks a little disappointed, perhaps she was hoping for a sword, or something else she could put to good use.
Nonetheless, she still says, Hey, omelet, give me that rod-thing.
She didn't know what it was, but Erastil be damned if she wasn't going to take it.
Oomlowt handed the fire thingy to Gird while trying to appraise the dagger and ring.
Garhan watches the treasure, actually pretty pleased. There aren't many items here, but the few seem to interest the tiefling witch. Especially the spellbook and the rod-like object with the carvings.
Yes, they do interest Garhan.
"Hey, Gird... May I see that rod for a while?"
Garhan asks politely, but won't grab the rod from Gird. He picks up the book first, trying to understand what sort of spellbook it might be.
There is no way you can be wrong about this.
You are the rogue here, your knowledge of shinies is irrefutable.
Gird gives Garhan a dirty look, As long as it's mine when you've figured out what it does.
Then she shoves the rod into Garhan's hand, and glares at the rod intently.
If it wasn't some sort of super amazing magic item, she could always use it for barfights.
"Of course, it's yours!"
Garhan is happy to see this spellbook seems kinda valuable.
Now, is this rod really magical like he believes, or is it just a nice-looking stick?
"This dagger is fairly worthless," Oomlowt lied. "I'd like to hang onto it anyway. I think Woden should get the ring, don't you all agree? For saving us from the boars and all."
Gird is much to busy glaring at Goat Boy to even try to sense Omelet's motives. Which is a shame, 'cause that dagger did look like it might be worth something. But really, the cool backscratcher thing looks magic, and there's a spellbook, so it might actually be, and wouldn't it be sweet if it could fire...fireballs or something? That would be really cool. Yeah, Gird is definitely getting the fireball backscratcher thing!
"Just as long as we're clear, shortie." Gird says, crossing and uncrossing her arms. "Wouldn't want you to get your hopes up or anythin'. And whatever, Pretty Boy can have the dumbass ring. He deserves it For running away and letting us take the hits. Have the dagger; it's useless to me."
The object seems to be some sort of wand, but you can't quite figure out what its power is.
Probably something related to fire, based purely on the aesthetics of its design.
"Yep, here's your rod back", Garhan said as he handed the rod back to Gird.
"I don't really know what it does, but it might be a wand with fire powers.
And yes, Woden can have the ring as much as I'm concerned!"
Garhan switches his attention back into the spellbook. He'd kinda want to hold on to it, even if it might not be any good to him. But reading about spells would be nice.
Gird's eyes light up. "Fire powers? Magic fire powers? Oh f@$$ me!" Gird snaps the wand out of Garhan's hands and waves it around, though not near anyone, because she's not quite that dumb. "So, how do I make it work?"
As Gird waves around her wand, loudly wondering how it works, a 15 foot cone of flame shoots from the tip, setting the grass near her feet on fire, before fading away again, leaving only scorched earth and slowly burning cinders behind.
"Mother of Erastil..."
Garhan lets out a yelp and pulls the spellbook up to cover his head as the fires shoot out of Gird's wand.
As the flames die down, our brave hero feels brave enough to look at the scorched earth from behind his spellbook.
"...Yeah, that's how it works..."
Woden, far enough away to not hear them but still able to see that sudden fire, jumped a bit as he called over to them.
"Hey! What the hell was that?"
Gird turns to Woden, grinning hugely. "That, Pretty Boy, was Gird, master of fire. You will fear me! ha-HAH!" Gird waves the wand in the air, not actually trying to trigger it but also not really caring if it does. "Hot damn I am awesome!"
"P-please, put that wand down! I already fear you!"
Garhan backed a few steps from Gird, holding up the spellbook for protection.
Oomlowt slowly backed away from the two, as he didn't want to get his already sore scales singed.
Seeing her teammates concern, Gird grunts and lowers the wand. Wow, what a bunch of p*****. "I'm not going to use it on you, gods. Calm down and stuff." Turning to Oomlowt, Gird narrows her eyes. "Him, I expected this from. But you? Come on Omelet, where's your sense of danger? I'm not actually going to set it off on you!"
Gird considers waving it around her own head, but decides that one brush with death is quite enough this week, thank you. Sighing, she fits the wand into a loop on her belt, making sure that it can't be jostled easily.
"Hmm?" Oomlowt said. "Oh, you thought I was backing away in fear? No, no, I was just looking at the clouds. They're quite pretty."
Gird raises her eyebrows at that. "Sure you were."
Looking up Gird notes that the clouds are quite pretty. He honestly might have; Omelet was a (sneer) city kid; she'd heard they were into beauty and philosophy and stuff. Somehow, this didn't actually help Omelet's reputation in Gird's eyes.
"Uh..."
Garhan puts the spellbook down, embarassed he got so frightened.
"Does... Anyone else want this spellbook? Or can I keep it?"
Gradually changing the subject. Smooth.
"All yours, Goaty. Not like anyone else has much use for it."
"Everyone should have at least one book!" Oomlowt said. "That one can be yours."
Books are so great!
"Thank you."
Garhan smiled. Maybe he'd have nice times reading this book.
But before he'd let himself think about this book any further, he seemed to remember Woden was still far away.
"Ah, Woden! We have a piece of treasure for you, too!"
"Oh! Be right there!"
Deciding to leave the comfort of the campsite, Woden promptly rushes over to his comrades to receive this "treasure".
Gird watches as the elf runs over. It's nice to see that the only other person with any sort of defensive capabilities is up and running again. Next time, he can charge the godd*** monsters.
"Got a nice ring for you, Pretty Boy. Looks real shiny."
After hugging his new spellbook enough, Garhan seems to remember something pretty important.
He suddenly feels like he really should heal his trusty friends before they all venture any further. None of them are still in the best of spirits, after all.
"Oh, guys, I just remembered! Hold on tight!"
And then, without asking any permissions, Garhan touched everyone inappropriately - uh, I mean, touched everyone's hand or cheeck or something, and finally slapped his own cheeck, casting his Healing hex on everyone.
Where did Garhan just heal her?
Gird bares her fangs and snorts. "If you ever try that again I swear I will start upholding Erastil's values on inappropriate-touching-while-not-creating-babies. I swear to you I will."
Gird turns from the others and starts marching up to camp. She really, really wants some pig meat now.
Oomlowt felt good when Garhan touched him. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.
"Hey, my bleeding parts aren't bleeding anymore!" the kobold exclaimed. "Garhan, you're a wizard!"
After obtaining his ring, and being healed, Woden stretches with new found vigor.
"Ahhh, good as new! Thank you Garhan!"
Garhan gulps, loudly.
It wasn't his fault Gird was so damn tall he couldn't reach any more proper places..!
After imminent death by the hands of a teammate had been avoided though, Garhan at least tried to relax and turned to Oomlowt and Woden.
"Heh, no problem... And not really a wizard but at least I can help a bit."
After exchanging witty banter, you decide to move on with your exploration, although a decision is made to double back to Oleg's for resupply, or at least some rest in real beds.
And so, you bravely decide to circle back to the Trading Post, but to also explore more Hexes along the way.
And so you spend three days trekking through hexes and it is rather uneventful even at your camps, until you spot a hut in the distance on the evening of the third day, smoke curling from its roof.
It is the 19th of Pharast, soon to be the 20th.
What do you do?
You have fully explored two more hexes, that means XP for everyone!
You each gain 50 XP, bringing your totals from 576 XP to 626 XP!
Gird looks at the hut.
"Right then, I say we play it safe this time. Get Goat Boy, Omelet and I into a nice cover position, send Pretty Boy out to charm whatever the f*** is in there. That good with everyone, yes?"
Gird looks at the others. This was a good plan; they had better acknowledge that.
"I like this plan!" Oomlowt said. "I'm excited to be a part of it!"
Garhan eyes the hut with suspicion in his eyes.
"But... What if there's an evil onion hag inside that doesn't get charmed by Woden and wants to eat him?"
There was genuine concern in his voice.
Garhan, don't you know the onion hag's just a fairytale your mother used to scare you when you were little?
"Hehe, an onion hag Garhan? Please. Even if such a thing could exist, I'm sure my charm would pacify it in to time at all."
Woden gives himself aa smug grin, although he hopes to whatever god he believes in that onion hags don't exist.
"Don't worry Garhan," Oomlowt said. "I will hide and snipe the hag from the bushes. Woden will be perfectly safe."
Garhan nods with a smile. He was feeling a lot more confident about this now.
"Allright! Then go and use your charms, you beautiful man!"
Was that supposed to be encouraging?