If you didn't try to kill them, how would you know they were stronger, smarter, and more skilled?
"Exactly."
"Yes! That is the way of the swamp! Find things, fight them, and the loser gets eaten by the winner! And hydras are right near the top of the food chain, so we hunt and eat whatever we wish!"
"Especially elf wizards!" Beachhead says, with incredible subtlety.
Nothing is foolish enough to disturb you while you rest later that night.
Besides the usual grumbling in your stomach, the morning greets you with something of a quandary--you're heading roughly northeast, but... northeast is a big direction. You're vaguely aware that if you head more east you should hit a river which flows from the northeast, while if you go more north you'll probably hit the mountains. Are you heading more north or more east, or straight down the middle?
Tomorbataar stretches out, looking over the four poster bed he's just slept in to check for bedbugs. Bedbugs, the bug of the devil.
Should probably head off to the mountains, eh siblings? Could get a good view even if we don't find the wizard, and then we just have to look for signs of experiments. Ought to let Mo hunt again.
Tomorbataar votes to head more north northeast.
Ziphora sighs as her brothers violently disagree with the concept of vegetarianism. 'I guess maybe if I find some nice tasting plants I can talk them around...'
"Yeah elf wizards deserve to be eaten for terrorizing our friends." Ziphora agrees with beachhead.
Ziphora is fine following Tomorbataar's lead since she has no idea where that whizard would be
Ziphora is fine following Tomorbataar's lead since she has no idea where that whizard would be
Same.
"Dinnae one of you have some trick whereby we could fly or see far or something? Now is certainly the time for such talents, for we verily must find the wizard afore we can trample him."
Failing that, Grash votes to proceed perfectly north-east, using Know Direction to ensure exactness, and trampling anything in the way.
No, that was a different fellow, but he's gone. Out feet will serve, for now.
Isn't it better to go towards the mountains?
Mo goes off to hunt as you turn roughly north-northeast.
After a couple hours of travel, Mo returns with a brace of turkey--not exactly a filling meal for you, but enough to keep your stomach from complaining for a while.
You hear some squealing up ahead of you past some thick underbrush, and once you come through to the other side you see two massive boars, posturing at each other in some kind of territorial dispute. As you crash through the underbrush, however, they turn and charge!
"Hey you. Don't piss US off or you'll become lunch!" Ziphora tries to dissuade the boars from their chosen actions.
Once that fails, she defends herself with lightning bolts, then starts commenting that the boars attacked them first and she was just acting in self defense. And boar makes good roasting. A little guiltily.
"Hah! That's the right attitude! Too bad for ye that ye be much smaller than we, and delicious!"
Grash doesn't bother with the fancy stuff here, he'll just bite.
From his hiding place, Beachhead hisses, "Look at these tasty vegetables!" Then he'll surprise-strike as soon as a boar is in range.
I'm not sure these are vegetables. Tomorbataar says, swinging out with the hard side of his head.
If we cut them open there might be vegetables inside, though, then we could let 'em go.
The boars paid no heed to Ziphora's words, and not even her lightning dissuaded them. They ram right into your chest, which hurts, but isn't particularly effective, especially since it puts them in reach of Grash, Beachhead, and Tomorbataar.
A little while later, you're having a nice ham dinner. Mo watches with just a hint of pleading in his gaze.
Huh. Tomorbataar says, remembering that most creatures don't regenerate. I guess cutting them open and getting the vegetables kills them. Oh well.
Mo, would you like some ham?
Grash happily eats the boars, not particularly caring one way or the other if Mo gets any.
"Come and join our feast, Mo." Ziphora invites him to join dinner.
What if he doesn't want to join the feast? If he wants to not eat, then let him, I say. Tomorbataar takes a dainty bite of ham and chews it while looking at Mo questioningly.
Mo was quite happy to share some boar.
It takes a couple of days to reach the mountains, days in which you eat... well enough. When at last the trees thin out, you don't immediately see any signs of the wizard, just a distant flying creature turning and soaring to the east.
Beachhead suggests they try to find a way up onto a peak to get a better view of the area, as per Tom's suggestion.
What a great idea Beachhead, I'm sure you must have gotten it from some divinely intelligent being.
"Do you think the wizard was a dragon in disguise?" Ziphora asks the other heads curiously.
"Mountain climbing would take too long! That flying creature looks suspicious, I say we chase after it! And then fight it!"
Grash votes to chase the flying thing.
Well, let's think about that flier. If the wizard is a dragon in disguise, then that's the dragon. He's probably already seen us, so if it is him, he'll come talk to us soon. If that does happen, everybody, Tomorbataar looks around at all the heads, we should definitely, definitely avoid fighting out in the open. If he can fly and we can't, then he can easily run away if he wants to, so it'd either go poorly for us or not go poorly for him. Probably poorly for us.
Instead, what we'd want to do assuming the wizard is a dragon, is to find his cave full of treasure. That way he'll have to come defend it, and then we've got him trapped in a cave. Gotta get to bashing distance. Tomorbataar swings his head to emphasize this point.
Now, if it's not the wizard, the same ideas apply, we want to fight it in a cave or somewhere it can't fly. So really it seems like, no matter what it is, if we are going to fight it we should still climb the mountain.
As for deciding if we even should fight it, I think we should. We know that this wizard doesn't really tolerate other people in his territory, that's kindof why we're even here, and also that he has servants. So it's fairly likely that this dragon is not going to be friendly once it realizes whose side we're on. And it can fly, so it can move fast. Which means we really want to kill it now while we've got the chance to approach unhindered, while it thinks we're its friend, and before we go to the wizard. Because if we go to fight the wizard and then a dragon shows up at our back, we'll be fighting two against one, and that's not what we want. Tomorbataar looks around at the others.
So we should pretty much climb the mountain no matter what, right? I mean, even if we decide not to fight it, then we still revert back to the old plan, which involves climbing the mountain.
Tomorbataar votes to climb.
Climbing the mountain is slow going. Given the awkwardness of your body, you're fairly limited in the slopes you can climb, so you keep having to look for other ways around.
After a couple of hours of this, you see a flying thing coming towards you again.
Looks like someone's riding the dragon. Means it's civilized, and will listen to reason. Tomorbataar sticks his head straight up to try to wave at the dragon from far away.
Now, which of us is the best liar? I think not me, perhaps Beachhead, you seem the sneaky sort? In any case, we must try to get into the dragon's cave, maybe we can get it to help us climb faster.
Might want to make some magical defences just in case it attacks us.
"Whoa Tom, that's the most I've heard out of you for a very long time," Ziphora looks at Tomorbataar, awed. "But you're right that confronting a dragon in the open is a bad idea. Sure I could zap it, but that'd be a me only thing."
"What are you talking about, Tom, it's just a flying thing." Ziphora grumbles.
Well, I suppose I've got a lot to say. Dunno, been kinda quiet. He looks around at the others, then down, at the great lump of a body they're attached to. There is a second.
Anyway, there's definitely something on its back, maybe just a box full of treasure or something, but even then I'd think that it'd have to be rather civilized.
Could you make a signal?
"I could make a signal, but it'd probably be misinterpreted. How would you like if someone fired a freakin lightning bolt into the air?" Ziphora retorts."You'd probably think the other party is hostile!"
Then she cocks her head, thinking hard for a while. "I know! We'll get Pacem to deliver the message. Mo! Write a big message on paper, or if we don't have paper, get the nearest leaf - that says "We come in peace, and wish to talk"" Ziphora looks to see if she can find an olive tree nearby, so they can grab a branch.
"Or we could ask Warhead if he knows any peaceful trumpet signals so he can blow to signal our peaceful intentions!"
Grash looks distinctly skeptical. "I dinnae know any trumpet signals at all. I be a war-drummer and tale-teller, not a horn blower." He then looked at Tomorbataar "And why be you so convinced it be a dragon? Ye just started sayin that when we first saw the thing, and ye never got a good look at it! It could be any number of flyin' beasts! Like a wyvern, or a manticore, or even one of them flyin' horse-things! Also, I might point out that precariously perched on a mountainside be about the worst possible spot for us to be fighting flyin' critters from!"
Wyvern, Manticore, Dragon, what's the difference? In any case, like you said, we don't want to be on the mountainside, so we'd better try to lure it to a cave before we go all warlike.
Maybe you can scorch a signal into the ground with lightning?
"Complicated plans never work. If I'm going to be sneaky -- and let's face it, I am -- then I'll hide. When it gets close, I'll jump out and do lots of violence to it! Then you heads do lots of violence to it, also, and then we keep doimg even more violence to it until it's dead!
"If we find some dragon's cave before that, even better! Anyway, let's just roar really loud to get its attention."
That plan seems fine, except for the part where we keep doing even more violence, because it'll just fly away. Then it'll get three of its friends and they'll come back and roast us to pieces.
So basically the only part of your plan that I like is the part where we roar.
"Do you propose to sneak past it? We're not exactly inconspicuous, you know..." Ziphora cautions.
"If you scorched the ground, all you'd get is glass."
So just make a glass sign that says "We come in peace".
"If you scorched the ground, you would get glass fragments, not an entire sheet of glass with writing."
Just control it well, I'm sure it'll be fine. What even is glass anyway? Tomorbataar stops and thinks for a bit.
Clearly what's hapenning is that the air in the lightning is getting pushed into the rocks and making them clear. Let's arrange the rocks in the shape of a sign then blast them.
Tomorbataar votes to move in such a way that they can gather rocks and arrange them in a sign that says we come in peace.
The creature has been drawing closer as you've argued. You can now all see that it looks rather like one of those flame drakes you fought earlier, but this time some sort of goblin-looking thing is riding it. They've definitely noticed you, given that they're flying closer, but they stop a few hundred feet away.
The goblin-creature shouts, "If you've come to speak with the Master, you're on the wrong mountain. We will show you the way."
"Hello there, who might you be and who might your boss be?" Ziphora tries to make friendly overtures to the goblin like creature, but her smile looks like she is baring her teeth.
Grash looks disapproving, hissing to Ziphora "No, no, that's not how ye do it. These kinds of things are supposed to be formal-like if yer not fighting, at least."
Turning back to the flying rider. "Aye, we be seeking yonder wizard's abode. It twould be of great assistance were ye to guide us there."
He distinctly didn't mention about how the plan was to eat the wizard, not talk to him.
The goblin-looking creature bares its teeth back at Ziphora, then looks to Grash. "Yes, the Master is this way, who you spoke to before."
He knees the drake in the side and it turns, and they turn slightly, leading back down the mountain.
Tomorbataar holds his breath as the drake lands, looking at it intently with bulging eyes. Don't say anything, you'll screw it up.
As Ziphora speaks, he scrunches his face up, wincing slightly, and still holding his breath. You would've done worse...
As Grash speaks, he begins to wave his head around, face turning pink, veins bulging. Great, now just don't say anything.
Suddenly, Tomorbataar explodes as the drake begins to walk away, gasping for air. He looks intently concentrated on the Goblin. he says, eyes wide, ...Why does it look like you're walking away? Can't you... Tomorbataar eyes the others, fly?
A bead of sweat rolls down Tomorbataar's forehead.
As soon as Beachhead notices the drake approaching, he hides.
He is the hydra's secret weapon. His surprise appearance could save the day.
he says, eyes wide, ...Why does it look like you're walking away? Can't you... Tomorbataar eyes the others, fly?
"What are you doing?" he hisses.
The goblin-looking creature looks back. "So you can follow," he answers, his tone of voice making it clear he thinks it's a stupid question.
Tomorbataar's face is a deep shade of red, perhaps purple, although it's difficult to tell if it's from holding his breath or trying to avoid spilling their secret. Of course. Sorry, give me one moment, he says loudly.
Tomorbataar makes a great arc with his head, as though he's trying to find something in the sky, then makes a big swinging motion about the body, again, looking for something. Then suddenly, midswing, he veers sharply towards Beachhead, coming to a stop right in front of him. I don't think he was able to follow me, he begins, stealing a glance at the goblin creature, voice a harsh and loud whisper, I was just, you know... he begins...
"All right. We'll follow you. " Ziphora replies. 'He' ll lead us to the wizard, right? '
Vote to follow gobbo
"Ugh. You're the worst. Pretty awesome, but also the worst,"
Beachhead votes to folllow the drake.
I'm awesome? Tomorbataar says, glancing around to make sure everyone heard. Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Tomorbataar then does the reverse of the strange, sky studying routine. By the time he faces the goblin it looks like he's returning from an afternoon stroll, the picture of calm. What were we doing?
Tomorbataar eventually votes to follow the Drake.