Forty feet away Jon keeps watch as best he can in the glaring sun.
Whoever this halfling is, he's devestated. Seeing Jon won't help... and a bow is not a weapon the dead often use. The living are smart enough to ambush those helping the helpless.
By helping the halfling they've picked a side.
"Easy there, short stuff!" Petra hisses, clapping her hand over the halfling's mouth. "You want to bring a horde of rotters down on us with that ruckus?"
She will do her best to hold him until he seems to calm down-- the last thing she wants is to let him go and have him bolt off wildly or start hollering again.
Petra cups a hand over the halflings mouth while attempting to pin him...
Petra has a hard time keeping the halfling in her grip.
The halfling slaps Petras hands away as she tries to grab him, then stumbles backward. Turning, the little man stumbles a few steps then breaks into a full on sprint toward the valley.
"Ah, slag!" Petra growls as the little figure wriggles out of her grip. "Godsdammit!"
They're not on a mercy mission. Man wants to run off and get himself killed, that's his problem. It still rankles-- they've spent some of Deng's precious connection with life on the halfling, and he's probably going to be nothing but rotter food.
She looks unhappily to the others. "We could try and trail him, careful-like, but let's not run headlong into somethin' stupid."
Deng sighs. "I'm betting he's headed for the main body of birds. Could be big trouble. Could be some supplies to scavenge."
A curious elven balance of calm prudence and rash impulsiveness define Aurengil's character, and now the elf explodes into motion, moving at an astonishing speed towards the halfling, calling for him to take heed of the dangers Aurengil knows lay ahead.
"Master halfling! Wait!" he hisses in a loud whisper, easily keeping pace with the diminutive escapee. "We mean you no harm! Petra was merely trying to warn you not to make a great noise because of the dangers that lay ahead! You have to stop running and talk to us!"
<- Ha!
"I'm game to trail him by myself if you're worried about ambushes." Jon offers
"Oh for love of--!" Petra snarls as Aurengil gives chase, smacking her forehead with her callused palm.
She dares not holler after the long-limbed elf, but gestures to the others.
"C'mon, we've got to be within shoutin' range if Aurengil goes and trips over a nest of rotters. Damned elves," she mutters.
She sets out after Aurengil, lips pursed, trying not to make too much noise.
The halfling must be out of his mind for fear, rage or both. The little man continues to sprint on, heading straight toward the valley and the thick cloud of birds overhead.
Keeping just off of the trail that leads toward the valley you approach cautiously and thus you lose sight of the Halfling. As you make your way closer to the valley you see that the little man was running toward what appears to be a village. Small hovels constructed into the ground are situated before you.
If there are Dead ahead then I need to stop Aurengil from getting surrounded and killed...
The desperation in the thought lends wings to Jon's heels as he runs, forsaking any concept of dafety.
In the center of what appears to be a village of hovels, you see two small figures laying in the grass. One of the prone figures could be the halfling whom you just encountered, as the forms look small enough, although it is too hard to tell from your vantage point.
Beyond the halflings, on the other side of the small village of dwellings, you see two bone white skeletons. One skeleton wields a bow, the other holds no weapons, there heads turn in your direction and grin something sickly.
Between the skeletons and the halfling figures lies a pool of undulating black goo from which rotted and broken bones protrude.
?
:-(
The grinning unarmed skeleton stalks toward you with a lumbering sort of alacrity.
Its archer counterparts bow fires with a twang sending a missile sailing through the air toward Petras direction. The arrow is way off target, however, and falls short of Petra by many feet.
Deng, you see that the prone halfling is indeed the little humanoid that fled for the valley, moments ago.
Not wanting to attract unwanted attention, or have others attract it for him, Deng casts Hide from Undead on just himself, and then closes towards the prone halfling, hoping the goo won't be able o detect him, either . . ..
Deng casts a spell of abjuration, hiding him from the undead for the time being, and then moves forward.
The huge undulating black mass of goo quivers like jelly, causing the rotted and broken white bones protruding from its mass to be expelled like puss from a pimple. The bones topple to the ground and quickly reform and rise into
Karmuk runs forward towards the nearest skeleton.
Aurengil paces alongside Karmuk, moving sixty feet towards the combat.
If someone doesn't distract that mob, someone's going to die. Too far for me to effect...
Jon sprints forward again, running directly forward towards the sparse cover of a young tree.
"What in hells is that stuff, it's makin' bone-buckets?" Petra growls, squinting ahead.
Petra scrutinizes the puddle of black goo.
The skeleton with the bow twangs off another arrow which sails through the air towards Karumk but misses the dwarf.
The skeleton closest to Karmuk takes a step forward and mauls the dwarf with its old-yellowed bony appendages.
Deng moves closer to the fallen halfling and, again, casts Stabilize on his form before getting close enough to see what shape he's actually in at the moment.
"We've got to kill that pile of goo!" Petra yells. "It's undead but it's just gonna spit out more rotters!"
Deng moves within his intended spells range and casts a spell designed to stop one from bleeding out to death.
The oozes spawn advance together forming a front line wall that marches but halts as one just behind the skeleton assaulting Karmuk.
After its undead spawn march forward, the ooze appears to slide across the ground. It stops behind its spawned undead wall and engulfs the two Halflings making a sickly sucking sound as it swallows the two small helpless humanoids into its mass of black goo.
The skeleton fronting Karmuk explodes into a hail of tiny fragments as the dwarf connects with his heavy flail.
"Dang it! How do we get them out of that thing?"
Jon, 30ft away behind a tree concentrates. Ice condenses in his hand as he manifests a single, pure point of cold. Without thinking he throws it at the Ooze.
"Deng! Do your thing!"
"You!" Aurengil yells, pointing at the northernmost skeleton. "Go over there!" He points at the northernmost hovel.
"Leave that one for last," he mutters to his companions.
Jon hurls the concurred ball of ice at the huge puddle of black ooze. The ice ball hits the mass of black goo and is harmlessly absorbed into the thing eh the thing
Aurengils newly acquired undead thrall will obey as commanded on its turn.
"It'll suffocate those poor wretches," Petra snarls, then uses her built-up momentum to barrel the last ten feet into one of the skeletons, shield first.