Six small dark figures can be seen clinging oddly to the trees looking down at you. Two of them speak quickly to each other in fast sounds that seem oddly familiar.
They are speaking Grippli.
Then one of them says to you. "Everything on ground then come with us."
Teleri smiles brightly. "Oh! Wonderful. We hope to speak with your leader. Thank you for offering to carry our gear for us. How gracious!"
She puts her pack on the ground and waits expectantly.
The dark shapes pause quietly for a moment at Teleri's friendly manner before quietly descending the trunks. When they step out of the shadows, you see small, humanoid frogs wearing necklaces of teeth, feathers, and simple cloth garment. They carry shortbows and Spears and divide your possessions amongst themselves to carry. They then begin leading you silently through the swamp until you reach a collection of several dozen huts in a clearing surrounded by bald cypress. A hunched, heavy grippli emerges from the central hut and converses rapidly with the scouts who brought you then turns to you. "Trespassers from the town. What are you doing here?"
Teleri nods at Ives words and adds: "We apologize for showing up uninvited."
"The runoff water from the mine in town has been poisoning the river. The miners were not aware of the problem. Now they are, and they're willing to fix it. But someone in the forest -- we're not sure who, exactly -- has been attacking the mine. We think it may be some of the fey. We'd like to speak with them. Do you know who we should talk to, please? If you can just point us in the right direction, we'll be happy to leave you in peace."
The old grippli scans Teleri and Ives searchingly. "Miners not know? Miners stopping bad water? Hmm... Maybe things get better." He ponders for a moment then seems to snap out of it at Teleri's question but he doesn't answer it. He simply says "Come" and leads you deeper into the village until you come to some catwalks and homes constructed over the water.
A large central tree with a chamber inside it seems to form their meeting room as many grippli pour into it while the elder leads you to the center. He begins conversing in grippli for a few minutes then stops. Another old grippli stands and makes several statements, gesturing to two other grippli who rise at his motion. The elder nods then turns to you. "We have been showing the big townfolk what think of poison water. Bad fish. Bad water. Bad everything. Make them stop. You say they stopping. Good. We will stop too in such case. But Wynnebog challenge. Say you lie. Has right to challenge. Offers two champions. Fight to the yield. You accept to prove true?"
Somewhat taken aback, Teleri says "Oh. Well ... if that's how you do things around here, then -- yes."
Wonderful, she thinks. Trial by combat. Well ... when in the swamp ...
"Ah, what are the rules, please?" she asks. "I don't want to break any of your customs."
The elderly grippli nods "Wise question. Weapons allowed. Magic allowed. But must stay on ground in arena. If leave, lose. If enemy die, you die. Make both enemy go asleep, win."
"All right then," Teleri says. She pulls out her light mace. "I guess I'm ready."
The elder raises his staff and shakes it. The grippli get extremely excited and began chanting and shaking their fists. They herd you out of the meeting hall and along a catwalk to a large, round platform mostly over the water with vines and lilies growing on and around it. You are directed to one side of the platform while your opponents take up position on the other. You are handed a green fruit and instructed to smear it on yourselves while your opponents smear orange pulp all over themselves. It seems the crowd is about evenly split as roughly half of the grippli, desiring to stop fighting, smear green pulp on themselves as well while the other, angrier half displays bold orange colors.
Teleri takes the fruit and applies it without hesitation, running one streak down her nose, one down each cheek under her eyes, and three along the backs of each hand. Then she wipes off her palms and steps onto the platform, light mace in hand.
Teleri grins weakly.
Your opponents stand, knees bent, poised to launch themselves into action on the other side of the small platform. One carries a small wooden shield and has some sort of wooden carving hanging from his neck. The other wears no armor and carries no weapons (despite unfortunate bow in picture). The crowd of seventy or so gripplis on the bank, the entire village, grows quiet as the elder raises his staff. He shouts instructions to you ”When bring staff down, fight start!” He holds his staff high for several heartbeats then brings it whooshing down through the air.
The grippli leap quickly into action. The one grasps his necklace and shouts something. The lilies and vines on the edge of the platform surge upward, grasping at your ankles. Both Ives and Teleri are entangled by the spell! The other grippli springs forward, flying through the air, and landing in front of both of, striking at Ives with a fist and Teleri with a foot. He connects to both of them!
Ives lands a serious blow on the frog!
"Ack!" Teleri exclaims, as vines spring out of nowhere and wrap about her ankles. She tries to wriggle free.
But she's stuck. Frowning, she turns her gaze on the spellcaster grippli. "You should take a nap," she advises, and hums a short lullaby.
The vines clinging to her make it hard for Teleri to keep her mind on her spell! It fizzles out.
Ives starts to feel something tingly under his claws. He looks at the skin of the grippli he struck and sees a faint slime covering it. Frog poison!
Ives shakes off the poison, however, drawing on the purifying power of the forest he grew up in. He's confident that the poison can't affect him now and has spent all its potency.
The unarmed grippli lashes out again while the other lifts his necklace and waves his hand upward toward his ally and downward to you.
The grippli in front ducks and dodges while lashing out, striking Ives in the shin and Teleri in the foot with lightning fast blows! He appears rejuvenated by the effects of whatever the other grippli just did!
The vines itch, distracting Teleri from her spell. Grimly, she decides that magic is not the right solution at the moment, and opts simply to try and get free of the vines.
Teleri struggles fruitlessly against the vines.
Ives strikes hard at the grippli, leaving him staggering on his webbed feat. The frog-person appears to grow angry and throws himself into striking Ives!
His surprisingly sharp hand speeds toward Ives. Ives wrestles the hand away but the frog draws on an inner well of stamina and strikes Ives once in the gut while is ally heals him again. His foot strike misses Ives face, despite rising up to his eye level with surprising speed.
Frustrated by the vines, Teleri yanks her feet out of her boots entirely, leaving them behind. She turns and tries to dash around the grippli in front of her, flinching away from the inevitable blow...
The frog man kicks Teleri hard as she rushes past him then strikes twice at Ives but misses! The other Grippli stares defiantly up at Teleri as she approaches and clasps his necklace again, sending energy into his ally.
Teleri glares at the grippli. "I don't like being called a liar," she says, then steps sharply back from him and begins incanting the sleeping spell once more.
The quick grippli kicks Ives once more but lightly this time. The other grippli begins casting a spell.
As Teleri prepares to act again, her spell tries to take hold on the caster. At first, his head lowers but then it jerks back upright again as he fights off the spell!
The grippli slumps to the ground in front of Ives, unconscious.
Teleri grits her teeth in frustration and starts casting sleep once again, this time targeting the one in front of Ives.
A crane appears from nowhere as the grippli finishes casting his spell and strikes at Ives thrice! It only lands one blow but it is a serious one (3 damage). The grippli then strikes Ives twice, the last blow leaving the plant warrior unconscious. Cheers and cries go up from the gathered grippli and the elder casts a spell, causing Ives' breathing to become regular. Teleri's spell then comes about, causing the other grippli to fall unconscious.
As Ives tumbles into the seething vines, Teleri releases her spell on the grippli warrior who felled him and the crane that appeared out of nowhere. Without a pause, she begins casting her spell one last time. Beads of sweat cut clean paths through the green fruit pulp on her forehead.
The crane also falls asleep! It's just Teleri and the grippli spellcaster conscious as the moment, but the spellcaster is looking at his sleeping ally while trying to keep an eye on what Teleri tries.
The grippli springs lightly over to the side of his ally, landing on all fours and shaking him by the shoulder. The other grippli stands up, looking around disoriented.
Teleri's spell fires off! The spellcasting grippli falls unconscious but the wounded warrior sets his eyes on Teleri, focusing on preventing her from casting again.
"Drat," Teleri mutters.
"All right, you," she says, shifting back a step. "Come and get me, if you think you're up to it, you ... silly little green man!" She makes a gesturing motion beckoning him forward and tries to look fierce and insulting.
The grippli rushes forward toward Teleri and strikes her in the gut and then again in the head, knocking her unconscious as she tries to fall out of his way. As cheers erupt from the orange half of the crowd, everything goes black for Teleri.
Later, Ives and Teleri wake in a room with their bruises and cuts bandaged and several grippli tending to them.
Teleri's eyes flutter open. Several unladylike thoughts tumble through her head.
"Ugh," she says, lifting a hand to her head where she lies. "Lovely custom. Whoever punches the hardest gets to dictate what truth is. I think I may introduce it to Dinas Diwydiant. It would make the parties much more lively."
"Don't you understand, Ives?" Teleri asks tiredly. "Because they beat us, the tribe believes that we lied about SMC fixing the water. Therefore, the tribe will keep attacking. And Mr. Trenton agreed to fix the water if we stopped the attacks. Which we have failed to do. So now SMC won't fix the water, the plants are going to continue being poisoned, and probably a lot of people on both sides are going to die fighting one another for no good reason."
Several Grippli tend you im this small hut by the water. Several with traces of orange still remaining on them laugh and joke. But one witj flecks of green still on her smock is quiet.
"So, what happens now?" Teleri asks the attendant with green on her smock. "Are we prisoners?"
The laughing Grippli step out of the hut and the one with green looks at Teleri with concern but without much understanding. She pulls out a sharp stick and some soft tree bark. She draws a series of very rough pictures. The first is of a woman and a man with leaves on him lying down on a platform with their eyes closed and two Grippli standing over them. The second shows a woman and the leaf man walking away from huts where Grippli are sad. The Grippli attendant specifically picks up this second picture and, making eye contact with both of you, thrusts it away. Then she draws several other pictures (listed in no particular order).
0. The first picture of the Grippli standing over the two figures.
1. The woman and the leaf man fight a large snake.
2. The woman and the leaf man standing near a large, very nice hut with smiling Grippli around them.
3. The woman and the leaf man standing around smiling Grippli who are lying on the ground.
4. The woman and the leaf man building a large hut.
5. The woman and the leaf man standing on a platform and fighting two Grippli.
6. The woman and the leaf man standing over a dead snake with Grippli smiling around them.
7. Sad Grippli lying on the ground with the woman and the man standing over them holding some objects out to the grippli.
She arranges the pictures on the floor of the hut in the following way.
xx2 4
5 6 1 0
xx3 7
She looks at you imploringly, hoping you understand.
Teleri watches the grippli with interest.
Once the drawings are done, Teleri puzzles over them for a while. "I don't understand the reading order," she says, sitting back on her heels. "I've tried left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top, spiral, and boustrophedon, and there's always something that seems out of order, like us standing beside a hut first and then building it afterwards, and so on."
She reaches out to the image that shows them fighting a snake and taps the snake. She raises her eyebrows and rolls her hand in a circle, trying to indicate tell me more about this.