Amiri wakes up early and prepares for battle. Usual morning preparations to clean up for the day, sharpen her weapons and check her gear. Leading the way out when everyone is ready she attempts to backtrack the group's bloody path from the ambush site.
Once everyone is up and ready to head out, Merisiel inspects everyone to and tighten up loose straps making sure they will be as quiet as possible.
As the group approaches the trail she starts to look for where the ambush happened.
Fumbus follows quietly.
Knowing of the likely presence of minotaurs in the area, Valeros keeps an eye out, while also keeping his weapon and shield ready as they proceed.
Seoni keeps her eyes open for danger and signs of Inira's trail.
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Amiri leads the party on the journey tracking the most recent trails with blood splatters. It isn't to difficult to track as it follows the primary sand road route. Kyra detects no magic along the way, which doesn't come as much of a surprise, but better to be careful than to miss a clue.
Eventually, after about 8 hours of travelling, you come towards a small stone bridge crosses over a shallow, gentle river. A large wagon lies abandoned a short distance from the bridge, with bloody bodies strewn about. Most of the bodies have familiar humanoid forms, while two bodies are of creatures with the torsos of muscular humans and the head and hooves of bulls.
A few of you notice in the distance, opposite the river, two minotaur's attempted to hide in the bushes. But they do so poorly as the bushes barely hide their large torsos!
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Kydra draws her sling, then moves forward and slings a stone at the closest minotaur.
damage
Merisiel fluidly grabs her shortbow, nocks it and releases two arrows at the lead minotaur before moving behind the wagon.
Amiri points across the creek and yells, ”minotaur ambush!”
She pulls a javeline, darts forward to stand on the bridge and flings it at the closest enemy. Standing there waiting for the beasts she adds a taunt, ”bring it on you stupid cows!”
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Fumbus pulls out a pair of bombs, one of alchemist fire and the other bottled lightening.
He then moves forward and throws the alchemist fire at the nearest minotaur.
Seoni moves up behind the husk of the caravan wagons. She watches until she catches the eye of the minotaur wearing the green bandana, then calls out the words to one of her spells - "Zaratatsua eta nahasgarria zara!" - while moving her hands the way she had been taught by her grandmother.
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Fumbus realises a little late that there's danger ahead but nonetheless prepares himself by drawing some bombs and gets closer in on the action!
Amiri flings a javelin into the bushes, but over estimating her own strength causes the weapon to miss the large monster.
Seoni attempts to hinder the minotaur's advances by casting a spell of daze but the creature doesn't subdue and forces his might against it!
Realizing that their ambush is thwarted, the lead minotaur arises from behind the bushes to immediately charge at Amiri favouring his horns over his held greataxe. The horns pierce through her armour wounding the barbarian badly!
The other two lagging minotaurs follow closely behind.
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Kyra casts bless.
She then slings a stone at the red-clad minotuar.
Fumbus positions himself for a better shot and then lobs a bomb at the minotaur in the middle .
He then draws out a second bottled lightening and alchemists fire.
"Remember we need information! We should try to take one of them alive!"
Of course, keeping one of them alive won't do much good if we're all dead.
Seoni strides forward, shouting words of arcane power and waving her hands around.
"Arku elektrikoa!"
A thin arc of lightning stretches between the two nearest minotaurs on the bridge .
Valeros rushes forward alongside Amiri, shield raised.
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Kyra and Fumbus underestimate their strengths as their ranged attacks come short of hitting their targets. But the momentary distraction is enough to hinder the lead minotaur from realizing the electric arc heading his direction casted by the sorceress Seoni. *Bzzt* *Bzzt*."Eerghh!" You hear as the lead minotaur grunts while being critically stunned by lightning! The lagging minotaur realizes enough in time to raise his arms to protect himself.
Seeing his allies in need of help, and finally realizing that there are dangerous Minotaurs at presence, Valeros hurries alongside Amiri to get in on the action.
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Merisiel moves in to engage the lead minotaur. Drawing her rapier she stabs at it.
Screaming in anger as the gore penetrates her flesh, her blood boils and muscles bulge. Amiri unslings her massive sword and with all her strength hacks down at the beast in front of her, "DIE!!!"
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As the barbarian Amiri rages, Merisial quickly moves around the distracted minotaur and stabs him in the neck. She hits a nerve, injuring the minotaur critically. "Eaggakkkk" It squeals before falling. Amiri then swings her weapon but the creature falls before she realises it.
The other two Minotaurs screams at you, but the words and sounds make no sense to you! They eye the rogue with vengeance. The move against her swinging their greataxe's wildly in attempt to subdue the half-elf.
Fortunately, they move relatively slow enabling the rogue to dodge most of the attacks! She does however get slightly injures in the action.
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Amiri darts forward, tunnel vision focusing her on hacking the taur's to the ground, "AAHHHHHHHH!!!!" With a snicker-snack, her blade swipes twice at the creature in front of her.
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Kyra maintains concentration on her bless. Moving forward to ensure that Sarenrae's blessing includes all of her allies in the fight against these evil creatures, she slings a stone at the minotaur which just suffered a mighty blow from Amiri.
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Seeing the arc electricity emanating from the sorcerer, Fumbus glances at two of his bombs and shrugs.
Moving forward, he cries, "Aryuyet elektrikuted?!" as he tosses a bomb at one of the minotaurs.
He then throws the other bomb.
Merisiel closes in on the minotaur her teammates have been attacking. She thrusts her rapier twice at the creature.
Seoni tries to recall what she knows about minotaurs.
Curious about what the bull-men are shouting in Jotun and confident that her teammates have the necessary violence well in hand, she casts Comprehend Languages from her lesser staff of divination.
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Coming to grasp with herself after sustaining a heavy injury, Amiri moves forward and swings her greatsword with raging might delivering a crushing injury. But in using all her strength with her first push, her injuries hinder her from a second powerful attack.
Kyra and Fumbus follow through with their own ranged attacks, a bludgeoning blow to the hide, and an explosion that leaves the creature with a concussion that enables Merisial to come up and deliver another potentially killing blow!
With two minotaurs fallen in quick successions, the third one immediately drops his weapons and raises his hands! With a sense of fear, his rasp voice cries "Зогс! Би бууж өгье! Та нар бол галзуу юм!"
Although Seoni knows nothing about Minotaurs, in casting a spell she is able to understand their language.
Besides their greataxe's the minotaurs' travel empty handed save for one small trinket on the lead Minotaur. A religious symbol worn around his neck.
Fumbus is confounded by the necklace. In a display of his frustration, he repeatedly tosses a flask of alchemist' fire in the air before cathing not. "Fumbus think mintoaur too big to bring. At least, not in pieces."
He starts looking around the cart and bodies for something resembling a clasp.
Kyra frowns as she studies the unholy symbol.
"This is the symbol of the demon lord Baphomet. The Gorebreather tribe is the only group of Baphomet worshipers I know of in the area."
She turns to Merisiel and Amiri.
"Let me see to your wounds."
All the while she glares at the minotaur, waiting to see what her companions choose to do with the foul creature.
"Thanks Kyra. Are the Gorebreathers nomadic?"
The elf then turns to search the bodies near the wagon. After checking the bodies she starts looking on the other side of the bridge for tracks.
Amiri moves up next to the last Minotaur, sword raised to strike its head from its body. But somewhere deep in her blood fueled rage her hand is stayed. Maybe the obvious surrender, the fear in its eyes, or just not perceiving the Minotaur as a worthy foe anymore, her sword drops to her side and she turns back towards the campsite. Fatigue washing over her body, she drags herself back across the bridge while keeping pressure on her gored wound, "watch the horns, they hurt."
Allowing the healer to perform her actions, Amiri nods her thanks and then cleans the blood and gore off her sword before re-sheathing it.
When Kyra reveals the discovered information, Amiri pulls a nasty hatchet off her belt, flipping it a few times in the air, "if you want to kill this thing, just let him free and I'll take him one on one." She adds, "a fair fight is more than it deserves but I'll grant it."
"Thanks Kyra. Are the Gorebreathers nomadic?"
"Just be more careful next time, OK?"
At Merisiel's second question, she shakes her head. "I don't know, unfortunately."
When Kyra reveals the discovered information, Amiri pulls a nasty hatchet off her belt, flipping it a few times in the air, "if you want to kill this thing, just let him free and I'll take him one on one." She adds, "a fair fight is more than it deserves but I'll grant it."
"Sarenrae says that we should never fail to strike down evil."
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Kyra spends ten minutes tending to the wounds of her allies. Fortunately, they are simple battle wounds, making it easily for her to treat them.
Kyra thinks for a moment and tells the group that the Gorebreathers are not nomadic by any means as far as she knows. They were present in Absalom before her birth.
The minotaur stands idly, unsure what to do in his predicament, and slowly walks backwards...
Merisial grows bored and heads straight to the broken wagon to investigate the bodies. She doesn't find anything particular of interest herself. The bodies, none match the description of Inisa at the very least, and it is clear that their deaths were likely at the hand of minotaurs as you notice similar wound marks akin to gores and greataxe cuts.
Across the bridge, it is relatively easy for the rogue to find a few set of footprints, mostly large hoofs, but also a second set of humanoid footprints, more recent tailing the trail of the hoofs.
He starts looking around the cart and bodies for something resembling a clasp.
Kyra points to the backpedaling minotaur.
"Amiri! Kill it before it escapes!"
Fumbus kicks at the cart hoping to jog the compartment open.
Amiri eyes the Minotaur as he backs and sighs, when Kyra yells she jumps to action. Moving quickly to the beast, her hatchet flies towards its neck, "we could have done this as equals, yet you chose the COWARDS WAY!"
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Valeros watches, frowning, but also not intervening with Amiri's attack, "We're... sure this one is evil, then? It looks more scared than anything. I thought Sarenrae was all about the whole.. redemption thing."
"If your done playing with the minotaur, I think Inisa went this way," states Merisiel pointing in the direction of footprints.
"Wait!" Seoni cries out to Amiri. "Let me translate!"
"Stop! I Surrender! You people are crazy! We just want food! Spare us!"
Although her spell does not allow her to speak the minotaur's tongue, only understand it, she does her best to pantomime her question, pointing at the broken wagons and then at the minotaur: Did you have anything to do with the attack on the caravan?
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Fumbus forces the compartment open to reveal a small stash of alchemical goods. you hear A couple vials of glass seemingly break as the compartment is pry. What remains are 2 alchemist fire, 1 elixirs of life, 1 tanglefoot bag, and 1 thunderstone.
In the heat of the moment, the minotaur first seems confused at Seoni's gesture, but perhaps starts to understand as he looks around at Seoni and Fumbus carefully investigating the wreckage. However, he refuses to answer!
Fumbus greedily grabs the items he found and hurriedly stows them away. "No clasp here!" he shouts to the others.
When he rejoins the others, who he hopes took no notice of his recovery if the loot, he offers to look for the bull's tracks.