"Now THAT's a useful trick! I was really NOT wanting to have to follow him. Thank you!"
Hmm... meat could be tough, not sure if much wouldbe edible or perhaps appetizing.
Alasayn frowns disapprovingly, "Well, that did not go...quite as intended."
"Does anything? And if the meat's tough that's what a marinades for. And a hammer." Dawn examined the dead birds to see if there was enough meat to be worth coming.
The longer Dawn considers the birds, the more she begins to wonder if eating them would actually be such a good idea. While large enough to act predatory, even she's aware of how foul the meat of carrion feeders are. She might be able to stand it, though her larger companions were liable to end up bedridden at worst, or latrine bound at best. As far as she can see, there's not one of those fore miles.
Still, the little leshy is at least cable of plucking some striking looking feathers while butchering just enough meet to keep her sated. Which is, of course, almost twice the amount of an adult human could stomach.
Off to the side, Emma bussies herself tending to her horses's aching wounds. She arrives just in time, coaxing it away from death. The injuries it sustained would normally render any equine crippled and sentenced to a cruel life. With the grave of a cleric behind her however, the animal need not fear.
It kicks and flails as lingering pain wakes it, and with some struggle manages to get itself back onto it's own four feet. The beast shakes it's head before gazing at Emma for several long seconds before tilting down, nuzzling the human. Almost as if it recognized that she had saved it's life.
With the attempted runaway kept by Alison's magic Hildeberg has little trouble in coaxing her own steed back to the party. It seemed almost confused when the undine's magic broke, animalistic thoughts passing through it's head before recognizing the lack of dangerous flying terrors.
"Well, we ready to get back to it? Emma? Can you ride, or does your horse need a break?"
"I suspect my ride is fine now. Well, as fine any of us after such an experience."
The cries of the condor that fled echo over the empty planes, yet the soon fade. It's debatable whether they'll find another updraft to lift them up into the sky proper, but this is the harshness of Ulnswhere. Tjere's a reason birds are rarely seen beyond the confines of cilization in this cursed land.
Dawn revealed her arm - the plant matter covering the divot where the bird had taken a chunk out - and said, "Well, my skin is healing - although it's not really my skin, exactly - but the bit underneath is a bit hollow. It should heal soon though."
It's no problem Dawn. Hopefully that will be the last of the violence for the day.
Cure Light Wounds:
The flesh restored, Dawn nodded. "Thanks!"
Kaliban dusts himself and his horse off, gathering his thrown javelin.
The occaisional threat, but otherwise... a pleasant jaunt. Let's continue. Good work, everyone.
To serve beside you is an honor.
The opressiveky warm air settles upon your shoulders as your hearts come down from whatever the rush of combat may've brought. There's still a fair distance yet to reach the village indicated on your maps.
Alasayn smiles slightly at Kaliban, "The feeling is...mutal."
He looks up at the sweltering sun, "I say we make haste to that village."
He rubs his hands together before dipping a cloth into his waterskin and wiping his forehead, "My skin is uncomfortably dry."\
Emma Jane touches Alasayn's shoulder, using Prestidigitation to moisten his skin slightly.
"Minor trick I learned at the College."
After taking care of the horses as best they could, the group sets out down the road once more. The occasional angered cries of the vultures fade into the distance well within an hour, before fading away to nothing at all. Grounded, it's likely that the vicious birds of prey will soon have the tables turned against them by whatever stalks the dry plainsland. Yet more victims of the nation's curse.
Time waits not, and day quickly gives way to night once more. With the injuries sustained by some of the horses, you don't make quite as good of time as you hoped. As you crest over a hill in the middle of the night however, you spy the feint vestiges of light in the distance. It'd probably take another hour or two to reach them at current pace, but there's the feint promise of a comfortable bed. How the citizenry would take to strange travelers in the twilight hours of dawn however is more of a gamble.
"Hmmm, much as I'd like a soft bed, perhaps resting here and investigating in the morning would be more prudent. We don't really know what to expect. Best not face it at less than full strength."
"I'll leave it to you folks who do the sleep thing. I'll be a vine anyway, so it doesn't make much difference to me."
Emma Jane's words chime with wisdom. We don't know what we are waking into.
I can take middle watch. Let's pick a good spot to hunker down.
Kaliban stalks the immediate area, seeking any advantage.
"Guess I'll take first."
"You guys can all sleep, you know," Dawn replied cheerfully. "I still don't sleep." She paused. "At least, I don't think I sleep. It's the thing where you close your eyes for a while and keep rolling around and around, right? And sometimes talk about weird stuff. I guess I could do it, I just never got why."
The night starts to pass, or at least what's left of it.
Dawn partners up with her companions through the night, keeping them company as they watch the deep shadows around both the vilage and them. It occurs to them, how odd for such a meagre collection of buildings to be lit so brilliantly by distant torchlight. Some odd instinct compelled you to settle yourselves just a little closer to your own fire.
It's perhaps half an hour before the sun raises when the leshy, joining Emma for last watch, takes note. Out of the corner of her eye there was movement. When she turns to face it, alerting the bard, a strange lumbering black shape out past the village seemed to make retreat away for reasons unclear. It's quickly lost track of in the deepest shadows of the pre-dawn.
When light peaks up over the horizon, the torches illumnaring the village are snuffed out one by one.
The air is cold this morning.
"Well, that was odd, what we saw in the wee hours just before light," Emma Jane says to Dawn, once the party is awakened. She hopes Dawn had perceived it better than her.
"Hope they've got enough water it won't cost us a horse to get what we need."
Dawn shook her head and clicked her tongue in mild annoyance. "I saw the thing, but I saw it as it was leaving. Maybe it was a bear? Can't imagine there are that many large lumbering animals around. Are there any monsters that are big, live in woods and don't need much water? Are werecamels a thing?"
"Whatever it was, let's hope it doesn't return unexpectedly."
"Indeed, lurking beasts are never a good surprise in the dark of night."
Light crests more over the horizon, as the spellcasters among you have time to go through their morning rituals.
Hilde will run through her morning exercises while the caster prepare. "Ready to meet the locals? hey should be able to tell us about your bear-thingie."
"Indeed," says Emma Jane, preparing to mount her horse.
Perhaps a bear, looking for food. Let's get on with it, the locals aren't going to introduce themselves... He gives a Kaliban smile.
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"I thought it might be a bear, but then I thought a werecamel might make more sense, but I'm not sure if those are real real," Dawn 'explained'.
At Dew's unprompted comments, both Alasyn and Emma think back to their studies regarding Lyncanthropes. There are a number of them besides the more commonly recognized wolf, though most are more localized and are rarely seen outside their host nations. One such would be the strange existence of werecamels, whom are native to the dessert nation of Null towards the south-east. Animalistic instincts lends to them a largely nomadic lifestyle of peaceful docility. However, they are known to be very aggressive when threatened.
Though their sizes are comparable to those of the party's own horses, the shape seen that morning seemed distinctly larger. While technically possible, the two casters would find the likelyhood of the shadow being this far north while seemingly terrorizing a village to be highly improbable.
"Rather strangely, they are indeed real. Not quite as strange as the pescothropes, that is to say in layman's terms, the fish lycanthropes of Osknia, but still a bizarre creature."
"Wait. Aren't you a fish people of some kind? There's a difference?"
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Alasayn’s eyes widen and he splutters slightly before saying, voice full of indignation, ”Fish people?! Why I….”
He scrunches his lips and exhales sharply before doing his best to regain his composure, ”I myself am more like you than a fish. My forefathers, regrettably it seems, were humans before a clan of marids took a shine to them. The merfolk, as the bearers of the Gift of Civilization, were sculpted by Typhis herself in her own image as her chosen people. The myriad other client races of Osknia have their own origins, and precisely none of them are simply fish people!”
Alasayn sighs before a smirk spreads across his face. With a dry chuckle he says, ”Now, I must be candid, it is a common jest among the Empire’s people that all you air breathers are just different sorts of hairless ape. It cuts both ways I suppose”
"I'm not hairless!"
"I'm a plant," Dawn said cheerfully, having been proven right about werecamels. "We eat apes and fish." Plants truly devoured all...eventually.
As Dawn cements herself at the top of the food chain, the party eventually comes toeard the outer reaches of the little vilage. Out here you can spot clusterings of hardy sage bush, adding a hint of color to an otherwise drab and dead land. There are a few outlying buildings and pens that seem to house goats, and you can hear the telltale call of a rooster some ways off.
There's no farmland here, though the way some of the nearby fields have been patterned there's an old agricultural scar. Though it may not look like much now it's likely this used to be an important node of Ulnswhere's breadbasket. You can only surmise the residents nowadays get by on harsh diets of meats and roots.
When the group approach close enough you can clearly see the dense ring of sta ding torches that have been placed around the town, their wicks blackened and charred by their constant fires. A wiry man in ramshackle leathers knocks his bow warningly.
"Stay right where you here are. State your there names, and business happenings." The man speaks, words harsh and broken.
Alasayn gives the man the slightest of bows as he calmly introduces himself with his full title, ”Well there’s no need for that my good man! I am Alasayn vun Alushir, thrice-assumed inheritor of house Alushir, Lower Post-Margrave of Yulthinth, and adept-psychic, officially licensed by the Emperor of Osknia’s thirteenth advisory circle. These are my companions, Hildeborg, Dawn, Kaliban, and Emma Jane.” He gestures to the party as he introduces them as he goes on, ”We are on a mission of sorts, seeking information about the weather-stealing curse afflicting your lands. In particular, a merfolk hermit lives somewhere near here, and we seek his knowledge of the situation. Ah, but I’ve been terribly rude, what is your name and the name of your town here?”
His eyes widen the longer Allasyn speaks, and the grip on his bow slackens.
"Fancy speak..." the party hears him mutter before, "M'name's Kev. Here place is Ironplow. Nothin' to plow no more though. Ain't any fishfolk here either."
Hilde chuckles. "See? fish-folk!"
"I'm Dew in the Dawnlight," Dawn added formally. "Do you know what the big spooky shape outside of town was? It got pretty close to our camp, and we wondered if it was bothering you folks too."
The shadows of his sunken face deepen. "Bonesnapper. Hunt-watchin' us for near a week now. Ain't safe out there place."
Kev gestures roughly towards a hill off the way you came, "We saw-spotted' your fire. Smart. Stick close to fire when night fall."
"What, pray tell, is a bone snapper?"
"Ain't a what. Bonesnapper's a he. He's big, mean, 'n ugly." The man pressed. He held his stare at the undine for a moment longer, before turning and jerking his head towards the village.
"Mayor can tell y'more. If that's what you want-seek."
"Bonesnapper sounds scary," Dawn said slowly. Then she perked up. "Good thing I don't have any bones. And I'd like to talk to the mayor."