"Good Gods, why am I feeling so terrible?", the wizard asks everyone (but mostly himself) when he joins the others for breakfast. "I sure hope that us helping the kobolds is not the cause for all this."
"It might have been some bad water," Pril offers, holding her stomach. "Although, I feel better this morning than I did last night. How is everyone else doing?"
She walks over to where Harriet is observing the group. "I bet you feel fine, don't ya, Girl?" she asks as she gives the big cat an affectionate scratch along the cheek.
You continue on through the jungle for another three days, not finding much as you head back north towards Akrivel. On the fourth day, you move southeast, and come across a site of interest.
A one-person campsite occupies a small clearing in this narrow valley. A smoldering bonfire is at one side of the camp, while a ten-foot-tall wooden pillar topped with a carved dragon head looms over the other. The dragon head and pillar have been stained black with pitch, and thin wisps of smoke rise from the head’s open mouth.
The eyes of the dragon head suddenly glow, and a beam of energy fires out to strike Pril, threatening to blind her!
A creature suddenly rushes forth from its hiding spot behind the pillar. It resembles an unholy fusion between an charau-ka and a red dragon. It stops about 20 feet away before opening its mouth wide, breathing forth a cone of flames upon you!
The wizard screams as hungry flames overwhelm him. It's over before he realizes it, but the fire did a serious number on his clothes! Luckily, his mustache managed to avoid the worst of it.
The gnome doesn't close her eyes fast enough and sees nothing but a blinding white light.
"Guys? Is everyone else ok?" she asks, but a moment later and she is engulfed in flame. Her skin screams in pain as her body attempts to shift elsewhere to avoid the damage. "What's ... what's happening?" the gnome pants out. "Is everyone ... everyone ok? Talk to me, please. I can't see."
The blind gnome crouches down low in an aggressive stance before moving forward to sweep her leg at the creature.
Still sickened from his bout with dysentery, Allandir catches the fire breath full-on. The elf crumples to the ground, smoldering.
As Ervan dispels the runes from the dragon pillar, Lucius soothes Allandir's burns. Pril rushes in but fails to hit the draconic charau-ka. Allandir gets back to his feet and fires two arrows at the beast, striking twice, one of which is a critical hit!
Shrieking with fury, the charau-ka works itself into a frenzy as it dashes past Pril to get to Allandir. It bites and claws at the elf, slashing him twice with its razor-sharp claws and dropping the ranger once again!
Pril lets out a roar that in spite of her small size is a bone-chilling sound.
Lying bloodied and cut to ribbons on the ground, the elf dreams of happier times.
"I want there to be a connection between us."
Allandír moves forward while Pril is speaking, and he has the manners to let her finish her speech before kissing her, gently but with considerable attention to detail. He pulls back, panting slightly - Pril wasn't kidding when she said she has more stamina than he does - and looks her her with a smile. "I want the same thing. I'm just not good with words. Now will you PLEASE. STOP. TALKING."
"That's fine," Pril says as she takes a break between kisses. "I've got enough words for both of us," she says, her breath heavy as she pushes aside the blanket revealing her bare skin. She pulls him into the soft hammock, paying no mind to the swaying. Her hands direct his to where she wants the attention the most.
"But if my mother couldn't get me to shut up then what makes you think .... unhhh ..." Her words trail off into a gasp and a moan as his hands successfully navigate her desire. A moment later and Allandír discovers that there's a trace of blue in the gnome's hair still.
Having mastered the basics of Frank Benjamin's conductive arcane principles, Ervan manipulates the primal forces of the jungle to unleash a terrifying torrent of lightning.
Lucius pours more healing energy into Allandir to revive him again. The draconic charau-ka seems unimpressed by Pril's roar, and it dodges her strikes once more. Ervan's lightning catches the creature straight one, gravely wounding it!
Allandir stands up once again and fires two arrows at point-blank range, one each into the charau-ka's eyes! It shrieks and shudders as it falls to the ground, quite dead!
The gruesome reality of the eye-for-an-eye principle causes Ervan to flinch and steer his gaze away from the charau-ka's mortal coil. Yes, he might be cold and somewhat distant, but life has a way of challenging your assumptions. Right now, Ervan is feeling decisively less comfortable with violence and its ramifications.
However, with Pril and Allandir being in terrible shape, it is up to Ervan to keep tabs on their surroundings to give Lucius time to see to their companions. "Take care of them, Lucius. I will keep watch. As for the body, it shouldn't be going anywhere, so please do focus on your recovery for now."
Once you have time to examine the body, you don't find any gear on the strange hybrid creature. Further studying the disabled dragon pillar, though, reveals that it appears to be part of a larger network of defensive magic. The power of the pillars likely creates wards around the Cinderclaws' base of operations, which may include the effect that nauseates any Ekujae elves that enter this portion of the jungle. You will have to find and disable the other pillars to bring down the wards.
Once her sight has returned, the gnome stays close to the recovering elf.
"So let's go find more of these pillars," she says with enthusiasm than she feels.
After resting over night, you head south and continue exploring the expanse of jungle. The next day is uneventful, and as you continue south on the second day, an enemy patrol emerges from the undergrowth! Four boggard warriors precede a masked charau-ka priest who wields a wickedly sharp longsword. The simian cleric snarls a command in Draconic and the boggards leap to the attack!
Pril snarls back in the same language. Probably not something polite by the tone of it. She moves in to engage the boggards.
Allandír looks with satisfaction at the dead creature.
Once up and about, he gently looks after Pril until her eyesight recovers.
The tall elf keeps a wary eye on the foes. Letting Pril tackle the boggards, he focuses on the priest.
"Why must they always choose violence?! It is madness!"
Lucius's blessing settles over the party as Allandir takes aim. The elf fires two arrows into the charau-ka's chest.
Ervan maneuvers to line up the boggards before unleashing a crackling bolt of lightning! The spell has a devastating impact, insantly electrocuting three of them and leaving the last one standing badly wounded. Pril darts in and finishes off the last boggard with a pair of crtical strikes, then continues to stride up to the charau-ka!
The gnome dodges the charau-ka's twisting tail as it lashes out at her. Flying into a shrieking frenzy, the charau-ka casts a spell and tries to leech Pril's life force out of her, following up with a pair of slashes of his longsword! The blade slices the gnome once.
"Ah, these creatures are immune to logic and reason!"
The gnome resists a portion of the spell, but she still pales slightly as her life energy is drawn out. She clinches her jaw in determination and transfers her assault to the charau-ki.
Allandir keeps firing at the enemy spellcaster.
Allandir lands one precise hit, his arrow sinking deep into the charau-ka's chest. Pril pummels him with a quartet of powerful punches, then Ervan finishes him off with a blast of pressurized water that sends him flying across the clearing to land in a crumpled heap against a tree. You have defeated the enemies!
Assuming that the cardinal can heal them back up, Pril recommends continuing on with their proscribed course; south to the river, then northeast and then north.
Her body shifts and her hands begin to roam. "And completely unrelated," she adds with a giggle. "Have you ever done it under the night stars?"
"Thanks, Cardinal," the gnome says with a grin. "Someone like you would be handy to have around on Testing Day."
"Nah," Pril replies with a sly grin. "I'd keep you all to myself. And I'm sure you wouldn't charge me, right?" She then breaks into a laugh. The laugh doesn't last long, however, as sadder memories intrude. She adopts a more formal posture and bows at Lucius. "Thank you again, Cardinal."
After healing up, you continue with your exploration. It is the same day, only a few hours later, when you come upon something of interest. Smears of blood and the signs of struggle mar the nearby jungle foliage, leaving a trail of broken branches leading further into the trees.
Following the trail, you soon come upon an attractive Mwangi man with thick braids, wearing fine clothes. He is dragging a bloody cloth sack behind him. The man seems surprised to see you, and says something in the Mwangi tongue.
Unable to converse with the man without resorting to magical means, Ervan looks at his companions and hopes one of them will be able to engage in a meaningful discussion with the man. After all, he is dragging forth a rather ghastly sack and whatever he has to tell them might be important. Or gruesome. Or both.
"Uh, Hello there," Pril says with a smile and hands wide to show that she's unarmed. "We don't speak that. Do you speak Taldan?" She then attempts the same greeting in gnomish and sylvan. Assuming that speaking draconic might put them in the wrong category, she leaves that option as a last resort.
The man shakes his head, says something in Mwangi again, then turns to leave, dragging his sack behind him. Pril gets the sense, though, that he is only pretending not to understand her. She also spots something moving slightly behind the braids that obscure the back of his head...
The man ignores Lucius as well.
Allandír sighs and says loudly in Taldan (loud enough for the man to hear) "Well, we'll just have to shoot him. Better safe than sorry."
He doesn't draw back his bow - yet. If the man responds, it's clear that he understands; in which case, the fact that he's pretending not to is suspicious.
The man glances back at Allandir, and the perceptive elf sees him tense up. "Please, do not shoot!" he says in Common. "Forgive me for not responding sooner. I do not know you, so I do not trust you, but I mean you no harm."
Allandír gives a slight smile. "Ah, there we have it: the truth, as elusive a creature as any I have hunted."
Lacking much in the way of diplomatic skills, he looks to the others to step in while he watches the man carefully to try and gauge his intentions.
Ervan shakes his head at his elven friend's rather drastic measures to get the man to talk. "Do not let your lack of trust become soil for distrust." Whether those words are aimed at Allandír or the bloody-sack-dragging-man remains unclear.
"Is that the same thing you told whatever's in that sack?" Pril asks with her arms crossed and her stance wide.
"I was hunting a large bird," the man attests. He produces a fluorescent, red-orange feather as proof.
Being skilled in natural lore, it's clear to most of you that the feather does not belong to a bird. Allandir and Pril recognize it as part of the wing of a celestial being!
"That feather is not from any bird," Pril says, her eyes narrowing. "What did you catch?"
"Very well. I will show you," the man says as he puts down the sack...
Quickly, you realize that the man is about to attack! The braids on the back of his head part to reveal a second face, that of a snarling hyena!
Pril snarls and shifts her stance before dashing in to strike at the creature with her fists.