Ingolf wondered now about the Mireborn. Were they implacable enemies, or victims of the Storm Kindlers in some way? Keeping his weapon lowered, he raised his empty hand, and tried greeting the lizardfolk in Common, then repeating in Polygolt, "Greetings, we do not wish to fight you! We are looking for a ruined Strom Kindler temple. We think it might have something to do with the recent unusual storm activity."
The lizardfolk does not seem to understand a word of what Ingolf is saying but instead get nervous and aggressive by his tone and not willingness to depart.
Jonah looks nervously between the lizardfolk and their pet lizards
those lizards are monitors. poisonous, very closely related to dinosaurs.
Jonah doesn't understand what the creatures are saying, and from the looks on his companions' faces most of them are in the same situation. he rests his fingers on two arrows, getting ready for a fight to break out.
The druid waits back but when he hears them stop he tries to cast a spell on his friendly Lightfoot
"Monitor lizards." He remembers what he knows about them, and hopes that no one becomes too injured by their venom. Gripping his kit he looks to Tonny, "I do not know what Ingolf said but I can't imagine it was good."
Adriana is cautiously and deliberately slow with her movements as the group approaches the lizardfolk camp, and despite tensions being high she raises one hand in the hopes of warding off a potential fight.
"Can we speak with them? Tonny?" She asks her companions as she takes one careful step forward, one hand still raised.
"We just want to speak. Please."
Maybe it is Ingolf lost in translation or maybe is Adriana's step forward, the Lizardfolk do not seem impressed by the group advances. They start to roar and sharpen their weapons pushing their lizards to act.
The lizards grumble and roar menacingly, but the group is too far to demoralize them.
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”伟大的米尔邦战士!” Tonny blurts, rushing to stand next to Ingolf. ”我们希望发言，而不是毫无意义地流血。 我们已经听说了您的智慧，并希望在贸易中提供我们自己的,” He bows, hoping he got all the inflections correct and hadn’t said anything offensive.
”Great Mireborn warriors! We wish to speak rather than spill more blood pointlessly. We have heard of your wisdom, and wish to offer our own in trade.”
The druid holds his staff back, waiting to blast any who approach Tonny with hostile intentions.
The lizardfolk seem past the point of answer to reasonable words, they raise their bows and shot at the group as a response to further diplomatic attempts.
The arrows sail all and land a few feet in front of you. The attack seemed more of a warning than a real threat.
They emit a lot excited shouts which not even Tonny is even to understand.
The Mireborn were proving to be beyond reason; typical lizardfolk! Ingolf recited a battle prayer and moved forward.
The language barrier proving more a hindrance than helpful, Adriana is willing to accept the warning shots for what they are and is prepared to fall back before Ingolf and Ebba shift and move forward, their intentions obvious.
Unsure if she should say anything but unwilling to let Ingolf face the threat alone Adriana drew her scimitar and follows Ingolf to provide support.
Jonah growls and mutters
"of course they want to fight..."
but seeing the hesitation in his allies he doesn't immediately fire back. he puts a shaft to his bowstring and aims, waiting on the word
The lizardfolk shot another wave of arrows at the party while performing menacing shouts.
Not wanting to cause destruction in the local area for no reason, the best the druid could do was perform an act of aggression.
"What would this mean for the Song'O if we were to incite a bloodbath?" He speaks mostly to himself, but starts to ease back, with his wind at the ready.
Jonah sees Splits backing away and he follows, covering their retreat, eyes on the lizards the whole way.
Sensing that his comrades were not fully behind him, Ingolf broke off the attack, signaling Ebba to retreat.
The group breaks away and the Mireborn advances a few meters shooting arrows and shouting a few cries in Draconic, but soon holding back and not following the party.
As such, you quickly come back to the Song'O hunters who receive you with a bit of surprise "Ngabe konke kulungile? Yini oyitholile?"
"Is everything ok? What have you found?"
They have prepared a small basecamp with a fire, expecting you would take some time to come back. And they invite you to sit, eat and explain yourselves.
Ingolf explained to the Song'o, "Eneo hilo linamilikiwa na mjusi wa chuki Mireborn. Tunahitaji kuamua jinsi ya kuendelea."
He consulted with his friends, "What are we going to do now? Should we abandon the idea of searching the Tar Pits?"
Splits the Leaves was happy it didn't come to bloodshed. "Perhaps there is another way around... If you give me some time I can see what I can find."
They certainly didn't seem very friendly. it seems like we either need to go the long way around or go through them. I like the idea of having Splits scout ahead for us. more effective than sending Rosemary. she's great, but she can't really report back to us.
Prepared for a fight but quietly glad that things had turned suddenly enough that they had all retreated instead, Adriana sits quietly and thinks about what could have been done differently but comes up with nothing, knowing little about the mireborn or Lizardfolk in general.
"It felt like they didn't really want to fight us, but that isn't much to go with. I'm not sure how long we can avoid bloodshed, but certainly the longer the better."
Ingolf weighed in, "Scouting sounds like a good idea, Splits. Just be careful!"
Splits shape shifts into one of the local birds and takes flight into the air surveying the area.
After twenty minutes Splits makes it back and shapes into his human form. He explains the area is covered by lakes of bubbling tar and a few islands made of rocks and very large reptilian bones, likely dinosaurs, spring out of the tar.
A part from the lizardfolk camp you spotted, the only other remarkable thing he finds out is in the northern island there is an lone lizardfolk. And old and badly scarred lizardfolk leans on his knees with his hands over his heavy peak and his eyes closed, as if hearing the air and waiting for something. The old lizardfolk looked up at Splits and so he decided to flight back at that very same moment.
The druid conveys what his short flight had revealed, stopping at the part with the scarred lizardfolk on the island.
"Any idea who that might be? I feel like I was seen, though it is impossible for me to truly tell."
Ingolf listened to the druid's account and replied, "I don't know who that would be, but the old lizardfolk sounds significant somehow. I think we should try to reach and speak to this old one. is there a way we could do that while avoiding the others?"
Thinking back to what he saw, he tried to picture the paths in his mind, taking the sight from the sky opened up many opportunities.
I don't know if i like the idea of trying to sneak up to the older one. if he is an edler or shaman or something the others will react very badly if they catch us moving on the older one. we could end up surrounded very quickly. maybe we can convince them to let us have an audience with their elder?
Splits retells what he saught.
As Splits recounted the details of what he'd seen, it became clear that bypassing the main group of lizardfolk was unlikely. He commented, "We may have to try to negotiate with the hostile Mireborn again. Maybe we can convince them to take us to their shaman, if that's what he is. Although their reaction yesterday doesn't give me much hope."
Adriana ponders the groups options, pacing a little as she does so.
"I think the lone lizardfolk might be our best option, if only because should our negotiations fail, we at least have better chances of escaping a lone lizard over a group. Assuming we can avoid the group..." She sighs and shrugs and mulls over the information some more, thinking of an alternative or two.
"There is a path through the tar." The druid looked at the thoughtful faces near him, "I believe this might be our best bet with the least bloodshed... But it would require us to pass the others."
Thinking on Tonny's question, he tries to remember the feeling of how many flaps it took to reach the height, and then how long he was gliding for. "About 100 feet."
we might be able to get past them, but it is risky. seems like we have a better shot of negotiating our way past than sneaking. we're too many in numbeer to sneak past. unless... Splits, what do you think of getting in there by yourself as a bird?
The druid contemplates it, "I could get in once the sun rises again, but time is of the essence. Perhaps I can see what Gozreh might have in store for me, maybe a spell close to the elemental speech."
He had never heard of one that could allow it, at least not within his druid circles, so he let out a sigh.
"We could always nonlethally deal with them and speak with the shaman afterwards. The right path is rarely easy."
After the day of rest and discussion on how to proceed the group prepares once more and approaches the lizardfolk camp once more. One of the lizardfolks and one of the lizards are not there this time.
They are surprised by your arrival and start shouting at you as you approach.
Seeing themselves in lower numbers and with you not surprised but prepared with a better speech, the lizardfolk seem to listen you this time "你很顽强...为什么要坚持来我们的营地？ Shathva酋长流放了我们，我们真正的领导人Achahut希望在这里等死。 您昨天没有袭击我们，因此您想要什么？"
"You are tenacious... why are you insisting to come to our camp? Chief Shathva has exiled us and our true leader Achahut wants to wait here for a digne death. You did not attack us yesterday, thus what do you want?"
Unable to understand what they were saying, the druid only waited.
He watched their movements hoping to make sure that the body language could tell the tale his ears couldn't follow.
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"She says they were exiled from the tribe, but they're out here to..." Tonny's voice trails off in thought. "您在这里到底要做什么?" he asks loudly. "我们的城镇遭到暴风领主的蜥蜴人成员的袭击，我们担心在外出探索并确保居住在城镇外的人们安全时会再次发生。 哦，你在这里安全吗？ 你昨天的朋友好吗？ 嗯，你为什么被放逐? Whoops, that might have been too much too fast..." The scholar pauses, clears his throat, and continues solemnly, "您已经证明蜥蜴人和人类不必战斗。 我们可以和您的领导人阿差胡特谈谈吗？ 如果能够结盟，它将使我们所有人更加强大。"
"Our town was attacked by iruxi members of the Storm Lords, and we're worried it could happen again while we're out exploring and making sure people living outside the town are safe. Oh, are you safe out here? Is your friend from yesterday okay? Um, why were you banished in the first place? "
"You have shown that iruxi and humans do not have to fight. May we speak with your leader Achahut? If an alliance could be made, it would strengthen us all."
Ingolf couldn't understand a word of the conversation. He asked Tonny, "What did they say?"
Jonah sighs deeply, but tries to keep it to himself as much as possible.
another language I don't know?! eesh. things are so much simpler when it's just me and Rosemary hunting together. this is so much more complicated.
he stands back, watching for aggression from the lizards, ready to draw his weapon as soon as provoked
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"Oh, well, they said they were banished from the tribe by someone called Shathva and they're out here with their 'true' leader Achahut, but he's trying to die or something like that and they want to know what we want since it doesn't seem to be violence," Tonny quickly explains. "So I asked them why they were banished and what they were doing here and told them about the iruxi Storm Kindlers who attacked the town and asked if they would let us speak with their leader. Uh, to Achahut, not Shathva - I don't know if they really consider them their leader anymore, but I can't tell for certain."
Ingolf relied to Tonny, "That sounds good. If they want more details, you can explain that we're trying to find an old Storm Kindler temple in this area."
Tense and remembering the previous days failure, Adriana's nerves are tempered by the fact that at least this time the lizardfolk are speaking with them. Well, with Tonny, as he's the only one able to converse with them.
Tonny's translations mostly make sense, with one point sticking out to her. "Is Achahut the lone one we scouted yesterday? Why would they waiting for death?" She doesn't push her question too much while there was no fighting - she was certain her curiosities would be answered at some point.
interesting, so there's more than one lizard leader, and we don't know yet if the one we saw was an exile or the current leader... that complicates things
Jonah hangs back as he can't understand the words being spoke, so he eyes the others to see if any of them start to turn aggressive
"酋长驱逐了他面对有羽毛的co夫达鲁泰克（Daruthek）。" the lizardfolk gets nervous when you request an audience but one of them puts a hand over the one talking and nods. The lizard then continues "好的，您应该通过并与Achahut交谈。 但是您在被护送时，他只是想让死亡来临，而对于这样的英雄在生命的尽头遭到人类的伏击是不合适的。"
"The chieftainess expelled him for confronting the feathered-backed coward Daruthek."
"Ok, you should pass and talk with Achahut. But you are being escorted, he just wants death to come to him and would not be proper for such a hero to be ambushed by humans at the end of his life."
They let you go forward but two of them escort you if you decide to go and find Achahut.
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Tonny claps with delight. ”They’re letting us speak with Achahut!” he squeals. ”They want to escort us because they don’t want us to harm him, but I think that’s perfectly acceptable, yes? Yes!” Eagerly the scholar nods his agreement to the lizardfolk and walks slowly towards the bridge across the tar.
The druid nods, "I think that is agreeable. Tonny thank you for not rushing into a senseless bloodbath."
"Sounds good to me," Ingolf replied. He dismounted and followed Tonny, bidding Ebba to come with him.
Alert and cautious but impressed that despite everything they had managed to avoid bloodshed, Adriana keeps close enough to Tonny to speak with him in low tones, curiosity getting the better of her as they're all escorted to the lone Lizardfolk.
"Did they say why Achahut wants to die? How much do you know about lizardfolk in general?" she asks.
Jonah relaxes his posture, trying to look less threatening. he stows his longbow again, not wanting to cause trouble by being armed for this meeting