The 'leader' skeleton is just winding back for another blow when three bolts of energy from Theo blast it apart! Kane's claws rake viciously at the remaining skeleton but it has no flesh to tear and doesn't seem terribly worse for wear.
"Oh no! Death and doom!" Gurtlekep burbles when Bac goes down. Tossing the crossbow aside, the kobold hefts his pot of soup and rushes over to the gunslinger and carefully tips a few dribbles of soup into the gunslinger's mouth and down his chin. "Scary man's last meal!" the kobold sniffles.
The soup is quite good!
Meanwhile, Ascian has darted into position behind the last skeleton, her tail striking just below its knee and a sizzling bolt of lighting sends shards of bone clattering about the room!
Bac starts drowning with soup poured down his throat!
Luckily the "assassination attempt" is enough to shock him back to consciousness regardless of the kobold's ineptitude. He licks soup off his lips as he struggles back to his feet. "Eh!? They're all dead already? Ye didn't think to leave one for me so this old man can feel accomplished?"
He sways for a moment on his feet and grabs a hold of Kane's shoulder to steady himself. "Ugh. You don't think you've got any of those healing herbs for me? I think the skeleton broke some important bits."
Kane immediately gets to work on treating Bac's wounds. "That was too close, old man. We won't be losing you just yet."
Theo wander over and looks at the silver hammer the lead skeleton had used.
He then will move on to look at the mushrooms that they have been hunting for.
"I wonder how many they will need? I would hate to take them all and leave none to regrow for a future need!"
Bac gives Kane a haggard grin. "Eh, you save the good, potent herbs for the ladies or something? Heh heh, I can't blame yeh. Well, I'll survive with just this for now."
Once his vision is no longer swimming, Bac joins Theo in looking for and gathering the mushrooms.
While the others are gathering mushrooms, Ascian leans against the wall with her spellbook, scribbling notes into the margins.
"I'm sure the mushrooms will be fine, Theo."
Upon examining the hammer, Theo discovers that while not magical it is silvered. Unfortunately, the ravages of time have worn it down from what was once no doubt an impressive quality.
Bac pushes himself to his feet and assists in gathering mushrooms--in total, ten fully matured ironbloom mushrooms can be harvested here, more than enough to meet the requirements for Laurel's recipe.
"Eh, finally." Bac nods "We better go before that wolf thinks it could go for a second round." He takes a quick look around the room for anything else of interest that might've been left behind, then heads back out to the courtyard.
"So I could use some more patching up and rest, but we've got people in town to help. We could go to the edge of Droskar's Crag and find ourselves a nice old tree for the moss, or back along the river and try to find that rat tail."
"I vote the moss. We can always get the other one on the way back."
Kane nods in agreement. "I'll gather some more materials along the way and dress your wounds again."
"I don't know, that beast would make a nice rug..." Grattfaulk grumbles following Bac out to the courtyard.
Grattfaulk's grumble draws a smile out of Ascian, who tries to ressure him. "With our luck, we'll probably have another round with him."
Their prize in hand, the party turns to leave the crumbling ruin. "Hey!" Gurtlekep protests, hand on his hips as he glares up at all of you. "What 'bout me? Don't Gurtlekep get any mushrooms?!"
Kane looks back at the kobold sternly. "These mushrooms are to save lives, good Gurtlekep. For medicine. You are a resourceful one and are more than capable of finding more, are you not?"
"Gurtlekep." Bac places a hand on the kobold's shoulder. "We've given you an even better gift. Now that those undead are smashed, you'll be able to hoard all the mushrooms in that dwarf room, once they grow back. Soon you'll be rolling in them!"
Something something, teach a kobold to fish and all that.
He turns to the party "So Kane looks game to look for the moss up near the Crag. Anyone else?"
Ascian looks down at the kobold, her face a mix of annoyance and pity. "You'll be fine. If Greypelt comes and bothers you again, tell him we'll know if he hurts you."
She looks up in response to Bac's question, thinks about it for a moment, and then nods.
Gurtlekep is alarmed by the reminder that Greypelt is still around here somewhere, but watches you all depart with a sullen expression before slinking away deeper into the ruins.
As the group departs, they spot a massive huntsman spider--easily as big as Greypelt--hunched over the slain wolf at the southern gatehouse. It whirls and hisses at the party to warn them away from its meal, forelimbs raised in a threat display.
"Look at the size of that spider! I wonder what external forces were exerted to create such a specimen?"
"Let's leave it to it's meal, less we get added to the menu."
"I've made it a personal rule-a-thumb not to mess with anything that's many times larger than it should be." Bac sticks a thumb at the spider "That counts." He nods to Grattfaulk and keeps that wide berth as the party departs in search of moss-y treasures.
Ascian circles wide with the others, but doesn't take her eyes off the giant spider until it's out of sight.
Kane agrees with the others, more than willing to leave the spider to his meal.
Staring at the giant arachnid, Theo muses to himself.
"I wonder if a reduction spell would bring it back to its rightful size? Or if a growth spell might make it even bigger!"
He starts to dig out his spellbook but notices the others leaving, so with a shrug of his shoulders he skips along to catch up.
"Wait for me!"
Theo's questions about the relative sizes of spiders will have to wait for answers, as the party moves on with their task.
Kane had previously predicted that older darkwood trees struck by lightning would be growing on the mountain slopes at the northern edge of the forest, so that is where the party heads. The terrain is rough and your progress relatively slow; Grattfaulk shines here, keeping the party focused and navigating the sloped forest as capably as any lumberjack. The day passes uneventfully and not even the hard ground keeps you from an exhausted sleep that night.
The next day promises more of the same, but you have already faced too much danger to let your guard down--which is why Bac, Kane, and Ascian spot the flicker of shadow cross the ground shortly before noon--a large, winged, reptilian shadow--a heartbeat before the wyvern plunges from the sky!
With a crash of snapping branches and a sudden roar that sends birds flying for cover, the wyvern lands somewhere ahead of you. Several more crashes and dull, meaty thumps resound from the treeline ahead, just out of sight. If the wyvern noticed you at all, it chose a different prey...
Ascian drops into a low crouch, listening carefully for any sign that it might be headed their way. "That thing is going to be another problem we have to solve, I expect," she whispers.
Kane crouches near a large tree at the sound of the hunting wyvern. "Hopefully not," he responds. "Dangerous hunters. May be more than we can currently deal with. Shall we wait it out, or try to go around?"
"Huge too." Bac grimaces at the far-off roaring as he rubs at his back. "You're our woodsman Kane, what do you think'll keep it from choosing us next? If both are about even, I'd rather keep going to get us some leagues of distance away from it."
"If its all the same to you Kane, I'd give it a wide berth and keep going."
Despite his words, he listens in to try to hear what the wyvern might be doing, just in case there's some other traveler in danger.
"Agreed," Kane replies.
As the party whispers their plan, a sudden roar of triumph from the wyvern sends a chill down your spine. The hunter spreads its wings and begins to heavily beat them, slowly gaining altitude until it comes into view, a felled boar gripped in its claws. With another pleased roar the wyvern wings away upslope.
Shading your eyes to track the wyvern's progress as it carries its meal upslope, you realize there is a large, leaning darkwood tree perhaps a mile off. It rises from a rocky ledge that leaves it towering head and shoulders above the surrounding trees; you can't see any signs of lightning strikes from this distance.
There is a large Darkwood tree about a mile off, sticking out above the canopy. We should check it out."
Bac looks over in the direction Grattfaulk indicated. "Seems our wyvern pal was happy with his prize, so we're free to go. Let's do it." He heads off toward the darkwood tree, hammer at the ready in case there's trouble. "Who wants to take bets that this moss' going to be harder to get than we're counting on?"
Theo watches the wyvern in rapt awe.
"Such a beautiful and deadly creature. I wonder if this is what a true dragon is like!"
He finally brings himself out of his daydreaming to follow the others to the lone Darkwood tree...and hopefully the moss they are looking for.
Kane looks back at Thoedorus and gives him a wry smile. "Let's hope you don't get a first-hand experience, my friend."
Ascian snorts in amusement at Bac's offer of a wager. "I'm plenty reckless, old man, but even I know that's a sucker's bet."
The quarry sighted, the party cautiously picks their way upslope towards the ancient tree. It disappears from view for a time as the smaller trees block your view, until you loop around a mossy boulder and behold a king of the forest. The dense trees and thick brush of the for-est give way to a small clearing, parting as though in respect for the titanic darkwood tree that dominates this clearing. Several times taller than a temple minaret, in one direction the obviously ancient tree reaches into the sky with branches like a giant’s arms, while in the other it plumbs the earth with roots thicker than a man’s waist. Its limbs broad and strong, its bark thick and so richly colored as to almost be black, and its leaves the size of bucklers, the giant thing is less a tree and more a cathedral of boughs and branches.
You knowing scoring on several of the trees you pass, made by claws. That and the occasional whiff you catch of a reptilian musk suggest that you are near the lair of at least one tatzlwyrm. The dragonlike beasts are as big as Grattfaulk and while not too bright they are quite territorial--the wyvern's noisy intrusion is likely to have riled it (or them!) up.
Noticing the markings, Kane's head starts moving around quickly, searching the area for signs of movement. "We need to get what we can for and be away, quickly and quietly. It seems that we've walked into Tatzlwyrm hunting grounds, and the wyvern may have worked against us in the end."
"Well isn't that something..." Bac sighs with admiration for the tree, rubbing at his knees after the hike over. He scans the tree for any obvious moss as he listens in to Kane's assessment. "Tatzlwyrm? We can try to be quiet, but it won't be easy."
If he can spot the moss, the approaches as quietly as possible.
Kane nods in agreement. "We just need to take as little time as possible," he adds in a softer voice.
Bac Dau creeps forwards through the underbrush, gazing at the massive darkwood tree admiringly even as he looks for the moss. Kane points--there, perhaps ten feet up off the ground, is a large blackened crack in the trunk. Now largely healed over, the old wound is lined with a mottled pale blue-white moss. Kane recognizes it from the drawing in Laurel's tome.
Alert for signs of tatzlwyrms, you spot it before it spots you--a long serpentine form coiled up on the branches of the tree, nearly hidden in the foliage. A pair of clawed forearms grip the branch and its neck-spines are flared out aggressively. A long, forked tongue tastes the air as it cranes it's neck this way and that. It clearly knows it's territory has been violated.
Kane's heart nearly leaps into his throat, "Bac! Look out above you!" he calls out, pointing at the Tatzlwyrm up in the tree's branches.
Bac follows the line from Kane's pointing finger, first to the moss and then to the Tatzlwyrm above it. He slows and crouches behind a large root. "Eh, I see it. Scrawny thing to be called a wyrm. Or is that supposed to be worm?" He has his hammer out for the moment the creature attempts to defend. Given Kane's earlier explanation about tatzlwyrm intelligence and ferocity, he grudgingly lowers his voice to a whisper and asks "Think we can negotiate with it?"
Kane shakes his head. "No. They may be related to true dragons, but they are far more beastial. This is pure territorial instinct."
Grattfaulk looks at the area being pointed at and glares mincingly at the tatzlwyrm.
Silently, Ascian draws her rapier and waits for someone to make the first move.
Grattfaulk casts a quick quizzical look at Bac then returns his gaze to the posturing wyrm.
While you've heard of tatzlwyrms and all the stories agree they're dangerous, beyond that the sources you've seen are very muddled. Some claim they fly despite being wingless, others posit venomous fangs or flaming spittle, and still others contend their blood has potent alchemical properties.
The tatzlwyrm's gaze--which had previously been upwards as though scanning for the wyvern--whips down to glare balefully at Bac Dau and it lets out a menacing hiss.
"Munthreki rerkir zahae. Tisvelk, tisvelk munthreki agantal chakki youwei vur friitst vaessi. Xurwkir pothoc noises mrith dout narodic! Renthisj esnes usv itrewic mojka de sia skjall! Komeno ui ti svaklar wux vishen belhal!" It all but shouts down at you, voice both gutteral and sibilant, though it eyes Grattfaulk warily and doesn't approach down from its branch.
"HSSSS, humansss crawling about. Awful, awful, wretched humansss always chopping thingsss and ssshooting arrowsss! Making stupid noissess with your mouthss! Ssspeak ssensse or get away from my tree! Thisss iss not where you pessstss belong!" It pauses a moment, then says less loudly. "And make the green one ssstop ssstaring at me!"
Theo steps forward, and before speaking deciphers what the creature had said.
"HSSSS, humansss crawling about. Awful, awful, wretched humansss always chopping thingsss and ssshooting arrowsss! Making stupid noissess with your mouthss! Ssspeak ssensse or get away from my tree! Thisss iss not where you pessstss belong!" It pauses a moment, then says less loudly. "And make the green one ssstop ssstaring at me!"
"Grattfaulk avert your eyes from the beast...it makes the creature uncomfortable."
"Mahaan jaanavar se hamaara taatpary ghusapaith se nahin hai, balki hamaaree jarooraten mahaan hain. hamen keval andhere ped se kaee ka ek hissa lene kee jaroorat hai aur phir ham aapako shaanti se chhod denge."
Great beast we do not mean to intrude, but our needs are great. We only need to take a portion of moss from the dark tree and then we will leave you in peace.
Once Theo starts translating, Bac just points helpfully at the moss growing on the tree as he looks away to the side. He whispers back to the group and Theo in particular "Going well so far, I think. Keep it up boy!"