Euda moves to where she has a clear shot at the woman and prepares herself to conjure another blast of petals and thorns if the she takes any aggressive actions.
”He’s a murderer!” the druid spits back. ”I come home for my father’s fiftieth birthday and Drugo, my one and only companion, butchered by that whelp as he hunts for a meal. He will pay for the blood he has spilt, and when my new companions spill his blood, Drugo will rise again.”
She attempts to cast another spell: readied actions may be triggered.
Mallia’s spell fizzles as Fezzen knocks her hands astray with his dagger. She growls and struggles to her feet, taking a 5-foot step towards the remaining sheepdog.
Maria wasn't all too happy that such an individual was putting her revenge on nothing more than a child, but Maria had experience with something like that, innately from her fingertips firing out the common evocation spell of Magic Missle that she knew by heart straight towards the crazed druid, "Then you give no choice!"
The druid staggers from the magical dart, clearly having trouble keeping her footing. She isn’t that wounded, but the drubbing she’s also taken is having its toll.
You are able to surround the druid, and with enough drubbing she succumbs and collapses unconscious on the rooftop.
Bonita arrives, her hands having morphed into bird talons. She takes one look at the scene before her and shakes her head, muttering a curse, and, pulling meat from a hide-wrapped package in her satchel, begins calming the conscious dogs.
John drops his staff and rushes over to Benji and Robert, throwing his cloak over the boy, who winces in pain and the cloth touches his oozing cuts, though managed to keep a whimper stuffed deep inside.
You appear to have won the day, though the circumstances leave you still with unanswered questions.
Maria kept away from them as they tied the druid up and helped the young boy whom was rather worse for wear. Instead what more interested her was the whole layout of such a strange and foul ritual as it seemed, needing Human sacrifice of some kind was terrible and foul, with some magics requiring such blasphemous acts to be performed to enact their power. As a wizard she had naturally learned all of the schools, including the necromantic, but this was different, far more different than the simple books she had been given she felt.
She couldn't figure what exactly it was, so instead she decided to write it down, figuring that it was best that she keeps such information for later use. Potentially her master could solve such a problem for them, what this horrid act all was for, "We should take him back to town quickly along with her. I suspect that there will be rather eventful return once we get back home"
Fezzan frowns at the bitter taste of their victory. "I'm not sure we should bring her to town. I don't think that will have a very happy ending, and I feel like we don't really have a clear picture of what happened here." He looks at the dead wolf, sigh and turns to the injured boy, "Benji, did you kill this woman's wolf?"
"He needs healing..." Euda says rather timidly, "ideally before all those symbols become permanent scars... so, we really should head to the village right away. Plus, we need to bring this druid back so that everyone will know that the other druid wasn't the guilty one after all."
"I'm no healer. Likely it will if itis acted upon quickly. We still need to make sure there is other things such as infection and the like, or whatever other magical malady he may have accrued from the nature lover," Maria spoke, finishing off the sketch of the top of the tower and any strange symbols she saw.
Benji shrugs. ”I might have,” he replies hoarsely through cracked lips, ”I did kill a wolf a few weeks ago. Might have been that one. It was going for the sheep. Normally, a wolf will just run off when you make enough noise and sling some stones at it, but this one kept coming. I thought I might be a goner, but I got lucky with my spear and nailed it right in its open mouth.”
John hugs his son all the tighter.
"You defended yourself," Euda says to the boy as reassuringly as she can, "just like the wolf would have done. We'll get you healed up and home soon."
Turning back to her companions, she says more quietly, "I cut my arm pretty badly on a hawthorn tree one time and when Leeka healed me the magic didn't leave behind any scars at all. Let's use some water to clean out anything in his cuts and then use the wand to heal him, and Gunnar can pray that the gods will spare him from any scarring?"
Maria looked over toward the rest of the grouo, thinking that she knew the reason why this had happened, "The wolf you killed, it's possible you killed her familiar or companion. Typical of the druids, and a wolf of this area far likely common place."
"You invoked her wrath to do such a vile thing, even if you were simply doing as required of a good shepherd."
Fezzan nods, "Fair enough. Definitely odd behavior for a wolf. Surprised you didn't skin it. Wolf pelts fetch a good price, or you could have made yourself a fine cloak."
Not waiting on an answer, he goes over to inspect the wolf corpse.
”I had to get the flock back. When I went back later, it was gone. Figured someone beat me to it.”
The wolf has a nasty spear wound inside its mouth up into the brain.
”I’m really sorry if I killed her pet wolf and all, but can we get out of here before she wakes up?”
"No need to be sorry. Sounds like you were just protecting yourself."
Fezzan get back up from inspecting the dead wolf.
"Yes, we should go, but I don't think we can leave her behind. She'll just try an do it again. She might have had her reasons, but she's committed too many crimes to ignore."
He looks to his companions, "I guess we should bring her in to face justice."
"Even after the healing, we probably don't want to risk having him climb down the vines..." Euda mutters to nobody in particular as Gunnar fishes out the wand. While the paladin sets to work healing and the others continue discussing what to do with the bad druid and how to secure her, the young girl walks towards the top of the staircase. "Excuse me, vines... we need to get through here, please, and also you're going to choke each other out growing so close together- none of you are going to get enough sunshine... can you all please just pull back some, and thin things out, and then you'll all feel so much better..."
Eudamonia tenderly clears a path through the vines for the group. John seems content to haul the Druid’s bound, unconscious form over his shoulder, though he seems not too gentle in the process. Meanwhile, others have been at work trying to tame the dogs with Bonita’s help, and while they don’t seem ready to roll over for belly rubs, they at least have stopped trying to eat you.
It’s slow going, though, and you make it just to the edge of the forest before it’s time to setup camp. Mallia begins to stir just as you get the campfire going.
Maria buried herself in literature as the band of accidental heroes set forth back to town with their prisoner and rescues. She wouldn't speak to a soul before she finally made her breakthrough, constantly muttering to herself as managed to perfect the required syllables, motions and memorization of spells that she had been working on, "No no... chanting it in Osiriani... would that work?" she spoke, her familiar perched on her shoulder as she finally figured them out, "Jervis, I've done it."
"See," she'd point to her book, Jervis preening himself, "If I bring the ring and thumb together with both hands and shout these phrases, it can release a power to pierce the ear drum. And this one, this one here, with the forefinger and pinky, with these can alter the property of sand or petals to put people to sleep."
Onlooking would see that it appeared like the half elf was talking to herself, continuing to do so as they made camp. Even as Mallia stirred, Mary seemed to have more interest in her books. She'd only help when asked, pitching the tents and taking bites from a loaf of bread.
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Gunnar sits quietly at the fire stirring the logs at the camp and says I have made my life so far about the law of Abadar and the code of his knights. This journey has brought much to my attention. I now fully believe Bonita and her word of what happened to her as she has held her word with me and I find it hard to believe that she will find justice and law with those who charged her and I further feel the coin being offered is not so much for law and justice as for greed and to reach far beyond where their law lies. Mallia is another situation. Any shepard would defend his field from a wolf,and yet that wolf was like her best of friends. What do we know of familiars and companions? Must she sacrifice a life to have her companion returned? The city is where the wolf was killed but the druid stated that the city is past the boundaries once agreed upon on those farms. I must consider all this
Fezzan ponders on what Gunnar says and shrugs. "Laws exist to protect those that make the laws. In the end, all you have control over are your own actions. Some people are motivated by their convictions, others by profit. A reward was offered for Bonita's capture because one of those groups is much larger than the other. And you can't really blame them, convictions don't put food on the table."
He gimaces, starts shaking his head, and says almost painfully,
"If you don't think that she will find justice when we hand her over, then, and I can't believe I'm saying this, it might be best if she 'escaped' when we were dealing with a deranged druid."
He rubs his temples and sighs,
"As for Mallia, there was no end to the path she chose that wasn't going to end in tragedy. I don't doubt that she acted out of grief, but that felt little unhinged. I don't know much about magic, but there's got to be ways to revive a dead wolf that don't involve human sacrifice."
”If the wolf had a magical bond with the crazy druid, wouldn’t it have needed her permission to be that close to the village?” Euda asks after listening to Gunnar’s musings. “It kind of sounds like it was her own fault her wolf friend died and instead of dealing with her guilt she blamed everything on Robert’s brother and concocted her evil plan to try to bring her friend back.”
”If you don’t think that even you and father could get real justice for Bonita then lettting her eacape sounds like a good plan, and when we turn in this other woman and explain that she was the one causing all the trouble maybe people will hunting Bonita?”
Maria closed her book with an audible clap of the tome, putting it away in her waterproofed bag. She'd walk over to the others, Jervis moving over to perch on her shoulder proper. Adjusting her long-brimmed hat, the wizard apprentice seemed to smile, "We let her escape and then what? I doubt this psychotic nature lover will be enough to hide that a potential cannibal is on the loose. They think me to burn a barn years ago and they've yet to have forgotten."
"I studied the patterns, while maybe necromantic, as all revivals such as this are. But the specifics are beyond what I know."
Despite your attempts at subtlety and quiet, Bonita apparently has exceptional hearing. Even from across the campsite as she tends to Mallia’s bonds, she stiffens at mention of her name.
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I said I would consider it. I am bound by the code of Abadar as a knight and those laws. I will have to work within this to change it and keep my word that I will bring her back. As to the druid we shall drop her off with the other druid as she is bound. No Shepard will see the killing of a wolf as bad anc the taking of the dogs will be seen as worse. The woman has lost a close friend. Letting the folk of the town punish her seems wrong. The druid circle and the town need to work this out and agree on things so both may grow and prosper. Gunnar nods at this.
"And give em back to the nature lovers?" Maria questioned with a sour look on her face. She didn't seem pleased with the idea but wasn't offering up any real idea of her own. The young apprentice was in a sort of pickle of sorts when it came to this, "If I recall, it felt perfectly reasonably to let this supposed trustworthy cannibal go there way peacefully from unfair persecution, even vouch on her behalf, but those druids seemed to know rather well what was going to happen."
She'd take her seat on a cut stump, fixing her long-worn robes, "They'd have let her kill the boy, sacrifice him in revenge filled murder. Folk like that is not to be trusted with such. Who's to say they'd just let her go, just like that."
Fezzan starts shaking his head. "There's no way we can just give her over to the other druids. They could have stopped her, but did nothing, save throw some cryptic hints our way. She robbed our neighbors, kidnapped Benji and tried to kill us all. She's the only guilty one here."
Euda frowns. “Gunnar… there must be something you can do for Bonita,” she almost pleads. “You know she didn’t do the things they said she did, is it really justice for her to be punished for them?”
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Gunnar nods and says Yes, the druid is guilty by our laws. This is true. If we can get Bonita to the special team and not the townspeople she will receive justice. If we let her go we cannot return, I will lose my knighthood and my beliefs, and my family will suffer in the town perhaps losing their business because I forswore the word of Abadar. No, she must return with us if any of us wish to return. We have the direct evidence that she did not steal the dogs and helped us return them. So we will return the little dog to her Mistress and have Robert and his father go to their farm with Benji to heal and then we will move around to the special team and try to clear Bonita.
"Take her to the sheriff and get some of the finer folk of the town. I guess that would be the best thing that we could do if anything. Justice has to be served from a party that will actually take the case here. The druids will just let her go if anything," she spoke as she looked over towards their captive.
Maria would put a hand at her brow and while resting the arm on her lap, "We should turn in for the night, do our shifts at the fire and make it to dawn."
Euda's young face clearly displays some lingering discomfort with their situation and the lack of consensus around how best to proceed. Nevertheless, she answers the elf, "Yes... I could use some sleep too... how are we going to split up watch shifts?"
Bonita resumes tending to the prisoner now that your conversation has come to an end. John still hasn’t really let his son go: Benji falls into a fitful sleep before supper is even ready, and your watch that night is interrupted several times by the teen’s night terrors.
He seems rested however the next morning, Mallia is still bound and gagged (though now awake), and Bonita has not abandoned you. The dogs, now properly fed, begin to regain some of their usual demeanour.
The journey back to town is no less tense than the journey out, as you don’t really know what to expect upon your return to town. A light rain is falling mid-afternoon when your party crosses the bridge and arrives at the sheriff’s office and jail. The sheriff, or Burgomeister as he prefers to be called, comes outside at your arrival.
Robert and his family can make their own way back to the farm (though plenty of folks will see you enter town with Benji so it won’t go unnoticed). You can head to Mrs. Pumpherus’ manor first however, as it’s on the way into town.
Maria kept walking using her staff to make sure the crazed druid didn't move out of line. They had passed Robert's family farm, keeping on track towards home, "I don't suppose we drop off the dogs?" she says while continuing past the walkway to the manor, "If one could accompany me to drop Mallia off to rot in a cell, whoever else can easily take the dog to it's owner."
Euda busies herself talking to every flower they pass as the group makes its way back into town. In part she’s ecstatic to find that they’re talking back more clearly than ever, but largely it’s to distract herself from the tension and unresolved questions around the ultimate fate of their druid captives. “Leeka is a druid,” she suddenly announces, “maybe we should ask her what we could do?”
So the plan appears to be to split up your tasks. Robert escorts his family home, while Maria and Fezzen head to Mrs. Pumpherus’ manor house to deliver Tricia, and Euda and Gunnar head into town to locate Cohortes Mallond Finchus to hand over Bonita to justice.
Euda and Fezzen make their way up Mrs. Pumpherus’ drive to encounter Brus snoozing in a chair in the shade with a cool drink by his side. The lawns look immaculate, the hedges trimmed, and flower beds well-tended, a far cry from how they looked before. A yipping Tricia runs up to the gardener, startling him awake. He looks about, down at the dog, then back at the two of you with such hatred and malice on his face you’re glad for a moment he doesn’t have gardening tools close at hand. He continues to glare, silently and refusing all conversation, as he rouses himself and leads the way around to the rear gardens, also immaculate. Clearly Brus is a skilled gardener…when he has the time.
Mrs. Pumpherus, sitting in her own chair in the sun with a pitcher of iced tea beside her, leaps to her feet to greet Tricia, and you. She floods you with praise and alternates between asking for the full story, ordering Brus to bring Tricia pillows, treats, and ice water, and showering the dog with an embarrassing amount of affection.
Euda and Gunnar make their way into town with their “prisoner”. She seems bemused by your insistence that the Abadar authority is the place to go for a fair shake, rather than the local law enforcement, but she doesn’t protest. It’s almost like she knew what was coming.
It turns out, you end up taking her to both, as the cohortes and burgomeister are both back from their searches and found at the jail. As you enter, the two men look up from a map of the area spread on a table, with the cohortes raising and readying his repeating crossbow with alarming speed, alternately training it on Bonita and Gunnar.
”It would seem that you have spared yourself the headsman’s axe, at least,” the inquisitor says, clearly directed at Gunnar. ”But kindly explain how you came into the possession of a dangerous and wanted fugitive, and then thought it wise to allow her to wander the wilderness rather than locking her in the tightest cell possible. Explain carefully.”
His finger tightens ever so slightly on the trigger.
At Pumpherus
Maria could tell that Brus wasn't happy to their successful return, though Maria was thankful that at the least it wasn't someone being upset of her presence there, "Tri...Tricia," she fumbled the words, forgetting the name of the dog for a few moments, "Tricia should be fine, though he might be a little wild for a bit. I'm sure he will find his back with you, pleasant."