”I love Moulin Rouge! Elephant Love Medley?” Keri asks excitedly, seemingly reading Vultan’s mind. ”Yes, that would be perfect. We could use that format and change the lyrics. It would be original enough to count as our own creation.”
When the soup is finally done heating through, M'ushu puts some soup into his bowl. It smells delicious, maybe because hunger truly was the best seasoning. He puts the grimoire aside and takes his sheet from out of the chest for review.
Alright, all of the equipment looks like it should. Damage is as expected. Nothing else seems to have changed. I really hope the residents of this world are unable to see the details on this sheet. Although, it might be interesting to see them react to a "truth" of this world.
M'ushu puts his sheet into the pocket of his hood and goes over to his spot. He digs through the bag he has and pulls out a book of history he took from the halfling's library. He slowly skims it for interesting content while eating his lunch.
I wonder if any of the books I took with me will be able to give us a hint on what Tam's patron is and why it was sealed by Trolls, of all things. Considering the Trolls were the enemies of the Elves, I wonder what connection them and Tam's patron might have, if any.
Once everyone finishes their soup, the equipment is cleaned and packed up and M'ushu gets ready to set off for the rest of their day. Whenever M'ushu takes a break from walking by riding on Con's shoulders, he keeps a sharp lookout for any good resting spots for the evening.
He's not exactly startled that she's also a fan of one of the most popular musicals earth has produced, nor that she picks out the song he'd been thinking of. He is, however, having trouble keeping stars out of his eyes.
She's wonderful~
"You're wonderful, you know that? Ahem-Okay! So! Lyrics... lyrics..."
The earnest compliment makes Keri grin like a schoolgirl. ”Heh, you’re not so bad yourself.”
Her eyes sparkle in the sunlight and she tilts her chin up to look in Vultan’s eyes. Her heart is beating quickly, and her lips are suddenly dry. ”Would you...like to kiss me?” she asks.
You sit down for lunch and eat your soup, conversing about path options and what your future may hold. The cold breeze from the ocean declines, and the clouds begin to break, allowing the sun to shine through and warm the grasslands and beaches.
Birds chirping sounds through the air, and wild hogs grunt in the grasses. Suddenly, you hear a squeal. You turn to see where it's coming from, and a pig is charging right at your little camp!
Keri suddenly jerks her head in the direction of the charging pig. "Big pig!" she shouts!
The elf scrambles to her feet and sets her spear, readying it against the beast's charge!
The spear drives deep into the beast's neck! The haft snaps kn two, leaving the pig impaled.
M'ushu was deep into reading the history book he had and reacts late to the pig that was charging at them. He runs away from it, even leaving his book behind in his haste. After sprinting to a safe distance, he takes out his sling.
This must be coming at us for a reason. Maybe there's more or it's running from something.
M'ushu instantly becomes attentive of their surroundings and tries to keep his field of vision as wide as possible to catch any additional threats coming towards the group.
"Thank you."
Con says to Kari as she hands him the fire spear. He balances it in his hands, getting a feel for its weight before putting it away.
------
With M'ushu's help, Con's wounds do seem to be healing far better than he expected. The scaring on his left hand reminds him of his sister back home as does M'ushu's fussing and it makes him homesick.
"I appreciate you, thank you."
He says in a somber tone.
------
Staring at the ground while M'ushu says his piece, Con goes over the events in his head. Nothing seemed to go the way he thought it would. Like there were forces working against him. He'd been in combat before, but never in a life or death situation. Maybe things were simply less predictable, especially with this body. He needed to learn to use his newfound strength to his advantage.
The squeal sends ice down Con's spine and he shoots up from his seat. Grabbing the torch-spear that was sat behind him, he turns to the "Big pig" and hunkers down next to Keri.
Vultans eyes widen as Keri re-rails his attempt to derail into a conversation about lyrical prose.
I'd bet my pupils are probably enormous right now.
It's an errant thought from his left brain drifting across the speechless, stunned expanse of his mind.
He hears the squeal and orients on it.
"Naturally."
He grunts, half from exasperation, half from exertion. He beats his wings and the motion lifts him bodily into the air from where he was sitting. He alights, spear in hand, oriented on the pig's oncoming charge.
Ok, that probably looked pretty cool. Guess I'm feeling masculine today. Let's lean into that...
His brain, hopped up on testosterone, decides it's a good idea to put himself between the pig and the party, but then he sees Keri couch her spear in the ground.
So smart~
He goes to do the same to increase their attack surface, but the pig is already on them, and he's oriented on Keri.
Perfect!
He goes to get a stab in as the pig arrives...
...but his timing is off. Or his aim is off. Either could have landed him a hit, really. He watches Keri's spear snap as it skewers the pig on its charge.
"Betcha can't do it twice!" He says, holding his spear out so she can reach it.
M'ushu was right of course. Everything he said was logical. It helped him to steel his resolve to move forward and not dwell too hard on what could have been.
He was glad to leave the hut behind.
... ....
Through the day, Tamien would spend his time examining their character sheets, making sense of what other nuanced information he could gather. From what had been discussed this would be extremely beneficial and worked in many ways like a computer game. The possibilities were extremely useful.
As they were sitting around the campfire for lunch, he immediately hears the squealing pig and springs to his feet and leads in with an open palmed strike.
Everyone jumps up out of the way, with several thinking quickly and striking out at the pig. Keri, however, stands in front of it and sets to receive the charge with her spear. The spear hits right on target and even shatters a piece in the pig!
The liquid excrement flies towards Vultan!
The pig keeps charging forward, plowing past Keri, stoping about 5 yards behind her.
A humanoid face appears in the flesh on the side of the pig, as if it's stuck inside and trying to escape.
Damage Counter: 22
Keri cries out in pain as the pig's tusks tear at her exposed belly. She grimaces and puts a hand to her side, feeling the blood dripping from the wound. She hopes it won't leave a scar.
The elf's eyes bulge when she sees the face pressing out of the pig's side! "Ah! Somebody's inside of it!" she shrieks fearfully. Despite her fear, she grabs the spear Vultan is offering her and chases after the pig.
She stabs the beast in the side, unwittingly drawing upon Tamien's luck to score a hit!
I've seen so many horror films and played enough scary games, you'd have to really catch me off guard for something like that to work on me.
Con could swear he saw a face in the side of the pig! After a doubletake there is no doubt about it, there is definitely a face trying to escape that pig's guts.
Is that?...
He could almost swear he recognized it, but that was impossible! Now sufficiently frightened, he meekly stabs at the monster boar.
M'ushu's mind reels for a moment, trying desperately to reject the grotesque vision before his eyes. His heightened vision captures every detail of the gruesome humanoid face before he steels himself.
So that's what is like to face one of these monstrosities with fear traits. A bit worse than I thought, but nothing worse than what I've already experienced so far.
M'ushu continues to keep his vision as broad as he can. He slithers back to his bag, grabs it and rushes to Keri while pulling out an incantation.
Oh g&* d&%n it! We can't catch a damn break!! he thinks as he rushes over to Keri.
The spear handoff goes smoothly, but before he can contemplate next steps, Vultan is doused in rancid feces. He's disgruntled at first, but then it starts to warm, but somehow... cold. It starts to sap the life energy right out of him!
He drops and rolls, removing most of it in the sand before his muscles begin to fail. He's stuck on his back, looking at the sky, hearing his comrades still fighting the boar. He hears Keri in pain and--
Vultan lies on the ground, unconscious, unaware, and sorely in need of a bath.
The spear handoff goes smoothly and Keri gets another great attack in on the boar.
"WHOOO! Nice one!"
The pig lunges at Keri, drawing a cry from her. Vultan worries about her briefly because he knows how sharp tusks are, but she's still standing.
Gotta check her out lat--
Vultan sees the face in the pig and furrows his eyebrows.
"Djyou see that? It was lookin' right at me!"
Vultan shivers, but the threat is still present. He steps into a powerful roundhouse kick aimed at the pig's legs.
The pig adjusts its footing and his sweep comes up short. Vultan follows the kick all the way through and neatly pirouettes, finishing the rotation and standing to face the big pig once more.
None.
The boar turns around, hatred and irrational anger in its eyes. It charges again!
It's eyes settle on Con as it charges at him! Con sets his spear to receive the charge!
The pig gores Con with its tusks, ripping the large lizard's belly and intestines out. Con falls to the ground, dying almost instantly, his face contorted in pain. The pig stops where Con lies.
Damage Counter: 31
Keri stabs the pig in its side.
Damage Counter: 35.
[ooc]Fast[/
”CON!” Keri shrieks as yet another companion falls. Driven by terror and anguish, she quickly stabs the pig, trying to at least be a little defensive with her attack!
Con takes the hit and goes down, but the hog find some extra resistance in Con's scaled hide!
~~~
"CON!"
Vultan shouts in unison with Keri as the boar digs into their draconic companion. He circles around Keri throws himself at the boar once more!
"YOU SONUVAB+!$*! GET. OFF."
He drop kicks the boar with both feet, but find the boar so stalwart, he kicks off and lands back on his feet. He emits a frustrated growl as he fails to effect damage once more.
"UrrrrgggGGHHH"
So feckless, what can I do!?
Another one of us got killed!
"Con! Damn it, this is insane!"
Damage Counter: 44
With everyone surrounding the demon pig, and with it actively bleeding, it begins to panic! It spins around wildly, throwing a tusk at anyone it can hit nearby!
The tusk narrowly misses Tam; the quick halfling ducks the attack with expert precision!
M'ushu darts to Kerixs left and loads a stone into his sling.
He launches the rock into the sky and wildly misses the very large hell pig from a very close distance.
Shoot! How did I even work this thing while fighting those two midgets. M'ushu instantly feels a twinge of guilt as he glances over to Tamien. Oh, whoops. Sorry, Tam. Better keep this to myself.
"I think it's almost down!! One last round of attacks, guys!!"
M'ushu loads another rock into his sling.
He blinked, and Con, while still bloodied, wasn't playing the part of a gutted piñata at a children's birthday party anymore.
What the hell? Am I seeing things?
Tamien narrowly dodged the demon pig's attack, his defensive stance paying off. He shook his head to focus, as M'ushu yelled encouragement. He'd have to think about that later, but for now he'd focus on the problem still in front of them.
"Steady."
The huge boar moved quicker than Con expected and he wasn't fast enough to get out of the way. He took a brutal hit but luck was on his side and he manage to stave off death for now.
He thrusts at the boar but it's just a glancing blow.
Player Fast turns:
Tamien strikes out!
Damage Counter: 47
All other fast turns, go!
Keri quickly stabs the pig again, fighting defensively!
Vultan thinks back to the marks he left across Bramble's face. He angrily starts to hack into the boar's neck.
It's gonna be slow going, but I gotta hit something important at some point, right?
"HYA!"
Vultan gives a kiai as he whips his hand through a vertical arc across the boar's neck.
With the final blow, the pig explodes! Blood, guts, and liquid excretion spray out in every direction, covering everyone! The buildup from inside made the result more explosive than it otherwise would have.
M'ushu looks on as the boar is felled with a chop by Vultan.
The proverbial feather. Man, I was useless this fight. Wonder what I could've done to contribute more. I should check the book for more options.
"Well, that was close. Sss sss sss." M'ushu laughs dryly. " Anyone else wanna use my sling? I literally missed that boar from hardly any distance at all."
M'ushu puts away his history book and will give his sling to anyone that wants it. He pulls out the Core book to figure out what options he might have to contribute in the next fight
Anticipating something gross, Keri nimbly dodges the gruesome blast! "Ew! Disgusting!"
It was close but Tamien noticed Keri moving away and managed to dodge back himself as the pig exploded, avoiding the worst of the gore.
Vultan's chop finds surprising purchase and the pig lets out a grunt that trails off as it collapses to the ground. There's a building rumble insides it until...
"Nononono"
...it explodes!
He flares his wings out to either side, providing cover for Keri and Con. Trying to increase his surface area as much as possible to shield his compatriots from the blast, he takes a full load of the mess across the front of his body and wings. The sickening sets in immediately, he begins involuntarily retching, vomited vegetable stew mixing with the hateful haggis now eveloping him. He begins intermittently stumbling and sprinting towards the open ocean, bathing himself furiously and expelling every bodily fluid imaginable. Only the opacity of the ocean preserves his dignity as he disrobes. It's not long before he is impatient with his own suffering and begins retching and forcing the sickness with increased fervor to clear through it as soon as possible.
It's not long before he's void of any remaining sickness and has the wherewithal to rinse himself and his clothes. He takes his time, regaining his composure and constitution with slow progress. He ensures each piece of clothing is free and clear of the gross before donning his pants and returning to shore, wringing his shirt out on the way.
He dons his shirt as he rejoins the party, looks at everyone and says:
"Wow, is anyone else hungry?"
As M'ushu turns and slithers back over to campsite, he hears a loud boom. He turns back to see the bottom half of the hell pig is scattered nearby its fresh corpse. And then the foul aroma of who knows what wafts over. M'ushu retches several times and nearly loses his lunch as he hastens away from the mangled corpse.
"We better...move soo...soon. This noise... and smell euh... is bound to attract...the wrong kind o-ooeugh of attention." M'ushu manages to get out between gags.
I have never wished for a lack of smell more than today.
Con couldn't move fast enough and is slimed by the guts and s!!! from the bursting pig.
Bones act like shrapnel hitting him in his open wounds and face. He falls to the ground, unconscious and covered in filth.
M'ushu tries his best to cover his nose and turn away from the disgusting mess on the beach. He hears a secondary heavy thud on the beach and turns to see what caused the oddly-timed noise.
What is it this time?! A scaven-
"Oh my god. Con!!" M'ushu says, rushing towards the collapsed Con and around the sickening muck. "Tam, help me get him away from this gross corpse explosion! Keri, grab some cloth we can use to cover him! Vultan, get that pot and bring some water in it! Seawater is fine!"
With Tamien's assistance, M'ushu drags Con a bit away and begins to run down the ABCDE emergency checklist.
Airway, miraculously unclogged, breathing, not really.
He begins to perform chest compressions on Con, hoping that his new reptilian body is receptive to the treatment. After what seems like an eternity, but was probably less than half a minute, Con sputters and begins to cough.
Breathing, check. Circulation, well he's bleeding here and there, so check. Disability...
"Can you hear me? What's your name and where are you from? Here, drink this."
M'ushu takes out a healing potion and uncorks it for Con to drink.
Keri grimaces as both Vultan and Con are showered by the pig’s disgusting demise. She sees Vultan stagger off to the water, but her immediate concern is for Con, who hits the ground hard!
Fortunately, Mushu quickly springs into action. Keri hustles to assist him, pulling out some spare robes from the magic bag to cover the dragonkin. She lets out a sigh of relief when she sees Con breathing regularly again after drinking the healing potion.
She gives Vultan a look as he rejoins the group with an inappropriate joke. ”Mushu is right. We need to move. Help Con up and let’s go. We’ll put a few miles between us and this... this...” The elf waves her hand in the direction of the reeking remains. ”Then we need to camp and rest. Too many of us are too badly wounded to go too far.”
At that, Keri remembers her own injury. She looks down to see the bloody red gash in her side. Luckily, it appears the boar’s tusks only went skin deep. The wound should heal without leaving a scar.
She looks back up. ”Ready? Let’s go.”
Vultan grimaces at the look from Keri and decides his mouth needs a detention. He sees her inspecting her wound and almost breaks his silence before shaking his head. Seeing Con looking like he could barely stand, he moves over and puts himself up under one of Con's shoulders.
A little extra effort should warm me up and dry me off.
He does his best to stay focused on keeping Con's walking stable without putting pressure on his wounds, but walking in time with the enormous dragon-kin was a lot of effort.
Am I punishing myself?
He feels a moderate pain across his chest and back, probably from the retching. He's grown sore in a number of places, but still he pushes himself despite the pain growing more acute with each step.
Con has to make it. I'll get to sit down later.
He relishes the thought of more rest, and the decompression of the lack of life-threatening situation and coming down from the adrenaline hits him hard. It all combines with his pain, and he starts shedding fresh tears. He keeps it to himself, and he's glad he's shielded from the rest of the party by the enormous lizard. It was a strange place to find privacy, but he knows the ventilation will allow him to be back in bright spirits soon enough.
Con slips in and out of consciousness a few times before coming to, disoriented, with Vultan and Keri under his arms and walking him along. He picks up his weight and begins walking mostly on his own. The potion was making him feel a lot better, but the pain in his body was still great.
"Ouch."
Was the first thing he thought to say.
Then, to no one in particular, he asked.
"I take it we won?"
Keri takes a spare robe and wraps it around her midsection to apply pressure to her wound before helping to walk Con along. When the dragonkin stirs and asks if they won, she replies, ”Barely. But they say any fight you can walk away from...”
Once the group has made it a mile or two, the elf calls for a rest. She leans heavily against a tree and takes several deep, steadying breaths. ”This is not a sustainable pattern,” she says to the others. ”We all need to get our novice paths ASAP, or every random encounter is going to be a life or death struggle. I think we should try to camp and train for a few days. Apply ourselves and try to unlock our paths. We’ve already lost somebody, and we almost lost another.”
After saying her piece, Keri sits down beside Vultan. ”Thanks for blocking the pig chunks for me. Next time, maybe try not to block with you face though, okay?” She gives the stolian’s hand a squeeze and smiles at him.
Vultan is relieved of a tension he didn't know he was holding when Keri sits with him. His head hung low, he lifts it long enough to listen to her and offers a smile, brightening almost visibly as she squeezes his hand. Then he hangs his head back down. Not dejectedly, just from how exhausted he was. At least, that's how he tried to portray it.
"Sorry about the joke earlier, I didn't realize Con had gone down. Like down-down..."
He looks up, and then at her.
"And of course you're welcome about the pig chunks. Honestly, I thought I was just going to save you and Con some indignity, I had no idea that was going to happen."
He gives his best thousand-yard stare at the ground nearby to punctuate before looking back to Keri and continuing.
"You're absolutely right, too. We need somewhere stable and out of the way where we can get a level under us. I've got all these exciting things I believe in us to do, but none of it is going to come to fruition if each and every thing we encounter is out to gun us down."
He clenches a fist as he feels some anger build. He exhales and lets it go.
"I've got some training I was planning to use to help us find or produce a spot where we're well and safe from threats and can take an extended rest. Nick... He seemed like he had a really good head for that stuff, so I was hoping to work together with him to make that happen."
He looks to Keri to make sure she's alright before continuing.
They were close, I hope the kind words are a salve rather than a rude reminder.
"I'm still going to make sure that happens, but now I'm going to have a little phantom Nick up here to help me make sure I've got it right."
He taps his temple.
"Maybe you can help? I don't know, look at things through his eyes, if you can. Heck, if we get everyone dialoguing about it and we find a nice spot that'll hide a fire and give us good outward visibility. And, we can rotate watches so we always have someone with shadowsight up..."
He trails off as his mind gets churning on making a proper defensive encampment. He briefly laments that they don't have any bags they can fill with sand.
A fresh pang of grief hits Keri when she hears Nick’s name, but she grits her teeth and doesn’t let it hurt. Too much. She gives Vultan a nod to let him know she’s okay.
”Sure, I’ll do what I can. We all have to work together to survive in this place. Get a good strategy in place to make our camp safe and secure.”
The elf looks back in the direction that they came from. ”I, for one, am not going to let this world beat me,” she says resolutely. Her cow’s tail wiggles behind her.
Vultan, watching her make her statement of strength and determination, notes her tail wiggle as she does.
So that's adorable.
He looks back in the direction she's looking before he can get caught admiring her, then looks back to her. He squeezes her hand and gives a resolute nod.
I'm not going to let this world beat you, either.
"What, beat you? Not a chance. Did anyone else see what she did to that boar as it charged in!? I mean, I know we're short a spear now, but hot--Damn! That was badass."
He starts to say something about how he'd hardly contributed at all before he decides that's not a road he wants to walk down aloud and lets his thoughts wander back to how best to ensure everyone's safety for more than six hours at a time.
"That was just luck," Keri says, downplaying her role in the fight. "I remembered you should set a spear against a charge since it does double damage in Pathfinder. I managed to get it at a good angle. But he got me just as good as I got him."
Vultan barks out a laugh. Seeing an opportunity to turn the "mood" dial a couple notches towards jubilant, he follows through with:
"I mean, don't get me wrong, I saw him getcha, but there's no chance he got you that good. If the spear didn't break, we coulda had him turning on a spit then and there! And Tam, do you have any idea what it sounds like when your fist meets flesh like that? I do! You tenderized that hog! Then there's Con. I know you're big, but that thing was huge! And you just casually catch him like a football. Tossing around a pig skin with this guy? No way."
He hooks a thumb at Con to enhance the phrase.
"Now, M'ushu and I should take note. We were largely on the outside of that conflict. I know I got some sort of good hit in at the end, but I know better than to take any credit for y'alls hard work."
He looks at each person in turn as he says:
"Yeah, we're looking a little rough at the moment, but..."
He looks at Keri's covered stomach to punctuate the word 'rough' and then looks into her eyes. He gives her a wicked smile, fills his voice with a fire, a passionate, victorious vindication and says:
"...You should see the other guy."
Tamien wasn't sure if it was the race or just Vultan's own Charisma, maybe a bit of both, but either way he had to hand it to him, the guy knew how to lighten the mood.
"Yeah, I guess." he said with a light chuckle.
But his smile quickly faded into a serious expression. "In this case we got extremely lucky, again. That demon pig was able to do some serious damage, particularly when it charged at us. I also didn't count on it exploding after it was killed. Whoever is running this game, if there is someone, is being pretty harsh with the encounters."
"We're gonna have to figure out some different tactics until the rest of you heal up and get stronger. For the moment, we ought to prioritize escape and evasion over any fighting.
I'm still in good shape from our last fights, so I'll handle our frontline defense in case anything else shows up. Working together to knock down enemies. Plenty of Sand on the beach, we could probably use that to blind someone for a moment. There's also distractions or feints we could try to pull. The ocean could be a place to try and swim away from enemies. We could try to climb in trees or hide behind bushes or in tall grass.
I'm no better than anyone else when it comes to using these options. Just something for us to consider going forward."
Vultan nods along, his nods getting deeper with each suggestion.
"Yeah... Yeah! That's using your noodle. Ugh, how could I have forgotten about pocket sand?"
He picks up a fistful of sand and scatters it to the side, away from anyone. He immediately looks disdainfully down at his too-long, too-sharp nails, now packed with beach sand.
"Oh. Hm."
He sets about picking the dirt from his nails in the manliest way possible. He wasn't concerned about being dirty, but the sensation bugged him. He found it a difficult task as both his hands had exceedingly long nails.
"Guess I could... trim a couple? Hm..."
Questions for later.
He sets his hands aside, tactically placing one on Keri's nearby, gripping it gently and slyly pretending he doesn't notice what he's just done as he continues to listen to Tam make fine points about party-wide improvements.
Keri laughs at Vultan's attempt to lighten the mood. And she does feel lighter, though she cuts her laughter short when her injured side begins to hurt again. Still, the elf smiles as Tam discusses strategy.
She looks down at her hand when Vultan "accidentally" puts his on top of hers. She puts her other hand on top of his.
"Right. Ready to move on?" she asks once the discussion begins to peter out. "Let's look for a good campsite nearby."
Vultan feels Keri's other hand settle over his and he can't help but smile. He doesn't turn away from the conversation at all, but between the butterflies and the warmth blossoming in his chest, it's a near thing.
He engages Tam's discussion of tactics, creating use cases and edge cases for various situations and tools to help the party hammer out improved responses to a broad-ranging number of threats. It's a spirited discussion, but he's hoping there's some experience for everyone as they work through mental combat that will abbreviate the transition to level 1.
That is the big milestone we're hunting at this point...
He glances at Keri as she contributes to the conversation, and thinks to himself.
I remember when Icewatch Island was the big goal. Now we're struggling to stay alive...
He finds himself drawn to prayer once more.
Please, Queen of Summer, bless us with your presence, that we may find peace in your strength; that we may grow to bear the most beautiful fruits as gifts to you; that we may use those fruits to foster joy in those we meet; and that we may grow in strength to settle such disputes as are anathema to all you stand for.
Please, if there is some sign you can offer us to help guide us safely through these arduous trials, I pray that you would bless us with it such that a fool as I would not be blind to your gifts.
For the chance to offer peace to those with me, I would give myself over to your conclave. Yea, I would offer myself to your court. I would serve you, to bring peace and joy to my companions, and all who I meet, in your name. Thrice I say it and done. Amen.
He notes the others buttoning up the conversation when Keri mentions making camp nearby. He stands and offers her a hand up. It's more a gesture than anything, she wasn't helpless, but if a little support kept the pressure off her wound, he was happy to provide it.
He glances briefly at Con and gestures as if to ask if he would like assistance standing as well, though in his head, Vultan wonders if he was substantial enough to help such a mammoth to his feet.
If he even bats an eyelash, I'll sure as hell try, though. We'll get through this together.
Keri takes the offered hand up. "Thanks," she says.
As they begin to walk again, she stays close by Vultan's side. "Are you the outdoorsy type?" she asks him. "I did a lot of camping and such when I was younger, with the Boy Scouts. But I fell away from it after college, with work and family and all that. It's nice to be in nature again, but it would be a hell of a lot nicer if giant animals stopped trying to kill us!"
"Right?!"
He follows up almost immediately. Then he pauses before addressing her question.
"I'm probably one of the last people I know who grew up playing outside. Not so many screens around back then."
He remenisces on his time growing up, but it's interrupted by some trauma.
That's the thing people don't understand about sandstorms...
He shakes his head and unfurrows his brow.
Back in the box, you.
"Not so much any more. I mean, until coming here. I was a boy scout as well. Cub scout first, of course. I couldn't tie a knot to save my life any more, but the rest of it stuck around pretty well. Got some training that backed it up, too, as an adult."
He pauses again, and chuckles, then speaks loud enough for the party to hear.
"I guess we're all outdoorsy types now, eh?"
It's too bad our box of books didn't come with any of those blessed army manuals. And what I wouldn't give for a meal I had to cook propped up on a rock or something.