Moon returns his passion measure for measure. The kissing goes on well past the point where her former father would have called her a whore. When they part, in his ear, she whispers…
** spoiler omitted **
She reluctantly leans away from him, flushed.
While Betzolte hears what Moon says, she very pointedly makes no indication that she did.
Grobradon savors the kiss, and it is SOME Kiss, then she whispers in his ear and he nods slow , clearly taking a moment to cool his blood and recapture his breath.
"So," He says looking about "Everyone ready to kill the next batch of enemies?"
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"That depends... are you done stroking my kitty?" Her eyes slide mischievously to Histya, who is - in fact - receiving the half-orc's pets. Her grin is almost evil.
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Erigga throws her hands up from her "sleeping" position. "HOW!? Can we pretend to be asleep if you are going to ask us questions?" She sits up. "Back in the farm, do you think Da and Ma believed for a second we were not hearing the bed hitting the wall? We all pretended for sanity's sake, Grob."
She turns beet-red at Moon's joke. "If... if it wasn't so freaking cold outside, I swear I'd have gone for a stroll in the woods already."
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Betzolte chuckles a bit.
"What kinds of songs do dragons sing? I've heard a few dwarven songs ABOUT dragons...but I'd love to hear something of your own sometime," she says kindly.
"Dragons prefer reciting epic poetry. I liked the sound of singing, so I learned how. My siblings thought I was weird for doing that instead of capturing a bard," Emerald explains as she plays with the hem of her blanket and pulls it up to cover most of her face.
===
Whether for good or for ill, Emerald doesn't catch Moon's whispered promise to Grobradon. She's already forming her own thoughts about the group she's fallen in with.
Humans are weird.
Grobradon breaks out into another laugh at Moon's comment, a faint blush fighting with an earthy grin
He gives Histya one more stroke, "There, for now."
Erigga throws her hands up from her "sleeping" position. "HOW!? Can we pretend to be asleep if you are going to ask us questions?" She sits up. "Back in the farm, do you think Da and Ma believed for a second we were not hearing the bed hitting the wall? We all pretended for sanity's sake, Grob."
She turns beet-red at Moon's joke. "If... if it wasn't so freaking cold outside, I swear I'd have gone for a stroll in the woods already."
"I SHOULD apologize, but I don't really feel sorry?" He confesses "But I'll try to pipe down."
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Moon clamps a hand over her mouth to stop the laughter from escaping.
Now, that's a woman who desperately needs her kitty pet.
Once her reaction is reduced to silent and stupid grins, she settles down to sleep. She can't risk saying anything or she's quite sure she'll burst into laughter.
The night passes as everyone falls asleep, except those that are up to take a watch. Thankfully, nothing disturbs the chill quiet outside of the palatial tent, and the Heroes of Kassen, plus one dragon turned human girl, wake to the smell of a warm and hearty breakfast cooking in a large iron skillet.
Once everyone has eaten and dressed, Doffery helps lead you towards the next goblin camp, that of the Manylegs tribe.
.
The day passes mostly without incident. However, as the afternoon begins to fade into evening, worrying signs appear. A partially obscured boot print here, a broken branch as big around as Emerald's thigh there, and the tattered remains of webs strung between trees show that the heroes are crossing the trail of something. Doffery is more skittish than usual, staying closer to the party than he has as he guides them. Just as he is about to suggest making camp for the night, a loud, guttural laugh breaks the quiet.
"That was an ogre," Emerald whispers as loudly as she dares to the others once the laughter has faded back into the still quiet of a wintry forest.
You believe that the ogre is not that far away, perhaps a few hundred feet.
I think we’ll all sleep safer without that brute lurking around nearby. Everyone up for thinning the ranks of the enemies a bit?” Maidie says. She’s grateful that she does not have to trudge through the snow like the rest of the group, but the cold and effort has her gossamer wings aching.
She examines the tracks.
”I can fly out and find the ogre, while the rest of you set up an ambush. I’ll lob a few globs of acid at it, get it to chase me…I’ll be safe up in the air and if it has a ranged weapon I’ll go invisible and draw it back with sound.”
Grobradon looks concerned, sorting in his head through the terrain options and more then says
"I think the Ogre is pretty close, maybe a few hundred feet from us?" A nod to Maidie "An Ambush sounds like our best bet."
Before heading out, Maidie makes sure her mage armor is still active, recasting the protective spell if needed. She stays high, flying at an altitude of around 30 ft and zips from treetop to treetop.
Maidie flies off as evening begins to set in. The chill air is still as a deathly calm settles over the Fangwood. A few minutes after Maidie leaves, another booming laugh echoes through the forest.
It does not take long to find the source of the raucous laughter. Sheltered in a dense thicket covered in glittering webs is an encampment of several goblins, a bugbear, and an ogre. One of the goblins tends to a giant spider while the bugbear and the ogre bully the others while they drink and talk. The ogre laughs again at something the bugbear says, though you are not close enough to make out the conversation. The webs draped between the trees and criss-crossing the clearing in the center of the thicket make it tricky, but not impossible to get closer.
Given the webs and the idea of what could make an ogre laugh, Moon had concerns about Maidie’s plan and the lack of backup if matters turned out less straight-forward than the wizard anticipated… so the ranger kept creeping forward tracklessly along with Histya. They hid beneath the canopy of trees as they drew closer.
As soon as Maidie realizes that they are dealing with more enemies than just a lone ogre, she halts and peers through the darkness. But the weather, lighting and distance make it impossible for her to pick out further details.
Instead, she turns and heads back to the rest of the group, giving a full report on what she saw.
After listening to Maidie's report, Erigga begins to think about their new problem.
"T'is almost dark. In one side o' the coin, I'm not sure we can sneak up to them while we can't see and they can... on the other, there is no guarantee we can hide from them the whole night to strike in the morning, for since they can see in the dark, they might make a patrol. I'd do it, if I was in there shoes." Yes, she was stating the obvious, but it helped her.
"Now, even in the dark, we still got the surprise and so far that has really worked for us... and against us once." At this point, it should be pretty clear how that was important.
"So how about this... Grob owl-up, so he and Maidie can fly over the webs and watch em. If they are all around the camp, they are in a prime place for rocks raining over 'em and creepers creeping up their asses. With some luck, this alone could deal with the goblins." Was it fair, at this point, to still rely on luck? Some would say they've abused it so far, but hey, Erigga was a halfling and Lady Luck and the Calamitous Turn were supposed to be watching her.
"While they wait, Moon and Histya move around to cut their escape if they go for that. Me, Emerald and Betzolte will sneak as close as we can." She then turns to Grob and Maidie. "You two watch'em carefully. When you think they've spotted us, which will happen, you unleash the nature's reckoning and we'll know it is time to rush forward. Moon does the same from the other side."
Finally, she turns to Emerald and Betz. "Should they be stronger than I'm anticipating, they'll swarm us, but if that happens, I'm confident I can keep you two alive as long as you keep close to me."
Moon holds position in her hiding spot. She observes the enemy closely, especially the goblin ‘serving’ the spider. It isn’t likely, but she hopes the servant might be Meep. Otherwise, she is trying to gather any useful information on the various creatures
"Some owls see fine around Sunset as well as Night, so sure." Grobradon nods at the suggestion, "Also will keep me from making too much damn noise."
I'm afraid I can't call down more sharp rocks until I have rested, but I can still summon a pit or use a scroll to summon another elemental. Perhaps a fire elemental to burn away the webs? Otherwise, it's a good plan." Maidie responds to Erigga's suggestion.
Then she realizes that not everyone are present.
"Wait...where's Moon and Histya?"
"You didn't see them following you," Emerald asks, clearly puzzled.
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After freezing her [part that Grob is fond of] off for a few more minutes, Moon is irked. They have a great hide, perfect for their attack, and now she has to retreat from it and risk being spotted again. She pats the cat, points the way and begins the slow retreat, trying to keep the massive tree between her and the enemy.
The duo return to the tent shaking off snow. Moon stamps her feet to warm them up, "What the hell happened?"
”More of them than just a lone ogre. I was not about to draw all of them back here without letting everyone know what to expect. We’ve been discussing a new plan, but whatever we do, we’d better decide quickly.”
”There’s a spider and I think its rider, some more goblins, a bugbear, and an ogre. The spider might spray webs and I’m very sure it has poison sacs. There is something off about that ogre, I think. I’m not sure what. I was focused on the spider.”
"What makes you think something was off about the ogre," Emerald asks Moon.
The ranger struggles to articulate her sense of matters. ”It's a feeling. I don’t understand what they’re doing out here... I’ve never heard an ogre laugh... This is a strange mix of creatures... The last odd group we met was led by Halk, obviously because he was tough. My gut says they wouldn’t just have some normal ogre lead a group like this. I feel this one is more capable in some way. Maybe more skilled, maybe smarter, maybe a spellslinger. I just don’t know.”
"That's not a comforting thought. If it's smart enough to be a spellcaster, it could cause us a lot of trouble." Emerald shivers and rubs her arms as she remembers the looks Halk gave her during the fight that took him down. "What do we do about it, though? Do we try luring them into an ambush? I think that'd be better than trying to catch them unawares at their camp. Those webs could give us away before we're ready."
Betzolte thinks on what Moon's describing, wondering if she's read about ogres who are mages.
”Now that we know there is more than one enemy, I favor a direct assault on their camp instead of trying to lure them into an ambush. Better to have them all concentrated in one place where we can target all of them with our spells. There’s too many variables if we make them come to us.”
She pauses to consider the problem of the webs.
”I could summon a fire elemental to help us burn away the webs.”
Erigga nods in agreement.
Moon frowns, considering two entirely different lines of thought. ”Webs cut both ways. They prevent us from getting in and the enemy from getting out easily. We should use that. If we attempt to sneak up then bombard them with spells, arrows, maybe even your earth elemental friend… they will have to break through their own defenses to get at us. At the very least that should bottleneck the goblins – unless they are all archers. The spiders and bigger creatures are an unknown in terms of how they can move and fight. But that can’t be helped.”
She tangents to her other line of thought. ”The laughter is concerning. If they saw what remains of Halk, no one should be THAT confident, even behind a web… unless they over-estimate themselves, are insane, or this is a trap and they are the bait. If this is a trap, we can’t afford to spread too far out. And we need to be prepared to withdraw.”
Ogres are generally too stupid to wield magic of any sort, though a very few of them do display some sorcerous talent. Scholars often call them Oni after some creature over the Crown of the World, but most call them ogre mages.
Ogres are generally too stupid to wield magic of any sort, though there are a very of them that do display some sorcerous talent. Scholars called them Oni after the race of fiends that hail from the far off lands of Tian Xia, but most call them ogre mages. These rare ogres tend to be more intelligent and ambitious than their brethren, often taking charge and leading their ogre clan and even uniting several of them if they manage to survive to adulthood and the frequent challenges that come their way as they consolidate power. An ogre mage would be bad news for Kassen, but it appears that this one is unlikely to be one.
However, there are, rarely, some ogres that are touched by the outer planes. These can sometimes wield magic born of those places beyond the material plane. The likelihood of one of those ogres being here is low, almost to the point of implausibility, but if Moon is right and there is something different about this one...
Emerald wrings her bow with her hands, something she appears to have not even realized she's doing.
"M-maybe we move on, then? It sounds like there's a lot more risk to attacking them than it's worth," she says.
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Betzolte strokes her chin.
"Moon, can you describe the laughing ogre a bit more? Did it have horns? Was it red? I don't THINK we're dealing with an onidoshi here. That's what they call "ogre mages" in Tian Xia, where they actually come from," she says in aside to the others, she assumes Moon's familiar with the creatures. "Which is why I don't think it's likely one of those, he'd be a LONG way from home. But we can't be too sure, considering they're among the most likely of their kind to go off and do mercenary work."
"M-maybe we move on, then? It sounds like there's a lot more risk to attacking them than it's worth," she says.
”That is always worth considering. But, if we let this group pass… they’ll be somewhere at our backs when we go after the Manylegs tribe. That’s a risk as well.”
"Moon, can you describe the laughing ogre a bit more? Did it have horns? Was it red? I don't THINK we're dealing with an onidoshi here. That's what they call "ogre mages" in Tian Xia, where they actually come from,"
Moon gives the dwarf wizard a really? look at the recitation of facts about Tian Xia and the subtle butchery of Moon’s mother tongue in the Avistani's pronunciation. She glosses over it all and proceeds with her considered answer.
”It wasn’t red or have horns. It looked like a typical ogre except… it was totally bald and its skin looked tough and dry. It had a fine, maybe old, piece of oak – a club, possibly. It also had a sheath with a few javelins. I think it had a bit of armor of sorts – a patchwork of thick and poorly tanned hides. Nothing else stands out in my mind except that there were trophies – skulls – hanging from its belt. Maybe, it is just an older and very experienced warrior. That could account for its confidence. The armor suggests it isn’t a mage.”
"Okay, definitely not an onidoshi, thank Torag. And if it DOES start saying magic words and stuff, we can assume we're up against some kind of ogre druid, and Grobradon'll know how to counter that kind of magic. Don't have to be smart to cast primal magic, just wise, but Grobradon's both!" Betzolte says, giving Grob a friendly nudge.