Ursula buries her relief in seeing Sharlott back up, if with still some smarting on her head from getting knocked out. "Sharlott, Dawn needs to take a look at that wound. Get it properly treated. You're not going to be useful if you're still wounded," She tells her, directly her to the dwarven woman.
Looking at Jaldan, she quick changes her attire with her wayfinder, placing the soiled garments into the laundry bag of her effects. "It was fortunate we acquired a talisman that could put out flames from our previous mission. Let's hope this is the only forest fire we must deal with here." She politely extracts herself from the hug from the centaur girl, then strides towards the sole sane leshy.
"Lady Ursula Vashkara of House Orlovsky, Pathfinder Agent, accompanied by my fellow associates," She introduces herself and the team. "Why were those other plant creatures so riled up to see Pathfinders? They seemed to be incensed by our wayfinders."
As the conversation continues, the black flowers on Dehlia's shoulders curl back into bulbs.
"I'm just a wanderer. I don't know what's going on with my kin either, they just woke me from a nap."
Dehlia cocks her head to the side, "Come to think of it, I don't remember how I came to be in this part of the forest."
After taking a moment to consider the circumstances, Dehlia speaks up. "I'm a guardian with no one to defend, and I don't like what's happening to my kin here. If you're going to investigate, then perhaps I can accompany you, for now."
She stands up as straight as she can and puffs out her chest slightly. "They call me Dehlia. I'm just about the toughest fighter you'll meet, and I can cook a hearty meal just about anywhere."
Nix hobbles over to the rest of the group. Wobbley from fighting to stave off collapsing, the kobold lists out
You should lisssten to Ursula Sharlott, you don't look so goood, and you Leshy, we are pretttty tough customers I duuuuunno if we need someone to "defend" us
Nix tries to puff out his chest to look intimidating but instead topples to his side where the party can see through the holes in his cloak that he is mottled with bruises and his scales seem almost caustically erroded by the deluge of poisonous gunk and guts
Kalla tsks, a sharpish cluck of her tongue, whether it is in disagreement with or worry for the kobold is hard to tell. Kneeling, she helps him to his back "Dawn, you mind giving up some of your heavenly light for Nix here?"
Her glasses slipped so the look she turns to the leshy is just black pits, but the smile accompanying it is nice at least. "Seems like you were pretty strong in the fight, so if you want to come with, there is nothing any of us are going to do to stop you, see?"
"Meaning you're welcome."
Dawn obligingly calls on the spirits to summon a garden of healing and mend everybody's wounds.
"Yeah! Err, I mean, we won't stop you." Jaldan attempts to modulate. "You're sure you don't just know what's wrong though?"
With a sigh Jaldan sets a hard pace for the camp, "We've gotta get home before anything else goes wrong!" Whether due to her plan or simple luck you don't have any other troubles along the way before you shamble into the encampment just as the Redpines are setting up for the night.
The Redpine camp is located at a bend in a small forest stream. Hides stretch from branch to branch, making for a cluster of oddly shaped but surprisingly large dwellings. A few trenches have been dug to reroute part of the stream and form a kind of moat or firebreak around the camp, and several decorated banners hang from spears driven into the ground. The smell of roasting meat wafts over the camp, and you see several rabbits cooking over a fire. Jaldan hails a sentry as you arrive, her elation at your victory still clear.
You are promptly welcomed into the camp, allotted a patch of ground, and given roast rabbit and wild greens. Jaldan steals a rabbit leg from your plate, then trots off to report to the camp’s leaders.
About an hour later, you are approached not by a centaur, but by a golden-eyed lizardfolk with coppery scales. "Stars move more easily than minds." The lizardfolk observes to no one in particular, sitting down on a log. "I am Urwal.
"Jaldan spoke to us. You have seen Finadar’s problem in flower and flesh. Tell me what you have seen."
As Kalla settles on their own patch of ground with a delicious plate of food, she says with all honesty "Ah, life cannot get bet- HEY!" she shouts as Jaldan grabs some of her food, but the centaur is way too fast for her two legs "Hmm... well, I'm a guessing that is life telling me not to count anything yet. Um... Dehlia, hoping I'm not asking out of turn but do you eat meat?" without a single dip of her eye toward the leshy's plate.
Kalla tells the story of what they saw, but gets stuck more on describing the smells of her party getting ill. Still, she tells of the plants investing corpses, "I think the moss covered skull with branch legs like a spider was the weirdest, from a whole creepiness pathway at least."
Ursula and Sharlott both decline to eat the rabbit, the maid looking a little ill and Ursula seeming content with just the greens. She listens as everyone settles in and looks to the lizardfolk as they sit with the Pathfinders.
"Some of them ignited the forest. I am unsure if that was purposeful or not, but it seems hazardous even to their own health. They did not act as other leshy I've met in the Society. I fear they have some grudge against us. They seemed to know what a wayfinder was." Ursula notes.
"Let me tell you a story, familiar to some." Urwal says, changing the subject abruptly. "North of here, there is a valley. Dragons died there, and their bones linger. For centuries, goblins dwelled among the bones. They made rituals of fire and worship. Such a life is not for me, but the goblins were happy."
"Beneath the dragons’ graves lay a monolith. I have heard tale of it. Carven rock, six handspans tall, covered in the markings of the one-eyed shapers. For years past number, the stone slumbered, until even the stars changed above it."
"Then, as the Sun blessed the Newlyweds, the goblins’ rituals awoke the stone. It remembered its shapers. It remembered its purpose. And it remembered its powers. It called living fire into the dragons’ bones. Finadar burned. Young Pathfinders came to help. The stone was found, secured. All seemed well. The link to the Eternal Furnace cooled.
"But now the spirits grow strange and furious. Cenenviel and Kaana seek to guard their peoples' lives. This is well. But I think it wise that someone seek out that stone's resting place. The stars agree: There is another."
Urwal is quiet for a long moment, and then nods briskly. "This is an auspicious night. The Dreamer is bright. Walk the camp, see where you may be of aid. Brighten the name of the Pathfinders.
"You will leave in the morning; you will return. For the valley. For the second stone."
"I have read Captain Jorsal's report about the Dragonskull clan's cyclopean stone. If there is another summoning more fire elementals into the forest, that's a great concern for everyone. Though why such stones were made for the purpose of setting fire to a notoriously fire prone forest..."
Ursula sighs. "Alas, I'm hardly the scholar of the family. Best to secure it as last time. For now, I will seek out information on where we would be best appreciated," She states before walking around the Redpine encampment.
Dehlia takes only a very small portion of food, just enough to taste. "I've tried meat on a few occasions." She slowly rolls the food around her mouth, noting the taste and texture. "I've had better, but I suppose they're light on seasoning with all the fire around."
"Most leshy subsist on sunlight, though I can also get some nutrients from the ground." As she speaks, vines wrapped around her legs slide into the ground.
Noticing Sharlott's lack of appetite for the meal at hand, Dehlia offers her some bread. "This bread is mild, and should sate you for a day."
--------------------
After listening to Urwal, Dehlia makes her way to the cooking fire and offers her skills, as well as some local herbs she picked nearby, to bolster the flavor of the rabbit.
At the campfire, Jaldan is speaking with a small group of other young centaurs, warning them about the strange leshies, and perhaps embellishing a bit.
When she sees Dehlia and Ursula approach, she embraces them again. "These are some of the heroes, guys! Oh!" She trots over to her tent and brings back a [spoiler=https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=3002&Redirected=1]holly bush feather token[/url] "Cenenviel's been teaching me to make these. I hope it helps? He's been trying to figure out why the spirits are so angry now, but apparently a lot of his old books got burned in a fire?"
Chief Kaana Korag seeks out the remaining pathfinders, greeting Dawn, Kalla, and Laszlo soberly, and Nixoret with a lesser measure of respect. "A gladness to see you it is. More strangeness you have found in your friends again, I see. At the heart, Pathfinders, your Urwal believes will be found. To speak to this, I must ask you."
Urwal seems perhaps concerned that the Pathfinders did not seek further answers on their own, but the iruxi is famously difficult to read.
"I have cast horoscopes for your mission," Urwal says at dawn without preamble, setting a pair of satchels full of traveling supplies by your campsite. "The omens are favorable enough, although the stars carry warning.
"The spirits of Finadar Forest are sick. Perhaps this is an abscess in nature, and must be lanced with sword and flame. But such a cure is to be mourned, not celebrated," the lizardfolk says, emphasizing each word. "The primeval forest already thrums with gratitude that you brought protection and not only death. Better for all if a safer salve is found. Yes?"
The supplies consist of food (bread, foraged mushrooms, smoked meat), a hunter's bane talisman, and some coin in case of other needs (4 gold, 45 silver).
***
As you travel over the course of the next day, you find the forest becoming gradually quieter. There are more burnt areas here, both old scars from earlier fires and the remnants of more recent blazes sparked by the corrupted leshys. There are fewer animals as well, game would be frustratingly scarce if you were here to hunt, with hardly any more than scraggly rabbits to be found. Eventually, you come across a small mountain stream, which matches Urwal's directions - you're on the right path.
As you cross the stream, Dawn spots movement up ahead. An enormous scarecrow is busily clearing the collected growth of eons past from an ancient set of cyclopean menhirs that surround what looks to be an altar or grave of some kind, decorated with a sinuous, flowing script. Several small animals have been freshly sacrificed atop the altar, their blood sliding into the grooves of the letters carved into the stone.
When you approach further, you realize the true size of the scarecrow, with eyes like bubbling black pools in its sackcloth face and hands twisted into wooden talons. Immediately it lunges forward as it sees you, and trailing behind it, whether drawn by the corpses or darker energies, you can see a colony of centipedes scuttling along in unsettling unity.
+7+1 if Dueling
Ursula
Nixoret
Dawn
Laszlo
Scarecrow
Kalla
Centipedes
Dehlia - Shield Up
Laszlo makes his way forward, taking in the disturbing force amongst the standing stones. With a brief guilty glance at Dehlia as he passes her, he pulls out a jar of Alchemist's Fire and launches it at the scarecrow, hoping to spread some of the fire to its smaller companions.
Alchemical weaponry disbursed, Laszlo then whistles for Bruit to rush up amongst the enemies, hopefully causing a distraction.
Buckler up as she strides forward, Ursula examines the scarecrow and tries to determine what manner of creature it could be.
The scarecrow swats the jar of fire out of the sky with concerning speed, but everywhere the incendiary so much as touches it the scarecrow quickly smolders.
Ursula Shield Up
Nixoret
Dawn
Laszlo
Scarecrow -4
Kalla
Centipedes
Dehlia - Shield Up
Dawn moves forward and calls on her spirits as she snaps her fingers, causing the scarecrow to begin smoldering.
The blazing scarecrow reaches for Ursula in a Haunting Assault, batting aside her blade with one claw while the other one savages her with supernatural might. Its eyes burn with malice, and Ursula can feel a wicked laugh reverberating from the triple gash along her ribs.
And then suddenly, it departs, scraping her blood along the tomb, and striding into the treeline, where the forest itself seems to recognize it as some kind of twisted sibling, bowing and bending from the scarecrow's path
Ursula -9, Frightened 2
Nixoret
Dawn
Laszlo
Scarecrow -11
Kalla
Centipedes
Dehlia - Shield Up
Nixoret contemplates the behavior of the scarecrow and ascertains that blood sacrifice seems to be important to its force animating force. The kobold enthusiastically whips out a bar of lye soap from his pack and coats his hatchet, in an attempt to infuse it with the very essence of cleanliness.
Next, the kobold angles his mirror through the trees to create a mirror image adjacent to the construct and swipes at it's legs with his slippery blade
"Seems like it likes you." Kalla rushes by Ursula with her blade and magical words out and threatening. Unfortunately her words are simply more effective than her sword.
Nixoret hews into the scarecrow like soap cutting through grease! The scarecrow staggers back, badly hurt, but the centipedes swarm forward nonetheless!
Ursula and Kalla pick up stinging bites that leave their legs tingling and numb, but luckily most of the simple beasts swarm over Bruit, leaving the mechanical hound pockmarked and spattered with useless venom.
Ursula -12, Frightened 2, Courageous, DC 14 fort or
Nixoret - Courageous
Dawn - Courageous
Laszlo - Courageous (Bruit -7)
Scarecrow -25, Weak 3 to Nix
Kalla -1, DC 14 fort or
Centipedes
Dehlia - Shield Up, Courageous
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Laszlo looks on as the scarecrow passes, longing to see it burn further. Unfortunately, the centipedes present a more immediate threat. Pulling a Minor Elixir of Life from a pouch, he pierces the cork with a metal tube and shoves the straw in Ursula's face.
"Drink up, I've tuned the formula to poisons of the region, but it's still rather generic. It should help though."
With his other hand, he digs into a pouch and pulls out a Blight Bomb. "Hmmmm, this should do, let's see how they like poisons." He quickly tosses it at one of the centipedes harassing Bruit with a cackle.
Ursula coughs as she's forced to suck down a potion that does make her feel a little better. "If you have something that will hit more than one of them, that would work better," Ursula grunts as she focus on enchanting her sword, runic glyphs in Draconic appearing across its surface as she casts her spell.
She lashes out at the centipede in front of her, casting a shield spell at the same time to protect her with a pink bubble.
Dawn heals Ursula a she moves closer to the melee.
Dawn and Laszlo get Ursula back into fighting shape while she carves a centipede in half! Laszlo's poisonous projectile splashes over the fray, eating away at the aggressive vermin surrounding his hound.
Ursula -0 Frightened 1, Courageous, +1 vs. Poison, Shield, Runic Weapon, DC 14 fort or and Off Guard
Nixoret - Courageous
Dawn - Courageous
Laszlo - Courageous (Bruit -7)
Scarecrow -25, Weak 3 to Nix
Kalla -1, DC 14 fort or Poison: 1d6 ⇒ 3
Centipedes (Magenta -3, (d4 Po), Red -1, Orange -1)
Dehlia - Shield Up, Courageous
With a grin on her face Dehlia wades into battle, taking a flanking position against the scarecrow. "Take your best shot, abomination!"
Her flowers uncurl and bloom to reveal dark red petals as she lashes out with her shield.
Nix takes advantage of the distraction caused by Delia and creates a new apparition of himself sandwiching the scarecrow. Before the construct can adjust he strikes viciously at what passes for its knee pits
Down crashes the scarecrow as Nix and Dehlia tag team the towering construct! The centipedes seem less immediately driven to your destruction, but the giant vermin still hunger!
Trees are difficult and grant cover.
Rocks are impassible unless climbed and grant cover
Please don't make me figure out aquatic combat
The Bold May Go!
Ursula -0 Frightened 1, Courageous, +1 vs. Poison, Shield, Runic Weapon, DC 14 fort or Poison: 1d8 ⇒ 3 and Off Guard
Nixoret - Courageous
Dawn - Courageous
Laszlo - Courageous (Bruit -7)
Kalla -1, DC 14 fort or Poison: 1d6 ⇒ 3
Centipedes (Magenta -3, (d4 Po), Red -1, Orange -1)
Dehlia - Shield Up, Courageous
"Hay Abomination down! Nice stabbing you two!" Kalla calls out her magical encouragement as she slams her sword in a two handed downward thrust akin to a very angry woodchopper against a stationary stump.
Kalla chops her centipede in half with great flair and élan, but the other vermin don't seem to get the message. Bruit continues to be abraded by a never ending flood of limbs and mandibles, and Ursula is forced to fling the other centipede away from her with a shield of force to keep it from poisoning her again!
Ursula -0 Frightened 1, Courageous (2), +1 vs. Poison, Runic Weapon, DC 14 fort or Poison: 1d8 ⇒ 3 and Off Guard
Nixoret - Courageous (2)
Dawn - Courageous (2)
Laszlo - Courageous (2) (Bruit -16)
Kalla -1, Courageous
Centipedes (Magenta -3, (d4 Po), Red -1, Orange -1)
Dehlia - Shield Up, Courageous (2)
Ursula channels her cracked shield energy through her body and weapon as she allows the arcane magic to cascade. She strikes out at the vicious centipede!
With her shield spell broken, she raises her buckler instead to ward off further attacks.
Laszlo digs through his pouch for a Volatile Vial and some additives, turning it into another Blight Bomb before tossing it into Bruit's melee.
As he does so, he cheers on his mechanical companion, yelling "Good job, boy! Keep them distracted! Karom! Karom!" So prompted, the hound bats at the centipedes with steam powered paws.
Seeing the centipedes swarm Bruit, Dehlia moves out of the three cover and bangs her shield to draw attention before attacking. "Fight me!"
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Kalla rushes toward her favorite metal dogs aid, loudly agreeing with their new companions request "Yes, fight her, I imagine she is thinking horrible things about your bug mother. Maybe something about her many legs?" the odd bard magically hoots before bringing her sword down with more of her hacking grace.
Dawn gathers a palmful of flame and rushes the last centipede while Nix hits it from the other side!
With the centipedes squished and scattered you're able to get a better look at what exactly the scarecrow was doing. Fresh sap shows that the path of the spirit's rampage wasn't quite random. The brush around the stones has been ripped clear, and the stone tomb was dragged out of the earth before the blood sacrifices began.
Laszlo pulls out his tools and makes his way over to Bruit cooing "Good boy, Bruit! You did very well. Let me fix what those mean centipedes did to you." The mechanical hound's tail wags with a faint screeching noise due to a misaligned plate.
Turning to the rest of the party, in a far more dignified manner, he says "This will take me about twenty minutes to patch up. Then I can look into what this site is... though with luck you will all have figured everything out by then and I can continue to rest on Bruit's laurels! Ha ha!"
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"Can do Las." Kayla assures their alchemist as she starts to move about looking at stuff "Dehlia" she tells their newbie "This is where pathfinding changes from the fun stuff to the needed bits, investigating and thinking about the W's. As is in 'Whatcayall think this is all about?'"
Cause she has no idea.
Freshly changed into a new outfit, Ursula examines what's happened here in depth.
"Clearly, the scarecrow had a purpose here. Were they attempting to enact a blood ritual? What created the scarecrow? I don't recall such a construct from the notes of your previous encounters in these woods."
With one eye cocked, Dehlia responds, "Can't say investigating is a strong suit of mine. But I did notice the scarecrow seemed to be of the forest."
The stones are covered in complex writing that going by the accompanying pictographs belongs to the ancient cyclopes.
The cairns seem to suggest that Finadar Forest with its swift-burning blood pines was used as a great ritual battery for certain energies. Some of you already found and destroyed a monolith that drew on the Eternal Furnace, but it seems as if what currently twists the spirits of Finadar and is creating such bizarre leshies must be a monolith that draws in the darkness of the Abyss.
The pictographs show dozens of these monoliths, so it is likely that this pollution is still early, still reversible, but tainted spirits like you found in this scarecrow may be trying to find and awaken other links to the demonic realm.
You don't see anything else on the tomb that explains why the scarecrow dug it up; you'd have to open it to learn more.
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After party discusses their findings, Laszlo walks up to the grave. Solemnly, he rests a hand on it and bows his head, intoning
"Lady Pharasma, hear our prayer.
We honor the dead and their journey upon the Great Spiral as we honor the living and their brief existence on this plane.
Forgive us this liberty we take. We open this grave and exhume this body, not to defile its form, but to ensure its slumber.
May you aid us in completing our journeys at their natural end and may we find peace within your kingdom when we arrive."
He waits a beat in silence before turning back to the party. Holding up a crowbar, he says "Common Ustalavic gravedigger's prayer. Now let us get down to business."
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Laszlo manages to somehow wedge the lid on tighter... It won't come off without being broken.
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"Well. Considering this is the tomb of a deceased civilization with no indigenous claims to it, I doubt anyone will be upset if we destroy the lid."
Ursula does get out her charcoal and some spare paper to at least rub out a copy of the pictographs on the lid. She looks to the other party members.
"Unfortunately, I don't have any spells prepared for breaking stone. And I would likely chip my sword. Perhaps you wish to use that brutish weapon of yours, Kalla?" She suggests.
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"Awww, you say the most sparkly things." Kalla grins at her own mock gushing voice, but a keen observer does see she is delighted at the word Brutish for her favorite weapon.
She moves over to the lid, "Okay, girl" she whispers to her blade, petting it as she lets magic seep into it. "Let's crack this open, why don't we"
Then she sings a little song about digging in the mines, a cadence keeper, while she double-handed-over-her-head hacks away.
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The slab sealing the tomb eventually cracks and splits beneath Kalla's mighty blows. Inside you find some dusty, crumbling bones and a sizable ancient amulet depicting a single staring eye. The amulet is mostly of iron, but some of the detail work is in gold. That only makes it the more implausible that the whole of it seems to be rusted...
It doesn't seem to currently be enchanted, but Nixoret suspects it would probably serve as an effective focus for channeling demonic magics - not that he would!
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Dehlia can't help but sing along and clap to Kalla's rhythm. Her flowers start to uncurl, revealing a bright blue flower, but she catches herself just before it is fully revealed. She stands at attention, a stoic look across her face, as the flower buds curl again.
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As you approach the valley where the Dragonskull goblins once lived, the environment grows increasingly bizarre. Much of this area still bears the scars of the fires of your past visit, but the charred and ashen ground is almost preferable to the plant life that has survived. Enormous, thorny bushes with leaves bent like clawed fingers sprout from the ground, while strangling vines have sunk hooked spikes into the bark of the remaining trees and drawn forth their ruddy sap. Massive, pitcher-like flowers seem to pulsate to some unheard rhythm, and the few animals that you can see bear massive, weeping wounds. The air is thick and hazy with pollen and has a sickly sweet, metallic scent to it, like rotten blood.
The terrain is still familiar enough for you to approach through the brush to a concealed vantage point, which lets you see that what is now the leshies' valley is a peculiar and ominous place. The area all around it teems with awful and uncanny life. The unnatural plants from before grow twice as thick and strange. Shrubs with gnarled human fingers twitch in the breeze, while vines slither like serpents along the ground. A two-headed crow caws from atop an oak tree studded with catlike eyes. Of more immediate concern however, are the dozens of corrupted leshies. A few simply stand around, singing odd, warbling songs to one another, or else play a game vaguely like patty cake, albeit with wildly varying numbers of limbs. Many of the others are hard at work, gathering strewn-about trash, stray branches, and offal, and bringing their prizes toward an ancient, graven monolith at the end of the crevasse.
Dehlia notices that the other leshies seem oddly focused in their actions; she dimly recalls when she was new to the corporeal realm and had her own difficulty processing the myriad physical stimuli through literally new eyes.
The new monolith is half-destroyed, most of the top part battered by some ancient rock-slide, but even from afar, you can still make out the same sinuous script upon the weathered stone, as well as bas-relief depictions of three one-eyed figures: two, in armor, bowed in supplication before a third, wearing robes and a massive pectoral amulet.
Around the monolith, a single leshy moves with quiet efficiency. He looks for all the world like a simple leaf leshy, quite mundane compared to his more gruesome allies, save for the chunk of gray stone embedded in one eye. That chunk of stone seems to be a fragment of the monolith, and a serpentine rune upon it glows with yellow flames that intensify as the leshy busily assembles the gathered scraps left at the monolith into new, disturbing leshies.
As each body is built, the stone eye flashes, and an eerie leshy totters off to join their fellows. Laszlo determines that the stone itself is channeling energy from the monolith into the leshy crafter, and that the leshy crafter, empowered by the structure, is infecting the rest of the leshies in turn. Removing this immediate vector, either by killing the leshy crafter or by removing the stone from his eye, will also resolve the problem of the angry nature spirits - at least long enough to destroy the monolith and end its threat for good.
Sneaking directly past all the leshies to the monolith would be nearly impossible, even with their distraction, but if you circle around and attempt a climb down the cliffs it should be merely difficult. The direct approach is open as well, of course, as may be other courses of action. But to wait longer means more and more leshies will be crafted...
Seeing the worrisome state of her kin, Dehlia spots the cliff approach and scans her companions, pausing for a moment on Sharlott.
"The best approach is from those cliffs, but I'm not sure we're all capable of climbing down safely and swiftly. I say we charge, waiting only means more of these abominations."
A frown appears on her face as she adds, "I'd prefer we remove the enchantment over killing the crafter, but I know that may be difficult. My kin should have opportunity to defend themselves, perhaps they are under a corrupting influence."
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A small orb of blue light hammers into the two headed crow, striking one head then bouncing into the other, ding ding, before it disappears in a shower of sparkling dust.
Dozens of wicked little eyes turn toward the figure at the end of the valley, one hand on her hip, the other held palm out, in a damn fine coat. A wide grin on her face, with her eyes hidden behind rose colored glasses.
"I am Kalla of the Boiling Rose" the voice clear with a delight that seems out of place. "I declare war on all ya warped gibbers for mucking up this land. With that spell, my mighty magical ritual has now been ignited and only my death can stop the cleansing, you bitter little weeds... so..."
The air hangs for her to finish that sentence, but the bard instead whirls around and RUNS for her life!
At Kalla's signal, Laszlo begins making his way over the cliff face with the rest of the party, leaving Bruit to guard their descent.