"Ruven, gnoll by friend, attack." Alfred commands his friend forward as he launches another ball of fire towards the gnoll in E7. Ruven bursts out of the sand and charges forward, grabbing at the gnoll with her pincer.
Hazem double moves to (3, A)
Garavel attack:
Garavel damage:
Garavel delivers a fierce overhead sweep, and with another spray of blood, the wounded gnoll stands headless. It sways, in a way that instills a minuscule amount of nausea in everyone looking, before it collapses. The other gnoll threatening Garavel backs away in horror, only to get run over and stung by Ruven - a fatal sting that ends the gnoll's life in one last tremor.
Sihdrin and the other gnoll enter another skirmish, though the gnoll is clearly disheartened as the head of his friend lands next to their clashing arms.
When it is Hazem's turn, he'll 5 foot step into the flank at (4, B) and full attack
Hazem cocks an eyebrow as if studying the Gnoll's back..."Hrmm.. OH! This part looks squishy!!"
Hazem plops down and takes out a curious polyhedron die, rolling it across the sand "Hrmm... I'm flanking, so add 2 to that, but I'm also two weapon fighting, so take that two out.. but I'm also ok strong, so add another one, that's... 3!"
Looking depressed, Hazem laments, "Ok, so.. I didn't do as much as I had thought.. take the crit die out and cut the bonus damage makes it.. 16 points.. boo."
Hazem manages to sneak up to the gnoll, locked in combat with Sihdrin; the gnoll's exposed self ends up being victim to two great attacks. The gnoll freezes in place, his body jerking for a couple of moments before Hazem pulls the blades out, and it keels over. Blood coats the bronze sea.
Garavel peers around warily before sheathing his great falchion. "We appear to be safe. Hazem, I am impressed."
Hazem beams at the praise, does a twirly thing with his short swords, and accidentally lets one slip during the upswing. The blade sails through the air, landing 6 inches from Garavel's foot.
A horrified expression crosses Hazem's face, "I.. uhh.. ermm.. " Hazem sheepishly moves to his discarded short sword, all the while avoiding eye contact with the suddenly irate Garavel. He grabs the shortsword and promptly sheaths it immediately, "sorry... heh..", turns and speed walks back to his camel
Sihdrin sneers in disdain at the gnoll corpses. "Filthy vermin. They plague the desert. Leave them for the vultures."
"There may be more about. I will have a look." Sihdrin rides a wide perimeter around the battle site to see if any more gnolls are lurking in the rocks or shrubbery.
When we continue on, Sihdrin will clean and sharpen his curveblade.
Yantur will aid in the chasing down of any spooked camels.
He says, "Mr. Garavel sir, is this area of the desert known for gnolls? Is this something we should be worried about for the rest of the journey?"
Alfred strips the bodies of their gear as he tosses Ruven a treat from one of his pouches, letting his flamed hand dissipate. "Good job everyone. While Sihdrin is is scouting the area, lets get every thing of value from these gnolls before leaving them to the vultures. No point in in leaving potentially useful resources behind."
Garavel glares at Hazem for almost impaling his foot, though it is with a rare laugh in his eyes. He shakes his head as he returns to his own camel. As Yantur voices concerns, he glances at the halfling, and the others. "It is not unheard of, but we must exercise more caution now."
"Check their corpses if you wish - otherwise, we go north immediately."
Each of them had a battleaxe, in poor condition, and leather armour, in even worse condition. There also appears to be a journal on their person - one horribly mangled and almost absolutely unreadable - but a journal nonetheless. Skimming through the few pages that are whole, you find that it is written in the common tongue.
There is also a fat purse with well over seventy pieces of silver. A quick counting puts it at 77.
Alf grabs the purse and the journal, which he plans on reading when they rest that night.
Ready to continue on. Sihdrin will keep scouting a roaming perimiter around the caravan as we move... staying visual out to about 300 feet or so, depending on the terrain.
Alf will move 30' ahead and to the side of the party, switching from the camel to Ruven for a mount, so that Ruven can more comfortably use her tremorsense.
"Ooooh.. axes! I wonder if I could juggle these!!"
..cut to 5 seconds later..
"... medic..."
Hazem follows along quietly behind the caravan, nursing his new wound.
The bronze sea ends before the day; as the sun begins its descent into the horizon, you come upon the northern scrublands. The sand turns into dry, brown grass. Hills are scattered all around, some tall and some small. Brushes and bushes are everywhere. Far, far in the horizon you can see a great tree stretch to the sky. To the west the Pale Mountain looms.
"We will make camp soon," Garavel says. "And we will reach the expedition tomorrow."
After an hour of travel, you come to a small lake - Garavel orders the camp to be set up, and within half an hour the pavilion stands tall.
Hazem sits quietly in a corner, scribbling something on a parchment, while analysing one of the axes
Ruven will bury herself just under the surface 30 feet from the tent as usual after a short supper. Meanwhile, Alf pulls out the journal and gives it a more thorough examination.
Yantur asks Alfred, "Anything interesting in there?" indicating the journal.
He'll then prepare himself for whichever watch shift he's assigned to.
The journal is rather mangled - pages have been torn oout, and blood coats the spine of the book. The few pages that are readable tell the story of somebody interested in hunting - for pride, by the repeated mentions of pelts and trophies. Every time a name would logically appear, though, the page appears to be missing...
The night goes by quietly...
Alfred flips through the journal quietly before handing to Marketus. "Not sure if there is anything of direct value in here or not. Perhaps you can divine some meaning I can't."
After the pavilion is raised and we have our night meal, Sihdrin will spend some extra time brushing down his horse. He'll do a thorough examination to make sure he wasn't wounded in the melee.
After that is done, he'll take off his clothes and take a swim in the lake to wash off the trail dust. He'll do the same for his clothes to get them clean.
When morning comes, there have been few disturbances - the howling of wild dogs occured several times throughout the night, and the buzzing of some loud insects did disturb your slumber when it did occur. Yet no danger came upon you, and when Garavel wakes you all up he has already fed and prepared the camels.
"Let us be on our way shortly. We will arrive at Sultan's Claw, and the expedition, within hours."
After breaking your fast and dismantling the pavilion, you head on north. The scrublands make for interesting terrain, with its hills and dry, rustling grass. The wildlife is also different from the desert. After four hours of shifting up and down hills, you stand in the shadow of the great tree you saw yesterday; here, it is clear why it is called the Sultan's Claw. It stretches far, far up into the sky, with five bare branches that arc upwards, like talons. The bark seems withered and gnarly - its age is unquestionable.
Betwixt the great talons of the tree you see smoke - black and thick. It seems to be coming from the top of the hill, though it curves in such a way that you cannot see what it is.
"Umm.. Mister Garavel sir.. are hills supposed to burn like that around here...?" Hazem says, pointing to the black smoke
[ooc]Perception
"That much smoke usually means fire. We'd better hurry."
"What smoke?"
Garavel is about to question Hazem at the reference of smoke, though halts after the first syllable when Alfred confirms. He glances up at the great tree. "You're right! This is not good! Hurry!"
He spurs the camel onwards - after five minutes of constant elevation, you come to a small plaza, with the great tree standing in the middle. Half a dozen wagons are all scattered around the base - while a great white pavilion stands by the tree. Some dozen men and women are rushing around on the site, carrying pails filed with water - and there are screams of pain. A wagon is on fire.
The flames drape the entire wain from top to bottom - its painted features are difficult to discern through the red. From what you can see, it is a sun and moon. As you approach closer, a breeze blows past the wagon - through it - and a spray of singed cards all come in your direction. One card lands on Mark's chest, in a burst of orange cinders. It depicts a cyclone. Momentarily afterwards, the flames blaze stronger, roaring up intot he sky.
The flap of the white tent bursts open, and a dark-skinned lady comes into view. She is clad in white silk robes. "Douse the flames!" she barks at the men and women rushing around the campsite. This must be the Princess Almah. She throws a glance in your direction. "Ah, Garavel. And just a moment later than the nick of time, as usual!"
Garavel doesn't respond. He jumps off his camel and hurries over to aid the men in dousing the flames. The Princess turns to you. "Find some way to help!"
She then rushes to help Garavel and the others.
There is a huge barrel of water by the great tree - several pails of water have been filled and placed by it. Six people, Almah and Garavel included, are carrying these pails to the burning wagon attempting to douse the flame. All the water in the barrel would be able to douse the flames in one go - yet it is full of water, and heavy...
A couple of feet away from the burning wagon are another lot of people, desperately trying to push away another wagon from the flames; they seem to be struggling immensely. Strong arms would certainly help...
Nearby the burning wagon, a red-headed halfling is kneeling over two heavily burnt people. While the halfling is busy tending to one of the victims, the other one seems to slip into the cold embrace of death...
A middle-aged couple attempts to wrangle the expedition's animals back into their pens - there are quite a few of them, and the fire has caused a great panic betwixt them...
You joined the expedition from the very beginning, as a consultant of the arcane. While the days have been slow, you've been pitching in on occasion, though Almah hasn't asked much of you yet. It's been two weeks since Garavel set out to find more people to help with the reclamation of Kelmarane. After napping today after a rather sleepless night, you woke up to find the camp in chaos. The animals somehow got out of their pens, and one of the wagons appear to be on fire! You hear Princess Almah shouting orders - and as you step out into the camp, you see Garaval has returned with newcomers...
Saarah woke up after a nap to the smell of smoke and she quickly jumped to her feet and ran out to see what was going on. Seeing one of the wagons on fire she quickly runs to the barrel of water and picks up one of the buckets that was filled and rushes to the wagon, trying to douse the flames.
Sihdrin will gallop over to the animal pens and try to use his horse to nudge the livestock towards the pen.
If we are able to get them under control, he will move on to the other wagon to either lend his back or pull with his horse to get it away from the fire.
"Deal with the fire, Sihdrin. I'll take care of the animals." Alf heads over to the animal pens as he orders Ruven to start throwing dirt up on the backside of the fire to help keep it from spreading.
I'll use my Bonded Ring to cast Enlarge Person on one of the people trying to move the wagon. "Don't be surprised!" I'll shout at whomever I'm about to cast the spell on. That takes 1 round.
After that, I'll grab a bucket and help with the fire. I'll make use of my Fire Resistance: 5 to get up to the flames and put the water where it will do the most good. Or, preferably, I'll just stand at the fire and take buckets of water as they're brought up.
During all that, I'll also point out the man who's about to die to Mark. "I think he's going to need magical healing!"
Sihdrin and Alfred both manage to pen most of the wild animals, though two goats, a sheep and two pigs are still running wild - with quite the personalities, it would require a separate effort for each of these animals to be penned ...
Yantur's spell causes some chaos and confusion - and ultimately, despite the increase in strength, there are no visible results. Four of them certainly isn't enough ...
It looks to take a little under a minute to douse the flame at this rate - and it creeps closer to the wagon the others are trying to drag away ...
Saarah dumps her bucket on the flames and then seeing the man move to stand closer to the flames then she could get she rushes to the barrel of water and then graps two buckets and rushes to hand them to the man. PLE...PLEASE PUT TH...THE FLAMES...OUT ELOAIS...IS STILL IN THERE she screams as she hands off the buckets to the man, her speech interrupted by fits of coughing as she gets close to the smoke and flames.
Seeing that the men are struggling with the wagon she will help them move it in the next round if it isn't moved.
Alfred works to round up the last of the animals.
Alfred manages to pen the unruly sheep back into the pen - though the other animals are still stubborn and refuse to follow your lead.
Alfred manages to wrangle in the two pigs next - the goats leap away as he attempts to get them back into the appropriate pen.
I'll take the two buckets of water, dump one over myself, and then run into the flames with the other and see if I can see this Eloais person. I'll use the other bucket of water as smartly as I can; either to keep myself wet or to clear a path (trusting in my Fire Protection to keep me safe) if I can find where Eloais is. If I feel that my Fire Resistance is being overwhelmed, I'll beat a hasty retreat.
As Alfred appears to be taking care of the livestock, Sihdrin will run over to help pull the wagon away from the fire. If it will work, he will loop a rope around his saddle, tied to the wagon, to lend his horse's strength to the task.
Hazem will help wherever he is needed.. likely with the putting out of the fire
As Yantur runs into the burning wagon, he finds little but a corpse that is alight - the man is long gone. He is forced to flee when the roof of the wagon starts breaking down...
With Hazem and Saarah's effort of dousing the flames, they do seem to weaken. Yet the fire burns strong, and will definitely require more water.
Only one goat remains as the middle-aged couple succeeds in penning the other one.
Death comes closer for the victim requiring help...
Alfred will hastily cast stabilize on the dying man, unable to do much else quickly.
Sihdrin will continue to try and help move the wagon. If the rope/saddle plan is a dismal failure, he'll jump down and put his back into it.
Alfred rushes over to the burnt victims and finds that the woman that is unattended has severe burn marks in her face and on her shoulder. His soothing spell stops her convulsions, and from what you can tell she will live.