The party has a late start in the morning, but are looking much healthier on average. Drokon actually reappears, mentioning that he saw the large fire and heard the fighting with the dragon. It seems a little odd, but not overly aggressive. After breakfast, Puck asks to see Drokon's sword, and there's a tense moment where it's unclear if he's going to return it or attack Drokon. The moment passes though, and Drokon mentions that he would be quite interested in a duel with any of the party. It's not as if there's any serious consequences if the duel goes badly, after all...Puck accepts, and the two square off.
Now, Drokon is a swordsage with a high initiative and a good selection of maneuvers. His plan is to toss his opponent into the creek or taunt them into it, then use Step of the Moth to dodge around and cut away at his opponent while they flail in the water. Unfortunately, Puck cranks his initiative and Drokon flubs his, so Puck trips him and chops him for half his health. Drokon shadow steps away onto the creek and readies an Elder Mountain Hammer as he beckons Puck forward. I leave Drokon too close to shore though, and even with a bonus for floating above the ground he gets tripped again after hitting Puck for heavy damage...and Puck rolls a crit. Drokon unsurprisingly dies, and Puck gets to experience the very confusing sensation of Vitae rushing into him with the killing blow. It seems something about the duel changed how the Vitae acted...
The group stays camped for the rest of the day to see if Drokon returns (he does not). Sammael returns to the dragon corpse, which the fire didn't spread to, and now that the gas has faded manages to get some hide off the body. Sona and Talvosh notice some signs of the dragon near their current camp, and realize that since its very presence killed and scorched vegetation, the landing points are pretty obvious. The party goes to sleep again, planning on heading northwest towards the road in the morning.
Talvosh has a disturbing dream during the night...he's sitting in absolute blackness, unable to see anything. There's the unshakable sensation of someone staring at him though. Then something whispers in his ear:
Be Mine
It's close enough to morning that he doesn't go back to sleep.
The party continues in the morning, and as they travel the surrounding jungle quickly becomes drier and more natural as they get further from the marshy region. Sammael also notices that everyone is gradually travelling upwards. They catch sight of some reptilian creatures, but they flee quickly into the bushes. There are also notable streaks and splotches of brown and dead vegetation, where the dragon landed or trundled through the trees. That night, Talvosh has another dream. This time, there's the sensation of a hand on his shoulder along with the darkness and the
Voice. Sleep is...difficult to return to. The group guesses they're about a another day away from reaching to Old Road again, and then it's another few days following that before they're out of the jungle. Peering out above the treeline, Sammael sees an inordinate amount of jungle towards the west, and what looks like canyons and possibly mountains to the north and northeast. There's the distant coughing roar of displacer beasts to the south as the party travels, but they stay on target and keep going.
This night, Talvosh
Fails his Will Save. Puck watches as Talvosh sits up, grabs his axe, and wanders away from camp, towards the southeast. Sona and Sammael wake up when Puck tries to get Talvosh's attention as he follows. No response to either Puck or Sona asking questions, but on a hunch Sammael uses
Detect Evil. A Shadow hangs about Talvosh, so Sammael winds up with a rock and throws it into the back of the orc's head. He deals 2 points of damage, which is enough to wake Talvosh up. Talvosh needs to make his will save to not frenzy, he just needs to roll a 3.
He rolls a 2, and whips about. He charge-leap-pounces Puck, and takes off half his health with one hit (and luckily for Puck, misses the other two attacks). Sona
Greases the ground underneath Talvosh, hoping to keep him flailing around ineffectually. Puck trips Talvosh, and then crits with a max power attack, nearly killing Talvosh with one hit. On Talvosh's turn, the nonlethal damage from his Frenzy makes him pass out, and he then succeeds on his save to stop frenzying. His rage doesn't end, which gives Sammael and Angelena enough time to disarm the orc and heal him. Once he wakes up, he's not particularly chatty about what happened (partially because he's not sure what happened himself). Inspecting Talvosh, Sammael notices something strange.
There's an inky black worm, very small, jutting out of the back of Talvosh's neck. Carefully, he reaches out with his death touch and brushes the worm. It swells and thickens in response, and now Talvosh can feel a sucking, pulling sensation on the back of his neck. Sammael uses a destroy undead burst, and the worm evaporates in a puff of shadows. A little creeped out, the party leaves as early as they can in the morning and continues northwest at haste.
They finally reach the Old Road again, and start following it to the Northeast. After a couple days of uneventful travel (steadily inclining upwards and the terrain becoming more rocky), they notice signs of broken branches and crumpled bushes leading off the road. Scouting ahead, Sammael finds the skinned corpses of several displacer beasts and a Megaraptor. The meat is still on all the creatures, but the heads, claws, and tentacles are all missing. They've all been efficiently and quickly butchered, but only for trophies, the meat was seemingly ignored. Sammael also sees smooth brushed dirt where there should be footprints...
The next day, Sammael triggers an
Alarm spell, and hides in the bushes while the rest of the party hangs back a little bit and prepares for company (Sona disguises Talvosh with a
Major Image to not look like an orc, though thinking about it I'm not sure how her character knew it was elves :smallbiggrin:). Shortly after, a group of harsh looking elves wanders by Sammael's hiding spot. There are three elves with broad heavy looking spears, complicated blue woad patterns smeared across their flesh. There's another elf holding only a bow, his pattern even more elaborate. Finally, there is an elf wearing heavy armor made of bone. His breastplate was once someone's ribcage, and his helmet was very obviously an orc skull once. The hilt of a greatsword juts over a shoulder, and it seems to be bone also. Every last one of them radiates evil.
Puck is the only one who speaks elven, so he can understand them as they jeer and laugh wandering down the road. In accented common, they ask if the little lambs are lost, and what the Forged is doing so far from his shiny little city. When Puck dismisses them in Elven, the mood turns a little more serious. After a suspicious offer to "hunt" together, and some posturing and threatening between one of the spearmen and Puck, the leader orders his men to step aside and let the travelers pass. Sammael passes his sense motive to notice the leader loosening his sword belt slightly in preparation, and quietly Blesses his weapon. The leader rolls a natural 20 on his Listen (side note, there were a LOT of 20s rolled tonight. I rolled 4 against Puck...too bad he can't be critted :p), and his head snaps to the side.
"Clever monkeys!" With a snarl, the
Fight is On!