While the totally united party is still arguing over yesterday's debacle, a panther falls on all of them. Tatarus whips out his axe and the panther transforms himself into a human named Cross, the self proclaimed best druid in all the lands. Galen takes offense and the two begins arguing, while Felicity sighs and Tatarus sharpens his axe. Suddenly, a feminine voice fills the room. She demands them to work together and make it through "her" challenge, then her presence leaves. The house disappears and they find themselves along a marshy area with a raging river and a boat in sight. Before they can make for the boat, drowned ones swim ashore and challenge them. Cross shows his skill by accidentally torching Tatarus while trying to burn the drowned ones, while Galen misses an opportunity provided by his aegis to attack another. Tatarus, for his part, cleaved through one in a single blow.
They clambered on the boat and went off. Unfortunately, they encounter some bad rapids, and Cross and Galen manage to humiliate themselves for the second time by slipping into the water. Felicity taunts them to be "up a creek without a paddle" as they breathlessly clamber on board. The party hits a shallow portion which grounds their boat until they push it to the deeper water further on. However, they were set upon, this time by aquatic famine hounds, who hamper their efforts. Determined to regain face, Galen and Cross leap forward to hold back the hounds while Felicity and Tatarus push the boat. Unfortunately, even after the boat was free they had to wait, for Galen and Cross were ignominiously knocked down by the three remaining hounds (Galen killed one) and were hit again when they tried to get up. Tatarus moved back to help and managed, with the help of Felicity's expert crossbow skills, to get both not-so-arrogant allies back on their feet at to the boat. As they pushed off, more hounds arose and pursued them.
They approach a safe house, but from it spill forth four skinwalker skeleton. Though clever positioning kept Cross from torching them all at once, they still managed to beat back the skeletons, though Galen and Tatarus were hurt. When their ranks were reduced, Galen heard the pursuing famine hounds and decided to draw back to prepare for them. Tatarus and Felicity easily dispatched the remaining one, only to see a horrifying sight - Galen getting torn to pieces by the hounds. They had sneaked up upon him and though he severely damaged them, in his weakened state he fell to their onslaught. Felicity missed from between her tears and Tatarus was too taken aback to act, but Cross, his face set into a lethal calm, unleashed the full force of his druidic might upon the cruel hounds and reduced them to ashes.
He was beyond hope - that much Cross could tell his companions. He personally incinerated it so that it could not be used against them, and scattered the ashes to the wind. Tatarus took from the now empty ground the sword, still glowing green with the arcane fire, and swore not to dishonor his name ever.
The party battled uneventfully against several opponents of little note, and reached the next safe house in time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment