In which Elle taunts the wildlife and suffers the consequences. Then we find a lake.
After a productive day spent training with his new warhammer-head-on-a-chain, Cassian wandered back into the castle. He was soon approached by a guard.
"Sir, the rest of the champions have departed, they requested I give you their direction of travel. Also they asked that you quote bring the red one unquote," the guard said.
Cassian proceeded to the food hall where he found Balazar, and together the two set out to rejoin the party.
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After their eventful night, the party wakes in the morning near the body of the dead griffon they slew in the darkness. Talna makes note that the blessing her god had bestowed upon her the previous day was still present in the form of a dove tattoo, but the tattoo is fading. Max wakes up rubbing his fingers, finding all five of them in perfect working order. The dice his god had gifted him the previous day no longer glowed green, so the goblin pockets them. Talna takes out a knife and begins skinning the dead griffin where scavengers had not already been in the night. Sadun begins breaking the camp down and cleaning up the sleeping rolls.
Elle sets out for some food, looking for the rabbits she saw the day before. Emerging from the trees into a clearing, the gnome sees a large rabbit warren. The shadow of a griffon passes overhead, and Elle raises her fist to the air and shouts "Cursed bird-cat! You leave me to my rabbits today!"
At the sound of her voice, Elle hears crashing in the woods on the other side of the clearing, and sees two owl bears moving towards her. Backing away slowly, she does not see the griffin dive towards her from above. Fortunately for Elle, the griffin misses its target and has to climb back into the air. Elle starts running back to the group. She hears noise behind her as the owl bears chase after her, and then talons are around her shoulders as the griffin strikes more truly and Elle is airborne, aloft on the wings of a predator. The griffin passes over the camp site. "Somebody help me!" Elle shouts. Sadun and Talna look up and start to move after the diminishing shape of the griffin.
Meanwhile, on the road behind the group, Cassian and Balazar approach the camp site as well. Cassian sees the shape of a griffin in the air with a gnome clutched in its talons. Instinctively, Cass picks up a rock and hurls it at the griffin, but the rock goes wide.
From behind the griffin, Talna casts Chill Touch. The skeletal hand and cold pain of the spell cause the griffin to shriek and drop Elle. Cassian runs and manages to catch the gnome before she hits the ground. The griffin starts to fly away. Standing up and dusting themselves off, Cassian and Elle find they are separated from the group, and two owl bears emerge from the trees in pursuit of their meal.
Cassian sets Elle on the ground, pulls out his great sword, and walks to the owl bears, roaring in defiance and attempting to scare them off. The owl bears simply screech in reply. Elle looses an arrow at one of the owl bears, striking the beast in the shoulder. She fires two more in quick succession, striking it in the chest with each arrow. The owl bear hisses in anger and focuses its gaze on the gnome.
Running onto the scene behind Talna, Sadun and Fei, Maximiliano observes the arrows striking the owl bear, and as they do his ring warms around his finger. Suddenly, the goblin feels pain in his shoulder and chest as though something had impacted him, and he sits down sharply. He takes a swig of wine.
Fei runs into the fray and hurls her spear, striking the uninjured owl bear, and following that up with a magic stone that also slammed into the beast's head. Once more, as the blows strike the owl bear, Max feels an echo of it on his body. The owl bear turned to regard Fei with an unfriendly expression, only to be met by Sadun, dashing forward and roaring a challenge. The owl bear meets Sadun with slashing claws and biting beak, tearing at Sadun's flesh, but Sadun's rage keeps her from feeling most of the pain. Max on the other hand feels each scratch as though it were his own. Fortunately for the goblin, the owl bear that charges Elle mistimes its swipes and the gnome dodges away from the blows.
Balazar moves up from where he had been behind Cassian, and breathes fire on both owl bears, then swings his ghost sword and slashes the owl bear attacking Elle. Talna summons her spiritual dove and attacks the owl bear fighting Sadun, hitting with both dove and a Chill Touch. Behind her, Max groans as he feels more pain from injuries inflicted. Cassian moves around behind the owl bear attacking Elle, and swings his great sword in two large arcs which cleave the beast apart. The owl bear falls to the ground, very dead. Cassian continues his motion until he is behind the remaining owl bear, flanking it opposite Sadun.
"Watch out!" Elle shouts, and fires an arrow at the owl bear. The arrow explodes into a hail of thorns that Sadun dodges away from. Cassian however takes the full brunt of the thorns, as does the owl bear itself. Max clutches his chest as the feeling of hundreds of tiny thorns poking him assails his senses. He swigs more wine. "It feels like when the owl bears get hurt, I do too!" Max says, coming to a realization. He takes another long drink of wine and then lies down on his back.
Fei hurls another magic stone at the remaining owl bear, charges forward, and leaps on the beast's back. A quick Primal Savagery cantrip sees the druid's teeth elongate, and she bites deep into the owl bears neck and tears its throat out. Max gasps in pain on the opposite end of the clearing. In the sky, the shape of a griffon flies away.
Talna turns around to head back to the camp and sees Max crying on the ground. "Max, why?"
"I felt everything!" the goblin says.
"Aw, poor goblin," Elle says. "Let me help." She casts cure wounds, and maliciously applies it to Max's skeletal leg. Once again the goblin gasps in pain as the healing energies damage the undead limb.
Talna sighs, and casts Chill Touch on Max's skeletal leg. This time, the necrotic energies actually translate into healing for the beleaguered goblin.
"That was an impressive display of strength," Cass says to Fei, complimenting the druid on her killing blow before moving to one of the owl bear corpses and ripping out teeth and feathers. He offers some of each too Elle, who accepts the gift happily. Talna joins the half-orc and begins slicing strips of meat from the carcasses, a task that Elle also soon joins in. Balazar lops off one of the owl bear arms and carries it back to the camp where he begins playing with the tendons, attempting to get the claws to move.
The group reconvenes at the camp site. Sadun keeps watch while Talna prepares the owl bear meat with some local herbs for roasting. Elle wanders into the scrub along the road looking for more herbs.
As the group rests after their surprise morning encounter, Max digs around in his backpack and pulls out his stone rat. He ponders the rat a moment before putting it back in his bag, possibly scheming. Seeing the rat in the goblin's hand, Elle rushes to her own pack, and digs around until she finds the rock she had put in Max's bag when she stole the rat the day before. Confused and irritated, the gnome hurls the rock into Max's shoulder void when the goblin is not looking before stalking off into the trees.
Once out of sight of the camp, Elle notices an opossum. "Hey little friend! You should come down here," Elle suggests.
"No," the opossum says resolutely.
"What if I gave you some food?" Elle asks. The opossum looks intrigued by the thought of food, but does not move, so Elle returns to camp. She tries to steal some of the food Talna is cooking.
"No Elle, this is for the group!" Talna shouts, slapping Elle's hand away.
"Fine," Elle mutters, "I know where more fresh meat is anyway." She walks back to the site of the battle with the owl bears.
"Ooh, what if I had a piece?" Balazar says from behind Talna, sticking the severed owl bear arm towards the fire and making it wiggle its fingers.
"Just leave it be until it's cooked!" Talna exlaims, trying to grab the owl bear arm to throw in the fire but missing.
"You're overcooking it! It's best when it's still bleeding!" the dragonborn complains.
"Do you want to get sick from this meat?" Talna asks.
"I'd rather the food taste good," Balazar grumbles.
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In the clearing the two owl bear carcasses lie where the party left them. Elle notices however that as she approaches the corpses seem to be moving. The reason soon becomes apparent as two more owl bears stand up from where they had been feeding on their fallen brethren and stare at the encroaching gnome. Unintimidated, Elle steps towards the carcasses, intending to grab a few strips of meat once the owl bears become distracted again, then notices the pair of griffon shadows circling over her. She takes a quick step back and pulls out her bow. Seeing her back away, the owl bears begin moving towards her. She takes another step away from the oncoming owl bears, then fires and arrow at one of the griffins. As she looses the arrow, the owl bears charge her, each one slashing her badly across the chest with their claws. Elle lets out a scream of pain.
Talna, Sadun, Cassian and Balazar all turn at the sound of Elle's scream and begin running back to where she walked too. As they approach, Talna sizes up the situation quickly, and shouts a Healing Word to Elle. Balazar fires his crossbow as he runs, missing every possible target.
As they get closer, Fei casts an Entangle spell, and vines shoot from the ground, grabbing one of the griffins that had landed, one of the owl bears, and Elle. The second griffin immediately tears the vines off Elle and picks her up, intent on escaping with its prey. The unentangles owl bear snatches Elle from the griffin and begins loping away from the battle. Talna staggers the owl bear with a Chill Touch, as Sadun chases and overtakes the fleeing beast.
At this moment, Max decides to introduce some chaos into the world and rolls his god-given six sided dice. Time stops in the clearing for everyone except the goblin. Max starts to move forward. At first he's fine, moving through the time stopped world, but after about ten feet he feels as though he is ripping himself out of something. He pushes on another ten feet, feeling his skin rip and tear in a thousand tiny ways. "I want to see the gnome die!" he shouts into the frozen plateau, and presses onward. His skin feels like it is tearing away from him, and a wave of exhaustion sweeps over his body, but he presses on, feels his arm bone fracture, and he presses on, his living leg also fracturing, and finally the goblin stops, worn and bleeding, but 50 feet away from where he had started. Time resumes its normal flow around him.
At the back of the clearing, Balazar fires his crossbow at the fleeing owl bear, but misses again.
Elle struggles in the owl bear's grip, twisting until she can stab the beast in the eye. Howling in pain the owl bear drops the gnome, and she crawls behind the half-blind creature. Unfortunately for Elle the free griffin chooses this moment to swoop in and grab her up again, and moves to launch itself skyward. The half-blind owl bear flees at speed into the woods while the entangled creatures both break free of the vines and also flee in the face of the party's wrath.
Elle struggles in the griffin's grasp but makes no progress towards freeing herself. Sadun runs forward, ignoring the fleeing creatures, and smashes the griffin repeatedly with Briarblade. Maximiliano, having strayed too close to the action, feels echoes of the blows again.
Talna magically blinds the griffin holding her struggling friend, while Fei pelts it with magically enhanced stones before shapeshifting into a humongous constrictor snake. Snake!Fei fails to land a blow on the griffin however.
Cassian steps up, swinging his own great sword at the griffin, hitting it solidly with his first blow. His second blow is slightly off however, and ends up smacking Elle instead, knocking the gnome unconscious. Maximiliano feels both hits.
Balazar, deciding not to shoot the griffin or Elle with his crossbow, and missing out on the fun, runs up to the group. Talna moves closer and casts Healing Word on Elle. "Put her down!" she yells at the griffin.
Determined to see Elle breathe her last, Max runs up and leaps at the griffin, stabbing it deeply with his rapier. His intent is to use the rapier as a handhold as the griffin flies away. Instead he kills the beast. The griffin slumps to the ground on top of the barely conscious Elle. "Damnation! I wanted it to fly away!" Max curses.
"I smell something burning," Talna remarks. "The meat!" she shouts a moment later, realization dawning on her. She runs back to the camp to save the meat she had left over the fire.
Cassian attempts to lift the griffin carcass off of Elle, but his hands slip on the blood, and he drops it on her again. Sadun steps forward, and between the two of them they lift the griffin off the poor gnome. Elle glares at everyone and stomps away to the campsite, slicing some strips of meat from the carcass as she goes. Cassian shrugs, and begins harvesting what trophies he can from the griffin (including a cracked beak and a number of bloody and unbloodied feathers). Max grabs a handful of bloody feathers as a keepsake of the time he almost saw Elle die.
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Back at camp the group reconvenes.
"I feel utterly disgusting," Elle complains, still dripping blood. "Sadun, would you help me find a pond or something to wash off in?"
"Certainly my friend," Sadun replies. The pair depart the campsite. Behind them, Talna happily packs up the cooked meat, and checks on another spit on which she was preparing owl bear jerky. In the clearing, Max rides around on top of Fez's serpentine form.
"Here Balazar, eat this!" Talna says, shoving cooked meat at him.
"It's not bloody enough!" Balazar complained again, but takes the meat.
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A mile away through the woods, Sadun and Elle find themselves on the shore of a large lake. There is no sound of animals. The water is unnaturally smooth and calm, and there is a bright blue glow emanating from somewhere in the lake's depths.
"I sense an aberration in there," Elle says quietly. She stoops and picks up a rock to hurl into the calm surface, but Sadun puts a hand on her arm to stop the throw.
"If there's something dangerous in there, it might not be wise to disturb it when our comrades are so far away," Sadun observes. "Look over there, there is a small stream that feeds this lake. Let us go there so you can wash up upstream where we are less likely to cause trouble."
The pair walk to the stream in the silence that surrounds the lake. The only sound is the slight gurgle of the stream itself. They walk carefully upstream for several yards, and then Elle washes the blood off.
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"Where is Elle?" Cassian asks, wandering into the camp holding his griffin trophies.
"Over there!" Balazar says, pointing randomly.
"I'm sure she's fine," Talna says. "Sadun is with her. I'm pretty sure they went that direction." Talna points in the direction Elle and Sadun went.
"Yeah, they definitely went that way!" Balazar says, pointing in the opposite direction.
"Just wait for them to come back, they shouldn't be long. Take a rest until then, we've had a busy morning," Talna concludes.
Snake!Fei stretches up over the trees and sees the lake in the distance. The lake lies slightly south of the road, and further down the road Fei can see a town. Then she arches her back and sends Max tumbling twenty feet to the ground. Returning to her human form, Fei reports to Talna. "I see a lake in that direction, and a town a ways beyond it down the road."
"Elle must have gone to that lake," Cass says. "I need to apologize for hitting her with these griffin parts." With that, the half-orc sets off in the direction of the lake.
"I'm not done with my booze yet!" Balazar complains. Talna simply sighs, and packs up the camp before heading after Cass on Biscuit the horse.
Cassian, Talna, Balazar and Maximiliano arrive at the lake a short time later. They observe the strange glow. Max moves forward to put his hand in the water, but Talna stops him with a stern shake of her head.
"I just want to see what it feels like!" Max complains.
"You're just going to get us in trouble. Don't touch the glowing lake!" Talna argues. "Look, there are no fish in there, that's not normal! What if it's toxic to the touch. I don't want to have to heal you again today."
"Something about this lake is obviously unnatural," Fei says quietly. "The unnatural must be destroyed." As Talna and Max struggle, Fei hurls a magic stone into the lake with a loud splash.
Returning the way they had come, Elle and Sadun see the stone hit the water.
Max hurls a handful of ball bearings at Talna, breaking free of her grip, then rolls his magic dice. They come up as two sixes. Time stops moving for the second time that day. Max feels his fractured bones knit back together, and the dice glow green. Max dives into the lake and begins swimming. The time-stopped water feels like a viscous fluid as he swims, the liquid struggling to retain its shape, but the goblin is determined. Aided by his magical clothing, he makes progress towards the strange blue glow. Halfway to the source of the glowing, Max feels as though his magical time stop is beginning to run dry. He sees ahead of him several large, glowing crystals, alight with crackling electricity. The crystals appear to be attached to something, but the goblin decides not to risk drowning when time returns to normal, and returns to the surface.
On the shore, time remains frozen. Confused, Max notices that his arm is glowing green again as well. He turns to the lake, gestures at it, and a beam of energy flies from his hand and slams into the lake.
Time remains frozen. Finally, Max picks his dice up from the ground, and with that, time resumes.
"Ah, so that's what I had to do," Max says.
"What did you have to do?" Fei asks. "Why are you talking to yourself-" as she speaks, a roaring boom erupts from the lake, and a huge wall of water surges up and out onto the far shore. The level of the water in the lake drops by half.
Behind him, from the direction of the lake, Max hears a loud roar.
TO BE CONTINUED
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