Chapter 261
The dinosaurs moved incredibly fast, closing the distance between them and their prey in just a few bounds, but the adventurers were ready.
Glori summoned the power of her magical lyre, evoking a wall of fire that erupted in a blazing arc across the center of the clearing. Two of the creatures shrieked and recoiled from the unexpected flames, while a third, too close to evade, leapt up and passed through it. It landed on the far side of the barrier, scorched but still alive.
On the other side, the creatures were too close for Xeeta to do the same without engulfing the tree and risking themselves in the process. Instead she fired off a series of scorching rays that pummeled one of the creatures until it fell to the ground. A second one leapt at her, but was intercepted by Bredan, who deflected it with a shield and then chopped it heavily with his sword. The creature stumbled to the ground, a deep gash in its left side pouring blood onto the ground, but it managed to recover enough to snap at the warrior with its jaws.
Another of the monsters sprang at Kalasien. He managed to stab it with his rapier, but that wasn’t enough to stop it from knocking him hard to the ground. It pinned him with a taloned claw and then snapped at his neck, but the Arreshian agent somehow was able to catch hold of its head and barely keep the powerful jaws at bay. It seemed impossible that he would be able to hold it off him for long, but Kosk intervened before the issue could be decided. He battered it in the side with his staff, then spun into a kick that cracked it in the skull. It stumbled to the side, freeing the trapped agent. Kalasien scrambled back as the dinosaur turned its rage upon the dwarf.
The first creature joined the fray last, darting between the fringe of dangling roots to join the furious melee. It seemed to be targeting Quellan, who stood in front of the helpless cat-man with his shield raised. But before it could get close enough to leap Rodan shot it with an arrow that burrowed deep into its chest. The creature shrieked and turned instead toward the tiefling. It covered the ten steps that separated them in a single bound, driving him to the ground. Its jaws snapped down at his unprotected face. Rodan got an arm up, but it seized hold of the limb in a powerful, crushing bite.
“Rodan!” Xeeta cried, but she could not immediately move to intervene as the creature that Glori has scorched rushed her.
But as the dinosaur’s savaged the tiefling’s arm, dripping streams of blood onto his face, a fire blazed in his eyes. The power that was part of his heritage exploded in response, engulfing the creature’s head in a wreath of blazing fire. The dinosaur screamed and jerked back, releasing its hold as it struggled to escape the hellish rebuke. It never even saw Quellan as the cleric came up from behind it and smashed its skull with a single blow from his mace.
The dinosaurs kept pressing their attack, but even their sheer ferocity could not overcome the magical and mundane power of the defenders. The two that Glori had blocked with the wall of fire persisted, circling around the barrier, but the bard was waiting for them. The first one spotted her and leapt at her, trying to bear her down, but it passed harmlessly through the illusion she’d created and landed in an awkward tangle in a heap of roots that had looked like clear ground just a moment before. The second one hesitated, suddenly suspicious as a fresh copy of the half-elf woman stepped into view and waved at it.
Xeeta gave ground as the scorched dinosaur harried her. It had been burned twice, once by Glori’s wall of fire and then again by a spray of burning hands she’d unleashed from her rod. The thing’s head was a blackened mess, but it kept coming, trying to get a hold on her so it could pull her to the ground and tear her to pieces. Thus far her mage armor had protected her, but she knew that it wouldn’t save her if it got a good grip.
Her foot hit an exposed root and she stumbled. The creature sensed it and lunged forward, but even as its jaws snapped open a brilliant arc of steel came chopping down into its neck. The dinosaur crumpled, its neck nearly severed by the powerful blow.
“Thanks,” Xeeta said to Bredan. “Looks like Glori needs some help.”
“I suspect she’s got it under control,” he said, but he lifted his sword and rushed over to where the bard had finally been chased down by her two foes. The dinosaurs had fought their way past her illusions and had her trapped against a particularly dense tangle of roots. They came at her from both sides at once, giving her no chance to slip away.
But Glori was not interested in escape; she merely waited until they were both within reach before she unleashed a thunderwave. Both dinosaurs were knocked backwards. One fell to the ground and did not get up, while the other managed to stagger into a swing of Bredan’s sword that put a decisive end to it.
That swing also marked an end to the battle. Kosk had finished his foe, and Quellan was already healing Rodan’s wounded arm.
“Is everyone all right?” Glori asked.
“Kalasien was knocked down,” Kosk said. Glori started toward him, but the agent shook his head. “Just a few minor scratches,” he said. “Save your healing, we may need it later.”
Bredan went over to Rodan. “You okay?”
The tiefling held up his arm and twisted it through a few exploratory motions. His bracer and the sleeve underneath were shredded and soaked with blood, but the damaged flesh had been restored by Quellan’s healing magic. “Not an experience I’d care to repeat, but I’m fine,” he said.
“Something new for your books,” Kosk said, prodding one of the bloody corpses with his staff.
“Later,” Quellan said, heading back to check on the imprisoned cat-man.
The creature had lost consciousness during the fight. With Bredan’s help, Quellan cut it free and gently lowered it to the ground. Concerned that it might not survive the removal of the barbs from the trap, he laid his hands upon its chest and summoned his magic. The blue glow of a cure wounds spell seeped into its body, and it stirred. Its eyes flashed with renewed pain as it looked up at him.
“Hold still,” Quellan said. “We still need to get those hooks out of you. Bredan, be ready to hold it if it starts to struggle.”
But the cat-man didn’t move; either it had realized they were not enemies, or it was too weak to resist. It flinched as Quellan drew out the hooks—they appeared to be made of some kind of horn or bone rather than metal—and tossed them aside. Once they were all out, he cast another cure wounds spell and the vicious gashes slowly sealed themselves. Now restored, the cat-man looked up at them warily.
“Now what?” Xeeta asked.
“If we keep it with us overnight, then you can use your spell to communicate with it,” Glori suggested.
“I don’t think that holding it prisoner is the best way to begin a relationship,” Quellan said. “If we set it free, it might communicate to its peers that we are not their enemies.”
“Or it could brief them about where we are and our abilities,” Kosk pointed out.
“Bredan?” Quellan asked.
The warrior blinked as if surprised to be asked, but after a moment he nodded. “Let it go,” he said.
Quellan stepped back, gesturing for the others to make some space. As soon as an opening appeared, the creature spun onto its feet and darted off. It vanished into the jungle undergrowth as rapidly as the dinosaurs had appeared.
“Well, that’s that,” Xeeta said.
“Rodan, can you tell anything about whoever set that trap?”
The tiefling examined the remains of the snare. “The materials may be primitive, but this is pretty sophisticated,” he said. “I got the impression that these cat-men are pretty good hunters. Even after the clash back at the camp I couldn’t find many tracks. Whoever set this trap knew what they were doing.”
For a moment they all stood there in silence, digesting the scout’s words. Finally, Glori said, “So should we turn back now?”
Once again, they all looked to Bredan. This time the warrior looked more prepared to accept that weight of responsibility. “A little further,” he said.
“A feeling?” Glori asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Well, we can go another hour or two and still make it back to the beach by nightfall,” Rodan said. “Not sure if anyone’s eager to spend the night out here.”
“I certainly don’t,” Glori said. “I had enough creepy forest for a lifetime in the Reserve.” She looked over at Kosk, who nodded in agreement.
Rodan led them out of the clearing and back into the jungle. He was especially alert now, looking for hints of additional traps. They found no trace of the cat-man or whoever had set the snare under the root-tree. They did find some of the tracks left by the dinosaurs, which was at least reassuring in that not every predator of the jungle was able to creep through its fastness utterly undetected. Rodan reported that the creatures had come from the west, deeper into the interior.
They continued south, for now intent on staying at least relatively close to the coastline. They occasionally caught glimpses of the sea when the land rose up or the ground grew rocky enough to thin out some of the jungle growth. The shore here seemed even more rugged than where the Gull had wrecked, if such a thing was possible.
Bredan was about to suggest that they turn back when they came to a low rise, punctuated by a crest of exposed rock. Rodan reached that crest and signaled to the others that he’d spotted something interesting.
They joined him to see that the slope on the far side of the rise descended to a sheltered cove or river mouth; they could not determine which from their vantage. The expanse of placid blue water extended for maybe four or five hundred feet before the jungle resumed on the far side. But more notable what was stood on the near shore, on a rocky shelf that extended almost to the water’s edge.
“Is that a building?” Glori asked.
“It might have been at one point,” Kosk said. “But it hasn’t been for a long time.”
The structure was in ruins, now little more than a foundation and the outline of some walls. The adventurers made their way toward it, still alert for an ambush or other hazard. But nothing stirred from within at their approach.
As they reached the place, they saw indications that there had been other, smaller buildings around the central ruin at one time. The decay was even more pronounced close up, and they could see where the jungle had clawed back its due, with greenery sprouting from even the smallest cracks in the stone.
They went inside, through an opening that looked like it had once held a wooden gate. The tallest remaining bits of wall did not even reach Kosk’s height, though there were a few that were slightly more intact on the other side, the side that faced the water.
“This might have been a fort of some sort,” Bredan suggested. “Look how thick the walls were.”
“Hard to blame them, after what we’ve seen of this continent’s residents,” Xeeta said.
“But who built it?” Glori asked.
None of them had an answer, so they continued to explore, spreading out a bit to conduct their search. There was nothing left other than the crumbling stone of the walls and floor, no artifacts or other clues as to what purpose the rooms they strode through might have served. They found a gaping pit choked with growth that Rodan said had probably been a cistern, and an exposed trough that might have once been part of a sewage system.
“Quellan, come take a look at this,” Kalasien called from one of the side-chambers along the western edge of the ruin.
The others followed the cleric over. At first glance it looked like the general decay had progressed further here, but the bits of stone debris scattered across the floor suggested that there might have been a collapse or breach here at some point. In any case, the feature that had drawn Kalasien’s attention was immediately evident.
“Oh, boy,” Glori said.
A cracked, uneven slab of stone sat in the center of the space, which from the remains of the interior walls might have once been a room about ten paces across. The initial purpose of the stone was as mysterious as the rest of the place, but in its current incarnation it functioned as a grim altar.
A collection of skulls had been placed upon the top of the stone, with an assortment of other bones arranged along its sides. The skulls varied in size from those of small birds to creatures that were twice the size of a man. Some appeared to be humanoid, but even a cursory look suggested that none had been even close to human.
“Someone’s been collecting,” Kosk said.
“Yeah, but who?” Glori asked, poking at one of the skulls with her sword.
Bredan had circled around to the far side of the slab. “Over here,” he said.
They all joined him and saw a small, square plaque of green-crusted metal embedded in the stone. Someone had carved markings in the slab around it, but they just looked like shallow gouges, not written language. But even in its current state they could see that there was writing embossed upon the plate.
“Bronze,” Quellan said. “From the looks of it, I’d say it’s hundreds of years old.”
“What language is that?” Glori asked.
The encrusted verdigris made it difficult to read the lettering, but after a few moments of close study Xeeta said, “Syvalian. It’s Syvalian.”
Quellan looked at Bredan. “Do you think?”
Bredan had felt the same surge of excitement, but he forced himself to keep his voice measured. “It’s not necessarily him,” he said.
“Who?” Kalasien asked. Bredan looked at him strangely, but before he could say anything a word from Rodan drew his attention back around. “Guys.”
The others turned around, the concern in the tiefling’s voice causing them to reach for their weapons. But there were no enemies stirring in the ruin or in the jungle behind it. Instead, they followed the scout’s raised eyes toward the northeast, back in the direction they had come.
The plume of black smoke rising up over the jungle was instantly visible.
“Oh, no,” Glori said. “The camp.”