Askari will yell at the soon to be fleeing Amiradthae.
May all of your bowstrings snap, and you find your arrows to be dull and warped, in your hour of greatest and most desperate need. Gods damn archers …. Except Wrenn, he can remain undamned.
Unlike any previous enemy, the Amiradthae, who retreat, pick up some of their incapacitated members and carry them along. All cannot be recovered, though, and four of the enemy still lie on the ground, conscious but unable to move. It would take days for them to recover, if they would not starve or dehydrate, first, but beetles or ants would most likely have at them long before anything else were to happen.
Wrenn lowers his bow without firing that shot. He thinks to himself, ~Enemies. Definitely enemies, but more opportunistic than malevolent. Interesting.~
Wrenn is the only one who is not hurt. Neither Askari nor Astrid is yet able to move, but Hiroshi, Oorvid, and Volki assist in rendering aid.
Once Hiroshi has sufficiently recovered, he talks to the group about his current thoughts. He desires to return to the Spiofthest village, taking one of the fallen Amiradtha with him. He feels that in a better environment, the former enemy may be redeemable. He renders aid to one of the female enemy and carries her with him, seeing as how she should be slightly lighter to carry than the others. Three of the Amiradtha still lie on the ground.
Oorvid, who is only slightly injured, stands over each one in turn and says, "Zoals de grond jouw bloed opeist, moge je essentie vrede vinden," before quickly ending the life of each with one of his carving axes.
As the ground claims your blood, may your essence find peace
Wrenn agrees that Hiroshi's plan has merit. He hugs his friend in a brotherly, manly fashion, and wishes him well. As they embrace, Wrenn affects him with healing, via wayline manipulation.
71 (Aid in healing)
Afterwards, Wrenn examines the fallen foes, to see if anything they wear or carry has any proclivities.
Askari and Astrid remain as any party member may have situated them until after nightfall. A night's rest only aids full recovery. Everyone, except Wrenn who managed once again to go unscathed, shows some significant new battle scars, but, by morning, no one is the worse for wear.
Of the three Amiradthan bodies that remain, two are male and one is female. Each is dressed in a simple, thin leather tunic that covers from shoulder to mid thigh. They are accessorized differently for each gender. Each had been armed with a simple bow and a quiver of arrows with ularin heads, of which 24 in total remain. Each was equipped with various small tools, bags, and food stuff necessary for all nomadic behavior.
Searching more thoroughly, Wrenn and Volki find a white stone that feels wet no matter how much it is rubbed, a recognized livestone, two skulls of some kind of waterfowl, and two whitish metal ingots. Additionally, Volki finds a necklace of ten black claws and a jawbone that may have come from a goat or deer.
In the morning, being in a pine forest, Volki eventually comes across a greenbriar scaling up one of the trees. She manages to pull some of it down to access the edible berries that are available at this time of year and digs up the edible root bulb.
OOC:
The pencil indicates the party's current location.
As everyone is sitting down to eat, Oorvid asks the obvious. "Do we want to go back and go up the ladder we passed or take the southern tunnel there, first?"
Wrenn agrees with Askari as to the choice of direction. Wrenn picks up the jawbone, and tries to sense its proclivities during the course of the morning.
While eating Volki also rifles through the items the group has to see if anything she’s carrying would be better swapped or if anything feels like it should be added. “Keeping along this path before we double back seems like it may bring us some interesting answers to these interesting questions.”
Oorvid nods at the responses, and Astrid agrees with the plan. Oorvid rolls his eyes as Wrenn selects the jawbone. He has already learned a pattern to the proclivity of certain items that Wrenn has yet to determine.
No one is able to determine anything special about the new items though Askari and Oorvid are both drawn to the skulls and jawbone; Astrid is drawn to the ingots, and everyone is drawn to the claw necklace.
Askari does realize that, from the party inventory, one of the viper skulls and the emberstone are both beneficial for him to carry.
Volki realizes that a pair of the spider fangs, when added to her necklace, and the songbird feather talisman are both beneficial for her.
Wrenn realizes that one of the goat beard talismans is beneficial for him to carry. Though the heckling jay feather talisman like Volki carries offers the same benefit, the goat beard seemed more masculine.
Askari suddenly realizes that the milkstone she is already carrying seems to have become more beneficial to her.
Oorvid realizes that one of the viper skulls and the remaining milkstone are both beneficial to him.
The following morning is quite cool, possibly indicating a change in the season. Everyone feels a little more energetic. Wildlife is more active. It takes about six hours to climb back down the ladder, travel east, and take the south passage at the four-way to its end, which is as expected, a 3 x 3 room containing only a 6 stride ladder.
Ascending the ladder indicates that the trapdoor is free to move. Nothing in particular can be heard outside of it.
