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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3472221" data-attributes="member: 1210">The sudden sound of branches rustling in the dark is Barouk’s only warning, but his paranoia is running high. After the snake, the bandits, being stolen from in the night, all the terrible trials that our heroes have had to overcome, he is in no mood to take chances. “Wake up, all!” he bellows. “There is something in the trees!!”Then spears fly, invisible to Ally’s human eyes but clear to Barouk; Kifla can’t quite make out enough with her low-light vision to see the source, but she has a good idea of the direction, for a spear stabs out, slicing the gnome’s side. Kifla screams in pain. Herb, meanwhile, scrambles back, seeking cover in the bushes. “I can’t see anything!” Ally cries out. “Kifla! Are you all right?”“I’m okay,” the gnome’s voice comes from the darkness. Barouk, with his dwarven ability to see in even complete darkness, watches as she casts a spell at the treetops. An instant later, two figures plummet out of the trees and to the ground, landing with sickening thuds!“Damn, Kifla,” Barouk says admiringly.“OW!!” Ally curses as another spear sails out of the trees and hits her. “There are still more of them!”“Stop your attacks!” Barouk cries. “We are friends of the jungle!”Meanwhile, Kifla has fallen back to the embers of the fire that the party had cooked their dinner on. She grabs a fresh brand and stirs it up, blowing, hoping to start a fire and give a little bit better light to the situation. Crackling flames blaze up, and the little illusionist is gratified to see the silhouettes of more foes moving in the trees. Ally, now able to glimpse at least roughly the location of her enemy, shouts, “Come down!” and moves over towards one of the trees that the creatures are in. Her foe leaps from branch to branch, swinging over and under limbs, until he brachiates down to a low enough position to drop to the ground without taking damage. The other one, meanwhile, leaps down, catches a vine, swings across and attacks Ally! At the last instant, the barbarian ducks aside, and the monkey-like humanoid misses. Ally whirls to face it, but even as she does so, she hears some noise in the woods. “I think there are more of them coming!” she cries. Barouk rushes forward and invokes his fiery ki fist, but he misses. Still, his foe is startled and disconcerted by the blazing ki flame that surrounds his hand for a moment. Then it tries to claw him back, but Barouk wards off both of its blows with practiced blocks. The other one is slashing with its dirty nails at Allyendra. She is too quick, dodging the first blow, and then the monster throws itself off-balance with its second blow- so badly, in fact, that it falls prone.Four more of the humanoids arrive, high in the trees, each throwing a spear. Half are aimed at Barouk, half at Ally. None of the hail of spears hit our heroes, but Barouk cries out, “Ally, this sucks! Pull back!” He drops back to Kifla’s location (where the gnome has been using her crossbow without much effect).Ally bares her teeth as she aims a blow of her massive axe at the foe that has fallen prone before her. The axe hacks into its back, nearly cutting the thing in two!The other little humanoids scream in rage. The one on the ground charges Ally, but she parries its claw with her axe. Three of the newcomers also ground themselves, rushing to join the attack on her. The last newcomer remains in the trees, and hurls another spear at Kifla (almost hitting Barouk on the way). The spear narrowly misses.The party is falling together now, with the enemies pressing Ally back towards Barouk and Kifla. The dwarf springs forward and pummels one of the creatures into unconsciousness with a flurry of blows. Then he kicks another of the enemy in the solar plexus. Herb, meanwhile, quakes in terror and prays. Ally and Kifla both spot more creatures moving in, including something coming from behind them. We might be surrounded, Kifla realizes. As quickly as her little gnome-legs will carry her, she moves around to the side and casts a color spray, knocking all four of the current humanoid combatants out! Ally has no compunctions about attacking them when they are down, and in but an instant she slays one and lops the leg off of another. One more hurls a spear from the trees, and it lances into Ally- but fortunately, her chain shirt deflects it! Simultaneously, the figures moving in from behind them move into view: a mixed group, but mostly humans! There are at least half a dozen of them.“Friend or foe?” calls Barouk harshly. His rock-like fist smashes the last of the standing monkey-like humanoids, and it drops. He notices that, in the face of a larger group, the incoming humanoids have begun, instead, to pull back.“We are friends,” one of the men calls, jabbing a spear through one of the still-living tasloi on the ground. He looks up at Barouk and smiles. “I am called Bors.”There is a round of introductions, during which it becomes clear that Bors is the speaker, if not the leader, of the band that had come to the rescue of our heroes. “We couldn’t just let you be taken by the tasloi,” Bors states seriously. “But tell me, what are you doing here? You’re pretty far from anything right.”“We’re hunting bandits for my master,” Kifla replies.“Really,” muses Bors. “And how is that going?”“Not so well,” admits the gnome. “It was going all right, until the snake bit our guy,” Ally complains. “We had a prisoner, but this giant snake fell out of a tree on us and tried to eat him. We managed to kill it, but it managed to kill him too. Now we’re back to square one.”“And,” Bors addresses Kifla again, “who is your master?”“Um,” Kifla hedges, “er, Bignose! Yeah, that’s it! And Bignose wants to question a bandit.”“Who is Bignose?” “He’s this powerful gnomish wizard in the Night, in Alathion,” Kifla enthusiastically tells Bors. “He’s going to teach me all kinds of spells and things!”“Interesting,” Bors nods.The group chats for a while, coming to an arrangement. Our heroes already have a fire; the other group has several rabbits to stew, ready for the pot. The conversation drifts to politics, and Bors gives the party a small history lesson. “In the old days, before Forinthia was a single kingdom, there were three kingdoms of Forinthia- three separate, independent kingdoms. There was the North Kingdom, the South Kingdom and the West Kingdom.”“What happened?” asks Kifla.“A combination of alliance and conquest. In fact, year 1 of our calendar measures the formal union of the three kingdoms and the formal union of church and state. But you know what is interesting about all of this? The alliances were predicated upon the ruler of Forinthia being of the royal blood of all three kingdoms. But God-Emperor Prayzose doesn’t have the royal blood! The blood of Dexter flows in his veins, yes, but the blood of our ancient kings does not!”“But how could that be?” wonders Ally.“Well, a couple of hundred years ago, of course, we had the rampage of the tarrasques- five terrible monsters so powerful that they pretty much drove everything else off of Forinthia. It took over a century for them to be defeated; nobody even really knows exactly what happened to all of them. Anyway, when the tarrasques first came, they slew the king in their initial rampage. The royal family was displaced from Forinthia proper, and over the years while they were waiting for the tarrasques to finally all be defeated, the lines grew weaker and weaker. It is harder and harder to find someone who is a true descendant of all three lines.“Well, when the line finally broke and Prayzose was elected emperor, it was a complete breaking of the deal. Prayzose doesn’t have any of the royal blood of any of the three kingdoms! Not only that, but the deal was sealed with an object, which was stolen... but I don’t know much about that part of it.”“You sound like you’re... passionate about this,” Ally observes.Bors smiles. “My men and I are. By law- and law is what Forinthia is founded upon, it is the bedrock principle under which we all exist!- by law, Prayzose may be Emperor, but he is no king of Forinthia!”“Well, then,” Barouk inquires, “who is? You?”“Oh, not I!” Bors is abashed. “Oh, no! I have no royal blood myself. But I have heard tell of a man named Arthur, the last descendant of the last South King...” He smiles for a moment, a big, friendly grin, but then he turns serious again. “I think your friend’s master” –he gestures at Kifla, who is sniffing obliviously at the stew- “is looking for signs of insurrectionists.”“Really,” Barouk says slowly. “And you wouldn’t happen to know of any, would you?” Barouk asks rhetorically.“I know of some simple bandits that should serve your needs,” Bors replies. “Road scum, raiding caravans and lone travelers alike.”“With no political ambitions,” Barouk says slowly.“Exactly.”“Thus allowing us to complete our mission and fulfill our duty,” Barouk considers, “while still leaving more, uh, political... hypothetical... bandits or insurrectionists out in the wilds.”“You might also help- in whatever way you can- to place the rightful kings on their thrones.”Barouk mumbles noncommittally. He and Bors continue their discussion for a time, but it is late, and soon everyone is bedding down. The two parties agree that the watches will be served by a mix of our heroes and Bors’ men, but the night is uneventful and no one tries anything treacherous. In the morning, Bors and his men scramble some eggs, cook up some bacon and reheat the rabbit stew. Everyone chows down, and the breakfast is filling and tasty.Bors assigns one of his men, Kain, to the party. “He will help you catch a bandit,” Bors explains. “Oh, thanks!” Kifla bubbles effervescently. Kain sneers at her. “Come on,” he says curtly. “We have to back towards the Alathion Canal.”The party sets off, once again traversing the jungle. Let’s hope we get our damn bandit this time, Ally grumps to herself.Next Time: More jungle trouble for our heroes!</blockquote>

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