The Sojourning Six

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With the second watch over, Keimal woke from his sleep in an instant. He sat up, careful not to wake Burkey just yet, and took out the pouch that he had noticed one of the thouls holding when it was playing possum. "Let's see what they gathered," he mumbled as he opened the sack.

Without warning, a giant centipede shot out of the bag. Keimal yelled in surprise, and batted it away. It fell on the ground, where a grumpily awake Burkey stomped on it with his hoof. "It's just a bug, you don't have to yell. And I was having such a nice dream, too..." the satyr said, with a look toward the crouched and ready swanmay.

"Well, I'm sorry, but at a foot long I don't consider it 'just a bug'," Keimal responded. "Why on earth would they have a...oh. Food." Keimal made a face and peered into the pouch, pulling out another foot-long centipede, this one dead, and flicking it away into the underbrush. He continued sifting through the contents, picking things out and dumping them on the ground. "Rocks, sticks, leaves...ah, here we go. Now that's more like it." This time Keimal's hand came out full of coins.

"This ought to be more than worth all this trouble. Hmm, and what's this?" he asked, replacing the coins, and this time pulling out a pair of gaudily-colored earrings.

 

Zed had woken up at the yell, hiding first to make sure it was safe, when he realised it was just something startling the giant he flew down. h e looked at the earrings in the giant's hands and with a wistful tone to his voice at them he said "Could I have those shinies, please?"

 

She passed around warm bread and cheese, noticing what Keimal was rummaging. "Doesn't look like much help," she stated. "I'll take the dagger if no one else wants it. The earrings I've never seen before."

 

"Uh, sure, you can have them Zed. Just...put your eyes back in your head. It's freaking me out a little." Keimal hands the earrings to the fremlin and backs away. "Hmm, now that everyone's awake...wait, where's the pixie."

"Right here!" sounded the voice in the Voadkyn's ear, causing Keimal to jerk away involuntarily. "Okay then," Keimal said with a barely covered grimace, "Now that everyone's up, I'd suggest we get going. Maybe we can outpace any other ambushes if we move quickly."

After a walking breakfast, the group settled into a smooth rhythm, and soon they spotted a town in the distance. At this moment of distraction, half a dozen tiny needles flew from the forest, three striking the ground, and three finding their targets in the flesh of Keimal, Avril, and Burkey. As the three collapsed to the ground, Zed hovered in surprise, not seeing the net that flew from behind him, dragging him to the ground as it enveloped him.

Only Foxlen was unscathed, though quite shocked, as he invisibly watched 7 three-foot long frogs emerge from the woods, hopping carefully over to their downed victims.

 

Foxlen was in fact shocked, but tried to remain cool since the Gripplis started to come close towards Zed. Foxlen screamed “Over here” using his voice mimicry acting as Keimal and projected the voice over Keimal itself. As the odd looking frogs moved with surprise over the giant, Foxlen quickly move over Zen and free him using his sword.

“Please, try to remain calm” Foxlen whispered to Zed, only to having jump up with a scream. As the gripplis noticed how Zed had now miraculously untangle himself from the net, then frenetically started to hop towards him, but just as one came close enough to Foxlen touch, a spark could be seen coming of him causing it to get confused.

“Zed! Snap out of it, please I can not hold them all of, you must help” Foxlen said in the air as he tried to approach another frog to get rid of.

 

She lay in the dirt, paralyzed from the trap they'd sprung. Her body was motionless, but she could see and hear normally.

She heard Keimal yell at something and she tried vainly to get a glimpse at whatever it was. A giant frog hopped into view, shooting its tongue out and wrapping it around her limp arm.

 

Zed had screamed when the invisible Foxlen had spoken to him he flew up as the frogs came towards him. Turning around he spotted one with his tongue wrapped around the pretty lady, screwing his courage up he heard himself say "No", and then concentrating he sent a ball of shimmering colours at the frog, it gave a startled croak and let Avril go as it realised it was blind.

Using that time he cast another spell, a grey shape appeared behind the frogs, and Zed caused it to race round and fly into the faces of the frogs, startling and scattering them. Picking up a stout stick Zed started hitting heads, first the one that had been blind and was now slowly recovering.

 

Foxlen got able to backstab another one of the Gripplis. After the fatal blow, Foxlen saw the gaint twitch as well as Avril.

"Zed, keep going I think they comming back" Foxlen said as he moved about.

On the confusion he saw the dagger that Avril had taken and before she was able to move; Foxlen took it and tried to give it to Zed since he was getting pounded by a second grippli, but while moving toward him a frog jump hit Foxlen and send him flying in the opposite dirrection.

 

Avril blinked. And blinked. The paralysis was wearing off! Slowly, her limbs returned to her control and she hurriedly roused the Kiemal and Burkey to help the little ones.

Staggering, she punched at one of the frogs and tripped over her stagnant feet. She fell onto the frog and heard its thin bones break under the weight of her body as she squished it.

 

Burkey came slowly out of the paralysis. His feet weren't very cooperative and his hands felt all thumbs. He grabbed up a dead branch from the ground and whacked one of the grippli. There was a satisfactory squishing noise and the grippli stopped moving. Using the branch as a cane he staggered towards the grippli attacking Zed.

 

Zed was struggling to stay out of the reach of the tongue and trying to hit the frog. He wanted to run away, his instincts were to run away fast, but then Avril might be hurt, it was hard being brave.

 

Foxlen felled to the ground, letting go of the dagger in the process, the pixie has begin stun with the shear blow of the fall.

One of the Gripplis saw the dagger falling to the ground and started to move towards it, even missing the fact that Burkey was on the way to hit'em.

 

Life was gradually returning to his limbs as he moved toward the gripplis. He saw Foxlen on the ground and one of the frogs moving in his direction. Using both hands he brought the branch down with a resounding whack and the frog melted into the ground.

Lifting Foxlen carefully, "Foxlen, are you all right?" Seeing Foxlen blink his eyes and nod Burkey placed him in a crevice of a tree and turned back to see what was happening. Seeing Zed battling with a grippli he moved as quickly as he could. Swiping at the frog with the branch which disoriented it enough for Zed to get free.

Another frog came at him trying to grab his leg with its tongue. Still not in full control of his legs he barely managed to stagger back. He managed to hit it with the branch and it backed off.

 

Avril became more in control of herself and she followed the satyr's example. She found a stout branch and began smacking one of the remaining frogs around.

Once the odds were more in their favor, the 5 defended themselves and drove the amushing frogs away. Still dazed, Avril checked on everyone. "Are you guys all right now? What in the blazes did they want?"

 

Keimal grumbled as he wiped his mace on the grass. "They probably wanted those damned earrings. Grippli love 'shinies'. Anybody missing anything?" He looked around as people checked their belongings, finding nothing missing.

"Hmph," he grunted, "I guess we got lucky. And not just on things not being stolen. If we hadn't gone down so quickly at the start they might actually have gotten violent. I'm just glad you managed to confuse them. This little..." Keimal trailed off as he patted his hip and found nothing. Looking down at the spot where the pouch used to be, he swore. "Those thieving kavat'lah! I'll hunt them dow..."

"No." Avril's hand fell lightly on Keimal's bicep. "We have something else to do. Something much more important."

"Yes, your quest. I suppose they're too long gone anyway. Well, I suppose I can let it go this time." Addressing the rest, he said, "Come, follow me. Glomchik isn't far now." The five walked into the town to jeers and hurled insults as well as rotten fruit. "I told you they didn't like me. Well, we're here. Now what?"

 

Zed was tired after all that fighting, both fighting to help the people he was with, and fighting his instincts just to run away. He heard what was said about the earrings, he took them off, but having nowhere to put them he held them in his hand for now. Looking down he noticed something in the grass, landing and picking it up he realised it was the pouch that Keimal had found earlier. He put the earrings back in the pouch, and holding it tightly flew quickly after the others, he caught up with them as they entered the town, and flying next to the giant said

"Keimal, Keimal I found your pouch, it was in the grass, I'm sorry for the shinies causing problems, I put them back in the pouch, I'm sorry i didn't make it to you quicker but I'm a little tired and..."

 

"Whoever I'm supposed to help is in this city. I'm looking for someone (or something) that's fighting or been in a fight. I remember seeing blades in my vision."

 

Burkey distastefully wiped some rotten fruit off his chest but kept close to Avirl. He couldn't help but hum a racy, sarcastic song as they strode along.

 

As the kept walking, Foxlen pick up a rotten fruit and trow it back to the crow of people insulting them. As the fruit landed on someone face, Keimal grabbed Foxlen by his flickering wings.

"Aww, sorry I couldn't help myself, is not like I enjoy to get hit by rotten food...Ahh, by the way, do you mind letting go!"

As Keimal let him go with a warning, Foxlen just giggle to himself.

 

A tingle shivered across her shoulders as they passed the open mouth of a dank, dark alleyway. Avril stopped, her voice hiding a quaver as she said, "Whoever I'm here to find is down this alley. Between this scariness and the one behind us, I'm taking this one. Anyone have a light; a torch or mage light?" She quickly stepped into the darkness and away from the grumbling townsfolk.