Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

[Jack Rothwell]

Once they were clear of the entrance and the fleeing/infighting chittoricks Tamina stopped with a grateful sigh. She doled out hugs to the entrance party and knelt beside Rip to help with the injured T'ska.

"Thank you." She said. "I don't know if we would've had a chance without you and your friend."

"Of course!" Bashiir declared. "Mighty ghob would've beaten big bug queen all by hisself!"

"Yeah, yeah, you were very brave." Alleece said, although the sarcasm in her voice was minimal. The fact was the short humanoid had shown some serious guts in that deep dark nightmare they'd managed to escape from.

The two mages in the group managed to fix up the worst of the damage to their bashed up kinsman. The kobold wiped a sheen of sweat off her forehead with a tired noise and gave a smile to the group.

"We should probably stop off at the ghob's settlement before we go back to Urannia. They'll want to know what happened here."

"Tell tales of brave ghob!"

"Yeah. And I don't know about you guys, but I could use a drink."

Unbeknownst to the victors a pair of feline eyes had been watching them with great interest from deep within the treeline. With a rustle of leaves, they disappeared into the dark.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: You have more of an idea where we go from here than I do. Accordingly, this is mainly just sending it back over the net, but here's Thurston to help you get to your goal:]

Rip didn't hear the banter between kobolds and Ghob, as he was sound asleep, having keeled over right in the middle of a Heal spell on the injured kobold. He'd done more intense spellcasting, at a higher level, in the past couple of hours than he'd done for a long time, and he needed to rest up. Most mages had mastered the art of the "power nap" to do that; he was no exception. He'd be out for maybe an hour.

This annoyed Thurston somewhat. He needed a light for his cigar, since after all, he had neither the spellcraft to set it alight nor a hand to strike a match with. After listening to Rip snore for a minute or two, he shrugged his shoulders in a curiously human-like way, dropping the cigar in the process.

"RAWWK. I give up," he said to no one in particular. "Gonna do a little sightseeing -- no, scratch that, call it 'reconnaissance.'" He took flight, spiraling up above the clearing at the cave entrance, before Shorty could point out to him that he could have lit the cigar. Of course, Shorty didn't like the smell of the thing any more than most sentient beings would, so he was content to start packing up for the trip back to the Ghob cavern.

[Jack Rothwell]

The trip back to the Ghob's village (for want of a better word) was largely uneventful, although the party noticed that as the noisy self-destruction of the Chittorick nest fell behind them the noise of the local wildlife had returned at a greater volume. It was as if the animals knew that the biggest threat to their welfare had been eradicated and were trying to make up for it with caws and chirps as a substitute for cheers. Tamina smiled despite herself. Alleece clapped her friend on the shoulder, mirroring her expression.

"Tribute free for a year!" She declared. "All thanks to the efforts of our brave elder!"

"Elder Tammy!" T'ska and Riiki echoed.

"Pssh, not sure I like the title." She said ruefully. "Makes me sound like I'm 30 or something."

"Kobolds only live til about 40." Oolan suppplied, having taken the opportunity to attach herself to their human companions. "We...umm... do a lot of living in that time though. Always thought it was weird how long other species seem to live." She gave Shorty another shy smile in a long series of shy smiles. "How long do humans live again? Like 60 or something?"

OOC Just some filler dialogue to pass the time. I wonder if Shorty will ever pick up on Oolan's flirting? /OOC

[Graybeard]

[OOC: Yeah, I treat Shorty as large and good-natured, but not the brightest running light on the airship. He also is honestly perplexed what to make of kobolds.]

While the humans and kobolds were bantering, Thurston had been exploring, and now he came winging back to the group while a red-faced Shorty searched for an answer. "BRAWK. Looks like the Ghob have a welcoming party on hand."

Rip raised an eyebrow at this. "How would they know what happened out there?"

[OOC: I don't know what you had in mind for the feline eyes, but here's something to play off of. I'm still zonked from surgery, so not at my most ambitious.]