You gather those alive, and head up to the surface, keeping wary watch for any burrowed bugs that didn't pop out before, but after a long, tense hike through the dark, you emerge above ground once again, to the entrance to the mine, littered with the bugs you killed on your way in, along with maybe a dozen more corpses. 

You don't see Tren, Galt or the dragonborn squad you left up here.

Dornikal starts looking around more frantically as they don't find their, his, companions.

"TREN? GALT? WHERE ARE YE?"

He will run ahead of the others to where the pair were left and look for signs of them and then to the top of the tunnel where there was a better view.

"TREN? GALT?"

Investigation: 14

Perception: 7

Dornikal follows the tracks in the sand, reading the ebb and flow of the battle that transpired, and while there is humanoid blood mixed in with the insectoid ichor, now drying in the mid-morning sun, it seems that their friends gave better than they took, by the bodies of the bugs littering the ground. The tracks move off to the south, before curling to the east. Peering in that direction, Dornikal still can't spot his friends, but there are some rocky formations that may have provided a defensive position to make a stand. It's a half mile or so off, and with the sun beginning to glare off the sand, he can't make out any details at this distance.

Dornikal will shout down to the rest,

"That way, they might need healing and help. Come on!"

Dornikal will head off on his own without waiting, running at full speed.

Coljin mirrors Dornikal's worry.  "Why would they have went that way?" he asks Randy quietly.

Dornikal sprints off through the sand, the dragonborn close on his heels. Zokk gives a leafy shrug and follows. 

As you run across the sand, it dips down after a dune, and you see the site of a pitched battle, the bodies of a half dozen bugs and a single dragonborn strewn across the sands. The tracks continue on. 

As you approach the rocky outcropping, you can see a wall of bug bodies plugging access to the recess among the rocks, getting closer, you see the horn that Randy left with the topsiders... and a half orc arm.

A dragonborn head pops up over the mound, then retreats, before emerging again, and calling out in draconic, gesturing you onward.

Dornikal stumbles to a half stop in the sand on seeing Galt's arm,

"No, Dumathoin. Not them too. Please..."

He sucks in a trembling breath on spotting the dragonborn and digs into the sand and rock to get over the mound, breathing ragged.

There's a lot of blood staining the sand near the arm, and Dornikal springs onward, the dragonborn extending a hand to help haul him over the mound of bug carcasses. 

In the shadowed interior, he sees Galt propped against a mound of sand, a belt cinched around his bicep above the stump of his elbow. Tren is with him, her arms around him, trying to sooth him. One of the other dragonborn of the squad lies off to the side, a broken javelin laid across their still chest, their arms wrapped over the pieces. The last member is wounded, but not severely, and also sits in the shade, binding their leg with some cloth. The lookout that spotted you and brought you in is the only one of that squad that seems to be in good shape.

"Dorni! Hey, lookit this! I lost my arm!", Galt roars, waving his stump around. Tren shushes him, trying to get him to hold still. "Huh... guess that'll make it hard to swing my sword...", he slurs, looking to his greatsword where it's propped against a rock. "Unless I get even more jacked! HAaaahaa!"

Zokk looks at the arm and picks it up and brings it to the half orc.  "Caaaan biiind tooogeeetheeer liiiikeee treeeee?"

"Like tree! hheeehee! Plant it in the ground and grow another meeeee!"

Tren stands, addressing Dornikal. "They gave him something for the pain... I think it works different on dragonborn though... he's in good spirits, but he's got a dry fever I'm worried about... How'd it go down there? Are the others safe? You got 'em all?"

Dornikal blinks at Zokk, then completely disregards him, as he moves in to hug Tren. He stops short, remembering, and smiles up at her instead, wiping tears from his eyes,

"Ah Tren, aye shouldn't have left ye two here. Should have stayed with ye, aye wasn't any help down there. Aye'm so sorry. Dumathoin only knows..."

He looks over at Zokk with Galt's arm, before focusing again,

"But yer okay? We'll get Galt some help and the other lad there. Aye'll figure a way to help Galt with his arm, a swear it on Dumathoin. The cow-eater queen is dead, rest of them too aye think."

He'll move over to Galt and takes his remaining hand and looking him in his eye. He snorts back some tear snot and cough/ laughs,

"Ye can't afford to lose one of everything meh friend, especially the things ye only got one of! We'll get ye sorted soon, figure out a way to get yer arm back, don't ye worry."

He'll just sit with his friend,  holding his hand and talking until a proper healer arrives. He'll ask Tren while he waits,

"What happened up here? They came right up?"

Tren sees Dornikal abort the hug and she goes for it, squeezing him tightly as a shuddering breath and some measure of tension leaks out of her. "We managed. If you hadn't gone down there, might have turned out worse for those who went down. Glad the job's done."

Galt gets sober, for a moment at least. "Yes, there are some things I've only got one of that I'd REALLY not want to lose. Right Tren?", he gives an exaggerated wink before descending into giggles.

She just rolls her eyes and kicks some sand in his direction. "Idiot. It was quiet at first, then one came up towards the entrance. We took that one down, then it was a while longer and another came, and took that one down. Seems like they don't like moving under the sun either, as it got towards dawn they started coming faster. Galt blew the horn, but we didn't know how you were doing, and if we tried to hold the entrance, we'd either get overrun or we'd have to pull back down the tunnels, and end up bumping into you with bugs on both sides. So we drew them off, kept harrying them... ran out of bolts, and spare javelins to toss, so then it was hand to claw. They got Galt's arm, and we lost one of the hunters. Made for this place so they couldn't surround us, kept at 'em... then they all kinda went still for a moment. You said there was a queen? Maybe she was controlling them somehow? They got kind a disoriented, anyway, and we put the last of them down while we had a chance."

Randy finally catches up, still moving a bit stiffly. "Yes, we got the queen finally.  And it definitely had some kind of mental connection with the rest of them." He looks over Galt's wounds and tries to see what he can figure out about his fever.

Medicine check: 17

Dornikal will return the hug and say quietly to her,

"Aye'm - aye'm so glad ye both are okay... or mostly okay."

Dornikal shakes his head after Galt's focus and say,

"Ye know that isn't what aye meant! What did they give ye Galt?"

Dornikal briefly explains the events in the tunnel ending it lamely with,

"Ye'll have to ask Randy or one of the others about what happened to the big one.  Aye was asleep for that."

"They gave me a good time! Wheeeeee!"

Tren sighs. "Don't know what it was, he was angry and fighting at first when that thing... that thing chewed his arm off, but then he started looking glassy eyed and pale, tried wrapping it, but he was losing lots of blood. One of them handed it to him and gestured eating it, and pointed at his arm. Galt took it, and the bleeding slowed, but he started getting more and more out of it. They don't seem to know why he's acting so odd."

"Ah, spoons... sorry you weren't there for the finish. But hey, you got the others there so they could put her down."

While Dornikal and Tren are talking, Randy moves over to the one-armed half-orc to check his injuries, and the healthiest of the dragonborn approaches Zokk. "Greetings treefriend. Did small ones still alive? Have magic of healing for growing better?"

Randy places a hand on Galt's skin, and it is dry and hot to the touch. Worryingly so. Being in the shade is better than in the sun, but if his body has given up sweating, that doesn't bode well. Randy is worried that if Galt isn't cooled soon, there may be permanent effects... or worse. The fever assessed for now, his gaze lingers to the stump. It didn't come off clean, and from the sand outside, Galt's lost a lot of blood, which might be contributing to the delirium and perhaps lack of sweating. The injured dragonborn hobbles over, addressing the ranger. "Big one with arm gone would have gone to the sky. Gave him Glory to stop spilling life water, but he gets hot. Maybe is too much for even one as big as him."

Zokk thinks for a bit before planting the arm to the ground.  They aren't sure how human's work but this seems right.    

"Heeeloo draaaagooonkiiiin.  Smaaaaalll ooooneees stiiiill aaaliiivveee, yeeees buuuut aaareeee hiiidiiing (right?)  Noooo maaagiiic sooorry."

"Big one sick is. Maybe dragonkin medicine not good for him, needs soft-skin healing."

Dornikal starts casting worried looks around for a gnome...

Coljin will have followed the rest, tho his shorter legs have kept he and Ulmwin from getting there as quickly as the others.   He pops he head in the area where the others had been sheltering.  "What can we do?"

Medicine check 22

Coljin joins the others, and assesses the patient, with input from Randy. 

He recognizes that Galt has suffered severe trauma, with major blood loss, and will require healing. From the blood outside that is seemingly his, and the state of his arm, the cleric is surprised that Galt is still conscious. While whatever the dragonborn gave to Galt is not known to Coljin, he surmises it's functioning much like a poison, and would either need to be purged from his system, or his symptoms managed well enough to let it run its course naturally.