Breathing a sigh relief, Zina dispelled the ball of fire. She immediately ran over to the spot where her book had fallen, clutching it tightly to her chest. "Thank goodness you're alright, I was so worried about you," she cooed, making sure it was in fact alright. The gnome stood there hugging the book for several seconds, ignoring the world around her. 

"Tastes kinda funny though," Kanon's taste testing brought the wizard's attention back to the situation at hand.

"For the love of- why would you lick an unknown potion?" She groaned, tucking the book away into her pack.

Grabbing the potion vials from Kanon, he felt the weight. How did I not notice this before? The weight wasn't a huge difference, in hindsight. "Nice catch, Kanon." He thinks for a moment, putting the pieces together. "It would make sense a magical potion that made its drinker unseen would consist of invisible liquid. I'm fairly certain that's what would happen if I drank this." Popping open the potion vial, he sniffed it. "No odor either. I guess that makes sense too." He tucks the heavier potion vial into his pack.

"Now, to go get myself a new familiar..." he grumbled to himself, moving back to the encampment. They had no answers for how or why the kobolds knew what they had and attacked them, and he didn't like being unaware.

"I was checking for magical residue!" Kanon whines. "I'm guessing residue has a taste, y'know."

He fidgets with his hand crossbow, loading a bolt in it. "My dad used to have one of these before I busted it." He grins, "Now I have my own."  

Portia notices the kobolds all wind up dead and it didn't matter that she hadn't hit a single one of them. At least she had told them how many she originally saw and the bless apparently helped.

She calls to Zeratto, "Do you require any healing?" In the mix of the fight she was not sure if he had been hit when in the melee, but she thought he had earlier on.

While waiting for Zeratto's reply, she notes Zina has picked up her book. That thing would get them killed one of these days.

Zeratto finally calms from his fury, sensing no enemies to strike down. He returns to his stoic demeanor, and turns to his ally.

"I do indeed, if you can spare it. This arrow is a nuisance, and I've lost much blood. If you heal me, I will go and hunt for meat to speed my recovery..." he says, walking calmly back to the camp, and snapping the arrow's feathery tip to remove it with less trouble without breaking his pace. He throws the broken bolt pieces to the floor, and sits cross legged to settle his heartbeat down.

"I will be ok in either case, but I will not turn down your generosity."

"It'll be hard to sleep after something like this." He looks at the campsite and lights up a rock with a quick gesture. As the others flinch in annoyance he says, "Well we might as well tend to our wounds before we continue our rest, right?" He looks at Zeratto in particular. "I can help bandage your wounds if needed."  

He was a bit relieved he didn't heal everyone wounded yesterday like he did the day prior. Had he done that he probably wouldn't have even thought of trying to cast spells to help in combat. He notes this for the future... never expend your energy before a rest, as you never know what will happen in the night. Luckily, he has a new crossbow that'll help in the future. He's always wanted one of these.  

"I would appreciate medical attention." he says, holding a bit of cloth over his neck wound. "After that, I can sleep. Hopefully this will put the issues of the day into perspective."

Preparing the spell, Pettilaen goes through the long ritual of summoning a new companion from beyond. I hope this one has a third, glowing eye or something. That'd be cool. After an hour of quietly chanting, the ritual is complete, as he is rudely drawn out from the trance to a dinosaur's cry. She sounded just like Gaia. Opening his eyes, he saw that it was Gaia! "Gaia!" he cries out, and she flutters over to him, nestling herself in his shoulder. "I thought you died." He nods his head from whatever communication happens between them. "Oh? So you're like an eternal companion. You don't die at all!" Joyful, he smiles wide. "That means I can put you it lots of harm's way." She shrieks and pecks him in the ear, and he laughs - the wound only superficial.

Relieved to have his friend by his side once again, he tries to get some more sleep before they set out once again.

"Of course it is," Zina laughed at Pettilaen, her own hand reaching into her pocket to hold Mirage a little tighter. "Do you even read your spells before you transcribe them into your spellbook?" The gnome laughed a little, saying a few words in Celestial that she was sure only the two familiars would understand. Her words gave her an idea, however. While Pettilaen seemed to bumble his way through magic at times, he was a spellcaster and he did have a spellbook.

"I have a favor to ask, Pettilaen," she said, trying a little too hard to sound nice. "Can I borrow your spellbook for a little bit tonight? There are some nice spells that you know, that I don't. And I don't like not knowing things."

While repreparing his bed, Zina suggests if she could "borrow" his spellbook for the night. He initially was against the idea, but he didn't think she'd be so prone to tricks right after a battle over a book of her own. He figured she knew the worth of a book, especially one's own spellbook. Grudgingly, he nodded. "Yeah, go for it. But if you mess with my spells and make them unreadable! ... I'll burn that book of yours."

Reaching over, he withdrew the fancy spellbook he purchased in Beregost from his pack and handed it to her. "The password is filgrastim. You have to say that before opening the spellbook." Holding out both hands, he spits in one and extends it, while the other hangs back until she extends her own spitshake. Tradition was tradition, after all.

OOC: Pettilaen knows feather fall, find familiar, magic missile, protection from evil and good, shield, silent image, sleep, and unseen servant as first level spells.

Portia instead of using a spell for now, uses her knowledge of medicine to properly clean and wrap the neck wound for the night. "It looks pretty bad, but we'll recheck it in the morning since resting and the salve I put on it should help a lot." She gives Zeratto a smile. "I'll put a healing spell on it in the morning if need be."

She moves back to her bedroll hoping nothing else shows up. It seems most of their losses and injuries were due to that book. She could ask to take a look at it, but she probably would be wasting her time if it was just arcana involved. Now if there was a religious aspect she had some chance of picking it out, but it was in a language none of them could read. To confound things, the scrolls now with Neiklot sent there by her own adopted father, Malark, had symbols that matched. It would be absurd to think a mere book was the cause of Beregost's ravaging, but stranger things have happened.

She fell into a troubled sleep.

The group is able to get some sleep, but the night's events combined with the urgency of returning to the road requires that they set out again without fully adequate rest. Orst wearily packs his gear onto his small cart, this time remembering to keep the crossbow in reach, and urges the horses forward. He chews on a block of salt beef as he goes.

"Poor excuse for a night's rest and every poorer excuse for breakfast," he says, "but I'm thinkin' those critters that routed Beregost will eventually surge north enough to block our road. Ye'll forgive me if I'm in a hurry to beat them." 

The sun is especially bright this morning and Orst dons a wide-brimmed hat to shield his eyes from it. The sight of the floopy brim bouncing down the road in time to his belly is almost comical enough to lift the party's mood.

-----

Despite his fatigue, Orst pushes his team all day long, covering a good bit more ground than usual. The day has been quiet, and the road has been almost entirely empty, so by the time late afternoon arrives and the sun dips toward the western horizon, you've covered close to 35 miles.

"This'll put us close to the crossroads," Orst says as he plops down from his cart and digs out his food stores. "Let's get a decent meal and a good rest before we test fate. I'm afraid we'll be traveling into danger tomorrow."

(META: The group was able to achieve a short rest, not quite a long rest, but also not enough to reach the first level of exhausting yet...)

"I'm not an idiot, Pettilaen," the gnome rolled her eyes as she took the rogue's book. "I have a spell book of my own, your book obviously doesn't require a password."

Zina refrained from studying it until the next day, as she needed every ounce of sleep she could get. But as soon as they got on the road, she found as quiet of a spot as possible and began to work. Learning a new spell, especially one written in Pettilaen's atrocious handwriting, was an arduous task at best, and the illusionist was not working on a full night's rest. Still, after two hours of note taking and practice, she was able to cast Unseen Servant.

After her work was done, she emerged from her nest and approached Portia. The morning after her melt down, she had given a blanket apology to everyone, but Zina knew that wasn't enough for her saint of a companion. Grumpy apologies wouldn't do, especially when Portia had threatened to leave.

"Portia," she said softly, so that only the cleric could hear. "You know I need you right? We all do."

Zaratto finds Portia before the march the next day.

"My wound is doing fine. Thank you for your help. I won't' require your healing, so you should reserve it for someone else, if it should come to that." He gives Portia a nod, which is probably as close a sign of approval as Zeratto is prone to giving.

From that point, Zeratto makes sure to maintain a keen vigilance as they make their way to the next destination, and tries to wend through the copses as he looks for game to hunt, as well as signs of ambush.

Dark clouds roll in as the sun disappears and the sky darkens. Purple lightning jumps from cloud to cloud, turning the night sky to day for a moment at a time. Thunder crackles in the distance, moving ever closer. The air smells of rain and electricity, though the storm seems to pass your camp to the south, moving east to west.

Orst wakes repeatedly to calm his spooked horses. Eventually, well before sunrise, he gives up and builds a small, shielded fire to cook breakfast over.

-----

"Strange night," he says as he goes around waking each of you at dawn. "I'm anxious to get to Candlekeep. Old Orst can smell danger and this place reeks of it."

He hands out bundles of durable rations and prepares his horses for departure.

"I say we travel hard for the next two days and get there as soon as possible. It'll hurt a little, but not-so-much as a storm giant's fist."

The group hasn't traveled far the following day when they come across a bloody scene. 8 envoys in garb from Candlekeep lie slain in the road, their bodies smashed and slashed to pieces.

"Eck," Orst says. "Hurry or not, we can't leave these lads here for the crows..."

So happy to have Gaia back, her constant shrieking even made him smile. Knowing they were entering hostile territory, Pettilaen kept his wits about him, trying not to be distracted by his fluttering imagination. He wasn't too happy about the hard travelling, but he figured he could still get some rest while they were on the road.

The road was certainly somewhere he didn't want to be again, after seeing the bloody scene. The Candlekeep monk's remains were scattered along the road, hacked, smashed, and dashed into pieces. He knew a purposeful display of force when he saw one. "They left the bodies here on purpose," he plainly states, dismounting from Fruitypebbles and moving towards the bodies. Gaia took off into the air at his mental command, surveying the surrounding countryside for a trap or anymore information.

OOC: Perception of 18 from Gaia, Investigation of 16 from Pettilaen

Examining the bodies, it was quickly apparent that they had been picked clean. Dismayed, partly because the last time he found bodies on the side of the road, he bought a spellbook and got Gaia with all of the coin they had, he turned around. In doing so, his field of vision briefly passed over a lone hand, partially hidden in some grass. It looks like it's holding something...

"My, what do we have here?" Pettilaen whispered to himself, prying the fingers open due to rigor mortis. The hand contains a sparkling gemstone, bright white in the center and fading to a pale blue at the edges. Holding the gem in direct sunlight causes it to refract so much light it's near-impossible to look directly at it. "Gah!" he cries out, temporarily blinded. A few seconds pass while his eyes readjust to his surroundings.

Returning to the group with the gem in his hand, he looks to Portia. "Hey. Is this some sort of Lathanderian artifact or something? It sure seems like one." He hands the gem over to her so she might examine it further.

As the group gets closer to the slaughter, Kanon has trouble recognizing what he's seeing. The blood doesn't really looks like blood to him and the bodies resemble piles of meat similar to what Roe and Rorn's slaughtered pig looked like. As he focuses on individual parts the scene begins to come into focus. He recognizes an arm, a leg, he sees the bones of a rib-cage sticking out of a mass of flesh. And there's so many... much more than he thought. 

He pales and gags almost immediately upon seeing a face he recognizes in the carnage. He turns away quickly and is able to compose himself. "They're from Candlekeep for sure," he says, "I recognize one of them from my time there."  

"We can't leave them like this. It's not right."

Portia is glad that Zeratto is doing much better the next morning without requiring magical help. She can tell she didn't quite get enough sleep to refresh her casting abilities.

When Zina comes up to her and catches what she says, she kneels down so she is not towering over her friend. "I know. I'm just not sure how to help you when upset. I always got hugged when upset, but never forced to talk until I was ready. So that's why I offer hugs. I really like you even if we totally misunderstand each other a lot." She chuckles. "I won't stop offering hugs."

The next day as they come upon the slaughter she says prayers to Lathander noting that the extremity of the attack and lack of personal items. She is caught off guard when Pettilaen yelps and turns to him as he runs up with an odd gemstone asking him if it could be an artifact.

"Maybe not an artifact."

She takes the offered gemstone and examines it quickly, but her attention is more on thinking of how best to properly put the remains to rest.

"Do you need a barf bag?" Zina asked Kanon, raising an eyebrow at the queasy bard. The skeletons were unsettling, but not so much so that the illusionist had to worry about being sick.

"I offer my services as resident fire-bolt slinging wizard," the gnome piped up as Portia contemplated burial rites. "I can get a bonfire started faster than anybody."