Lero waits until the tigers are completely out of sight before he comes out of hiding.

He heads over to Namura, "Noota is right... I thought I was going to piss myself." 

Surveying the rest of the group, he sees they're safe and ready for more travel. "Any way to prevent them from following us for a quick meal?"  

"They won't," Namura replied confidently. "We had a nice little chat. He knows we're just passing through."

Lero gives Namura a quick, doubtful look, but the confidence she portrays makes him accept the statement. "If you say so. But if they return, I will not hesitate this time... It's best we strike first."

He turns to continue, but Namura's words seem to finally hit him and he turns back to her. "Wait... a nice little chat? I thought you were just growling and purring to showing domination or something. You actually understood these creatures?" A thought crosses his mind, "So if I go," Lero growls a couple times with a couple purrs in-between, "What does that mean?"  

"You're saying I am a fool who doesn't know how to speak tiger," Namura rolled her eyes. "And there is no need to murder every animal that crosses our path. We are invading their home. You can't think you own whatever land we come across. Every rock and tree and creature has a life here."

Lero looks a bit confused by the notion of owning the land they crashed on, "My home is the skies. They can keep their trees and rocks... but if I need to defend myself, I will."

As he turns to continue down the path he notices Buama's turkey staring at him, "I think something is wrong with your lifecraft."

As he continues down the road he glances back a few more times to reassure himself, and notes the eyes following him. "Seriously Buama... tell it to stop."

Annoyed of the thing, he hides back in the forest alongside the path to continue scouting ahead.  

Flux was rather amused by the whole longtusk incident. However, they are content to stay towards the back of the group, and be quiet, for the forest is not their forte. However, when Namura says that the rocks have lives, they have to focus on not telling her that rocks aren't alive, knowing that she'd reference the elementals they fought, even though it was the mushrooms that were the brains of the operation.

As soon as they were clear of the tigers, Namura forced everyone to halt for a minute. The ranger sat down in the middle of the path, using her primeval awareness to search for fiends. She had never tried looking for fiends before, but recent events had caused her to meditate on these beings of naether.

Her eyes shot open, a look of surprise on her face. "There's a lot of fiends," she said softly. There were 18 to be exact, with sic seeming to be on their way. "The most troubling group looks to be four miles away, right on our path." The ranger glared at Lefelynn.

"Wait, what?" Says a tree nearby.

Lero pops his head from around the tree and glares at Lefelynn. He steps out with his rapier in hand, "Coincidence... right?" He chuckles, "An hour from your town?  Not likely." 

He tried his best to ignore the turkey's stares.  

At first, Lefelynn appears confused by Namura's tone. It is not until Lero speaks up until she realizes what the two of them are implying. Her demeanor darkens, and her face turns cold. Her words bear no sign of the gentle politeness she sewed into previous communication. They are sharp; accentuated. "Are you implying that I'm in league with those tanar'ri?" Her fists clench as she continues. "That I am somehow apart of the slaughter of my people? MY PEOPLE?! Those whom I have worked with, healed, tended to their needs and those of the forest around them? You gotii would dare accuse me of betraying all of this for the tanari'ri?!" There is a primal rage in her eyes, a ferocity greater than Namura's. "Choose your next words carefully, pirates. I do this out of my own free will, and I will not put up with such insult."

"As I said before," Lero replies, "This all happened under your nose and during your watch and it was your own people that slaughtered your people." He returns her glare, "Of course we don't trust you. These cultists were your family - and may still be." 

"Lero," Namura said darkly, before softening her features and looking back at their guide. "I just wanted to inform everyone to be on the lookout. In about four miles, we may have some unwanted guests, and it's best to be prepared, no?"

Taking the warning to heart a faint glow eminates from Duncan. His mind focusing on protection, he kept himself alert trying to watch everything as they moved.

(Activating Interial Armor, AC 16 no glow for effect just flavor)

Seeing the exchange between Lero and Lefelynn, Kraithee had only one thing to say: Well, if this is a trap to be sprung on us by Lefelynn, don't be worried Lero, I will hit her first, if not, we don't need to be making accusations toward the one that gave us shelter and cinnamon buns.

Said that, Kraithee checks its spell component pouch and checks for all the components it would want to use to deal with a traitor and fiends.

Lero lowers his weapon but keeps his eyes trained on Lefelynn, "We're barely an hour from the town and you've had over a week to clean up this mess." 

He looks over to Namura, "How many of these Tanar'ri have surrounded us?"

"Eighteen," Namura replied. "There are six four miles northeast, nine below us in the tunnels, and three more a mile southeast of us." 

Buama watches with amusement as Lero has an issue with her mechanical servant. "It isn't a lifecraft like Elto. It is only a mechanical servant. I'm not even sure why you think I'm making it stare at you, but," she laughs, "I could make it do so on purpose. It does nothing unless I tell it to. Though you do have an interesting walk to watch." She says no more as she turns her attention back to Namura who is rising from having set in the middle of the road for a minute after the longtusks were gone.

She listens to the conflict that arises and arches a brow. "You should already know what the word assume really means. Sure they had a week, but we don't know all the details of it and how many they actually have for defense let alone sending out hunting parties. What do you want them to do, throw cinnamon buns at the enemy to sweeten them up? I don't see the bakers being on the active go kill cultist and naether beasts. Nor several of the others I talked to for making my mechanical servant. Let's proceed and we do not attack the natural denizens first, but if it is a cultist or naether beast, beat it to a pulp. And if the supposedly accused helps the fiends deal with her then not before without proof."

She lets out a breath of frustration after that realizing that is probably the most she had said to this crew at one time. The only other being that had heard more from her was Elto. Thinking of that she pat the bag she had him safely stored in. She only needed time and parts to bring him back. Way more time than it took to make an already planned out mechanical servant without any sentience.

"Seriously? Eighteen of them?" Lero shakes his head.

He looks back to Leaflinn, "You could have warned us that your forest was infested with this many fiends, but you chose not to. Hell, you could have even hired us to exterminate them. At least we would have known what we were walking in to."

Lero nods to Buama and she begins talking, "Yes, yes, yes - Let's continue walking right into the arms of these fiends."

"You're not the only person that has felt loss in this shitty situation. Raise your hackles all you want - If you lunge I will drive this rapier into your heart as you tear out my throat." He stands staring at the elven archdruid.

Without warning, Namura turned and punched Lero in the face. Her knuckles stung from the impact, but that was of no consequence to the ranger. "Do you remember what you told me in the caves?" the elf roared. "You said that we've all felt loss, but the slaughter wasn't my fault. Well, it's also not Lefelynn's. The only one's to blame are these cultists, and I swear to you we will get our revenge."

Namura spread her arms wide, inviting him to attack her back. "You can yell and scream or punch me, but don't take it out on our guide," she said softly. "We need her."

With his attention focused on the druid, Namura's punch caught Lero completely off-guard. He thought Namura was on his side, that she had realized, as he had, that this druid was to blame for this whole mess. Even if she didn't directly have a hand in it, it was her people that had killed everyone close to him. Lero's hand had gone numb from clenching his rapier. He turns to see everyone else staring at him.

What could he say? They'd all experienced everything he had. He needed someone to blame, someone to kill, a face to put to this mess. But Namura was right... pointing a finger at someone else just because you want someone to blame wasn't going to fix the situation.

Namura looked a lot like Arial standing there. If not in looks, than in the way she handled his outburst. It didn't matter though... the damage was already done.

"I'll return to my post," he says, going back into the forest.

"Are we good?" Namura asked Lefelynn, her heart racing from the adrenaline. She had never been good at reading people, and today was no exception. She had no idea whether the druid would double cross them, but she couldn't deny that they needed a more experienced guide. "We need you, but we're also scared. Please."

Namura spotted Lero in the stand of trees behind the side of the road in an instant. She felt as if she had done something wrong when she tried to talk to him, but she didn't know what. Perhaps punching him had been a bad idea...