Dragon of Icespire Peak ***CLOSED***

Vaxis acknowledges.

"I shall be following with you, to ensure you are safe. Let us adjourn from this place."

Minsys feels the thrill of fight starting to wane from him and more rational mind set begin to set in.  He sighs and rushes to the other side of the house and out the door.  He's fairly certain that the others are all rushing away as well.

Running north just to the other side of the door.

The white dragon seemingly goes limp in mid-air after taking the full force and strength of the green's poisonous blast. The party watches as it free falls out of the sky on a collision course with the ground. As it approaches the surface, its wings pop open both slowing its descent and send it pitching up in a curve that comes within inches of the ground. The dragon sails through Tabesha'l's fog cloud, splitting the distance between Tink and Vaxis. Staying low to the ground, it hugs around the rocky escarpment directly at Connak! The elf turns to see the dragon bearing down on him, staring his death in the face...

CRYOVAIN: dash

The white dragon passes Connak by as if he did not even exist, its tail dragging through the surface of the river as it made its escape along the path of the waterway, under the cover of the tree canopies that had grown together from the opposite sides of the sandy banks...

High above, the green dragon pumps its wings as it attempts to hover momentarily, watching to make sure the young white's retreat was both sincere and complete before it too peeled off to the south and dipped down into forest and out of sight.

(END OF INITIATIVE)

Vaxis looks around warily.

"It looks safe for the moment, but I would not stay here long. Come, let us go. Tink, are you okay, newfriend?"

Connak stops in his tracks and looks around for dragons.  Then he waits for his party to catch up.  "Well, we don't need to go to Phandalin anymore.  Should we head upstream back to the Lodge and past to the Manse?"

Tabesha'l joins the rest of the group, her usually pale skin now blushing with the exertion of the run. She inspects a few tears in her fresh clothes, dusts herself off and rearranges her skirts before answering: " Methinks 'tis indeed rash and foolish bravery to dally in these here parts. Let us adjourn to quieter places ! Is everyone accounted for... ? Besides yon poor feller who fell prey to this wild wyrm's teeth of course... such a terrible way to enter the Netherworlds, this."

After a moment, she seems to grow thoughtful. " What sayeth thee brings yet another wyrm, emerald-tinted this time, to our fair forests ? Such intense draconic presence... 'tis starting to be somewhat of a preoccupation to one such as I, verily !"

"A gem covered dragon? I don't believe I have had seeig one of those. Must be rare. And I prefer not to add yet another dragon to this mixture. Thats like..." He counts on his fingers for a second. "A 300% increase. I don't believe I can pray and invoke Bahamuts blessings fast enough to handle that many."

He strokes his tendrils thoughtfully.

Connak smirks at the irritation Vaxis's comment must be causing Tabesha'l.  He interjects, "Dragons are territorial.  My guess is the green is defending it's territory.  The white is probably still figuring out what it's territory is."

To the whole group, he explains, "I'm going to start scouting upriver.  We'll follow it to the Lodge and then beyond to the Manse.  Let me range ahead about 30 feet to scout the way.  But don't fall behind either."

Vaxis snaps back from his reverie of gem encrusted dragons.

"Indeed. We will follow a little behind you. May the winds of Bahamut be at your back."

Vaxis follows 35 feet behind, allowing Minsys to take point.

Minsys appears to be in a sore mood.  He stares at the direction the white was flying and mumbles to himself.  Something about how he had it dead to rights.  

"What, huh?  Oh we heading out?  Ya sure, k."  He responds back.  He takes just enough time to grab his gear, the snake hides and a little meat and head off leading the others.

(POST IN PROGRESS)

"Come along Whisker. We have more sights to see and more things to experience," Tink calls her companion to her and starts heading out together with the rest of the group. Unsure of the destination to which they are heading, she would keep to the center of the group.

Tabesha'l follows a little ways behind, frowning slightly as she recalls the mixture of relief and... was it grief that she felt, as her connection with her Quasit was severed ? Was Vaxis right about the influence such a creature could have over her, after all ?

She shivered as the memory of another thought that had crossed her mind a little while back: what she would do to Duncan if... when she found him again. These had not been kind plans, and Arvi had featured in them... by her side, helping her... instructing her, even.

With an effort of will, she snapped out of her reverie and focused ahead on the figures of Tink and the strange contraption walking beside her. Being in the moment and staying busy was what she needed. Things would get better, doubtlessly her mind would settle soon.

Nevertheless, she caught herself wondering when she would call her Familiar again... and that's when her heart skipped a beat:

She'd never even considered not calling Arvi back.

The party collected themselves, said a quick prayer for the strewn remains of Timor Wester, and headed back to the east walking along the sandy southern bank of the river. No navigation was needed on the first day, since the river itself provided a natural landmark to point their direction. No more was seen of the mysterious, shape-shifting half-orc boar-people, which Tabesha'l was quick to point out, was likely NOT what they called themselves.

As they came to the end of the first day of travel, the terrain moved slightly uphill, the river dashing forth out of the side of the small formation. Moving around the landmass, they found that the river did not protrude from the other side, and thus found themselves with having to discern their way forward to the woodland manse. But at nearly fours hours past noon, the daylight in the forest was quickly beginning to fade, and making camp seemed a better option than pressing forth into a darkened Neverwinter Wood...

Connak looks at the others and points out, "Daylight is quickly beginning to fade.  I think we should set up camp here instead of pressing forth into a darkened Neverwinter Wood."

The party had been resting comfortably for a few hours. The sun had gone down and they were shrouded in darkness except for the glow of firelight illuninating their faces, at least of those who were facing the campfire anyways. Their conversations lulled and they busied themselves with thier own musings for a while until Connak alerted to the sound of something coming through the brush - something large, and apparently unconcerned with the amount of noise it was making. The others noticed his sudden change in behavior and instinctively gathered up their weapons.

A moment later, a lone orc, seemingly unarmed, walked out of the thorny underbrush and approached toward the campfire cautiously, but peacefully. This was no battle ready orc, but he appeared as though he had seen plenty in his time on Toril: one eye socket had grown over with grey, scarred flesh where the eye used to be and the other, though its organ was still intact was clouded over, giving it a milky-blueish appearance. Several fingers were missing or twisted beyond use and he walked with a heavy limp. He was thin - malnourished by orc standards, but corded muscles still stood out from his stooped frame. He was dressed not in armor, but in rags - strips of red, orange and yellow cloth hung from him as if he had put on on old blanket or pancho years ago anD just never taken it back off.

The orc stopped about 20 feet from the party, as if he suddenly sensed the presence of others - thinking beings, not animals. He uttered two short words in Common: "Fire...food..." His words came as close to a request as any orc might be capable of stating - not quite a question, but neither was it the usual demanding tone of most younger, more able-bodied ocrs.

Unsure what to make of this orc, and resisting his ingrained instinct to treat every orc as a foe needing put down, Connak decides to mask his awkwardness at the situation with a bit of humor, "Looking at you, I'm pretty sure you'd be all gristly and tough, not very good to eat."

Connak looks to Minsys with a 'you deal with this?' look.

Vaxis looks a bit puzzled, but readies his mace.

"Friend or foe, orc-folk? And do you require aid? You seem wounded. Bahamut have mercy."

(Edit: For clarification, now that I'm thinking about it...I'm not going to be hostile to this orc unless absolutely necessary, but Vaxis is still a bit bitter from the last time they fought orcs, so caution is the flavor of the day)

Minsys looks up and stares at the old orc.  He locks eyes with him for a long moment and responds in Orcish, "Fire and Food.  Sit, eat snake but want news of forest as pay."  With that he will gesture for a spot new him and pull out another sick and start to cut place some hunks of snake meat on it for the Orc.