Wilds - Before Midnight

Just a short turn this round. The party is scouting the battle sounds from the east, but how they respond to what they find could change the followup action, so it's a bit of an enforced stop in the action.


The sounds of battle to the east bring action. Mordikarr sends Ava aloft to keep an eye on the camp and immediate surroundings, and joins Maro, Rawon, and Ingvild, ready to head east and scout. The night is fairly calm, but low mist swirls across the scrubby plain and between the sparse trees. The foursome moves quickly and quietly, spread in a line north / south. Half an hour later they see the first light, a pale directionless glow coming from the thicker trees ahead. The scouts pull together and slow their advance, edging into the woods.

Rawon signals and points through a gap in the woods. All four can see the fight beyond the trees, though none can recall crossing such an open space. A tight-knit group of forty or fifty humans in a circular formation withdraws to the east, armed figures on the outer edges, others within. Outside this circle a chaotic mass of gnolls and other creatures, squat humanoid shapes, and much larger creatures (ogres perhaps?) clash and retreat, circle, and clash again. There are at least fifty attackers.

"Is it just me, or are all of them glowing?" whispers Ingvild.

The elves and Mordikarr look more closely. "You're right, but it's not just them. The ground beneath them is glowing too," says Maro. "This is no natural battle."

"Trees come back after they go," mutters Mordikarr. He's right. As the groups move further east, trees appear in their wake, fading into sight as the battle shifts.

"Do you recognize the banner?" asks Ingvild. The others respond in the negative.

"I don't relish stepping into a fight that big, and it seems... wrong," whispers Rawon. "Even though we heard it all the way back at camp, it's muted here, and look, no dead in their wake. This isn't right."

"Agreed. Let's get back to the others. This is creepy." The foursome carefully retreat a few hundred yards, then group up and move fast, back to camp. By the time they get back the battle noises have all but faded away, the final discernible sound a lone horn call that ends abruptly.

Silence.

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