EntQuest, the Battle for Hector.

[The Sasquatch of Fangorn]

As Sas was leaving with the rescue team, he came upon Mari and Acally sitting next to each other. "What's the matter? What happened to Acally?"

[klatukatt]

Originally Posted by tolkienfan

As they traveled into the forest, tf tried to come up with a plan. "I'm thinking, with our numbers, it would be best if we didn't go charging into anything. Perhaps we can manage to sneak up and establish our relative strength and our position so we can go about the rescue in the safest and most efficient manner." she said.

"I think we should just talk to them," Katt stated. "I'm a great diplomat."

"That does not sound very efficient," Bunicula commented.

"Oh, fine. Don't listen to the human. I get it." Katt crossed her arms but continued walking.

[Acalewia]

"Only some injuries, Sas," Acally said. "I'll be fine,"
"Then why aren't you going with the rescue team?"
"There's enough going. Besides, I'm out of arrows," Lame excuse. Sas started to say something else. "You might want to try to catch up with the rest of the group,"
"Right,"

When Sas had disappeared after the rest of the group, Acally turned to Mari.
"That's what made this," She motioned to her side wound. "One of those creatures had it. Right. The whole story. When the orcs attacked, Anicetos and I went back to the thick of the battle. We were seperated from the main group. A few of the Banitos were seperated and I joined them. Two of those things started herding us away from the battle. Anicetos went crazy and started clawing and biting. We were able to kill one of the creatures. Orcs ambushed us then. I didn't see what happened to the others. I was forced back. Anicteos was still clawing and biting. That raccoon fights like a demon," Anicetos, curled up next to Acally, purred. "One of the creatures came after me again. It knocked Anicetos out of the way and breached my defense, giving me that bad wound. When the retreat horn was sounded, it took off. I retreated into cover, in case any orc just happened to come by. I passed out after that,"
"Acally, the blade was poisoned," Mari stood and brought over the plant she had killed. "If we hadn't found you when we did, you would have died,"
"Dear, God," Acally whispered.

[Mari]

"Indeed." Mari appeared to be thinking for a minute and gave Acally some time to let it sink in.
"You say there were two unknown creatures and you killed one of them. Is that right?" Acally nodded and Mari continued: "We didn't find a body of any unknown creature, nothing out of the ordinary. I was in fact happy that GW found that Kris, as proof that something was out of the ordinary..." Mari trailed of again.

She frowned and summed up her thoughts. "Okay, so we have 2 unknown creatures who carry around a strongly poisoned, strangely shaped dagger that obviously doesn't come from this area. These creatures seem to be fighting alongside the orcs. One was killed but either his body went up in thin air, or the orcs bothered to take his corpse with them. Basically, this leaves me with only one question... What in the world is going on!!?!?"
Mari threw her hands up in the air, looking as confused as she felt.

"Thank you for telling me this Acally. Let me think about it for a while and if you remember any specifics, please tell me. It would help if I knew what they looked like, or what seemed to be their goal. They must have had a goal if they were deliberately herding you away from the rest..."

Brusquely she turned away and started fussing with Aeran's bandages, still thinking of what Acally had told her.

[Grey_Wolf]

It rustled in the foliage of the forest and Sir GW appeared, smiling at his good fortune in the chase, again after his long hunt - behind his horse he had a travois and square piece of lashed timber where there lay 4 roebucks and 20 coneys.

"So, my friends, I hope Im not interrupting any private conversations at this moment. And I hope this will do for dinner for you and chow for the animal?" he inquired.

[Mari]

Mari looked up as GW spoke.
"Welcome back Sir GW." And looking at half the forest lying on his makeshift carrier: "Yes, this should do indeed!"

[Grey_Wolf]

"Very good, my Lady!"

With that he began tieing up the roes and the coneys on a pole he had arranged for the purpose of tenderizing his prey. And when finished he retired to his sleeping bag.

[Acalewia]

Acally watched GW prepare the roes and coneys in silence. She tried to remember how the thing had looked. They had killed one, but why would the orcs take it's corpse? How fast would the posion on the kris have killed her? Then a thought struck her.
"Mari," She whispered. "What if there were more than two? That would explain why you never found the corpse of the one we killed. His kin would have taken it to hide that they were there!"
"But why herd you away from the rest?"
"I don't... Wait! No one else saw anything besides orcs, right?"
"Right. You were the first to mention anything unusual,"
"They didn't want word of them to come out. They herded us away from the others so there wouldn't be witnesses. They didn't count on Anicetos' speed and my survival because of that speed,"

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Sis reached the edge of her shelf and muttered something extremely unladylike. Water it was, then. She eased herself into the warm water and started sloshing towards Naughty's torch.

How do you wade in hip-high water and not move it?

[Nautipus]

One cannot.


As Sis made her way blindly toward the glow of Nautipus' torch, something made its way almost equally blindly towards her. Slowly at first, gauging its prey's size, its speed, whether its thrashings could mean injury.

Sis' clumsy thrashings, made so by a terrestrial nature, brought the cretures attention, and it flashed hungrily. Nautipus saw this, and cried out. Sis lifted her already soaked head, not 15 feet away. Nautipus' heart fell, cold. The thing was moving, jetting towards her from behind. He called out

"Sis! Move it! Now!" He saw she couldnt understand him. Because he wasnt yelling nearly as loud as he thought he was. He was ashamed. His wound was taking his breath. it had reopened during the fight with the Orovician terror.


He hurled a rock at Sis with his good arm.

She jumped to the side, "What the Hell, Naught-" She was cut off as the water exploded behind her. The creature slid up the slight back, beaching itself. It gnashed great teeth. The teeth looked like sheers. They were a beak-like jaw. The things eyes-large, black, insidious- locked onto sis, and guided the shear jaws closer. The thing was large, but not too big. Maybe 12 feet long, and bare. It had no scales, and two large lobe-fins propelled it up the shore. The shear jaws moved closer to Sis. All this was happening in the space of seconds. Nautipus waded quickly into the blood-dark water, unsheathing his knife. He slipoped in under the creature and slashed at its exposed chest as it rose up to strike at Sis. It didnt make a sound, but instead grabbed him. It's jaws closed on his already wracked arm. He screamed.

"SON OF A B-"
The rest was cut of my the sound of metal groaning uncomfortably. In that moment, Sis acted.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Eyes! Most predators have eyes, don't they? Sis gritted her teeth and reached up behind those enormous teeth and found them. Large, lidless circles, bulging slightly from the smooth head. She jabbed strong fingers into them and felt the membrane give. The thing thrashed wildly and let go of Naughty, desperate now to get away. Knuckles buried in the gore, and fingertips hooked behind the bone, she went down with it. Her hands, slipping, encountered another opening, and she jabbed into that, too. Gill slits maybe, oh, who knows. Whatever it was, it hurt.

Problem, now, though. Where she was now was behind the teeth, clearly a good thing. But how to get off?

Fortunately, the beast solved the problem for her, by slamming her unceremoniously against the lakefloor. If she hadn't stopped breathing a million years ago, she'd have had the breath knocked out of her, as it was, she had bobbed to the surface before she could compose herself enough to gasp. She was at Naughty's side in an instant. She grabbed him (good arm, thank God) and hauled him up to the beach, adrenaline begining to fail as they came out of the support of the water. The torch, of course, was out, but at least Nautipus wasn't.

"Thanks. Go." she managed.

[Nautipus]

Nautipus' breath was coming in wracking, shaking sobs. He couldnt breath, it was too dark, he couldnt see. He could feel something cold and happy rising from the ether to meet him. It was the thing in the deep. It new what had happened, and it revelled in the violence. Nautipus growled deep in the back of his throat, and sat up. He cried as he did, but he continued sitting up. He reached out for Sis and grabbed her arm, none to gently. "Help, me, up." He snarled, slowly, deliberately.

They got up, Nautipus leaning heavily on Sis, smelling his own blood mixed with the thing's. They stumbled along the wall, feeling their way mutually, until the pain became too much.
"Wait, wait. WAIT!" Nautipus shouted at Sis. He had to check the wound. His side was on fire. He pushed Sis away, and lay shakily against the wall.

He said to Sis, "I need light, I need it."

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Sis began to fumble through her soaked drapes, finally locating the bag with her flint and tinder. Her torn and shaking fingers were useless on the wet leather so she pulled at it with her teeth. Finally the wax-wrapped bundle dropped into her skirt and she opened it.

"You'd better hope to h*ll we're somewhere near a torch" she whispered shakily. "I don't have much that's dry, here." She lit a tiny batch of tinder and looked frantically under it. There! The spark died and she crawled towards the stick on the beach, leaving Naughty by the wall. It seemed like forever before her hand touched the smooth handle and she dragged it further from the water before striking another spark and getting back to him.

God. He looked bad.

[Nautipus]

There was no gamey brutlity left in Nautipus. he looked at the wound and grimaced. His shoulder was likely dislocated, and that would be a nice peice of work to fix up. The armor would have to be broken to get the twisted metal out of his flesh, but the worst damage was done to his side. The flesh and muscle of his side had been cleaved away by bent metal and tooth, exposing a great swath of red tissue. Suddenly it was clear why he couldnt breath. He leaned back against the cold rock and moaned behind tight lips, the pain flaring.
He looked at Sis. His hand unconsiously twisted into a tight ball, drumming the stone floor beneath them.
"I'm gonna break Hector's neck." He said with grim finality.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Sis bared teeth briefly. "Good. A plan."

She raised the torch, trying to see or guess where the cave exit was. A few lumps of manure represented the former site of the horses, and all their supplies, of course. It wasn't actually far. Incredible to think that all this had taken place in so small an area, and so short a time.

Then she returned her gaze to her companion. The cave exit got farther away, from his condition.

"All right, " she said. "Let's see what we've got, here. Your hobby couldn't have been making watercolors or growing orchids, could it."

As a complete miracle, he seemed to have no broken bones. That was pretty much the extent of the good news. She looked again at his chest wound.

"Is there anything you want me, as your on-site medical professional, to know about this area before I start treatment?" Her gaze into his face was sympathetic, but direct. This was the time to be honest.

[Nautipus]

Nautipus tried to laugh at her comment, but it came as a tight, pain-filled moan from behind his thin lips. He looked again at the wound carefully. Then he looked away. "Wrap it as best you can, that's all we can do here, obviously. I think..." He tried to take a deep breath but couldnt. "...there may be a lung injury. I can breath, but I'm not coughing up blood. We need to get to the surface. There..." He gritted his teeth, "Some tracheal resesion" He locked Sis's eyes. Let's go, quickly.

[The Sasquatch of Fangorn]

Meanwhile, up-top Sas drew his crossbow. "I think we should be on gaurd." he said turning to Issac and Fredrico.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Leaning the torch carefully against the wall, Sis examined Nautipus's wounds as gently as she could. The shoulder was a mess, but there was nothing to do with it but tie it up.

She watched him breathe for a minute. "I don't think it's the trachea, Naughty. I think you got a lot of compression on your solar plexus, so you can't breathe." She felt his chest gently, as much as she could reach it through the destroyed armor. "No broken bones there, either. You were born to be hung."

She pulled back and pulled a long strip off the bottom of her shredded skirt, and unbuckled the main chest plate. "I don't dare mess with that side without good light and some supplies, but I'm going to tie this up and haul you upstairs."

She suited the action to the case. "Good news. I still have a side flask. Drink, but only a sip."

[tolkienfan]

The atmosphere in the forest was changing. It was getting darker and felt menacing. tf’s instincts told her they were getting close.

[The Sasquatch of Fangorn]

"What now, TF?" said Sas, pulling the string on his crossbow back.