"EVERYBODY WAKE UP!"
Brother Girard of the Church of Rao sat bolt upright from a sound sleep. It took him a moment to orient himself, to remember where he was: ah, yes, that's right. I'm encamped in a thicket with a bunch of outlaws.
Aside from that... "What's wrong?" he asked. Westwind was on watch, and usually didn't bother to wake anyone unless it was something serious. The halfling took a strange pride in beating up on things larger than he was.
"Sounds like an insect." Westwind's voice was calm in the dark of the autumn night. Many insects still chirped around them in the woods, as the year was not yet cold enough to chase them away. Girard heard nothing else, save for the deep breathing of two of his companions who were sleeping too soundly.
He hesitated, then nudged Lysander. "Wake up."
"Mm. No breakfast yet." The young nobleman groggily waved the priest away, as if Girard were his manservant.
"No breakfast to be had," the priest answered cheerfully. "Trail rations instead?"
Lysander opened one eye and regarded him. "Oh."
"It's a centipede," Wrye announced. "Heading into camp. I don't think it's going to surrender," he informed Girard solemnly.
"I thought Westwind took care of two of those the other night." Lysander rolled over.
"He did." Girard confirmed.
"Whatever." With a yawn, Lysander pushed himself up out of his bedroll, passed a hand over his eyes and glanced around. The cause of the alarm was slowly trundling toward the campfire, seemingly oblivious to the gathered party. "You might want to get Kespin up before it crawls over him."
"Yeah, definitely not surrendering." Westwind decided. There was a scrape of metal and a sword gleamed in the halfling's gloved hand.
"Wait a minute, it's just passing through. I'm sure it --" Girard's quiet protest was cut short as a blast of swirling energy passed in front of him, boring into the startled centipede. Sizzling pieces of carapace dropped from the creature's sides and it halted, writhing.
"But..!" Girard protested more loudly. "Not on my bedroll!"
"You should've said so," shrugged Lysander, the source of the blast. He stretched sleepily. "Hey, Westwind -- try to kill it off of Girard's bedroll," he called. The halfling ignored him, charging toward the centipede that was at least as large as he was, all in all.
A few seconds later they heaved the gory carcass of the centipede off of the cleric's blanket.
Morning dawned earlier and colder than Lysander would have preferred. Having given his blanket to Girard, he had not predicted that his limbs would freeze to the hard ground; he stiffly rose and promptly sat again at the edge of the campfire.
"Should've set up the tent." He murmured blearily in response to Wrye's cheerful morning greeting.
"Told you it'd get cold. I'm surprised it didn't frost." Wrye seemed to take extra pleasure in the pronouncement.
"Aren't you supposed to be doing something useful?"
"I am doing something useful." The grubby halfling grinned toothily at him.
By the time the others had risen, Wrye had set a savory gruel boiling over the campfire and had already retired to the edge of the campsite, happily mutilating the corpse of the previous night's centipede.
"What's that all about?" Girard yawned.
"What's what?" Westwind asked.
"Little people have extra frustration," Kespin explained airily, seating himself beside Girard. "He just needs to get it out." He sniffed at the gruel and made a face. "Have no fear, he'll be back to his annoying self any time now."
"No doubt," Lysander agreed. "But he's not bad at finding water, so I suppose he's useful enough. And don't make faces at the breakfast, Kespin, it's not the meal that smells so terrible." He kicked at the smears of centipede ichor that had soaked into the dirt around the campfire. "It's all over here. I need a bath," he added abruptly. "Where's that stream Wrye found last night?"
"A bath!" Westwind cried in surprise. He leaped to his feet and dashed toward Wrye. "C'mon, Wrye, it's Halfling Bath Day!"
" ... You know," Wrye was saying as Westwind rushed at him, "I don't think the Behir tooth is really any better on the centipede than a knife." He camly put away his knife, then leaped up and ran for it with Westwind hard on his heels and Lysander not far behind.
Girard watched the three disappear at a run into the surrounding woods.
"Are they always like this?"
"Pretty much," Kespin replied.
Wrye sprinted through the trees and brush, trying to put as much underbrush between him and his pursuers as he could. He pulled slightly ahead, and then disappeared.
Lysander stopped. "Where'd he go?"
Westwind circled around as quietly as he could, scanning the foliage. "Aha!" He tackled something behind a bush.
"Get off me, you nutcase!" Wrye's voice complained loudly.
Westwind smiled at him, baring his teeth and with his silver hair flying in all directions. "Time for a bath!"
"It ... is ... NOT!" Wrye squirmed, trying to wriggle free.
"You know you need it," Lysander scolded lightly, wading through the brush to reach for the halfling's collar. Wrye dodged his hand, breaking out of Westwind's hold.
"Do not!" The halfling ranger yelled. "You can't make me!" He jumped over Lysander's outstretched foot and sprinted away.
Westwind got up, dusted himself off and shrugged. "How about a bath?"
Lysander nodded. "Sounds like a wonderful idea. Shall we?"
A few birds resumed chirping in the upper branches of the wood, and a few small creatures rustled under the thick carpet of brush and leaves. The sun shone briefly through the yellowing leaves, warming the chill morning just enough. A squirrel chirruped madly at them as they approached the bank of the stream.
"He's following us." Westwind kept his voice low.
"I know."
"Betcha he jumps me from behind."
"If you don't jump him first."
A pinecone sailed through the air, colliding with Westwind's forehead.
A short while later, a remarkably clean and wet Wrye emerged from the stream, cursing mightily at Westwind and Lysander.
"Ah, much better." Lysander inhaled deeply. "It was well worth all that soap." He inspected the growing number of tears and sword slashes in his shirt and sighed. "But what I wouldn't give for a decent tailor..."
"Get over it." Wrye glowered and stalked off. Westwind sniggered.
Once back at camp, they found Girard working hard at the encrusted centipede goo on his blanket. Wrye had promptly rolled in the dirt and looked satisfied despite the teasing his was still getting from Kespin. Westwind immediately set to sharpening his various blades.
Lysander had just finished rolling up his tent and stuffing it into the bag at his belt when Wrye hissed a warning.
"Hide!"
Everyone scrambled to comply, some more effectively than others. They could all plainly spot Lysander; he didn't tend to blend in with underbrush as well as the halflings. Kespin solved his own problems by turning invisible, and helped Girard do the same. Then, Lysander abruptly heard whispered conversations among the group; Kespin had cast his "message" spell that would allow them to talk amongst themselves at a distance.
A line of ogres approached over the crest of a nearby hill. They seemed to know that the party was there.
"We wish to talk," bellowed a blue ogre.
Lysander hesitated; he could swear the eyes of the ogre were right on him. Then he stepped forward, and at the same time Westwind gave up his hiding place and spoke.
"We will talk."
"You will pay tribute." The ogre bellowed in heavily-accented common. "Blood debt."
"What?!" Kespin, invisible, whispered in Wrye's ear. Wrye almost jumped, despite the fact that he could tell where his half-dragon companion was from a mile away, invisible or no.
"Shh!" Wrye cautioned. He nocked an arrow, but did not pull back the bowstring yet. He continued to watch the negotiations with eyes narrowed and teeth clenched.
"You have spilled our blood as well." Westwind pointed out. "We owe you nothing."
"You attacked without cause!" the blue painted ogre insisted. "You enter our lands, you kill our pet. You pay tribute!"
"Your pet?" Westwind's jaw dropped.
Girard stepped forward out of the brush, materializing. The ogres looked unsurprised.
"I'm sure we can resolve this," he told Westwind and Lysander quietly. Westwind ignored him.
"Your pet destroyed a farm. Are you going to pay the farmers back for all their livestock that your pet stole?" Westwind challenged.
"You attacked without cause."
"I can see they're going to be reasonable," Lysander told Girard under his breath, then patted the priest encouragingly on the shoulder. "Good luck."
Girard took a deep breath.
"Had we known the behir was your pet, we would have come to you about it first." Girard tried.
"Yeah, they should've put a sign on it," Wrye muttered. "'OGRZ kill u if u kill me.' That would've been helpful."
"Shh," Kespin chastized him.
"You kill pet. You pay tribute. You kill many ogres. You pay tribute. You pass on our land. You pay tribute." The blue ogre banged his spear against the ground three times.
"Ogres don't own land," muttered Lysander. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Shh!" Westwind muttered back.
"Look, we didn't know it was your land," Girard attempted again. "If you allow us to pass through, we will leave you in peace."
"What will you pay if we don't kill you?"
"Oh, that's it." Wrye raised his bow, invisible to the ogres by sheer skill at hiding. "Just ask them to surrender. Please. Then I can shoot."
Girard ignored the chatter in the background, which really was making the situation much more difficult.
"We will pay for safe passage. We have coins to offer."
"We will take gold and magic." The ogre dictated, banging his spear on the ground again. "Four items of magic."
"What've you got that you're not using?" Kespin whispered through the spell.
"I've got a scroll of Alarm," offered Wrye. "But can't I shoot them instead?"
"Not yet. I've got a potion of darkvision. That'll be nicely useless to them," Lysander added.
Girard heard the background whispers and answered the ogre.
"We will give you four items of magic. Give us a moment to assemble them."
The ogre did not move, but waited on the hill. The ogres with him shifted restlessly, and Lysander could imagine that they were as eager for battle as Wrye was. He dug into a pocket in his vest and produced the potion he had offered.
"You should've at least bargained him down to two," Lysander commented. "I can't believe I'm giving magic to an ogre."
"Yeah, you said it." Wrye grumped. Kespin slipped invisibly over to Westwind, delivering a couple of scrolls to him; then Westwind delivered them to Girard.
"We have for you two scrolls and two potions." Girard announced.
"Come forward." The ogre ordered, and Girard complied, leaving the items on the ground halfway between the camp and the ogre line. The blue ogre gestured, and a smaller ogre retrieved them carefully, delivering the items to the leader.
The ogre carefully sniffed at the potions and glanced at the scrolls.
"Ogres can read?" Kespin wondered quietly.
"He's just looking at the pictures," Lysander answered.
After a minute's consideration, the ogre face, already ugly, twisted into a scowl.
"No good. You give us something else."
"I have a scroll of Lesser Restoration," Girard offered without argument.
"Good. And you give us five hundred coins in gold."
"Sure," Westwind shrugged. "He can have mine. It's getting heavy." The halfling reached into a pouch and began to count coins. "You all can pay me back in platinum."
"And," the blue ogre continued, marking the group as gullible, "you help us with a problem, and we don't tell the next tribe you come."
"Oh, for the sakes of all the gods," Lysander swore. "We've given them enough. We don't need to do their dirty work and pay them too."
He said it a little too loudly, and the eyes of the blue ogre fell on him. It grinned.
"Just give us that one, and you can keep the rest."
Lysander wondered for a moment if they'd give him up, but he was relieved to hear Girard refuse. He could do the ogres plenty of harm, but they'd feast on him in the end for certain.
"We'll do your task, but we will give up none of our people to you."
The blue ogre looked displeased, glowering at Lysander. At least, Lysander thought he was being glowered at, but with ogres, it was difficult to discern expressions. They just always looked that way. Wasn't that what nannies always told their charges? 'Don't scowl, dear, your face might freeze that way and you'll turn into an ogre.'
Lysander restrained himself from summoning magical energy to his itching hands. Remain calm, he told himself. We'll just do their little task and then we can come back and kill them later.
-- to be continued --
