Where they went first after leaving Lief's crossing was the crumbling stone fort that the bandits called home. When they had nowhere they really needed to be and with them taking their time it took a full two days to travel from Lief’s crossing to the fort.
Taking a few days they explored around the fort. The entire vibe of travel was very lackadaisical. They had no goals, no where they wanted to really go. During their time at the fort they saw some interesting things, they found a small cave system that had a few animals. They also found a few small streams around, and even came across a few creatures they didn't want to fight. Each time they did they would slowly make their way away from the creature before making a run for it. For the most part they weren't pursued, only one came after, it was a large ball of fur called a “fluffles”. Even though it seemed harmless and looked very cuddly Alaric and Meira warned Bjorn off of trying to hug the creature. Apparently it eats by absorbing creatures into its fur, and whatever is absorbed has never been seen escaping. The ball of fur chased them for less than 200 feet, after it saw that it couldn't catch the group it gave up and moved away.
After they explored the fort and were satisfied they started heading onwards moving more northward and westward. Traveling as true to the northwest as they could, but it was hard to do so sometimes. Oftentimes they had to backtrack or follow a river or large stream for hours as obstacles cut across their path. As a general rule though they moved northwest.
The slow pace through the forest was slow for many different reasons. One was the fact that they had no desire to get anywhere. It wasn't odd for the entire group to stop and lay out by the river for a few hours, or to stop and take a nap in a nice glade. The beauty of hiking through a forest in early spring with all sorts of flowers blooming everywhere could not be understated. The second reason was the fact that they were forging a new path through a heavily wooded forest with new underbrush growth everywhere. It was slow going, constantly having their clothes getting snagged by trees and shrubs.
And another reason, although this one no fault of most of the party was Bjorn. With his rekindled love and desire to do alchemy he would slow down the group as he would stop to look at different herbs, or to collect different herbs. Almost each time he would contemplate using his herb-lore perk to find out the effects of different herbs through ingesting them. He did give into the impulse an embarrassing amount of times. He did so up until one plant known as the liquid mud gave him a bad case of diarrhea for a few days. Stopping all progress for the duration. Still he collected a surprising amount of different plants and in good quantities, all of which went straight into his portable pocket.
One quirk of the portable pocket that he learned was that it had a preserving effect. Whatever state the plant was in when it went into the portable pocket it maintained when it was retrieved. Which led him to do the next obvious experiment. He tried to put an alive animal into the portable pocket, one afternoon he spent it making a rudimentary fishing pole. Then he used the pole to catch a fish, once it was in his grasp he tried to put it into the portable pocket, as it still squirmed to get free. The action gained him a new prompt.
Your portable pocket does not have the requisite magic to allow you to store a living creature inside of it.
As soon as the fish touched the entrance to the portable pocket it was like it hit an invisible wall. After trying a few other things with no success he finally found a solution to the problem. Once he killed the fish it went into the portable pocket with no issues. With other tests the fish also came out with the same freshness it had when it went into the portable pocket the first time.
One of the last but certainly not least reasons for their slow pace was the rain. With it being early spring it was either every other day or every third day there would be a new rainstorm that would pour over the entire area making certain parts treacherous to traverse. For the most part it would rain for a few hours, but one day it rained long enough and hard enough that flooding was common. Luckily for the group they were able to find a cave high on a cliff face that was able to protect them from the rain. For the most part they would get caught in the rain. That is where Meira's spell she picked up in Vanta became useful.
Spell: Weather Shield
Cast time: 1 minute
Components: Verble, Somatic
Range: Self
Duration: 1 hour
Mana cost: 35 points
Cooldown: 55 minutes
Creates a 4 foot invisible bubble around the caster that repels weather effects and small insects for the duration of the spell.
The area effect was small enough that it could fit 3 people in it if they squeezed. Every time she cast her spell she would cast it on herself. Because of that Bjorn, Tayla, and Alaric took turns being out in the rain getting soaked.
At night at camp was the first time Tayla ever showed the fact that she could use fire magic. On days that it rained they would change into dry clothes, or dryish clothes and then they would give Tayla their wet clothes. Her hands would then be covered in an orange red light and produce a light heat. She then would pass the clothes in between her hands quickly drying the clothes.
“Every Tiefling has some sort of fire based spell when they are born. I was excited by my spellcasting when I was old enough to understand its importance. But I was bullied by the kids on the streets. For being a Tiefling. I quickly lost pride in my magic, and for who I was. When I grew older and became ameliorated to the words of my peers I stopped caring. I quickly learned that the flashy fire magic would be useless as a thief in most situations. I haven't used much fire magic because of that. I am glad that I have a use for it now… finally.”
“Well, we appreciate your magic now.” Said Meira as she huddled around their camp fire bundled up in a blanket. She wrinkled her nose. “I hate wearing wet clothes.”
“I think we can all agree on that one.” Said Bjorn as he was working on cutting up the fish that he had stored in his portable pocket.
Tayla sighed. “You know, I have never really spent extended periods in the wild. It is surprisingly relaxing.”
Alaric came back into camp with a bundle of wood that he collected. “Yeah, it is. But doing it above ground is new to me.”
“You know, I have been curious.” Bjorn spoke up after a moment of silence. “Does your skin darken at all?” He asked that as he was looking between Tayla and Alaric. “I mean, For Meira her skin has gotten a little more tan, and I have gotten really tan. But Alaric you haven’t gotten a tan at all. And Tayla, your skin is already red, do you get sunburnt? Do you get more red? When you tan do you become a darker shade?”
Alaric chuckled, and Tayla looked a little taken aback. It was Alaric who beat Tayla to the punch. “As far as I know most dwarves don’t get any darker. I mean for the most part we don’t spend much time out in the sun. We also don’t really wear clothes that show off much skin.”
Thinking back about it, all of Alaric’s clothes were long. He had long pants, long sleeve shirts, and his boots came up to the middle of his shins. With his hair, he had long dark hair and a long bushy beard. All in all the only parts of his skin that were exposed to the air were his face and his hands.
“And as for Tieflings, I don’t think it is possible to get sunburnt. Some of us have lighter or darker shades of red for our skin tone, but for the most part I think our skin gets tanner.”
“Huh, that isn’t what I expected.” Time passed as everyone was in their own thoughts. That was until Bjorn gave a light chuckle.
“What?”
“Back on earth it was common for people to wear shorts, and short sleeved shirts. My tan is what is known as a farmer’s tan and most people make fun of you if you had a farmer’s tan.” Bjorn punctuated his words by raising up his shirt sleeve exposing the delineations between the pale skin of his upper arm. Which was in stark contrast to the coppery color of his lower arm.
Tayla let out a low whistle. “Yeah, I don’t think I have anything like that, see.” And she grabbed her shirt with both hands removing it. Exposing her entire upper body. Tayla was correct, the skin of her upper body was completely uniform. There were absolutely no tan lines.
As Tayla sat there grinning fully exposed Alaric ogled her. Proud of herself Tayla sat there making no movement to put her shirt back on. That was until a blanket came flying at her from across the fire.
“Put those away. It is enough to make a woman jealous.”
Meira’s words brought a full bodied laugh out of Tayla. She threw the blanket back and then quickly put her shirt back on, eliciting a boo out of Alaric. Which earned him a dirty look from Meira, causing him to join Tayla in laughter. Not able to hold himself back Bjorn joined the pair in their laughter. Soon even Meira’s stern expression softened and she joined in.
After the laughter died down, Meira looked back to Tayla. “You know I also envy how you never seem to get cold. I can’t seem to get warm tonight.”
“It’s also a part of my heritage. Apparently demons have an inherent fire inside of them, and thankfully I have inherited it from them. I have never actually seen or even heard of a demon. So everything that I know is second hand.”
“I have heard of a demon, at least I think it was a demon, it was also kind of second hand. When I first came to the Eld, this dwarf hermit took me in and taught me alchemy and how to survive here.”
“She did a piss poor job.” Alaric cracked. His comment brought light laughter out of the other two.
“Hush you. It is in poor taste to speak ill of the dead.” His comment stopped all of the laughter dead in its tracks.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize.” Alaric said.
“It is alright, that was over a year ago now. The wound is less painful than it was initially. But anyways there was a cave near us that was home to a necromancer who was possessed by a grimoire. After we were able to escape and kill the gnome we decided to burn the grimoire and when we did so I am pretty sure a demon showed up and promised that he would hunt me down and kill me for destroying his grimoire.”
“Do you remember his name? Did he tell you? And if he showed up, why didn’t he kill you right then and there?” Tayla asked.
“He wasn’t truly there; it was like a shadow that came out of the fire when we burnt the book. I can’t remember, I don’t think he said a name or if he did I don’t remember it. Why is that bad?”
“Demonic beings are one of the most powerful existences on this planet, at least as far as I know. With one saying he would hunt you down and kill you does not bode well for your future. Luckily for us there aren’t many demonic creatures on the Eld. I am pretty sure they aren’t native to this plane, they have to be summoned here or they are powerful enough to break their way onto this plane by themselves.”
Bjorn was quiet for a moment. “Well, I am not going to worry about it. If it eventually hunts me down, that is a problem for a later day. For now worrying about it wont do me any good. Dinner is ready.”
The fish that he had been preparing throughout the conversation was done, they each took a fourth of the meat from the fish and tucked in. Silence fell over the camp as they all attacked their portion of food with ravenous hunger.
After everyone had eaten their fill they started to tuck in and get ready for the night, it was Bjorn’s turn to take watch first. They had all come to an agreement where every night there would be three shifts of watch, with the last one being able to sleep through the night. So each person took three shifts before a full night's rest. Tayla had just finished her 3 nights in a row so she was out. It was Bjorn’s turn to take the first watch, this being his first shift in the series. With his belt of sustenance Bjorn was used to having less sleep, so this watch pattern didn’t affect him as much as it did the other three. He could tell that the others were either; getting used to less sleep, or were getting more irritable from the lack of sleep.
Once everyone tucked in for the night Bjorn walked a few steps out of the clearing, trying to find a long shadow to hide in that still gave him a view of camp and settled in for his watch. Activating his stealth he sat vigil over camp longer than his shift actually was supposed to be. Meira was up next and she was affected the most by the lack of sleep, it wasn’t anything major, but he could tell her smiles didn’t come quiet as easily.
After an hour into what should have been Meira’s turn, Bjorn walked back into camp and woke her. She quietly stood and stretched then gave Bjorn a frown. Over the last year Bjorn came to find that everyone in the Eld also had access to a clock and an interface.
Meira walked over and whispered into his ear. “You should have woken me up an hour ago.”
Her actions and intentions were not meant to convey anything other than her message. But her closeness, and her warm breath in his ear made his heart skip a beat. It was a moment before he replied.
Leaning in so his mouth was next to her ear he whispered. “I could tell you needed sleep, and I have my belt of sustenance. So I took a part of your shift for you.”
His declaration brought a thin smile to her face. Once again leaning in. “Thank you, you didn’t have to do that, we each have our burdens. I thank you for sharing mine with me.” Her closeness was making Bjorn’s heart race. Once she finished speaking she took a step back away from Bjorn. As she was speaking to him she had placed her hand on the back of his upper arm. When she stepped away her hand lingered slightly, then it slid down his arm before breaking contact.
She turned around and walked away. Bjorn watched her go for a moment before taking out his bedroll and settling in for the night.
“Get back ye beasty.” Alaric’s voice came booming in, cutting right through Bjorn’s sleep bringing him to full alertness in a moment. Bjorn’s eyes shot open and took in his surroundings. The fire had died down, casting little light to their surroundings. It was early morning and there was the tall tale glow of light on the horizon, but not enough to illuminate the world yet. He could see the forms of Tayla and Meira doing the same thing he was doing. To one end of the clearing he could clearly see Alaric’s form standing there with his ax and shield standing before a large dark shape.
Without hesitation Bjorn cast simple light and shot it to the trees above Alaric’s head. Illuminating his friend and the creature he was grappling with. It was a large toad-like being. It was covered in bone-like spikes. Its front legs were longer than the back legs, having it sit in a more upright position. The front legs ended in fists and coming out of the knuckles were more bone spikes, but these looked more like knives or daggers with their length. Its mouth was currently open and three whip-like tongues were whipping around trying to get ahold of Alaric. The erratic movement of the tongues made it hard to follow.
Tayla was the first one to spring into action, leaping out of bed she shot into the new shadows that were cast by Bjorn’s simple light spell, melding into them. Meira and Bjorn reacted almost at the same time. Meira grabbed her staff and as she stood she started to cast a spell, her hands wreathed in a soft yellow glow. Bjorn stood up and retrieved his bow. Nocking an arrow he sighted on the Toads mouth.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Meira’s spell finished first. Alaric was wreathed in the same yellow light and his movements sped up a noticeable amount. Not wasting any time she started to cast a new spell. Bjorn’s arrow came streaking through the night flying true towards its open maw. Before Bjorn’s arrow could make contact Alaric’s ax came down on one of the tongues, not severing it but damaging it. The toad recoiled faster than should be possible with the size of the creature and Bjorn’s arrow slammed into the thick hide of the creature’s neck barely doing anything.
Tayla made her presence known as she appeared behind the creature slamming her dagger into his back near where its spine should be attempting to paralyze it. She was careful to avoid the bone spines on its back as she made her attack. Her attempts fell short though as the toad thrashed. Tayla was able to pull her dagger out of its back and started to retreat.
She wasn’t fast enough though, as four of the spikes shot out from its back streaking towards Tayla. Thankfully she was a professed rogue otherwise it might have just been the end for her. Her choice to purchase the uncanny dodge talent paid dividends as she was able to avoid three out four of the spikes. The last spike connected solidly though, as the spike shot into her lower arm piercing right through the middle missing both the radius and ulna, but getting stuck in her arm by the two bones. They are what stopped the spike from puncturing right through the entire arm.
Making it back into the shadows she called out. “Watch out, it can shoot those bone spikes.”
“We should consider retreating for the moment.” Bjorn called out as he pulled another arrow out and shot at the monster. “We aren’t equipped to fight this.” At first while they were traipsing through the woods they had been vigilant and worn their armor, but by now though they had decided it would be better to not bog everyone down by wearing the heavier metal and leathers.
“Ay.” Called Alaric back as he started to work his way back away from the toad. Which followed after him. Meira's lightning bolt spell caught it square in the chest stunning it for a moment. The stun didn't last as long as it should have, but when the toad recovered, fortunately for the friends the toad was slower than the group so they were able to extricate themselves. As they were backing out Bjorn recast his simple light spell and let it hang over his hand to give them light as they backed away. The only hiccup was the toad tried to get tricky and shoot its spikes at Alaric as he retreated. That was when they learned one of the tall tail signs of its spike shot. The skin around the spike would turn a dark shade of blue before being shot out at tremendous speeds. Alaric deflected two, Tayla intercepted one and Bjorn caught the last one in his leg. The force of the shot shoved it through to where the point was sticking out the other side.
The new injury slowed them down, each new step shot a burning pain up through his leg, but with Alaric helping Bjorn they were still able to outpace the toad and make it into the forest. They traveled for a few minutes before stopping, Alaric set Bjorn down on the group and took a look at the spine and made a few clucking sounds.
“Alright, I am going to pull this out.” Alaric picked a stick up from the ground and held it in front of Bjorn’s mouth. “Bite down on this. On the count of three I will pull the spine out okay?”
Bjorn nodded in assent. “One.” And Alaric yanked for all he was worth, the spine quickly pulled free, what they didn’t see was that the bone spike had put barbs into the meat of Bjorn’s thigh and pulled a chunk of flesh with it while doing so.
Bjorn’s health began to tick down as a rather nasty bleeding debuff filled his vision. Doing some quick mental math though, the bleeding debuff would leave him with roughly a quarter of his health left. Knowing something like this was bound to happen eventually Bjorn pulled a strip of clean cloth out of his portable pocket and wrapped the bandage around the leg wound. Which made the debuff change, now he would be left with roughly half of his hp.
Tayla was in much better shape, with how thin her arm was the foot and a half long spike had punctured through her enough that the barbs hadn’t stuck into her skin. Instead of pulling it back out they were able to put enough leverage on either side of the spike using a large rock as the fulcrum. With a loud crack the barbed end of the spike came free, they were able to pull the rest of the spike back through the wound.
Both Bjorn and Tayla took a healing potion, it wasn’t enough to heal them immediately, but the slow trickle of health would pay dividends in the long run. Now that the spike wasn’t in Bjorn’s leg and with his increased pain tolerance he was able to stand freely on his own. He would be able to move, not overly quickly, but he could still move. Tayla favored her left hand over her right, but her injury wasn’t debilitating.
With that addressed they all started to pull out and don their armors. Bjorn’s ringmail, Alaric’s Chainmail, and Tayla and Meira both putting on their tight leathers. Both girls having no shame in stripping down to put on their leathers. Bjorn still felt a little self conscious as he took off his normal shirt to put his padded shirt on then the ringmail that went over it. Once Bjorn had his shirt on he caught Alaric with a smile on his face, which the women hadn’t noticed. They both did stop in their half undressed states to watch Bjorn change, making him blush fiercely.
By the time they were all kitted out again in armors there came a soft crashing sound from the way they came. All four exchanged furtive glances before they collectively made their way back from where they came.
After less than a minute of travel they came across the toad moving in the exact path that they had taken to get away from it. All three of the toads' tongues were out on the ground lapping up the dirt. It was eating the dirt that was infused with Bjorn’s blood, they had left a trail of it while they ran away.
Name: Arrowhead Toad Fred
Species: Arrowhead Toad
Age: 4
Level: 14
Arrowhead toads are feared hunters due to their sharp whip-like tongues, tough leathery skin, and their ability to shoot the bone spikes from their body. They will eventually grow the spikes back, but it is a costly task and a slow process. There are not many creatures out in the woods that would try to take down an Arrowhead toad by themselves, most pack animals avoid them as well.
“You know. I should really get in the habit of using my Identify ability right out of the gate. I probably could have saved us some pain seeing how it is called an arrowhead toad. It stands to reason that it probably would shoot its spikes out at us.”
Alaric stopped and looked at Bjorn. “Yeah, no shit.” he said as he moved to hit Bjorn upside the back of his head.
The sound of the metal moving and their speaking was enough to alert the toad to its quarry being close and it stopped lapping up Bjorn’s blood. The toad closed its mouth and settled one of its dinner plate sized eyes on the group before opening its maw again and letting out a sound that was a mix between a screech and a croak. The sound was loud enough that anything within a half mile would have heard it. It cut through the silence of the twilight.
As the scroak appeared to be the toads battle cry it charged at the group. Its movements were a little weird though. The back legs of the toad were exactly like a toad, so it was trying to jump. With the long upper body and the long arms that ended in fists the arms kind of quickly ran across the ground making the jump last longer than should be possible. When the toads momentum finally ran out the lower half came slapping into the ground with a loud plop.
The arrowhead toad crossed two thirds of the distance in two large leaps. Throwing his head back and sighing, Alaric started making his way towards the toad. As he walked towards the toad Bjorn threw his simple light at the toad, which struck it in the chest and stayed hovering a few Inches above its chest. Tayla melted into the shadows, Bjorn and Meira started to prepare. Bjorn, using his bow, trying to aim for the eye this time. And Meira, starting her casting of her lightning bolt spell once again.
Once Alaric re-engaged with the toad he began his dance of trying to avoid the sharp tongue all while trying to find openings to attack either a tongue or the main body. For the most part he found success dodging out of the way, every once and a while one of the tongues would create a screeching noise as it scraped along Alaric’s armor.
Tayla started to use all of her throwing knives to try to make a more lasting effect on the toad. With the danger of the spikes she didn't dare move close to attack and her ranged attacks had little effect. This was the exact type of matchup that Tayla struggled with. The large size mixed with the defensive nature of the creature made it harder for Tayla to find a way to be of use.
The first real break the group got was with Meira's lightning bolt spell. When she finally finished casting her spell the toad had a few minor cuts on its body from Alaric, and its hide was peppered by arrows and throwing knives. The arc of pure electricity shot into the toad, this time landing in its open maw the toad dropped to the ground body twitching.
“It's still alive.” Meria called out. Unfortunately for Bjorn up to this point when the toads mouth was open and its tongues were flailing about, the toads eyes were either fully closed or partially closed. Instead of sitting still as its tongues tried to latch onto Alaric the toad's body bobbed and weaved to try and avoid his strikes all while trying to get a better position to hit the dwarf. Now that its body was stationary and the eyes remained in the half-lidded state Bjorn had a clear shot at the eye. Not wasting his opportunity he drew, aimed, and loosed.
The arrow went streaking away from the bow, it crossed the distance between the two in less than a second. At a distance of around 20 yards this shot was a piece of cake by this point. The arrow sunk into the soft flesh of the toads eyeball, and a clear viscous liquid came spilling out of the ruptured eye.
The arrow came just in the nick of time, as the toad began to recover. As it was standing up Alaric got a final good hit in and was able to sever one of the tongues near where it came out of the mouth. Thick red blood came welling out of where Alaric cut off the tongue, coating Alaric as it sprayed out.
Now blinded in one eye, and down one tongue the fight was starting to turn in their favor. The toad realized the situation it was in at the same time they did. So the fight quickly changed from the toad trying to take them down to trying to run.
Once it recovered the toad did a desperation gamble as its entire body took on a blue sheen.
“Take cover!” Bjorn yelled as he dove to the side tackling her to the ground, he landed on the other side of Meira, she was dazed from a spell backlash. Wrapping his arms around her he hauled her body on the other side putting his body in between her and the toad.
The toad released all of the bone spikes from its body all at the same time. Spikes shot in all directions coating the area in deadly projectiles. There was a small area around the toad that little could have survived, Alaric was one of those that could though.
When the call for cover came out Alaric didn't have time to retreat. Instead he fell into a kneeling position and using his shield to cover himself. When the spikes stopped shooting out his shield looked like it got into a fight with a porcupine. There were over 30 bone spikes that punctured his shield. Each spike had various luck with penetrating, there were countless that fell off without penetrating. Of those that punctured the shield most had a hard time making it through the double layered toughened wood. Less than a third fully made it through the wood. Two of the spikes made it fully through and into Alaric's arm behind the shield.
Bjorn and Meira were lucky, most of the spikes traveled harmlessly over their heads. And the ones that would have dug into Bjorn's back were stopped by Alaric’s shield. Tayla was no where to be seen, before the barrage she was behind a tree, it stood to reason that she took cover again.
Once the whizz of deadly projectiles died down Bjorn opened his eyes and looked around. The battlefield was once again. Wreathed in a dull grey light. As the bone spikes passed through the ball of light they destabilized the magic holding the ball together and it winked out of existence.
With how long they have been fighting for there was a soft light early morning light. The type of light were it was light enough to illuminate shapes, but not enough to make out detail. They could see that after the toads attack it stood there, trying to decide if its gamble paid off.
Rising back to his feet Bjorn recast his simple light spell shedding enough light for the toad to see its attack didn't fully work. When Alaric got back to his feet the toad fully went into retreat mode.
“The gall of this bastard.” Alaric said. “Takes a cheap shot, and when it doesn't work he does a runner.”
From there the rest of the fight was a foregone conclusion, with the toad on the retreat and with most of its offensive capabilities expended. It still took almost half an hour for them to fully catch up and put the toad down, it wasn't overly deadly, but its tongues still were enough trouble that they had to be careful.
Once Tayla got careless and the toad actually threw a punch at her, which caught her high in the chest. High enough that the knuckle daggers didn't dig into flesh, but it was strong enough to send her backwards. Instead of falling she threw herself backwards and did a back handspring. As she was rolling away one of the toads' tongues lashed out and nicked her thigh leaving a long shallow gash in its wake.
Other than that there weren't any other close calls, the toad was surprisingly tough, it took many solid cuts and gashes to put the toad down, its hide was surprisingly tough and thick. By the time the toad succumbed they had fully blinded it and had removed all three of the whip tongues. What allowed them to take it down was in its blinded state it attempted to flee and did another full strength leap right into the side of a tree. There was a crunch as it did so and it never got back to its feet. It wasn't dead, they had to pile on and attack it until it bled out.
The fight wasn't honorable, or glorious. Towards the end it was more of a mercy that it was a fight. The toad was mostly helpless at the end.
Once the toad was dead. The first thing they did was address Alaric's arm and Tayla's leg. The worst injury Meria suffered was when she was tackled to the ground, she already had a bruise starting to grow high on her cheek. They had to pry the shield off of Alaric's arm. After the barbs were removed from his arm as well bandaged up they bandaged his arm up. Tayla's leg was easy and fast to heal, they cleaned the wound before bandaging it.
They left Bjorn with the body to try and find anything of use from inside the creature. While Bjorn did the dirty work of sinking into the toad the rest of the group went back to collect their gear that was left behind.
As they left Bjorn grumbled under his breath. “Why don't you do the disgusting job Bjorn? It makes the most sense for you to do it, Bjorn. You know that Identify ability will be super useful to make sure we don't leave behind anything valuable. Assholes.”
It was well over three hours before the rest returned to Bjorn. When they did return they found Bjorn covered head to toe in a mix of blood and mucus. In his exhausted state he didn't care at all at what his body was covered in. During the fight they all had to use stamina potions to keep going, meaning Bjorn couldn't use one to recover in his current state.
“What took you so long?” asked Bjorn.
The tone of his voice and the flat look he gave the others made Meira flinch. “We decided to stop and collect the bone spikes.” She said as they dropped 6 large bundles of spikes on the ground. “What did you find?” She asked.
“Nothing of use, the hide might be useful for someone, but not us. The rest of the toad is just your standard meat.”
Alaric dropped three coils of the tongue that they chopped off. Which Bjorn used his Identify on, same with the bundles of bone spikes.
What came back was that both the spikes and the tongues were the only thing worthwhile. The spikes could be cut down and turned into arrowheads. While the sharp cutting edges of the tongue could be useful. Most of the tongue was soft and oddly elastic, every 5 to 6 inches there was a section that was sharp on one side of it and tough on the other.
“It's a bit dark,” said Bjorn. “But I think these would make for fantastic whips. I think the sharp edges would be great for digging into skin, latching and ripping as the tongue was removed.”
“Dark or not, that is exactly how the frog was using it. There are tons of ways that could have gone wrong for us.” Alaric said as he prodded the section of tongue on the ground with his foot.
Nods of assent passed around the group. “One thing is for sure.” Tayla started. “I am not going to go anywhere with you looking and smelling like that.” she said as she gestured towards Bjorn.
“Oh really?” Asked Bjorn, as he turned towards Tayla. “You were the one to suggest that I be the one to go through the corpse. You know Tayla, you always ask for a kiss or a hug. Why don't I finally give you that hug you've been wanting.”
Bjorn ran towards Tayla with his arms outstretched, which a high pitched shriek she ran away. “Where are you going? You are the one who keeps begging me to hold you.” Bjorn called out to Tayla's back as she ran away from the gore covered Bjorn.
The subsequent shriek and run made everyone laugh as Tayla attempted to not get caught by Bjorn. The antics lasted a good while before Bjorn finally gave up and made his way towards the moving water he could hear in the distance. By now most of the gore had dried out and was caked to his skin.
After Bjorn washed his body he got dressed and used a stick to pick up the soiled clothes that he didn't want anything to do with. Making his way back to the group they quickly made a small fire and threw the gore stained clothes onto the fire. Watching them burn up was surprisingly satisfying.
“Well now what?” Asked Bjorn.
“We should make our way into a town.” Alaric said as he held up his shield. “this thing barely covers anything anymore.”
The thick wooden planks that made up the body of the shield were splintered. It also had large inch and a half to two inch holes that were peppered all over the surface of the shield. To further showcase what he was talking about Alaric put his arm gingerly into the leather straps that were used to hold the shield to his arm. When he had it affixed to his arm there were multiple places where Alaric's bandaged arm could be seen through the holes.
“Doesn't seem like it will do much.” Tayla commented.
“No it doesn't.” Bjorn agreed. “I do think we should find some sort of shelter though, although my leg will quickly heal due to my regeneration. Tayla's leg and Alaric’s arm will take a few days, if we move now it will only increase our chances of getting hurt.”
“That's a great idea, I don't think we should split up to find anywhere though. Tayla and Alaric, why don't you two search up river and Bjorn and I will search down river, let's meet back here by mid-day.”
Tayla narrowed her eyes at Meira before turning and telling Alaric to join. With a smile and a shrug she and Bjorn started heading down river.
They met back up at midday at the small river right near where the corpse of the toad sat. They kept their distance as they could hear the sound of tearing flesh coming from where the toad's body was. After quickly sharing their findings in hushed tones the group made their way back up river heading to where Alaric and Tayla had found.
It was a small sheltered clearing, with large rock faces covering three sides of the clearing, and a nice level path into the clearing. After some thought and preparation they set up a rope that was affixed to the ground, they thought that the rock faces would protect them from attack on three sides, making it easier to defend. If sometime attacked from the one open side and they couldn't handle it they could escape up the rope.
When everything had been all prepared they started to set up camp. In the middle of their clearing there was a small tree. Taking out some pitons they affixed them to the rock face, then they tied ropes going from the pitons to the tree. From there they used large leaves and branches to make a rough roof over their heads. Then they dug and built a decent fire pit. Lastly they sharpened some wooden spikes that they cut from small trees and placed them into the ground of the only easy way in and out.
With everything ready they settled in for the night. They spent a little over a week there recovering. During that week it was surprisingly uneventful, they were lazy not doing much. By the time they agreed that everyone healed enough to move on, everyone was ready to be done with their camp. Recovering their ropes and packing up they set out to try and find population so they could hopefully repair Alaric’s shield. The consensus was that they had spent plenty of time outside of shelter, it was time to have a roof over their heads.
(If you don’t care about advancement you may skip to the next part.)
You have advanced your skill level in herb-lore. reaching skill level 15. The efficacy of plants and herbs you collect will increase by 45%.
Congratulations you have advanced in the skill: Cooking, you are now skill level 9. Your attempts to make an edible meal have increased by 9%.
You have advanced your skill level in light magic. reaching skill level 8. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
You have advanced your skill level in Light Armor, reaching skill level 3. When wearing light armor your defensive value for the light armor is increased by 3%.