Zol, the 10th of Aryth continued

This jungle terrain is really messing with my style. During a fight, I prefer to move around, to duck under swings, or to hop onto a table and attack from there. I like to spring into action, attack and move away before my enemy can repost. The battlefield must be fluid, each participant dancing their own steps. Vines, tall grasses and jungle undergrowth impede my movements with their treacherous footing. It seems that this will be my battlefield for the near future as I don’t expect Tazion to be any less overgrown than the jungles between it and Eleder. It is a lost city after all. We’ve moved from jungle island, Smuggler’s Shiv, to jungle continent, Xen’Drik.

So, I must plan ahead. During the long hours of the nightly watch, as we sit around the fire in the new magical encampment that Pol so wisely purchased in Kalabuto, I have been working on a possible new spell. I got the idea a while back when we were fetching the stormbird’s feather for N’ketchi; wow, has it been a month already? If I were able to make my steps as light as a feather, I would be able to ignore most, if not all, the adverse movement effects of difficult terrain. I’m sure I could make it work not in just jungle, but also sand or snow. I may have also gotten the idea from Gelik. He would tell stories during those long hot nights we spent shipwrecked on Smuggler’ Shiv about the life of a bard and all the different situations they find themselves in.

That Troll really gave me a fright. Not only because it was undead but because of its reach and my limited mobility. Fortunately, Dadak was able to snare it with his entangle spell and it had to spend some time extracting itself. I was ready with my whip to try and trip it, but Pol was able to kill it before I could try. N’ketchi added to the fight by calling down lightning onto the undead Troll. Kailia, Dadak’s leopard companion, took the brunt of the Troll’s attacks and barely escaped with her life. Ja’Redd somehow was able to run off the flying spellcaster with a couple of hits from his hand-crossbow. The bolts seemed to paralyze him, and I know the feeling after that fight in Chieton’s home in Kalabuto versus those assassins. Hmm… that bares some thinking on. It wasn’t long after we defeated the troll that the spellcaster returned. He easily spotted a poorly hidden Pol but the ray directed at Pol missed by quite a bit. My thrown axe and connected as N’ketchi stepped forward to cast a spell. Pol threw his mind-blade and missed the weaving spellcaster. Catching us in a tight group, the spellcaster, most likely an evil cleric, was able to hit most of us as he channeled a wave of negative energy that stunned us all. Finally he was close enough for us to surround him and we were able to get a few good hits on him. Dadak’s spell of Mass Snake’s Swiftness gave us all a second chance but, unfortunately, we all missed. Another wave of negative energy caught us all again, but most of us shrugged off the effect with little damage. I thrust my blade at the spellcaster and missed. The battle ended when Dadak, wildshaped into the form of a dire hawk, pecked the spellcaster’s eyes out with his sharp beak.

All that was left was to search the camp and move on. Captain Lewin and the expedition behind us do not have to worry about this threat when they pass through here a few days behind us. Or at least, they should be a few days behind us. In our rush to get through the Fzumi Mines, I don’t think we dealt with the threat of that evil egg/cyst we found there. Oh, well, they didn’t pay us to hand-hold them all the way to Tazion.

—From the log of Kreshton Rel’Astra