Vintage

Once you get used to the haunted woods it’s . . .

Let’s start with the spooky bird calls which eerily echo through the darkened trees.  Then there’s the furtive rustling of underbrush from time to time giving you the impression that you’re being followed and watched.

I think I could have gotten used to all of that up until Fang (in her tiger form . . . Is this the first time that we’ve mentioned that Fang is a half Orc half tiger were?  Silly we.) fell into a pit trap.

Yes it was one of those pit traps where someone suspends a cut of fine meat to attract a predator.  Mind you a normal person would have scratched their head at the site of a side of meat hanging from a rope and come to the hasty conclusion, “That’s probably a trap!”

Apparently, Fang looses a bit of her cognitive abilities while being a were-tiger.

I went into a perimeter defense mode immediately, scanning everywhere as often as I could, while we waited for Fang to be retrieved.  Fortunately no one took the opportunity to attack us while we were so indisposed.

But there was still the occasional rustling in the underbrush and the shadowy movement glimpsed just at the edge of my vision.  That and I hadn’t been given a chance to don any armor before leaving, so I was feeling particularly exposed.

After the tiger trap Rashida decided to push FURTHER into this dreaded wood.

Not more than a couple of  minutes passed and Nosaruto starts jumping, and asking “Who’s there?  What do you want?”

Of course we all turned to see what the ruckus was, but there was no one.  Still Nos is insisting that someone was in the woods off to the side.

After we all settled down then I heard the whispered voice behind me.  I recognize elvish when I hear it, but I don’t know the tongue well and the accent was off.  My first though is Drow.  And if it’s a feral Drow, we may not be returning home.  By the time I spin around no one’s there.  I’m suddenly beginning to feel very empathetic toward Nos.

I alerted the group that we were being followed.  I explain what happened to me.  Far as I can tell, there’s something in the woods that we can’t see and have no way of fighting.  We’ve got to be pretty close to the end of the road here, as whatever is going to jump out of the woods and slaughter us all is just toying with us till it gets bored.

Not more than fifty paces further into the forest we found this disgusting looking elf sitting around a pile of recently killed goblins.  He’s sitting there, having collected trophies (fingers specifically) and has pinned them into a crude necklace.  His black and white face markings remind me of the Mali’san which we bumped into back in Veluna.

I was seriously considering charging this freak when Rashida utters the word, “Mordas.”

I recognize the voice of this Mordas guy as being the same person who whispered to me earlier.

I think the word means “smelly” or “broken.”  Maybe it was “not moving” but whatever, the guy perks up and replies with Rashida’s name.  Apparently the two know each other.

They started yammering in elvish and I’m immediately on edge.  I don’t have a clue what the two are talking about, but I catch the occasional reference to “goblins.”

I think the thing that freaked me out the most was how both Rashida and Shethba tensed up around this guy.  I’ve only seen this kind of behavior when two enemies meet and they circle about, neither wanting to fight, but both wary in their actions.  It was like when you make extra sure to move slowly and carefully so as not to spook the other guy into a fight.

I was minding my own business, (actually watching the perimeter in case more gits showed up, when this Mali’san pops in front of me.  It was like he was sitting over on his pile of goblins and in the blink of an eye he’s standing in front of me without moving.

That’s when I got a good look at him . . . as well as a strong smell.  The guy obviously bathed in the blood of his enemies and he smelled like he hadn’t used anything else to clean with.  He literally smelled of violent death.

His eyes flicked and flared like that of a madman, but there seemed something else, like an endless well of pain and suffering.  Maybe the guy cast a spell on me but my reaction was pity.  It was like when I found that fox pup four years back and all I wanted to do was bring it home, clean it up, and tend to it.

And with another blink of the eye, he was gone.

Nos, who was just as freaked out as Tash and I were, asked who that was.

Rashida replied, “That was Gylain.  The Mali’san who is called Death.  Mordas.”

We continued deeper into the woods . . .