Verbal Pong

"So," Ash whispered, checking to make sure Tribby was still on guard duty between them and Raelin,  "what're we gonna do about Raelin?" Ash gestured, pointing in the direction of the meditating Elf from which they'd moved out of earshot.

"What do you mean?" Jay El whispered, following Ash's point with his eyes, and noting Tribby playing with some discarded elk droppings.  "I say we honor our commitment to him, and accompany him to the Dwarves as promised, yeah?"

"Right.  And the Prism?"

"Well, we kinda have to save the world."

"Right."

"I guess he isn't going to be okay with that."

"Not likely."

"Are you guys for real?" Med whispered back, "I mean, about saving the world?"

"Yeah, we have this quest, we have to make a device that'll save the world from this huge... monster-thing."

"No offense, but you don't seem the world-saving type." Med whispered back.

"Look, we mean well, we just..."

"Suck?" Med finished.

"No, well, I mean, look, random shit just seems to happen to us, okay?  We're on this bigger-than-anything mission, and, we're doing what we can not to break a few eggs along the way, but, this is like, a super cosmic  omelet we're talking about here, okay?"

"Whatever.  Your Ogre friend seemed to enjoy killing those innocent creatures."

"Oh.  Like your Elf friend?"

"Hey, he isn't my friend, he's just..."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Look.  For now, I say we get some rest." Jay El suggested, feeling his eyes droop.

"I'm going to stay up.  I don't trust Raelin" Ash muttered.

Jay El, Med and Manbearpig (who, it should be noted, was watching this conversation like a tennis spectator) all yawned at approximately the same time, and smirked.  "Yeah.  Time for bed."

Offending a luck entity - good call.

Everyone looked at everyone.
In a literary paradox, everyone avoided eye contact.
Everyone looked for a scapegoat for their actions.
Everyone looked at Jay El.

"That friggen Abatu... why do we trust him anyway?"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah!"

Jay El looked at the group, and jumped on the bandwagon.  "Yeah!" he rubbed his chest.  "Listen here Abatu, we've got some questions, and we'd like some answers."

Abatu, hearing his name, emerged.  "Hey guys.  What's up?"

In a rare moment of eloquence and initiative, Tribby started the questioning "What were you, before you were what you are now?"

Abatu attempted to arch an eyebrow at her, but failed.  He'd never been very good at that particular quizzical yet sarcastic expression, and always ended up looking more like he'd eaten something sour.  "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, what were you before you gave us this mission?"

"What mission?"

"Don't avoid the question!"

"What were YOU before YOU were born, stinky?"

"I don't know!"

"Is that seriously what you're all pissed about?  My origins?"

"No!  We have other questions!"
"Yeah!"

"Such as?"

"Well, what are we building?"

"I don't know."

"What evil are we preventing?"

"Psh, beats me."

"How old are you?"

"Compared to what?"

"Do you have any useful information?"

"If I did, I would have told you by now."

"Can you lie to us?"

"I don't see why not."

"What if I cast my truth spell?"

"Knock yourself out lady."

Med cast her truth spell.  "Okay, now... lie to us."

"(sigh) alright, I'm blooOOooOooo, sooooo very bluuuue...  hm.  It seems your spell does dick-all."

"So you could be lying to us about everything?"

"I suppose we all could be lying to each other about lying - maybe you're lying about casting a truth spell eh?"

"Stop twisting things!"

"I'm seriously not.  I'm just confused as to what you're all angry about."

"We don't know who to trust!"

"Ah."

"I mean, the Elf King could be evil and trying to raise evil, or YOU could be evil and trying to raise evil, or, or..."

"You guys didn't just wipe out another peaceful village, did you?"

"wait... you guys have done this sort of thing BEFORE!?"

(Awkward silence)

"Well, not on purpose..."
"No, not on purpose..."
"They were clearly up to no good."
"Clearly."

"I don't believe this!" Med shrieked at the group.  You're all devils!

"No, no really, we're all good!"
"Neutral-Good!"
"Well, I'm lawful neutral"
"Close enough, though!"

"AGGH!"

Abatu smiled at the group.  He decided not to mention the first time he'd contacted Jay El in his dreams, or the second time, when he'd helped Jay El save what few fairies remained alive.  Apparently, they were under the impression that he'd asked for some kind of mission to be undertaken in his name, and, quite frankly, they were kinda being dicks to him at the moment.

"Okay, bye now." Abatu finished.  "Don't come asking me for help any time soon."

Right now Med's thinking: Am I the only "good" good?

After travelling for a few miles, the group came to a halt.  "We should rest." Raelin mentioned.

"Really?" Ash quipped, "I feel fine."

"Tribby's ears hurt." she said, sadly.  The thousands upon thousands of Nykters were still surrounding them, screaming and pleading for them to return the Prism before it was too late.

Med looked at the group surrounding her, and was unsure of how to continue.  To leave them now, could be incredibly dangerous...  both the wild animals that came out at night, and the group's unpredictable reaction itself was more than enough to worry about.  To stay with them, however, seemed against everything she stood for.  She prayed for a sign, and for forgiveness.

While nothing immidiately happened, eventually the sun came up, which drove away the Nyktars.

Bacca wriggled underneath Manbearpig's cloak, which clearly wasn't thick enough to prevent the sun's rays from reaching him.  He offered the creature an apologetic smile, and said "Go.  Be safe.  I...  I'm sorry."

Bacca looked at him with his large, teary eyes and blinked.  "I...  I want my Mommy."

"I understand." Manbearpig smiled, "It's okay."

"But... but if I go, she won't be my Mommy anymore."

Manbearpig didn't understand at first, but then realized that the little one was probably coming to terms with the very likely fact that his parents would die soon without the Prism, or, perhaps they'd already died from his companions' actions.

"Well...  if you want to stay with me, you can.  I'll protect you."

The little Nykter smiled.  "Thanks Manbeawpig." and, with that, he flew out of the sunlight, and was lost in the sea of retreating Nykter.

"Bye lil' guy." Manbearpig smiled.  "good luck."

The 20, the 30, the 40...

There came an echoing cacophony of skrees as thousands upon thousands of Nyktar's let out their cries of protest all at once and came running towards the party.

Ash lunged forward, and grabbed the Prism from the Shaman.  Raelin lunged forward too, but wasn't quite as fast.  "Blast." he thought to himself "THAT'S going to come up later..."

The Shaman yelled "No!  You can't take it!  You know not what you do!" and summoned a huge snake in an attempt to retrieve the Prism.

Ash scoffed at the huge snake and stabbed it in both of its lungs.  In a desperate, gasping strike, the snake took one scraping bite out of Ash's leg on the way down.  He grunted, but felt little pain.

Raelin laughed.  "Actually Fuzzball, I know exactly what we're doing.  It's been mentioned to me already that your lazy tribe has been using the prism to survive all these years.  In the words of my Father, get a job and a haircut you bunch of hippies!" and with that, he launched a scorching ray at the druid, incinerating him instantly.

Jay El looked behind him, and saw the collection of two foot tall fuzzy creatures swarming towards them.  "Uh... we better get outta here guys!" he yelled, "cover your ears, I'm going to try something!" 

Manbearpig looked at his companions, and down at the terrified little Nykter still clutching Manbearpig's hand.  He looked back at Jay El, who was about to cast a spell, likely a sound based one.  He was loyal to his friend, but... this was wrong, and he knew it.  He looked back down at Bacca, who was crying, and grabbed him, shielded him with his body, and wrapped his arms around Bacca's ears, as well as his own.  "Hold on!" he whispered.

Jay El yelled his spell into the catacombs and created a huge, echoing burst of sound to erupt within the cave, driving the creatures back in pain.  Due to the echoing cavern, the spell bounced around and hit everyone multiple times, including Jay El and the party; though Manbearpig's charge, Bacca, took only a small amount of damage, due to Manbearpig's selfless shielding.

Something that Jay El didn't plan, but effectively tripled the effect of the spell, was that the sound traveled through the whisper spell Tribby had cast earlier -- effectively doubling the spell's effective range (and giving Tribby, and the Nykter in her general area quite the surprise)

The combination of the Nykter's sensitive ears, the range, the echoing cavern, the double-up from the whisper spell, and the fact that the Nykter's were about as deadly as a rabbit made this very, very effective.

The group of Nykters fell to the ground crying, and still more came, protesting and pleading with the heroes not to cause their extinction.

"Boys!  Whip out your stones!" Med yelled, referring to the sunstones.  The boys did so, causing painful shrieks from the already deafened Nykter.  Bacca let out a terrified cry, and huddled closer into Manbearpig's chest, who used his cloak to shield him.

Seeing no way to stop what was clearly turning into another Lawful Good Genocidal Cluster-Fuck, Manbearpig opted to get the hell out of there, and to do his best to at least save Bacca, who he felt responsible for.

Putting his hand in front of him, and creating a magical gust of wind, Manbearpig ran forward, his left hand outstretched in front of him casting the spell, his other clutching Bacca to his ribs.

Raelin knelt down and grabbed the remains of the Shaman.  A druid of that caliber might have some loot worth sorting through later.

You've got a little something there, in your teeth...

The party wrapped up their Elven affairs, met for a quick pint, discussed the logistics of their travel (negotiating a retainer based upon loot found) and, set out.

"PFFFFFFRRUUOOOOOOQUACK!" The duckephant trumpequacked in greetings, scaring the bejeezus out of Med.

"Holy Pelor's eyelashes, what the heck is that thing!?" She screeched, agog.

"That," Raelin sighed, "is one of the beasts of burden our group seems to have acquired the services of..."  He arched an eyebrow at Tribby, "as near as I can tell, its the second smelliest, and, is some horrid combination of an Elephant... and a duck."

"It a duckephant." Tribby smiled, bits of duckephant poop spitting when she spoke, "Her name Shibou."

Med screeched again, "Pelor's nuts*, you plan on travelling with an Ogre!?"

"TRIBBY A HALF ELF!" Tribby whined, dropping her fecal snack in anger.

"As you can see, this particular one is smarter than the average Ogre, and, seems to be of the opinion that its a half-elf." Raelin chuckled.  "I think she's harmless... As long as we're down-wind, anyway."

Med frowned.  This group was looking like less and less of a Pelorian blessing.  Still, the Lord did tend to work in mysterious ways.

"Hello Tribby." Med attempted a smile.

*it should be noted that Pelor collected Almonds in one of his fables.

Ahem

Eventually, Raelin and Med took their eyes off each other long enough so as to acknowledge the rest of the party.

"Who are your friends?"

Raelin laughed, "hardly the word I would use, but, these are some folks who would be helping to facilitate our journey.  We plan on travelling to the West on a secret mission, and, as I mentioned, shortly thereafter, to the Dwarves of the North.  This fellow here is Ash."

Ash, hearing his name and noting being pointed at, tipped his non-existent hat at the beautiful woman.  It had been a long time since he'd seen such a specimen.  Humans seemed to be something of an endangered species as of late - attractive ones, even more so.

"And this is Jay El" he continued.

Jay El dampened down his body's desires for the woman and smiled politely.  He would be faithful to his wife until the end of existence.  But man... whatta rack.

"And..." Raelin finished, switching to common, "I actually have no idea what the druid's name is.  He doesn't talk much."

"It's Manbearpig." Manbearpig said.

The two Elven citizens exchanged a knowing glance.  "How nice for you." Raelin smiled.