better late than never

22d of November 5000

Still half deaf after the detonation of Gustavius's gun Alast climbed down from the now dead body of the tiger. A discussion aroused as the battle plan were followed on a very personal note by each of them. Team work still had to be improved. Taking off the tiger from above Erleothir Mulchanor look puzzled to Alast still convinced that his backstabbing prowess was a good idea. Cleaning his swords they both tried to find something useful to betaken for the animal carcass. Once again Griselda went forward and start to walk toward the jungle.

Griselda called the others to follow "Come on! We don't have all day! We need to move." But the others were more interested in what to do with the tiger. "Can we use his teeth for some weapon smiled Alast to Gustavius?" After a trenendious usage of his brainpower he(?) replied: "We need to get rid of the body, it may attract animals. Bigger ones." In the end, the hazardous company decided to trust the expertise of the Telco and not to lose time with the dead tiger.

With a loud "splash" Erleothir and Mulchanor trown the tiger into the river. Rapidly dissapearing in a now red water. Mumbling and complaining they followed the Telchos which didn't let them get to close from them.

The company quickly resumed walking along the river. If the way was almost clear of branches and tree roots, it slowly started to get rather swampy. Still leading the group Griselda at first didn't notice her companions struggling to keep their footing and raising their knees every step a little higher. The dwarves started walking closer to the trees, Alast and Yesnarel followed their examples. So did the knight. When Griselda looked over her shoulder to check on the progress she realized she was the onyl one still easily walking in the mud. Not to waste time and take useless risks, Alast suggested climbing on a tree to check the path ahead. With his pirates skills, it was done in a no time and he proudly came back down with information.

The swamp area was stretching to the North and they would need to walk around it, going more West. Things are never easy and before the company could breath a "ok, then, let's go" they heard the dreaded "but" word. There was indeed a little problem : a column of smoke was coming from the same direction. No it didn't look like another attack ( what could be attacked in the area anyway ? As far as they knew the fort was the only sign of civilisation kilometers around ).

As usual, a animated conversation started. As usual, no leader could give a clear answer but they managed to agree on sending Griselda and Alast to scout. The company would follow them a few hundreds meters away. About 200 hundreds meters away from the source, it became clear that they shouldn't move any step closer. It was a giak camp.

Griselda motioned for Alast to go back to the group and asked him to get them to be quiet and ready to battle if it came to the worst. Left alone, she carefully crawled closer, trying to count the giaks, look at their equipment or any other element that could be proved useful.

She came back to the group, surprised to see them walking in the camp direction, contrary to the instructions left. She shut them up and lead them away, briefly explaining to Erleothir and Mulchanor the reason of this change. No one questioned her as it was clear they were not standing a chance in front of 20 giaks knowing their way around.

The walk from the camp to the ruins was about two hour long. The view was a sad one. Nothing, absolutly nothing remained from the fort, it was burnt to the ground and the soil was littered with bodies, human and giak. That was a least a little confort, they didn't go down without a good fight, taking some enemies with them.

Griselda discovered bear tracks and that led to the discussion wether to clean the Giak camp first or to follow the bear. Obviously the bear was more interesting. But having lots of Giaks running around would have imposed the danger of the Giaks falling in the back of the company. So the decision was made to clean the camp first and have the advantage of supprise on their side.

The company headed for the Giaks. But the sun was already setting and they would arrive tired and at night. The attack on the Giaks was postponed to the next day. 1 hour walking distance away from Giak camp the group prepared for the night stay.

Griseldas sharp eyes spottet a racoon. She tried to capture it alive, but the racoon hat not in mind to be captured. Eye in eye with the Telco the racoons skills outranged hers and the racoon ran away. Almost. It was Yesnarels Quarterstaff that stopped the racoon by a quick punch on the racoons head, knocking out the poor racoon. The racoon was tied legs up to Griseldas stick. Finaly after this dangerous battle the company found some sleep.

Griselda and Mulchanor had the 1st watch. A monkey misused Griseldas leg like a tree to water it with pee. Griselda pushed rudely the animal away with her spear. Lucky Monkey, he was not bitten in the ear. Other monkeys around startet to make noise. It seemed like the whole forest is awakening. More and more mokeys came and the group was alredy frightened of beeing overrun by the monkeys. The noise of the monkeys was topped by a gorillas roar. Even the strongest knights stayed silent in this situation - a wise chocie. Gustavius threw a fruit to lead the mokeys away from the group and fortunately the monkeys passed by without attacking the group.

The next morning, the Telco made up to scout the Giak camp, but when she came back, she only had to report that the Giaks were gone.

Adventure expirienced, the Hazardous Company expected it could be an ambush. The group fell back while Griselda(?) checked the surroundings for signs of an ambush, but it was all clear. Then the group inspected the camp, finding bear tracks again. Yesnarel climbed quickly a tree. He saw a column of smoke, this time nearer to the skyship than the former Giak camp.

After a short break, the group followed the bear tracks wich led them closer to their airvessel. The next Place were the Giaks camped was not far away. Again, Griselda and Alast scouted and again, she send Alast away.

"Lots of dead Giak bodies" reported Griselda thistime. They were killed by guns. Everybody joined at the former battlefield. Only dead Giaks were all around, but no corpeses of the attackers were to be seen. The way the dead bodies were lying around and the way of the bullets in the bodies prooved that the giaks were killed in an ambush by fire from two sides.

A discussion arose wether the attackers were the dwarves were "our" dwarves from the skyrider our if there is another group of dwraves around. The absence of dead attackers, which you could expect by such a large group of Giaks, proved that the ambush was done from a safe distance - like fireing from the skyship down on the Giaks. But on the other hand, the company had found evidence that the ambush was done by attacking the Giaks from two sides. Who were the Dwraves on the other side? But what sould other dwarves do right here? Many questions, no answers. At least no answers so far.

From the battlefield new tracks led away. A couple of Giaks had escaped, but the more interesting were the tracks of 2 Humans and a bear. Our troop followed the tracks for a while, but suddenly they stumbled upon a big surprise when they saw that the tracks split up. The giaks, the bear and 1 human went to the left towards the forest. The other human track went towards the skyship. “Well, that’s just great”, Alast thought. “So we either follow a little army or 1 man who is maybe powerful enough to make us bleed with a snap of his fingers.”.

In order to get a clear overview, the still pretty inexperienced Yesnarel decided to climb upon a tree. Without much trouble, he managed to get to a branch from where he could easily see his surroundings. From here he was able to see the unnamed skyship, but his attention was caught by something else. At the riverbank on the other side of the river, close to the skyship, he saw a little boat; small enough not to catch too much attention, but big enough for a little company. Yesnarel jumped down the tree carefully and informed our heroes of his discoveries.

Nobody knew exactly what this would mean. Who was on the ship? Why is it so close to the skyship, but on the other riverbank? And more important, where are they now? Soon it was decided that our heroes would go to the skyship and see if the dwarves have noticed anything unusual. “But what if the dwarves double-crossed us?”, asked Griselda. Gustavius and Mulchanor were somewhat were hurt in their proud and answered quickly that these dwarves would never dare to do that to them. However still not sure what role the dwarves played here in the Jungle, the team decided to split up. Griselda, eager to stand in the front line, went first followed by Erleothir and Mulchanor. The rest decided to wait near the trees, much to Gustavius’ dismay, because of his earlier experience.

Griselda arrived first at the boat and Jack recognized her soon after and dropped a ladder for her to climb up. When she arrived on top of the boat, she could not recognize any danger and gestured to Mulchanor and Erleothir to follow her example. The three did take a good look and even though Captain Padoka was not to be seen, he was still to be heard. In fact he was singing so loud it was clear that the atmosphere on board of the nameless ship was very good and no danger would come from them.

The ones waiting in the forest quickly joined them on board. Jack instructed them to follow him towards the captain’s office. When they arrived at the door, Captain Padoka opened the door wildly with a glass in his hand where some ale used to be in it. What happened with the ale was quite clear when the captain already prepared for another drinking song. However he was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder: “whozze friends you haved there on your shippeth?”. “Oh no, another drunk man we have to babysit.”, thought Gustavius, but before he was even able to express his thoughts, Yesnarel stepped forward and said: “Aaahhh, so nice to see a friendly face in these regions. Tell us your name, Father of the Truth and tell us your story on how you came on board”.

The rest of the company was just speechless. It appears that Yesnarel again knows with whom they had to deal with. A Father of the Truth, one of the rulers of the Theocracy of Valerion, a strongly religious nation with leanings toward fanaticism. “Ah, finally I meet the guys with the keys and safes and stuff.”, followed by a big burp was not quite the answer they expected. “How did you manage to get here unharmed?” asked Erleothir. “Ah yes, a very interesting story!”, he answered. “Provide me with a drink and I’ll tell you.”, followed by a big *clunk*.

Father of the Truth or not, he was not very susceptible to ale. He was lying on deck of the nameless skyship. Our heroes decided to have a good night sleep and try to get more information the next day. How little did they know that there was a grave danger coming towards the ship.