1. The Cloakwood

Stella hurries over to Dieter to treat the claw and festering stinger wounds with a poultice and bandages. Her poking and prodding stings with a sharp pain, but soon soothes some of it, as the herbs start neutralizing some of the potent poison.

(Dieter regains 13 HP)

"Ida, Runeson," Stella says to the divine servants, ignoring any protest by Dieter. "These wounds need some additional, magical aid." she tells them. "Unless we want to conserve magical resources and rest here for a bit before continuing on?" she asks the group.

Aiwë runs over to Dieter with a whoop. "Gnoll-death! Wyvern-bane!" She pats his back in congratulations.

"Lets rest, Sister-girl. Dieter's earned it and I have to dress this game if we want our bounty. Besides, I'm hungry!"

She lifts the smaller wyvern, resting its weight across her back and holding its jaw high and still with one hand.

"I promised you the honours Blood, but I can't rightly give it since it wasn't my kill." She sets her hunting knife against the wyvern's throat. "Well, Diets? A little blood will sit in your stomach just fine and put some hair on your chest." She grins encouragingly. "Quickly now!"

Stella calls Noctalia from where the owl had been scouting ahead, re-summoned after their bout in the mercenary camp. "Keep out of sight, circle around, and keep watch around us for anyone approaching," she asks as they prepare to rest.

She would have summoned another sparrow or hawk, which would be less unusual to see in the daytime, but owls were far better at weaving in and out of a fight, if she was needed to help.

Dieter smiles weakly. He cuts the vessel and quickly holds his mouth open at the base of the wyvern’s neck trying to get the fountain of blood in his mouth but he seems to get the majority on his chin and shirt. Its warmth shocks him but he quickly swallows before he has a chance to truly process it.

Dieter plugs the cut with his fist allowing Aiwë to have her turn before the pressure is gone.

"Ooh ooh!" Aiwë chants as Dieter makes his cut. "No, here, let me help aim it." Aiwë laughs, exuberant. "Good hunt, Diets! It strengthens you!"

She looks to Koveras. "Your turn, Blood. There's plenty to fill you." She grins at Runeson. "Then I'll help you with your beast."

Koveras expression is grim as he steps forward, but there's a twinkle in his eye. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?" he asks, then fully displays his tusks as he opens his mouth to drink...

In the waning light his eyes glint an orcish red. He pauses to wipe his mouth and looks to Aiwe. "It... must be an acquired taste."

Stella watches for a moment, then looks away, stomach sick. She was used to blood, but drinking it? That still made her stomach church. (It once made Papa completely vomit.) Orcs certainly had the physiology for it, but she wasn't sure about humans and elves.

Runeson is immune to disease, and if Dieter gets sick, Runeson can cure him, she supposed. And at least they aren't being wasteful.

"Be sure to save the poison glands," Stella tells them. "They could be useful..."

"Gish maruhk, sharuhk," she agrees with a grin. 'Through struggle, strength.'

Aiwë's eyes shine the same colour as his as she waits eagerly for his reaction. At his statement she laughs. "Fair, but I'm glad you tried it wyvern-wrestler! It's a taste worth acquiring." She looks at Aldous with another grin as Stella turns away.

"Well, Lordling?"

Koveras nods solemnly. "Gish maruhk, sharuhk."

(Performance: Koveras doesn't speak Orcish often, but the accent is actually closer to that of Aiwe's own people than one would expect this far south.)

Aldous winces, then takes a deep breath. "Yes! I, too, would like to drink the innards of our slain foes!" He steps forward, mouth open... and then his stomach issues an enormous gurgle. He looks down at his frog foot. "This is what you want? This? Of all things. Fine."

He drinks up heartily, and seems to truly enjoy the drink - though he keeps his eyes squeezed tight the whole time. "It's... actually not so bad, you know?" He looks down at his blood-covered clothes and blanches, until Aiwe gets him properly cleaned up.

Shelur thumps her chest with a tusked grin as Koveras responds in Orcish. Until then she hasn't heard a single word of it out of him—she wasn't even sure if he spoke the language though he seems to understand it—but his accent doesn't seem like merely a repetition of hers, though very similar. Did Winski teach him? His mother? She lets him alone for now—she doesn't want to scare the poor thing—but makes a mental note to investigate later.
"Then forsooth! Come and partake!" Aiwë chuckles. There's none left for her when he's finished, but there's a whole second wyvern.
"Its good food! Aha! A hearty, strong man!" she praises as she drinks, laughing all the time. "Careful, though, too much will make a human sick even if his own head doesn't. Maybe you don't quite count anymore, but we'd better stop you there and see how it sits." She helps Runeson if he's interested in trying it, then has her fill.

"Mmm! It's quite acidic." She hums a cheerful, droning rhythm as she lowers the wyvern down. As the song progresses the men find themselves clean of blood as the spatters in Shelur's own hair disappear. "I'll admit, it tastes better when it's below freezing, the wind is trying to knock you over, and the warmth burns on the way down. Still! Wyvern!" She licks her fingers happily, then rubs them clean with magic. "Who's looking forward to dinner?"

She gets to work with her knife separating skin and horn and offal from meat. "Sister-girl, show me where the poison glands are?"

With Stella and Dieter's help, Aiwë butchers the wyverns and prepares it to cook. She samples various cuts raw herself and politely offers them around to the others, but doesn't push, having won her bloody victory that night.

She helps cook their meal and process more of the meat for rations for coming days, then sings an elvish feast song with native fluency as the others dig in.

Song of rest!

Dieter makes sure to collect the stingers from the two wyverns before retiring to bed.

A man moves through the trees towards the party. He makes no effort to hide his approach, and even gives Noctalia a sardonic wave as he passes by the familiar. He seems unbothered by the darkness all about.

"Bold you are, to delve so deep into this forest," he calls to the group. "Bolder still to survive long enough to do so. Why have you come? What benefit do you hope to reap from disturbing this sacred place?"

He's dressed much like Seniyad, but his voice carries a menace that the peaceful druid's did not.

"we have come to kill the slavers at the mine and free the slaves. Do you seek to aid us?" Dieter calls back un alarmed.

Aiwë leans and whispers to the group. "I think he's one of that other Circle Seniyad warned us about."

Quote:

"Sister-girl, show me where the poison glands are?"

"I don't know anything about wyvern biology, but..." Stella tries to identify where the glands are by starting with finding poison on the tail and dissecting back through it. Even if they can't find the glands, they could hopefully extract some poison.

"Greetings, guardian," Stella says in druidic with a bow and defers to Dieter and his question. She was tempted to say 'friend', but he seemed like the distinctly unfriendly type. The sardonic wave made her smile, though.

The man openly looks over the companions' visible equipment with obvious disdain. His nostrils flare as he sniffs heavily. "You say you wish to purge the rot from these woods, but you bring more rot with you. Begone from this place, or I will strike you down with nature's wrath!"