Chapter 4: The Waters of Menehune

Taresh agrees. "Yes. I must soon report back to the Order, or the veilmaster will think that I have returned to my former allegiance, The Order of the Keis. I imagine you were sent to locate me. I will return. As you know, The Ring must be stopped and The Order of the Shadow is dedicated fully to that cause...at all costs to the Order and its agents."

Regan will, begrudgingly, take the root and try it out. The others need proper rest and he intends to let them get it. Although eventually he will wake up the next watch.

Regan chews the root Taresh offered, its fibrous strands releasing an earthy bitterness that makes his tongue tingle and his lips numb. Not long after the root’s acrid bitterness spreads across his tongue, Regan’s notices his thoughts flow clearly, aligning with crisp precision. Patroling under the moon-silver haze, Regan’s senses remain keen—his mind clear, limbs light, the root’s bitter fire still humming beneath his ribs.

For a while the jungle remains a silent dark tapestry below, but then—down among the billows of living mist—movement. Faint outlines dragging through the undergrowth, revealed whenever the moon catches the enchanted vapor that shrouds the slab.

Shapes resolve into sinewy forms the size of mastiffs: eel-hounds— the previously encountered sleek, scale-flecked beasts whose jaws taper like spears. They prowl in a widening crescent. Soon Regan can hear them sniffing the air and the low rumbling in their throats. Regan sees another outline emerge. One hound has a boggle rider. The rider's mount stops and gives out a howl.

Admiral wakes with a sudden jolt as the chilling sound of the eelhound’s howl cuts through his dreams. He springs to his feet, Reaver materialising in his hand, and looks around for the source of the noise that woke him, still a bit disoriented from having just woken up.

As Admiral quickly orients his senses he realizes a large pack of eel-hounds is emerging from the jungle undergrowth and moving out from the jungle toward the slab's ledge. The dim outlines of the creatures reveals that they are slowly moving to circle the ledge, although do not yet surround it. Regan notices the same. It is uncertain if the pack has 'seen' the party on the slab or not but it appears likely that they are aware of the party, possibly by scent.

"The boggles' beasts," whispers Taresh to Regan.

Jin and Cordey also are stirred to alert by the sound of the howl.

"Wake up! To arms!" Regan isn't being subtle at this point and will give anyone not waking up a good nudge with his foot, his eyes trained on the eel hounds and their riders.

"Captain... open fire or hold?"

1 square = 10 feet

1 = the slab
2 = the temple
3 = the direction from which the party came, following the obelisks.
4 = the direction that Admiral spotted the shipwreck mast. (The mast is off the map.)
H = eel-hound
S = eel-hound with boggle mount

Upon Regan's call to arms, Tasya and Mischa rise chaotically and scramble to assess the situation. Jin responds by pulling a handful thorns from his belt pouch and shuffles them menacingly in his palm, ready for the next command. Cordey, already with a bolt loaded into his crossbow, moves to stand alert next to Regan, pointing his crossbow down into the jungle. Taresh calmly sits on the slab, cross-legged, and closes his eyes in concentration.

Admiral quickly takes in the situation as spectral frost begins to form in his fur, creeping up his arm from Reaver’s hilt.

That’s a lot of eel-hounds, but he doesn’t think running is a good idea — the eel-hounds look pretty fast and his companions’ current position on this ledge ought to be relatively easily defensible…

The eel-hounds are still too far away to be hit by anything but Cordey’s crossbow so he signals to his companions to wait. "Hold fire!"

Regan will attempt to tell if there's a leader-type visible to direct his monologue at. Standing from atop the platform, he rests his hammer on his shoulder and calls out.

"Listen, I don't know why you hate your people. Your boggles and your eel hounds and whatever else you got down there. But you are obviously trying to get them killed.

See me, I like my people. I don't want to march them into the line of fire just because I want play "my dick is bigger than yours."

It is. We both know it.

But I'm also comfortable enough to accept the fact if it wasn't, I'm certainly not gonna let my people die over that shit. You already saw what happened earlier. Go home -- you won't get another warning."

Regan's speech from the ledge is met by silence, which soon gives way to a chorus of low menacing rumbling growls that echo below from many locations.

Then, from the slab, the party can see—due to magic protective properties of the mist—the faint outline of a boggle dismount from its beast. This seems to be the sole boggle accompanying the hounds. The fey creature is still more than 300' from the slab. When the rider dismounts, its beast lets out a chilling squealing howl that echoes eerily off distant jungle hills and cliffs hidden by the night. The other eel-hounds join, creating a chorus that swells to a cacophonous crescendo.

The boggle's beast stops its howl. The pack quickly follows suit. There's once again silence.

In the stillness, the boggle’s silhouette rises—clambering nimbly upward with uncanny speed. The party might guess the boggle climbs a jungle trunk—despite only being able to see its dimly glowing silhouette. It halts among the branches, lifting its arms and what looks like a slender staff into the churning mist.

Admiral feels his fur stand up on end as the cacophony of howls echoes through the jungle. Upon seeing the boggle dismount and climb the tree, he tightens his grip on Reaver, ready to spring into action at any second but unable to do much right now short of charging into the mist. His tail lashes in frustration.

From the slab, the readied party watches the boggle settle among the branches—just a faint glowing figure under the mist until suddenly the staff in its hand flares with bluish motes that drift down like fireflies. The mist below quivers slightly as every eel-hound freezes mid-snarl, bodies snapping toward the staff in near perfect unison. The jungle goes unnaturally quiet: no rustling leaves, no ragged breathing—only a soft, pulsing hush that seems to beat with the staff’s faint glow.

Then the mist-revealed glowing forms of the hounds move—no longer as disorganized, snapping curs they’d seemed, but appearing to move as a single organism of many bodies. They fan out in flawless arcs.

The amplified mental clarity that the root Regan previously ate allows him to quickly recognize the pattern all too well—how each beast adjusts its gait a heartbeat behind its neighbor, how they weave through the jungle without hinderance.

The pack reminds Admiral of tidewater sluicing through the rocky gaps: swift, deliberate, irresistibly coordinated. Although instead of a rocky shore the pack moves swiftly through root snarled jungle.

Whatever charm the boggle has cast, the eel-hounds share one mind—and that mind has just chosen the slab as its target.

The mist seems to follow the moving hounds, keeping their faint outlines visible. As the hounds progress toward the slab the mist seems to swirl angrily. The wind picks up around the slab in response to the angry mist. Still the winds do not seem to affect or hinder the party on the slab.

As the first of the eel-hounds makes the mistake of coming too close to the slab, Regan releases twin arcane bolts of raw magical energy.

Admiral sends his own flurry of arcane bolts after Regan's, then nudges Regan with his elbow and jerks his head in the direction of the boggle perched in the tree. "I reckon if we took him out, these hounds might not be so interested in tearing us to pieces. If I go kill the little bugger, can you hold down the fort here?"