Chapter 4: The Waters of Menehune

"Target the big one," Admiral decides. "They’ll be less of a threat without a leader to coordinate them." Magical energy crackles along the length of Reaver’s blade as he prepares to strike the leader of the boggles with an eldritch blast.

Regan shifts his shoulders, almost a shrug, but nevertheless raises a gauntleted hand in preperation to blast the tallest boggle.

Mischa, responding to Regan, replies, "The trick...will only captivate, essential stun, any unwary minds."

On that, she and Tasya quietly back away from the edge--where the party plans--and head further up the ridge toward the part of the cliff blanketed in dense thick roots.

Meanwhile, the procession continues to move. It is now about 50 ft away from the ridge below the party.

The lead boggle grunts orders to his minions, who prod at the humans. The man shields the boy . The child has fear on his tear stricken face. The barbarian woman sneers and lunges at the boggles who attempt to urge her forward. Some boggle minions frighteningly and instinctively jump at her sneers, but their leader reaffirms his orders with his trident and they reluctantly continue to prod her.

The eel-hounds, with and without riders, weave in and out of the ranks. Some patrolling ahead, some behind. Occasionally a eel-hound stops to raise its head and sniff the air.

Regan will hold a hand up, waiting until the procession is directly below them -- it minimizes their ability to gain any sort of cover or concealment. Once they're in position, he drops his hand and gives Admiral a nod, releasing twin blasts of raw arcane energy against the trident-weilding tallest.

Two more blasts of crackling arcane energy follow close behind...

Stats

Admiral--Current HP: 38, Temp HP: 0, PP: 0/4, Pact Tally: 170/400. HD: (5d8, 1d8)
Regan--Current HP: 78, Temp HP: 0, Pact Tally: 0/150, HD: (3d10, 3d8)
Cordey--Current HP: 71
Taresh--Current HP: 45
Jin--Current HP: 39
Tasya--Current HP: 52
Mischa--Current HP: 32

Boggle Tribe-- HP: 250 (this represents 24 boggles)
Boggle Chief--HP: 100 (this represents the chief and the hound he rides)
Eel-Hound 1--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 2--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 3--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 4--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 5--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 6--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 7--HP: 52

Barbarian Woman--HP: 22
Rogue Fighter Male--HP: 18
Boy--HP: 15

With Mischa and Tasya hidden further up the ridge, the party moves with quiet urgency.

Jin is the first to act. He pushes a handful of twisted vines aside and crouches low near the cliff's edge. With a flick of his wrist, he traces a jagged arc in the air and whispers a sharp word under his breath. Vines and thorned bramble erupt from the underbrush below, twisting into a bristling wall of Spiked Growth just ahead of the advancing procession. It’s effective. Several boggles stumble forward blindly, shrieking as barbed tendrils shred their legs, while riderless hounds in front manage to agilely step through the growth. Unluckily, the captives are shoved forward at the same moment, their feet catching on the razor-sharp undergrowth.

Mischa stands with her hands raised. Her eyes glow faintly as she projects her mind control. A shimmer spreads like a ripple in oil, unseen by most but felt in the sudden hush that follows. Below, boggles falter mid-step, including the hound riding chief. Jittering laughter stills. Even the chained prisoners, previously tense with pain and defiance, stop in stupor—slackening as the charm seizes their minds. Mischa’s face pinches with worry, but she says nothing, slipping back into the shadows without a word. The eel-hounds twitch and are also trapped by Mischa's mind powers.

Tasya, silent and nimble, melts into the undergrowth next to Mischa close to where the twisted root-wall meets the cliff face. One hand rests on her dagger, the other near her side. She waits.

Then from above the gorge, Regan’s hand drops like a signal flare—and twin arcs of crackling eldritch energy spiral downward, slamming into the frozen boggle chief. The blasts strike with thunderous force, one slamming into the creature’s shoulder, the other driving into its chest. The blasts cause the chief to wake from his charmed stupor as his trident jerks in his grip and he topples sideways in the saddle. His eel-hound hisses and bucks beneath him.

A half-breath later, Admiral’s blasts streak down beside Regan’s. Reaver glows in his grip, its hum joining in the assault. The blasts strike home with a violent snap, punching through the tangled air and hammering into the chief’s twisted frame. Coral bangles snap from his arms and scatter like broken teeth across the forest floor.

Below, the procession fractures. The six boggles at the front of the procession that had screamed in agony as the thorned vines of Jin’s trap constricted their limbs now are stopped mid-step, eyes wide and unfocused—Mischa’s pattern spell wrapping their minds in dreamy illusion. Other bogles are affected too. Eel-hounds that had snarled and stepped around the spikey growth are also lured into Mischa's mind control. (10 boggles and 4 hounds in the front of the procession are charmed by Mischa's mind control.)

The unaffected boggles and hounds at the latter part of the procession are confused and seem unsure what to do, their chief currently currently recovering from Regan and Admiral's blasts and not able to urge them on with any commands.

The prisoners stand motionless, caught in Mischa's charm—eyes vacant, bodies still.

The ambush landed like a thunderclap.

Stats

Admiral--Current HP: 38, Temp HP: 0, PP: 0/4, Pact Tally: 170/400. HD: (5d8, 1d8)
Regan--Current HP: 78, Temp HP: 0, Pact Tally: 0/150, HD: (3d10, 3d8)
Cordey--Current HP: 71
Taresh--Current HP: 45
Jin--Current HP: 39
Tasya--Current HP: 52
Mischa--Current HP: 32

Boggle Tribe-- HP: 209 (this represents 24 boggles) (6 are incapacitated and can't move)
Boggle Chief--HP: 60 (this represents the chief and the hound he rides) (incapacitated and can't move)
Eel-Hound 1--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 2--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 3--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 4--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 5--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 6--HP: 52
Eel-Hound 7--HP: 52

Barbarian Woman--HP: 16 (incapacitated and can't move)
Rogue Fighter Male--HP: 12 (incapacitated and can't move)
Boy--HP: 9 (incapacitated and can't move)

Regan repeats his action, still focused on the chieftan as pure magic erupts from his hand.

Admiral continues to bombard the leader of the boggles with blasts of energy.

Regan and Admiral strike again. Their blasts slam into the boggle chief with a guttural crunch, sending the creature lurching hard against its eel-hound mount. It struggles to stay upright. (Chief takes 15 damage)

The chief howls—a wet, bubbling sound. He looks around the gorge and scans the cliffs for the ambush's source.



Seeing Admiral and Regan focus their fire, the rest of the party rallies behind the unspoken call to strike down the boggle chief.

Taresh steps from behind his curtain of moss, fingers dancing through the air as he sends another firebolt hurtling toward the mounted leader. The flame arcs wide, scorching a fern just feet from its mark.

Cordey takes a steadying breath and looses another bolt. It whistles through the air but clatters harmlessly off the jagged stone of the gorge below.

Jin lifts a hand and lets fly a crackling eldritch blast. It flashes through the thick canopy and shreds a vine mid-flight, but veers off course—missing its target entirely.

...

Mischa stands perfectly still near the root-covered cliff, her focus total. The threads of her enchantment shimmer faintly around her hands as she sustains her delicate grip on the minds of the glassy-eyed boggles.

Beside her, Tasya crouches low, daggers ready. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t blink—her gaze locked on the roots, waiting for the first twitch of movement from below.

The boggle chief’s bubbling howl twists into sharp, guttural barks—fear cutting through the sound like a knife. He wrenches his mount around and bolts, eel-hound slithering into the underbrush with desperate speed.

His cries echo through the gorge—panicked commands to retreat. The shaken and uncertain tribe rallies enough to obey. In pairs and clusters, they scatter into the jungle, vanishing quickly into the thick growth.

Moments later, the clearing is eerily still. Only the three shackled humans, ten slack-jawed boggles, and four still eel-hounds remain—frozen in place beneath the cliff, trapped in a state they cannot wake from.

When the 'dust clears' and the active boggles are nowhere to be seen, the party can see from their vantage point that the scrambling boggles left behind a thick blanket of oil where they previous halted the procession. Due to the fact that some boggles evaded the scene by scrambling around the charmed humans, the oil blanket is near the humans as well.