The Game

If Elspa notices the whistle, it is lost in the fury of battle. With a grunt and little regard for her own defenses, she sweeps her axe low as if felling a tree, then brings the blade around in an overhead cleave.

Once the looting lizard-thing is defeated, Elspa turns her attention to the other one. She charges the troglodyte, quickly closing the 30-foot distance and shoulder-checking the creature with her shield.

Ygne finishes splitting the throat of the trogdolyte before she looks up to see Frick engaged with more. As he's dispatching one of them, Ygne is charging the second. About halfway there, the sound of a whistle causes her mind to start ringing, and the splitting pain on the back of her head sends her to her knees. "Aaaagh!" She shouts, dropping her swords and drawing a dagger from her side. She flicks the blade into her fingertips and with a powerful whip of her arm she sends the weapon whirling with wicked speed toward her target.

Seeing only one more trog left Frick scoops a spear up as he moves forward and throws it as hard as he can at the creature.

Elspa's fury rallied against the sickening feeling in her chest. She needed to end this quickly, and the barbarian threw herself against her shield to knock the looter prone again, while her axe hammered against the troglodyte like a machine.

ELSPA, FRICK, AND YGNE

Elspa rises, stifling a cough as she watches another individual running full tilt towards her. Likely this one was attracted to the fight, or called by the alarm. Fine, she will face this new challenge. "Come on, then!" she yells out to Frick, rushing forward to meet the man, eager to engage.

Seeing the last trog fall, Frick slows down. At Elspa's call, he grips his weapon tighter and considers rushing forward, but decides not to. Instead, he shakes his head and turns back to check on Ygne, hoping more than a bit that the new woman decides to attack him anyway.

Ygne's head was throbbing so badly by the clanging in the jungle that she struggled to concentrate. She closed one eye, which seemed to help the pain, squinting through the other at the hazy images around her. Her vision went from blurry to clear and back again, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. She picks up her shortswords and, after a moment of trying to guide it into the sheath, stows them away. She looks up in time to see the blurry image of Elspa charging toward Frick, and nearly raises a hand in warning before she hears it speak.

What stopped her was that it didn't seem like what she'd imagine one of these trogdolytes to sound like. There were no slithery S sounds or hisses, for one. Ygne chose, instead, to be diplomatic in the most "Ygne" of ways, "Hey, you want t' die?!"

As Jarveen is picking through the pile of equipment it occurs to her that the copper pot the trog tried to use as an alarm might prove useful. She turns to Ryte to suggest he go to retrieve it, but just then she sees something that makes her forget all else: among the pyramid of decapitated heads, among the many faces she recognizes, she sees Leatha's. A soft, anguished moan escapes her and she falls to her knees. She barely resists the urge to grab the head and clasp it to her chest.

Jarveena had been orphaned as a child, and had had to fend for herself for most of her life. Thankfully, her tight-knit community had helped sustain her. That is, up until the night they betrayed her. After that, the Sea Witch had given her a new hme and a new life. Jarveena had become slow to trust the rest of the crew but she had been making some progress. But she did trust the captain - Leatha had become her family. Now Jarveena had lost her family and her home again. On her knees on the bloody sand she rocked back and forth, making chocked, anguished sounds.

Just then, a clanging noise erupts all over the jungle. Jarveena looks up, and the pained look in her eyes hardens to one of hate. "I'm goan kill every fuckin' trog." She stands and turns to Ryte. "I'm goan' kill 'em all."

Ryte does little as Jarveena is reduced to nothing but a quivering mess, unsure what to do, he just stands and watches.

Is she going to be more trouble than help? A quick sword down her neck, from this angle it'd be quick and painless; put her out of her misery. No, what would mother think if she heard me thinking like that; she needs a shoulder to lean on, an open hand to help her... his thoughts are cut short as the forest clanging erupts. He smiles at Jarveena, a hint of sadness behind it. He starts in for a hug but decides against it and instead, places a firm hand on her shoulder and with an even firmer tone, he mutters "You won't be able to do that..." a smile cracks across his face and he lightly shakes her shoulder "because I'm going to be able to kill at least a couple before you get through all of them." With a playful release of his hand from her shoulder, Ryte takes off towards the noise.

Jarveena is too surprised by Ryte's hand on her shoulder to react appropriately (in Jarveena’s case, 'appropriately' would have involved a snarl, and a knife to the man's throat). She just shakes her head and limps off after Ryte, a determined look on her face.