~A Slightly Gruul-ing Task~
The meaty creature hit the earth with a similar noise to a club striking a recently deceased horse. The aforementioned metaphor would also convey the feelings of the bedraggled party. After their bender in Parnattha and a perhaps too weepy goodbye from the arena owners, they traveled northward to the swamp's border of the town of Gardlid. From there they were tasked with eliminating a tribe of Gruul, nasty goblin-like creatures that had taken residence in an old fort.
The town didn't want to deal with the dungeon that might spawn there if they were left unintended, and so our party set off to subjugate them. They did not imagine a quest so simple could drag on for so long all thanks to a lack of motivation from the local guild's scout core.
The quest had been up for weeks with no one claiming it, allowing the little pests to get a spawning pit up and running to double their numbers. Garn swung his blade back and forth like a grisly farmer cutting down the small hoard pouring into the cracked courtyard of the fort. Gruul are not smart creatures and did not think for a minute to try and flank the dragonborn. Norra was sure as hell using their idiocy to thin their numbers down with a volley of arrows while Lym aided and berated via bardic magic behind some nearby cover. Vort meanwhile was a few paces back behind Garn, excitedly chanting over a gently glowing blade.
The mages' order of The Storm Callers Creed magic fighting style could be summarized as 'swift and brutal' or 'ominously distant.' This was due to the more destructive spells in this arsenal needed time to build a charge and have a high range and are supplemented by spells quickly cast and supporting blade work. With the final word the blade began to discharge small arcs of lightning, the many runes across it surface glowing brightly.
"Now, Garn!" Vort called, raising the blade over his head.
The dragonborn tossed his blade to the side and dropped to the ground, just in time for Vort to swing his blade down. A bolt of lightning tore free from its metal, magically honing onto the first Gruul, sending smaller bolts arching though the horde behind them. A swath of Gruuls lay melting while others were stunned, then pin cushioned and burnt to death.
Garn stood up with a grunt, retrieving his blade as Vort sped past, literally hopping from one monster to another. Lym made sure he and Garn could keep up as Norra sprinted forward, quick sniping stragglers. To the untrained eye this whole scenario was the quick deployment of a well thought out plan, though this could not be farther from the truth. There were 10 whole minutes of bickering before Vort settled everything by with the simple plan of "Keep hitting them and wait for the signal!"
But it worked, and the party pushed their way into the entrance hall. As mentioned before, Gruul are not the brightest monsters birthed from The Pit. When the leader of their kin began turning into a eldritch goo balloon, they thought it best to plunk him in the biggest room of their new lair. This was of course, the front entrance. Nestled between two crumbling statues was a circle of black bubbling ooze. At its center was a spiral of twisted metal spines, enclosing a fist-sized red sphere in a rough eye shape. It seemed to glare at them as they approached, the deceivingly thin surface bubbled with a false depth.
"So, What are we going to do with that?" Garn asked, wary of all the vibes coming off of it.
"We hit it until it breaks!" Vort said cheerily. "Unless we want to keep it for some reason."
"Hard pass, the only people who want those things are the Dungeon Guild and shady ass people." Lym pipped up. "Both are similar really."
"Welp, lets get to it then." Norra knocked an arrow and aimed it at the sphere. "I think we got here before this thing got too powerful."
The arrow flew true, and hilariously bounced against the orb. There was a pause before the ooze below violently surged upward into a fist and came hurling at the archer. Vort quickly became the target as he pushed his friend away and it sent him hurtling toward a wall. Garn moved without thinking with speeds faster than people could comprehend, and caught the seemingly frail mage in his arms, taking the impact with his spine.
Lym set fire to the ichor substance with a screech of his lute strings, followed up by the archers hail of arrows. The hefty dragonborn cushioned the impact with most of his back, hoping that cracking sound wasn't his own as he slid to the ground with enough care not to crush Vort. There was a long moment of silence (aside from the quiet shrieking of of the spawner burning to death) before the mage spoke up.
"You okay?"
"Thats my line." Garn replied.
"I'm not the one who took a stone wall to the back."
"I'm a lot tougher than you." The big lizard felt Vort shift atop him and found his face entering his vision.
"Do I look that frail?" Vort asked.
"Perhaps?" Garn replied, realizing he was talking to the man who had slapped him into a wall and was a seasoned adventurer. He was glad scales couldn't blush.
"Well thanks for having my back, I hope it doesn't harm yours." Vort said with a smile.
From afar, Lym watched the little scene with a bemused grin while the ever stoic archer picked a thin crystal from the dissolving remains of the adolescent spawner's core.
"I think someone has a crush on our little storm cloud." the bard half sung.
"Neat." Said Norra curtly.
"Oh come on now, you can't possibly be a grump about such a beauty as is a young loves' first bloom!" The halfing was already spinning a whirlwind affair between the mage helping the warrior into a sitting position to check on his back.
"Sure I can." She replied. "We have known Garn for a handful of days. What you think is a crush could just of be him protecting the magic user like any good party member should."
"I mean maybe," Lym replied, "But just look at them!"
Norra looked at their mage inspecting their warrior's back, watching as he happily informed him that it wasn't his spine and helped him to his feet.
"Yes," she replied with her arms folded. "A great show of teamwork."
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