Miles away, at the edge of a colorful network of clay houses and tents, a number of kobolds gather with their packs filled with supplies. A few among the number carry rifles, and one a huge axe.

Turen, one of the shorter of the group of eight kobolds, points inland towards the raised green hills in the distance. "That's it, at least according to the locals. They only said that the land between here and there is sacred."

"Sacred or not, that's where we need to go." Irkas, an adult kobold wearing the garb of a soldier and carrying his rifle at the ready, says as he marches forwards, leading the two other soldiers on towards it.

Soliders: Irkas, Kadarn, and Goraskok
Herbalist: Akava
Trailblazer: Makald

Previous Thread: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17590185/

(Last call for things to get in town)

Ah-ha! Found you.

>>17675328
>>17676000
Collect as much information about the layout and possible dangers in and around the site; we shouldn't waltz into a place of supposed power blind.

Also, offer the chieftain a token of our appreciation. We may have just dueled each other, but we're still civil. Perhaps some cloth or alchemy ingredients?

>>17676167

You drop off some of the heavier alchemical bombs, limiting it to 5 per person instead of 15. The lizardmen experiment with it ruthlessly and try to make something that would reproduce the effect. They have no luck while you are there.

As you head further along the path, the trail turns into one flanked by twin cliffs of dirt, about six feet up above the path. You hear a dripping sound further off ahead, around a bend in the path, and you smell water.

>>17676965
Time for a water break, I guess.

"Makald, what can you tell me about the water source here?"

"Akava, I think now's the time for a few plant smaples; take Kadarn with you."

>>17677056

As you come around the corner of the path, you can see an open clearing, with a number of large trees hanging over a quickly running river. It doesn't look too deep, but it is fairly wide. The river bank runs deeper into the wild lands, further past the trees and the mulched earth into a quiet grove of small shrubs on the same side, probably a few hundred feet downriver.

"Makald, what can you tell me about the water source here?" You ask him.

"Hmm, it's strange." Makald says, looking down at the ground. "I didn't see a river coming this way..."

"Akava, I think now's the time for a few plant samples; take Kadarn with you." You say, as the rest of you press on ahead. Akava and Kadarn head off into the forest, and the two are gone within moments.

"Looks clean." Makald says, pointing to the rapidly flowing river.

"So where do we go?" Tayn asks. "I can't see the henge from here."

>>17678090
Detect magic; if we don't detect anything, then:

"Up river. If need be, we can float down river."

Take a sip of the water.

"Quick break until Akava and Kadarn return."

Find a nice, quiet spot, and meditate. Can't have any mishaps involving a certain easily angered blood-line.

>>17678220

You don't find anything magical in the area, save your own party's equipment.

"Up river. If need be, we can float down river." You say, taking a sip of the water. It tastes fresh, not as good as spring water, but definitely good. "Quick break until Akava and Kadarn return." You say, leaning back to close your eyes and meditate.

You feel yourself relax into the shadows of your mind. The quiet talk of your men is blurred into a murmur by the sounds of the river, and your tranquility gives way to a nearly sleep-like state.

Some time later, you hear Akava and Kadarn return with armfuls of a large, white-leafed grass.

"Chalk Fern. Supposed to be good for use as a blood-blocker, and it has anesthetic qualities to it." Akava says, putting the ferns down on the ground. "But I also found this." He says, holding out a small piece of cloth wrapped around a crumbly, green mass of moss, flecked with spots of blue. "It looks like it might be useful. I'll run some tests on it." He says, handing it to you to examine. You feel the mass grow quite a bit heavier in your grip, and it feels... warm? You note the unusual, penetrating sensation in your right hand.

>>17678476
Examine it further short of putting it to our lips. A quick whiff.

>>17678512

You raise up the moss, taking a closer look at it. The tiny bluish buds on the moss strike you as odd, but you suppose moss that has flowers is possible.

You feel the warmth grow stronger as you tighten your grip on the moss, and you note the roots of the the moss seem to be especially hardy.

>>17679217

(I am sorry about the lateness of my response times. I have difficulty typing when I have to type in a place where lots of people are talking. Plus, I did get some work done today for once.)

You chance touching it with your right hand, knowing that the magical sensors will tell you if the plant's surface damages the metal plating of your arm with a dull pain. It doesn't, and your metal-clawed hand feels the moss, the inquisitive touch revealing more of that odd, now pleasant warmth. You can feel it down through your arm, like the feeling of blood beating in veins, and you feel tingling spots of heat dancing across the surface of your skin. Skin? No. The armored exterior of your hand can hardly be called that, but you can feel the brush of the moss, the delicate texture scraping against your finger just as if you had always been able to feel it with your skin.

>>17679217
>>17679512
"Akava, does this plant affect sensations like heat?" Rub the plant in between our finger and thumb. "Most peculiar...it feels very relaxing."

>>17681303

"Akava, does this plant affect sensations like heat?" You say, rubbing the plant between your finger and thumb. "Most peculiar... It feels very relaxing."

Akava looks at you curiously. "I have no idea what it does. But that's interesting. Maybe it's some sort of magic? Makald!" He shouts, and the robed sorcerer turns his head from over where he is listening to a conversation between the other two soldiers.

Makald approaches, looking at you in shock as Akava explains what you're feeling. "What? You mean... In there?" He points to your hand, and then his focus goes off into the distance, and he relaxes his gesture, and his expression. "No... I hadn't felt anything. But the prosthetic... I checked the balance of the earth, and I felt it surging with power." Makald looks you over again, squinting a bit in the fading light. "I didn't touch it directly, though."

>>17682618
"Akava, where did you find this exactly?"

"...gather as much as you can; then, return to me." Ready some sort of dimensional bag. "This plant might prove to be of good use to the people."

>>17682840

"Akava, where did you find this exactly?" You ask, and he points over towards where he and Makald picked the chalk fern and this strange plant. "...Gather as much as you can; then, return to me." You say, handing him a Handy Haversack you kept bunched up at the bottom of your Handy Haversack. It's empty, and only functions once it's not within another one. Something about dispel magic and permanently shrunken people who were left inside and say they saw walls made of tentacles and madness. Just one of the things that makes you go "Huh." about the idea of sleeping in extradimensional spaces. "This plant might prove to be of good use to the people." You say, examining it more closely.

Your hand writhes, and you almost drop the grass. You feel pain in it, running up and down your right hand, and you gasp in pain as you put down the moss, feeling the ioun ore muscle of your arm growing warm and expanding, stretching against the metal case.

You shout as the wrist pops and cracks, and the hand stretches each of its fingers back to the point of stressing the plates and leather over the palm and making it feel as though your skin is nearly being ripped apart.

But then, you feel the arm relax, almost as though tired. You can move it again, though slowly, and you feel a curious tickling feeling along the back of your hand and fingers.

"Are you alright, sir?" Akava asks, watching from a few feet away with his hand held out.

>>17683440
"I'm fine." Cover up the arm. "Nothing to worry about..."

Once Akava wanders off, examine our arm again. Try pressing our fingers against the ioun ore and see what happens.

Once they gather enough of the plant in the extra-dimensional Cthulhu vacation house, let's head up towards wherever Makald pointed.

>>17683492

"I'm fine." You cover up your arm. "Nothing to worry about..."

Akava doubts you words, it shows clearly in the lines at the corners of his mouth as he frowns ever so slightly. "If you say so, sir." He heads back over to the others, along with Makald.

You feel the strange sensation for another minute or so until Akava and Makald leave with Tayn to pick more. You steal away with the aid of magical silence to a place by the river, and there you shuffle through your pack, taking out the tiny maintenance kit that you pack for emergencies. You peel back the plates with the tips of your left hand's claws, and taking a small screwdriver, unscrew the tiny adamantine screws that keep your artificial arm's casing in place. You do the same with the other side, placing both of the black, white-speckled screws on the small silken cloth you kept the repair kit in.

As you pull back the back plate of your hand, you feel cold, harsh, against raw skin. Then, as you lift away the shell, you see the ioun muscle, bare and exposed. It is normally a soft blue, but now you see it darkening in places and glowing with magical energy. The ioun muscle pulses, and you see straight lines of the ground crystal suddenly rise up out of the bluish mass, shaped almost like ligaments. You hurriedly get the rest of the armored surface of your prosthetic off around your forearm and upper arm, just leaving the jointed areas protected, as well as a metal frame around the arm. You put your left hand into the open palm of your right hand, and feel a surprising heat from it. The crystal of your prosthetic suddenly squirms beneath your grip, and you jerk your hand away. You see the crude, shrunken crystal of the ioun muscles in your right hand shudder, then swell outwards into a bluish mass of crystal, seeming to match the contours of your left hand's tissues and muscles, framed by a light bluish, nearly white, translucent crystal that moves like flesh, and you can feel it moments later, the new sensation of nerves coming into being and conveying their message of cold and life overwhelming you. You put down your tools, looking at your arm in wonder. It really looks much less pleasant with the skin off, the muscles grouped in a few places on the forearm and flanked by two duralumin rods that serve as your bones. The upper arm has a large knot of muscle, stretched along the length of the arm, with another layer of muscle beneath it. Your shoulder on that side is revealed as a large ball and socket joint, the bluish ioun ore stretching over the sides of it, with a hole down below it that is covered by a sheet of flexible leather.

>>17685174
>>17685158
"Oh dear..."

Quickly reapply the out casing, then return to the group. We'll need to speak with Felix'hia when we return to the Crystal Caverns about this; in the meantime, think of possibilities for how our arm is suddenly more life-like.

>>17685385

"Oh dear..." You say, placing the cover back onto your palm, and screwing on the plates in the palm to the frame. The new tissue seems to mold as needed, but retains its original shape, no matter how much is covered or disrupted. It is almost liquid like. But then, with the glove on, you feel it solidify, and feel the muscles stretching as though after a long sleep. The feeling is surreal, and you are brought to the edge of your senses, quickly replacing everything else, careful not to touch the muscle.

You sigh, looking as Akava's party returns, and you replace the kit in your bag, keeping out only the screwdriver. You march down the trail, finding a tree next to a bridge with a white painted arrowhead mark on a tree.

"Hmm. White meant death in the old culture. Black was earth, life, safety." Makald says, pointing at the arrow icon. "If it's related to us..."

>>17685625
"...we'll march just the same. We didn't come all this way to turn around at a sign."

"Irkas, Kadarn, Goraskok; ready your weapons."

>>17686002

"...we'll march just the same. We didn't come all this way to turn around at a sign." You say, pointing back to the group with surprising smoothness. "Irkas, Kadarn, Goraskok; ready your weapons."

The kobolds do so, belts clipping and sliding as the weapons came to bear, and the safety was switched off. Goraskok's weapon began to charge itself as Makald whimpered and looked over at you. His skin has gone pale, as though he'd seen a ghost. "There's a lot coming, sir. A lot." He said, staring blankly into your eyes.

>>17686456
"A lot of what, Makald?"

>>17686475

"A lot of what, Makald?" You ask, hearing a squelching and squalling from over the hill, bird-like voices screeching in discordant tones, and a wave of amorphous white bodies splayed with tentacles, eyes, and toothy suckers, each one undulating forwards with its writhing tentacles grasping eagerly at the air.

"The enemy." Tayn says, simply. "What's the formation? How do we engage?"

>>17686637
Look to the river. How wide is it? If it's shallow enough to cross, try crossing it away from wherever our enemies are approaching. If we can't, then get to the banks to allow as much open space between the forest line and ourselves. Soldiers in front kneeling, Makald, Turen, and us behind ready for magic, and Akava in the back, ready to swoop in to care for the wounded.

>>17687656

The river seems to be too wide and quick for everyone to cross reliably on their own.

Fortunately, you don't need them to.

"Everyone on me, prepare for teleportation." You announce, and the kobolds next to you immediately put a hand on your shoulder. Kobolds who aren't attacking, like Makald and Turen, make themselves useful by becoming living links from you to the soldiers, who are kneeling and firing into the horde of the white tide falling down the hill towards you.

The words you've spoken a thousand times on your lips, the destination in mind, you open a door between dimensions and the eight of you fall through it and across a dark vista to emerge on the other side of the river. The majority of the white creatures stops at the edge of the water, but a few noisily splash in, their bodies clawing their way across the water in a horrifying spectacle.

"Keep moving!" Irkas shouts, pointing down the river bank. "I think there's another path upriver!"

"You think?" Tayn shouts, accusingly. "What if we run into more of those things?" He looks over to you. "We can take the few that come across. Then if we have to deal with that later," He says, pointing a finger across the river, "We'll have already done a bit of the work."

"Or we could run and not waste ammo. We're not getting back anything we shoot into that river." Irkas says in response.

"I'd suggest magic, but they could be resistant, couldn't they?" Turen says to you. He holds up his left hand, the metal plates clacking against each other. "Well, if it's a touch spell, you can give it to me. I've gotten to be a good shot with my hand these past few months. Downside is I think we have enough time for one shot before they get to us, with the rate they're swimming."

>>17690434
"Turen, use this when appropriate." Then, charge him with a cone of fire.

"Bolds, pick off any of these creatures holding a bow. Let them attempt to cross the river..." Crack our knuckles. "...I'll handle them when they do that."

When enough of them are filling the river, light the river up with one of a plethora of electrical spells; we're eating river fish tonight.

>>17690558

"Turen, use this when appropriate." Then, charge him with a cone of fire.

"Bolds, pick off any of these creatures holding a bow. Let them attempt to cross the river..." Crack our knuckles. "...I'll handle them when they do that."

You crack your knuckles, feeling the gas in your metal joints hiss out, relieving the pressure that seems to have been built up from years of use, and seeming numbness. You feel more of the tissue-like crystal grow around the whole of your finger, bone and hanging muscle. You feel renewed power surge through your arm, raising it up to point at the darkening sky.

Your arm falls as you feel the surge of thunder as lightning, first a spark, and then a tower of blue-white energy, collides with one of the swimming aberrations. It is instantly annihilated, and the ones around it are shocked by the blast. You feel the muscles of your arm straining, the magical power locked within building until you can feel the ioun muscle hit the interior of your armor, the surface crackling with electrical energy as the muscle strains against it, like a trapped animal. Your hand opens, and you feel the energy building in the forefront of your hand. You try for a moment to say something, anything, but the sound of the air igniting around you as a blast of white surges out from the top of your palm, engulfing everything you can see with a flash of white. You feel the metal immediately heated to an incredible warmth, seeing steam drift up from your hand's surface as your vision clears. Many of the advancing creatures are now dead, their bodies torn to a wet, boneless mass by your... Whatever that was. The few that are still advancing look to be close enough that you couldn't finish them off unless you did that again.

>>17691164

Actually you should be saying this for the first few lines:

>>"Turen, use this when appropriate." You say, casting a burning fist spell into his hand. The young kobold's hand glows with arcane power.

>>"Cool!" Turen says, grinning as he aims his hand towards the advancing creatures.

>>"Bolds, pick off any of these creatures that looks capable of hitting us from a range. Let them attempt to cross the river..." You crack your knuckles. "...I'll handle them when they do that."

>>17691164
>>17691204
"Turen, don't ever try doing what I'm about to do..."

If our arm is discharging such power, we're going to have to find an outlet for it. Aim our arm at them, and let it rip. No pain, no gain, after all.

>>17691239

"Turen, don't ever try doing what I'm about to do." You say, the lightning surging through your hand. You feel the leather of your prosthetic shred, going numb as it burns away with the sickening smell of burning leather. You feel the leather in each of your finger joints ignite as well, the torrent of electrical energy flowing in a huge coil of energy, passing through the creatures and detonating their waterlogged bodies with the force within the arm, the blast bathing the water and the area surrounding you in a brilliant blue light as the stream of energy, four times as big as your arm, stabilizes and twists, like a serpent, the field of energy swinging through some more of the creatures, their pallid, rubbery flesh swelling and then bursting like a balloon. The lash of lightning is gone five seconds later, and you see more steam rising up from your hand, a sharp, pricking pain running through the ioun muscle of your palm as you feel, numbly, as though your hand's skin has been peeled off on the bottom. The armor clatters a bit loosely, the scraps of leather holding the screws attached to the hot plates of your hand burned into a small leathery film against the frame.

"Wow." Turen says, in awe, as one of the white creatures continues to swim through the steaming river. Turen levels his hand at the creature, and as it flies, the fingers stretch out to grab the creature. As soon as it makes contact, the creature explodes in a blast of flames, scorching the surrounding air and destroying the last of the creatures crossing the river.

The remaining mob of the aberrations waits on the other side of the river, looking over at you with thousands of eyes.

>>17692233
Raise our hand mockingly at them.

"Step forward if you wish to face our wrath!"

If there's no contenders, continue on our journey.

"We have to hurry; I don't know...exactly how long my arm can keep together."

>>17692286

"Step forward if you wish to face our wrath!" You say, raising your hand up towards the group of monsters. The lot of them simply continue staring. You shrug, lowering your hand as the eight of you make your way down the riverbank, and the white creatures slowly begin to follow on the opposite side of the river from a long distance.

"We have to hurry; I don't know exactly how long my arm can keep together." You say, looking it over one more time. You seem to have ripped the leather in your wrist joint as well, the pale gray metal of the duralumin bones that make up the wrist of your arm showing through a few cracks in the now nearly inflexible lightning-baked leather. You curse. The more joints that are exposed, the more chance there is of something getting in there and damaging the parts when you try to use them.

You manage to run off into one of the back paths, evading the manifold gazes of the white beasts, and you and your group manage to find your way into an illuminated section of the forest, though most of you are too busy looking over your shoulders to notice the obvious as you come up on them.

"Wow." Goraskok's low voice is the first to sound in honest surprise, and as the rest of the party turns, their sentiments are similar in meaning.

A number of the trees in this area are smaller, seemingly frail trees with pale white-gray bark dotted with lines of black. The leaves of these trees are colorful, glowing with dots of orange, red, blue, green, violet- You have only seen as much color at a dyer, once before, but the light reflecting off of the other tree's bark gives them a look almost like an aura. Unsurprisingly, the small glowing areas on the leaves are magical.

You suddenly feel an almost primal, voiceless urge for some of those leaves. You feel the urge, but you don't share it.

Not seeing the harm, you mage hand off a few loose leaves, and though Avaka stands ready to collect them, you feel your hand reaching out for them as they approach. The finger stretch wide, the cool feeling of air on the exposed crystal of your palm intensifying as you feel nothing so much as hunger, though you had eaten while you were still on the ship. Pausing for a moment, with the spell levitating the leaves in the air, you note a slight tugging feeling from your arm, and for the first time in a long time, you feel the socket implanted in your side as the arm pulls, your shoulder blade and ribs being pulled along with it. You completely stop concentrating on moving your arm, but the feeling doesn't cease, and the arm doesn't drop to your side. It instead remains animate, reaching for the leaves of its own volition.

To be honest, the feeling is fairly creepy.

bump

>>17695427
>>17695788
Creepy yes, but, in the future, prosthetics gain semi-sentience. Perhaps this is the first step towards that path? Let the prosthetic touch the leaves.

Inb4 more explosions.

>>17696284

You allow the leaves to enter your hand's range, and it grasps at them, and you feel an intense spot of warmth in your palm, and something enters it as the hand clenches around the leaf, grinding the crystalline glowing material on the leaves into itself. It grasps out hungrily, dropping the shredded remains of the thick-stemmed leaf on the ground as it grabs a few more, hungrily drawing them into your hand. You can feel the energy flowing through your hand, and the tissue grows into place, crystalline and almost comb-like with the ridges in its tissue. The crystal feels cool, and oddly, a bit springy. You allow the hand to feed some more, the crystal entering the ridges, which turn out to be mostly numb. You feel energy flowing back through your wrist, into your forearm up to the elbow. As you eat more, you feel a narrow bit of growth around your arm.

"Gather these." You say to Turen. He nods, and swiftly starts pulling them from the tree with mage hand. "We don't have long, folks. Those things might know these woods better than us. Minute break." You say back to the group, and they all quickly sit, catching their breath. You look at the arm, which has relinquished partial control back to you. It seems to turn its palm to you, approaching your face for a moment before stopping a foot away. The ridged openings in it seem to breathe, almost. You wonder, is it smelling you?

Then, the hand is on your face, the fingers clenching firmly, but not overly hard, over the top of your reptilian muzzle.

>>17696642
"...um...hi?"

Bonding time.

"So...when did you decide to start to grow an appetite?"

No, we're not crazy for talking to our sentient arm. Yes, we look crazy to the rest of the group.

>>17696693

"Um... Hi?" You ask the arm. It doesn't seem to engage you, the fingers creeping around where the base of your muzzle fuses with your cheeks. "So... When did you decide to start to grow an appetite?" You try again.

The arm suddenly starts, almost as though it suddenly realized you were alive. It feels around, over your eyes, nose and mouth. It stops at your forehead, and you feel its pull on your mind, almost like your consciousness being pulled free of your body. You feel an air current rising up around you.

>>17697141
"Oh boy..."

And away we go~!

>>17697612

"Oh boy..." You say, feeling the world fall away from you as your are brought up into what seems like the inside of a great crystal, bluish in color. You can feel the tatooes across your body burn with an incredible heat, and the world around your form seems like a weightless, liquid plane of crystal.

>>17697673
Clear our throat. "Hello? Um...arm; you here?"

Walk forward to get a look around the world.

>>17697701

You clear your throat. "Hello? Um... Arm; You here?" You walk forward and try to get a look around the world.

You feel the crystal reflecting parts of your mind, from your childhood in the orphanage to now, the pleasant memories of childhood, the unpleasant ones of animalistically biting another hatchling. Crime and punishment. You learned that lesson early. For every action, there is a following series of potential actions, said Ophirichus, the prominent philosopher physics major and mathemetician. He designed elegant traps that could function through gravity alone, including the rolling boulder trap, still in use today.

When you could, you spent hours in the library. You remember curling up with a book until the caretaker would come for you.

But you had never known where you came from.

You feel you right arm as though you were young again, for a moment. You can see your arm back, looking over. It almost seems to be trying to communicate with you, opening its fingers and showing you the open palm. You see tiny little strands dancing in your palm, each tied around with strands of color. But what can it all mean?

You see the crystal refract the memories locked in the spiral, and images of flight in a violet and blue sky, a dark, night-like void dotted with stars, or a fight with a fierce, red, worm-like creature in something close to a dracoform. You see some of the bars are replaces by a brilliant blue-violet bar. Here, the memories reflect the sharpest.

(Lunch break)

>>17698833
Pull on the violet-blue strand and examine it. What do we see in it?

>>17698887

You pull on the violet and blue piece, the memories within at first confusing to you. Great expanses of violet clouds, framed against the burning of huge orbs of light in the gases.

You pull at another, seeing a blaze of flame and feeling your scales stand on end as you are confronted by a red-skinned creature much in the shape of a dragon, but with six yellow eyes and several pairs of sail-shaped wings, shining in the light of a nearby sphere mounted in the blackness of the night sky. From your point of view, you surge away from the flames, the incredible speed at which you travel through the darkness enough to leave you dizzy, with a sharp banking turn that takes you head-on at the creature, two four-clawed limbs covered in smooth, bluish armoring tearing into the creature, the scene suddenly punctuated by a blast of brilliant blue lightning from your mouth, a gas floating out haphazardly as well to obscure you from the creature's sight.

Your hand closes, and the visions fade. You feel it pulling you along, though this time by the palm of the hand, much like if someone was trying to pull you along. You walk for some time, and you see a great wall suddenly, one crafted from a reddish metal. You can feel something on the other side of it, as your arm tries to lead you towards it.

>>17699946
Let it guide us; can't imagine that it'd want us to fall to harm.

>>17700215

You let it touch the wall, your flesh and blood hand becoming one made of crystal, with the red wall becoming orange where you touched it, the bright color infectiously spreading throughout the red wall, until with an amoeba-like surge, the red is consumed utterly. You see pieces of it as armor float off and begin to fasten themselves around your arm, more comfortably. You sigh in satisfaction as the hand flexes, showing the new contours of the muscles it has produced with the help of your magical energy. The muscles went from being sort of cord-like to becoming much more full, like those of your left arm. The bicep as well, the whole upper arm, in fact, seems to have numerous new muscle groups covered. Your shoulder feels light, and you move it quickly.

The arm does not articulate anything, but you feel it trying to move along with your movements. You move it around, marveling at the difference in feeling of weight and response.

And the warmth of your head in the palm.

You suddenly wake up, your hand scrambling off of your face in surprise. You are nearly cut by your sharp metal nails.

"Mynthar! What happened?" Tayn asks, coming over to you.

>>17700417
"...my, um..." Look down at our arm. "...my arm and I were having a nice chat..."

Reassure him.

"Strange, I know, but I can say that I've encountered stranger. That grass we acquired, I am guessing, has a sort of earthen magic. If it's strong enough to entice existence, it might be druidic. But I cannot say until we get a full research team on it..." Smile wryly. "I'll be fine; really. I think the arm is just...getting growing pains."

>>17700651

"My, um..." You say, looking down at your arm. "...My arm and I were having a nice chat. Strange, I know, but I can say that I've encountered stranger. That grass we acquired, I am guessing, has a sort of earthen magic. If it's strong enough to entice existence, it might be druidic. But I cannot say until we get a full research team on it." You smile. "I'll be fine; really. I think the arm is just... Getting growing pains."

"But it can't grow!" Tayn says, looking over at the arm. "Mynthar, listen. It's just a hunk of lifeless rock-"

You feel an impact run up your arm as your right hand socks Tayn cold in the jaw. He steps back, looking at you in surprise.

>>17701628
Gawk.

"T-that wasn't me! I swear!" Grit our teeth and wrangle the arm. "No hitting Tayn; he's a friend!"

>>17701649

"T-that wasn't me! I swear!" You grit your teeth and wrangle the arm, pulling the wrist back. "No hitting Tayn; he's a friend!"

"It's fine." Tayn says, rubbing his jawline. "Guess I should watch what I say around it."

Your hand makes a poking motion at Tayn's face with two fingers, and you pull it away. "That may be best." You say, folding the fingers down.

>>17701924
"Was I mentally vacant for long?"

>>17701956

"Was I mentally vacant for long?" You ask him.

"No, only a few seconds." Tayn says, looking at your right hand. "I take it whatever that was making you see felt like longer."

>>17702015
"It felt a bit longer, yes; mental spaces are really funny on how they handle time..."

"Everyone still in one piece?"

>>17702029

"It felt a bit longer, yes; mental spaces are really funny on how they handle time." You say to him. "Everyone still in one piece?"

Tayn nods. "Yes. It's been literally five seconds, I wasn't exaggerating."

Turen hefts a bag full of the leaves in his right hand. "Hey! You can have some more if you're done hitting Tayn over there!"

Irkas shakes his head. "Honestly, how can he expect to catch a bullet when he can't catch a punch?"

Tayn growls at Irkas, crossing his arms. "If you'd seen his body language..." The kobold mutters.

>>17702352
"Well, enough brooding...I hope...time to move out."

>>17702389

"Well, enough brooding... I hope." You say, looking at Tayn. "Time to move out."

You do so, and as you move quickly through the woods you realize the leaves are the best source of light in the woods, not that that's much of a problem for you, but some things, like trog camouflage, show up more easily in the light.

One of them being the rather unusual creatures that you have seen stalking the edges of the leaf-light, running swiftly with lengthy tapered tails and a forward stooped posture. You see a few more begin to come in around you, and the soldiers bring their weapons to bear.

>>17702633
Raise a hand to halt, then give the command for cover. Look down at our arm.

<<"I hope you don't have another mischarge moment like before...">>

>>17702687

You raise your hand, a clear signal to halt. The five-foot intruders each come towards you, their faces revealed in the light to be lizard-like, though more like the face of a trog than a kobold, their mouths drooling with saliva and filled with cone-shaped, needle-pointed teeth. In their scaly four-fingered hands they clutch weaponry, clubs, crossbows, lengths of chain. They ave a unique way of standing as well: their innermost toe is curled up and ends in a long, curved talon. The other two toes are all they stand on their ground with, and their sparse clothing indicates that like most reptilians, they have thick skin. However, something about them seems... Off.

<<"I hope you don't have another mischarge moment like before...">> You think to your arm, which simply raises, the crystal of its musculature glowing blue as you can feel an electrical charge building in the surface of its palm.

You ready your own hand to complete spells. You're usually faster with your left hand anyway.

However, you hear a loud, booming shot, like a gunpowder weapon going off, and the creatures scatter. You see the source of the fire off in the distance, or at least his shadow. A tall fellow, around 5'9" or so, with his firearm over one shoulder, still smoking.

"You blokes alright? None of you got nipped or nothin', did ya?" The figure shouts in kobold, his accent quite peculiar.

>>17703042
Stranger, hm? Slit our eyes.

"...and who might you be?"

>>17703099

"...And who might you be?" You ask, squinting.

The creature comes forwards, and your realize it is hobbling on a crutch with the weapon at its side. You see a creature similar to the others before you, but much more humanoid looking. He is wearing a slightly beaten up brown suit with a white undershirt, and you can see that his right leg is being held up off the ground as he makes his way over, the long barreled gun in his scaled hand swaying precariously as he does. He also bears a stout dark brown hat with a high top and a monocle, with what appears to be greenish symbols on the interior. He has a leather satchel, presumably full of ball and shot, over one shoulder. He bears his pseudo-reptilian glance at you.

"Well, you don't have to look so bloody surprised." He says, in the same strange accent, his lips moving perfectly in sync with his voice. "If I'd been one of you or something it might well have counted as a hate crime."

>>17703206
Look down at his weapon; we're not completely in the clear for being buddy-buddy quite yet.

"Fancy rifle you have there..."

Does it look like one of our models?

>>17703280

"Fancy rifle you have there..." You say, and he swings it forward to show you a black iron barrel, and the smell of gunpowder. Certainly not one of yours.

"It is, quite. Good for a club as well, I've found." The reptilian creature says, looking around at your group. "So? Where are you off to? Can I give you directions?"

>>17703706
"We are humble pilgrims on a journey to sacred sights of our ancestors. Io has ordained one of our stops as giant hedge-stones left by the dragons; do you know how close it is?"

Appearances are important.

>>17703777

"We are humble pilgrims on a journey to sacred sights of our ancestors. Io has ordained one of our stops as giant hedge-stones left by the dragons; do you know how close it is?" You ask the strange lizard-like creature.

"Oh yes. I was just headed there myself." The stranger bows with his gun still in hand, on one foot. "Of course I can
show you the way there."

>>17704529
Keep up appearences.

"Well, kind soul; guide us."

Pull Makald over to the side.

"The second this guy diverts off of where we planned to go, let me know."

Want to call it quits for tonight, OP?