Under a Dark Sun(2nd Ed. AD&D)

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath seemed rather surprised that Bas would want to speak with him, and his face showed it. Balth had committed that most grievous crime, theft of money, and tricked them.

"Talk to him? And give him and any friends he might have an opportunity to get the drop on us? We have to strike at these liars and cheaters before they can strike at us. I doubt we'll ever get any truth out of him no matter how long we talk to him, and if we take the time he might escape again, to use the same grift on another clueless band of explorers."

[Armen]

Tamora

Tamora watched the exchange between Bas and Lorath with well disguised impatience. “Learned One,” she said, “I appreciate your wisdom and I see the merit in your words. I too would be interested in an accounting with Balth.” She paused and looked to Anne and Lorath nodding. “But we should be clear in our aims at the outset to avoid being disadvantaged in the speed and fury of the hunt. And we are weakened. The outcome is not certain. The safest cause I believe is to attack with speed and resolution but to take the opportunity if Balth becomes disabled before he is killed.”

With that Tamora lead off along the trail moving as quickly and quietly as possible while keeping touch with the tracks.

[PurpleXVI]

Lorath, Tamora, Bas, Anne

Tamora found that the trail was easy to follow, Balth apparently not having made any effort to conceal it, and that their prey had hacked his way through the jungle rather than circumvent obstacles. The latter meant that they had to spend little energy on it themselves, and so they made good speed.


Near evening.

As the sun once more began to sink below the horizon, the four had yet to catch up with Balth, nor had they even caught a glimpse of him. For the moment they were deep in the jungle, surrounded on all sides by tall vegetation and the sounds of animals both alien and mundane.

Tamora had never had any problems following the elf's tracks, in fact, it was almost too easy to follow. He had never attempted to hide it, and though he obviously made good speed while moving, it looked like he had stopped often and spent most of that time either standing still or pacing back and forth, not the actions of a man exhausted by his flight.

Ahead of them, the landscape darkened as vegetation became denser, and it looked like there was one last dip before the ground rose up towards the distant mountains. From what they'd seen when they had occasionally sent Anne up a tree to scout ahead, it looked like a wide, shallow trench that cut directly across the route Balth was taking.

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

"We should be catching up to him soon," Lorath said. "He must have spent a lot of time clearing this vegetation, and it looks like he spent a bit of time resting every once in a while too. Another day or so and we should be on him." He looked around at the darkening sky. "But now might be a good time to make camp. It won't do any good to catch him if we collapse from exhaustion before we can act."

[Armen]

Tamora

“I agree”, Tamora answered. “This looks as good a spot as we’re likely to find before dark. We should get an early start tomorrow though and push on to reach the trench Anne saw while we have some daylight left.” She looked around at the encircling vegetation including up into the canopy. “I’ll just quickly skirt round this immediate area I think and then take whatever watch is left.” She dropped her pouches and bow off her shoulder and headed off a little way into the jungle starting with their direction of travel

OOC: As she said, Tamora will quickly circle the campsite not more than 50 yards out looking for signs of predators and the like then spiral in to return to the others. (~15 minutes)

[Kazilan]

Bas agreed that it was time to camp and found a spot where he could sit and lean back against a tree. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them to look at Lorath and Anne in turn.

"Why do you think he is so unconcerned about our tracking him? And why didn't he harm us? I have little experience with non-druids, but these do not seem like the actions of a criminal making a getaway. Could he want us to follow him?"

[PurpleXVI]

Lorath, Tamora, Bas, Anne

(OOC: Assuming no one has any more deep comments or conversational stuff since it's been over 24 hours since the last post.)

The evening passed without incident and though several members of the party had odd dreams, no one awoke any worse for the wear(aside from the insect bites to which they had long since become accustomed.). After packing up their camp, they set off along Balth's track.


Eventually

It took them a day of travel to reach the edge of the trench. What had looked like a pleasant slope down from afar actually turned out to be a steep and jagged descent, but thanks to Balth's tracks they were able to find a safe, though still difficult, path down to the bottom of the trench.

The bottom was reminiscent of the swamps that Lorath had travelled through with Ulik and Evon, dark, wet and even more humid than the rest of the jungle. Little sunlight reached the group, and everywhere they went, they saw scuttling and creeping things, centipedes, spiders and massive slugs almost as large as a man's forearm.

As far as they could judge, it would be about three days to cross the trench, at least if there was an easy way up on the other side. It could easily become a long detour if they had to spend time finding a safe place to ascend.


But stuff happens

On their second day in the trench, they caught a glimpse of sunlight reflected off of something that definitely wasn't natural up ahead. It had looked like metal or glass, and it was moving, which probably meant it was in the hands of something intelligent.

The moving thing was barely a hundred yards ahead, and after a careful advance, lead by Anne, the resident stealth expert, the group saw what was moving about.

Three Thri-Kreen were standing around a small clearing, two of them were of the yellow-chitined, tall and muscular variety that Bas, Anne and Tamora had seen before, while the third was shorter, with a black or deep purple chitin. One of the yellow ones was sitting apart from the other two, on a rotting stump, it's chitin showing the same sickness as the one that had attacked Balth. It's breathing was laboured and it barely seemed to be paying attention to the world around it.

The other two were standing over the corpse of a third yellow-chitined Kreen, having a conversation that seemed to consist mostly of clicks and chitters. The dead Kreen appeared to have been killed by decapitation and violent stabbing, as it it's head was lying several feet from the body and the torso had a lot of holes in it, about the right size for dagger-stabs.

All three living creatures were armed with vicious-looking polearms, though those were currently slung on their backs, they also carried a variety of what looked like throwing weapons. They were made from a clear, crystalline matter with a vaguely organic appearance(in the case of the polearms, only the heads were made from it.), obviously what had caught a stray ray of light and given away their position. The dead Kreen appeared equally armed, and none of it's companions, or it's killer, appeared to have pilfered it's posessions.

For the moment the party was unobserved and could obviously gain the drop on these inhuman things if they wanted to attack.

(Black Thri-Kreen:

Yellow Thri-Kreen: )

[Kazilan]

Bas glanced at his companions after inspecting the thri-kreen.

"I wonder if Balth killed that creature, although I don't know how he could have escaped from the others. It would seem best for us if we skirted this group rather than risk a confrontation. What do you think?"

[Armen]

Tamora

Tamora whispered softly back. “That is my guess and I agree we should avoid a confrontation particularly as we have no shared language. I don’t think we’ll need to skirt them though. Something tells me that they will be heading after Balth much as we are – time will tell.” She looked down as a large beetle lumbered over her foot. “I have a sense that we are on their territory. We’ll have to be careful if we need to follow them.”

[PurpleXVI]

Bas, Tamora, Anne, Lorath

While Bas and Tamora discussed the situation, the Kreen appeared to come to a conclusion to their debate.

The healthy yellow Kreen leaned down and easily shouldered the corpse of it's fallen comrade, then roused it's ill friend from his stupor and clicked something at him. After offering a healthy hand, the ill Thri-Kreen eventually got to his feet and the two lumbered off in a northwesternly direction, well away from the trail, after exchanging a brief gesture with the black one.

With it's friends gone, the black one crouched down to study Balth's trail.