Post-Vacation Blues

Life, Relocation

The Fractured Pack's return to the prime material is rougher on them than they had expected.  Back in a jungle that is not the Ulgos, the party spend a day and a half in rest.  They meet a lizardfolk medic from the village Jijiado and gain leads on possibly both Craven Cove and the Tertalak.

The Fractured Pack tumbled through a tumult of time and space to splash into a jungle wetland quite unlike the one they had left. The trees were broader without the vibrant flowers about them. The ground may have rolled but there were no mountains in the distance. The scent of soil and musk masked any form of perfume the plants might have given off. With their new land and space came a new tiredness as well. Each carried the brunt of it differently but all felt a wearisome exhaustion override themselves. While Parsicon's portal may have felt instant, in mind, in body it was quite draining. The party picked themselves up out of the water and up to dry land to recuperate from their battle. Buck made the group a quick meal to aid their recuperation. Noticing that Hali was worse than the rest, the food that Buck gave Hali had an additional bit of special ingredients to expedite her recovery.
  Once their minor rest had been taken, they still wanted to use what daylight they could. Hali tracked a shadow through the rest to gain bearings on directions and Anna flew over the canopy to see the smoke of a distant village though the weariness resisted any attempt at judging distance. The party then attempted to make for the village thinking it was only a few hours away. They quickly realized that they were in no state for travel. An hour in, barely breaking noon, they stopped again. They had had a full marching day before the Fertile Court's celebration and the short breaks they had had did not make up for actual rest.
  The Fractured Pack settled for camp with most of the day left, needing all the rest they could get. They hadn't let Lattice walk them to death previously and now couldn't do it to themselves. Hali shared a new formula she had cracked in creating duplicates of book pages to materialize out into a protective dome for camping in dangerous terrain. Broxon took an hour to sweep the surroundings with his higher energy levels compared to his companions due to the time he had spent with the summer Eladrin. He found evidence of smaller animals but no great beasts. The most he could find was a reptilian set of footprints that matched a humanoid size and stride.
  Through the evening, Buck attempted to work at wounds in the party, the emotional not the physical. He took it on himself to approach Broxon and Hali about the words that had been said. Both recipients took it matte-of-fact-like with what happened having happened. Buck admitted that he might be butting in to something that was not his to fix but the heart was still there. As the night continued, Broxon managed to finish carving out his gorgon horn to create a war horn. He had every intention of using it to wake everyone up in the morning but another incident broke in on the companions rest before he could.
  The next morning Hali witnessed a grey scaled lizardfolk skirt the side of the camp before noticing the odd dome and Broxon sleeping outside of it. The lizardfolk stepped into the clearing using a walking staff in one hand with a bundle of fire wood under the other. As he approached, Hali telepathically spoke to him. The lizardfolk assumed Broxon was a shaman speaking to him from a dream state. After enough conversation, Broxon lurched awake to witness the reverential lizardfolk. Hali stepped out from the dome causing it to drop, and Broxon booted the others awake.
  The lizardfolk was a medic named Mesarth from the nearby village Jijiado. He was out in the woods gathering supplies when he stumbled on the Fractured Pack's camp. He proved quite beneficial to the Pack's cause in terms of information. He warned the group away from Jijiado. While they might find acceptance, they could also find hostility. The folk of Jijiado were not fans of the “fur-folk”, that is folk with hair, based on their interactions with the slavers two days walk to the north. With that, the party had a generalized location to where they were in comparison with Craven Cove. Mesarth said that the party was camped in the lizardfolk hunting grounds. Conversation also led to that of a beast that lived between Jijiado and a “Sunken Shipwreck” halfway to the slavers. The party assumed this great hunting beast whose breath slew many in loud light to be the Tertalak.
  In thanks to Mesarth for his aid, Buck accompanied the lizardfolk to find medicines. The expert forager, once given descriptions and examples, found a weeks worth of work over the course of the day. Not only enough was enough found to stock up Mesarth but also to restock Buck's own supplies. The companions finished out their second day of rest to properly ready themselves for jungle travel, Tertalak slaying, and an approach to Craven Cove.