[ungor451]

The thin mist that the morning had brought with it was thickening and the bird’s singing was becoming ever more incessant but, doubtlessly, everyone had heard the noise ahead. Salem’s sharp elven eyes could make out, much clearer than the others, many humanoid figures of different sizes and lots of scampering about.

“ I said hurry up, slave! ” Berty administrated a hard kick to the backside of a xvart slave that he had, unwisely, unshackled to fetch him some food. When Rethne had left, Berty had waited around another half an hour with the others, before deciding that he had had enough and wandering into the wilderness. They had, later, set up camp, keeping guard on the slaves, though unforunetely for the slavers the orc and two humans, who were shackled separately from the xvarts, had escaped during the night when the look out fell asleep. The following morning they had headed to the pathway, ignoring the suspicious glares of the woodsmen on the way.
Approaching, from the opposite side of the party and behind Berty’s group, were six people; what looked like two rangers and four woodsmen, it would appear that word of chained slaves had come to the attantion of the woodland protectors. It looked like things were going to get bad before good.
Salem signalled for the others to follow him and he, hurriedly, approached before any fighting broke out. Rethne kept to back of the party and had chosen to keep well out of this disruption, as she had no desire for the others to know she was a part of a slave link, for her ties to the party were weak enough as it stands.

“ Look here then, the woodsmen were indeed correct, slavers right under our eyes ”, one of the rangers told the other.
“ Eh? What do you prissy little nature boys want? ”, Berty said, looking up from the xvart he had just kicked.
“ What we want is slaver scum, like you, to stop tromping through our land selling off slaves; it has ended, there shall be no more and I demand you release them ”, the other ranger stepped forward, bellowing. He was a half-elf, and a big one at that, and looked like a fair but stern man. Obviously, his views on slavery were very one-way. He just wasn’t having it.
“ You don’t talk to me like tha— ”
“ Just a moment here, my name is Salem, now what is this commotion about, exactly? ”, Salem arrived and interupted Berty before he could finish.
“ Problem is I don’t want these, these filthy slavers coming through the forest and I will not leave untill they release those they have imprisoned. No matter how much I dislike xvarts, it’s the only sporting thing to do
”, the ranger explained to Salem.
“ I agree, they should be released and left to their own survival ”, the druid, Kitty spoke. With this comment, Phraen looked up at her, a little befuddled, but eager to fight.
The others, Rethne excluded, who was still remaining hidden from this incident, concurred with Kitty and they told Berty to release the slave and, of course, argument pursued, for a little while.
Berty could see that, on both sides of him, there were at least five people totalling ten, though there could be more and he and his warriors came to a total of five. Certainly, the odds didn’t look good, maybe under different circumstances he would have submitted but not now, he had too much foolish pride and attitude to give up in front of the other lads. Looking ahead Berty could see one advantage that he did have; a dozen hungry xvart slaves, that looked piqued by the hassle that had just arisen. And, in the deep, web filled, depths of his head he concucted a plan that might just get him out of this mess.
“ Er, yeah you win, I’ll release the slaves- hey guys come and help me out ”, Berty said approaching the shackled xvarts.
“ Thats a good lad, come to your senses, I see, we’ll need to take them elsewhere, hmm maybe— ”
“ Wait, what are you doing!? ”, the ranger was interupted by Salem, as Berty and the slavers picked up the xvarts by their chains and, in the next instant, charged towards the woodsmen and rangers, even as the xvarts tried to bury theit teeth into the chainmailed arms of the slavers.

There was huge clatter and a mess of bodies as the slavers and slaves collided with the woodsmen; the xvarts had been flung about three feet forward, into the woodsmen and were biting and clawing at them, in a frenzy for food. Although the slavers had fallen down they were behind the xvarts and now, as they got up and turned around, they were greeted by the swords of Stanislav, Kitty and Duncan and the teeth of Phraen. Sytze fired off a long headed arrow and it swooshed past Stanislav’s right and penetrated the sword arm of one of the slavers. Sytze then moved his attention upon the swarmed woodsmen, readying himself for a clear shot on a xvart. Salem unleashed a small, glowing pink orb upon the same slaver, lighting his face up a fierce red and sending a searing hot pain tingling on the surface of his skin, Salem then readied himself once more and focused on another spell. Rethne had dabbed the tip of her rapier into a vial of safely stored poisonous fluid, with the full intent of using it upon Berty.
Kitty swung her scimitar downward, upon the warrior who had been injured by Salem and Sytze, tearing his throat open and she finished him off with a clean knock to the head from her quaterstaff. Stanislav deflected a sword stroke from a slaver and replied with a swing of his own; plunging his gladii down into the slaver’s shoulder and carrying on with a swift stab through the throat, with his other gladii. Salem cast a collection of bright swirling stars upon the mess of xvarts, sending them into a state of confusement; some tried to wander away, others slumped onto the floor and some started fighting manically, afterwards, Salem swapped over to his sling. Phraen tore at the torso of another slaver, the man grunted, backed off and
blocked the next attack and, turning around, was confronted by Duncan’s katana, slicing into his neck and spraying the air with vivid streaks of red.
Berty himself was a fighter of no small skill and fought with a brutal falchion and a battering shield. He had, just barely, doged the twirling katana of Duncan and replied with a blow of his own, which Duncan parried in a flash and quickly moved to miss the big battering shield aimed for his face. Stanislav moved over, to help the woodmen fight the xvarts and Phraen and Kitty were fighting another slaver.
As Duncan avoided another sword swing from Berty he moved, rapidly, to his left, and prepared to send a driving blow into Berty. However, all in a sudden, Berty lowered his shield and falchion and his face turned ashen, he looked to his left, where he could see what looked like a halfling standing, quite smuggly, with a blood tipped rapier.

“ Reth...Rethn... ”, Berty looked astounded as his last words trailed off and he toppled over, stone dead. Duncan, being the only other one to hear this looked quite confused but decided to keep quiet for the moment.

And, when the last slaver was cut down everyone concentrated on attacking the xvarts and, soon, all the little blighters were dead.

The two rangers had faired well but, unfortunetely, a couple of the woodsmen had been severly injured. They thanked the party for their help and told them that they had duties to attend to, Salem asked the rangers, before they took leave, if they had heard of the caves of Bal’nur. The rangers had no clue what caves they were talking about but advised them to keep to the paths. With that, the group collected what small gold the slavers and, with Salem leading the way, carried on to the elven city of Marith.
Last night, Rethne had had a close look at the piece of parchment she had got a hold of and seen that it was written in elven. Although she knew a small splattering of the language, it was far from enough to decipher what ever message the parchment might be saying. She concluded that she may have to show it to Salem, when they got to Marith.