KHAZUUL

"Steady, steady..." he whispers as he uncorks the flask and prepares to fling the contents of it at the stomping beast. He times the beats of its thumping legs.

"One ... two ... three... now!" Hurling the liquid, he dashes to the side, not realizing that he's holding his breath ... waiting.

It's a tree that Sow finds safety in, a tall one, that rises up above even the reach of the crazed beast's snapping maw. There's too much foliage for her to see much of what's going on, but the sounds of it all! The girl shudders and then climbs higher, hanging tight to the wet branches supporting her...

The fire flask explodes in Grimjaw's path! The lizard disappears behind a wall of flame that rises 10 feet high and belches black smoke into the sky as it consumes the undergrowth!

You see Saffron breath a sigh of relief. She asks "Gurkish fire?! You are a man of many surprises, Thorn! Where did you get - "

But Saffron is cut short. At that moment, Grimjaws explodes through the wall of flame, furious! It charges at its insolent prey, roaring and snapping its jaws! It knocks both Saffron and Thorn backward as it claims its earlier snack - Samir.Saffron screams in agony as the monster devour her brother, swallowing him whole! She decides the only thing she can do for him is to try to fulfill his dying wish - to survive. She exchanges a look with Thorn, and in that moment she expresses a bitter combination of farewell and good luck. She scrambles up to her feet and runs. Never in her life did she run so fast.

At first, Thorn was relieved. Maybe ... just maybe ... he had incinerated the creature. For a moment that felt like forever, he held his breath as the wall of flames exploded before him. He heard Saffron's relief but alas it was tragically shortlived as the monster consumed Samir.

With no time to dwell on his death, Thorn grabs Saffron's hand and shrieks, Run!

Grimjaws still hungers! The jungle shakes as he crashes through, hot on Thorn's heels. His maw slavers and snaps as he eagerly tries to devour the handsome man...

Running as fast as his legs ever took him, he dares not look behind...

Cutwell kicks out at the giant lizard as it snaps its jaws and tries to force its way down into the crevice. The man would cut the thing width-ways across the tongue, if not for the horrendously large teeth between him and it.

When the thing relents and turns its attention elsewhere, the man sits in the crevice for a few moments, panting and letting the adrenaline shake its way out of his body.

Alas, Thorn's luck had run out. As he lay on the ground, mortally wounded, the beast loomed over him. He could see, with some satisfaction, that his fire flask had scorched its hide, leaving behind a bubbling scar.

It was all over in the blink of an eye.

The rest of you hear Grimjaws roaring into the misty jungle. Having claimed Thorn, and unable to smell any more creatures due to Thorn's fire, Grimjaws stalks back out into the jungle, confident it has demonstrated its dominance. Each of you are carefully able to track the creature as it leaves the area, and find Thorn's longsword fallen onto a patch of bloody ground, washing away in the rain.

Saffron emerges from the jungle as well, her expression flat, devoid of emotion. Her brother's blood still stains her clothes. Blinking in the rain, she speaks to you all. "You risked your lives to save Samir - I ... I thank you. We weren't able to save him, alas."

"Thorn paid with his life. I saw him throw that fire bottle ... I bet Grimjaws never fought something that hurt it back. And he never gave up on Samir, or me. Even at the end, he lured it away from me."

"Why’d you all come back?" Cutwell says bitterly, as he emerges from the trees

"Its my job, ain’t it? Carrying out lads in them situations. If he’d have stayed away…"

… he’d still be alive…

Freki's heart sinks yet again as he hears the muffled sounds of the Grimjaw's third meal, at least that's what he thinks, but in reality only two of his companions have been killed and eaten.

When he feels it is finally safe, he returns to the attack site and enters the clearing, freshly made by the destructive force of the Grimjaw's body and tail and what looks like the remnants of a giant fire, now smoldering in the damp morning drizzle.

He sees splatters of blood and a devastated Saffron to confirm what he had heard. "Aarrrrhhhhhh!" he screams in frustration, kicking a piece of flaming charcoal towards the direction the Grimjaw had wandered off after his meal.Dropping to his knees, he can't help tears welling in his eyes, thinking of the gregarious times the two had had on their journey to Khazuul. He had hoped they would have many more, but it wasn't to be.

As he wipes the tears away, the glint of Thorn's sword peeking out from the mud catches his eye. He picks it up delicately as if it was the man's dead body itself, cradling it for a few moments. He then stabs it into the ground, like a cross marking a grave site. Still on one knee, both hands on the sword he says, "You leave us too soon, my friend ... but I will do by best to bring this sword to your uncle, so that your family can lay something of you to rest."

As he's strapping the sword to his pack he hears a familiar voice ... Cutwell?!?

Looking up he sees what must be a ghost, the heat and wet of the jungle, the exhaustion must be getting to him, but no, it really is the doctor.

"You're alive?! I thought I heard ... Ha ha," he rushes to the man and embraces him with a big laugh to confirm to himself he is actually real.

"How the hell did you escape that monster? I swear I heard him chomping on your metal arm."

Suddenly, his eyes widen, "Where's Sow?"

"He didn’t like the smell of me, did he?" Cutwell says, and then does genuinely wonder if the creature might have known it was only going to be getting a partial meal from the lean man.

"I ain’t seen her. Do you think she got eaten and all? Safe to call out, ya reckon?" he asks, almost as a whisper then, wondering if the beast might come back.

"I'm here," Sow says quietly, from the edge of the pulped vegetation the monster had trampled with its huge, clawed feet. No one saw her re-join the group and she is crouched down, looking at the thing's tracks as she does not talk about what happened to Samir or Thorn.

"And you should keep quiet," she says to Freki regarding his yell. "We'll have time to mourn back in the camp. We're not safe out here."

"Its got a full belly now, ain’t it? And the tracks might lead back to its den. I reckon it’ll be off to sleep soon, after all that effort!" he says, meaning the destruction it wrought on them and the jungle.

"Could track it and slice it up in its sleep, couldn’t we?"

The trail of the colossal lizard is plain to see. Its massive three-toed imprints mark the muddy terrain without apology, and the creature shows no inclination to hide the wreckage it leaves behind. Sow discovers evidence on the towering trees, too, where it seems the beast has scraped its scaly hide against the bark, peeling it away like a bear shedding its winter fur.

You also notice that the mists that have enshrouded the jungle the past few hours seem to be lifting, although whether this is connected to Grimjaws or pure coincidence is hard to know.

Following Sow's lead to defer their lamentations, the crew continues their hunt. Yet, Grimjaws' presence has sent all quarry to ground, and the crew, perhaps preoccupied with the morning's harrowing events, struggles to find sustenance. Sow manages to uncover a handful of palatable mushrooms and Freki unearths a meager assortment of root vegetables. However, even when combined in a stew, the provisions fall short of sustaining the somber quartet.

Freki keeps his voice down, but he approaches Sow with a big smile and ruffles her greasy her. "Good to see you Kiddo," he whispers.
Freki acknowledges Cutwell's idea, "I'd certainly like to slice up that monster, but I think we'll need a larger organized group to be successful."

---

Frustrated again by the morning's hunt Freki groans, "Bah, sorry everyone, I really thought we'd be able to find a solid catch that would give us a few days of food. I guess we should just find Falco and buy some rations from him so we can focus on what we've come here to find, treasure! I'm also going to need a tarp if we plan to adventure further into the jungle. I wonder if Tully has an extra in his storage rooms?"

At one point during the walk, Freki finds himself next to Saffron. "I'm sorry about Samir ... I wish there was something I could have done ..."

After a few minutes of silence Freki says, "The first night we joined camp, I overheard you talking with him about a relic, a book, I think you said. Is that something you're still interested to recover? We'd be willing to help if you're interested. It might be a good first venture away from camp if its not too far."

Sow gives Freki a dark look when he messes with her hair, but after smoothing and shaking her lank locks, she gives him a quick nod and admits, "You too."

When there's talk of giant lizard hunting after they've scrounged what they can for food, the former Fieldwarden nods. "We are too few," she says in her pained voice. "But with others from the camp... with traps and preparation... we could bring that monster down."

The young woman has faced down large animals before -- nothing near the size and ferocity of Grimjaws, but big beasts that required considerable work to corral and kill. With venoms and oil, with enough grapples and lines and strong men holding them... it could be done.

Later, Sow just nods at Freki's suggestion to buy food and treasure-hunt, and she idly listens to the conversation between he and Saffron as they all walk.

"Just takes a bit of imagination, don’t it?" Cutwell starts as he walks.

"How’d you reckon a squad of pikemen handle one of them giants? Not by stabbing, let me tell you!

They dig a great big hole, don’t they? Fill it with spikes and then trick the dumb sods to step into em. Thats when they start the stabbing, ain’t it?"

He shrugs and looks at their meager meal for the night. This was supposed to be a bounty. They’d stayed near the camp today to try and forage up something that would let them set out tomorrow. Now, tomorrow would be the same. And the day after? And the day after?…

The man furrows his brow as he walks about with the others.