Breakfast was a quick affair of breads and fruits. Nothing particularly fancy, but it was filling and would tide them over until afternoon, at least. After that, the camp became a flurry of activity, save for the three of them sitting around the remains of the fire: Taylor, who had little in the way of gear, Astarion, who had been up for hours; and Lae'zel, who was efficient in both her camping and packing. The last was staring down the first, and Taylor found the attention uncomfortable.
Eventually, the toad-looking woman spoke. "You're coming with." It wasn't quite question or statement. It almost sounded like an accusation.
"I am. What of it?" Taylor said, while making note of some distant activity through her bugs. Now that she understood her power, she had a hard time turning it off; being aware of everything within 300 yards was doing wonders for her sense of security.
"You are only a yank. You have never borne arms or armor before; you will be begging for rest by midday. You will flail about with that spear, attracting both harm you cannot handle and healing you haven't earned. Thus far, your performance has been lacking; you hinder and harry, but with no lethal intent."
"Killing should be a last resort, not a default approach," Taylor replied. Astarion couldn't suppress a chuckle at that, but she ignored him.
"She'lak." It didn't sound like a compliment. "Humans coddle their children far too much. The world will not tolerate such weakness of spirit. Tell me why I should." This time, her words weren't accusation, but challenge.
Taylor sipped at some tea, and took a calming breath. This wasn't back in school; this woman didn't have it out for her specifically, and even if she did, Taylor would win a fight if forced into it. Power made all the difference in the world. "There's a saying in my homeland: knowing is half the battle. I may not be much use in a fight right now, but I know when they're coming, and I can warn you. It's not perfect, I can miss things, but it's near-constant, and works at distances further than you could shoot. I can tell you for a fact that no goblins attacked the gate again in the night, at least not during my shift."
"They're still just goblins, darling," Astarion replied. "They're not exactly hard to put down, even if they ambush us." He raised his hands at her sharp look. "Not saying I completely agree with the gith. Just saying, we need more than that. I mean, did you even warn them of the harpies at the beach?"
"She did not," Lae'zel replied.
Taylor scowled. "They looked human enough to me when I sensed them. Wings don't necessarily make people monsters, anymore than horns do," she said, in reference to the tieflings." A flicker of movement within her range. "Tell you what," she added, changing tactics. "How about this; I'll give a bit of a demonstration before we even leave the grove; if it's sufficient, you'll take me a bit of the way out, and I'll give you another one. We can continue this conversation after that." She stood up, not giving them a chance to disagree. "Follow me."
The two seemed skeptical at the abrupt end to the discussion, but followed without verbal complaint. Taylor led them up the mountain path, past the chanting druids, to an wooden platform attached to winches up high on the cliff face. Taylor coaxed away the sleepy bear that had decided to nap there (which, she noted, neither of her companions seemed eager to poke while surrounded by druids), and the three of them rode it all the way to the top. The view here was excellent, they could see for miles around. Taylor could see the gate, and a dragon flying through the sky in the distance, and a tiefling that had set up a telescope to take advantage of the view, and - the reason they were here - a bugbear about to sneak up on said tiefling.
"He's all yours," Taylor told the two of them. The bugbear was well-trained, at least compared to the prowess of the goblins she'd seen fighting yesterday, but Lae'zel and Astarion were simply a cut above what he was capable of handling, especially two on one. He had a nasty-looking dagger in his hands, and a few sloshing vials strapped to his waist, all of which were quickly pocketed. "Potions, unless I miss my guess?" she asked rhetorically, continuing when they looked at her. "So how's about this: I'm not your combatant ally. I'm your patron. I'm paying you to escort me to the créche. That means keeping me safe, sharing food with me, and making sure they get this thing out of my head."
"My skills are not for sale," Lae'zel retorted.
"Mine are," Astarion said cheerfully.
Taylor nodded; she could tell he was already sold. Now just for the other. "It's a framing device. You wanted to know what I can bring to the table if I'm not willing to kill? I can find stuff, stuff you'd never find on your own because you only see what's in front of you. You think I'll be expensive to kept fed and healthy? I'll find the food and potions to cover it, and then some. Maybe gold's no good with you, but I can find that too. and I'll still warn you of every enemy I see coming. You'll have a slight edge in every fight we ever have to deal with." She nodded to the bugbear. "This is a freebie. The next one is a down payment; either I take it and go my own way, or you take it and I'm coming with you."
Lae'zel had backed off after that, going along with what Taylor had suggested. The full group was now carefully making their way through the wilderness, instead of along the road, at her insistence. Taylor kept a mental eye on her two targets - one that she'd been tracking for awhile, a second that had come into her range a little while ago. The only one that asked about the detour was Wyll, who'd borne witness to none of her location-discerning feats, but he was mollified when Shadowheart pulled him aside for a quick explanation. Taylor let that conversation fall away, as she focused on the world around her. A small part of her brain appreciated how full of life the world seemed to be, when you had such an enormous perspective. The moment passed quickly, though, as they approached the first group.
One was a tall man of medium build, mildly balding. Another was a redheaded woman, who looked to be messing with something in her pack when Taylor first laid her true eyes on the group. The last one was a short and stout individual - maybe 4 feet tall - with long gray hair and a well-groomed beard. The first two were clad in gambesons, wielding sword and bow respectively. The last was wearing chainmail, wielding a thick wooden shield and a nasty-looking spear: the base of its metal end was fashioned to look like a skull, and there was some kind of glowing purple stone running from the eyes of the skull all the way to the tip of the blade. Taylor grimaced as she felt their songs - the closest analogy was that somebody had taken whatever instrument they had played previously, and bent and twisted them until they fit into place on a piano as one of the keys. Their melodies unnaturally echoed each other.
She started a bit as she felt the best-armored of them mirror her inspection, sampling her song for himself; it seems he'd been captured by the illithids as well. A fellow survivor of the crash, perhaps? She felt the others tensing for a fight, but the man raised a hand in greeting. "Greetings, True Soul. I didn't know anyone else had been sent out this far. And so many of you!"
Taylor froze, unsure how to respond - what was he even talking about? Bless him, Astarion was far quicker on the money. "We were out investigating that crashed ship, looking for survivors and anything worth salvaging."
"And did you? Find any survivors or good salvage that is," he asked, eyeing them in an odd manner.
Astarion shook his head regretfully. "If anyone survived, they're long gone. And we didn't find anything worth taking."
"A shame," the man said. "I know there's supposed to be something important there..." he sighed. "...but my faith remains strong, brothers and sisters. The Absolute provides."
Taylor could feel the others reacting - one of the goblins had cried out in the name of the absolute at the previous day's battle. This goblin camp wasn't just pulling in the more savage races, and now one of their field officers seemed to have a tadpole of his own? "Indeed," she replied. "What has you all the way out here, though? We weren't told about anyone else either."
"Just a quirk of locations, it seems. We've been getting word of tieflings in the area, possibly refugees from Elturel-" Taylor's eyes narrowed, hadn't it long since returned from Hell? "-and they've been competing with our lads in hunting. Me and mine have been making a map of appearances to try and figure out their roaming range, and the way it shakes out, they're to be around here. Got some boys exploring the caves 'neath our feet, actually." He stamped on the ground. "Actually, that reminds me - once we get headed back, we saw a cave on the way here. I'm worried it might connect with the Haunted Caverns under Moonhaven, so I'm taking a detour to make sure there's no crash survivors squatting there, and to see if we need to send a platoon to set up a little camp guarding the entrance."
While he spoke, Taylor messaged each of the others: [This man here seems in charge of this group, and he's infected just like us, so that ties the illithid to the goblins in a way I'm sure spells trouble.] One by one, her allies subtly shifted into battle stances...and then, on Taylor's signal, they pounced.
It wasn't quite as one-sided as Taylor suspected. Despite the lack of armor, the man's two accomplices weren't slouches, and gave as good as they got. The real threat was the spear-wielding dwarf: he slammed the butt of it down on the ground and every insect within 15 ft withered and died from their own shadows tearing into them. Taylor's melee-bound companions faired a bit better, weathering the two-dimensional assault as they crossed blades with the dwarf, who began screaming about the Absolute. Every other blow bounced off his shield and prompted a nasty riposte from the spear. The eyes of the skull flashed whenever it made contact, although Taylor couldn't tell if that was actually doing anything. The worst part was how despite heavy injuries, none of the three went down quickly, seemingly bolstered by the dwarf's evangelizing.
It ended before too long, though - they simply didn't have the numbers. Taylor, Gale, and Durge had been firing on them from far back, while Astarion, Lae'zel, and Wyll kept them from charging the back ranks, and eventually the man ran out of magic to keep killing them or healing his allies. Astarion began looting the bodies, of course, and quickly produced a large roll of parchment.
"Now what do we have here...why it seems to be a map! Moonhaven, goblin fortress, githyanki spottings, tiefling spottings, decent estimates at where the ship crash and druid grove are, and a cave marked as a potential hole in their security around their fortified center of operations!"
"Can I see?" Shadowheart asked, reaching for it, but Astarion held it high above his head.
"Now wait just a minute, that's a very good question. Can she see it?" he asked, flashing a huge smile at Lae'zel. She glared back at him, but didn't say anything. "Oh come now, don't be like that."
"Why are you asking her for permission?" Shadowheart snapped at him.
He opened his mouth to respond, but Taylor interrupted. "Can we delay this conversation about a minute? There's some goblins about to come out of this cave."
Seconds after she spoke, several goblins emerged from vines so thick they concealed that there was no rockface behind them. If they'd gotten to surprise the group, it's possible Gale or Taylor might've been injured, but instead they came face to face with The Blade Of Frontiers. The second battle was much less of a challenge than the first. The goblins fell like wheat to a scythe, and their pocket change was added to the group's growing resources.
They hadn't looted the grove, so Taylor wouldn't need to try and convince them to return resources to the tieflings or druids to avoid making things worse; it had been more of a scouting mission. There was a hand-drawn map of the grove's interior, notes about most of the significant figures within, and descriptions of the new arrivals who'd fought off the goblins - namely, all of them. Keeping this information away from the goblin camp would allow them to infiltrate as 'True Souls', perhaps. They also had a decent supply of jerky and dried fruits - enough to keep the group fed for a couple extra days, on top of what Astarion had weaseled out of the merchants.
"So," Taylor asked as casually as she could manage, once everything of value was accounted for. "Can Shadowheart have the map, Lae'zel?"
"Yank tsk'in'va," the woman spat out. "Fine! Yes!" She grumbled a bit more to herself as Astarion handed the map over.
Taylor claimed the fallen man's shield, and eyed his spear. Gale had identified it as magical tinkertech, capable of inducing blindness in anyone it struck; Wyll had at least confirmed it was functioning, even if he had to add that it hadn't hindered him in the slightest due to his extensive experience fighting in the Underdark. "...that spear's pretty nasty, but it'd be wasted in my hands. Anyone want to claim it?" It wasn't suited to most people's fighting style, but it was too useful to just leave there, so Shadowheart ended up taking it. Since Taylor didn't really have the range of Gale or Durge, she would be joining Shadowheart in the mid-ranks going forward; being able to form a spear-and-shield wall with her would be helpful.
Not including the time spent stopping to rest and eat, it was about a six-hour hike to the cave on the map - the cave that might be deep enough to connect with whatever cave system was beneath Moonhaven. The number of goblin patrols within Taylor's range had gradually increased over time...nothing significant, but at the start it had been another hour before they met more goblins, and now it was almost every 20 minutes. Each time, she gave the group a head's up, and the lot of them slaughtered the patrol with no mercy.
Taylor tried to not let it get to her, but it was difficult. Choosing her own life over that of so many others...it wasn't an easy choice, even with Wyll's constant reassurance that goblins were a plague on the land at the best of times. But she had to earn her keep, and every goblin they killed out here was one that wouldn't be facing them all at once when they cut a path through the town. She tried to think that she wasn't choosing if they died, just when, and also how injured her team got in the process. But that justification didn't make her feel any better about the whole thing.
"Got some animal tracks around that cave. Looks maybe like bear tracks, but I'm not an animal expert. They seem pretty large."
"Probably just a cave bear," Wyll said with a shrug. "Other possibility is an owlbear, but they're not any bigger." Taylor thought these seemed a lot larger than that, but she trusted Wyll's judgement, he was pretty well-experienced in these matters.
The group took up what was becoming their standard formation: Lae'zel and Wyll were in front, with Astarion right behind them; Shadowheart and Taylor were a few paces behind him, shields and spears at the ready; several more paces back, Gale and Durge kept magic dancing along their fingers, ready to cast at the first sign of trouble. They followed the tracks into the cave; there'd been rain recently, it seems, so the whole area was caked in mud and littered with overlapping tracks that made everything difficult to parse.
"Owlbear," Taylor muttered to the others. It felt big but she'd already said that once. "I dunno if it heard or smelled us, but it's waiting around that next corner to pounce. Be ready." She could at least - or well, hopefully - count on owlbears not understanding whatever language it was they were speaking. The others nodded, and the three at the front had a short discussion before Astarion was sent ahead. He rounded the corner-
-and blurred as a mountain of muscle and fur flew over him like a runaway train. He dragged a dagger along its belly as punishment for failure, and the other two laid into it from the side. It regained its balance and lurched to the side, knocking Wyll to the ground. Lae'zel slashed at it but her sword was only buried in feathers. From behind Taylor, six laser beams shot out at the creature, burning long black marks across its body and eliciting an agonizing cry. Shadowheart poked at its face from behind her shield before withdrawing once more. Taylor, for her part, tried to induce fear; this time, instead of focusing on the dread of social isolation at school, she brought up memories of her walks through town, the paranoia that comes from seeing every face as a possible threat to your life that had the be evaluated properly in the scant seconds remaining before they were in arms' reach.
She thought she succeeded...but it seemed Owlbears defaulted to 'fight' instead of 'flight' when confronted with overwhelming fear, and its assault redoubled. Lae'zel was bowled over by the full might of its charge as it bore down on Wyll. He gave a cry in pain as it stomped down on his foot and began digging into him with its front claws and beak. Everyone armed for it surrounded the creature, stabbing and slashing, but it ignored the assault in favor of making a meal of Wyll. A lucky hit from Shadowheart enveloped its head in darkness, allowing Wyll to slip away from beneath it. She whispered a soft word and his wounds started to heal, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what he'd need. Gale hit it with a purple laser that did...well she wasn't sure what it did, exactly. Durge, meanwhile, walked forward projecting lightning like their name was Palpatine, with a cackle to match.
Taylor, for her part, finally made a decision. Transferring the spear to her shield hand for a moment, she reached into her pocket. Every last flea, tick, and louse crawled into her hand. The sensation didn't bother her the way it might have once. She withdrew her hand and tossed her payload directly into the beast's face. The army of hers crawled into every orifice - clogging its throat, digging into its ears, burrowing into the gap between eyes and eye sockets that lay shrouded by shadow, everywhere.
She took a claw to the chest for her troubles, but it wasn't directed - the owlbear had officially forgotten all about their existence in the wake of a few thousand tiny bugs crawling around inside it in the worst way possible. Its head shook back and forth violently, even slamming into the rock wall of the cave a couple times. Its screams would probably haunt Taylor tonight, but she'd accomplished her goal: with the owlbear suitably distracted, the others were able to cut away at it without attracting attention. It died a death from a thousand cuts and nibbles.
"I didn't recognize that spell, at the end," Gale started, "but whatever it was, it's most certainly effective!"
Shadowheart was tending to Wyll's wounds, but the man wasn't focused on that; he was eyeing Taylor cautiously, one eye a gleaming magical blue. Taylor tensed: the ones in the ears and mouth had been out of sight almost instantly, but the ones at the eyes swarmed for a second or two, hidden by shadows...unless Wyll's eye was more than just decorative, in which case he might know her secret now. If they found out what she could do, she'd be pushed to do it all the time, and she wasn't sure her heart could take that quite yet. Wyll, for his part, said nothing to the others.
After a quick check, Taylor confirmed the cave got quite deep - deep enough she couldn't feel the end - and so they marched deeper to see if they could find a way into the town ahead that didn't have to deal with any fortifications.