While Gune noticed the reflection of two small eyes from the haystack, he did not meet them. He shifted quietly, as if still searching for clues, until the Dragonborn was between he and the hay. He feigned ignorance, knowing something was lurking in the shadows nearby.

@Iatos@Rogue Colm
In Elven:
"Scaly one..." He murmured in a low voice. "Something still here." He lifted the torch high to keep the barn well-lit by its orange glow. He nodded towards Cecelia "Shiny eyes is behind hay. Gune smells trouble." His stubby nose wrinkled with anticipation.

Ishalla continued to lead the way until the sight of the barn became clear to her, there had been some kind of brutal slaughter happening here and little about it was very subtle. The smell was pretty horrible too and it was pretty clear that resting here might not be a very good idea unless they didn't have any other choice. The door was slightly open to the wind or left like that on purpose, and instead of approaching closer she kept a broad distance from it.

Being a bit paranoid about this occurrence,

---

Ishalla Opened her Mind to the divine(Divine sense) to find out if something would register. "I'm taking a look around..." she would say in common While keeping her mind open and she would not approach closer.

---

Instead she would keep a broad distance as she carefully circled the barn to ensure nothing else laid beyond where they eyes could see.

To keep a search-party-esque sense, Cecelia turns and faces outward to avoid an ambush. Cecelia says "I'll keep watch" in Elvish and switches weapons to her Longbow. Being a hunter and scout for her previous clan, Cecelia felt more comfortable at long range whenever possible. She scans the treeline for any danger, hoping to find nothing out of the ordinary.

@Rogue Colm

---

The tall dark trees loom over head, as if scolding the party for disturbing their slumber. Betwix their high branches, small figures move, the size of birds. Wings flutter as boots and heavy bodies snap twigs beneath.

The smell of filth and rot fills the air, a strange still smell, near acidic, smooth like white flowers but sinister, mingles with the death.

The air is chilling now, the sun all but gone, put to rest behind the distant mountain ranges to the south.

Returning from her patrol around the barn, she looks to the elf and the Goblin who still stands probably around the elf unless it went further inside. Ishalla shake her head slowly and say We'll go the camp after all..." she say in the common tongue.

---

She walks up to the Goblin, gently set her mace down by her feet before she
Not so gently pick up the torch from the Goblin (possibly with the Goblin) ... And Shake him loose from it if he hangs on to it while gently muttering the words that she need to borrow it...

Ishalla... Then gently throw, the torch... Without the Goblin attached... Into the barn, hopefully hitting the hay inside...

Then she pick up her mace again, look to the elf and the Goblin, and say "This should draw some attention... Let's go to the camp without looking like candles... And hope the moths are drawn to the flames" she say...

Ishalla then keep her mind open to the divine (Divine sense)

While walking towards the camp the driver spoke about while somewhat hoping that she see a big flame behind her soon And also avoiding the forest.

@Iatos If you're throwing the torch at the hay then walking away, then this is what happens.

---

As the flaming end of the torch connects with the hay, in the corner of her eye, the dragonborn sees a small pale female figure hidden at the back of the barn. The head of said figure darts to the kindling fire and as Ishalla turns her back, a high pitched scream comes from within the barn.

Birds scatters from the trees and a commotion loud enough to be heard over the crackling hay begins to resonate out, the screaming continues.

Caught off-guard by Ishalla's insensitive display of brute strength, Gune dangled uselessly from the torch for only a few moments before his grip failed. Two things registered in his mind: This dragonborn may be stronger than she is scaly. Perhaps even stronger than she is stupid! And also, suddenly Gune didn't feel like he was being treated as the duly elected leader of this tribe should be.

He recovered his footing before falling flat on his bum, and opened his mouth to protest Ishalla's actions when he heard the blood-curdling screams filling the air and echoing between his ears.

"We leaving now." He said quickly. "Chieftan's orders!"

Gune had no intention of waiting around to see what abomination was responsible for the tormented howl and resolved to make an expeditious retreat away from the scary, rotted, screaming monster-thing.

"Cecelia say goodbye to evil barn and follow Gune. We done visiting." With that, he hurried out of the barn and followed after the insubordinate lizard.

Before she could fully understand the situation, Cecelia heard the fire crackle from the barn, and someone screaming. Unsure if it was an enemy or not, Cecelia decided that the safest action would be to just catch up with the group. "Pardon, Miss Dragonborn, but did you know what exactly it was in that barn...?" Cecelia's lack of use in the Common language made it sound odd coming from her mouth, but made it work. It didn't make sense to her to simply ignite a living thing without a second thought...

The barn was now completely ablaze, the dark charred wooden roof smoked like a freshly roasted slab of meat. The screaming from within had died down, but the fizzing and spitting persisted to grate at the ears.

In quick succession the barn doors were thrown off their hinges, a small figure being thrown towards the party by some unseen power. Landing at their feet was a female child, black slime dripping from her pale lips. Grotesque streams of blood spills from a wound in her stomach, fist sized and round, cutting an 'o' into her body.

The body shook and the chest bulged as the child seem to struggle for air, her eyes rolling backwards into her skull. Abruptly, she stood up from the ground and bending unnaturally backwards towards the group, she screamed through dead lungs.

"Trespassers!"

Ishalla had for a moment, perhaps even for a instant regretted that torch throw... but seeing the state of everything she doubted that what she had seen had been a real living child. In her knowledge of the moment she believed to full honesty that whatever she had seen had been a sinister trick of whatever she had felt while scouting around. As Cecelia asked her she was about to reply when she heard how the doors flew off the hinges from the barn and the child like creature came flying out towards them.

It seemed what she had suspected had been confirmed at the instant, whatever it was didn't seem happy with them. It was clear enough that fire didn't become the creatures bane... and Ishalla didn't hesitate much longer on the options and instead took the only clear option. She turned towards it, ran ahead and got ready to bash its skull in with her mace. "There's your answer!" Ishalla roared to The Elf in Common as she charged the creature and attacked with her Morningstar.

---

As the mace crushed against the child's skull, she let out a his, black goo spilling from the wound and onto the forged metal of the weapon. Climbing from the weapons base, the goo reached the dragon born flesh, biting at it.

Black Servent (-6)

Ishalla (-1)

Cecelia was first caught off-guard by everything going on, but bevertheless spun around to deliver an arrow to the child.

@Rogue Colm
[Hr]
The arrow flew true, but just as the tip connected with the face of the deathly child, the flesh simply peeled away as the young black covered girl flicked her head aside.

Missed

After seeing the pale grotesque human--well it was human--Gune's heart sank. He was really looking forward to not dealing with a terrifying monster that appeared to be fueled by hate and black slime. Next time, maybe the stupid monsters will die quietly when they're set on fire? That's not asking too much, right?

Gune's pulse was racing. He could feel the blood rushing to his ears, and thumping rhythmically against the side of his head. His feet felt like running away; his hands wanted to stab something; his mind was vacant of any coherent thought as he blinked absentmindedly for a moment.

His feet took the initiative, but without proper direction from his brain, they went in the direction of the monster instead of away from it. Words of eldritch power echoed loudly inside his head. Nemesis. Destroy. Magic thrummed inside his backpack while chorus of angry whispers rose to a fortissimo only to stop abruptly.

He yelped in surprise. By the time his senses finally caught up with reality, Gune's frantic dash had already delivered him to the creature's side. Realizing this, he screeched again in shock and stabbed at it reflexively.

As her Morningstar made a satisfying splat/crunchy sound as it hit the skull of whatever she was trying to kill, she realized that whatever other was were slime and scaled up the handle of her weapon. This made her snort as she wanted to shake it off, then it actually bit her which was surprising as she had hoped her heavy Armor could resist the damage. However it didn't hurt top badly and quite frankly in the heat of battle it was quickly forgotten.

Instead she would try to turn her Morningstar around in her hand to make sure the slimy thing was on the bottom as she tried to smash it towards the body of the child thing... And hopefully get two evil things with one stone but she missed, which pissed her off causing her to spit frikking Lightning at it while roaring "Strun bah qo!".

The goblins blades poke into the air startled the young ooze thing, it jumped aside to avoid his attack. Doing so left it unprepared for the dragonborns onslaught, the young girl was frozen still as the arcing electricity burnt what flesh was left away from the body, leaving a pile of black ooze in its place.

Black servant = dead.

As their foe laid vanquished before them, Ishalla let out a sigh of relief and looked to the others, it was still getting darker and quite frankly she was in a hurry to leave to the fortified outpost before the fall of night. "Well, looks like whatever it was is no more... lets hurry, I rather not run into any more of these right now" she said as she once again moved towards the fortified camp, she could only pray that they would reach it safely and get a chance to recoup after these events, all in all it would serve as good evidence of the wickedness of this land... it was not hard to see why her training would be necessary.

---

As they moved Ishalla "made a prayer" for the lost soul of the slime possessed little girl, as well as of those bodies they had seen. Hoping that all their souls would find eternal peace. She figured everyone would get a chance to go through what they just had experienced and thus only focused on pressing on and thinking to herself for now.

Cecelia nods in agreement as the unnatural creature is seemingly slain. Being used to the back of hunting parties, Cecelia urges the others to lead. Without thinking, Cecelia reverted to Elvish, saying "this seems to be a sign of unnatural things in this place. We should get to that outpost immediately. I'll compose the rear guard." Not knowing the Dragonborn's knowledge of Elvish, Cecelia apologizes directly and, in Common, says "I'll take the rear of the group as we progress to this outpost. I don't mean any insults by speaking outside the Common tongue." Cecelia's Common is still odd-feeling on her tongue, but she manages.

Having finally triumphed over the slime-filled corpse, Gune felt exhausted. He knew there were undead in Mirkland, but he'd assumed it would be your typical skeletal thrall or zombie walker, maybe a few ghouls. He hadn't expected anything like what they had just encountered was hoping desperately that this wasn't a foreshadowing of things to come.
He also hoped his mean, gibbering book would be quiet for the rest of the trip. He knew better though. That damned book does whatever it pleases.

"Chieftain's orders! We go to outpost now! Slow-feet will be cut off!" He cried emphatically, trying to maintain his air of authority.

Ishalla headed back to the road seeing as it was the only thing that made any sense, she wiped her mace off using a piece of clean cloth while walking before burying it with dirt on the ground before moving on. She kept a brisk pace and didn't slow down before reaching the outskirts of... a ominous forest. When she saw that they had to pass it, even while on a road she loudly exclaimed "DUR!! FAYKRO!" before glancing to her companions. "Elf, Cover the please. Gune, Cover the right... I stay on point. " she said before pressing onward central lane keeping her eyes peeled up front.