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"Aha! Excellent work everyone, we certainly showed them, did we not!" Azra twirled the hand from which he had shot the bolt of fire that had completely missed its target and blew the smoke from his fingertips, as if he had actually played a role in the fight that had just occurred. He was grinning from ear to ear. "And look barely a scratch on us besides of course our dear friend the driver and... oh... oh dear..."

His exuberant tone began to trail off as he made note of the prone form of their brave human warrior, sprawled on the ground in a puddle of his own blood. A crude arrow sprouted from the torn remains of one knee, a crimson gash had been cut across the powerful muscles of his throat, severing windpipe and arteries. Azra was by no means a medical man, but even he could see that his companion was not long for this world. Maybe now wasn't the time to celebrate.

"Sh-shouldn't we do something?" He spoke in a small faltering voice, completely different to his usual bravado, his eyes busily darting between the other members of the party. The tortle was already busy healing the driver. Azra didn't know any healing magic, he didn't know if any of the others did either. "We can't just let poor Ironhead, I mean Ironblood, I mean... whatever his fucking name is just die?! Can we?"

He jumped off the cart and walked over to where the warrior was bleeding out, dropping to one knee beside him, not caring how the blood stained his clothes. He reached out and took the dying man's hand.

"Come on big man." He slapped at his cheek, trying to keep him concious. "You'll pull through. Be right as rain in no time. Right guys? ...right?"

---

Now that the battle was over, Zinlynn relaxed only slightly. The other blonde fighter, Alandra, raised a good point, the goblins could still be around. Her heart did break when Azra showed concern and fear for Ironheart's well-being. When he asked the party about Ironheart's well-being, Zinlynn looked to Tibor and she asked sadly, "I don't know anything about healing. Tibs, is there anything you can do for Hearty...?"

---

After talking about Ironheart (and possibly mourning), she informed everyone what she saw before the goblins attacked. "Guys. Those horses are Gundren's. He's been attacked as well, but he's nowhere around here. We need to find him,"

She then pointedly looked at an unconscious goblin and she commented "And I think they know where he is. That's why I only knocked them unconscious. So we can question them,"

Tibor finished treating the halfling, then stood. Looking at the rest, he could only shake his head. He had hoped, though he knew better, that they would have already taken care of the other man. 'The folly of youth,' the tortle's grandfather would say, 'to hope without cause. It is not the way of the world to live up to your expectations.'

Going over to the man on the ground, he looked down at him. It took only a glance to confirm what he already knew. There was no fixing that wound. "If Tibor coulda fixed de wound," he began, as he reached his hand to his belt, taking out his mace, "he woulda seen to de man first. Dis man, he not deserve de life Tibor could offer him."

With a single, swift motion, he'd bring down the head of his mace onto the man's head. Tibor was large, and quite strong. His heavy mace would make short work of the task, ending Ironheart's suffering in a single blow. There was no need to prolong it, and the cleric was somewhat disappointed his 'companions' had let him lay in his suffering as long as they had. He decided to assume it was just the ways of the mainland, one of many that marked it different from his home of Chult.

Bending down, he began to look through the man's possessions. There was his weapon, a large, two-handed hammer, which Tibor had no training to wield himself. That he would toss towards the other warrior, Alandra, thinking she would be able to catch it. The backpack and everything in it he would casually take himself, getting it out of the way to start taking off his chain-mail armor. Once that was pulled free of him, all that was left was the belt pouch with coins in it, which he himself took half of.

After tossing the backpack into the wagon, Tibor set down his weapons and went to work, taking the man to the side of the road and putting together a funeral pyre. It would take time, but as a servant of Kelemvor, it was his duty to see to the deceased. Death in flames seemed appropriate for a warrior taken in battle. Once finished, he would turn to Azra, calling out to him if need be.

"Tiefling," he yelled, waving the man over with a solemn voice and stern look about him, "use dat magic of yours and light dis for me. Least you can do for de man."

Making sure to get close to him, so his whisper could be heard, he'd casually place a claw on Azra's shoulder before he continued. "And when you tell dis story, you make sure dere were at least ten ah dem batiri, and dis man kill eight o' dem. At least." That would be the last words he spoke, until the pyre was nothing but ash on the side of the road.

---

Nethruel couldn't help but be amused at these turn of events. While he was expecting something along the lines of just bringing his unconscious body along until they reached their destination, he certainly was not expecting a swift end to the man's life. Not that he was complaining or anything... Well, Nethruel would have probably preferred if someone else's throat was slashed if only to not hear them talking. It was their loud antics that did get them into this mess in the first place, and it was a shame that it ended up causing a death to the fodder.

Nethruel's expression did not falter when Ironheart's head was crushed.

That aside, the Eladrin had a feeling none of them would realize that such a thing was a mistake on their parts. At the same time, he could not simply raise his own inquiries about the situation. Nethruel figured he should show off some magic, especially since they expected him to be a "Wizard," after all. And what better way to kill two birds with one stone than to show off he has a spell that allows him to Comprehend Languages?

Of course, Nethruel was not wasting a spell slot to criticize his allies. Using a fey glamor, a sprinkling of soot and salt, and a bit of Sylvan, the Warlock imitated the casting of a spell utilizing Prestidigitation. He then placed his book down, walking towards the scene with his arms crossed

"Perhaps you lot have learned your lesson? Obnoxious theatrics while on the roads will get us all killed." Nethruel stated in Common, shaking his head. "And before you ask, I cast a spell that allows me to speak your simpleton language." Nethruel was aware that Comprehend Languages did not allow him to speak the language he was comprehending, but he was also aware that these fools wouldn't know the same.

"Hurry on with your strange burial rituals. In the Gloaming Court, our dead aren't afforded that luxury. We do have time to spare, at the very least, so I don't see much harm in indulging in your customs." Nethruel spoke as he marched along towards the unconscious goblin, making sure to avoid any brain matter on the way.

"I'm afraid I don't know the incantations needed to speak the languages of these little mongrels, but I can translate if needed, should we still plan to question it."

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Azra stumbled back in abject horror as the party healer brought the mace down on the head of their fallen comrade with a sickening crunching sound. A shower of blood and gore spat out from beneath its spiked head, splattering Azra across the face and torso. Still on his hands and knees he drew away, not quite believing what he had just witnessed. He reached up to wipe the blood from his face, only to realise his own hand was even more covered in it than his face was.

"I thought you were supposed to be some kind of bloody healer?!" He snapped angrily at the tortle. "Well, what fucking good are you if that's the first thing you try?! Remind me to never come to you for any kind of injury, I am rather attached to my head, and would prefer the sort of treatments that kept it in one piece. And y'know, NOT DEAD!"

Azra got to his feet and cast prestidigitation on himself, using the charm to quickly clean the blood and dirt off of his clothing, returning them to their unsoiled state. When he was finished he rounded on the Eldarin mage who seemed to have suddenly found his tongue.

"And you! You're one to talk! Maybe if you hadn't been so busy reading your precious fucking book this whole time, we might have spotted that ambush earlier and none of this would have happened?! So maybe you should learn that lesson, perhaps I'll even write it in a fucking book for you if that make's it easier!" He took a deep breath and regained what little was left of his composure. When he continued it was in a somewhat calmer tone, though a single tear did roll down his cheek as he spoke. "Now, if you'll excuse me. I am going to help send off our dearly departed Ironhunk."

Azra walked over to where the tortle laboured with the makeshift funeral pyre, passing close by the fighter's gathered effects as he did so. Though his face still looked genuinely distraught, anyone paying close attention to the tiefling's prehensile scarlet tail, might have noticed the tip of it suddenly dart into the pile of belongings. When it flicked back around to its owner, it was carrying something: the rest of the fallen warrior's coin purse.

Unfortunately, the coiled tip of the tail was not strong enough to hold the small pouch securely, and instead it scattered the remaining coins across the ground in front of Azra. He stopped dead in his tracks, looked the other party members in the eyes, and then very noticeably and very visibly bent down to pick up the fallen coins.

"Oh what?! He probably would have probably wanted me to have it anyway! Being the only one to show some goddamn compassion!"

The tiefling walked off with a huff and helped finish the pyre. When commanded he cast a brief spell, and the logs below it burst into flame. As the flames took, he listened to the words the tortle whispered to him silently. Nothing to say, for once.

---

The rogue was lucky to have already sheathed her rapier. Otherwise, she would have dropped it at the sight of what happened next. Zinlynn's eyes widened at Tibor as he raised his weapon and she tried to stop him, calling "No! WAIT--!"

But her words were left unheard. She was splattered with blood as Tibor ended Ironheart's life. In the past year she had her memory, she had never seen anything so gruesome. Her eyes were wide, her skin grew pallid, and her breathing grew erratic as she stared at Ironheart's body.

Her eyes slowly trailed away from the body to Neth as he spoke so coldly, and to Azra, who lashed out angrily.

The only words Zinlynn could muster towards Tibor were shaking and feeble,

"How....How could you...?"

She stumbled as she picked herself up and tried to help Azra with Ironheart's burial, her hands and legs shaking from the sight of an ally's death.

.....Was this her fault? She couldn't help but wonder to herself.

She noticed Azra taking Ironheart's gold, but didn't say anything. Gold is important, but right now...they needed to give Ironheart a proper funeral and focus on finding Gundren.

Once the pyre finally finished burning, Tibor turned away and rejoined the group. Zinlynn would need time, no doubt, to process what had just happened. Being a servant of Kelemvor, the cleric was used to the sight of grief. To her, his only response was a solemn nod, as acceptance of whatever blame she cared to lay on his shoulders.

"De warrior is right," he said, addressing the group, but looking at Nethruel. "Dese horses were dead well before Tibor's story began. De man who own dem, Gundren, he not here. If de had been close by when de fightin' happened, we would had heard de horses panic. No, dis here was an ambush. Tibor's story may make it hard to hear, but not so loud uttahs could not hear. Like de tiefling say, maybe if someone had not had dier eyes in a book, we woulda seen dem comin' dat much sooner."

Before the tiefling could add to his comment, Tibor would turn to him, pointing at his face with the end of his staff. "Not dat he de only one needs to learn a lesson. Dat gold goes to de party. Tibor take only alms for de church, ta pay funeral costs to Kelemvor. A little coin weigh well on de scales, an a warrior dat die in battle deserve the extra weight. De rest, it get split even. Understood?"

"Batiri not likely ta talk to us. But, dey are too stupid to hide deir tracks, and Gundren was a big mon. Tibor gonna go search de wreckage, see if he can't find sum tracks." With that, he did as he said, once more breaking away from the group. In Chult, goblins-there called batiri-rarely left tracks deep enough to follow, and were innately talented at hiding. However, that was natural to their species, and not an active effort to make it harder to follow them. So often, when they took captives, they did not think to hide the trail the body left as they dragged it. The large tortle hoped these odd main-land batiri were the same, as he began examining the area around the horses for signs of a struggle and a body being taken away.

(Survival roll to search for tracks: 12)

---

Watching the funeral pyre in silence, Nethruel could only sigh at the bustling emotions coming from his party. It was much worse than dealing with the Summer Court, he thought. Still, they were at the very least learned enough to know their place. Of course, Neth could not expect the same for all his allies. To him, they all were mere infants. After all, a year in the Material Plane is an eternity in the Feywild, so the Eladrin could only expect so much maturity out of those who have lived for as long as a mere wink to himself.

Of course, Nethruel could not possibly understand why they were mad with grief, especially since they were responsible for such a death to begin with. As far as the money was concerned, Neth cared little so long as it was put to good use. Still, it did not sit well with the Eladrin that the perpetrators would add him to blame. Perhaps if they were doing their job not distracting everyone else, then Neth would have also been ready for the ambush. Perhaps he should simplify his point...

"Perhaps I should explain this in a simpler matter that can be understood by the children?" Nethruel remarked, before clearing his throat and speaking in a more guttural tone. "Ooh, ooh, me Elf. Ahh, ahh, me have pointy ears. Ooh, ooh, pointy ears hear sound better than eyes see. Ahh, ahh, pointy ears less work well when fellow horned monkey and turtle scream into it." Clearing his throat once more, Nethruel stood above the unconscious goblin, allowing arcane energies to surge from his fingertips once more.

"Now, do we still require this one to live, or am I free to put it out of its misery, and out of our hairs?" Neth asked the others, holding his glowing hand near the unconscious goblin's head. Of course, Neth was hoping for the latter. Once less life to worry about, and one less knife to potentially end up in their backs.

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"Horned monkey? Horned monkey!?" Azra rounded on the eladrin, his caprid eyes burning with an internal fire, like that of funeral pyre behind him. Combined with his great curved horns, sharp pointed teeth, and scarlet coloured skin, could be quite the intimidating to the uninitiated. He got right up to the elf, mere inches from his face... before he fell about laughing.

"Ahaha! Horned monkey? I haven't heard that one in years! Really, really I haven't! Not since I was aboard the Gannet and that little ape the cook kept... or wait, was it the the quarter master? Anyway, doesn't matter, point is that the monkey got into the cargo hold which at the time was full dyeing powders bound for Waterdeep, turned all its fur crimson. Those bastards strapped a pair forks to its head and pretended the damn thing was me for the best part of a week."

The rest of the story trailed off in an series of increasingly intelligible giggling. When Azra finally pulled himself together, wiping the tears from his eyes, he pulled himself up straight and gave the eladrin a friendly slap on the arm.

"Well, harm no foul. Err.. to me at least. So we're good in my book. Ha, get it? Book." Azra winked and gave him a nudge with his elbow. Turning toward the unconscious goblin he continued: "As for this little scrote, I say chuck him on the pyre, unless we need him to find Gundren?"

At no point did Azra address the issue of sharing out the money he had stolen.

---

Azra's Rolls

Tibor wasn't paying attention to the rest of them. There were more important things to do than get caught up in squabbling and trying to pass blame. He did not hear the tiefling passing out the coin, but the actual cost of the maul and the chainmail would far outweigh that of the gold, so he simply made a mental note of it and decided when it came time to sell what they could not use the scales would be balanced then.

Searching the area, it took him longer than he had expected to find the drag marks, but eventually he did. As he had expected, the batiri of this land were no better at hiding their tracks than those of Chult. After taking his time to check,though, he realized that there were more than just the tracks for one dwarf here. There was another that the batiri had taken.

"Tibor find him some tracks. Gundren, by de boot prints. Look like him was captured alive, an went willingly. Not normal, for de dwarf people, but de batiri take more den jus him. Dere another set of prints here. Dis rescue gettin more and more complicated."

With that, he would stand and walk back to the group. He did not feel the urge to prove himself with words. So far, he had been the one to save their driver's life, after moving to protect it on the battle field. He had put the warrior from his misery and cared for his funeral, and now he had found their way forward. As far as Tibor was concerned, the rest of them needed to prove they were better for more than killing batiri and wasting time arguing.

As Zinlynn looked upon the funeral pyre, she almost hears none of the conversation between her allies. She was on her knees at disbelief as she tried to process what just happened. Thankfully she was able to snap herself out of her stupor, however her cheer had significantly diminished from before the fight.

She stepped up to her friends as they spoke of the goblin and she finally chimed in, her voice soft and quiet, "I believe we still need to question the goblin first. We need to know what to expect and what they want with Gundren. It's good that there is a path we can follow, but we need to be prepared for any possibility first..."

Her voice grew fainter at the last sentence. She had seen the ambush coming way ahead before the actual ambush, and yet...that didn't help Ironheart when he needed it the most...

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Azra took another couple of steps closer toward the unconscious goblin. He gazed down at it somewhat unsurely. Azra had some small experience with unconscious people, but mainly when they were too worse for wear of the drink, rather than truly on the brink of death. Still, might as well try. When he was standing directly above it, the tiefling prodded the goblin with the tip of one boot, in an attempt to wake the creature.

"Ermm... excuse me... Are you dead? It's just we had a few questions that we would like to ask you ab-" Azra stopped midsentence and shook his head. After a moment he raised one hand and slapped himself across the forehead. "Oops sorry, I forgot it was a goblin."

He stopped and cleared his throat loudly.

"EX-CUSE ME! ARE YOU DEAD?! HAVE QUEST-ION FOR YOU! WHERE GUN-DREN?!" Azra mimed the act of looking around for something before doing his best impression of a dwarf. "HOW MANY GOB-LINS?! WHERE IS YOUR LAIR?!"

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Azra's Rolls

Tibor let out a loud huff, the tiefling's antics amusing but seeming ultimately pointless. While there was a chance that the batiri might give them some information in exchange for its life, it seemed to the tortle unlikely. However, the longer they stood around debating what to do, the more likely they were to find their employer dead.

"Move," he would simply say, walking over to the small creature. It was stabilized at this point, likely to awaken on its own in an hour or so. Unfortunately, Tibor was without any proper tools to actually treat its wounds, and he was loath to expend his small supply of magic for the day on the task. Instead, he would use his claws to tear the creature's own clothing into bandages, using the strips of cloth to try and bind its wounds before splashing some water onto its face to try and bring it around.

(Medicine check to wake up goblin: 19)