Chasing Barbarians

----> The broken party dives headlong into the greenery. By the time the group reaches the barbarians’ entry point, Tharg and Conner are gone. A not-too-far-off baying call echoes through the green, signaling their position.

----> The group sprints after them without a word, hopping over exposed roots and fallen logs, and ducking under lowhanging branches and vines. Emerald leaves slap across their faces as they hurry to catch up with the hard-charging duo. They seem to be gaining ground.
----> A sudden call from very nearby sounds of shock and surprise rather than of triumphant victory. It is distinctly Tharg’s voice that is heard.
----> Conner’s voice is not far behind, tone of alarm in its cry.
----> “THARG!”
----> Meggana, Grant, Cyrdan, and Alasdair all break out of the jungle’s thick obstruction and into a tiny clearing, no more than fifteen feet across. There, standing in the center, is Conner. His hands are outstretched to the sky and he is jumping up and down, as if trying to reach something. High above him, hanging from a tree branch, tangled in a net like a fly in a spider’s web, is Tharg. The rope net trap he has been caught in hangs at least twenty feet from the jungle floor.
----> “What the--”
----> Alasdair is at a loss for words as well.
----> Only Cyrdan can find his tongue. “Let’s just get him down and look around a bit.”
----> Alasdair can hardly contain a bad case of the giggles. Meggana’s smirk, too, is difficult to mask. Conner seems genuinely worried for Tharg.
----> “Tharg smell pussy,” he says. “Tharg chase pussy. Tharg find sack hanging from tree. Tharg touch sack.” He points up at the treetops and says, “Tharg fall up.”
----> The net trap is simplistic but effective. It runs across a branch and down the trunk to a lower limb where it is tied off. It uses a basic weight and pulley system design. It shouldn’t be hard to get Tharg down, depending on how hard they want to let Tharg down.
----> Conner approaches the tree holding Tharg in its grasp. He drops his enormous sword, throws his huge arms around the tree’s base, and begins to scale the tree. It isn’t an unusually large tree, but it does stand a good forty or fifty feet up. Conner reaches the tie down point for the netting and loosens the knot. He does his best to let Tharg down easily, though the weight of his big brethren combined with the weight of whatever was used at bait make it difficult.
----> Tharg lands on his back on the soft, mossy ground. He stands up, brushing himself free of the leaves and moss that cling to him. He seems to have avoided injury, although his massive rowing oar, his weapon of choice, has been splintered.

----> Conner descends to join the others in inspecting a group of sacks all tied together in heap at the middle of the downed netting.
----> “Smart,” Grant states, looking down over Cyrdan’s back. “When I was enlisted in the Force, we tied and hung our supplies from trees to avoid scavengers. These boys know their stuff.”
----> This makes sense to the rest of the group. Tharg, rummaging through the sacks, finds some dried fruits and helps himself. He offers some to the others.
----> “Too much fruit,” Conner declines, rubbing his stomach.

----> There is also a small tinderbox, a length of hefty rope, a small mirror, a sack of gunder roots*, a brass helm, three sets of leather bracers, a sheathed dagger, two pouches full of kanchil jerky, a sharpening stone, and two thin ponchos made from animal skins.
----> The group divvies up the supplies, Alasdair snatching up the dagger before anyone can protest, and presses back toward the beach.

----> On the return march, Cyrdan is ever watchful of the surrounding area. Meggana comments that she can feel the hair on her neck standing up. The group freezes and listens closely to the jungle sounds. The distant call of the seabirds, as well as the random simian cries of the Baragonian Macaques ring out across the jungle’s interior.
----> The group moves on and finishes its journey to the beach where they find Alliandra and Tilwic involved in a conversation about higher powers and such things.
----> The group rehashes their story to the two priests and then the party moves on into the jungle. Grant and Meggana take point on a nearly unnoticeable pathway as they proceed toward Baragon Temple to the north.