Having been woken by the brawl between the Jaegermonster and the Golem, the soldiers break camp. After deliberating on their options:
- They can climb a forty story sheer marble wall.
- Or head south where the water in the fountain has drained out and been replaced with silt and tunnel through there.
- Or head north to where the fountain has a break, and deal with the mud people village that has formed at the base of the waterfall.
The Soldiers head north.
On the way there, the Were tiger is the first to notice that a fly is following them. This fly, about the comparative size of a St Bernard, is staying well out of bow shot, but is most definitely tracking their movements. They communicate with the Gryphon rider, and have her circle around in an attempt to either kill the fly or drive it into range of the rest.
Her ability to sneak is untrained, however, and the fly spots her well before she gets into range. The Illithid is mind controlling it, and as the Gryphon dives down to the fly, The Gryphon is controlled, and simply folds its wings closed, and falls in an uncontrolled spin to the ground!
Frantically the Rider maintains her seat onto the Gryphon, the rest of the soldiers watch, too far away to be helpful as she begins to fall to her death. At the last moment, she manages to tug on the ears of her beloved Gryphon, causing enough pain to shake the mind control off, and with that the Gryphon pulls out of the death dive. The fly remains in view, but stays on the wall of the fountain, far to high and distant to be attacked.
Darkness comes before they reach the village, The shield that covers the entire shard slowly sealing up and going dark. They decide rather than camp to continue to travel by night. The firemage ignites weapons for most of the group, creating light and heat, without damaging them. The Gryphon hates to fly in darkness, so spends its time walking with the rest of the group, audibly protesting once in a while. The Golem offers to let the Gryphon ride on his shoulders, but the Gryphon is not even slightly interested.
At least this way, the fly does not seem to be following them.
As the shield covering the land begins to lighten the next day, The Soldiers have traveled to the village of the Mud People. A few dozen adobe Yurts, resembling upside down turnips, with the pointy bit sicking straight up. Domesticated beetles all over the place, rooting around for intents and purposes as pigs, or maybe dogs.
As they stand there, taking this scene in, An orc crawls out of one of the yurts, and stands there scratching himself and watching the soldiers. He is completely unconcerned that a well armed group of mostly human warriors is near his home. He grunts a bit, and soon enough, other orcs begin to come out, some of the yurts holding a dozen orcs apiece. Soon hundreds of orcs surround the soldiers, Most of them larger than the humans, but smaller than the golem, some of them holding sticks and such, but not in a particularly threatening manner. Eventually the biggest orc of the group, clearly the leader shows up, and the chief stands there, waiting.
When the firemage makes the universal gesture of "octopus mouth" by wiggling her fingers under her chin like they were an animated braided beard, and the orcs repeat it without understanding, it becomes clear that communication is going to be a problem
Soon enough, the Jaegermonster realizes that many of the words these orcs speak are the same as his own language, heavilly accented. Soon he is able to translate enough to be understood. After a few moments, the group are able to explain to the orcs that they want to climb the waterfall in order to kill an Illithid. The orcs see this as a good reason, but won't let them go until they pay the chief.
The orcs don't care much for money, and soon the group each comes up with a gift. The weretigers gift is the best received, a hand held assassin's crossbow and several bolts. After explaining how to use it, the Chief is shooting the crossbow over and over, aiming mostly at smaller orcs, with a cheer going up whenever the chief succeeds. The mace gifted by the Michaelite also goes over well... orcs take turn hitting each other with it all day long.
The golem has nothing to give, so offers to arm wrestle one of them. the Orcs LOVE this idea, and soon a call goes out. a Tugolith emerges, walking on its hind legs. (A tugolith most resembles a large talking rhinocerous, but is considered a domesticated draft animal by most races.) The contest is over soon, with the Tugoith winning. The Orcs are disappointed that the golem kept his arm.
Once all gifts have been exchanged, the Orcs refuse to let the soldiers go, happily herding them into a yurt, and keeping them there all day, feeding them well, even supplying live aphid-like insects for the weretiger to eat, the equivalent size and taste of a chicken. The orcs treat them as guests but are not letting them leave.
Only the next morning does the group manage to sneak out of the yurt and start their climb. Its at this point that the Illithid finds them again, and several of the orcs get controlled and start to head towards them. The firemage uses all her reserves to create a thick flaming wall on top of the mud, and completely blocks the mind flayers attack.
The rest of the orcs are curious as to why several of them are deliberately zombie-walking through a wall of fire, but not enough to repeat this behaviour. The zombified ones aren't coordinated enough to climb, and stand there watching, on fire, as the solders ascend. eventually the Illithid releases its control, and the orcs loudly and comically extenguish themselves to the laughter of the hundreds of others now watching this event.
During the climb the Illithid tries again and again to control the soldiers, but they are either too intelligent, stubborn or stone-headed for it to be successful.The Jaegermeister was able to resist all the efforts of the Mind flayer during the climb, and the entire group makes it to the flat top of the outer ring of the fountain. The Weretiger is controlled breifly, but this is banished instantly when he is touched by Githyanki. She is wearing a gods tear amulet, and its power completely banished the mind attack.
And that's where they are, On top of the outer ring, overlooking the water of the fountain. They can see they must cross this koi filled vast lake, where they must climb a second, taller sheer wall to the middle ring, and possibly an even longer climb to the central top.
