We had our first casualty yesterday. I had expected it to be one of the guards or maybe one of our guides, but in fact it was Pieros. The man that had called himself one of the most promising scholars on wildlife and creatures, had been wandering out on his own, as some tracks had led him away from the campsite. His agonizing cries startled us all deeply. As the guards carried him back, he was rambling, his eyes wide open in terror, the makeshift stretcher held him steady, but he was already talking in tongues, flailing his arms about.
We had no healer or priest with us, the guards had some bandages and splints for treating common weapon-induced. It took two of the biggest guards to keep Pieros down, while Captain Merra examined Pieros’ body. Merra’s face turned sour, when she found two small puncture wounds, near Pieros’ ankle; the area of skin around them swollen and purple, the veins black and twitching from the wound. Sha’duush shook his head, “It’s over, he doesn’t live another day, the Fokal Mamba is deadly.” The guards took off their helmets, and bowed their heads. Merra turned to me, “I trust you can handle his documents and the sad news. We won’t be able to get his body back out of the forest, I need all the guards to protect this expedition.” I had thought it a little rude to talk about Pieros like that, when he was still flailing.
About an hour later, his veils had grown weaker, foaming at the mouth, his pupils darted side to side in his head. We had all tried to ignore it, but it was clear that some of the guards wasn’t taking it very well. When his veiling suddenly stopped, everyone sighed in relief. But seeing Mithrik pull a curved dagger out of Pieros’ chest, it almost caused the guards to draw blades at the Tabaxi. Luckily, Captain Merra stood up before things got out of hand. Our morale had taken a beating, but our expedition funder, a merchant and noble that I had heard referred to as “Don Kelprys”, insisted that we continued.
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