Dellas pulls out his stone gargoyle from his pouch, he leans it close to his mouth and whispers a word to it. Springing to life the small gargoyle looks up to Dellas, cocking it's head to it's side "My Friend there is a creature up there trying to trick us. Let's see if we can catch him." Dellas speaks softly to the gargoyle as he points into the trees where the Grig is last known to be tossing acorns from.

Haazheel falls to the ground with a hard thump as Mystique wings off through the trees after where they assume Stumpkin is.  Mystique's claws swing out but catch only air, Stumpkin having vanished again!



Cats do not blush, but that is indeed the impressing that Averdante gets, that Prreet is exceedingly embarrassed for being caught in such a trap.  He shakes all four legs without any seeming harm, and glares up into the trees.  Slowly turning his head, Prreet focuses his attention on four different spots in the branches surrounding them. 



Volsh's senses catches on one spot in the trees where a small figure is crouched.  It is nearly invisible, but slight disturbances in the leaves and the way the branch bends let him figure out where it is.



Mystique's flight eases into calmer wingbeats, and the acorns cease their barrage from one quarter.



Thunder and Narthian ease away from the camp, but the scent is very faint indeed.  The direction says that it heads directly towards the camp where Lantamori was staying.



Kelvren the gargoyle spreads his little wings and flits up into the trees.  There's a squawk, and a shriek, and then a small whirlwind of tussling figures can be seen rolling back and forth on a branch above.  Acorns pour like rain as gargoyle and a tiny figure dressed in leaves wrestle on the branch above!

--



Following the wake of the angry horse isn't too hard, particularly when Demon shrieks in anger a few more times.  She catches up to him in a few minutes, the horse with his front hooves braced against a tree, toothy jaws snapping at a hole in the trunk, tiny shrieks and flung stones issues with vehemence from within.

"There are four of them!" Dante alerts the others, and a moment later, Dellas' gargoyle catches one of the quartet. "Remember Stumpkin is only the ringleader of a group of them." He glances up into the trees where Prreet had detected them, but doesn't want to actually harm any of the grigs, so keeps his bow down.

"We should probably not let them delay us."

"Easy now, little friends," Farian calls into the trees. "We mean you no harm! I swear it by Pelor's Light." She acknowledges Averdante's comment with a sideways glance and nod of her head, an indication that he should keep up the pursuit of the ringleader. "Come now. Please, sit on this branch here, and my friends will call off their pets."

Diplomacy: 18:33, Today: Farian Raymellie rolled 20 using 1d20+10 ((10)).

Keen elf-wolf ears catching the concern in Averdante's voice, Narthian wills extra speed of step for himself and Thunder. The two wolves double time it towards the guessed location of Stumpkin.

Casting Longstrider with Share Spell for his companion. Base speed 60. Will Run were possible.

Haazheel holds his ire when he hears Farian speak.

Lantamori looked around for a rock or something she could use to plug the hole in the tree, trapping the miscreant with the horse's help.

Dellas watched with interest towards the trees above as Kelvren worked to capture a grig, he was worried his friend might get hurt. He instinctively began to pet Vish who sat curled up in his lap at the moment.

Volsh pointed at the spot he'd seen one of the grigs for others. He started to set out after Narthian and Thunder, but quickly realized that they would outpace even his long strides.

He looked back to the group and waited to see what fruit Farian's words bore.

Prreet sniffs and looks around, then back at Averdante and shakes his head.



Though the one being tossed about by Dellas' gargoyle is still making a fuss, the rain of acorns stops momentarily.

"Stop the stone one from hurting Leaffin and we'll talk!" a high voice rings out.

--



Narthian and Thunder run quickly through the forest, hearing a horses agitated screams.

They come across a peculiar scene of Demon stomping, snorting, and snapping at a hole in the bole of a tree, some high-pitched shrieking therein, and Lantamori with a hefty-sized chunk of fallen branch in her hand (a big enough stone being not conveniently nearby).  She tries to gentle Demon, but he is... an irascible beast.  She settles for darting in and jamming the plug of wood in the hole in an instant where his nose isn't in it, thumping it down to form a plug.  The shrieks are now much more muffled, though Demon still snorts at the tree in anger.

Volsh chuckled at the scene, unsure what to do when the foes were so small and so magical that he couldn't catch up to them. He let Farian do her bit talking to the creatures. Maybe they could end this without a fight...

"Stumpkin isn't one of the ones here," Dante tells Farian quietly, then moves on, continuing with Prreet back toward the camp. He doesn't try to hide what he's doing from the fey in the trees, but merely move unobtrusively, fading back to let Farian, Volsh, and the situation with the little gargoyle hold the stage. Once he's eased a safer distance away, he resumes his earlier jog toward the campsite.

Dante and Prreet both keep a sharp eye out for more snares and other traps.

Lantamori left Demon to guard the plugged tree while she returned to checking the other horses and the perimeter.

Farian gives Averdante a thumbs up. "Dellas, call Kelvren back if you would please."

Seeing that things are under control, Narthian and Thunder sit and watch Demon with amusement. He will interfere only if the beastly horse appears to be in danger of freeing what he is guessing to be a grig inside the tree.

He'll have to drop his wild shape to intervene, using his Handle Animals skill (+10) to calm Demon.

Mystique returns to Haazheel, who is fuming. He says I don't think they can be driven off, so seems to me the alternatives are a bargain or a killing.

"Kelvren please release him and return." Dellas calls out towards his gargoyle friend, he then turns his voice towards the direction of the other voice trying to take a serious tone, but failing as he giggles slightly at the thought of some of the pranks  "It is done, we do not wish to hurt you but your pranks are no longer funny."

Volsh stood there, unsure what to do in the current situation. He had very little to offer to resolve this situation.

"Thank you, Dellas, Haazheel." She looks up into the trees, speaking in friendly yet firm tones. "My friends have done me this favor. They may not again. So let's talk before someone gets hurt, shall we?"

Ready an Action: at the first sign of fiddling, cast Magic Circle Against Evil centered on herself.

Kelvren looks a little disappointed, but releases the pixie with a sneer and returns to Dellas, a grin on his face.  The pixie flies up to a higher branch, staring at the little gargoyle with wide eyes.  Three more become visible on various trees around the clearing, looking a little subdued, but mostly annoyed.

"It was fun until you let the little stone loose!  He isn't fun either, yelling so loud and being so mean to Stumpkin!  It's funny when you dance around and curse and prance, but not at us!" one of them says.



"We didn't hurt anyone!  We just livened things up!  People danced and ate and were silly had silly things happened but no one got hurt.  You're just a stick-in-the-mud!" one pixie protests.

--



At the perimeter, she sees Thunder and Narthian in wolf form, followed after a short while by Averdante.  Demon continues to snap and stamp at the tree, provoking more muffled shrieks from within.



Demon looks more than ready to knock the tree down and splinter it with his hooves to get at what lies within, so Narthian takes a moment to calm him as Averdante catches up.  As Demon's noises calm down, Stumpkin's voice is heard within.

"Please let me out!  It was all pranks, just little harmless jokes!  Don't feed me to the devil horse!"

"Watch out for snares," Lantamori warned the wolves and archer.

"Demon and I have the one trapped in a tree," she added pointing in the direction of the snorting horse.

"Yes, we encountered a few on our way back, courtesy of Stumpkin's friends," Dante replies to Lantamori's warning. "That's Stumpkin himself, from the sounds of it." Taking in the scene again, he can't help a laugh. "Caught by a horse!"

That sparks an idea, and he moves a little closer, although careful not to get between the horse and the tree. "I wonder what your friends will think of this, Stumpkin," Dante asks, speaking clearly enough to be sure the grig will hear him. "Getting caught by a common horse, of all things." Not that Demon is even remotely a "common" horse, but no need to share that with Stumpkin.

Glancing over at Narthian, and still speaking so the grig can hear, he asks speculatively, "I bet Stumpkin's friends will find this hilarious when we tell them about it." Can a grig be embarassed? Do they worry about their reputations? Stumpkin is the ringleader, so that implies he's more deviously clever than the others, causing them to follow his lead. What would happen if his reputation took a hard hit?

Narthian nods agreement to Averdante before peering inside the tree. "Imagine being eaten by a horse when there are perfectly good wolves nearby!" he laughs mirthfully. "That would be a humorous tale! I don't know about your friends, my fine grig, but some of mine would laugh about it around our campfires for years to come. But don't worry, I have the horse under control. It is safe to come out. Better hurry, though, I think this tree is getting smaller!" He waits to see the grig climb out, then casts Diminish Plants on the tree, causing it to shrink to 1/3 of its size.

It says that Duration is instantaneous, but I sort of see it shrinking over the course of the casting action - so say three seconds? - so as to not crush the poor guy. If it truly is instant, then Narthian waits until all but one foot are out of the tree.

Farian addresses the grig. "Yes, I know! Otherwise I will not have asked my friends to back down. You see, we are hardened adventurers, and they have recently battled with a foul, sorcerous necromancer and are in no mood for snares." She puts on an exaggerated frown. "And, thankfully, I was compelled to dance against my will for only a limited amount of time. So now we understand that you meant no harm, and you understand the we," she indicates the party, "have a differing opinion of what we consider to be harmful. So let's go find your friend Stumpkin with no further misunderstandings, shall we?"

Diplomacy: 17:13, Today: Farian Raymellie rolled 25 using 1d20+10 ((15)).

Dellas pulled out a small chocolate and split it in two handing one piece to his stoney friend while eating the other "Thank you." His gaze than wandered up to the others above