Meanwhile, Gourbain is idling around the campfire when he hears a subtle noise a little ways off. The camp is situated in a small grove of trees in a large patch of grassland, and he sneaks out into the trees to see where the noise might have come from, and sees a kobold standing idly out in the field, facing toward the camp. He sneaks back to the campfire and tells Nars about the kobold. They make a plan for a simultaneous surprise attack, prepare their weapons and sneak out, hiding behind the largest trees.

Just before Gourbain gives the agreed-upon hand signal for them to attack, Nars waves his hands like "stop stop stop" and motions to go back to camp. When they meet again at the campfire, Nars explains that from his vantage point when preparing to attack the kobold, he saw another one, and was concerned that there might be more. Maybe it isn't a good idea charging out there to attack them.

So the two of them decide to take a bit more time to assess, since the kobolds that they saw don't seem to be doing anything immediately. So both of them sneak around in different directions, remaining hidden as best they can behind the trees, and have a look around. When they return, Nars reports that he saw quite a few kobolds, and one cultist, and they seem to be spread out as if surrounding the camp. Gourbain reports that he also saw many kobolds and a few cultists, and at one point when he was moving between hiding places, he came accidentally into plain view of one of the cultists. He was pretty sure the cultist saw him, but didn't make any move. What are they doing, and what are they waiting for?

Gourbain and Nars consider a number of different strategies, and ultimately decide to disguise themselves as hunters, since they know them to be common around these parts, and friendly to the cultists. Gourbain has a disguise kit, so they use that, and some of their spare leather items to make themselves look as much like the hunters as they can. Then Gourbain wanders casually out of the woods toward one of the cultists.

"Oh hi," he says, "I just noticed you guys here, what's going on?"

"Well who are you?" answers the cultist with a question.

"I'm a hunter," explains Gourbain.

"And who is with you?"

"Another hunter."

"There are only two of you here?"

"Yes, our friends are camping here too, but they are out hunting."

"We heard reports of a group of adventurers that were giving us trouble back in Greenest."

"Oh we saw those guys - a halfling, some humans, a couple of elves, a dwarf, a dragonborn and some cat-looking dude? Pretty ugly crew. We saw them heading south."

The cultist seems partially convinced by his accurate descriptions, but not quite. "Can we come take a look at your camp?"

"I would prefer you didn't."

"Sounds like something somebody would say who was hiding our enemies."

"No, it's just that we have two wolves and they are very territorial. I'd hate to see what would happen when they get their claws on you."

The cultist pauses and looks Gourbain over carefully, but in the end decides that he must be telling the truth. "False alarm, guys," he calls out, "it's just a hunters' camp. Let's go." The kobolds and cultists gather up into a loose group and head off in the direction of the raider's camp.

At the same time, Elfo, Bilbo and Black Barry are just coming down the trail from the back entrance to the raiders' camp. Their invisibility now worn nearly off, they found each other easily, and quickly scrambled far enough away from the camp not to be easily seen. Luckily they have a high vantage point and see the group of cultists and kobolds coming back from the camp. They hide among the large rocks around the trail, and the group passes without noticing them. They make it back to camp just before noon, just in time to hear a huge boom from the direction of the raiders' camp, and wonder what caused it.

Hooflepoof, still invisible in his cloak, didn't leave the camp. Instead he sneaks over and inspects the large tent, which he suspects of containing some of the more important cultists. Of course it is guarded by a number of guards and drakes, who are very attentive, and there are no gaps in the tent. But he sneaks around to the back, and lifts up a tiny corner of the tent and peeks inside. He sees the woman in flowing purple robes that they saw back in Greenest, and a fierce-looking half-black dragon human. The half-dragon is angrily assailing anyone within earshot about how they could be so incompetent as to let escape a totally beaten, tied up, scrawny little monk! Everybody else is apologizing quietly in between her outbursts and just trying to escape her wrath.

Hooflepoof still has the invisible bomb that he snagged from a cultist in Greenest, so he very quietly lights it, and rolls it under the tent into the middle of the crowd. He runs away as fast as he can, and is not more than twenty feet away when there is a BOOM so powerful it knocks him to the ground. He gets up and looks back, seeing the tent half collapsed, and several of the guards, also knocked to the ground, scrambling up and running in the door to see if they can help.



He sneaks back over to the tent and attempts to light it on fire, but it is made of heavy leather and he has only a tinderbox, so he can't get it to catch. Instead he scrambles underneath the canvas into the tent.

There are blood and bodies everywhere. The woman in purple is lying motionless on the ground, as are several of her guards, and several others are tending their wounds. The half-dragon has one arm that is rather bloody but she seems otherwise healthy, and even angrier than before.

Hooflepoof sneaks over and grabs the purple robes and halberd from the dead woman and scramble for the exit, but two of the guard drakes notice them appearing to move by themselves, and suspecting somebody invisible, start thrashing all the empty space in the tent, and one of them manages to land a hard blow across Hooflepoof's back, wounding him but not critically. He scrambles out of the tent the same way he came in, and using his Boots of Striding and Springing, bounds over the guards and out of the camp.

Karat and Elbolin start to feel like their friends might be in danger and increase their speed by about 10%.