Corson watches in sheer wonder, Maybe this will work after all..."
He looks at Crax and shrugs...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"I think a predator hurt their queen and drove them out of their home. I', going to offer to help them"
To the spiders :
"Can we help heal your queen? Where is this predator. Together we can kill it or drive it off, you can then return home"
"I'm not opposed to that, as long as they don't turn on us. Is treachery in the domain of spiders?" Corson muses.
Be about it, then.
"You kill beast. We go back. Else, you die. Beast north."
"We seem to have a deal with the spiders. If we kill the beast that lies to the north they say that they'll return home. Shall we take the deal? If we do, we should scout out and then see if we'll need the elves to help us kill it or not. They're not going to help us, though"
"We can at least try and scout it out. All it costs us is a little time."
Corson, who has been leaning on a nearby tree until now, watching with interest, hefts his warhammer to his shoulder as he steps up, "Very well. It sounds fantastical, but hey, what have we to lose? Let us scout it out and find out what beast have chased these spiders from their home."
Narnel nods and moves forward to the north, scouting for whatever threatens the spiders.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Scratching his head at the absolutely absurdity of it all, "Well, I guess we are off to do the bidding of spiders, in order to aid the elves, to please the mayor to appease the lord. . .crazy"
He'll start off, following Narnel hopefully North.
"Well, I guess we are off to do the bidding of spiders, in order to aid the elves, to please the mayor to appease the lord. . .crazy"
Pavel chuckles at this summary
"Pretty much. But so far we've been pretty successful. Better to talk than to die"
Trekking northward, the better part of an hour passes before you start to notice that the webbing in the area is lower to the ground, and seems more like cobwebs than actively-used webs. Furthermore, much of the webbing has been destroyed, as if trampled by something too big to care.
As you talk about the supposition that you must be in the spiders' old territory, you begin to hear a rumbling sound. It grows louder and louder, sounding like something crashing through the underbrush, but it echoes through the forest and sounds almost like it's coming from every direction at once.
Scanning the area for the source of the noise, Pavel manages to spot two creatures right before they burst out from among the trees, straight toward him!
Two large wurms charge at Pavel from different angles and bite with massive jaws!
,
,
Pavel quickly goes limp in their jaws, and they drop him and growl menacingly at the rest of you!
These are craw wurms. Basically a pair of these: LINK
They're strong, mean, and have an uncanny ability to "hide" in a forest despite their size: you'll know they're nearby, but might not know where.
Corson smiles and claps the dragonborn's shoulder as he passes by, "Friends in all shapes and sizes, Craghorn... all shapes and sizes."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Startled as Pavel is literally ripped apart right next to him, "By all the gods!"
Crax will fire off a magic missile, three missiles shaped like arrows erupt from his fingers firing off at one of the wurms.
S!!+e! Craw wurms! See to Pavel! Tag the beasts, if you can, they are easy to lose track of, even if you are staring right at them!
Corson slides his shield off his back and wades into battle!
Since, I am pretty sure that is a hit, I will spend an Superiority Die, for a Goading attack. The Craw wurm will have disadvantage if it attacks anyone but me.
Narne punches the air in front of him and a fist of energy makes a beeline to the Craw Wurm not under attack by Corson.
"Pavel!" the small halfling shrieks as she hustles toward the fallen druid. She places a hand on his arm and heals his wounds slightly through her supernatural touch.
Cedany strides forwards (though remains behind Corson) and lightning flares from her fingers (not sure who's hitting which one, but whichever looks like most of a threat).
Crax tags one of the wurms with magic, then Corson follows up with a solid thump to draw its attention!
Narnel blasts the other wurm with a fist of air, but it seems to barely care! Cedany follows up with a sustained arc of lightning!
Meanwhile, Holly revives Pavel!
"Thank you Holly!!!"
That hurts. They HURT me. Cannot allow that"
As a bonus action Pavel transforms himself into a bear and then tries to return the favour against the beast that ripped into him.
for
for
Pavel turns into a bear and tears into one of the wurms!
The wurms roar in anger, and go crashing back out into the trees! You can once again hear a rumbling that seems to surround you, and it doesn't seem like they're fleeing the area...
Corson moves toward the others, "Form a defensive circle! Toughest of us on the outside! Ready attacks at the first movement!"
Keeping his back to the others, he watches out into the forest readying a swing of his warhammer!
Forming up with Corson and Holly, Crax lets loose a smokey growl as he prepares his firebreath for whatever appears.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Right! Let's do this!" Holly giggles a little then smiles at Crax as she readies her nunchaku.
"Rooaaarrr"
Pavel joins the circle on the outside. He will then try and smell the wurms as they come in.
Bears get Keen Scent so advantage on Perception based on snekk
If he smells them coming in, he'll move to interpose and, of course, tell his friends
"Rooooooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrhhhh"
"Anyone know how these things track prey. I can try and create a prey-scent, see if we can make them come from an advantageous direction? Of course if they're cunning it may not work."
Narnel readies an attack for the first that he can see within 45'.
You all wait tensely for the wurms to reemerge from the woods, when suddenly...
...Corson looks in the exact right direction just in time to react to the massive creature rocketing out of the forest in front of him, jaws open!
,
Corson is bitten hard, but takes it like a champ and returns with his own blow, followed up by a ray from Cedany and halitosis from Crax!
The barrage of attacks makes the wurm go limp, nearly pulling Corson to the ground before its jaw loosens and falls off of the fighter!
Then, the other wurm bursts out toward Narnel!
,
Narnel is nearly bitten in half, but jabs his staff straight into the beast's eye! Holly follows up with a nunchuku to the throat!
The massive wurms lie motionless on the forest floor. You hear another rustling, and the group of elves you met earlier step out hastily, weapons drawn. They look around, survey you and the fallen wurms, then the leader demands, "What happened? And is that bear the same guy who was a spider earlier?"
Smoke still spilling from his mouth, Crax looks around for the source o the voice before realizing its the Elves, "Yeah. That's still Pavel, he has many forms,"
Heaving a couple more breaths out, "These wurms or worms maybe wyrms who knows, attacked us, they drove the spiders out of their original nest, we are clearing it up so they can move back home,"
Corson grimaces at his wound, sits down and begins to tend to it. "Crag wurms," the knight spits in disgust.
"Oh. Hi. Look Crax. It's those elves we met earlier. Isn't that nice of them to follow us and make sure we're ok?" The halfling skips forward and extends her hand in greeting. "I'm Holly. You might not remember me from before. I'm kind of short."
Arrogant bastards. I should rip them apart too. Wait,Nice little one talking. Friends?
What is happening to me? Angry. Must fight it. Turn back
Pavel turns back into human form and growls at the Elves
Yeah, I'm Pavel. Druid. Made deal with spiders
Cedany has little add, Crax seems to have about covered it. She watches the elves reaction though, they seemed to appear a little too quickly, even given the noise of the Wurms
The elven lady stammers a bit, her mouth forming the first syllable of one unspoken word after another as she repeatedly changes her mind about how to begin. Presently, she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes in thought for a moment, then speaks.
"Okay," she says. "My team headed east as discussed, but soon found the edge of the spiders' new territory and therefore doubled back to make sure you cretins weren't up to no good. One of my scouts noticed signs of wurm activity, so we followed both it and you in this general direction until we heard them crashing through the trees. Of course, craw wurms being like they are, we had to brace for an attack from any direction, so we didn't continue forward until it stopped."
She sweeps a hand toward the dead wurms. "Turns out we were pretty close to the action after all. So you lot took out the wurms, and if I've got this straight, you did so because you made a deal with the spiders? That is, you talked to the spiders, found out the wurms drove them from their home, and agreed to reclaim the spiders' territory for them?"
She surveys your nodding heads for a moment, her face incredulous. After a bit, she rubs her temples, then addresses you again.
"That's... really bizarre, but kind of impressive as well. Where did you say you were from again?"
As I said earlier, I am from an elven settlement just northwest of here in these very woods, but we have all made a home of Wood Creek Village as of late.
Looking around at his allies, putting a hand on Pavel's shoulder, "We are from Wood Creek, its a small village not too far from the forest, we need wood to build a wall around our village,"
"We DID say that we wanted to get the wood we need without damaging the woods in any way. And we DID say that we didn't want to kill the spiders unless absolutely necessary. So, making a deal with the spiders just seemed the most obvious solution"
"We're from Wood Creek and we need materials to build a wall around our village and to protect ourselves. Materials that we will take without harming the forest. We'd definitely appreciate your help, especially in accomplishing the latter"
Inspiration on persuasion
Corson claps his hand on Pavel's shoulder with a smile, "What my friend is trying to say is, we have great respect for this place and all of its inhabitants."
"And this time it wasn't my fault!" Holly adds, cheerfully.
I wonder why none of the elves have shaken hands with me yet.
"We seek no harm, only to protect our community from threats. Causing problems from our neighbors only makes us all weaker."
To Pavel:
"Do we need to seal the deal with the spiders, I'm afraid my spidrish is sadly lacking, so I don't know the details of your deal, Pavel"
The elven leader listens to you each in turn, then thinks a moment. Soon she speaks:
"I've never seen outsiders try so hard to preserve the integrity of the forest. Alright, you've earned my trust, at least tentatively. My name is Elless. Give me three days to explain the situation to others and oversee the un-relocation of the spiders. Then, we will mark individual trees in the area that are acceptable to harvest. As long as your villagers only take the marked trees, I think we can get along."
For the first time since you've met her, Elless smiles.