"A fire helps keep the beasties away. Not to mention the bugs."
"Well that sounds like good reason not to have a fire", says Mannfred, preoccupied with something he has found in his hair. He squishes it between his finger and thumb, pops it in his mouth, and gives Giles a friendly grin.
Eldan looks like he throws up in his mouth a little when Mannfred pops whatever it is into his mouth and says, “I am certainly not eating raw meat and seeing as the light provides warmth and vision, we will be going with a fire. If we are concerned about predators seeing our fire from far off I am sure,” gesturing to Mannfred, “that our esteemed Druid here will be able to build an adequate shelter around the fire to minimize its visibility.”
Mannfred does his best to build some kind of shelter with whatever materials are at hand.
"I hope this is adequate."
Using rocks and mud from the nearby stream, Mannfred is able to quickly fashion the most amazing firepit the other adventurers have ever seen.
Grodar finally puts his foot down and decides for the party that they will use Zigil's watch schedule.
Around the middle of the half-orc soldier's watch, a few things happen. "Dog" growls, waking Mannfred, then stalks off to the southwest, hackles raised. The mule trots to the east end of its tether rope. Garm whines and slinks into Giles' tent, then tries to burrow into the farmer's bedroll.
Mannfred changes shape into a wolf with matted fur. He howls to wake the sleeping party members, and moves off to join Dog.
"Zzzzzz good doggy zzzzzzz"
Grodar loads his crossbow, and before following Mannfred, he calls out to the others, “Get up, I think we’ve got some company!”
The rest of the party is woken by the combination of Grodar's shouting and the dirty wolf's howling.
As Grodar passes the snarling Dog, at the edge of his darkvision he can see a strange-looking big cat. It resembles a mountain lion, but it's much more muscular and it carries itself in a more upright posture than a cat.
As soon as it sees Grodar, it lets loose with a bone-chilling scream, then circles around to the east.
"Quit your complaining you daft dog. It's just an overgrown kitty cat."
Giles gets up and retrieves his hammer.
Mannfred and Dog will head in the direction of the noise. They both have low light vision, and Dog has scent.
If Mannfred spots the source, then
Will Save: 14 + 7 = 21
For when I see the thing:
Knowledge Arcana = 13 + 13 = 26
Slei will move out of the tent towards the noise and load her sling staff.
Garm ignores Giles' calming words, and flees into the night.
The two wolves are able to close upon the great cat, though they can only barely make it out in the dim light .
Slei wakes to the shouts of the group, and has the best intentions of helping, but that horrifying scream makes her flee from it. However, she regains control of herself after running away for a few seconds. A shame she left her staff in her tent.
The panicked mule snaps its tether rope and follows Garm.
Groggily, Eldan gets up, “What is going on? Do you need my help?” As he crawls out of the tent, “I hope you don’t need me and I can go back to sleep.”
Zigil bolts awake at Grodar's warning, and grabs her longsword. A sudden panic overcomes her. He drops the longsword and scrabbles under the wall of the tent furthest from the scary creature. Stumbling to his feet, he begins to run, eyes wild with fear.
"Get back to bed, wizard. We will handle this."
If the creature is within darkvision range, Grodar will fire his crossbow at it and then move towards it.
Grodar's shot goes into the dark distance.
Mannfred's and Dog's sensitive wolf noses can smell a rancid musk exuding from the cat creature.
In front of the shapechanged druid's eyes, the cat's hide seems to shrink a bit, and an additional pair of legs grow out of its body. It attempts to bite and latch onto the druid, but he is too quick.
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Giles steps out of his tent and uses his hammer to cast enlarge person on himself.
"Stop beast! ''Tis hammer time."
Dog 5' steps 'south' and attempts to bite the cat thing.
And tries to pull it down.
Mannfred moves 5' diagonally to flank the cat.
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As Giles shuffles sideways from his tent wearing harem pants, Dog begins retching, and is unable to do anything beyond moving.
Mannfred does not have Dog's help, and his bite completely misses the nimble cat. The stench of the creature does not help.
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Slei returns to her tent and picks up and loads her sling-staff. Eldan takes Giles at his word and rolls over, for now.
Grodar will drop his crossbow and charge to O-5.
Unless Giles can charge, he will double move toward the cat, stopping 10' away from it.
Grodar runs across the scrub and strikes a heavy blow.
As Zigil continues to flee, the cat unleashes a flurry of blows against Mannfred.
The cat latches on to Mannfred with its jaws, and four of its six claws rake furiously against the transformed druid.
Delay. But Mannfred will act before the cat thing does again.
Slei will spend her turn moving towards the cat-thing.
Grodar 5-foot steps down to where he can flank with Mannfred and unleashed a brawler’s flurry.
Zigil continues to flee in the darkness.
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