The gnome moves closer, readying her hammer, she stops within movement of Jark. The familiar bronze exoskeleton forms before vanishing, and she casts a spell of bull's strength on herself.
Jark's dwarven flail slams into the bear-thing's belly, followed by a piercing shot from Lendaro's pistol. Both are blunted by the beasts thick purplish fur and iron hide. A roar erupts from its mouth as dark green ichor oozes from the wounds.
Maintaining her position behind the paladin, Sarainy starts softly singing the Song of the Dawnflower. The lilts of her voice carrying the song into the hearts of her allies.
Solaria moves up through one of the corridors of bushes and stops looking at the great creature, wondering the power it might have. She remains silent hoping the creature doesn't notice her approach
The yaoguai roars fiercely, tries to bite, at Jark, then swing a claw and tentacle at the dwarf. Its teeth rip into the paladin, tearing blood from him. Its claw swings wide, way over Jark's head, then its tentacle wraps around him.
grab
Solaria seeing Jark's distress, immediately calls on Desna to send her deadly starknife to draw the life from the creature. A golden and purple starknife sparkles in the air close to the evil monster, appearing from nowhere striking like a snake at the Yaoguai.
With the magical words of her performance still dancing in the air, Sarainy rushes up to Jark.
She places her hand upon him, muttering under her breath in Celestial. A moment later, Jark's armour is slick with grease, causing the beasts tentacles to slip and slide upon its surface.
Linpul walks up the row of bushes while reaching into her pack.
"Zero Grenade! Incoming, keep it where it is!"
Jarkralzak starts to reel from the blow, but then his feet suddenly seem to sink slightly into the rock. The dwarf recovers quickly and, with the help of the spell cast by Sarainy, attempts to pull the creatures tentacle off him.
Solaria's starknife stabs into the yaoguai but doesn't seem to do anything to the monster. Jarkralzak slips free from the yaoguai's hold.
Dr Lendaro wills another round into his pistol, and fires.
"Hang in there Jark... this abomination is bound to drop soon!"
Lendaro's bullet punctures a small hole in its tentacle, splashing green ooze onto the ground.
With a loud roar, the beast continues its assault focused on Jark again. It strikes him with a claw, digs its yellowed teeth into his shoulder and smacks him across the face with its tentacle.
grab
As it attacks Jarkralzak, its wounds begin to knit together, if ever so slightly.
Dr Lendaro grimaces seeing the vicious flurry of attacks against Jark.
"I'll attempt to slow it down...."
A web of tattoos on the back of his hand faintly glow as he aims and fires.
A cryptic with this insight can cause creatures struck with her disrupt
pattern ability to become entangled for a number of rounds equal to the
cryptic’s Intelligence modifier, although the disrupt pattern damage is
minimized (all dice rolls are treated as 1s). Entangled creatures can
attempt to break free as a move action, making a Strength or Escape
Artist check. The DC for this check is equal to the 10 + 1/2 the
cryptic’s level + the cryptic’s Intelligence modifier. A cryptic must be
at least 4th level before selecting this insight.
>Entangled
The character is ensnared. Being entangled impedes movement, but does
not entirely prevent it unless the bonds are anchored to an immobile
object or tethered by an opposing force. An entangled creature moves
at half speed, cannot run or charge, and takes a –2 penalty on all
attack rolls and a –4 penalty to Dexterity. An entangled character who
attempts to cast a spell must make a concentration check (DC 15 +
spell level) or lose the spell.
Even while being held by the creature, Jark still manages to swing his weapon with enough force to attempt to damage the beast.
Attack-melee:
Damage:
Attack-melee:
Damage:
Seeing the desperate situation that her new found companion is in, Sarainy weaves words of encouragement into form.
"Stand strong paladin, strike firm. Be bathed in the sunlight and feel The Dawnflower's blessing upon you."
Sarenrae's divinity guides Jarkralzak for but a moment.
She also moves around the beasts side, to hopefully set up a flank for him, in future attacks.
Lendaro's shot tethers the creature in place by invisible means.
Jarkralzak's dwarven weapon digs into the yaoguai's flesh as Sarainy's blessing guides his blow.
The beast ignores Sarainy as she moves close, and stares at its immobile feet instead.
Linpul steps up after her grenade explodes.
"Let's see if it can handle another person in the fray. Tetsuda, take it down!"
The cryo grenade explodes sending frost and ice into the beast's rough fur. As it roars in pain, Linpul's hammer swings into the bear's foot, and Tetsuda rips off its slightly twisted leg.
The yaoguai falls backward with a loud thud.
Solaria moves over to the injured dwarf, seeing his blood spilled on the ground where he fought valiantly. She calls to Desna to aid her stricken friend.
"A strange beast, a 'yaoguai'. I wonder if it attacked Jevik and that is why he is missing - or if it's what caused him to abandon his farm house for weeks."
Taking a moment, Sarainy walks around the area looking for tracks and signs of where the farmer might have gone.
Linpul runs back into the house and tries to find something of Jevik's, like a sock or something. With her bloodhound spell still working maybe she can find some remains.
"Hmm, I have an idea, I'll be right back!"
Dr Lendaro nods to Linpul "Very good."
He strokes a flesh-colored tattoo by his eye with a finger until his eyes bulge, then catches up with Sarainy.. "I'll help the search for tracks"
Linpul gathers a soiled cloth then is brought back to the location of the yaoguai. Lendaro sees human tracks that enter the house, but don't leave it, the majority of tracks he sees are of the large bear-beast.
Sarainy finds a small pile of blood, guts and other viscera behind one of the small trees. Whatever is there is heavily mutilated, as though digested.
Grabbing the cloth she braces herself.
"Okay you can do this Linpul, you can do this. Okay and"
Linpul takes a whiff of the cloth before holding her hand to her mouth and then attempting to track by scent.
Linpul follows the smell of blood and is led to the same place Sarainy is standing, by the pile of viscera.
Solaria looks around the nest for anything of interest, not expecting anything, wondering why the thing had decided to nest here? She says a prayer over Jevik's remains. Once she has thoroughly searched, she asks "We'd best look over the house, save anything we can if he has relatives."
on nest area and then the house.
Solaria doesn't find anything of interest. Most of the farming implements are in bad repair, and the clothes are soiled with dirt and sweat and worse. She finds a few copper pieces in a small cabinet, but nothing that would serve as a symbol for Jevik.
"I'm at something of a loss here. Perhaps we just head back to town and let them know what transpired?" Sarainy remarks.
"Yes, we'll take back the bad news and let the townsfolk know. At least that creature is dead now and won't start to worry the citizens." says Solaria rather sadly. "I'm sure they will mourn him, even though he's, I mean was, a bit of a loner."
Jarkralzak will say a blessing over the remains, covering what was left with a layer of dirt.
When you reach High Home, Redfang, who is fletching a few arrows, seems to understand what transpired with his solemn look and nod.
"Hmm... Were you at least able to lay whatever killed Jevik to rest? It was foolish-unfortunate that Jevik wanted to have his farm outside the town."
Dr Lendaro nods grimly. "Yes. We put it down. Vicious creature. If nothing else, I'm certain Jevik's death was swift... nothing compared to the time spent living the life he'd chosen." He says this as much for himself.. trying to picture the man rather than the mass of viscera they'd discovered.
"So... what would you have us do, Councilman? Shall we move on to the matter for which we've made our journey?"
"The creature was one that I'd not seen before, cruel and vicious. A bear with claws, tentacles and sharp spikes on its body, Sairainy called it a Yaoguai, she knows more about it than I. The thing was making a nest in Jarvik's orchard, had it made its home there, even this village and its people would have been in danger." Solaria says her voice low and quivering as she recalls the violence of the fight and and the creatures death.
"Yes. I believe I can trust you. Well, I mean I already did just from looking at you, but in case the council objected I wanted some good deed to assuage their beliefs. There are many such mutated creatures in Numeria. Many of them usually try to attack our town... But enough of that. You've definitely proven yourselves. Please tell me why you've come here."
Linpul returns approximately an hour after everybody else, covered in dirt and dried blood.
"Sorry, I was burying the deceased. Solaria, I said a few prayers, but I don't really know Desnan prayers. I used the ones I know and heard growing up."
She waits silently for the others to speak to Redfang. She was tagging along on this nature hike.
"Khonnir Baine asked us to look into local sightings of the Technic League... as well as lend aid with whatever other troubles you might be facing." He then adds - to keep focus on their primary goal...
"What can you tell us of these encounters with the Technic League?"
"Please keep this between us. Some of our scouts have found a strange mechanical bird flying away from Iadenveigh the past week. It had some kind of message, something written in the Numerian ruins language. None of us were able to decipher it, nor did we want to."
Redfang hands Lendaro the paper.
"We suspect that there is a spy within town, but do not want to alert the populace. If we do, the citizens might just try to lead a witch hunt of sorts."
"Locals identified southern spring as the source of the area's mutations and now avoid it. Afflictions consistent with mutagenic gas poisoning, as you posited from Silver Mount Expeditions. I will explore with caution; locals avoid the area and my current cover would seem noticeably out of place were I discovered there."
"Hopefully one of my companions can try and read those symbols, it;s good we can decipher the words of our enemies." said Solaria smiling. "It might give a clue as to the spy."
"Hmm... Androffan... interesting. Do you happen to recall which direction the bird was heading?"
He clears his throat then translates...
"Locals identified southern spring as the source of the area's
mutations and now avoid it. Afflictions consistent with mutagenic gas
poisoning, as you posited from Silver Mount Expeditions. I will explore
with caution; locals avoid the area and my current cover would seem
noticeably out of place were I discovered there."
Sarainy listens intently to the Doctor's translation, wracking her brain for clues.
"The hunter said the machine bird was heading north before he shot it down." Redfang frowns as Lendaro reads the words.
"Redfang, please don't be alarmed by Leandro's knowledge, he is highly educated, but his heart is with us and against the foul technowiards of the League. At least now we might have the first clue to rid the town of these menaces. So we can go north after the bird or stake out the Southern Spring to see if there are clues to he spy."
After so thought, Solaria ventures her opinion, "For the village's sake,it might be best to root out the spy."
Dr Lendaro nods.. "Yes... spy first. It's our strongest lead as well. Assuming the "southern spring" is Badwater, I suggest we circle around... approach from the side opposite Iadenveigh. Our target would most likely be casting his most cautious eye toward town, and it will be safer for the citizens should we encounter hostiles upon our approach."