As they camp for the night Theod will take some time to hunt, hoping to preserve the groups rations.
The next day, after the rain Theod complains "Perhaps we need to get some rain gear on our return to Oleg's..." After some time, coming upon the burrow Theod takes some time to examine the burrow and check for tracks.
Theod points out the tracks "I'm not sure what it is, but seems it hasn't moved since the rain, it could likely still be inside. Either way it looks to be a carnivore of some sort. If we seek to bother it we should be prepared accordingly."
"The question is: Does it pose a threat to the future inhabitants of the region?"
Castor scratches his head, still keeping hold of the luminous pebble.
As the party puzzles over the hole, the ground suddenly begins to shake a rumble. In a spray of dirt and rock a large arachnid looking beast suddenly erupts from the mound, its mandibles glistening with a foul looking substance.
1. Castor and Winifred
2. Beast
3. Hadin, Theod, and Rufus
"I just had to ask, did I not?"
Castor carefully steps back, wary of provoking the spider, moving to position himself next to Winifred and Hadin, intent on keeping himself between the unarmored sorceress and the beast.
As he does, he runs his hand over Hadin's shoulder, murmuring an incantation. "May the stars shine upon your strike."
Finally, Castor draws his bow and nocks in an arrow, wanting to keep ready in case he needs to attack.
Oh.
Joy.
"Wha...wha...what is that thing!" Winifred asks intently seeing the spider suddenly appear out of no where. She takes a deep breath before taking out her crossbow and chanting in Azlanti, "Ut nusquam exhauriri possunt mea tela inimicus meus percutiant."
Tactical Map for those without access to Roll20.net
The strange insect-spider-scorpion thing pulls the remaining bulk of its body from the hole and lurches forward, attacking the closest enemy it sees to its burrow, which just to happens to be the ranger inspecting its tracks. It thrusts its mandibles forward in an attempt to bite Theod...
...but Theod deftly twists out of the way of the awkward movement of the beast, narrowly avoiding the bite as drool from the creature's mouth strikes the ground and causes smoke to rise up from the dirt and grass with a muted a hissing sound.
With an appreciative nod to Castor, Hadin rushes to the battle, charging the side of the beast and trying to get its attention
Knowledge arcana-untrained
With all his might, he smashes his flail onto the beast's corpse
attack
2e roll (bit of Luck) attack
Hadin charges forward and delivers a solid strike to the creature, bashing in a portion of its thick shell with his flail.
Seeing Theod already engaged with the beast, Rufus draws his sword, closing to slash at its side.
The creature wails in agony as Rufus' blade bites deeply into its side. It rears up its body and faces him, a stream of hissing liquid beginning to pour from its mouth...
Theod steps back grabbing his weapon to attack the creature.
Theod takes a step back and slams the hammer end of his polearm against the creature's head, cracking the chitin and causing a spray of gore to issue forth from the wound. The monstrosity drops at his feet and ceases to move.
"Well it's dead now, whatever it was." Winifred lets out a sigh of relief, but does not put her crossbow down.
The creature is an ankheg, an magical offshoot of an insect. They tend to dwell near farmlands or where regular sources of game are available. They have the ability to spit acid a great distance when threatened and in danger. Their hide can be used to make specific types of heavy armor.
Theod sighs in relief "Well I was not expecting that." He kicks the bug-creature to make sure it is dead then turns his attention back tot he burrow. "I hope that it was alone, perhaps it had something of worth in it's lair." Theod moves back over to give it a good look.
After looking over the creature for several moments, it occurs to Winifred just what the creature is. "It's an ankheg, luckily it didn't get a chance to use it's acid, it might be useful for making armor, if you don't mind wearing an insect." Winifred shakes off the idea of one of her allies wearing the strange creature.
After giving the burrow a good search and hearing Winifred's mention of the creatures armor potential Theod will see if he can figure out a way to get the chitin off to use in the future.
Digging through the refuse and remains in the burrow, Theod emerges after a few minutes with some hard won spoils. In his arms he is carrying a pair of saddlebags, a belt pouch, and a greatclub. Inside the saddlebags are a length of 50' silk rope, a weeks worth of rations which have long since spoiled, a canteen filled with brackish water, three torches, and a small box containing thirteen tindertwigs. In the pouch is a freshwater pearl, a lapis lazuli, a piece of malachite, and two turquoise stones. The pouch also contains 14pp, 32gp, and 17sp.
"Not a bad find, for sure," Castor comments, looking at the spoils of battle.
"Are we likely to find more of these things? They could certainly pose a threat to a growing village."
"From what I can gather, we might, they seem to venture near farms and where there is wild game, they are predators, might even eat a few farmers." Winifred remarks, not particularly wanting to confront another of those things.
Winifred looks over the corpse of the ankheg and proceeds to busy herself with trying to remove the larger plates of chitin in order to salvage them for later use. Unfortunately her skill in the art of armor is lacking and she just ends up ruining the best pieces of the shell, unable to harvest a proper amount of the creature's remains.
Theod looks up at the sky "We should press on and find a place to rest. If these creatures are common here, I would not wish to sleep where they might come upon us. I say we start making our arch to the north and then back around toward Oleg's."
"A sound plan, for sure."
Having loaded part of the acquired on his horse, Castor gets back in his saddle.
"Ready when you are."
"Unfortunately, or fortunately no one is going to turn this overgrown insect into armor, it seems in trying to remove the chitin I've ruined it." Winifred looks back at the others with a feigned look of disappointment. That thing stinks and is a little freaky anyway, who'd want to wear that! "If there's nothing else to see here, we've only got precious few hours of daylight left and I'd like to get some more work done while I can still see."
The party continues on, taking a northeast route through the grasslands. The evening comes and night passes without event. The third day comes with more rain and a blustery wind, uncommon for this time of year in these lands. The party makes good progress, checking out a few ruined huts that appear to be decades old and without any recent inhabitants. The day passes swiftly and turns to night, the party camping near a stream where Theod manages to catch a few fish for the nights dinner. Once again they are undisturbed throughout the night and they break camp the next morning greeted by a beautiful sunrise and and end to the foul weather. Not long after they set off Theod manages to spy a full copse of fangberry bushes, teeming with the ripe fruit. The copse is situated within a ring of trees which provide a pleasant shade from the bright sun.
"So these are the fangberries huh? How do we plan on recovering them?" Winifred asks cautiously, not having anything to protect her delicate hands from such dangerous fruit.
Thinking aloud
could we use some of the silk rope we found with the ankheg, and wrap it carefully on the thorns? Sure it will destroy the rope, but then we could pick the berries without too much danger. I'll pick them, so no one will have to risk himself... and as it is my idea, if it don't work, no one will have to suffer from it.Then, I'm open to any other suggestion.Trouble is, someone using metal gloves to protect himself from the thorns would probably be too clumsy to pick the berries and maybe crush them. Or maybe someone nimble and dexterous enough could pick these.
Castor ponders the bush for a moment.
"I think the rope would be quite heavy, it might damage the fruit. There's no point to wasting good rope on something like this. Logically, we'd use some gauntlets, but it seems none of us possess them..."
Then, an idea comes to Castor's mind.
"Hm... This might work."
Castor faces the bush and reaches into his spell component pouch, picking out a small scrap of parchment with a few prayers to Desna written in common, requesting the safety of travelers on the road.
Castor closes his eyes and blindly traces the same prayers upon the parchment with his finger, holding the paper against his holy symbol with the same hand. At the same time, he speaks the prayer aloud.
At once, the parchment glows a bright white light and dissipates into glittering dust, hovering around Castor like a bright cloud.
"Hopefully, magical protection will work just as well."
Preparing himself for the worst, Castor approaches his hand and attempts to part the thorns using the deflection aura in other to seize the first berry.
Castor reaches his hand into the bush, being careful not to touch any of the numerous thorns that poke out from all angles. He manages to wrap his fingers around one of the berries and begins to pull his hand out, but the reverse motion goes against the path of many of the thorns and they cut deeply into his skin from all angles, shredding his hand. As they do he feels a burning sensation coming from the wound...
Theod winces as he watches Castor pull his hand back in pain. He takes a moment to think then holds his index finger up, looking at the others "I have seen those of the arcane be able to manipulate small items from afar with the motion of their hand. From my understanding it is a rather simple magic to achieve. Does anyone here have such capability that we might try on these berries?"
He continues to look the bush over while waiting for a response. "If not, perhaps it is best we mark this location and return when better prepared. Maybe I can setup some snares or traps to protect the berries from any wildlife that may try and eat them, although with the protection the throns provide most wildlife may just leave them be."
Theod considers what he has heard before about the berries and remembers that while uncommon, some animals do indeed eat them. Namely those animals with a hide thick enough to protect them from the thorns or with nimble enough tongues to get at the dangerous fruit without hurting themselves. Obviously there are also those that will eat the ones that fall to the ground, but those are both dirty and bruised.
Castor gives a pained hiss as the thorns dig into his hand, one of them snaring viciously into some rather major veins in his wrist.
"Okay..." He says, lightheaded from bloodloss. "So much for divine protection here."
A faint glow envelops Castor's arm, and the wound slowly stabilizes and lessens in intensity, though his right hand still has some noticeable scratches. Everyone nearby feels a cool, crisp breeze washing over them, not unlike that one would feel walking out of a tent in the morning.
"I think these thorns might have some form of poison to them," he says, flexing his hand, "My hand feels numb."
We could use a cape, or other clothing item, as a sack, while I shake the bush: the berries could detach themselves, and we can catch them in the impovised sack. That way, only one person-me- as to hurt himself, and the berries won't be spoiled by touching the soil. What do you think of it?
Winifred ponders for a moment. "If none of us have gauntlets, perhaps we could try to fashion a makeshift pair out of something. If not perhaps we could try to get the fangberries down another way, perhaps by shooting them with a ranged weapon." Winfield takes out her crossbow just in case.
"I think it would be wiser to wait until we have what we need, rather than attempt to improvise and risk damaging the fangberries... Thinking back, perhaps we should have asked Bokken what he usually used to pluck these."