Before Juno can do anything, Whimsy bounds off into the dead, dark forest, barking furiously. Adi sees a white shape running towards her from where Juno went.
The closest crab creature chases after Adi, but seems to still be picking up speed - it's right on her heels, but it does not try to attack her yet. At about this moment, she realizes that the rain has stopped falling, though the plateau is still darkened by thunderheads above.
Juno is about 65 meters away, below a 5-foot cliff that is relatively easy to climb or go around . She will need to go at least 40 feet through the forest after the cliff before she has line of sight to Adi and whatever is making her friend scream.
Nesica thinks that the flute might have been a colonial adoption of the Song'o instrument, though the materials remained the same - clay and wood.
Crouching, she walks up to the flute. Nothing seems to change about its rattling, nor does anything else in her surroundings change besides the ever-gusting wind.
Juno decides she doesn't want to be caught with her hands occupied, so she goes around the cliff, hoping Adi is alright and gripping her musket tightly.
Juno scrambles around the cliff, racing through the forest.
Adi keeps running, but loses time extricating herself from the monster's range.
She sees the second crab creature begin to catch up - it's now running about 30 feet behind the first.
Whimsy breaks out of the trees and makes a beeline towards Adi. It's about 50 feet away, now.
(Also, sorry it took me so long to realise I should be spoilering these when not in eyesight of a party member.)
Juno spots Adi running pell-mell towards her, sending up great splashes of water with each step. Right behind her are two enormous crustaceans with long, feathery antennae and small, flea-like heads. As she watches, the closer crustacean reaches forward with an antennae, swiping at Adi. Something about the motion looks awkward, though - the attacking antenna tangles with the other, and the creature takes a second to extricate the two, though its legs don't miss a beat.
Juno tries to identify the creatures attacking Adi, thinking back on her childhood being raised by her ranger father in the Mwangi jungles.
She continues hiking quickly to rejoin her comrade, and begins to wish she had a longer-ranged weapon. Maybe an upgrade to think about when they return to Eleder - they must surely have the resources to build something better, and to find an enchanter who can add some range and accuracy.
Adi, pleased that she's no longer alone, and realizing she isn't going to be able to outrun these things, wheels around and attacks the by-now-adjacent moth-like arthropod.
It's Adi's turn, not Juno's, but if next turn Juno wants to keep moving, she is welcome to do so.
Whoops, sorry! And rather than wasting ammunition, she's going to wait until she's in a decent range.
The crab-like monster recoils in pain as Adi hacks through its carapace near one of its four leg joints, causing a spurt of red blood to splash onto the rocky ground.
The second creature catches up to Adi, and starts to circle around her to flank with the first as it lashes an antenna towards her.
She manages to whirl out of the way.
Whimsy finally catches up to the melee, coming up short about 10 feet away from the monsters and then lying down. It looks at where Adi is fighting and whines.
The first crab creature, its wounded leg stuttering a little as it circles around to flank, tries to bite Adi. It swings its antennae at her as well.
Its jaws close on her arm, and while still shocked by the pain, Adi sees one of the monster's antennae brush against the iron pot dangling from her backpack. Suddenly, the load she's become accustomed to there lightens, and she sees that flakes of oxidized iron are falling to the ground behind her.
Juno jogs forward another 40 feet through the forest. She's almost at the edge, now, and she can clearly see the two monsters attacking Adi.
Adi steps out of the flank to strike at the wounded crab creature. Another powerful blow severs the wounded leg, and the crab creature lurches downwards before steadying itself on its remaining three legs. It raises its long, three-pronged tail to steady itself and chitters rapidly.
The second crab creature circles around to flank Adi again, coming close to Whimsy, who jumps backwards in fright. It lashes an antenna at Adi's pack again, and the pot disintegrates into rusty flakes. The creature feeds the flakes into its mouth with its foreclaws, apparently uncaring for its fellow's plight.
Whimsy growls at the second crab creature, backing away from the melee slowly. But it's so soft and fluffy, it doesn't seem to register as a threat to the armored monsters.
The first crab creature turns to face Adi again, and lashes out with rasping mouthparts and antennae. It pierces her trousers and bites her leg, hard - blood begins seeping out of the gash. While she's distracted, its antennae feather into the top of her backpack, nudging her clockwork-making tools, she thinks.
Juno raises her musket, holding her breath to steady her aim and increase her range by ten feet, and fires, hoping to score a lucky hit at a distance.
So, after much needless confusion, I've determined that the range penalty should actually be -2, not -5, bringing the attack roll up to a 21 instead of an 18.
The non-wounded creature. As she does, she tries to think back, whether her father ever told her about creatures like these.
Juno does not remember any stories of creature such as these, and she is not sure that they do come from the jungles. She sights down her musket, steadies it, and blasts open the carapace of the closest one - unfortunately, it does not hit the creature's head, but the tail end is now a twitching mess of mangled shell and meat.
Adi slashes the one she's been targeting, and steps out of flank closer to Juno. Unfortunately, the creature dodges out of the way of her blow, and the crab creature behind her begins to circle around and attacks her again. She dodges out of the way both times, though.
Whimsy sees that Adi's not going to mount any time soon, and runs back to Juno, barking.
As the blade-wounded creature joins its companion in flanking Adi, Juno spots some odd, blackened marks marring the reddish color of its neck plating. These don't seem to hinder it at all as it continues its attack on Adi, opening the wound in her leg deeper though
Assuming Adi hasn't dodged into her line of fire, Juno moves forward by fifteen feet, and then fires again at the same target. If she has, then she fires at the other one.
I misinterpreted the rules for rapid reload. Instead of moving 15 feet, Juno will move five feet and reload, taking the -2 penalty this turn, bringing the attack roll down to 23.
Juno steps closer, reloading, and shoots the creature she shot before. This blast catches its face area, breaking off a mouthpart and leaving one of its antennae hanging at an acute angle. Shuddering, it slumps forward into the gravel.
Adi swings her blade at the last monster, the one she's targeted from the start. But the one that Juno shot judders its antennae in its death throes, and she has to dodge out of the way right before her sword would have connected.
Whimsy runs back towards the now lone monster, still barking, and bares its teeth. The crab creature seems unfazed.
The surviving crab creature makes a lunge for Adi's sword, but she wrenches it out of the way as the frond makes contact. She's off balance when it bites deep into her calf, and she hears a small cracking sound.
Juno steps closer, and aims at the remaining monster, steadying herself again by holding her breath and taking careful aim before she unleashes another shot on the surviving monster.
Juno steps 5 feet closer and sights down the barrel of her musket. It's starting to be hard to see amidst the smoke and steam gathering around her in the gray aftermath of the thunderstorm, and she fails to aim true: the shot has lost enough momentum by the time it reaches the creature that the glancing hit bounces off the thick carapace.
Adi swings, but the monster is already wheeling back in fear from Juno's ricocheted shot, and is out of reach at the wrong moment. Whimsy keeps barking, to no avail.
And then the monster lunges forward again on its three good legs, bloody saliva dripping from its mouthparts. Luckily, Adi saw the attack coming, and dodged out of the way. As the creature's antennae try to feather the sword, she yanks it out of the way.
Juno waves some smoke away, and jogs forward thirty feet to clear the cloud and get within better shooting range.She calls out "Hang on Adi!" She's a bit too unsteady to steady her musket, and still further away than she'd like, but she takes the shot anyway, hoping for a lucky hit despite the range increment.
Juno steps forward, taking the time to reload before blasting the back right leg of the moth-like arthropod. It emits a rattling chitter as blood begins to leak out of the wound.
Her blow weakened by blood loss, Adi clumsily swings her blade at the monster. Its two good legs are not fast enough to push its face out of the way - and though the blow is weak, it's enough. The monster collapses to the stone, blood oozing from its severed mouthparts.
Juno and Adi have reunited on the strange plateau, and the two monsters are dying nearby.
Dripping blood, Adi checks her items for damage quickly and confers with Juno about where Nesica might be.
"So, got any ideas where we should go?"
Juno's sighs and says, reluctantly, "I tracked her to the south, not a very clear trail but I did get interrupted. I might be able to pick the trail back up again." She nods at the limp chitinous corpses and asks "Any idea what those were?"
Juno leads Adi to the pool where she lost Nesica's trail. She spends over an hour leading Adi down several false trails that lead to cobweb-filled badger holes and glades that are beginning to regrow with lupines and fire-grass. Working in expanding circles, they finally find a small, Nesica-sized footprint. They begin following her meandering trail - after about ten minutes, they find that she was marking her trail with colored stripes on the tree trunks.
Overhead, the clouds are beginning to separate, letting the morning sun shine through. It swiftly dries the loose, ashy soil.
Juno is tired from the long hike uphill, and is not coping well from this additional excursion. She follows Nesica's trail, sometimes jogging to keep up with the light-footed halfling, and after about half an hour spots the halfling struggling to scramble up a cliff. Juno thinks at this point they are on the northern face of the mountain, though Nesica fled towards the south initially.
Juno calls out "In the name of the gods, Nesica, get the hell down from there before you fall." She's quite exhausted now after taking so much nonlethal damage from the head and forced marching, and rests using her musket to lean on. She muses that she's going to need more ammunition soon, so they need to get a move on.
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Nesica looks down at her friends and smiles.
"Hey Juno and Adi! Uh...yeah, I had better get down." She gingerly begins to climb back down to her friends.
"I'm sorry about running away. I was convinced something horrifying was chasing me. Honestly, that...just doesn't happen to me so I'm a bit surprised by it too...Anyway, we need to follow the pink trail! I've found a cool thing."
With a sinking feeling, Juno asks "What...kind of cool thing?"
As Nesica climbs down, she chugs the potion of cure light wounds she has.
The party arrives at the small cave after a bit less than an hour of retracing Nesica's steps. The strange wind instrument is still rattling. It looks like it weighs about 5 pounds, including the broken pieces.
Despite being out of breath, Nesica says with quite a bit of delight, "It's pretty cool, right? If we get it fixed up I'll have something neat for the ship! I don't reckon either of you two could play this, huh?"
Nesica taps her chin and says "Was a worthwhile trip after all...so, what did you two find at the fort? Any clues? Or should we go check it out again?"