"Obviously a birds nest," Mykhael said jokingly. He squinted as he looked a little closer and said a little bit more soberly, "A very big bird."
"Anything we should be overly concerned about? Or a longterm problem, I've heard of larger eagles carrying away lambs or even greater birds going after bigger prey including people."
"If it's a regular eagle or the like, then I think we should be fine if it's not desperate for food and we don't piss it off. Why go after a big lot of dangerous people when there's probably rabbits and such all over the place?"
"Lets leave the beasts alone and be on our way," Mykhael suggested.
"I'm not keen on getting close enough to smell an eagle's breath, but if anyone is simply too curious to let this pass,
then I could climb up there to investigate - at least, for the right incentive."
Colwyn chuckles at his own comment.
"We've still got a lot of ground to cover today, but perhaps we'll see the beast in flight if we keep our eyes open. I think no one is quite curious enough to risk you breaking your neck Colwyn."
You ride on, wondering just what would use such a large nest?
The day passes quietly and you make camp for the evening.
Xantria as you stretch gratefully after a long days travelling Colwyn passes behind you and you feel a sharp pinch on your behind?
You all happened to be looking in that direction when Colwyn wandered passed Xantria and clearly saw his hands came nowhere near any part of her body?
What are you doing now?
Tattoos starting to glow and her face turning into a grimace, Xan's fist reflexively drops from how she was stretching straight down on Colwyn's head.
"Try that again and you're gonna lose that hand!" she shouts at him, regardless of whether her fist connected or not.
"What are you on about Xantria?" He looks at her confused.
"The damn toad just grabbed my ass!" she said, her tattoos growing more animated as her fury grew.
Richard's brow furrows and he shakes his head "He didn't, I can tell you that plainly. I'm not sure what you think happened but he didn't touch you."
"Yes, I could see Colwyn's hands, and they didn't... unless he is very good at sleight of hand. But... no. I'm sure his hands didn't touch you."
Elena looks around.
"In fact... I don't think there was anything else there either. So I don't know what could have caused it..."
As Elena spoke, Xantria's tattoos cooled back to their dull red while their movement ceased. "Well if it wasn't him then who or what just copped a feel?"
Mykhael answered with a shrug as his eyes lingered on Xantria's bottom, "Perhaps you just imagined it? Or could it have been a bug bite?" He turns his gaze toward Colwyn and said with a mischievous grin, "Tell us Master Toad did you succumb to temptation and give Xantria's rump a squeeze." He continued and added with a wink, "You are a braver man than I but I wouldn't hold it against you if you did."
"Mykhael, there's no need to make the situation worse or be so crude for that matter. Elena and I can both attest that Colwyn went nowhere near Xantria... but you are taking an interest and still keen to put the blame on Colwyn. How are we to know it wasn't one of your magical abilities, a suspicious event with Colwyn in position to take the blame?" He peers at Mykhael suspiciously.
Despite only just going back down, Xan's tattoos resumed their glow as Mykhael spoke and she realised he was looking at her posterior (despite the fact that she wore the loose Minkaian-ish trousers she did precisely to stop people ogling her).
"Keep talking like that, Mykhael, and I'll relieve you of that gammy leg of yours."
Mykhael holds his hands up in a placating manner and laughs, "Peace, twas not I nor do I know who did."
"But soomeone did it, mebbe. Soomeone wants your attention!" Niadroub Kliip cackles.
A nervous stammer seizes Colwyn as soon as Xantria, aglow with indignation, accosts him.
A hot flush of fear washes over him. His wits and nerves - which he normally relies on to preserve him against hotheaded bravos on both sides of the law - utterly fail him now
He raises his hands plaintively in defense, but then shucks them behind his back when Xantria glares at his calloused palms.
When the others speak in his defense, a new feeling overcomes Colwyn. Trust? Loyalty? This is certainly new, but the scoundrel silently thanks Desna for the change in fortune.
"I swear upon my old Ma's troll-picked bones that I did no such thing, Miss Xan," he insists with his eyes awkwardly turned aside.
He breathes a sigh of relief when the ire turns towards Mykhael.
Nevertheless, he feels a twinge of yet another new sensation, one so unfamiliar that Colwyn could not even put a name to it.
It's seems the air has grown awkward in the camp, things get even more strange as the evening meal is ready to eat. As she is about to sit down Xantria notices a small egg has been placed just where she would sit.
She picks it up curiously and examines it, it seems to be from something like a sparrow or robin by the size. As she looks it over there is a slight crunch, followed by an awful stench as Mykhael fails to notice a similar egg on his seat and crushes it as he sits.
Xantria gets the impression that had she sat on her egg she too would now be stinking.
Rotten eggs on peoples seats. What is going on here?
Xan had been smouldering since the confusion (both figuratively and, at least for her tattoos, literally), giving Niadroub a glare for his remark and managing to mumble out an apology to Colwyn.
Then the thing with the eggs happened. She struggled not to smile at Mykhael failing to find the one on his seat, but it did settle her tattoos finally.
"Okay, starting to think someone or something is screwing with us. So, sorry about earlier Colwyn."
"Given your temper last time I'm certain most of us wouldn't try another joke like this." ..except maybe Mykhael but he sat on one of the eggs. He did not think Mykhael would target himself to throw people off like this.
"Well this would've left me pissed off, sure, but not as much as I was earlier. Different kind of anger, really."
"E'm kind oof engry nobody wants to pinch my boottom." Niadroub Kliip wiggles his bottom a bit before catching the stench from Mykhael's rotten egg and moving to the other side of the camp.
"Only one who'd pinch your bottom is that nag of yours," Colwyn says to Niadroub, "and that'd be with her teeth! Probably right after she licks the egg off of Mykhael's backside, too!"
Colwyn laughs far harder at his own jests than he has any right to.
Niadroub Kliip eye his horse warily.
After a night spent being extra watchful you wake to find that whoever is playing these games with you has struck again. Niadroub opens his eyes to find his horse is only inches from his face, teeth ready to bite.
Something small and sharp has nipped through the horses lead in the night?
Richard on the other hand wakes up feeling fine, though anyone who sees his face now blinks in shock. Some unknown has used berry juice to give him deep red lips, and a somewhat scandalous blush. Also they have used blueberry juice to add a dark blue eyeshadow?
As the pranks continue, a DC 15 Knowledge (nature) check is enough to confirm that the pranks are likely caused by mischievous fey creatures.
Anyone who wishes to make contact with these unseen tricksters can try to
stay alert and catch one in the act of pulling a prank, but the successful Knowledge (nature) check also reveals that trickster fey can often be befriended with bribes (although fey generally think of these as gifts, eschewing the ugly word “bribe”).
Gifts of shiny bits of jewelry, alcohol, sugary food, and potions are particularly useful, although items that incorporate cold iron are generally hated.
What are you doing now?
"Richard... I suspected you were living a double life, but I never realized..."
"Sparrow's eggs don't normally go 'rotten.' They either hatch or get eaten by predators. And the other things are obviously deliberate pranks."
"Someone must be following us... someone very sneaky."
Richard doesn't respond til he can see what has happened and cleans himself up, lumbering around the camp in a surly fashion. {b]"The part that has been bugging me is that whoever is doing this, the horses lead was cut by something small and sharp, just like that hunter. Whoever is doing this could start with light hearted but crude pranks and escalate to more deadly 'pranks' to stave off boredom. If we can't uncover who is behind this we might wake up to discover the first fatal prank."[/b]
He will check the area for tracks.
Mykhael ponders Richard's words and the magnitude of the pranks as he eats his breakfast. After his meal he advised his companions, "I think we have been at the mercy of some fey creature. They are known to vex travelers with these sort of pranks." He goes on to explain "We can try to catch these miscreants in the act of pulling a prank, which is very hard, or we can try to befriend them with a gift."
Niadroub Kliip's eyes widen in terror when he wakes up face to face with his arch-nemesis. He starts muttering too low for anyone to hear unless they get close enough to listen.
"...and I sweear to you on the boones of my greeat swamp weetch aunt, that if you leave even so mooch as single tooth merk on my nose, I will make it my life's meession to make sure you neever get anything else to eat eexcept rotten onions and swemp grass. Not only that, but I'll cut your tail off and tie eet to your bridle so you neever forget that...
Later, after he escapes with his life, the arcanist nods along to Mykhael's statement and offers, "Mebbe it wants a horse."
Xan was so bleary-eyed when she woke up that she didn't notice what had been done to Richard's face for a few moments. Not until Elena drew attention to it while Xan brewed the morning coffee, at which point she could barely keep from laughing.
"...We can try to catch these miscreants in the act of pulling a prank, which is very hard, or we can try to befriend them with a gift."
"What sort of gift? I admit I've never had to placate a fairy before."
"I believe they enjoy shiny things like jewelry or we could try a bit of alcohol or sugary food, and maybe a potion might do it," he related as he poked the embers of the fire.
Richard there are no signs of any tracks around the camp, aside from those the party themselves have made.
Mykhael has worked out who is amusing themselves by using you all as targets for pranks. What are you doing now?
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Colwyn rises groggily, roused by the latest commotion in camp.
"What the devils is it now?" he groans. After a slow look around the campsite, his eyes fall on Richard.
Colwyn leans over, squints, rubs his eyes, then squints harder with a bitterer scowl.
"Either I broke my sobriety last night or I'm about to do so this morning. Those're the only things that could explain such a terrible vision so early in the morning."
The talk of fey, however, sharpens Colwyn as though he dunked his head in a cold running stream.
"The wretched creatures might like the music box we took from the bandits," he says grimly, a shiver escaping down his spine. "Or those silver earrings, unless anyone thinks they'd complement Richard's new look."
"Music box! What's a music box?" An excited voice pipes up from behind Colwyn. You turn to see a Grig has appeared from nowhere and is regarding you with bouncing eagerness. "How do you put music in a box?"
Richard stops himself before he starts saying Yes thats a better trick than any of yours. But decides not to encourage it to try harder.
He moves over to the psck the music box is in and takes it out. His face mostly clean now with a few bright smears. "Very clever people shape bits of metal just so after years of study and hard work. We just have to wind it." He cranks it before stepping back and leaving it on a bare patch of ground and gesturing. "Now open the lid to hear some music."
Mykhael is about to make a comment about Richard and the earings when the grig popped out. Hewatched the little fey with wonder and stayed quiet not wanting to scare it away. Eventually made some encouraging gestures, "Open it friend."
The small Fey warily opens the music box and freezes in place as music begins, practically quivering in joy as she listens. "Pretty, pretty music!" She whispers.
Another voices comes out of nowhere and you see a Faerie perched on a branch overhead. "Tyg! We haven't finished the game?"
He is completely ignored and huffs. "Oh bother, she's gone." Turning his head he blinks as he realizes that now everyone can see him. "Oops!"
"There was a trapper who died near here. He wasn't marking his traps safely. Seemed like a nasty sort. You wouldn't you about that would you?" Given their focus on tricks and what happened to Niadroubs reigns and the rope of the deadfall trap he thinks its worth a shot plainly asking.
Colwyn keeps a distance, both from the fey and from his allies.
On the first count, stories from his childhood, even before his father dragged the family into the River Kingdoms, have instilled a deep superstitious streak in Colwyn. This is particularly true of the fey.
In fact, his first and only memory of his grandmother was the rush of sour breath passing through the wizened woman's toothless mouth as she spun a fearful yarn.
In a near shriek, she would warn that the fey liked to sneak into homes by night and drain the blood of young boys to ferment into their wicked mead.
As for his companions, Colwyn fears they would ask why he had been keeping such a silly trifle as that music box with him.
In truth, he had listened to its tune in secret at least a dozen times since its recovery.
He would carry his pack along when he slipped away to relieve himself and would save some moments alone to listen again to the box's song.
It had been a comfort that, at once, both greatly embarrassed and indelibly becalmed him.
Nevertheless, and perhaps to his dismay, Colwyn is all too ready to part with this rare comfort if it means keeping his blood in his own veins, rather than in some fey's cup.
"Um... hello. I'm Elena. Who are you?" Elena asks timidly.
I wonder what these things are? They're not what I expected faeries to look like.
Mykhael waited and watched as his companions questioned the grig. When there is a pause in the discussion he asked the fey creature, "What can you tell us about the lands surrounding your glade?"
Richard The Grig is lost to anything but the music, leaving the Faerie dragon to answer your query. He lands and looks a bit sheepish, drawing circles in the groud with a claw. "Yesss." He admits guiltily ."He was bad though. Setting his nasty traps to hurt people! Lots of people cross the river where he was putting his trap up. So I bit the rope and his logs dropped on him."
Elena
A pair of brightly colored butterfly wings sprouts from the back of this miniature dragon. A mischievous smile plays across its fanged snout as it flutters about with incredible grace.
Related to the pseudodragon, faerie dragons are whimsical, playful pranksters that spend most of their time engaged in some sort of trick or joke. Although most are spontaneous, some faerie dragons have been known to spend months or even years in preparation of one truly spectacular joke.
Travelers making their way through lands known to be inhabited by these good-natured—but sometimes annoying—tricksters are advised to keep up their guard lest they face all manner of creative annoyances (horses painted with berry juice, ants placed inside bedrolls, and clothing
decorating high branches as a few examples).
While they are a very whimsical pair, neither of them are malicious, they ask eagerly if you are here to "kick out the mean bigginses." Referring to the bandits at the Thorn river camp you have already dealt with.
When told this they are excited and happy. Giving you a lot of information about the surrounding areas.
They tell you of the traps in Hex3 that you've already dealt to. The radish patch you discovered in Hex10. The new information they can tell you is that there is a hot spring in Hex14 and an old temple guarded by "A mean old bear!" in Hex15.
What are you doing now?
"It's very kind of you to tell us these things. If we came back with treats from time to time maybe you could keep telling us useful things you hear. You're quite clever and keep well informed about your neighbours. If you could tell us things like you did now between friends it would be only fair to give you treats I think."
Unless someone has a fixed course of action in mind Richard would suggest checking in on Olegs.