Reknar follows his companions along, as they explore the area - "Nice job back there gents and Miss - that could have turned sour real quick" - he adds, taking a look at the area around, for any signs of passage that may hint if they will find others in the cave.
V5. Spider Nest
The narrow tunnel widens here into a natural cavern, the dimensions of which are hard to discern for the thick sheets of webbing that fill the place.
The source of the webbing is obviously the 6 large Cave weaver spiders scuttling to attack the Water elemental.
What are you doing now?
Hoping to use the distraction caused by the elemental while it lasts, Colwyn attempts to sneak into an advantageous position.
Confident in his positioning, from approximately 30 feet away the baron then snaps off an arrow at one of the nearer spiders.
Richard focuses fire on the same target as Colwyn.
And you wipe them out easily.
V6. Lair of the Beast
The ceiling of this huge cavern arches thirty feet into the air. A
murky pool of water stands in the western portion of the cavern in front of a narrow passage, little more than a crack, that opens in the wall. Wider, sloping tunnels lead out of the cave to the north and southeast. A jumble of bones, rocks, fur, and feathers sits piled against the southern wall.
Searching behind the Owlbears nest turns up the remains of a human male. Among his gear you discover map of the Greenbelt with the
your town and the owlbear lair clearly marked.
Loot:
A +2 chain shirt,
a +1 longsword,
a ring of bestial friendship,
two masterwork throwing axes,
two potions of speak with animals,
a jar of restorative ointment,
a vial of antitoxin,
two smokesticks,
a tanglefoot bag,
two thunderstones,
and 34 gp.
In addition, assorted coins worth 112 gp can be salvaged from the owlbear’s nest.
V7. Tomb of the Fallen
A buzzing fills this cavern, which arches up to a height of twenty
feet. At the southern end of the cavern, a wide ledge runs along
the cavern wall at a height of about fifteen feet. Two tunnels exit
the cavern to the north, one narrow and one wide. In the eastern portion of the cavern lies the giant carcass of some great beast,
surrounded by at least half a dozen humanoid bodies.
This is the body of the Owlbears mate and their cubs. One cub is alive but in a bad way.
What are you doing now?
Renar turns the ring around in his hands - "I wonder if this is the reason why that owlbear was so out of control..." - he comments, looking at the dead body - "Serves you well" - he grunts - "And again the settlement is marked on the map"
Reknar approaches the creature carefully - "Yep, you are in a bad spot now..."
Richard tries to remember if an owlbear has ever been tamed that he has heard of. "We'll have to be careful, I'd suspect if you're not careful you might still lose a finger!"
The map. The ring. The potions. The body. Niadroub Kliip makes the connection immediately.
"The oowlbeer wes en arroow. End Thoornholme wes the teerget." He looks up from the evidence and at the rest of the party.
"We've goot an eedmirer!"
Colwyn sneers at the dead man.
"Bloke's plan wasn't worth a pinecone to wipe with, was it? I have no interest in that magic ring for all the good it did him."
In the next chamber, Colwyn swats aside the thick curtains of flies that feed upon the giant beast's carcass. Despite being well and truly dead, he keeps a distance from the monster that took a half-dozen men to the Boneyard with it. When the baron's eyes fall upon the lone surviving cub, hooting sadly beside its parent's body, a blend of pity and fear plays across his face. He shivers nervously when Reknar approaches the young beast.
"Remember that owlbear the bandits kept as a pet, way back when?" Colwyn asks Richard and Niadroub, thinking back to their earlier adventures. "When we loosed it upon them, it had no compunctions about turning against its masters and savaging them. Also, if this thing takes after its prodigious parents, we won't find a cage big enough to secure it."
"I doubt they took good care of it. Also we're a bit beyond an up jumped bandit camp now. I doubt it will survive on it's own though if it grew to the size of it's prodigious parents it would be quite a draw in a menagerie wouldn't you agree?" Richard smiles. "It's young and has done no wrong, even its parent was a beast."
Niadroub Kliip thinks back when Colwyn reminds him of the imprisoned owlbear that took out half of the Stag Lord's troops when it was freed. Instead of taking the memory as a cautionary tale, he quietly cackles in amusement, and is largely unconcerned about Reknar's efforts with the owlbear cub. He looks around for the summoned water elemental, only to find that it has dissipated. He grunts in annoyance.
When they get to the next room , he notices the hole in the ceiling.
"Heng oon."
The arcanist casts vanish on himself and then uses his dimensional slide ability to step onto the ledge of the room above.
Zelera was relieved they had all come through the fight in relatively good shape. It seemed that planning a good trick to play on their enemies was very effective. Entering the cave and finding the next of the owlbear Zelera looked on sadly at the body of the other parent. The only survivor was the lone owlbear cub that was badly wounded. Zelera was glad that Recknar was willing to try and heal the cub and nodded in agreement with Richard. "I think you're right Richard."
Zelera observed the poor little cub and tried to figure out what the best way to approach it was. She knew it would grow up into a very big creature one day but right now it was lost and alone and the priestess could understand how scary and lonely that could be. With only a few minor injuries to be had Zelera channeled a brief burst of positive energy to heal her companions and the little owlbear cub.
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Ring of Bestial Friendship
A nymph hair ring
Category: Ring
Description: A ring made from a lock of green nymph hair, identical in appearance to the ones found on the Stag Lord and the Troll King.
Ring of Bestial Friendship: On command, this ring affects a magical beast that have an intelligence of 2 or less as if the wearer had cast charm monster.
Curse: The charm monster effect only lasts for 1d4 minutes, after which the effect ends and the targeted creature becomes affected by the curse of rage. This curse affects the magical beast with a rage spell, and instills in its brain a hatred of the wearer of the Ring of Bestial Friendship used to charm it, forcing the magical beast to attack the ring-wearer and kill him. After this point, the curse of rage fills the magical beast with a deep loathing for civilization, forcing it to wander further from its lair with each passing day in search of a city or town to attack and destroy. The compulsion to destroy lasts only until the magical beast takes enough damage to reduce its hit points by half, at which point it can flee to its lair, but 2d4 days later the compulsion to return and destroy again forces it to act.
The Owlbear cub is alive, but needs longterm care to be returned to full health.
Niadroub shifts himself to V8.
It's hard to say who is more surprised? Niadroub, or the two Ettercaps and their pet Giant spiders?
Niadroub. You won Initiative. What are you doing?
Niadroub Kliip reappears where he disappeared from about half a minute later. He points to the hole in the ceiling and explains that there's two ettercaps and four giant spiders up there. They may be able to get at them from behind the cave complex.
Niadroub Kliip holds the ring up (incidentally, where everyone can see it), staring intently at it. Something about it is... not right.
After conferring with Reknar and then staring intently at the ring for a few moments, Niadroub Kliip starts and nearly drops the ring.
"Et's coorsed! Et hes way moore eenchentment megic than it needs. Et proobably does soomething the wearer isn't reeady for." At this, the arcanist indicates the dead man on the floor.
"Lets very carefully seal it away somewhere. I'm sure we can find some way to dispose of it."
"Perhaps an illussion spell could lure out the spiders, better to deal with them piecemeal. I'd rather not anyone get poisoned."
Niadbroub Kliip suggests camouflaging some of the bear traps beneath the hole.
"Maybe we should swaddle it and feed it some diced up small mammal?"
"What's everyone looking at me for?" Colwyn hisses quietly. He groans softly before conceding, "Fine."
Colwyn attempts to apply what he has learned by caring for Sandy. Given the gulf between horse and owlbear, he is none too confident.
You will need to care for it for a week or two, with regular feeding. It will recover though.
What are you doing?
"Isaac can watch over it while we deal with the remaining spiders and ettercaps. We have the numbers so luring them out into the wider space can work to our advantage. It's not worth setting up the bear traps though as they'll climb along the walls."
Zelera went to the bodies of the hunters, or whatever they were, and removed some of the clothing then went to the owlbear cub and said, "Yes, I think swaddling her will work. Let's see, how was it that Mama swadled little Gona?" While the owlbear didn't have wings it was still very young. Castign a quick prayer for guidance Zelera began to use the torn clothes to swaddle the baby owlbear and hoped that she did it correctly.
At the suggestion they lure the creatures down to deal with them Zelera nodded and said, "Let me prepare then." She cast a pair of spells, one to call divine aid down upon her and one that made multiples of her appear to weave in and out of where she stood. "There, I'm ready."
"I ken let theem knoow we're here weeth a fierebooll!"
Niadroub Kliip's eyes light up excitedly at that prospect.
"Reeght through thet hole ep there."
"I vote for that" - Reknar nodded - "Burn them out" - presenting a strange image to say the least, with the swaddled owlbear cub held with one arm.
"Just remember that caring for such a creature will be a big responsibility - especially if we want to keep it from mauling anyone who doesn't deserve it."
Colwyn checks the string on his bow and counts his remaining arrows as he prepares for the next wave of foes. He hazards a bit of confidence, since the massive owlbear was the main challenge he anticipated. Smaller vermin like spiders and such, although icky, did not worry him nearly as much - providing he can keep his distance.
Very pleased with himself, Niadroub Kliip plucks one of the spheres off of his necklace of fireballs. He lobs it up through the hole, trying to aim its trajectory to land in the center of the room he briefly saw above.
He cackles at the resulting belch of smoke and flame that comes back down through the hole.
Screams and hisses of pain are the answer to the Fireball
But there is no response.
You can hear sounds of fleeing.
What are you doing now?
"They are on the run! Lets pursue and thin their numbers more, most farmers and trappers can't handle them."
Niadroub Kliip pulls his spellbook out, and after rapidly flipping to a certain page, stares at the page intently for several seconds.
He looks up and casts fly on Colwyn, then Richard, and then...
"Go!" he urges.
"I guess grunts always do the walking" - Reknar chuckled, when Niadroub threw down the rope for him, and started climbing.
Once the fliers were through the hole in the ceiling, Niadroub Kliip dimensionally slides back up, finds a place to secure a rope, and tosses the other end back down to Reknar.
The cocooned body of an unfortunate explorer hangs in the western cave. He still wears his leather armor and his gloves of swimming and climbing, and the pouch on his belt contains a large amethyst worth 100 gp.
That ends Book two. You can head back to your Town and await the fun of Book Three. :)
You can do your shopping and crafting. At least a month of downtime.
"We should work on building up Levetown," Colwyn suggests while holding up the amethyst to examine it by the light. "All the place amounts to right now is a handful of hovels huddled between Oleg's and the road. Now, where to start?"
The baron-consul's thoughts are interrupted by the owlbear cub's sad hooting. Well, he's more so interrupted by the way it weakly nips at his legs. So underfed is the feathery whelp that it can scarcely leave even a scratch in his riding breeches.
"Please tell me this wee beast isn't imprinting on me, or some such," he complains to his companions more familiar with such creatures.
Reknar leaves the infant owlbear with Colwyn, as the man clearly seems interested in it.
"Levetown will need a garrison of some sort" - Reknar pipes in, beer mug in hand - "Any settlement needs defense, and they are vulnerable"
"Defense is good, but I disagree with their vulnerability. Thornholme is the one that sits on the frontier. Levetown is cradled by the Plains of Rostland. They are on Brevoy's doorstep, for Deadeye's sake! We have no reason to worry, unless you believe our patrons are ready to stab us in the back...um, er..."
What the baron-consul first meant as an irreverent jape rapidly grows more worrying on his mind. He would not count himself as paranoid, but he has spent enough of his life with the law and rivals truly out to get him that he cannot discard the thought out of hand.
"You know what? Reknar, my friend, you may be right. We should secure Levetown."
Zelera listened to the discussion with disinterest. All this talk of building things seemed somehow wrong but she knew it was important so she tried to pay attention. When it was put in terms of defense though Zelera understood what they were discussing. "Dad always said the first thing you should do when making a home is set up defenses. Even simple triplines or traps can be enough to start with. Eventually you need more and I think that making them is the right thing."
"A sewer system and paved streets would be a wise investment for both of our settlements before too long. A market place would be good for trade as well but I agree on the other proposed investments first. On the defence front walls to surround the settlement aren't that complicated... castles everywhere would be great but budgets must be balanced."
Colwyn, while you ponder the development of your kingdom. On one of her increasingly regular visits to your bath Melianse helpfully informs you that a large group of humans are setting up what looks like a village in Hex26.
She still avoids any answers as to how she knows you are taking a bath so she can join you. :)
What are you doing now? This is after you've settled the kingdom building.