Lorald I agree with you Gareth may have been a bit hasty, but the time for diplomacy has passed as I doubt we can successfully parlay with it now things are hostile.
She controls her horse by squeezing with her knees, the horse shudders like it was almost in pain
She nocks arrows to her bow and lets them fly
Seeing her arrows fly off in to the underbrush, as an afterthought she adds
Sorry frog thing, to be fair I encountered similar to you already and even though you weren't the hostile parties then either, you are a monster so this is your lot. We'll try to make it quick!
She can;t help but think how that sentence might affect her some day, and suppresses a shudder.
|
As usual place yourselves as appropriate and Gareth, please roll damage.
Round 1
Once again and luckily for me the tusked frogstrosity rolls well on initiative and proceeds to attack Gareth. It turns around and seems to shake it's back at Gareth, it's not immediately obvious why, until one of the boils on it's back bursts and the sickly goo within squirts at Gareth, narrowly missing him.
Natalya tries in vain to do away with the beast, but is a bit put off by it's mode of attack.
Everyone one else gets to go, including Gareth again.
Lorald shakes his head quickly as he fires. He may have been a soldier but he was not a killer. His expertise was a matter of need not pleasure. He did not like how a wild animal just a day before was given mercy but something considered unsightly was not.
Damage for Mr. Forgetful's bolt.
Marlani will consider the creature:
She will then full round attack the creature (rapid/point blank/precise shot):
|
|
Gareth's attack during the surprise round deals 5 damage to the creature
Marlani's arrows are also ineffective.
Round 2
The creature hops it's way over to Gareth and tries to bite him, which it does. It's massive tusks slice into him for 13 damage
You are all up.
Natalya drops her bow and hops up on to the nearby rock, drawing her sword as she moves to within striking distance of the disgusting thing.
She uses a high overhand chop to hit the monstrous frog as hard as possible
She frowns at her miss, left arm tingling from shock as her sword struck the ground. She shakes her hand to try and get the feeling back, musing that the beast must be protected with powerful wards for all the team's attacks to have missed, this was going to be tough...
Marlani will shout: "Careful, there may be Kobolds about!", and she then begins to Inspire Courage (+1 to saving throws, attacks, damage), and moves away slightly.
She will also consider the new creature:
Gareth's attack during the surprise round deals 5 damage to the creature
** spoiler omitted **
Marlani's arrows are also ineffective.
Round 2
The creature hops it's way over to Gareth and tries to bite him, which it does. It's massive tusks slice into him for 13 damage
You are all up.
Gareth howls in pain as the creature's tusks pierce his armor and his flesh. Stumbling backward, he waves his left hand about while drawing his rapier with his right. Once he has freed his weapon he lunges back at his amphibian assailant with a sword-thrust.
Concentration check not to provoke AoO taking additional 1 point penalty
Rapier Attack +1 for enhancing
The spirit is willing but the flesh is bleeding and the magus's thrusting proves inadequate.
Lorald knew from the start that attacking the thing without provocation was a mistake. Now they seemed to be paying for it in blood, still he was not so weak as to let such things shake his resolve. Sometimes one had to play the villain it seemed but he would make his position clear when things were over. Hopefully with all intact. He aims and fires.
Gareth draws his bladeberry cordial and gulps down a mouthful of it as quickly as he can. The pain in his side where the frog-beast rent his flesh competes with his thoughts of self-recrimination for initiating this melee.
|
|
Eusebius fires an arrow at the frog-man pinning one of it's arms to it's side and seriously injuring it in the process.
The creature is undeterred and seems crazed over the death of the tusked frog. It charges towards Natalya but swings and misses so badly the creature actually hits itself in the back of the head and knock itself out.
Eusebius spits on the ground and puts away his bow.
Lorald holds his next volley.
"Everyone stop!"
Things had gone to far, it was a blessing that the creature disabled itself.
"The battle is over."
If it could have been called that. Turning to the former bandit, he gives him a clear nod.
"My thanks on your assistance."
Moving towards the creature with crossbow still in hand. He inspects it before tying it up. Likely when it woke it would be in a foul mood with good reason granted.
"Does anyone know what this is and if they can speak to it?"
Gareth drinks another fifth of his bladeberry cordial just as the healing beings to slow from the initial draw. He squats and focuses his eyes on the ground for the long moments that it seems to take effect over. His breathing slows and he checks his wounds. The bleeding has slowed and the pain faded greatly but his strength has not returned to his limbs. A look at the frog's tusks makes Gareth wonder that he survived at all. A third draw from his flask slows the bleeding to a trickle and finally staunches it completely. Only ugly bruises remain.
Fort save
Uh oh...
Marlani appraises the situation:
Gareth; "I can help heal you if you need it. Are you still hurt?"
"I thought that the cordial had healed me, but now I am not certain" Gareth replies while holding a hand to his stomach.
|
|
Damn that Boken makes good stuff.
Though often hunched over, boggards stand 5 feet tall and weigh close to 200 pounds. These creatures live for 50 years, though the harsh swamps and infighting usually cut these years short.
"It seems it was already considerably injured. One of it's arms was crippled before we even encountered it. Looks like we attacked a crippled creature in it's own camp by my guess."
His mood is noticeably darkening.
"Boggards are usually social; this one may have been exiled. I wonder where he came from?"
Marlani will search for footprints that may lead to or from the ruins, or other oddities:
|
|
Searching the ground Marlani finds lots of tracks in the soft ground. it seemed this was the permanent home of these two. The slurk appears to have bedded down in the larger of the two buildings, making a disgusting nest in it. The boggard appears to have settled in the smaller building, which you can make further efforts to search, should you dare.
Marlani will go poke around in the building, but primarily use mage hand to do the poking (followed by a healthy dose of Prestidigitation to clean up afterwards):
|
|
Beneath a hollow board Marlani finds 210gp, a chunk of iolite, a deep green spinel and shard of blue quartz.
One wall of the small building has been painted into a mural using natural dyes and pigments. It seems to show a large cavern with one wall of the cavern having a large set of stone doors. the doors are carved with an immense grinning frog.
it's actually quite well done, and a little creepy. You almost feel like you're there, wherever there is.
She will examine the mural for a few minutes (ideally long enough so she could reproduce it reasonably well from memory.
She will also use detect magic on it, inspect it for writing or other significance, and consider her knowledge of it:
|
|
Marlani remembers hearing a story about a Boggard wizard named Bactrophan he was rumoured to have some kind of vast underground lair somewhere in the Stolen lands.
This would have been over a hundred years ago, hopefully he, and his magical creations would be long dead.
Marlani suspects this mural, provided it's not just a fever dream, depicts an entrance to what might possibly be Bactrophan's lair.
So do we wait till it wakes then parlay?
I am certain it will want to parlay after I killed it's pet, or whatever that thing was Gareth thinks as he sits and waits for his head to stop reeling.
Whilst the team is searching the buildings, Natalya will keep an eye on the boggard, arrow nocked but bow pointing at the floor rather than the unconscious humanoid.
Gareth, you should probably sit down, you have just imbibed the equivalent of a half-bottle of whisky... the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile.
Marlani is within the building for a few minutes; Later she emerges:
"I found some little trinkets, and there is a weird mural on the wall in there... probably nothing, but it reminds me of something I heard about a Boggard wizard."
"Your name is Ugabi? What are you doing here?"
Boggard wizard? That rings a bell, the undine I traveled with for a while ran afoul of some giant frogs that used to be the pets of a boggard wizard who lived here hundreds of years ago.
She looks thoughtful for a moment
He was also muttering about the wizard appearing to him and boasting about his underground lair, I thought him simply trying to justify his unprovoked attack on the frogs at the time, but maybe there is something to what he was saying.
She asks the boggard
picture pointing to the mural
where? she gestures in a wide circle and shrugs her shoulders.
|
|
The pop-eyed creature seems agitated and doesn't seem to pay much mind to anything Marlani has to say.
Assuming you are outside it looks to it's slain slurk companion and begins to utter streams of some croaky language interspersed with broken common. "Ugabi slurk die. You kill Ugabi slurk. Garuum kill you die Ugabi."
It also doesn't pay much attention to Natalya.
Marlani will begin a bardic performance to attempt to Fascinate the creature. (Will DC 15)
Marlani will try to engage with the creature again, and ask it a series of questions:
What are you doing here?
Did you draw that picture?
Where can we find the Boggard Wizard?
She will ask the questions nicely:
If it looks like the creature is stumped, Marlani will cast "Share Language" on the critter and continue her line of questioning.
Just in case he'll respond to her as well as Marlani, Natalya eagerly asks
Where is Bactophan's lair?