Azorious knocks an arrow and fires with his bow careful to avoid his allies.
...and the arrow cautiously sails off into the trees.
The thought enters Kesni’s mind that she may have bitten off more than she could handle pissing off this creature. She fights off the fear with red hot rage.
She puts her face closer to the bear’s and roars as fiercely as she can and pushes up as tall as she can under the weight of the bear.
An arrow sails above the bear, as it takes no notice.
Rast's Morningstar connects and crashes into the side of this large creature. It lets a howl of pain out followed by a roar.
The bear roars back in Kesni's face as being challenged.
As Kesni's mind starts to focus with the adrenaline of both combat, and the realization that this creature is in a frenzy, with the very real possibility of death starting to make itself known, she starts to feel the tinge of insight in the back of her mind.
The intuition hits you almost as hard as the strike Rast landed on the bear. Although this is a predatory bear and playing dead would be a bad choice, being the less threatening creature than the Half-Orc attacking it, may make you less of a priority especially now that you're injured and bleeding everywhere.
Suicide. Stupid suicide. You don't owe her your life. What in the name of reason do you think you are doing? Stay back here and keep using the bow! You'll live longer!
Arguing with himself even while he moves, 'Dada pulls his rapier in his dominant hand while continuing to hold his bow in his off hand, as he moves across the ground and sets himself up in a flank with Rast before going for the simplest, most basic combat maneuver possible. You try to put the pointy end of this thing into that thing.
As the bear continues to maul the half-orc, the Varisian has trouble forcing his blade through the fur, having it casually knocked sideways by little more than the bear's efforts to breath as it roars back at Kesni.
As her attempt to intimidate the creature fails, Kesni’s anger finally gives out. I am in no shape to continue a wrestling match with this bear.
While not falling prone, she slumps slightly under the bear and releases her own grapple on the creature.
The Bear feels the pain of the Morningstar in it's side, at the same time the Half-Orc bellows and slumps down.
Instinct takes it from a meal to the immediate threat. It turns roars, and lunges with it's bite focusing it's attention on Rast.
Rast's readied armor a shield blocks the teeth from connecting.
Transferring the bear’s focus was obviously a ploy on Kesni’s part, as she quickly moves as soon as she is released. She drops the dagger and retrieves her longbow from the dirt before retreating from the beast. She makes a point to stay close enough that should her half-orc companion channel his god’s power that she will feel it.
“Rast may last longer under that thing’s fury than I did but he still will not have long. Make every attack count!”
Azorious frowns before drawing another arrow, taking careful aim and fires... his keen elven ears here it faintly plop into the stream in the distance.
Desna, help me keep my feet on a road. Any road. Cayden, protect the foolish so that they may drink later in joy. Oh, gods, don't let the bear turn around . . ..
'Dada's thin blade is again casually deflected as the bear turns to attack Rast.
The morning star strikes again connecting with the Bear. It bellows in pain and recoils from the blow.
The arrow misses it's target, and the rapier doesn't quite connect through the matter fur of the creature.
The old dwarf raises an eyebrow and mouths to himself silently.
Where are tha goblins?
Gathering his arcane energy once more, he forms an aether replica of Aevi this time and sends it flying at the bear.
The energy smashes into the Bear the waves crashing before fading away.
The Bear facing Rast rends into Rast, one of the claws finding purchase. The bear starts to look around seeing multiple challengers and begins to look frightened.
The old dwarf hesitates at the bear's apparent fright. "Do we 'ave ta kill it?"
"No but we need the amulet from it." This time he fires an arrow that should get at least a little closer.
”Have you ever had bear steak, Rogar? We will find this amulet and eat well tonight, besides.”
Kesni fires an arrow at the bear from her now safer position.
"Uh, guys? You know the amulet is more probably in the pile of goblins than his belly, right?"
Kesni's arrow strikes in the animals shoulder joint causing it to howl in extreme pain.
As the second arrow and Morningstar connect, the bear starts limping backwards. It moves away and starts to run off northerly.
Kesni sends another arrow at the beast but does notice the hesitation from the others.
“Why send it off? This animal will feed several families in Sandpoint if we bring it in. And in it’s poor condition if we aren’t eating it, something else will be eating it soon.”
Instinctively, Gudada takes the free shot as the bear tries to withdraw, kicking himself as soon as he realizes what he's done.
Please don't eat me don't eat me don't eat me.
Rogar has an introspective look on his face, but says nothing.
After Gudada strikes the bear with his Rapier, it turns to flee, grunting in pain as it moves.
The arrow sent by Kesni hits its target true in the hindquarter, overwhelmed by the inflicted damage, the bear drops, and after a few short seconds of panting and grunting, it dies.
The solitude of the forest returns, and a level of balance and peace returns. Small woodland creatures can be heard scurrying about, but the largest disturbance is now gone.
As the bear falls, so too does Kesni’s adrenaline. She swings her longbow over her shoulder and hunches over with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.
”Thank you, Rast, for taking it’s attention. I felt like a meal for a moment.”
She stands up straight and makes slowly for the fallen bear, blood flowing down her arm and dripping from her fingertips into the soil. As she passes where she dropped her dagger she kneels to retrieve it. She calls over her shoulder. ”Loot the gobs, if you would. I will try to make quick work of this.”
She kneels beside the beast and slaps it on it’s lifeless belly. ”You fought well, beast. Thank you for the nourishment you will provide.”
While checking the area Azorious will use detect magic and start taking anything of worth from the dead goblins. "How badly damaged is the hide from the fighting Kesni?"
You see as you kneel beside the bear, that you would need the proper set up to harvest the meat. It's a 250 pound bear, and to drain it, skin it and have useful meat, you'd be better off dragging it into town.
Your experience being mostly with Goblins and smaller creatures, you're confident that you could harvest approximately 20 lbs of non tainted meat, some of the organs, and some of the bones and a third of the hide for usage. If you took it into town and had access to a tannery you may be able to salvage more.
'Dada starts gong through the disturbingly bloody and chewed remains, looking for anything of value, or resembling the amulet.
Rogar sits quietly, a sad expression on his face and speaking quietly to himself. "Tha people 'ave more problems with goblins than with food I think."
The old dwarf shakes his head and stands up, his gentle smile returning. "Ah well. What's done is done. Let's get ye where ye ken do some good."
Guadada finds roughly about 1gp 32sp worth of coins, and a scattering of both damaged and rusted Goblinoid weapons. Nothing resembling the Amulet however.
Kesni will help Rogar fashion the sled. Her movements are slow but efficient and she does her best to mask the pain she is in.
”Thank you, Rogar. My buyer in Sandpoint will be surprised at this. Rarely do I bring in bear and never this size. And with the tools available in Sandpoint I can harvest most of it.”
Her eyes widen as a thought occurs to her. ”We will bring Ameiko the choices pieces of meat. A cook such as she could do wonders with it. We will eat good tonight!” You think it is a smile that settles on her face but it is hard to tell with the tusks.
Azorious raises an eyebrow at the idea. "I wonder what flavours compliment bear meat. I do not think I have ever had any."
"Unfortunate that we weren't able to recover the amulet, were a few goblins quicker than their kin and escaped the bear? Or did a different group have it I wonder." He will assist those with more knowledge of bushcraft in constructing the sled.
The sled takes approximately 20 minutes to properly construct, and mounting the bear a dozen more. The afternoon sun glitters through the treetops, and the heat of midday begins to cool off.
Kesni’s head whips around when the amulet is mentioned. ”It wasn’t here? This was our only lead to setting right that tomb...”
Once the bear is mounted and ready to go, Kesni will go poke around the goblin corpses quickly before they set off. She is still trying to puzzle out why there appear to be so many tribes involved in the recent activities.
You find a few additional weapons when searching the Goblin corpses, however no amulet is in sight.
Dejected, Kesni begins the trek back to Sandpoint if everyone seems to be done here.
|
Rast considers speaking up when the decision to bring the bear back is made but doesn't find his voice. He looks off into the woods, assuming they could have tracked further goblins but with the others having decided he simply helps drag the bear back. Enjoying the physical effort.
"I... I guess we will continue the search tomorrow then?"
The balance to the forest restored, the sounds of the forest are more noticeable. To Kesni things seem more level than prior to the hunt.
”I would think this band of gobs were what the sheriff had us hunting. As far as I’m concerned our task is done with them being corpses. You think we should spend more effort searching, Rast?”
"We were sent to find the amulet, not the goblins. This has not been a successful trip, other than the fact we're all still breathing."
"Unless someone has spotted something I have not this trail of investigation ends here. We've at least accounted for some more of the goblins. New avenues of inquiry might have sprung up back in town."
Rogar listens as the conversation continues, his stoic demeanor unaffected.
Our heroes realizing that the tracks trail off into the rest of the ravines and no longer able to track them find no sign of the seven pointed amulet. It's faint magical aura can be felt but for the time being it seems out of their grasp.
Dragging the bear corpse back to town, you find yourself coming in through the north end of the town. The light of day has faded to early evening, and compared to the business of the morning, the activity seems rather muted.
It's only a 15 minutes by foot to the Tannery where the bear can be properly taken care of and distributed.
DC 12 - The Tannery is run by Larz Rovanky, known for relatively well made products. Known as a trustworthy fellow
DC 18 - The Tannery is connected to the Scarnetti's.
DC 22 - The Scarnetti's use this as a front for some of their more legitimate money, it's connected to the Lumber Mill.
DC 24 - Ibor Thorn works double shifts at both the Mill and the Tannery.
You're recognized and hailed as you walk into town. One of the first people you see is an elderly woman approaching you. She waves and with a broad smile exclaims "Oh the Goblinslayers, wait a moment, I've made this for you....Just a second here" She reaches into her basket pulling out small loaves of bread, before you can refuse she literally forces one into each of your hands saying "It's my famous corn recipe, thank you so much for what you did the other day" she smiles and continues hobbling off.
The bread does smell delicious and after a day out in the forest, the first smell of fresh food other than trail rations is appetizing.
"Thank you, that is very kind of you." Azorious waves good by to the woman.