Mac growls and yelps, trying to squirm out of the sticky webbing.
Oona moves up to the tree and readies an action to hit the remaining spider when it comes down from the burning tree.
Mac manages to wriggle his way out of his webbing, both shocking the ettercap and maybe making it less confident about coming out of the tree.
Spider #2 scurries out of the tree to avoid the fire. Oona swings at it and misses.
Oona (38/38 hp)
Mac (36/36 hp, 2 dex damage)
Freyja (43/43 hp)
Spider 1 (17 damage, unconscious and stable)
Spider 2 (16 damage, disabled)
Katia (30/30 hp)
Ettercap (0 damage)
Bold may act.
Katia's bolt hits the side of the redoubt.
The fire does not spread at all this round.
The ettercap, too cowardly to fight Mac in a fair fight, shoots another web at him, re-entangling him.
Oona (38/38 hp)
Mac (36/36 hp, 2 dex damage, entangled)
Freyja (43/43 hp)
Spider 1 (17 damage, unconscious and stable)
Spider 2 (16 damage, disabled)
Katia (30/30 hp)
Ettercap (0 damage)
Bold may act.
Freyja runs to the other side of the redoubt to get a clean shot on the ettercap.
Mac, supremely done with the situation, tries to get out again.
Oona swings again at the spider.
don't forget to tick the fire
The ettercap is incredulous at Mac's houdiniesque display.
Spider #2 decides its last action in life will be to try to take Oona with it. It fails and dies.
Oona (38/38 hp)
Mac (36/36 hp, 2 dex damage, entangled)
Freyja (43/43 hp)
Spider 1 (17 damage, unconscious and stable)
Spider 2 (17 damage, unconscious and dying)
Katia (30/30 hp)
Ettercap (0 damage)
Bold may act.
don't forget to tick the fire
The ettercap has apparently grown tired of trying to entangle Mac and drops to the ground to do it the old-fashioned way. It tries to bite Mac and he dodges easily.
Oona is somewhat alarmed to see the fire begin to spread in the tree above.
Oona (38/38 hp)
Mac (36/36 hp, 2 dex damage)
Freyja (43/43 hp)
Spider 1 (17 damage, unconscious and stable)
Spider 2 (17 damage, unconscious and dying)
Katia (30/30 hp)
Ettercap (9 damage)
Bold may act.
Freyja fires two shots at the now grounded ettercap.
Oona begins conjuring gallons of water, dousing wherever she can on the tree.
Now that his opponent is finally in range, Mac lashes out at it.
The ettercap tries to bite Mac again, but the multiple arrows sticking out of its body makes it a near impossible task.
Oona's efforts seem to be slowing the spread of the fire, but it may not be enough to put it out.
Oona (38/38 hp)
Mac (36/36 hp, 2 dex damage)
Freyja (43/43 hp)
Spider 1 (17 damage, unconscious and stable)
Spider 2 (17 damage, unconscious and dying)
Katia (30/30 hp)
Ettercap (28 damage)
Bold may act.
Oona continues dousing the tree with another eight gallons of water, trying to form a perimeter in the surviving leaves and branches to block off the spread.
Mac lashes out at the ettercap, hoping to end this as quickly as possible.
Mac leaps forward and tears the ettercap's throat out. Ichor sprays from the wound and all over Mac's face. The ettercap falls.
As Oona continues to cast create water, the blaze stops spreading. Eventually she is able to get the upper hand and put out the flames.
Oona frowns and points up into the charred tree. "Bodies. I fear I already know who they are, but let's find out."
She begins climbing into the tree in an attempt to extricate the corpses.
The two bodies are dessicated enough that it is difficult to discern anything about them, other than that they are both well-equipped.
- Chain shirt
- Cloak
- Masterwork shortbow
- 16 arrows (15 of which are identical)
- Masterwork light mace
- Holy symbol of Erastil
- Scroll tube containing four scrolls
- 3 agates (10gp each)
- 1 rose quartz (55gp)
- 4 amethysts (110gp each)
The chain shirt, cloak, arrows, and scrolls are all magical.
- +1 chain shirt
- Cloak of resistance +1
- 15 +1 arrows
- Arrow of sleep
- Scroll of charm animal
- Scroll of CLW
- Scroll of lesser restoration
- Scroll of plant growth
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With Oona's help, the two women identify the magic items. Katia hands the magic arrows and the arrow of sleep to Freyja.
She hands the scrolls of cure light wounds and lesser restoration to Oona, and stuffs the other two scrolls into the general loot. Then she holds up the magic chain shirt and cloak of resistance. "Who wants them?"
Oona considers the chain shirt for a long moment. "It is quieter than this bulky breastplate... But I can ill afford the lesser protection, even if it is magical. I will stay with what I have." She taps her lips. "The cloak, though..."
Freyja's eyes light up at the chain shirt. "I will take that if no one else wants it."
Oona nods and climbs up the tree ladder to the redoubt to take a look around.
The redoubt looks like it hasn't been lived in in some time. It looks comfortable, though, and you can pull the ladder up, so maybe it'll be a good place to rest tonight.
Oona doesn't find much in the redoubt except for a half-burned letter recalling all Chernasado Rangers to Fort Trevalay.
Oona comes back down from the redoubt while Katia is still busy digging mounds for the two bodies.
"This place has been unoccupied for a fortnight. All the Chernasado have been recalled to Fort Trevalay. Have either of you ever heard of this place?"
The Chernasado Rangers are a famously secretive group. It's unlikely that even those within the organization that didn't need to know where Fort Trevalay is would know where Fort Trevalay is. That said, you could ask Aubrin; having been a member, she would be most likely to know more about it.
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Katia considers the info. "Nobody knows where Fort Trevalay is except those who need to know. Those stationed there, in other words. A dead end." Frustrated, she goes back to digging graves.
After finishing the burial of the two bodies, Katia sits in the nearby grass, wiping her hands and feeling frustrated. "Great. This whole trip was a waste of time."
Oona shrugs, tucking the half-burned message into a belt pouch. No need to leave it here for the hobs to find. "Maybe. Maybe not. Aubrin is a member. If nothing else, she could possibly point us in the right direction."
She offers the witch a hand. "Come on. Let's go see if we can't keep the trail warm."
You set out from the redoubt right as the sky begins to darken. You cross the open gap between the trees without incident, though you are able to see the lights and hear the bustle of activity down at Phaendar (or what's left of it). You travel another hour northwest into the woods. It is now full dark.
You set up camp and bed down for the evening. This is the first night in what feels like an eternity that you've slept without a camp full of people surrounding you. The lack of the little sounds of camp -- a light snore, the crackle of a fire, the whispers of those on watch -- makes every little sound coming from the surrounding forest more noticeable, more sinister. But Katia and Oona's watches pass without so much as a squirrel disturbing the camp.
Freyja awakens on her own about five minutes before Oona was scheduled to wake her up. She nods Oona good night and sits facing outward from their makeshift camp, settling in for the few hours remaining before dawn.
The first hints of light are beginning to tease the horizon when she hears it: a slight rustling in the leaves just outside camp. Anyone else might have dismissed it as the wind, but Freyja has enough experience in the woods to know footsteps when she hears them. She silently pulls an arrow from her quiver and nocks it in her bow. She holds her breath so the sound of it in her head doesn't drown out the quietest sounds from the forest. She can feel her heart beating in her chest.
She hears another step just on the other side of a big tree. She draws her bowstring, waiting for whatever is there to show itself, still holding her breath. Five heartbeats pass, then ten. She is nearing the point where she will be forced to take a breath when the source of the noise finally shows itself: the lynx from the hunter's cabin.
Freyja lets her breath out with a sigh, much louder than she had intended to. She turns to ensure she didn't disturb the others, then back to the lynx. Setting her bow down at her side, she whispers, "Well, hello there. How long have you been following us?" The lynx's head tilts in confusion, but intelligence shines in its eyes. Freyja has never been more sure that this was the hunter's companion.
Suddenly she is struck with a thought, but one that feels like it originated somewhere other than inside her own head: you can talk to her.
I can... talk... to her?
You can talk to her.
Then, in several seconds that she would have found terrifying if they weren't so fascinating, her mouth begins whispering words she has never heard before, and her hands begin making movements and motions she doesn't recall ever having been taught. Her face must look a fright, a mix of confusion and fascination, but the lynx, to its credit, simply sits there and watches, almost as if she has seen this before.
Then, as quickly as they started, the chanting and strange hand motions stop. Freyja looks at the lynx, whom she has been calling Trjega, and ... 'speaks' is the wrong word for it. But she thinks the words "Hello. I am Freyja. What is your name?" and something altogether different comes out of her mouth. Sounds she wasn't even aware she could make.
The lynx opens its mouth and makes similar noises, and Freyja is utterly dumbstruck to find that those sounds equate to words in her head. "Hello, Freyja. My ... former ... master called me Pila. But my true name is" -- at this point she makes a noise that does not translate to a word inside Freyja's head. The lynx continues. "You may call me what you wish."
Freyja stares at Trje... Pila, mouth agape. She is talking. To a lynx. Suddenly she realizes this may not last forever, so she begins speaking more quickly. "What happened to your master?"
The lynx's face turns down to the ground. "He fell. He got stuck. I tried to help but could not. He died. Then he came back. But it was not him. He did not know me. He tried to kill me." She pauses, then looks back at Freyja. "Thank you for helping him."
Freyja feels tears fill up in her eyes, then drop freely over her cheeks. "Would... would you like to stay with me?"
The lynx looks at Freyja and seems to consider. "I do not know. I..." -- the next sounds that come out of her mouth are just gibberish to Freyja. She tries to speak again and realizes she cannot and that the effect must have expired. Somehow she knows that she will not be able to do it again until the next day. She just reaches out to stroke the lynx's head and nods and smiles.
The lynx looks at Freyja for a moment longer, then turns and disappears into the forest.
Freyja spends the rest of her watch weeping openly.
Freyja wakes you at dawn, though the cold rain that had just begun to fall would have woken you before too long anyway. She doesn't mention anything about her little nighttime encounter.
"Make your preparations, then we should get back to camp as quickly as possible."
Oona senses that something occurred last night, something familiar to her, though she has no idea what exactly it might be. She simply nods to Freyja and begins to break down camp. Before they leave, she kneels to face the morning sun and completes her meditation.
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Katia barely notices the oread kneeling mere feet away as she holds her tattered cloak over her head in a makeshift tent to keep her Harrow deck dry. She doesn't dare lay out the cards on the wet ground, but she holds the deck and shuffles one-handed, muttering quietly to herself in a trance-like state that even she does not entirely realize is happening. After an hour, she stands on cramped legs and gathers up her rain-soaked belongings. The long black hair that usually bobs in natural ringlets around her face hang in limp, heavy bedraggled strands, making her look like a shaggy, wet dog. She scowls at the weather and says, "Let's get out of here. I'm soaked."
Your trek back to camp takes about five rain-soaked hours. You arrive in camp around lunchtime to find confusion and disarray. No one seems to be out doing their assigned jobs and each has some degree of panic on his or her face. Jet is the first to see you arrive. "No one can find Denethil!"
Oona frowns. "Calm down. Where was he seen last?"
Jet shoots Oona an annoyed look at being told to calm down. "He was hunting with Peter and they got separated. Peter looked for him for about ten minutes, until he got spooked and decided he'd better get help. He just arrived back in camp less than an hour ago."
Oona patently ignores the look and goes straight to Peter.
"Peter. Can you take us to where you last saw Denithil?"
Peter, the young butcher's apprentice , looks terrible. He isn't hurt but is definitely shaken to the core. He seems sure that something terrible happened to Denethil.
In any case, he nods wordlessly at Oona, grabs a bow, and leads you into the woods to the west. He only walks about a quarter mile before he stops. "This is where I was when I realized he wasn't behind me anymore. I didn't hear or see anything; he was just gone."
Oona nods. "Thank you Peter. You go head back to camp. We'll look for Denithil."
She immediately starts looking around the area for signs of what happened to the elf.