” Cyrene needs help!” Amphitryon yelled as he willed the shadows to disperse…
The beast may have dodged most of her explosion and firework but what it did take was enough to help push it over the edge in combination with her companions. She watches as Kyronai's force missiles stream in to finish it off. She, likewise, will launch another onslaught even after the beast falls and then will begin to lower back down into the dark sphere below her that Amphitryon had made.
Moments later, she will rush out the side of the blackness to check on Cyrene. Aikaterine keeps an eye on the boar's body though for reactions similar to that of Hermoine. Is it going to explode? If so, she will have the group clear the area before it goes off.
Varocles and the others drag Cyrene away from the beast’s body, and he channels to heal everyone…
30' radius, DC12
"There is another!" The huntress says, her eyes snapping open at the salty touch of the Sea God's healing. "A boar. A lesser threat than this but still dangerous. We must return to the village, at once!"
"It was just a dream. You fell unconscious. Take a moment. Let Varocles heal you."
Varocles will use the heal stick on Cyrene. Roll the CLWs you need, and I’ll mark off the charges.
Kyronai shakes off whatever the dying beast's scream tried to do to him, and helps move Cyrene away so that she could be healed. He looks back down the road they came.
"Cyrene, are you sure it was the town we just came from? Even if we leave immediately, we won't make it back in time to make much a difference. Perhaps we can catch it before it reaches its next target."
"This was not a dream." Cyrene says firmly. "It was a message from the goddess. There is another beast like this one. This is a plague, not an isolated incident."
She does pause at Kyronai's question. "I am... not sure. Buildings of wood and stone look much the same to me. Stand back and let me track the beast. That may give clues."
While you cannot tell the difference in buildings, you do remember that the village in the vision was landlocked as opposed to the port you just came from. As you look around for tracks, the only ones of note are that of the now-slain beast that seem to come from the southwest as opposed to Eretria which is southeast of you currently. Also if you look at the corpse, you seem some of the same scars on it that were also on the beast in your dream.
"A message from your goddess?" she asks curiously. "Think hard. Sometimes when I've been in caves I've received strange visions, but they can be disjointed. It takes a focused mind to pull accurate details from them."
She will help the half-elf up to her feet or to her knees. Whatever is more comfortable for her to focus.
"This has to be connected to Hermoine...Those bears. Just like this. What was your goal, you idiot? You've caused me enough grief. I want answers..."
In the meantime, she looks to the beast with arcane eyes and a limited understanding of alchemy.
No. You surmise that you might be able to experiment on it but it is otherwise too dangerous.
Examining the body closely the huntress starts comparing scars.
"It may be the same beast." She says, a frown marring the usually smooth skin of her forehead. "It has the same injuries, but it is much larger than I saw. It may be that killing helped it to grow more powerful."
"We believe you that this was a vision from Artemis, Cyrene. I just want to make sure that we are interpreting divine tidings correctly.
"If the beast in your vision is an earlier version of this beast here, then perhaps the Goddess of the Hunt is indicating which direction we should head in our hunt for information. Chalcis may not be our destination after all.
"If we can follow this beast back to where it came from, we may learn what happened to it, which seems very relevant to our mission. Plus, there may be more people we can help."
"No! Bad!"
"After seeing what this beast did to you hardened warriors, I can't imagine how that elderly man even made it to the village alive. Seems impossible to me. As for this beast...I highly suggest we burn it to nothing. I'm talking to ashes if we can. It may involve cutting down a couple of these trees."
She seems quite serious.
The party burns the boar creature's corpse and then follows its tracks back to where it came from.
Thankfully, Kyronai supports her decision and they get to work burning the corpse. It will take time to surround the beast in logs, branches, deadwood, and whatever else they can find before cutting down manageable trees, but eventually, they get enough to make sure everything here is going up in flame. As they light the kindling and it burns more and more, her stomach pines for the taste of bacon or pork roast.
"I don't think I've been hungrier. I think the entire island is going to smell burning pork roast for a long time."
When finished, she is more than happy to follow the markers of Cyrene.
"Let's do it!"
Burning the creature is a necessary step, but not one the huntress wants much part in, so she sets off to track the beast instead.
”Luckily, there are few things that I enjoy as much as this.” Amphitryon said, with a smile. ”Once Cyrene has the fire going, I’ll get to work.”
After burning the beast to ashes, the party led by Cyrene track the creatures large hoofprints. It takes the group a week but they eventually find the village in the huntress' vision. It looks exactly like the aftermath of what happened in Cyrene's dream/vision. The small village, in the middle of a forest is nothing but destruction. Every home is destroyed and there are vultures picking off whatever meat is left on the various corpses strewn about which gives off a foul odor and a sense of uneasiness. In addition to many humanoid footprints, there are many hoofprints that slowly turn into larger ones.
These bodies seem to have died a few weeks ago at most, around the time of the Thesmophoria or possibly a few days after. Many have crushed skulls or sternums but some evidence of organs being separated from some bodies suggest some were also mauled bloodily.
"Disgusting," the elf comments as she burrows her nose into Amphitryon's shoulder as if to hide from the horrid stench. "I'm no expert, but they seem to have died a while ago...and some mauled. What do you think, Varocles?"
Trusting that Artemis sent Cyrene this vision on purpose, Kyronai looks around, seeing if his knowledge and experiences can tell him something useful.
Without saying a word, Amphitryon went about studying the tracks on the ground. With quiet professionalism he did his best to determine how many beasts took part in the massacre.
"The fact that it seems the animals enlarged is cause for concern. These are not natural monsters we are dealing with."
”I would have to agree Aikaterine. Probably a few weeks ago at most, around the time of the Thesmophoria or possibly a few days after. Many of these have crushed skulls or sternums but some evidence of organs being separated from some bodies suggest some were also mauled bloodily. Peculiar.”
"Strange it grew so large. Alchemy is at work again, like with Hermoine. I will have to brush up on the subject after this. It has been many decades..."
Aikaterine lingers where she stood as the others investigate, but after a while with Kyroni looking around, she will join him.
"Is there anyone here?!" she calls out after a bit. The woman is doubtful for any survivors after such a long time but will look. Perhaps a starving child would not know to wander the island for help besides the old man whom they met.
There seems to be an air of shadow magic hovering over the whole area, almost like a singular cloud hanging over the village. It makes you feel uncomfortable.
There are many sets of tracks. Beyond the many humanoid ones, there seems to be a set of small hoofprints that end where a set of larger prints start and they keep growing larger in size until the hoofprints are enormous. You also feel uneasy here but you don't know why.
You don't think Artemis sent the vision as that is not something she typically does. Perhaps there is a different explanation?
There don't seem to be any survivors and most of the homes are completely demolished. However as you look around, you are able to find a notebook of some sort.
We have sent a messenger to post our need for aid on the job board. The festival brings adventurers from all over, so at least a few will heed the call. I hope some show up soon, the boar is vicious and our livestock are dwindling to nothing. I also think that it is getting bigger, though it may be my eyes deceiving me. We have not much to pay them, but hopefully some have good hearts and will arrive.
Having found the village Cyrene leaves the rest of the group to their investigations and heads out to look for fields, hunters homes on the outskirts and the places that she is more comfortable. Part of her concern stems from wondering whether the devastation was thorough - suggesting a guided animal with intelligence behind it, or the unthinking aggression of an angry beast.
Varocles will accompany Cyrene.
"We need to figure out how this began." Amphitryon said. "Something in the water perhaps? Or the feed for the animals?" As he mused he looked at the tracks pensively. The magic of alchemy was so far out of his field of expertise that it was not funny.
Kyronai shivers in both excitement and fear when he realizes the source of what he's feeling. Using a detect magic cantrip, the witch searches the area again, trying to determine if there's a source of the shadow magic.
"Hmm...this doesn't seem like something Artemis would do. It's hard to say because I'm not sure it wasn't just a dream, but then, here we are...strange"
While others milled about trying to find clues, she used her trapfinding expertise and managed to locate something, a notebook of some kind.
"I found a notation!" she calls out to the others to rally them. "Nothing, nothing...nothing...Hmm..." Aikaterine stops reading at a section and then states, "They sent for aid on a job board. The boar showed up three weeks ago it seems and was terrorizing their livestock. Three weeks ago..."
"Well, if there is money here, then they paid an adventurer and they died. If there is money, and we can manage to find it, that means no one came."
Feeling certain they've searched everywhere, she assumes the former.
"I'm sure one of these bodies was possibly and adventurer. I'm wondering why the boar targeted this community? Just for its livestock I suppose, but what would this have to do with Hermoine? If she indeed was behind this, why? What is the purpose? To wipe out life?" She sighs. "Did anyone find the money that was meant for the hiring of adventurers?"
You can't find the exact source of the magic other than it surrounds the town. But now that you think it about it, it feels very similar to what happened in the Spartan keep. A lot of traumatic deaths can cause strange things to happen like this to happen. However, this aura is weaker than the last one so you surmise it may be fading due to the source no longer being here.
Taking to the outskirts, the destruction is evident. There are bodies of all manner of wildlife both livestock and woodland, the only thing left of them are their skeletons. The plant-life fared no better as most are found to be trampled.
Searching around some more, Aika does find a small pouch in the same ruins as the journal. The pouch contains 300 gold.
Varocles gives the area a deeper look, and tries to interpret his findings...
"Aha...I found the mentioned money... which means that they never even had adventurers claim it. Either they died in attempts to kill the boar, or the messenger for the boards died on the way there or on the return journey. We may never know...too much mystery here."
She shuffles outwards away from the stench and awaits the others. Once there, she casts a detection of magic spell on the bag of gold (and region in front of her while she looks at it), and then if there is no aura, cautiously opens the bag and counts the gold.
"It looks to be three-hundred gold. A heft sum. They were in some serious need."
The dwarf has sharp eyes, but Cyrene has the greater tracking experience and does what she can to help.
"The residual magic feels the same as it did in the Spartan keep. I worry that the trauma inflicted here may result in another haunting. If we do not have a lead, perhaps we should do what we can to lay these souls to rest by addressing their remains."
By combining skillsets, the two of you are able to continue to track down where this creature came from. It takes a few hours but you find a small den in the dug into a small hill. Inside, you find the peels and stems of various fruit and vegetables. You also find a small water dish, mostly dried up but with a sliver of a strange glowing green liquid.
"What do you make of this Cyrene?"
The hunter sniffs at the liquid before dipping the tip of her finger in it and touching her tongue to it.
"Deliberate. The creature was being kept here and was deliberately fed this to turn it into a true beast." She seems very angry about this fact. "When I find whoever did this they will suffer for these crimes against nature!"
You taste the strange liquid and find that it tastes oddly sweet, almost like honey. It makes your tongue tingle a little bit and you feel a bit jittery for a second.
Kyronai swivels his head to look around, not at anything in particular, but to underscore that there's hopefully something he's missed.
"Now what? No offense to Artemis, obviously, but I'm not sure why we were lead here. We haven't learned anything that we couldn't have surmised, and we seem to be at a dead end."
"We know that Hermoine was here, and probably responsible for this, right? And we know she was in touch with a shop probably in the city. If nothing else, we should head there before we declare this a dead end. It might give us insight into where to head next. Or perhaps the office will have something for us when we return?"
Not seeing a better option, Kyronai agrees with Aikaterine's plan.
"I can think of no better options, myself. That, and if we return to Zues without having explored this, then I shudder to think what might happen to us."
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"A disappointed sigh, maybe?"
Aikaterine doesn't comment concerning the God Zeus. They make light of him, and while humorous, she doesn't know why, but she has a strong fear of him. In a positive way of course, but a fear of respect that doesn't cause her to mock his character.
She will begin to head toward the other town and hopefully, they do not run into any more giant animals along the way. On the road, if they meet a traveler heading back to their port, she would leave a message with them to give to the people there that the boar has been defeated and burned with fire to a smoldering ruin off the road by the coast.
Cyrene shakes for a second or so and then makes a disgusted face. "Yes. This was the means."
With nothing to be done here the dark elf takes the lead once more, although she's not exactly happy to be headed back to 'civilisation'.
Varocles nods to Cyrene, "off we go then."
The trip to Chalcis is uneventful and you are able to pass along the message to a traveler headed to the port city. The city of Chalcis, while nowhere near as big as Athens, is still a bustling metropolis. Even with that fact though, you are easily able to find the local alchemy shop. Inside is a young man behind the counter talking to a young couple. "That should help with the pain and the swelling." He says to them to which the couple reply with their thanks. The couple turn around to leave and you notice the woman is very pregnant and carrying a small pouch. The shopkeep waves at them as they leave. Once gone, he turns to the group. "Lovely couple, it's their first. Now, what can I do to help you lot?"