”You don’t sa-“ Osveta starts as Pollo states the incredibly obvious, unfortunately that was enough to distract her as the boar made its move.
Seeing the Barbarian fall, Gigon knelt down and attempts to staunch up the horrifying wound.
With efficient ease, the Gnome stopped the bleeding. He then moved to help kill this over-sized beast.
Anghariel gasps as the boar fells Osveta with what seems like horrendous ease. She is quick to channel her outrage and shock into her magic, however, and summons a tiny sphere of roiling flame which she hurls at the raging animal in hopes of finishing what Milo started.
Pollo scrambles to his feet and pulls his flail from it's hook on his belt. "So much for saving the family hog! This oinker's got to go!" he shouts, swinging down hard in an overhand chop.
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Milo scores an unbelievably sharp hit as he manages to exploit a small wound on the boar and stab very, very deep. It squeals like a... well, stuck pig and somehow survives the blow.
Gigon quickly manages to wrap up Osveta's wound while Anghariel whips up a ball of flame before sending it into the boar's face. The boar's face is burned horribly and by all rights it should be dead, but it instead squeals and keeps on fighting! Pollo just has none of the luck as he gets to his feet but can't land a blow.
It flails around wildly and manages to get Milo with a tusk, wounding the halfling in return for his amazing attack.
Boar (-30) (wounded 1) (sickened 1)
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Pollo (prone)
Milo
Gigon
Anghariel
Osveta (unconscious)
The Gnome pulled his dagger and began stabbing.
Gigon couldn't pierce the boar's thick hide.
Milo persevered and tried to finish off the boar.
Milo continues to make quick work of the pork chop section of the boar, while Pollo does his best to crack open the shell containing the sweetbreads.
Not that he would eat that kind of thing.
Maybe.
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“Just die already!” the elf hisses through gritted teeth, working another spell of minor flame before renewing her defensive charm.
You all continue trying to beat on the boar, but its incredibly tough hide makes this one hell of a fight! Gigon and Pollo are unable to make contact and Anghariel's next produce flame misses entirely.
Milo does manage to land what seems like another killing blow... but the boar fights that one off as well and keeps on!
Deciding to try a slightly different approach, Anghariel calls up a bolt of lightning instead. Surely even raw bestial rage can only keep the boar alive for so long…
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"I. SMELL. BACON!" Pollo growls. He rears back and swings hard, bring the ball of his flail spinning in an uppercut motion, trying to connect with the boar's chin. His arm moves like a windmill as he tries the same attack a second and third time.
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Despritely, the Gnome just kept stabbing.
The boar swipes its tusks at Pollo, but this time his luck finds him and he avoids the blow. Pollo then lands a brilliant blow that should be a killing blow on the boar... but it shrugs it off AGAIN.
However, it's Gigon who finally ends the damned creature's life as he leaps onto the boar and hammers his dagger into the base of its skill. It lets out one last squeal and hits the ground.
End of Combat
When the boar finally succumbed to its wounds, Milo moved over to Osveta and tended to her wounds.
"Ughhhh…. what happened?" Osveta murmurs as Milo brings her back to the waking world.
Milo told her, "That was an ill-tempered beast — it hit you pretty hard! We managed to bring it down, but it wasn't easy.
"You'll need to take it easy for a bit. I'll need to apply ointments hourly to speed healing."
"Good... anyone else get wrecked?" She asks as she continues to get her bearings before she tries getting up.
Milo replied, "I barely dodged when it tried to do the same thing to me! But I think everyone else is OK."
"That's good... okay, time to get up." Osveta says to herself before rising and groaning. Picking up her sword she puts it back on her back. "Where's that guy it was chasing?"
"Did you see that note I left for you on the other side?" Pollo jokes to lighten the mood. Nearly being killed by wild animals is a strange thing to have in common, but here we are I guess.
Reminded by Osveta's question, Pollo swivels his head, looking for the young man who was running for his life. "Where you at boy? Looks like we just saved your life."
Seeing that Mila had Osveta handled, Gigon hopped of the over-sized pig and looked at Pollo's wounds.
"You sit down and let me have a look," the Gnome said in an oddly authoritative manner. His eyes went wide for a moment after saying it. "Sorry, please have a seat."
Where did that come from? He thought as he started looking at the man's injuries.
The man the boar was chasing runs over. "Gods, that was a fight! Are you alright?? Thank you so much I thought that thing was the end of me. I'm Marny by the way - ah, welcome to my farm? How can I help you folks?"
Milo replied to Marny, "Hello, I'm Milo. Are marauding boar common around here? Or did this one escape its pen?"
"Oh, well. Wow. That's... well that's perfect! Thank you Gigon." Pollo favors the gnome with a grateful smile.
"Boar. Boars? Marauding boars? Boar is plural and singular?" Pollo mutters to himself, intrigued by the word that seems to be correct both ways, at least in his own head. "Probably no 's' I think. Yea. Damn chelaxian schools"
Pollo listens intently to the man's answer. "Oh, and we are looking for someone. Who are we looking for again? Oh yea, Trin. Dreadful business at the tavern last night. We were hoping we could talk with her about it, make sure she is ok?"
Once the boar appears to be truly done moving, breathing, or otherwise being alive, Anghariel cautiously approaches it and the others. “That was…entirely too close for comfort,” she says in a shaky voice. With Gigon and Milo already tending to the injured there’s little for her to do but look at everyone and give them what is meant to be a relieved smile. “But, ah, you’re all alive, and…well, I’m glad you are.”
She turns to Marny. “You are welcome. This town does have a bit of a problem with dangerous wildlife, doesn’t it?”
Osveta gives Pollo an odd look before catching his joke and chuckling. "Nah, was too busy stumbling around like someone who just got ran over by a boar. Was it a love letter?"
"At least this one didn't breathe like a dragon," she says as an aside to Anghariel.
"“You are welcome. This town does have a bit of a problem with dangerous wildlife, doesn’t it?”
"Ahhh... well they get mighty ornery sometimes I s'pose. Always lived here, hard to tell what's a problem you know? And yer looking for Trin? Well she's my sister. Come along we can say hi."
He leads you to the one-room farmhouse he and Trin live in and brings you around back where Trin is tending the turnip crop. "Oi Trin, got some friendsa yers. Out of towners. I know you're always dreaming about going places."
Trin heads over. She has a nasty bruise and healed cut on her forehead. "Oh! You're the folks that came in with Bort. Sorry about last night, that cup rung me good."
Milo introduced himself to Trin, "Milo Townsend; I'm pleased to meet you properly!"
He visually assessed her wound, before speaking.
He explained, "Sheriff Garley has asked us to assist him with his investigation. You and Phinick were serving last night. Did you serve Bort his porridge?"
"You're welcome," The Gnome replied to the man.
After treating Pollo, something just niggled at the back of Gigon's mind about the pig. While the others started talking looking over the animals body.
However, the nagging feeling that something was watching him kept distracting the Alchemist.
"It's awful isn't it?" Pollo chimes in as Milo asks his questions. "Anything you can tell us, from the time you grabbed our bowls of food and brought them out, to the time the fight started and you left with that bruise," Pollo frowns sympathetically, "Any little detail at all might help us figure out what happened."
She looks legitimately confused. "Wait, what investigation? What is awful that happened? Porridge? Did something happen to Bort?"
Milo responded, "Oh, you haven't heard the awful news — Bort is dead! We think that the porridge may have been poisoned!"
"The chaos of the fight conveniently covered a lot of things up," Osveta adds while sympathetically looking at Trin's forehead. "I should have hit those bastards harder." she grumbles.
“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” the elf tells Trin. “But, yes, it seems that someone in Etran’s Folly wanted Master Bargith dead. Unfortunately, the closest thing we have to a lead is that someone called ‘H.’ had been paying him quite generously over the years in exchange for reagents of some sort,” she says, watching the woman for any signs of recognition as she names the mysterious buyer of reagents.
You all watch Trin's face but she appears to be completely shocked by the news, and confused by comment on the reagents.
"Oh my Gods that's so terrible.. I.." she starts crying and her brother settles near her to calm her down. After a bit she starts speaking again.
"I don't know anything about reagents or much. They say my head is in the clouds but I just want a different life. The world is so big, you all must have such wonderful lives."
After a moment she continues. "Lots of 'Hs' in the town I suppose. I can ask around. I... well that night I spent the evening serving drinks and was going back and forth between the kitchen and the table. I served the porridge before the fight began. I was standing near the table when I got hit with the mug - it got kind of blurry and I went home. I didn't see anyone near the food who shouldn't have been there. Amora prepared it, Phinick plated it, I served it."
Milo asked the woman, "How many batches of the porridge did Amora prepare? Was it just one, or were there several?"
"Did you see who hit you in the head with the mug? I'm pretty sure he got what he deserved, but I'd feel better if I could confirm it's the same guy. Anyone you recognize from town, perhaps?" Pollo speaks softly.
"And for what it's worth, the world is a pretty big place. Just because we've been places doesn't mean it's all roses and sunshine though. Just make sure you don't forget where you came from and what you got when you go out looking for whatever is missing inside of you." he flashes her a wink and a friendly smile.
Anghariel smiles ever so slightly. “The world is not always what one is led to believe,” she simply says.
She listens while the others ask their questions, though by now she feels almost certain that the only denizen of Etran’s Folly who might know something genuinely helpful is Phinick – and tracking down the goblin clearly is going to be an issue all of its own.
Coming to the rest of the group from his failed investigations, Gigon joined the others just in time to hear the word reagents again. Once he had a moment to speak, "Is there anyone in the village helps people with tools similar to these?" The Gnome pulled a couple of tools from his pouches and showed them to the woman.
"She had a very large pot of it, plating just meant scooping it from the pot into the bowls. As for who hit me... I don't know. Maybe Farmer Eallom? He's always the one starting these things."
Trin doesn't seem to notice Anghanriel's rather sad warning as she keeps talking. She looks at Gigon's alchemical tools and slowly shakes her head. Marny speaks up.
"I know those are for making alchemical stuff, but we don't have anyone in town who uses that stuff. The older times don't like it for some reason so even though we could kinda use it, nobody does it."
Milo considered her reply. Nobody else had been poisoned, as far as they knew, so the batch prepared by Amora must have been OK. "Do you know where we could find Phinick?", he asked.
"Old timers not so keen on the alchemy eh? Perhaps this 'H' is someone new, or young? Do you know of anyone who might have just recently moved to town?"
Hearing Pollo's thought that 'H' could be someone new in town, a thought occurred to him. "Or, perhaps this 'H' is the reason the Old Timers do not like alchemy."
Turning to Marny, "WAS there anyone in town whose name started with an 'H' that did alchemy?"
The elf frowns. “Do you think –” she starts to say, looking at her companions, but almost second-guesses herself. “Do you think that perhaps Master Bargith was…ah, how do you say…‘baking the books’?” She looks like her own words are offensive to her, but ploughs on regardless. “He was a fanciful man, I think we all agree. How do we know these business transactions actually took place?”