Ness manages to catch the spy with the coat. Unable to lift off, it flails around on the ground under the coat.
I’ll disable it! Ness shouts excitedly.
Ness's tools do manage to stop it from twitching, but with more sparks and clanking than might be otherwise desirable.
Do we kill it? the girl asks.
That seems needlessly hostile, her father replies. For all we know it had nothing to do with the disappearance of the villagers. It was searching, but we’re searching as well.
I’m with Ulionestra - we should kill it. That’s the safest course.
Not necessarily. We could risk making an enemy of its master. If it had a mouth we could try to communicate. Thackett, seal it in that lockbox, we’ll take it with us when we head back to the ship. Let’s search the next building.
Once Thackett returns, they continue to the buildings at A11.
Ulionestra
Indi
Thackett
Lanzelett
These two long, rectangular buildings are constructed entirely from planks on a wooden frame, with a pitched thatched roof. Each building has two doorframes on the side of the buildings opposite the palisade, but lacks doors. Four window frames open into either side of the long walls, a few of which have no cover and others only a canvas draped across the inside. A partial view of the interior is possible from the doorways. Inside, the floors are hard-packed earth, and along the walls are wooden bunk beds. Many of the pallet beds are covered with blankets that now gather dust. Those beds have sacks or tied bundles of clothes sitting at their feet.
They check the bundles of clothes for clues.
Rifling through the bundles lends 321 silver pieces and 87 gold ones, as well as a small talisman and a multicoloured rod, but as you disturb the bundles, the dirt on the other side of the barracks begins to churn. From the churning dirt comes a dog-sized insect whose mandibles drip with a foaming liquid. It chitters once, then dives towards you. Roll iniative.
Ulionestra
Indi
Thackett
Lanzelett
Lanzelett takes a hard look at the creature while lining up her shot, then quickly looses an arrow.
(dice=Nature)1d20 + 2(/dice)
(dice=Attack)1d20 + 5(/dice)
As the arrow flies through the air, Lanzellet identifies the creature as an ankheg nymph, the younger stage of the much larger, much more dangerous ankheg, a horse-sized ant capable of rending flesh and bone with grisly mandibles and corrosive acid. The nymphs cannot reliably survive on their own, so a full-grown ankheg must be close by. The nymph, however, skitters aside at the last second. As the arrow bounces of the dirt, the ankheg scuttles under one of the bunks and bites at Thackett, but the powerful mandibles cannot pierce the chains.
Is the cot fabric? Could he attack through it? Is kicking it over a move action?
The cot could be pushed aside as a move action and a DC 13 Strength check. If the check fails, the ankheg nymph has cover.
Thackett kicks the cot aside,
and attacks with his heavy pick.
Alright, the nymph skitters out of the way at the last second, narrowly dodging the blow. Ulionestra's up next.