"We shouldn't break the door. Has anyone checked the doors and windows to see if any of them are not locked?"
With a boost from Pandir and, a few minutes later, Grog, Finch finally manages to unlock the fairly simple lock — the Badem might have been careful enough to lock all their windows, but not paranoid to the point of getting something that posed a challenge to the rogue.
Inside, Finch finds herself in a bigger bedroom with a large and ornate king-sized bed. A kilt covers one wall, a vase with a bunch of mouldy flowers rests on a bedside table and a walnut armoire lies face-down on the ground. Judging by the marks on the wall, this piece of furniture was, until recently, positioned next to the bedroom door.
Outside, Katala tries the remaining windows she can reach but has little luck. The place was completely locked.
Pandir helped! Uh, what did she help with?
"What do you see, Miss R-Finch?"
Finch glances around, eyes narrowed, and then peeks out at Pandir. "Somethin' is definitely off here—the furniture's been knocked over."
Reaching further out of the window, the halfling motions for the others to enter. She then moves to the interior door and presses her ear against it.
Pandir asks for help to enter through the sill.
Once she's in, she looks around at the messy furniture. She waits for Miss Rosefinch to finish before helping everyone in.
Grog scrambles up to the window. He stops, getting stuck for a moment. He sucks in his breath as his muscles grate against the sides of the window, and stumbles onto the floor. His shield smacks his head a second after him.
Edit: He rubs his arms, and stands up, apologizing in an undertone.
Katala follows the others inside. The fallen furniture, plus moldy flowers just angers her. "Looks like a nasty fight here, days ago. Any tracks that might have been here are long gone by the look of those flowers."
"Grog? Any chance you could stand that armoire back up? Something might have been caught under it, a clue from who.... or whatever was here? Anything easy they probably took with them."
After a brief inspection, Katala is certain that someone like Grog could lift the armoire without too much trouble.
Finch, her ear glued to the door, hears nothing. It is almost creepy, in fact: for a mill that’s supposed to be at the heart of Abberton’s economic life, it is awfully, terribly quiet. A quick peek reveals an open living area that includes a small round table with three chairs, a long counter for food preparation, and several cupboards.
It is not only the silence that is creepy. Some of the Wayward Wonders feel their every move is being observed.
When drawing closer and putting an ear against the armoire, one hears the distinct (if muffled) sound of a strong summer breeze.
"Oh. You can hear the wind behind this armoire." Pandir pronounces the last word carefully. Mother Denair was always peculiar about the details of mortal language.
Oh! "Maybe something is behind here?" Pandir puts her back to the armoire and tries pushing it backward.
Katala listens at the armoire. "Odd.... Sounds like it's inside it."
Finch takes a hesitant half-step back from the door, surreptiously drawing her dirks from their sheaths. She peers around the room, as if expecting to see someone behind the curtains or under the bed. "Uh. I don't hear no wind, but there's definitely someone in here with us—watchin' us."
"Oh?" Pandir backs off from the armoire. "Hello, new friend!" Pandir waves... she also circles around, because she's not sure where the friend is.
"Maybe our new friend is inside?" She begins opening the drawers of the armoire.
The moment Pandir and Grog prop the armoire open, the room erupts in a sudden gust of wind, dust and debris that is as painful as it is loud. Basic reflex save DC 20 or 11 damage.
“Free! I am free! Let me breathe, mortal scum! I need air, sweet, sweet air!” commands a small humanoid with a thin long nose, bat wings and a translucent white body.
Pandir opens the drawer and finds a pleasant surprise as she's blasted across the room.
"Ah, hello... friend?"
Hearing/feeling the blast of wind and debris Katala tries to duck out of the building.
Grog obediently lifts the armoire, and squints as the summer breeze turns into a vicious gale. He raises his shield, trying to evade the blast.
The creature spares a single, frosty look on Pandir’s general direction.
“I answer not to you, plant thing! Friends we are not! Revenge calls! Or my mistress! It does not matter!” It says before jumping out of the window.
Silence blankets the room once again, though Finch still feels a slight shiver down her spine: someone is still watching them, she’s sure of it.
"Oh. Goodbye, living gust." Pandir eventually stands back up. "Mistress Revenge? Is that her name?"
She looks at the door. "Ah... do we proceed now?"
Katala moves over to the window to see where the creature goes. "Somebody trapped that thing under the cabinet. If it wants revenge it might be headed to wherever it thinks that person is. Should we try to follow?"
She calls her Familiar over and tells her to fly up high and watch the fleeing creature.
Completely opening the door mostly confirms what Finch had noticed before: this room is a mix of a living area and kitchen, with plenty of cooking implements and cabinets filled with ingredients and spices.
More importantly, now that the group has full view of the room they notice scorch marks on the western wall. If this is a sign of struggle or fighting, it is the only one anyone can immediately see at the moment.
There are two exits from this room: a door right across the kitchen, which likely leads to the room Finch had tried to break in earlier; and a ladder leading to the mill’s main hall.
A faint buzzing comes from downstairs.
"Why has no one noticed this?" Pandir looks around the room. She looks under a few chairs, a couple of tables and stares at the scorch mark.
"Nothing seems to make sense..."
Katala watches her familiar fly away but hears Pandir's comment. "It makes sense. Whoever, or whatever, was causing us grief at the circus is targeting the town too. This mill is important to the town so they attacked it. There are no bodies so they must have hauled the people away. Maybe they are alive and prisoners, or maybe they didn't want to bury them here. Now I want to see where that thing is flying. Pardon me while I go blind here...."
The group watches as Flicker darts quickly out of the window and Katala’s eyes go white. Her mind hitches a hike on her familiar’s eyes and ears, but she soon discovers that it is very hard to see a semi-transparent creature seemingly made out of air, especially when said creature had a bit of a head start. The best Katala can say after her mind returns to her own body is that her quarry went north or northwest.
"Should we go downstairs, friends?" Pandir waits for Katala to come to before heading down.
The moment Pandir and Grog prop the armoire open, the room erupts in a sudden gust of wind, dust and debris that is as painful as it is loud.
“Free! I am free! Let me breathe, mortal scum! I need air, sweet, sweet air!” commands a small humanoid with a thin long nose, bat wings and a translucent white body.
[...]
The creature spares a single, frosty look on Pandir’s general direction.
“I answer not to you, plant thing! Friends we are not! Revenge calls! Or my mistress! It does not matter!” It says before jumping out of the window.
Finch dives under the bed for cover, but finds the space already occupied by a trunk full of old clothes. "Ow."
"Should we go downstairs, friends?" Pandir waits for Katala to come to before heading down.
The clown looks askance at the ladder, her pointed ears perking up slightly. "Hm. Sounds like there's bugs or somethin' down there—I hear buzzin'. Also, it's still prrretty creepy in here, in terms of ominous presences, so keep your eyes peeled..."
Grog, frustrated at the sudden and vicious attack, but unable to retaliate, angrily kicks the armoire with his heavy work boot.
"Hm. Sounds like there's bugs or somethin' down there—I hear buzzin'. Also, it's still prrretty creepy in here, in terms of ominous presences, so keep your eyes peeled..."
Grog grunts, hefting his pick on his shoulder, and raising his shield.
Katala comes back to her own senses, mentally calling her familiar back.
She listens as the others discuss steps going forward. "Buzzing? Could that witch have left some giant wasps or some such other nastys here? Sounds like a trap, but it probably should be cleared out before someone else comes looking and gets killed!"
"But, I know I'm hurting. Maybe we should take some time and bind wounds before we move in to more dangers? There's nothing threatening right now, and little to be gained by rushing!"
Going down the ladder, the group enters a spacious chamber that is two stories high and has a well-fitted stone floor. In the center of the space, a millstone grinds away, rotated by a wooden shaft projecting through the north wall. A double door leads east; hanging above it and occupying the majority of the ceiling is a massive wasps’ nest.
Pandir, Finch, Grog and Katala quickly understand they are not welcome: the buzzing intensifies and a cloud of wasps forms close to the eastern double door.
The wasps are clearly very aggressive and will attack at the slightest perceived threat. Even staying here for long might attract their ire.
Katala spots the huge nest, stops, then starts backing away. "Oh. My. God! That thing is huge! Back up! We can't provoke them or we're all likely dead! There's probably hundreds, or thousands of stinging wasps in that nest!"
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"Oh yes, quite a large nest." She looks at the wasps. "It will be difficult to inspect anything inside this room with them about." Suddenly, a look of fear. "Oh, will they try to extract nectar from me? How embarrassing!" Pandir tries to restrain herself from jumping about.
"They can't swarm us all if we scatter!" says Finch, not quite shouting or whispering, but something in between. "I sure as hell didn't sign up to be an exterminator, but we can't find the godsdamned sheriff if we're gonna run from a bunch of bugs. If it gets too bad, we'll run and jump in the river..."
Having said that, the clown takes a step back and ducks behind Grog, drops into a crouch, and then moves around the millstone and underneath the axle.
Pandir decides to stay quiet and look for one of the side doors. Maybe they can take refuge in another room and search for clues there.
Grog sees the wasp swarm. He grits his teeth at the challenging encounter ahead, and raises his shield for all the good it could do for him.
"Oi, we fightin'?" he asks, looking at his pick doubtfully.
It takes just one misstep and Pandir’s nightmare comes true: the wasps react to her perfume and the room is suddenly inundated by deafening buzzing. A few stragglers begin to land on Pandir's leaves, with the big group quickly following suit.
Turns out a gigantic swarm of wasps moves very, very quickly. Before anyone can even register it, the whole mass of flying insects is covering Pandir. The poor frightened leshy can only instinctively shake herself and move, angering the wasps who answer with sharp stings.
The swarm is all over her- stinging, crawling, poking at her insides. Ah! One of them is crawling through her head petals. No, stay out!
She shakes off the sluggish feeling as the poison infects her. She tumbles ahead, maintaining a loose balance like a tumbleweed. Finally she stumbles enough to swing twice against the swarm.
-2 hp
Grog roared in rage, putting his foot down with his pick, swinging at the vile wasps.
+3 Negative Energy damage.
+2 to AC, can use shield to reduce damage.
Katala scoots away, glancing to see if there is any way she can send the cone of flames at the swarm.... But with her friends flanking it she'd burn one or the other if she tried, and then have the swarm envelope her!
Stepping across the room she calls on her cantrip and fires an arc of electricity into the swarm.
Finch rolls out from behind the millstone and sends two knives spinning into the swarm.
It is a testament to Pandir’s skill that she manages to focus enough to remember the proper steps and movements in the middle of the raging cloud of wasps surrounding her, but she soon realises that her blows fail to disperse the insects.
Katala’s lightning bolt is only slightly more successful as most of the electricity dissipates without hitting anything . Finch’s daggers follow closely behind and somehow succeed in not hitting even one of the insects.
Grog’s weapon becomes darker and causes a few wasps to fall on the ground, withered. It is hard to notice that this was the only attack that seemed to have at least some effect on the swarm.
The swarm continues to relentlessly sting Pandir. 3, 7, and 11 P dmg.
Dice/sting/2d8/dice
Dice/sting/2d8/dice
Seeing her friends taking sting after sting, and realizing that nobody else likely has a really good attack against the swarm, she steps forward, casting a spell to release a blast of flame as she reaches a position that won't also burn her friends....
Finally the wasps find something worth stinging, and a bunch of them crawl through her top petals. More venom, not good. Not again. Even worse they don't seem to care about her flyswatter routine.
"Friends, I cannot help scatter them- I am sorry." Pandir backs off and grabs an Elixir of Life, shaking off as many wasps as she can before drinking.
Grog plants his pick into his rigger's belt, sliding his shield to his back.
With his great fists, he does not go to attack the inexorable swarm of vicious wasps, but grabs Pandir's collar and Finch, shouting, "Der too tuff! We pull back!"
Sherry takes a few futile swipes at the swarm before being carried out of the house by Grog, kicking and screaming all the way.
Grog shuts the door of the house behind him, depositing Finch and Pandir, panting.
He takes a gulp of breath, and lets it out, wheezing, "We'z should chip da adven'ur'n 'a da adven'uraz."
He then remembers the dead and lifeless face of Ringmaster Myron, and his trepidation fades. If the heroes didn't come already to save the day, then they're alone. A bunch of clowns, saving the day.
"Aw we'z kome back prepared. Chuffin' swarm."
Katala waves her hands and produces a cone of flames that burns a healthy chunk of the wasp swarm. Hearing Grog’s exhortation, she quickly turns around and follows the orc as he kicks the door open whilst carrying both Pandir and Finch.
The tiny little flying devils seem unwilling to follow behind and leave their hive unprotected, and thus the Wayward Wonders live to fight another day.
A few seconds pass outside and then Pandir, Grog, Katala, and Finch hear the high-pitched voice of an old person. “I’ll let you know that I won’t pay you for this shoddy extermination job. And file a complaint with your bosses!” When they look about themselves, they can see no one.
Grog looks up, tusks poking from his upper lip as he frowned, turning to find the speaker.