Patizamo cleans the mace. "Well, that's one. Let's heal up. Hopefully the others are easy to find."
Ubasu swallows away a mouthful of disapproval after seeing just how strong these oozes are. What were they thinking when they created them?! "These oozes are like super-charged alchemical pests. One would hope common sense dictates that creating such things is never a wise thing?! Oh well, more of them await us and there's no point in complaining when there's work to be done. Words rarely do the heavy lifting, after all."
After tending to your injuries, you proceed along the path through the gardens. A spray of rot that emanates a powerful stench covers the path ahead. The plants here seem pacified by the repulsive coating of filth. A destroyed sewer grate is plainly the source of the filth spread around this area.
This is likely the grate that Natofo dropped the sewer ooze into. Your suspicions are confirmed when a large, amorphous mass of sludge and detritus lunges up through the grate to attack!
Ubasu chants an Alijae rhyme about an insect caught in amber, and how it saw the whole world move on by without ever blinking an eye.
Pilzip tries to remember what he can about this noxious ooze, then flings an icicle at it.
for
Baldrek rushes to give battle to the ooze, but keeps as much distance as possible.
Pilzip remembers that sewer oozes are highly acidic. They can also unleash waves of filth on any creatures nearby. The grippli strikes it with an icy ray while Baldrek lunges at it, hitting it twice. Ubasu manages to slow it significantly! All the ooze can do is slither closer to Baldrek.
"Oh, that is great, Ubasu!" He congratulates his companion as he moves back to continue to slam his maul at the ooze.
"So, now we just have to keep our distance and whittle it down?"
Patizamo decides that instead of attacking with his blade, he'd rely on spells and just stay back.
With the ooze unable to move fast enough to keep up, you make quick work of it!
You navigate past a few more agitated carnivorous plants until you reach a stone gazebo at the center of the Gardens. The gazebo contains a decorative bench overgrown with moss and tiny pitcher plants. Ivy on the gazebo’s sides is lush and green, trailing across its base and the surrounding path. This looks like weeks or even months of overgrowth, not simply a few days’ worth.
Pilzip will look around and see if he can find some reason for the verdant growth.
Pilzip doesn't notice anything at first, but when he get within 10 feet of the gazebo, a green ooze the size of a human drops down from the rafters in front of him! Supernatural vapors swirl around it, causing the vegetation to grow rapidly and writhe and grasp at you!
Before you can react, the ooze slithers up to Pilzip and release a blast of soporific gas!
Critical Success: The creature is unaffected and becomes temporarily immune to Sleep Gas for 24 hours.
Success: The creature is stupefied 1 for 1 round.
Failure: The creature falls unconscious. If it's still unconscious after 1 minute, it wakes up automatically.
Critical Failure: The creature falls unconscious. If it's still unconscious after 1 hour, it wakes up automatically.
Patizamo feels the gas make him a little drowsy, but he manages to remain conscious and tries to focus his mind on a strategy. Moving back a little bit so he's out of the gas, stumbling over roots as he does so, he tries to cast a spell and freeze the ooze where it lies.
Unfortunately, the gas fuzzes his mind and makes him unable to focus enough to cast his spell.
While feeling the effects of the gas, Baldrek manages to keep himself awake. He dashes forward, escaping the entangling vines to reach the ooze and slam it hard with his maul.
With a blast of gas to the face, Pilzip falls asleep!
Ubasu leans back and weaves a spell of slow. With a deep voice, like a rock come to life, Ubasu addresses his companions as he unleashes the spell on the ooze. "Hold your breath and embrace the beating of your heart - we live, it shall fall, and all will be as it should."
Patizamo's spell falters as he tries to clear his head. Baldrek lands a pair of hits on the ooze, but Pilzip falls asleep! The ooze completely resists Ubasu's attempt to slow it. Recalling that verdurous oozes can split, Mokhasi cause the ground to crush the creature.
The ooze lashes out at Baldrek, but fails to hit him!
With the fuzz from the poison cloud leaving his mind, Patizamo focuses back on the ooze before him and casts his spell yet again, again trying to freeze the ooze in its tracks.
Ubasu collects a handful of rocks from the sack hanging from his belt and launches them at the ooze.
Baldrek dodges the ooze and keep his feet moving and away from the grasping vines as he slams his maul over and over again.
Mokhasi frowns as the ooze keeps pummeling them, and again directs the ground to devour it.
Then he seeks to bolster his ally.
You strike the ooze several times, then Mokhasi's crushing ground squishes it with a mighty snap, destroying the vile creature! With that, you have defeated all of the oozes that were let loose in the gardens.
Natofo is incredibly grateful for your help. She admits that she should have been more careful with introducing new lifeforms to the delicate ecosystem but insists that she’s made many useful discoveries for future work. She asks you to relay her thanks to her brother but requests that you perhaps downplay the chaos you encountered in the Gardens, or she’ll never hear the end of it.
She awards you 60 gp for your help. She also leverages her brother’s connections at the Magaambya to have a staff of abjuration delivered to you a few days later.
After several more weeks, more requests for your time and abilities come to you. You've heard rumors recently describing nighttime fires across campus. The fires take place at unoccupied parts of the campus and appear to be nothing more than strangely coincidental accidents. So far, the fires have been extinguished before there’s been any real damage, but rumors swirl that perhaps an arsonist is to blame. Janatimo wants you to look deeper into the matter.
A second request comes from Teacher Ahassunu, an iruxi professor of diplomatic history at the school. She’s something of a colorful character among Uzunjati faculty. She is requesting assistance with an issue involving some drakes encroaching on nearby farms.
Pilzip barely resists the urge to decorate a classroom's bulletin board with a map of campus covered in red pins.
"These fires can't be by a coincidence!" The grippli shifts from foot-to-foot and urges his classmates to investigate the arson.
Patizamo is less convinced. "It's possible, but I would think the drakes are more pressing as opposed to fires that haven't done any damage. Still, if you really think it's more important to investigate the fires, I'll go with you."
Baldrek agrees with Patizamo on the matter. "Also with how much it rains in
Nantambu, half of the problem is already fixed by nature itself. How about we take a look on the drakes and then the fires?"
"The drakes sound very interesting too. Strange that they are venturing so close to the city. Have you ever heard of anything like it?" All it relly takes to spark Pilzip's interest is a tiny push, so he's quickly on board with the drake investigation.
Once you have decided, you seek out Teacher Ahassanu to see what she wants. Her office is on the top floor of the Elephant Museum.
“Welcome, conversants!” Ahassunu says happily, her scaled face breaking into a wide grin. “I’ve been watching your progress. Quite impressive, I say, quite impressive. It reminds me of a group of ancient Mwangi Expanse warriors who defied all expectations when they—oh, you didn’t come here for me to ramble. You want to know what I need from you, yes?
“Well,” she says without pausing for answer, “I have a dear old friend who is a goat herder on the Nantambu outskirts. For an iruxi, she has quite the affinity for those hairy mammals. Do you know who else has an affinity for goats?
“Jungle drakes,” she says without pause. “My friend needs help to stop some of these creatures from grazing on her livestock. I’m happy to give you directions when you’re ready to go.”
"Has your friend had problems with jungle drakes in the past, or is this a new issue?"
"Have they taken many goats? How many drakes do there seem to be?"
"This is something new. I don't know how many goats have been taken, but I'm sure my friend will be able to tell you! There are two drakes, though, that I know. A mated pair, I believe!"
"Maybe we can drive them off. But, if they've become habituated to eating livestock I think the chances are slim."
Baldrek nods in agreement at the prospect of driving them away instead of just killing them. "If this is new, then perhaps they just arrived in the area as a new mated pair... or perhaps their usual prey has being consumed by another invader predator." He says, musing.
"I was thinking the same think, Baldrek. If they were driven to the area by another predator consuming their usual prey, it may be beneficial to deal with that and get the drakes to return to their original hunting grounds."
Ahassunu doesn't have much to add, but insists her friend can tell you more. When asked for the friend's name, Ahassunu first looks puzzled, insisting she’s already given it, but then explains (again, in her recollection) that her friend is Ibisu. In any case, she provides directions to Ibisu’s fields, which are southwest of Nantambu.
When you head to Ibisu’s fields, you spot an elderly iruxi with lime-green skin moving deliberately through a flock of several dozen goats. It’s clear she’s moving slowly not due to the aches or pains of old age, as she’s quite agile, but out of concern for her goats—she nudges them gently out of her way with her staff as she walks. She’s plainly pleased to see you.
After making introductions, Ibisu tells you her story:
“Nantambu is a living, changing city. Nothing ever remains the same for too long! But sometimes that change brings pain. Nearby there are a male and female jungle drake. I could watch them fly in the skies all day long, courting each other.
“And I would... except that they’ve developed a taste for my goats, as I’m sure Ahassunu told you. I need these goats for my livelihood. I tried to speak to a friend of a friend, Magistrate-Mayor Asanda, but he was not nearly as approachable as I was led to believe. Everyone else I try to talk to reminds me that jungle drakes are cruel and scheming monsters and wants to turn them into pelts or trophies. I don’t want that—I just want them moved! They have eggs, and moving the eggs means the drakes will follow. No matter how mean they are, they want what’s best for their children, just as we all do. I’ve already found a distant place where they could live comfortably, if I could get them there.
“That’s where you come in.”
Ibisu asks you to help her catch the drakes. She has a wagon and some very sturdy collapsible cages. Ibisu has already located the drakes’ nest, which is near a pretty waterfall in the jungle. She also provides a map on goatskin parchment showing a new, distant location for the drakes’ release, about a day’s travel further from the city.
"This is wonderful, Ibisu. We agree with you about the need to spare the drakes and seeing you have all of that planned will just make everything easier." He then thinks about the problem at hand. "So, we'll have to lure the drakes into the cages, then move the eggs and the drakes... pretty straightforward." He proclaims, knowing that trapping the drakes would not be easy at all.
Patizamo nods. "Perhaps we can create an illusion of goats grazing that lures the drakes into the cages so we can trap them?"
"Not a bad idea. How smart are drakes, anyway?"
Ubasu likes Ibisu's plan: from the genuine good intent to the execution, there's nothing to dislike. The notion, however, of luring the drakes into the cages seems far-fetched to the Alijae. Couldn't they just move the eggs and make the drakes aware of their new hatching location?
"They're smart enough to manage to grow old while living in close proximity to sapient bipeds. Hrm, perhaps we ought to consider moving just the eggs and then making the drakes aware of their new location. If we find a place that has ample hunting opportunities for the drakes, they ought not feel the need to relocate back. I can turn us invisible using a spell for a minute or ten. The magic should hold up for as long as we stick together. That way, we can scout the place, and perhaps even pilfer away the eggs."
"I believe that is far more dangerous, Ubasu. The drakes will only move to another location if they see the eggs being moved by us and even if we snatch them with your spell, would not they attack us all along the way?" He asks, favoring the idea of somehow lure the drakes into the cages.
"There is also the complication that if your spell makes us just unseen, it will not hide us from scent or other sense that they might possess, something common in predator as far as I know."
Ubasu ponders the words spoken and then responds. "You are right, Baldrek. I am just afraid that the cages will fail to hold two angry drakes, and that we either need to pacify them before transportation or somehow come to an agreement with them. The latter, hrm, I don't know if it is possible to achieve."
You make your way to where the drakes have made their nest. The drakes’ nest perches near the top of a waterfall rising thirty feet high. The waterfall and river are surrounded on all sides by lush vegetation. Looking around, you quickly spot the two jungle drakes flying above the canopy of trees, looking for prey...
Pilzip crouches in the shadow of overhanging branches, and whispers to his companions.
"Well...do you want to reason with them now?"
I look like a snack to those creatures!
"I feel we have more chances tricking them... How about we set the caves as a trap and then have some of us distract the drakes while someone else gets the eggs. Then, with the eggs in hand, this person runs towards the hidden cages, hoping that the momentum of the angry drakes would make them enter the cages." Baldrek suggests.
"If you agree, I'd volunteer to be the one taking the eggs, since I can then run pretty fast."
"Perhaps an illusion to draw them in?" Pilzip looks around the group, unsure if anyone has yet studied such a thing.