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Having spent several days now in Hillcross you find that the tent city is damp, and the air thick from a heavy rain that occurred the night before, but is still bustling with activity as folk of all kinds pass through.
Making your way through Hillcross, a tumultuous tapping grabs your attention. A woodpecker is quick at work, affixing a note to a wooden advertisement board. This note is a hastily scribbled message in Common.
Urgent assistance requested! Young stegosauruses loose! Help me return them to the wild! Make haste to the outskirts of town, due west, then south between the two large boulders. Payment of gold provided in exchange for a successful roundup.
—Xila of the Green Faith
Dran'tilt knows that young stegosauruses aren’t especially intelligent, but they’re curious and intrigued by unfamiliar sounds or movements.
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A circle of smoke goes up in the air. And the cigar goes back to the corner of the lips in the middle of a beard under a hat.
Well after chasing a would be dragon which stole fish, after being tourists guide in the Mwangi, after escorting a dead fish to Absalom, and after cleaning up a house (don’t tell to anybody), the dwarf will go for a job in which he has to become a dino-boy instead of a cow-boy.
He begins to move in the direction.
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A young woman, tall and with a long braid of auburn hair running down past one shoulder, steps up to examine the bird's note. While she's trying to puzzle out what, exactly, a stegosaurus is, she glances past the board and spots a dwarf shuffling off to the west.
Probably after the same job, she thinks to herself, and checks her pockets. Yep, still broke. With a weary sigh, she adjusts the straps on her backpack and jogs after the dwarf, waving one arm as she calls out.
"Hey, wait a minute!"
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A mountain of papers spread before him within one of the tents, a young human male is hard at work transcribing a series of scrawls etched out onto a piece of bark.
"I suppose this Pathfinder agent should be rewarded for creativity when it comes to finding resources for field notes, but these marks at rather difficult to discern,' Abittus mutters aloud. "If I thought this bark would have made the trip to Absalom intact, I wouldn't have bothered to volunteer to make the transcription, but it can barely be read in its present state."
The Pathfinder chronicler and scribe, who only recently arrived within Hillcross, sighs deeply, noting that the Pathfinder who had made the notes was already likely far from the Realm of the Mammoth Lords and now enjoying warmer and more comfortable accommodations aboard ship.
"I cannot make out, if that word is 'tusk' or 'task'--oh!" A sudden cacophony of concussive, striking sounds being made in rapid succession startles the man, causing him to accidentally knock over a nearby inkwell, whose contents quickly douse the paper before him.
With trepidation, the man grabs his hand crossbow and peers through the tent, attempting to ascertain the source of the sound. He is relieved to learn that it is just a woodpecker and is curious as to why so many have gathered around it.
Reading the note, he looks sadly back at the tent where the day's work now lies hopeless blotted out. The man gives a sigh and says, "I'll need to find someway to purchase some new ink and it is an opportunity to spend some time in the field, I suppose. If you fine folk are all headed to meet this, 'Xila', I would like to accompany you--if it is not too much trouble. I just need to clean up a bit and grab a few things, first."
"My name is Abittus, by the way--Abittus Rullio. I am with the Pathfinder Society," he offers by way of introduction. He goes to extend a hand in greeting then, realizing, that it is still holding his hand crossbow, he quickly puts his arm down.
"Sorry," he says, hastily offering his other hand.
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As you read the note, the woodpecker hovers nearby. It attempts to gently lead you in the direction of Stegosaurus.
By following the directions on the notice board and the helpful woodpecker, you find yourselves in a large clearing in a wooded valley to the west of town. It is here they find a haggard Kellid woman in a patterned cloak of several colors. She ignores the sticks tangled in her hair and the dirt on her face as she chases a juvenile stegosaurus through the mud. All around her, nearly twenty young stegosauruses romp across the clearing, play in pools of mud, and trample the ropes and stakes of a ruined animal pen. For each stegosaurus the woman successfully herds toward the enclosure, another storms out, excited to roam and play.
When each of you arrive, the woodpecker lands on her shoulder, and she slumps away from the chaos to greet you. "Hello, what can I do for you?" She looks a bit exasperated.
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She motions towards the woodpecker. “This is Vik, my sole companion. We live quite the nomadic lifestyle; he keeps me company and helps in any small way he can.”
“I am Xila, a follower of the Green Faith. When I heard rumors circulating around Hillcross that this clutch was to be sold into captivity, I knew I needed to return them to the wild. As young as many of them are, I believed their herd must be in the nearby lowlands. I paid the trapper’s fee, which was quite a sum, but money is nothing in comparison to their quality of life. I have kept them here while I searched the valleys. I found a herd nearby, with many young missing—it might even be their family. I intended to reunite them today, but this morning I discovered them like this. They’re quite the handful.”
“Before I escort the young to their herd, I need to round them up and calm them down. There are far too many, and I’m exhausted. Please gather them up and bring them to me, without hurting them. While you’re at it, see if you can find out how they broke free—I don’t want to head into the wilderness only to be set upon by some dangerous creature.”
Some of the dinosaurs have their spines wrapped in rope from the makeshift enclosure, while others are stuck in the thick mud left by the night’s heavy rain. Others simply run away from Xila as she tries to lure them to the enclosure, taking advantage of the space to play with each other. The young stegosauruses range in size from 1 to 2 feet tall, 3 to 4 feet long, and 30 to 100 pounds.
[ooc]
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A green kobold just quietly joins the others after they have find the bounty on the board. Something is troubling his mind now, but might as well focus on it later having found an interest to find stegosauruses, whatever they might be. Upon arrival, he briefly introduces himself to Xila.
"Hello, I am Schek Nek. I am also here to help."
Shortly after, he begins to round up some baby dinosaurs by scaring them with different looks in his face. He shows an angry kobold face to them, like threatening that they will eat them as a small dragon roaring.
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The group begins branching off in all directions and does quite well as Schek scares a smaller stegosaurus into fleeing back into the pen. This tactic isn't working on the second so instead the young kobold playfully leads a second into the pen as he crawls around in the muck on all fours. A for the third dinosaur he stealthily hunts it down as he leaps from bush to bush, using the branches to herd the creature into the pen.
Dran'tilt boldly climbs onto the back of one of the dinosaurs and goes for a wild ride as it bucks and sways haphazardly back into the pen. He later spends a few minutes trying to create a small pit but realizes it would takes a day or two for a dinosaur of this size. Seeing Schek's branches working Dran'tilt does the same helping the kobold out.
Lendaru finds a few ways he can help strengthen up the fence and gate so less dinosaurs escape before helping heave a couple younglings out of soe thick mud. One of the dinosaurs gets frantic and begins to charge Lendaru. He dodges and ends up knocking it down to the ground where it flees from the surprise.
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Reji unties one of the dinos as he then rolls around and somersaults across the ground to get it to follow back into the pen. It is all much easier getting all of the dinos in at once rather than bringing one in and two more escaping.
Abittus makes some braying vocal calls that seems to catch another's attention as he tries to mimic the dinosaurs mother. Once that one is in the pen he begins to follow the prints in the mud to see if there are anymore that need rounded up.
With nearly all of the stegosaurus rounded up Ravenna takes a look over the Enclosure. It takes quite a bit of time but on the third pass she notices discovers the footprints of a clawed creature and signs that part of the enclosure was chopped or torn apart.
After about twenty minutes, you are able to round up the dinosaurs and herds them into Xila’s enclosure. "Thank you so much," Xila wipes the sweat from her forehead. She then begins counting the dinosaurs, tapping at sticks in her hair the way one might count on their fingers. She counts all the dinosaurs multiple times, with more urgency and desperation each time, and suddenly cries out in alarm. "One of the hatchlings, Babs, is missing!" She looks around frantically. "Please can you take a look for her while I stay here to make sure no more escape?"
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Did she name all of them? Ravenna wonders, looking at the collected dinosaurs for a moment, before shaking her head and returning her attention to the druid.
"I found signs that something broke into the enclosure, maybe another large reptile. I think we can follow the tracks, but it may have eaten her."
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"One of the hatchlings, Babs, is missing!" She looks around frantically. "Please can you take a look for her while I stay here to make sure no more escape?"
"I would, of course, be happy to assist in any manner that I can," begins Abittus.
"I found signs that something broke into the enclosure, maybe another large reptile. I think we can follow the tracks, but it may have eaten her."
"Broke in?! As if on purpose?!" exclaims Abittus. "Oh my! This could be serious--and dangerous! Let us not forget dangerous!"
The man begins looking around for tracks, trying to assess just how many intentional beings he may have to contend with.
His fear, however, begins clouding his analytical abilities.
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"Well, yes," Ravenna replies, bemused. "Nature has beauty and cruelty, but it does not have morality." Abbitus's antics amuse her for a time, but before too long she steps in.
"Stop. Look here, please," she says, pointing to the tracks she found. "We will follow these tracks. If we are lucky, we will find Babs and bring her home. If we are not lucky, we will tell Xila what we find."
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"We will gladly aid you in recovering the lost one. Do you perchance know what she looks like?"
Xila looks confused as she begins eyeing all of the other dinosaurs. "Just like this but much smaller, she is the runt of the litter."
Gathering your equipment the group sets out to follow the tracks. Ravenna follows the tracks for a little over a mile. Babs seems to have given the creature that took her no small amount of trouble, leaving plenty of broken branches, trampled undergrowth, and churned mud along the trail.
The ground is drier as you ascend a small hill. As you get within sight of the top of the hill, they find gruesome decorations framing the lair’s entrance. Bones and body parts of various animals hang from ropes and sinew in front of crude paintings of dried blood depicting the skeletons of mammoths and dinosaurs.
Ascending to the top of the slope, you see the kidnapped stegosaurus, Babs, tightly lashed to a massive wooden stake a short distance west, toward the hill’s face. The hatchling is unharmed, but frightened. He strains against his restraints and begins letting out throaty cries when he sees your group. A pair of small bipedal dinosaurs nip and snarl at the young stegosaurus tossing it into a state of panic.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
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➤ Reji
➤ Abittus
➤ Ravenna
Dinosaur (Red)
Schek Nek
Lendaru
Dran'Tilt
Dinosaur (Green)
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Ravenna recognizes these dinosaurs as compsognathus. A small reptile has a snake-like neck and head, a bird-like body with strong legs for running, and a whip-like tail who's bites carry a strong venom.
Reji hangs back as Abittus seeks some cover loading his crossbow up. Ravenna comes in behind with her musket. Ravenna catches a quick glance of the dinosaur up above her and fires off a shot from the flintlock musket.
The dinosaur shrieks in pain as the unwounded dinosaur snarls and charges down the hill at Abittus.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Reji
Abittus
Ravenna
Dinosaur (Red)
➤ Schek Nek
➤ Lendaru
➤ Dran'Tilt
Dinosaur (Green)
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Reji runs ahead and clips a stone into the side of the dinosaurs face. It shakes its head trying to clear the pain as Lendaru and Schek prepare for combat.
Dran'Tilt fire off a shor from his clan pistol as the energy arcs just over the dinosaur's body and into the side of the dirt hill.
The wounded dinosaur at the top of the hill cowers down near the bush and begins to lick at its wounds, too frightened to advance further.
From the bushes a large bipedal goblinoid rises to its full height this size of a fully grown human, though preferring to hunt and stalk with a stoop that makes it look considerably shorter and more bestial. Short, dark fur spreads all across its powerful, hulking frame. Its large ears hang loosely from its skull, and its eyes are unnaturally large—almost alien. The goblinoid roars as it rushes down the hill at Lendaru as The fist reaches out to clobber the inventor. "Stay away from my meal!"
The fist clobbers Lendaru as it rocks him back a couple steps.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Glorzia
➤ Abittus
➤ Ravenna
Dinosaur (Red)
Reji
Schek Nek
Lendaru
Dran'Tilt
Dinosaur (Green)
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Abittus quickly realizes that calling this goblinoid smelly doesn't seem to phase it at all. In fact the crossbow bolt digging into its shoulder barely causes it to flinch in pain.
Ravenna quickly retreats down the hill as her musket pierces a round into the new arrivals gut.
Ravenna recognizes this as a bugbear. Quite capable of seeing in the dark and able to easily sniff out their prey. These stealthy and cruel goblinoid creatures delight in spreading fear and tormenting their victims. Bugbears are the monsters lurking in the closet and hiding under the bed. Preying on remote farmsteads, bugbears reveal their presence with thumps in the night or creaks of boards to build lurking dread and arouse suspicion and fear.
The wounded dinosaur joins its companion as it flees into the bushes to lick at its more immediate injuries. Not quite trained enough to fight it out to the death.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Glorzia
Abittus
Ravenna
Dinosaur (Red)
➤ Reji
➤ Schek Nek
➤ Lendaru
➤ Dran'Tilt
Dinosaur (Green)
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Schek calls forth a powerful blast of pressurized water to bludgeon Glorzia. "You take this!" he exclaims.
Critical Success The target takes bludgeoning damage and is knocked back 10 feet.
Success The target takes bludgeoning damage and is knocked back 5 feet.
He then retreats away from the enemy.
◆◆ Cast a Spell, Hydraulic Push
◆ Stride
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The spray of water hits the bugbear right in the face as Glorzia begins to choke and sputter as she stumbles back. Lendaru tries to end the bugbear but finds his pickaxe misses as he tactically retreats.
Dran'Tilt fires off a pair of bullets into the bugbear's leg and shoulder as she looks near to falling over.
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Reji runs forward at wraps the palm of his hand around the bugbears face. The magic within releases a jolt of lightning that smokes through the bugbears brain frying it in an instant as she topples to the ground.
Back at the top of the hill Babs seems very, very afraid at all of the sudden loud noises. She rushes away from you until she reaches the end of her rope and gets yanked back, toppling over.
The wounded compsognathus cower down in the crevice as they hide from your swords and guns as they shake in fear.