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Belladonna scowls. "That's no woman. That's some kind of - over there! Look, with a head like a badger!" The halfling, astride Sugar Loaf's back, points her lance in the direction of a monstrous looking humanoid, with the head of a badger, hooves of a stag, and a wide mouth filled with sharp ridges of bone instead of teeth.
Hey everyone, I'm moving to a different state at the end of the month and the next two or three weeks are going to be pretty hectic. I'm going to do the best I can to post frequently, but please move the game ahead and bot me if I'm holding anything up. Once the dust settles I fully intend to return to regular posting. Thanks!
Belladonna's eyes light up with savage, unhinged joy at the sheer size of the monster, at how it towers up to the cavern's roof, and she lets out a ululating cry that echoes of the rocky walls and grows all the more piercing as she charges.
"Not my favorite way of fighting," says Bella, putting away her battle-ax. "For me the clean sweep of the lance. Not hacking at enemies like felling wood. Blech indeed!" She doesn't join in looking for loot, but instead busies herself with cleaning away spiderwebbing from Sugar Loaf's pelt.
See ya, Jethro! Gonna look at my level 7 feat options and see what makes the most sense.
Amazing! Can I take that now as a bonus feat, or should I wait till I level?
"Oh, this?" Belladonna looks at her fingertips, then tries blowing a lock of pasty hair out of her face. "Sure! Who wants to walk around covered in blood, right? You get maggots growing in your hair. Yuck!" When they reach the corpse of the giant owlbear, Bella lets out a squeal and rushes over to the baby, trying to pick it up regardless of whether it pecks at her. "So cute! Can we keep it? Do you think it'll grow as large as its parents? Imagine if it did, it could become the kingdom mascot! What should we call it? Hootie?"
Same. Whatever you think fitting is fine by me!
Belladonna eventually emerges from the shadows, the gore drying across her face, darkening to black, her hair still with it, picking at her teeth with the tip of her dagger, eyebrows raised, looking relaxed and at ease. "Big owlbear, hey? How are we going to get it's head back to town? If we drag it all the way, it'll be reduced to a big ol' ball of raw meat." Sugar Loaf pads over to her, burying his nose in her side, and she pats him happily before picking up her lance and attaching it once more to his saddle.
Bella tears herself free of the monster's claws and with a harrowing scream launches herself at its huge corpus, drawing her battle-ax and bringing it down with a wet thud, cleaving deep into its chest. She tears it free, and with another scream hacks again, and again, battering and cutting her way into the monster's cavernous chest as blood flows and bones shatter, until at last she smashes her way down to its huge heart. Covered in gore, blond hair slicked back flat over her scalp, she flings aside her ax, and then falls upon the heart to bite into it, chewing and tearing a large gobbet which she forces herself to swallow. Only then does she stagger back, reeling, looking drunken, to fetch up her ax and shriek one last time and bury it deep into the owlbear's body and there leave it before staggering off into the dark.
Belladonna's eyes light up with savage, unhinged joy at the sheer size of the monster, at how it towers up to the cavern's roof, and she lets out a ululating cry that echoes of the rocky walls and grows all the more piercing as she charges.
Reaching the far side of the cavern, Belladown wheels about, her body spattered in gore, face a crimson visage in which her eyes are white blank nullities that glitter with a terrible hunger for more carnage.
Bella blows a lock of blond hair out of her elfin face and stares with ruminative dismay at the sheer amount of mycanoid slime and spongy matter stuck to the length of her lance. "I'mma gonna need a new lance by the time I'm done with all this, 'cause I'm sure as hell not going to spend more than an hour washing all that sticky goo off." Then she laughs. "Still! Better them than us! Shall we go find this giant owl monster? Now that's going to be fun!"
I don't see the shriekers on the map - if I charge past red, will I come close to some?
Bella continues to wait, sticking out her lower lip in boredom. Fighting mushrooms that hadn't yet screamed or done anything impressive was of little interest to her.
Bella puts up her Lance, having no ranged attacks, and just waits.
It seemed a consequence of the attack? But who knows if he didn't summon it through occult means? Also, Grigori will probably get away if we don't hunt him down. Something as massive as the owlbearpig will be much easier to track a day or so later.
"How about I scout him out? Sugar Loaf can outpace him easy peasy. I'll break his knees and drag him back to the rest of you while you hurry to catch up, yeah?" Belladonna is so enamored of this idea that she urges Sugar Loaf on, counting on his scent ability to hone in on the fugitive.
Bella is more fascinated than appalled, and rides Sugar Loaf in a quick circle around the village, lance held at the ready, scrutinizing the ground before riding into town.
She calls out gruffly to those she identifies as prisoners, and rounds them up, happily spitting anyone who objects upon the point of her lance. Those that she gathers she has placed in the ruins of the jail, and threatens with immediate death of if they leave again.
She then rejoins the main group. "Don't we have a home guard, a line of defense, walls, nothing? We gotta start thinking along those lines, or this will just happen again." She sits back in her saddle. Some days it seems she never even bothers to dismount at all. "That said, I'm with Johund! Nothing will cheer everyone around here as much as bringing that owl bear monster's head back and sticking it on a stick! I'm all for starting the hunt whenever you all are."
Bella doesn't really seem all that interested in these deliberations; she allows Sugar Loaf to lap at river water for a bit, and then simply sits, lance athwart her saddle, gazing out into the middle distance while chewing on the stem of a long stalk of grass.
Belladonna rides Sugar Loaf up to the bank of the river, but makes no move to help. In fact, she gazes at Jethro in some amazement as he leaps into action, and promptly pulls out a wrapped sausage in a bun to munch on as she watches what ensues.
Belladonna spends her time exploring the old fort and surrounding buildings, riding around on Sugar Loaf and grinning impudently at the children, engaging in staring contests with any adults who don't quickly look away, and seeing how much she can get away with by 'appropriating' snacks, a new blanket, and bucket of steak for her dire corgi. When she shows up, it's clear she's made no attempt to clean up for the occasion; still, it's the first time they've seen her without Sugar Loaf, so that's something. "What's going on, royal people? We talking important things here? Like which country we're going to invade first?" She grabs an apple and takes a loud bite from it as she sits and kicks her heels up onto the table. "Not nearly enough invading goin' on around these parts if you ask me." When Eluvias looks her way, she gives him a saucy wink.
Bella isn't really concerned with kingdom building, so I'm happy with whatever you guys decide.
Bella rises up in her stirrups and looks around the uneasy crowd. "What? You lot think it's all right to talk dirty about your queen? Eh? Anybody else feel like disrespecting her majesty now that we're back? 'Cause ain't nobody gonna tame these wild lands like we are, and if we don't have the court graces of some fancy poncy princelings, well, you ain't exactly in the heart of Taldor, are ya?"
Belladonna lets out a high pitched yip of excitement, and her eyes bulge in her face as her lips turn pale and writhe back from her teeth. Screeching with abandon, she urges Sugar Loaf to close with the preacher, leveling her lance at the last moment.
Belladonna sits calmly on Sugar Loaf, staring at the speaker, her lance inching slowly, every so slowly, down from its erect posture. Promising much, through nothing overt. And a slight smile at the corner of her lips indicates Belladonna can't wait for him to continue digging his grave.
Marry!?! Amadeen should marry him!
"Agreed!" chirps Bella, leveling her lance and grinning at the others. "Oooh, what a little idiot! Can we display his head as a warning to all others?"
Enforcer for me, please!
"It's pretty enough, I suppose," says Belladonna, frowning at the statue before losing interest. "What about this empty nest over here? Looks like something skeedaddled just before we arrived. Wonder what it was? Should we hunt it?"
"There she is! There! Sugar Loaf, KILL!" Belladonna digs her heels into the corgi's flanks as she leans forward, dropping her lance as they charge at the elf, her face mottling with fury as she lets out a low roar that turns into a shriek just as she connects the charge with the elf and then charges on by.
Belladonna slowly shakes the bewitchment away from her mind, and then scowls, face flushing in anger. "Yeah. I second that plan. I want to find that elf and make her eat her own innards. Slowly."
Bella stares, slack jawed, at the surreal and beautiful elven lady, completely unable to understand what is going on, or why she's so mesmerized...
Sugar Loaf whines, however, understanding even less than his rider.
As the vines try to snag the dire corgi, he simply sidesteps and prances around them, evading them with ease.
Hang in there, and best of luck!
Bella raises an eyebrow at Amadeen's behavior, clearly weirded out, and urges Sugar Loaf to retreat out of the room before the spiders hit the portal.
Belladonna sits back in her saddle, lips pursed as she focuses intently and scratches letters into the ceiling with the tip of her lance. BELLADONNA WAZ HERE! She's clearly not interested in what's going on at the portal.
Despite the complex roots and thick undergrowth, Sugar Loaf slips into the courtyard without any difficulty, sniffing here and there as he goes. Bella frowns up at the tower, visoring her eyes with one hand before sighing and looking about herself once more. "Whatever drove the elves out is probably at the top of the tower, right? That's where evil wizards and stuff like to hang out. Or in the basement if it's some kind of massive sentient slime. With bones floating inside it, giving off a really sick green glow. Can we just bring in some royal catapults and demolish the whole place instead?"
Belladonna snickers from the back of the group, not bothering to hide her amusement as Jethro gets sent flying by the falling portcullis. "I was going to say 'watch out' but then I didn't," she says. "That and I knew Antlers'd be fine. Right?" She digs her heels into Sugar Loaf's sides so that he ambles forward, her lance held easily across her lap. "What'd make elves abandon a place like this? Other than it being all over grown and broken down and stuff? Ha! I just answered my own question. New question instead: why'd they even want to live in such a dump in the first place?"
Belladonna lets out a squawk of dismay as Eluvias barrels into her, nearly knocking her clean off Sugar Loaf's saddle. Righting herself, she puffs a lock of blond hair out of her eyes and glares at the lizard, her face darkening in outrage at being so assaulted. Lowering the tip of her lance, she lets out a bellow of sheer, unadultarated hatred and urges Sugar Loaf into a charge, leaning down low over the lance as she powers it into the monster's hide.
The charge carries her clean past the foe, whereupon she wheels around, Sugar Loaf chuffing as his paws scrabble for purchase, preparing for another attack.
+8 HP
Belladonna wrinkles her nose at the sour stink of rotting flesh, and scours the deadfall from Sugar Loaf's back, her frown only deepening when she spots the deeper cave in the middle of the morass. "Over there," she says, pointing with her lance. "See that? Looks like... corpses and... more corpses... and yeah. More corpses. Something big and hungry lives here. But it doesn't seem to be home right now." That said, she pivots in her saddle, looking this way and that as she tries to determine where the cave's inhabitant might be.
Bella is happy to go wherever. What do you think, GM? Are Bella and Jethro too OP with all their mounted charging goodness? Should we ditch our rhino hides, for example, or find other ways to take things down a notch?
Belladonna grins widely at him as she picks splinters out of her blond hair. "We could always attack another tree, if you want?" That said, she hops off Sugar Loaf and digs her hands into the pile of coins, which she then throws up into the air so that fly up, hover, then come down to bounce of her head and shoulders. "Haha! I'm rich! Money!" She then falls over onto her back and grins up at the sky. A moment, then she props herself up on an elbow and looks to Amadeen. "Hey, queen, we moving on to the next offending bush?"
"Well... no. Not really? But OK." So saying, Belladonna draws her battle-ax, and rather uncertainly kicks Sugar Loaf in the withers, urging him into a charge. "Die.... tree!" A wild exhilaration enters her voice, as she suddenly takes joy in the absurdity of her charge.
Belladonna turns to the others, eyebrow raised. "I don't get it. A tree? Why we attacking a tree? It ain't going nowhere."
"Huh," says Belladonna as Sugar Loaf comes to a stop, her nose wrinkling in distaste. "It smells like a hundred rats died amongst these roots. Or ten men whose corpses have burst after lying in the sun for too long. Yech." She gazes around the clearing, eyeing the bones and probing at the deeper shadows.
Belladonna leaps off Sugar Loaf, leaving her lance embedded in the druid, and draws her battleaxe. It gleams as she raises it high overhead, and then with a scream she brings it down upon his corpse, over and over, and then staggers over to a tree which she chops at two-handed several times, splinters and chunks of wood flying, before raising her face to the sky and bellowing a roar of rage, her face turning dark red, sinews standing out in her neck, arms shaking with an excess of fury as she clenches her fists. Sugar Loaf steps over gingerly and noses her in the neck, and she finally seems to collapse upon herself, shoulders slumping, head hanging, chest heaving for breath. A moment, then she puffs a lock of her blond hair clear of her face, stashes the ax in her belt, and dances past where the druid lies, plucking her lance free as she goes to vault up on Sugar Loaf's back and beam at the others. "What a strange old man! You'd think folks who live that long learn to avoid getting chopped into pieces for no reason, right? And ooh - he had treasure? Can I see? Can I have some? And yes! I'm up for continuing on our trail!" She beams at everyone and slides her lance back into its leather socket beside her saddle, its steel tip glimmering with gore.
Belladonna's whole body stiffens as her eyes blaze, and with a whoop of joy that spirals up into a scream of rage as she aims the tip of her glittering lance at Cedric. Digging her heels into Sugar Loaf's side, she urges him into a charge, her scream so raw it seems to tear at her very vocal chords. The corgi's short legs blur as his snarl rises up, and he carries the halfling right at the druid, his own jaws snapping at the man's face.
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