Ruins of Azlant IC

[SanguinePenguin]

Taz stares intently at the hole. "I'm not sure what that is, but it is big - about the size of a dog. Also, it dug up, so not a simple burrow. I can't think of anything that might dig a hole like this - except maybe that insect we found in the house earlier. It is just a guess, but that could be what made the hole. We should be wary." Taz looks about for any motion or pieces of whatever made the hole.

Spoiler: OOC

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Perception: (1d20+5)[17]

[DaOldeWolf]

"That is certainly concerning but I must wonder. Do we have any ideas to lure whatever created those tunnels out?" Hewitt asks the rest concerned about how to engage the situation.

[Farmerbink]

Jessica raises her hands, empty. "I sure don't. My best answer is to encourage the others to be vigilant. Don't try to fight off anything by yourself. Stay with others and protect each other." She looks around, utterly unsure of how best to approach such an infestation.

"It's gonna be a bumpy road, but I kinda figured we all knew that? This doesn't change anything, it just clarifies the danger." She shrugs. "Some of it, anyway."

[farothel]

"True, but if these things can pop up just about everywhere," Laurelata said, "I don't think we can't let the others come on land. They wouldn't be safe, especially the kids. Maybe we can try to dig up one of the holes and see where it leads to?"

[SanguinePenguin]

"You know, from a distance I had thought I saw children onboard. At one point I asked someone about them, but," Taz's cheeks redden a bit as she says, "they were all halflings - no kids at all. Anyway, if it is one of those things, the one before seemed pretty eager to snack on us - so we might be among the best lures," Taz says with a smirk.

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: Luring out dumb burrowing things is simple. First, lay out their favorite food. Second, don't move, they can hear our trampling around. Marius says as the thinks about a proper bait. Spoiler Show Know Nature (1d20+5)[12]

[SanguinePenguin]

Taz turns to Marius and shakes her head, "those insect things weren't normal burrowing critters. I think we might be their favorite food. So we should walk toward the hole, maybe guarding ourselves, and hopefully it will come out. Or better yet, Hewitt could summon another dog, or... I don't know, a delicious looking badger or something and send it toward the hole. When the thing comes out, we could pounce on it."

Spoiler: OOC

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If this plan is enacted, Taz will ready a kinetic blast.

[DaOldeWolf]

"I could give it a try but I am not sure if it is the best idea.The creature might finish up the summon before it gets a chance to retreat. How about we tried filling the hole with water and try to drown whatever its inside? I imagine that with a good amount of water, we can get the atention of whatever is luring inside." Hewitt speaks up.

[Farmerbink]

"I... uh... Why are we looking for a fight? Is there any reason to assume the creature appeared before the colonists disappeared? I didn't see anything in that bunkhouse that looked like they had fought inside the building before they abandoned it. I think these things are just as likely to avoid us and the colonists as attack- especially if they're smart enough to recognize difficult prey."

She looks around the little group, utterly unconvinced that it's worth trying this hard to find something to fight. "I really think we need to get Ramona and the others involved. There's nothing immediately threatening nearby, and none of them are dumb enough to wander about alone looking for a fight in light of our discovery."

[SanguinePenguin]

Taz starts to scowl as the group outright rejects her plan. She takes a deep breath, before she says, "we don't know that these things are not immediately threatening. We were tasked to ensure things were safe. These creatures are certainly pretty dangerous when encountered, and we could be counted among their prey. There is a dwarven aphorism that seems particularly apt - 'Do not sleep in a tunnel until you know where it ends.' Uhh... well, it sounds better in Dwarven." The dwarven woman relents though and concedes, "okay, we cna do it your way. We can row back to the ship and tell Ramona, but we should at least check these houses along this road on the way."

[DaOldeWolf]

Hewitt thinks about it for a second before agreeing on the terms suggested. "Sounds like a good idea. We dont need to engage in everything by ourselves and I already have used most of my power dealing with everything else. And we might need it later in the day. Alright, lets go and regroup with the rest on the boat." Hewitt replies in agreement.

[farothel]

"Sure," Laurelata said, "and if we have to flood all those tunnels, we might be better off if we had some extra people to dig. That way we could dig a canal from the nearest river and flood it all at once instead of doing it with buckets, or with Taz's powers, but one hole at the time. But I do like the flooding plan better than trying to kill them ourselves. It would save us time to flood all the tunnels at once."

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: Marius listens to the warfare considered against the burrowing creatures. Sounds like a good plan. We keep watch while the colonists dig the trenches, unless you can do this via water pressure, Taz. But I agree with Jessica even more. He approaches her, resting his arm on her shoulder. We cannot fight the jungle. We should make attacking the settlement difficult enough to hold the wildlife at bay. If it is a supernatural beast or a regular one. We should consult the captain, then follow the tracks to get more information. We have too little intelligence to judge the situation properly just yet.

[SanguinePenguin]

Taz shakes her head, "I wouldn't be able to move that much water. I could blast the hole, which would probably piss off or scare any critter nearby, but not enough to flood it. But where would you get all of this water to flood the holes? The well doesn't have that volume... Surely you aren't planning on drowning our vegetable fields with ocean water?"

"I think we are mostly in agreement. We check the houses, as the other colonists will need to settle there, and then we go back to the boat and talk to Ramona."

[Farmerbink]

Jessica nods. "Sounds good to me, Taz. Let's go." The young priestess doesn't lead the way to the unexplored houses, exactly, but her urgency is nonetheless noteworthy.

[u-b]

You search, one by one, the numerous small cottages located outside the walls. Many are relatively recently built, clearly after the buildings in the walled section. These are mostly simple homes, without proper shutters, and in some cases they even lack doors. Nearby, the grass has begun to regrow undisturbed. After nearly an hour passes in the investigations, most of the houses seem to tell a similar story: the occupants are missing and show no sign that they packed their belongings. Some of the houses, mainly along the north-south street, are in disarray. There are choker footprints leading into and out of these houses. You find no signs of the origin or exended stay of choker(s) in any of the houses, nor any more actual chokers.

Having finished the investigations, you head back to the boat. It's still where you left it. You push it into the water and row back to the ship without problems. Onboard, the cook is frying some freshly-caught fishes, but, before you claim some for yourself, Ramona takes you aside for a report. And she wants it detailed.

Spoiler

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In addition to the houses themselves and their assorted simple furniture, you find (5d400)[1080] gp worth of assorted semi-portable gear, mostly mundane. In terms of space and weight it would still be a lot, so it's up to you to decide what, if anything, you will be porting.

Please compose your report(s) as you see fit, but I want to know what you tell her and how you present it. Summaries like "we just tell her everything" are not what I am looking for.

[SanguinePenguin]

Taz clears her throat, "well, lets go in order..."

"First, we were attacked by some goblin-squid things. Marius recognized them as grindylows - I think that was what you called them," she looks to the ranger for reassurance before continuing, "they left and are presumably still around."

"At the pier, we found a canoe under the water. There was a hole in it, that looked like it had been drilled. Also, there was some sort of aquatic fey - a crab dog combo - dwelling under the sunken canoe. It was small, looked unconscious when it drifted away."

"We next headed to the town, in the smithy, we found three monkey-goblin hybrids - we called them gobkeys. They were dispatched. The well in town seems fine."

"Some of us followed tracks to the south into a farmhouse and killed a choker, a subterranean aberration there. We returned and began to systematically search the buildings in the town. There we found, and killed, some sort of acidic insect nymph about the size of a dog that had burrowed into the barracks. Then, in the courthouse, we found some sort of... mechanical flying creature..." Taz shakes her head, still in disbelief. "Hewitt's summoned eagle caused it to explore north of the town, but a series of ominous burrows there had us put off investigation."

"In the courthouse, we located some logbooks that indicated that troubles began a month ago, and all activity in town ceased three weeks back. One logbook also had the last four pages cut out, and a clue that pointed us toward the plum tree south of town - which I'll get to in a moment. We then searched Rayland Arkley's home. Does the name 'Hendrake' mean anything to you?"

"After that, we found the small temple appears to haunted, or perhaps infested with some invisible magical creatures. It is not safe, and we have not determined how to make it safe. There were roaches in the food stores. They have mostly been killed, a lot of the food stuffs remain. Temporary tents are in disrepair, but could be fixed up. The homes south of town seem free of danger."

"We then went to the plum tree south of town, and were attacked by... corn of all things... the corn was killed - I am not making this up - but it appears dangerous. We didn't encounter any further corn. We then found this note under the tree," Taz hand the note to Ramona.

"The vegetable fields south of town, and the region north of town have burrows that might be home to more of those acid drooling insects. We were a bit divided on what to do, but ultimately opted to report back to you. Anything else to add?" She looks to her colleagues for any additional information.

[farothel]

During the trip back to the boat, Laurelata takes a few of the smaller items and noted the location of some others which might be useful to get her inn going.

"That's indeed about it for critters," Laurelata added when Taz had finished, "but we've seen more burrowing signs, probably either those chokers or those acidic insects. Some of us thought about simply flooding their tunnels, but we're not sure about the details on how to do that, is it would require quite a lot of water and putting salt water underneath fields would probably not be a good idea. And yes, we've also found some items, like this chainshirt. As it turned out to be magical, I've borrowed it for now, until we find the original owners back or know them to be dead. I thought it not a bad idea with all the strange things happening there to have the best equipment possible."

[DaOldeWolf]

"If at all possible, we would like to keep some of the documents we found. We might be able to unravel what happened here and take measures for the future. No one seems to have been ble to make it out alive from everything we inspected" Hewitt adds making a request that hopefully sounded reasonable. Hewitt thinks about their original deal and wonders how she will take it. "Besides that, I would recommend caution. We dont know how many of the enemies we faced were coincidence and which were planned.".

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: Listening to Jessica, Marius chimes in at the right times. Grindylow is correct. Chokers are disgusting creatures hiding in the dark, and then - you guessed it - choking you. Also we shot down a mechanical flying orb, some kind of aerial scout. The burrowing insects are called Ankheg nymphs, which are basically Larvae of Ankhegs. We intend to search their nest, but not today. We also found the footprints of about 30 people northeast of town, leading outside. I assume there is no protocol prompting them to wander off into the jungle when there is trouble afoot. Marius tries to gauge Ramona's reaction. Her opinion of him was of no concern considering his rank in the Eagle Scouts but he wanted the earnest judgment of an experienced captain and commander. Our main issue is basically that we don't know how much more stuff is hidden in the town but we checked everything thoroughly. In my humble opinion, our next best move would be to give you the command of the outpost and travel into the jungle looking for the missing people.

[Farmerbink]

Jessica listens patiently, nodding as Taz accurately recounts their findings. "Caution is still in order, for anyone venturing ashore- stay in groups of 3 or 4 wherever possible, and don't take any chances wandering around."

She shakes her head in a gesture of irritation. "Unfortunately, we've got more questions than answers for you, but it's a start, and we should be able to get people onto the shore and working on subsistence. I know we didn't bring enough food to stay cooped up on the ship for too long, so it's a good thing the stores and fields are still generally in order.

There's work to be done, but if we stay out of the... haunted chapel, we should be fairly safe, for now."

[SanguinePenguin]

"On this point, we have some internal disagreement. I believe the Ankhegs - if that is what all of those burrows are - remains a sustantial threat to the colony. I do not know much about the creatures, but they are not natural creatures and seem to have spread out quite a bit. If they appeared no more than three weeks prior, assuming they would have been mentioned in the log books, and were positioned in the patch of burrows to the north, then they have already burrowed into the vegetable fields and into the barracks. When we encountered one, it was very dangerous, and seemed quite aggressive. Unfortunately, we simply don't know enough about the creatures. Were the colony to be reinhabited would they flee? Or would they attack colonists opportunistically? I am hoping that you, or someone else on board might be knowledgable of these creatures."

[u-b]

Ramona listens carefully. Then she nods. She seems not exactly happy with what she hears. "Good work so far. I very much don't like the mechanical flying creature. Other things could be more or less expected in the untamed lands, but this... it points at something intelligent. Maybe it has withstood all those thousands of years and there is nothing behind it, but I'm not sure if we should be banking on that. I ask you not to spread this information for the moment. The things are tense enough as they are." She nods at the question about Hendrake. "Una Hendrake, yes. The wisard of the first expedition." She seems to think for a moment or two. "I'll let you keep the things you have found, but not the documents. At least not yet. Ask me again when I am done with them." She takes the books, your copy of the colony charter and the note. "I would prefer the ankhegs to be dealt with before we disembark the whole lot of people. I'll understand if you won't take the job, but I don't have many candidates - it's either you or the soldiers, and they are green enough too. You know what, I'll give you Anya. And Alba, if you can persuade her, but that is about as much as I can do. We certainly won't shovel the earth around these burrowing creatures and I don't have magical floodstuff. Get healed. Have a lunch, relax and come back to me with a decision. Meanwhile I'll dig through the ledger to see if we have something relevant."

Spoiler

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There are 6 colonial soldiers on the ship but they are probably as green as you are. Anya Sandstrider is a human ranger. Alba Divenvaar is a dwarf alchemist. They are both decidedly less green.

Mark books and documents with [Ramona]. She'll give them back.

[farothel]

"Sounds like a plan," Laurelata said, doing exactly that. She didn't need healing at the moment, but food would not be a bad idea.
"So, what do you think," she asked to the rest, "I don't have spell slots and things like that, so I'm good to go, but I can understand that some of you would want a longer rest. And what about those others, like the soldiers. Maybe we can do this like a hunt and use them to drive these critters to us. Saves us having to look for them."

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: We should ask Anya how to proceed, and then maybe ask Alba to help extinguish these vermin with the proper fire power. He rubs his neck still covered in blue bruises. Getting almost strangled to death kind of makes one value fresh air a bit more. But I must say, you all did great work today. But I would say, after we checked by Anya and Alba, we really should deal with the nymphs before stopping for the day. We will need our strength for settling in town and exploring the jungle tomorrow. The eagle knight mockingly moans in Jessica's direction: Now if these bruises would just magically vanish,l like if a beautiful and pious priest would perform a small miracle.

[DaOldeWolf]

"I am for the most part tapped out. I will also need help to heal Lightburn by tomorrow. I should probably prepare for an earful." Hewitt sighs as he says the last part. Hewitt was a bit disappointed about not being able to research about what kind of magic they were working on but preferred to remain quiet for the time being. He needed to keep things as stable and friendly as posible for the time being. "If you require help researching the contents of the book, I will gladly assist."

[SanguinePenguin]

"Una... Una..." Taz repeats while thinking where she had heard that name before, "Ah! Una signed the note. Her spellbook was also in Rayland's house. There might have been a coup then," Taz frowns at more evidence points toward her suspicions. "Then, do you know of Dulin, Eliza, or Barnabus? Who w- are they?" Taz corrects herself to add some optimism.

"Also, do you, or anyone onboard, know the first thing about hunting Ankhegs? What they eat, how to attract them... anything?"

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: As far as I understood it, they are vermin but a tad smarter, which doesn't mean much. But didn't Hewitt mention they like live bait. So if we can catch a seagull or something.

[farothel]

"I don't mind going back," Lauralata said, "and having some sort of bait is not a bad idea, although I don't think we will be able to catch life seagulls as I don't think we brought bird stomp arrows. Another way to clear out those tunnels is to blast fire into them, but I'm not sure how to do that. Maybe we could light some fires and smoke them out."

[u-b]

"Eliza... yes, I know that name. The other two are likely nobody important, but I will check the books and tell what I find. We don't have professional ankheg-hunters onboard, unless they are here incognito, so I think your best bet on this topic is me. That is, me and Anya. Meet us in about an hour." Having said that, Ramona goes to her cabin.

As you take your time eating and generally recuperating, there are several episodes of various colonists approaching you and asking how it went, what you saw, where is everybody and even what do you think about turning back. Whether you answer them something or just send them away (please specify), Ramona joins you after about an hour. She is accompanied by both Anya and Alba. Having sailed long way on the same ship, nobody needs any introduction.

http://roleplayer.narod.ru/img/Anya.png


https://db4sgowjqfwig.cloudfront.net..._Divenvaar.png

"So, to your question." Ramona reads from a paper "Barnabus Braeton, male human fisherman and carpenter. Dulin Noker, male human fisherman. Eliza Haniver, famale human psychic. Their first names are unique on the roster, but I have not known any of them personally. Is that enough of an answer?"

"As for hunting ankhegs." she reads from the same paper. "Here onboard we have a 30-gallon barrel of lamp oil, two dozen of waterskins, a supply of ropes and fishing nets and six goats. This is all company property and will be provided as needed. Onshore, they might still have an unspent pest control kit somewhere that should contain some poisons and alchemist's fires, also a company property." she puts the paper away "Then there are fresh bodies, I suppose, right? Alba will introduce what she has. It seems you will have to watch out for momma ankheg, but otherwise, seems pretty doable."

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I intended to write Alba's introduction and some actual plans, but probably won't have the time today. Feel free to provide your own or wait for, maybe, tomorrow.