Ruins of Azlant IC

[Farmerbink]

"Scent can't hurt," Jessica replies to Hewitt. She grimaces into the smoke, keeping her glaive held ready. "Either way, let's spread out and look closer. The smoke will have to drive them back out, or they'll just die underground." She takes several cautious steps forward, staying more than a few feet back from the hole, but trying to get close enough to see.

Spoiler: Jessica, Round 2

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Jessica Cooper
F NG Aasimar (Angel-blooded) Cleric, Level 1, Init 2, HP 9/9, DR Acid, Cold, Elec resist 5, Speed
AC 11, Touch 11, Flat-footed 10, CMD 13, Fort 3, Ref 1, Will 4, CMB +2, Base Attack Bonus 0
Glaive +2 (1d10+3, x3)
Dagger +2/+1 (1d4+1, 19-20,x2)
Abilities Str 14, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 16
Condition +2 CL for divination spells
Augery 2/2 (weekly)
Inner beauty: 1/1
Alter self: 1/1
Channel energy: 6/8, 1d6
Touch of good: 4/5
Bit of Luck: 2/5
Talisman of good fortune: reroll natural 1 (once, then it crumbles)

Double move to get closer to the hole (hopefully ~15 feet away).
Attack of opportunity, if the opportunity arises:
(1d20+2)[12] glaive
(1d20+2)[17] CC (20, x3)
(1d10+3)[8] damage
(2d10+6)[21] crit bonus

[farothel]

Laurelata stayed a bit behind, her bow ready. She was better in ranged attacks anyway, and that way someone could cover the rest should there be a need, especially now they were spread out. She didn't go into the corn, remembering the creature they had encountered before, but she tried to find a spot where she could see as many holes as possible.

Spoiler: OOC rolls

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move to a good spot to cover everyone.
perception: (1d20+7)[15]

[u-b]

Marius hears nothing that he could interpret as a burrowing ankheg. Tazmara moves forward. There seems to be no ankheg in either of the holes. Jessica moves closer too and sees the same sight.

Spoiler

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Waiting? Looking around? Anything else?

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: Marius shoulders his bow, drawing his sword. Either it is closing in, or more likely, it is licking its wounds after fleeing. Or in a worst third case, it is calling for help. Upon further decision, he draws his shield too. Stay close. If they call for their mother, I would rather have a broken arm and any of you being pierced by its pincers. Spoiler Show Marius will wait, generally patrolling the area. We forgot the bonus damage from my ability but it is for naught now.

[farothel]

Laurelata keeps looking around, covering her team mates, but also, knowing these things can dig through the earth quite fast, keep an eye on things close to her, just in case.
"Can we maybe close the holes," she said, "force them to make new ones and that will show where they are?"
She wasn't sure, but just waiting around didn't seem that productive either. She also wondered if there was a way to force more smoke into the holes.

Spoiler: OOC rolls

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Perception: (1d20+7)[14]

[u-b]

Scouting around nearby you soon find what seems to be a fresh hole half way down the slope descending towards the sea to the south-west. No ankheg seems to protrude from that hole.

[Farmerbink]

Jessica frowns thoughtfully. "I thought all the smoke was supposed to drive them out more than this," she murmurs, unsure where it seems they've got wrong. "I guess we might as well try again with this one. Maybe we can stay a little closer, and try to draw it a bit further from the hole before we spring the trap. Or better yet, block the hole once it comes up?"

[DaOldeWolf]

"I agree with moving in closer. We need to make sure we have the best odds of fending off those things. I can have Lightburn remain in the front of the group and to engage the creature if it decides to try to attack us." Hewitt adds as a suggestion.

[farothel]

"This is going to take quite some time," Laurelata said as she looked at the new hole, "Marius, Anya, you seem to know more about those critters.
What will happen if we close the holes? Will the come out, make new holes, run away?"

[u-b]

You stay near the top of the slope leading down to the ankheg hole, about 20 feet from the hole itself. "I guess trying to close the holes won't do us good and will unnecessarily endanger those attempting it." Says Anya as she ties another smoke bag to the rope, throws it down at the hole, and shoots at it with an incendiary arrow. She hits. The bag quickly burns, producing lots of smoke, most of which rises up and eventually partially affects your current location. You start to cough and step back. Suddenly, an ankheg emerges from the ground near the center of your group.

Spoiler

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Smoke bag: (1d20-2)[10]
Incindiary arrow: (1d20+6)[15]

Ankheg nymph init: (1d20+1)[17]
Anya init: (1d20+3)[20]
Laurelata init: (1d20+9)[21]
Hewitt init: (1d20+2)[19]
Lightburn init: (1d20+2)[12]
Marius init: (1d20+2)[7]
Jessica init: (1d20+2)[22]
Tazmara init: (1d20+2)[9]

The ankheg has cover.

=> Laurelata, Hewitt and Jessica (any order)

[farothel]

"We need to find a way to get more smoke into the holes," Laurelata said, just as the ankheg showed. She turned to it and loosened an arrow at it.

Spoiler: OOC rolls

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attack: (1d20+3)[20]
damage: (1d6)[3] + sneak attack: (1d6)[1]

move a bit away to get out of the way of the melee fighters (and out or range of the critter)

[Farmerbink]

Jessica lunges forward with her glaive, hoping to find a way to keep the ankheg from going back down its hole. She lashes out with her glaive, carefully.

Spoiler: Jessica, Round 1

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Jessica Cooper
F NG Aasimar (Angel-blooded) Cleric, Level 1, Init 2, HP 9/9, DR Acid, Cold, Elec resist 5, Speed
AC 11, Touch 11, Flat-footed 10, CMD 13, Fort 3, Ref 1, Will 4, CMB +2, Base Attack Bonus 0
Glaive +2 (1d10+3, x3)
Dagger +2/+1 (1d4+1, 19-20,x2)
Abilities Str 14, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 16
Condition +2 CL for divination spells
Augery 2/2 (weekly)
Inner beauty: 1/1
Alter self: 1/1
Channel energy: 6/8, 1d6
Touch of good: 4/5
Bit of Luck: 2/5
Talisman of good fortune: reroll natural 1 (once, then it crumbles)

Attack, fighting defensively for +2 AC at cost of -4 to hit.
Attack of opportunity, if the opportunity arises:
(1d20-2)[7] glaive
(1d20-2)[10] CC (18, x3)
(1d10+3)[10] damage
(2d10+6)[19] crit bonus damage

will take an attack of opportunity if the ankheg tries to move too far:
(1d20-2)[18] glaive
(1d20-2)[9] CC (18, x3)
(1d10+3)[12] damage
(2d10+6)[24] crit bonus damage

[u-b]

Laurelata puts an arrow in the thing before it could do any harm to anyone, but only after Jessica hits the mound do you notice that the ankheg has stopped moving.

[farothel]

"That's one," Laurelata said, "question is, how many more are there. Are they cannibalistic? If so, we can use the remains of this one to lure the others. Put it on a long pole and bang it in front of the other holes to attract them. Would that work?"
She looked mostly at Marius and Anya, who seemed to know the most about these critters.

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: The combat flew by Marius' head - as did Laurelata's arrow - who tries to look nonplussed but he is actually pretty impressed. Again, these are just insects that are a bit smarter and whole lot bigger. I assume they would eat their own. If the seagulls or any land based predators from the jungles don't come earlier. I assume a panther would not eat this, but I don't want to know what does come instead. Marius rubs his chin. Smaller insects have broods of thousands of individuals, I assume bigger insects do have fewer offspring. but these are warped things, a wizard's play things. Which brings me to my main point. I think we are being watched, by a wizard no less, maybe an artificer. The flying construct is quite unusual for such a savage island. We should search for the owner of it rather than holing us up in here, slaying the occasional critter. We might have come as settlers of the second wave, but we should really just bring the others back before doing anything. One could tell Marius was quite frustrated at the others not listening to his advice. He looks at Jessica with helpless eyes. What does Lady Luck suggest?

[Farmerbink]

Jessica starts, more than a little surprised to be called on for her thoughts. "I ahh... You make some good points, to be sure. I hadn't considered that whoever... made(?) that thing might be watching us still." She glances around, feeling decidedly paranoid for the moment.

"This whole situation is just wrong, to me. The town seems abandoned- not overtaken. We didn't find hardly any signs of struggle, just ransacking. I think you're right though, we need to be figuring out what happened. Still, if the rest of these nymphs go down this easily, it will be a minor affair to clear them out. Let's keep hunting for a bit, to try and be thorough."

She turns away from the dead creature, and leads the way to the next patch of un-fumigated fields.

Spoiler: OOC

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It does seem to be a minor affair to kill the ankhen nymphs, with us being cautious, deliberate, and turning the tables on these would-be ambush predators. I suppose we can keep hashing it out until we don't find any more, but it seems to me we could call it awash and move on.

[DaOldeWolf]

Hewitt is a bit surprised. He wished he knew of this apparent weakness during their first encounter with one. "What makes matters worse is that we dont even know anything about what happened to every single civilian. No bodies, no signs of struggle, nothing. We dont even know for sure who was behind everything or why was this necessary." Hewitt adds to the points brought up by Jessica.

Hewitt keeps following the group while keeping the order for Lightburn to stay at the front in case those creatures decided to engage the group.

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: That is not the work of slavers, I feel this is of magic origin. If it is a powerful monster, a skilled wizard or even a witch doctor or similar, I cannot say. But something beyond my understanding is going on here. We should check the rest of the day for nymphs, then head to the ship. Spoiler Show I am all in favor of managing this OOC, if at all possible. I am tired of this scenario and out of ideas.

[SanguinePenguin]

"You are right, Marius. That construct is likely an important piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately, its remains are near the mother's nest. Investigating that further would requiring killing the mother or somehow driving it off."

Spoiler: OOC

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Sorry! I fell off the grid for a few days unexpectedly.

There was another field maybe that may have had another nymph and then the mother.

[farothel]

"Maybe we can go there," Laurelata said, "if we can kill the big one, the little ones can be handled by the other colonists while we search for what happened here. And if they haven't when we come back, we can look at it at that moment."

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: I signed up to protect the people, not go out there poaching boat-sized insects. We can however locate its lair so the others know where they should keep away. I feel the larvae are too small to ambush groups, but people can be caught alone. So we take the remaining day to secure the lair, and we start to look for the missing people tomorrow. Is that a plan? Seeing no resistance, Marius simply starts to check all tunnels and the direction they are going towards. Maybe the go to the same place. Spoiler Show Survival (1d20+6)[22]

[farothel]

Laurelata didn't fully agree with Marius about not being there to take out the insects, but at the moment locating them was the big problem, not killing them, so she kept silent and just followed, letting the more experienced tracker do his job, while keeping an eye out of other things out of the ordinary, clues about where the colonists could have gone and ambushes by the ankhegs.

Spoiler: rolls

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survival: (1d20+2)[22]
perception: (1d20+27)[41]
EDIT: made a mistake on the second roll. It should be +7, not +27 (I wish), so the total is 21, not 41 (as you can't reroll in an edit).

[Farmerbink]

Jessica eyes the pair with obvious confusion. After a few minutes, she begins to get an idea what they're doing, but not enough be of much help on her own. Instead, she sticks close to Marius, blade drawn, and tries to make sure that nothing takes advantage of their focus to attack by surprise.

Spoiler: OOC

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I'm baaaack! At least, sort of. We're getting stuff delivered, and will hopefully have more time moving forward. At any rate, I'm excited to get this thing rolling again. Let's find those bugs and get on to the flying explodity things!

(1d20+2)[5] survival vs DC 10 to assist

[u-b]

You start exploring the tunnels belonging to the two ankheg nymphs you have killed. It does require some tooling too see anywhere much beyond the entrance, but the shovels are abundant in the settlement so you soon find a few and begin to dig. Two facts soon become apparent:
1. The actual tunnels are quite short and run between the breathing holes and the lairs
2. Everything else seems to have collapsed and not dug to last in the first place

The short lengths of the tunnels go roughly northwards (or southwards, depending on how you are counting). The collapsed part, except for what can be attributed to movements in your presence, seem to go in line with them. To the north, where the tunnels seem to come from, there are many familiar mole-holes, suitable for moles either the size of badgers or that of full-grown pigs. There does not seem middle size among these. The smaller holes are all relatively fresh. The larger ones are of varying age, but not very old either.

Spoiler

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Want to dig into the mole-holes to the north?

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: The bigger holes are older. It could mean this is the ankheg breeding ground and the mother or mothers have receeded into the jungle. Regardless, we should continue our search.

[farothel]

"Indeed," Laurelata said, "but carefully. While the little ones probably wouldn't attack, the mother can."
She kept following him, bow ready and always watching out.

[u-b]

Armed with a shovel, Marius carefully davances, followed by the rest of the team. You don't see any movement anywhere until, being still about two dozen feet from the nearest hole, Marius feels the ground rumbling almost directly under him. He steps back just in time to make way for a large ankheg emerging half way from the ground.

Spoiler

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Ankheg init: (1d20+0)[3]
Laurelata init: (1d20+9)[17]
Hewitt init: (1d20+2)[14]
Lightburn init: (1d20+2)[17]
Marius init: (1d20+2)[18]
Jessica init: (1d20+2)[18]
Tazmara init: (1d20+2)[14]
Anya: after you

Describe yourselves positioned as you see fit, except for Marius, who starts adjacent.

The ankheg probably has cover, but is also not very mobile, horizontally, in its large hole, so assume these effects cancel out.

=> Party

[farothel]

Laurelata was about 20ft from Marius, letting him take the lead, but walking close to give him support if needed. Like now.
"Watch out," she shouted as she let go of an arrow. It wouldn't kill the thing, but maybe it would slow it down so everyone had the time to get in position. And if they would retreat, she could provide cover fire.

Spoiler: OOC actions and roll

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I'm about 20ft from Marius, so away from the ankheg. I'll leave it up to Marius or someone else to call withdrawal.

attack: (1d20+3)[18]
damage: (1d6)[3] + sneak attack: (1d6)[6]

[Spore]

Marius Human Freebooter Ranger AC: 20 HP: 7/12 touch: 12, ff: 18, CMD: 16 Conditions: If we are not surprised. Marius takes a step back and holds his shield aloft. Aim between the segments. he says as he slashes. Spoiler Show Move: Start Freebooter's Bane. Standard: Attack (1d20+5)[14] Damage (1d8+4)[10] If we are surprised. Marius slashes at the creature in silence. Spoiler Show As above, but not freebooter's bane, so -1/-1 atk/dmg

[Farmerbink]

When the larger insect appears, Jessica cries out- with excitement. "Oh! Well done! I don't think I'd ever have found this- ah!" She jumps away as it proves dangerous, refocusing herself to survival and combat in the wake of her optimistic excitement.

Marius will benefit from Bit of Luck next round, rolling all d20s twice and taking the best result.

Spoiler: Jessica, Round 1

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Jessica Cooper
F NG Aasimar (Angel-blooded) Cleric, Level 1, Init 2, HP 9/9, DR Acid, Cold, Elec resist 5, Speed
AC 11, Touch 11, Flat-footed 10, CMD 13, Fort 3, Ref 1, Will 4, CMB +2, Base Attack Bonus 0
Glaive +2 (1d10+3, x3)
Dagger +2/+1 (1d4+1, 19-20,x2)
Abilities Str 14, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 16
Condition +2 CL for divination spells
Augery 2/2 (weekly)
Inner beauty: 1/1
Alter self: 1/1
Channel energy: 6/8, 1d6
Touch of good: 4/5
Bit of Luck: 2/5
Talisman of good fortune: reroll natural 1 (once, then it crumbles)

Since the die is cast, I'll have Jessica just attack this round:
(1d20+2)[4] glaive attack
(1d20+2)[6] CC (22, x3)
(1d10+3)[10] dmg
(2d10+6)[14] crit bonus

Next round, she'll give Marius a Bit of Luck: reroll all 20s and take best!