Familiar Matters

Log Info

• Title: Familiar Matters Part 1
• Emitter: Whirlpool
• Characters: Barclaiigh, Ravenstongue, Shilde, Skielstregar, Vaera
• Place: Lower Markets, Alexandria
• Time: December 15th, 2021
• Summary: Poor Delvet Tpo's familiar is missing! It's a pig in a hat with a blue feather, can't miss 'em! Though, somehow, they're missing. The party scours a packed lower markets for them, Shilde and Barclaiigh getting a lead to an alleyway. They enter it, finding a sinkhole in the middle of the back alley. Using the adventuring all-tool, rope, they delve into the hole after hearing a pig squeal from within. Down into the sewers they go, following the pig's cries. Eventually they come upon a wall of webbing, which Lyme cuts through. It takes a while, but eventually the party spills out into a chamber. Coming face to face with a spider-like being. What happens after stepping into the parlour...?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=        Appearing        =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Barclaiigh   5m      4'5"     202 Lb     Mountain Dwarf    Male   A thick tree-trunk of a dwarf. Wavy auburn hair, loose traveling clothes   
Ravenstongue 51s     5'0"     99 Lb      Half-Elf          Female Short half-elf girl with violet eyes and black hair.                       
Shilde       55s     4'4"     160 Lb     Khazad-Aul        Female Tall for a dwarf, long blonde hair in a thick braid, big blue eyes.        
Skielstregar 0s      7'2"     330 Lb     Sith-Makar        Male   A tarnished bronze scale with fangs and empty eyes.                        
Vaera        4m      7'0"     262 Lb     Sith-Makar        Female A tall, dark red Makari with a wooden leg.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  As the GM  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Whirlpool    48s     5'0"      Lb        Otyugh            I am stinky!   
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=

"He's missing!"

Delvet Tpo is frantic about it. "My familiar!"

Delvet is a slender, half-elven man in robes. A resurrectionist pin sits on his collar, the old sigil of Animus. He's waving his hands animatedly, "I know he's alive. I can sense him from time to time, but I can't *find* him and he's not coming when I seek him. I know he's within a certain radius and that's IT."

Delvet's panic isn't helping him. "But somebody has to've seen a ridiculous pig with a hat running aroumd so if we start asking questions, you can help me!"

A ridiculous pig with a hat?

"Yes, he's very fond of his hat. It's quite flowery and has a big blue plume. I hope nothing is trying to eat him," he panics.

There is a reason you've been called in to this, of course, by the Guild of Explorers. Namely, the Resurrectionists have requested assistance here because Delvet needs his familiar, but also because anything strange happening to one of their number is a potential situation they'd like investigated thoroughly.

Skielstregar, a lumbering half-dead sith-makari man rests on his weight on his polearm, a scaled brow raised. "... a pig with a blue feather hat. Thisss one isss... decently well at finding bacon. Sssoo... yesss, thisss one will help." The makari doesn't go to the city often, if at all. Yet it is important to swing by to see what needs doing on his way in before his anxieties flare up too much and its time for him to go home.

There is one reason and one reason only as for why Ravenstongue is here, and why she's listening to a fellow half-elf talking about a pig wearing a ridiculous hat. Her face looks like it's been sculpted with that reason: sympathy. After all, the white raven familiar on her shoulder has been nuzzling into her hair and is currently eating from a handful of dried fruit. Why wouldn't half-elves with magical animal burdens not help each other out?

"Don't worry, Delvet," she says, smiling a little in a reassuring manner. "We'll find him. What is his name?"

Vaera was good at tracking things down, and finding a familiar in a city shouldn't be too hard, or at least she hoped. They even had a set distance to search, which made things much easier. But if they hadn't been notice yet, then they were surprisingly hard to catch.

The dark red makari waited off to one side as she listened. "Calm yourself, wizard, speak clearly and slowly, and explain the situation." She suggests. "We can see if we can find your familiar. How close would you say that it is? Have you been able to be in communication with it, at all? I am aware that is something wizards can do."

"An' this is a paying job, right?" Shilde might be wont to frequent the city a little more often than the likes of Skielstregar, but she still looks like the type that makes her bed somewhere outside the city's walls. "Even if we find yer pet dead in an alley somewhere?" The large, shaggy dog at her side bumps into her. It doesn't have the look of much intelligence.. but the timing might segest he's rebuking her.

Barclaiigh has wedged his big body into a corner so as best to be out of the way. It's probably been awhile since he's been anywhere near the city considering the state of his clothes. And money might be a little tight if the giant catalpa leaf tied to his head as a hat with a bit of frayed twine is any idnication. His feet are bare and caked mud flecks down to the ground when he wiggles his sausage toes, heels resting on a rung of a stool well-built enough to support the Khazadi-made brickhouse.

"Maybe the little fella has hidden 'imself inside onna them teacups. I hear little pigs're fond of those." Squatting on the stool his mouth can't be seen through the mad tangle of his great, bushy beard, but his meaty hand comes up with thumb and two fingers together (pinky out!) to pantomime holding a teacup daintily.

Maybe someone posted this job on a tree on the woods of Alexandros. All the wilderness hobos have shown up tonight.

Tpo seems entirely anxious about it, either way. Last I saw him, sensed him, was in the lower trades an hour ago. Please, please find him!

He gesticulates wildly, full of energy and exasperation.

Lyme showed up too, sliding in to the back of the room. Maybe he was talking a walk in the woods! He seems eager to help, though. That hat! Maybe he wants the pig's hat!

The lowe trade is busy. Very busy. What, wit hthe recent victory over Eclavdran, there's something of a jubilant air in the proceedings of the day's business. Maybe even some parties.

Either way, you've got your work cut out for you. The trades are *packed*,. People are everywhere and you've got to find one pig, in a market where there's actually other pigs.

Of course, those pigs are already dead, not wearing a hat, and are being sold for bacon so Delvet's familiar, Hogsgood, is not amongst them.

Hopefully.

Ravenstongue looks at Pothy on her shoulder. Pothy nods back to her, his blue eyes meeting hers in that instantaneous understanding that only sorceress and familiar can have. "Time to look high and low, Pothy," Ravenstongue says, pointing her finger to the sky.

Pothy soars off her shoulder to inspect their environment. Meanwhile, Ravenstongue checks around the market, speaking to the food stall vendors--she knows most of them by name due to Pothy's daily habit of consuming their free samples--about Hogsgood, the lost piggie who went to market.

Skielstregar is at a bit of a loss with the markets. It's not really his proving grounds. Though, he sees Ravenstongue set off one way, so he sets off on another. He had a good vantage point, being so tall, maybe... he could find folks looking down on something strange from up here?

Lyme takes a moment, and stares at the market. Oh boy. He, too, can look over heads but in a crowd like this....

Barclaiigh needed a brief detour into the alleys flanking the guild hall to retrieve Porter. There was a lot of shouting and the clattering rubbish crates, the tearing of burlap sackcloth, and then the return of the filthy Khazadi fellow with his tired-looking, bloated buddy loping behind. The bear is doing better in the city than previous visits but still seems fond of finding mischief.

The rain pattering on his leaf-hat, the dwarf looks between legs and around the passing folk as they go. The black bear occasionally tosses his head into the air, nose wiggling, then sweeps his head low to do the same. No comment is made about how small porcines don't leave much in the way of tracks-- making poor sign for following. He just stays close to the bear and tries not to glance Shilde's way too often.

"No, never you mind you big oaf," Shilde admonishes her shaggy canine companion when he looks Porter's way. Rocky isn't overtly hostile; there's no hackles raised, no teeth bared.. but there's a certain tenseness in his shoulders and back, and his tongue isn't lolling about like usual. She frowns, gives him a shove for good measure. "The piggy. Find the piggy." OF course, that has Rocky looking at Shilde confusedly.. didn't they just find a great many piggies? Shilde just sighs, looking around to see if the others have had any more luck.. and at one point, watching the other dwarf and his bear. Probably wondering if he has the same problems with his animal friend.

Vaera steps out into the city to begin her search once everything is in order. An hour old trail should be simple enough to pick up, if she could find out where it started. But moving through the various people there proved to be a challenge, still. "Familiars do not leave behind bodies, do they, Ravenstongue?" She asks the half elf after passing one of the stalls with several butchered pigs hanging off of it. "We can purchase some bacon to take back with us later, Skielstregar."

"We have a birdfolk who comes past the waystop to sell pork every now'n again..." Bar muses, mostly talking to himself to way people used to being on their own often do. "Called himself Hawk. 'Hawk hawks ham hocks!' he'd shout whenever'd show up." There's an awful, growling roil of discontented acids and the Khazadi fellow sniffs, trying to look down through his beard to his bulging gut. "(quiet you)"

Porter tries to push past the dwarf to inspect the pork stand Vaera's indicated but is barred by the shaggy druid. They end up leaning into each other and walkign straight like a pair of off-setting drunks.

GAME: Skielstregar rolls perception: (9)+7: 16
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Perception: (2)+4: 6
GAME: Barclaiigh rolls Perception: (15)+9: 24 (Pothy)
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls 1d20+9: (8)+9: 17
GAME: Vaera rolls perception +2: (1)+10+2: 13 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Shilde rolls perception: (15)+10: 25

It takes some time.

A fair bit of time. First, a thorough search of the area produces nothing. No visible sign of them at all, actually, so that's no good. That leaves asking questions, and that search at least does lead you to ahve a few ideas of the best people to ask, so it wasn't wasted at all, at least.

Finally, Shilde and Barclaiigh identify a particular merchant who does, in fact, remember seeing a 'pig in a hat', and how he ran down a particular alleyway chasing after some apples some kids had thrown for him.

Seems that Pothy isn't the only familiar with a 'snacks' problem.

"Snacks," Pothy says helpfully as he returns to Ravenstongue, who has very little to show for her efforts. He has acquired vendor samples. None of them, thankfully, appear to be pork.

Ravenstongue rolls her eyes. "Good job, Pothy," she says. She pats him on the head anyway.

"Alright, Rocky," Shilde says, pointing towards the alley in question. "Go see if you can smell 'im out, okay? The piggy." The dog just looks at her, tongue back to lolling.. before he barks once, turns about and pads off in the direction of the alley. Then she turns to Barcleigh. Not quite scowling, she scratches the side of her nose. "We better tell the others. Don't need no one thinking we're trying to steal the commission."

Barclaiigh glances out of the corner of his eyes at Shilde when she addresses him, doing his best to pretend like he doesn't keep eyeing her curiously when she's not paying attention. Smooth operator. He clears his throat and hopes his cheeks aren't as red as he feels flushed. "'We?'" He stammers a bit, "Er, oh. Yes. That is, I mean. 'wheee, sounds like fun.'" He turns and skips awkwardly through the crowd leaving Porter to stare in the druid's wake, then look at Shilde and snort.

"Hello, friends! We found the way the pig'n'a'hat went. Wheee." He smiles, tossing a thumb over his shoulder for the benefit of the others. Ushering them on with the other hand.

Skielstregar blinks, his head craning up and over the crowd. "O-Oh, you found sssomething? Right! Uh..."

He tries to make his way through the crowd carefully, heading towards the indicated alleyway. "... excusssse me... pardon..."

Lyme tilts his head towards the words, and starts through the crowd. He's usually pretty good at carving a path, so off he goes!

"There is a lead? It is worth investigating, as I have discovered very little." Vaera offers when she hears the news as she finishes putting away several pouches of dried meats into her coat. The sale price was too hard to pass up. "Lead the way, and let us see what can be found."

Down the alley you go. In truth, there's not a lot to see here. It's dirty, of course, and it stinks. It's an alley on market day, what are you expecting?

Still, it isn't long before you find the sinkhole. That's a problem.

It's also a stinkhole, on account of the street falling directly into the gods-forsaken sewers right here. Might this be where Hogsgood disappeared into?

"SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" sounds from down there.

Yes, that'd be it.

Ravenstongue wrinkles her nose at the realization that the pig familiar is stuck down in the sinkhole in the alleyway, poking her head around the corner to look at the sinkhole. She looks at Pothy and sighs. "Okay. Guess we're headed into the sewers."

Lyme looks down towards the end of the alley. He closes his eyes for a moment, then looks towards the hole and pulls a cloth out of his pouch. He ties it around his face, and eyes up the sinkhole. Is it big enough for him? "Yes, down we go."

Shilde walks up to join Rocky, and both of them stare down the sinkhole. "Ah." she says. "And people wonder why some of us like to sleep outside," she further muses, before looking at the others. "Anyone got a rope? Easy enough to get down.. but I'd like to get back up, too."

Skielstregar quietly groans. He pulls out some small cloth bundles and jams them into his nose. "Yesssh, thissssh will be... something..." he murmurs nasally. He bobs his head, pulling off his pack and producing some rope.

Porter won't even get close to the sinkhole. The bear stops and swings his head back and forth before turning and walking the opposite direction. An annoyed huff rolls into a short growl and he flops onto his side a good distance away, curling up and putting both forepaws over his snouth.

"I agree, fella, hoo boy do I agree..." Bar looks back at the bear and trots over, bending over to meet his eyes. "Stay. Y'hear that, right? Stay. And I mean stay 'here.' Not 'stay around this general area while harassing th'poor people who aren't used to big ol' hungry bears trompin' around trying to eat all their foodstuffs." The filthy Khazad keeps jabbing a finger at the ground. Over and over. Apparently there's been some testing of boundaries previously. He finally crouches down and rubs his companions flank vigorously before jogging back towards the rest of the group.

"Just me'n you, this time, Truffles." He pats the boars tusks hanging from his necklace. Then remembers himself and looks around at the others. "'n you folks, too, 'course." Cue the big, goofy smile as he pulls out a rather nice shortspear and prepares to enter the sewers.

Vaera stops well away from the edge, in case it falls out from underneath them further. "I will go alert the guards to the presence of this sinkhole, so they may guard the exit, and evacuate the buildings nearby. If it gets larger, it could collapse the buildings into it." She states, checking over her equipment again as she does.

"That being said, let us not linger around the entrance once we are down, yes? It would do no good to have them collapse onto us, instead."

Barclaiigh shrugs out of his backpack and digs out a rather impressive bundle of rope. It'd be even more impressive if it didn't have all kinds of crumpled leaves, moss, and grime caked all over it. Or little bugs that are living in the pack crawling around it. But you don't keep rope on a shelf, clean and on display for people to look at! It's for climbing! And these things get dirty! He tosses it over to Shilde. "Here y'go, ma'am."

Shilde manages to catch the rope without it unbundling too much... and to her credit, she seems unmoved by its less than sparkling condition. Instead there's a brief nod to the other dwarf, and then she's looking for something to secure it to. "Hmm. That ladder should do." A few knots later, then she's throwing the rest of the rope down into the darkness.

GAME: Barclaiigh rolls Perception: (3)+9: 12
GAME: Lyme rolls perception: (1)+4: 5 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls Perception: (14)+4: 18
GAME: Ravenstongue rolls 1d20+9: (18)+9: 27 (Pothy)
GAME: Vaera rolls perception+2: (2)+10+2: 14
GAME: Shilde rolls perception: (20)+10: 30

It's the sewers. It's about what you'd expected. Running (stinky) water in channels surrounded by (equally stinky) walls with a (grossly slippery) floor walkway that lets you move forward. Tracking the squeals in the echoing down here is easier said than done, but at least it's audible. More squealing happens.

Regularly.

Soon, you're finding the reason for the squeals when you come face to face with a giant web blocking the way. The squeals are on the other side of it.

The giant webbing is probably indicative of equally giant spiders. Nobody's favorite thing.

GAME: Shilde rolls 1d20+2: (9)+2: 11

Lyme stares at the webbing, then unlimbers his falchion. He pauses. "Well, I guess we gotta cut our way through." He doesn't seem eager to linger.

Ravenstongue wrinkles her nose once she looks at the webs and says, "Giant spiders, probably--umm, I'll let you cut through," she says, looking over at Lyme as he seems more than willing to cut a path through the spider fiber.

"Here's hoping the familiar is okay once we're there," she murmurs quietly to herself.

Vaera stops to rub some oil under her snout once she had climbed down into the area, before she looks around. Now the area smelled like peppermint and filth instead of just filth around her, but it blocked out almost all the smell for her.

It was not the best course of action for one who relied on their nose, however.

"The may not be if we delay too long down here." Vaera notes. Be careful if we cut down that web, lest it be connected to others that alert the creature that made them when people are here."

"Spiders ain't so bad. Just don't pretend to be a fly and buzz around lookin' delicious," Bar jokes, adding some 'bzzz, bzzz' noises through his goofy smile. Heavy feet slap and splash through the slimy stonework floors of the sewer paths and he tries his best not to think about the varying consistencies of things his soles find.

When a gust of wind pushes an especially pungent and warm cloud of sewer gasses past his face the Khazadi druid can't help but choke and retch. Coughing violently, he turns to spit repeatedly as others ready to cut through the webbing. "... not the first time you're the smarter'f us, Porter. Ptooey."

Lyme starts cuttin'. He nods to Vaera. "I'll try," but it's not precision work.

"Eh.. the spiders've gotta eat too," Shilde says, scowling a bit as the webs get cut away. "But I s'pose we gotta do it. Better to use a stick though..."

GAME: Lyme rolls ref: (12)+2: 14

The good news! Cutting the webs is entirely doable and it's no longer blocking the path.

The bad news is that Lyme is now covered in the remnants of the web himself.

This is no fun.

Lyme turns, mummy-like, to Shilde. "Thanks for speakin' up early." He starts pulling the webs off from his face, hands, and falchion. Everything else can wait.

Shilde shrugs at Lyme, appearing distinctly unapologetic. Not the most gracious of people to begin with, having to listen to her dog whine as he paced the hole above, watching her leave him topside has made her a little grumpier. She just taps the side of her head instead.. then pulls the wooden shield off of her pack and readies it on her arm. "Normally fire'd work too.. but I don't think you want to ignite anything down here. Here." She pulls her dagger free from her hip, then hands it hilt first to Lyme. "Could try scraping it off with that." Then she turns away from the half-orc, looking past the once webbed section of the cave in. Why she's not retching like the other dwarf is... well, her sense of smell might be dead. Or maybe she's been down here before.

Lyme takes the dagger with a nod, and starts scraping until he's got it more or less under control. It's not like everything is going to need to be thoroughly (magically) cleaned after this. He hands back the dagger with a "Thank you."

"Ah, yes, a less direct approach would have been ideal, but there is no use complaining about it now. You are lucky the web was not occupied, at least." Vaera sighs. "Well, with that taken care of, we should not linger. But we should also watch to make sure it has not made any more webs on the way. less conspicuous ones, at that."

...there are more webs. Cutting your way through them (all the while the pig squealing) isn't fun. it's time consuming and tedious, but you do it.

The pig, of course, clearly had less problem getting through. Maybe it smelled good food down here? Pigs will eat just about anything.

Fianlly, you burst into a web-filled chamber.

...and that's where you see a great many cocoons, some still squirming openly in place, to say nothing of a hulking spider nestled amongst them. It turns, wiggles, and then leans down to look at you.

... wait. Half that spider's body is entirely human?! It's just spider from the waist down.

..oh boy...

-End Scene-