Logger's Peril, part 6
Log Info
- Title: Logger's Peril, part 6
- Emitter: Whirlpool
- Characters: Aimarra, Jozi, Randolf, Rumbo, Smuldur, Vespasian
- Place: Alexandros - Somewhere in Mythwood
- Time: Thursday, October 22nd, 2020 11:00AM
- Summary: Having chased down what they thought was an old Twisted One of the dark fae the group of adventurers discover after putting it to sleep it is in fact a local Dryad. There is a debate about how they should proceed but suggestions of tying the Dryad up and burning her toes until she talks is rejected for the more civilized approach of calm questions. The Dryad is woken up and questions are asked to which the Dryad respons with Sylvan pleads. Turns out none of the adventurers speak Sylvan so Cogz Rumbo casts 'Comprehend Languages' in typical Gobber fashion and uses his magical Dragonspitter to shoot the spell into his head - much to the consternation of the adventuring party.
- APL: 2-5
- Encounter 1: Discussions with a Dryad in the Mythwood.
-=-=-=-=-=-= At a glance around Staff: Room of DoooOOooooOoom! =-=-=-=-=-=-= Aimarra 5'1" 128 Lb Half-Elf Female Brown hair and eyes, breastplate, leathers, pointed ears. Jozi 5'8" 148 Lb Half-Orc Female A brunette half-orcess with a sunny disposition. Rumbo 3'2" 35 Lb Goblin Male A gun-toting gobber with a wooden peg-leg. Whirlpool Lb Otyugh I am stinky! -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
"So, what brought her out this way?" asks Ivy, curiously, "it can not merely be our presence. Any fey here ought to be used to seeing people, elves especially and foresters..." She speaks plainly, nodding towards the others. Rumbo just gets EYED.
Rumbo sighs and gestures towards the Dryad with a wave of his empty hand, people don't seem to like him indicating with his dragonspitter, and suggests. "Ask? Know Dryad you say. Others don't know but try asking questions? Rumbo help magic listening."
"Ask her, maybe? I got no interest in hurting her, but I'd like to know what's going on." Aimarra similarly gives Rumbo a hard stare, but just shakes her head.
Jozi nods, "Let's not torture anyone." She glances at Ivy after a more suspicious glance at Rumbo, then, "Maybe these Twisted ones, or whatever are forcing her folk out, an she ain't sure who ta trust?"
"I shall, but I didn't want to do so without letting you make yourselves known first," replies Ivy.
Then she's turning her attention back to the fey and speaking to it, quickly and quietly. The Fey girl is still fairly scared looking, actually, her hands up defensively, but she's starting to relax, despite Rumbo's gunshot atq this point.
Eventually, she shakes her head as the two exchange words in Sylvan.
"She says she does not know whatq's become of the foresters. She also says that she is not of the twisted ones and hasn't seen them. Curious." She muses, "and none of this explains the odd clothes we found belonging to the logger back over the stream. Why stuffed in a tree like that?" They put a finger to her chin in thought.
"Something isn't adding up. Perhaps the twisted ones have them somewhere to lure in rescuers, or they are trying to spark difficulties between the local fey and we elves?" Ivy eyes Rumbo a moment warily. All that noise, you know.
"Wait, did any of you bring the clothes from the tree with us?"
Rumbo sighs deeply again under all the stares his way and lowers his head. "Ok, Fine. Rumbo no more help." He mutters quietly to himself in his harsh Tradespeak and mopes to the side as he listens to the conversation Ivy has with the Dryad.
After the back and forth between elf and Dryad the mopey Gobbers mutters quietly, "She say all that. Yep." Then he adds, while idly fidgeting with his dragonspitter, "None clothes Gobber size. Don't look me."
Aimarra shakes her head quickly at the others. "I thought we left 'em just in case someone had gone to take a swim or something."
Jozi's eyes find Ivy on the question about the clothes, "Didn't you have'm, sugar?" she asks softly, brow lifting at the corner.
There's a blush from Ivy.
Big old blush.
"...ah," she says after a moment. She scurries away after holding up a finger to say she'll be right back, then returns with the clothes a short time later while the fey just stares. The very nearly naked dryad points at the clothes and starts being animated in Sylvan.
Rumbo focuses his attention from the dragonspitter he is fiddling with to the Dryad as she begins babbling and asks simply, "What bad forest men? Where bad forest men? Thems we's looking for." He struggles with asking the question and not pointing the dragonspitter at the dryad to emphasis his words but somehow he manages to keep it from aiming at her though it does wave about wildly in many other directions.
That wildly waving dragonspitter makes Aimarra simply stare even harder. Her eyes roll like ten thousand bones in a gambling hall, and she lunges for the dragonspitter's barrel, attempting to grab it in one hand. "You're a damned danger to everyone around you," she snarls.
Seeming gateful that Aimarra has Rumbo's waving gun under control, Ivy clears her throat and questions her further. There's some back and forth, and then:
"...she says they came close to the grove of trees. They tried to get them to go away, but they were ... angry? And didn't seem very easily taken by them. Strange."
GAME: Rumbo rolls will: (6)+4: 10
Jozi slooooowly turns her attention to the goblin as he starts to flail away with his weapon. She stares, and is about to clear her throat when Aimarra takes the matter in hand. "Don't make me seperate you." she says firmly, then turns back to Ivy and the Dryad, "Easily taken? What does that mean?"
Rumbo freezes as his Dragonspitter is grabbed and he takes a deep breath in. Pulling himself up to his full height of three feet and two inches the Gobber looks over to Jozi and addresses her from attention.
"I am a trained Feurwerker with long experience handling a firearm. I'm a wizard who can speak eight languages, and it appears was the only one in the party who can understand the Dryad thanks to the arcane focus that is my Dragonspitter. I've been told not to burn down the forest and I haven't. I've been told not to torture the Dryad and I haven't. I've been told not to shoot anyone and I haven't! No one wants me here, fine. You're the Captain and I'm following orders but just because Tradespeak makes me sound like an idiot doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing. No one wants my help I'm perfectly happy to find my way out of this forest and let you all deal with the Twisted Dark Fae on your own." Rumbo barks out in what sounds like much more practiced and elegant Yrch-speak than when he speaks in the common Tradespeak. Having said his piece to Jozi he look back to Aimarra and the Dragonspitter of his she holds. <yrch-speak>
Aimarra does not let go of the barrel, although she continues to hold it in a hand, returns her attention to Ivy ahd the Dryad. "Sorry," she tells them, pleasantly as you please. "So something already had them, probably. "
The dryad is staring at Rumbo, then points at him and speaks in broken Yrch. Just a fragment or two, really. Apparently, they speak oruch! Like... a little.
Ivy just kind of stares at Rumbo for a long moment too.
Then Ivy clears her throat and explains. "..I believe she means they resisted the charms."
So thaaaat's why he drinks...
A palm comes up the half-oruch's face and she sighs. Jozi looks to Rumbo as he stands to and starts to protest the inequities of fate, and it's about halfway through she stands and glances to Aimarra, "Let it go." she says quietly, then her eyes find the Goblin, "Fair enough. Let's start over, here." Stepping closer, she takes a knee and offers her safer hand, "I'm sorry things made ya think ya ain't appreciated, sugar. I'm gonna ask ya ta keep in mind most folk ain't used ta Spitter's wavin' around, no more than if Aimy here was pointin her bow everywhere. If we understand each other an can meet each other halfway somewhere, that'd be great. You still feel you wanna leave, I'll accept that."
GAME: Rumbo rolls linguistics: (19)+8: 27
Aimarra stares long and hard at Jozi, then at Rumbo, and lets it go with a roll of her eyes. "I have better things to do," is all she says, but turns her attention to Ivy and the dryad. "Tell her I'm sorry." She pointedly looks at neither Jozi nor Rumbo. "Now, the loggers resisted the dryads? Where did they go?"
Rumbo narrows his eyes and furrows his brow as he focuses on speaking, "She can point it anywhere she wants." He says with some effort, "I'm going to trust her not to randomly shoot things she doesn't intend to. My dragonspitter is more important than a bow. I channel myself through it so I am keenly aware where I point it and when I indicate the forest I mean to when I ask where they went. I am not pointing it at any person, I am not going to shoot anyone who isn't meant to be shot."
"Can't say it didn't make me uncomfortable since I don't know you," explains Ivy to Rumbo, surprised by his speaking. Then a nod. She'll leave it aside for the moment before translating Aimarra's words for the Fey, who pauses, side-eyeing the others am oment and then offering a gentle explanation that Ivy translates.
"They came to the old trees," begins Ivy, "and were trying to cut them down. Some trees have always been sacrificed for the greater forest to be preserved. Men take what they need. As long as they repsect the Fey, they were left alone. These men came in the night and started to hollar about the trees, and started to cut down the ones closer to our grove. They hawd never done that before. WE ttried to charm them, but they fled and the charms we did try to reach them with did not take hold. They left. You say the men are missing, but it was not our doing! I swear!"
Ivy's frowning.
"I thought it was the twisted ones, but now it seems we have the footprints of the men being charmed, the spare clothes, and now the fey saying they were trying to chop down their sacred trees? This doesn't add up to me."
"Nor me." Aimarra pointedly ignores Rumbo, neither looking at him nor responding to his remarks. "Maybe they were already charmed by something else," she offers, tilting her head at the dryad. "Can we follow those tracks deeper? Will you let us do that, so we can find out why?"
Jozi closes her hand, untaken, and she looks between her cohorts, shakes her head and turns back to their other problems, "Alright... so, someone definately stirrin things up." A glance up into the sky, seeking the Mother, perhaps, then, "Where did the men run?" though Aimarra's query catches her interest. That could work, too.
Rumbo holds the dragonspitter close to his chest as he pulls out a battered old compass from a pocket. Stepping a little closer to the Dryad he asks simply, "If you want to return to your tree I'll help you fight for freedom. Otherwise these people can do what they like. We were hired to protect the logger's camp but it's empty so all we need to do is tell our employers they should hire more loggers." As he speaks the gobber looks down at his compass. <yrch-speak>
GAME: Rumbo rolls knowledge/geography: (17)+9: 26
Aimarra continues to calmly pretend as if Rumbo does not exist, instead listening intently to Ivy and the Dryad. When Jozi returns her attention to the matter at hand, she nods agreement with the half-oruch. "If they will permit it, we should find out what."
"Ser Goblin, I would remind you that none of us know you. All I've seen from you is ... enthusiastic waving of a deadly weapon and that makes me uncomfortable. My Yrch is not very good, but I can tell you that you seem ... more eloquent in it. I am not sure what you're saying in its entirey, but I saw enough. But I'd ask that you refrain from whatever direction you think you're going. These woods are very dangerous, especially with the twisted ones on the loose."
The fey looks back and forth, then squints at Rumbo.
"Something... wrong?" she offers. "Twisted Ones? You mean..." She looks towards Ivy. There's a back and forth in Sylvan, which amounts to them confirming their mutual fears about the awakening of so-called 'dark' fey, which Rumbo can understand and Ivy translates for the rest of the group anyway.
"If the dark fey are playing tricks, then they want ot know the answer as much as we do."
"They came ... nights ago," continues Ivy from translation, "the tracks at the camp were fresher than that. No, that... that doesn't work... but why don't we follow these older tracks, hm?"
The Dryad pauses, then rights herself when allowed, and nods.
"I ... take you through the woods," She offers, gently, catching on to Trade quickly.
Dryads are good at that.
GAME: Rumbo rolls Sense Motive: (17)+7: 24 GAME: Rumbo rolls Survival: (3)+2: 5 GAME: Jozi rolls survival: (2)+4: 6 GAME: Aimarra rolls survival: (12)+11: 23
Jozi eyes Rumbo pretty flatly as he starts with the 'these people' stuff. She clicks her tongue once and watches the Dryad as she starts to respond. With her attempts to rise, the half-oruch offers her her unbladed hand to the task.
Rumbo bobs his head a few times to the Dryad and steps off to flank her as she stands. The Dragonspitter is kept cradled close to his chest in one hand, just as most everyone else also has at least one weapon in hand, and keeps hold of the battered brass compass in the other. He remains quiet though and just follows the Dryad.
"Ivy?" Aimarra calls out, eyes on the ground, roaming across the tracks. "Wait a minute. This ... this trail's fake. I almost missed it, whoever did the fake is really good. But the real trail ... I think it's this way. I think someone tried to cover their tracks. They almost got me." She's looking at a trail that diverts from the human trail, and examines it closely. "Yeah. Whoever covered these tracks and left the fakes ones ... went this way."