Logger's Peril, part 3

Log Info

• Title: Logger's Peril, part 3
• Emitter: Whirlpool
• Characters: Aimarra, Jozi, Randolf, Rumbo, Smuldur
• Place: Alexandros - Somewhere in Mythwood
• Time: Thursday, October 1st, 2020 11:00AM
• Summary: Clothes were found near a stream stuffed into a hollow tree stump that caused some distress amongst the party who have been tracking down the missing loggers. They debate about what to do as they continue searching along the stream until something is spotted and a chase through the forest is afoot.
• APL: 2-5
• Encounter 1: Chasing a dryad through the Mythwood.

-=-=-=-=-=-=  At a glance around Staff: Room of DoooOOooooOoom!  =-=-=-=-=-=-=
Aimarra      6m      5'1"     128 Lb     Half-Elf          Female    
    Brown hair and eyes, breastplate, leathers, pointed ears.                  
Jozi         2m      5'8"     148 Lb     Half-Orc          Female    
    A brunette half-orcess with a sunny disposition.                           
Randolf      16m     4'10"    280 Lb     Mountain Dwarf    Male      
    A burly, well-dressed Khazad in wizardly robes.                            
Rumbo        0s      3'2"     35 Lb      Goblin            Male      
    A gun-toting gobber with a wooden peg-leg.                                 
Smuldur      8m      3'4"     45 Lb      Goblin            Male      
    A gently used (cut, scraped, burnt, exploded) gobber.                      
Whirlpool    2m                Lb        Otyugh                      
    I am stinky!                                                              
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

Randolf steps over to where Jozi is, peering a bit more closely at the clothes drawn out of the stump. He looks from the garments, to the stump, and then back again. His eyes get wide, and he turns white as milk. "Beards o' me fathers. This... is this..." He stares in horror at the stump. "Is this one o' -those-?" He takes a couple wary steps back, gripping his wand tightly. As he had observed recently, -every- tree is suspect.

Jozi steps back out of the way to let the trackers lay eyes on the cloth, turning her attention outward to allay potential ambush while they're focused on their new clue. To that end, she renocks her arrow and scans the treeline for anything untoward. There's a glance to the dwarf and a soft, "Easy, sugar, ain't no one getting et by no trees now that we're here." so as to try and be reassuring without shaming the man.

"AHHH!!" Smuldur's been watching and wary and warning of the trees! Now they've found the culprit! He charges at the tree that obviously ate one of the folks and starts hitting it!

Rumbo gestures with a wave of the goblin army knife he has in one hand and asks, in his harsh tradespeak, "Someone's swimming?" Then lifting his voice shouts out, "Come out! We don't look at naked swimmers. Everyone closing eyes you get your clothes!"

"Let's have a look at these clothes, shall we?"

The elf reaches into the stump and carefully pulls them free. Workman's clothes. Logger clothes. Right down to the boots, actually, stashed in a hollow stump.

"... this does not look like work of the twisted ones?" she offers, confused, "they do not even wear clothes usually."

Rumbo nods several times to the elf and gestures with the dragonspitter and his goblin army knife. "Elf right. Clothes hidden, swimmers not want thieves stealing clothes. Bad people steal trousers."

Jozi gives the gobbos a look apiece, followed with an, "Easy, boys, no call gettin too jumpy just yet. Keep an eye out, but stay cool." The remark from the elf gets a, "Mebbe we got us a shapeshifter, doin things dirty between them twisted folk an the loggers?"

Randolf relaxes his wary stance, but only slightly. He glances around. "But... there's nobody here," he says. He lifts his wand, scratching at the side of his head with the tip. "It dinne figure. The lost loggers' tracks stopped right here at the river. But..." He looks up, and around, turning in a full circle. "Are there any tracks leadin' -to- this treestump?" he asks, looking to Jozi.

GAME: Jozi rolls perception: (4)+8: 12

Smuldur hits the tree another time or three, then pauses. "Not tree? Swim? Who swim?" He looks around, now confused. Didn't they just find the perpetrator?!

Rumbo closes his goblin army knife as he approaches the tree stump everyone else has crowded around and pockets it. This is all so the goblin can pull out a tindertwig from a pocket which he strikes against the stump to spark it to life. "Burn it. Find secrets." He offers in his broken tradespeak, "Everyone comes to watch fire. We find everyone in area."

GAME: Rumbo used a Tindertwig.

Jozi gives the ground a little lookover, but shrugs, "Ah... none I can see." Barring their own, probably, but still. She looks to Rumbo as he lights the tindertwig and replies, "Wr ain't gonna burn nothin', yet." A quick shake of the head, "Got folk snatchin loggers fer cuttin on their trees an yer gonna start lightin fires?"

Randolf looks at Rumbo, and facepalms. Smack. "Hammer an' anvil, boyo, have ye ever tried -not- settin' everything alight?" he grumbles. He looks up and around, peering into the gloomy forest. "Och, this isne gettin' us any closer te the missin' loggers. Time is against us here."

Rumbo frowns as his attention is turned to Jozi. "Exactly!" He insists, the tindertwig burning between thumb and forefinger, "Faster to draw them to us as we burn this stump. It's obviously important, filled with the clothes, and so we'll find them quickly as they come out!" As he speaks more eloquently in the Yrch-tongue his pleas are for naught as Aimarra, who is much taller, simply leans over Rumbo and blows the tindertwig out in his fingers. <yrch-speak>

"No trees to cut, no loggers! No snatchin!" Smuldur pipes up in support of superior gobber logic. He digs in his crotchpouch to pull out some fragile vials of inflammable liquid.

...there's a long pause from the elf. The elf looks towards Aimarra. There's a look of the deepest sympathy imaginable. A sort of 'I see now this is what you must be dealing with'. They nod. Slowly.

"Please do not burn down my forest. You would upset not only the twisted ones, but also burn my people to death within it. I ask you humbly not to do murder my people."

Her tone is dry.

"-No-....-fire-..." Jozi growl, "We won't survive fightin' everyone in the forest at once." She nods to the elf, "Ivy's folk are bein patient with us as it is."

Randolf gapes at Smuldur. His jaw drops, and works wordlessly, his beard bristling as he sputters. "Wha--who--gurrk!" He points his wand vigorously at the gobber. "Put that shite away right this -instant-! Are ye -daft-?! Yer goin' te get us all killed, slingin' that shite 'round!"

"We live for thousands of years," replies the cloaked 'Ivy'.

"...we can afford to spare you a few of your far more precious breaths."

They may be kidding.

Smuldur sighs. Bigguns just don't understand. He drops the vials back into his pouch with audible clinking. "No fire, no life." He knows better. Everyone likes fire when its burning baddies! They'll see!

GAME: Jozi rolls perception: (20)+8: 28

GAME: Randolf rolls perception: (15)+2: 17

GAME: Smuldur rolls perception: (9)+10: 19

GAME: Rumbo rolls Perception: (10)+9: 19

... What do you do when you've lost the tracks that walked to the edge of the stream, found clothes, and then ... nothing.

Nothing at all.

Needless to say ,it is probably not comfortable. You walk down the length of the stream for a time, hoping to find some sign of the supposed twisted ones. Some idea of where they could have taken the loggers.

In the distance, then, you hear a series of snaps, finally, some kind of clue, right?

Right.

Across the stream, a glimpse of movement. Something in the forest. Watching you. You can feel the eyes.

And then its gone. It's running the opposite direction.,

The elf immediately vaults to ford the stream and give chase. "After them," she yells. "It's not one of our's!"

Jozi turns toward the sensation of being watched, the heavy limbs of her shortbow creaking as she starts to bring it up, but too late. It creaks unstrained again as she growls a short, "Damnit!" She glances back, "Gonna lose her in tha trees! Don't shoot till yer sure a yer target!" and she tears off after Ivy and the unknown observer.

Rumbo brings his dragonspitter to bear as a snap alerts them to movement on the otherside of the stream and aims at the movement fleeing through the trees. As the elf cries out the gobber gunslinger cocks the firing hammer but before he can pull the trigger Aimarra lays her hand on Rumbo's shoulder which is enough to give him pause. "Aye Aye Captain." Is all he manages to grumble before he starts off as quickly as he can hobble on a peg leg after the movement.

Randolf lumbers along with the others, head on a swivel as he peers around. But hearing the snapping twigs across the stream perks his head in that direction. "Och, the hell is -that-?" He peers closer, gasping. "There! I see 'em!" He grips his wand as he motivates his hefty rump, trundling over as quickly as he can. "C'mon, move you lot! We dinne want te lose 'em!" he calls.

GAME: Randolf rolls athletics: (7)+2: 9

GAME: Jozi rolls athletics: (7)+0: 7

GAME: Rumbo rolls Athletics: (3)+0: 3

GAME: Aimarra rolls Athletics: (19)+3: 22

GAME: Smuldur rolls Athletics: (10)+3: 13

SO, good news everyone! You make it across the stream. This isn't as easy as it seems when half the number of you is goblins and at least one of you has a frigging prosthetic leg.

...splash splash oh hey what's with all the tiny mit--- oh no mosquitos.

Everywhere.

That's great.

Still, you burst across the stream in pursuit of the figure in question, who has vanished intro the trees. Ivy is nearly after them as well, having been the first to vault across and vanish into the trees as well. She hollars. r

"THIS WAY."

Moving ahead, you come to a section of gnarled trees, with a whole lot of roots sticking up out of the earth. This doesn't look like it's going to be fun to race through.

GAME: Randolf rolls athletics: (14)+2: 16

GAME: Rumbo rolls Athletics-3: (15)+0+-3: 12

GAME: Jozi rolls athletics: (16)+0: 16

Randolf pours on the speed, his stumpy legs making his kilt ripple and sway as he splashes through the stream. He manages to get a faceful of mosquitoes that apparently know that dwarf blood is high in protein. He splutters and swats at the cloud of bugs that swarms him, gagging and spitting. "Gwah! Gyeck! Pthui!" But he's nothing if not stubborn, as all his mountain-born kin are. Into the trees he plows, shoving and tearing his way through the undergrowth. "By Reos' bloody blazin' beard, when I get my hands on you...!"

Altering her course on Ivy's advisory, Jozi pins the arrow between her bowhand fingers and clenches those of her other hand, exposing as much edge of her Orcish Claws as possible as she closes with the green barricade she's closing on. The oruch-blooded woman, she tucks her shoulder and gives a fierce grunt as she meets that resistance, cutting in where she absolutely must so as to minimize the damage her massage would do to the wood. It might upset someone, and she's trying to avoid pissing off her allies, right now.

Hobbling through the tangled roots on his wooden peg-leg Rumbo huffs as he tries to hop and weave a path around the wooden obstacles. "Stop running you.. you.. Myr!" He shouts out in harsh tradespeak, sweating and wobbling unsteadly in his attempts to avoid stumbling over.

The figure is in sight, briefly, again. You

The figure is in sight, briefly, as the lot of you cut through the tree roots. Aimarra and SMuldur take the longer way around, so they're a little behind, but the rest of you catch a glimpse of a pale, nearly naked figure and are closing in on it fast! Can't be one of the loggers, at least.

Ivy hurtles herself into it and grabs it by the ankles, getting dragged along by it for a ways.

With his Dragonspitter held up, the barrel pointing straight into the air, Rumbo shouts out as forcefully as he can, "Stop!" Then to add emphasis he squeezes the trigger so that the dragonspitter barks loudly with sparks erupting from the muzzle and smoke billowing up into the air. <goblin-talk>

GAME: Rumbo rolls intimidate: (1)+1: 2 (EPIC FAIL)

GAME: Whirlpool rolls 1d20+1: (5)+1: 6

Randolf struggles his way out of the thicket. His robes are frayed and torn from where they caught on some brambles, his beard has twigs and leaves sticking out all over it, he might have poison ivy on his hands. In short, the dwarf's temper is at its end. Seeing Ivy wrestling with the mysterious figure, he draws himself up to his full height. "Right, tha's -it-! I have HAD it!" He snaps his wand out, tracing a pattern in the air. "RE EX RE AHN UMAKA DOR DORMUS!" A hazy burst of sparkles flares around the figure's head, a sudden wave of exhaustion that lulls it into a deep sleep! Randolf nods his head firmly. "Aye, tha's what ye get when ye piss me off!" he growls.

Jozi starts at the she gunshot, then glances to the dwarf as he casts, holding out a hand his way with a, "Wait, we want'er-!" and that's as far as she gets before the spell's up and cast. Sigh. She continues thundering on up to the surpine form, crouching down to see if it's still breathing, then glances to the elf, "Ya alright, sugar?" Then glances with a smile Randolf's way, "Nevermind. Nice work."

The figures goes limp.

"...well I'll be. It's a ... a ... what's the word?"

She squints down at the form of the sleeping woman on the ground.

"...dry-ad?"

You have succesfully captured a fey folk, it would appear.