Logger's Peril, part 10

Log Info

• Title: Logger's Peril, part 10
• Emitter: Whirlpool
• Characters: Aimarra, Jozi, Randolf, Rumbo
• Place: Alexandros - Somewhere in Mythwood
• Time: Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 11:00AM
• Summary: Having found the Loggers in an isolated cabin the adventurers spend time uncovering how they ended up way out here and who brought them out here. There is some discussion about what to do but it is decided that the Dryad will take the loggers out of the forest while the adventurers will wait behind to see who shows up for them.
• APL: 2-5
• Encounter 1: Loggers in an isolated cabin deep in the Mythwood.

It's a whole moment. A moment where it has been revealked, here in the cabin, that the loggers are all here. Anmd that the loggers are, well... faking being missing. Because someone helped them get away with it.

Ivy and the dryad are fuming, for linked but entirely separate reasons.

Rumbo, having returned from the cabin while the others watched on from hiding and uncovered the whole ruse, has taken up a place of his own to watch the cabin from with his dragonspitter out and loaded while the others approached the door to demand answers. He grits his teeth and grimaces as he watches the logger invite people inside the sex cabin and keeps the dragonspitter steady in his hand as it is aimed at the open doorway from where he is in the undergrowth foliage.

Jozi sweeps the place as she proceeds inside, her bow slung, but her claws out, just as the nature of the beast as it were. Still wearing most of her own blood and what little remains of her folksy good humor, she says with a sigh, "So, yer company done set this up... fer what, now?" The half-orc's words are soft and almost gentle. Her eyes.... not so much. No one's cheerful after being gnawed on by angry salad to defuse the little crisis that wasn't.

"The company?"

"Ha! No! What are you talking about?"

"Naw, not the company." They're sheepish. "The mill company don't know shit. They send us out here, we take all the risks, and what the hell do we get? Paid *barely*."

"Yeah!"

"Bloody mill owners, think they own the forest without thinking about what we risk when we're in the same forest as elves and fairies. Uh. No offense."

Ivy just glowes.

The dryad retreats back a few steps. You're at least being allowqed into the comfortable cabin now. it is not a 'sex cabin', though it does appear a whole lot of very bored men have been playing entirely too many games of cards.

"No, it was an elf. Uh. No offense."

Aimarra is the last one inside. Somewhere in her stalk to the door, her arrow has been replaced in her quiver, her bow on her back. She's come in time to listen to the entire explanation. "Who laid the false tracks?" she asks simply. "Don't bother telling me it was any of you, because I know damn well it wasn't."

As the gun-totting Gobber approaches the cabin slowly he retrieves a scroll from a leather case he has to carry such things in. After unfurling the scroll Rumbo chants in Eldritch before stamping the barrel of his dragonspitter onto the door of the cabin just as the scroll is completed. There is a muted bang! and a symbol appears on the door with the barrel of the dragonspitter at it's centre: A rampant gold cockatrice perched atop a thunderbelcher. It is one square foot in size.

GAME: Rumbo used a Scroll of Arcane Mark.

Jozi resists the urge to fold her arms in pursuance of her 'stern reproach' posture. That would make it awkward if someone suddenly gets squirrely... and there's the fact that her gauntlet has blades coming out of it. She frowns, though, glancing at Ivy on mention of the 'elves', arches an eyebrow, then, "So.... you just... took this 'elf' at their word about how the mill owners would react to y'all goin-?"

• BLAM!*

... "... missin?"

There's a bunch of startled yelps from the gunshot, but you know, they're sort of observing all of you at the same time. Even the gobber.

"...naw, I mean, things like that have happened before. The woods are dangerous."

"People go missing sometimes, yeah, so the insurance they take out on us through the Alexandrian mercantile association woulda paid out after a while, once you didn't find us."

"...and that sure as hell ain't happening *now*," the grumble amongst each other.

"No. What is more, I will be informing the Guild that should this camp encounter trouble in the future, Guild services are not required." Aimarra's tone is cold. "Now, your friend who led you here. Have you seen them since?" She folds her arms across her chest.

Rumbo turns from the door with the dragonspitter held steady in his hand and he speaks up in his rough broken attempt at the common Tradespeak. "Can happen. Shoot you, Bang! Money paid your family. You dead. Want?" Rumbo gestures with the dragonspitter as the others offer different questions.

Jozi shakes her head, "So... when the mills pays out. Ya imagine her families may just up an use the money ta make arrangements? Buy food, buy supplies fer the winter.. that sorta thing?" she begins, slowly sweeping her eyes over the loggers. Her tone firms up and goes on, "You come back in an ya think they been had and come ta squeeze their payoff back outta yer family? Weeks after it's spent?"

Aim's consequence draws her eye, and a certain amount of consideration, though Rumbo's gets her to look his way over her shoulder, then back to the logger's mouthpiece, "Now... let's brush on the fact that there's almost blood spilled lookin' for who killed ya, shall we? How some of us got tore up tryin ta find ya? Would ya've cared if ya come outta yer drinkin' shack ta find a bunch a dead folk coming ta 'save' you?"

Guilt.

Have some.

"...no, no shooting us."

Between Rumbo and Aimarra, the loggerws are looking intimidated enough already, especially after its toppe dwith Ivy's crowning glare of anger.

"....ah... guess I didn't think about that."

"Honestly, the assholes are too cheap to -- okay, well I *thought* they were too cheap."

One of them, the man with the thickest beard out of all of them, rubs his face.

"Welp, I guess that's that, then. We'll head back to town and own up. As for the elf, no. But he's not due to show up for another few days at least."

Rumbo gestures to himself with the barrel of his dragonspitter tapping into his chest as he speaks up to the group. "Cogz Rumbo worked Sky Pirates short time, after Bludguni airship. Know good scam. Convince dumb loggers play dead. Money pay to family.. Now know pretend dead loggers family money in hand. Take loggers hostage and get money from family. Think that?" Rumbo shakes his head as he asks further, "Think scumbag elf happy loggers reveal plan? Plenty angry elf probably angry loggers. Best tell us elf looking like. Best description. We kill elf, loggers safe."

"Your elf friend. The one who brought you here." Aimarra's reminder, arms still crossed, is none too kindly. "Describe them."

Jozi nods thoughtfully, though she isn't particularly comfortable with Rumbo's alternative options, she stays mum for the moment. For now, observe and digest.

"...tall, slender. You know, like an elf. Kind of a gravel-voice, which was weird, since they're supposed to ber all sing-songy, right?"

"...that's not even a .."

Ivy puts a hand over their face.

"Yeah! Really pale. Really, really pale. Like, you know, moonlight!"

"Yeah!"

Ivy's face is going even harder into her hand.

Rumbo gestures towards the door with a wave of his dragonspitter and says grimly, "Outside cabin trap. Loggers know? Elf put Tendriculous. Trap keep people away Sex Cabin. Trap keep loggers in Sex Cabin. Loggers want go Tendriculous eat them. Loggers know this?" The Gobber shakes his head as he looks back to the group.

GAME: Jozi rolls sense motive: (4)+9: 13

GAME: Rumbo rolls Sense Motive: (2)+2: 4

GAME: Aimarra rolls sense motive: (8)+2: 10

Jozi shakes her head and, sparing a glance at Ivy, gives an incredulous look to the Loggers, "So, he really just leaned inta every pitcher ya had in yer head about elves, except the voice? When an where ya spoed ta meet this yayhoo?"

"I was just thinking the same," Aimarra drawls. "He sure seems like an interesting character. When is the last time you saw him? "

There's a pause from the loggers.

They look at each other.

"...well yeah, okay?"

"That sounds about right."

"Well, don't I feel like a dumbass."

"YOU? What about ME?"

They immediately fall into bickering amongst each other, actually, over this.

The dryad coughs delicately once. "I will take them from the forest. They do not belong here, and their passage will be noted by my people given what they did to our trees. I will make sure no harm comes to them."

She smiles.

She smiles a lot.

Ivy groans.

Rumbo gives the Dryad a wide Gobber-grin as he nods agreeably and then ge waves his dragonspitter towards the arguing loggers and calls out "Ok you lot. Out of Forest!"

For her part, Aimarra simply shrugs, seeming disinclined to countermand or argue with the dryad. Her interests lie elsewhere. "Did you see this individual again?" she presses?

GAME: Jozi rolls sense motive: (9)+9: 18

"... just twice. Once whe nhe made the offer, once when we accepted it. Once we did, he lead us here. It was all hjis idea. Said no names, though." The bearded logger talking shakes his head with a sigh. "What fools we've been. WE should have never gone near those trees, but the company told us to cut 'em anyway..."

Jozi listens to this, figuring the angle Aimarra's pursuing is prudent. Meanwhile, she scrutinizes the Dryad on her offer, throwing a veiled glance at the loggers, then she bows her head, "No harm is fair, thank you, sugar." With that, the half-oruch offers the fey her unbladed hand.

"Someone means to start a fight," Aimarra says, turning to Ivy. She wears a serious scowl that says that she means to track this individual down, but shifts to Tradespeak. "I say we let her take the loggers back where they belong, and track this guy back." <sildanyari>

"Someone means to start a fight," Aimarra says, turning to Ivy. She wears a serious scowl that says that she means to track this individual down, but shifts to Tradespeak. 'I say we let her take the loggers back where they belong, and track this guy back.' <sildanyari>

There's a nod towards Aimarra in firm agreement from Ivy.

"Yes, I agree. We should wait for their return and make them answer our questions. Painfully." <sildanyari>

Rumbo lifts the dragonspitter in his hand to the side of his head as he glares at the Loggers still in the cabin and growls, "Why still here?! Move, Move! Cabin fire in four, three, two..." As he reaches two the presumably crazy Gobber squeezes the trigger and shoots the ceiling KABLAAM!

So.

There you are. The lot of you. In a cabin. Stocked with food and cards. Waiting.

It's a while, you know. A day goes by, one, then two. Two and a half.

... two and a half days later, there's sound from outside the cabin and then a knock upon the door.

Seems your query has arrived, but then the door explodes inwards and a mass of writhing, shifting plant matter goes to start pushing itself inside the cabin.

... seems you've got trouble.