An Alarming Situation

It was breakfast time in Freelancers Tavern, and the long table had a group of the more martial adventurers seated at it.  Ondar was by far the most imposing presence; the tall, tattooed quinametzin was eating enough for two people.  Next to him was Mia, a well-dressed human woman with a shield and a longsword.  She was short and compact and in superb shape and had good makeup, but split knuckles betrayed how she liked to spend her energy.  Across from them sat Sabah, an older human with darker skin, salt&pepper hair and stocky build.  They were wearing leathers that almost looked intended for performance, and had a wolpertinger on their shoulder.  Also was Glesni, a very tall Cloud elf, in expensive leathers with bronze studs, and a longbow at her side.  A signet ring glinted on her hand, and she was less at ease than the others.

Apart from them sat Murai, a tall, solidly built Wind sagani of indeterminate age and gender.  Murai's chain mail was black, and their weapon was a nasty-looking sawed off boathook, but all of that was background compared to the large, jewel-encrusted, golden bird they wore on a chain around their neck.

Others were in the tavern.  Evvie, Laki, and Aleki were at the other end of the long table.  Nix, a tall human woman in a pointed hat, was at a table by herself.  A winged cat twined about her feet.

The Cloud elf Valan entered the tavern, bow on his back.  He saw Glesni and nodded, then came up to their table.  "Boss wants to see you," he said, indicating Ondar, Mia, Glesni, and Sabah.  He started to turn then nodded at Murai, "You too."  As he walked past Nix's table, he repeated, "Boss wants to see you."  

Everyone's eyes went to Mia and her split knuckles, then they all rose and went upstairs, to visit Arnari in her office.  The half-elf, whose skin was darker than Sabah's, was seated at her desk, braids pulled back away from her face.  Uncharacteristically, her mahogany desk was clear of papers other than the sheaf directly in front of her, and her lap harp was set aside on the floor.

Arnari's office had a variety of chairs, for use by visitors or Freelancers wanting to discuss missions.  Mia took the chair with the nice cushions; Nix just sat in the first chair available.  Ondar sat in the back so as not to block anyone.  Sabah sat on a backless chair, almost an ottoman.  Murai and Glesni both just leaned on the wall, somewhat apart from the others, and each other.

Once they were settled, Arnari explained, Waypoint Alarm is conveniently positioned for travel from Duquesne.  The waypoint had received a shipment of the Daystar lotion forwarded on from Waypoint Superb, and the Church of Storms wanted Freelancers to investigate, and Arnari wanted them to be the investigating Freelancers.

"Here is a badge," she said, and produced a token, tamper-proof like Freelancer badges, imbued with a moving image of a supercell and lightning.  "Try to have a modicum of discretion and stealth."

Glesni stepped forward, and took the badge, glancing at the moving image briefly before putting it in her belt pouch.  "Murai might… distract suspicion," she ventured, "from Church of Storms."

Arnari looked at Murai, and their sparkly jewelry, and ridiculously tacky bejewelled bird pendant.  She opened her mouth, hesitated, then said, "Of course, with regards to Church of Storms."

Glesni:  what is our ostensible purpose for visiting the waypoint?
Sabah:  can make it up!
Arnari:  it's in the outer section of the inner reaches; it's warm and humid and has dense jungle.  I will rely on your creativity.
Sabah:  what's the reward?
Arnari:  200gp, and passage paid!  Will have 5 days on the waypoint.
Nix:  how are we supposed to recognize this lotion?
Arnari:  detect magic will show it as a mix of abjuration and enchantment.  <pause>  None of you have encountered these cultists before.  They always have an unnaturally even darkening of the skin, due to overexposure to the Daystar.  This is primarily noticeable by an abnormal lack of tan lines.

Arnari looked at her papers, then at the gathered Freelancers, and smiled at something only to herself.  "Your ship is the mechanical airship Aster, operating out of Stormview on Nadezhda.  It will depart shortly after noon.  The captain's name is Pamulo, he's a Nimerigar."

The Freelancers nodded and left to pack.  Glesni bought a score of arrows from the quartermaster before heading out.

After the Freelancers were greeted by Captain Pamulo, who was short & swarthy even for a Nimerigar, they understood Arnari's cryptic smile.  The Aster was crewed entirely by Nimerigar, and the belowdecks and cabins were sized perhaps to accommodate Dark elves.  Ondar was kind of uncomfortable, and Glesni would not be able to carry her bow without catching it on the hatches.

The Aster took off from Cliffshadow, towed out of port and down by a team of draft pegasi.  The Wind sagani pilot was very precise in where the airship had to go, and the airship angled portward as the pegasi dropped away and its engines fired up.  It felt a little light with the downward motion, but as they moved further away from the big skylith that feeling settled.  As they crossed the boundary, Duquesne loomed above and astern, and then the pilot mounted her peregrine falcon and headed up and starboard.

It was hard to believe the airship was outracing the skylith, but Duquesne receded slowly as the afternoon progressed.  Once the Aster was on course, the captain spared the time to explain to his tall passengers that to get to Waypoint Alarm, the airship would have to pass through the trail of Olyokoma, so there would be weather / turbulence.

They settled into the voyage, although Murai kept hovering over the airship crew as they went about their business.  A couple days passed, then everyone was told to stay belowdecks.  The mechanical ship vibrated, and bounced, and moved unexpectedly under the force of great winds:  they were behind Olyokoma, in the spray and the winds disrupted by the passing of the great thalassae.  Occasionally, the sound of water hitting the hull echoed through the cabins.

Nix, who had adjusted to Cliffshadow after arriving there from Sheerness, found the movement of the airship to be too much; she could not hold it down, vomiting all over the cabin.  Glesni didn't like the vibrations either, preferring the comfort of fire elemental airships, but grimly used prestidigitation to clean up the mess.

As the fourth day of the trip started, the turbulence calmed down, as did Nix's stomach.  The Aster was "under" but close to the thalassa, and the Freelancers emerged on the observation deck to see.  Mighty Olyokoma, the salt water thalassa 300 miles across, loomed overhead, incomprehensibly large.  Mist and clouds and funnels followed it, sporting rainbows, and water dripped below; much of the surface was obscured, but reflections of the Daystar glittered like tiny jewels off the water.

Murai, Nix, and the two familiars noticed that behind the ever-present twisters trailing Olyokoma, a spiraling string of tiny skyliths trailed behind.  After a few minutes, Fluffy, the wolpertinger, noticed flying creatures heading towards the Aster from there, and Sabah pointed it out to others.

"Flappies to starboard!" Murai called out, in a voice that was sure to be heard over wind, propeller, or elemental.  Glesni looked where they pointed, then ran belowdecks to fetch her bow.  The crew knew this drill and scattered to their appointed places.

As the creatures got closer, it became obvious they were four quetzalcoatl, two of which were smaller.

Nix cast an uplevel'd sleep on the two smaller ones, which were more astern than the others.  They fell asleep, plummeting below the Aster as their motion went ballistic.

• Glesni was still belowdecks, having retrieved her longbow & quiver.  She was running back up, keeping her head low.
• Sabah walked to the midships starboard railing, forward of the locking rings, and waited for a quetzalcoatl to fly near, so they could grab the creature.
• Ondar became large, somewhat shocking the nearby airship crew.  He unlimbered his longbow, which he had not kept in the cabin, and shot twice at the closest remaining quetzalcoatl.  The first arrow missed, the second one hit its mark.
  • Large Ondar followed up by invoking his fire rune, shackling the creature with chains of fire.  It squawked in surprise and anger as it too plunged below the Aster, the chains reducing its ability to maneuver and rendering its motion ballistic.
• The remaining quetzalcoatl flew in, and Sabah discovered they had underestimated its size.  They bonked it with their quarterstaff, and the creature struck at Sabah with its beak.  Upon missing, it looped up and away.
• Unseen by those on the airship, the other quetzalcoatls continued to plummet on a ballistic path, fire chains burning the larger one.
• Mia pulled out a javelin, then stood next to Large Ondar, not yet convinced she should throw it.
• Fluffy hid below the rail.
• Murai took the garish bird pendant in their hand and extended it towards the quetzalcoatl they could see.  A multicoloured beam of light lanced out and struck it with I, burning it with holy radiance.
• Mercury hid behind Nix.

Nix shot the quetzalcoatl with ray of frost, chilling the creature's fleshy wings and slowing its flight.

• Glesni arrived on deck, and immediately drew and loosed an arrow at it.  A last-minute adjustment brought it closer to its mark, and the arrow sank into the injured flier's chest.  The unconscious and dying creature's wings were lifeless, and it started to tumble into its own ballistic trajectory.
• Unseen by those on the airship, the other quetzalcoatls continued to plummet on a ballistic path, fire chains burning the larger one, which then managed to break out of the chains.  However the Aster was far, far away by this time.

The Aster continued to pull east and inward, although the airship was a bit more level that before.  The captain advised the Freelancers to stay below for the next day if they didn't want to get wet.  They did so, and despite Glesni, Nix, and Ondar being a bit warm, nobody was jostled or nauseated.

On the sixth day, the Freelancers took thought as to what their "story" would be, for why they were visiting the jungly waypoint.  Sabah & Murai suggested, "Check out the jungle for rare plants or tourism."

Without moving, Nix transformed into an old man, and said in a slightly quavery but confident voice, "I am Marcus the wealthy merchant, and you're my band of murderous guards."

Murai was offended.  Glesni was offended.  Sabah was offended, but then laughed and struck a pose.

Sabah:  the Krusha is here!
Mia:  oh, you guys have such great senses of humour.
Glesni:  some of us have appearances to maintain.
Mia <serious, for once>:  that's why I left home!
Sabah:  was not kidding; that was my stage name!
Glesni <darkly>:  that's not why I left home.

<Narrator voice:  it was, actually, why Glesni left home.  She can return, once she figures that out.>

Right about them Captain Pamulo got the Freelancers to come up to the observation deck; they were approaching Waypoint Alarm.

The deck was no cooler than the cabins, and almost as muggy; the light of the Daystar felt like it was westering, but its angle in the sky was higher than that.  Of the Freelancers, only Mia was dressed comfortably for the weather.

The Aster was approaching a very small skylith, perhaps 4 miles across; it looked almost like an egg with the top third chopped clean off.  The chopped-off top was relatively flat; perhaps there were hills, but it was covered with jungle so thick it was hard to discern.  As they got close, they saw a flashing light signal; the waypoint station itself, a clearing on the southeast edge that was surrounded by jungle.  The airship pivoted a small ways past the eastern edge and approached the clearing from the south, then landed east of what at first appeared to be a broad gully in the edge of the skylith.  Upon landing, it was obvious that a chore duty for the personnel was "Jungle Back", and that included the gully, which had a very large wheeled contraption at the top of it with a rope cradle.

The Freelancers looked around in wonderment.  Glesni and Nix certainly had never been in this environment before; they were distracted by weird jungle noises.  The others were too, but as the waypoint personnel and airship crew started unloading cargo for transshipping, Murai noticed that a lot of the people unloading the ship looked really tired.

A Rock sagani and a Nimerigar looked very tired; a fit Rain sagani and a female Dark elf, very clueless.  Murai saw the Nimerigar directing the latter, "Not there!  No!  There!  This is not hard!"  They went up to the tired folks, and said, "I've handled stuff at docks before; do you need a hand?"

At the grateful look from the Rock sagani, the Dark elf said, "Still tryn'a figure out, tryn'a learn."  The Rain sagani muttered, "Not even our frikkin' job."

Murai glanced meaningfully at the other Freelancers, and "Marcus" (Nix had not dropped the disguise, so we'll continue to call her "Marcus" when in the company of others) belatedly waved them to go help, as "he" wandered to the quartermaster's office enquiring about a dockmaster or customs agent.

The Freelancers helped, their steps slightly bouncy in the lighter gravity.  While in the warehouse, Glesni triggered her wand of magic detection while nobody was looking, trying to detect any possible lotion.  Nothing "hit" from the warehouse at all, although some stuff in the office lit up, which she guessed was a safe.  Her fellow Freelancers also lit up with various items, although curiously, none of Murai's jewelry did, including that ridiculous bird.

Marcus had been directed to Misuku, the Nimerigar station quartermaster, and one of the tired people.  He was swearing by Toka at various people when Marcus wandered up.

In the most amazingly entitled tone, Marcus announced to him that he was "...interested in opportunities on the Waypoint.  You look like you know what's going on, and about the other people operating here."  Marcus jingled coins in his pocket, as if they were burning a hole in it.

Misuku paused, looked at the tall human, the jingling pocket, the person he just was swearing at, and back at Marcus.  "Am more than happy to chat in the tavern this evening," he said, "over a delicious beverage.  But, I am a little busy right now."  The other person hurried away before the swearing resumed.

Marcus supremely ignored all that.  "Thanks," he said, "Looking forward to it."  Satisfied, he headed towards the tavern.

Mia and Glesni had been watching everyone unload the ship.  It seemed to be the expected number of people; just two of them seemed extremely clueless.  Murai, while unloading, had been checking for valuables.  Most of the goods were from Cliffshadow; some were made goods, perhaps tools, and were pretty heavy.

Glesni managed to circuit the entire warehouse with the detect magic up, and there were no hits at all, nor did the quartermaster's office have any hits matching the lotion signature Arnari had described.

After an hour, they'd finished transferring the cargo, and the Daystar had set, ending the short day.  Olyokoma was a crescent in the west as everyone headed for the tavern.

The tavern was rapidly filling up, and Misuku sought out Marcus, sitting by himself at a table.  "Let's chat over some food," he offered.  "It's a lot of work, with these dumb arses."  Marcus nodded sincerely.  "It's hard work to find good help."

Glesni and Ondar had found the Dark elf station managers, Lustig Drakegaze and his partner Phlegrai.  Glesni secured rooms for the Freelancers at 1gp/night.  She glanced at Ondar.

Glesni:  I've never been in the inner reaches.  How is it?  Is this normal?
<Phlegrai handed out the keys to the rooms, explaining they were on the 3rd floor.>
Lustig:  it's so much better in the inner reaches!  It's so much warmer and green growing… the outer reaches are so grey and cold.  But don't get lost, there's a lot of jungle!
<Ondar perked up at "cold".>
Lustig <at Ondar>:  don't worry about that.  No cold here!

Glesni excused herself, handed out the keys, including very formally to Marcus, then returned to the station manager.  She was beginning to wonder if her very hair was going to wilt.

Glesni:  I'm from the outer reaches.  It's so humid here, how do you deal with it?!
Lustig:  drinking cool beverages!  We have a cellar, and I can keep it cool!
<Lustig busied himself, and made two mojitos for Ondar and Glesni.>
Lustig:  on the house!
Ondar:  this is not the drink Ondar is looking for.
Glesni:  does anyone go into the jungle?  You said, "don't get lost"
<A shadow crossed Lustig's face.>
Lustig:  we don't go too far; the jungle grows too fast.  Landmarks get lost, so people get lost.

Glesni and Ondar excused themselves, and the Freelancers got their stuff settled into the rooms, then returned to the tavern.  The mojitos might not be the drink Ondar was looking for, but they definitely helped with tolerating the warm humidity.

To the more travelled Freelancers, the waypoint station appeared to be missing 3 people, but with the crew of the Aster mixed in, they weren't sure.  Certainly, nobody appeared to be sporting the unusual Daystar tan Arnari had described.  But, standing around sipping mojitos would not solve this mystery.
 

Sabah found the table where the Rain sagani and the Dark elf were sitting, with 4 other burly people.  They headed to the table, mojito in hand, and noticed the calluses.  These were the Waypoint guards.  The 4 others peered at Sabah suspiciously as the Rain sagani, Mazarkis, said, "I think we broke your record of getting yelled at, today."  Two of the others snorted.

Sabah introduced themselves, and commisertated about getting yelled at, then asked, "How long have you been on the Waypoint?"  The guards' faces closed up, and one said, "A while."  Sabah wondered why the waypoint needed so many guards, and asked, "What do you do?"  At that, they all answered at once.  "Defend against dinosaur attacks,"  "Hired for bow," "Shoot things, not carry things."

Sabah heard that last, and they asked, "If you are waypoint watch, why are you hauling boxes?"  One of them said, "Someone's gotta do it!" and then flexed.  The others all flexed.  Sabah, with a private smile, set their mojito down and challenged the burliest guard, a human, to arm wrestle.  They did the best of three, and of course Sabah won.

"You're from the higher reaches, aren't you?" he said. "That's cheating!"  The others laughed as Sabah said, "Duquesne.  Just got here."  They looked at Sabah, then at the other Freelancers circulating, and faces turned grim.  "Some warehouse workers went missing a while ago," Mazarkis said.  "Replacements have not arrived."
 

Marcus returned to Misuku, Ondar playing role of bodyguard.  "What do you like to drink / recommend?" he asked, then without waiting for an answer, "I'm interested in branching out, local markets, what news is there, what's been going on."  Perhaps Ondar twitched an eyebrow, but Nix is a persuasive person, and Misuku treated the request seriously.

"We do a lot of transshipping, and not a lot of local industry," he told Marcus. "A lot of stuff comes in/goes out...

Misuku:  Recently, we had dockworkers just vanish into the fucking jungle.  If you have pull with the Skyguard, have them send me competent dockworkers.  Surely, the guards are pretending to be bad.
Marcus <magnaminously>:  of course.  Of course you don't get to be where I am without friends in the Skyguard.  ...did you notice anything?  Were they acting weird?
Misuku:  Two went missing, and one in the tavern.  Also, they were going into the jungle a bit too much.
Marcus:  so… oh.  Hey, if it's really hot in the Daystar and I'm kind of pasty, do you have any lotion that helps protect against that?
Misuku:  no?  Lotion helps, if exposed
 

Murai spotted the Rock sagani from earlier sitting with a human and half-elf.  They went up to the somewhat listless group and said, "Seems like you had a long day, can I buy you a drink?"

The entire group perked up and the Rock sagani said, "A drink!  Yes!"  Murai smiled and bought drinks all around, then asked, "Mind if I join you?"  The human said, "Not at all if you're bringing drinks!"  The Rock sagani added, "I'm Anabelle."

Murai:  so, what happened?!
Anabelle:  we have been short 2 people in the warehouse at least an eighth.  I think the guards are pretending they don't know what to do, but it just doesn't help!
Human:  the others had been acting weird, then they just disappeared.
Murai:  how, weird?
Anabelle:  going out in the jungle in the middle of the day?  Then they just disappeared!
Murai:  did their appearance alter at all?
Half-elf:  they started wearing more yellow.
Anabelle:  yessss yellow and I dunno what was up and they started
Murai:  well, I had a friend when I was young, and they found the sweetest hallucinogen and they started wearing nothing but green, and if you could show me where they went it would be… <voice trailed off>
Others:  what kind of friend did you have?!

Murai wasn't really sure where to go from the conversational corner they'd boxed themselves into, and awkwardly cut the conversation short and ran out.
 

Mia got it in her head to befriend the tavern staff.  But they looked unusually busy, so it was a bit past beer o'clock when she flagged down a human server named Ryba, and embarked with the schmoozing.

Mia:  seems here real dark, and, uh, stressed here.  Has anything happened lately?  [Way  notes missing]
Ryba:  I'm being worked to the bone!  I dunno where Caserta went, but she went away about an eighth ago…  <Ryba sat down.> Tatuma, Runder, Caserta started acting weird, went to the jungle on the opposite side from the ship ramp, then they disappeared!
<pause>
Ryba:  Phlegrai & Lustig help, but they have their own work.
Mia:  omg that sucks.  I don't have too much pull, but I can talk to the Skyguard!
Ryba:  Caserta started being weird.  Vanishing to the jungle every day.  They could get mosquitoes!
Mia:  sounds like a way to get rashes.
Ryba:  Caserta was complaining about how they had finally figured out how to get more of their lotion.  They were so weird!  I like the primordial gods and all, but they were so weird ... I like Toka ... Āhua
<dropped to a whisper>  Caserta started talking about how the jungle even with Āhua wouldn't grow without the Daystar.  Sounds like heresy!  Maybe Āhua had the jungle eat them.
Mia:  we're here for a bit as Marcus' hired guards.  We can ask him if we can go search for them.
Ryba:  I dunno about where they went, but know where they entered the jungle.
Mia:  what can I do to make your evening better?

That question prompted a look of an entirely different kind from the lonely Ryba, and Mia realized she overstepped.  Nonetheless, the two women spent the rest of the evening in each others' company, even though Mia rebuffed any advances from Ryba as gently as she could.
 

Glesni decided to put her nascent woodworking skills and knowledge of woods to good use and actually discuss the jungle with likely people.  She realized that the station's chief mechanic was also a Cloud elf and thought that since they handled sail airship repairs, the mechanics would be most likely aware of any interesting properties of the jungle woods.  She approached their table to start a conversation, and got their names:  the Cloud elf was Jeynfer, and had a half-orc assistant, Adrian.  <Narrator voice:  and then, Shari rolled a nat 1 persuasion.>

Glesni played the whole "from the outer reaches, the woods here are weird" card, but it seemed this was a difficult topic for Jeynfer, who did not want to be reminded of the outer reaches at all.

Adrian:  good wood in the jungle, but not this jungle.  No time to do logging, no good place to let it cure.
Glesni:  seems a lot of people are short on time, here.
<Jeynfer pretended Glesni didn't exist.>
Adrian:  some people went missing a while ago.  Sometimes we have to carry stuff.
Glesni:  how long you been here?
<Jeynfer compressed her lips and said nothing.>
Adrian:  a couple years; I like seeing the ships and working on them.

This conversation wasn't going anywhere, and Glesni looked at Jeynfer, eyes narrowing speculatively.  She was clearly from the Springson family, longtime shipbuilders in Cloudworks on Coldstream.  Glesni wasn't sure why she'd be here; she'd not heard of any person leaving the family.  Then again, Jeynfer was middle-aged, and Glesni was very young; she could have left centuries before.

Glesni took her leave, and played bodyguard escorting Marcus to his room.
 

Ondar sat at the bar, and drank all the drinks.  None of them were what Ondar was looking for.  In the process he chatted up Lustig and Phlegrai, explaining what he was looking for.  It was all small talk, as Ondar's attention was on the conversations surrounding him.

While they were cleaning glasses, Ondar heard part of a conversation between the couple about the waypoint station personnel being tired.

Lustig:  maybe they're on their way
Phlegrai:  how long are we gonna wait if they are on the way?
Lustig:  well, we shouldn't pester them!

* * session break * *

The Freelancers managed to get a good night's rest, although Glesni was awake when the rains came in the wee hours.  Dawn came swiftly in the inner reaches, and once awake, they gathered in Nix's room to decide what next.  Clearly they should figure out where these missing people went, but how to go about it?

Just blunder into the jungle?  They had an excuse, thanks to Ryba.  Should Glesni use her Winged Boots to scout above?  No, the foliage was too thick.  Do they "escort" "Marcus" into the jungle?  Or perhaps go exploring for drugs?

Mia noted, "We should be obvious, in what we are doing," and Glesni chimed in, "Agree with Mia."  They decided they would end up escorting the obtuse Marcus into the jungle despite advice to the contrary.

But first they had breakfast, and had Ryba show them where to go, north of the waypoint station.  The Freelancers made sure their intentions were obvious to any observers.  And through the jungle they went.

Ondar and Glesni were miserable.  It was a jungle, and hot, and muggy, and they couldn't see anything really.  The soundscape was abnormal to them, and distracting.  Mia was more acclimated to the weather, but her mind was elsewhere and she was only barely keeping track of where they were going.

Murai, Nix, and Sabah, however, found the path that the others had been using, and despite many primes of disuse, determined there was enough left for them to follow.  Here, the jungle canopy was higher, so while there was thick foliage above them, the jungle floor was relatively clear, with ferns, bushes, and deadfall.  Nix flew on her broom above the others, looking for signs of people having climbed the trees.  Certainly there was no way to see, let alone "worship" the Daystar from the ground below.  Anyhow, she found nothing.

An hour passed, the Freelancers continuing to follow the path.  They kind of bounced in the light gravity, especially Glesni and Ondar.  Nix lost sight of the path from her vantage, and Mia gave up.  However Glesni was adjusting to the conditions, and with Sabah, was easily able to follow it.  After another hour, the trees opened up into a mildly picturesque glade.  Small trees lined the edges of a grassy clearing, and an enormous tree was on the eastern side, to their right.  The Daystar shone down from above, already near zenith and a bit more yellow than it should have been for this time of day.

This glade seemed to be the end of the path they'd been taking, and the Freelancers cast about carefully.  There was no trace of it continuing on the grass or nearby ferns.  Glesni took off her cap and mopped her forehead.  She was really hot, and bemused by coming across a grassy area in the middle of all this weird jungle.

Everyone else was more interested in the 4-toed tracks they spotted, perhaps the size of a large turkey.  Sabah, remembering their conversation with the guards last night, suggested it was maybe dinosaurs, earning them a look from everyone else.  They looked more closely.  "Maybe, like, flightless birds?"

Mia had not lost sight of the Freelancers' mission, and examined the big tree.  She saw a place in the trunk, perhaps hallowed out, and some handholds.  She climbed up.  As she ascended, Fluffy flew up and bounced off her head, and into the 18" hole in the trunk above.  He perched on the edge, then disappeared into it.

Sabah relayed to the others, "Fluffy found a bunch of bottles and pieces of paper."  Fluffy managed to carry a half-full bottle back to Sabah, and then Mia climbed up the rest of the way to the hole.  She peered in, seeing the bottles, the papers, and some towels.  She grabbed a paper and read out loud, but stopped pretty quickly.

Behold the Glory of the Daystar!  All things flow from the light of the Daystar –

Murai, making an uncomfortable face, asked in a practical tone, "Can someone detect magic?"  This snapped Glesni out of her bemusement.  "Detect magic!  Wand!  Is finally not useless!" She jammed her cap back on her head and used the wand again.  The lotion bottles lit up with the signature Arnari had told them to look for, and she told the others.

Murai gently took the bottle from Sabah, then had Mia hand down the bottles and other stuff from the tree, to hold for later.  Glesni got a more concentrated look with the detect magic, and exclaimed, "Don't eat it!"  She frowned and turned to Ondar.  "Don't drink it."  The others smiled, and Mia climbed down from the tree.

Ondar, however, was focussed on something else:  he'd heard something large coming through the bushes on the opposite side of the glade.  Ondar did not have time to do more than frown, though, before two large allosauruses crashed through, one red and one grey, dispelling any disturbing thoughts of people worshipping the Daystar ass over teakettle.

Sabah strolled over to the red allosaurus (which was closest) and grappled it, holding it tight.

• Glesni used her Winged Boots to pivot so she had the two allosauruses in a line, then used piercing arrow to shoot them both.  She followed up with another arrow, shot at the red one Sabah was grappling.  She stayed up off the ground.
• Mia, raging, ran up behind Sabah with a primal roar and used a javelin recklessly on the red allosaurus.  The air shimmered as her ancestors made their presence felt.
• The red allosaurus air snapped as it tried to bite Sabah and was hindered by Mia's ancestors.
• The grey allosaurus shifted to see Mia better, then charged her, clawing and leaping.  She withstood much of the clawing, and it failed to knock her prone.
  • Ondar invoked his stone rune on it, to no noticeable effect.
• Nix, still above on her broom, cast an uplevel'd sleep on the grey allosaurus, to no effect… except the spell caught the red allosaurus, who snoozed away.  Sabah put it down gently, to not wake it up.
• Mercury just prepared to dodge.
• Fluffy flew by the grey allosaurus, distracting it.
• Ondar became large and roared a challenge at the grey allosaurus.  He struck it with his vicious rapier, then invoked his fire rune on it.  The chains burned the allosaurus but failed to restrain it.  Large Ondar struck it again with the vicious rapier.
• Murai ran up, swinging their boat hook at the grey allosaurus' neck.  It struck and the boat hook started to glow, shooting off multicoloured sparkles which themselves glowed and sparkled… anyhow, Murai's smite killed the allosaurus.

The Freelancers didn't have a chance to consider relaxing:  four deinonychuses swarmed in around the same bushes!  A bit larger than large turkeys, a bit smaller than cassowaries, their presence explained the tracks from earlier.  Biting and slashing with their claws, they attacked Large Ondar, Murai, and Fluffy.

• Fluffy was slashed with a claw, but avoided being knocked prone.
• Murai was bit.
• Large Ondar had two deinonychuses attack him, and all failed… well, one of them missed Large Ondar and instead managed to slash the other deino.

Sabah, dismayed at Fluffy getting hurt, moved to the deinonychus attacking him and punched it in the face.

• Glesni realized the deinonychuses were all lined up, so she sent another piercing arrow through the ones attacking Fluffy and Large Ondar.  The ones on Large Ondar avoided most of the damage, but the magic arrow killed the deinonychus that had attacked Fluffy.  In the interests of being egalitarian, Glesni then shot the deinonychus attacking Murai.
• Mia moved between Large Ondar's and Murai's attackers, drawing her longsword, failing to land an attack on anything.
• Miraculously, the red allosaurus kept snoozing away.
• Nix cast an uplevel'd chromatic orb at the deinonychus which had slashed its companion.  The orb settled on cold before it crit, killing the dino by shattering it.
• Mercury started cleaning his paws, ready to dodge.
• Fluffy flew by the slashed deinonychus, distracting it, then landed and burrowed into the ground, to avoid any more slashing.
• Large Ondar attacked the slashed deinonychus with his vicious rapier, the crit skewering it like a kebab.  He pivoted to attack the deinonychus on Murai, piercing it.  Then he stepped back.  The deinonychus slashed at him but missed.
• Murai struck with their boat hook, killing the last deinonychus, although with considerably fewer special effects.

The red allosaurus was still asleep.  Large Ondar checked if it had wings, but it did not, and the Freelancers were feeling a bit merciless, so they killed it before it was able to wake.

Glesni and Sabah looked for any particularly valuable parts from the dead dinosaurs, but beyond the standard leather / claws / teeth they discerned nothing special.  "Who is skinning?" Glesni asked dejectedly, pulling out a long knife.  Mia, Sabah, and Ondar messed around with the deinonychuses.

Nix landed, then she and Murai helped skin the allosauruses, and butcher out the teeth and claws.  Glesni gave them a grateful look.  They got ~200gp worth of dinosaur leather, 4 claws in good condition, and 21 sizeable teeth.  Mia wanted two of those teeth for earrings.

While all this skinning was taking place, Ondar was puzzling over encountering 6 dinosaurs of two different types.  He didn't know that much about dinosaurs, but he didn't think they ran in groups like that.  Glesni's thoughts were darker, no doubt partially from skinning the large creature.  She told the others, "They were returning to a place where they knew to find a nice meal; witness these missing people from the waypoint station."

The skinning done, Glesni was using prestidigitation to shed the gore.  Murai asked, "How do we confirm?"  Glesni replied sardonically, "Well, I don't really want to check dinosaur poop!"

Mia looked around, and realized there was plenty of dinosaur poop to check, especially in the north side of the glade.  She checked it, then picked some up and threw it on Glesni.  Glesni, tired and overheated, turned and sent an arrow past Mia's head, then followed up with one in her shoulder.  Mia didn't care, and laughed.

Sabah, meanwhile, had a better idea to confirm, which did not involve any poop, and started checking through all the papers, both for any further clues, and also to see if they indicated where the lotion was coming from.  They found nothing.

Ondar asked Murai for the Daystar lotion, and they looked askance at Ondar in return.  He explained to Murai that he thought it would be useful in a combat situation as a thrown item, given its effects on people.  Murai hesitated, then gave it to Ondar, admonishing him not to drink it.

Glesni used prestidigitation to clear off the dinosaur poop, and the Freelancers headed back to the waypoint station.  About halfway there, she used prestidigitation to drop the poop on Mia, wondering why it took her that long to think of it.  Mia just laughed.

Once back at the waypoint station, Marcus told Lustig that they'd found where his missing persons had gone, and had clearly been killed by dinosaurs, and his guards had acted to remove this menace.  Lustig's face grew long, and Mia reiterated that they would talk to the Skyguard.

The Freelancers maintained their ruse for the next four days at Waypoint Alarm, but sadly, Marcus found no opportunities to invest, and they departed back to Cliffshadow on schedule.  Their return passage was on the Sotis, a sail airship, with human captain Ozias.  Ondar and Glesni did not feel squeezed belowdecks on a human-crewed airship!

The Sotis had landed in the wheeled contraption at the top of the gully, keelmast folded flat. When it came time for the sail airship to leave, it was basically pushed off the southern edge of the skylith at speed after riding down the gully.  [one of the crew] wielded a [wind fan] to push the airship out past the boundary, which was less than 2500 feet from the skylith edge, and then the sails filled with the Skyway winds and they were on their way.

Travel back to Duquesne was uneventful and very quiet; the Sotis avoided Olyokoma and its weather effects, and it had no mechanical engines or elemental-induced speed to create extra sound.  The crew was happy to have Murai help with the lines, as well.  They arrived 6 days later, in the early afternoon, at the Cliffshadow docks, and reported in to Arnari.

Arnari was glad to see her Freelancers return, and paid them 180gp each.  She found it was unfortunate that they had not discovered where the cultists had possibly secured another supply of the lotion, but given the length of time since their demise, that was not a surprise.  As far as the Waypoint Alarm staffing situation went, she sent Mia to talk to the Skyguard outpost, and whoever felt like accompanying her.  They hadn't heard of any problem with this Waypoint, but who knew how Skyguard posts communicate with each other.

Back at Freelancers Tavern, Glesni assembled 30 plat, and paid Mia back for the 300gp back she'd given Glesni after acquiring the flying bears.  While that had been troubling Glesni for a while, Mia had already forgotten about her own generosity, and exclaimed "thanks!  Have a drink!"

"That's okay," Glesni demurred, somewhat stiffly, wondering how a noble person who'd thrown dinosaur poop at her and got shot with an arrow could be so happy-go-lucky.  But Mia was not deterred, and strongarmed the Cloud elf into having drinks with her for the rest of the evening.

655xp!

• Nix → Sorcerer 3! (Wizard 1)