The Knight Attacking Children of Āhua

Cathance stretched her legs out in front of her and stared at Arnari.  She could do that because the chair she sat in was properly sized for a halfling, and the larger chairs were occupied by the two large dragonborn, Tai and Meurig, and also Tahu and Fine Branch.  Meurig had changed; he'd sworn to Ua as a Paladin.

Hikawera and Ana were also there, the Maker gnome sitting in the right-sized chair as if she'd never been stuck in a chair kicking her feet.  Cathance's foot twitched, then she tried to focus on the missions Arnari was listing, with great difficulty, given the high level of snark in the room.

• Bunch of hippogryph eggs for House Aldous; they pay 100gp/egg, or a hippogryph gelding if you bring back 10.  If you get destrier hippogryph eggs, they will pay more.
• House Liona has heard of the successes of the prior missions for House Aldous, and maybe you could succeed at getting gryphon eggs for them.

Tai interjected laconically, "Some members are small enough to be carried away."  Arnari made a face, and repeated, "Gryphons – all are small enough to be carried away!"  Cathance told Tai, "Jigsaw is small enough!"

Arnari closed her eyes briefly, then continued.

• A knight, south of Mantzur, is hassling people of Mantzur –

Meurig interjected, "Does not sound very knightly!"  Arnari looked at her paper, and replied, "is in full armour."  Ana asked, "Is the knight in green, by any chance?"

Arnari answered "no," and continued.

• Also, check out Pirates Dream river.  In theory, the pollution is gone, but do not think that is the case.
• Orderly Stones also has a problem now, with very large wolves.

Fine Branch, recently returned from Waypoint Resource, snarked, "Well, then."

Arnari carefully did not sigh.

• Lastly, we want Jamie's boss –

Meurig declared, "Jamie is a bad boy; we went to a lot of trouble to capture him, is boss –"  Arnari cut him off.  "He escaped," she said shortly.

"What?!" Meurig exclaimed, dismayed.  He gestured vaguely towards his shield, and said, "I've been gone…"  At that, Arnari explained how with the help of a halfling man named Green, Jamie was broken out of the Skyguard holding cell and set fire to the building, and also how it was thought his boss was in Hindmarsh.

Meurig frowned, "Is Green his boss?"  Ana piped up, "Maybe Green is the knight!"  Cathance remembered Green was a halfling, and asked "How tall is the knight?"

"6' tall," Arnari replied, then added, "150gp/each to help Mantzur, talk to Korfel Goltorah."  Silence, so she added, "250gp/wolf head, talk to Taleisin; 200gp/each for info or capture of Jamie's boss, from Bryseis Seere."

The Green Knight piqued everyone's curiosity, and was also the least arduous travel, so the group went with that.  On their way out, Cathance bought 4 rations, just in case.

The Freelancers were pretty jovial as they took the road southward to visit the Children of Āhua.  Tai, Ana, Hikawera, and Tahu strolled along the road, while Fine Branch, Meurig, and Cathance circled above on their hippogryphs.  There was no storm, but the scudding clouds and the breeze felt like one was imminent.

The day was waning when they arrived at Mantzur, which was a very open settlement with a broad, parklike center.  Fruit-bearing trees and bushes were scattered around the area at divergent stages of fruiting:  some blossoming, some bearing fruit.  A party of seven Freelancers and three hippogryphs was ostentatious, and Korfel emerged from a nearby building as they started speculating on who would have to camp at the guest campsite, since there was no inn.

The big firbolg was very glad to see the Freelancers, as the problem was slightly worse than Arnari had portrayed.

Korfel:  someone else was attacked, almost sliced up!
Cathance:  was that near town?
Korfel:  almost a day's walk south.
Hikawera:  does he want something, or randomly [unintelligible] something?
Korfel:  so far, just beating people up.
Tai:  are the people [who were] attacked in town?
Korfel:  yes; you can talk to them.
Cathance:  if they are near town, we can take time to visit.
Ana:  any pattern, like a person who hates halflings?
<Cathance scowled>
Korfel:  no... firbolg, Wild elf, no pattern.
Fine Branch:  what about location of attack?
Korfel:  about a day's journey south, there's a nice place for vegetation… meditation… flowers…  there are three or four connected meadows… But lately, those who go there are attacked.
Cathance:  so, there's physical contact.
Korfel:  yes.
Fine Branch:  guys, why don't we split up.  Each of us can interrogate ⅐ of Mantsur, then we can find out who's not been attacked and –
Cathance <sharply>:  why not just ask Korfel <gestured at Korfel standing right there>
Ana <to Korfel>:  anyone not been attacked?
Korfel:  since before Tumultuous, anyone who's gone there and not been attacked, ran away.
Hikawera:  any known wizards in the area?
<Ana frowned>
Meurig:  are there only one?

Korfel told them the most recent person attacked had seen two.  A couple of people came and took the hippogryphs to be stabled for the night, then he walked the Freelancers over to a low house and knocked on the door.  A Wild elf answered the door, and Fine Branch looked closely at them for sobriety as they confirmed there were indeed two knights that attacked.

Cathance:  same look?
Wild elf:  different heights, slightly different devices on the armour
Fine Branch:  was it a crescent moon?
Wild elf:  what's a moon?
Ana:  did they say something?
Wild elf:  maybe?  honestly, it was unintelligible.

The Freelancers thanked them and went to talk to others who'd been attacked, and they confirmed, knight was unintelligible.  They returned to the Wild elf.

Cathance:  was there a person, in the armour?
Wild elf <surprised>:  is that a thing?
Cathance:  well, you said it came out of nowhere, right?
Hikawera:  a thing.

By now it was full dark, and the wind was rising.  The Freelancers again argued over camping versus the guest house, but Korfel put an end to it by pointing out the guest house was plenty large enough to accommodate them all.  Good thing, too, because a storm did blow through overnight.

The weather the next morning was still unsettled, but looked like it was clearing up.  Tai talked to Korfel a little more, then told the other Freelancers that he thought he could find the meadows.  So, after breakfast, they all took off southward.

The weather did clear, but it took until dusk to get to the meadows.  The grass and flowers were tall, and Cathance couldn't really see over them; Ana barely could.  Dark would come swiftly, and the Freelancers had no appetite for encountering a knight in the dark in the tall grass.

After some debate, they decided to backtrack an hour and make camp there.  Hikawera, Tai, Fine Branch, and Meurig each took a watch shift.  The clear night passed mostly uneventfully, although Tai did see an owl pounce and catch a mouse to eat.

The morning was clear and the Daystar shone down upon them as if there hadn't been storms the last few days.  The Freelancers, confident and cheerful, ate breakfast, then headed to the meadow again.  Doesn't seem to have crossed their minds to discuss what to do in advance.

As soon as they got to the meadow, Fine Branch cast disguise self to look like a Child of Āhua, in knee-high boots.  He walked into the meadow, striding through the tall grass as if it didn't have any ticks at all.  Meurig activated his divine sense, but sensed nothing.

"Guys, Fine Branch is walking off!" Cathance said urgently, but somewhat quietly, "Should we have 2 of us in the air to cut them off?"

Tahu frowned slightly at Fine Branch, and said, "We should chill; they will come to us."

Cathance felt misunderstood.  "Do we want to cut them off?  Meurig and me on hippogryph?"  Tai said, somewhat indulgently, "We can try, and if we get away then –"

While the others had dithered on the edge of the meadow, Fine Branch had reached the centre, and the nekomata's provocation had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.  Standing up out of the tall grass, surrounding Fine Branch, were 5 knights in full plate.  Meurig mounted on JollyHopper.  Cathance hid in the grass and flowers.

It appeared that the knights had been careless where they strode, as rising angrily from the grass and flowers behind them, were also 5 disturbed swarms of bees.

It sort of looked like this, except of course, with more grass, flowers, pollen, and daylight.  <Narrator voice:  since there's no way to describe what happened without referring to the antagonists by numbers, we'll do that.>

Tai moved through the grass as fast as he could to the closest Knight-R1, and raged.

• The knights moved to attack!
  • Knight-R1 attacked Tai, swinging his sword twice in quick succession.  Some weird effect of Tai's rage responded with force.  Tai heard the knight mumbling something, but could not make out what.  The knight's sword slashed Tai once, and Tai's eyes widened a little as he realized it had poison.  Then, a bee flew out of the knight's visor right at his face!
  • On the other side of the meadow, Knight-R5 moved to Hikawera, who was on the right of the rest of the Freelancers.  He also swung his sword twice in quick succession, slashing Hikawera badly, as one strike crit and both had poison.  Hikawera also heard mumbling and had to duck away from a bee flying out of the vision.
    • "Do not approve of these security perceptions!" Hikawera declared.
  • Knight-R2 moved to Tai.
  • Knight-R3 moved to Fine Branch.
  • Knight-R4 moved to Fine Branch, and swung his sword in quick succession.  The first swing missed, but the second connected, and Fine Branch was slashed and felt the poison.  A bee flew out of the visor at Fine Branch too.
  • Tai, Hikawera, and Fine Branch noticed, when the bee flew out of the visor, they did not see a person in there, but a tangle of thorny brambles.
• Cathance had no desire at all to come face-to-face with these knights, and she concluded hiding in the flowers was not a good plan against bees.  She mounted Jigsaw and flew up above the meadow, casting ray of frost at the nearest bee swarm-B5.  It crit and the swarm fell back to the ground, frozen.
• Meurig, on JollyHopper, moved next to Tai.  He'd seen the bees, and declared to the knights, "Take me to your queen!"  Then he spat a Black dragonborn's acid breath at both knights.  He turned to the Silver dragonborn, and asked politely, "Do you need flank?"  Tai shrugged and said, "I just hit things."
  • JollyHopper moved to Knight-R1 and struck it with beak & claw, wounding it.  The Knight-R1 flexed angrily and Meurig and Tai realized the mumbling they'd heard was just bees buzzing.
• Tahu dashed up to Hikawera and attacked Knight-R5 with his magical shortsword.  He realized it was bees and stepped 10' back, with a horrified shudder.
• Hikawera, exclaiming "ow!  No, ow!  No, fuck this!" laid down the booms with thunderwave, knocking Knight-R5 back as the plate armour resonated with the sound.
• Ana moved into the meadow; she was tall enough to see over the grass and flowers.  She cast shatter on Knight-R3 and Knight-R4, the high-pitched sound filling the meadow and setting their plate armour vibrating.
• Fine Branch cast spiritual weapon in the form of a boot similar to those his disguise self was wearing.  The boot kicked Knight-R4 in the butt with force.  Then the nekomata brought out the ever-smoking bottle he'd acquired at Waypoint Resource, and opened it.
  • Smoke poured out of the bottle for 60' in all directions.  All were engulfed, knights, bees, Freelancers, except Hikawera, Nighthawk, bee swarm-B3, and Cathance on Jigsaw flying above.
  • Undercover of the smoke, Fine Branch moved 10' towards Hikawera.
• Bee swarms B1, B2, B3 didn't see anything to attack, so they just buzzed.  Bee swarm-B4 attacked JollyHopper, stinging her.

Tai couldn't see a damned thing, but was pretty sure that Knight-R1 was still where he'd last seen it.  He struck with his axe, slashing the knight and slowing its movement.  He moved away, and Knight-R1 slashed with its sword and missed.

• The knights were not, actually, impeded by the smoke at all.
  • Knight-R3 moved to Ana and attacked her, but she popped shield to avoid any of that shit.
  • Knight-R2 attacked Tai, but missed with both sword slashes and bee.
  • Knight-R1 attacked Meurig, who also popped shield to avoid the attacks.
  • Knight-R4 attacked Fine Branch, and one of the swords slashed the nekomata.  It burned with poison.
  • Knight-R5 crit Tahu with its sword, the poison wreaking havoc in the severe slash.
• Cathance summoned the tides of chaos to cast a chromatic orb at Knight-R5.  It settled on cold before it landed on the plate armour and crit.  The knight froze solid, then fell apart, the plate pieces having been held together by nothing but thorny brambles.
  • Not that anyone could see that happen, because of the smoke.
  • Cathance, meanwhile, found herself sporting a beard of feathers.  All the feathers.  They tickled.
• Meurig tried to grapple the sword arm of Knight-R1 but failed.
  • JollyHopper attacked Knight-R1 with beak and claw, but she couldn't see anything either, and she missed.
  • Meurig almost instinctively moved closer to Tai.
• Tahu couldn't see anything, and wasn't sure where to move.  He broke out his healer's kit and tended to his own wounds, healing them a bit.  Then he hid.
• Hikawera moved west, but also couldn't see a thing.  He cast cure wounds on himself.
• Ana followed the sound to step towards Fine Branch, then turned and cast burning hands at Knight-R3.  It shrugged most of the flames off, but still got burned.
• By this time, Fine Branch, who also couldn't see a thing, had regrets, and re-stoppered the ever-smoking bottle.  He moved the spiritual weapon to attack Knight-R4, but it missed.  He moved himself back towards whence he came, and Knight-R4 missed him with its sword.
  • The smoke stopped pouring out of the bottle, but the weather had calmed, right?  Everyone was still stuck in the smoke.
• The bee swarms moved, but did not find anything to attack.

Tai had Knight-R2 in his face.  He swung his axe and failed to hit it; the smoke was thick.

• The knights kept ignoring the smoke.
  • Knight-R4 strode up to Fine Branch and attacked.  However it failed to hit.
  • Knight-R3 moved to Ana and attacked, and she popped a shield again, but not before the bee critfailed and died in her hair.  The knight's visor opened, and a half-swarm of bees poured out following their compatriot, forming sort of an organic, uplevel'd magic missile, and suicided on Ana's shield.
  • Knight-R2 attacked Tai.  The bee missed, but the sword landed twice, slashing Tai and stinging him with poison.  Tai's rage again weirdly responded with force.
  • Knight-R1 slashed at Meurig with its sword, missing twice.  The bee it sent moved and stung JollyHopper, hurting her badly with poison.
• Cathance wasn't in the smoke, but really could not see a damned thing through it.  She decided sometimes the best plan was to embrace the chaos, and summoned tides of chaos again, then sent a chaos bolt into the smoke, hoping it would bounce.
  • It morphed into a psychic attack, so something got a very large headache.
  • It didn't bounce.
  • The chaos had a beneficial effect:  suddenly, Tahu could fly.
• Meurig was very worried about JollyHopper!  He lay on hands on the hippogryph, healing her wounds.  Then he pulled a piece of paper out of his beltpouch, and started chewing it, to prepare dragon breath, and gave that to JollyHopper too!
  • JollyHopper breathed fire on the two attacking knights, R1 and R2.  The thorny brambles within smoked from the heat.
• Tahu could fly!  Amazed, he flew up to Jigsaw's level, out of the smoke, and moved towards the middle of the field, over Ana.  He readied his light crossbow to shoot as soon as he saw any attacker.
• Hikawera moved towards bee swarm-B4, which was nearing JollyHopper.  He cast produce flame and threw it at the bee swarm, but critfailed and hit Knight-R1 instead.  He could see Cathance above, so gave her bardic inspiration.
• Ana also moved towards JollyHopper, who she could hear; Knight-R4 slashed her with its sword, even through her shield, and she too felt the burn of the bee-poison.  Then she turned and cast thunderwave at Knight-R4, the boom echoing across the meadow and clearing the smoke.  Both Knight-R4 and Knight-R3's armour resonated with the sound, and the latter was pushed back by the boom.
  • Flying Tahu saw Knight-R4, and took his shot!  But, he missed.
  • Ana moved back south away from these knights.
• Fine Branch moved west and used create or destroy water to clear a 30' cube of the smoke.  Now he could see, he had the spiritual weapon boot Knight-R3 in the butt with force.
• Bee swarm-B4 was close enough to attack Meurig, but missed.  The other bee swarms were still in the smoke.

Tai still had Knight-R2 in his face, and could see.  He slashed it with his axe, slowing it.

• The four knights were still going!
  • Knight-R1 attacked Meurig with its sword.  The second swing slashed him, and Meurig felt the now-familiar burn of poison.  The bee flew out of its visor and stung JollyHopper.
    • The poison was too much, and JollyHopper collapsed.  Meurig jumped free.
  • Knight-R2 slashed Tai with its sword, then missed with the second swing and bee.
  • Knight-R3 moved up to Fine Branch and attacked him, but missed all around.
  • Knight-R4 went after Ana, sending the bee first, which stung her badly, and then slashed her with its sword.
• Cathance cast another chaos bolt down at the knights, but missed, the energy dissipating as tendrils of coherent black smoke in the grass.
• Meurig poured a healing potion down JollyHopper's throat.  JollyHopper stood up and moved a little bit away, then Meurig ducked as she used the still-active dragon breath spell to breathe fire on Knight-R1, Knight-R2, and bee swarm-B4, which died.
• Tahu flew past Knight-R1, shooting with his light crossbow again, and missing again.  He flew up 30'.
• Hikawera, now that he could see, cast shatter behind knights R1 and R2, the high-pitched sound again filling the meadow and setting both sets of armour vibrating.  Knight-R1 could not take it and the armour fell apart, revealing bramble and honey within.  Hikawera gave Fine Branch bardic inspiration.
• Ana cast reduce on herself, shrinking to 1'10", and ran away from the fighting and Knight-R4, which swung its sword and missed.
• Fine Branch chanted "cats cats cats cats cats cats cats!" to invoke his spirit guardians, and the cats winked in and out around him.  He moved the spiritual weapon to boot bee swarm-B3, but it missed.
• Bee swarms B1 and B2 moved towards the Freelancers.  Bee swarm-B3 moved towards Fine Branch, and the spirit guardians burned the swarm with holy radiance.

Tai again slashed Knight-R2 with his axe, since it was the only attacker he could see, wondering what did it take to kill this thing.

• The knights were all burned by holy radiance from the cats; Knight-R2 fell.
  • Knight-R3 slashed Fine Branch with its sword, but the cats persisted through the slash and poison.  The bee and second slash missed.
  • Knight-R4 moved to Fine Branch and also attacked, but missed badly.
• Cathance flew clockwise around the hole in the smoke, and again invoked tides of chaos, and again sent a chaos bolt through the smoke at a knight.  It struck with a peal of thunder, but again did not bounce.  She accessed her sorcery to create another spell slot.
  • The air around her and Jigsaw exploded into fluttering, glittery butterflies.  One of them was a monarch, not that anyone noticed.
• Tahu flew down at Knight-R3 and attacked with his magical shortsword, missing.  He tried with his magical daggar, and also missed.  He flew back up to the butterflies.
• Hikawera moved to Knight-R4 and missed with his rapier.
• Ana used mage hand on her tiny self to fly up 15'.  "I'm so sick of this!" she exclaimed in an equally tiny voice, "Nature is trying to kill me!!  I always knew creatures were out to get me!"
• Fine Branch uttered a word of radiance which engulfed knights R3 and R4; Knight-R3 was burned by it.  He had the spiritual weapon boot bee swarm-B3 with force, killing it.
• Bee swarms B1 and B2 moved more towards the fighting.

Tai moved to Knight-R3 and downed it with his axe.  He stepped through the scattered armour pieces and thorny brambles to Knight-R4, and his boots squelched in the honey.

• Knight-R4 succumbed to the holy radiance of the spirit guardian cats.
• Cathance flew Jigsaw to near bee swarm-B1, a trail of butterflies behind her, and cast ray of frost at it, missing.  She thought better of it and flew back to where she had been.
• Meurig also moved towards bee swarm-B1, and cast acid splash, taking some of the bees out with acid.
• Tahu flew over to Ana.  "Want some healing?" he asked cheerfully.  "Since when can you fly?" Ana demanded.  Tahu shrugged.  "I dunno, I'm going with it," he informed her.  Then he pulled out his healer's kit and patched her up.  Seeing how wounded JollyHopper was, he flew over to her next.
• Hikawera thrust his rapier at bee swarm-B2, impaling 3 of the bees.  "Take that, bee-yotches!" he cried.
• Ana, now healed, moved up closer to the fight, still tiny and suspended from the mage hand.
• Fine Branch cast create or destroy water again to clear another 30' cube of the smoke around the bee swarms.  He moved next to the spiritual weapon, which booted bee swarm-B2 with force.
• Bee swarms B1 and B2 were burned a bit by the holy radiance of the spirit guardian cats.
  • Bee swarm-B1 flew at Meurig, but failed to sting the Black dragonborn.
  • Bee swarm-B2 stung Hikawera.  Perhaps it didn't like being called Bee-yotches.

Tai moved past Hikawera, opened his mouth and let loose the cold breath of a Silver dragonborn.  Bee swarm-B2 froze and died.

• Cathance cast ray of frost at bee swarm-B1, which also froze and died.

The Freelancers held still, listening, as the rest of the smoke slowly dissipated.  Ana put her tiny self down with the mage hand.  No more bees or knights presented themselves.

Meurig and Hikawera pried open one of the suits of armour that seemed intact.  It was full of thorny brambles, honey, and bees which were either dead or seemed disinclined to attack.  The brambles were in a weird humanoid shape, and had no leaves and no roots.

They looked at the armour.  Now that it was closely held and not trying to attack them under cover of smoke, they saw the pieces were random and not matching sets.

Tai saw tiny Ana, all beaten up, and picked her up in shock, fussing over her as if she was a child.  Unable to get him to put her down, she grew back to her normal size in his hand, and he put her down pretty fast.  She went over to Meurig and Hikawera, and studied the brambles.  "I remember hearing about a hag token," she said, "also made from some plant matter?"

Cathance tried to track where the armour was.  She flew low over the grass with Jigsaw, following their tracks through the grass.  Flying higher, she saw other similar meadows to the south and west of this one, and from the tracks figured they'd been walking around for about 2 primes.  She could not tell where they had come from.

They decided to gather the armours and humanoid brambles and bring it all back to Korfel in Mantzur to figure out.  The plate was heavy, but between the two dragonborns and three hippogryphs they were able to get to Mantzur in the evening.  While going there, Meurig continued to study the armour for some clue as to its origins, but the variety of pieces had no unified theme and he was stumped.

Once in Mantzur, they showed Korfel, who immediately exclaimed, "Oh no, more hags!" upon seeing the thorny brambles.  He did something to the sleepy bees to make them fly into the trees in a swoopty line, then destroyed the thorny brambles, and harvested all the honey.  The Freelancers were all impressed by his expertise in these matters.

He then paid out 150gp each to the Freelancers, and after reminding them to give Arnari the Freelancers' cut, he told them, "We have no use for this metal armour; you can keep it and do what you will."

They stayed in the guest house that night, and the next morning headed back to Cliffshadow with 5 suits of mismatched plate armour.  Fine Branch was talking about converting it into barding for Nighthawk, but the others pointed out that given the state of the armours it would be best to sell it and use the proceeds for other acquisitions.

• Fine Branch → lvl6!