Even Bigger Bees

Sabah, Murai, and Lorcan were breaking their fast when Maghris and Dominic joined them.  The latter two had recently joined Freelancers, and Dominic knew Murai, so they relayed the tale of the previous day to the reticent paladin.  All three of the more seasoned Freelancers looked increasingly more astounded at the tale of the nekomata Maghris getting taken out by an ooze.  

Maghris was fidgety.  He had a blank spot in his life, which he could not remember, because he had not been alive.  Now he was alive, with magnificent long fur, and apparently a predilection for tinkering; he'd picked up artificery seemingly overnight.  The fur, anyhow, kept surprising him.

The other three Freelancers felt that the best remedy for this harrowing experience would be for the two of them to go on another mission.  Maghris and Dominic were game so they trooped up to Arnari's office to see what was available.

Dominic and Maghris hesitated at Arnari's door, looking around.  They'd never been in her office.  Arnari was sitting behind her desk, idly playing a harp while she read a report; she stopped as they came into her office.  Shelves adorned her walls, with various musical instruments, and other knick knacks.  Her mahogany desk had fine detailing but was covered in stacks of papers, including one with the report she'd been reading.  A map of Cliffshadow, and one of the outward side of Duquesne, were on her wall, with pins stuck in various places.

Mismatched chairs of various sizes were arranged in a rough semicircle around a bearskin rug.

Sabah assumed a lotus pose on the rug, which looked challenging in his colourful studded leather armour.
Lorcan sat in a gnome-sized chair in the center of the front row, hands in front, and gave Arnari his polite attention.
Maghris, tails twitching, finally stood behind the chairs, unsure how his newly-fluffy tails could be accommodated.
Murai selected the brightest coloured chair, contrasting with their black clothing and dull compared to their ridiculously blingy bird pendant.
Dominic moved to the maps, and started studying them.

Arnari looked them all over as they arranged themselves, lips tightening just a little.  Maghris noticed, and said, "I'll be totally careful.  I promise!"  Arnari strummed a minor chord on the harp, then said, "These things happen, just remember the better part of valour is retreating, to come back and fight another day."

Arnari set the harp aside, and flipped through some papers.  She pulled out, a popped down one that was particularly dog-eared.

• House Aldous:  100gp/egg hippogryph eggs.  Dominic and Maghris, this is sort of a standing mission, they are always looking for eggs.  If you get 10 of the eggs, you can trade for a hippogryph gelding.

Arnari looked at more papers, glancing at Maghris.  "There are a couple missions in the western end of Duquesne.

• One is to check the grblin cave just north of Marshfork.  You might not remember, but Freelancers drove some out.  Then later, a recheck got captured, and had to be rescued.  Be careful unless the grblins have come back!
• In the marsh near Hindmarsh, there seems to be a resurgence of Bullywugs in the marsh, and the herb gatherers are afraid because if they go too far they get captured.  If it seems feasible, maybe attack it.

Arnari looked at Maghris again, hesitated, and said, "This is one of those times where it is Okay to run away."  Maghris tilted his fluffy head, then nodded.  "Run away, gotcha."

• Fourth mission:  another investigation of Daystar Breakout.  I've gone over records with Adrian Bryant, and we have discovered a few people who left employment from Church of Storms recently enough that they could have supplied information to the Daystar cult.  We would like to find out what's up with these people now; would like to know about suspicious people asking any questions.

"That's it," Arnari concluded, "No wait.

• Fifth and final:  Korfel Goltorah, the leader of the Children of Āhua in Mantzur, wants help with reports of giant evil bees.

That mission caught everyone's imagination.

Dominic:  bees?
Arnari:  giant bees.
Dominic:  as in, drivers of suits of armour.
Arnari:  no armour involved, just giant bees.  I don't have enough info, because the Mantzur people see a bee the size of a mastiff, and nope right out.
Dominic:  clearly lacking any imagination.
Lorcan:  bees.
Dominic:  in for bees.
Lorcan:  I wonder, if they are as magnificent as those ankhegs.
<Arnari sighed.  Maghris' eyes narrowed as he contemplated whether animal trainer knowledge would be useful.>
Sabah:  I lived around Mantzur; bees are very interesting.  Bullywugs, also.
Lorcan:  bullywugs are also okay.
Murai:  we don't want these <gestured at Dominic and Maghris> to be captured.
Lorcan:  or, stung by bee.  <to Arnari>  how many giant bees?
Arnari:  3 or 4?  No reports of more than 2 at a time.

So, bees it would be.  Before leaving, Lorcan picked up another case of blowgun needles.  The others picked up nets.

Lorcan was the only Freelancer with a flying mount, so on the way to Mantzur he tried to be the group's "eyes in the air."  Good thing the road was safe, because Lorcan was too busy learning to handle Bandit in the gusty winds.  One the second day, the road went through the trees, so Lorcan couldn't really watch anything.

In the early afternoon, the Freelancers emerged from the trees into the settlement, to see the buildings integrated into Nature, and the vegetation at all stages of the annual cycle.  It was clear that people had been casting druidcraft and plant growth on the flora for a very long time, which is not unexpected for Children of Āhua.

Lorcan landed and rode Bandit on the ground next to the others, as they proceeded to the clearing in the center of town.  Firbolgs and Wild elves glanced at them curiously, but nobody's business appeared to be disrupted.  Actual children were playing.  The group stopped as a tall firbolg, with pale skin, black hair, and blue eyes approached.  He wore a tortoiseshell breastplate, and carried a quarterstaff with leaves and vines growing out of it.  He was taller than Nohea, a Freelancer often accompanying Arnari around Cliffshadow.

"Welcome to Mantzur," the tall firbolg greeted them in a slow, deep voice, "I hope you are the Freelancers, come to help with large, angry bees."  So, this was Korfel.

Dominic:  I was not told they were angry
Murai:  were you expecting them to not be mad?
Korfel:  maybe they are just angry
Maghris:  maybe mad, not angry.
Korfel:  there is a guest house if you wish to start tomorrow, or I can point you where the last large … aggressive … bee was seen.
Lorcan <somewhat respectfully>:  would be best to speak to persons who saw them.
Murai:  yes, we should talk to them

Korfel signaled two children, and sent them running on errands, while Lorcan saw to it that Bandit was stabled and fed.  He returned to the group just as the children returned with a Wild elf and a firbolg, who introduced themselves as Raeder and Paylicek, respectively.

Raeder:  is this about giant horrible bees?
Sabah:  yep
Murai:  yes.
Paylicek:  they were really big; I was really scared
Maghris:  did they looking like they were going to attack you?
Paylicek:  I was in a meadow to the south, and they kept coming and I ran.  They kept chasing me and so I went invisible and kept running.
Lorcan:  what direction?
Paylicek:  I was a little southeast of Mantzur.  There's a large hill there, but I ran northeast.
Maghris:  was there any excessively large flowers or pollen they would be interested in?
Paylicek:  a lot of flowers, but nothing that size
Lorcan <slowly, as if thinking about flying ankhegs>:  did you happen to notice any furrows in the ground, especially near the hill?
Paylicek:  the flowers were undisturbed
Maghris:  did you see the bees enter the meadow?
Paylicek:  no.  …I ran into the bees about a prime ago.
Raeder:  I ran into the bees 4 days ago!  I was southwest, close to a Haven tributary, a day away.
<Dominic and Sabah grew thoughtful about these locations.  Dominic was familiar with the area map, and Sabah was familiar with the area.>
Raeder:  because of what I heard, I was being wary and stayed near the edge of the woods, and saw two giant aggressive bees, so I did not get close enough for them to see me.  <glanced at Maghris>  They were doing normal-sized flowers, bee-things.
Sabah:  sounds like somebody did something to regular bees.
Lorcan:  what made you think they were aggressive?
Raeder:  what Paylicek said
Maghris:  what made you think they were succeeding [at the bee-things]?
Raeder:  they were successfully pollinating flowers.  Their proboscis was still small enough to work, but it was weird.  Proboscis seemed to be adapted.
Lorcan:  so it looked natural?
Raeder:  yes
<Narrator voice:  high rolls on Nature for Shari, Justin, and especially David with a natural 20 meant Lorcan, Maghris, and Sabah knew giant bees can take over a smaller skylith and support themselves with normal flowers.>
Lorcan:  did you see the bees enter the meadow?
Raeder:  I was there to set rabbit traps, and then oops, bees – so no.
Murai:  does smoke work on these?
Maghris and Sabah:  not sure, the amount of smoke to make a giant bee unhappy would make us unhappy.

Murai's comment pivoted the conversation from an interview of Raeder and Paylicek into a discussion on what to do about the discoveries revealed by their answers.

Maghris:  capture, or kill?
Lorcan:  need to find the hive.
Sabah:  if there's a queen, is a problem
Maghris:  they might be natural pollinators
Korfel:  they are recent, and although natural, they need to be further away.
Lorcan <somewhat respectfully>:  if the hive is to be moved, can you help?
Korfel <sadly>:  unfortunately the best way would be to destroy a good portion of it, then move the honeycomb and some eggs to another small skylith.
Sabah:  like a waypoint
Korfel:  smaller than that.  These are dangerous, and should not be near people.  If the hive is small enough, with Freelancer help, we can help move it.

Since nothing more could be decided without more information, the Freelancers went to the guest house and got settled.  They spent the night in Mantzur, intending to set out in the morning.

When morning came, the Freelancers had breakfast in the guest house.  The building had great open windows and a view of the goings on around them.  They saw, in the central clearing, Korfel cast a spell and go to the edge of the houses.  Out of the woods came Mama Bear, that Sabah, Murai, and Lorcan recognized as captured by the Freelancers, lived in the stables a while, then was resettled in the nearby woods by Korfel and Tomtom.

Korfel interacted with Mama Bear, and she also demanded many scritches from the big firbolg.  Then she lumbered off to the northwest, and Korfel came over to the guest house to talk to the Freelancers.  He informed them that he'd asked Mama Bear if she'd seen any giant bees.  She lookd through her territory, and no bees, but she did meet another bear.  Korfel was intrigued to find out if they mate, if the offspring will also be able to fly, and he shamefacedly admitted he wasn't sure if he wanted that to be true or not.

Mama Bear's territory was somewhat west and north.

Murai:  let's head south.
Lorcan:  to the most recent sighting, or to the hill where there's likely to be a hive?
Murai:  most recent.  Then we can follow them home, instead of stumbling onto the hive.
Maghris:  agree!

Dominic was preparing spells for communicating with beasts, and once he was done, the Freelancers headed out, a bit southwest.

After a while they came to a meadow, a large stream or small river burbling nearby.  It had some flowers.  Everyone looked around.  This could be the meadow Raeder described…?  Murai and Lorcan see that there were more meadows beyond.  The landscape was rolling, the further meadows had even more flowers, and they could also hear buzzing.  Murai sneezed.

Lorcan flew up on Bandit, so he could have a look.  He tried to be stealthy about approaching the far meadow, but Bandit the Criming Pony was anything but.  Lorcan saw three giant bees doing their thing with the flowers, and it really did look odd.  They were in different parts of the meadow, about equidistant from something shiny.  The two closest bees' buzz changed, and they started flying towards Lorcan.

The bees were almost the size of Bandit.  They vamoosed, at a right angle from the other Freelancers, flying northeast, chased by two giant bees that Lorcan rather thought seemed angry.  Bandit had to fly 15 minutes at speed before they lost interest, and then Lorcan was 15 minutes out from everyone else.

The other Freelancers, who were expecting Lorcan back in about 2 minutes, started to worry, but Dominic and Sabah spotted Lorcan flying off, chased by 2 bees.  They decided Lorcan had cleared that meadow and the group should check it out.  As the group started towards the meadow, Murai had a full on sneezing fit, bad enough to leave them gasping.

"I think I'm out, for now," Murai told the others, "I'm sorry, but I can't take this pollen."  They assured the other Freelancers they would find their way back to Mantzur, and departed as swiftly as they could.  After Murai disappeared north into the woods, the others heard "a-CHOO" echoing back.

The Freelancers turned and tried to stealth to the meadow from which Lorcan had fled.

So Sabah, who was extremely familiar with the area, was very at home, and easily found their way to the meadow.  The human and nekomata following them, however, weren't even from Duquesne, and had no idea where Sabah was going.  Brush kept snapping as Sabah changed directions when Dominic and Maghris weren't expecting it, and worse than that, Maghris really wasn't used to being long-haired, and his fluffy tails were getting caught on everything.  Finally, they managed to get caught up in a bramble, and the nekomata started caterwauling his distress.

Sabah turned around, surprised; when they saw what happened they returned to Maghris with a daggar, and started cutting his tails out of the brambles with a daggar.  Once enough was loose, Maghris said, "Appreciate it, I got a daggar, I can get the rest."  He kept working on it while Dominic and Sabah continued on to the meadow.

The two Freelancers looked around the meadow, and Fluffy, Sabah's wolpertinger familiar, flew a couple of passes.  Sabah and Fluffy concluded it was a meadow, but Dominic noticed the big bee had crushed some of the flowers, and also, found a divot of some sort, and a path of crushed vegetation heading northeast.  He pointed it out to Sabah.

"Someone in plate armour was lying here for a day or two," Dominic said.  They peered at the place more closely.  There was a bit of honey on the ground.

Right then, Maghris bounded up, joyful to be out of the brambles.  Dominic pointed out the path.  "Let's follow the path to the edge of the meadow, and wait for Lorcan," he suggested.  They did that, Maghris taking much more care with his tails, and hid, in case the giant bees returned.

At about this time, Lorcan returned to the original meadow, to find it devoid of his companions.  He sent a message to Sabah, "The bees chased me, I am back," but got no response.  He looked around for any clues… and saw the trail of broken branches and cat hair that Dominic and Maghris had left on their way to the southern meadow.  He had Bandit fly low and close, following the trail, until he got to the edge of the meadow and looked around.

Lorcan saw Dominic and Sabah, but Maghris was too well-hidden.  He sent a message to Dominic, "I have returned; why are you here, and where is Maghris and Murai?"  Dominic replied, "Maghris is right there, Murai had to go back.  We're waiting for you, to follow a trail of armour-bees."

All of these words were mysterious to Lorcan, who could not see Maghris, nor imagine why Murai had to go back, and what the fuck was an armour-bee.  Lorcan looked at the meadow again; he remembered three bees, but only two had chased him.  The third bee was nowhere in sight.  He messaged Dominic again, "What do you mean by 'armoured'?"

Dominic walked back to where the crushed flowers where to show Lorcan, who flew over on Bandit.  They contemplated it, and Lorcan said, "I saw something shiny here, before I fled."  Dominic shrugged, "Trail is fresh."

"Okay, let's go find it!" Lorcan exclaimed.

With Sabah's help, Dominic tracked what looked like footsteps, through the open forest of swamp white oaks and beech trees.  Lorcan and Bandit were able to stay up and within the trees.  Sabah and Dominic, concentrating on the tracking, were not exhibiting the best woodsmanship, and made a bit of noise.  Not enough to drown out the clanking and buzzing the Freelancers heard in front of them.

About 30' ahead was someone in plate armour with an escort of 3 giant bees.  They hadn't yet noticed the Freelancers.

Lorcan immediately cast sleep centered on the suit of armour.  Two of the bees drifted to the ground, asleep.

• Sabah walked up to the awake bee and tried to punch it, but it buzzed out of the way.
• Fluffy moved towards Sabah, ready to dodge.
• Dominic moved just enough forward to cast animal friendship on the awake bee.  "Hands off that bee," he declared, "that's my bee now."
• Maghris moved behind a nearby bush, and got out his light crossbow.  He sent a bolt through the plate mail.  Thankfully, he did not get his fluffiness entangled with the crossbow mechanisms.
  • Sabah saw bees fly out of the hole from the crossbow bolt, and realized the armour was full of bees, not a person.

Bandit landed behind a bush, but Lorcan failed to hide behind it.  Lorcan decided to get his blowgun out and try to hit the armour anyhow, and instead critfailed and dropped it to the ground.  He dismounted and grabbed the blowgun.

• The awake bee, now dubbed Bee-opatra by Dominic, was somehow convinced by Dominic not to attack Sabah.  Or maybe she just wanted to go to Dominic.  Anyhow she stayed put.
• Sabah stepped up to the armour, and Bee-opatra did not attack them.  They punched at the armour, but were rebuffed.  Adrenaline surging, they punched again, but that was too much adrenaline; Sabah critfailed and flailed.
• The suit of armour awkwardly swung its arms to slam Sabah in the head between its gauntlets, which the human avoided easily.  Then its visor opened and it spit bees at Sabah, but they just buzzed off.
• Fluffy did a fly-by to distract the armour.
• Dominic moved up to Bee-opatra and cast beast bond on her, and started exploring the relationship she had with this armour.
  • What is this bee thinking of the armour?  The bee is thinking the armour is protective; it's protecting the bee.
  • Can the armour communicate?  The bee knows what the armour wants, and does it, but there's an undercurrent of fear.
  • Wouldn't the bee want to hang around with me instead?  Dominic tried to convince her to attack the armour.
• Maghris crit the armour with another bolt from his light crossbow.  Honey dripped from the holes from his crossbow bolts.

Lorcan moved to a tree stump that was closer, then shot a blowgun needle at the armour, and missed.

• Dominic was convincing:  Bee-opatra tried to sting the armour, but missed.
• Sabah punched the armour, denting it, then tried and failed to grapple it.  
• The armour spat a bee at Dominic, but the bee flew off.  It did the arms thing with Sabah again, and one of them struck Sabah, bludgeoning them like a club, but also stinging them with poison.
• Fluffy did another fly-by to distract the armour.
• Dominic closed with the armour, and swung his quarterstaff, but missed.
• Maghris' crossbow bolt went wide, this time

Lorcan shot another blowgun needle at the armour, and it pierced in just the right spot.  Honey dripped out of that hole, too.  Then he tried to hide behind the tree stump, but everyone could see him.

• Bee-opatra actually stung the armour without hurting herself.
• Sabah punched at the armour and missed.
• The armour slammed its arms at Sabah and Dominic.  It missed Dominic but Sabah had to cast shield to deflect the strike.  Then it spit bees at Fluffy, which stung the wolpertinger badly.
• Fluffy burrowed into the ground.
• Dominic prepared to dodge any more attacks, but tried to find out if Bee-opatra was natural.
  • Does the bee remember being not-this-size?  She does not.
• Maghris again shot the armour with a crossbow bolt.

Lorcan shot the armour with a blowgun needle.

• Bee-opatra tried to sting the armour but was rebuffed.
• Sabah punched the armour in the chest, caving it in, to find it was full of honey, squished bees, and pricky bullshit long thorny vines.

That left the three bees: two were asleep and one was Dominic's friend.

Bee-opatra was no longer feeling that undercurrent of fear.  Unwilling to fight the other bees when they woke up, Dominic tried to see if Bee-opatra could convince the others to fly away, or lead them away.  He told the others of this plan.

Maghris:  do we want them as mounts?
Lorcan:  lead them where?
<Dominic consults the bee.>
Dominic:  far to the south, a really big tree
Lorcan:  is there more armours there?
<Dominic consults the bee again, she shows him an image.>
Dominic:  there's a hole in the tree, 25' up, but at the base of the tree is 3 more armours
Maghris:  that armour took a lot of beating.
Sabah:  I recognize this tree, it is 4-5 days' travel south of Mantzur… 3 days from here.
<Narrator note:  David rolled a nat 20 on history>
Lorcan <warningly>:  bees gonna wake up soon
Dominic:  do we want to fight them?
Everyone:  no.  Bee-opatra can lead them back

Everyone hid, but the discussion continued.

Sabah:  sounds like they are dominated
Lorcan:  let them go, and we tell Goltorah.
Dominic:  I want to bring Bee-opatra back to Mantzur.  She can take the bees halfway home, then return

Dominic did his best to convince the bee to do these things <Narrator voice:  which meant Matt had to roll twice on animal handling>.  The other two bees woke up, slightly confused, and Bee-opatra led them off to the south, buzzing.  Dominic had no sense of all what the timing would be.

The Freelancers settled to wait.  During the first hour, Sabah and Fluffy took the time to rest and heal up.  The others decided to investigate the armour.  They looked, and it appeared to have brambles, some honeycomb.  Magrhis backed off in horror, not wanting either brambles or honey getting intertwined with his long fur.  Dominic and Lorcan saw the armour was pretty battered and would probably fetch half-price.  Lorcan puzzled over the brambles/honeycomb combination.

Time went by, the Daystar sliding down from zenith to the western part of the sky, and still no return of any giant bee, let alone Dominic's friend Bee-opatra.  The Freelancers started arguing over camping, whether they should start heading to Mantzur, or camp right there and maybe get attacked, or what.  In the end, they found a campsite nearby but hidden.  But there was no sign of Bee-opatra overnight either.

In the morning, the Freelancers arose, and Dominic said he wanted to wait until the animal friendship spell ended.

Lorcan:  bad idea, if she comes back after it wears off
Maghris:  I'm willing to wait a couple more hours, but want to get back to Mantzur today.

So, they waited.  Maghris combed the brambles out of his fur.  Lorcan groomed Bandit; as he did so, he thought about carrying capacity, and asked if they were bringing the armour.  "We should," Dominic replied, and Fluffy freaked out.  Sabah calmed the wolpertinger down, and Dominic cleaned out the armour.

An hour passed, and then, 10 minutes into the next hour, Bee-opatra flew back into the clearing, still looking for Dominic.  He cast animal friendship on her again, and then they all headed back to Mantzur, with the armour on Bandit's back.

The Freelancers got back to Mantzur in mid-afternoon, giant bee in tow.  The normally calm settlement did not react well to this!  Small children ran screaming, and most of the adults scattered.  Korfel was summoned and came out to see, and the normally unflappable firbolg was a little taken aback.  Murai also came, but they were rather amused.

Korfel:  well.  It must have gone at least somewhat okay.
Dominic:  I don't understand the question.
Maghris:  it seemed like a good idea at the time
Sabah:  we figured, with access to a bee, you could figure out what dominated it and its hive.

Korfel's eyebrows rose, and the Freelancers unloaded the armour from Bandit's back.  Dominic had mostly cleaned the honey from it; the thorny vines were mostly still here.  Korfel poked at it a little, frowning, and cast detect magic.  He immediately recoiled, and cast some sort of abjuration at the armour, that caused the vines to shrivel up and turn to dust.

Korfel sighed.  "This is –" he started, "I thought we fixed this – some sort of hag magic.  The Freelancers brought back loot; I thought they'd killed the hag."  He looked at the giant bee.

Lorcan:  apparently a hive, 5 days' south
Sabah:  it's in a large tree, entrance 25' up… <describes it precisely>
Korfel:  I know this tree.  I admit I am unhappy to hear about hag-controlled giant bees in the tree.
Sabah:  there are at least three of these armours there at the base of it.
<Korfel nodded.>
Korfel:  this bee is relatively safe; she could be trained.
Dominic:  is the bee out of the hag's influence?
Korfel:  I'm reasonably sure that once the stuff in the armour was dispelled, it's not under any control.
Dominic:  is there a place to contain but not restrained?
Korfel:  the guest house stable.
Dominic:  can it take it?

Dominic explained his plan:  to cast beast bond, then let the animal friendship drop.  Then he could bargain with the bee, and explain the hag is not safe.  Korfel assented to doing this, so the bee was put in the stables, Dominic cast beast bond, and Korfel dispelled the animal friendship.

Dominic tried to bargain with Bee-opatra, but... an individual bee is kind of stupid.  Without any charm or domination in place, she couldn't care less about Dominic or anyone else; she was a worker-bee and wanted to do bee things with the flowers.

Dominic:  okay, we need to decide for the bee.
Lorcan:  this is what Mantzur is for
Dominic:  the bee will be more able to do bee things with us than at the hive

Dominic cast animal friendship again, to bring the bee back to Cliffshadow.  Korfel did not interfere despite his nonsensical statement, but was sure to pay the Freelancers their fee of 100gp each.

The Freelancers stayed another night in Mantzur, then headed back to Cliffshadow, with Bee-opatra buzzing along.  The giant bee drew some looks as they headed up the streets to Freelancers Tavern.

Tomtom was grooming Oskar when they arrived in the stables, and exclaimed in delight at a giant bee.  Maghris declared proudly, "I walked back, this time!"  Tomtom told him "Good job!" but was looking at the bee.

Valan ran into the tavern proper to get Arnari.  When she saw the giant bee, she asked, eyes widening, "This is amazing, can I pet it?"  After all, bee abdomens are fuzzy and cute.  Dominic told her, "Sure, go ahead."

Arnari pet the bee gently, and the fuzzy abdomen wiggled.  Arnari smiled, thinking, I can't wait to have this in Damakaios' stable.

• Dominic → lvl2!
• Maghris → lvl2!