Hunting Horribles on Pirates River

Cathance was finishing up breakfast with Terrance, Kaelani, and Hikawera, when Broo'an stopped by.  He'd clearly stopped by the quartermaster; his clothes were no longer shabby and bloodstained, but clean and shiny; and he had a new hand crossbow, in addition to his short bow.  His hair was still shaggy and ragged.

He smiled, recognizing Cathance, and said to everybody and nobody, "Went on my first mission!"  Cathance brightened, and exclaimed, "Yes!  We found Ethan!"

Everyone else went "OoooOOoo!" and Broo'an shook his head a little.  "Not sure I know what it was about," he said.  Cathance snorted, "You saw a lot about what it was about!"

Everyone was sympathetic, the blasphemy of the Daystar worshippers was really a sight nobody wanted to behold.  But, since Broo'an's enthusiasm was catching, they all went to Arnari's office to check if anything new or interesting was to be done.

Arnari glanced at Cathance and Broo'an, and then the others, and said immediately, "We know where Ethan is, and Church of Ua and Church of Storms are figuring out what they want to do.  Meanwhile, I have 4 missions.

• More pollution cleanup; recently we saw owlbears and giant frogs.

Cathance interrupted, "Are owlbears actually pollution?"  Arnari frowned and said, "Unsure," and continued

• Is the halfling man still in Stormhaven?  He freed Jamie, hired the Blue Bandanna gang to beat up Freelancers, and stalked Dryali, Tahu, and Fine Branch in Stormhaven.
• Third mission.  Farming hamlet between Cliffgate and Three RIvers is having trouble.  Figure it out.
• Fourth – House Ha'aheo wants a group to raid the bullywugs and free captives.

Broo'an asked about the pollution.  Arnari explained about the aberrations and the wizard Gwydion, and Cathance showed him (and then all the others, who hadn't see it), the vial of rainbow water or effluent she'd acquired when paying the wizard a visit.

Broo'an was most interested in the pollution, but was willing to do the farming one, since it was not in the city.  At this, Hikawera said in a lackadaisical tone, "Not interested in farming."

Terrance said, "I'm not wanting to go after bullywugs… also, going to Hindmarsh without Quelenna is not as fun."

Kaelani, after a glance at Hikawera who was idly playing with a flame on his fingertips, asked Arnari for more information about the farming.  "Is there monsters?" he asked.  Arnari wasn't actually sure.  "They are having ploughing issues," was all she had.

Broo'an turned his attention to the practical.  "Pays?" he asked.  Arnari explained, the pollution cleanup as 50gp/person plus one uncommon potion each, the farming one 100gp/each, and the others were 150gp/person.

Kaelani said, "Pollution and the bullywugs are fine; I'm not so great at tracking down people."

Terrance asked, "What do you want, Cathance?"  Cathance kicked her feet a little, and decided, "Honestly, I don't care, but… there's not really enough info to find a halfling.  You want a halfling man?  Look at the Academy of Magic!"

Everyone laughed, then Arnari said, "If you do want to track the halfling man, talk to Bryseis Seere."

Since it seemed the one with the least objections, though, they decided to clean up the pollution.  Also, they would have more advantage in the wilderness with Broo'an around.  He is great in the woods!

Broo'an led the other Freelancers straight towards Mossey Lake, along the treeline.  Cathance flew overhead, checking for hazards.  They made great time, and at the end of the first day, Broo'an also gave each person 2 goodberries, cautioning them that they would only last until the next evening.

One the second day they also made good time, but Broo'an wasn't perfect, and was leading the others straight into a pack of dire wolves!  Cathance saw them, and landed Jigsaw to walk along side them on the ground.

"Guys, there's a pack of dire wolves, about 300' ahead!" she told them urgently, but quietly.  Broo'an stopped, and held up a hand for the others to as well.  "Let's sneak off," he suggested, in the same urgent but quiet tone.

The Freelancers backtracked a little, doing their best to stay quiet.  Kaelani's splint armour had a tendency to clank, and Hikawera interfered with it so he'd be quiet.  Terrance and Broo'an still managed to step on stray branches.  But the dire wolves did not hear them, and the Freelancers gave them a wide berth.

By evening, they had gained the fork of the Pirates River.  Once they'd set up camp and were relaxing around the fire, Broo'an asked people what was on their mind.  Terrance was telling the trees how happy she was not to be eaten by dire wolves.

Cathance said, "We should take care, with these froggoths."  HIkawera scoffed, "They're just jelly, with shatter."

The watch that evening was Hikawera, Broo'an, then Cathance.  Hikawera and Cathance didn't notice much over the noise of the river.  Broo'an saw an owl gryphon far above, and heard geese in the distance, northwest of them.  He heard frogs too, and wolves howling.

The next morning, Broo'an told the others, "Heard some wolves far off.  They might be tracking us, should be careful today."  Then he paused.  "What exactly is our mission again?"

They reviewed the mission, with everyone recapping various things encountered and why.  Especially the froggoths.  Terrance and Cathance were concerned about froggoths.

At that, they looked around the riverbanks for anything... weird.  Somehow, Hikawera got water in his boot and blamed Kaelani for it, but the others saw some strange tracks on the far side of the river.  Terrance said the tracks were "definitely weird."

They crossed the river for a closer look.  Hikawera got over his damp feet and peered at them closely, as did Broo'an.  Cathance called for guidance of the Tortoise on Hikawera, but the tracks just looked like a very large duck.

"Not a goose?" Cathance asked.  Something was off.  "Maybe duck, maybe goose.  Maybe swan?" Hikawera said.

Broo'an declared, "Definitely a monstrosity, we should track it and eat it."  Hikawera was more speculative. "Maybe not eat it, but pluck its feathers!"

Cathance, remembering weird fish, checked the river itself.  She didn't see any fish, but she did find some remains of froggoths, which – from the tracks – appeared eaten by this monster.  "Guys!" she called the others over.  Hikawera sighed.  "Wonderful."

Kaelani started to check around the area for feathers, but tripped on a root.  He fell face first in the mud next to the froggoth remains.  HIkawera laughed.  As he picked himself up, Cathance used prestidigitation to clean the mud of his gear.

Cathance mounted back up on Jigsaw, and flew above.  Broo'an followed the tracks, and Kaelani brought up the rear.  After a short time, Broo'an said, "Really, it's one creature… with four webbed legs?"  Everyone grimaced.

As they got up to the river bend, where the river widened and slowed some, Cathance could see further, and flew up a bit higher to look.  "Guys, I think I see it ahead in a bend in the river!"  She flew lower to be near them so as not to shout.

They all scowled.  "Only one?" Terrance asked.  "Just one," Cathance assured her.

Broo'an declared, "I can set traps.  Who has ranged?"  The others explained what they could contribute.  Kaelani had no ranged weapons, and Broo'an loaned him a short bow.

Cathance wanted a plan before approaching.  Broo'an was confident.  "Get'em!  If it's not in a trap, we can kill at range."  Cathance thought about it.  "Okay."

Broo'an then hesitated.  "Wait, if a goose, maybe it's a sign of the god."  Everyone thought about how horrible that would be, but no, encountering a goose monstrosity when on a mission to track down monstrosities wasn't really a sign.

That reminded Cathance, and she pointed out they needed to take care because maybe froggoths were nearby.  Then they started approaching the bend in the river, Broo'an and Kaelani in front, Cathance above, spreading out as they got closer.  They took care to be stealthy.

Terrance took out her broom of flying and considered it, trying to figure out if she could ride it and shoot her short bow, but decided against it, and put the broom back up.  Finally, they were in position, and everyone could see the truly enormous goose swimming in the river.  It didn't see them.

Hikawera peered closely out at the river and surrounding environs.  All he could see was this absurdly large goose.  He asked in an idle tone, "Should I start this off as usual, or do you want to be quiet?"  Terrance looked at him sharply, "Quiet, this time.  Maybe it can fly!"  Hikawera moved up the riverbank a little and cast produce flame, but held the flame in his hand, to fling at the goose if it flew at them.  Or himself.

Cathance circled east, over and past Hikawera, and then, cast chromatic orb at the goose.  Because it was in the water, she had the orb settle on lightning damage.  It hit the goose, a 5" sphere of ball lightning.

• The goose reared up in the water, in a way one would associate with a 4-legged creature.  It had 5 heads!!!  All 5 heads honked!!!  Cathance was so taken aback she didn't even call this observation out to the others.
• Broo'an put hunter's mark on the … goose? hydroose? … and moved to about 5' back from the water's edge.  He shot it with his hand crossbow.
• Kaelani made use of the short bow and also shot the goose.  He hit it with an arrow, but it didn't seem to hurt it much.
• Terrance dashed forward, dove into the river, and swam up to the goose.  She broke back out of the water and thrust at the goose with her rapier, but it just skidded along goosefeathers.
• Hikawera moved further up the riverbank, and then cast shatter anyhow, taking care not to catch Terrance in the damage.  One of the goose's heads exploded, causing gore and detritus to rain down on everyone, including Cathance and Jigsaw.  Hikawera gifted Broo'an with bardic inspiration as well.

Cathance repeated herself, and watched another head seize up and go limp as the chromatic orb turned into a ball of lightning and strike the goose.

• The goose grew back two heads for the price of one.
  
  In horror, Cathance called out, "Guys!  It's growing heads!  It's growing TWO for ONE!"  Meanwhile, all the heads tried to beak Terrance, and all but one of them missed, which caused Terrance to laugh nervously.
• What with the shatter, the honking, Cathance shouting, and Terrance laughing, the Freelancers had caused a lot of commotion.  Two more of these creatures winged in; one straight at Cathance and one dove towards Kaelani on the riverbank.
• Broo'an shot the original goose twice with his hand crossbow, and shouted, "Terrance!  Get back over here!  Help Kaelani!"
• Kaelani, with a goose in his face… times 5… pulled out his rain stick, and with the soothing sound of Ua, cast ensnaring strike just to whiff all 5 heads.
• Terrance pierced the goose next to her with her rapier, then disengaged and swam back to the bank, then hid behind a bush near Kaelani, behind his attacking goose.
• Hikawera cast produce flame and threw it at the goose in the water.  One of the heads fell to the flames.

Jigsaw was most displeased with this unnatural goose thing in his face, and attacked it, but was unable to get it at all.  Cathance, slightly panicked, instinctively invoked tides of chaos, and sent a chromatic orb at the goose still in the water.  The orb settled on fire before it hit, killing the thing.  However, the chaos caused a wild magic surge and Cathance's fingers grew hotter and hotter, until they started to spark.  She thought she could set pretty much anything on fire, except a goose.

• The goose attacking Kaelani apparently could multitask, and two of the heads honked:  one at Terrance, one at Broo'an.  At that range it might as well have been thunder, and it crit Terrance.  Hikawera did something with a penny whistle and Terrance was not that hurt.  The other three heads tried to peck Kaelani, and one even succeeded.
• The goose in the air also could multitask, and two heads pecked at Jigsaw, one of which hit, and three pecked at Cathance, two of which hit.
• Broo'an transferred his hunter's mark to the goose on Kaelani, and moved farther away.
• Kaelani hit the goose with his rainstick this time, but the goose was still able to avoid the ensnaring strike.
• Hikawera cast produce flame and threw it at the same goose, burning it a little.
• Terrance snuck up on the goose and ran it through with her rapier!  Two heads died, and Terrance disengaged and moved back.

Cathance had Jigsaw disengage and fly downriver a ways, sparks trailing from her fingertips.  She cast ray of frost at the goose in the air, not wanting it to catch up to her, but her cast went wide.

• The goose on the riverbank honked at Broo'an and Terrance again.  Both were crits, but Hikawera used cutting words to help Broo'an, and Terrance dodged in that uncanny way rogues can.  The two heads which had died did not grow back in any way.
• The goose in the air flew at Hikawera.  It did honk at Cathance and Jigsaw, one head each, and the honk hurt Cathance.  Then it was on Hikawera and the remaining three heads pecked him mercilessly.
• Broo'an shot the goose that had honked at him with his hand crossbow.
• Kaelani cast thunderous smite, this time, and smacked the goose with his rainstick.  The boom rang out as loudly as Hikawera's shatter had, earlier.  The goose flew backwards from the force of the blow, and fell limp.
• Terrance crit the remaining goose with her short bow, which it hadn't seen coming since it focused on Hikawera.  The arrow struck home, and two of its heads died.
• Hikawera blew a raspberry at the goose, trying for vicious mockery, but it did not work.

Cathance again invoked tides of chaos, and sent a chromatic orb at the remaining goose, having it settle on fire.  She burned some metamagic to recover a spell slot, but then the wild magic surge hit, and she was surrounded by butterflies and petals… which trailed behind her (along with the sparks) as Jigsaw dove and bit the goose.

• The goose's heads again did not grow back, but each of the three remaining heads pecked at Jigsaw, Cathance, and Hikawera.  The only peck that landed was on Jigsaw.
• Broo'an moved his hunter's mark to the remaining goose, and shot it with his hand crossbow.  He fumbled the reload for a second shot though, dropping it.
• Kaelani walked up behind the goose and raised his rainstick over his head dramatically, causing him to overbalance and fall backwards onto his ass into the riverbank mud.
• Terrance moved away from the riverbank, to get a shot at the goose without hitting Jigsaw.  She sent her arrow through all three heads, dropping the goose!

Hikawera clearly wanted to boot Kaelani into the river, but visibly resisted it.  Cathance, wondering if she could set the goose on fire now, reached over with her sparky fingers, and yes, she could.  The smell of burning feathers filled the air.

Broo'an glanced sharply at Cathance and put that out.  "Terrance, can you get the one floating down the river?" he asked.  Terrance replied, "Sure, I got some rope," and swam after it.

Broo'an meanwhile explained he wanted to retrieve the valuable feather harvesting from these two corpses, and Hikawera helped pluck the feathers.  Terrance returned, towing the third, in short order, but when she saw what they were doing, she rolled her eyes.  But in the end, Broo'an and Hikawera had filled some sacks with nice feathers and down.

Thus they spent the next hour, recovering feathers and energy.  Hikawera played on the ocarina softly, and Cathance, at least, ate one of the goodberries.  Those goose pecks had hurt.

Broo'an, restless and curious, took to butchering the goosey monstrosities, looking at how different they were on the inside.  He discovered half-digested bits of froggoths, which itself was horrifying, and bits of grass, etc; so, they seemed to be omnivores.

Hikawera proposed they look for nests, which would be important information.  He started searching on foot, and Cathance and Jigsaw took back to the air, and they found something about 20 minutes' walk away from the river to the northeast.  It was big!  There were 9 giant goose eggs in it.  Hikawera did not hesitate, but immediately cast shatter on these.

The shattered eggs and goo and nest bits and stuff made it obvious the geese liked the shiny thing, and Cathance saw cloth and leather and coins and small gemstones... She started to use prestidigitation to clear out all the egg goo to look more closely.

The most obvious things were a shield and a cittern.  Cathance marvelled that it had survived the shatter.  She also found a hand crossbow, and some leather boots.  Lastly, she found an unbroken glass vial, sized for perfume, not potions.  It was empty.

By this time, the others had caught up, and were gathering the scattered coins and gems.  They ended up with 8 small gems worth 10gp each, and 400gp worth of various coins.

The Freelancers were halfway to Gwidion's tower, and everyone was eyeing the items, and moreover they had these awkward sacks of feathers.  Cathance looked around from above again, and saw no more nests.  They decided this was enough and they'd return to Cliffshadow.  Maybe along the way they'd figure out these items, that did not smash when subject to a shatter spell.

They got back to Cliffshadow with ease and no encounters of hostile giant animals, natural or not.  The feathers, it turned out, were worth 200gp!  They'd figured out the cittern was an instrument of the bards, so Hikawera took possession of it.  The shield and the hand crossbow just seemed magically boosted, so Kaelani took the shield and Broo'an, the hand crossbow.

Arnari was dismayed at hearing about the horrible geese, and also that the Freelancers had found 9 eggs in a nest.  She was easily able to identify boots of elvenkind, to Terrance's joy, and the vial… she shot Cathance a look.  "This is a bloodwell vial, only used by sorcerers… but it will require your own blood to use," she told the halfling, "If you choose to attune to it, how it benefits you will be more clear.  Sorcerous abilities are not my thing."  She handed it to Cathance, who pondered the item.

"Thank you for this cleanup, and let me get out the rewards for this mission," Arnari continued.  She got out 45gp each for the five of them, and then went into the strongroom and came back with five potions.  "Let's see…" she started handing them out.  Broo'an got a potion of fire breath, and Kaelani got a potion of poison resistance.  Hikawera and Terrance each got philter of love, and Cathance?   She got a potion of growth.

Kaelani was looking at his potion strangely, while Cathance exclaimed, "Really?  Really?  Really?!"  Arnari visibly suppressed a smile as she exclaimed, "I pulled it out of the bag at random!"

Broo'an squatted down to be closer to eye level with Cathance.  "You could be a normal-sized person!"  Before Cathance could retort, Arnari said reasonably, "Give it to someone else, if you don't like it!"

• Cathance → lvl 5!
• Hikawera → lvl 4!
• Broo'an → lvl 3! "Horde breaker" Hunter