Tale View

Four days after Cathance and Quelenna returned from investigating the airship crash, Jigsaw was finally less salty about being fireball'd.  But Cathance was considering how the missions they were taking might be too much for the pony hippogryph.  No doubt that was also reinforced by Naranjos shaking his head and extolling the virtues of Snapper, his mountain gryphon.

Anyhow a gryphon was expensive, and the tale of the Delcinia had made others restless, so Cathance found herself going with Fine Branch, Tai, and Nix up to Damakaios' office to see if there were followups to the investigation.

Damakaios' office was mostly unchanged; mahogany desk with geometric patterns carved in it; matching chairs; enclosed displays of small arms; maps on the wall to the left; more arms on the wall, and a locked cabinet behind the desk.  Notably, though, the desk was devoid of any container resembling a tankard.

Tai started inspecting the weapons mounted on the wall.  There were a variety of shortswords, daggars, and darts (both small and military).  None were magical, but the variety of styles was interesting.

Cathance sat in a chair in the back row, away from the door.  The chair was too big for the 2'10" Mikumwes, and she kicked her feet as they dangled off the edge.

Fine Branch picked a random chair and sat in it.  He shot Damakaios a scathing look, perhaps because the tankard that had been affixed to the desk was no longer there.

Nix sat close to the center of the front row of chairs.  She unintentionally seemed to be assuming the posture of the best student in a class.

Damakaios waited a moment to see if there were anyone else, then reached down to his left, unlocking a thin drawer.  He pulled out only 3 papers, and read them out quickly.  At no point did he mention an airship wreck.

• Go to Amabel Villa, clear out more of that.  250 eagles each, plus whatever you desire to carry off.  No structural damage please.
• House Hadid needs death butterfly wings, in the south… west? of the skylith.  Pay is per amount; unclear how much.
• Hasapis Vineyards are having weird stuff in their vineyards, they've pulled everyone back.  300 eagles per person.

And that was it.

Nix:  I enjoy Amabel Villa but butterflies sound interesting
Fine Branch:  no preference
Tai:  Amabel interesting, butterflies sound interesting
Cathance:  how Big are these butterflies?
Damakaios:  as far as I am aware, normal butterfly size
Tai:  I presume they have to be in good condition
Fine Branch:  why are they called death butterflies
Damakaios:  they are poisonous.
Cathance:  are they immune to poison?
Damakaios:  no idea
Cathance:  I have restorative ointment, also…?
Tai <impatiently>:  what is your mission preference?
Cathance:  don't care, as long as I don't have to worry about getting eaten!  <to Damakaios>  how long has Hasapis been asking for help?
Damakaios:  a while
Tai:  we should do that, then
<More speculation on death butterflies ensued.>
Cathance:  we should do Hasapis because of social consequences
Tai:  yea
Fine Branch:  sure
Damakaios:  okay then.  You'll need to go northeast along the crater.  If you leave today, you'll probably get there early afternoon.  Be aware, they often host prominent buyers for dinner; you will want to have appropriate clothing available.

Since they were only a few days past Apastron, the weather was calm but a bit cloudy.  The Freelancers gathered their gear, and took off; Jigsaw was almost back to his cheerful self.  Since Cathance had never been to Hasapis, the others described it to her on the way:  they have a central mansion with a showroom for the winery.  There is a detached stables for flying mounts and beasts of burden; living quarters for workers were built over the stables.  Another building housed the main winery and all its vats; Freelancers had helped when mysterious leaks had occurred, because of bulettes.  The Hasapis themselves were half-elves.

As Damakaios predicted, the Freelancers arrived in the early afternoon, the four of them setting down in the courtyard:  Cathance and Fine Branch on hippogryphs, Tai on his destrier pegasus, and Nix on her wyvern, Eris.  A couple people emerged from the stables to take charge of the mounts, and Zurito Hasapis emerged from the main house to greet the visitors.  He was happy to learn it was the Freelancers.

The Freelancers asked what did he know, what was troubling him.  He explained the workers had seen signs of what they'd seen before in the northeast vineyards:  furrows, little earthquakes, and such.  Not wanting to lose people this time, the Hasapis had pulled everyone out and sent for Freelancers to help.

Cathance:  has anyone been there since?
Zurito:  no.  We cleared everyone out; we don't want anyone to die.  Happy to put you up for dinner tonight, and you go in the morning.
Cathance:  I propose we fly over the site first, since there's time.

That was a good idea, so they brought the mounts back out of the stables, and embarked on a big sweep of the northeast vineyards.  All the Freelancers saw places here and there with signs of a "run" by a burrowing creature; the poles for the grapes were tilted by it, which bothered Cathance immensely.  Nix was looking for entrances or exits from these runs, but saw nothing.  When she pointed it out, they concluded it was because nobody had been in the vineyard for the creatures to eat.

As they circled, the Freelancers realized the runs were concentrated in a vineyard far to the northeast, close to the Rim.  Fine Branch and Nix realized the hill was directly south of the construct base they'd located with Dryali almost a full eighth ago; Nix mentioned it to Tai and Cathance.

Satisfied, they returned to the main compound.  As the mounts were stabled, the Freelancers learned that dinner consisted of wine tasting in 4 courses, with other parties attending; there were two groups staying as a bed & breakfast, and one of them were off-skylith buyers.  As the Freelancers approached the house, Nianza Hasapis approached, and asked (delicately) if they needed clothes.

Nix just changed her appearance, using the hat of disguise.  Fine Branch also changed his appearance, and looked awesome.  Tai and Cathance had to change clothes, however.  Tai left his greataxe, and made sure his cloak of billowing was engaged.  Cathance left her warhammer, and carried her fancy cane.

During the dinner, Zurito and Nianza presented the pairings.  Cathance paid close attention to the pairings, asking about varieties and where the grapes were grown.  The dinner wine came from the problem vineyard.  But all in all the Freelancers had a very nice time.

So, it turned out that neither Cathance nor Fine Branch were used to imbibing quite that much wine in a single evening and the next morning brought them a ferocious hangover.  Fine Branch simply cast protection from poison on himself, but Cathance held her head and even though the weather was foggy and rainy, she found herself wishing for Dryali's dark goggles.

The Freelancers mounted up and set out for the problematic vineyard, and wondered if they should look for burrows north of it.  Nix saw herders in the hills above them leading up to the Rim and speculated, "If only we had a small creature we could use as bait," and Cathance scowled through her hangover.

Anyhow they made a plan:  go to the north edge of the vineyard, Fine Branch cast thaumaturgy, do something when the burrowing creatures showed up.

The Freelancers arrived, somewhat soaked through by now, and coasted over the northern edge.  Everyone but Nix saw the burrow "runs" extended northward (Mercury was hassling Eris, so Nix had her hands full); they also saw the trails were recent.

Fine Branch started thaumaturgy thumping the ground right under Cathance and Jigsaw; fortunately her headache had finally faded.  She and Nix flew up pretty high, but Tai flew in low, on Spencer Thundersparks.  Fine Branch put another thumper under Spencer, and a third one under himself.

Nothing happened beyond the weather getting increasingly stormy, and the Freelancers becoming more wet.  However the cleric persisted, renewing the thaumaturgy when the magic faded.  Time passed, 5 minutes, 15.  Finally, after 20 minutes of thumping, the Freelancers heard rumbling.  They saw, heading from the east, the ridge from burrowing; at the thumping, some sort of worm breached, then went back in the ground.  The Freelancers, watching closely, observed it did not look like a clockwork construct.

They readied themselves, getting into position.

• Nix flew just in range, and prepared to cast a twice-uplevel'd chromatic orb at the first worm that (re)appeared.
• Fine Branch prepared to cast toll the dead on whatever Nix hit.
• Cathance prepared to cast ray of frost to slow it down.
• Tai readied to use Spencer's horseshoes of the storm to call lightning.

At that point the worm popped out again, under a different thumper.

<Narrator voice:  yes, as in the OMD song of the same name from the 80s>

Nix fired off her chromatic orb, which settled on cold before the critfail sent it shattering harmlessly into the ground next to the worm.

• Fine Branch did nothing, having prepared to toll the dead what Nix hit, and she hit the ground.
• Cathance cast ray of frost on the worm, and the cold slowed it down.
• Tai cast call lightning, and a giant bolt of lightning from the storm struck the worm.
  • Cathance:  Tai, when did you learn to cast that?!
    Tai:  it's these horseshoes, they bring the power of the storm!

The worm did not like being struck by lightning, and dove underground again.  A few moments later, a giant worm with many little wings emerged, and flew up next to Cathance and Fine Branch.  Cathance shrieked, "This is big enough to eat me!!!"

Nix heard Cathance, and exclaimed "Oh, my," eyes wide.  She dived towards Fine Branch and Cathance and used her sorcerous abilities to twin cast haste on both them.  She then had Eris return to where she'd been.

• Fine Branch cast a twice-uplevel'd spiritual weapon in the form of a zappy badminton racket, which whacked the winged worm with force.
  • Then the Maneki nekomata cast toll the dead on the flying creature, and necrosis spread along its worm body.
  • Nighthawk attacked, piercing the worm with his beak, but then the hippogryph also had some necrosis, and was so surprised he missed with his claws.
  • Hasted Fine Branch got Nighthawk to disengage and fly a ways away from this worm.
• Hasted Cathance pulled out her magical warhammer and whacked the worm flying next to her with booming blade.  The boom sounded muffled in its wormy flesh.
  • Jigsaw disengaged and flew next to Tai.
  • Cathance then cast her own twice-uplevel'd chromatic orb at the flying worm.  It settled on lightning before it struck.
• Tai maintained his position on Spencer, and used the call lightning to strike this winged worm.  It sizzled a little as it struck. 
• The smaller worm surfaced again, between Fine Branch and Cathance, but dove back down.
• The big worm flew over to Tai, triggering the booming blade and getting boomed as a consequence.
  • The worm bit Tai, piercing him easily.  Necrosis spread from the bite.
  • The worm did not let go.  "Lovely," Tai said sardonically.

Nix flew down and towards Tai, about ten feet away.  She cast an upleveld'd chromatic orb at the creature, which settled on cold before it struck.  Eris immediately attacked with her stinger, piercing the worm and poisoning it.  Eris got some necrosis on her tail, but the big worm shuddered and drooped.  It stayed airborne though.

• Fine Branch moved the zappy spiritual weapon towards the worm, but it critfailed and missed.
  • He followed up with another toll the dead, spreading more necrosis on the worm.
  • Nighthawk flew over, and missed with his beak, but struck with his claws.  As necrosis spread up from the hippogryph's toes, the worm shuddered, went taut, then died…

…Tai was in its mouth!  Nix hesitated, unsure if feather fall would address this situation.  Tai did not hesitate, and burst out of its mouth with a mighty heave, and reseated himself on Spencer Thundersparks.  It was all very impressive.  <Narrator voice:  David rolled a nat 20 on acrobatics.>

Anyhow, Fine Branch flew a little higher.

• Cathance flew lower, so she would just be in range of any more worms popping up, and prepared to cast ray of frost again.
• Tai flew below Cathance, ready to call lightning. 
• The smaller worm popped up next to the corpse of the big winged one, and got to experience freezing cold and a giant lightning zap.  It dove back down again.

The Freelancers looked at each other, prepared again, and when the worm breached again, it died to the cold and the necrosis and the lightning.

The thaumaturgy was still thumping.

Once the thumping ended, Cathance and Jigsaw landed, so the haste could wear off safely.  She found herself staring at the worms close up, in horror.  Fortunately for her, no other worms came.

The other Freelancers were looking around, and Fine Branch flew pretty high to get a perspective.  They realized this area was a worm nexus.  They circled back to Cathance, who had used prestidigitation to make sure there was no worm goo on her warhammer before stowing the weapon.

Examining the worms, they decided to try to harvest anything useful for armour, such as teeth and carapace.  Cathance, Tai, and Nix worked it carefully, and even harvested some of the weird little wings from the big worm.  It took an hour, and the pleasant evening before had turned into a faded memory; but the materials would fetch 1200 eagles.

Fine Branch was not harvesting, because early on the conversation had turned to "What if this thing had eggs?" and he'd decided to cast divination to determine whether the Freelancers had taken care of the problem.  For the ritual, he got into a shouting match with the storm (which had started to boom on its own without any magical help from Freelancers), and culminated in the cleric throwing a fancy catnip-mouse into the sky.

Fine Branch asked, "What would we have to do to protect the vineyard from these worms for the next year?"

The catnip-mouse did not come back down, but disappeared into multi-coloured nebula light.  The cleric heard The Cat say, in an androgynous voice: Tsk, tsk, divination is for seven days only, but you've kinda killed the things that would be the problem!  The divine presence faded.

Fine Branch concluded that nothing else was nearby that he'd have to worry about, and told the others, ending with, "Alright, I guess that's our answer."

They stood there a moment, staring at the corpses. 

Cathance:  much as I want to get out of the rain, do we just… leave these here?
Nix:  worm stew time!
Everyone:  euw

Nix cast unseen servant and set it to dig a shallow pit, put the worms, put dirt.  Or rather, mud.  Then they flew back to the main compound of Hasapis, arriving late afternoon

The stablehands fussed over Nighthawk and Eris and the Freelancers spent the rest of the afternoon drying out and cleaning up.  That evening they had a lovely dinner with the Hasapis, in which neither Fine Branch nor Cathance overindulged at all.

The next morning was far less stormy, and the Freelancers escorted Zurito to the hill where they'd found the worms.  They pointed out the mounds, and told him not to touch.  Zurito, noting the size of the larger one, swallowed uncomfortably, and promised to warn everyone off.

Upon return he paid the Freelancers 300 eagles each, thanking them profusely.  "Please give Damakaios ten percent," he admonished them, and they took their leave.

• Cathance → lvl 8!