Where's Melody?

[Prehysterical]

Bubba breathes a sigh of relief. Now that everything has been straightened out, he doesn't have to worry about her being eaten by plants.

 

...That does mean that he will need to backtrack, though. He's already lost precious hours on this false trail. "Come on, boy," Bubba instructs Chickenbone.

[horrizon]

In half an hour the hunter finds the point where Melody's trail branches in two, and this time, after checking three times, he's sure he's on her trail from this morning. This, however, leads to the Gleamlake, maybe she wanted a less dangerous part of the swamp first, and apparently she knows how uninviting the hills are.

 

A sudden crack of lightning illuminates the trees around the lake, and the following thunder is almost immediate, the storm must be close and formed nearby. The bright light shows she went to the lake's edge. There's a lonely patch of reeds growing a little higher then Bubba about 60 feet out in the open water, which can be reached in the shortest route from where the girl's trail ends; there's some movement a few hundred feet further north-east along the shore, and by the size of it something huge and non-stealthy is active there; and there's a fishing boat on the south curve of the shore about a hundred feet from the ogre.

 

Chickenbone is ready for a fight, pricking his ears towards the large something's direction.

 

OOC

Can Bubba command / ask Chickenbone to do things on his own?

 

[Prehysterical]

In the gathering dark, Bubba slips toward the lake like a wraith. Chickenbone's fur blends into the gloom. With the storm coming in, Bubba knows that they are exposed.

 

"Them's some awful tall reeds...," Bubba mutters to himself. Seeing that his trusty companion is itching for a scrap, he waves the wolf down. "Quiet, boy. We don't even know what it is. We get Melody and we get out. Anything else is gravy."

 

So saying, the ogre began making his way toward the patch of reeds with Chickenbone in tow. For a creature of his size, he moves with surprising grace.

 

OOC

Between Bubba's Handle Animal modifier and Chickenbone's Link, Bubba autosucceeds at commanding Chickenbone to Sneak. There are a few things that Chickenbone can do by himself, but most of his tricks are offensively or defensively focused.

 

Since it is dark enough for lightning to make a difference, I am assuming that the Nightstalker feat applies and that Bubba has concealment. Bubba takes no size penalty to his Stealth and gains a +2 to his Stealth check, but Chickenbone does take a penalty due to his size, unfortunately.

 

If whatever it is is a few hundred feet away, that should be a significant penalty on its opposing Perception check. Unfortunately, Bubba's darkvision only extends about 60 feet, but maybe his low-light vision will give him some help. 

 

[horrizon]

Compared to the ruckus that creature makes, even trudging in water makes little noise, and the pair seems almost to float to the patch. As they get closer, two things stand out to the hunter immediately. Firstly, the patch is definitely wider than it seemed from the shore, but a significant amount of it has been trampled by something BIG, the stems are lying broken in all directions, but not torn. Also, many of them have their tops missing, but these are very clean cuts, definitely made by a knife or other tool.

 

Chickenbone stiffens and starts sniffing, then shoving the plants left and right and 'burrowing' into the thick of it. Then, he backs out, holding a piece of clothes in his teeth, and holds it for Bubba to take.

Edited June 14, 2022 by horrizon (see edit history)

[Prehysterical]

OOC

How is Chickenbone's Perception so high? He only has a +5 modifier for Perception.

Things are always weird in the swamp, but this is strange even by those standards. Who was out here chopping? And just what trampled all these reeds?

 

Thankfully, Chickenbone spots something in the midst of the reeds. Bubba accepts the cloth and focuses it upon it, once again calling upon the swamp magic to get some clue as to what happened here.

 

OOC

Bubba casts Replay Tracks to get an image of what happened here. The reeds, the cuts, the cloth... all of them should be clues.

 

[horrizon]

The reeds' tops were carefully cut by Melody, and she took only certain types. The trampling came from a large reptilian animal thrashing around, Melody holding onto its back, and that piece of fabric was torn from her trekking pants, as she calls her sturdy outfit. All the images come in a chaotic flurry, as things happened very fast.

 

Chickenbone lets go of the piece he found when Bubba examines it, and shortly after he lets out a threatening growl towards the inner parts of Gleamlake, to the east.

 

OOC

It was based on smell, and I decided to make the roll with a bonus. He's a wolf, after all.

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by horrizon (see edit history)

[Prehysterical]

These reeds must have been the medicine that she was looking for... What sort of creature had she been attacked by? The images were too blurry to get a sense.

 

Upon hearing Chickenbone's growl, Bubba stows away the scrap of cloth and unslings the bow from his back. "Smell something, boy?" Bubba nocks an arrow warily as he makes his way to the edge of the reeds, trying to get a glimpse of anything unusual. If this critter was swimming underwater, swimming out there to fight would be a terrible idea.

 

OOC

I just realized that I didn't add the Favored Terrain bonus to Bubba's Stealth, so he's even sneakier than I thought.

 

If the creature is an animal, Bubba gets a +4 from Favored Enemy.

 

[horrizon]

The hunter can see a very slight series of ripples heading towards the reeds, slowly and carefully. It cannot be too deep, judged by the fine waves it makes.

[Prehysterical]

Looks can be deceiving in the swamp. Is that Melody... or a monster?

 

Bubba stows his longbow away and rearms himself with his "bonking stick", an exquisitely crafted long-handled hammer that he had simply found standing in the mud one day. Chickenbone stands next to him, tense and silent with ears swiveled toward the source of the ripples.

 

OOC

Bubba equips his lucerne hammer, which gives him a reach of 15-20 feet. He will hold off on swinging until he has a positive ID.

 

[horrizon]

Soon enough the swimmer is revealed, as the scaled body of a large animal erupts from the water, though it is hard to tell whether it's a snake or an alligator, or something in between. However, it's not the head and teeth that come first, but the body itself with a splash of water, mud, and slime, aimed at the hunters' faces and eyes, in a diagonal arc.

 

OOC

Bubba and Chickenbone come first, but the splash attack happens anyway, even if they kill the attacker. Make a DC12 Reflex save for each, and a DC15 Fortitude save for who fails the Reflex save. The second one is against the poison in the slime.

 

Attacker AC is 16. It's scaled, slimy and moving surprisingly fast.

 

Edited June 17, 2022 by horrizon (see edit history)

[Prehysterical]

In response to the surprise method of attack, Bubba tries to shield his eyes. Thankfully, he manages to deflect the slime, but poor Chickenbone catches it right in the face. Fortunately, the wolf is able to shake it off without too much trouble.

 

Unfortunately for the mystery creature, it has made the mistake of coming within reach of an angry ogre. Bubba swings his hammer back and forth, trying to catch the creature with the spike on the backswing. Chickenbone, meanwhile, leaps forward in indignant outrage and lashes out with flashing fangs.

 

OOC

Is this thing an animal? I'm guessing not, but if it is, then Bubba gets a +4 bonus to attack rolls and damage, which would mean that the second attack hits even if the first is an automatic miss.

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Prehysterical (see edit history)

[horrizon]

Although both attacks from the hunter scratch the creature's scales, they both glance off of it harmlessly.

 

The creature curves back gracefully and tries to bite the ogre, and only misses by a hair's width. Now that it lifted its head above water level, it looks like a giant snake with a crocodile's head, but its eyes are even weirder: they look like large eyes of an insect, but with much fewer facets and made from a dark green crystal, slowly changing the shade of green as it stays out of the water for a moment before diving back down.

 

OOC

Your turn again.

Edited June 29, 2022 by horrizon (see edit history)

[Prehysterical]

While Chickenbone growls at the (seemingly) retreating creature, Bubba is wary. He keeps his "bonking stick" ready as he watches for any sign of the creature reemerging. Has he ever seen or heard of such a strange thing before?

OOC

Bubba and Chickenbone ready their attacks should the serpent return.

Going to roll a Knowledge (Nature) check to try and identify. If a different Knowledge like Dungeoneering or Geography applies, substitute the roll with the appropriate modifiers. 

 

[horrizon]

In the momentary quiet before it goes in the water again, both hunters can clearly hear that the other noise on land is gone now, but a splash also tells why: whatever was making that noise is in the water now. Then their first attacker coils up again, it is intent on making food from the pair.

 

OOC

Bubba has definitely never heard or seen anything like this. The creature continues attacking, but you come first, and one more thing is coming for you.

[Prehysterical]

Bubba thought to himself, "Boy, I hope whatever that is, it ain't this thing's mama."

 

Rather than focusing on what can't control, Bubba leverages the control on his hammer to end the fight quickly. Chickenbone snaps in his own contribution.

 

Bubba knows what to expect this time and gives the serpent two solid wallops. Chickenbone's flashing teeth sink into the creature's hide.

 

OOC

Substitute the erroneous attack roll for the damage roll for Chickenbone's bite.

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Prehysterical (see edit history)