030. Meeting Paulet and Tales of a Beast
General Summary
The next morning, Gimdalf and Macca Ni went by the guard captian to see if they could get the bounty, even though they hadn't brought in the Red Dot leader.
Macca Ni succesfully used the Ring of Human Suggestions to convince the captain that less was also okay, and that the contract could be changed to this end. Gimdalf used Disguise Self to show the identity of the new leader to the captain. They collected the 2000 gold, and went on their way.
Attempts to extract further information from the burned parts of the pages were unsuccessful. A Detect Magic reveals that the book is not magic, but the wood of the lodge is. A quick Identify reveals it to be glowing Star-barked Shroomtree.
With that information, Gimdalf also goes to sleep.
2000 gold from the guard captain.
A New Face
On their way back to the in, Gimdalf and Macca Ni bumped into a wagon which seemed to have lost a wheel. The owner of the wagon, an old owl lady, asked them to help her put the wheel back on. In turn she would give them free food from the wagon, which turned out to be a food truck. Never to turn away good smelling food, Gimalf and Macca Ni helped her out. The food was so good that they felt invigorated. Tanin got some sashimi to enjoy. The lady introduced herself as Paulet Arta-aki. She mentioned that she wanted to visit the Ginoboja Forest, because she had heard there were many unique ingredients there. Macca Ni and Gimdalf had heard earlier that the hunters there might have a job for them, so the three of them decided to travel together.The Lodge
A short trek along the road later, they arrived at the Huntsman's Lodges. The place seemed surprisingly quiet for the amount of buildings. The few patrons at the bar of the inn revealed that everyone was spooked because of the beast in the forest. The hunter that they had previously encountered in the Blastwood Inn* was one of the patrons. He was all to glad to hear the party would take up the quest of tracking down this beast. * See 9. Gaining Knowledge and Calling Out a Gang Paulet distributed some home-made choclate cookies to cheer everyone up, while Gimdalf drank a beer, and Macca Ni had a fizzy drink made from Purpleberries. The hunters told stories about the beast and how incredibly silent it was. No-one had seen or heard anything other than some rustling, a few screams, and a black blur. Over the past few days, the sightings had increased in frequency and deadlyness, ultimately leading to no-one wanting to go into the forest anymore. One of the hunters started telling tall tales about the monster actually being a ghost, with "Laser eyes", but got quickly calmed down by the rest of the patrons. Another had plotted the rough locations of the monster sightings, and gave the party a rough area to look in. He also warned them that the forest was bigger on the inside than on the outside, but that all the sightings were reasonaly close to the lodge, so that should not pose much of a problem. Should they get lost Paulet should be able to fly above the canopy and spot the lodge. When the party asked if there were any survivors they could talk to, they were directed to one of the other lodges outside, where the hunters had a small permanent hospital. Usually this wasn't occupied much, but now it was almost at capacity. Macca Ni and Gimdalf went to check it out. Paulet asked to borrow the kitchen to make food for the injured, it turned out the barkeep was also just about to go do that, so they prepared the food together.Hospital Visit
Gimdalf rang the bell in the hospitals entry hall. He tried to ring it very quickly, but the bell surprisingly refused to ring more than twice once every so often. They are greeted by a short but wide tortle, called [Lor who leads them further after assuring them that there is no-one currently there with a transmissable dissease. The two of them spend some time talking with the wounded. After getting permission, Gimdalf physically inspects the wounds, while using Tanin as a distraction. Two types of wound become apparent: Claw-marks, and more shallow scratches, as if the person was raked with a board with sharp nails in it. The stories from the wounded indicate that the beast only attacks from behind, and likes to pick off stragglers. To Gimdalf and Macca Ni, this increased their suspicions that what they are dealing with is an exceptionally stealthy Displacer Beast. During their rounds Paulet and the innkeeper entered with Wonton Soup made with Glowbeastie meat. The patients each recovered visibly from the exceptional meal. Seeing this, both the cleric and the innkeeper asked if Paulet could share a few tips on how to achieve this effect, as this would certainly help the recovery of these and any future patients. Paulet agreed to share some pointers after coming back from the forest.Nightfall
The innkeeper offered them a free pick of a room for the night, both to thank them for their willingness to go after the beast, and because the inn was mostly empty anyways. Paulet decided to sleep in her wagon. Macca Ni and Gimdalf took the opportunity of not sleeping in the same room for the first time in a while, and each claimed their own. Macca Ni habitually strung up his hammock someplace high. Gimdalf meanwhile tried to gain some more info about the source of magic from the book he got from the Red Dot Gang. The book was written in an old dialect of common, and mostly burned away, but he managed to decipher that the source of magic was supposedly the place where the first wizards, sourcerers, druids and other magic practitioners got their powers. The text indicated this was speculation at best, because the info came from an untranslated ancient book. Some cross-referencing with a crudely drawn map and his more current one indicated that the source must be somewhere in the Simnian Desert.Items
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Report Date
22 Oct 2021
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