Antsgiving (Part 2)
The party has been led to the edge of the forest region where the Winter Wolf is known to frequent. They seem unwilling to advance any further, as they have a duty to the colony and their queen and the wolf isn't the only threat they must be mindful of, it is only the most pressing concern. The issue present before the party now is...
How are they going to track this Winter Wolf down? There are no immediate signs of its habitation aside from a few frost-bitten shrubs.
GAME: Karasu rolls survival: (12)+2: 14 GAME: Strike rolls survival: (6)+2: 8 GAME: Burai rolls survival: (17)+11: 28 GAME: Burai casts Barkskin. Caster Level: 4 DC: 15 GAME: Karasu rolls stealth: (8)+7: 15 GAME: Strike rolls stealth: (1)+10: 11 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Burai rolls stealth: (11)+3: 14 GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d20+11: (8)+11: 19 GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d20+10: (18)+10: 28
Burai eyes the surrounding forest. "I can change into an animal that can track the winter wolf," he muses. Then he glances at the others. "As an animal I won't be able to speak, or to cast spells." He casts a spell first, his skin growing rough and thick. Then he changes into a wolf. Almost immediately he leads the party off onto a trail. He seems confident and moves with surety...until the trail literally grows cold at a wide snowbank.
With them in the woods now, Karasu sends his familiar upwards into the boughs to give them another set of eyes. The bird can't lose him, and will warn them if it catches sight of something that can not be seen from the ground. He moves with great care through the underbrush, but this is not his environment. If they were in the city... But they were not, and he has to be careful of every movement so as to not disturb bushes and branches. Buari comes to a stop ahead of him, and he's instantly wary, eyes narrowing on the snowbank. Silently as he can manage he angles slightly to the side of the wolf that his companion has become, but remains behind the druid.
Following with the others, moving reasonably quietly, though the terrain is giving Strike more trouble than she remembers having in the glory days. In a perhaps ill considered attempt to regain ground, she hastens her step some, only to put a foot into the underbrush she intends to move through and >SNAP!< goes a small branch in just the right depression to act as an amplifier.
GAME: Strike rolls perception: (2)+11: 13 GAME: Karasu rolls perception: (12)+6: 18 GAME: Burai rolls perception: (3)+10: 13 GAME: Burai rolls reflex: (20)+3: 23 (CRITICAL SUCCESS) GAME: Iuitl rolls 6d6: (22): 22
They didn't see it.
A blast of bone-chilling ice emits from the snow bank in a big cone, freezing Burai's flesh. He managed to avoid the majority of the attack, but... it lunges for him, moving with wild speed, the enormous wolf-like monster trying to bite him with its icy jaws...! That's a BIG wolf!!!
GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d20+10: (12)+10: 22 GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d4: (2): 2 GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d8+5: (8)+5: 13 GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d6: (2): 2 GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d20+10: (10)+10: 20 GAME: Karasu casts Enlarge Person. Caster Level: 1 DC: 15
Seeing the massive creature up close is chilling, and that was both literal and figurative. Karasu stepped back from the thing, reaching out a hand and touching Strike on the shoulder. A few cold and sliding words flowed forth from his mouth and his black eyes seemed to darken as he spoke. Listening him made the skin crawl nearly as much as the air around them did. The spell worked from the inside, grinding bones and enlarging the person that he cast on it.
Thick brown fur is not enough to resist the unnatural cold emitted by the Winter Wolf, nor it's follow up attacks as the hunted proves to actually be the hunter. Shuddering and bleeding profusely, the druid-wolf creeps backwards. It shifts and changes back into a man, still badly injured but now armed and armored in the style if humanoids.
GAME: Strike spends ONE point of KI POOL. GAME: Strike spends ONE use of STUNNING FIST. GAME: Strike rolls weapon0: (13)+7: 20 GAME: Iuitl rolls 1d20+3: (10)+3: 13 GAME: Strike rolls 2d6+4: (7)+4: 11 GAME: Strike rolls 2d6+4: (7)+4: 11 GAME: Strike rolls 2d6+4: (8)+4: 12 GAME: Strike rolls weapon0: (7)+7: 14 GAME: Strike rolls 2d6+4: (7)+4: 11
Swelling with arcane size and the accompanying might, Strike moves in to cut off any pursuit from the Winter Wolf as her comrade draws back to recover. She slams the heel of her hand across the beast's skull with a hollow thud, follows that with a knuckle punch between the shoulderblades, and ends with a savage boot to the snoot, "I'll keep it's attention best I can!"
GAME: Karasu rolls weapon1+2: (7)+2+2: 11
The Winter Wolf is utterly knocked for a loop. Strike has punched the sense out of it, and it is barely standing after that vicious serious of blows. Seems it picked the wrong people to fight with...!
High above them Wuya caws and Karasu deftly runs forward, tumbling around the stunned wolf while it stands there dumbly and stabs his dagger at its flank. The difficulty of aiming while moving has his weapon missing the creature by a hair's breadth, but now he's on the other side of it. Offering his companion a better ability to strike. With them coordinating attacks the thing will be on the defensive. "I will keep it weakened." His voice is the low tolling of doom.
GAME: Strike spends ONE point of KI POOL. GAME: Strike spends ONE use of STUNNING FIST. GAME: Strike rolls weapon0+2: (1)+7+2: 10 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Strike rolls weapon0+2: (11)+7+2: 20 GAME: Strike rolls 2d6+4: (5)+4: 9 GAME: Strike rolls weapon0+2: (11)+7+2: 20 GAME: Strike rolls 2d6+4: (5)+4: 9
As the wolf stands there in bludgeoned bewilderment, Strike decides to try and keep him that way, though the ground shifts some beneath her larger mass as she tries to deliver the stunning attack, and so she does naught but muss hsi fur. She rears back, kneeing the beast in the chin, then backhanding it with a half closed fist against the ear.
GAME: Karasu rolls weapon1+2: (7)+2+2: 11 GAME: Strike rolls weapon0+2: (9)+7+2: 18 GAME: Strike rolls 2d6+4: (7)+4: 11
The Winter Wolf was extremely unprepared for what it ran into today. Strike spots it tilt its ears back, and turn to try to leave, but the attempt utterly fails when Strike gets one last hit on it that sends it rolling in the snow and coming to a halt. The creature lets out a wheeze, and expires, utterly defeated. It seems the party has won today, with some pretty solid teamwork! The locals won't have to fight for resources anymore! Now, do they want to check back on the village and ant colony before they leave?
Karasu moves forward, slitting the beasts throat with his knife and spilling its blood on the ground. He murmurs something under his breath as he does so, then looks at Strike. "We should check in with the ants to make sure that this is the creature they spoke of, and that there is no other thing which is disturbing them."
Strike nods, "Agreed." she says thoughtfully, considering her fist and the power it currently held, how long since she'd felt so powerful? Before her fall, to be sure. She shakes the musings away and looks to the slain beast, "We may be able to offer it to them as food, then, perhaps they will no longer need to raid the farmers for their livestock." And with that, she starts to look for some suitable tree limbs to drag it on.
Burai leans against a tree as he tries to recover. "Perhaps we can lead them here," he offers. "Ants - normal ants, in any case - are known to be industrious. And strong." He examines the wolf's corpse. "Although perhaps we should take what we can first. Ants will likely use it only for food."
GAME: Burai rolls survival: (13)+11: 24
"If we leave it here, we risk that some other animal will make off with the corpse. The forest is a hungry place." Karasu rises to his feet, helping Strike search for something to carry the wolf on. Then seems to change his mind and heads over to Buari instead. "Let me see your injuries, perhaps I might be able to bandage them." He pulls his coat off as he speaks, so that he doesn't get blood on the sleeves.
GAME: Karasu rolls Heal: (14)+6: 20
Burai be able to harvest the winter wolf's pelt, as well as the organ it uses to produce that great big blast of ice. He should be able to get some value out of those later if he gets them preserved or treated. The meat is worthless, as a gamey predator just tastes bitter as hell to most humanoids. The ants won't care, though.
Speaking of, it takes a couple hours to get back. When the party arrives, they identify the ant colony by the glowing moss collected around the entrance, and a soldier ant wiggling its antennae at them as they approach. The soldier walks up to inspect their quarry, and discovers that they have, indeed, destroyed the correct monster. "Workers! Food to retrieve!" it barks down the tunnel, and several smaller (but still very large) ants emerge and drag the future meal into the tunnel, picking it up with apparent ease and carrying it in perfect unison. "You have done the colony a great service. We will no longer have to raid for our meals."
And then the Giant Ant soldier resumes his post in front of the colony tunnel. It seems it's Mission Accomplished!
-End