Journey of the Pathseekers

Searching the Forest- Session 13

The Pathseekers awake early in the morning to get a head start on finding Evan’s lost pig. They all meet in the Tavern to stock up on rations and make plans. After formulating a plan they decide that Meribonk should find Evan and attempt to ask him some questions about the last time he saw the pig creature.

Once the deaf halfing boy is found, Meribonk manages to communicate with Evan to ask him where he last saw the pig and the boy had pointed to the forest behind the Holy Beacon. This was located on the opposite side of town of the pasture adjacent to where the wolf fight took place. They all make their way to the Holy Beacon together and once arriving Meri motions for Evan to stay put who agrees and sits on the steps of the Holy Beacon to wait.

Travok uses his tracking skills to try and look for pig tracks. He leads the Pathseekers to the edge of the forest. They are up on a slight large hill so they are looking down at the town. It's a beautiful sight to see. Travok tunes into his ranger skills, his stalking skills, and begins looking for signs of tracks and where they would lead. He sees some disturbance in the ground and follows it, he can tell someone small has been walking this path and assumes this must be the route Evan takes into the woods.

As Meri reaches the forest tree line she hears Cornball behind her, upon entering the forest he hoots happily as now as he can fly from branch to branch with the group. The group follows the trail deeper into the woods, it seems to keep going and going. You come to a point where you ask yourselves, what is a little boy walking this far into the woods alone for. You know with the wolf attacks this is odd behavior.

Travok rolls a 7 in nature and loses the trail. Meri decides to let Cornball take the lead while using her telepathic connection with the familiar. She stands still and puts her arms to her sides palms up. She whispers a quick spell under her breath. Her eyes roll back into her head, her vision darkens, and then her sight comes back, seeing the world as Cornball does. The large owl hoots and flies over the forest area, getting a good birds eye view of the land.

You're looking at a nice big forested area, to your far left appears to be a lake or river, in the off center of the map it looks like some ruins, perhaps an old building that was destroyed, In the very center of the map is a full circle structure, you aren't sure what it is, while most of the area is around the old build site is clear, the rest of the area is covered in dense forest and impossible to see the ground.

Meri returns to herself, and explains the area to the rest of the group, and begins to lead the way towards the ruins. She feels a lot of pressure as being the leader as she is just a tiny gnome and has a bunch of big, much larger creatures expecting her to lead them safely. Ra’hul is suspicious of the area. Travok drags his feet a bit, disappointed he lost the trail.

Meri rolls an 18 on Perception.

You are still pretty far from the ruins, but you can see that it does appear something is here. The disturbance around the area seems new and fresh. Perhaps the pig is nearby?

Ra’hul takes the lead, moving towards the ruins, he sees a tall circular structure, looking at it more closely it looks like it may have at one time been some kind of watch tower. It rises 20 feet up in the air and stretches 15 feet across in almost a perfect circle. He can make out windows up high, but the rest of the structure is blocked from view by walls that are still tall but have crumbled. The tower is made of large rock blocks and many have fallen out in places.

As Ra’hul sees the ruins he whispers to no one in particular, “Some spooky stuff going on in this forest.”

Ra’hul decides to move into the ruins to scout them out. Mualia follows him but stays a good distance away in case things go south. Ra’hul locates a door and enters stealthy.

The ripe smell of sewage and feces hits Ra’hul’s nose as he moves closer to the door. As you enter the ruins it's very dark you can't really see much, but you do make out some kind of figure in the darkness, you hear smacking noise. It's too dark to see what is making the noise but it sounds like lips or wet meat smacking together.

As soon as he hears the noise, Ra’hul freezes and backs up very slowly, until he has met up with the rest of his adventure crew.

"What did you see?" Meribonk asks when she catches up to him.

"Nothing... But some sounds... I think I saw someone standing there. All I know is I'm not going back there alone, so let's get on this pig," he responds not believing the noise he hear is a pig at all.

Green moves closer to the ruins using her superior darkvision and perception as she believes otherwise.

Green rolls 25 on perception.

Green sees that the area appears to be a resting area, she walks through what seemed like some kind of bed/nest to get to the ruins. As far as she can tell it belongs to some kind of large animal. "Um, guys, something big is around here" she speaks back to the group as she moves to the doorway of the ruins..

Green smells sewage that hits her nose as soon as she is close enough to the ruins. She hears smacking noises and what she is almost sure is a pig’s grunt.

Everyone moves closer.

Green you see in front of you a large troll like pink fleshed beast. it has a deformed face, almost like a snout that juts out from its face, and floppy ears, very large tusks. it seems wrinkled and a bit deformed, its extremely large, about 8 feet maybe 9. it is sitting lazily and seems to be snacking on what you are pretty sure is a deers skull and sucking at the brains. Oddly enough it does seem to be wearing clothing.

Drow whispers to Ra and Meri" back away slowly, thats no little pig"

The animals has a large passive perception and actually heard you whisper, you hear a snort... a grunt... and the smaking stops

“oh shit” Green whispers.

It does not move, it seems to look at you, but doesn't appear to see you.

"No... he's big and strong... Hey, buddy... Good little piggy..." Ra says, pulling some rations from his bag.

Salleek "What's going on in there?" he asks, approaching, but not entering.

Meribonk watches ra, bewildered

Mr Pig snorts and seems to smell the rations, he moves slowly closer

Ra’hul , curious, goes and places the rations over on the far wall of the ruins, on the ground, to see if the pig will follow.

Meribonk hopes this guy speaks common because she no longer thinks her speak to small beasts spell will do much good

Ra’hul speaks as if reading her mind, "I think it speaks food."

Mr pig is standing now, but he is hunched over almost as if he should be on all 4 feet but has started to evolve into a standing form. Mr pig moves towards the rations, sniffs them and then starts to eat them grunting what sounds like... happily

Ra’hul, "Big guy only has his smell... Evan should love him!"

Green looks at the "Pigman" with some confusion, but curiously.

Ra’hul, "All we need to do is make him follow us into town... and find a big shed.” Ra’hul starts to break pieces off of his rations and drop them as he backs away. Sure enough Mr pig follows.slowly, carefully, cautiously.

Ra’hul, "You're welcome, big guy... Say, you wouldn't know a Mr. Piggy, would you?"

Mualia elects to strangle Mr Pig once they are outside the ruins. The Pathseekers roll initiative.

Despite the protest of the group Mualia decides to grapple and attack the Pig like creature. Only rolling an 11 to Mr. Pigs 18 contest.

Mualia moves towards Mr Pig trying to grab him in a chuckhold, the creature panics as soon as she touches him and throws her off, he then proceeds to back away, he can't move quickly due to his bodies deformities, but he is attempting to escape

Travok attempts to catch the pig by grappling figuring it was better to make an attempt to stop it now that it was trying to escape. Travok manages to make the grapple successfully. . Everyone else, stunned but the unplanned assault, was frozen in their tracks unsure of what to do. While Meri tried to talk to the Mr. Pig calmly, when she did not get a response, Mualia decided to reel back and punch the creature as hard as she could in the gut, hoping to knock the creature out. While the blow did land perfectly, the creature was much stronger than anticipated. And broke free of the grapple. Ra’hul upset by the assault pushes Travok and Mualia away from the pig creature so that it can escape.