Zoom 2022-04-12 21:00

To cut a long story short, the party finds the scent of an (alpha) blink dog, and the cloven-hoof prints of a large, heavy, two-footed creature - about two hundred yards from the abduction sites of both the youth and the cat. (And yes, this did involve Joshua doing some blink dog impersonations.) We surmise that a blink dog snatched their victim with their 'bite & blink' attack, taking them back to the two footed creature who would then have used a blink/dim-door/untrapped teleport to escape. We assume that the youth was abducted in a 'trial run' - as he was taken the day before the cat.
We experiment with putting a familiar in our box: Communication is indeed cut off, and we discover that there is a stasis effect inside the box when it is closed.
We tell Coincounter of our conclusions that evening, and he directs us (by a message delivered the next morning) to a house just outside the Warrens.
So the party duly traipse off to the house the next morning - a moderately nice, detached house with a garden, and with doorways large enough to comfortably fit Umar. Brokev detects something of the Wild from inside the house. Nevertheless, we knock on the door and after dealing with a rather snooty doorman/minder, we are invited inside and meet a female Ogre called Opik. We manage not to start a fight, and Opik tells us (well, mainly Umar) what she knows about blink dogs and their 'handlers'. (She appears to be being housed here by Coincounter, and considers this part of her 'payment'.)
* We appear to be dealing with a 'Hound Handler' (HH) and his hounds.
* An HH is a large Satyr-like being - though of Ogre-sized height. They can also 'blink', and can use 'change appearance' to alter their appearance somewhat - like an Ogre Mage. (This may be a hint to expect some magic from them!) They are (or were) loyal to the Wild.
* An HH will control a pack of between 16 and 24 blink dogs.
* There will be an alpha dog heading the pack - able to blink away with a victim on any successful bit attack. He can be 'hard to spot' - ie not invisible, but you won't see him unless you are looking for him.
* Opik confirms our 'hit-and-blink' theory - the blink dog would have taken the victim back to the HH, and then the HH would have taken them all away. The boy will almost certainly be dead.
* Opik says that cutting the totem off from its master is something different - it is difficult to break the link So either the HH took them immediately to a different plane/dimension etc, or took them to a place that could quickly be closed (eg a rope trick.)  [Note: We had been told that the cat is able to use 'remote recall' to go latent - so something must be stopping that as well.]
* If the pack is still around (and if so, why?) then they will need feeding. So she suggests we check the local farmers for missing stock.
* A large pack of blink dogs with an HH will act far more intelligently than smaller packs/individuals - we are likely to be severely outclassed in a straight fight. ("Torn to shreds" was the phrase she used.)
* If we must fight them, she suggests that we try to take out the HH as quickly as possible - the alpha dog won't be able to hold a pack that large together and it will fragment.