2023/05/24

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms: Taking care of thineself.

Two months or so had passed since the Kendrick debacle, and things were returning to normal in Five Fingers. Xavier was working on integrating the newly annexed South Shore into Five Fingers so that its residents were adequately represented and provided for. The rest of the party was working on their respective side projects in their off time. This was interrupted however, when Gavin Baskin requested a meeting with the party. Gavin explained that he was concerned about Kita who seemed to be burning herself out working on the new warjack design. Gavin thought that much of the problem was that Kita was smart and more importantly she was aware that she was the only one likely to make any headway in refining the magical actuators that were the base of the new design. Kita seemed to be burning the candle at both ends though Gavin did note that within the past week she seemed to have thrown herself into the problem with reckless abandon. Gavin had tried to get her to slow down though he was brushed off, and he hoped that Kita would listen to the party if not him. The party assured that they would get Kita to take a break, willingly or not, and offered to have Gavin join them on their impromptu camping vacation. Gavin ended up declining, though thanked the party for looking after Kita.

When the party went to obtain Kita, they found her nest in her workspace. Kita was looking rather strung out, with obvious signs of little sleep. Charlotte took one look at Kita and affirmed her decision that Kita was taking a vacation, even if the party had to kidnap her. When the party approached Kita, she tried to put on a veneer of normalcy though it wasn't particularly effective. When the party asked what was wrong, Kita broke down into sobs and explained that in addition to the issues with the warjack, she had received a letter from a village that she had helped during her time acting as Abigail. Apparently the village was having troubles again, some sort of creature was killing people in the woods and it seemed to be beyond the capabilities of the local hunters. Kita lamented that she was unable to help with anything, not the warjack nor the people she promised to help. With that information, Charlotte relocated the destination for their camping trip to the small Khadoran village of Vsevotov, and told Kita that she was coming with them so that they all could solve this problem.

The journey to Vsevotov wasn't particularly difficult, just slightly cumbersome, as the party took a boat to Khador and traveled on foot to the remote village rather than cutting through Ord. Once there the party met with the matron of the village, a Roksana Zaitseva. Roksana told the party further details about the plight of Vsevotov, Something seemed to be hunting in the local woods, and that something seemed intelligent to some extent. When the party asked her to explain, Roksana said that when the village was thinking that it was a regular wild animal they set a trap for it. Whatever was out there specifically declined the trap, instead striking somewhere else later that night. The creature seemed to be mostly active at night, as all sorts of howls, roars and hisses could be heard from the woods at night, these sounds were enough to chill the blood of even the veterans that called Vsevotov home. Finally Roksana passed along the suspicion some of the surviving hunters that tried to track the beast had, which was that it seemed capable of flight, as the tracks seemed to start and stop at random. As the party digested this information, they agreed to try and capture or kill the beast, though told Roksana that if they didn't return Vsevotov should seek help from the Khadoran military.

As the party was preparing for their search in the woods, Roksana suggested checking out some homesteads in the woods that hadn't come to the safety of the village. As that was as good of starting place as any and beat just wandering in the woods waiting for something to attack them, the party said that they'd do that. As the party left Vsevotov and entered the woods, they got the sense that the woods were quieter than usual, as if it detected the presence of a predator and was remaining still as to not be noticed. It wasn't too long before the party reached the first homestead that they were told about. The homestead was abandoned though bore signs of an attack of some sort. The door was broken in, and there were bloodstains inside the house. Nobody was around to question though there were a couple of strange bipedal tracks with what looked like talons leading away from the homestead back into the woods, with trail of blood accompanying them. The party followed the trail as it lead to kill and feasting site for the family that lived in the homestead. The corpses were mostly picked bare by the time that the party came across them, though the party went about looking for any clues that could be found here. Shakes and Xavier were able to notice among the corpses that while many of the limbs were snapped off, there seemed to be signs that some were cut with some sort of blade or extremely sharp talon. Also of note was that there was no excrement at the kill site, which was out of the norms for a beast.

With nothing else to find at the kill site the party started making their way to the second homestead. The second homestead had also been attacked, though it seemed more recent than the first. As the party was looking around. Xavier noticed that there was a hole that in the building that seemed to have come from a large arrow or something. Whoever had fired the arrow had attempted to hide the evidence and had positioned firewood to obscure the hole. With that the party began to wonder if this was bandits or the like masquerading as beasts to throw pursuers off the trail. Regardless, night was falling and everything the party was told by Vsevotov was that whatever was out here was more active at night. So the party decided to make camp in the homestead and set up a watch for the night so that nothing would take them by surprise. As the sun set, the noises from the forest began to rise up, roars and hisses and howls that pierced the night. Despite this the party made a simple dinner for themselves and began to settle in for the night. As things were winding down there was the concerning realization that the noises had stopped and that the forest was now eerily quiet. Abe was outside, as he didn't want to potentially take the time to get back into his armor if the need arose and took Notus with him into the woods to investigate, though didn't inform the party of his decision.

In the woods Abe had gotten a fair distance from the homestead before he noticed a humanoid figure in the tree that was observing him. The figure was obviously not human as it had a pair of wings protruding from its back, though it did have a large sword with it. It was at this moment that Abe was hit with a ballista bolt from somewhere in the darkness. Abe told Notus to start firing and began running back to the rest of the party. Unfortunately for Abe his pursuer didn't have to deal with obstacles on the ground and was able to catch up to him and start using that large sword to great effect. Back with the party, they realized that something was wrong when they heard automatic gunfire off in the distance and noticed that Abe and Notus were missing. The party then ran into the woods looking for their companions before something terrible happened to them. The party found Abe as he was finishing off the creature, which in the light of the rest of the party was identified as a dragonspawn. Abe was quick to tell the party that it wasn't alone and to stay on their guard. The warning proved prudent as from the shadows emerged five more dragonspawn, with one of them being particularly large and wielding two swords. The leader dragonspawn opened the fight with a blast of azure flames, leading to a large battle in the woods. Eventually the party was victorious with the dragonspawn trying to retreat from the fight. Only one was able to escape the party for any amount of time, though Abe ran it down and pinned it for Kita to try and discern a motive once it was established that the creatures didn't speak common. Kita started probing its mind and was able to learn that the creatures were abandoned and were hunting for sustenance. With the why figured out, the party came to the conclusion that even the captured dragonspawn needed to be put down as even without its hunting pack it would continue to try and kill people. The party did that and returned to Vsevotov so that they could report that the threat was dealt with.