Post
by Sharkforce » Sat Oct 10, 2020 4:49 am
Orlam Rolfsom, Journal Entry # 3: The Wolf Pack and the Six Pack
There is no possible way that all farmers could be this bad at what they do, or we would have all starved before the scourge even began. I swear, I must be cursed to meet the worst farmers in the entire province.
But I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself. A poster in the Grand Bazaar requested the assistance of Adepts at a farm to the south of Throal owned by a fellow named Clem. Surprisingly, several other Adepts were interested as well, mostly inexperienced; Nergae, a Dwarf Beastmaster, Strata, an Obsidiman who calls himself a Gauntlet and seems to punch things a lot, Amhran, a Windling Troubadour, and Taras, a fellow Human who is a Scout. The entire trip, I was thinking to myself "please don't be a pig farmer", and when we arrived I thought we were safe, but it turns out that he was just worse at keeping his pigs from running away than my last employer, although he didn't request our assistance with that at first.
Instead, he needed someone to watch his "farm field" (and I use that term very loosely) overnight to stop whatever was tearing apart his scarecrows. He invited us into his house (sort of) after Taras just walked right in, and it definitely made me appreciate the rations I had brought with me more. He offered us some moonshine that he had made from a "secret family recipe" (I suspect the main ingredient was wood alcohol), which I politely held until the liquid dripped out through the cracks, and then put it down empty. Amhran seemed less wise and gulped down a mouthful, and sent it right back up again immediately and seemed a little woozy for the rest of the day. Taras also drank a couple of mugs full, but seemed to handle it a little better. Either way, it was probably a good thing that we decided to catch a bit of a nap while we waited for night.
I wove us a few Shelters up in the trees around the area, except for Strata who remained below, not trusting the trees to support his weight, and after a while a pack of wolves showed up and started sniffing around. They seemed uncertain about us in the trees, but figured out Strata was not just a rock and attacked him. We quickly defended ourselves and made short work of the wolves, which based on their tracks in the area had been wandering through on a regular basis, and in the morning Clem seemed pretty pleased. And then he sent us out to find his pigs.
Thankfully, they were not angry poisonous pigs which made them a lot easier to deal with; we simply led them around with food and Nergae's Beastmaster abilities. They didn't gore us or charge at us or trample us or bite us, which was a nice change. Of course, nothing ever seems to go smoothly; we got back to Clem's farm and he was lying face down in the field. When we got closer, it became very obvious that he was quite thoroughly dead, as his entrails were spilled out all over the place. Strangely, we couldn't find any indication of what had killed them. I noticed that there was an extra scarecrow around, placed in the small fire pit we had built to provide light in the night, but it didn't seem to be that important at the time. Taras noted that whatever killed him hadn't left because there were no tracks leading away and I immediately decided I should prepare my Wood Skin.
This turned out to be a very wise decision when the scarecrows turned to face us and started walking at us menacingly. In earlier conversation it had come up that Clem had gotten some straw from a passing caravan, and since Clem's competence certainly didn't suggest he could have ever in a million years created a creature from straw deliberately, we figure it was probably tainted (after the fight, we would set it all aflame to be sure it didn't get reused), so I would advise that some effort be made to track down the rest of it. Anyways, the scarecrows were quite poorly made and did not give us too much trouble; a few air armours passed around blunted their attacks quite effectively, and they were not very tough.
Afterwards, with our employer dead, we put everything in a pile and burnt it to make certain it would not be tainted. Amhran wanted to give Clem a decent funeral (she also wanted to bury him, which we weren't going for) so she collected some flowers (I stopped her before she could pick any poison ivy... I don't think she's used to the outdoors at all) and gave a speech, then we collected the hogs and went on our way.
(note: a sharp-eyed observer comparing this entry to those of the other Adepts on this adventure may or may not notice the group also claimed Clem's still. Orlam decided against including that particular piece of information).