AAR [3-4] Bad Beesness (2020-04-05@21:00GMT)

The current version of the Earthdawn West Marches Discord campaign, effective Jan 1, 2020

Moderator:etherial

bronzemountain
Posts:606
Joined:Fri Feb 21, 2020 10:02 pm
Dvarim's Journal

Post by bronzemountain » Mon Apr 06, 2020 2:59 am

Of Horrors and Hives
or Bees of Unusual Size, the Conclusion

The Iceclaw Moot (41.07) had managed to send one caravan out to Throal, but the renewed annoyance of the Blood Bees had made that route dangerous. So much so that they lost several warriors, including one of their heroes.

Norg, Jael, and I returned to help the Trollmoot, along with Vlolkir (who was very excited to be among other Trolls) and Dubhan (with whom I am always excited to travel). We met with Kreb and Fegheush to hear their news and also to remind us of the best route to the suspected hive (42.07).

Upon arriving, I managed to notice that not only were the bees once again hiding in their preferred ambush spot beneath the broken bridge, but there was another group to the north waiting to ambush us. The Trolls of Iceclaw had warned us that a new type of bee had been spotted - one with evil red eyes. And that this variety was particularly dangerous.

Armed with that knowledge, we attempted to draw the bees out of their ambush and into one of our own. They continued to be surprisingly cagey for insects, however, and would not take the bait. And thus, we did things the old fashioned way - with blood and grit and iron.

This time, we were well armed with Kelia's Antidotes and Kelix's Poultices and did not fear their toxic stings the way we had in the past. I am pleased to say that my work forging my armor was also most helpful in repelling their vile exsanguinating stingers.

With this group dispatched, we moved on, swiftly eliminated another small group, and entered the hive itself. It was a warren of dark, twisting caves and blind corners and exploration came with many dangers. Those dangers were, of course, more bees. We fought a holding action in one tunnel before bursting into a larger cavern and eliminating the rest in this group.

But we were in the hive, and we knew well that the bees were without end. A buzzing tide that would batter us over and over until we were dead. We pressed on, and found a barricade beyond which seemed to lie the lair of the Queen. And what a best she was - near 9 feet from mandible to stinger. She, of course, had her court of drones and soldiers.

In proud Dwarven fashion, we established a line at a chokepoint so none of them could pass. We felled the Queen more easily than we thought we would but found that she was not, in fact, the leader of this hive. That honor fell to some sort of twisted, advanced Ghoul. This Ghoul chittered and chattered, presumably instructing its diabolical minions. It, too, was served by lesser beings - regular Ghouls in this case.

It was a protracted and vicious battle and I will admit freely that we all suspected death might find us that day. But we persevered, together, and put an end to this insidious insectile invasion.

Shokunin
Posts:136
Joined:Fri Nov 24, 2017 1:50 pm

Re: LFG [3-4] Bad Beesness (2020-04-05@21:00GMT)

Post by Shokunin » Mon Apr 06, 2020 3:15 am

From a roughly bound stack of loose paper titled 'Vlolkir'

It has been some time since I have been outside. I am now in the fourth circle of my discipline and far stronger than when I began. soon I will journey and see things for which my spirit has been yearning.

I am looking for work around Throal, I have many needs for which silver will go. I hear of a moot in the hills of Throal that is in danger. They send one to tell of trouble they have had with bees. The bees are dangerous, and kill when they try to bring goods to Throal, or bring goods back from Throal. They do not rely on themselves, and it is a shame. But, danger and vicious creatures mean it is a chance for adepts to go and test our mettle.

We go along the trail into the mountains. We see the river and the bridge. I have heard stories of other adepts who fought bees here once. There are bees here again, smith Dvarim points them out. We send Jael the beastmaster to handle them. They are animals, he has power over animals. They do not react. They come forward slightly, and I kill one with my sling. The salt is a good weapon. The bees will not come out, even through Jael tries to bait them. I go down to the river and attack as they come forward. The bees swarm, we fight and kill them. One is strange, it is larger and stronger, and looks red.

We cross the bridge, and fight a small patrol on our way to the hive cave. They are killed swiftly, we are making good use of the salt. Then we reach the cave we were told of, and it is dark. We hear buzzing inside. As we walk in looking for the bee queen we find smaller bees. More of the red ones too. They come at us, crawling from cracks in the walls, surrounding us. I am stung much, but their poison is weak and I am not. We spend too long here, the fight is long and we are injured from many bites and stings.

Deeper in the cave we see a barrier, it takes some time to smash, but it is the only way deeper. We break it and go in, the buzzing is louder. We are swarmed by many bees, but form a line, and fight hard. As we kill, sounds come from deeper. We see one huge bee, I think it is the queen, she is very large, she is nearly Troll sized. As she flies in two ghouls come as well. One ghoul comes up to me as I kill the bee in my face. Dvarim and I bring the ghoul down. The bee queen flies up as another ghoul speaks to it. I do not know what it is saying. It is very strange. I shout the queen down, and Dubhan and Jael kill it. We are lucky they were so quick, the queen looked like a fierce creature. We mop up the rest of the bees and the strange ghoul. It is victory on a day which has been one long fight. I am pleased.

sigfriedmcwild
Posts:335
Joined:Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:59 am

Re: AAR [3-4] Bad Beesness (2020-04-05@21:00GMT)

Post by sigfriedmcwild » Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:01 pm

From "Notes on the world outside the kaers" as penned by Norg

It was time to finish the Blood Bees once and for all, the trolls of the Iceclaw moot had started trading with Throal in the aftermath of our last expeditions, but now the bees had blocked the route again. Dubahn, Dvarim, Jael, and Vlolkir also answered the call.

We decided that some research on the bees would be helpful so we chipped in to get Dubhan in the library, a few our later he came back with some information: apparently the bees are allergic to salt. We all stocked up on salt in various ways and also picked up some antidotes and poultices to deal with the poison.

We set off and reached the Iceclaw moot without problems, where we performed the customary greeting rituals, I have to admit my performance was subpar, but because they hadn't met Vlolkir before they focused their suspicion on him instead. We spend some time exchanging news and they inform us that not only the bees are behaving more intelligently than usual, but a new kind of bee with red eyes has been seen "leading" them. Given the relative proximity to the Cloister of Silence, my mind immediately went to horror influences. The moot also informed us that they lost some people to the bees and asked us to recover the bodies.

We set out the next day towards the nest, at which point I started wondering why we were doing this in the middle of winter. No matter bees and horrors wait for no namegiver! However I wonder if the cold or heights are making people dumber, Vlolkir is apparently following Zil's brand of crazy and also jumping into fires to heal himself but it didn't seem to work anywhere near as "well".

Yet again we found a bee ambush at a bridge, we attempted to bait them out but they wouldn't take, so we just duked it out and had our first encounter with one of the red eyed bees, whose carcass we took to bring back to Throal for examination. As we press on we found the corpse of a troll youth, one of the lost members of the moot, I made a note of the location to pick up it up on the way back and reunite him with his family. Jael on the other hand stripped him of his fernweave armour...

About an hour later we reached the entrance of the hive and entered without hesitation. I've been in my share of caves, but the hive was a new experience: dark, cramped, and claustrophobic, with twisting tunnels and a constant droning in the background drowning most noises. We soon encountered bees and started a slogging fight to get deeper. The red eyed bees were a constant presence in the mix of drones and warriors.

Salt didn't seem to be affecting them much, until one of the bees latched onto me and I punched it straight in the blood sack, which shrivelled and dried out. After what felt like forever we reached a tunnel that had been blocked up. We quickly removed the obstruction to find yet another chamber, but also our prize: in the distance we could see what looked like a much larger Blood Bee, likely the queen.

As the queen and its guard approached us, we also saw two ghouls, confirming my suspicions of horror involvement. Even worse one of the ghouls was unusually large and seemed to be directing the queen! Weary, we formed a line at the choke point and prepared to end this threat for good. It was another slog but eventually Jael managed to tear the queen apart and we mop up the rest.

Aegharan
Posts:439
Joined:Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:58 pm

Re: AAR [3-4] Bad Beesness (2020-04-05@21:00GMT)

Post by Aegharan » Sun Apr 12, 2020 9:19 pm

In the midst of an influx of adventurers submitting journal entries, a young scholar is no less happy to direct Norg, Dubahn, Dvarim and Vlolkir to a scholar for the submittal process. You are awarded 110 Legend Points and 93.8 Silver.

Post Reply