Mix doesn't know whether Parne didn't notice or is simply jaded. She just thinks a talking winged cat is cute and wonderful. Then Pyrus gives positive commentary on Mix's ability to change with graceful ease and she smiles at him. "Thanks."

Mix doesn't stop Pyrus from going to ask Barby the question he was gonna ask.

Hunter seems indifferent to Parne acting like the answer was obvious. He's just happy to be able to freely speak with Parne in the first place and smiles. He then looks at Rocky, "I don't have earplugs, but I do have some cotton, which can easily serve as earplugs. If you want it, I'll dig it out."

When he spots Cael and Amalar approaching, he watches expectantly.

Amalar decides to not think too much about what might happen and focuses on how to prevent it. Seeing the rest of the group up ahead and seeing Hunter waving, she waves back. "We need a plan, but it feels like our only choice is to search without much clue. However, the noise has only driven some animals mad and only some of the time. Maybe Rocky will be able to speak with some birds and learn if the madness is more prevalent in a particular part of the woods."

Barbara listens to Pyrus' question, nods to him, and listens to the others.

This is my talking cat.  But he's taken a vow to only speak when absolutely needed.

That and chipmunks unable to get a date sounds like something the court jester would have come up with, so Barbara can't help but smile ever so slightly.

Upon hearing the answer to the question of why Donny didn't complain about the noise yet, Barbara simply turns a glance to Pyrus as if to tell him, "Well there's your answer."

To Hunter, "I'm sure cotton will work just fine."

To Amalar, "The plan is that we pick up and follow Karda's trail.  When we find her, we return her home, then follow whatever animal tracks were near the body."

Though her statement is only technically accurate to her expectations, she deliberately avoided saying, "When we find her corpse," in order to avoid discouraging the team.

Pyrus returns to Mix, looking relieved.  "Convenient when awkward questions don't need to be asked after all."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:02, Fri 01 Nov 2019.

Rocky nods and says to Hunter, "Cotton should work and wouldn't harm Donny's ears so let's try that."

Rocky then turns to Amalar and says, "We can try that although if they are affected by the voice they might attack us."

Rocky shares Barbara's sentiment that Karda is probably already dead, but isn't giving up hope that she might still be alive but keeps silent regarding that topic.

Upon Being offered the cotton, Rocky explains the situation to Donny and then places cotton in the donkey's ears and uses a strip of cord wrapped around the donkey's head like a headband to hold the cotton in place so the pieces don't fall out when the donkey moves.

Caeldrim says, “Since there is little else we can do in town right now shall we begin searching for Karda?”

OOC: There is no need for the narrator to post right now.

  Joe expects the cat at least will be fine by embracing 'I'm a cat, I'll ignore you if I want to' stereotypes that prove to be working so far.  But it is good to take extra precautions where plot devices are concerned.

  "Might as well get started, now that we've covered all the 'oh, by the way' bases with the locals."

Mix nods to Pyrus and gently elbows him with a smile.

Hunter says, "I'll get on Karda's trail, then."

He gets to it! ...and is going to need the fact Cael and Joe are ALSO trained in survival. >.< (Rolled a 2. +4 from skill bonus for a 6 total.)

Amalar just follows. Tracking is not her thing at all.

Same with Mix, honestly. Mix says, "I sure hope Karda's still alive..."

"I'll be at the ready for ambushes."

True to her word, Barbara draws her javelin, ready to skewer whatever hostile surprises should happen along the way, and follows those working on tracking.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, Mix."

Pyrus follows along and offers Mix an assuring side-hug.  But he too is on high alert.

Caeldrim seems to have more luck than Hunter as he is easily able to find Karda's track from the village and leads the group deeper into the woods. Caeldrim explains to the group, “There are also tracks of a pig that Karda seems to have followed... I suspect the animal ran off because of the sounds which have made animals aggressive..”

Caeldrim then stops the group after around an hour of following the tracks as he points to a large beech tree where a girl's body can be seen. “It looks like she's been dead since last night, but what would have stung her to death like this?” It is obvious that she has been stung to death. Both Joe and Rocky spot a beehive that hangs 15ft up in the branches.

Rocky points out the branch with the beehive on it and says, "I suspect those bees are what stung her to death. But why would they swarm and attack a human girl?"

Caeldrim frowns as he realizes that bees normally do not swarm and attack unless they are provoked and there is no way Karda would have provoked the bees,  “Normally bees wouldn't do that. We must be careful as that beehive must be affected by the sounds and will be aggressive if we approach. Lest we suffer the same fate.”

OOC: Now that the party has found Karda's body, what will the group do... currently the party is approximately 40ft from the tree and Karda's corpse.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 19:39, Mon 09 Dec 2019.

  Well, the GOOD news is she has clearly been like this before the party even arrived at the village, so in the clear!  The bad news is she is dead.  The awkward news is 'oh and we still didn't find the pig'.  Only one of these things should be mentioned out loud.

  "You know, while it also wouldn't fit the 'natural' state of bees?  This really, really feels like the bees are laying bait for concerned citizens."

Amalar gets a sad look and says, "Most natural creatures have been acting unnatural thanks to that crazy sound. And it must be worse closer to the sound. Poor Karda..."

Amalar does that almost dwarven-looking dance with a stomp and spreading her stance to be grounded before raising her arms and the ground below Karda rises at a tilt to roll the body five feet away from the bees. She then repeats to continue rolling the body towards the party, but is careful to watch the bees. If it looks like they are agitated by the body moving, she will pause for a bit to let them calm down. If they attack, well, she is ready for combat.

Hunter is with Joe on the "well at least we know we *couldn't* have gotten to her in time" as that would have really torn at him. As it stands, though, whoever is causing this is already guilty of murder and now make that two counts of murder that include a child. His face hardens as he gets a steely expression. He looks around, in case the bees are a distraction from some ambush.*

Mix tries to put on a brave face. The idea you could DIE from a swarm of bees had never occurred to her.

*Perception roll total: 16

From GM: Hunter notices that while there are other animal tracks in the area, nothing appears to be waiting to attack... in fact most of the tracks look to hurry away from the tree... as it seems the bees are aggressively territorial and not just towards humans.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:59, Tue 10 Dec 2019.

Barbara idly wonders if this is "the worst" that she was warning Mix about.  Not likely.  Could have been much worse.  Like the corpse standing up and attacking.  Because she was stung by zomBEEs.  She's ready to intercept the corpse should it attack.

"It seems strange to find her corpse so close to a tree with a bee hive in it.  Like she was already mortally wounded when they attacked.  Otherwise, she would have run and died a long distance from the hive.  Unless these bees have been infused with such powerful poison that it kills instantly, I suspect there's more to this than just an aggressive hive of bees."*

Pyrus is disappointed that the heroes didn't save the girl.  "We should destroy that hive with a fireball either way.  Clearly too dangerous."

*Ignore this if pointing this out will derail the story.
21:24, Today: Barbara Naur rolled 3 using 1d20 with rolls of 3.

As Amalar starts to use the move earth cantrip to 'roll' Karda's corpse away from the tree, a swarm of angry bees flies at the corpse and within moments it is stung hundreds of times... revealing just how a swarm of normal bees could quickly kill someone in a fashion that can be considered 'death by a thousand cuts' within a matter of moments since while anyone sting might be trivial, hundreds of stings within moments would be fatal for a typical human adult, let alone a child.

As long as the corpse continues to move due to the shifting dirt below it, the bees continue to attack it thinking it is still alive.

As Caeldrim sees the bees swarm Karda's corpse as soon as the shifting earth moves it he says, “Amalar, stop moving the corpse it will only bring the swarm to us. Those bees are obviously hostile to anything that moves and it is clear how they killed the girl, but at least it looks like she was killed quickly so she couldn't have suffered long. Still probably was frightened, confused, and scared when it happened though.”

Caeldrim then glances to Barbara and nods, “I agree that the swarm and its hive need to be destroyed as this is a threat that will kill again if left alone but perhaps when we burn it with fire we don't set the surrounding forest ablaze with it.”

Parne simply stays back as the Leonino knows that he'd be killed by the swarm in seconds if he approached it.

OOC: OOC Parne's just staying back so next up in the initiative order is Amalar, assuming combat is about to begin.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:55, Fri 27 Dec 2019.

Rocky sighs as he observes the swarm of bees relentlessly attack Karda's corpse and says, "I hate to admit it, but I have to agree... this hive of bees are a threat to those in the area. So we have several votes for 'kill it with fire'...I do agree that it would be safer to attack the swarm at range than to try to wade into it and swing a weapon... even if you kill a few bees there are dozens more for each one you managed to kill, and each would be trying to sting you to death."

  "Well, that's a good idea to get her back at least" Is it more or less morbid than dragging the body with a lasso?  Well, certainly the winner in 'easier'-oh...  Well, looks like Nature is doubling down on giving the party cause to declare 'the body was like that when we got there'.

  "I shouldn't be surprised, but I had the nerve to expect any nature unrelated to Rocky and friends to function even slightly reasonably.  While normally 'kill it with fire' would probably be no fuss, I get the feeling we're going to need something a lot bigger than a couple firebolts to avoid 'and then the bees unerringly flew at us with perfect coordination and accuracy, in spite of being tiny bug on fire'"

Amalar nods and says, "Destroying the bees it is."

Amalar does a twirl that looks like a rising flame and forms fire at the tip of her hand before hurling it at the swarm and burning some of the bees!

---

Firebolt v bees. rolled 20 total.
dmg: 4

The Swarm of Bees stop attacking the corpse and flies towards the group but stops short of the group. The swarm is agitated but also seems hesitant to leave its hive unguarded.

  Adventuring leads to some really twisty turny logic.  Running from the bees sounds sane, but wouldn't help anyone.  Stepping closer to the bees sounds insane, but Joe has to do that to smack them with a module specific torch.  To make it more likely people not stuck resorting to burning sticks can finish it off with magic before someone else gets stung to death today.

OOC: Dual wield, hit and miss. 32-7= 25

 "max damage" doesn't sound so impressive when "7, now they still have twice as much HP as the Paladin" is the result. But beats four or less
This message was last edited by the player at 21:17, Sun 29 Dec 2019.

Caeldrim casts a firebolt at the swarm of bees inflicting a moderate amount of fire damage followed up by a hobble cantrip but the swarm resists the effect.

OOC: Action for firebolt, hits and does 7 damage dropping the swarm down to 18 health which is half the maximum so the swarm's damage is now dropped due to half life.
As a bonus action, Caeldrim also casted Hobble, but the swarm resisted with a Dex save of 13

"That's showin' them who's boss!" Pyrus cheers for Amalar and Caeldrim!

Oh wow.  Pessimism guy is killing them with fire too!  The cheer includes Joe too!

Pyrus turns to Mix.  "Is it just me, or is it kinda spooky that Joe's prediction about 'unerringly flying at us with perfect coordination and accuracy,' was perfectly spot on?"

Barbara is all the more convinced that there's something even more unnatural about these bees beyond what she already said.  There's Joe's point about their apparent supernatural coordination, but there's also half remembering something about stinging a person will mean a bee loses it's life in the process, "A willing sacrifice not unlike what royal guards will do for the royal family."  Shouldn't that swarm all be dead just from attacking the girl?  They've been magically augmented!  Which means that if the queen survives, these monster bees will become a problem again and again.

Barbara knows what she must do.  She flips her face mask down, rushes toward the tree, and hurls a javelin perfectly aimed at the point where the bee hive is held to the tree, knocking it down to the ground!

"I'm calling you out, swarm!  Leave my friends alone or your queen dies!"

What?  With all this magic going on, maybe they can understand Common too.  At the least, even normal bees should understand that the noisy beast is the biggest threat to the queen and will go after her instead of Joe.  Either way, Barbara has no intention of letting the queen bee survive.

(( Crit!  XD ))
This message was last edited by the player at 00:45, Mon 30 Dec 2019.

The beehive is destroyed by the javelin strike as it is knocked from the tree and falls to the ground shattering into small pieces and the buzzing swarm gets louder as if agitated. If Barbara's intention was to get the swarm angry at her, she's succeeded.

Hunter scurries up next to Joe to form a wall with him and swings torches at the bees, decimating more of them! "Next time I run across someone who makes fun of people for being afraid of bees, boy will I have a story for them."

Meanwhile, Mix is watching anxiously, a hand on one of Barbara's backup weapons in case she should need it. "Barby..." she only says quietly. Then to Pyrus she nods without taking her eyes off the fight. "Either Joe is an expert on enchanted bees, or there is something else to his prediction, like expecting the worst because the worst is what likes to happen."

---

Twin torch attacks! 22 and 20, both hit.
2d4+3 dmg: rolled 9 total
This message was last edited by the player at 01:03, Mon 30 Dec 2019.

Rocky says, "Joe just applied what he saw among the village animals and applied a worst-case scenario to the bees." The warforged druid then uses a Thorn Whip to strike at the swarm of bees and while the swarm is struck it has very little effect.

Parne just continues to hang back since there is little he can do at the moment.

OOC: While a solid hit with a spell attack roll of 20, rolled a 1 for the damage. The swarm of bees is now down to 8 hit points. And Parne ends his turn as there is little the familiar can safely do.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:07, Mon 30 Dec 2019.

Amalar does another fire dance and hirls fire at the bees, but her attack goes a bit wide. Thankfully, the firebolt doesn't catch anything on fire. Amalar briefly puts her hand on her mouth at having missed, but gets back to battle mentality. She doesn't have a comment on what's going on or being said for the moment.

---

Firebolt! Miss with an 8.