FLASHBACK:
Barbara gave everyone an austere nod.  "Good points, everyone.  Thank you.

"I would have us aim for the heart of the woods tomorrow.  Even though it is unlikely we will reach the center in just half a day before we should turn back around, chances are we'll have better chances of finding something combing in that direction than any other.

"Should we fail to find a good lead, I will bring up the option of evacuation in a general assembly of the village tomorrow evening."

Burning down the forest will not be mentioned yet.

---

"Keep your eyes peeled for something else attacking the village while we deal with this!" Barbara commands, "Those without fire attacks, keep the Wood Ward busy!"

Driving the hollow man to a pit trap is a good strategy, but she's not liking that so many vulnerable people are within charging distance of the monster.  She moves to take up a protective position, placing herself between the monster and the most exposed, and prepares to interpose herself in the way should the monster move toward any other than herself.

In an attempt to get the monster hostile toward herself, she shouts commandingly, "LOOK HERE, FIEND!  I AM YOUR OPPONENT!"

(( Readying an action:  Will move to cut off the monster if it looks like it will attack someone other than Barbara. ))
This message was last edited by the player at 23:50, Fri 28 Feb 2020.

Caeldrim flings a firebolt at the Hollow Man that strikes for an impressive amount of damage before trying to Hobble the Wood Ward to slow it down, but the Wood Ward resists the Hobble. Caeldrim then moves in the direction of the pit trap and behind Barbara to ensure that the Hollow Man would have to dash through Barbara to reach him, which would also bring it closer to the pit trap.

OOC: Caeldrim's Action: Firebolt hits for 18 damage (after vulnerablity) Bonus Action: Hobble (Wood Ward makes the save DC) Movement: as per description.

Rocky uses his action to summon a Wildfire spirit in the air 10ft from both the Hollow Man and the Wood Ward without the flames produced by its summoning harming the villagers or the nearby building. Both the Hollow Man and the Wood Ward are struck by those flames and are severely burned, with the Wood Ward actually collapsing into a pile of ash as Rocky says, "Oops, didn't mean for that to happen. I'll help replace it after whatever summoned the Hollow Man is dealt with."

Rocky then has the Wildfire fling a Flame Seed which hits the Hollow Man causing it to produce another loud moan of anguish and anger as the Wildfire Spirit moves next to the Hollow Man with its arms outstretched while Rocky moves adjacent to Caeldrim.

OOC: Rocky's Action: Summon the Wildfire Spirit with a usage of Wild Shape. Both the Hollow Man and the Wood Ward fail their saves which results in 32 fire damage to the Hollow Man and 28 fire damage to the Wood Ward (after vulnerabilities) which drops the Wood ward. Bonus Action: Command Wildfire Spirit to use FLame Seed which hits the Hollow Man for 14 fire damage (after vulnerability) Movement: as per description for both Rocky and the Wildfire Spirit. The Hollow Man is now down to 12 of 76 hit points due to all the fire damage (60 points after vulnerability to fire) that Caeldrim and Rocky+Wildfire Spirit have done to the Hollow Man. Honestly, I didn't expect the Hollow man to botch the save on the summoning fire attack with an advantage on the Save DC rolls getting 9 and 4, and the wood ward managed to roll a 1!... 6 more fire damage dealt to the Hollow Man prior to the vulnerability and he goes down... (Which is very doable as Joe using an Alchemical Torch to attack is 1d4+3 so he actually has a 50% chance to take out the Hollow Man if he hits with an attack. Anf given that he uses TWF like Hunter.... if both hit the Hollow Man is toast no matter what the damage rolls are.

  Joe considers bravely attacking the (nearly dead) monster that could probably punch his head clean off.  Yes, he considers bravely attacking like women and children (sized men) already have in dramatic melee.

  Joe, alas. Can be a huge baby coward sometimes.

  So he cowardly throws his own torches from a safe distance, like a fiery game of lawn darts.  Nothing like a bullseye because the bull still in it's pen, and Joe's torches hit TWO eyes (or what passes for them) anyways.

  There is an awkward pause as the Hollow man turns it's impaled face towards Joe, then topples over into the pit.

  "Captain Killsteal is not a nickname I need, but is probably the one I'll get at this rate."

  OOC: "...Oh that's right you can throw with dual wielding so long as it's a light weapon in this edition" and the rest, is Hit/Miss/Exactly enough damage as needed history. 

Amalar hurls another fire bolt at the downed enemy, just to be sure. "Horrible horrible monster..."

Hunter looks at the downed monster and says, "...that it? I was kind of expecting more from a monster that had a rhym to go with it. Guess they REALLY meant it about the burning."

Mix secretly shapeshifts back into the human girl he'd been disguised as since coming to town. "On the bright side, Pyrus, you still get to see it burn. Even if it wasn't us who burned it."

Barbara was keeping to herself her thoughts that the taboo against destroying an animated Wood Ward that could kill you was insane.  Never know what might set off a panicked people.  You killed the thing that was trying to kill us!  You monster!  So the druid burning it to a crisp with a promise to build a new one in its place was a relief.

And then The Hollow Man is taken out before it could even get off a single attack!  Pyrus cheers and Barbara busts out laughing!

"Oh I dunno.  Most horrible monsters will fall when firebolted, blasted, branded, and had two torches thrown into its eyes.  Still, I'm very happy that nobody got hurt.  Good work, everyone!"

To Joe she smiles and says, "Captain?  Looking for military rank?  I'm sure you haven't anything to worry about.  We all contributed."

Barbara puts a hand on Amalar's shoulder.  "Good thinking."

To everyone she orders, "Stay sharp!"

Nevertheless, she sings a victory hymn.

Pyrus grins and nods to Mix, then goes to each of the heroes to shake their hands.  "That was amazing!"

It isn't long before the fire on the remains of the Hollow Man burn out with its weapon oddly undamaged, which is when Rocky lends Caeldrim his rope so the Alchemist can enter the pit and retrieve the two Alchemical torches and the Hollow Man's two-handed sickle. After putting out the Alchemical torches the Elven Alchemist uses the rope to bring the torches and the weapon up to the rest of the party. The weapon is obviously made of ancient wood, bleached and smoothed by time and is moderately heavy at 10 pounds and is a two-handed weapon.

Caeldrim says, “Since we aren't pressed for time at the moment, I'll perform an Identify ritual to figure out why this weapon didn't burn with the rest of the Hollow Man.”

After performing the ritual which takes a few minutes, Caeldrim says, “This Harvester Sickle is a magical War Sickle polearm It has a few features that can be utilized without attunement such as creating a glowing halo of light above a target even if the attack misses. That light follows the target even if the creature becomes invisible. Also, anything struck by the War Sickle is hobbled for a short time. With attunement, the wielder can use the tree stride and Find the Path spells once per day. Also, any wooden construct wielding the weapon is completely repaired at midnight...so if the Hollow Man had escaped, it could try again tomorrow and the next day and so forth. Good thing we didn't let it escape. So does anyone want to use this thing? Although with how heavy it is I doubt Hunter would like it much”

Rock shrugs as he says, "Not my style of weapon, but the Hollow Man isn't some wild animal... it had to come from someplace so now we have a clue on where to look. We should be able to follow its trail which should lead us to whatever it came from to see if we can determine what is behind all this."

OOC: The Harvester Sickle is a +1 War Sickle is a polearm that has the Reach (5ft), Deadly (reroll a single damage die if it rolls a 1 and must accept that second roll), High-Critical (On a critical hit from a natural roll of a 20 any final damage die that is a 1 is instead treated as a 2), Two-handed, and Heavy properties and it can do either Slashing or Piercing damage. Its attacks do 2d4+1 damage before the wielder's Strength modifier. It also has the Marking and the stronger Hobbling quirks Also if you attune to it you can use Tree Stride and Find the Path once a day without any components. Does anyone want to take this magical polearm?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:30, Sat 07 Mar 2020.

  It's Legend of Grimrock 2 all over again, right down to 'ooh look at this high crit scythe... that your frontliners are not built for'.

  "I mean, weapons are usually more durable than people and constructs Caeldrim, even the ones that are not magic. That's what they are for." Man, can you imagine the implications of 'no fair your wooden item didn't catch fire!' if you asked it to casters using flame bolt or fireball with their wands and staffs?

OOC: Weapon chat reminds me, did Barbara ever confirm their Fighting Style on level 2 level up?  It was gonna be Duelimg (+2 DMG when wielding a one hander and no other weapons) because that's the most helpful one for a shield user even beyond the shield gimmick style.  Hobble is some pure strain homebrew bull**** though. It's why Seth promised to never use it on the party-wait.... Well, good thing it didn't get the chance to stab us then.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:34, Sun 08 Mar 2020.

Hunter looks the weapon over and says, "Neat sickle, but Caeldrim is quite right. Heavy weapons isn't my style. Barbara, maybe, if she wasn't a sword-and-shield kind of gal. But those magical properties are useful to *all* of us, so we could have the kids hold onto it."

Mix goes to try and hold the weapon and says, "Good grief this is heavy... I'd ask why people bother with something so unwieldy, but that monster was really big." It looks kinda silly for a little girl to be holding such a big weapon. She then passes it to Pyrus to try holding it.

When Barbara puts a hand on Amalar's shoulder, Amalar puts her hand on Barbara's hand. "The people of the town should make the best use of the slaughtered animals."

She figures it obvious she won't be using the sickle. She looks at Joe and says, "The kind of durability you're talking about is swinging them around and hitting things, which is entirely different. Weapons are not designed to sit in a blazing fire for several minutes."

She brightens up as Rocky's words sink in. "Oh finally! So should we get on that right away before whoever it is figures out his monster isn't coming home?"

Caeldrim shrugs and says, “Well even if none of us are going to use the weapon we might as well hold onto it, for now, might find someone we can trade with to get something we can actually use. No sense leaving it here for someone to just walk off with.”

Rocky nods to Amalar and points in the general direction that the Hollow Man came from, as the group comes across the freshly mangled corpse of a magpie. From the wounds on it, it seems the Hollow Man killed the bird, which would only have occurred if the bird got in its way and attacked the Hollow Man, which meant that the magpie was enraged like the bull... this indicates that whatever controlled the Hollow Man can't properly control the enraged animals all the time. From that spot, it isn't hard for Joe and Hunter to find a trail of similarly mangled animals that they can follow at a normal pace. Sadly it seems a lot of the animals in the area had been enraged and were angry enough to even attack the Hollow Man enough for it to kill them on its way to the village.

Pyrus does a decent job of pretending like the heavy weapon doesn't strain him any.  (Because it doesn't according to encumbrance rules.)  And it doesn't take him long to playfully imitate the Hollow Man.

Barbara takes the the weapon from Pyrus and looks it over.  Even as strong as she is, her frown as she hefts it shows that she thinks it too heavy to be very practical.

Even so, she asks of the spellcasters, "Those magic features all sound very useful.  Especially, 'Find the Path.'  Suppose I were to attune to this weapon for that alone and use my sword for real combat, would there be any drawback?

"Though if the hobble and halo features are useful enough, I can give using this in combat a try."

Pyrus' eyes go wide and he asides to Mix, "Now there would be a terrifying sight."

Barbara notes the path of destruction left by the Hollow Man and adds, "Then again.  At this rate maybe there won't be any need for 'Find the Path' at all."

  Joe is still finding it hard to get over the concept of a problem like 'everything wants to kill you!... more than usual!' that would mildly inconvenience his enemies as well.

  "Well, at least now their tiny lives are not entirely a waste, Barbara.  The Hollow man wasn't exactly limping into battle covered in claw and peck marks like the rest of us would have been if attacked by this many animals in one outing."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:14, Wed 18 Mar 2020.

"Too bad none of those animals had fire breath or they woulda kicked the Hollow Man's butt." Hunter points out. "It's a good thing for us it is weak to fire or we probably would have been in for a *very* tough fight as Joe's point shows. Also a good thing this vile plan is backfiring so as to leave a trail even a baby could follow."

Mix nods to Pyrus with a grin and then looks at Barby. "Heehee.. hay Barbara. I wanna see you wield that sickle outside of combat at least once to intimidate a jerk. Wanna see how much of a wet spot forms on their pants."

Amalar looks annoyed as the trail of bodies grows. With her team pointing out how handy this trail is, she sighs a relenting sigh. "I'm sure the Hollow Man would have left a trail easy enough to follow even without our enemy having such reckless disregard for life that they left us a trail out of their incompetence. But I'll take what we can get. However... now that the trail has gotten this obvious, let's quiet down and approach silently. We don't want to be as obvious as our foe, do we?"

While moving stealthfully slows the group makes descent progress along the trail left by the Hollow Man, around 4 hours into the journey the group is alerted to the sounds of an angry Giant Boar which has just turned to face the group after finishing up eating a snake that it either gored or found already dead.

The Giant boar is constantly looking around for something to attack, either to eat or to drive off from what it no doubt views as its territory. It's obvious the creature has been driven mad and will attack and it's glancing around has it noticing the party as it gives produces a load squealing cry of anger and rage.

OOC: Roll initiative, already handled the initiative scores for the Parne, Caeldrim, Rocky, and the Giant Boar. No surprise, mostly because the giant boar is maddened and paranoid right now, so while it wasn't expecting the party to suddenly pop up it wasn't caught off-guard.

Caeldrim starts off with trying to Hobble the Giant Boar and manages to catch the beast in the ethereal trap, slowing the creature down from 40ft/rd to 20ft/rd. The Alchemist then quickly follows up with a Firebolt that strikes the Giant boar.

OOC: The Giant Boar rolled a 1 for resisting Hobble, but is still able to charge and is struck (barely by the roll of a 13 for the firebolt which dealt 6pts of fire damage.)

The Giant Boar charges at the closest party member, which happens to be Barbara and manages to penetrate Barbara's armor dealing significant damage, but failing to knock her prone.

OOC: The Giant Boar managed to pull of a charge to hit Barbara and inflicted 12 damage after H.A.M. reduction but failed to knock Barbara prone.)

Rocky is displeased that Barbara was stuck and retaliates by summoning his Wildfire Spirit 10ft behind the Giant Boar to try to cut off its escape and the initial burst of flame from the spirit's appearance scorches the Giant Boar. Rocky then commands the spirit to use its Flame seed attack on the Giant Boar and it is quite effective at further roasting the giant boar, which now looks rather injured.

OOC: Rocky manages to roast the giant boar as it fails its DC to resist being burned and takes 18 fire damage when the Wildfire spirit is summoned and the Flame Seed attack from said spirit hits for another 5 points of fire damage, leaving the Giant Boar with only 13 hit points left.
It is now Joe's turn followed by Amalar, Hunter, and Barbara. If the Giant Boar survives to Caeldrim's turn, he'll probably use the healer feat's feature to heal Barbara for 1d6+6 hit points on his action, followed by trying to hobble the Giant Boar again.

  Joe's flagrantly metagaming the math past experience tells him if this goes horribly wrong, he will only almost die from his injuries.  So he steps in past Barbara with a swing of a short blade, the boar deflecting it easily with a tusk while Joe thrust his second sword into it's throat.

  His attempt to flee back to safety behind Barbara is interrupted as the Boar remains too stubborn to die, lunging after Joe "Oh **** ... Well, too late to pretend I meant to do that."  Thankfully for Joe, the boar ran face-first into a sword before it ran through his armor.  It definitely looks like it's on its last legs now.

OOC: I was pretty worried at first, but thanks to the Rocky post's paper trail I knew the boar only had 13 HP left.
Action Surge turn: Miss, hit, hit. 6 and 8 DMG = 14.  13-14= -1, but Relentless keeps the Giant Boar in the fight at 1hp (Relentless can't trigger again during this fight).
Since the boar had lived, it hit me with vs 19 AC AoO (So, not even Medium armor mastery would have saved me)... for "Rolled double 1's" minimum damage (5pts total).
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:15, Mon 30 Mar 2020.

Like Rocky, Amalar is displeased by Barby getting hit. She twirls and does an axe-kick that has a flame attached to her foot. Upon slamming her foot to the ground, the fire is loosed, flying just inches above the ground before hitting the boar in the neck's open wound from Joe's attack! It cauterizes the wound, sure, but also burns the inside of the boar enough to finish it off!

Amalar looks ready to keep going since the boar should not have been able to attack Joe after what Joe did.

(17 hits. did 4 dmg, but minimum woulda killed it)

Hunter goes to stab the boar in the same wound, just to make sure. But since it doesn't react, he retracts the blade and says, "I think it's dead..."

Mix is first to rush to Barby and check on her wounds. But Amalar and Hunter corral both Joe and Barby to Cael so they can be healed.

Hunter says, "That's a big boar... we're going to have jerky for quite a while, and I'm pretty sure we can preserve the skin well enough. But all that will take hours. For now, let's hang it up in a tree, smoke it, and keep going."

He gets to setting up the rope for hanging the boar in the tree so as to preserve it for the group for their trip back. Worst case scenario, a scavenger or two might manage to nibble a little. Which is nature's way anyway.

Caeldrim is quick to heal the wounds of both Joe and Barbara, managing to heal all of their injuries with his medical skills and two charges from his Healer's Kit.
Caeldrim then asks, “Well now that everyone is patched up. Do we immediately press on as soon as Hunter finishes hanging the carcass, or do we rest to recover?”

Rocky shrugs and says, "The Wildfire Spirit will remain for an hour, and I can summon him once more without needing to rest. So I'll leave it up to everyone else since I can see benefit to resting and benefit to pressing on ahead immediately."

OOC: Managed to roll well for recovering health, easily healed Joe's wounds with a result of a 10, and managed to heal all of Barbara's injuries with a maximum roll of 12! Neither Joe or Barbara can benefit from Caeldrim's Healer's feat in this manner again until they take either a short or long rest. Caeldrim has 6 more charges in this Healer's Kit. Although a second healer's kit is on Donny's Wagon back in the village. Also, remember that Joe did use his Action surge and Rocky used a Wildshape charge, Rocky has one more charge remaining atm. Both of these abilities will be recovered on a short rest.

Over 200 lbs of angry boar barreling toward you at top speed.  The sensible thing is to jump out of the way.  But Barbara knew that if she did, Caeldrim would be the animal's first target.  So she yelled a challenge to the beast and leaned far forward to brace for the impact, sword raised to hopefully skewer the boar with it's own momentum.

WHAM!  It hits above center, slamming the top of her shield into her face guard, denting them both!  The force of the blow is enough to break her nose, crack a few vertebra, dislocate her ankle, and dig a trench into the ground with her foot!  Barbara's sword was shrugged aside like a butter knife, but the team takes out the boar so fast the paladin doesn't even get a swing in!

Pushing through the pain, the proud princess stands back up on her one good foot, though she's not so proud as to refuse Mix's offered help.  "Well fought, my friends!

"Thank you, Caeldrim.  I really needed that."

When she takes off her helmet, the group can see the blood staining the bottom of her face.  "I'd like to wash this up and give proper thanks to the gods for victory.  I doubt our quarry will elude us for taking a sensible breather to collect ourselves while Hunter cleans the carcass."

During the fight, Pyrus cheered on all the fire being flung about.  (Joe's stabbing was cool too.)  He's quick to lend a hand helping Hunter with starting a fire.

"Hot dang, you all are amazing!"

Seeing all the blood all over Barbara's face wipes the smile from his face, though.  Kinda took it for granted that since she wasn't hit with the tusk and stood strong she was OK.

"Yikes," he mutters, "And to think she boasts that her royal parents are tougher than she is..."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:32, Thu 02 Apr 2020.

  Not exactly what Joe's background feature for free forage per day means, but more snacks are always welcome outside of civilization.  Even if the effort to get them is not always welcome.

  "Thanks Caeldrim.  Given how quickly things go from fine to horrible, keeping everyone as health as possible between brawls is appreciated."  Joe is well aware how easily he could have ended up even worse off than Barbara, though that wouldn't exactly be much comfort for the paladin.

Amalar makes a few pretty hand gestures before ending them with the heart-sign! Barbara feels the magics of prestidigitation clean her face. It feels like refreshing water that immediately dries behind itself. "Thank you for the affirmation, Barby."

She will leave the casting of Mending on Barby's armor to her brother Caeldrim, since he has that spell and Amalar does not. "I vote for resting. There is no need to overly exhaust ourselves. If this villain is like most, he will continue to feel over confident."

Amalar smiles at Pyrus, bends down, tweaks his nose a little and says, "Sweetheart, Barbara is responsible and mature. So taking a hit, while still painful, is less painful to her than watching you or I take a hit. We all are willing to give of our time and risk our well-being so that others do not have to. That is how the heart of a hero works. Even if her parents are physically tougher, I can say with confidence they would brag that on the inside, she is every bit as tough as they are."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:05, Sat 04 Apr 2020.

Hunter nods to Barby for her commendation! "Thanks!"

Hunter ponders what Amalar said about the enemy. "Amalar has a point. If anything, the bad guy might gain more confidence if we don't show up quickly. He will believe we are back in town licking our wounds."

He does what he can to make the boar usable while making it not an attraction for predatory animals.

Mix hugs Barbara and asks, "I can't become a paladin quick enough. I wish I could have helped you so you didn't have to get hurt."