Samantha got Kevin in contact with Seattle Parks and Recreation, arranged to have a conservation officer meet with him on-site.

The drive down along SW Seahurst drive was cool, belying the heat of late summer.  Burien--a suburb of Seattle--was a growing arts center for Seattle, that still maintained a "small town" feel.

The end-point of SW Seahurst Drive was a roundabout with a lot of parking, an open area with a grey wooden public house for washroom nearby.  Before him was a long stretch of beach.  The seagulls circled and cried overhead, occasionally dipping down towards the surface of Puget Sound, raucous and focused.

The beach is in the midsty of a restoration to a more natural state, the biggest part of which is removing a 35-year-old seawall and replacing it with a sloping beach. SO, there were areas of construction evident, but today, there was nothing going on.

To the East, there was a salmon hatchery and the Marine Technology Lab, operated by several local school districts as an educational facility. Signs had been erected warning everyone to be careful as there had been an increasing number of wildlife attacks in the area.

George Papados, the conservation officer sat on the tailgate of the Seattle City Works truck, eating a homemade sandwich and nursing a thermos of something hot and salty.

So... How do you wanna approach this?  I've got plans, but wanna have George give you whatever you might want or need before whatever happens happens and you can go do the hero thing!
This message was last edited by the player at 05:44, Tue 10 May 2022.

Kevin showed up dressed more appropriate for today’s outing disguised as someone just going out for a run/hike in the woods: gray hoodie, black shorts, and gray tennis shoes. If the perpetrator was sentient, it might lure them out thinking Kevin was just another runner. The martial artist walked up to tue ranger and waved. “You must be Ranger Papados. I’m Kevin. Mind giving me a more detailed report of what’s going on in the woods and what animals have been affected? Don’t want to go in blind ya know?”

Papados nodded and shook Kevin's hand. "Over a hundred acres here. " he started, after a little bit." "Small coyote population, but that's to be expected.  Mostly, it's small fry... some eagles, the occasional cougar, that kind of thing.   But we've had six coyote attacks in the past three weeks.  That's way more than usual.  Two or three, we can blame people feeding the widllife and them getting a little too familiar.  But this..

"The real problem, and we're not talking to the press about this, is that the homeless problem in the area is huge.  We know that there are maybe sixty or seventy people who sleep in the park.  Put two and two together and there's trouble.   We can oust them and move them along, but any concentrated move will get the city more attention than it wants.  Most of these guys, they don't sleep near the public paths, so out of sight out of mind, y'know? 

But last week, two transients were taken to the hospital with snake-bites.  Venemous.   We haven't had a report of the Pacific Northwest Rattlesnake in almost forty years. So, yeah.  I'd say, we appreciate you coming.  I mean, I kinda doubt it's anything up your alley, but, really--"

In the distance, there was the sudden crack of a gunshot.

Most of the public along the seawall didn't seem at all concerned.  If thry'd heard it, it hadn't registered as important.   But Papadons' head snapped up, his eyes scanning the tree-line, then the beach.  Punchign Bag could see that Papados had had military training and he'd gone into battleground assessment mode.

Two more cracks, then a short pause and a second.  "Hunters?"  Papados said, but his tone wasn't convinced.

He jumped off the tailgate and went to the cab of the pickup truck, to call it in....

Kevin knew that those gunshots might have been directed at somebody other than wildlife. He needed to get to the source fast to prevent possible casualties. His unnatural speed got him to the general area of the woods in seconds as he looked around for the source of the gunfire or possible victims.

20:32, Today: Punching Bag rolled 16 using 1d20+14.  Stealth.
20:32, Today: Punching Bag rolled 29 using 1d20+14.  Perception .

Kevin moved quickly and quietly, but even so, it was across dirt and wood-chip trails.  He got in the ballpark of the location of the shots, which put him near the mouth of a little stream that fed into the bay.

Luckily, they were on the south side, so were away from the fish hatchery.  But it did put them less than half a mile from the nearest civilian community.

When he stopped, he found himself in a heavily wooded portion of the trails, with a steep rock outcropping overgrown with mulch and undergrowth.   It was a humid enough day that the area teemed with insect life and smaller fauna, like squirrels, etc.  The wildlife seemed mostly unperturbed, though they kept their distance from Kevins arrival.

Kevin stopped in a bend in one of the larger trails.  It led up to a small plateau where the southern stream flowed out from a small cave.  There were three men, two of them in mild hiking gear, the other in full desert tactical commando gear--definitely out of place in the forest.

The desert commando had an assault-style rifle up and he held it close to his face, butt solid against his shoulder, and his eyes swept the plateau roughly fifty feet beyond them.

One of the hikers was down on the ground, clutching his leg.  His long brown hair hiding his face, but he was breathing heavy, obviously trying to bite back the pain. which looks as if it had been mauled or had the flesh scored or stripped off.  There was a lot of blood!
You can roll Treatment vs TN(10) if you want to assess the damage to the hiker.

The other hiker--a younger woman with blond hair tied back in a loose pony-tail.  She wore tights ad a sports bra, having apparently takin off her shirt and wrapped it around the first hiker's leg.

She looked up as Kevin arrived on-scene and   "It came out of nowhere!"  she said.  The stories are true, it's... I don't even know what it was!"

Desert Commando guy looked back, swinging the rifle sight towards Kevin. then back to the ridge-line he'd been scanning.  "I'm pretty sure I got it.  But if it's just winged, it's gonna be pissed.  I didn't think there were bears that big here.  I mean, Jesus! And did you see it's eyes?  What bear has glowing eyes?"

Kevin held up his hands when the commando leveled his rifle at him then lowered when he swung back toward the ridge. He quickly moved up next to the injured hiker. The guy’s leg was a mess and he was no doctor, but luckily he had one on speed dial. PB pulled out his phone and FaceTimed Stitches. When Stitches answered, Kevin quickly explained the situation before handing the phone to the woman. Hey Stitches! No time to explain, but we got a man with his leg hurt really bad. I need you to walk this lady through taking care of this guy before he loses more blood. I have to go find the creature that did this before there’s more trouble.”

He went to the commando. “Which way did it go? Was it bleeding after you shot it?”

Stitches face quickly turned to a frown as Kevin relayed some of the situation. He looked at the lady holding the phone and put on his best bed side manner. “It’s going to be alright ma’am. I’m Dr. Giovani. Please stay calm and show me the wound, so I can see what the damage is. Then I will tell you what to do next.”

Forgot that Stitches has skill mastery: treatment which makes his check automatically 25
This message was last edited by the player at 23:32, Sat 28 May 2022.

Nicely worked out.  Good use of the NPC suppotr.

While Stitches worked through the phone, the commando nodded tersely.  "I put three rounds into it.  Nearly point-blank.    It came out of the cave where the stream comes out.  Nothing that big shoulda been in there... "

At that point Ranger Papados arrived on-scene.   He went immediately to the downed hiker.  "What was it?"

Commando-Guy was still agitated, hopped up.  "Bear.  A black bear.  Big.  It, like, exploded out at us.  Took Mike down like he was ...  Hey, Mikey.  How you doing, man?"

The hiker on the ground looked up, ashen-faced and wide-eyed, but he gave a thumbs' up.

Commando-guy nodded and swallowed.  "Seriously, dude,"  he said to Kevin, "You can't go up there alone.  That's suicide.  We should--eugh!"

Commando-guy swatted something--an insect, a spider, perhaps a bit of foliage--from the sights of his rifle, and then brushed something else off of his arm, with the sort of frantic paranoia usually relegated to unexpected tactile sensations...

After a moment, he shook his head.  "We should burn it out.  It's the only way to be sure."

This message was last edited by the GM at 20:21, Sun 05 June 2022.

PB grabbed a fist sized rock and held it out in front of the commando and squeezed. The rocker practically turned to powder as he crushed it in his hand. “Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than I look.”He zipped up to the top of the ridge with his super speed and looked around to see if there was some strange bear creature lurking around. “Here Teddy! Here Teddy Bear! I got some Scooby snacks for you. Come out come out wherever you are.”With the info of the bear latching onto the man’s leg, PB widened his feet apart and went into a wrestler’s stance as he waited for the ambush.

Another thirty feet up on a small rise, from whence the water flowed merrily along.  The lack of rain in recent days made the stream a little drier than usual and Punching Bag could see where the stream edges had been.

True to the commando-guy's word, there was a cave that was the source of the stream.   But the cave was only a couple of feet wide, and maybe four and a half feet tall at best, before the two sides of the rock came together forming a seam that went up another ten or twelve feet.  Kevin could see the edges of the grassy top, just above.

The cave was large enough for a child to get in. But a grown man--let alone a bear... well, it was unlikely.  Perhaps the commando-guy was over-exaggerating.  Witness recollection was often unreliable.  And he didn't seem particularly stable, flying off the handle the way he did for that spider or insect.  But, then, his friend did have a messily abraded leg.  So, something had obviously happened.

As Kevin took his stance, two gold-fire eyes seemed to light up inside the cave, and he actually felt a cool regard.

It was then that Kevin also took in other elements of the scene.   Skeletal remains.  A rather lot of them.  Not human, but some of them were pretty big.  Maybe a couple of dogs?  They were scattered around the edges of the cave, but they all looked as if they had been there for ages picked clean and left to dry in the summer air.  Yet, there was no stench of decay.

A slow hiss echoed from the cave, filling out to a low growl.

A warning, then.

Punching Bag realized that this was a den. Maybe the hiker had inadvertently come too close or peeked inside. Any animal would have reacted with hostility. The problem this time was that the animal was seriously hurting people. Maybe he could try to subdue it without hurting people? The scientific community would at least be appreciative. The wrestler let out a low growl and approached cautiously keeping his defenses up.

Nar the forefront of the cave, a small black tendril emerged snaking it's way between the rocks.  It could have been a snake, but it extended for near twenty feet before Punching Bag could see the far end of it.

It was about as thick as his arm and moved like a snake, sinuous and deliberate. It had oily skin, shiny in the sunlight. It moved cave-right (so, Kevin's left) on an angle, towards the treeline at perhaps half the pace of a walking man.

Then the larger shape inside the cave stepped forward enough that Kevin could differentiate the bulk of the body from the cave itself.

It was down on four limbs and casting it's head back and forth, as if scenting the air.   Then the eyes--still bright in the cave darkness--tilted on an angle.  It growled.

And in approaching, to within a good thirty feet, it struck Kevin that the growl the thing issued back was an exact mimic'd copy of his own growl.

"Sweet Jesus! Get away! Run!" The Commando-Guy shouted from the cave.

--
And if Kevin were confused as to why Commando-Guy was shouting from the cave, he should be.  Commando-guy was a good fifty feet south and downhill from where Kevin is.

We are so close to throwing down (if that's where it's going to go, anyway.  no obligation).  I'm just looking for a trigger.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 00:32, Sat 18 June 2022.

Punching Bag could tell this bear thing was acting almost like a parrot being able to mimic speech patterns it has heard. Whether it was sentient enough to be able to accurately express what it wanted via these vocalizations was still to be seen. The giant tendril thing seemed big enough to swallow multiple people and was trying to escape to the tree line. He couldn’t let that happen. Since it seemed he had the bear’s attention, he decided to wrestle the tendril with one hand and the bear with the other. Tendril first though. His hand shot with blurring speed to smash the head of the creature against a rock while grabbing ahold in the same motion.

14:42, Today: Punching Bag rolled 16 using 1d20+8.  Punch/fast grab tendril.

If he hits, 27 Toughness check from hit then 22 strength or Dodge check against Punching Bag from Fast Grab with a -5 penalty from Improved Hold to avoid the grab. PB is not considered hindered while grabbing due to Improved Grab. He is in the Wrestling Stance currently.