CHAPTER XXII
in which a bug horde hungers and sends the dead to fetch its meal...
Previously (08/21)
The group:
Got some PT in with the Felspar troops.
Stopped by a store of questionable repute for various goods.
Took an airship as close to Equinos as the crew dared to go.
Talked to the only remaining centaurs in the area.
Attempted to reach the pillar and deduce the nature of its corruption.
That Dead and Dying
After Haas and the Glad of War recover from their dream journeys, the group makes back for the village meaning to ask the centaur guards about the beetles they've encountered. However, as they draw near, the see signs of a battle afoot and split up. Haas goes off on her own and helps one of the guards fight off an intruder centaur. During this skirmish, she discovers that the opponent has been dead some time. Eierryn goes deeper into town, while Glad and Ra'jira rush to a building they saw another guard take cover in. The guard is frantic and speaking in a language none of them understand. Somewhere in the town, Krom can be heard banging his shield. When the guard in the room bars another centaur intruder from entering, Glad slides under the guard prepared to take him out with some of Ephrath's stolen fire powder, but gets frozen in fear by a distinct feeling that there's something very unnatural about the enemy. Haas who had caught up and been on the roof with Ra'jira, jumps down and takes the intruder out with her revocation net. She passes on the helpful info that their foes are zombies and that revocation instantly dispatches them.
Glad gives chase after the guard who runs off. Eierryn catches up and warns the group about another guard being pursued by two of the zombie centaurs far off in the distance. Ra'jira points Haas in their direction and she shapeshifts into a bird to catch up. Somehow, Haas doesn't die when she dives on one of the pursuers backs and shifts back into a lizard, though she does have a hard time hanging on. Eierryn tries confusion on the zombies. She switches to kinetic when it fails, but the shockwave that knocks down the zombie also pins Haas underneath him. By this point, Glad and his guard are catching up. He uses kinetic directly on the zombie to lift the zombie up and give Haas room to move, which confirms his theory about suppression like techniques working on corpses without the suppressive side effects. They revoke the current zombie and Elias and Prixus come out of nowhere to revoke the last.
The guards are clearly hysterical, so they leave it to Elias to calm down. Everyone else investigates. Glad finds bug goo in the wounds of the dead, connecting the beetles to the zombie. Tilly learns that her reagent doesn't work on the goo, so she can't determine its makeup. In the end, it's decided that fire is the best way to dispose of a new corpse and prevent zombiefication. When the guards calm down, they confirm that the dead were their buried comrades. Any spirit they still had left deteriorates in the funeral pyre when the face of the last burning dead twists around to smile at the more together guard. The group offers the last two guards a ride away, but they're determined to head west and warn the other villagers despite the poor state that they're in. Glad leaves them with two small explosive vials for the worst case scenario and the Silver Foxes head south.
The Bug Man*
See the Gassy entry in the Bestiary for reference.
At a crossing they passed earlier, the group stumbles upon an accurate depiction of Equinos, which turns out to be an illusion crafted from congealed beetles. Haas and Glad destroy it all with their revocation abilities. The beetles mostly scatter, but a few stay behind. Glad kinetics one of these towards him and keeps it held to the air. To the groups surprise, it responds when glad talks to it. Nearby a mass of beetles gathers in the form of a pale and gaunt looking bald man.
Ignoring Eierryn's protests and constant warnings about sticking around, Glad and Haas took turns interrogating the creature. They learned, among other things, that the Gassy-their bastardization of the beetle's name-was as old as the war, originated in the Ruined, and had similar insect based brothers. Haas reckons she ran into his centipede sibling herself once. Gassy is driven by hunger and came to Equinos a week ago in search of the pillar and its worshipers whom it planned to feast on. Having found Equinos missing, it has claimed the Jhora Plains for itself, filling the vacuum of power, and plans to head further west to feast on the remaining centaurs. It is knowledgeable about many things and belongs to Shul. As such, Gassy seems to respect the Green dragon and holds Mercayen and its followers in contempt. Haas tried and failed to convince Gassy to subside on non-sentient species. When threatened, Gassy boasted that he did not feel pain...a theory that Glad impatiently tested by using revocation to destroy Gassy's proxy.
Eierryn proved right in her worrying when the group discovered that Gassy had summoned a swarm of beetles to surround them while he was being questioned. Glad led the dash towards their drop off point. Explosives and earth scouring lightning bold created an opening while Eierryn kept the beetles from reassembling by using a smashing kinetic force. Ra'jira and Haas busied themselves defending against a flock of corpse birds who pursued them as well. When they passed beyond the bugs, a pack of five zombie wolves waited for them. Glad dropped one with revocation, but suffered major wounds from the remaining four. Ra'jira, Haas, and Eierryn helped draw them back, destroying two more wolves in the process. The remaining two unwisely charged Krom who smashed them with his axes.
The Silver Foxes fled to their pick up point and flared down their airship. Someone spotted a zombie mountain lion in the distance but Glad smote that as well. Once aboard, the crew helped the group fend off the last of the aerial attacks before they finally reached safe airspace. Then they decompressed and made the most of the ships assumedly free amenities.
The Bigger Picture
The party returns to the inn and find Sovelus sitting with Kayleigh, Cadence, Malokai, and two men they don't know introduced as Ezra and Zojak. They don't learn much about Zojak, but they do learn why Ezra couldn't join them. Ezra, a member himself of the First's church, was waylaid trying to leave Kolshalth when he had a run inn with a priest of the First. The priest gave him an odd feeling so Ezra made a commotion that eventually attracted an arbiter. When the arbiter intervened, he discovered that the priest had used suppression on eight children. With the matter resolved, Ezra left the priest to the authorities and continued on their way.
After learning of Ezra's exploits, the SIlver Foxes related their own strange journeys to the Felspar commanders to a muted reception. It was clear to all that the centaurs had urgent need to relocate to new lands, even before Gassy's arrival to the Jhora Plains, and that the encountered evidence confirmed Equinos' absence. However, opinions were split on whether Gassy was a natural result of a new vacuum of power or an intended consequence of some larger plot of LeShrac's. Regardless, Cadence and Sovelus don't consider the creature their concern and aren't particularly worried about the Ruined Land or Gassy expanding south to Demargo or Felspar. Cadence let slip what the two are concerned about, which is the lack of communication with Brenthia. They have an army on their doorsteps about to pass through or by and there's not yet a clear plan of action. Sovelus reveals that King Cyax will actually be personally attending a meeting in Brenthia tomorrow and hopes that his son will be able to glean a clearer plan of action in the meeting...a meeting that Haas is hoping she can sit in on.
Post Game Summary
The group:
Assists the Centaur survivors in a fight against their raised dead
Encounter, interrogate, and escape Gassy the beetle man
Report back all they've seen to Sovelus and Cadence
Meet up with Malokai, Kayleigh, Zojak, and Ezra
Important information learned:
The bugs swarming Equinos are collectively an intelligent, predatory creature birthed in the war.
It's bug goo is poisonous.
It is capable of resurrecting the dead.
It came to Equinos in search of more food, i.e. the Pillars followers.
This was a week ago.
LeShrac and the essence of Equinos disappeared shortly before.
The pillars absence allowed Gassy the bug to take root in the village.
It has no intention of stopping it's gluttonous feasting.
The dead are resistant to electricity (though it still stuns) though weak, like the bugs infesting the corpses, against revocation. Smashing also works.
Magical abilities that would normally trigger suppression don't do so on the dead, leaving the dead vulnerable to a wider variety of attacks than normal.
King Cyax is meeting Malokai tomorrow.