Tl;dr: Some Four-Armed Ape Bandits mug a group of adventurers, who trail them back to their primitive constructed home to retrieve their wizard’s belongings, killing the apes in the process. Many apes harmed in the process of this adventure.
Future Adventure Notes:
•A magic golden key was found
Session Title : Let’s Go on a Walk
Session DM : Tam
Session Date : 15 Oct 2021 @ 23:00 UTC rescheduled to 28 OCT 2021 @ 23:00 UTC
Characters:
•”Trailblazer” Barley (Druid 3)
•DeathMetal (Cleric 2)
•”Leader” Kadar (Sorcerer 4)
•”Scout” Karthis (Wizard 2)
~Thoughts on a recent adventure.
Barley~
I had been sitting around Port Mirandia long enough. I needed to get away from the hustle and bustle. Knowing it unwise to leave the town area alone, I found some others who were willing to come with me. The noise of three others is considerably less than a whole town. We set out southwest for a pleasant day long stroll. I was also showing Karthis the lay of the land so perhaps he won’t get lost quite as easily as he did on our previous adventure.
Shortly before the crossroads we began to notice tufts of white fur and hand prints in the ground. Too many hands for the number of feet. It was a curiosity I’d never seen before. I was not able to follow the tracks so we continued. When we reached the crossroads, as we pondered our direction, two large four-armed apes ran up to us. One tried to steal my backpack the other successfully stealing Karthis’.
I tried using the magic that lets me speak with animals, but it failed to work with these creatures. After getting the backpack they retreated. We tried using magic to slow or injure them, but they were too fast.
While escaping, the one rifled through the backpack, discarding some of the contents along the way. These apes were fast and could climb the trees so quickly. Karthis explained that his spellbook was in his backpack, so we pursued them by ground into the forest.
DeathMetal was talking about reading the apes motives for stealing our backpacks and try to predict where they might go, while Karthis concentrated on his arcane connection to his spellbook, indicating it was south. I was checking the trees for signs of recent broken leaves, trails of blood or tufts of fur while Kadar was examining the tree to find a canopy.
Following these things we found ourselves under a primitive structure built thirty feet above the ground. After some debate Karthis used his mage hand to secure a knotted rope near one of the platforms. I went up and immediately was pushed off by a third ape. I could see the one who’d taken Karthis’ backpack eating his rations before I fell and hear grunts that sound almost as speech, but nothing I know.
After falling thirty feet, I felt like if these apes want to act like bandits, they’re going to be treated like bandits. We fought with the apes, pulling them out of their nests repeatedly. I set fire to their home, perhaps that was rash. One of them came at me with it many arms and I knew fear. Kadar and Karthis were casting creepy arcane whispery words at the apes, it seemed to unsettle them, while DeathMetal kept closing my wounds.
After we felled one of them, the other two tried to run. Perhaps on a better day I would feel more charitable, but banditry is a genuine problem. We put them down. Karthis’ found his backpack and his book and used magic to put the fire out that I had started. He looked around the nest and found the remains of other backpacks. These apes had been doing this awhile.
We camped for the night under the ape platform. Peaceful night, though the last watch reported hearing large winged beats and the screams of a dying animal. We began our return to Port Mirandia, at one point seeing in the distance two large winged beasts, featherless creatures with possibly twenty, or thirty feet wingspan. They were flying above the forest to our south.
As we neared Port Mirandia, Karthis happened to notice a golden key on the road. He picked it up then said it is magical and was created with magic but beyond that had no idea what it was for. Maybe some other adventures will find use for it.