To my undying Master!
Thank you for lending me your powers for the last couple of days. The uncouth tavern keeper Rafka pushed another seemingly safe money-making mission onto us.
“There is another DEAD bigat out there!” he said. “It’s DEFINITLY DEAD!” he said. “You just have to find it faster then the other hunters!” he said. In his delusional world it seems that all the dangerous monsters died of old age, and they all leave enormous riches behind.
With his “assurance” we started our travel to Roca Bernardo, a small village near where the bigats liar should be. I should have noticed that something was of, when one of us stayed back with some “stomachache”. This left just us, a merry group of four arguably capable swashbucklers.
There was Francis the journalist who gets into the thick of it for his stories, the two Lathander worshippers Bradly and Elathiel and me a black cat on his last couple of lives.
After a surprisingly smooth journey we arrived at Roco Bernardo in the evening to be greeted by the spriest oldest guards you can think of. Lazy as hell but be wary if you don’t pay the toll. One second, the guard was sleeping and the next there was a spear at Elathiels throat.
After solving the situation peacefully by bribing them with a good (at least not bad) bottle of wine we traveled through the streets to the center of the village where we heard a commotion. During the walk we planned how we should present ourselves to the people of the village and the other bigat hunters who had already arrived. We concluded to use Francis as the face of our group because he was part of a team which killed a bigat not long ago. I used the powers you gave me to make his clothes seem more valuable, more like something a successful bigat hunter would wear. So, I made it look like a fancy dragon scale armor with bigat teeth all over and it was decided that Elathiel would introduce Francis as the biggest, strongest, best of hearing, tallest, … and much more, bigat hunter galore of the region.
The nearer we got to the ruckus in the center of town we noticed that the villagers were actively avoiding us. No one made eye contact and they closed their doors and windows as soon as we were seen. This didn’t sit right with me, so I diverted our group to get to the bottom of this strange behavior. We bribed an owl family for some information and a bowl of the best mouse soup from all Brancalonia. I was blessed that they shared it with me. (I even think I got one of my lost lives back.)
They told us that the locals didn’t get along with the bigat hunters. Just the merchants liked them because the hunters were buying their overpriced wares. First they denied any knowledge about a bigat but then the grandfather vaguely remembered a story from his grandfather who told him that the former countess used to pay tribute to a bigat in the village. It was called the bigat wedding where someone was “married” (sounded more like sacrificed) to the bigat when it woke up after a long hibernating phase. This new information renewed our belief that the bigat was not as dead as advertised and reinforced our conviction to get help (meat shields) from the bigat hunters to secure a victory in the inevitable fight. And who would be better to lead such a troupe than Francis, an already successful bigat hunter.
At the marketplace we encountered four different groups of bigat hunters drinking and feasting outside the only standing tavern of the village. The other taverns were unusable because of fire damage. Elathiel tried to introduce and hype up Francis to the people there, but sadly he failed miserably. Luckily Francis saw in one of the groups the wizard Satar who he knew from the last bigat hunt. With all his charm and some glib words, he convinced Esterina, the leader of the group, to let us join the spike gang in their hunt for the bigat. To solidify us into the gang we helped them in the bar brawl which broke out later when more people got drunk.
Early the next morning the two Lathander worshippers tried to get some information from the street vendors by inquiring about maps and stuff. There we learned about the tide mountain range, which comes and goes with the moon phases. (WOW! There is always more to learn out there.) Once the whole gang was ready, we headed to the river. Because we found out that the bigat comes from there to get its tribute when it’s awake.
During our track upstream near the river, we met another friend of Francis from his last bigat hunt. The noble knight Rokaspra and his trusty horse who chose to search with us for the bigat. Sadly after a whole day of searching we didn’t find the lair of the bigat. So we decided to camp and get ready for the night.
Suddenly during the night, we heard a loud growling or howling which sounded like a bigat. To attract the bigat in our direction the wizard Satar imitated a bigat mating call. This worked perfectly and we soon heard a big creature making its way to us. Once it arrived, we ambushed it with our combined powers. To our astonishment we learned that bigats can burrow and move in the earth, which was especially surprising to three members of the spike gang who died when the bigat emerged right beside them. Fueled the fear of the bigat fleeing under the earth we hurried up to kill the bigat.
On the next morning after the fight, we tracked its traces back to the lair and found enough money to keep Rafka happy and off our backs for a couple of weeks.