Hook:
How many mounts could a scout's mount count, if a scout's mount could count mounts?
Observation 1
“Passed by the herd en route to the perimeter. Counted seven. One by the statue didn’t look familiar—maybe a new calf? Coat had a strange sheen. Didn’t seem unwell.”
Observation 2
“Pretty sure we’ve got one more than before. One of the younger recruits even named it ‘Brassnose.’ Was gone the next morning. Clint headbutted the spot where it had been. Could be nothing.”
Observation 3
“Saw seven during sketching drills. Realized one of them didn’t cast a full shadow—maybe I shaded it wrong. Didn’t follow up.”
Observation 4 (transcribed from field audio)
“...herd looked normal... wait, that one just walked backward. Like, fully backward for five steps then stopped. Uh... what? [pause] Okay. Maybe I’m tired.”
Addendum (verbal relay from Jeffrey)
“Geoffrey says the count is correct. But also wrong. Says it’s not part of the herd. Says it’s watching.”
061 - 260107 - Rhinomaly
Date:
446 PC, Highflare 45
Players:
Sorrel (Blu)
Krishna (Steven)
Dev (Paul)
Draylor the Drunk (Raph)
Loot:
Doughbler (1 claimed by Sorrel, 1 claimed by ???)
After Actions:
Dev
Report to Steve
Filed on Highflare 45
Per your request, I led Scouts Sorrel, Draylor and Krishna on an investigation of the reports of an extra Rhinuffalo siting in the herd. We discovered a Tower security system from the pre-collapse era was still partially operational in the new Rhinuffalo pasture. We were attacked by two guardian statues, but we were able to defeat them without any serious injuries.
Scout Sorrel was able to recover and identify an oddly-shaped stone, which appeared to connect to the larger network of Tower infrastructure to help maintain the decorative garden. At some point after the collapse, the garden was repurposed as farmland and a drainage ditch severed its local devices from the Tower network. The Banner probably has the resources to restore that network connection, if leadership deems it an appropriate goal.
During testing, Scouts Sorrel and Draylor connected the recovered stone to a plinth, and managed to perform a reset of the local network. This triggered the appearance of the illusory Rhinuffalo. Out of caution, they shut the systems down to the best of their ability. I do recommend the Banner to issue a warning about the defensive system near the Tower, in case any parts of it are still active.
Scout Dev
Dev's letter to Sophia:
Highflare 45
Soph, I think I made a friend? Remember the owlin I met last week? Krishna has apparently been bugging the shit out of Sarna since he joined us in the Rift. He’s obsessed with the Feywild – he seems to think it’s the key for finding out more about his family. And I guess I get it, maybe some people have parents who are not narcissistic monsters…
Anyway, Steve “suggested” that I take Krishna and a few other scouts and check out reports of an extra rhinufflo that sometimes appears with the herd. “Pretty sure we’ve got one more than before. One of the younger recruits even named it ‘Brassnose.’ Was gone the next morning. Clint headbutted the spot where it had been. Could be nothing.” Jeffrey the gnome reported “Geoffrey says the count is correct. But also wrong. Says it’s not part of the herd. Says it’s watching.”
Since we moved into Sifren, the rhinuffalo and auroch herds are being corralled in what was once an ornamental garden near the base of the Tower. Krishna cast detect magic, but all the residual magic from the Tower and its systems probably overwhelmed him.
I asked Draylor to cast his spell to talk to animals and have a chat with the rhinuffalo – there were definitely only the six that we started with – but they didn’t seem to have much to offer us. I interviewed Jeffrey, but all I was able to learn from him was that Geoffrey the ox seemed to think the herd was cool.
It was Sorrel that got our investigation moving forward. For some reason, he started waving a ferret around, and it squirmed free and ran for an odd depression near a couple of statues. And as soon as the ferret got there, the statues – which were making a sound kind of like wind chimes – attacked us. It really wasn’t much of a fight. Krishna and I stayed back and shot the statues – me with magic missiles, him with a crossbow. Draylor caught the statues in a moonbeam and turned into a bear to fight them. They crumbled when they were defeated. Only Sorrel was a little bit bloodied.
Sorrel dug up a glowing donut-shaped stone from the depression. The “dobler,”as they quickly became known, seemed to be a component of a larger system that was meant to maintain the garden before everything went nuts during the collapse. Krishna took to the air and spotted another one, and Draylor traced the way backwards along the network until we reached an ornamental fountain. Draylor scrambled down the ladder headfirst. Sorrel jumped down after him, using feather fall to soften the landing. We stayed up on the surface.
My aversion to cramped spaces has only gotten worse during my time here, and I think Krishna just wanted to keep the craziness at wing’s length. There was a plinth at the bottom of the fountain. Draylor put the dobler on the plinth, and that made it spark to life. After maybe 30 seconds, it connected to as much of the magical network as it could still reach – there was a drainage ditch about 40-feet away from the Tower that prevented it from connecting to the school’s systems.
“Fragment terminated…terminated…terminated…” echoed up to us. Sorrel reset the system, and as he did Krishna spotted a seventh rhinuffalo that wasn’t there before. He threw a stick that passed right through the new animal, and Geoffrey didn’t seem to want us to get any closer to it. Sorrel and Draylor disconnected the dobler, and the seventh rhinuffalo disappeared.
Krishna has moved into the office of the editor of the Dawn Herald and has been asking me about magic. It’s kind of nice?
Unresolved Threads:
item 1
item 2