Chapter 4
The Mixed Nuts and Low Elves are still in the thralls of their battlelust from fighting each other over the Hero’s Wort, even though Ben has valiantly gotten them to pause momentarily. It’s fortunate that he’s done so because the chimera is upon them, and with a vengeance!
The fantastical beast lands with a loud crash on the wagon, emitting a deafening roar from the lion, a glimpse of fire within the dragon’s mouth, and a “baaaah” from the goat—it was meant to be threatening but came out in a mild-mannered tone, amusing the adventurers.
Grindlefoot becomes acutely aware of the chimera egg he’s holding and with his eyes wide, slowly backs up to hide in the tall stalks of Hero’s Wort surrounding them. The chimera doesn’t waste any time, sizes up the parties in front of it and chooses the biggest target, Gven.
Its dragon head rears back with an inhale, then leans forward to breathe a torrent of molten flame at the barbarian, forcefully knocking her to the ground. Because they were close to Gven, the flames also reach Cabanna, the tiefling, Magnus, the nobleman, and Grak, the pantless goblin, sending them to the ground as well, squirming in pain. Cindel and Ben are singed by the fire, but able to keep their feet and scramble away.
Still raging, Gven has enough strength to grab a health potion from her belt and swig it, relieving much of the pain and curing her burns. Still holding her greatsword, she lumbers to her feet and takes a clumsy yet effective swipe at the chimera’s lion head, completely removing one of its ears and leaving a gash down the side of its head.
From a short distance, Dolor fires an arrow from his shortbow, which goes wide of the beast. Unfortunately, it sails a distance into the fields and skewers a small rabbit minding its own business, foraging for food.
Cindel yells “huzzah!” to draw the chimera’s attention while attacking with her longbow, sinking her second arrow into the beast’s flank. The lion’s head yowls in pain. As she’s firing her bow, the elven archer directs Ben and the Low Elves who are still standing to get their hurt comrades to safety. “This never should have happened,” she says with a look of despair on her face.
Seeing that Gven is still hurting from the fight with the Low Elves as well as the fire from the chimera, Xantic casts Cure Wounds on the barbarian.
Grindlefoot notices an opportunity and lights a small fire underneath the wagon, where the chimera is still perched for battle. It’s small at the moment, but he hopes that a little bit of time—and a nice breeze—will help it grow enough to be rid of the animal.
Still standing atop the wagon, the chimera’s dragon head swings towards Xantic, snapping at the gnome, who is able to throw himself to the side and out of reach. Gven is able to evade the lunging goat head, but the lion grabs her arm in its maw and rips her leather armor’s sleeve, leaving a thin trail of blood. Responding quickly, the half-orc swings her greatsword at the lion’s retreating head, but narrowly misses.
Dolor fires another arrow at the chimera, this one landing in the lion’s neck, causing it to roar in pain.
Again, Cindel screams out an indecipherable phrase, attempting to distract the chimera from the others while firing two arrows in quick succession. The second one lodges itself in the goat’s eye, blinding it on one side.
Coming to his feet after rolling out of the dragon’s reach, Xantic pulls his loaded crossbow from his back and fires at the chimera’s body. The bolt misses by a small margin, sails past the beast and lands on the edge of the clearing, next to a surprised rabbit.
Under the wagon, Grindlefoot’s fire is beginning to grow, catching on to the frame and wheels. He casts goodberries and takes one for himself before giving the remaining nine to the hurt Low Elves that have made it to his hiding spot in the stalks of Hero’s Wort.
Having drawn its attention, the dragon head breathes a torrent of fire at Cindel and causes enough damage to make her sway in place. She struggles for balance, but continues standing with a look of defiance directed at the monster. Her cape billows out behind her and a ray of sunlight appears out of nowhere to emphasize the embers of her extra crispy armor.
Standing close to the beast, Gven tiredly swings her greatsword in a large arc at the lion head, missing as it dodges upward and out of her reach. At the same moment, Dolor fires an arrow at the goat’s neck from the edge of the Hero’s Wort field, but it kathunks into the side of the wagon, where flames are beginning to appear.
Hiding at the edge of the fields, Ben and the injured Low Elves eat the goodberries from Grindlefoot, feeling slightly better.
Hovering next to Gven—and the chimera—Xantic casts Frostbite, turning the beast to an icy blue color. It visibly shivers and the three heads howl in pain in unison.
Grindlefoot frantically searches his pockets for something and then suddenly a boar appears where the halfling druid stood. It’s full size, not halfling-size, and looks eagerly towards the chimera. Dolor witnesses the druid wild shape into the wild pig, but the tiefling’s only reaction is to knock another arrow for his next shot.
The chimera continues to glow an icy blue from Xantic’s Frostbite spell and it reacts with both the dragon and lion heads violently snapping at the gnome, tearing gashes into his leather jacket. In concert, the goat head-butts Gven in her shoulder, momentarily knocking her to the ground.
Because the half-orc barbarian is raging, the damage is less impactful than it could be, but the many assaults are taking their toll. She swigs another healing potion and regains some of her strength before returning to her feet to attack the chimera with her greatsword. Slashing at the beast’s body with everything she can muster, a long gash opens along its midsection, spewing blood.
Still looking at the wild boar that was Grindlefoot, Dolor turns to aim his knocked arrow at the chimera. Releasing the shaft, the bow twangs in its release of the tension, sending the arrow swiftly into the beast’s midsection, precisely where Gven slashed it open.
The chimera is looking haggard at this point, suffering from multiple wounds and the ever-growing fire beginning to consume the wagon and its contents. Standing so close to the burning Hero’s Wort, Xantic and Gven are feeling its invigorating effects.
The gnome disengages from melee combat with the chimera and begins moving towards Cindel, seeing that she is badly hurt and barely able to stay upright, let alone fight. From the edge of the field, the wild boar charges the chimera, attacking with its tusk, further gouging the beast’s already mangled body.
The wagon is half-encased in flames and the Hero’s Wort loaded into it has begun to catch aflame, releasing its smoke into the air. Looking weary and hurting from the battle, the chimera feels a surge of adrenaline from the Hero’s Wort and the dragon breathes fire at Dolor. It barely reaches the tiefling, but singes his armor and exposed hands and head.
On her feet, having had two healing potions, and feeling the effects of the Hero’s Wort, Gven swings her greatsword with intensity, carving into the one of the chimera’s wings, nearly severing it from the body. The beast yowls in pain at the wound, wildly swinging its heads around at anything within reach.
Dolor and Cindel both miss with their bows, peppering the ground around the wagon and the large creature. Oddly enough, for an overcast day, that single shaft of sunlight still gleams on Cindel, the singed and injured elf appearing celestial amongst the battle and her compatriots.
Reaching the elven leader of the Low Elves, Xantic casts Cure Wounds and, if possible, she appears even more magestical in her stance.
Grindlefoot, still in the shape of a wild boar, charges the chimera and attempts to gore it with his tusks, but the creature is able to dodge the halfing-turned-pig.
Perched atop the wagon, now burning on all sides, the chimera lashes out at Gven with a foot and its razor-edged claw slashes across the barbarian’s leather armor. The trail of blood from the wound runs down her side.
Seeing the chimera’s lion and goat heads hanging limply from its body, Gven rears back to begin the full-bodied swing of her greatsword. With the adrenaline from her barbarians rage still pumping through her body and the effects of inhaling the Hero’s Wort, she severs the dragon head cleanly from the body. Quivering from the effort, the barbarian calmly says “huzzah” as the beast’s body hits the dirt.
With their foe defeated, Gven turns to a barely standing Cindel and says with all sincerity, “it’s a good thing you were here to save us.” For once, Cindel is left speechless, but her appreciation is evident in her eyes and demeanor as she drags herself over to check on the Low Elves with Ben. Various small bits of her still-sizzling armor fall off as she moves, some causing her to wince in pain from the scalding hot leather.
The group gets the wagon fire under control, saving the rest of Ben’s crop of Hero’s Wort from burning, then heads back to Wayside and the Buzzin Bee Inn. On the road there, Dolor tries to convince Ben of how to best profit from his crops, but Ben wants to understand how it works before embarking on a sales venture.
They reach the Buzzin Bee and before going in Dolor hugs Cindel tightly then quietly asks, “is the chimera’s bane real?” With a sly look on her face, Cindel says “it is a traditional preparation for battling chimera’s, but it’s also total bullshit.” Dolor shakes his head, appreciating the joke while also being slightly irrirated by it. Bonnie refuses them entry to the inn because of their retchid smell and forces them to bathe first. They agree that would be time well spent.
The group spends the rest of the day relaxing with each other and the townsfolk. Ben meets them at the Buzzin Bee, where he delivers on his promise to pay them 450 gold pieces for killing the chimera. They make a trip next door to Scribbles & Nibs to sell Halodreth the chimera’s egg, for which he gladly pays them 50 gold.
While talking with Halodreth, he mentions that the florist next door, Preva, is a widow whose husband and child went missing from their farm a couple seasons ago.
The adventurers advance to level 3.