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Suddenly some familiar faces appear. Tuurma looks even more grumpy, and tired, than before. She throw's a large but seemingly sturdy bundle on the ground before the feet of the others.

"Here's the net. Now I don't have a single copper."

She starts pacing back and forth while drumming on the hilt of her sword with her fingers.

"Are we good to go?"

She quickly looks behind her, but there's no one there.

Drest

"Where are the others?"

Xenos appears from behind a hut

"Don't worry, we're here. Let's kill this beast and sell the body. We need coin more now than ever. Tuurma and Kang had their money stolen last night, I was lucky."

Drest

"Of course, I should have known."

Akhilleus eyes the beast wearily, keeping his distance from the shore, but looking the beast into the eyes as in defiance. Like this were some personal matter.

When he sees his companions back he approaches them and greets them, and is about to ask them why the long faces when Xenos answers his non-spoken question.

"Damit. At least it happened after you got the net.
Well, let's kill the thing and get money for its hide. Maybe even its meat. I bet we could buy a thousand chickens for its meat.
How should we proceed? I warn you that I'm mostly good at bashing, so don't expect me to be in charge of the subtleties." He points at his broad sword and mace.

Valkrina

"Did you get the goat?"

I thought there was going to be a goat we could stake to the shore to tempt the croc out of the water.

If there is no goat, she will resort to her suggested Plan A 'short straw', and take the role of goat by the waterside. Arranging whatever musical instruments she could muster to make a vibrating noise that carries across the water to draw out the croc(s?).

Great. We can tie the goat and I will be nearby drumming up some hunger in the crocs while you others hide with net and weapons to spring on the beast.

Xenos hands out the javalins.

"Let's start with a volley of these before we close to attack."

Akhilleus receives the javelin and looks at it with a smirk.

"It's been a while since I used one of these. Come on. Let's do it."

Tuurma looks sceptically at the javelins as Xenos is handing them out.

"Nah."

She helps tie the goat and then draws her bastard sword and starts swinging it in big circles around her, as if dancing with an invisible enemy, stirring up sand and dirt.

Drest

"I will take a javelin, can't hurt to try."

Xenos shrugs

"The thing is huge, it's worth a single volley to try and weaken it before we close. I don't fancy those jaws taking a bite out of me."

Xenos

"Now I need to sort out my spells."

He will find a quiet spot where he can study his spell book and memorise two Chill Touch spells.

On the way back to the oasis, Kang’s brow had been furrowed in thought about the theft of his funds. No, the gold wasn’t his but a stipend given by the temple master for his journey. And just like the snap of the fingers, it was gone. He had been disgusted, disappointed, even angry. As he walked in silence with his new comrades, he struggled with these distractions. Theft wasn’t a thing at the monastery, neither was greed and avarice. He had only heard of such things, but to be the victim of such for the first time...

He came to understand there was a lesson in this and he would meditate more on this. When at last they came to the oasis, he shifted his attention to the task now at hand. Divested of net and goat, the warrior monk retrieved both his bow and polearm. He would start with the bow, he thought as he strung the weapon and waxed the string. If and when the net snared the monster would he move in with his polearm.

Just realized, who's got the net? Do we lay the net down before the bait and throw the ends over? Do we cast the net over the croc?

Tuurma gives the net to Kang.

"Here. Throw the net over it when it catches the goat. Okay?"

OGRE MAGE wrote: ↑Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:43 pm I am going to need more than "just throw the net over it".

Sure, Tuurma just didn't think about that.

Akhilleus

"Two should hold the net and put it in the way of the monster when it advances, extended, so that the monster will catch itself on it.

That's why the goat is there, isn't it? So the monster has a direction.

What if we make a cut to the goat's leg so that the monster smells the blood and thinks it's wounded? That's a way to avoid it from attacking us instead of the goat."