A Whole New World: Chasing Worms

The party swiftly moves through the front gates. The brightness of the outside world stuns everyone in their track for a moment. Once your eyes adjust, you overlook the valley in front of Zigil-Dûm. Nestled between the silver mountaintops lays a verdant valley. One of the two Silver Rivers meanders through it, dominating the scene. With every breath, the smell of grass and pines fill your nose, while the crisp air swells your lungs. Up ahead lays a small farming settlement that feeds most of Zigil-Dûm, with the city's guard tower overlooking the village, ensuring protection.

Daran looks up at the sky and sighs. If he had known they would be heading out in the sun he would have worn something a little looser.
He begins wriggling around in an attempt to loosen some of the connections between the pieces of his plate armor to get a bit of a breeze in there.
... It doesn't really help.

His halfling servants have managed to squeeze through the crowd and are following Darann from a small distance. One of them opens a pack and rummages through it.
He then walks up to Darann and hands him a small white handkerchief.

Darann gives the servant a nod, removes his helmet, and begins wiping the sweat off his forehead.

Gunderson emerges from the gates of the dank and musty caves and takes a deep breath of the fresh air.

He scans the ground in all directions looking for a large groove in the dirt made by a metallic worm.

perception: 5

Erlanger steps out and blinks several times to adjust to the sunlight. He scans the area, looking for evidence of a giant worm and where it would have gone.

Looking for evidence of a giant worm, the party finds the middle part of the trail got flattened, the weeds and plucks of grass pulled out. Following it for a while, it suddenly disappears. Where the track stops, the soil seems loose, as if it's been tilled recently.

Darann looks at the others and says

Did anyone bring a shovel?

Darann turns around, looks at the 3 halflings who are standing about 20 feet back and are talking amongst themselves. He yells.

Boys, did we bring a shovel?!

One of the halflings approaches the party, holds out a shovel, and presents it to Darann.
Darann glances at him and then points at the patch of soil.

The halfling lets out a deeps sigh, sets down the equipment he's carrying, and begins digging

Gunderson plays the Unseen Servant song for fifteen minutes to summon his unseen servant. Once summoned, he orders it to help dig.

Erlanger looks at digging happening and thinks,

there has to be an easier way to do this!

He sets his homunculus down and says,

Gentlemen, let me try something. Stand away from the hole.

To the robot, he commands,

your name is munk. Munk, I want you to blast that spot on the ground.

Gears spin, and whirling noise erupts from within, and a slight bang comes from Munk. Dirt flies up from the ground. (From where to be determined by GM)

To hit: 9
Damage: 1 hp

The four dwarves make themselves comfortable against a nearby boulder as they watch the halfling, the robot and the floating shovel dig away at the patch of dirt. Now and then, a random passerby makes a comment about dwarves and their mining skills obviously not being what they used to be anymore. The patch of loose sand turns into a pile as the hours go by.

As the sun lowers and shadows grow longer, a siren can be heard from the guard post overlooking the nearby settlement.

Darann, who was just enjoying a snack and a drink from his water sack, immediately jumps up on his feet. Doing so he chokes on a piece of food and starts coughing loudly.

... enemughugh .... lesgoughugh ...!

He grabs his warhammer and shield and darts off in the direction of the siren.
Still coughing and spittle and pieces of food flying everywhere.

Erlanger scoops up Munk, tells him to quit firing, and quickly follows behind Darann.

Gunderson stands and stretches out the weariness built over the past few hours of sitting on a rock.

He follows, less enthusiastically, after Darann, commanding the unseen servant to join him.

Thrazar is taking everything in. Giant mechanical worms? What is the world coming to? Deciding it's best to stay together, he falls in line and follows his companions.

Twilight breaks by the time the party gets up and leaves. They soon arrive at the farming village, which is in disarray. Farmers run back and forth with pitchforks, scythes, flails and anything they can grab. Some guards try to coordinate everything, while others run back and forth themselves. You can hear dull smashing sounds, cracking sounds from wood, and unintelligible yelling and screaming. The sirens blare over all of this. A certain pang of urgency hits inside you as yet another mother with her children run past, stumble, and quickly get helped back up by a passing guard.

Suddenly, you feel a heavy, cold hand on your shoulder. As you turn around, you see a familiar face. It's captain Boulderbeard. Each and every one of you grew up with the heroic tales of this man.

Captain Boulderbeard

"By my momma's beard! Blackhammer's reinforcements arrived already! They're finally getting efficient there. The messenger must barely have arrived by now! Next time I'm buying good ol' Dolgthrasir a pint or two for this. Let's not dawdle, there's alot to do if we want to save what's left to save!"

Excitedly, Erlanger says,

“Captain, I must know, were any cabbages harmed?! Because if they were, heads will… uhh, ummm… well anyway,”

Erlanger looks at his group and says,

“Men, lets get this thing!”

With that, he waves his arm in the direction of the screaming and unholsters his pistol.”

Drannar looks at captain Boulderbeard and stares at him for a few seconds ... seemingly a little starstruck.
He says nothing but nods at the captain, closes the visor of his helmet, and jogs towards the origin of the noise, his shield and Warhammer at the ready.

"I played you in a production of Zarum Biriz. I'm sure you saw it. I'll get your notes on my performance after we calm things down around here," Gunderson says to Captain Boulderbeard before turning to trail after the others.

Thrazar steps up to the worm, axe in the ready at both hands. Though it towers over him, he takes a swing at the monstrosity. He goes into a rage, thinking of nothing but destroying this thing.

Darann grits his teeth and mumbles a small prayer beneath his breath.

By Tyr, I shall stand up to you, you vile monstrosity.

A glimmer of white light surrounds Darann, giving him some additional protection.

Feeling emboldened by the presence of his friends and captain Boulderbeard, Darann charges at the worm and swings at it wildly with his war hammer.

Code:

action = attack: 19 to hit, 11 damage ( bludg )
bonus action = spell: shield of faith ( +2 ac )

“What are you, you magnificent beast?”

Erlanger stares at the worm for a moment. When he sees his dwarven brothers eaten he realizes he needs to act. He sets Munk down on the grass and commands it to touch the worm. As the little robot reaches out his metallic arm, Erlanger casts Shocking Grasp and sends a surge of electricity into the worm.

Attack: 21
Damage: 1 hp

Seeing the worm devour a few people, and seeming to not be at all disturbed by either of Thrazar's axe or Darann's hammer, Gunderson moves to his right and takes cover behind a nearby house, hoping to have escaped the worm's detection.
Pressing against the wall, and sandwiched between it at the edge of the map, Gunderson whistles a few bars of a tune from the production of Zarum Biriz.

Dissonant Whsipers - 8 psychic damage and worm has to move away from me. wis save DC 13 for half damage and doesn't have to move away. deafened creature automatically saves

Thrazar can't believe what he just saw. The attack he just provided should have felled the largest tree in any forest, even if he had nothing more than a herring as a weapon. It didn't even create a scratch or dent. Good thing there are a group of them. He slowly backs away with a question to the group.

Anyone have something you can enchant my weapon with?

You hear the sound of Drannar's voice. It sounds low and metallic and slightly muffled by the closed visor of his helmet.

Just hit it harder! I think it's starting to give!