[IC] Death & Taxes (Session 3)

Upon Eswyse's count, the Half-Elf brother barrels toward the hog, crouching over the beast and wrapping his arms around its fat neck. The swine squeals in alarm and pulls its greased neck free, but it seems to have strained itself in doing so!

"Come here piggy piggy" Nekurr approaches the ferocious looking creature (only to his mind) with little to no conviction.

Nekurr approaches the pig like a seasick matador, making a half-hearted grab for it. The animal grunts and dodges just in time.

"Grab it!" shouts the female Half-Elf. She moves into the fracas and puts a booted foot out, trying to trip the creature.

The woman's advance fails to trip the swine, but it does scare the beast into the corner of the pen. There, the pig turns to face its assailants, its four knees shaking with nervousness.

Vern Taldaris's eyes widen as the pig slips from his grasp and dodges two more attempts at it by his competitors. The Half-Elf groans and then bellows loudly as he runs toward the beast and tries to tackle the beast, shoulder first.

The hog goes down! As Vern Taldaris attempts to pin the creature, the villagers erupt into cheers and whistles. The Elf tries to control the creature squirming beneath his own bulk as the hog lets out a loud squeal. But then the sound changes. The squeal shifts to a shriek and then a chorus of clicks. Taldaris eases up a bit as the clicks grow louder and louder.

Suddenly, something bursts out from under the hog's skin. At first, it looks like black specks, but their movement suggests they're alive. Then Vern screams. "What in the—" He stands up, frantically hitting his body, shaking his hands. "It's SPIDERS!"

"He's probably getting drunk or pulling some scheme, still don't like that gu-WHOA!" Nera's speculation will have to wait as the event became unexpectedly frightening, her body suddenly tensing up!

Hildar blinks in surprise......

Bruv recoils from the sight grimacing deeply... he turns away, using revulsion as a cover to scan the surroundings for... anything abnormal.

Not boosting as Nekurr was in the pen and may have not heard Bruv's warning:
HEED THIS WARNING! Twisted tail! A thousand eyes! TRAPPED FOREVER!

Nekurr manages to keep his cool despite the disturbing eruption of arachnids from the hog's wound. The priest prays for help against the creature. Almost as if in slow motion, Nekurr spots a villager at the edge of the pen dropping a torch as he flees. The torch tumbles toward the dirt, and for a moment, it looks like the flame might land directly on the beast. But at the last second, the torch's butt hits the railing and lands harmlessly in the grass.

Meanwhile, the crowd by and large panics as hundreds of tiny spiders stream from the hog's wound and cover it's body, crawling into and out of its nose and all over a frantic Vern Taldaris.

"Everybody get to safety!" the mayor calls out to the crowd. People flee every which way, trying to put distance between them and the abomination. From their vantage point, Tronus and Bruv stay resolute. Bruv instinctively scans the crowd for any sign of who might have been behind this sudden transformation...

Hildar and Nera are less sure about all this. Nera, for her part, manages to maintain an outward appearance of cool, even if her paws tremble slightly as she holds her bow. Hildar, on the other hand, feels the urge to flee. Nevertheless, as he looks for the best mode of egress, he realizes something...

Acorn Taldaris leaps after the hog and tries to pull it away from her brother, apparently oblivious to the threat posed by the arachnids.