Terex is delighted to find a tiny suit of mithral chain armor, fit to a pseudodragon's body, stored in with the other armor. He takes some other basic gear, plenty of food, and a couple of small wands that he thinks will be useful.
Rokas finish getting equipped when he realises that the group could use more healing. So he goes back in the magic section, looking for a healing wand. He then walks back out and look at the rest of the group.
"So, you guys ready?"
Kincaid looked at the racks and racks of gear and let out a low whistle, there was enough stuff here for a small army. Still he wasn't tempted to pick up anything, he had his father's sword and his armor, that was more than sufficient. He just hoped he could be half the man Talerian had been, big boots to step into and all that.
Kincaid's armor clanked softly as nodded at Rokas, "I'm good to go, got a backpack, bedroll and week's worth of trail rations. There's a lot of fancy gear here, maybe some day we'll need it, but Sethana willing, not for a hike."
GM for the gear rolled is the club or armor my heirloom?
Content to be in the background, Xaeken bobs his head in agreement if the others are ready to go.
Abbo ends up returning all his heirloom items to his family. As his allowance, he asks for a couple wands of Cure Light Wounds and a cloak of resistance +1, despite mundane items: a strong backpack, trail rations, a good sized tent, clothes for the weather, spider's silk rope, two spring-loaded wrist sheaths, 2 bandoliers and another batch of shuriken.
The hobgoblin directs Abbo where to find all the equipment he wants, and arranges for his items to be returned to his family.
The next day, the group gets up and heads out. It takes all morning just to cross the city and reach the exterior 5th Precinct walls. The last hour is spent walking through farms, each lain out in neat squares.
Finally though, they move into the woods immediately around the city. Even then though, things are not completely 'wild' as the area has been heavily patrolled for nearly 30 years, and many trees have been clear cut and trenches dug in preparation for building the 6th Barrier Wall. Indeed, by noon, the group reaches the Southern Sixth Barrier Wall location. Teams have dug down 30 feet to bedrock for miles, and are in the process of setting up a foundation directly on the local bedrock, a foot thick layer of sand and gravel mixed with lime, volcanic ash, and animal blood from the butcher shops in town. The mixture is reinforced with iron rods held together in grids with bits of twine.
On top of that will go a layer of heavy thick stones, each one foot square, shaped from stone by acolytes and arcane trainees, or cut from stone and then smoothed by hand. Those will be held together by a mortar made the same as the foundation, but without the gravel.
For now, there are wooden bridges over the 20 ft wide trenches, at half-mile intervals. From there, the group continues into the primordial forests, all evergreen, and continues south. As they get farther and farther away from home, the forest takes on a more and more dangerous mien. Strange sounds echo through the trees, punctuated by silence like the group is not used to hearing.
As the sun goes down, the group begins to look for a place to spend their first night beyond the protective walls of the city.
Fear wars with excitement in Terex's mind, and he broadcasts both emotions to his squadmates as they pass outside the walls of the city. He darts between trees, scouting a little ahead of the group, but his telepathy range limits him from going very far from his comrades.
As night falls, nervousness comes more to the fore in his mind. We should find somewhere to camp, Terex suggests. I can just sleep in a tree, except for when I keep watch, but we probably want a good place for the rest of you.
It's clear from his mental tone that he has no clue what a good place for the rest of the squad would be.
The walk out of the city had been very interesting. In a way it had reminded Kincaid of an onion or perhaps one of those dolls with smaller and smaller dolls inside. Each layer was different but part of the whole.
As the afternoon light grew short it occurred to Kincaid they were really quite exposed out here and if they needed help it wasn't going to come. A sobering thought, one he felt it was best not to share.
His thoughts were interrupted by Terex's slightly panicked broadcast. Kincaid chuckled aimeably as he lit a cigar. His voice like gravely stones as he said, "Aye your're right, we should set up camp when we get to a good spot. Fortunately the powers that be saw fit to send Hylar with us. He can find us a campsite and tell us what to do. I also think the little Wyrwood has a scouting function too."
Rokas follows the group out of the city. When he gets to the last barrier he slow down a bit for two reasons. The first being that he likes to see the foundation work on the sixth barrier wall. He would like to spend more time there, looking at the plans if he could. But he knew that those are more than likely top secret. The second reason is that he never when that far out of the city before. The great unknown beyond this point is somewhat making him feel so small.
He keeps walking with the group, trying to pinpoint where all the different noise come from. But what makes him feel even more uncomfortable are the long silence. They seem to have an evil weight to them. More than once he tried to talk to break the silence, but the sound just didn't want to trot. So he just kept up walking, trying to not jump at everything.
Finally the sun starts to set and the time to set up camp is upon them. He looks around trying to see if he can find a place to settle down.
Even though Rokas is more of a logical person, his emotions get the better of him. He starts shaking and can't seem to function to help set up the camp. He keeps looking back toward the city, but knows that he couldn't make it back before dark anyway. He always knew the safety of the walls when he went to sleep, this wasn't a good feeling of sleeping in the open like this.
[ooc]Wow, both at a 14...[/dice]
Despite his love of the forest and nature, Hylar can't help but be a bit shaken by the sheer vastness of the outside world he longed for. It's a bit much to take in all at once, even causing his normally able skills to wane a bit. "Perhaps we could camp here... though a lean-to would be hard to build, maybe a cave... I'm uncertain."
As much as Abbo seems unshakeable in his large weretiger skin, he isn't of much help to find a good camp either. Alerted by the others fears, however, he stays on his hybrid form.
I can't seem to be of much help in finding us a suitable place, my friends, but I will help defend wherever we decide to settle in. A cave doesn't sound like a bad idea to me.
We should decide on watches, Terex suggests while Hylar debates over campsites. I can see in the dark, so I'm a good choice for the middle of the night. We probably don't want a fire, because that would be easy to find if there's something out there that doesn't like us, so we won't be able to count on having light to watch by. Fortunately a lot of us can see in the dark, so we have lots of choices.
"Another excellent idea Terex", rumbled Kincaid from somewhere from within his armor, "I think the limiting factor is those who need to pray or study for their spells. I currently need to do neither, so like you I can take a particularly ungodly hour for my watch. If we can find two other volunteers, we can each do two hour watches. I usually function just fine on six hours sleep, coffee helps, that's that's the one luxury I did bring from the city."
I can see well in dim-light, and sense enemies by smell... But I can't see on complete darkness. - says Abbo - I can take the dusk watch, I presume, or something on the early night.
Hylar finds not a cave, but a small rocky outcropping that is more like a small ravine that looks like it's been used before as a campsite, as there is a small circle of stones in the center with ashes in it. The ashes are old and crusted over, indicating the ravine hasn't been used as a campsite in some months at least.
Visibly shaken, Rokas moves forward as the group discuss the watches schedule.
"I... I can see in the dark. If... If someone is with m-m-me, I... I can take the one in the middle of the n-n-night."
I do not sleep. I will happily keep the watch with anyone who needs the aid though I will be hindered without some modest amount of light.
Kincaid claps Rokas on the back, and laughs hoping some of his bonhomie rubbed off, "Good man, thank you for volunteering. Excellent! That's four. No wait five. Oh you don't sleep, well isn't that something..." Kincaid marveled at that fact for a moment before continuing with a grin, "Well they say two sets eyes are better than one so here is what I propose. Xaeken stays alert if possible and Abbo takes the evening watch then Rokas, then me and finally Terex."
That sounds good to me!
Kincaid is up in the middle of the early morning when he realizes that the lump that is Hylar is moving slightly and has grown a lump from his side. Then the lump blinks at him, and he realizes it's a scraggly looking goblin in rags. The goblin in question is holding Hylar's rapier in it's hands.
Kincaid had been sitting motionless, his naked sword across his knees. One could have easily mistaken him for an antique suite of armour.
Suddenly he stood up, accompanied by the soft metallic noises only made by high quality plate. He regards the goblin while holding the six feet of meteoritic steel pointing vertically down, unwavering one inch off the floor. From somewhere within the antique fluted helmet, his voice calls out as deep and gravelly as an avalanche, "You might want to put that back, friend and anything else that fell into your pack." Seeing the goblin hesitate Kincaid adds perfectly reasonably, "You see you've made a mistake here, friend. One I'm going to give you a chance to put right."
While he speaks, his eyes dart around. If there was one light-fingered goblin here, chances were there was another.
While he speaks, Kincaid's foot nudges Terex.
As Kincaid raises up, the goblin's eyes go twice as big and it lets out a wail of terror and turns and runs as fast as it's little legs will carry it. Two additional wails rend the night as well.
Hylar is awakend by the sound... or by his rapier slamming down into his head... ...as the goblin panics and throws the rapier up into the air as it runs to the back of the ravine!
As the two other wails rend the air, the sound of other things being thrown into the air fills the night... and then the ravine becomes an un-intended area of danger as sharp objects and exploding alchemical jars begin to erupt!
One of the goblins lights up as the acid flask smashes on his head, and he lets out a louder scream as the acid burns. As it reels from the acid, two shuriken come down and slam into it's head, and it falls over dead!
Terex is awkaned by a foot to the butt and two shuriken falling out of the air and slamming into his back! One falls and hits Kincaid on the nose, opening a bloody gash!
The rest land all around the area in the dark.
The two surviving goblins dive into a dark hole in the side of the ravine, one after the other!
Rokas is awakened as a coiled up silk rope slams into his nads...
Ow! Terexaltherin mentally shouts as he starts awake. Hey! Where are you going? What was that for?
Without really thinking things through, the little pseudodragon flies after the two goblins, though he stops before diving into their hole to look into it.
Kincaid starts waking the others up saying, "Check your gear. Some light fingered goblins paid us a visit. We should find out where they came from and mark it on the map. Hylar can you help Terex with that? He's flown off after them but I expect he'll be back soon."
Rokas was having a nice dream. He had built the best siege weapon ever. He just needed to look over the plan cause some details were missing. He couldn't remember exactly all the little specifications that made it so great. Just a quick review of the schematics would answer that... When all of the sudden, he got attacked by a long, almost infinite snake. It had hit him directly in the face and was now trying to wrap itself around it. He tried to grab it and wrestle it away. Sitting up screaming, he went for his supplies... That's when he realise what it really was. Rope? What's going on here? Then he remembered. Walking out of the city, sleeping outside...
He then registered what Kincaid was saying. Checking my gear? Walking up fully, he went through the motion. Aside from the extra rope that landed on his face, Rokas wasn't missing anything as far as he knew.
Getting up, he walked over to Kincaid. "Should we go investigate further?"
Kincaid replies promptly, "Well we're here to fill in the blanks on the map. If we can track them then let's do so. Who knows, maybe we'll get the lost gear back." He wasn't at all sure they would find anything, but feeling like they were doing something would help morale.