Umash, the Unwanted |
"Not a problem. Last person will knot themselves to the rope and we pull them across. But yeah getting the gear across first should be a priority, no reason to half-drown in the process.", Umash agrees.
GM Sarpadian |
Chantif and Rhona manage to get the mules tethered and then coax them across the first creek. Sal starts to float away, but Rhona catches him. Drexel makes it across unscathed, but Umash goes under momentarily, but she hauls herself up with the rope and finishes crossing.
EDIT: Det crosses easily with the rope.
GM Sarpadian |
The party works their way back down the riverbank to the road, and travels for three hours before finding an open glen that seems to have been used often as a campsite just before sunset. As the party sets up camp, Det pipes up: "If we make good time for another three days, we should make it to Meston."
GM Sarpadian |
The night and the next morning pass uneventfully. Just after lunch, however, the trail begins to narrow, and the party comes to a spot where it is completely overgrown with vines. The vines, which have three leaves on each stalk, criss-cross the trail, making it impassable. Det says, "Ah, guys, that's poison ivy."
Drexel Morrow |
Yay +1 more hp
"I definitely don't want to mess with it. Nasty stuff. Lets go around it."
Just curious, does it seem a natural patch or unnatural? Like is the road well traveled or has it been kind of over grown?
GM Sarpadian |
Sorry, sometimes it takes a while to come up with something when you step off the railroad ;).
To the east (the party's right, since they're headed more or less north) the terrain ascends sharply to a ridgeline roughly a hundred feet or so above the level of the trail. There are patches of ivy all along the side of the ridge, but they get thicker and closer together the closer you get to the natural chokepoint in the trail. It's possible that a nimble person might be able to dodge most of the patches of ivy while scrambling along the ridge, but it would be difficult, and there's no way the mules would make it.
On the other side, the grade is slightly less steep as it drops down towards the creek you crossed earlier. It would be somewhat difficult, but you could probably get the mules down that way.
GM Sarpadian |
As the party contemplates the vines, two potentially significant pieces of data emerge: 1) although the trail is hardly a major thouroughfare, the party has seen significant enough signs of passage that it seems unlikely that the trail has been deserted long enough for the ivy to overgrow the trail naturally, and 2) the thick ivy ends precisely at the west edge of the trail; the slope down to the creek only has a few, scattered patches. Noticing this, Drexel begins gesturing and muttering. A few seconds later his eyes become a milky white as the pupils disappear.
Chantif |
Tain't natural. It just ain't natural. Chantif looks around for anyone or anything who might be hidden, watching the party. Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18
I reckon we can go down that slope there, and... Chantif's eyebrows raise. Uh, Drex, whatcha' doin' there?
Chantif |
"This makes me uncommon queasy. I hope this was left for someone else and not us--I hope we haven't been compromised. No one is nearby though, leastways as far as I can tell, but... this spell--for spell it was, I'm certain--coulda' been cast days ago."
-Posted with Wayfinder
Rhona Patenaude |
"Down the slope...?" Rhona considers their options and nods. "All right, then. Better than poison ivy, I guess. That said, if somebody did leave that here to deter us, there's a chance there's a trap of some kind waiting for us down there. Let's just keep our eyes open, then, eh?"
Pretty sure we should just take that downward slope. I'm guessing we can't get rid of the poison ivy anyway, so we might as well just go for it. I'm sure we have some tools to make the navigation easier- think we should tie anything off? I'd rather err on the side of caution, in all honesty.
GM Sarpadian |
If you're talking about his eyes, that's my description for a detect magic spell. He had expressed an interest in investigating, so I went ahead and had him cast the spell to speed things up.
Chantif walks over to Bob and pulls off the climber's kit. The party gets the ropes tied off, and then they begin carefully making their way down the hillside. Umash loses her grip on the rope about a third of the way down and slides through some briars (thankfully, not ivy vines) and skids into some rocks. Rhona loses her grip a moment later, but she reacts quickly enough to brake her descent with her feet and grab the rope again before it is out of reach. There are no further mishaps during the descent.
Once the party reaches the bottom of the ravine, they can see that it continues forward until the ridge the trail follows turns west towards the creek. Walking along the ravine for about an hour, the party reaches the point where they need to either head back upslope onto the trail or follow the creek. Det pipes up: "I don't know how far that thick ivy went, but the creek is heading away from Meston."
Umash takes 4 damage, and Rhona took 2 nonlethal.
Drexel Morrow |
I follow the group quietly as we move down the slope, my face pales as we head down the steep slope where one misstep could send us into the swollen river below, and along the treacherous ground using all my concentration. When Chantif says he will go back up I simply clutch the rope and nod.
GM Sarpadian |
Chantif climbs up.
Chantif |
Chantif frowns deeply. He climbs down in a hurry. "We best be getting back up the slope and not go wasting any time about it. There's still patches of ivy but we can get around them if we're careful. There are people living a few miles upstream on the far bank over there it would be better for--for us to avoid. I hope, um, let's all hope, that they haven't seen us yet."
D***. Not now. Not yet.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Rhona Patenaude |
"Wait, we're turning around?" Rhona cocks an eyebrow, still rolling her sore shoulder from the little slip-up a few moments before. "What's wrong with the people upstream? What about the poison ivy?"
She groans loudly and hoarsely, scarcely bothering to hide her frustration even as she starts to make her way back toward Chantif. Her face quickly turns beet-red. "There's something you're not telling us," she growls. "Spill it, Chantif. Umash and I just took a spill going down this stupid slope, and if it turns out we busted our butts and our pride for no damn reason at all, I'm going to-" She cuts herself off just before she says something she will regret, instead opting for something a bit gentler. "-to pull your ears down and tie 'em underneath your chin. Yeah."
Chantif |
not sure you understood the situation. We walked for an hour in the ravine. Our option was climb back up or follow the stream in the wrong direction.
Chantif, cheeks a little more flushed than usual, looks at Rhona warily for a moment. "We're going north. Means we need to go that way" he points up the slope "to keep going where we're going." He points at the huts on the riverbank. "That way ain't North, and there's people there. The fewer people we meet in our course the better for us." He turns away and begins readying the gear and animals for the re-ascent.
-Posted with Wayfinder
GM Sarpadian |
After making their way upslope, the party carefully marches along the trail while ensuring that they avoid the scattered patches of ivy that still dot this part of the trail. After an hour or so, the party pauses to rest.
Y'all haven't made anywhere near a normal day's worth of progress, but your eight hours of normal travel are up. Forced march?
Umash, the Unwanted |
On the way Umash carefully collects a few samples of the ivy.
Craft (poisonmaking) untrained: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (11) + 4 = 15
Craft (poisonmaking) untrained: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (16) + 4 = 20
Craft (poisonmaking) untrained: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7
GM Sarpadian |
For the record, there is no Craft (poisonmaking); one crafts poisons with Craft (alchemy), which is good for you. However, I'm going to say you need Knowledge (nature) checks to collect the poison, and later you can make Craft checks to distill it into usable form. We'll use those rolls and replace the modifier with your Knowledge (nature) modifier: 19, 24, 11.
Umash manages to collect two usable samples of ivy while the party is discussing whether or not to continue.
Drexel Morrow |
I feel comfortable with my hitpoints to do a forced march.
I grit my teeth and haul myself back up the embankment. Once we get to the top I finally start breathing normally again. "I agree, lets press on. I don't want to tarry on the trail. I am beginning to regret volunteering for this." I grimace, gingerly touching my still healing wounds.
GM Sarpadian |
Beating through the overgrown trail must have taken more out of the party than it seemed, for they are feeling the strain of an extra hour of travel.
Drexel, Chantif, and Rhona all take 4 nonlethal damage
Rhona Patenaude |
Guh! All the nonlethal damage!
Rhona's mood is not helped at all by the strain of the day's journey. Her muscles ache, and it takes everything she has not to groan audibly as the hours stretch. Clearly, however, she is not the only one suffering from exhaustion; Chantif and Drexel look rough as well. Her mood is dark enough that she can't even bring herself to gripe at Chantif or pick on Drexel, so she just glowers quietly.
GM Sarpadian |
The party finds a spot close by that is flat enough to set up camp. The night passes uneventfully, and the party resumes their northern course. All of the sudden, a pair of long tentacles reach down at Det, but both of them miss. Looking up, the whole party sees a lanky creature with its legs wrapped around a tree branch and his arms dangling down towards Det.
Everybody is up except Drexel. No map because I can't do 3D. Basically, the creature is 10' up in the air; only ranged attacks or reach weapons will be effective.
Rhona Patenaude |
I think the creature's reaching for Det, our absent other-ranger, not Drexel. I almost made that mistake too, though, since Sarpadian mentioned Drexel not being up.
"Oh, hell...!" Rhona shouts as she sees the creature's tentacles threatening Det. Chantif's longspear could likely reach the creature, but Rhona herself lacks a long enough weapon to poke at it. Oh, well- that's what her throwing axes are for!
I'll drop my longsword, use a move action to draw a throwing axe, then a standard to chuck it at the lanky fellow. I'm not sure how far away I am, so feel free to impose whatever range penalties are appropriate.
Throwing Axe: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (19) + 4 = 23
Damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8
Nice. Between me and Chantif, I'm pretty sure we just knocked a nice chunk out of this thing, if not killed it outright. GM, any word on our re-recruitment progress?
Umash, the Unwanted |
Umash draws a bomb vial from her bandolier: "If you want trouble, get down here!", she hurls the vial at the creature.
Throwing bomb
Ranged Touch Attack: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 2 = 17
Damage: 1d6 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7
GM Sarpadian |
Rhona is correct.
The creature howls in agony as Chantif stabs it in the side with his spear and Rhona's axe hits it in one of the tentacles. Umash's bomb explodes above the creature. Det bashes at the creature. The creature moves into the branch's foliage.
Party up.