Whatever your own reasons are, you all have reached the elven town of Gondlin within a few days of today. As no one of your group has been here before, the great town has taken your breath as you first lay your eyes on it. The town is build right in the middle of the great forest and so its sight is even more shocking as it is only visible about ten minutes before you reach its iron gates.
The town is ringed with a great, thick wall built from white marble and a hundred or more high and sleek towers looming overhead. As you have closed on the iron gates, watchfull eyes from elven guards on top of the walls observe your every step but you are allowed to enter the town without any hindrance. The streets are made of a grey-white stone and in the middle of the bigger streets are little waterways, which have its source at the great fountain in the central place, right at the front of the kings palace. The streets are ever clean and about every ten steps is growing tree or a bed of roses laid into the streets. Wherever you go, there is music from harves, flutes and singing from a dozen places and a lot of trading is going on. Most people in town are elves, but you can also see a lot of rich-looking dwarves, some Seedlings and also a lot of Kitsune walking by. Every now and then you are passed by four-man patrols of guardsmen, equipped with silver-white armors of Mithril, long spears and iron shields in their hands and bows on their back.
There are at least seven different Inns where you could stay for night (and day) with very comfortable bed and good meal's for everyone's taste. But these excellence comes with a high price, so shortly you are compelled to search for some kind of income to support this kind of lifestyle.
Soon you all discover the two blackboards, right besides the two gates, where different job offers are pinned every day, ranging from simple manual tasks like (un-)loading of trade carts, calls for musicians to some performance events or calls for bodyguards for long trade-journeys through the great forest.
You wake up with a headache as strong as if someone has hit you with a dwarf in full plate and without any clue were you are and were this headache comes from. As you rise from were you slept, your vision explodes in a hundred thousand stars of pain. After the storm of pain-stars ends has finally ended - to your own surprise - inside of a cell. Three sides are of blank stones, the forth is blocked by seven, arm-thick steel bars.
Slowly you sit back and tries to remember what has happened the last night and why you are here… After a few moments the picture of a fat dwarf comes to your mind, followed by some table game, and a choatic scene inside a tavern with lots of flying people and other stuff. The last picture you see is a high-grown elf in shiny armor and a great shield, the last one coming quickly towards you …
"BY THE BLOODRAIN, WHEN DO I GET BREAKFAST IN THIS DAMN PLACE?"
While Urak awakens in a cell with headaches and some momentary loss of memory, Uruk asks the barman for some jobs. The elf points him toward one of the two blackboards, at each of the two gates. Uruk decides to get to the north gate, were a crowd of people has already gathered around the board. After he gets to the fore row, he met - the still sleeping - Mash, rootet in the ground just before the board, shoes on the side. After she awakes and got aware of all those people watching her, she simply pops out her feet, get into her boots, murmuring something about "Never seen someone sleeping before...?" and then starts to search the board for an interesting task. While most of the tasks nearly are the same as yesterday, there is a new note, obviously quickly written.
Bandits have mugged ANOTHER trade company on the red road. Trader pays out a big bounty for everyone capable of stopping these bandits and even more for every goods delivered back to him.
For more information and application, come to Felafin at the town guard.
Interested in the job, Mash turns around and walks along, on the search for one of the townguard patrols. After a quick glance at the job offer, Uruk decide to follow her, as he has no idea where the town guard office is. After some time without noticing any guardsmen, Mash turns around and asks the Orc who follows her if he can see a guard-patrol. As Uruk also cannot see any guard, Mash asks him to lift her up on his shoulders, such that she has a better view. The Orc does as asked and lifts her up. The better observation position allows Mash immediately to see a guard patrol and together they head for them (the Sporechild still on the shoulder of the more than two times bigger Orc). The guards are slightly surprised by this sight but as they are asked for Felafrin, they quickly gave the two of them a quick way description.
Shortly after Mash and Uruk arrive at the guard post, an impressive fort-like building with four high towers and guarded entries. They are send down two floors until the finally get to Felafrin, a Elf in green and brown robes and a tired look on his face (the first elf you witnessed with rings under his eyes. In front of his desks full of paper, stands a fat dwarf with a lot of golden rings on his fingers and a golden chain around his neck who introduces himself as Bâlan Goldsmith. They seemed to have discussed until the Sporechild and the Orc entered. Quickly the dwarf describes your job, offering a total of 300g to stop the bandits "Bring me their heads!" and 250g per unopened chest the can bring back to him. The guard officer Felafrin interrupts the dwarf as often as he can to tell you that the guard - instead of plain killing the bandits - bring at least some of them alive if possible, as the amount of attacks on trading groups has increased a lot in the last years.
The dwarf tries to press the departure of the group, so the discussion is short lived and soon the two of you are brought down one more floor to a long corridor of cells build into the stone fundament of the building. In one of the last cells stands Urak, another big and broad Orc, stripped of all but his underwear with some bruises of a fight not long ago. Felafrin tells him that his gold was taken as sentence for causing a beating in the tavern and for hurting the dwarf Bâlan Goldshmith. As a possibility to redeem himself - and get his gold back - he offers him to partake at the hunt for the Bandits who attacked the travel cart of Bâlan and bring back as much of his property as possible.
Urak accepts with a growl, get his equipment back - without the gold of course - and the three of them sets of. Mash quickly stops by the "Myosotis" - a small shop selling high quality trail rations run by Ami Myosotis a slender but high-grown Seedling with deep-blue hair - and buys some trail rations including 10 goodberries - a gift by Ami for her "sister-in-root-and-leaf". Ami also tells Mash that Volcadil - the trade partner town at the end of the red road - is 10 to 20 days by foot from Gondolin.
Soon after the three of you depart on the red road to the south: two big and grim Orcs - having solved the first ranking with gazes in favor of Urak - and a small and slender Sporechild in between with a happy smile on her face.
As soon as the sound of the town ceased behind you, a heavy silence drops in between you and the fact that no one of you even knows the name of the others - let alone the abilities or intentions - comes to your mind.
Urak is riding his wolf and seems quite content for now, he does not initiate conversation. Instead he seems partly focused on the surroundings.
Urak keeps looking around, but after a while gets visibly bored and looks down to the other two.
"Nice job with the walking and all but if you don't pick up the pace anytime soon then we'll take forever to find something to smash. What business does a vegetable with a vegetable knife and a lazy eyed ork have with smashing anyway?"
Uruk travels without saying anything, but he is searching the horizon for enemies and sometimes he also look back to check if there is someone following.
"I have to settle old scores, and need the gold to reach it.
And well it's the only I'm good at.
You should never call me lazy eyed again or you will lose ur eyes."
Uruk grins and keeps march.
"Suuuuure I will, keep telling yourself that. So you actualy claim to be good at smashing things?"
"It wasn't me who got captured by elves but to give you a short answer: Yes I'm realy good at smashing and when I start I can't stop till there isn't enything left who could be smashed"
"And it was damn fun. Probably the best bar brawl they will _ever_ have in that no-fun stuck up town. You should try it too if you ever get that not-stopping under control. They get a great deal more pissed if the 10-20 people you knock out don't get up afterwards. And places where you can have fun can get rare fast if everyone and their brother wants to kill you back."
Mash just walks smiling besides them, whistling a little Mushroomsong, for as much as she has learned about Orcs, those two arbe about to be the best friends ever.
"Well I think your rigth, I need to learn how to settle when there is a brawl but are u able to endure when there is a real battle? I know I can kill people with my bare hands and your able to do same but isn't it inefficient?"
Urak laughs
"Inefficient? Sure, when someone takes your lump of metal away and you start swinging that won't get you far. But when you have the hang of it then you can carve someone a new face with just your fist, and boy it does make elves look a lot more tolerable, didn't you see the warden? Dwarfes too, come to think of it."
After the first hour of walking:
Urak starts rumaging through his pouches, eventually taking out large meat pieces on bones which look like they were burnt to charcoal. He takes a hefty bite out of it, then offers it to his wolf, which does the same. The two of them make rather short work of the meat.
Afterwards he's back at watching for game to hunt near the road, and stopping early to properly hunti if nothing is to be found before about 2 hours before dark
As the sun begins to set, you have walked about 20 miles, Urak suddenly stops and is looking around as if in search of something - has he seen something? Has he some business to resolve behind some tree, or does he want to call it a day and is searching for a resting place?
On both sides of the well maintained street lies a small strip of gras before the thick of the great forest starts.
You think that sunset will be about 2 hours from now.
There was no real prey near the street until sunset.
Urak does not convey his intentions, if he is not asked by the others he will set his tent at a protected place a bit off the road, prefereably outside of view of the road, then he grabs his bola and spears and goes off with his wolf
Uruk sets his tent near to Uraks and went to the forest on the other side of the road. "I will go and spot the surroundings"(To Mashroom)
He didn't detect anything in order to restock his supplies and went back to his tent with use of his compass if needed.
At the and of day he eats some of his supplies and tells the other "I will keep watch first who wants second?"
Mash takes last watch. Then she tries to find the perfect spot to sleep this night. She puts off her shoes, waters her armor and digging her feet into the ground goes to sleep.
After a few dozen metres into the thick forest your wolf seems to find a track and you follow him through the woods. But soon he stopped and suddenly takes on another direction.
After the fourth change of direction your patience runs out and you look for yourself, but are only able to find a nest of some bird with eight small eggs in it before the sun sets and you have to get back to the camp before you get lost in the dark forest. Enough food for today but you have to make a good hunt tomorrow as you could not resupply today.
You detect nothing eatable, despite some eatable plants which are god enough to enhance his try rations for that night. You also detect nothing remarkable despite the sound of lots of mall animals around you, without seeing them once.
You find a nice place of loose earth beneath an old tree. The slightly cool earth refreshes your feet after the long walk and you enter the dreamlike state of your kind within a few moments.
The night passes without further incidents.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
The night passes without further incidents.
[ooc]last time I didn't used my bonus of my machete +2 to survival.
Urak takes 2nd watch without a fuss _if_ the others remember to tell him about it.
Anyway, as his rations are getting low he will mix things up a bit the next day:
"The hunt was bad yesterday, but thankfully I have mr Wolf here. I'll go full speed today so I have plenty of time to hunt until you guys catch up"
survival: 18+8=26
survival: 6+8=14
survival: 19+8=27
since mash took last watch, she waits for Urac to wake her, if Uruc doesn't wake Urak, he'll have to take watch the whole night. XD
The next day of hunt is even worse for Urak, everywhere he go he is unable to find anything to eat, not even some eatable plants. As he finally returns to the camp, Uruk has already returned with three rabbits he currently cooking over the fire - he was obviously more successful.
As Urak sits down, with to feed his revolting stomach, Mash comes out of the forest pulling with all her might on a rope, with something obviously really heavy on the end. After her next hard pull with all of her 90cm, a huge 14-ender roebuck becomes visible at the end of the rope, easily three times of her own weight. "Got this one after a few minutes. Took me for ages to pull him here!"
On the next day of travel Urak has some more luck with a bunch of squirrels crossing his path but then again Uruk tops him, as the other Orc comes back with a big deer over his shoulder. Mash in the meanwhile found a clear forest lake and filled up her water skins and took a refreshing bath.
On the third day your small group makes good speed on a sunny day and at the warm evening everyone has some good fortune while hunting. Urak finally finds a deer for himself while Uruk finds some place to refill his water skins and after some time hunting, takes on the lazy route and sets off to finish his deer from the last day. Mash makes an incredible found: a giant scorpion! Obviously this creature has got himself lost, as his kind typically lives further south in the firelands. She is able to gain a small amount of his poison out of his sting
Update for your position at roll20.
Shortly after you departed for your fourth full day of travel you can see, that something big on the street somewhere in the distance.
At the sight of that monster of a deer saliva starts dripping from Uraks tusks.
You gon eat dat all?
Mash smiles: "Guess so! Would be a waste to leave it. Since the roebuck had to die in order form me to have something to eat, it would be absolutly disrespectfull to leave anything behind!"
Then she bows down, thanks the roebuck for leaving his life for her wellbeing. After that she starts to gut the animal.
As you get closer to the big object on the street in front of you, you notice that the forest seems to creep closer on you, mostly because of a big hedge which grows at each side of the street. The hedge is about two metres high and at least one and a half metre thick and full of small thorns.
As you get within 40 metres you can finally recognize the object as an abondoned cart, obviously with a big, opened chest as its load.
Urak gets up and points to the roebuck.
"Urak no like take from good hunt, but hunting bad in this tree land. Urak challenge you for right to eat from hunt"
"Why challange? If you want some, just take as much as you and your sweet wolf need! Mash likes to share her food with her friends!", Mash answers with a puzzled expression on her face.
Urak looks equaly puzzled.
"No need Challenge if food given. In ork world hunter no give food to other"
Urak will wait until Mash starts eating, then just rip off 2 large pieces(probably legs if they are still on at that point) give one to his wolf and roast the other over a fire before diging in
"You Orcs sure are funny!", Mash answers."But Mash is no Orc, she's you're friend, just like Uruk!"
She smiles and starts preparing a delicious meal.
"Friend... friend is new word. Like Uruk? So friend is is when we go smash faces together?"
"Jap, that's right. But they also share their meat with you, when you're having a bad day hunting!", Mashs smile gets bigger, for her new friend seems to understand her.
At the fourth day of your travel you finally found the remaining's of the trading group. Three carts - without animals to pull them - and six dead guards are all that remained of the proud trading group. As you started to search for tracks you encountered two black bears - in a fight over one of the dead guards - and you finished them off in a fierce fight were Uruk was nearly killed. After the fight a blinding flash of light appeared behind you and after the light was gone, the dead elf guard who laid there was gone and a female with a mysterious music instruments stood in front of you. She wrote to you - because she cannot talk - on small sheets of paper, that she is called Sona, a half elf whose dad is said to be from "The outside" . She told you that her faith tells her that she has to help you, as you are about to turn around a great injustice. After that she healed the badly wounded Uruk and also Urak with impressive healing magic and a calming play on her instrument.
The group accepted Sona's company and began to search for tracks to find the bandits who obviously ambushed the trading group. You noticed that all guards were dead for about two days and all of them seemed to be (first) shot with arrows and additionally hit with heavy clubs on the head. After some searching Urak and Mash found a lot of tracks near the hedge at either side of the ambush place of a group of people and wild animals (bears, one owlbear, wolfs and one lion).
You followed the tracks of to the east into the thick of the forest. As the tracks seemed to split up (one to the north and one to the south) you followed the north one for the remaining of the day until you reached a broad and fast moving forest river. The tracks seemed to enter the river without obviously leaving it on the other side. Mash detected two holes in the river bed near the tracks, and concluded that the bandits took a raft to bring their loot down the river.
The next day you built a raft to follow in kind down the river. After about one and a half hour of quick travel the river gets smaller and finally the raft cannot go any further. After some searching the group detected another track and followed it to the east until they met the street again. The sharp ears of Mesh detected some kind of talking somewhere south and Urak saw something big made of stone in the same direction. Mesh scouted forward and discovers a goblin-orc camp and a watch tower, manned by goblin archers.
With the detailed description of Mash the group was able to make an overwhelming surprise attack against the camp, killing all goblins and Orcs in it quickly. At the mid of the camp you found a best quality chest which neither the Orcs who have surely looted it nor the group were able to open, whether with skill nor with brute force.
Inside the tower the group found stairs leading into the depths of a dungeon fortress full of orcs and goblins, complete with a small smith, animal cages, sleeping places and kitchen. After a lot of fierce fighting you finally met the Troll Warlord head-on and killed him, nearly loosing Uruk as he and the Troll wacking each other without any quarter given nor take. The warlords throne room was loaded with weapons, armor pieces, gold coins and also two really damaged but nethertheless unopened chests, obviously made from the same master smiths as the chest you found in the goblin camp on the surface. You further discovered a natural cave underneath the Troll-Stronghold with a natural, sub terrain lake and a mushroom forest. Inside the forest you encountered two hideous creatures, Mash called "Fungal Crawler", and an electric eel inside the lake.
Finally, after enough "smashing" for a day - even for two ferocious Orcs - you set you take a rest - at the sub terrain lake ? - proud of your victory and glad to live.
Also give me another Knowledge:Nature Check before you leave the second level were you fought the crawlers.
"Urak no stay down here, Urak go to wolf and build tent outside"
Untrained -> does not work for checks above 10dc anyway
Already taken/distributed during gamesession:
134g in coins
Gold bar worth up to 150g(probably less in Uraks case)
He does a few trips up and down to take the greatswords and the bear pelts up, setting up his tend and padding it with the pelts.
He takes 2 large uncooked pieces of meat on the first and the last trip, throwing them to his own wolf and the one who is still tied to w/e he was before.
Before leaving the next day he takes rations both for himself and both wolves to last until gondolin.
After you took as much as possible from the dungeon you set your camp at the surface, ironically were you ambushed the goblins.
After a very good dinner - accompanied by a slow but rhythmic ballad of Sona - you get very sleepy after this day full of fighting.
Uruk is the first to fall asleep, used more of his luck in one day than in the last year.
Urak, Mash and Sona are left to arrange guard shifts if you want to have one.
Urak does not set up camp where the goblin were. But he does use their campsite to his advantage.
He sets up a fire there and puts down 2 corpses which don't have obvious wounds from a distance so they vaguely look like sleeping. The other corpses get tossed into the fire along with enough wood to keep the fire burning the night.
The group camp is a bit further away from the street.
If anoying sneekies come at night let em anoy dead ones first so we can smash face better awake
While setting up your camp at the goblins place, Urak is really silent with a thoughtful expression on his green face (so he really thinks?) and finally brings up an idea of how to use the campsite for your advantage. Surprised by his intelligent idea you move your camp a few dozen feet into the forest and prepare the campsite.
"Urak take first watch you lazies go sleep"
Urak hate sleep watch sleep, better sleep later
Everyone give me one Perception check and the order of your watch.
First, unless someone speaks up against it =3
Mash takes last watch.
She roots her feet into the ground near the hedge, so that she's alsmost surrounded by bushes.
Perception check: 4 + 8 = 12
The second watch is okay for Uruk even if he isnt glad about it.