Arianna tumbles backwards 5' and springs to her feet.
Acrobatics check (to avoid AoO):
As she stands she pulls her short swords and prepares to attack the Alpha wolf.
Alandra moves up behind Arianna and toucher the roue with her holy symbol.
The three women acted in unison to respond to the continued threat from the wolves. Arianna desperately scrabbled back, avoiding the snapping jaws of the beasts in front of her and standing with her weapons drawn to face this new threat.
A cool touch on her arm signalled Alandra's healing magic being delivered. For the briefest moment the young rogue could smell roses and strong scent of freshly turned earth. The effect was followed by a sense of recovered strength and health.
As Elsbeth moved, she unleashed another bolt of energy at the wolf standing over Anay. The force bolt struck true, flaring as it did so and flashing bright light across the clearing. The wofl yelped in pain and tunred tail, ready to flee in face of such severe resistance. The last two wolves stood their ground, snarling and slavering at the percieved threat to their fresh kill. These wolves were desperate to eat, no doubt about it.
With a thunder of hooves and a scream of panic, the two horses that had broken their tethers broke and ran from the wolves. They barged and thumped their way past the other horses, and with some horror, the remianing upright members of teh group watch as Bergan is trampled under the hooves of one the beasts. His body rolled and bucked with the impacts, and everyone heard the unmistakable crunch as bones were snapped in the incident. He lay there on the trampled ground, very still in the dim firelight.
All thought for the horses leaves Lev's mind as he watches Anya driven to the ground and he turns cold eyes to the alpha wolf, his lips drawing back from his teeth in a snarl.
Lev steps forward with cold precision, raising his great sword and bringing it down on the wolf with all the strength he can muster.
[ooc]Power Attack:
[ooc]Damage:
Lev moves in over the prone form of his sister and brings his sword down with great ire. The blade splits the wolfs head clean in two, killing it instantly and ending its threat to the region forever.
The other wolf breaks and runs then, having lost the majority of tis pack and now the Alpha, the animal gives up the hard fought meal and flees into the night, emitting an eerie howl as it does so.
All around, the camp is in chaos. The gear has been trampled by the fleeing horses and some if it scattered. One of the horses is dead, and two of the group are down. Anya groans slightly from her worsening wounds, but Bergan is dreadfully still. Somwhere out in the night, two of the horses are still likely to be running from the wolf attack, while the reminaing three animals are very agitated indeed.
Alandra sees that Anya is down and goes over to her an kneels down. Removing a black rose petal from her pouch she touches it to Anya's forehead, softly muttering a prayer.
Lev waits by Anya's side until he's sure that she's okay, and then he hurries over to Bergan.
Alandra, is there anything that can be done for this man?" Having no skills in healing, he feels unusually helpless.
Alandra checks on Bergan to see if he is still alive.
"The horses stepped on him."
Anya stirs and sits groggily as the priestess of Pharasma channels her magic into her body. The young noblewoman looks pale and somewhat shaken by her close brush with death, and still carries a fairly serious injury. However she is alive.
Miraculously, Bergan is alive as well, though for how much longer remains to be seen. His body is an absolute mess, and Alandra realises it will take more than her normal healing ability to repair the shattered ribs and leg that he happened as a result of the horse trampling all over him.
"Now i know why i don't have a feeling for animals.What are we going to do now?"
After examining Bergan, "He's stil alive!" she exclaims, "but in very bad shape."
She mutters a quick prayer .
"We need to get him back to Oleg's, his injuries are beyond what I can take care of here."
Lev looks at the ruins of the camp, the dead horse and the places where several of the horses had broken away from their tethers.
"That's not going to be easy to do." He scratched at the rough bristles on his jaw as he thought the matter over.
"Can you heal those two horses that have been wounded? If nothing else we can use those two to bring Bergan and Anya back to Oleg's while the rest of us walk. Otherwise, we're going to have to hunt down the ones that fled."
Edit to add:
"Mawj? Can you try and track the horses that ran off? Don't take too much time, but if they haven't gone far we might still be able to get some of them back."
He turned to look at the area, assessing the materials available to them. "I don't suppose any of you have any talents in building travois, do you?"
He begins to move about, grabbing blankets, rope and eying trees that might provide good poles. He also goes over to the slain horse, removing the rein and other equipment, considering how to use the leather straps as a halter for a travois or some other conveyance to carry Bergan.
Alandra examines the two horses.
"Lev, please bring Anya and Bergan over here with the horses."
After they are all within range Alandra holds her holy symbol above her head, flooding the area in a soft white light.
Mawj nods her head at Lev, and quickly gathers up her gear before heading off after the horses. While she's gone, Alandra's magic does its trick and Anya at least is soon fully recovered. The young noble looks down at the broken body of her new servant and seems saddened momentarily, before putting on her usual stoic face and helping Lev with the travois.
Within half an hour though, it has gone full dark and thoughts of travel are put aside. Bergan remains thankfully unconcious, for his pain would be quite intense should he waken now. Alandra thinks he may end up with some head troubles from the original kick, and if she can't set the bones right before they start to knit together naturally, then he may not walk properly again.
More worrisome is the fact that Mawj still hasn't returned and neither have the horses. This promises to be a dark and worrisom night indeed.
Lev takes first watch and stares off into the darkness in the direction that Mawj had gone, worried that he had made a mistake in trusting the full-blooded elf. He was confident that she was capable of taking care of herself, and he'd thought she could be trusted to fulfill her duties to the group. Her extended absence appeared to be suggesting otherwise.
"I'm too tired to think something now, see you all tomorrow morning."
Arianna wil take the midnight watch.
The night passes without further incident. During Arianna's watch, a single lone howl echoes mournfully across the plains and hills of the region, replied to from some distance by another lone wolf. However, apart from that there are no troubles.
By morning, Mawj has still not returned and the light of day shows no sign of the Elf. Lev scouts out a short way from camp, reluctant to leave the others too vulnerable at the moment. Mawj's tracks continue out into the plains, following the horse for a while before disapearing completely in a rocky area. The big hunter cannot go further without leaving the party for too long.
Returning back to camp, he lets them know the elf is gone, though he's not sure where.
In the background, Bergan stirs and groans as the pain of his injuries washes over him. He's strapped to a travois, ready to be hooked up to one of the horses, but the trip back to Oleg's promises to be extremely painful to man.
By the time mid morning rolls around, it is decided that they cannot wait any longer for Mawj and the group heads off into the wilds, heading for Oleg's
Any moment during travel back:
"Strangely enough, i found myself upset for the disappearence of Mawj; i didn't though of her as a friend, but now i understand i'm starting to think at all of you as something more than just traveling companions. What do you think happened to her Lev?"
Lev inadvertently glances back in the direction they'd been traveling from. He had been wondering the same thing. "She's quite capable. Perhaps she decided that her path led in a different direction from our own. Shame about the horses, though."
"It's gonna be a long walk."
Alandra does the best she can to ease some of Bergan's pain.
As Alandra tends Bergan's wounds, a touch of pity creeps into Arianna's voice "Just try and relax. It'll be over soon"
Alandra's words seem almost prophetic, as the next two days are spent moving with interminable slowness since the majority of the group are on foot and Bergan needs to be moved slowly.
The nights are without event, blessedly. Mawj's continued absence doesn't bode well, though Lev holds hope for the woman.
On the third day, a tiny hut comes into view across the plain. A small copse of trees grows in an otherwise uninterupted sea of waving grass, obviously near a source of water. As the group stands and observes the place, they can see a steady stram of smoke rising from the chimney, though strangly it seems to have different colours swirling through it. A small and aged man capers around the front of the hut, seemingly oblivious to the group of travellers nearby. He shouts general abuse towards the trees while waving a very ugly hat in the air.
Lev figures them to be maybe another days walk from Oleg's.
Anya grunted and grimassed. Caked with blood as she was, she resembled a corpse more than a living person. Yet her first words were quite unconcerned with her own welfare. A quick mental inventory where she could feel pain looked complete, after all.
"How did it end?" She inquired, and tried to move over to her brother. Raised her hands and rubbed her temples trying to clear her head. Most of her wounds had scabbed over due to Alandra's intervention, but the hurt and the trauma of her close brush remained. "Is everyone alright?"
"Mawj has disappeared, and Berghan is in very bad shape, but still alive.For the rest, we are trying to make it back to Oleg's on foot."
At the hut.
"And now what...think we could just walk away or we have to get involved in something else?"
"Perhaps these people will have medical supplies and can help us with Bergan"
Anya sighed deeply, and moved towards the servant. She felt a deep feeling of regret of making the man endanger himself. Sure, he was getting good money for it, but that didn't matter after her own brush with Pharasma. "Let me check on him, first. Maybe these people can help. I would hate it if he came to harm because of me."
She moved towards her servant's resting place, herself still fighting with the damage she had sustained.
The man suddenly stops his wild cavorting, as if noticing for the first time that he is being observed.
Slowly, he turns to look at the battered party staring at him from the small rise near his home. He looks around, as if searching for any other signs of danger before wiping his hands across his bearded face and shuffling forwards in an odd walk.
"What do you want!", the words are shouted with a gruff tone. He shuffles a little closer "You come to buy potions from old Bokken, or steal 'em liked the damned fey keep doing, eh? What's yer business?"
Anya meanwhile glances down at Bergan. The man is currently sleeping, his face drawn in pain at the broken bones he sustained. Despite all of Alandra's healing, the wound to his head still shows a deep purple bruising and the left leg is slightly offset. The young priestess has done a miraculous job in keeping him alive though, and it speaks to an underlying toughness in the servant that he could survive such a battering and remain alive. However, he would certainly need magical aid if he were to recover from his injuries fully, unless they were willing to give him several weeks of rest to let the bones reset.
"What kinda potions you got?" Alandra asks the crazy old man. "We won't steal 'em."
Alanna
Alanna moved wearily along with the Caravan, having trudged through nearly a weeks trek with the caravan to arrive at the border outpost.
Milos and his daughter were pleasent enough company, no denying that, but for the last few days Alanna's head had been throbbing with a low grade headache. It had been the same since the battle, though sometimes weeks went by before her head really went to pieces.
Overhead, the sun beat relentlessly down on the young archer, driving its heat into her skull like a relentless spike. She knew that if they didn't get to rest soon, there was a good chance that she would simply black out there on the road. That's when the voices usually came back, and that's what she was really worried about.
Ahead, Milos suddenly called out in happiness "We are here! Take heart my girl, you can rest those pretty feet of yours in comfort tonight. Oleg knows how to look after guests, and if luck is with us, those explorers we met last time will be there to make me more money eh?!"
The man's enthusisasm was infectious, no denying that. Alanna's own enthusiasm was not so high when teh old fort finally came into view though. The place looked like it was in need of repair, though what had her more concerned was the small village of tents that seemed to have sprung up around the place. Her emplyers hadn't told her that so many folk would be around, and given the nature of her job, the extra folk made her nervous.
Milos himself seemed somewhat taken aback by the new development. "Huh, two weeks travel makes some difference eh? Well,, not to worry, even travellers need to buy new clothes and things for their loved ones. We'll do well tonight eh my daughter?" The last question was directed at his daughter, driving the second wagon. She had been quiet for most of the trip, but now she looked eager to reach the trading post. Her eyes scanned the area, abviously searching for someone.
As the wagon drove through the tent village and into the trading post enclosure, they were greeted by a tall man dressed in fine armour. He spoke quietly to Milos, outside Alanna's hearing, but she caught the look he gave her as the wagon train went passed. With luck, he just thought she was another guard put on by the merchant for the trip.
Milos hopped down and began giving orders for the wagons to be stored and opened for trade, and the horses stabled. He walked casually past Alanna and whispered "They're not here girl, best to keep your head down until they come back.". He slipped her a wink and continued on his way, shouting in joy as a young boy rushed up to him accompanied by what looked suspiciously like a large wolf.
Alanna;s headache got worse as the noise in the area picked up. At least she had reached the end of her journey.
At Bokkens hut
The old man looks closely at Alandra as she makes her statement, hopping from foot to foot in nervous contemplation as he makes his decision.
"We got all types to sell here young woman, from healing salves to potions as would make you strong and virile hmhmmmm." he moves a little closer, his shuffling gate looking very like a nervous bird aproaching a meal it isn't sure about. "Course old Bokken is no fool. You'll need to be leaving those weapons outside, hmhmmm. Don't want nothin' too sharp near me says I, hmhmmmm"
He's about to say more when a great puff of green smoke erupts from his chimney, followed by a wheezing bellow from the hut itself. Bokken jumps and spins, twisting his hat in his hands before dashing inside shouting
"Dagnabbit, they've gone too far this time, those damnable fey critters!"
Outside, the weary group are left to wonder at the mans sanity and whether they should enter or not.
Alanna took a deep breath inhaling the scents of the fort, the scents of civilization. Horse dung, mud, lamp oil, leather. Familiar scents. Anything familiar was welcome, not to mention these were far better scents than the blood and vicera she'd been greeted with when she woke up that day.
The most vivid memory she had and it was something she's give anything to forget. She laughed bitterly to herself at that. If the gods were watching they had a sick sense of humor.
She needed a drink, a hot meal and a hot bath. In exactly that order. Gods her head hurt. Was this a symptom of what had happend or was she always prone to headaches? She really had no way of knowing?
She gathered her gear and made her way towards the fort, her unstrung bow in her hand. Silverbow. It was as good a name as any, in fact the name Alanna was essentially a guess, taken from a scrap of paper she'd found in her pack, a letter that had been rendered unreadable but for the one name, the rest of it soaked in blood.
Whenever the headaches came her mood tended to turn dark. She needed to rest and then to find the people she'd been sent to meet up with. She'd catch thier trail, after some rest.
Lev helps Anya to her feet. "The wolves did you considerable harm, but once I took out the packleader, the remaining wolf fled. I'll have to keep that in mind if we run into other packs in the future."
He nods toward Bergan's bandaged form. "Unfortunately, Bergan was trampled by some horses as they fled the wolves. Alandra stabilized him, but we'll have to carry him back to Oleg's. It'll be a dificult journey, poor lad."
He says nothing of Mawj, letting Elsbeth speak for him.
Lev silently takes in the scene at Bokkens hut for a moment.
"No offense, man, but I'm not inclined to leave my weapons behind when the bloody fey are about. If I'm not allowed to approach, perhaps you can speak with us out here?" As the man darts into his hut, Lev raises his voice so that it might carry to him.
He looks to the others. "Perhaps someone who has a better way with words should go treat with him. If he's at all skilled, the man would be a resource we'd do better not to ignore."
Arianna looks at the others and shrugs "If I can't take an old man bare handed, then I'm in worse than I thought" so saying she removes her sword belt and any (visible) weapons she's carrying.
Walking up to the hut, she knocks on the door "Old man...Bokken is it? May I enter?"
Lev moves over to where he can keep close watch on the weapons Arianna leaves behind, ever mindful of the possible presence of fey.
Alandra yells after Bokken "I need something to help this poor boy! He is badly injured!"
Alandra yells after Bokken "I need something to help this poor boy! He is badly injured!"
"Lev, will you be so kind?" Elsbeth says while passing to the ranger her dagger and crossbow.
"A crafter of potions is interesting for someone like me, and i sure won't need material weapons"
Temporary forgetful of her currently untidy state Elsbeth enters the hut herself and starts looking around
"Hello?"
Lev:
Anya looked less than entirely happy with Elsbeth taking the initiative like this - it could be dangerous, after all. The hermit didn't seem too keen on guests and some of his kind took very badly to interruption. Still, Bergan outweighed this concern by far.
Lev was thoughtful for a moment before answering. "I suppose it is easier for me. I was raised in the woods and life is harsher there. Things happen. One of the huntsmen's sons, a friend of mine, lost his right leg when he was eight when he caught it in a bear trap. Most everyone I knew as a child was missing something; an eye, a finger, a hand. Men died and we accept it and move on."
He paused a moment, rubbing a thumb over his chin. "Still, I regret the harm done to Bergan and I...feared...for you when the wolves ravaged you. I would protect you all from such things if I could." His eyes looked fierce then.
Lev takes Elsbeth's weapons silently, shoving the dagger into his belt and slinging the crossbow over his shoulder.
Unbidden Arianna enters the hut. "Listen, my friend. One of our companions is severely injured, beyond the ability of our healer to repair. Do you have any potions that can knit bone or repair sinew?"
Bokken's Hut
Arianna and Elsbeth enter the old man's hut, pushing aside the fairly flimsy wooden door to enter a room that is pure chaos.
Various tables are filled with concoctions bubbling away in glassware and pottery. Some of them are being heated with mundane fire, but at least two that Elsbeth can see are using arcane heat of some form or another.
The room itself is smokey and pungent, an aroma brought about by the mix of smokes, steams and various hanging nigredients in the hut. The other thing of interest, that Arianna picks up on, is the hut seems far bigger inside than it does from the outside. It is only when she realises the ht has been dug into the ground for some parts, and actually carved from the tree that the hut is attatched to dies she realise why. There is no rhyme nor reason to teh place, merely a series of areas that seem to have been created as the need arose.
Around the edges of the rooms, large bookshelves and other flat surfaces have been added in a similarly adhoc manner, each of which is packed with completed potions and salves.
Bokken himslef is standing near a large metal contraption suspended over his main fire. The thing is creating an awful noise, hissing and jetting streams of coloured steam as the potion maker dances madly around it fiddling with valves and nobs.
With a final piteous squeal, the thing comes to shuddering halt, jetting a last gout of purple smoke into bokkens face before going completely silent. He screams in frustration, smacking into the contraption with a large metal ladle before cursing the fey with great gusto.
His souldser heave as he finally takes a great breath and turns to face the two women, his eyes glittering with some unkown emotion as he addresses them. "Well then, a potion to knot bones and mend flesh eh? Might be I have something along that line, hmhmmmm.". He shuffles forwards then, looking more closely at the somewhat weather beaten and battle worn women. "Won't be cheap mind, will cost ye. Gold coin or barter, whichever suits you best, but quite the cost none the less, hmhmmm."
He looks around then, as if trying to spot something in the clutter and smoke, before turning back to the girls "So tell old Bokken, what's a potion like this worth to you eh? A few hundred gold I think hmhmmmm"
"OK I said my opinion of your servant got a bit better, but not to the point of spending so many money on him.And i wonder what favor could this hermit ever need."
Alannah
The food was fantastic, or at least to Alannah's warrior tastes it was fantastic. Milos and his daughter weren't exactly hopeless at camp style cooking, but Oleg's wife Svetlana could turn a stew into something else with just a few added herbs.
The young archer wolfed down her meal, waiting for her shot at the bath. As per her current employment, she would need to wait until the merchant and his daughter had their turn before she would be allowed in, and even then it would be at her own expense. An expense she felt was worth it though. The throb in head had slowly grown through the meal, and by this time she knew that she couldn't avoid the dark time.
A cold nuzzle suddenly pressed against her thigh and the warmth of a small body pressing against her left side startled her into realising she had lost track of events around her. This one was going to be bad.
"You look all sweaty and white lady!" the little boy from earlier in the day stated quite bluntly. "My puppy was wondering if you weren't going to finish that if he could have it?"
Alannah suddenly realised she wasn't hungry at all. Standing and nodding at the boy she quickly made her way to the bed chambers that Milos had secured for them, folding up onto the bed as the light spiralled into a dark tunnel in her eyes and eventually blinking out completely ......
Too late to stop and ask, she tumbled forwards into that cavern, swallowed by a mouth of lies and bathed in the screams of the dead...
When she woke, the night had fallen fully and someone had stripped her down and covered her with a blanket. Her mouth tasted of bile and stale vomit, and she understood why her benefactor had striped her down. The headache had gone though.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Lev:
"I know people in my care and under my supervision will die. If my plans play out the way I want them to play out, they'll die on my orders and even for the benefit of my causes. This is just something I'll have to grow used to. Feels like a failure, but you have to grow a few thick skin, the sooner the better." Yet his declaration of loyalty still brought a faint smile on her lips.
"Thank you Lev. I hope I won't need your protection all too often, but it's good to know you'd be there."
Bokken finally agrees to provide the potion of lesser restoration to the two ladies after some bartering. He hops and shuffles over to a side chamber, unlatching a secured chest nd removing the item from there, before closing and ltching it again. He mutters a few words over the chest, just out of earshot from the two women, but Elsbeth can tell they are magic in nature.
In return for the potion, he asks for the group to complete a task for him.
"There are a group of the fey that live beneath a fell tree in these parts, hmhmmm. They are always into my home, taking things they shouldn't and interrupting my postions. This time, they've gone too far and taken a sprogget that I need for my Fuegleiest IV." He nods towards the machine he had been trying to run earlier. "It would take months for the part to come here from the alnds where this is made, and I'd have to visit Oleg's to order it" The obvious dstaste in his voice on this stateet speaks volumes of what he think s of this idea. "You people can retrieve the sprogget for me I think, hmhmmmm. A simple for so many of you I feel, and certainly worth teh cost of the potion to me."
He looks closesly at the two women who had entered, marking them clearly in his mind. "No running off and not taking the job now, eh! I may seem old, girlies, but I'm not one to be crossing I tell you!"
Having taken the potion and agreeing to the deal, the group heads off towards Olegs again. With Bergan healed, the group makes much better progress, thogh it is still a full day before they arrive at teh trading post.
The sight that greets them is far different from the one they left nearly two weeks ago. A series of white tents have been set up into a small village to the side and downhill from the Trading post. People of all descriptions seem to moving about the place, to all intents and purposes making this exactly like a small village. The state of some of the tents is already starting to take on a more permanent note, as timber and extra canvas has been added to increase the size and comfort of the dewllings.
Looks like Restov has already started sending folks from their swollen streets into the sothern lands.