Cuddles stops suddenly, looking very confused. He points to a place where the trail diverges. There are the horse hooves that we have been following, though they split between two directions. One goes south, curving off to the south west, and the other turns due east.
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For his part, Anton also seems apprehensive at the thought of riding. The large animals unnerve him, and images of being thrown from the saddle and breaking his neck flash briefly through his mind. When Harsk insists on walking, he fights to hold back a sigh of relief.
As the group walks, he seems to struggle under the his pack, the weight sitting heavy on his thin shoulders. He carries on in silence, determined not to slow the group down, but it's clear to anyone who looks that the wizard isn't used to such physical exertion.
When the trail diverges, he frowns at Cuddles. "Which way do we go?" he asks no-one in particular.
"I'd say south, deeper into the Stolen Lands. I can't imagine bandits hiding out in the open." He didn't sound very sure but it was the best course of action he could think of, "I do wonder what is to the east though. Perhaps we should check both?"
After gathering her possessions, Katya isn't shy about taking one of the bandits' horses. She glances at Cander who is controlling his horse with his knees.
I'll take a horse, she says, but mind you don't go too fast. I know how to stay in the saddle, but not much else.
She moves over to the horses and selects a bay gelding. She approaches cautiously and slowly, holding a hand out, before stroking the horse on the neck. There you go. she says quietly. I'm Katya. What's your name?
The horse just stares at her. It's all right. Let's check your hooves.
She strokes her hand down the horse's leg, patting it on the back of the leg the way she'd seen smiths doing in New Stetven. The horse obediently raises its hoof, with Katya cradling it in her hands. She looks up at Cander and smiles.
Look! she says. I'm checking hooves! She looks back down, then screws her face up in concentration. Um... She looks back up. What am I looking for, exactly?
She leans against the horse and it moves sideways, pushing its leg out and tossing her on her back.
Oww... She sits up, rubbing the small of her back. Cander, you can do that next time. Although maybe I'll watch. As for you, she points at the horse, I'm naming you Alexei.
The horse snorts.
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Later, as the group looks at the trail, Katya stares at the churned ground that the others say represent the hoofprints of the bandits' horses.
So, does that mean that some of them came from the east, and some came from the south, and they joined up before they arrived at Oleg's?
Could be a route, a triangle of sorts...or two camps. Only one way to find out...
Cuddles doesn't know what kind of camp the other like, so he tags along and helps unload gear, pitch tents, tend horses and that kind of thing.
"Oh, yes. Southwest makes more sense, I think. More wild, more places to hide." Cander nearly stammers, coming out of his venison-based daydream.
"Also, it's nearing nightfall. We should attempt to find a place to rest before dark is upon us."
Remembering bits and pieces from when his father would take him camping farther into the wilderness, Cander attempts to take the lead in finding a secure place to stay for the night.
Katya makes an effort to seem useful.
Maybe we should find somewhere defensible? In case the bandits try an ambush? What about that copse of trees over there?
She nudges Alexei in the flanks to get him moving, and makes her way up next to Cander.
What do we do with the horses while we're camping? I assume we can't just tie them to a tree.
Anton tries to make himself useful, but it's painfully obvious he has no idea what he's doing.
Standard tents have a hard time housing Cuddles, so he has learned to sleep without one. The same can be said for beds in general. He eats a trail ration and drains several waterskins, then follows directions to help the party however he can.
Cander does not own a tent, but instead takes his bedroll out of Mina's saddlebags and sets it on a patch of soft grass.
What do we do with the horses while we're camping? I assume we can't just tie them to a tree.
"Well, yes and no, Katya. What we want to do is set up a "highline." We tie a rope between two trees and then tie the horses to that rope with some distance between them. That way, they won't get tangled up with one another and can't trap themselves by walking around the tree trunk too many times..."
Cander goes on to explain the process, showing Katya how to tie the requisite knots and how to place debris in-between the ropes and the tree-trunks so that the line does not make a mark. He also enlists her to clear the debris below and around the highline, so the horses might have a more comfortable place should they decide to lie down or roll.
"That should do it." he says, when all is said and done. "And should there be an emergency in the night, do not cut the highline. Our horses will panic and could hurt each other if they decide to gallop in different directions. Instead, cut the rope attached to their bridle and take control from there."
By this time, the others have most likely finished pitching their individual supplies.
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Anton rises when woken, stretching his lanky body with a series of odd noises emanating from his bones. Rubbing Desna's footprints from his eyes, he pulls on his robes, covering his protruding ribs and bony arms with layers upon layers of clothing. Still choking down his 'breakfast' (if it could even be called that), he props his spellbook open on one knee.
The morning ritual takes him far from this wilderness, allows him to block out his surroundings and focus on the pages, the rough parchment beneath his fingertips, the ink blotches and tea-stains that looked haphazard but were just as much a part of his book as the powerful sigils and scrawlings they concealed and complemented. After all, a spellbook was a personal thing - and given his own haphazard, sickly condition, it made sense for his book to be the same.
Sickly. As he focuses on his magic, tracing the movements in the air, muttering the chains of syllables that would unlock the arcane potential, he takes in himself: his breathing, the faint rattle in his lungs, his cracked lips, all those horrible little things reminding him of his own frailty - and sweeps them aside. He feels a measure of the weakness leave him, a fraction of the colour flowing into his cheeks, a faint strengthening in his lungs. When he finally closes his spellbook and lets the others know he's ready, he looks different - not healthy, but better.
0-level: detect magic, prestidigitation, read magic.
1st-level: colour spray, enlarge person (S), mage armor.
Physical enhancement: +1 Constitution
Cuddles wakes and stretches, nearly knocking nearby camp instruments over. He rolls to his hands and knees, then pushes himself up to his full height in a huge stretch. Breakfast is first. He wolfs it down so fast that he must be swollowing some things whole. It takes him just minutes to finish. From there he stumbles a short ways off toward the biggest tree he can find, puts on several iron rings, and proceeds to practice punching on the tree. Showers of needles fall as his huge fists pummel the trunk and bits of bark fly. He does this and other drills focused on grappling techniques for over an hour before he comes back. A slight mist of steam rises from his shirt in the cool of the morning.
Harsk does his own morning routines and chews on cold ration, waiting for the others to be ready to move on.
Cuddles joins Harsk shortly thereafter. He looks at Harsk chewing on his breakfast and suddenly feels like he should be doing the same. Thirty seconds later he is chewing on a young sapling and there is a new twisted stump in the forest.
Katya crawls out of her bedroll, rubbing her eyes and extricating some of her hair from her mouth as she stretches upright. You can hear the pop of a few of her joints as she begins a series of exercises using the trees around her.
She turns to Cander.
Nothing last night, then? Not that I'm ungrateful for the sleep...
She watches Anton preparing his spells with no small amount of reverence. Magic is so strange, she thinks to herself. Anton seems to gain a subtle vitality before her eyes. She makes a mental note to ask him about how that works, later.
Right now, there was a simpler, if more dangerous task to think about.
So, she says, to nobody in particular. Where to next?
Leandric gives all a broad smile as they wake up. He gives Anton's spellbook a curious look as he holds his own in his hand. He always thought his spellbook was a mess but with it's clean edges and perfectly clean, white paper pages it looked almost saintly compared to Anton's, at least from Leandric's point of view.
He once more riffled through the pages of the book before him before he sat down next to Anton, "We should compare notes sometime, when we have time. It could benefit us both greatly." In truth Leandric was mainly curious what the frail man was capable of.
0- Acid Splash, Detect Magic, Prestidigitation
1st- Ear Piercing Scream
Harsk can't help but gauffaw at the orc and shake is head in that classic mix of bemusement and disbelief but continues to prepare seeing that Cuddle seems to be content with the choice.
To Katya Harsk grunts, Was it even split then? Felt the same number of tracks either way?
Anton looks up from his book in time to catch Katya watching him from across the campsite, a small smile twitching at the corners of his mouth as he catches her eye. Had she been watching? Impossible to tell. He glances back down at his spellbook, closing it roughly two seconds before Cander takes a seat and makes his suggestion.
His fingers brush across the amulet around his neck, a translucent green stone set in silver filigree, which had slipped from the collar of his robes while he'd been hunched in concentration. "I'm afraid you'll find my notes indecipherable," he replies with a hoarse chuckle. "I can barely read them myself some mornings."
:-)
Katya squints at the tracks.
Are you sure they were made by men on horseback? They look more like boar tracks to me.
Agh! We gotta pick something and none of us being tried and true rangers we stand to waste more time standing here then following what we can see. We go a ways, look around, if we don't like it we double back. Simple as that.
The dwarf harumphs to emphasize his stereotypical dourness.
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As the group turns to the south and west, it is fairly easy for all of you to follow the trail, as it seems like they came through this way not too long ago. Most of the morning goes by without incident, though you do find around midday a slight branching of the trail, one heading due Southwest, and another turning into the woods, though with the cover from your standpoint, you cannot yet quite see where it is headed.
As the group travels Harsk keeps his eyes peeled to the surrounding area. At the branching path Harsk frowns and points. Footprints. And blood.
Cuddles is far too interested in his own fingernails to be of much use right now...
Katya kneels down where the dwarf has pointed.
I see the trail you're talking about. But not the blood. You must have good eyes.
She hefts her pack as she pushes back to her feet.
Into the forest, then?
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As the group notices the bloody trail, and goes to investigate the blood, you come to a clearing, which is absolutely strewn out in chaos. Skeletons of everything from small animals, deer, humanoids and other such things cover a mostly round clearing, about a good hundred and fifty to two hundred feet across. Fallen leaves and such are all around the clearing.
Anton's narrow eyebrows twitch a couple of centimeters closer together as he peers around at the skeletons. "What happened here?" he murmurs. "What manner of predator could have caused this?"
PirateDevon
GM Angel
