Quince eyes the hand carefully. He closes his eyes and mutters a prayer to Erastil.
Since it is one of the few weapons he can use, S'ala looks to the others for permission before taking the MW silver dagger.
"This one could use such a weapon, unless the group has better use for it?"
If allowed, he sticks the weapon in the sash of his robes, at the ready should it be needed.
The knife looks a bit grimy without touching it. It looks like it could use a good cleaning. Everything looks a bit blood spattered.
Thank you Quince that is much better. I wonder what these things were for.
Walter recovers from the shock of seeing Tristans hand start to melt "I am sorry, I do much better with weapon and animal wounds."
He makes his way over to the bundle and glances at the items inside "None of this looks to be of much use to me, unless that stick is a healing wand?"
@ S'ala "Would you like me to clean that for you?"
S'ala passes the weapon over to Walter for a good cleaning. "If you would be so kind, walter-friend. This one would be in our debt."
Looking up from the cache, Angeus says to Tristan "Sorry Tristan, I should have checked this out first, being out here in the wilderness had made me forget some of my more important urban habits. "
Gazing down into the cache, satisified that she'd cleared the items of any danger, pulls out the wand and spellbook for examination.
No worries. I was the one that carelessly tried to open it.
The dagger is cleaned and returned
Angeus hesitates a moment before grabbing the remaining items. Her brow furrows as she attempts to recall something.
She then curses loudly and strides over to her mount and begins to dig vigourously through the contents of one of her saddlebags.
"Aha!" she cries , producing a stained piece of parchment "I'd forgotten all about this."
Returning to the tree she smooths the parchment out on the ground:
It bears a simple drawing of a claw-shaped dead tree atop an otherwise barren hill, with an "X" in blood scrawled by the tree’s roots. The word 'Scarth' is written next to the "X".
She looks up at the others, "What do you think 'Scarth' means?"
As she says the word the cloth that held the items glows green for a moment, then when she says it again it looks like it has slime or something on it, the glow now missing.
I'm not of the magic sort, but it seems to activate and deactivate the acid on that cloak. Where did the map come from?
"That is strange. I could be the cloak or it could be some kind of ward that uses acid."
Kevros remains on alert, "So what all was in the bundle and nothing was recognizable?"
"Well we know at least one wizard never known one to turn down a spell book. The other items I am not sure I can use. We should keep moving on."
Angeus looks at the now slimey cloak and says "Scarth" to see what happens.
She holds her hand up to Quince to get him to wait a moment.
Kevros looks at Angues, "Angeus, drape the cloak around the tree and then use the command word twice. Let's see if the tree is affected underneath the cloak. If not, we can either assume it helps people in combat or perhaps it is something to ward against acid attacks? I am no wizard, I am just guessing of what we know so far with Tristan's wounds and etc."
Kevros goes back to being alert while awaiting a response.
The cloak glows... No longer with the slimey look on it.
Angeus smiles and looks up "We have a nice and nasty cloak here! " she says then gathers up the cloak and other cache items.
Kevros scans the area while asking Angeus, "Does the ring on the stick look like a wedding band as Tristan wonder if it was Svetlana's? Most importantly, is it even removable from the stick? As for the cloak, that probably should go to a melee oriented Warden? If no one wants it for whatever reason, I'll gladly take it? It will be useful when I have to transition from range to melee."
The ring is silver and looks to be well crafted with a special symbol on it, it could be Svetlana's wedding band. If Angeus does try to remove the ring, it does come off easy enough.
The items are kept by Angeus unless someone else speaks up about them, feel free to interject it into the next area's posts.
__________
The next day the group explores another region, Hex. Angeus with her sharp eyes notices a strange opening and calls the group to investigate it.
Angeus takes lead and Quince follows her as she lowers herself into the cave. It is very dark within.
A particularly rocky crag rises from the hills here. At the crag’s base is an overgrown 5-foot-wide crack that leads down 20 feet to a 30-foot-diameter cave. The cave wall directly across from the entrance sparkles
slightly.
"Something sparkily here. Probably nothing. "
Kevros looks in the direction Quince pointed out ...
"Yeah, I see something but I think it is the sunlight bouncing off the shiny rocks (granite flakes) in the boulders" ... Kevros calls out to the lead monk or any monk that will answer, "How much further is your monastery?"
Tristan looks in the cave as well.
Thats not light reflecting Kevros, well maybe a little. That is gold. I think we may have found a untapped gold mine.
Kevros raises his eyebrows, "You know, this is a great find. We better tap into this as soon as we get back or can to start funding our goals here. We should try to hide it a little if possible. If we can see, others can too."
Appraisal
Angues cranes her neck to see the glittering rocks, then levers herself back up to level ground "Gold you say? I'll take your word for it Tristan. Kevros is right , let's try to knock some of this cave down and mark our map. This'll come in handy later!"
Quince raises a speculative eyebrow, "Gold are you sure"
Quince marks the map.
Maybe this should stay off the official map being made for Restov. We wouldn't want them claiming it.
The monk comes over and informs Kevros of their knowledge, "we don't know where the monastery is located, we know it is South of the fort and located on a hill."
Once the group has taken note if not marked on the map of where the gold vein is located the group heads out once more to continue explore the area. Near the end of the day you all begin to hear a mighty roar.
"Well it looks about time to set camp, don't you think? "
Kevros nods to Tristan, "I agree Tristan, let's not set ourselves up for failure. If we don't do something to remind us of our find, we may lose it. What we should do is make this map for us then make a "sanitized" copy of what we want Restov to see."
Kevros smiles, "After we are done here, please continue to lead the way."
After traveling a bit ...
Kevros tries to stretch the soreness of his body which works for a short time anyway, "Sounds good to me, my rear is killing me!"
Kevros dismounts ... After the roar ...
"I would sure like to know what that is! Since we can hear it, it may not be too far away and we should be ready for it."
I don't know what the roar is, but we should be prepared. We should avoid a cooking fire and make due with rations. Maybe it avoid us.
Kevros nods and smiles, "Unless this recent find of ours belongs to it?" Then let's out a laugh.
The roaring of the beast happens infrequently for another hour or so. Then it stops. The calm of the night begins to lull the group to sleep. Those on watch need to do perception checks, also go ahead and explain what you do on watch.
With no fire it was a cold sleep. Many times each of you likely woke up, but most likely did not affect your rest.
The monks rest near your own campsite keeping their own company. They gladly accept Sala or Angeus, though they have judging eyes of any other that comes over. They follow your groups way and does not start a fire. One of their number is on watch throughout the night. He walks around and does silent stretches while keeping watch, slowly eating a ration.
In the morning they wake up rested and refreshed considering the cold from last night. Each of them does stretches and checks their weapons. They wait for your group to head off again before moving away to cover more ground.
Tristan spends his watch the same as most. He whittles away at a block of wood just to pass time. He often reflects and thinks of his family in these moments. He picked up the habit from his father. Never really trying to make anything, just whittling.
He wakes up well rested. He waters his horse and sets it to graze while he take his greatsword out. He does some big swooping swings and drills, more designed to loosen up the body than actual practicle fighting. He then checks all his gear and sharpens his sword a bit while chewing on some drie meat from his ration. When others are ready he packs his horse and mounts up as well.
During Kevros' watch, he climbs a tree or rock for the BEST vantage point and so he can be more effective with his Automatic Crossbow. If there is none, he remains in the center of camp standing at the ready for his full shift.
Kevros was very attentive during his watch due to the roaring creature and no fire.
During down time, he cleans up as much as he can and maintains his weapons. In addition, he reloads and/or consolidates his bolts. He doesn't talk much during this time because of roaring creature and others the party that may be in the darkness. In addition, he catches some shut eye during this time.
Due to elements and the nearby creatures, Kevros had a hard time sleeping last. Nonetheless, it was good enough and wakes up ready for the day but not skipping around the camp fire like Tristan. He gets ready to move out but keeps looking around for potential enemies. After he is makes ready to move out, he helps anyone else who may need it. If everyone is good to go, he does some low key target practice but never empties his clip and he retrieves his bolts.
When everyone is ready, Kevros makes any last minute adjustments, mounts up and waits for the group to be fully ready to move out as a whole.
While everyone is getting ready, "Hey did anyone notice the plume of flame and the roar during my watch? It appeared over there about 10 inches into the sky." Kevros points to the direction. "Now I am no ranger, wizard, or anything but all of us have heard about winged creatures that spit fire during our childhoods to keep us inline or to warn of us about the world's dangers. Now I hope I am wrong but we may have a dragon nearby in relative terms?
Quince spends his watch making a circuit of camp in prayer or chitchatting with the horses. Specifically if they need calming.
Luckily the horses are not needing calming, but are a bit nervous with all the roaring. They appreciate Quince that much more.
Angeus takes her watch but notices nothing out of the ordinary.
When the morning comes and Kevros reveals what he saw , she says "A dragon? Well, lets mark this area on our map, we may have to deal with it at some point..."
"We should mark it on our map but still be different from the one we give to Restov as well since Dragons, if it is a Dragon, usually have a nice treasure hoard. I am not sure of the Swordlords would have time or the personnel to send them to slay the beast but if they did, that is valuable income we can use to succeed in our mission and finally give us some spending money."
Angeus smiles, "My thoughts exactly, Kevros."
"Dragon. Well that sounds fun." He makes a note on the map.
South or South East?
Presently you just finished exploring 4, so you might want to make a note on the map.
Tristan sits waiting oh his horse.
So south then?
Heading out toward the South you hear the roar happen again an hour after you head out with it sounding a lot closer than last night.
That sounded much closer. Everyone be on guard incase it stumbles upon us.