"Bows will be necessary. If you can, slay the thing now."
A familiar orange rune glows from the haft of Dagnir and a smirk crawls across Sköllji's face. "I've been meanin' te try sum'n. Good opportunity!"
With no ranged weapon of his own, Jexen readies himself to intercept the flying creature should it charge one of the group. Or to charge it if it nears the ground.
"Do we need to bother with it? Why not just avoid it?" Brinda says in a low voice. "It has its dinner, it shouldn't want to bother with us."
"It may come for a piglet from a farmer - or a child. It is one less beast to threaten anyone. Those are reasons enough."
Brinda sighs and gives an unconvincing nod. "I think it's a beautiful creature," she says in a small voice as she brings her tome out of her satchel in preparation for battle.
While contemplating what to do about the gigantic dragonfly, you hear groan as the grass rustles. A few thuds rattle the ground before the tall grass reveals a large brutish humanoid creature rising up out of it at an increase run. The ogre sprints towards the dragonfly as fast as it can, leaping into the air to try and catch some food of its own. The oversized dragonfly darts out of the way and the two engage in a sort of dance as the ogre tries to catch it while it tries to fly away - burdened by its own lunch.
Jexen decides to charge the ogre, bashing it in the back!
As the group travels, Durnik is pensive about the situation. He doesn't really speak unless spoken to, and only in the tersest way possible.
When he sees the piglet, however, he rushes to it's defense, trying to rescue it even as Jexen charges the Ogre.
As Jexen and Durnik spring into action, Brinda summons a javelin of pure shadow, hurling it at the ogre!
When Jexen charges forward, Sköllji shouts, "Oi! They were fightin' one anotha, mate! Have ye nay 'eard o' the art o' war, lad? Let one kill the other, then we ken take out the weakened victor."
After a moment, Sköllji sighs and charges forward muttering to himself, "No one e'er wants te listen to the dwarf. Typical."
Sprinting with an alacrity that even he seems surprised by, Durnik makes a leap, and manages to use both his weight and prodigious strength to snatch the piglet from the dragonfly's grasp!
Jexen rushes forward to confront the ogre, taking its attention away from his wanted meal. Seeing tinier morsels of food volunteer themselves to it, it gives its full attention to the newcomers.
Durnik rushes forward to grab the piglet, but the giant dragonfly is just too quick! The six-winged insect flies away with its meal.
Brinda lets loose a shadow javelin, impaling the ogre and causing it to go slightly blind.
Sköllji charges forward to join in.
The one looks down at the strange clockwork creature slamming into it and brings a fist down.
Sköllji slashes upward with his glowing battle axe.
Jexen does not listen, he is too busy trying to fend off the ogre with his sword. He drives a blow towards its belly!
Sköllji slides through the ogre's legs and slashes at one attempting to topple the monster.
Brinda moves forward, though still well out of the ogre's range, and hurls another missile of pure shadow at the creature.
The final barrage of all the attacks brings the ogre down, the blood pouring out of his wounds spilling onto the grass.
Jexen drives his sword into the throat of the ogre, to ensure that it is dead.
It will *not* rise again.
He turns to the others.
"A pity we could not stop the dragonfly. An ogre will have to do. Well done, all. Let us search the ogre and move on. Perhaps it had a lair near by."
You spend extra time searching for the ogres lair, but to no avail. You do, however, discover a large burlap sack that looks like the ogre carried around with him.
Inside are a collection of battered helmets, a moldy wheel of cheese, a rough patch of animal fur fastened like a cloak, and some shiny silver colored bars.
Leaving the corpse behind, creating a large feat for carrion eaters and insects, you continue to head east. After some hours you find the rail road tracks. Do you cross them and continue to head east, or do you follow them northward?
Durnik stands and dusts himself off as he watches the monster creature fly off with the helpless pig. He turns back to help with the Ogre, just in time to see Jexen end the threat it represents.
At the railroad tracks, Durnik says "I believe her directions said to follow the tracks north."
Forgetfulness. I forgot our objective, fell back into habits. But whose habits?
Jexen shakes off his irritation and slight confusion, and resumes the task at hand, leaving the ogre's remains behind.
"North it is. We have spent long enough here, even if it was worthwhile to slay the ogre."
He says nothing about the search afterwards.
You make your way northward following the tracks, with an occasional train going by. Eventually, it comes to a bride where the river is located. You follow the river downstream to a waterfall. Following the cliff back southwards you find a switch back train headed down the cliffside to the lake shore below. As you get further down, you can hear the wailing of a man.
Brinda's eyes widen at the sound. "The uncle?" she asks, before beginning to rush down the trail towards the lake shore.
Jexen begins to run, such as he is able, towards the sound of despair.
Crashing Waves matches Brinda's pace and overtaking the Clockwork Warrior.
"Be careful, ye mad devils! Yer sprintin' down the face uva cliff!" Sköllji presses his back to the cliff wall and carefully sidles down the switch back.
I dunno why I bother...
Everyone who is rushing down the switchback, make an Agility Challenge Roll. If you fail, you slip off the cliffside, potentially taking a lot of damage.
If someone fails, another person can make a Strength Challenge Roll with 1 Bane to catch them. Success means you've prevented them from falling. Failure means they've taken you with them.
Jexen begins to run...and then runs down.
He ceases movement.
The agile elf moves quickly and easily down the path, as if the rocks that mar the trail raise up to meet his feet.
Brinda and Jexen both slip and fall, the clockwork clanking downwards while Brinda screams her descent.
Everyone else makes it to the bottom without issue.
Jexen is insensate, currently just a collection of cogs and plates.
And one that has landed ungently.
He lies motionless at the bottom.
Sköllji sighs as Jexen seemingly leaps off the cliff edge to get to the bottom faster.
I'll ne'er un'erstan' these blasted clockwerks.
When he notices that Brinda has also gone over the cliff edge, he suddenly leaps forward.
"Ah hells!"
The dwarf reaches out and catches the woman, but can't get a good foothold and topples over himself.
The dwarf bounces down the cliff and crashes at the bottom with a loud thud.
"...Ow..."
The clockwork still sits there, motionless.
Reaching the bottom, "Well I guess that's one way to get down... are you okay?" when Crashing Waves receives no response from Jexen he checks on him and finding the crank wound down Crashing Waves gives the clockwork a few turns.
Brinda gets gingerly to her feet, limping noticeably. She sees Crashing Waves attend to Jexen, then calls to Sköllji. "Are... are you alright?"
...
Jexen's mind is initially blank.
Then fuzzy, and then resolves into thoughts.
"Ouch.", he utters simply, and begins to hoist himself off the ground.
His fine new armour has more than a few dents and scratches, as do his sword and shield.
"My thanks, Crashing Waves. Shall we continue?"
Sköllji lays motionless on his back. After a long silence, the dwarf raises a thumb straight up into the air.
"...Aye,lass. Do try te be more careful in the future though, eh?
With that, Sköllji let's his hand flop back to the dirt.
Brinda limps over to the dwarf, and gives a small chuckle at his words. "Yes, father. Come on, we need to find whoever's screaming." She reaches out a hand to help Sköllji back to his feet, her eyes already scanning the immediate environment.
Moving forward, it's not far to the mouth if the cave. Unlike other caves in the area, this one is right up against the shoreline; water occassiot lapping into the mouth and flowing back down into it. The entrance of the cave is racked with stalagmites and stalagtites, spread out periodically.
The water makes the entrance slippery, as it drops down into the darkness at a 45° slope.
Huddled up, arms wrapped around his own knees, is Uncle Padraig, wailing and crying to himself.
Jexen puts his shield on his back, lights a torch, and prepares to advance.
Hmmm looks like a one way path...