"...you know, for a paladin, you're awfully quick to rob the dead," The magus snarks, wiping off the head of her spear. "Just saying, we're here to do a job, not to take everything that isn't bolted down. All this stuff belongs to the lady, so let's ask her permission first, don't you think? I'm sure she'll shower us with gifts so long as we rescue her."
The girl follows Grimkell, frowning a bit. The fact that there were undead there that were freshly made spoke clearly of some kind of spellcaster in the bandit party. It was good intel at the very least, though she was really wishing she had a decent fire spell or two prepared.
"It vould do vell to burn zhe bodies. If ve could pile zhem up, I vill take care of it." That said she starts with one of the zombies that was dismembered before her and begins to cast quick spurts of flame onto it, trying to get it going good.
"Rob?" She laughs aloud. Still laughing, she looks down on the breastplate, passing her fingers through the heraldry engraved in it. "You just don't understand it, do you?" She looks for some seconds at Lex, judging, but then continues on the track and gives no further explanation.
"But don't worry, the armor will be returned later...."
She moves on, smiling...
While gathering the dead to be burned by Karyne, Llyr takes a moment to poke his head into the carriage previously vacated by the undead to see if they were left as a guard for anything of value.
As the bodies are being piled, Grimkell, still at the threshold of the trail leading into the woods, starts tapping with one foot. After a minute he gets really impatient. Small unnatural gust of winds blow by his side.
"Hey! This is not time to prepare the deceased for the long trip, it is time go follow the trail and find the surviving moment. I SUNG a dirge for the warriors. They are at peace. Now, if we don't want to have another body to take care off, we should get going. As lady Morozov said, we must trail them before the next snowfall, and in a magic land occupied with winter, who knows when this will be."
Looking at the zombies.
"Just put the draugr spawns in the carriage and set it on fire..."
Seeing that there doesn't appear to be any other signs of the kidnappers, Nev begins to move out, falling in with the others. Regarding looting and morality, he says nothing, preferring to keep his opinions to himself.
As it enters the full expanse of the Border Wood, the trail passes through a small clearing among the taller trees before continuing uphill and out of sight. A large chest lies half-buried in the snow, apparently dropped or discarded by those who hastily passed this way.
"Look, a chest! But why would the kidnappers leave it?" From his perception near the back of the group, Nev points up ahead.
Hold up, I see a trap, let me move up on my own to try and disarm it. says Llyr moving forward. Once everyone else is a safe distance away, he tries to disarm it.
"Leave it for now - we're only interested in saving the lady. If there's time later we can come back and see what's in it." The magus speaks up. "Let's not distract ourselves from what we're here to do."
[ dice=Perception]1d20+Not Possible![/dice]
"If they wanted to kill the lady, she would be already dead. The guard came into town yesterday, so the attack must have been the day before, or at least early that day. Also, we may found some clues that the captives had thrown to leave a trail, so I think it's worth taking a look."
Elxurian waits for the young one to disarm the trap.
"It they left a trap there is probably nothing inside the chest. Why don't you just trigger the trap and then we move on?"
After Llyr disarms the trap he turns to the group, a surprisingly serious expression on his usually jovial face. "Elxurian has the right of it, if they wanted her dead, she would already be so. They need her alive, and she will remain so for at least long enough for a rider to get back to her family and for them to assemble the random. I understand speed is important, but rushing blindly along the trail is bound to get us into trouble. I'm going to look into the chest to make SURE it's empty, and not a trap within a trap as I've seen done many times before. After that, we can move on."
His peace said, he turns toward the chest itself, checking it for anything suspicious before attempting to open it.
The spiked log that so menacingly hung above in the trees, glaring down upon you, waiting to strike, carefully calculating, was seen and defeated by the scout rogue. It thinks to itself: Dammit... I really want to hit a PC at least ONCE in this campaign! It now harmlessly lays on the ground, feeling sorry for itself.
Now free to check out the chest without any foreseeable danger, you find that it is indeed buried halfway into the snow. It is empty when you open it. It thinks to itself "Not again..."
Grimkell passes by Llyr to get to the other end of the trail.
"Us all meeting at the inn, a frozen land, feys, and the abduction, I can tell that this is not a normal kidnapping, fate as more in store for us.... I truly do not believe they will be sending a ransom note. This stinks to much of witches. Who knows what they would do to the noblewoman."
"How long would it take to install such a trap... how long have they been preparing to stop pursuers?"
"Wow. I really hope I'm never kidnapped and you guys have to come and find me. Your callousness would be the death of me," Lex comments dryly. "It's not rushing to avoid distractions, you know. Just practical. Now come on, let's get going before we lose the damn trail." She's eager to get this over with swiftly.
"It's not callous to be cautious. There have been two traps since we entered the woods, and not much else. Clearly this is planned out, and our path will be well marked by them. We hunt after winter touched in a forest during winter, I dare say even my keen eyes will have a hard time spotting them." Llyr says equally dryly, kicking at the empty chest in his frustration over the number of headstrong women he's been saddled with. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he moves up to his place in the line, equally eager to be on with their task.
A smile appears on Grimkell's stern face as he looks toward Lex.
"Ah! Where are you gone Lex the coy? What stole you away? A couple of hours of walking and the promise of heroic deeds?"
"Hold it, I heard a clink, there may be a second trap on this chest." he calls out, crouching low. Clearing away some of the snow around the chest, he'll look for the cause of the sound.
Pulling away the snow, you find TREASURE! You find that the chest is covering a hole where five sets of leather armor, three sets of studded leather armor, a masterwork chain shirt, two light wooden shields, seven longswords, two spears, a masterwork dagger, and three light crossbows with a total of 25 bolts lay, just waiting to be looted...again!
Uncovering the trove, he calls out to the others, "It wasn't a trap, it was a stash of arms and armor, some of it being VERY nice stuff." he says holding up the chain shirt and dagger. "I think we should take what we plan to use immediately now, and then grab the rest of it on our way back with the Lady."
Lex shivers, wrapping her coat around her more firmly and trying to ignore the mild numbness of her nose. "You realize that it's really, really cold out in this place and it would be quite preferable to get out of here as soon as we possibly can? So, new rule, we can loot stuff after we're not pressed for time," She comments before glaring at Grimkell.
"What changed is that I'm freezing my ass off looking for some noblewoman that's probably not going to even appreciate our efforts. You try being coy in these conditions." She shifts around some more in the snow. "Now hurry it up, all right? We wasted far too much time on something we could have just avoided completely."
Nev smirks slightly at Lex's complaints. He's by far the least protected - and least bothered by - the cold. "Looting's fine with me, but make it quick. The more time we spend here, the farther away the kidnappers get."
"It's true lord Morvinus, but Lex and Llyr are obviously suffering from hypothermia; I recognize the signs. If we stay too long in the cold, we might lose them. I suggest we walk for an hour and then see how they are doing. In the worst case, Lady Morozov could warm them up."
Grimkell looks at Karyne to have her opinion on the matter.
Pulling her furs tighter to herself, she looks down at the weapons and shakes her head, "I do not believe any of zhat will be of any use to me..."
She then finds a place in the line behind and in front of people. She seeks to be surrounded. She is very used to being guarded and hopes that despite the newcomers, that will not end.
"Well, I'll take the masterwork items and we can discuss who gets them while we walk. The armor would serve me well, and I can use the dagger better than most." says Llyr, feeling a bit cold, but suffering no ill effects yet.
"Freaking COLD! I never though I would die because of the weather, instead of the enemies. By the way, I have some firewood for whenever we find a place to camp. I admit, I'm feeling the cold, but I can move on for now."
Elxurian takes a Light Crossbow and 5 bolts, just in case. Then she asks to store her studded leather in the hole, since she is not the Hulk to carry so many things.
Slipping on the chain shirt while the group walks, Llyr bends and twists to test for any restrictions. Satisfied there is nothing binding, he is glad to have the doublet underneath to protect his skin from the cold metal.
To Llyr:"Watch my back well."
Grimkell starts following the tracks again.
You find that since the bandits must have hurries off, their tracks are easier to follow than you originally anticipated. After about 30 minutes of hiking through the snow, you realize that the snow is becoming increasingly deep in this part of the forest, where a windswept gully carves a path through a tree-covered ridge. A soft cascade of snow falls from an overhead branch, hissing softly as it strikes the ground.
Llyr looks around, surprised at the magnitude of the drift they are slogging through.
Only slowed slightly by the snow, Nev continues forward with the others. Anyone paying attention will notice that he leaves no tracks and is actually walking on top of the snow.
Elxurian shakes the snow from her shoulders, but keep on walking on the soft ground.
Grimkell takes a look around, he hadn't notice there was wind strong enought to blow down chunks of snow from the trees. Whispering to Llyr who is standing by his side:
"Strange..."
The skald walks by the fallen snow and continues following the trail.
The freezing magus sniffs and tries not to think of how rosy her cheeks and nose must be getting in this weather - hopefully they'll find the lady and rescue her swiftly. She looks up at a branch as snow falls off of it onto the ground, tightening her gloved grip on her spear and continuing to march forward despite her body's aching desire for rest.
"I'd love it if you'd tell me we're almost upon them - if they're not some crazy bear bandits, they'll have nice warm tents I can warm up inside of after we kick their asses..." She grumbles.
Just as Lex finishes talking, the ground begins to shake and a giant beast, which was hiding in the snow, bursts from the ground right by Lex. "Eğer lezzetli bir tedavi değil misin! benim çukuruna doğru geliyor!"
Lex is immediately taken into the beasts coils, bleeding from a nasty bite wound to her shoulder and neck.
"Oh great, it's a tatzlwyrm! They're poisonous, so we've gotta get her loose - and fast!" Nev takes a quick step away from the beast and stabs it with his spear.
Knowing he does very little damage when he can't fight a distracted opponent, Llyr dashes around to the backside of the wyrm, hoping to cut off it's escape and be ready to move in.
Her amber eyes flick towards the tatzlwyrm and the fact that it's now holding one of her companions.
Drawing on her innate powers of fire, she hurls an elemental bolt of flames at the wyrm.
Lex lets out a feminine scream as she's suddenly ambushed, the pain of its fangs tearing past the protection of her coat and chain shirt causing her to cry out. She grits her teeth and fights back tears of pain - Considering her already chilled state, she's feeling quite unwell, and struggles to release herself from the coils of the creature.
"Let...me...GO!" She shouts, defiantly pushing against the coiling reptile's body - just a little more and she can squeeze out of its grasp.
"Dritt!!!!" says Grimkell as he hears the creature.
Turning around, he stares at the creature letting out a loud and fearsome battlecry. As he does so, gusts of wind burst between him and the creature, as if his very voice moved the air.
He straps on his shield and prepares to draw his sword.
You can use this skill to cause an opponent to become shaken for a number of rounds. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target's Hit Dice + the target's Wisdom modifier. If you are successful, the target is shaken for 1 round. This duration increases by 1 round for every 5 by which you beat the DC.
A shaken character takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.
Elxurian move while drawing her greatword, and strikes the vile thing.
!
"Gitmesine ve teslim aşağılık yaratık, ya da sen yok eder olsun!"
Lex is able to escape the coils of the foe. The scream and wind show of the small mangirl startled the wyrm, but he tried to play it off, even though it was shaken to bits. To prove this point, it looks at the shiny female and laughs. "Aptal öğle yemeği et! Sen bir şey yok OWWWWW OWWWWW!!"
The wyrm falls, blood darkening the snow.