With some effort the tent is set up and the donkey parked besides it. The campfire gives some light and warmth and all sit around it. It gets darker and darker, until only the stars light the area. It's a clear night, but with the eyes used to the brightness of the fire there is nothing to see.
Looking away for a while fixes that a bit, but the world is still only hazy shadows of trees. But with the busy noises of the day gone and most animals gone to sleep a creepy silence lies over the land. Only interrupted by the crackling of the fire and the eerie calls of the predators that are prowling through the night.
Jewel sits quietly with the others. When she starts feeling a little creeped out by the quiet and eerie calls she calls her familiar over to her. She uses her Feral Speech hex to let her speak in the thrush's language rather than just using the familiar connection, soothing the bird possibly as much to sooth herself as the other....
"You better stay away!" Clara threatens the darkness with her magic stick.
"Who can tell some spooky stories?"
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"Okay, so it's one about a little girl Clara hangin' out with a bunch of friends at nighttime, and she wants to hear some spooky stories when it's seriously dark outside and honest citizens are tryin' to sleep, so a bear appeared out of nowhere and ate her. The end," Tarjun shifts on his bedroll. "Night night!"
"That's not spooky! That's boring!" Clara pounts. But as no one seems interested in games, she leaves the fire and crawls into her bedroll in the tent.
Jewel starts to complain about the others tucking in but realizes sleep is needed. However, someone needs to keep watch. "Sleep well. Tarjun, I'll wake you in a few hours, and you can wake Clara. Someone needs to be awake just in case something dangerous, like a Clara eating BEAR, comes around." She things for just a moment, "Clara, You shouldn't sleep with the septer in your hands. What happens if you activate it in your sleep and light your covers on fire!?!
Once she's had her say she stands and starts walking quietly around, holding Chirp in her hands, soothing her.
Jewel sits around the fire as some moths seem to fly around it. But the moths become more and more and are too big to be actually moths.
When Jewel realizes the flying things are bats, and may be attacking, she drops to the ground and yells, "Clara! Tarjun! Bats. I'm not sure but I think they're attacking. Or they might be confused...."
Using the feral speech hex she speaks to the bats, "Stop attacking me. We mean you no harm!"
Jewel got the bats attention, but they still look hostile and hungry.
The bats are not persuaded by Jewel's attempts and swarm her.
Clara crawls out of the tent and casts fire at the swarm of bats. She aims high, to not burn Jewel, which she almost succeeds at. Jewel's hair gets that distinctive smell of slightly burned.
The swarm quickly disperses and comes back together, avoiding most of the flames.
Overwhelmed by the sheer number of the little beasts nipping and scratching at her Jewel screams and tries to roll away.
The swarm is attracted by Tarjun. He manages to flatten a single bat, but in the bitg picture that doesn't make a difference. Only in that the swarm comes fo rhim now.
"Come into the tent and close the tent?" Clara suggests.
Jewel stares at the bats now swarming around Tarjun. She knows he can't outrun the flying rodents. She screams out, "Burn them Clara! They're just mean.... Burn them all!"
Clara does as told and throws another burst of fire at the bats.
The bats go up in flames and the smell of roasted chicken hangs in the air as they all fall down to the ground, shortly making the noise of splattering rain. Tarjun now also smells of singed hair.
"Are we going back to bed, or don't you feel like sleeping anymore?" Clara asks. It's hard to tell with only the camp fire giving light, but Jewel looks a bit pale.
With no real other options, everyone goes back to sleep. Or staying awake in the sleeping bag out of fear of another attack. But finally the darkness leaves to make way for antoher day.
The sky is clear and it's a bit chill as the last clouds vanish when the sun climbs over the horizon. The spooky sounds of the night are replaced with the cheerful singing of the many birds that live in the forrest.
First you roll which one of those 20 you find.
Then you can roll to identify if it is really a tree of the kind you are looking for. Survival, Knowledge(Nature), Lore(Trees).
When you come to the conclusion that it is the right one you have to collect the sap, by cutting the tree and collecting what comes out. This takes 1d4 hours. Either with you holding a vial (fort save), or by constructing something that will hold it for you - knowledge (engineering) or craft.
Finally you get a second chance to identify the result with alchemy, knowledge(nature), knowledge(religion), knowledge(arcana).
Jewel searches and decides on a tree....
Examining the tree she tries to cut into it to draw some sap.
She tries holding the vial in place,
When her arms get tired she tears some rags to wrap around the tree and a small pouch to hold the vial in place.
Once some sap has been gained she examines it to see what she has gathered....
As Clara finds a tree she asks Tarjun to come over with the book to compare the notes with what stands in reality before her.
Jewel finds a tree, and no matter what it might or might not be, she goes to work. First she holds the vial in place herself and as she almost nods off during that, she ties the vial to the tree. The binding isn't the best and so after four hours she ends up with a half full vial, which is covered with the sap on the outside and glued to the fabic.
After examining the result, she still isn't sure if it is what they need, but whatever.
Clara finds a tree, that looks right like from the book.
Clara buggers Tarjun to cut into the tree for her and hand her a vial. After holding it for half a minute and the sap still not pouring out like from a bottle of lemonade, she starts complaining. "How long will that take? I don't want to stay here all day!"
She cuts some stick with a twigs forking, and puts it up against the ground to hold the vial.
The trees part withg their sap really slowly today. Clara harvests half a vial of sap inside the vial and half a vial outside.
Tarjun finds a matching tree and artfully carves a place for the vial. It's the first one to become full. He is definitely sure he has the right one, when he samples the smell of the sap. And he notices, that it is the same substance that the other two collected.
"What does the book say, how much we need?" Clara asks.
Seeing the sappy mess Jewel asks Tarjun to cast Create Water to clean the mess and starts over with a different tree.
Examining the tree....
She doesn't even try to hold it, taking a clue from Tarjun notching the tree and strapping the vial in place with her sewing....
Once she gets what she thinks is enough she examines the sap....
Jewel checks the book to see if she can answer Clara's question. "Well, we need to create incense from myrrh and elemi. Maybe if the vial is full with the right sap.... ??"
Jewel is pretty sure this is not one of the trees. The bark looks similar, but it has a different leaf form.
Clara's tree has to bleed for the good cause. She scrapes at the slowly drying parts of the bark again and readjusts the holding of the vial, taking hints from Tarjun, who is obviously better at that.
But the construction she creates is still sub par.
Examining the tree....
She notches the tree and straps the vial in place with her sewing....
Once she gets what she thinks is enough she examines the sap.... Unsure of her own judgement she shows the vial to the others....
Jewel is sure, she has the right tree and with a perfect holder, she collects a full vial of tree sap. As she sees the result she is no longer sure that she got the right thing, as it looks much brighter than the other vials.
In the meantime it's afternoon, with the sun past its highest point.
Clara joins and takes a look too. Her seeming level of expertise is not very high, due to her hads being glued to two half full vials of the same substance.
"Looks good to me. What are we doing now with that stuff? Do we take it home, or can we make that incense stuff ourselves?"
Jewel looks at all of the gathered vials of sap.
"Well, myrrh and elemi are both from trees I think. But to make incense.... maybe they have to be cooked into something fibrous and burnable? I didn't bring any cooking pots or anything like that, did you? Maybe we should seal up the vials we have and head back home, if we have enough?"
"When you read the recipie you told about holy annoying oil. Where do we get that?" Clara asks.
"There's no cleric around here or they'd be doing this stuff instead of us. And we can ask Mr. Dawnbreeze, but he prolly can't since he's a ghost. Maybe since we're the Guardians now Erastil will let us bless it.... in His name of course."
"I wonder how we are supposed to anoint a ghost though? Maybe dripping the oils on his bones will work? Or do we spray it at him? This whole thing is annoying! I wonder if that's why folks don't want to be clerics?"
"I can be a cleric! Then I only have to work on Sundays, and when there are ghosts around." Clara offers. "Then I can get the oil holy by praying. And I'm sure Breathnacht is easily annoyed. With or without oil. So no problem there!"
"Mom has oil at home."
The kids decide to pack up and walk home. As staying for the night has proven to be unsafe too. While walking with the prize of the journey back to Oakstead they are surprised by a bear. It clumsily falls out of a tree right in front of them. It is a black bear. Sitting on its hurting behind the bear looks at the tasty two legged snacks.
Hearing Clara's comments about being a cleric just makes Jewel laugh. "You can't be a cleric! Clerics have to be old, and wise, and respected. More like your mother! She's gotta be at least, what? Twenty, twenty-five or so? And she's wise and respected. She just doesn't like Erastil, so that's out."
Jewel activates her Feral Speech hex and moves to the front of the group to speak with the bear. "Mister Bear, were you hurt by that fall? We can help. We're the Guardians of Erastil, returning home to save the area from an evil ghost. Maybe you can help too? And then the people will like you more and maybe feed you and give you a more comfortable place to sleep?"
Jewel manages to change the bear's attitude from unfriendly to friendly. The bear is a rather simple mind and only understood some parts. Especially the part with the food. As he cries out in bear "<Food!>" looking at Jewel in anticipation.
Clara anxiously holds Caspar in her hand, pointed at the bear. "What does it say?" she inquires from Jewel.
Jewel keeps her attention on the bear, just giving a quick reply. "He's hungry. Still dangerous."
Clara throws a trail ration at the bear. Sans the packaging. "Eat that. If you don't like it, I let you know I taste worse."