As soon as Soleil begins rushing to the tree, Magmara puts her hammer back in its sheath across her back as she moves over to catch her.
Soleil climbs one of the nearby trees and looks around excitedly. Willard and Ecthelien stand back - amused or horrified or both!
With the help of Althea, Andros, and Magmara, Soleil closes her eyes and falls backwards out of the tree. And they catch her!
Ronronne responds, "Let me try next!" while the others of the wild hunt roll their eyes.
Ronronne falls out of the tree ... and Clortho catches her! "Is this over yet?"
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"Woot! That was great!" Soleil says after her fall.
"Yeah, you go for it!" she says, cheering on Ronronne.
After the successful fall and catch, Soleil goes up to offer Ronronne and Clortho congratulatory high fives. This distraction creates a great opening for someone else to come up with the next challenge before Soleil's imagination takes over and another goofy team builder manifests
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Althea has an idea. She goes and digs around in her pack for a second and pulls out her camp cup. Lacking a table, she will sit cross-legged on the ground and turn the cup upside down on the ground in front of her. She beats out a rhythm using the cup and her hands, sometimes clapping, sometimes drumming, sometimes tapping the ground with her hand or cup, sometimes moving the cup sideways, in a seemingly complicated choreography. She goes through the pattern a few times, and then says "but here" she moves the cup to the side "you pass it to the next person. But to do it right we'd need to sit in a circle and have a cup for each person." She looks expectantly at the group, trying to see if anyone else has a better idea.
Althea sits down on the ground with her camp cup in front of her. Clortho looks at her and grunts. "Are we really doing this? I'd rather be chasing them or something else." Ronronne, Xox, and Garow all sit down and watch. They don't sit down next to each other though - they put a Pathfinder or two between them.
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"Oh yes, this is my favorite challenge!" Soleil says excitedly. "So much teamwork gets built through the beaty cup song challenge task. Nug especially encouraged us to do this one with you!" and the excited young Pathfinder playfully nudges Ronronne and stage whispers, "I bet you'll be the best at this one, but I don't know if old grumpy over there will even be able to get through the first half of it," and gestures to Clortho.
And after Soleil's attempt goes badly she adds in, "So you all see how it can mess things up if even one person gets it wrong? That was to demonstrate. Now try not to do it like that,"
Magmara joins the circle far less enthusiastically saying, "This particular challenge does not exactly work to my strengths, but we all must try our best."
With three successful performance, the four members wild hunts are impressed. Ronronne attempts to follow suit.
And the cup just doesn't move for her. She constantly knocks it over. Xox and Garow try next.
Xox successfully manages to do it. "Teach me how to do it!" Ronronne says. Then Clortho snaps the cup from Garow and attempts to play.
His big hands seem to just knock the cup over. Ronronne leans over, "With practice, I'm sure we can all get it."
Clortho lets out a roar and then takes out his pan flute and plays them.
The melody is sweet and comforting. "That's how you perform." he says smugly.
Ronronne thanks the group. "We'll practice the trust fall and the cup game every day. Thank you. To leave this place, one must walk backwards out. Otherwise you'll end right back here.". She leads the group to a nearby cache of weapons, items, and other treasure. They run off. In the distance, the groups here bickering and fighting.
They seemed to completely forget about the PCs and the lessons they learned.
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"Never underestimate the value of falling out of trees," Soleil says, offering no further context, and instead, simply grinning.
Then, after a moment of her silent grinning, she says, "Well, I guess we should steal the rest of the stuff and leave, because that's what Pathfinders do!" and with that, she walks up to the two bags remaining in the tree, but gets distracted with pushing them and then watching them sway back in forth, and then pushing them so they sway in circles.
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Althea continues her confident officious front until they leave, then she will look shocked and respond to Willard "I can't believe that worked! My mind blanked and that was the only thing I could think of!" then collapses in a fit of quiet giggles. She almost had it under control when Soliel's comment about the 'value' of falling out of trees makes her giggle even more during the beat Soleil is grinning. But when she says 'steal' that helps Althea sober up a little. She says a cautioning finger at Soleil "ACQUIRE goods. Not steal stuff. We aren't thieves... are we?"
She also suggests "Fey are known for being capricious, so since we have what we came for, we should hurry in other regards before they change their mind."
After checking the loot, she will assist anyone trying to get the other mysterious bags down
Magmara smiles and quietly shakes her head at her "sister's" silliness and moves to help Althea look through the goods they have acquired.
Looking through the cache the hunters left out for you, the group finds several items. There are several sparkling minerals. A broken glaive, a shortbow with 20 arrows, panpipes (very well made), three studded leather armors, three longbows with 40 arrows, a pair of well made boots, and three torches are ever burning.
Willard manages to capture a few motes - hopefully the Concordance has a use for them!
The group also manages to knock down a few of the bindlebags. One, which the group thinks is Azure's, contains a kaleidoscopic cloud. Another bag is larger than the rest. When that is opened, it emits rallying cries and conveys a sense of courage and resolve. ([ooc]Knowledge (planes) DC 15 to ID). The last unusual bag is covered in reddish grey fur and emits faint growling sounds ([ooc]Spellcraft DC 18 to ID).
Other bindlebags emit sounds or sensations of their contents. But nothing can be extracted (unless you are the original owner).
Magmara simply moves close to her sister with her hammer at the ready in case any sort of growling beastie comes out of the "cutest wittle bumble bag."
Willard knows everything about everything. He knows what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen...
He also knows that the large bag likely contains the camaraderie of the wild hunt - likely why they were not getting along. The other bags seem to contain traits magically extracted by fey.
The other bag is a growling grey bag of tricks which functions as a typical grey bag of tricks with the following modifications: can be used once per day, to a maximum of 3 times per week, the animals it summons come from the First World which have unusual physical features (such as bizarre coloration or abnormally long fur), the animals gain resistance 5 to both cold and electricity and a +4 bonus on saving throws against mind-affecting affects, and count as animals and fey.
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As Willard the All-Knowing comes over to inspect the bindle bag, Soleil is reluctant to let go of her "fluffy" and only does so reluctantly at Magmara's urging and with the promise that she can snuggle it again when he's finished. As soon as he finishes, she immediately snuggles it into an embrace and begins telling it how much she missed it.
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Willard considers how long he hung on the tree of knowledge to gain this insight, rather than a long instrospective revelry, he shakes his head, clearing it. He peers oddly at the Raven perched on his shoulder, as if to say, This is all your fault...
The bag which feels emotional is the comradery of the wild hunt, we should probably leave it for them to figure out; only seems right. The other is an odd variation of a bag of tricks, which allows you to summon a creature daily, but only thrice per week. Whatever comes from it will bear the marking of the first world in some manner, coloration, furs, and the like, but will bear resistances common to the Fey.
Willard looks mildly embarrassed, and raises his hand to one eye, That was just a dream, wasn't it?
Grax is right, we should leave before the hunters return to look for us and their missing emotions.
Soleil reaches in the bag and pulls out... a rat with moose-like antlers.
Magmara follows along backward looking around for threats as she goes.
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"It's Explore, Report, Cooperate, Gerald! And you know it!" The bird stamps its tiny leg in frustration. "Very well, you are right. I must lead these young Pathfinders back home to report their deeds! Come, Gerald!" He flies to the satchel. "And remember, backwards! We must go backwards as they told us! Exploit, Record, Collaborate...really, Gerald! We must double your lesso--"
Grax closes the satchel and the rest of the talkative bird's tirade is muffled. He sighs and trudges backward out of the grove with the others.
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The unusually stoic elf reviews the items and the plans for the bags and their contents.
He shakes his head at the bag with the bird and a nod to Grax
He had the gist of it. We have explored, cooperated and certainly have plenty to report. But have we increased our knowledge of the arcane to expand our capabilities or skills? That is to be seen.
Once the group leaves the Whirlwood by walking backwards, it is an easy walk back to the frozen lake. Returning to the Material Plane requires each Pathfinder to immerse him or herself in the water and spin clockwise three times.