I would like to continue but without the support would likely flounder.
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"We should be able to get across now. Might want to leave the pack animal behind, though."
Alright guys, I'm gonna be on the road for two days starting tomorrow. I will try to post when we stop for the night but I cannot make any promises.
"Alex, Darry, get some branches to make oars out of. Evan, get the packs off Kitzie, we're gonna need her unburdened in a minute," Rast started giving out orders and stripped to the waist. He tried to do some rough weight calculations on the party to figure out just what he needed to do here. The work was going to be tiring and sweaty but it would keep the crew occupied until he could think of something better. Hefting his axe he approached a nearby tree and sized it up.
"There is no way we can catch them now. Trekking around the lake would take too long even assuming we can find their trail again. Then there's this... thing," Rast grumbled, gesturing to the pillar. "Callin up corpses and such. Ain't right. We're in over our heads."
"Damn!" Rast shouts at the lake, "Puta baten semea madarikatu!" This proves to be the precursor to a long and vicious string of insults that slips from Barsav, to common, to Sylvan almost mid sentence. Finally, he punctuates the end of his tirade by turning on the stone and slamming a fist into it. He stands there, panting for a moment. Rast was not the sort to take failure well.
Rast shakes the sleep off and stands up. Well rested, if uncomfortable, he straps his gear back on and looks to the others. If he were more a of talker, he might have something to say here to lift spirits and get everyone moving again. "Alistar, you got a morning prayer or something?" He was not a man of faith but the others might be and a bit of normalcy might go a long way right now. For his part Rast focussed on portioning up their meager rations and passing them out for a breakfast.
"Can't do anything about it right now," Rast said, trailing off. Between injuries and the prospect of trying to circle around a lake in the dark with potentially more of the walking dead lurking, even he was not inclined to try and press on any further tonight.
"We're all too tired and beat up to keep going," Rast said, feeling more than a little defeated himself. "If there are more of those things out there we could be in for some real trouble."
Rast's next swing goes wide and he has to scramble to get his shield back up in time.
Holding the gnashing teeth and clumsy strikes at bay with his shield, Rast shoves one of the creatures back long enough to bring his axe around in a clumsy blow of his own. Thankfully the rotters were not smart enough to avoid him and take focus efforts on the softer members of the party.
WHoops
Wait, so I've already gone for this round?
"Old man!" Rast calls, "Somebody help Gregor!" He shouts too busy with the shambling corpses in front of him to aid the old man right now.
"Get behind me, old man!" Rast ordered, trying to forget the weariness that had settled in his bones as the stuff of nightmares shuffled out of the darkness. "Shoulder to shoulder, don't let them single you out!" He hefts his shield and hopes the others stand tall. He takes a few steps forward and begins thumping his shield with his axe.
Rast pulls his axe and looks around quickly, the dark forest creeping in at the edges and suddenly seeming a touch more menacing.
"Damn" Rast murmured again. Slowing his pace and taking stock of the others
"Damn, damn, damn, damn," Rast muttered to himself, leaning against a tree for the moment. The fatigue was making it hard to think. Should they leave the old man here in the wilds with an unaccounted for bandit and other unknown threats or should the press on with him slowing them down? "How long before sunset did the big lout head out? Do you remember?"
"How are you holding up, Gregor?" Rast asks, trying to hide the weariness in his own voice. He was not sure about the others but his feet were killing him. Too much time on the ferry and not enough out walking around.
"Then we go north," Rast said, brushing off he pants and starting for the trail.
"Fine," Rast says, snapping sharply at Alistar. Realizing the relative harshness of his response and suddenly embarrassed, he takes a breath and begins feigning indifference to the situation, but it was easy to see he was bothered by the prospect of leaving the girl in the care of bandits for a night, "Probably be slowed down by dragging a captive along. We can wait for the bandits to wake up and question them about their pals' destination. Leave at first light."
Taking a seat near the fire pit, he shucks off his shield and turns to his attention back to Reynard and Alex, "First time I put my axe to a man was on the ferry one Fall. Fella tried to steal from a couple of pilgrims. When I told him to knock it off he put a knife to the throat of the sister. Lady managed to bite his arm and I stepped up and put my axe here," Rast drew a line from the bridge of his nose to the base of his skull, "He just stared at me, dumbly, like I'd grown a second head and making this gasping sound before he tumbled over the railing and into the river. If I hadn't had a good grip on my axe it would have gone in with him. Spent the ride back to town puking and shaking. Had nightmares for a week after that. Votrick cleaned up the blood and we didn't tell anyone but Logan and the Constable what had happened. So I'll ask again, you okay?"
Sorry, I was really pissed after a meeting at work on monday, no state to post properly. I'll get a reply up now.
As they moved on Rast looked to Alex and Reynard and scratched the back of his head. After a moment, he slowed his pace to let them catch up with him. "You two alright?" He asked, trying and likely failing to sound casual. Killing someone for the first time was not something that could be glossed over.
"We'd better hurry. If we push ourselves we can catch up easily enough, march into the night if need be."
"Indeed, the longer we wait the further they get," Rast says, slipping his axe back through the ring at his belt.
Sorry, I had totally missed that part of Darry's post. I was waiting on the response from Gregor
"Save your breath, holy man. The thumps I gave these two will have 'em out for hours," Rast said to Alistar without looking at him. "Leave 'em as they are," Rast says to Darry, "They try to get free and they'll get their necks stretched. We can come back for 'em when we're done with the others. We're doin' this right, yeah?" As easy as it would be to kill them now, something about that did not sit well with Rast.
"Ain't leaving you out here with bandits unaccounted for," Rast says handing the man the healing draught he had been provided. "It'd be better if you come with us. Don't want to get your girl only to have her father rotting in the underbrush somewhere."
Rast looks distinctly uncomfortable as Gregor hugs him and quickly pulls away as soon as he can. "You any good with a weapon?" Rast asks, using his new size to find a sturdy branch on the nearest tree to suspend each unconscious bandit from. When he was done, they were each a good six feet in the air. Some more quick rope work produced a serviceable noose for each of them. Should they try and escape, they might have survived the six foot fall but a noose was harder to avoid. "Should hold 'em."
Rast takes a couple of lengths of rope and begins tying the unconscious bandits' hands and feet. "Unless you know where they took your daughter, we'll have to ask these louts when they wake up," as he spoke Rast eyed Alex and Reynard with something approaching concern. He was not the most perceptive person in the world but it was easy to see where their minds were straying.
"Weren't none but the horses in sight of that wagon when we found it," Rast said, watching Darry fumble with the knots for a second before he steps in and swings his axe into the thickest bundle against the bark. "This ain't all the louts either."
As he felt his bones creak and shift around, Rast stopped bothering trying to hide. The effect was not painful but certainly unsettling as his perspective promptly shifted as well. Now towering over the others, he takes a heavy step towards the bandits, then another. Slow steps but long strides soon closed the distance and he brought his axe around. The haft of the large weapon was not an ideal striking surface but he was trying to keep them alive out of difference to Alex.
After a minute, Rast gives up on sneaking and looks to Evan, "Do that thing you said you could."
"Going," Rast says, uncomfortable at the thought of magic doing anything to him but itching to get underway. The thought of what he was about to do made the bottom of his stomach twist up. "That magic ain't gonna have anything else weird to me, is it?" He asked, notes of worry in his voice. He had seen a few spells but never experienced any himself. Of course, how would he really know? That was the thing with magic, no rules to it that he could grasp.
"You're right, four ain't seven," Rast said, "Four 'gainst six are better odds. We strike now and we have a better chance of not getting hurt ourselves. We hit'em hard and fast. Darry can lead me around to the other side of their camp. I'll get their attention and then the rest of you hit them from this side."
"You know what they say about big guys," Rast said dismissively. Seven against their six were long odds since some of them had were not big fighters. They would need to play this smart. "C'mon, where there's blood there's a body."
"Your gods don't want nothin' to do with me," Rast snorted and shrugged off the hand on his shoulder, "If it comes to it, bunch up in a group and watch each other's backs. Don't let anyone get surrounded alone. Gang up on one thing at a time and surround your enemies when you can. Don't be afraid to strike low blows. Honor is for poncy knights and there ain't many of them runnin' around is there? Let's go."
"Alive, sure," Rast said, looking over the patches of blood and the trails. Rolling his shoulders as he stands, he considers the odds and his own merry little band. "I've found a trail here. Leads off that way," the ferryman finally said, pointing in the direction the ruts went in. "Before we move on, I want an honest answer out of the lot of you. How many of you have been in a fight before? A real one, not a childhood scrap." It was hard to tell with the habitually frowning Rast, but it seemed like he was not asking the question judgmentally. The minute they picked up the trail and were swept up in the potential danger, he realized he had not taken the chance to figure how to get this lot operating dangerously.
"Someone had to set it up and empty it," Rast said, wiping his fingers on the leg of his trousers and searching around for a trail as well.
Rast starts for the contraption, ax in hand and studying the surrounding area as he moves but his eyes strayed time and again to the machine. Stories of human ingenuity put to the purpose of pain were abound but this was his first time trying to figure out just how such a machine would work. Crouching under the tree, Rast drags two fingers through the brown stained leaf litter and brought them to his nose. He knew blood dried brown having had his nose busted more than a few times in his childhood but he figured it would be best to be certain in this instance. Possibilities swirled about in his head but now was not the time for supposition. He was never the most imaginative man but such things only got in the way. He needed quantifiable facts to run on.
Rast toes an arrow and pulls his axe from the loop on his belt. "Eyesight on at least two others at all times. Don't risk yourselves over something stupid, let me deal out the violence if need be and if I say run, we run," Rast orders the others. Alistar's little speech earlier struck him as rather suicidal and he wanted to make it clear that this was not a fight worth dying over. "Darry," Rast said to get the halfling's attention. He jerked his head to the underbrush to the north and started moving toward it.
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