The Greenbelt
23rd of Pharast, 4710
Exploration Map
Corso, Janku, Servayn, Ember, and two elven bandits depart from the others in the morning. With best wishes and final blessings from Gorum they set forth.
Travel is slow with the two prisoners. The elves remain quiet with their eyes on the ground. One is a woman with long blond hair, her figure is homely but not unattractive. The other is a man with short blond hair and a tattoo. Both of them carry the lithe grace of the fair folk and whisper back and forth to each other occasionally in Elvish.
Shortly before night fall Adams is surprised to have his visitors return so soon. As before he offers his home and hearth. Several badgers and foxes seem to gather around the elves and stare at them watchfully. He advises that exploring the northern territory should be safe enough even escorting the bandits. That section of the wood is frequented by hunters and trappers.
Servayn and Ember converse occasionally in Draconic and Common, alternating without any apparent rhyme or reason, depending on what tongue is most comfortable to the topic at hand. Ember seems curious about the elves, and asks bluntly in the Common tongue, "Why be bandits? Easier to hunt and kill animals for food. Why attack men with weapons and spells?"
Servayn has apparently already spoken to Ember on the topic, but Ember appears unsatisfied with his answers, and so Servayn just shrugs as the Eidolon addresses his query to the elves instead.
The male elf responds abruptly in Common, "Ours is the way of the forest. We hunt man and animal alike. Why should one have more rights than another?"
The woman turns her head away, "Especially humans."
Overhearing the answer, Janku angrily responds, "Gorum treats all honest warriors alike, elves or humans, but you are not honorable". "You come upon sleeping men and try to shoot them from hiding"... "You are fortunate that cooler heads spared you from Gorum's justice"..."On second thought...with that attitude". Janku stops and pulls his greatsword from it's sheath.
"Maybe it's time for a little battlefield justice".
She lifts her head in defiance, "Come what may, barbarian. You and your god have done worse."
"We have seen what the tribes of Pitax have wrought. If not for Lyndalan leading us here we too may have fallen under Gorum's blade."
A gentle growling comes from nearby. The great bear Ben has yet to rise but Adams stands beside him. "Friend Janku, non' of that on my lands. All creatures are guests in this orchard. Strike with words of ye must, but not with blade."
She lifts her head in defiance, "Come what may, barbarian. You and your god have done worse."
"We have seen what the tribes of Pitax have wrought. If not for Lyndalan leading us here we too may have fallen under Gorum's blade."
A gentle growling comes from nearby. The great bear Ben has yet to rise but Adams stands beside him. "Friend Janku, non' of that on my lands. All creatures are guests in this orchard. Strike with words of ye must, but not with blade."
24th of Pharast. 4710
After the brief conflict the pair of elves keep their mouths shut. The night is peaceful and the party sets out after a breakfast of fresh fruit and cheese.
The section of the plains to the northwest of Adam's orchard is fairly empty. Most of it is covered in short green grass and very slight rolling hills. Several of these dales have hollows filled with plant life. Amid one such is an overgrown section of blackberries. There lies a hidden cairn of stones marking the grave of a long forgotten barbarian.
24th of Pharast. 4710
After the brief conflict the pair of elves keep their mouths shut. The night is peaceful and the party sets out after a breakfast of fresh fruit and cheese.
The section of the plains to the northwest of Adam's orchard is fairly empty. Most of it is covered in short green grass and very slight rolling hills. Several of these dales have hollows filled with plant life. Amid one such is an overgrown section of blackberries. There lies a hidden cairn of stones marking the grave of a long forgotten barbarian.
Adams is rather pleased to be your host again. Though being a hermit he seems to enjoy the company.
Corso you know that Pitax, the kingdom to the west of the Stolen Lands, is home to several different barbarian tribes. The one thing they have in common is their worship of Gorum. There is even rumor of a temple of trials hidden deep in the Stolen Lands where the barbarian lords travel in order to prove themselves worthy leaders of their people.
The elves mainly talk amongst themselves regarding how they came to be captures, what Lyndalan would do, and why he hasn't rescued them yet.
As you search the cairn a couple of the rocks come loose revealing the inside. If a person wanted they could remove a few more and do a more thorough search of the body.
Based on markings for the cairn the skeleton buried under the mound of stones was once the son of a minor chieftain among the Tiger Lords. Toppling the stones and digging up the body below takes a good 30 minutes of work. Once exhumed, the body still wears tattered and rotted remnants of hide armor, and the skull still displays the crushed-in side that spelled this barbarian’s doom. Of all the barbarian’s gear, only a strange ring made of green wood on one finger seems of interest—the ring depicts an eel and a frog locked in a tangle.
Dot
Janku stirs from his nap beneath a sprawling shade tree. "Does it appear he died in combat"? "Most of his kind do". Upon the affirmative Janku begrudgingly rises to his feat, careful to make sure all the work is done before he arrives at the burial site.
Once there though he is solemn and serious in his prayers to Gorum to admit this fallen soul into the battlefield of the afterlife, to joyously swing his sword and never-ending foes...without fatigue forever-more.
Servayn mutters an incantation and makes a gesture that is more superstitious than of any arcane significance as they unearth the long-dead barbarian, but his morals fade away like the morning dew when the ring is presented.
Ember frets about the blackberry bushes run into earlier, remembering only something about 'berries' and 'lots of spiders.'
The ring is indeed magical!
None of your actions seem to trigger the ring or illicit an unusual response.
I can tell the ring is magical, but cannot divine what sort of magicks it contains.
I can see that the ring is magical, but cannot identify what sort of magicks it contains. Servayn says, Perhaps Janku or Lukasz's superior training could be of help.
Corso thus turns to Janku: "Can you discern its properties?"
"I can pray tonight to ask Gorum to bless me with the power to see diagnose magical aura's I suppose...It will have to wait till morning", Janku says pocketing the ring until he can diagnose it tomorrow.
After a few more hours of mapping camp is made. The watches go by peacefully in the chilly night air.
25th of Pharast, 4710
Breakfast is had and prayers are made. It has almost been two weeks since the party originally set out. Some of the rations are starting to grow stale. More and more is being replaced by food found during the exploring. Miraculously the moon radishes in Servayn's sack have not rotted. The vegetables could have been dug up just yesterday.
While traveling through the eastern portion of the plains an eerie yipping noise rises from a pit in the middle of a large swathe of grass. The barks come quickly and have a strange chirping quality to them. It has been a week since anyone has heard these specific sounds. The only thing it could be is a trapped brush thylacine.
Servayn and Ember move forward slowly, Servyan raising his crossbow to cover his advance.
He is more concerned about stumbling into another trap, or who or whatever might have constructed the trap, than the thylacine.
"I'm sure someone will want to suckle it and make it their best friend", Janku says with a smile as he rises to his feet ready for action.
During breakfast Janku will cast detect magic, and make a spellcraft check on the found ring.
Janku is able to identify the item as a ring of swimming which greatly increases a persons prowess in the water. It's design is unique to the tribal jewelsmiths of Pitax.
As the two of you approach Servayn holds out his arm and points down at the ground. It looks like the edge of the pit is unstable and would collapse with a person's weight. Any closer and the three of you might tumble into the trap with the beast.
The elves are standing nearby and the man seems a little impressed that Servayn spotted the tricky ground. The woman pouts a little and whispers in elven, "I wouldn't have minded seeing them tumble down to the blood cougar."
Servayn examines the other approaches, searching for a means by which the prey would be extracted from the pit, or some sort of nearby tree trunk which could be rolled over and serve as a makeshift ladder for the creature to use to escape.
The elves look around curiously but there is no response to Corso's challenge.
The closest tree is several hundred feat away and perfectly healthy. There simply aren't many deadfalls out among the plains.
The pit is twenty-feet deep and it looks like the outer edge is ready to collapse. Getting living creatures out does not seem to be part of the design.
Ember can trigger the edges, if need be, and return to the place of Smokeless Fire before he falls in... Servayn says, and Ember just looks up, raising a scaly eyebrow.
But do I want to? Ember says sarcastically.
With a series of careful kicks Corso could knock down half of the pit creating a crude soil ramp that might help the creature climb out. Seeing what he plans the elves back away as far as the rope they're tied with allows them.
Servayn pulls out some staling rations and leaves them in a heap by the edge of the pit for the creature, when it gets free, while moving back to be out of immediate threat range of the creature when it climbs free. He places himself between the creature and the defenseless elven prisoners and readies himself to throw a grease spell to interrupt a charge, if necessary.
Ember chuffs his disapproval, Feeding strays, now, are we?
Killing stuff is easy. Making things is hard. Servayn retorts.
"Just as I thought". "We'll coddle the vicious brute, and he'll probably try to eat us".
Janku readies his sword and stands near the Elves in case they try to make an escape.
Corso moves about the hole kicking it strategically. The earth begins to crumble and fall in waves down the hole. The yipping turns to whining as dirt rains on the creature. Half a minute after Corso's work followed by furious scrabbling the brush thylacine makes it over the edge. Dirty and starved the first thing it does is quickly devour any meat in Servayn's pile of rations. When it finishes the food it paces left and right a moment and starts to dart quickly away from the group periodically looking back.
Mapping the rest of the eastern plains takes the remainder of the day. The escort party makes camp at the edge of the forest.
During the course of the day both Ember and Servayn make their usual attempts to find something edible to supplement (or just flat-out replace) their rations.
Between them, they find enough fresh game / edible produce for 10 people, with Ember, as usual, eating anything leftover to fuel his alien metabolism...
The bonds are well bound. Though just rope, the elves would have to be very skilled to work their hands free.
While Corso crafts the simple trap the sky darkens. He returns to the fire in dark.
Near the end of Corso's shift the alarm triggers. Someone can be heard swearing, "What the, a branch? What is this. Hail to the fire! I'm stuck in something over here!."