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"I could use a stole. It would go well with my boots."
The wolf takes a couple more hits, but isn't quite down yet!
Fearing Warren's assault the most, the wolf snaps its jaws at him!
,
And misses horribly!
Garnult will back away from the creature and use his Touch of Law ability on Warren. Warren can treat any roll he makes as an 11.
Cassidy will position herself so she's flanking with Warren. (If it will provoke, she take two move actions to accomplish flanking without provoking by taking the long way around.) If she has an action left, she will attack.
Between the two sword-wielders, the second wolf is quickly put down.
Garnult says A cloak for certain....maybe two
"Thank you for this marvelous detour, Warren."
"Well, I guess we now have food rations."
After pulling out gloves, Cassidy will inspect the wolves to see if there is anything peculiar with them.
"All part of the service Tolbert. You got to meet wild animals up close and personal all for no extra charge!"
Warren skins the wolfs and collects any useful meat, making sure it isn't sick.
Spending a little while to butcher and skin the wolves, Warren and Cassidy also determine that the wolves were exceptionally hungry, to the point of being weakened a bit and behaving oddly (such as lunging carelessly at the party instead of stalking and ambushing). This strikes you as odd, as the botanist and ranger both recognize this area as looking like a game trail, where such predators would normally find ample food.
Continuing your journey, you very soon start to notice something odd: the forest has grown eerily quiet. You can hear yourselves walking, and occasionally hear the rustle of the wind in the treetops, but there is no birdsong, you never hear some woodland creature dart through the underbrush as you approach, and so forth.
"Excuse me, did you say 'game trail'? As in, a place where predators actively look for food?"
"No. I didn't hear Cassidy nor I say game trail. Now that you mention it this is a game trail. Predators would normally leave four creatures of our size alone and concentrate on easier prey. Kinda like lawyers do. These were just so hungry they jumped at the chance to eat anything.
Something isn't right here though. There should be plenty of food around here. There is no noise here. No birds. No little critters in the leaves and bushes.
We need to be on our guard, but more importantly we need to look around I think."
"Could it be that our buyer traipsed through the woods with his necromantic rock, and turned all the furry little forest creatures into undead?"
"Something like that was going through my mind. Possibly another rock dropped here. That's why I want to take a look around."
It doesn't take much time searching around before you notice something of note: a large crater, probably twenty feet across, littered with large clumps of shattered branches. Sitting at the bottom of the crater is a dark, jagged stone; it looks a lot like the other necromantic stones you've found, and is about twice the size of the one you purchased in Zunberg.
"Oh, for crying out loud... Who's got the lead-lined box?"
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Garnult looks around Tha bank?
Garnult looks around Tha bank?
Looking thoughtful Cassidy says, "Well, depositing in the bank seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Perhaps we can wrap this one in the wolf skins, and just hope it doesn't animate the rugs."
"That's a good idea, unless anyone can make a bag out of the skins."
Given that the wolves were nine feet long (each), it's not difficult to fashion a knapsack with plenty of hide left over. Bringing said knapsack to the crater, the skin begins to squirm slightly, but lacks sufficient strength to present any sort of threat or hazard, and the rock is deposited therein without incident.
Looking at the squirming bag, "That's going to attract attention, is downright creepy, and totally turning my stomach off of the idea of eating wolf. But it's the best we can do for right now."
Should we continue on the way to Olgenheim or see if any more "meteroites" fell in the forest. I'm starting to think that whatever these rocks came from must of been of significant size."
"I think we need to get that rock from the buyer if we can. Then we can head back to Woodhaven maybe and see what they have found out about the rocks and give them the ones we have."
Packing up your newfound rock, the party continues the trek through the woods.
Unfortunately, Warren's pathfinding is less keen than it was this morning, and you find yourselves still within the woods as dusk begins to descend.
Press on, traveling at night? Or camp in the woods? Or some other idea I haven't thought of?
Good with either option
Tolbert grumples, but waits for Warren to make the call.
Garnult says I ken see in the dark jus fine. Dunno about you but a dwarfs eyes are keen!
"I say we press on and try and camp near the road. That way we should be ahead of the buyer and he won't walk past us."
Pressing on, Warren leads the group out of the forest and finds the road. Combining Warren's survival skills with a map that you totally brought along for the trip, you can determine that Olgenheim is probably about 10-ish miles away. It is currently about midnight.
What would you all like to do now?
"Well, I'm beat. Maybe one of you who doesn't need to prepare spells should start setting up camp."
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Sure. Lets set up camp a little off of the road, close enough to hear, but far enough not to be seen. Set up watches. Get some rest.
"Sounds like a good idea. I'll get started."
Warren starts gathering materials for the nights camping.
The night passes uneventfully. There is nobody visible on the road at the moment. What would you all like to do?
Is it morning now?
On wards to Olgenheim!
If we are traveling on the road, Cassidy will ask Warren if he spots tracks from any travelers that went by in the night.
It takes only a couple of hours to finish the trek to Olgenheim, making it about 10am when you see a lightly-wooded area up ahead with probably less than a dozen wooden buildings situated near the shore of a lake. A couple of small boats can be seen on the surface of the water, and smoke rises lazily from a few chimneys.
"Oh gods, it's... rustic."
"Maybe you can sue the developers for lack of amenities.", Warren says to Tolbert as they approach the town.
"I doubt he got ahead of us but since it's not big we should probably check the town to see if he's been here and if not head back up the road to find him. I don't want him with that rock any longer than necessary."
Garnult says Fraid ure gonna hafta soil your robes a bit there Tolbert he nods at Warren A good plan. We should divide and conquer, maybe you and Tolbert go to one side and Cassidy and I go to the other?
"Sounds Good."
Tolbert goes the the west side of town, and asks around about any other well-healed travelers that arrived recently.
As you approach the village, it quickly becomes obvious that the handful of small shacks/cottages don't exactly add up to a big enough town to have a west or east "side", so splitting up will be kind of pointless.
An elderly human man sitting in a rocking chair beside the nearest building sees you approach, and offers a big, half-toothed smile in response to Tolbert's greeting.
"Hoooo boy, ain't you jes' the fanciest city-slicker I ever dun saw! What's that? 'Healed travelers'? Oh, yer lookin' fer the local healer, is yeh? Well, that'd be Garreth. Yeh dun look hurt to me, though..."
The old timer shifts in his chair, then narrows his eyes.
"Yer not carryin' sum kinda foreign city-plague, are yeh? We dun had one nasty sickness come through here a whil' back, an' ain't too keen on another ordeal like that."
"Sickness, eh? We have no sickness here. We even have our own cleric. Can you tell me more about this sickness you experienced? We're tracking someone who might be carrying a sickness."
"Eh, it was several months back. E'erbuddy started gettin' rashes and coughin' a lot. Good thing we had Garreth around to deal wid it, we lost a few good folks, but most of us recovered soon enough."
"The town sounds lucky to have had Garreth on hand, but I'm sorry for the losses you've suffered. That is most unfortunate." Cassidy says with sympathy to the man.
"You are probably wondering what us strangers are doing here. As my good friend was saying," slapping Tolbert on the back, "we're looking for someone we think may be in some trouble. We believe he was headed for Olgenheim. Have you seen anyone tall, blonde, wearing armor and two necklaces pass this way recently?"
"Oh... nevermind, then. So, no other travelers in the last couple of days?"