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"Out of the Frying Pan" - Book II: Catching the Spark (Part Two) - {complete}
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
Pillars of Hercules
First Post
Nice post and nice interlude
Good stuff.
Man, I read the last full post and just kept thinking, over and over, "the party is screwed this time." Not that they're doomed, but in a world like Nemm's, there will be ripples in the pond for quite some time over this particular rock throwing. Love the insertion of Jana's backstory, even if none of us quite get what happened yet.
I also loved the interlude - Martin is getting quite a lot of "spotlight" time of late, and I LOVE the fact that he's being forced to assume a leadership role. Martin's player is doing a great job portraying an introvert being forced to push his comfort zone. Kudos!
Good stuff.
Man, I read the last full post and just kept thinking, over and over, "the party is screwed this time." Not that they're doomed, but in a world like Nemm's, there will be ripples in the pond for quite some time over this particular rock throwing. Love the insertion of Jana's backstory, even if none of us quite get what happened yet.
I also loved the interlude - Martin is getting quite a lot of "spotlight" time of late, and I LOVE the fact that he's being forced to assume a leadership role. Martin's player is doing a great job portraying an introvert being forced to push his comfort zone. Kudos!
Last edited:
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Hey Oldie! 
Nice of you to drop by, I figured you had not been keeping up since I hadn't heard from you in so long.
Glad you are enjoying it. . . . And yes, this was the in midst of piling plot element upon plot element and realization upon danger and etc. . . etc. . . until the players' heads would be in danger of exploding..
I'll be posting another "Interlude" tonight. . .and then I'll start working on Session #28 - we just played session #32 yesterday afternoon. ..
Nice of you to drop by, I figured you had not been keeping up since I hadn't heard from you in so long.
Glad you are enjoying it. . . . And yes, this was the in midst of piling plot element upon plot element and realization upon danger and etc. . . etc. . . until the players' heads would be in danger of exploding..
I'll be posting another "Interlude" tonight. . .and then I'll start working on Session #28 - we just played session #32 yesterday afternoon. ..
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Interlude II
That same evening, as Martin was poring over his books and maps, Ratchis was leaving Aze Nuquerna. He had arrived, tired, late the previous night. Taking a circuitous route back to the elven enclave, in case he was followed, but worrying about tracks as his boots made him trackless in snow. He had met up with Kwa in the wood and brought him to the elves.
Ratchis rested the whole next day, and then took off west into the woods long after the sun had gone down, waiting for the very still of the deep night. He did this to do some hunting, clear his mind and put some distance between himself and Ogre’s Bluff before going back and seeing what fate would befall his companions. He left Kwa behind, asking the elves to take care of him.
Ratchis went jogging over the tops of snow banks easily. It was the first time he remembered having "fun" since he left Nikar.
Moving through the shadows of the trees, he thought about Kwa whining as he left, and looked forward to a day when his canine companion could be trusted to accompany him.
Ratchis slowly rose in elevation, seeing a series of broad forest-covered plateaus, as he crossed a wide stream, frozen in many places. He took his time to hop from rock to slippery rock, and then continued onward.
By the time the Ra’s Glory began to climb in the east, he had reached a high enough elevation to see the entire forest by Ogre's Bluff below him, and the dark ridge of Greenreed Valley to the northeast.
Ratchis took note of the tell-tale sign of the droppings of wild goats, and he knew he should find them very soon, slightly higher up, where stubborn razor-sharp blades of tall grass poke up out of the deep snow and craggy rocks.
---
Several hours later, Ratchis came back down the steep snowy embankment dragging a large goat behind him to find a lower place where he could build a sheltered fire that would be less likely seen from below, but he stopped as the smell of death filled his nose.
At first he thought it was a dead animal, injured or old left behind by its flock, but as he stood upon a tall abutment of rock wrapped in the exposed withering roots of a gray leaf-less tree he looked down to see clear in the mid-morning light the upper portion of a humanoid corpse sticking out from snow and shrubs further below. It had brown fur and was dressed in the remains of studded leather armor. It had a face and muzzle like some kind of cat-like dog, or maybe a dog-like cat. It was a gnoll.
Stopping to listen, he hear nothing but the wind, and distant birds dipping in and out of view in tightly packed flocks of black specks in the trees below.
He crept down to the brush. The fur of the gnoll's face was still moist, wet with the froth of death. He appeared to have been impaled right through the chest, probably a long sword or bastard sword.
The smell down there was much stronger - too strong for just one gnoll that appeared to have died the night before.
Getting up, Ratchis craned his head around the side of the shrub, and now saw eight gnolls, or rather, their remains, scattered across the lower embankment. A cursory glance gave him the impression they surrounded someone and were all killed by sword blow, or by losing their balance and tumbling down the mountain headfirst.
Dropping the goat and carefully looking around the scene of the battle, Ratchis searched for some clue about there person or person who had done the slaying. He looked for a trail of blood leaving the scene, but found none. As far as Ratchis could tell only gnolls were wounded - or if the killer was wounded it was so lightly as to not leave a trail of blood in the snow.
He did find deep tracks in the direction of the small plateau he first found coming from the south east - they were lost in the battle area – but they moved towards a thick clump of trees three hundred yards or so to the northeast. Ratchis followed them, but they suddenly stopped way before reaching the trees (about 250 yards away) however, it is obvious that just before disappearing whomever made the booted tracks had begun running.
Ratchis could tell the gnolls came from somewhere further up the mountain, north of where he hunted the goat. He made his way back to the scene of the battle and decided to deal with the goat before investigating this further. He tied the thing by its rear legs to the barren tree and slit open its throat. The goat's blood splatters, still steaming, on the cold and snowy ground.
And then, tying off its neck, he made his way back down to the trees.
It was treacherously steep and icy, but between taking his time and his magic boots, he made it to the trees without falling once.
Within the area of tall firs, the brightness of the sun is muted by shadows cast southwestward, making looking for tracks more difficult, but Ratchis’ skill overcame the obstacle. After searching a bit, he found tracks similar to the gnolls' above, but deeper as if running from the edge of the wood back over its own tracks deeper in the wood.
The muddied track that went over itself over itself ended 20 feet in where, a five foot crater in the snow iwas followed by a third set of tracks that were hard to read because of all the collapsing snow about them. There Ratchis found the body of yet another gnoll, it's spine cut nearly in half by a sword blow. The bloody sword had been wiped clean with snow, and then 15' deeper into the woods he found the booted prints again, going even deeper. Ratchis looked around and then up at the sun. The killer was going north by northeast.
Following the track brought Ratchis deep into this area of trees, which was broader than he originally thought it was. He came to a narrow band of fir trees that seems to cut into a cleft in a tall rocky out-cropping.
Sneaking along, Ratchis spotted the tell-tale sign of smoke drifting up from around the corner of the cleft.
The rocky out cropping was close to 30' high and very steep, the far wall of the cleft seemed to be sheer, trees obscured the entrance to it.
The trees were too thick to look past, shielding the area within the cleft.
Ratchis decided to wait until perhaps the person in there moved on or fell asleep. He knew when the smoke thinned significantly he would get his chance.
After waiting about an hour the smoke began to thin. . .
Ratchis considered climbing a nearby tree just right of the cleft, but growing right against the stone itself, which he figured would give him the perfect view down into it. However, the snow and ice falling from the tree as he ascended would probably have given away his presence.
Waiting and listening just a little long, Ratchis finally gave in and getting down on his belly to crawl over to the trees, he immediately sank into the crunchy snow - realizing that in this position his enchanted boots did not function.
Face and hair full of ice, he shook it off his head, and got up on his hands and knees. Crawling on his belly in over a foot of snow was going to be loud and messy.
Sighing, he got up and squatted like a duck walk, dripping cold water from his natty hair and tried to quietly move over to the edge of the cleft, keeping behind a tree to minimize the chance of being seen.
Ratchis looked around from behind a tree. Just inside a small nook in the farther side of the cleft were the signs of a camp. A small fire had just burned itself out, and snow was pushed away from a ten-foot area near a small tree. Many more trees of varying sizes covered the back wall of the cleft, which went up to the top of the 40-foot incline like jagged stairs.
Duck walking some more to the right, Ratchis’ shifting weight crunching on the snow, he saw the cleft curved to his right, meeting at a narrow point that had what appear to be rough natural steps leading to the very top of the outcropping (where it was flanked by two small trees that look like they'd provide cover from the other side).
There appeared to be no one there.
Ratchis moved into the cleft and examined the fire. Obviously, it was left to burn out- but whomever lit it was very careful about where and how it was lit as to not endanger the nearby small trees.
Looking for tracks, Ratchis circled around the small camp a few times because it was all stamped down very well.
Finally, the half-orc noticed a depression in the snow on the embankment behind the camp that had the trees of varying sizes going up the side. The depression looked similar to the one had seen earlier before the gnoll body at the edge of the wood.
Ratchis looked up at the tree directly after the impression, as if by instinct. There he saw a lanky figure crouched in the limb of a tree twenty feet above. He wore green and white, and a shaggy cloak of dirty white fur. He pointed a nocked arrow in his short bow right down at the top of Ratchis’ head.
"Careful," he said in a soft, but confident voice, strands of brown hair wavering across his bright green eyes in the wind. There was the glint of a long sword wedged across his lap.
"In these huge tracts of wilderland, who would have thought we would be traveling in the same small area." Ratchis said, calmly and steadily looking back up at the man.
The man did not answer, and the arrow did not move from its mark.
Ratchis was silent, and simply returned the gaze.
"I can do this all day and all night, if I need to," the man said. He did not raise his voice, nor did it waver. "What are you doing sneaking up on me?"
"When I saw the gnolls I knew you would either be friend or foe and I wanted to find out which," Ratchis replied.
"The third choice being that I am neither," he said in a flat tone. "However, I will tell you that it is dangerous to travel alone in these parts."
"As a Friar of Nephthys, I tend to get one reaction or the other." As Ratchis said this he readied himself to get behind another tree for cover. He knew some might attacks to kill a Friar upon recognizing one.
"Sometimes one makes enemies by seeking them out," the man replied.
"I sought for the answer to a question. I may not get an answer but that doesn't stop the question from being asked. I have a goat here if you wish to eat with me, or I can go about my business," Ratchis changed tact.
"I recommend you take your goat and leave. This place is not safe, and soon enough something will be feeding on you if you tarry too long," he said ominously.
He never let the arrow have any slack in his bow.
Ratchis shrugged his shoulders. “Have it your way,” he said and backed away, and then turned and hustled off. He retrieved his goat, and then moved back eastward.
He found a shelter place over a mile away, beneath an old rotten tree that had snapped in half under the weight of ice and snow, and he cooked the goat, after taking strips of its hide to make leather straps. He then spent the afternoon hiking around the forest in circles and spirals, learning the general terrain, and checking for human or humanoid activity. He then went back to the old rotted tree and covered himself in a wool blanket and shook snow from the tree above on to himself. And there he slept, kept warm by his boots, and waiting for night to fall, and then he could slip into Ogre’s Bluff under cover of darkness.
That same evening, as Martin was poring over his books and maps, Ratchis was leaving Aze Nuquerna. He had arrived, tired, late the previous night. Taking a circuitous route back to the elven enclave, in case he was followed, but worrying about tracks as his boots made him trackless in snow. He had met up with Kwa in the wood and brought him to the elves.
Ratchis rested the whole next day, and then took off west into the woods long after the sun had gone down, waiting for the very still of the deep night. He did this to do some hunting, clear his mind and put some distance between himself and Ogre’s Bluff before going back and seeing what fate would befall his companions. He left Kwa behind, asking the elves to take care of him.
Ratchis went jogging over the tops of snow banks easily. It was the first time he remembered having "fun" since he left Nikar.
Moving through the shadows of the trees, he thought about Kwa whining as he left, and looked forward to a day when his canine companion could be trusted to accompany him.
Ratchis slowly rose in elevation, seeing a series of broad forest-covered plateaus, as he crossed a wide stream, frozen in many places. He took his time to hop from rock to slippery rock, and then continued onward.
By the time the Ra’s Glory began to climb in the east, he had reached a high enough elevation to see the entire forest by Ogre's Bluff below him, and the dark ridge of Greenreed Valley to the northeast.
Ratchis took note of the tell-tale sign of the droppings of wild goats, and he knew he should find them very soon, slightly higher up, where stubborn razor-sharp blades of tall grass poke up out of the deep snow and craggy rocks.
---
Several hours later, Ratchis came back down the steep snowy embankment dragging a large goat behind him to find a lower place where he could build a sheltered fire that would be less likely seen from below, but he stopped as the smell of death filled his nose.
At first he thought it was a dead animal, injured or old left behind by its flock, but as he stood upon a tall abutment of rock wrapped in the exposed withering roots of a gray leaf-less tree he looked down to see clear in the mid-morning light the upper portion of a humanoid corpse sticking out from snow and shrubs further below. It had brown fur and was dressed in the remains of studded leather armor. It had a face and muzzle like some kind of cat-like dog, or maybe a dog-like cat. It was a gnoll.
Stopping to listen, he hear nothing but the wind, and distant birds dipping in and out of view in tightly packed flocks of black specks in the trees below.
He crept down to the brush. The fur of the gnoll's face was still moist, wet with the froth of death. He appeared to have been impaled right through the chest, probably a long sword or bastard sword.
The smell down there was much stronger - too strong for just one gnoll that appeared to have died the night before.
Getting up, Ratchis craned his head around the side of the shrub, and now saw eight gnolls, or rather, their remains, scattered across the lower embankment. A cursory glance gave him the impression they surrounded someone and were all killed by sword blow, or by losing their balance and tumbling down the mountain headfirst.
Dropping the goat and carefully looking around the scene of the battle, Ratchis searched for some clue about there person or person who had done the slaying. He looked for a trail of blood leaving the scene, but found none. As far as Ratchis could tell only gnolls were wounded - or if the killer was wounded it was so lightly as to not leave a trail of blood in the snow.
He did find deep tracks in the direction of the small plateau he first found coming from the south east - they were lost in the battle area – but they moved towards a thick clump of trees three hundred yards or so to the northeast. Ratchis followed them, but they suddenly stopped way before reaching the trees (about 250 yards away) however, it is obvious that just before disappearing whomever made the booted tracks had begun running.
Ratchis could tell the gnolls came from somewhere further up the mountain, north of where he hunted the goat. He made his way back to the scene of the battle and decided to deal with the goat before investigating this further. He tied the thing by its rear legs to the barren tree and slit open its throat. The goat's blood splatters, still steaming, on the cold and snowy ground.
And then, tying off its neck, he made his way back down to the trees.
It was treacherously steep and icy, but between taking his time and his magic boots, he made it to the trees without falling once.
Within the area of tall firs, the brightness of the sun is muted by shadows cast southwestward, making looking for tracks more difficult, but Ratchis’ skill overcame the obstacle. After searching a bit, he found tracks similar to the gnolls' above, but deeper as if running from the edge of the wood back over its own tracks deeper in the wood.
The muddied track that went over itself over itself ended 20 feet in where, a five foot crater in the snow iwas followed by a third set of tracks that were hard to read because of all the collapsing snow about them. There Ratchis found the body of yet another gnoll, it's spine cut nearly in half by a sword blow. The bloody sword had been wiped clean with snow, and then 15' deeper into the woods he found the booted prints again, going even deeper. Ratchis looked around and then up at the sun. The killer was going north by northeast.
Following the track brought Ratchis deep into this area of trees, which was broader than he originally thought it was. He came to a narrow band of fir trees that seems to cut into a cleft in a tall rocky out-cropping.
Sneaking along, Ratchis spotted the tell-tale sign of smoke drifting up from around the corner of the cleft.
The rocky out cropping was close to 30' high and very steep, the far wall of the cleft seemed to be sheer, trees obscured the entrance to it.
The trees were too thick to look past, shielding the area within the cleft.
Ratchis decided to wait until perhaps the person in there moved on or fell asleep. He knew when the smoke thinned significantly he would get his chance.
After waiting about an hour the smoke began to thin. . .
Ratchis considered climbing a nearby tree just right of the cleft, but growing right against the stone itself, which he figured would give him the perfect view down into it. However, the snow and ice falling from the tree as he ascended would probably have given away his presence.
Waiting and listening just a little long, Ratchis finally gave in and getting down on his belly to crawl over to the trees, he immediately sank into the crunchy snow - realizing that in this position his enchanted boots did not function.
Face and hair full of ice, he shook it off his head, and got up on his hands and knees. Crawling on his belly in over a foot of snow was going to be loud and messy.
Sighing, he got up and squatted like a duck walk, dripping cold water from his natty hair and tried to quietly move over to the edge of the cleft, keeping behind a tree to minimize the chance of being seen.
Ratchis looked around from behind a tree. Just inside a small nook in the farther side of the cleft were the signs of a camp. A small fire had just burned itself out, and snow was pushed away from a ten-foot area near a small tree. Many more trees of varying sizes covered the back wall of the cleft, which went up to the top of the 40-foot incline like jagged stairs.
Duck walking some more to the right, Ratchis’ shifting weight crunching on the snow, he saw the cleft curved to his right, meeting at a narrow point that had what appear to be rough natural steps leading to the very top of the outcropping (where it was flanked by two small trees that look like they'd provide cover from the other side).
There appeared to be no one there.
Ratchis moved into the cleft and examined the fire. Obviously, it was left to burn out- but whomever lit it was very careful about where and how it was lit as to not endanger the nearby small trees.
Looking for tracks, Ratchis circled around the small camp a few times because it was all stamped down very well.
Finally, the half-orc noticed a depression in the snow on the embankment behind the camp that had the trees of varying sizes going up the side. The depression looked similar to the one had seen earlier before the gnoll body at the edge of the wood.
Ratchis looked up at the tree directly after the impression, as if by instinct. There he saw a lanky figure crouched in the limb of a tree twenty feet above. He wore green and white, and a shaggy cloak of dirty white fur. He pointed a nocked arrow in his short bow right down at the top of Ratchis’ head.
"Careful," he said in a soft, but confident voice, strands of brown hair wavering across his bright green eyes in the wind. There was the glint of a long sword wedged across his lap.
"In these huge tracts of wilderland, who would have thought we would be traveling in the same small area." Ratchis said, calmly and steadily looking back up at the man.
The man did not answer, and the arrow did not move from its mark.
Ratchis was silent, and simply returned the gaze.
"I can do this all day and all night, if I need to," the man said. He did not raise his voice, nor did it waver. "What are you doing sneaking up on me?"
"When I saw the gnolls I knew you would either be friend or foe and I wanted to find out which," Ratchis replied.
"The third choice being that I am neither," he said in a flat tone. "However, I will tell you that it is dangerous to travel alone in these parts."
"As a Friar of Nephthys, I tend to get one reaction or the other." As Ratchis said this he readied himself to get behind another tree for cover. He knew some might attacks to kill a Friar upon recognizing one.
"Sometimes one makes enemies by seeking them out," the man replied.
"I sought for the answer to a question. I may not get an answer but that doesn't stop the question from being asked. I have a goat here if you wish to eat with me, or I can go about my business," Ratchis changed tact.
"I recommend you take your goat and leave. This place is not safe, and soon enough something will be feeding on you if you tarry too long," he said ominously.
He never let the arrow have any slack in his bow.
Ratchis shrugged his shoulders. “Have it your way,” he said and backed away, and then turned and hustled off. He retrieved his goat, and then moved back eastward.
He found a shelter place over a mile away, beneath an old rotten tree that had snapped in half under the weight of ice and snow, and he cooked the goat, after taking strips of its hide to make leather straps. He then spent the afternoon hiking around the forest in circles and spirals, learning the general terrain, and checking for human or humanoid activity. He then went back to the old rotted tree and covered himself in a wool blanket and shook snow from the tree above on to himself. And there he slept, kept warm by his boots, and waiting for night to fall, and then he could slip into Ogre’s Bluff under cover of darkness.
MavrickWeirdo
First Post
I'm in
I hope I still remember where I put Finn's file.
By the way Finn's comment... “Wow, that’s some pretty heavy armor you got there,” Finn said, when he spied [Ratchis] leaving the shop. “I’d hate to fall off a boat in that stuff.” was perfect.
I will E-Mail for details
I hope I still remember where I put Finn's file.
By the way Finn's comment... “Wow, that’s some pretty heavy armor you got there,” Finn said, when he spied [Ratchis] leaving the shop. “I’d hate to fall off a boat in that stuff.” was perfect.
I will E-Mail for details
Last edited:
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
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