(Adventure) Rivenblight's Castaway [Creamsteak judging]

[Thomas Hobbes]

Jaan sprints forwards and shove the branch off of Ioleta and presses his hand to the bleeding wound that Ioleta gained when her head bounced off of a rock. Already Ioleta's breathing steadies.

I think the decision was that you level up immediately.

 

[doghead]

Jaan Saaresar

"Losing one companion might be considered unfortunate, losing two would be considered careless," Jaan mutters under his breath.

Jaan breathes a sigh of relief when he notices Iotela's breathing steady. He looks up at the others.

"Keep your eyes open everyone. If they left a trap, they may be around still waiting to clean up."

As soon as he is sure that there is nothing more he can do, Jaan turns his attention to the body, looking it over for any signs of life. But he keeps his distance at this point.*

"Garret. How do we stand with the trail?"

ooc: Spot +2, Search +0

 

[WizWrm]

Velbrik grimaces at the sight. He reaches to his belt to withdraw a wand, then rests one end across Ioleta's head. He mutters for a few seconds as it works to heal her wound.

wand of cure light wounds, down to 19 charges

 

[doghead]

Jaan Saaresar

Jaan glances at Velbrik with a look of relief. He had forgotten that Velbrik had a wand. The fact that Velbrik does is most comforting. Jaan returns his attention to Ioleta. Seeing that she will be alright now, he returns his attention to the task at hand - the body. After checkiing the area nad body for traps, he checks the latter for life.

 

[Otakkun]

Garret

Snapping back to attention, Garret's hands grasp his weapon more tightly, almost waiting for someone to attack them. After two long breaths, Garret concentrates once more on the trail and his surroundings, admonishing himself for not having found that trap before.

"Everyone keep quiet ready your weapons, if they left this trap it could mean they are expecting us. Jaan, please help me a bit with the trap searching."


OOC: Hopefully Jaan will be able to use the aid action to help me search around.
OOC2:Never would've thought that forgetting something would've save me from a trap
OOC3: Don't hesitate to message me on AIM, ICQ or whatever if I dissapear for too long

 

[Sparky]

Ioleta groans and sees Jaan hovering over her, "Wha... what happened?" Flashes of the moments before she went down flicker in her mind. "I..." she sits up, groaning with a hand to her head, "Wow. That really hurt."

She grabs Jaan's arm and lets him help her up. She sees Velbrik tucking the wand back into safety and inclines her head at him, a look of gratitude on her face.

Nodding at Garrett, she draws her short sword, wincing at the throbbing in her head.

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

Ack! My apologies for missing that people had posted. Instant e-mail notification, my tokus.

It actually takes 2 charges of the wand (2+1 and then 5+1, for a total of 9) to waken Ioleta, taking her to a total of 2 hp.

A further, very careful search reveals that there is only one trap, although one trap was very nearly sufficient to do in Ioleta. The bandits, it seems, are playing for keeps.*

The body is, indeed, a body. All that can be told at a distance is that the man is young, handsome, died of wounds, and that he has horns. Very small dark brown ones on his forehead, that barely stick out of his curly blond hair. He appears otherwise human.

Also of note is the strange plant dye smeared on his face and at various other points along his body. After looking at it for a minute, Velbrik begins to remember something he heard in a tavern once. A funeral procession was just passing by the place, and after removing their hats as it went by the patrons started telling outlandish stories about the burial practices of other peoples and races. How credible any of it was you don't know, but you remeber one person saying "The wood elves 'round Rivenblight, that damned place, either burn 'em or- get this- feed 'em to the scavengers. They lay 'em out like you would a body, smear some foul gunk on 'em sos the vultures leave 'em alone long enough fer the soul to leave the body or some such junk, and then let the birds and the other critters take care of it."**

*And I'm not kidding about that. The CR was only 1 by the rules-as-written (due to low search DC and low attack bonus), and I changed the search checks to easier spot checks (DC 5 points lower), but that thing was far more than a nuisance trap.

** cf. the 2nd-to-last-sandman collection. [/geekery]

 

[doghead]

Jaan Saaresar

Jaan steps back from the body and makes the sign of the Greenman.

"The Greenman is sometimes depicted with small horns by my people," he says absently. "But I don't think that elves have them. And the boy looks human. There is probably some connection with the one we seek. BUt I don't think we should spend any more time puzzling on it.

"Finding Troi is more pressing I think."

 

[Otakkun]

"Well then, let's continue searching for your companion then."

Garret, now sure they were on the right track, felt re-energysed and anxious to keep on moving.

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

Leaving the body, the bird, and the branch behind, the group continues onwards. Ioleta is still in quite a bit of pain from her recent brush with the foliage. The group continues on for some time, following the trail through numerous loops and switchbacks, with it never being terribly obvious where the trail is heading- the bandits obviously expected to be followed and have covered their trail. The trail is followed for a few miles, then lost, then found again, and then the group begins to tire. No futher traps are encountered.

Garret can tell two things very early on: One, at least one of the bandits is still heavily burdened, although the load seems to switch shoulders periodically. Two, the bandits are moving as fast as the group is. They are neither gaining nor loosing ground, except when he looses the trail, at which point the bandits gain another hour's lead. So if they want to catch up, they will have to do as they have done before, and risk running themselves into exaustion.

ooc: Ioleta's at 2 hit points, meaning she's not likely to last long if the group goes gung-ho.

You're moving at .5 miles/hour (20 ft base move, 1/2 for forest, 1/2 for tracking) and they're moving at the same (20ft base move due to burden, 1/2 for covering trail, 1/2 for forest). You can move at normal speed (1 mile an hour), but you take a -5 penalty to track checks (which you continue to roll high on- 15+ except for one 3.)

I played out the whole 8-hour day. If you guys want to insert anything or change tactics, feel free.