Chapter 3 - Continuing the Journey - Disease and an Obstacle
Quickly breaking camp and gathering what treasures you are able to find on the dead bodies you make to leave the forest as soon as you can. You all make a mad dash to the edge of the forest in case there are more lycanthropes in the area who might seek revenge on your most recent kill. Upon breaking from the forest you are greeted by a completely white landscape in front of you. The land before you is completely blanketed with snow from the storm the night before. Obviously it was a wise decision to spend the night with the canopy of the trees as the snow out here is easily 4 feet deep. Occasionally you can see an island of rock sticking out of the group but otherwise the landscape is pristine. With a causal glance you see no other tracks of any kind anywhere near where you are. It is an easy ride once you leave the forest but the openness is kind of spooky and you feel really exposed so you agree to try and stay within 100 yards of the forest at all times. You turn your mounts north and you decide that as long as you keep the forest to your right you will have no chance of getting lost, at least until you get to the river.
The day passes without incident and as it is getting late your minds turn to try and find somewhere that will make a good camping spot for the night, especially as it is starting to snow. You crest the top of a small hill, your horse plowing their way through the snow leaving 4 foot troughs trailing out behind you. As you go over the top you see what used to be a small stand of trees. The tree stumps sticking out of the ground all have jagged edges with the rest of the tree trunks littered everywhere. Their are several good sized boulders lying here and there and you deduce that some giants were having some target practice or were attacking something very large. You are not sure you want to camp the night here but as this could be the best and most protected spot your grudgingly make camp, using the fallen tree and boulders to make a crude shelter. You can easily make a fire and not have to worry about anyone seeing the light as the shelter you made hides it easily enough. Even the smoke wafting up through the trees is almost un-noticeable as it passes through the branches.
After a hearty meal and some good tall tales the guard’s ready themselves for a few hours of jealously as the rest of you fall off to a somewhat warm peaceful sleep. Everyone wakes up feeling really refreshed, a little cold perhaps but otherwise feeling just fine and ready to set out on another long journey across the tundra, everyone except Durnn that is. Sten sees that he is tossing and turning under his covers and when he reaches down to wake him he notices that Durnn is drenched in sweat and his skin feels as if he is on fire, something is definitely wrong. As Sten
checks for what might be ailing Durnn he utters a curse and does not know how he missed the earlier
infection from the Dire Rats bite, but is now plain to see as the arm that was bitten has turned a slight shade of yellowish-green.
Seeing to the infection Sten is able to get Durnn's fever under control and he can see the coloring slowly returning to his arm. He smiles to himself at how quickly he was bale to get things back under control and mentally reminds himself to be a little more thorough next time he looks at someone’s wounds, making sure this does not happen again.
(ooc: Durrn the ability damage will go away in a day as Sten's heal check was pretty good. Just take note on the ability changes for today.)
Seeing that Durnn is doing much better after getting some food into him you decide to continue on your journey. Again the day passes without incident and in the mid-afternoon you crest the top of one small hill and what you see in front of you could be a problem. The river on your map is not frozen over and seems to be moving rather swiftly, if the white frothing rapids are any indication. Most of the river is about 40' across but just to the north of you, right before some rather disturbing looking rapids and then a drop of what looks like to be 50' over a waterfall. This part of the river is roughly 20’ across but the water here seems to be moving faster than the rest of it.
You have a few options in front of you, you can:
1) Make camp here for the night and then scout the river tomorrow to see if there is a better place to cross.
2) You can cross the river now and make camp on the other side.
3) You can follow the river to the east until it runs out or you find a better place to cross (you think this might add an additional day or two to your trip).
4) Anything else you guys might think of.
(ooc: Crossing the river here would be a DC 15 swim check but depending on what precautions you do can possibly lower the DC some.)
)
