Quest #1 "Loggers Run"

[Inferno]

Jack, lost boy:

Monocar
"...Why would you keep that kind of secret?"

As if the answer should be obvious, Jack explains, "Because she asked me to!"

[Bluehorse]

Monocar Jemara

Jack, lost boy:

Monocar
"...Why would you keep that kind of secret?"

As if the answer should be obvious, Jack explains, "Because she asked me to!"

Monocar's eye twitches a little.

The world slows down again for him and turns bluey gray. He groans, "I have enough to deal with, I don't need you two..."

He is cut off by the Imp as he forms on his right shoulder laughing and rolling hysterically.

The cherub on his left begins speaking quickly. "The child was just doing as the lady asked. He also gave you a perfectly honest answer. He's a good boy."

"I guess your right," Monocar acknowledges. "Still, he could have said Something!"

The Imp finally recovers and pulls himself up by Monocar's ear, which has the added benefit of getting his attention. "He made a fool of you! I wish you could see the look on your face! HA! Give him a whoopin and lets see if we can go rescue that elf lady! If she is in danger we may still show up just in time to save her and get us a nice piece of..."

"Gratitude!" interrupts the Cherub quickly.

"Yeah, that's what I had in mind!" The Imp dances around again laughing.

Monocar chuckles before the Cherub thumps him on the ear to get his attention back. "You would have kept the secret if she asked You to do it! Tell me I'm wrong"

Monocar gets a guilty expression. "That is a good point. So what do we do? I can't abandon this group and go looking for her now, but she is all alone."

The imp and the cherub look from Monocar to each other, back again, and once more before shrugging.

Monocar gets a sour look. "You two are some help... What's the point of you guys always bothering me if you can't tell me what I am supposed to do? This entire conversation is pointless."

Just then he realizes the world is moving again and he looks up at the others wondering if he has been talking to himself all this time. He looks at Jack and then the others, looking awkward.

He then sighs and stands up ruffling the boys hair.

"Well, I guess you're as good a friend Bonnie could ask for keeping her secret this long. You're lucky I like you though." Looking at the rest of the group. "So what now? Do we follow after one elf lady or go back to find the other?"

[Nuke66]

"Something is up, and weird it is, we should go back to town and spend the night." Raythan says.

[Urson]

Luther

I'll wait hee while you people decide. As for me, I'm damned if I'm going to head back to the beach just because of a case of the heebie-jeebies. I ain't sayin' I won't leave if there's something to avoid- but I wanna know what I'm avoiding.

Luther studies the jungle- is there anything to distinguish this plot of land from any other? A difference in the colors of the leaves? Wetter ground? More or fewer flowers/vines/bugs ?

[OGRE MAGE]

Following The Trail Of Zombies
Mid-Afternoon
Hot, Sticky, Muggy, Close, Miserable

Krystal seems content on continuing up this trail, neither her nor the ranger are willing to let a "feeling" stop their progress. Luther moves himself ahead a little more but then decides to wait for the conversationalists behind him to make up their minds before going any further. He looks around intently at the surrounding foliage, hoping to spot the source of the uneasiness. He sees nothing out of the ordinary in this particular area that appears all the different from the rest of this dark tropical forest. If anything, he notices that most of the trees and bigger shrubs in this area appear to have large, strange, dark green, gourd-like growths on them here and there. Not necessarily all that unusual considering the ruggedness of this place, but the sheer number of the large clinging anomalies around here is somewhat remarkable. That, and the fact that there is far less jungle noise and commotion in this particular area.

Monocar has another one of his...........episodes? He calmly speaks with Jack about his indiscretions while handling the Bonnie sighting, but the boy sees nothing wrong with keeping her little secret until now. The mountainous human poses yet another question to the group. Do they continue on with the expedition, or go back to seek out Bonnie.

The always stubborn Franny has made up her mind. She senses that something isn't right out here and is perfectly willing to leave the group behind if it means saving her own skin. She has been on this island longer than anyone else in this group and knows full well that, when something doesn't seem right around these parts, it usually isn't. She takes her leave of the group just as quickly as she joined them, heading right back in the direction of the large clearing. The half-elven Raythan also senses the bad juju in this area. Not one to be shown up by a dwarf, he starts following Franny back to the loggers camp and the safety of the much larger trail.

[Inferno]

Jack, lost boy:

"They're going back toward the evil lumberjacks," the pixie child says. "And Bonnie."

He turns to Luther and Krystal and pleads, "Can we just go back to the logging camp with the ugly dwarf and the half-human long enough to make sure they're safe? ...and Bonnie?"
"After that, we can continue on!"

"Pleeeeeeeeeease???"

[Nuke66]

Raythan pauses. "If we don't turn back, we risk spending the night in this jungle, which I'd rather not"

OOC: please remember, this sand box has real sand!

[Hotgoblin]

Franny keeps going down the trail...Raythan, at least you haven't lost all yur marbles yet. They're all too thick-skulled to understand the dangers that lay and wait, deep within that there jungle. Come now, we have to hurry, we don't have much sun left .

[Spearmint]

Miss Tal

Krystal immediately stops and in an hissed whispers calls the others to slowly backtrack. "These plants with gourds... I bet that is what happened here. The flesh on the leaves and rags we followed are the remains of the twenty men. The bushes came alive and ate them. I've seen a 'venus' fly trap once or twice and these could be giant man eating varieties. I reckon if you spot a fat gourd releasing gooey sap it will reveal the remains of a chewed up, sucked dry person."

Krystal backs up and arms herself with dagger and sword looking out for creeping grasping vines or a darting leaf maw inclined to snap on her.

[Inferno]

Jack, lost boy:

Miss Tal
I reckon if you spot a fat gourd releasing gooey sap it will reveal the remains of a chewed up, sucked dry person."

"Ew! Gross!" Jack smiled. He liked the sound of that. He stopped whining about the logger camp and looked at the gourd, then Tal's sword, then back at the gourd, then Tal's sword again.

Finally, "Well?! What are you waiting for?!"

[Urson]

Luther

You may be right, Krystal. Whatever they are, I think they're in the middle of what's creeping our hides. We backtrail- we get out of this area where they're growing, and when we're an easy bow shot from the ones on the edge, Jack and I are gonna put some arows in one. Easy bow range should still give us time to react if there's trouble. Let's go!
As good as his word, Luther heads back the way they came, watching the surrounding trees to keep track of these killer zuccini.

I suspect I know what's going on, but Luther hasn't seen that movie....

[Bluehorse]

Monocar

Looks around at the gourds as he slowly puts awsy his mace and draws his sword, holding it in a double handed grip. He eyes the plants immediately around himself then the others. "I like Luther's idea." almost as an after thought, he looks at his feet to see if there are any snags he didn't notice before or anything else suspicious.

[OGRE MAGE]

Following The Trail Of Zombies
Mid-Afternoon
Hot, Sticky, Muggy, Miserable

Jack pleads annoyingly with the big folk to go along with Franny, at least until they get back to the loggers clearing.......and Bonnie. As they are normally wont to do, the big folk don't really listen to the lad.

Franny makes one last comment to Raythan, takes her leave, and then disappears into the jungle again, walking in a southward direction. We will pick your actions back up in your private thread. Raythan starts to follow but then pauses to address the group again. He wisely insists that he does not want to take part in sleeping outdoors in this bug and critter and monster ridden jungle. The others ignore his words as well as the boys.

Krystal whispers to the group to backtrack a ways and to watch out for any man (or elf) eating vines or plants. She thinks that she has discovered where the loggers have disappeared to so she arms herself with sword and dagger, looking all around for danger. Jack tries to get her to poke at one of the large, leafy, gourd-like growths with her blade. She smartly declines the idea.

Luther makes the call to backtrack for a while until the group is out of this overgrown area. Then he and Jack can shoot at one of the growths from a safe distance. Monocar sees nothing at his feet that looks overly dangerous. He agrees with Luther's idea and helps the ranger move everyone back a ways down the trail again.

After a few more minutes of backtracking through the hot tropical forest, you start to notice less and less of the strange zucchini like tree lumps. Eventually you get to a spot where the only ones you now notice are a good bowshot away into the northern jungle.

Franny is now long gone. Will Raythan follow her as well or does he stick around to watch the marksmen competition?

Anyone that wants to take a shot at the big lumps, give me a roll to hit.

I need to know if you are all shooting at the same one or if the shots will be spread out amongst them.

Not that I'm suggesting you fire on them, you do what you want.

[Bluehorse]

ooc: sure, monocar will sling a stone. 1d20 to hit and 1d4 for damage, correct?

[OGRE MAGE]

That is a perfect example of what NOT to post in the main game thread.

The answer is yes.

Please ask questions like that in the ooc or your private thread. I don't like the main thread to be cluttered with this kinda stuff. Thanks!

[Bluehorse]

Monocar

Once everyone is out of the way Monocar sheaths his sword and takes out his new sling and one of the stones he picked up on the trail. He picks out a gourd and takes a crack shot at it.

To Hit [1d20] = 13 DMG [1d4] = 2

[Hotgoblin]

Franny keeps babbling about how she knew something bad was about to happen. She turns to see why Raythan hasn't commented on any of her statements yet....

[Inferno]

Jack, lost boy:

Jack does what his hero asks and expertly places two arrows into two different gourds of death. "Bullseye!" he smiles with pride.

Jack: Arrows: to hit: [1d20+4] = 20+4 = 24, [1d20+4] = 17+4 = 21, damage: [1d6] = 1, [1d6] = 6

[Urson]

Luther

attack [1d20] = 9
arrow [1d6] = 2

Luther shoots once, aiming at one of the gourds Jack has already pierced.

Well shot, Jack!

[Spearmint]

Miss Tal'

"Well done boys, good shooting." Then she thinks for a minute and concludes that if the gourds do indeed contain the remains of the men then the trees themselves might retain some kind of sentience. "Fire, we might need fire to burn the trees!" she says and begins to wrap an oiled soaked sock around one flask of oil to use as an impromptu 'Molotov' if the trees actually awaken.