Game Thread - the Hunted

[tibbius]

Plan made! Now rolls for success ... pick any appropriate career and attribute, then roll for your character and followers (Ildu, roll for Sima, Beshur, and Pem-pta). Target number is 9 or better. Please narrate what your character(s) do, then I'll narrate result.

[ildu]

You know, I wrote out Beshur having a pack, and initially planned that to be one of the items, but thought I removed it....so I'm going to edit that post to the rucksack, oil, and tinder.

Now to roll off for our escape attempt.

Nodding in agreement, Ea secured her own gear, before looking to the others, should they wish to adhere to Kimse's request. They were more than welcome to give him their gear, but Ea would do no such thing. Sneaking toward the farthest wall, the white-haired barbarian leads the escape over the wall, offering a muscular hand to those who cannot make it on their own, and pulling herself over the wall.
Ea helps her comrades over the wall! [1d6] = 2[1d6] = 3+4 (barbarian 2, strength 2)

Sima, the lithe Beshaari dancing-girl, attempts a running-start, attempting to use nearby barrels and boxes as stepping-stones as she runs up the wall most gymnastically.
Sima dances to freedom! [1d6] = 1[1d6] = 2 (+agility? +tumbler 2) total with agility 0 is 5

The half-cerulean, however, spits into his hands and climbs. He was going to show off how a real sailor ascends the rigging.
Beshur shows off his rigging abilities! [1d6] = 3[1d6] = 4 (+strength2 +pirate 2) Total is 11

Not one to be outshone by one of common birth, Pem-pta relies on his history of sneaking out of many a nobleman's daughter's bedchambers to scale the wall to freedom!
Pem-pta is not to be upshown by a cerulean! Ea is watching! [1d6] = 1[1d6] = 2 (+strength1 +noble 1?) Total is 5

[tibbius]

It was good that Ea went first; she was able to reach down from the wall top, twelve feet above ground, and grab Sima's wrist as the dancing girl was about to take a nasty fall. With a muted grunt she hauled up the light-footed girl, who smelled pleasantly of sweat and musky perfume. Sima rolled onto the top of the narrow mudbrick wall.

Beshur swiftly scaled the wall, his fingers finding leverage on many of the same crevices and crumbling protrusions that Ea had used. He chuckled to himself as he scrambled to a prone posture on Ea's other side from Sima, his cutlass ringing softly as it scraped the edge of the wall. "I think it's harder without the rocking water under me!" The pun only made sense in Sea Tongue.

Pem-pta had a much harder time of it. After repeated leaps, he managed to scramble up just far enough for Ea and Beshur together to pull him the rest of the way. His battle harness snagged at the edge, and part of the wall crumbled into orange dust that further stained the front of his dirty tunic.

Now was only Kimse to come up ...

[Urson]

Kimse
Kimse approached the wall, searching for finger- and toe-holds, so that he could climb it like a sheer rock face. The shadows on the wall misled him, as the fingerholds turned out to be non-existent and the toeholds crumbled under his weight. He slipped back to the ground, annoyed. My fathers laugh at me tonight.

[tibbius]

After a few moments frustration, Kimse remembered the rope that he had just acquired. It was thirty feet long; the wall was eight cubits high. He tossed the rope over the wall and held his end as Ea and the others descended the outside of the wall. Then he clambered up rope and wall as Beshur held the other end. In a few minutes they had left behind them the mud brick walls and buildings and the imposing grey stone temple of Nemmeroth, and were headed up into the rocky, scrubby hills that were the feet of the Besharoon Mountains.

The sun was high and hot and there was no clear path, just the many little tracks made by wandering goats and sheep and their herders. to be continued

[tibbius]

The day passed as they wandered up further into the hills. The land was brown dirt and rock, with yellowing grass, startlingly pink flowers on the scattered bramble bushes, and infrequent twisted groves of wild olive with their dingy leaves. As they passed a herd of grey and brown sheep that were grazing the green succulents on a gravel slope, they observed a shepherd watching them from his seat on a large rock a hundred yards and twenty feet higher up the slope. The shepherd held his staff across his lap, with his elbows on his tunicked knees. He made no greeting, simply gazed at them passing.

[Urson]

Kimse

We should head for the roughest terrain. The deep woods, the canyons, the places that the locals don't bother with. We have no way to know who will betray us to the "Hunters" for a copper coin.

Kimse will lead the group toward that sort of terrain, digging deep into his memories of a childhood spent in such places.

For success in finding the rough terrain:
[3d6] = 13

[tibbius]

Beshur grunts to Ea in Sea Tongue:

"What about the master of the furry fish-school? Should we slay him?"

Pem-pta squints at Beshur, and asks in his Lysor-accented Lemurian, "What did you say?"

[ildu]

Ea nodded in agreement with Kimse as she surveyed the horizon, taking a moment to observe the foothills and brush for anything edible, save the large herd of sheep tended by their silent master. Cocking her head back to Beshur, Ea responded in turn, her Sea-Tongue lilting and nasal.

"He's done me no harm, I see no reason to kill the furred-fishmonger, unless he decides not to share his bounty."

Looking to Pem-pta, Ea chuckled and began down the hill. "Squabble not, we hunt!"

[1d6] = 4[1d6] = 5 +1 Hunter roll to scout out the landscape!

[tibbius]

Leaving the shepherd behind, Kimse and Ea led the group further up into the hills. As the sun fell onto the higher peaks ahead of them, they came to the edge of a ravine about a hundred feet deep. The near side of the declivity was steep and rocky, but green with small fresh plants. A small stream burbled along the bottom of the ravine, and trees and grasses grew along it. The stream ran down from the peaks ahead, then turned away northward near where they stood looking down. It seemed to the two hunters like the kind of place where game would come to drink at night.

[Urson]

Kimse

This is a good place. We should find a place to hole up for the night. Ea, you and me should hunt for food down the ravine.

[tibbius]

As they clambered down the steep rocky slope toward the bottom of the ravine, they splashed through small rivulets of water that ran down the rockface among the greenery. It was a little slippery but not impossible to descend.

Near the bottom, just above the outside of the bend of the stream, ancient floods had undercut the rock face. They climbed down to one side of the overhang and considered the dry sandy beach that rose gradually from the edge of the stream back into the shadows under the rock. It was not clear how far back the cave went.

[ildu]

Ea walked confidently toward the cavernous entrance, holding the curious Sima back and looking to Kimse for assistance. As the large redhaired man spoke his peace, Ea nodded in agreement.

"This seems defendable for the evening...We must go as far as we can to explore the caves before the light dies tonight. Pem-pta. Do you think we can cover our tracks to this cave? Beshur. Do you think we can defend the mouth of this cave through the night? Sima. Come with me, we need to know if we can find a route to escape through the back of this cave if we come under attack in the middle of the night."

[tibbius]

"You speak of tracks," said Pem-pta. "I see some here, and here." He gestured to some clawed footprints in the sand, each print about the size of Beshur's massive hand. Between the pairs of prints was a shallow trough that ran from the darkness of the cave along the beach to the firmer ground under the stunted trees of the ravine.

[Urson]

Kimse

I'll go try to catch dinner. It's tempting to think of just going to ground to wait out the time- but we wouldn't survive if we did. We can't be rabbits running from the wolf. We have to be boars facing the hunter's spears.
We get some better weapons, then we take the fight to the "nobles" searching for us.

Kimse moves off into the underbrush, hunting small game.

Hunting: [3d6] = 13
-----------------------------
IF he finds a rabbit trail or some such, he'll set a snare, using thin willow twigs and bits of vine.

Hunting:[3d6] = 9

[tibbius]

While Ea and her followers consider the mysterious tracks at the threshold to the cavern, Kimse moves stealthily off into the undergrowth, his big axe strapped to his sweaty muscular back and his throwing spear held easy in his brawny hairy hand. Time will tell of his prowess in the hunt. Meanwhile, what if anything lurks in the darkness?

[tibbius]

Entering the cave, Ea and Sima ducked under a lower portion of the overhang and stepped into the shadows. They smelled a faint musky odor.