Quest #23 "Even The Jungle Wanted Them Dead"

[SirOwen]

Avaala the Grey

Seeing Luther, Wes and Jaxsen step off into the brush, Avaala calls after them,"Stay within sight!! I'm not well equipped for cutting trails right now, but I can assist if I can see you!" He watches them closely, as well as their immediate vicinity. "Treasure, let me know if you see something I might miss. Your eyes are much keener than mine."

Which brings up a question. I know Avaala can see through Treasure's eyes, but can he See Invisible when he does so? What about Infravision?

[SirOwen]

Jaxsen Reiter

Jax can see that the disturbance in the foliage bothers both Wes and Luther. He readies his Halberd and follows them. "Unless my nose is wrong," he says. "It seems to me that whatever came out of the forest here has already been defeated..... and roasted. What are we looking for?"

[Urson]

Luther
Luther nods acceptance for the spellcasting.

If I knew what we were looking for, I wouldn't be looking.

[Monsieur Rose]

Bonnie

Bonnie remembers that a structure made of black ore was in the vicinity the last time she came through. "Careful. There is a foundation made from ore that the dwarves had mined nearby. They didn't care for trespassers."

Bonnie looks around and finds herself alone with the pointy hats. "They've got that, right? We'll just stay put until they scream?" She tries to look the part of the rearguard, not something she's used to.

[ChubbyPixie]

Chauncey pauses, watching those heading into the foliage with a curious, half confused look on his face. He dips his fingertips into his component pouch in readiness.

[OGRE MAGE]

The Long Walk Home
Loggers Trail
Moonday, the 15th of Goodmonth
Early Evening, Hot, Humid, Insanely Buggy

The temptation to look is just too strong for a few of the members who begin heading into the nearby foliage. Wes casts a spell on himself and then on Luther before they get too far in, making both of them unseen to any nearby animals.

Bonnie lets the others know that she found this area earlier, and that it contains a black rock foundation to a possible future building. What the thief didn't notice last time she was here is the large pile of these black rocks now sitting next to the structure. The pile is stacked haphazardly, as if the rocks were simply thrown from a cart or something.

The ground around this area is heavily trampled, but there doesn't appear to be anyone home at the moment.

Actions?

map:

E9A67A73-EA4A-4CF2-819D-2197EC88A17F.jpeg (128.76 KiB) Viewed 1939 times

Luther 9/26 ItA:14
Bonnie 6/13
Wes 26/34 3/6 first 1/4 second 3/3 third ItA:14
Avaala 4/9 CL, DM, RM 2/2 first
Treasure AC:2 12/12 Mv:6"/24"
Chauncey 8/20 CL, DM, RM 2/2 first 1/1 second
Mr. Wrenly 4/4
Jaxsen 8/14

Gorman’s notes:

Why would they want that dolt Nehru in charge of the decision making in town? He has the intellect of a 3 toed sloth.

Beachtown? Really? Who names a first settlement....anywhere....something as simple minded as Beachtown?

I finally grew tired of the constant whining around town. If the wildlife doesn't kill them all, the damned insects definitely will. Those sheep are doomed if they stay there under that idiot.

Something about that Treehouse place concerns me. There is something there that seems to be almost calling out to me.

Located a nice new abode to call my own, filled with plenty of help, just waiting to rise again.

Some of the bodies I found in here were branded with the same markings on their foreheads. Very curious indeed. I wonder what the significance of the M S is?

Found a nice looking new helper to do my bidding. Hopefully this one pans out better than all those before her. Krystal is her name, allegedly. I dont trust her one bit at this point, but that isn't earned easily.

Those blasted tree rats finally pushed me over the edge. Lets see how many of them I need to fry before all the others get the hint. There are literally thousands of them around here. If they were smart enough to realize it, they would be far more powerful if they merged their clans together. Then I might actually be afraid of them. Annoying little bastards!

I seem to have lost control of my wraiths in the throne room. Pity too, since I thought they would make excellent leaders of my undead army. I will have to continue searching for such prime specimens in the other rooms down here in this glorious place.

I was finally able to trick that idiot Bing into smuggling the natives powerful sensimilla back home for me. That moron thinks he is some kind of genius, but it only took 2 spells before his simple little mind was all mine.

Krystal has proven herself a worthy aid, willing to do almost anything for gold and power. This Allissa seems like she might be just as good, if not better. With naughty elven angels like them in my fold, I am even more powerful than ever. And if they cross me, I can just kill them. That should make them even more dedicated to my cause in the long run.

These clear magical obelisks I keep hearing about are the only thing on my mind lately. The one between here and the natives fields is the only one Ive found so far, but I am sure there must be others. If I go off of the mystic wall diagram, I can only assume that I will eventually find 7 more.

[SirOwen]

Avaala the Grey

Avaala looks at the outline of a stone building and says, "It's got to be the Dwarves. If they build the entire building that way, and not just the foundations, it will be the strongest building in or near Beachtown." He thinks that through for a moment and then adds, "I wonder what they would charge to build them for outsiders? Given their skills, they would be strong and well-built."

[SirOwen]

Jaxsen Reiter

"This is very close to Beachtown," says the Monk. He thinks of as many different reasons and scenarios the Dwarves might have, but his predisposition to looking at things from a hive perspective means that most of his conclusions are hostile in result. "I suppose," he mutters. "That the Dwarves just need storage near the water for shipping. But they really should have asked before building this close."

[Urson]

Luther
Luther shrugs. Sorry, I thought I heard something over here. There's no obvious threat, just another thing to be aware of.

With that, he turns back to the trail. Let's get home.

[Jernau35]

Wes

Wes looks at the foundations and piles of rocks. "Aye, folks not animals." He looks around in the trees above for anything that might be lurking there, but eventually concurs with Luther. "Time to go home".

[SirOwen]

Avaala the Grey

Avaala turns to Chauncey, "What do you think about calling it a day and an early start in the morning? I don't know about you, but food and rest are foremost in my mind at the moment. It's been a long day."

[Monsieur Rose]

Bonnie

Bonnie shrugs as the group comes back to the trail. "That pile doesn't look right. Things were much more orderly last time. I wonder why these are just tossed here."

"A good night's rest sounds good. Does anyone know of a place to stay? My cabin got rented out underneath me, and the common room was full of sick people."

[SirOwen]

Jaxsen Reiter

Jaxsen says, "Perhaps they just need a bit of nursing." Looking in the direction of the common house, he adds, "I usually stay there myself. I hope none of my friends are too ill."

Without another word, the Monk heads for the water bearer's station and looks for Marge. He bows to the hardest working woman he knows and asks, "Marge, I understand that some of the folks in the common house are sick. I need a bucket of water and some rags to help them. Could you help with those things?"

Once he has that, he returns to the common house and starts cleaning. Not with the water and rags he got from Marge, but just sweeping, cleaning and freshening the house, trying to make is a better environment for the ill.

After he has that finished, he does take the bucket of water and rags and starts cleaning up the ill, cooling fevered brows and washing down those who need it. He has no advanced healing skills, but he can bandage a wound and put cool cloths on warm heads. As he does, he explains that this is the duty of all members of a hive, to look out for the other members and work hard to advance it. Anyone in the house who is NOT sick is also encouraged to help. "The Queen loves those who work hard. And she works hard to reward them." All the while, he prays to Bralm for guidance in this task. "Your Grub toils mightily. Please help me not to toil in vain."

When he feels he has accomplished as much as he can, Jax finally goes down to the shore and takes his long-awaited ritual bath. "Thank you, my Queen. I didn't know I could miss this so much." before returning to the common house and finding a mat to sleep on.

[ChubbyPixie]

Chauncey looks even more perplexed, replying to Avaala distractedly: “...yes... yes of course, Avaala. Tomorrow is ideal. I’ll see you at first light. We have much to do.”

Seemingly paying little attention to the foundation or piled stones, he’ll approach Luther and Wesley for a quick word. (See PMs)

[Urson]

Luther
After his discussion with Chauncey, Luther finishes the journey. He dumps his gear at his quarters, then shambles off to the beach in his breeches to rinse the dirt and blood off. His priorities are food, cleaning his gear, and sleep.

[Jernau35]

Wes

Once the group arrives back in town, Wes follows his usual routine. He accompanies Jaxsen to the common house and seeks out the folks with the gravest maladies. After curing their diseases, he delivers a short sermon extolling the virtues of respect for nature and the need to live in harmony with nature. He reminds the folks that should they need him over the next few days, he will be at Obad Hai's blessing tree.

That done, he proceeds to the gardens to give whatever magical aid he can and from there on to refill the town water barrels.

Seeing that Luther is still carrying some serious wounds, he also uses his last Cure spell on him. OM can you roll for that please?
I'm on my phone and not sure how to copy from the dice roller without screwing all this up.

Then Wes will head for a bowl of stew and his traditional post near-death grog.

[Monsieur Rose]

Bonnie

Bonnie leaves the building alone and moves to enter the town. She makes note of the campfire situation and looks to see if Liam or Hrothgar are nearby before moving to the common room.

[SirOwen]

Avaala the Grey

Avaala returns to the shack he shares with Treasure. He looks around at the improvements he's made and considers the improvements he still intends to make. "Those may have to wait, now, Treasure," he says aloud. "I have to get my powers back and put myself back on track."The losses seems to have him down for a moment, but then he does brighten. "Hey!"he says, again out loud. "You know what we did? We did exactly what we set out to do! We helped the people of this town, removed a really big threat and ended a real evil. We did good!"

Silently, he thinks to Treasure, "We'll deal with our new problem after some rest, recuperation and food. With a priority on rest." He crawls up into his hammock and says, "Good night, Treasure. We'll get an early start."

[OGRE MAGE]

Hey guys! Really great stuff here as usual.

After debating with a few others and putting more thought into it than I care to, I have decided on a means to keep certain PC’s from falling too far behind the main timeline. Since this group is really the first to fall into this category, you will be our guinea pigs. (sorry)

I know I mentioned that I will probably make up some way to slow down the fast groups and speed up the slow ones, by waylaying parties out in the jungle or whatever, but I’ve since come to realize that it wouldn’t always be fair for PC’s who could really use that down time to their benefit. (for spell research, town improvements, etc.)

So, along with doing that, I have decided to put a town freeze or pause on anyone who is behind the majority as far as time is concerned. You can still use the downtime days to your advantage, but I will be severely limiting any public interactions and refusing anyone from going back out to do anything else until the day they are caught back up. Even though I don’t see it becoming a problem for most players, this will obviously mean that you won’t be allowed to do anything that might cause a paradox with things that have already happened with others. (killing npc’s, destroying buildings, etc.) You will still be allowed to buy things, eat, drink, etc., but I am going to keep public NPC interactions to an absolute minimum until we see how this goes.

This should reduce confusion for the players who are already in town on the current date, and also help alleviate the need for me to track spells, hit points, and healing rolls for anyone stuck in limbo, since you should have plenty of time to rest and heal etc. However, I will need to ask you to please limit any public NPC interactions until everyone is caught up. Once that happens, it will be business as usual, allowing for more co-mingling of PC’s into different groups if they so wish.

Like everything else so far, this will be a new work in progress, so I will ask that you let me know if you see any problems with this idea or if you think you might have a tweak to add to make it better. Before I put this into the House Rules thread, I wouldn’t mind a bit of feedback if you have any. Please speak up if you have questions, solutions, or anything else regarding this. If this hurts your head as much as it does mine, just ignore it all together and I will tell you if you are doing something against the theory.

For now you can go about doing 5 days worth of activities. If you want to lump them all into one post, that is fine too. Once you have acomplished everything you want to do in the downtime, (or if you dont need to do anything specific) you will be considered advanced and then allowed to interact with the characters on the current day.

If you have questions about what you can and cant do, post them here so we can all learn how to do this together.

Thanks!

(stand by for the mission recap and xp rewards)

[SirOwen]

So, to keep those actions separate from the other players, would it be better to put those 5 days here in this thread? I think it would be easier to keep everything spaced that way. And that way, all the players can see what "happened" during those five days, to keep up on current events, even while we strive not to interfere.

EDIT: But that needs to go both ways. It will be important for those outside this to not try to interact with it.