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| Action Id: 4200 | Crisis: | Participants: Shae, Alis, Kedehern, Thea and Irony | |
| Status: Resolved | Submitted: June 25, 2020, 8:37 p.m. | Public: True | GM: Kalakh |
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Action Points: 1500 |
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Action by Shae
Shae is leading a scouting mission through part of the Oathlands to track down groups of Legion's minions hiding out within it. As a Deputy Warden of the West, and an experienced scout and tracker she will be sure that her party is well prepared for their mission. Her group will be searching through the southern parts of the Oathlands, down to the Lyceum boarder. And making sure to be thorough in their search, looking for any possible signs of Legion's minions, or suspicious animal attacks. Having fought them first hand herself, she knows what sort of tracks to look for. In addition she will also be using her dogs, in helping track and search for them. While they are out searching through the southern half of the Oathlands, Shae will use her knowledge of the wilderness, terrain, fauna, and flora. And trusting in her fellow scouting members; Kedehern, Alis, Irony, and Thea, to do what they do best. And if and when they are able to find any groups of Legion's minions, she will be sure to take note of their locations. So, that they can be record and reported back.
Action by Kedehern
By now, Kedehern has a wealth of experience when it comes to scouting for sign of the enemy, and he puts that to work alongside his wife and the others. With warhammer in hand, he makes for a tireless and determined outrider, and would use his knowledge of warfare, combined with his expertise in the wilds to help determine likely areas that Legion's minions may be using for a staging grounds, or routes they might take, to help Shae and Alis with the search. The Knight will maintain a vigilant eye should they meet the enemy, prepared for the potential of violence, but with the knowledge that this is primarily a scouting mission and the important thing is to make it back with the vital information they can provide about their findings.
Action by Alis
Alis intends to be part of the scouting teams that are scouring the Oathlands for signs of Legion's minions, or suspicious animal attacks. She also thinks this will be excellent squire training for Ironna! (What could possibly go wrong!?). She will be bringing to bear her knowledge of the area, and her tactical mind foremost. But, also her sword and shield should they be needed. And weapons are all too often needed.
Action by Irony
Ironna Aerisian is new to scouting. Truth be told, Irony is new to basically *all* of this 'squire' stuff. But Irony's got armor, she's got a pole-axe, and she's got a *lot* of Enthusiasm. So she'll come along, and she'll fellow Alis' lead dutifully, and she'll do her best to help where she can. And if there's trouble... well, she's got armor, she's got a pole-axe, and she's got a *lot* of Enthusiasm.
Action by Thea
Thea had volunteered awhile back to help go scouting when she heard about a few dreams and rumors that had been plaguing the Oathlands. But you know--not as an actual scout. She's going as a physician. I mean she's good with a blade, but there are enough of those going. Sometimes you do the next best thing, and that's keeping those safe by other means. She will of course have all her medical supplies with her as well as her kopis and dagger on her as well, because well--you never know. She's heard stories, damnit! And has tended to the injuries from a previous scouting adventure.
Result
Thoroughly scouting an area so large, without even a trail to start with, is a daunting task. They don't even know for certain what they're attempting to find. Werewolves? Wolf-centipedes? Shards? It could even be all of those together, somehow. But they have little success to start, and it's hard to determine whether that's a good thing, or a bad thing.
There are always animal attacks to be found, of course, but almost none of them seem particularly suspicious. None of the villages they visit have anything to tell them about other than having to run off a bear, some livestock losses due to wolves (but the normal sized, probably not half centipede sort of wolves), a rabid dog, and, in one village, a particularly persistent and bad tempered badger that got into someone's home late at night. There are a few villagers that have more interesting things to share. Uneasy encounters with strangers on the roads. Frightening noises at night. The occasional weird sighting of SOMETHING in the forest. These are all, of course, things the villagers dismiss as anything but curiosities. And they could very well be just that.
But a few times there's enough to investigate further. Shae and Kedehern are extremely talented scouts, and it turns out that Irony may have a small talent for it as well, as more than once she's able to suggest a direction that proves fruitful, even when the Fortiers find nothing to corroborate why that might be. They find three undeniable places to report on.
The first is a small village some distance north of Volkov Woods. It has clearly been there for quite some time, but the people in it are beyond strange, and the group is able to hide well enough on a small bluff above the village to observe them. Every morning the villagers wake up exactly at dawn. All of them exit their houses at the same time. Some of them go to plow the fields. Some of them chop wood. Some of them mend clothes, or repair fences, or cook food. The children sit right in the center of town and roll a ball back and forth between them, always at the same speed, always in the same, if somewhat complex, order. At exactly noon, they all stop and eat for exactly twenty minutes, then they all return to what they were doing before, and continue to do this until night falls and there is no more light to work by. Then every single one of them return home. Every single one of them steps inside their house. Every single one of them shuts their doors at exactly the same time, and every single one of them blow out their candles and dim their lanterns in such perfect synchronization that the village vanishes into the darkness in a blink.
The second place they find is a vast sinkhole in the middle of the woods a few days west of Lyon's Redoubt. The hole is near perfectly round, and they can't even see the bottom, merely sides made of clay and packed dirt vanishing downward and downward into darkness. Shae's knee feels like it is throbbing the entire time, and they don't linger.
The day they encounter the Standing Shield Clan is bright and sunny. Like many Abandoned tribes in the Oathlands, the Standing Shield are nomadic, and not surprisingly, completely alarmed when their own scouts alert them to the group's presence. There are a lot of them, and it nearly comes to blows before Thea manages to settle things temporarily by offering to see to a few of their wounded. Their own healer is missing, their baroness explains, in a way that makes it clear she half suspects they might be responsible. But, as it turns out, there's another stranger visiting them at the same time, a friendly, dark haired woman who introduces herself as Reva.
Reva explains that she lost the pack carrying all of her supplies when she had to run from what she describes, in a baffled manner, as "large, clicking marauders" that attacked her along the road. When pressed, she's able to give them an area just to the north of Artshall. And none too soon, as the Standing Shields quickly decide the Compact visitors have worn out their welcome, and demand they leave. Reva volunteers to lead them at least part of the way.
The journey is largely uneventful, until Shae's knee starts twinging again. And then aching. And then throbbing. They come upon a small cave dug roughly out of a gently sloping hill, and, with extreme care, creep close enough to get a good enough look at it to see that it's empty, apart from scattered animal bones. Reva sits herself down on a stump, looks at them--it isn't really clear if she's looking at anyone in particular--and smiles. "We see you," she says, in a voice that's utterly monotone.
Seven creatures that look like some horrible cross between human and insect burst from the ground in front of them. One rushes at Shae, one attacks Kedehern, one comes at Alis, one jumps at Thea, and no less than THREE lunge at Irony.
The air is filled with mad clicking and shouts. Kedehern intercepts the monsters coming at him and his wife, swinging his hammer hard enough to crack carapace while Shae fires past him to bury multiple shafts in what can only be assumed to be faces. They're both forced to be far more mobile than might be ideal, but they're a team, in this and many other things. They turn, often back to back, and every time one of their attackers lunges forward, Kedehern is there to parry, every time the other attempts to flank him, Shae's arrows find it. The monsters go down, smashed and feathered in equal measure.
Thea finds herself suddenly having to square off in combat, rather than bandage the result of them, but as it happens, she's no stranger to fighting, and she manages to dodge around snapping mandibles to bury her blade hilt deep in a crack between one piece of chitinous armor and the next. She twists, briefly finds herself airborne as the creature rears back, and then manages to maintain her hold as it collapses, and she stabs repeatedly until it stops moving.
Alis attempts to get to her squire before Irony is completely mobbed, but she's forced to defend herself first, having to practically chop her way through the monster in her way.
Irony's war cry is, perhaps, a little too eager given the situation. She swings her poleaxe as hard as she can and smashes it right into the chitinous 'head' of the first creature within reach before the other two outright tackle her to the ground. But then Alis is there too, hauling one of the monsters up and then driving her sword right into where its chest should theoretically be. Irony kicks her way free of the other one, snatches at the poleaxe still buried in the face of the creature she hit, and swings it, twitching monster and all, at the remaining creature trying to make a grab at her. It ends up making quite a mess of both of them.
The entire fight lasts, perhaps, a minute or two, but Reva is already gone. Her trail leads at an angle away from the route they took to get here, but there the footprints of a sprinting woman suddenly turn into the tracks of a large wolf, with torn and shredded clothing left lying scattered on the ground.