To New Horizons(2nd ed game, game thread)

[PurpleXVI]

Bas

"Afraid not," said one of them, he looked like a skinny, nimble type, likely the tree-climbing Erik that Jonas had mentioned, "Lots of snakes and some big bugs, though. At one point we saw this giant ant-looking thing, almost as big as a horse! Docile, though, didn't attack us, but we figured it would probably be a good idea not to try to pet it, so you never know, hop on it's back and it might bite your arms off. At any rate, we appreciate the help, if we ever see you again, we'll remember it, but now we've got to take care of our friend."

Then Erik and the so-far-unnamed adventurer grabbed the wounded man's litter and carried him off towards the collection of structures, likely hoping to find an alchemist that could brew them up a cure.


Everyone else

Jonas' face became a grimace of concentration as he seemed to be recalling what he had just told the group, then he relaxed, "Oh yeah, my bad," he said to Tamora, "I meant to the northEAST, it's this heat," he laughed, "It gets to you pretty bad, but you'll probably notice that soon. I suggest you make sure to keep your waterskins full, you wouldn't think it in a forest as wet as this one, but you sweat like crazy and on our first trip out we almost didn't make it back because we figured we wouldn't need much water."

"I'm afraid we've got things to attend to, though, mostly the well-being of our friend, if you manage to return from where ever you decide to go, let us know how you fare and what you find. I'm curious to see what better adventurers than us might discover." Then he left to catch up with his friends.

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath turned at the sound of another person coming through the gate. He hadn't noticed anyone else skulking nearby, this person must have been unable to bear the wait until the next group. "Well, hello there," he greeted the newcomer. "A little anxious to get to this side of the portal, are we?" He smiled. "The name's Lorath." If he were standing closer he would have extended his hand.

Without turning, simply lowering his voice, he addressed Gan's question. "I'd like to check out that village, really. It doesn't sound too difficult to get to, and making some contact with the natives will be important in learning about this place's flora, fauna, and landscape."

[Armen]

Tamora nodded at Jonas' response to her challenge. She was struck by how generously he admitted his error and how he even gave them more information. For a moment she envied Lorath's easy manner with strangers that had gained them such valuable knowledge so quickly. She realised though that it would be dangerous to rely on the perceptions of others - particularly humans not born in the forest. She appeared to come to a conclusion.

Turning back to Lorath she said, "I am happy to travel with you to this lake but first I will explore the immediate area around this clearing. While I'm gone you speak to the people in this settlement and see if we can learn more. I will be back in an hour."

She approached Bas and lowering her gaze, she quietly said "Learned one, I would appreciate your wisdom on my patrol"

[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

Gan Vahnsen

“Sounds good.” the half elf answered Lorath, “I agree. Anyone else coming?”

Glancing at Tamora as she spoke to Lorath, Gan was about to introduce himself, but thought better of it. There would be time for such things later.

There really wasn't much more to say until everyone else replied to began to move.

[Kazilan]

Bas nodded at Tamora's suggestion.

"Yes, we should investigate the area as soon as possible. Not to belittle those men," Bas glanced at the group as they moved away, "but I doubt they would notice an elk's passage unless its antlers were embossed in gold. Lead the way and I will keep pace."

[ 01-14-2007, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: Kazilan ]

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath pondered for a moment. It would be difficult to dissuade these two from going out and looking around, and it had merit. On the other hand, Gan seemed to want to leave right now, and he had to admit that he did too. He didn't want to split up this early, but he supposed that it'd be the best way to get as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time.

"All right, while you two are checking out the nearby wildlife and plants, we'll be heading out to the village and investigating the lake. We'll try to set up some sort of base of operations and wait for you there." He looked at Anne, who he hadn't seen before but seemed anxious to get through the gate for some reason. "You can come with us too, if you'd like."

[Armen]

(OOC: Heavy edit after PM with Man Who . . .)

Tamora nodded "Very well". With a glance towards Bas to make sure he was following she headed north along the trail out of the clearing. They were quickly lost from sight among the vegetation.

[ 01-14-2007, 06:24 PM: Message edited by: Armen ]

[dplax]

Anne Evasdottir

She did not immediately reply to Lorath, preferring to catch her breath before doing so. She then glanced at the man, who had spoken to her. His ears immediately gave away his elven heritage, but Anne also noticed that he was of quite small stature for an elf. Still completely unaware of whom she could trust in this new world, she preferred to address him in the elven tongue. While she spoke well, to the well-trained or native ear, her manner of speaking the language of the elves gave away that she was not a native speaker.

"You are right that I was in a hurry to leave the lands on the other side of that portal, but I'd prefer keeping the reasons of that haste private for the time being. My name is Anne," she hesitated for a moment, contemplating whether to give her last name, but eventually decided against it.

Anne brushed her brown hair back from her eyes.

"I heard you mention some sort of village...I would be interested in accompanying you there. I badly need provisions and a set of fresh clothes, for all that I have is what you can see me wearing, and my guess is that the natives of this place shall know better what to wear here than the newly sprung up shops here. What do you know of the village?" she asked.

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

"We know only what Jonas's party was able to tell us about it, Anne," Lorath replied to her, also in Elvish in case she didn't speak Common or simply preferred it. "However, they did suspect it's still occupied, and you could probably find some provisions there either way."

He adjusted his red tunic and looked to the north. "We should probably be heading out before it gets any hotter. That lake sounds like it'd be a real luxury in midday heat."

[PurpleXVI]

Bas and Tamora

(OOC: Armen told me how Tamora would likely undertake the task of exploring near the clearing, so I'm making the assumption that Bas will go along with it.)

Under Tamora's careful leadership, the druid and ranger made their way northwards. It was slow going because in some places there were almost literal walls of vegetation, barriers of vines, bushes and trees towered over them and forced them to make detours or take the equally time-consuming course of climbing over.

Eventually though, several hours and barely a couple of miles later, they managed to reach the edge of the clearing. The jungle suddenly started to thin out, making the going easier, and they could see a lighter patch up ahead. Beyond the edge of the jungle there was a roughly circular clearing with a few trees in it. The trees were bare trunks that rose about eight feet into the air each, before spreading into a near-horizontal tangle of tightly interwoven branches with plenty of leaves. If not for the slightly sinuous shapes of the trunks, they almost looked like organic parasols.

The ground, both inside the clearing and around it, was covered with serpentine tracks. A few scales, each roughly the side of a palm and hard as steel, found in the tracks, confirmed that they were likely made by the snake-like thing that Jonas and his friends met. Aside from that, however, Tamora also found other tracks, humanoid-looking ones, though not human-looking. The creatures leaving them were obviously two-legged, but didn't wear boots and their feet looked distinctly reptilian.

Upon following those tracks around the clearing for a bit, she found the clumsy swathe carved through the jungle by Jonas' party, and noticed that the reptilian humanoids had shadowed the humans. Seeing as how Jonas hadn't mentioned the creatures, it would make sense to reason that he hadn't known he was being followed.

As Tamora and Bas came around to the left side of the clearing, they saw the creatures continued to follow the men in the direction of the lake.

While Tamora did her tracking, Bas managed to come to several conclusions about the snakes in the area. Judging by scratches left on many tree-trunks and scales embedded in them, it was obvious that the creatures often hung around well above their prey. Additionally, where the ground was particularly soft, they seemed to burrow downwards, possibly meaning that they could ambush prey from below as well.

Despite the blue sky above, Bas felt like they were likely going to get rain soon.


Lorath, Gan and Anne

The trio made faster progress than their comrades since they had the trail left by Jonas and his friends to follow. There was still plenty of undergrowth, though, often forcing Gan and Lorath to get out their swords and hack a way through, or leaving Gan with the job of finding them a way around some obstacle or another. Anne had an advantage over the men in that she was a capable climber, allowing her to scale obstacles that the others had to go through or around.

Around them, things seemed to be quiet, they were likely making enough noise that anything docile was five miles away, and allowing any predators to stalk them from the same sort of distance without having any doubt where they were.

Still, they arrived at the southeastern shore of the lake without losing any body parts. Lorath and Gan had a few scratches from branches, and Anne had stung herself on a few thorns while trying to climb a wall of vines that had a plethora of hidden pointy things right under the surface.

While they had made their way, however, Anne had the odd feeling that they were often being watched. Possibly someone was following them, but it was hard to tell since they were making so much noise themselves. When they finally made it out of the woods, though, they were no longer quite as noisy and yes, just at the edge of her hearing she could pinpoint something following them. Several somethings in fact, somethings very skilled at not making noise when moving through heavy jungle, but still incapable of being completely silent. Whoever, or whatever, it was, didn't follow them beyond the treeline, though.

As Jonas had told them, the lake was gigantic and pristine. It was at least several miles from shore to shore, the water was so blue you could hardly believe it wasn't dyed and all around the edge there was perfect sand, unmarred by anything. With little wind around, the surface of the lake was almost as flat as a mirror, only making the scene more beautiful.

At the northeastern edge, there seemed to be the outlet of a river which fed water to the lake, and on the southwest side, it looked like there was the point where water left the lake again, though it disappeared amongst a jumble of rocks and cliffs.

On the northern shore, there was, as Jonas had claimed, a few huts. They seemed relatively primitive. No one looked like they were moving among the huts, though, but it was hard to disguise the smoke rising from a few cooking fires that it looked like no one had extinguished.

The only oddity was that, for such a clear lake, there seemed to be very few fish and almost no vegetation on the bottom. A few hundred yards out, and likely as many yards down, something's visible on the bottom. Either a collection of very white rocks, possibly ruins, or the picked-clean skeleton of something that was about the size of a house before it died. In among the remnants of whatever it was, Lorath and Gan spotted something irregular, half-covered by sand. It looked brown, slightly wooden and as though it had a rather square shape, about the size of a man's torso.