In Pursuit(2nd edition AD&D)

[PurpleXVI]

Lorath, Anne, Bas, Spot, Tamora

Eventually everyone fell asleep, either because they decided they'd be useless the next day without some rest or because their stress and paranoia eventually made them crash out completely.

To the surprise of some of them, no members of the party awoke with their throats cut or their lives ended. After everyone had packed up their posessions, Tamora easily found Balth's trail again, and the hunt was on once more.

It soon turned out that the elf had stopped going in circles or following strange, labyrinthine routes. His tracks were now a straight line headed for the mountains, or at least as straight a line as it was possible in the jungle, soon striking the trail that Spot had spoken of and following it.

Reaching the trail helped the group immensely, and barely a day after meeting the halfling, they were out of the deep trench, finding themselves in lighter and sunnier jungle once more, and the vegetation seemed to thin with every mile they travelled. Trees grew shorter, shrubs grew sparser and soon they were in the foothills of the mountains.

Many boring hours of travelling occurred

It was three days since they had met Spot, one day since they'd left the jungle and one day since they had last been soaked by a rainstorm in the Forest Ridge. There were barely any trees now, most of the plants being bushes, grasses or a strange kind of cactus which seemed to grow on bare rock. They were an odd shade of dark purple and had yellow blooms, some were almost as large as Spot.

Ahead of them the landscape was rising sharply, in some places becoming almost vertical, and rock protruded from the soil seemingly everywhere. To their right and left, the mountains seemed to curve inwards, as though surrounding or guarding some vast, hidden nation. Behind them... the landscape first fell to the jungle, now a vast sea of brighter and darker greens behind them, with an occasional gray, blue or brown where the jungle gave way to cliff, river or swamp.

In the distance, the four non-natives could see the lake near which their adventures had started and beyond the jungle... yellows, oranges and browns. Perhaps a vast shrub plain or desert, as far as the eye could see, broken only by a lone mountain many miles beyond the opposite edge of the jungle.

Once they managed to tear their eyes from the view and look back to the trail ahead of them, they started walking again.

Another day, another dilemma. Or trilemma.

The next day they were still tromping through the foothills of the mountains, they had spent a cold night trying to sleep under a cliff, but after getting used to the heat and sounds of the jungle, it was hard for most of the party to get any rest.

Tamora remained at the lead, following Balth's trail, but it was getting old, the elf had obviously begun to speed up in the last few days, by her judgement he was at least two days ahead of them when they reached their choice.

They were at the split in the path Spot had told them of. Straight ahead, there was an almost vertical cliff face with a few well-hidden handholds, above which a path supposedly continued that wasn't, for the most part, better than the cliff face, but the safest way across the mountains as long as you didn't fall and break your neck.

To their left, the path they were on continued, eventually splitting into two. A more direct path that should lead directly through the mountains, though no one had ever travelled it and returned, and a less direct path curving around through a large mountain pass. But, being the only path not containing some horrible trap or a large chance of falling and dying, it was also home to many bandits and unpleasant beasts.

Judging by a scrap of cloth trapped in a crack and some relatively fresh dried blood on a sharp rock near one of the lower handholds, it could be deducted that someone had taken the mountainous path recently. If that was Balth(and his tracks ended at that cliff face, not following the rest of the route), taking the long route was likely to risk them losing him by the time they reached the other side, he would have an even greater advantage on them...

By this point there was also practically no vegetation at all, except for the odd cacti, which tended to be perched in unreachable locations atop high rocks or growing nearly horizontally on vertical cliffs.

[Armen]

Tamora

Tamora eyed the climb speculatively. She looked around and saw Anne doing the same, a concerned expression on her face. No doubt the rogue was recalling the horrible break she had endured falling from the climb at the cliffs. This looked significantly easier to Tamora but still . . .

She turned to the others. “As Spot has said already, if this is the safest route then it’s the one we should take. Balth went this way too and I am loath to lose much more time fighting our way through bandits on a more wandering path.” She paused and then added in a lower tone. “If we even survived of course.” She looped the strap she had made for her liberated spear around the shaft and slung it over her shoulder. “If we are agreed I will go first and check the route, calling down when I can see a little further from that ledge." She pointed to a comparatively large break about fifty feet up. "Do we have any rope between us? It would be better to move more quickly without it but if the difficulties increase it could offer some protection”.

[ 07-14-2007, 12:01 PM: Message edited by: Armen ]

[Kazilan]

Bas eyed the cliff warily before addressing the group.

"I am not a skilled climber, so if someone could give me some pointers before I start I would appreciate it. I also ask that one of those skilled in this go before me, so I can watch their technique and mark their handholds."

Bas set his staff on the ground and ran his hands across the rock, familiarizing himself with the feel of it.

"I could also take the direct, mysterious route. I can move through rough terrain easily on my own, and it may be safer than if I were to attempt to climb this."

He gestured to the cliff face as he finished this last sentence.

[Reynolds]

Spot shook her head at the mountain. "Climbing...ugh. I almost wish I was back home..." She sighed. "Aye, I've got some rope I scrounged from my escorts." She starts to retrieve it from her supplies. "Maybe I should just make one of you carry me." She seems to find that rather funny, snorting with deep laughter as she tries to ready her rope for use by the party.

[dplax]

Anne

Anne surveyed the cliff-face, spying out footholds, danger zones and any useful information she could glean from down below.

"How long is your rope?" she asked Spot. "Is it shorter or longer than the height of the cliff?"

[Man Who Fights Like Woman]

Lorath listened to his fellow travelers as they discussed where they were going to go. Surprisingly they seemed intent to climb, which was odd considering that climbing up vertical cliff faces like this was widely considered to be one of the most physically taxing activities back in his home kingdom. Now he fairly heavily wished that he had learned that Levitation spell... at least, he would have, if he at all planned to be climbing up this cliff.

"I really don't think he went that way," Lorath said. "Think about it. Did you ever see him with any climbing equipment in all the time you were with him? He might be a good fighter, and pretty damn strong, but I really don't think he could climb all that completely under his own power. And really, do you think that bandits would be enough to dissuade him from taking the quick path? He's more than capable of holding his own against other creatures in this world, and bandits wouldn't be any exception. Hell, he might have cleared the way for us like he did through all the jungle's undergrowth.

"Now, let's look at our current situation here. He's a couple days ahead of us, and if we don't find some way to cut the gap we'll never catch him. Scaling this cliff is about the longest possible way of making progress. Even if he did go this way, following his exact path isn't the way to catch him, not in this case. The obstacles can't be cleared, they have to be overcome by each person who comes through. So, regardless of which route he took, that one," he pointed at the easy path straight through the mountains, "is the best one to take if we want to gain on him at all."

[ 07-16-2007, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: Man Who Fights Like Woman ]

[PurpleXVI]

Bas

Upon touching the cliff, Bas got an odd feeling, as though he was being watched. Someone else was in rapport with the spirit of the cliffs at the moment, leaving it unresponsive to him, attuned to the other, and watching his actions carefully.

There was no sign of any other creatures in the area, though, at least, no intelligent creatures. Several of the nearby cacti were swarming with ants and a vulture-looking bird was watching them curiously from a perch farther up the cliff face.


Tamora, Anne, Bas, Lorath, Spot

As the party debated their options, a cool, pleasant breeze began blowing from the direction of the jungle. Besides the vulture and the ants, nothing around them moved.

[Reynolds]

Spot just blinked at the rogue. "Long? Well, it's just whatever I could gather up. It's mostly in smaller chunks." She turns to listen to Lorath's speech.

"Hrmph...well, I don't mind wading through a few stray bandits. They might have a few interesting trinkets we could liberate from them. But, there's no way I'm going down that other trail. Usually there's a good reason why people disappear in creepy places like that. And I'm not interested in finding out any more about it."

[dplax]

Anne

The rogue took a last look at the cliff-face and then took a step towards it.

"I'm going to go and have a look at what is on top of the cliff. I can take the rope with me and lower it down in case you also decide to climb."

She thrust her hand out for the rope.

OOC: whether Spot gives Anne the rope or not, she will then start climbing the cliff-face along a route she had chosen while examining it earlier.

[Kazilan]

Bas glanced up at the cliff and seemed intent on examining as much of it as possible. After a moment of this he turned to face Anne.

"Hold a moment Anne. When I touched the cliff just now I sensed someone or something else in contact with it. I don't know that it was Balth, but if you head up there alone you could be placing yourself in danger where we can't help you."

The druid glanced at Lorath before continuing.

"I think Lorath is right. Our best option would be to take the direct route if we really want to catch Balth, mysterious danger or no."