Red Dead Annihilation: Campaign Thread

[Can we pick up the rest of the weapons and armour? Nice trading goods.]

"As fast as we can without breaking our necks and running into an ambush or a trap," concluded Meili re-packing her backpack with consideration of freshly picked up items. "Everything is taken? Let's go then."

"I suppose I can make room in my pack if I must carry something..." Nalomanterys seems loathe to take on any more weight, even though his pack is the lightest of the whole group.

When the rest of the group is ready, he departs gratefully, glancing back at the hilltop that this strange group of wizard-hating hags had potentially visited just the night before. Just 2 more days to civilization, as it were out in the heart of the jungle...

Ran hands the bow over to Danica.

"Just make sure you practice a couple of times to shake the rust off before using it anywhere near my back," Ran says with a smile.

He takes a long swig of water and makes sure he has the insect repellent on and takes off after the others into the jungle again.

“If you want to get back to the bow you will need these, Cap’n”  Mica hands over 10 arrows, five regular arrows and five of the magical arrows he just picked up from the campsite.  “Nalomanterys saw signs of magic around those last five.  No idea what yet, so keep’em separated.”  Mica shoulders his quiver and pack again and prepares to head out in the jungle.

(OOC: On vacation through Sunday, so posting will be slower than usual.  Please feel free to bot Mica if needed to move the story along.)

Shouldering up your packs once again, you set off at a faster pace.

It's difficult to tell if it is hotter today, or if the extra exertion of pushing harder through the jungle just makes it feel that way.  The humidity is intense but it is a bright, cloudless day and the sun threatens to sear your exposed skin, and metal armor and weapon handles quickly become hot to the touch.  Keeping to the shade as much as possible, you press onward.  If there is a silver lining, the faster pace keeps the bugs further off - while your repellent is effective at keeping them from landing on you and biting, it does little about the vast swarms that linger just beyond the effective range of the salves and incense, buzzing and zipping.

Hew checks Danica's map more frequently, clearly anxious that the quicker pace will lead you astray.  As you move, you can see and feel the elevation changing as you begin your ascent into the western highlands.

It is mid afternoon after nearly a full day of hard bushwacking.  You are moving briskly across an upland jungle meadow, making for the trees on the far side to get back into the shade, when Hew curses, lifting his arms. 

"All the &*^# unbelievable amateur bull $%&^!"  He stops and slowly turns, looking at all of you behind him.  He raises his arms and you see a fine white powder, something like pollen, having been shed by the plants you are walking through.  Looking at your own limbs, arms and armor, you see the same on you.  Only the bird and pterosaur, perched as they are high on their mounts' shoulders, seem to have been spared.  "Gumweed.  It's all over us.  We have seconds until this will turn into paste, then in minutes it will harden into something like amber.  On skin, on armor, on our weapons.  Sheathes will lock around blades and clothes will turn into inflexible shells - Don't just brush it off!" he shouts at anyone starting to do so.  "Agitation just accelerates the process.  We have to be quick but careful, and clean ourselves thoroughly before we get into real trouble."

((OOC: Enjoy your vacation LAXGunner! Also, posted without checking to see if there were new posts so edited.))

Danica draws back the longbow to make sure that she could indeed still draw it and also to test its feel. Chuckling at the Ran, she reassures, "Will do." Turning to Mica she blinks and shakes her head somewhat ruefully, the tiredness in her eyes a bit more apparent for a moment. "No use in a bow without ammo, aye? Thanks Mica." Then humming in consideration at his recommendation regarding the magical arrows she nods and offers, "Right you are. Might be better suited in more experienced hands though." Offering those five back "I can keep a look out for spare arrows." 

Slathering on the oily insect repellant once more, Danica nods and echoes to Hew, "Like Meili said, fast as we can."

Pointed ears twitching every time the swarm of insects buzzing around them got close, Danica missed the open salty air of the sea, where there was much lower risk of any insects bothering anyone. Her breathing becomes more labored than usual, even taking into account their faster pace. But she refused to be the reason the group slowed down. The elf stops cold at Hew's cursing though, glancing over the powder on themselves in confused wariness. She was just about to bring a hand up to try and sweep some off before freezing at his warning. "How do we clean it off without agitating it? Just dunking ourselves in water?" She asks, already wishing for the rain to return so as not to waste their already hard won water supply. 

Nalomanterys is uncharacteristically quiet for most of the next day. He seems to be lost in thought while he follows close behind Ran.

When Hew yells out, Nalomanterys looks down in exasperation at his robe covered in the fine white pollen. His annoyance turns to terror as he sees the pollen has collected around the edges of his closed spellbook. "Oh no..." he nearly whispers. "Purgo" He says while performing the accompanying hand movement to cast prestidigitation that he casts literally dozens of times per day.

He waits a moment and hopes to see that the spell  has cleared away the intrusive pollen.

Ran watches Nalomanterys and his spellbook to see if that worked to clean off the pollen.

"How quickly can you cast that spell?" Ran asks, wary of the warning Hew gave that they only have seconds to get this stuff off.

Ran then gets the alchemy jug off his pack and using as little water as necessary, starts cleaning.

"Alcohol - strong alcohol - would be best.  But unless one of you has been squirreling away a bottle of hard dwarven spirits, that's no good.  If we can find enough water, that will dilute the sap and make it easier to remove..." Hew starts to say, before pausing when Nalomanterys' cantrip instantly removes all the dust from his spellbook.  "Bugger all."

Hew echoes Ran's question.  Once it is established Nalomanterys can cast it without practical limit, Hew suggests you line up and put the wizard to work, disapperating the sap.

Ran taps the alchemy jug as he stoppers it back up. 

"Nothing hard in here, just beer and wine, but I can't even get those since I already started the day with water," Ran says then pauses. "Vinegar might have worked."

Ran dutifully gets in line to get cleaned up before voicing.

"So we'll be all clean and the grotty sap will be gone," Ran says then gestures at the field they find themselves in. "Any one have an idea on how we get our bollocks out of this mess and to the other side without being covered again?"

"Will tej work? We still have half a barrel." Meili was incredibly grateful to the dead right now for their timely gift. She tried to stay calm and Nalomanterys's useful spell helped to quench the panic and begin to think instead.

"We can cover ourselves with rain catchers washed with tej. Though, moving like this will slow us down." Meili was honestly trying to find the solution. The second idea was even more ridiculous but she needed to say it. "It is shoulder high. Stilts would solve the problem." She sighed admitting the silliness of the thought. "Though we can as well dream of summoning a friendly dinosaur to carry us out of here."

She thought a bit more. "Fire? Ideally to burn the path, but could torches give enough fire to burn most of the coming pollen?"

The next minute is filled with a barrage of the spell command word "Purgo" over and over again. Each time the wizard says it and makes his hand gesture, a cloud of white pollen poofs off someone's clothes and is swept away in the wind. When everyone is clean, Nalomanterys listens to the plans on how to get out of this horribly sunny meadow. Sweating heavily, he cracks open his spellbook and holds it on his head like a hat to keep the sun off his face, but his sleeves slip down his arms and expose his still-peeling forearms to the relentless sun instead.

"The rain catcher ought to work. Or even a tent with the bottom cut out." He says to Meili, impressed by her out of the box thinking. "I can always clean it and mending it later."

Ran looks at the field around them, trying to estimate if they're more than half way across the area where the pollen plants are.

"We could just run and repeat this cleaning process on the other side," Ran suggests. "Might get difficult to keep using the rain catchers to walk on if they get covered in the gum weed pollen sap then turn rock hard."

He tries looking around to see if he can see how to avoid the gumweed.

Perception/Survival (both+2): 18  

A few minutes pass as Nalomanterys finishes removing the overwhelming majority of gumweed sap off of the party.  

Then a few more minutes pass as the party discusses extricating themselves from the middle of this field without once again coating themselves in a mess.  Some busily wrap rain catchers around themselves while others debate the merits of just making a run for it.

As Ran looks out at the field of weeds and considers their best course of action, he sees a broad swath of the plants begin to move... they lean over, some to the left, and some to the right, creating a narrow channel leading to the edge of the field.

"Hah!" booms a deep, thickly accented voice.  "Ah could haave kept on watching thaat ahll day."

The party sees, at the edge of the field, a group of dwarves.  Two are of a complexion common to dwarfkind, though deeply tanned.  The other two have pale skin, though it is burned and scarred, kept hidden as well as possible under woven leaf clothing.  All of them are tattooed with images of feathers and claws, and wear leather armbands and loin cloths.  One of the dwarves is clutching dinosaur bone staff and seems to be casting a spell, holding the plants at bay.  Two others are packing out the quartered haunches of some large reptile.  Longbows are strapped to their backs.  The last, the speaker, stands at the fore, clad in leather and hide armor and holding a long spear.  

Hew snorts.  "It's alright," he says to you.  "It seems Hrakhamar has found us."  He starts out down the newly created path, stepping lightly to avoid disturbing the plants.

The lead dwarf is stone-faced.  "Hyew Hahkenshtone.  Ah'd hayrd you were dayed."

Hew shrugs.  "More or less."

Remaining stone-faced, he nods.  "Come then.  Gahther your wahrds.  You cahn tell me ahll ahbout it on the wahlk bahk."

 The discussion about ways to overcome deadly plants got interrupted quite in time before anyone began to unpack rain catchers. The appearance of (friendly) dwarven kin added a lot to the feeling of relief and Meili even smiled. She greeted the newcomers in Dwarvish (automatically, as stress was wearing out) but did not begin inappropriate chit-chat, at least until everyone was safely out of the pollen field.

After checking that no pollen accumulated again anywhere on the skin, clothes or cargo, she was ready to add proper thanks. "We were lucky to meet. Thank you."
Hew already said it but she repeated nevertheless. "We were searching for you."

Hrakhamar was obviously nowhere near this place, so, Meili picked up her backpack again and prepared for another long walk. The dwarves could be filled in on the go.

Mica shrugs as he accepts the five arrow back from Danica and slides them back in his quiver “Suit yourself, but let me know if you change your mind.  I like to work close when I can anyway.”  He follows closely behind Hew for the rest of the morning and quickly begins brushing the pollen off of his body until the guide tells them all to stop.  As Nalomanterys cleans the pollen off of the party with his magic, Mica looks closely at the weeds in order to be better able to identify them if they run across them again. 

When the dwarves make their presence known, Mica greets them as well, noticing the field dressed meat they were packing. “A hunting party!  What did you bring down?  Did you see sign of any big meat eaters around here?”  As they continue the journey to Hrakhamar, Mica follows closely behind the hunters questioning them about the types of animals nearby and their hunting techniques in a mixture of common and dwarvish.

Ran makes sure there's no more pollen hiding in his armor anywhere then gathers his now spotless gear and follows after the others.

As they join up with the dwarves, Ran keeps an eye on their movements, looking for any sign of deception on their part. Ran is not necessarily the most perceptive of the group, but he's spent enough time with the shadier side of Waterdeep to occasionally notice when someone's hiding something.

Insight: 5  

Nalomanterys, make a Perception check for me to see how thoroughly you cleaned off everyone.

Along the long walk back to Hrakhamar, the dwarves are mostly silent, though the leader does question Hew a little.  It is mostly about the absence of his arm.  Hew introduces the stranger as Sithi Vinecutter... something of a tribal leader among these dwarves.  Hew gives him an abbreviated version of the same story he told you about the dragon.  Sithi acknowledges he is familiar with the wyrm but says little else on the subject, which seems to suit Hew just fine.

Mica, the meat they are carrying comes from a giant lizard.  The great dinosaurs of Chult are less common as the elevations climb; the uneven, rising terrain being unsuitable for creatures of enormous bulk.  There are still some here, but for the most part they are the smaller, more agile dinosaurs.  The saurian equivalent of rabbits and goats.  When they do not graze on fruit and nuts, of which the mountains provide plenty, the dwarves hunt giant lizards, boar, and axebeak.

Meili, the dwarves appear to listen to your tales of the journey, but don't offer much feedback or response.

Ran, these dwarves aren't giving you many clues to go on.  They have the proper dour demeanor of dwarfkind, but instead of rugged adventurous spirit they seem possessed of a grim pragmatism.  They remind you most of some older mercenaries you have known, the types who have spent so long battling in strange lands that they no longer dream of riches and retirement... they just keep on surviving each day and preparing for the next.  But you may have a hard time getting over the outfits and look.  It is as though a band of dwarves got together and decided to LARP as tropical elves... and took it real serious.  One of them - the druid looking fellow - inquires after your bird and whether you would be willing to barter for it.  He seems to have an eye on its colorful feathers.  For its part, the bird spends the rest of the walk making sure it is on your opposite shoulder from that one.

The sun has already dipped behind the peaks rising to your west when you arrive at the village of the dwarves.  It is hidden behind wooden walls and nestled between boulders in a thick patch of jungle right at the base of a great mountain.  A hundred feet above, the remains of an old stone road cuts through a mountain pass, heading south.

The gate opens at your approach and you are allowed entry without any fuss or alarm.  The two carrying the lizard meat immediately set upon butchering it, while the druid starts a campfire.  

The place feels nearly deserted.  Those few dwarves that are present are wounded, with many baring severe burns, fresh in most cases.  The mood and population improves slightly a few minutes later as another squad of four dwarves returns right behind your group; this team carrying a basket full of large eggs.  Still, there are less than 20 dwarves here.  And there is practically no steel here.  All of the weapons you see are carved from wood or bone, and the armors are either leather, hide, or what looks like scalemail made from actual lizard scales.

You are all quite tired after pressing so hard and far through the jungle today, but Sithi insists you join him beside the campfire before you pitch your tents.  "You'hve gahn out of yar wahy ta find the dwahrves of Hrakhamar.  Crahssed half of Chult.  Here we ahre.  Now... why'hve you come?"

The spell that Danica had seen Nalomanterys cast so many times each day (sometimes even each hour) to maintain his image was turned on their group. "Huh, pretty useful." The elf says in a somewhat surprised tone, nodding appreciatively at the wizard. "Thanks Nal." Patting him on the shoulder and giving him Guidance. 

The emergence of the dwarves of Hrakhamar was a welcome sight, if not warm. Watching the bone staff wielding dwarf part the plants for them to walk, she wondered if they shared a connection to nature. They certainly seemed to work well within it at the very least, judging from their group and hunting spoils that Mica took an interest in. Their accent seemed familiar, almost nostalgic to the druid who grew up with those who spoke in a similar lilt. Even their garb and habits felt familiar. So it was rather jarring seeing this all come from dwarves. She can't help but chuckle a little at the offer Ran received to purchase his bird. Speaking casually in druidic to the staff wielding dwarf, "The bird is not for trade friend."

Once entering what she could only assume was Hrakhamar, what little uplifting mood Danica felt at the dwarves finding them dwindled as she saw the condition of those behind the safety of the walls and gate. Which was a juxtaposition of the uptick in mood of the occupants upon seeing the return of their hunting party. And yet all Danica wanted to do was crawl onto her bedroll and hope to slip into a peaceful slumber. But manners won over as she trudged over to the fire with Hew, Sithi Vinecutter and the rest of their group.

Glancing around at her crew, the elf meets Sithi's gaze before answering plainly in her own accented tone, "We're the Seekers. And what we're seeking currently is the origin of the Death Curse and how to end it." Pausing for a moment she then continues, "We sought out Hrakhamar as a safe place to rest along our journey, pick up a bit of news, maybe trade for supplies...and see if you might know anything about what we Seek. We know that it's in an ancient city built by minotaurs and filled with snakes." 

Persuasion: 20

Ran looks over at the bird and smiles.

"If I was certain you were my sister, I'd sell you for using my armor as a dunny," Ran says. But when Danica says the bird isn't up for trade, he nods agreement.

Ran joins the others by the fire.

"So you're the dwarves of Hrakhamar, but this isn't Hrakhamar, is it?" Ran asks. "Is it very far away?"