“No riders I encountered, Miss.” Was Reg’s reply to Cloths’s question. He left a couple of Silver on the table anyways.
The trapper listened to everything that was said. As the group began to coalesce, he pondered what each of them would bring and how best he could ‘fit-in’, although fitting in wasn’t what he normally did.
Ereworn’s troubles were many, and the land was being affected just as bad. His own village had its own share of problems. But why had he come here? What was the draw? He wasn’t sure himself, but it didn’t feel wrong either.
He needed the rest and room for the night. In the morning, he’d see what the group was made of. All of them promised hope, he could place some respect on that.
After the free drink, and the music by Oengus, he sought the bed. He felt a little more at peace. And the coins were still on the table as he departed the room.
Jack headed home, and grabbed his pack he normally takes when he leaves town. Jack is glad his adoptive father taught him to always repack when you get back as you never know when you have to leave quickly. He opens the pack up and ensures everything has a place and he knows where everything is. He grabs a piece of paper and a quill. Realizes he needs ink, and goes into his dad's room, finding he ink, he also sees his dad's rapier, well maintained, but covered in a cobweb or two. He wipes it clean and grabs that weapon as well. Then sitting down, he writes.
Dear Dad,
Oengus was at the tavern, and Eldrond offered up a bounty to find Ned. Oengus volunteered and then I did as well. A few other did as well. Some people I knew some people I have heard of. I know if you were standing next to me, you would probably stop me as you are now my dad, but I need to go. The towen need to be helped. I know the duke has said that to trespass in Gallows Wood is to risk death. I know he means it as well, look at Eodmund out there hanging dead and fit for crow feed among a couple of other bodies. I guess the Riders got him before he made it back to his village Aobh. I am not sure how much I will get for my share, but I plan to give it back to the orphanage you rescued me from. If I never come back, please send my share there.
Your Son Jack
PS Based on your tales, your sword sounds so magical, I am borrowing it for luck. I am sure with your magical sword, I shall return.
Jack seals the Ink and returns it, then puts this letter on the top of a stack of other letters. He grabs the pack, sheathes the Rapier, and heads back to the tavern. Figuring he has a little bit more then enough time before Sunrise, enough time to sit against a wall and sleep. (OOC trick he learned on wagon trains to sleep sitting up)
Barn strives to remember the last time he slept in a cot, let alone an actual bed, rather than upon his bedroll. He fails.
Gratefully thanking Gond for the gift of a roof over his head for the night, the big man absently accepts a drink but takes no more than a few sips. Once Oengus plays his melancholy melody, Barn closes his eyes and hums along tonelessly, the hint of a distant smile crossing his lips.
Before going to bed, he steps outside and goes through his drills with his halberd in the darkness for a good half hour. When done, he remains standing, breathing hard and staring out in the direction of Gallows Wood for long moments which stretch into minutes. Wondering.
Caelan accepted Gond’s nod with a quiet inclination of his head. “You have my thanks,” he said simply, meaning more than the words carried. In a land like this, a roof freely given was worth more than coin. When the drinks came, he lifted the cup in a small, solemn gesture toward the others gathered, no toast, no bravado, then took a measured swallow and set it aside. He’d learned long ago not to dull his senses on the eve of bad ground. Barn’s reaction to the Black Riders did not go unnoticed. Caelan watched the big man’s hands fly to his halberd, the fear there sharp and honest, and when Barn finally spoke, Caelan gave a slow nod. “Aye. I’ve seen them too,” he said quietly. “Ride hard, speak not at all. And you’re right—there’s something wrong about them. Like the woods after a fire, when nothing living will go near the ash.” His gaze hardened for a moment. “If they’re hunting men now, then Ereworn’s troubles run deeper than any hob.” When Barn declared his intent to go, Caelan met his eyes squarely. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “If the trail leads into Gallows Wood, then we walk it together. No one goes in alone.” There was no romance in his tone, only resolve. He glanced briefly at the untouched bag of coins on the table and then away again. “Coin can stay where it is. If we come back, we’ll decide then what it’s worth.”
As the night thinned and folk drifted away, to beds, to letters half-written by firelight, to drills beneath the stars, Caelan lingered a while longer in the common room. He listened to Óengus’s song with his eyes half-lidded, fingers resting on the rowan charm at his chest, feeling the weight of old wards and older failures in the melody. When the music faded, he rose and made his way to the door, pausing to look once more at the dark beyond the village. Later, in the small hours, he lay on his borrowed cot fully dressed, bow within reach. Sleep came lightly, as it always did. Before it took him, he murmured to the darkness, not a prayer, exactly, but an acknowledgment. “Tomorrow, then,” he whispered. “Let’s see what still walks in the wood…and what should have stayed buried.”
The banging and thumping of Clotha, preparing for another day’s trade, wakes you. No light comes from the window. It is early morning, the sky still dark but for a bright moon.
A large pot of porridge...though seemingly extremely heavy on the thistles and not so much the oats is warming over the fire and a stack of bowls and spoons have been set out.
( Feel free to fill in any of the nights conversations if you wish to. Or simply rise and shine.)
Smiling Jack wakes with a smile on his face, does some morning stretches and finger exercises his dad taught him to keep the fingers & hands nimble. Jack not hearing any music looks for Oengus hoping he will play a nice or is it rousing morning wake up song. But too shy to actually ask him to play.
Ardwynn startled awake when Clotha banged the porridge pot against the counter. With a tiny mewling sound, Ardwynn stretched as she unwound from the corner where she had been sleeping ... the offered bed turned into a nest of mattress and sheets on the floor.
Going over to the pan of water on the nightstand, she splashed her face and rubbed her arms and legs as best she could - smirking just a wee bit at the thought that, at least this time, she did not have to break the ice up in the pan first.
With one last, cat like stretch, she scooped up her pack from 'the nest' and headed to the table to break her fast.
Caelan woke before the second bang of the pot, eyes opening to the sound rather than the light. He lay still for a moment on the narrow cot, listening, the scrape of Clotha’s feet, the weight of the pot set down, the faint crackle of the fire. Morning, then. Or what passed for it in a place where the sun seemed reluctant to rise. He swung his boots to the floor and stood, rolling his shoulders once to ease the stiffness from the road. His leather armor went on quietly, piece by piece, habit guiding his hands while his thoughts drifted to the night before. Low voices. Careful words. The way Barn had stared toward Gallows Wood long after most had turned in. The way Reg had spoken of the Good Folk, not as stories but as neighbors one learned to live beside. No shouting, no boasts, good signs, all of them.
When he moved into the common room, the moonlight still clung to the windows like frost. Caelan nodded once to Jack as the young man stretched, a faint ghost of a smile tugging at his beard. “Morning,” he murmured, not unkindly. He spared a glance toward Óengus’s corner as well, half-expecting music, half-glad for the silence. Some mornings were better met without song. The porridge smelled…sharp. Caelan regarded the pot with a skeptical eye, then shrugged and took a bowl anyway. “Thistles’ll keep you regular,” he offered dryly to no one in particular as he settled at the table. He noticed Ardwynn as she joined them, smaller than the pack she carried but moving with practiced resolve. “You slept better than most of us, by the look of it,” he said quietly, respectful, passing her a spoon. He ate slowly, eyes straying now and again to the dark window and the pale moon beyond. Dawn would bring dew, and tracks, if they were lucky. When his bowl was empty, Caelan rose, tightening the strap of his bracer and lifting his bow from where it rested. “We should move as soon as the light’s up enough to read the ground,” he said calmly to the group, voice low but steady. “Whatever Ned is, he walks somewhere. And if he doesn’t…” His gaze flicked toward Gallows Wood, unseen but felt. “Then something else does.” He paused, then added, softer, “Eat what you can. Woods don’t care if you’re hungry.”
Barn awakes with a start at Clotha's racket, sitting bolt upright and staring around wildly before remembering where he is.
Two years of acquired habit make the big man inspect, lightly clean, then don his worn chain mail, and stow his weapons and gear in their proper places. He even puts in a game effort before that to clean his face and body a bit from the sweat of last evening's drills. Nevertheless, as he makes his way down for porridge, his tousled bed-head would make it obvious that he has only recently woken up, even had it not been so early in the morning.
He nods an awkward greeting and hesitant smile at his old friends and acquaintances from before Duke Darian's levy had swept him up, Ardwynn and Smiling Jack. He listens to the newcomer speak his advice and takes an extra helping to help keep himself 'regular,' though Barn has to admit, he does not know what that means. Though it sounds better than not being regular, so... his next words are spoken through a mouthful of thistle porridge
"D-did, ah... Gond or Eld-dron, um... did they say where they'd last s-seen him? Ned, I m-mean. By the way, I, uh... well, it's really n-nice to see you again, Wynn. And Jack t-too. And Oengus, though I shared a c-campfire with you, um... a few nights ago, m-maybe?"
He looks at the oddly familiar stranger who had spoken. "They call me Barn. I d-don't know your name? Or... or I guess the other m-man's... the trapper."
Reg hadn’t stayed long after the residents had departed. And he wasn’t the first to stir. While Clotha had made enough racket to wake him, he didn’t stir immediately. He turned over on the cot and tried to close out the world once again. It didn’t happen, but it was a try nonetheless-the-less.
And so the trapper finally rose from his rest and joined the others already gathered.
He didn’t speak much but was polite when he did. His short answers were courteous with a tone of empathy for each of the others.
”Name’s Reg, Barn. Nice to meet you. All of you.” He took half a bowl (when he sees Barn start his second helping) and spoon, stirred the portage a bit, then began to eat.
After learning how the others are called, or their preferred names, Reg makes his pack ready. “By your lead.” He say as he defers to Caelan’s more experienced ability.
The back door opens as Clotha goes out to fetch some water. Suddenly there is a scream, and looking out of the window you see a bizarre sight in the moonlight: Clotha’s thin legs are sticking out of a beer barrel and waving frantically! A spindly grey skinned figure with lambent green eyes and a tasselled cap is rolling her away up the hill and into the forest.
Barely a moment later the door flies open and Gond rushes in. His face is chalk white and his hands are trembling as he blurts out: “The devil! Ned has taken my daughter!” Although there is still an hour left till dawn, you can see the barrels trail snaking through the moonlit frost on the ground.
"Oh fiddle sticks, ...at least we have a trail to follow...maybe even I can follow a barrel track?"
Jack uses both hands to quickly slurp down everything still in his bowl. Then goes to his pack, hoists it upon his back, shows a thumb up to the others and walks toward the door. Pausing, and allowing those quicker to load up get in front of him.
OOC - anticipating the better spoken teammates of mine...
Glancing over to Gond, "I agree with the others who have spoke, we will get her back in one piece." Another big grin is shown on his face as Jack walks out the door.
Edit: Following the use of survival skill to track: Survival 20
Caelan was halfway to answering Barn when the scream tore through the inn like a knife. He was moving before the sound had fully settled, bowl abandoned, chair scraping back as he crossed the room in three long strides. By the time the barrel was visible through the window, moonlight gleaming off frost and frantic legs kicking uselessly in the air, his bow was already in his hand. “Damn it,” he hissed, not in anger, but recognition. The sight of the grey-skinned figure rolling the barrel set his jaw hard. No hesitation now. No careful words. “Ned,”he said flatly. “And he wants us to follow.” He was out the door as Gond burst back inside, the man’s terror spilling ahead of him. Caelan caught his arm briefly, firm, grounding. “We will bring her back,” he said, voice low and certain. Not a promise lightly given. “You have my word.” His eyes dropped to the ground immediately, already reading the frost. The barrel trail was obvious, but he didn’t trust obvious things. He crouched, fingers brushing the disturbed grass, the scuffed earth beneath. “He’s light,” Caelan muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “Too light for a man. Moving fast, but not careful. He’s panicking, or baiting.”
He straightened, drawing an arrow and nocking it, but keeping the point low. “We move now. Quiet as we can, fast as we must. He’s taken a child, which means one thing.” His gaze followed the snaking trail into the moonlit rise, toward the dark teeth of the forest. “He’s crossed the line.”
Óengus's dreams turn from light melodies into a dark rhythm, and he startles awake. He sees the advanced sun in the sky, and worries his companions have left. After checking the common room, he packs his bags and instruments and asks which way they went. After receiving directions from Clotha, he follows their path quickly, hopefully catching up. Meanwhile, he plays a melody about dark forests and the things hidden there.
Reg travelled light for the most part, and had just made his pack ready when the chaos of the capture came to light. He first rushed to the window to see the scene, Clotha’s legs peddling out of the barrel, rolling away. His pack already in his back, he grabbed up his staff and followed Caelan out of the door. He stood watching as far as he could while the others tried to discern any further information about the tracks. His mind tried to recall any information about the creature type he caught a glimpse of.
The instant he hears the scream and, startling up from his porridge to look out the window, spots Clotha seemingly helpless, legs protruding from a barrel while being abducted by the strange creature, Barn is on his feet. Bellowing wordlessly, he charges out the back door, drawing his halberd, ready to give chase. The determination plain on the big man's face, and rendered only a little incongruous by how disheveled he looks from having woken up so recently.
He is already well outside when the word baiting from the stranger stops him short. It would hardly be the first time a young man so thick of wit as Barn had been baited. He pauses, breathing hard with agitation more than exertion. Thankfully this time, the others would be more clever than him, right? To avoid being baited or tricked. Wynn and Jack, probably from what he remembers. And Oengus and the stranger and trapper too, one could hope.
Barn stands at the start of the barrel's trail, halberd in hand, ready to give chase whenever his companions, new and old, join him.
Óengus will play a melancholy song about how the wards of Ereworn came down, and then retire for the night.
"I cast Fireball."
"Are you sure you want to do that?"
"I cast Fireball."
"It's a 15 by 15 room."
"I said I cast Fireball."
“No riders I encountered, Miss.” Was Reg’s reply to Cloths’s question. He left a couple of Silver on the table anyways.
The trapper listened to everything that was said. As the group began to coalesce, he pondered what each of them would bring and how best he could ‘fit-in’, although fitting in wasn’t what he normally did.
Ereworn’s troubles were many, and the land was being affected just as bad. His own village had its own share of problems. But why had he come here? What was the draw? He wasn’t sure himself, but it didn’t feel wrong either.
He needed the rest and room for the night. In the morning, he’d see what the group was made of. All of them promised hope, he could place some respect on that.
After the free drink, and the music by Oengus, he sought the bed. He felt a little more at peace. And the coins were still on the table as he departed the room.
Smiling Jack
Jack headed home, and grabbed his pack he normally takes when he leaves town. Jack is glad his adoptive father taught him to always repack when you get back as you never know when you have to leave quickly. He opens the pack up and ensures everything has a place and he knows where everything is. He grabs a piece of paper and a quill. Realizes he needs ink, and goes into his dad's room, finding he ink, he also sees his dad's rapier, well maintained, but covered in a cobweb or two. He wipes it clean and grabs that weapon as well. Then sitting down, he writes.
Dear Dad,
Oengus was at the tavern, and Eldrond offered up a bounty to find Ned. Oengus volunteered and then I did as well. A few other did as well. Some people I knew some people I have heard of. I know if you were standing next to me, you would probably stop me as you are now my dad, but I need to go. The towen need to be helped. I know the duke has said that to trespass in Gallows Wood is to risk death. I know he means it as well, look at Eodmund out there hanging dead and fit for crow feed among a couple of other bodies. I guess the Riders got him before he made it back to his village Aobh. I am not sure how much I will get for my share, but I plan to give it back to the orphanage you rescued me from. If I never come back, please send my share there.
Your Son Jack
PS Based on your tales, your sword sounds so magical, I am borrowing it for luck. I am sure with your magical sword, I shall return.
Jack seals the Ink and returns it, then puts this letter on the top of a stack of other letters. He grabs the pack, sheathes the Rapier, and heads back to the tavern. Figuring he has a little bit more then enough time before Sunrise, enough time to sit against a wall and sleep. (OOC trick he learned on wagon trains to sleep sitting up)
Barn strives to remember the last time he slept in a cot, let alone an actual bed, rather than upon his bedroll. He fails.
Gratefully thanking Gond for the gift of a roof over his head for the night, the big man absently accepts a drink but takes no more than a few sips. Once Oengus plays his melancholy melody, Barn closes his eyes and hums along tonelessly, the hint of a distant smile crossing his lips.
Before going to bed, he steps outside and goes through his drills with his halberd in the darkness for a good half hour. When done, he remains standing, breathing hard and staring out in the direction of Gallows Wood for long moments which stretch into minutes. Wondering.
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1): Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4): VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(Druid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(Sorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(Fighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(Cleric3/Sorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
Caelan accepted Gond’s nod with a quiet inclination of his head. “You have my thanks,” he said simply, meaning more than the words carried. In a land like this, a roof freely given was worth more than coin. When the drinks came, he lifted the cup in a small, solemn gesture toward the others gathered, no toast, no bravado, then took a measured swallow and set it aside. He’d learned long ago not to dull his senses on the eve of bad ground. Barn’s reaction to the Black Riders did not go unnoticed. Caelan watched the big man’s hands fly to his halberd, the fear there sharp and honest, and when Barn finally spoke, Caelan gave a slow nod. “Aye. I’ve seen them too,” he said quietly. “Ride hard, speak not at all. And you’re right—there’s something wrong about them. Like the woods after a fire, when nothing living will go near the ash.” His gaze hardened for a moment. “If they’re hunting men now, then Ereworn’s troubles run deeper than any hob.” When Barn declared his intent to go, Caelan met his eyes squarely. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “If the trail leads into Gallows Wood, then we walk it together. No one goes in alone.” There was no romance in his tone, only resolve. He glanced briefly at the untouched bag of coins on the table and then away again. “Coin can stay where it is. If we come back, we’ll decide then what it’s worth.”
As the night thinned and folk drifted away, to beds, to letters half-written by firelight, to drills beneath the stars, Caelan lingered a while longer in the common room. He listened to Óengus’s song with his eyes half-lidded, fingers resting on the rowan charm at his chest, feeling the weight of old wards and older failures in the melody. When the music faded, he rose and made his way to the door, pausing to look once more at the dark beyond the village. Later, in the small hours, he lay on his borrowed cot fully dressed, bow within reach. Sleep came lightly, as it always did. Before it took him, he murmured to the darkness, not a prayer, exactly, but an acknowledgment. “Tomorrow, then,” he whispered. “Let’s see what still walks in the wood…and what should have stayed buried.”
Next Morning.
The banging and thumping of Clotha, preparing for another day’s trade, wakes you. No light comes from the window. It is early morning, the sky still dark but for a bright moon.
A large pot of porridge...though seemingly extremely heavy on the thistles and not so much the oats is warming over the fire and a stack of bowls and spoons have been set out.
( Feel free to fill in any of the nights conversations if you wish to. Or simply rise and shine.)
Smiling Jack wakes with a smile on his face, does some morning stretches and finger exercises his dad taught him to keep the fingers & hands nimble. Jack not hearing any music looks for Oengus hoping he will play a nice or is it rousing morning wake up song. But too shy to actually ask him to play.
Ardwynn startled awake when Clotha banged the porridge pot against the counter. With a tiny mewling sound, Ardwynn stretched as she unwound from the corner where she had been sleeping ... the offered bed turned into a nest of mattress and sheets on the floor.
Going over to the pan of water on the nightstand, she splashed her face and rubbed her arms and legs as best she could - smirking just a wee bit at the thought that, at least this time, she did not have to break the ice up in the pan first.
With one last, cat like stretch, she scooped up her pack from 'the nest' and headed to the table to break her fast.
Caelan woke before the second bang of the pot, eyes opening to the sound rather than the light. He lay still for a moment on the narrow cot, listening, the scrape of Clotha’s feet, the weight of the pot set down, the faint crackle of the fire. Morning, then. Or what passed for it in a place where the sun seemed reluctant to rise. He swung his boots to the floor and stood, rolling his shoulders once to ease the stiffness from the road. His leather armor went on quietly, piece by piece, habit guiding his hands while his thoughts drifted to the night before. Low voices. Careful words. The way Barn had stared toward Gallows Wood long after most had turned in. The way Reg had spoken of the Good Folk, not as stories but as neighbors one learned to live beside. No shouting, no boasts, good signs, all of them.
When he moved into the common room, the moonlight still clung to the windows like frost. Caelan nodded once to Jack as the young man stretched, a faint ghost of a smile tugging at his beard. “Morning,” he murmured, not unkindly. He spared a glance toward Óengus’s corner as well, half-expecting music, half-glad for the silence. Some mornings were better met without song. The porridge smelled…sharp. Caelan regarded the pot with a skeptical eye, then shrugged and took a bowl anyway. “Thistles’ll keep you regular,” he offered dryly to no one in particular as he settled at the table. He noticed Ardwynn as she joined them, smaller than the pack she carried but moving with practiced resolve. “You slept better than most of us, by the look of it,” he said quietly, respectful, passing her a spoon. He ate slowly, eyes straying now and again to the dark window and the pale moon beyond. Dawn would bring dew, and tracks, if they were lucky. When his bowl was empty, Caelan rose, tightening the strap of his bracer and lifting his bow from where it rested. “We should move as soon as the light’s up enough to read the ground,” he said calmly to the group, voice low but steady. “Whatever Ned is, he walks somewhere. And if he doesn’t…” His gaze flicked toward Gallows Wood, unseen but felt. “Then something else does.” He paused, then added, softer, “Eat what you can. Woods don’t care if you’re hungry.”
Barn awakes with a start at Clotha's racket, sitting bolt upright and staring around wildly before remembering where he is.
Two years of acquired habit make the big man inspect, lightly clean, then don his worn chain mail, and stow his weapons and gear in their proper places. He even puts in a game effort before that to clean his face and body a bit from the sweat of last evening's drills. Nevertheless, as he makes his way down for porridge, his tousled bed-head would make it obvious that he has only recently woken up, even had it not been so early in the morning.
He nods an awkward greeting and hesitant smile at his old friends and acquaintances from before Duke Darian's levy had swept him up, Ardwynn and Smiling Jack. He listens to the newcomer speak his advice and takes an extra helping to help keep himself 'regular,' though Barn has to admit, he does not know what that means. Though it sounds better than not being regular, so... his next words are spoken through a mouthful of thistle porridge
"D-did, ah... Gond or Eld-dron, um... did they say where they'd last s-seen him? Ned, I m-mean. By the way, I, uh... well, it's really n-nice to see you again, Wynn. And Jack t-too. And Oengus, though I shared a c-campfire with you, um... a few nights ago, m-maybe?"
He looks at the oddly familiar stranger who had spoken. "They call me Barn. I d-don't know your name? Or... or I guess the other m-man's... the trapper."
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1): Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4): VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(Druid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(Sorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(Fighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(Cleric3/Sorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk
Reg hadn’t stayed long after the residents had departed. And he wasn’t the first to stir. While Clotha had made enough racket to wake him, he didn’t stir immediately. He turned over on the cot and tried to close out the world once again. It didn’t happen, but it was a try nonetheless-the-less.
And so the trapper finally rose from his rest and joined the others already gathered.
He didn’t speak much but was polite when he did. His short answers were courteous with a tone of empathy for each of the others.
”Name’s Reg, Barn. Nice to meet you. All of you.” He took half a bowl (when he sees Barn start his second helping) and spoon, stirred the portage a bit, then began to eat.
After learning how the others are called, or their preferred names, Reg makes his pack ready. “By your lead.” He say as he defers to Caelan’s more experienced ability.
The back door opens as Clotha goes out to fetch some water. Suddenly there is a scream, and looking out of the window you see a bizarre sight in the moonlight: Clotha’s thin legs are sticking out of a beer barrel and waving frantically! A spindly grey skinned figure with lambent green eyes and a tasselled cap is rolling her away up the hill and into the forest.
Barely a moment later the door flies open and Gond rushes in. His face is chalk white and his hands are trembling as he blurts out: “The devil! Ned has taken my daughter!” Although there is still an hour left till dawn, you can see the barrels trail snaking through the moonlit frost on the ground.
Smiling Jack
"Oh fiddle sticks, ...at least we have a trail to follow...maybe even I can follow a barrel track?"
Jack uses both hands to quickly slurp down everything still in his bowl. Then goes to his pack, hoists it upon his back, shows a thumb up to the others and walks toward the door. Pausing, and allowing those quicker to load up get in front of him.
OOC - anticipating the better spoken teammates of mine...
Glancing over to Gond, "I agree with the others who have spoke, we will get her back in one piece." Another big grin is shown on his face as Jack walks out the door.
Edit: Following the use of survival skill to track: Survival 20
Caelan was halfway to answering Barn when the scream tore through the inn like a knife. He was moving before the sound had fully settled, bowl abandoned, chair scraping back as he crossed the room in three long strides. By the time the barrel was visible through the window, moonlight gleaming off frost and frantic legs kicking uselessly in the air, his bow was already in his hand. “Damn it,” he hissed, not in anger, but recognition. The sight of the grey-skinned figure rolling the barrel set his jaw hard. No hesitation now. No careful words. “Ned,” he said flatly. “And he wants us to follow.” He was out the door as Gond burst back inside, the man’s terror spilling ahead of him. Caelan caught his arm briefly, firm, grounding. “We will bring her back,” he said, voice low and certain. Not a promise lightly given. “You have my word.” His eyes dropped to the ground immediately, already reading the frost. The barrel trail was obvious, but he didn’t trust obvious things. He crouched, fingers brushing the disturbed grass, the scuffed earth beneath. “He’s light,” Caelan muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “Too light for a man. Moving fast, but not careful. He’s panicking, or baiting.”
He straightened, drawing an arrow and nocking it, but keeping the point low. “We move now. Quiet as we can, fast as we must. He’s taken a child, which means one thing.” His gaze followed the snaking trail into the moonlit rise, toward the dark teeth of the forest. “He’s crossed the line.”
OOC:
Survival Check: 9 (rolled in game)
Óengus's dreams turn from light melodies into a dark rhythm, and he startles awake. He sees the advanced sun in the sky, and worries his companions have left. After checking the common room, he packs his bags and instruments and asks which way they went. After receiving directions from Clotha, he follows their path quickly, hopefully catching up. Meanwhile, he plays a melody about dark forests and the things hidden there.
"I cast Fireball."
"Are you sure you want to do that?"
"I cast Fireball."
"It's a 15 by 15 room."
"I said I cast Fireball."
Reg travelled light for the most part, and had just made his pack ready when the chaos of the capture came to light. He first rushed to the window to see the scene, Clotha’s legs peddling out of the barrel, rolling away. His pack already in his back, he grabbed up his staff and followed Caelan out of the door. He stood watching as far as he could while the others tried to discern any further information about the tracks. His mind tried to recall any information about the creature type he caught a glimpse of.
The instant he hears the scream and, startling up from his porridge to look out the window, spots Clotha seemingly helpless, legs protruding from a barrel while being abducted by the strange creature, Barn is on his feet. Bellowing wordlessly, he charges out the back door, drawing his halberd, ready to give chase. The determination plain on the big man's face, and rendered only a little incongruous by how disheveled he looks from having woken up so recently.
He is already well outside when the word baiting from the stranger stops him short. It would hardly be the first time a young man so thick of wit as Barn had been baited. He pauses, breathing hard with agitation more than exertion. Thankfully this time, the others would be more clever than him, right? To avoid being baited or tricked. Wynn and Jack, probably from what he remembers. And Oengus and the stranger and trapper too, one could hope.
Barn stands at the start of the barrel's trail, halberd in hand, ready to give chase whenever his companions, new and old, join him.
Tanis(Ranger1): Shiverquill's Tempest City | Barn(Paladin1): Damian_May's Ereworn Under the Shadow | Lyra(Warlock2/Bard4): VitusW's Silverwood Forest
Dyson/Eleo(Cleric4): Vos' Beyond the Veil | Soren(Druid5): Bartjeebus' Ravenloft | Ophelia(Sorcerer4): Ashen_Age's Risen from the Sands
Joren(Fighter6): NotDrizzt's Simple Request | Sabetha(Monk3): Bedlymn's Murder Court | Seri(Cleric3/Sorcerer1): Bartjeebus' Greyhawk