"Agreed," Kess would nod to Chrys. "I don't much relish spending a night here in the murk and mire; the sooner we can reach dryer ground, the better."
As the party walked along, Kess would keep an even stride with Nym, clearly wanting to get to know the party's newest companion better. "You said that some drow might be abban to me... well, it is peculiar you say that, because it so happens that I used to work as a barmaid for another drow. A gentleman by the name of Jax, as a matter of fact, who owned an establishment in Luskan in reference to his one-eyed visage. Quite the charmer, he is; cannot say he ever mistreated me or any of the other girls who were in his employ even once, and he looked out for us too; Luskan is not exactly a city for a woman to step carelessly."
With the memory of her traverse to the lake still relatively fresh in her mind, Nym leads the group towards the path, worn leather boots squelching in the slime as they walk until it finally dissipates the further away from the witch's domain they go. Chrysobyl's comment about fires made the Drow's head tilt before shaking it, seeming to keep her thoughts to herself before replying to Kessdarra, "There wasn't any of this slime there three days ago. Hopefully it is still untouched."
Glancing downwards as her name was spoken, the elven woman smiled at the curious kobold. "Mine too. I've managed to avoid full on sunlight so far. Duaric said that it's been uh..." She points upwards to the sky, her finger circling with a concentrated look on her face, "Um...oh! Clouding. Like mist or fog. He's been trying to teach me more about surface nature. In the Upperdark we use glowing fungi to tell waking hour from sleeping hour. The plants know even though we do not. But when I came out to explore the surface, apparently our 'waking hour' is your night. So it was usually dark or close to it when I explored. Until recently that is..."Glancing backwards to the sun at their backs with a squint. "Any helpful advice one underground dweller to another oh wise druid Krackle?" Nym asks with a playful raised eyebrow.
After her exchange with the diminutive druid, Nym looks to her other side as the high elf falls in step with her. Listening with interest, Nym's expression is that of surprised delight hearing of this other Drow, Jax. "A 'gentleman' you say? He must have certainly made a positive impression to have you call him such. I'm not sure where this Luskan is, but I hope to meet your Jax one day. A friendly familiar face would be a welcome sight." Something about what Kess said made her pause though. "Is Luskan prone to...earthquakes? Or is it on a mountain high in the sky?"
Right after Kessdarra's reply, Nym catches sight of what she was looking for, "Ah, here's the trail. And nice and dry too." She tries to kick some of the muck off of her boots while keeping an eye on the pond.
Now that you’re on the faint, but easily discernible trail, your pace quickens, and you begin making pretty good time as you trek along through the swamp. Instead of constantly navigating through and around a slew of muddy puddles and wet spongy, uneven tussocks, it’s a nice change to be moving much more steadily.
Unfortunately, the bugs have returned, and for the next hour, you are plagued by small but incessant swarms of biting midges that fly in front of your face and land on to your forehead, and the back of your next, as they thirst for blood.
At least your feet are dry.
Answering Nym, Krackle smiles when she refers to him as a wise Druid. He tells her that he’s never been called wise before, at least not that he can remember. Most strangers are either bully him, or act suspicious. Some people think he’s Chrys or Lumen’s pet, which hurts his feelings.
You can tell by his talk that he’s had kind of a hard life. Sadly, he doesn’t have any good advice to make it so his eyes dint hurt in the bright light. He is intrigued to hear Nym talk about the works underground. At one point, he asks her if she thinks that Selûne likes kobolds.
((From what Braids said, you need to travel two days straight east ti find the orc camp. The trail you’re currently on is headed in that direction. ))
(I think we want to make camp, take a long rest, send Krackle on his way, and then find the orcs, unless I'm wrong about the order of operations here?)
(Yes I thought we were making camp on the stony outcropping? If we hadn’t been 5 hours away and close to dark, and likely to get lost, Lumen would have been insistent they spend the night in Phelannie’s grove one more night.)
(The place Nym had seen before, the stony outcropping, is on the way/in the direction of the orcs. We're still on the trail to it, just haven't reached it yetI. It's two hours away from the lake opposed to Phelannie's which is five hours away. So are we escorting Krackle to Phelannie's grove in the morning or sending him on his way while we continue towards the orcs?)
The last hour goes quickly. Moving single file on the narrow trail, you cover a fair bit of ground across the swamp. Just as the sun is making its last dip towards the horizon, you see, up ahead, a small grassy rise that's strewn with a handful of tall boulders. As you get closer, you see that it's by far the best possible campsite you've seen in miles. Atop the 50 foot wide plateau of smooth, flat ground sit an arrangement of about 20 stones, which vary in height between 4 and 9 feet, in what appears to be a rather loose semi-circle. Although it's somewhat haphazard in shape, it does seem quite possible that it was constructed by someone long ago, and not just a random rock formation, although it's hard to be sure.
The trial branches off and climbs up onto the plateau, and as you approach, something catches your eye. Lying in the grass, you see a scale from some creature, about half the size of an elvish palm, rough and slightly textured, the thickness of two or three of four thumbnails, and flat black with a faint glossy sheen at the edges. It looks unmistakably like a dragon scale.
Just as you make it up here, the sun casts its last rays, which briefly light up the stones with a brilliant orange glow, before the light fades. The air temperature up here is rather cool, and there's a slight breeze, which has driven the bugs away. It does look like this place has been used as a campsite, but there are no signs that anyone has been here during the past week or so.
"What's that?"Chrys asks Kess, fairly clueless as she's never actually seen a dragon before, much less a scale. "That's one helluva big snake if it got dropped off here. Maybe this problem in the swamp is bigger than we thought?" She doesn't spend much time thinking on it, however, instead with ingraned practice looking for the best way to set up a secure and defensible camp for the evening. "Be careful when I'm settin' up the tent... I'm gonna spread a few caltrops around jus' in case anything decides to pay us a visit in the night," she tells everyone.
"This isn't from a snake." Kess breathed in, her expression a swirling mask of anxiety and wariness, her glance tellingly going down to Krackle before turning back to Chrys. "Something far more dangerous. Too thick. Too large... No... this scale belongs to a dragon. One that apparently feels comfortable enough to prowl the High Forest."
Chrys nearly drops the cloth she's trying to spread. "A what now?!"she half-yells. "Tell me that thing's ancient history and not fresh! I'll do the Duin's biddin', but e'en I know we ain't prepared for no dragon attacks!"
Kess’s elven knowledge of nature leads her to believe that this is not an old scale; it’s fairly fresh, perhaps only days or weeks off of its host. This is confirmed by Krackle, who, although never having seen a real dragon, is a creature of draconic origins himself. He remarks that he knows a thing or two about scales, since his own body is covered with them.
“I shed my scales. It happened more when I was younger, when I got getting bigger and needed to make room for the new ones. But even now, they still come off sometimes.”
Nym watches the hubbub with mounting weariness and concern. Yet something occurred to her. "Could I have a look?" She asks of Kessdarra, holding out a hand for the scale. Turning it over in her hands to look at it closely.
(Does it look.... familiar? Like it could possibly look like a dragonborn scale instead of a full dragon scale? It's black, right?)
Nym looks closely at the scale, and while it has a similar shade of black to those she saw on her Dragonborn friend, it's noticeably bigger. It's much more likely that it came from a full dragon.
Getting a better feel of just how big this scale was, even her dark skin looked pale in the setting sunlight as she looked it over with a drawn expression. "Sarn lil' sreenath streeaka droc'uh..."Nym murmured before glancing up and meeting the dark haired elf's eyes, now realizing that the woman must know at least some Undercommon.
Handing the scale off to whoever should want to look at it themselves, she spoke, "I had hoped that it might be a scale from the friend I had mentioned. He is a black dragonborn. We most definitely should not light any fires or even use magic lights. I...understand if it is too soon to trust me just yet." She hesitates before offering, "But I see very well in the dark. I can also grant that sight to others. But only for an hour. I could do that to help whoever should take first watch and once I've been able to rest I can take over for the rest of the night."
("Beware the dangerous mad dragon...") (Duaric hadn't mentioned anything about being worried about a DRAGON nearby, right? Just the spiders and ettercaps.)
"No, you're absolutely right," Kess nodded to Nym, before looking to the others warily. "If we're forced to a light a fire however, we should do something such as digging a pit, so as to make it less obvious. And as it is, I think it's safe to say that you aren't a mrannd'ssinss d'orbben; if you are, then you are by far the most convincing actor I've met yet."
Not waiting to see how Nym would react to her speaking in fluent Undercommon, Kess continued her explanation. "As for our watch strategy, I should go first; my eyes aren't quite as strong as yours in the dark, but both of us are Tel'quessir; what I cannot see will be made up for in hearing. Would you be willing to go into reverie for the first half of the night? I'll wake you for the second."
"Agreed," Kess would nod to Chrys. "I don't much relish spending a night here in the murk and mire; the sooner we can reach dryer ground, the better."
As the party walked along, Kess would keep an even stride with Nym, clearly wanting to get to know the party's newest companion better. "You said that some drow might be abban to me... well, it is peculiar you say that, because it so happens that I used to work as a barmaid for another drow. A gentleman by the name of Jax, as a matter of fact, who owned an establishment in Luskan in reference to his one-eyed visage. Quite the charmer, he is; cannot say he ever mistreated me or any of the other girls who were in his employ even once, and he looked out for us too; Luskan is not exactly a city for a woman to step carelessly."
With the memory of her traverse to the lake still relatively fresh in her mind, Nym leads the group towards the path, worn leather boots squelching in the slime as they walk until it finally dissipates the further away from the witch's domain they go. Chrysobyl's comment about fires made the Drow's head tilt before shaking it, seeming to keep her thoughts to herself before replying to Kessdarra, "There wasn't any of this slime there three days ago. Hopefully it is still untouched."
Glancing downwards as her name was spoken, the elven woman smiled at the curious kobold. "Mine too. I've managed to avoid full on sunlight so far. Duaric said that it's been uh..." She points upwards to the sky, her finger circling with a concentrated look on her face, "Um...oh! Clouding. Like mist or fog. He's been trying to teach me more about surface nature. In the Upperdark we use glowing fungi to tell waking hour from sleeping hour. The plants know even though we do not. But when I came out to explore the surface, apparently our 'waking hour' is your night. So it was usually dark or close to it when I explored. Until recently that is..." Glancing backwards to the sun at their backs with a squint. "Any helpful advice one underground dweller to another oh wise druid Krackle?" Nym asks with a playful raised eyebrow.
After her exchange with the diminutive druid, Nym looks to her other side as the high elf falls in step with her. Listening with interest, Nym's expression is that of surprised delight hearing of this other Drow, Jax. "A 'gentleman' you say? He must have certainly made a positive impression to have you call him such. I'm not sure where this Luskan is, but I hope to meet your Jax one day. A friendly familiar face would be a welcome sight." Something about what Kess said made her pause though. "Is Luskan prone to...earthquakes? Or is it on a mountain high in the sky?"
Right after Kessdarra's reply, Nym catches sight of what she was looking for, "Ah, here's the trail. And nice and dry too." She tries to kick some of the muck off of her boots while keeping an eye on the pond.
Nym Durnodel - Aspiring Heroes of Faerûn // Danica Amastacia - Red Dead Annihilation
Now that you’re on the faint, but easily discernible trail, your pace quickens, and you begin making pretty good time as you trek along through the swamp. Instead of constantly navigating through and around a slew of muddy puddles and wet spongy, uneven tussocks, it’s a nice change to be moving much more steadily.
Unfortunately, the bugs have returned, and for the next hour, you are plagued by small but incessant swarms of biting midges that fly in front of your face and land on to your forehead, and the back of your next, as they thirst for blood.
At least your feet are dry.
Answering Nym, Krackle smiles when she refers to him as a wise Druid. He tells her that he’s never been called wise before, at least not that he can remember. Most strangers are either bully him, or act suspicious. Some people think he’s Chrys or Lumen’s pet, which hurts his feelings.
You can tell by his talk that he’s had kind of a hard life. Sadly, he doesn’t have any good advice to make it so his eyes dint hurt in the bright light. He is intrigued to hear Nym talk about the works underground. At one point, he asks her if she thinks that Selûne likes kobolds.
((From what Braids said, you need to travel two days straight east ti find the orc camp. The trail you’re currently on is headed in that direction. ))
(I think we want to make camp, take a long rest, send Krackle on his way, and then find the orcs, unless I'm wrong about the order of operations here?)
(Yes I thought we were making camp on the stony outcropping? If we hadn’t been 5 hours away and close to dark, and likely to get lost, Lumen would have been insistent they spend the night in Phelannie’s grove one more night.)
(The place Nym had seen before, the stony outcropping, is on the way/in the direction of the orcs. We're still on the trail to it, just haven't reached it yetI. It's two hours away from the lake opposed to Phelannie's which is five hours away. So are we escorting Krackle to Phelannie's grove in the morning or sending him on his way while we continue towards the orcs?)
Nym Durnodel - Aspiring Heroes of Faerûn // Danica Amastacia - Red Dead Annihilation
(Got it, thanks!)
(I think we need to make camp, then head to Phellanie to drop off our scaly buddy and get some answers on things before heading to the orcs.)
The last hour goes quickly. Moving single file on the narrow trail, you cover a fair bit of ground across the swamp. Just as the sun is making its last dip towards the horizon, you see, up ahead, a small grassy rise that's strewn with a handful of tall boulders. As you get closer, you see that it's by far the best possible campsite you've seen in miles. Atop the 50 foot wide plateau of smooth, flat ground sit an arrangement of about 20 stones, which vary in height between 4 and 9 feet, in what appears to be a rather loose semi-circle. Although it's somewhat haphazard in shape, it does seem quite possible that it was constructed by someone long ago, and not just a random rock formation, although it's hard to be sure.
The trial branches off and climbs up onto the plateau, and as you approach, something catches your eye. Lying in the grass, you see a scale from some creature, about half the size of an elvish palm, rough and slightly textured, the thickness of two or three of four thumbnails, and flat black with a faint glossy sheen at the edges. It looks unmistakably like a dragon scale.
Just as you make it up here, the sun casts its last rays, which briefly light up the stones with a brilliant orange glow, before the light fades. The air temperature up here is rather cool, and there's a slight breeze, which has driven the bugs away. It does look like this place has been used as a campsite, but there are no signs that anyone has been here during the past week or so.
Kess picks the scaly thing up as the party walk, poking at it, a forlorn expression on her face.
It couldn't be... could it...?
"What's that?" Chrys asks Kess, fairly clueless as she's never actually seen a dragon before, much less a scale. "That's one helluva big snake if it got dropped off here. Maybe this problem in the swamp is bigger than we thought?" She doesn't spend much time thinking on it, however, instead with ingraned practice looking for the best way to set up a secure and defensible camp for the evening. "Be careful when I'm settin' up the tent... I'm gonna spread a few caltrops around jus' in case anything decides to pay us a visit in the night," she tells everyone.
"This isn't from a snake." Kess breathed in, her expression a swirling mask of anxiety and wariness, her glance tellingly going down to Krackle before turning back to Chrys. "Something far more dangerous. Too thick. Too large... No... this scale belongs to a dragon. One that apparently feels comfortable enough to prowl the High Forest."
Chrys nearly drops the cloth she's trying to spread. "A what now?!" she half-yells. "Tell me that thing's ancient history and not fresh! I'll do the Duin's biddin', but e'en I know we ain't prepared for no dragon attacks!"
Kess’s elven knowledge of nature leads her to believe that this is not an old scale; it’s fairly fresh, perhaps only days or weeks off of its host. This is confirmed by Krackle, who, although never having seen a real dragon, is a creature of draconic origins himself. He remarks that he knows a thing or two about scales, since his own body is covered with them.
“I shed my scales. It happened more when I was younger, when I got getting bigger and needed to make room for the new ones. But even now, they still come off sometimes.”
"You okay, Kess?" Lumen says, seeing her face.
"When it got bigger!" Chrys nearly yells, reconsidering making a fire.
Nym watches the hubbub with mounting weariness and concern. Yet something occurred to her. "Could I have a look?" She asks of Kessdarra, holding out a hand for the scale. Turning it over in her hands to look at it closely.
(Does it look.... familiar? Like it could possibly look like a dragonborn scale instead of a full dragon scale? It's black, right?)
Nym Durnodel - Aspiring Heroes of Faerûn // Danica Amastacia - Red Dead Annihilation
Nym looks closely at the scale, and while it has a similar shade of black to those she saw on her Dragonborn friend, it's noticeably bigger. It's much more likely that it came from a full dragon.
Getting a better feel of just how big this scale was, even her dark skin looked pale in the setting sunlight as she looked it over with a drawn expression. "Sarn lil' sreenath streeaka droc'uh..." Nym murmured before glancing up and meeting the dark haired elf's eyes, now realizing that the woman must know at least some Undercommon.
Handing the scale off to whoever should want to look at it themselves, she spoke, "I had hoped that it might be a scale from the friend I had mentioned. He is a black dragonborn. We most definitely should not light any fires or even use magic lights. I...understand if it is too soon to trust me just yet." She hesitates before offering, "But I see very well in the dark. I can also grant that sight to others. But only for an hour. I could do that to help whoever should take first watch and once I've been able to rest I can take over for the rest of the night."
("Beware the dangerous mad dragon...")
(Duaric hadn't mentioned anything about being worried about a DRAGON nearby, right? Just the spiders and ettercaps.)
Nym Durnodel - Aspiring Heroes of Faerûn // Danica Amastacia - Red Dead Annihilation
"No, you're absolutely right," Kess nodded to Nym, before looking to the others warily. "If we're forced to a light a fire however, we should do something such as digging a pit, so as to make it less obvious. And as it is, I think it's safe to say that you aren't a mrannd'ssinss d'orbben; if you are, then you are by far the most convincing actor I've met yet."
Not waiting to see how Nym would react to her speaking in fluent Undercommon, Kess continued her explanation. "As for our watch strategy, I should go first; my eyes aren't quite as strong as yours in the dark, but both of us are Tel'quessir; what I cannot see will be made up for in hearing. Would you be willing to go into reverie for the first half of the night? I'll wake you for the second."
(*mrannd'ssinss d'orbben = lover of spiders)