Camping In The
Woods
After just a few more minutes, Yaz's
spell ends and the branches and long grass move back to their
original positions. The mounted woman's body falls to the ground with
a satisfying *THUD*
The horse looks at the body
of his former mistress briefly and then goes back to chewing on the
long grass. Yaz holds the horse's reins anyway, to ensure that it
doesn't bolt away. He then ties the horse to the nearest tree.
All of those that are still
unwounded check over the bodies of the orcs. Each of them have a few
platinum pieces on them. When all of the booty from the orcs is put
together, it comes to the grand sum of 58pp.
Darius manages to crawl
towards the nearest orc and attempts to remove its chainmail. Failing
miserably, Maire' comes over and helps him to take the chain
off.
Yaz, Winnacer and Xavier
check out the body of the fallen woman and the saddlebags of the
horse. Laying on the ground next to her now is the strange staff with
the gem at one end. Unfortunately, Corrow is still too weak to take a
look at it too closely.
On the woman's body is some
jewelry. Heimlin comes over and takes a look at it.
'Brooch of Rhodochrosite,
piece of crap' he says 'It's worth about 10gp. Jade pendant, another
piece of crap, perhaps another 10 gp. A pair of coral earrings, more
crap. The pair's worth about 20 gp. Gold and silver bracelet, now
that's a little bit better, that's probably worth 100gp. If you want,
I could give you the cash for these, or you keep 'em, it's all the
same to me - you won't get no better price off nobody.'
Apart from the blue robes,
cloak and riding boots, the only other objects that the woman has is
a normal looking dagger which was tucked into her belt.
Looking through her
saddlebags, however, is more interesting. In one saddlebag is a
rolled up piece of parchment, which matches the one that she tried to
read from earlier. That piece of parchment is now laying next to her
on the ground, apparently blank.
In her other saddlebag is a
largish leather bound book with a small lock on the front. Another
look at the woman's body reveals a small key attached to a chain
around her neck. The key opens the lock. Yaz, Winnacer and Xavier all
try and look at what is written on the pages, but cannot recognize
any of the arcane runes that are written on the thick parchment
pages.
Storing these items until
Maire' or Corrow are in a position to investigate them further, the
three look to hide the evidence by digging a deep pit a short way
from the clearing. Although the ground is soft, the digging is
difficult as nobody has any spades or similar excavation materials.
However, they manage to hide all of the bodies from anything but a
very detailed search.
They go back to the clearing
to see if they can hide the tracks of the party. However, the scuffle
really plowed up the soft ground, meaning that it would be impossible
to completely hide all signs of the encounter.
The party moves half a mile
away from the site of the encounter, moving south where the woods are
getting thicker. They spend a while hiding the tracks of the cart
which proves to be a major exercise in itself, as the ruts caused by
the cart wheels are very deep. However, by the time that the tracks
are hidden by foliage, only a trained tracker would be able to trace
the tracks back to the party's camp.
All of this activity took
the party two hours. It is now 1.30pm. The party settles in to spend
the rest of the day and night in the camp, tending for the sick and
wounded.
Yaz carefully checks both
the horse and the dagger, but cannot find any identifying marks on
either. The dagger is very ordinary. While he is checking over the
horse, Yaz comes to realize that the horse is past its best years and
tells the others that it is not likely that the horse will be able to
gallop for much more than very short distances. Yaz becomes worried
about the possibility of someone along the route recognizing the
horse. As a result, he decides to disguise the horse by dyeing it
with berries. The only berries close are an orange color, so he
proceeds to dye the horse a vibrant shade of orange. The others in
the party are horrified to see the result. Xavier, who was planning
upon riding the steed now refuses to have any association with the
strange hued beast.
Heimlin takes the mounted
woman's jewelry and stuffs it into his leather pouch. In return, he
removes 140 gp, giving 20 to each person in the party. The less
trusting of them check Heimlin's facial expressions as he does so,
seeing whether he is trying to hide a sly grin, but he is totally
deadpan. Having spent a few days in Heimlin's company, all get the
impression that Heimlin is giving a fair price for the jewelry,
although he is not being over-generous.
He speaks with Winnacer
about the plans to carry on the journey.
'It's a good job that we
didn't let any of them Nyemetz bastards escape. If just one of 'em
would 'ave got to another patrol, then we'd 'ave been in serious
trouble. As it is, I really don't know what they're gonna do now. It
should take 'em a couple a days at least before they realize that one
of the patrols 'as gone missin'. In that time, we could 'ave traveled
such a distance that it would not be possible for them to mount
another search party, as the area would be 'uge that they 'ad to
cover. That's not to say that we's all in the clear, 'owever. The
Nyemetz ain't gonna be at all pleased when they realize that we've
taken out one with arcane powers that be on their side, so we should
continue to be careful.'
'Them Nyemetz uniforms could
well come in 'andy at some point or another, but wearin' em ain't
gonna mean that we're gonna get pass them without any problems. Only
Nyemetz dress like Nyemetz. Some 'umans do fight with the Nyemetz,
those like Xavier's former countrymen fight with them as mercenaries,
but they don't dress in Nyemetz uniforms - they dress in their own
garb.'
'In case you've bin
wonderin' ,we's abouts 'alf way on our journey now. One good day's
march is all we need to make eastwards, and then we shall be turnin'
north for the final third of the journey. It will be good to change
direction, as the Nyemetz'll be thinkin' that we's prob'ly travellin'
eastwards ,as that's the direction that they saw us goin' in.'
The rest of the day is spent
in tending the sick. Maire' uses up all of the medicinal herbs in her
possession through her caring for the injured Darius, Yaz, Corrow,
Winnacer and Colin. Yaz wanders of in search of more herbs to replace
those which Maire' has used. Being no stranger to foraging in
woodlands, Yaz has no problem in obtaining ample new supplies of the
herbs which will allow Maire' to continue nursing all of the sick
back to health.
While Yaz is foraging, he
spots a large web between two trees in a thick part of the woods.
From a distance, he spots two giant spiders who are busy devouring
birds that became entangled in the web. Not having any wish to arouse
the attention of the large arachnids, he stealthily returns to the
camp.
The rest of the day and the
night passes without incident.
In the morning,
Yaz wanders off for his morning routines. Upon his return, he starts
uttering incantations that the rest of them have heard several times
before and lays his hands upon Corrow, Winnacer and Colin. The effect
upon Corrow is immediate and remarkable - Corrow feels better than he
has done in years! The effect upon the two fighters, however, is less
remarkable. Combined with the result of Maire's healing rituals, they
both feel about half of their normal selves, as does Darius, as a
result of Maire's healing alone.
Despite the growing
impatience of Heimlin, it is decided to spend another day hidden in
the woods so that the fighters can regain their health. Maire' gets
some well deserved rest after toiling through the night , while Yaz
and Xavier spend the day on watch.
Xavier is keeping an eye on
the clearing. In the middle of the afternoon, a party of Nyemetz come
through the clearing heading eastwards - the opposite way from the
way that the other party was heading in. The party consists of six
orcs dressed in the same way as the previous orcs, and one orc who is
dressed differently. The orc is unarmored and is wearing rusty red
and yellow robes. He too is holding a staff similar to that which the
party retrieved from the mounted woman.
Although the orcs stop and
investigate the churned up ground in the center of the clearing, the
tracks were covered sufficiently well to ensure that the tracks could
not be followed back to the party's encampment. The enrobed orc
points the staff in all directions, gives a little shrug and the
Nyemetz unit heads off in the direction that they were headed. Xavier
comes back and reports the siting to the rest of the party.
'Looks like they've given up
the 'unt' says Heimlin dourly. 'Looks like they're 'eading back to
Pardubitze. They will reach the town by nightfall. By the mornin'
they'll know that one of the units is missin'. I've no idea what
they'll do when they realize that.'
The rest of the day and the
night is uneventful.