A Troubled Sa'id, The Plans For the Night
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
Mission offers to take the last watch.
OOC: Does Farron have Tiny-safe-hut-of-Beretrand memorized?
From: Mark
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
OOC: I was wondering that as well. Melanie would have no idea what it was and would probably not go into it, but it would, I think, be a neat idea for the rest of the group. Can it be seen from the outside?
Also, Ty, can we assume that every one is at full hit points and spells?
IC Melani motions Rennik over. "Should we try and set some traps to try and give us more notice of scouts coming towards us in the night? Do you want me to scout out a bit further to see if I can find signs of this army you are talking about? You have more experience fleeing from this foe than I."
OOC: Ty, can either Rennik or Melani use any skills they have to make some type of device that might give us warning.
Mark
From: Karl
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
Farron has an open 3rd level slot and will memorize and cast that spell before retiring. Remember that he cannot leave the hut once cast, though the rest of the group can come and go as they please. Also, the hut is opaque from the outside, not invisible, and it doesn't dampen sound.
From: Karl
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
In the dark, I imagine it would be VERY difficult to see the hut. It would allow us to use light without being seen. In broad daylight, I imagine it looks like a large dark dome. Ty can correct me if I'm wrong.
From: Mark
Subject: Thoughts while travelling
IC: As they travelled Melani realizes that these humans are not quite as soft as she had thought. They knew nothing of the woods or the ways of the woods, but the followed her instructions with out hesitation when told to watch out for some danger. They did not complain about the pace. They did not complain about the conditions, even thought the weather was fair. If it was not for the looming army they were bound to run into, this might almost be fun.
Suddenly the death of her brother crashes down on her again. He and she and made many trips like this in years past. Narthan had used these trips to develope her skills. He would make a game out of having her move in the forest with out his hearing her or seeing her. This had been so much fun. He would make moving targets between the trees for her to shot and sling at until she could hit a bird 10 times out of 10. He showed her how to hide her knives so that people could not see them but so that she could draw them in an instant. Those were the best days.
Then the darkness came. Those damned elders who were living in the past. She was sure that the Nameless were back but they just wanted to live like they had. It had cost her brother her life. The elders did not want to know what was happening in the world. True the world could be a scary place, with lots of strange people and strange ways, but that is what made life interesting. Take these humans. So different then her, yet there was the one scribe, the one with the baby, doing exactly the same things she had seen her brother do with his young ones. Maybe they were not so different. Just bigger.
She had alot to think about.
Mark
From: Ty
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
I am going to wait for a check in from everyone before I move on.
From: Mark
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
How about the healing thing? Is every one at full?
Mark
From: Dan
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
Cadfael doesn't have anything else to add. He does, however, only have one more midterm. Huzzah!
From: Raja
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
Sa'id is groggy when Cadfael wakes him at sunrise, but hauls himself up without complaint. The priest quietly instructs him in the proper prayers, and Sa'id finds it surprisingly like memorizing his spells in that he is able to relax and not think, directly, about anything in particular.
The sun peers over the horizon, suffusing the sky in an amber glow. Sa'id kneels, turns to face the sun, and all of a sudden his forehead is pressed to the ground, just as his father on faraway Ammar would do during his morning prayers to Pelor. It was not done on Huss, and Cadfael was not doing it, but it seemed... appropriate. "I might even be able to forgive you," he catches himself thinking, though he is conscious of his own arrogance in presuming he might forgive a god.
The sun is now looming over where Sa'id imagines he can see faraway Nesalin on the coast. Lifting himself into the prayer position that Cadfael has shown him, he murmers the words that he memorized before sunrise. Looking at the red warmth spreading across the sky, however, reminds Sa'id of the halfling in the ambush, the small one's screams as Sa'id's fire burned him alive. The sun's fire warmed, but could also burn, as Cadfael had burned Garth in the ruined tower. During the ambush Sa'id had felt driven to burn, to kill... and yet when he had killed it had left him unsatisfied. Did this mean that it wasn't what he really wanted... or did it mean that he wanted... more?
And had he been dead? Yesterday he had rescinded the question immediately after asking it, but it gnawed at him. If he had been dead shouldn't he have had at least a taste of the afterlife?
Discomfited somewhat, but feeling much better than yesterday, Sa'id finishes his prayers and rises to rejoin the group for breakfast. He is, again, quiet and withdrawn for the duration of the day's trek. This time at dinner he sits beside Farron. It is a long time before he speaks, but when he does so his tone is quiet and private. "My friend," he says, "I... in the ambush... was I *killed* or just *wounded*?"
From: Mark
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
It was only a flesh wound.(said in haughty british accent.)
Mark
From: Karl
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
Check
From: Raja
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
I pour my heart and soul into my message, and all I get in reply is a CHECK?!?
I'm devastated... *sob*
:P
From: Matt
Subject: Re: The Chase; Quiet Night and Quiet Day
"They move by night as well as they do by day. It is possible that they may emerge from the forest before sunrise - I have no idea how fast an army of walking corpses can move. They do not tire. Perhaps their masters need to rest, but they could just as easily sleep while carried by their servants so the army need not stop at all."
"They will likely have scouts out, but not trackers. The army is not pursuing us, instead moving to block our way to Overlook - which they still may do. The scouts would be to keep an eye for larger forces, such as a defense by the humans from Overlook itself. While one could very easily stumble upon our trail or our camp, I don't think that would be his first duty."
"We should make camp in a difficult location, somewhere that no army could pass through without cutting down trees or blasting rock. These would be the things a scout would note and bring back to his master as places to avoid, to steer to the left or right of to keep the force from slowing down. But that is exactly where we need to camp."
With that, Rennik will try to find some patch of impassable ground - perhaps a group of large rocks, or a steep hillock, or maybe a really tight copse of trees. Somewhere that would be avoided by a large army, and even a little uncomfortable for the party to camp at.
"I don't think we should lay any alarms, though. A scout could easily pass close by us without seeing or inspecting for a camp, focused instead on finding a good trail for the army. An alarm would alert him to our presence, as much as it would alert us to his. As would traps."
"I will take first watch and spend some time covering our trail and erasing signs of our presence here. We should then watch from a tree for the witch and the army."