CH 1: This Place Sucks

[JadedDM]

After securing the saddle, Hollidan mounts the horse effortlessly. "Ha! Guess Clem disagrees with you," he comments. Suddenly, the horse bucks very slightly. Hollidan grabs hold of the saddle horn for dear life. When a few seconds pass and nothing further happens, he relaxes his grip and clears his throat. "We should get going," he says, perfectly serious.

[HorizonsDream]

Echo looks about ready to double over in laughter, but she contains herself by just lightly snickering instead. She mounts up on her own horse, and gives him a few light pats before she follows Hollidan to join the rest of the large group. "My whole point of even looking for you was to ask that that forest you three were talking about earlier."

[JadedDM]

"The forest? What of it?" Hollidan asks as he gets his horse moving again at a steady pace.

[HorizonsDream]

"Well, what do you know about it? Isn't that kind of a dangerous place to be taking a group of people like this?" Echo asks.

[JadedDM]

"Probably less dangerous than the mountains themselves," Hollidan quips. "But they know and understand the risks. They're pilgrims, after all. They're with us on this journey for religious reasons."

[HorizonsDream]

"All right, then," Echo says with a small shrug.

[JadedDM]

The pilgrims move forward. After almost two hours of travel, the forest comes into view. Here, Bulwark calls a halt. Then he, Cadegund, Hollidan and the Pharise meet and speak quietly among each other for awhile.

Echo hears the pilgrims speaking to each other as she waits. Most of them sound hopeful, even excited, to enter the forest. She hears a lot of things like, "There is no danger; Gonto will protect us" and "Soon, we will see Baerin's Shield in person!"

===========

It is now 9:45 AM. The party has traveled one mile through grassland.

[HorizonsDream]

Echo shakes her head slowly upon hearing some of the Pilgrims. "We have some very naive people in this group," she mutters.

[JadedDM]

Without further ado, the group enters the forest. It slows them down to half the speed they moved at in the plains. Outside of some squirrels, however, they don't see anything else for the rest of the day. When the sun starts to go down, the group comes to a halt and starts building a big camp again. Everyone's pretty exhausted after traveling all day, but the group brims with excitement at being so close to their goal.

Before long, several small campfires are burning and tents are being set up.

=============

It is now 4:15 PM.

[HorizonsDream]

Once they entered the forest, Echo considered going off on her own a couple of times to find some new herbs or components for her spell. Sadly, she wasn't going to be able to do that until they stopped for the night. She doesn't want to wander too terribly far from where everyone is setting up camp either. She dismounts from her horse, and makes sure he is tethered to a tree before she begins looking around for some new herbs and/or components that she can make use for later on down the road.

[JadedDM]

Echo leaves the campsite on her own, into the dark forest. What was the worst that could happen?

Not much grows during the winter, but there are some herbs that do. She doesn't find anything in the immediate vicinity, so keeps expanding the search perimeter. By the time she makes a noteworthy discovery, she's no longer within sight of the campsite.

She finds a decent sized patch of blue mountain flowers, as they were called in the common vernacular. They usually are used in making salves and ointments, as their petals have strong healing properties.

Blue mountain flowers.jpg (166.89 KiB) Viewed 6754 times

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Echo makes an Herbalism check (1d20): 10, pass.

[HorizonsDream]

Echo collects a bit of the herb, as she doesn't really know when someone might get hurt. Things have been relatively calm on the trip so far, but that could change easily enough. Once done collecting what she can, she turns to head back to camp. She remains quiet, as she doesn't want to attract the attention of anything that could be out in the woods. ~I probably shouldn't have wandered so far,~ she thinks to herself.

[JadedDM]

Echo puts the flowers into her backpack and turns to head back to the campsite. But that's when she spots some movement out of the corner of her eye. She spots a pair of wolves about 55 feet away to the south. She hears a twig snaps, and then notices there are two more to the east and another pair to the west. They must have sneaked up on her quietly. They growl menacingly as they carefully approach, treading in the light snow.

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(Actions and Initiate for Round 1?)

[HorizonsDream]

Echo quickly assesses the situation that she is in. She is technically surrounded by two wolves on all sides of her except behind her. She knows she won't be able to fight them hand to hand. She glances to the tree behind her, and quickly climbs up it. The wolves won't be able to get her if she is up in a tree. Once she is up there, then she can decide what to do from there.

Init Roll

[JadedDM]

Echo spins on her heel, going for the tree quickly. But the wolves launch themselves at her at full speed. One manages to reach her before she can even start climbing and leaps at her, biting her flank fiercely. Pumped with adrenaline, she kicks at the wolf fiercely, knocking it off of her.

Quick as a flash, she then scales up the tree before the wolf can recover or its brothers and sisters can reach her. She's bleeding badly from her wound, but for now is safe. The wolves crowd around the base of the tree, jumping and barking, but none are able to reach her.

=================

Initiative
Echo (1d10): 4
Wolf 01 (1d10): 6
Wolf 02 (1d10): 8
Wolf 03 (1d10): 8
Wolf 04 (1d10): 5
Wolf 05 (1d10): 1
Wolf 06 (1d10): 5

Round 1!

Wolf 05 moves 80 to the east and bites at Echo (1d20): 16, hit for (1d4+1): 3 damage.
Echo moves 5 feet toward the nearest tree and attempts to climb it (1d100): 60, pass. She scales the tree safely.
Wolf 04 moves 40 feet to the west.
Wolf 06 moves 85 feet to the west.
Wolf 01 moves 60 feet to the north.
Wolf 02 moves 60 feet to the north.
Wolf 03 moves 45 feet to the northwest.

(OOC: Actions and Initiative for Round 2?)