Darkwood--Glimmer of Hope

[Annalysei]

[No one told me I needed Darkvision, and it takes too many of my high level spells to Dimension Hop to the bad guys, especially with as much as I quicken. Also, Sigrid, looks like I've got a 14 CON with a 2 Ability Mod]

I'm listening carefully, and trying to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I don't like enclosed spaces much, but I'll try to make the best of it.

[Led Pighp]

"As you say, Mistress. The better idea would be to lower the tent walls, to obscure all light from her. Or, to create a powerful light to blind our enemies. But that risks calling enemies from farther away. Allow us to scout first, so we know what we face."

[Sorchat can breath fire once every few turns. That should mess with anything light sensitive.]

[Katrina]

"I can Darky Sorchat, but it's not forevers."

[Sorchat]

I fly into the tent, and sit in my brazier. I tell the tent to lower the walls.

"Go on. I'm dark."

[Seven Words]

It is not actually DARK, as if midnight...rather, the light of the unseen sky is "early-evening-about-to-massively-thunderstorm", plus under massive tree cover...so, unenhanced human vision works adequately...

[Sorchat]

[In real life, I've been camping when it was just overcast not raining. No stars, no moon, no city lights. I literally couldn't see my hand in my face.]

[Seven Words]

Skyseeker looks very nervous..."Little is left to accurately reflect what the Dark Ones did when they blighted areas of the Golden Wood. The magical interweavings of the lives of all things became corrupt...trees which are predators, carnivorous rabbits with potent venomous fangs....an endless list of nightmares."

[Kalindriel Ec'urb]

"As I said, just like home."

"Do we have a direction we want to go or should we pick a way at random?" She gestures towards the canopy, "If we could squeeze Led's bountiful mass into the tent we could go up."

[Annalysei]

I grimace at skyseeker's words "Oh, splendid. Yay."

[Have Led and Trina done their scouting yet?]

[Seven Words]

OOC--they are busy scouting....Skyseeker is a little too terrified to do so right now...this is RP filling time while they're doing their thing

[Led Pighp]

"If we could squeeze Led's bountiful mass into the tent we could go up."

[The carpet cannot support Led's weight, even alone. On the other hand, when Led returns from his scouting mission, you'll see him doing a very decent impression of a squirrel moving across branches and then down the trunk. Vertical motion is not beyond Led's abilities, at the moment.]

[Seven Words]

The scout-arounds return.....with no clue as to where you are in relation to anywhere else, beyond "in the DarkWood". Attempts to climb to break the tree cover or fly up above it prove futile, as a thick haze permeates the air, muting and diffracting the sunlight to such a degree that even at "dawn", east cannot be discerned.

[Sigrid]

[Does that mean there's no immediate danger? Did they find anyone who might attack us?]

"I can cast a spell to tell me the way out. Not now, tomorrow evening." I look at the dark all around. "Tomorrow when I pray, around sundown.

[If we climb above the trees, can we tell that the sun is up? Not the direction, but day or night?]

[Seven Words]

Sigrid--yes.

[Led Pighp]

"Hrmph. Then I guess we'd better get comfortable until sundown. There's no use wandering around until we know where we're going."

Led gets a twinkle in his eye. "Though, the more we know about the Darkwood, the better we'll be. What are it's dangers? How do we best fight the inhabitants. How do we move around. I assume we'll need to march an army through here at some point; having them all get stuck in the mud would just be embarrassing. And is anything in here edible, or must we haul supplies behind us. Clerics can only make so much food."

"I'll be back in a few hours. If you need me sooner, make a really loud noise and I'll come running. Promise. You should all wait on the carpet, above the trees. But not too high up. A flyer might see you. Of course, anyone who can fly is welcome to join me.". The scout pauses. "Anyone who can fly and and hide is welcome. I'm afraid that Sigrid or Sorchat would give away our location."

"Little 'Trina, I think for this mission, I should carry Skyseeker. She know the old legends of the Darkwood. We might need her help understanding what we see, and she can't climb or fly like we can."

[Kalindriel Ec'urb]

"I'll stay here. I can help teach them to not make our residence attract attention."

[Katrina]

Spreading her wings, she makes ready to follow her Kitty.

"Should one of us hunting have the porty booties, just in case?"

[Sigrid]

[We just got loot, right before we came here? So I must have identified them? I'll mark off my number of spells.]


"Porty booties? <snerk> All that walking makes my feet hurt." I caress Anna's face, from her ear then along her jaw. I grip her chin, softly. "Take these boots off me and give them to Skyseeker. Then come back and rub my feet for me? Your strong hands... know just how to find the right spots."

[Led Pighp]

"I'll stay here. I can help teach them to not make our residence attract attention."

"...come back and rub my feet for me? Your strong hands... know just how to find the right spots."

"Good luck with that, Mistress. Teach them to be quiet about it, if you can. I'm just lucky I can't go into the tent in the first place. If I could, I'd have to wonder which is worse: being asked to leave while they carry on, or not being asked to leave."

He gives a shudder. "Or worse yet, being asked to stay."

Once Skyseeker has the teleport boots, instead of her Leaping and Springing boots (which she won't use because she's mounted), Led will take off in some direction. Any direction is the same when you don't know where you are. He'll stay to the branches [Brachiation FTW], to avoid the mud / water below, and anything that might be in it.

At some point, he'll comment, "This terrain is... interesting. We can't see any features ahead, so we can't navigate towards or away from anything. In effect, we just wander until we stumble across something. If there were a light, or the sound of something, we might follow it. Else... we are at Fate's whim. Even underground, the shape of the tunnels would give us some kind of feature. But here, all directions, even up and down are open to us. Only vision and knowledge are limited."

[Does this terrain count as an entirely new category? Neither 'knowledge (nature)' nor 'knowledge (dungeoneering)', but somewhere between them and somehow different from both. I imagine this is actually similar to a submarine world. The lower sky above, the upper sky above that. Somewhere far below is some kind of geography. But all we see is the open space in three dimensions. Nothing permanent, and no real landmarks.]

[Seven Words]

OOC--very high difficulty Nature....

A whispered oath from Skyseeker calls your attention to something moving by....at first glance, a water elemental..no, three....but, they're twisted, corrupted. Bubbling noisomely, with vile mist befouling the air. They appear to be wandering mindlessly. They are, however, moving in an absolutely straight line.....flowing their bodies around trees...but leaving a disgusting coating behind on the bark. One tree has had the bark peeled away in one place, by something's claws marking it's territory. From that exposed wound, the tree begins to rot....rapidly blackening, galls forming, popping, bark sloughing off, heartwood turning black and green, melting in a nauseating stench.