Southern Comfort IC

[Marlowe]

Grath.

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The woods are dark and silent. Shadowy enemies spectaculally fail to ambush you from all directions, in defiance of every convention of drama.

The trail leaving the ambush scene is fairly obvious, and includes drag marks, but you don't have the knowledge to put it all together.

Dardiana:

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Merchant's clothes might be worth a bit. His dagger is masterwork, as is the Half-Orc guards battleaxe. Guards Mail Shirts are Mail shirts. There's some shortspears lying around.

Heavy stuff was left. Light stuff was taken. the Ambushers didn't collect the weapons of their own fallen.

[Morbis Meh]

Korgoth keeps a weary eye with a weapon drawn, his instincts were screaming at him to leave this place but he was torn because he believed the dead deserved a proper send off. With stern resolution he speaks to the crowd "We should not leave these bodies to the ravens, we should build a pyre so they may go to Valhalla with all of their possessions!"

[mattie_p]

Grath returns from his short expedition. "Let the dead bury the dead. Dead need nothing, possessions are for the living. Grath see nothing near, but let all follow trail and kill enemies."

[Linguz]

Dardiana takes the merchant's dagger. "Exactly as you said. He won't need this. And we'll bury or burn them after the guilty have fallen. That is, unless, we want to announce our presence."

[Corsair420]

Animals need to eat to, we have no right to deny them their feast... leave them

[u-b]

Gregor McAlister

Keeping his watch on the rim and watching both directions, Gregor notices there quite an amount of heavy trophies left and that generally these redcloacks f*cked up heavily, losing three of their own. Good for us.

"Grath is right. I guess we better pack the stuff on our mules before it gets taken by some other band of passers-by, because the chase could take some time, but we better not waste our time dealing with the bodies. Maybe on our way back. Check the lake, just in case, search the bodies real good, pack, and let's go."

[Marlowe]

Gregor and Delphi(the woodsy types)

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There's some patches of sand next to the lake where you find the trail left by the caravan as it entered the Fall from the north. At this point it consisted of four mules and five humanoids.

The much more messy trail leaving the scene to the north east has markings of two mules much more heavily loaded, two dragged bodies or objects, and six humanoids. It appears to be aiming for the end of the first mountain spur to the east.

[Morbis Meh]

Korgoth fowns and is saddened by the lack of respect for the dead "I told you to LEAVE their possessions... if any of you steal there weapons or armor you will deal with ME. Take the perishables and money but leave their equipment." narrowing his eyes Korgoth looks angrily the halfling.

[Linguz]

Dardiana glared at Korgoth as she took the sheath from the merchant and put it at her own waist. "Feel free to follow your own ideals, but the ideals of others should be up to them. Just like I won't push you until you take something, you shouldn't push us until we don't."

[u-b]

Gregor McAlister

The halfling looks at Korgoth (down?) from the ridge.

"I suggest you openly state you are not joining Ashdown or any other of this world's military. Also, I suggest you not attempt to hurt anyone, or we, indeed, might deal with you. In that case, I'll try to make sure you'll live."

[Marlowe]

Korgoth glares around, looking for a moment like he's tensed to attack. Then turns, shoulders his hammer, and walks off without a word. Heading for the north, and Ethandun.

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Because I may wish to use him as a plot element later. If the sheet gets taken down he should be fairly quick to reconstruct.

As you watch him disappear through the breach in the Fallrim, some of you think you can hear the sound of hurried horse's hooves echoing down from Starlight's Razor.

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Hopefully we do. Ashes isn't online yet.

[Corsair420]

"so whats the next move?... if there was to be an ambush i'm sure we'd have heard something by now..."

[RaggedAngel]

Delphi comes back to the group, losing patience with her shadowy stalking. She watches one of their number leave, and she snorts quietly. "One down, before the raiders even show up? Well, maybe they'll see that as a sign of weakness and finally pounce." She shrugs, and then requests the saddlepack they had found with the mule, intent on searching it more carefully. Assuming she receives it, she spends a full minute looking it over, careful to not miss a thing.

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She take 20 on her Search for a 26.

[mattie_p]

"Grath did not see ambush either. Perhaps no ambush? Perhaps ambush ambushers? Ambushers not expect ambush! Also, write on paper and tell Ingva trader not coming and why!"

[Marlowe]

Dardiana:

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You didn't say anything about picking up the amulet, so I'm letting Delphi find it. Sorry.

Delphi:

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It seems the backpack story was confusion over the packsaddle on the accompanying mule, what has been tagging along behind you like a stray dog. A search there confirms Mart Ortul's story about bolts of dyed cloth.

Looking around, You do find an amulet behind a rock. It takes the form of twelve snakes curving counter-clockwise outward from a central hub, which itself takes the form of a vertically-pupiled eye. The whole has the look of copper, but the iris of the eye is set with some kind of greenish stone. It is bound by a fine chain of steel links

Grath: Good idea, anyone bring paper, ink and a Raven?
I suppose we could always use blood and the Half-Orc porn mag.

[u-b]

Gregor McAlister

"I'm afraid the paper Ingva gave me is one-way only, we cannot write on it for her to know. In case I get it wrong though..."

Gregor took a small splinter, tipped it in one of redcloaks' blood and put a small mark on the map.

"I am done checking the rim and it all seems to be deserted. Whoever did it, did not left here any rearguard so they are probably marching to some site distant site."

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Survival: (1d20+5)[22] - any actual results checking the rim, like abandoned positions, how long ago this whole ambush was set up etc?

Gregor starts searching (or helping Delphi/Dardiana search) all the bodies for hidden pockets and such, evaluating everything that might be valuable.

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Search: 20+2 = 22
Appraise: (1d20+0)[12] vs DC 12 for common items

He then rinses and packs mail shirts (if no one intends to put any of them on) battleaxe, shortspears etc. and other valuables NOT including merchants pants and shirt, but possibly boots, belt etc. if of sufficient value. He then drags all the bodies next to each other and away from the road, covers them with red cloaks then suddenly stops, looking at the large spot of red on white he has just assembled.

"I wonder if these red cloaks shold mean something. They are extremely non-practical for any sort of forest warfare."

[RaggedAngel]

Delphi moves over to a rock, and she very carefully picks up a strange amulet. It takes the form of twelve snakes curving counter-clockwise outward from a central hub, which itself takes the form of a vertically-pupiled eye. The whole has the look of copper, but the iris of the eye is set with some kind of greenish stone. It is bound by a fine chain of steel links, and it is from those that she lifts it, careful not to touch the actual face of the thing. "This looks really expensive, or important. Or, you know, cursed. What do you all make of it? I don't, uh, have much education to speak of." She blushes a bit at her last statement, clearly embarrassed. It's adorable, though you have the feeling that she wouldn't like to hear that.

[u-b]

Gregor McAlister

"Snakey, hmm... either it's magical or it's a symbol... or both. No idea what it could mean."

[Corsair420]

"I already used my detect magic spell for the day but I'll see what I can tell from it, if you don't mind"

I'll hold out my hand for the amulet.

[RaggedAngel]

Delphi offers it gladly, clearly not trusting the amulet. "It's odd, and it seems strange that the bandits or raiders or what have you would just leave it. I suppose they may not have noticed it, but it seemed to leap out at my eyes." She looks at the taller folk around her, and she smiles. "Then again, perspective accounts for a lot."

[Corsair420]

I'll start to examine the amulet seeing if any of my knowledge helps me

Rolls:

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Arcana: (1d20+8)[24]
The Planes: (1d20+8)[22]
Geography: (1d20+8)[9]
Nature: (1d20+6)[23]

[Marlowe]

Based on general spore, discarded trail ration wrappers, and the remains of a campfire a little further into the forest to the north-east, it appears that the ambushes were at least ten in number, and were in position at least from the previous night.

There is also a faint set of humanoid footprints that comes around from the north side of the Fall and follows the departing trail. It looks like somebody with a good dexterity trying to be cautious but with no woodscraft whatsoever. The tracks are light and quick, but whoever it is keeps stepping in all the wrong places. It appears to be somebody shadowing the departing ambush party rather than joining them.

The amulet is definitely magical. It is not made of any natural element you've seen before. It has the weight and colour of copper, but none of the softness, as a sharp rap with a rock will atest. The greenish, irridescent iris appears to have been achieved using polished mollusc shell, cut to precision. The chain is finely-tooled steel of masterwork quality.

[mattie_p]

"Have got what is needed from here? Grath will carry whatever the mule cannot. Follow trail, or not? More stuff if find end of trail."

[Corsair420]

"Do you mind if I hold on to this for awhile? I'd like to run some more tests later?

And thinking on it, I'm going to pull out the leather book and open it again and cast Read Magic to see if anything becomes clear since you mentioned that I detected magic before

[Marlowe]

Whatever magic you detect appears to be incidental to the book. It may be reading magical only by association.

However, the scythe and lightning-bolt clasp appears to be the same alloy as the amulet.

[Marlowe]

Oh, and you get:

-masterwork battleaxe(mentioned, actually, make that a Greataxe. I tend to use the words interchangably)
-one masterwork dagger (Dardiana has it)
-6 shortspears
-2 shortswords
-1 shortbow (no arrows)
-2 mail shirts
-3 sets leather armour
-2 heavy wooden shields
-1 buckler.
-One snaky amulet
And the caravan guards have 17gp between them. Redcloaks have 3 silver, 6 copper and a piece of string.

[mattie_p]

Grath will take the masterwork greataxe, assuming no one else wants it, and helps to load the mule with the rest of the salvaged equipment.

I'll also check out the half-orc, to see if he is a by-blow cousin or something.

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knowledge-local (1d20+1)[7]

deleted previous post, as rolls didn't show up when I added the knowledge check, and don't want to spam thead.

[stanleyindraven]

Horbin will silently take the bits of string. "Well, looks like we best not be standing here when someone arrives, especially if they are lawmen," Horbin will say plainly as he makes a path to the wooded area.

[u-b]

Gregor McAlister

Of all the loot Gregor takes the coins as soon as he discovers them. Reports them in full, though. He takes nothing else.

"I am not afraid of any lawmen... so far. But indeed, nothing to do here unless we want to waste some time. Speaking of which, I propose we hustle for an hour to catch up with cloaks' lead. This could be dangerous, but I guess they are farther away."

[Marlowe]

Grath:

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It's a half-Orc. And he's dead.

With Gregor and Delphi leading the way, you move at double speed through the forest along the trail of the ambushers, the lighter members of the party hitching rides at times on the back of the mules.

Delphi's pet, though not in the best of health still, seems quite keen to come with you. In spite of its really bad day, it is still a strong animal, obviously well kept.

It's obvious the two mules the raiders are driving are overloaded, and not helping their pace. After a short distance the two sets of drag marks vanish, but the mule prints become still deeper and more laboured. The lighter trail of the shadower winds along, almost invisible at times, but remaining around the raiders main trail.

To appear to be heading for the end of the nearest of the jagged spurs reaching north from the Godspine, and near the end of your hustle you step around some rock and find moving yourself between the towering knife-edge of the spurs end and a deep, broad, swift river running from east to west. The redcloak's trail, having moved around the end of the spur, now turns south-east.

More importantly, there's a body against a tree. Red cloak. No weapons. Covered in small animal bites. Clutching at a bloody wound to its stomach. But somewhat more fatally, missing half of his head.