IC - The Pack

[Comissar]

Athena looks non-plussed at Alex's revelation. "Presumably that'll cover all of us?" She glances over at Hayl, "Or was the plan just to keep you two Five's awake and active?"

Athena walks over to the mouth of the Cornucopia, turning to face Alex as she leaned against the mouth, "No." A smirk forms, "Though it does give us a new plan for what to do at night. One each of us," She gestures in turn at herself and Goelev, then Jibril and James, and finally Hayl and Alex, "Spend the night watching. The rest can rest easy. The next night we switch. Everyone gets a chance to watch and everyone can rest easy knowing they're protected by a couple of competent fighters."

Goelev smiles, "Sounds good to me, I'm game."

Hayl, on the other hand, has a much more neutral demeanour. "That doesn't exactly seem fair to me. Both you and Goelev scored higher than any of the rest of us."

Athena scowls, "Which is exactly why one of the two of us should be on guard at night. There's nobody who'll be able to equal us if they try an attack."

Spoiler: OoC

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Again, no map.

[Erik Vale]

Alex is silent a moment, considering how to answer.
"I can keep multiple people awake. Depending on how much energy I've used, I could keep us all awake, but at the moment I can keep people up in twos. However, I will always be with the watching group. Call it paranoia, call it me also setting up and maintaining additional protections."
Then he shrugs.
"Besides, after three nights in we could be at the... Expendable stage."

Alex waits, expecting a rebuttal and preparing his next one.

[Comissar]

Athena's scowl deepens. "If the potential is there to keep all of us alert all the time, what's stopping you from keeping three up?" She starts to walk slowly toward Alex, "I don't like the idea of two districts having free reign while the third sleeps. Call it paranoia."

The last word is almost spat, making no effort to hide her opinion of Alex's concern's. As she draws closer, Hayl takes a step forward, a look of defiance on her face. Athena stops and gives a short laugh, "What? Being in the pack isn't enough for you? You have to have everything your way as well? What makes you think that your stubbornness is worth more than my years of training? What?!"

Athena's last exclamation was directed at Goelev. The Dwarf had walked up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder as she ranted at Hayl.

"Athena," His tone is measured, calm, "Go and cool down. You're not doing yourself any favours."

The two stand opposite one another for a tense moment, Athena glaring down at the impassive Goelev. Eventually, she turns and heads back toward the forest. Remaining silent as she stalked past the two tributes from District 5. Watching her go, Goelev shrugged apologetically. "I'm sorry. You've probably guessed, but she wasn't exactly in favour of having you guys with us." He glances down, sighing heavily, "We're not going to turn on you at the drop of a hat. It's true only one of us wins, but that doesn't mean we don't want to work with you. But you do need to work with us, too. Having one each of us on watch means that we don't need to worry about betrayal during the night, and it's also going to make it easier to fight off anyone trying to catch us off guard. You two are just as important to the group as everyone else, we wouldn't have you here otherwise."

[Erik Vale]

Alex nods, still looking towards Athena.
"I understand. However like anyone caught in a prisoners dilemma, I'm looking for some measure of safety to know it's not worth folding. For me, that's being awake where possible."
He then shakes his head, looking towards Goelev.
"I understand your stance though... I'll try to be conservative with my magic without risking each other. With luck, I'll be able to keep us all alert... I'll start clearing a pit in the snow. We''l need one to start a fire anyway unless we want it in the cornucopia."

Alex begins heading over to the equipment stockpile, eventually cursing at the lack of a spade, shovel, or other such item, before beginning to pull on gloves and a jacket

[Jacior]

James stays quiet throughout all the shouting and griping, even watching Alex pick through the bags for a shovel. With a sigh he gets up, grabbing his bag. "I'm gonna go make sure she's safe. Just what we need this early on is to lose her..." Shrugging on the bag, he walks towards Athena, waving a hand back at the others. When he catches up to the girl from 1, he stays quiet for a moment. "So... you wanna talk about it?"

[Metroid33]

Standing next to Goelev, Jibril listens to what he says and waits for Alex to move away saying "Well of the entire group I'm surprised Athena even agreed to myself and James. We didn't score the best in the world like most careers do, and the way she's acting I'm not sure if she likes any of us."

[Comissar]

Goelev nods, an appreciative smile on his face, as Alex explains his stance. "That's all I'm asking."

He glances over to Jibril, acknowledging her with a nod. "If you think she's tough to handle in small doses, imagine what she was like to live with for the past few days. She can get pretty intense," He looks over at Athena as he says this, "Though, to be fair, if you're going to get serious over anything..." He leaves the statement hanging.

___________________________

For a moment, it looks as though Athena's going to ignore James. She eventually lets out a frustrated sigh, "They haven't trained for this like we have, Two. Their best chance to survive for as long as possible is to work with us." She runs a hand through her hair, her irritation evident, "And they have to know that. They wouldn't have joined us otherwise. And yet they're already ignoring our plans and trying to just do things their way!"

[Jacior]

"I haven't even trained like you have. Not that that seemed to affect my score much." James said mildly, keeping an eye out while Athena ranted. "Arguing isn't going to do much." He shrugs, not really knowing what to say.

[Comissar]

Athena clenches her jaw following James' comment. When she speaks, her tone is cold "You know what I mean. Even if you didn't train to the same degree, you were clearly preparing yourself for this. Those two just got picked and nobody had the guts to step up instead."

[Jacior]

"It's not they're totally useless either. I didn't impose them on us as some kind of handicap." James says, not matching her tone at all. "Worse comes to worse, we push them in front of us and run. They'll learn or die. Earlier anyway."

[Erik Vale]

Having pulled on winter gear, Alex begins moving snow away from the entrance of the Cornacopia for a fire pit.

[Comissar]

Athena sighs heavily, pinching her brow. Eventually she replies "Fine, fine... You made these points first time around, Two."

She looks back to the group around the Cornucopia, "Go on back if you want, I'm not going to get caught off guard here."

Meanwhile, Hayl walks over to Alex and helps him clear a pit. Goelev watches with a bored expression. He tilts his head back and closes his eyes. "God this is boring... Feels like we've been waiting days..."

Glancing up at him, Hayl comments "Why not take a small group out, see if you can find a few people?"

Goelev hums to himself, "The sensible thing is to stay put, let everyone else tire themselves out..."

Shrugging to herself, Hayl replies "I just think we might be shooting ourselves in the foot. If I were running, I'd want to set a trap for pursuer's. Might be easier to take them out while they're still running."

[Metroid33]

"Well in theory we could wait here for days and just let the others freeze to death out there. if they start a fire to keep warm we can find them. but of course if they all die of the cold that's not a fun hunger games now is it?" Jibril says following behind Hayl. But I'm itching to get moving and at the same time I don't want to waist my arrows chasing them through the trees.

[Jacior]

"Eh, I'm bored. Might as well hang out with you." James says, shrugging. "Figures there wouldn't be a hammer here."

[Comissar]

Hayl nods encouragingly, "Yeah, I think Jibril's right. If we wait too long then the people in the capital are going to try and make things 'interesting'. We don't all have to go, after all. Just leave two or three of us here and we won't risk losing anything."

[Metroid33]

"How about for now we just work on setting up our base camp and then we start the hunt?"

[Comissar]

With a fire pit clear, Hayl and Alex begin to put together a basic fire. As they're doing so, Athena wanders back over to the group. "Two's right," She nods at Jibril, "Let's just make sure we're set up before we start rushing out. Anything we're not going to keep on ourselves, let's move it into the cornucopia. It'll be easier to guard it with only one way in and out. The fire's a good idea, anyone out there not near one will be suffering by the time we go for them. Anyone with a fire, well..." She smiles a small smile, "I'm sure I don't need to tell you all what that means."

Spoiler: OoC

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Gonna assume you're all going to be doing more or less what Athena's suggested. The fire Alex and Hayl are making will mean you won't need to make the fortitude saves against cold.

[Comissar]

The group waits around the Cornucopia mouth. As the sun slowly sinks toward the horizon, the silence is broken by Canon fire. One, two, three... The fire almost seems to mark the passing seconds. A total of ten shots are fired. An echoing silence follows. It is then that the Panem anthem blares across the clearing.

Spoiler: A Tribute to the Fallen

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District 3:



Tempra



Chester Grinne


District 6:



Antogg


District 7:



Odath Fergusson


District 8:



Willow



Weaver


District 10:



Kijin



Kevin Beck


District 11:



Trefoil Oleastro



Talas Belend

Athena, Goelev and Hayl all look up at the sky as the display continues. Athena looks irritated, but both of the other two are far more impassive.

"Looks like we still have some work ahead of us..." She tightens her clothing, ensuring there's nothing loose that might cause her issue, "Who's staying to guard? We don't want to lose are foothold here."

Spoiler: OoC

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I'm going to need a fortitude save from each of you. This is not due to the cold.

Spoiler: DC 11 Foritude - Only if you fail

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Your eyelids are heavy, and it is difficult to focus on what is going on around you. You are treated as being under the effects of a Lullaby spell until you leave the vicinity of the fire, and for the next ten minutes following.

Spoiler: Failure by 5 or more

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The warmth of the fire and the calming smoke have sent you to sleep until you are woken by another or the smoke clears.

[Metroid33]

Spoiler: fort save

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Fort save:(1d20+4)[5]SHHHHHHHIIIIIITTTT

[Comissar]

The heavy smoke of the campfire lulls Jibril to sleep. In conversation with the other tributes, Goelev, Athena and Hayl do not immediately notice this development.

Spoiler: OoC

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No proper update today. Jacior and Erik have until Saturday to respond before I move on without them.

[Comissar]

Jibril is roused from her unplanned slumber by an unceremonious jabbing in her ribs. "Have to do everything here myself... Hey! Two! Wake! Up!"

As the tribute from District 2 awakes, she is greeted by the sight of Athena standing over her, an irate expression on her face. In the background, Goelev is carefully ignoring Athena's actions whilst Hayl watches with a conflicted look.

Spoiler: OoC

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Perception please, penalties as though under the effects of Lullaby apply to Jibril. I've rolled Fort's for both Alex and James, they both passed.

[Metroid33]

Spoiler: Here's that perception

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(1d20+1)[10]
This can either go very well or blow up in my face.
Edit:Or it can go right in the middle, I don't think of that.

[Comissar]

Athena grows increasingly irritable as Jibril simply continues to lie on the ground. "If you don't get up in the next six seconds, I swear to god I'm just going to abandon you first chance I get!"

Spoiler: OoC

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Jibril spots nothing untoward. Until further notice, I'm going to be converting both Alex and James to NPC's. If either of you are still reading, just post and you can jump back in.

[Metroid33]

"Alright Alright I'm up. What's wrong?" Jibril says climbing to her feet, still just a bit sleepy.

[Comissar]

Athena scowls, "You mean aside from you just falling asleep here?"

Goelev sighs and covers his face with his hand. Before Athena has a chance to say anything else, he calls out "There's someone moving about near the edge of the woods. We're going to go get them. Hayl, Alex and James are standing guard. We could use your aim, though."

Spoiler: OoC

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Ok, so, Erik Vale hasn't posted in over a month anywhere on the forum. I'm going to assume he's gone permanently now, so Alex is officially an NPC. Jacior has been active, but not in this thread. That may be due to general inactivity in this thread, and I'm going to send a prompt. Pending the response, James will be NPC'd as well. Jacior, you can of course retake control whenever. Indeed, if you respond before the next update, you can retroactively switch out with Goelev. I'd rather give PC's something to do over NPC's.

No movement yet, so no map.

[Jacior]

James takes his head in his hands and jerks it quickly to each side, causing a horrid cracking sound as his loosens the tendons within. "I'll go, you stay here." The armor wearing boy stalks forward, searching for the person moving near the edge of the woods.

Perception: (1d20+7)[14] (-1 if it's farther away then 100 feet)

[Comissar]

Athena shrugs, "As long as you're competent, I don't care if you're coming with me or not." Keeping a loose grip on her shortsword, she starts to head off toward the forest border.

Spoiler: OoC and Map

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I'm working on the assumption that you're going to be following Athena here. If not, I'll edit the map according to your preferred actions. Also, perceptions from each of you please, along with stealths if you want to stealth.

[Metroid33]

"Alright then let's go see what's making noise" Jibril said, just above a whisper.

[Comissar]

Athena leads the trio past the fallen bodies of Kevin, Weaver and Willow. The light snowfall has given them a soft covering, helping to mask the severe injuries that lead to each of their deaths. Athena doesn't even glance at their fallen forms, her gaze intently searching the snow on the forest floor for clues. She smiles to herself when she spots something she likes, "Look there, three sets of footprints. All leading east."

Sure enough, the trails are easy enough to spot in the otherwise pristine snow. Two sets skirt the northern edge of the forest, leading away from the Cornucopia. The compacted snow in the footprints of these have already been infilled by the snowfall. The third trail, however, leads in from the north and cuts into the forest itself. A collection of these footprints cluster around one of the trees.

"These are the ones we want, see how the edges are still crisp? That's our mark."

Spoiler: Map and OoC

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The footprints aren't on the map due to difficulties in getting them on there. The first two trail along the northern border of the forest, heading eastward. The third comes into the forest just a few feet east of where Athena is standing, coming in almost directly from the north and then entering the woods.

[Jacior]

James looked at Athena with a blank stare. "Ok? Lead on then, fearless leader." It wasn't his place to tell her if she was right or not. He takes a look at the tracks himself though, to see if he understood what was going on.

Spoiler: Rolls

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Perception: (1d20+7)[9]
Survival: (1d20+8)[27]