Pass on what you have learned IC

[Irrealist]

After an hour passes, Trahone nods to Emmis. "I think it's time to worry now."

Azurous follows Scrya, and a while later he recognizes a place where he has been before. Happy to have found the way back, he wanders on through the dark forest.

[Irrealist]

Emmis
Emmis agrees. "You are right, he might be in danger. Let's go wake the others." Together the two go around, wake everybody up, and gather them around the campfire. "Azurous has not returned yet from his hunt. he was scheduled to start his watch one hour ago. Atan is not here either, but he said he would be gone until his watch starts, which is in two hours. What do we do?"

[Wiz]

Liam Ravenquill

Is woken from his rest. "Wha...?"

[TwoCents]

Minya Istaya, Waterdeep Elf

"Oh my. Well, I can try to call Atan back," said Minya, once she had been pried from her trance. She rummaged around in her gear for a moment and pulled out a signal whistle and her waterskin. After a drink to lubricate herself, she began to blow a short pattern of tones as loud as she could. Several repetitions later, she stopped and explained, "That's the 'come home now' call, not the 'emergency' call." She tried again in ten minutes, and repeated the cycle every ten minutes until she heard an answer from Atan.

[Daryk]

Atan

Atan arrived in camp with his harvest, a little bewildered at why everyone was up and about. "What's going on?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

[Irrealist]

Emmis gives you the same short briefing: "Azurous has not returned yet from his hunt. he was scheduled to start his watch two hours ago. Shouldn't we go look for him?"

[Daryk]

Atan

"By all means, yes! If he's not back yet, he's likely lost out there in the dark somewhere. Let me stow the berries and such, and I'll go right back out for him," Atan said. When he finished, he pulled out his signal whistle and added, "I'll blow my whistle periodically to increase the chances of him hearing us, and so you'll have some idea of my progress."

That said, Atan confidently strode back out into the gloom, blowing his whistle every minute or two, searching for Azurous using a spiral search pattern as he'd been taught by his uncle.

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Or any wandering monsters that might be attracted to a shrill signal whistle...
Besides, now we can empirically determine the range of these things...
And before I forget to mention it, Atan is wandering around at full speed.

[TwoCents]

Minya Istaya, Waterdeep Elf

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I was holding off on posting to let someone else speak up :cough: :cough: so this didn't become the WonderTwins Power Game

Minya sighed with relief when Atan returned. She wasn't worried, not really, but the incipient panic in Trahone and Emmis' demeanors was contagious. All her life People had been wandering off into the woods for an hour or a day or a week or whatever, so Azurous' absence hadn't bothered her. Other than his failing to do his chore of standing watch, but that happened too. Watch standing was boring, after all.

Very, very boring. Minya sighed with disappointment when she realized she would probably have to take Atan's watch, while he looked for the missing Azurous. Whatever else happened, however, the base camp had to be defended. The mules were here, and the gear was here.

"Does anyone have any means of generating a signal light for a long time? Something Azurous could use to home in on, despite the thickness of the woods? I have nothing other than cantrips and short spells." She looked hopefully around and then began to collect a large supply of wood; perhaps a bonfire would help. Of course, setting fire to the woods wouldn't help, so the fire needed to be carefully placed to avoid overhanging tree branches or underground root complexes. Minya might not be the forester Atan was, but she was enough of an elf to understand that.

While she pulled wood from the forest, she stayed close enough to see the small camp fire. Cerpe perched morosely on a nearby branch, fluttering about after her and grumbling.

<in Draconic>"This is no time to be awake, Minya. I should be sleeping. It's not easy to look this good, you know. Besides, if Scrya can't get his mage out of the woods, why is it my problem?"
"Stop whining and stay alert, Cerpe. I'm not in the mood."
"Not in the mood. Not in the mood. You're always in a mood."
"Cerpe..."
"Fine, but if I sleep through breakfast because you kept me up all night it's all your fault!"

[AngelForm]

Azurous

Having been wandering around the wood for a little over an hour Azurous bursts into song, badly but in draconic and very loudly. Not whole songs, just bits and peaces of ancient sagas he remembers his family singing with the occasional hymn to Ilmater thrown in.

Scrya both alarmed and confused projects You will attract predators! Azurous pauses in his butchering of a hymn and chuckles slightly before resuming his artistic endeavour. Across the empathic link he tells Scrya Anything not scared of this that can hear will try to eat us anyway.

Almost subconsciously Azurous, wonders if he is thinking straight or if his advancing weariness combined with the venom from earlier was making him slightly delirious.

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Well I would post more but I have little to add at the moment.

[Wiz]

Liam Ravenquill

Liam frowns, shaking his head. "I can cast a color spray, but that has very short range and is near instantaneous. If I shot it into the air he might see it... if he happened to be looking this way... and if he wasn't too far away."

[Irrealist]

Atan takes off, periodically blowing his whistle. About half an hour later, Azurous hears someone blowing a whistle. Relieved, he heads in the general direction of the sound, and some time later, Atan spots a humanoid shape coming towards him. Both are happy that they have found each other, and head back to the camp, which they find without problems this time.

[Daryk]

Atan

"Azurous! There you are! We've been looking all over for you! Are you all right?" Atan asked.

[The_Snark]

Nuale

Nuale mentions that she might be able to scribe a scroll for some kind of light or Flare spell, but doesn't seem too confident that it will work. Although it would probably be better for her to sleep while she can, she stays up with the others, watching the woods around and helping Minya gather up the firewood.

[Wiz]

Liam Ravenquill

Liam looks only half-awake. "What happened, Azurous?"

[harmonictempest]

Epsun

Rolls over, and is about to fall back asleep when he hears the minor hubbub. Sleepily standing up, he asks "Did I miss my shift?"

[AngelForm]

Azurous

Azurous breathes a sigh of relief upon seeing Atan. “I’m fine, just got lost when the light started fading.”

[Daryk]

Atan

"Oh good! Let's get back to camp, eh?" Atan asked, beckoning Azurous and Scrya along.

Atan takes the most direct route back to camp, making sure not to lose Azurous in the gloom. Periodically, he used his whistle to signal he was returning to camp.

[Irrealist]

In the camp, you hear the signal whistle in fairly regular intervals from very different positions, seemingly moving away from you. Time passes, and then the sound of the whistle seems to be moving towards you again, and the signal has changed. Minya explains to you that Atan must have found Azurous, and is signaling his return. Sure enough, after a while the two appear from the dark woods outside the bright spot lighted by the fire.

[TwoCents]

Minya Istaya, Waterdeep Elf

"Welcome home, gentlemen!" Minya greeted the two wanderers happily, while Cerpe made a rude remark under his breath about familiars who should know better than to let their charges wander around in the dark and get lost.

"May I suggest we take advantage of this opportunity? Since we seek a nocturnal beast, we probably should rest during the day and hunt it at dusk anyway. Let's start over with the watch list and get moving once everyone has had a chance to recover," Minya continued, feeling vaguely like a den mother but realizing that she was actually the oldest person there. Odd, very odd. She wasn't sure she liked it.

"Does anyone have any suggestions for what we should do to catch these shocker lizards?" Minya asked, hopefully, as she brewed a pot of tea at the campfire.

[Daryk]

Atan

Atan smiled broadly and said, "Thank you, sister dear! All's well that ends well..."

At her suggestion, he said, "I have no objections to letting everyone sleep in a bit. Seems there's been a bit more excitement than planned tonight. As far as 'catching' this lizards, I've found that most things are easy to catch once they have an arrow or two in 'em..."

[The_Snark]

Nuale

"That sounds like a good plan," Nuale nods. "Maybe we can do some of our hunting in the afternoon, too. Before it gets dark."

"As for catching them, Dean Bighat said the skins need not be whole. I think that a few arrows, or spells if you can manage them, would be enough." She shrugs; maybe someone here knows how to set snares and the like for wildlife, but she doesn't.

[Wiz]

Liam Ravenquill

Liam nods, "Well, I'm going to try and get some sleep so I can study my spell again. Night all, wake me for lastwatch."

[harmonictempest]

Epsun

Epsun grins sleepily. Yeh, hittin' it before it gets close would sure be preferable to one of us gettin' sizzled while we try to capture it. Anyways, I'm goin' back to sleep. Wake me for last watch.

[Irrealist]

All except for Emmis and Azurous crawl back into their bedrolls. Emmis mumbles something baout having to pull a double shift, then sits down by the fire and tries to chat a little with Azurous. The crawls by slowly, but their shift finally ends without any more excitement. Everybody takes his turn at watch, and in the late morning, the last watch wakes everybody for breakfast after seeing the sun rise and holding watch during the following daylight hours.

[AngelForm]

Azurous

Azurous seems quiet when they return to camp, only speaking up to show his assent to restarting the watch.

In the morning he prepares his spells and readies his equipment then waits for the others to do the same, offering his help if he sees it could be useful. When all is in order he looks to the Istaya siblings for direction.

[harmonictempest]

Epsun

Holding watch during broad daylight was not what Epsun had imagined, but he takes to it cheerfully, chatting quietly with his watchmates but otherwise taking the job rather seriously and staying alert.

When his watch is over, he produces an iron pot from his luggage and proceeds to sound it like a gong before moving about to wake the heavier sleepers. Having begun a little of his morning toilet during his watch, he has less left to do than the others. Withdrawing slightly, he lays out his prayerbook and notes, and chews trail rations idly while choosing the day's arsenal. As he begins, a thought strikes him. We're all pretty different in our specialties, but there's still only so many spells out there. Should we communicate about what we're preparing for the day, so as to cover our bases and not overlap too much?

[Wiz]

Liam Ravenquill

Liam nods, "I was figuring on stunning them at close range with my wand of color spray. So, I was going to study my mage armor and shield spells, as well as take three prestidigitation spells to handle the corpses and skins."

[TwoCents]

Minya Istaya, Waterdeep Elf

Minya, dozing comfortably in a nearby tree, sat up suddenly when the infernal gonging started and scraped her ear on a branch. Reflex and old habits kept her from cursing -- out loud at least -- while she plotted her revenge. Eventually, Epsun came close enough to the tree for the elf to make the attempt. Carefully measuring crosswind effects and target drop like the trained archer she was, she flung her first acorn, followed by a flurry of others.

While most of Minya's missiles whizzed past or bounced off of intervening branches, one found the target. "Ahah!" she cried theatrically while she distentangled herself from her hammock. "Woe be unto he who disturbs a sleeping elf!" The effect was unfortunately marred by a fit of giggles.

"Yes, well, spells. I'm an evocation specialist, so my usual arsenal is Magic Missile, Burning Hands, Scorching Ray, with a Mage Armor and a utility spell to round things out. I've been taking Alarm rather than Comprehend Languages out here. I suppose with the wand I can take another evocation spell?..." her voice trailed off as she looked over at Azurous for confirmation.

[AngelForm]

Azurous

“We have yet to test the wand but I have a mage armour and magic missile prepared. We would probably be best off with as much destructive magic as possible.”

[harmonictempest]

Epsun

Raising his hands theatrically to ward off the miniature missiles, Epsun chuckles briefly before replying innocently "I'm sorry, I didn't know elves slept.."

When spells are being discussed, Epsun adds "Well, with all those flashy blasting sorts of arcane spells, I think I'll stick to the healing spells I know, since you wizard folks can't manage them. I plan to take front line if need be, as the best armored, so I'm also taking a Command spell. And I almost always prepare Comprehend Languages, just in case."