The Curse of the Jade Monkey, IC

[mephassovar]

Kritios

Content that he has found a group that is both interesting and capable, Kritios decides to make himself practical.

It seems that we are all prepared and provided for. Let us begin our journey to the ruins. A four day hike awaits us and, doubtless, we will know each other far better by the end of it.

Kritios has put most of the decorative work at the end of the 10' pole. He removes a saw from his toolkit and manually cuts it down to size. Using it as a walking stick, Kritios (and his partners if they are willing) walks out of town and into the unknown.

[The Bushranger]

Dani

I'm ready if y'all are. Let's go!
Grinning madly, Dani pretty much literally skips after Kritios, eager to get out and find some adventure...

[tonberryking]

Acama

Acama sighs. Having been ready a good while ago, traveling light now with only 8 extra rations, the good monk has become rather impatient over what strikes her as flagrance.

"Ye goin' to be buying the whole town's stock of goods before we're off, or are ye goin' to leave a little for the next bunch of adventurers onna quest?"

[Lycar]

Darren

So the party sets out on their mission. Darren had stored 2 extra water skins and 5 of the trail rations in his Hversack, just to make sure they would be well stocked.

He makes good time, obviously used to marching around the countryside.

He even keeps an eye out for the weather.

After an jour or so, when they are deep inside the forest, Darren takes off his mask and stows it away.

"Finally, fresh air. No more dust..." he says to no-one in particular.

Lycar

[Fri]

Acama

Acama sighs. Having been ready a good while ago, traveling light now with only 8 extra rations, the good monk has become rather impatient over what strikes her as flagrance.

"Ye goin' to be buying the whole town's stock of goods before we're off, or are ye goin' to leave a little for the next bunch of adventurers onna quest?"

"Yeah, even I only travel lightly this time," says Alex as she fixes her larger than life backpack's position.

As they walk, Alex fiddles with his ukulele, mindlessly playing some unheard song.

[kentma57]

And so you set out. Doing what you where meant to do, adventure. The sun high in the sky gives a clear view of the surroundings; to the north you can where the ruins lie you can see the remains of an ancient road, to the west you watch cloud drift in towards you over the waves.

Survival checks, if you want.

[The Bushranger]

Dani

Dani hums happily along with Alex's playing, feeling light-hearted and happy, and casting her cares to the gentle breeze that blows across the party as they travel.

Spoiler

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Survival: (1d20+5)[12]
Spot: (1d20-1)[16]

[mephassovar]

Kritios

Looking over the lie of the land, Kritios is very aware that he has little experience of combat. I wonder how I would fare against a determined foe...

Should we discuss how we intend to approach these ruins - I have very little experience of these kind of things, but I'm sure there are clever ways of doing these things.

Spoiler

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Survival (untrained) (1d20+1)[11]
Spot (untrained) (1d20)[20]

[Fri]

Alex


Well, I'm used to ruins. What I'm not used to, is hunting people, outlaw or not. In this case, I think the main concern is the 'hunting bad guys' part. They might pose the greater threat than the ruins itself, if you got my point.

My greatest concern is, if they don't choose this ruin by chance. I mean, they stole a mysterious artifact, then hide themselves in a random unexplored ruin? There is a chance that this ruin had some connection with the jade statue. You know, the usual 'put the jade statue in the pedestal for ultimate arcane power' stuff.

What do you think Darren? You're the experienced bounty hunter. How do you think we should approach them?

[Lycar]

Darren

Darren doesn't answer for a bit. Then he responds "Cautiously. If they are even halfway competent, they will have sentries overlooking all appraoches to the site. Which means we ought to leave the road quite a while before reaching the ruins."

"Then we need to recon their camp. That means sending scouts ahead to scoop out the layout, count heads and spot any static defenses like nets, snares and pits and such."

"Anyone a trained scout here?"

"And of course, how we actually DO approach them evetually, depends on just how keen you all are on collecting heads. Personally, I'd be happy to collect my share of the 2000 gp without any of them bandits ever knowing we were even there. But unless one of you happens to be a master thief..."

Darren shrugs and falls silent again, marching on.

Spoiler

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GM ? We need to find a good place to leave the road before stumbling into any sentries the bandits may have posted.

Lycar

[mephassovar]

Kritios

Realising that imminent danger could be on the cards, Kritios reaches into his toolbag and removes a strange ball. This ball is silvery in colour and is in constant movement, buzzing with energy. Kritios holds it in the palm of his hand and concentrates for a few seconds. The ball breaks down into some sort of liquid, spreading along Kritios' arm and eventually engulfing his whole body. This takes seconds to complete and leaves him covered head-to-toe in this silvery material. After a few more seconds, it has taken the form of a suit of full-plate armour - unusually soft and liquid looking.

I'm not trained as a scout, but I'm quite good at surviving and would be willing to go if no-one else is better qualified.

What am I doing? Do I want to get myself killed? This is NOT what I'm trained for. F o c u s. That's it. F o c u s. Calm. Cool. This is an experience and I'm going to come out of it having learned something.

[The Bushranger]

Dani

I'm not much for scouting, but I could give backup getting out if the scout runs into anything.
Dani still looks exceedingly chipper, and has a broad grin on her face as she speaks.

[kentma57]

Spoiler

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GM ? We need to find a good place to leave the road before stumbling into any sentries the bandits may have posted.

After several(eight) hours you come to the edge of a forest. As the sun sets the road is becoming harder and harder to follow.

[tonberryking]

Acama

"I'm as silent as a cougar on th' prowl, fellows, it nary not matter if I prowl in forests or on stone."

Having been mostly silent beyond what's necessary courtesy (but by dwarf standards), it may then be surprising that Acama speaks up as heavy sandals kick up sod and rocks, she notes the end of the road with a little disdain.

She does looks ready to assume the scouting job for herself, but... "We'll nae get far if we aren't more decisive. I'll go scout ahead, but th' rest of ye be planning a great hullo for the bandits as I'm about.

She looks up at Darren with a warm smirk, having sized him up apparently as she also seems to count him experienced. "What say, ye? You're the one shaping up to be our leader."

[Lycar]

Darren

Darren seems to be a bit unhappy at the idea of being party leader.

"Uhm. I'm a skilled craftsman and maybe I picked up a thing or two during my bounty-hunting days. But I don't think... well, I assume, as long as we consider entrusting leadership to the most experienced..."

Darren shrugs "Fine. Until we need to do any spelunking or dungeon delving, I'll try to pass myself off as a scout. Speaking of which, we should make camp. Soon it will be too dark to see. At least for us humans. Let's look for a good site."

Darren moves ahead to find a suitable place to set up camp for the night. Although the forest path doesn't seem very clearly marked, Darren is confident they will be able to follow it a bit longer. He did pick up one thing or other during his bounty-hunting days after all...

Lycar

[The Bushranger]

Dani

Dani can't help but giggle a little at Darren's trying to wiggle out of being leader, but manages to become serious when he mentions settling down for the night.

Yeah, it is getting a little late, isn't it.
She starts looking herself, eyeing various spots with a moderatly-trained eye.

Spoiler

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Survival: (1d20+5)[6]

[mephassovar]

Kritios

Kritios takes a great interest in the decision making process. He completely understands the need for stealthiness and has a few ideas of his own, but prefers to watch, realising that he might betray his inexperience.

I'm glad this ectoplasmic armour doesn't make any noise. I can probably stay quiet if they ask me. I wonder where they'll choose to make camp? Will they want it to be camouflaged? I could help... Will they want it to look impregnable? Ooh that might work... A strong advance. I've an idea.

I'm sorry that I don't know much about the tactical implications of our approach, but I was wondering. Do we want to be unnoticed, so as to surprise the bandits? Will that work? They do live here after all and if they find us they might not stop until we're killed - they're probably expecting someone to come here and they might even know that there's a price on their heads.

If they're expecting us then we might want to seem stronger than we are. Or more numerous. We could scare them off with a bit of cleverness - I can do some fairly strange things to people and I'm sure some of you have abilities that you haven't shown yet. Maybe if Acama or Darren scout ahead we could make a decision based on that, but I'm not sure that stealth is going to work. They are bandits after all.

During this whole monologue, Kritios shifts about shyly as if he is worried that he might have the wrong end of the stick. Listening to him is not easy. His gestures don't seem natural - he smiles when he should be serious and vice versa.

[Fri]

Alex

"Or maybe, we think about this too much. Maybe they're just a bunch of lucky small time crooks that ended up in a dangerous ruin by chance. Maybe they're all dead now," says Alex as she prepares her bedroll.

"We'll know when we meet them. There's this legend I got from one of my travel.

Once upon a time, there was a mage who said to be prepared for anything. He prepared a counter for fire monsters, he prepared a defense for physical attack. He had a way to run very fast, he had a way to jump really high.

So one day he met a monk. The mage laughed at the seemingly weak monk but the monk just asked one question.

"They say you're prepared for anything but do you ever prepared yourself for death?" said the monk with his most wise-holy-zen voice.

The mage was so flustered by the question that he slipped on a banana peel (some says prepared by the monk using a 'summon-banana-peel wand' ) and died.

uh... Actually that mage was an idiot and it's a really stupid story, but you got the point."

[kentma57]

OOC: I'm back, sorry didn't have time to warn you but I was at camp over the weekend. You seem to be doing fine when you have picked a plan, you can move on.

[Lycar]

Darren

Darren listens to Alex, nodding slightly.

"Heh, that's not how I remember that story."

"Anyway, we still have 2 pr 3 days of travel in front of us. We have a lot of time to make up our minds. Hmm... hey, this place over there looks good enough to set up camp."

Darren goes ahead towards a small clearing in a small depression. Not ideal but as the weather seems to remain dry for the night, good enough.

So he puts down his backpack and pulls out a tent from one of the side pockets of his backpack. Which absolutely positivly could not fit in there.

Oh well, it's magic.

And so Darren goes about to set up his tent.

Lycar

[Fri]

Alex

"Yeah, I remember it had giant dire badger and there's an explosion somewhere on that story, but I forgot the details"

[Lycar]

Darren

Darren quirks an eyebrow.

".. uhm? Must be a different story then. Although the one I mean is also anout the foolishness of some wizard. Wanted to evade death, didn't work out quite as planned."

Darren just shrugs and finished setting up his tent.

Then he goes about to pull a blanket from his Hversack, carefully lays it out and then produces a tool kit from another side pocket.

He puts it down, opens it and removes some tools, a bottle of oil, a bottle of alcohol and some rags and carefully places them out in front of him.

After finishing his preparation, Darren produces two strange objects from below his coat, where they were hidden until now.

They look a lot like one of those hand-crossbows. Except, they are missing the 'bow' part. Instead, they are slightly longer and seem to have some kind of lever mechanism attached to them.

He proceeds to unscrew the back end of each of those devices and removes a spring out of every weapon (at least that is what you presume it is). The next step is to meticulously clean and oil the springs and the mechanics of the two devices.

After finishing this tasks, he re-assemles and puts them away under his coat again. Then he goes about to disassemble his mask. He takes out a sort of mesh, made from very fine strands of some strange metal and cleans that with the alcohol too, before reassembling the mask again and stowing away all his tools.

And finally, Darren takes out a piece of wood, that looks like a half-finished figure of a horse, and a carving knife and begins to silently and deliberately chip away at the wood.

Lycar

[mephassovar]

Kritios

Kritios volunteers to take the first watch in the night and stays up a little with Darren. Not fully understanding that Darren might not want to be disturbed, far less taught a lesson, Kritios takes his own tools and a piece of wood.

That's very interesting, Darren, but you need to improve your technique. Try longer and smoother strokes... that's good. Have you ever thought of soaking the wood first? I find wet carving can be a little easier.

He continues in this line until Darren goes to bed or tells him to leave him alone. Kritios has never had a pupil and he clearly enjoys the chance to pass on some of his skills.

It's so important to do it manually every so often - keeps me in touch with my materials.

[The Bushranger]

Dani

The small girl listens intently to Alex's story with a goofy grin, enjoying the tale as it helps the time and distance go past.

When they reach their campsite, she pulls a tent out of her own haversack and sets it up while quietly humming to herself. It might be noted that she selects a spot as far away from the campfire as she can safely be...

After munching on some cheese and offering to take the last watch before morning, she heads into her tent and slips into her bedroll, quickly falling asleep.

[Lycar]

Darren

That's very interesting, Darren, but you need to improve your technique. Try longer and smoother strokes... that's good. Have you ever thought of soaking the wood first? I find wet carving can be a little easier.

Darren looks at Kritios blankly for a moment, as if not sure how to react.
"I'm carving a statuette, not planing a table. Details need small cuts. And if you wet the wrong sort of wood, it warps."

"Besides, it's more of a hobby. Something to calm one's nerves and give your hands and fingers something to do."

Darren whittles away at his little statue a bit longer, silently. Then he volunteers some more information.

"I'm from a family of carpenters. Father is a carpenter, grandfather was a carpenter... you get the idea. I just was always very sickly as a child. Caughed a lot. We thought it was the sawdust. Well, turned out we were half right."

Darren looks up at Kritios "Do you have any idea just how much dust there is in a city? Or even a house? You think out here is dirty? People get hayfever from pollen, I don't mind. Some people get a rash from wood chips and sawdust. It doesn't bother me. But dust... it's everywhere in a house. A city is ... just... full of it! Everywhere! I can't get a single breath of clean air in a house. Outside maybe, in a small village, but a town? No chance. Do you think I'm wearing this mask for looks? I wish..."

Darren falls silent again and keeps on carefully carving away at his little statuette. Untill his watch is over and he climbs inside his tent to get some sleep.

Lycar

[kentma57]

Night falls on the party and a watch is established, conversations continue into the night(feel free to post them) and the night passes mostly without incident.

[The Bushranger]

Not entirely without incident...

As some time around midnight, those close to Dani's tent might become aware that she's at first talking in her sleep...

...then screaming.

[mephassovar]

Kritios

Kritios is not the sort that can hear a scream in the night and put it down to a bad dream. He wakes, sits bolt upright and quietly walks over to Dani's tent. Sticking his head in (with no thought for decency), he enquires,

Is everything alright, Dani? I heard you screaming and thought that something might have conquered your mind.

As is often the case in these situations, Kritios is innappropriately smiling.

[The Bushranger]

Dani

Dani is sitting bolt upright in bed, eyes wide and trembling, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
It was...a nightmare...I was being burned alive...

[mephassovar]

Kritios

Trying his very best to be sympathetic, Kritios attempts to soothe Dani

Now, Now... There's no need to be frightened. You're not on fire, I can assure you. Do you like chocolates? I think they tend to help people with nightmares.

Kritios performs the same trick as with the pole, but this time his open palm recieves a beautiful wooden box with a mother-of-pearl inlay.

Here you are. They won't make you put on weight, so feel free to eat them all.

Inside are some exotic tasting chocolates and fine confectionery. Kritios leaves the tent and returns to his own rest.

Spoiler

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Minor Creation can produce chocolates! They provide no sustenance (disappear after 5 hours) but surely that's an advantage. Sculpting check if required, is (d20+18)[33]