Ch.4: "The Endless Hunt" / Sardis Forest

[Legendary Sidekick]

"A few bumps and bruises, but don't worry about me." She looks down the road.

The sound of clopping hooves grows fainter by the second. Then there is a blue and orange flash, and a crash followed by the clattering of wood. A flaming wagon wheel rolls into view, then tips over.

Helix says to Kell, Remind me never to get a fairy angry. Them tiny ladies look so cute and helpless until they start burning things. Speaking of burning, we didn't think to bring a silver hammer to knock out the bossy wolf guy. It turns out fire works on him. It just works a little too well. I'm afraid you won't be able to question him, so make sure to keep one of your guys alive.

I'm on my way with the blonde nymph. She got a little singed and busted up in the crash, but Phœbe's taking care of her. See you in a bit.

Within seconds, Helix gallops into view with Amber on his back, Phœbe on his mane, and Sapphire flying at his side.

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn nods, then turns at a flash of blue and orange light. She watches the flaming wheel in bemusement, then sighs in relief as Helix gallops into view, carrying Phoebe and a blonde nymph. This must be Amber. There's no sign of Yankee the werewolf, which is slightly disappointing. She'd been hoping for one of the wolves to survive for questioning. Oh, well. At least this way none of them can hurt anyone anymore.

 

[tbgg]

Kelleia

Kell smiles and introduces herself to Amber. "I'm Kell and this is my friend Sigrlinn. The animal you're riding is Helix, and the two fairies are Sapphire and Phoebe. We're all friends. Do you by chance know what your kidnappers were up to? Did you happen to overhear anything while you were tied up?"

She tells Sigrlinn, "Helix says the fairies roasted the wolf boss. I guess fire is rather effective against them."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

After greeting and thanking our heroines, Amber says, "The wolves talked a lot, but made little sense. It sounded like they were involved in a prostitution ring, but I doubt it. If any of us are taken from Sardis, Artemis will know. She also knows when men enter the forest."

Dawn says, "But these men are in beast form. Maybe Artemis can't tell them apart from actual beasts unless she actually sees them. Or their tracks."

Eve says, "We can ask her later. Right now we need to find Beatrice and Candice."

Yankee's horse trots by with singed remains of wolf rump stuck to his saddle.

Amber says, "I wonder if the horse knows where they are."

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn shudders at the mention of a prostitution ring, thankful that that doesn't seem to be the case here. When Amber mentions the possibility of the horse knowing where the other two nymphs are, she smiles "I can help us find out, I think. But someone's probably going to have to carry me when we go."

She focuses on the horse and attempts to beast-speak it.

((I don't see a Beast-speaking option in the info thread, so I'm gonna assume for now that it's WIS.))

 

[tbgg]

Kelleia

Kell tells the nymphs by way of explanation, "She's going to try to beast-speak the wolves' horse to see if it knows anything about them. She's had rather interesting luck with it, in that she tends to get stuck in the animal for a bit. I understand that's not supposed to happen that often."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

((For consistency's sake, I'll only have you roll healing/damage for casting*, and make success/fail based on saves. That said, I haven't rolled the horse's save. Since you have no way of knowing what I'm doing with magic, I'll pretend your first die is like rolling the horse's save in reverse, so instead of you rolling 4 he rolled 0.

*Note that swinging a magic sword is STR/DEX and shooting a magic arrow is DEX/WIS, same as a normal sword or arrow, but those who cast those spells end up with better base damage when using the magic weapons.

EDIT - @tbgg, you reminded me. I really should have a way for the Huntress to get stuck on rare occasions. I do like her getting trapped in the beast's mind!))



Sigrlinn passes out. This seems to worry Artemis' nymphs, who rush to her aid and ask Kell if she was bitten by a wolf-man. Dawn notes there are no visible wounds.

As for Sigrlinn, she sees through the eyes of the horse. She attempts to learn from the horse's memory, but the horse's inability to understand speech distorts his memory.

"Blar blorg, Hoser. Mergy-up. Reeg rabble raw blargle nardle blarrr…"

While all but the horse's name is too distorted to make sense of, there is a memory of where the horse came from. In that memory, there is a shed with some tools, including ropes and shovels.

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn struggles to make sense of the words in the horse's memory, and decides to steer him back toward her and the nymphs. Maybe she can ride him back to the shed he seems to have come from and investigate things further.

 

[tbgg]

Kelleia

Kell assures the other nymphs, "Oh, this is quite normal for her when she beast-speaks. Basically, her mind is out of her body and with the wolves' horse right now. In the past when she's used this, we've been on a chase of some kind and I've been on the chase and either a bit behind or with her but not able to see her, but never back with her body. But I am told by those we traveled with that all that needed doing was watching her body and transporting it if there is a need to move."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

((@Ireth, no roll needed. If you stay connected with the horse, he won't make another will save unless he's spooked.
If you want to wake up and ride him as a person, which seems to be the case, that's fine. No roll needed for that either.

The DEX/ride is only if you do something fancy or you can opt to roll DEX/ride for a mounted attack, not that it benefits a Huntress with her base stats.))


"Oh," says Amber. "So I guess we, uh..."

Dawn and Eve attempt to take Sigrlinn's arms and legs, while Amber tries to support the huntress' body.

"Don't drop her," Dawn says.

"I won't, now that you told me," Eve replies with a smirk.

The three nymphs seem rather uncomfortable when handling Sigrlinn. They're not the doting, touchy-feely nymphs like most of the nicer ones in Nyse. Even the sarcastic remark from Eve came off as a harmless jest, not scathing and sardonic like the mean girls from the villa.

 

[tbgg]

Kelleia

Kell tells the nymphs, "I guess we wait for Sigrlinn to make her intentions clear to us. At times like these, I wish we had a cart we could load her into, though I'm not sure how Helix would feel about pulling it. At the very least, a pallet would be useful."

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn maintains her connection with the horse, watching through his eyes as they head back toward the nymphs. Hopefully they'll think to grab it and keep it from running once she pulls herself out of his head to let the others know of her intentions.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

The nymphs manage to lift Sigrlinn on top of the horse. Dawn is on the horse with her, awkwardly holding the huntress to make sure she won't fall off.

Dawn asks Amber, "What do I do now?"

Amber shrugs and asks Kell, "What DO we do now?"

Eve looks into the horse's eyes. "Are you in here, huntress?"

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn watches through the horse's eyes as the nymphs lift her unconscious body up onto his back, and one of the nymphs makes sure she doesn't fall. Another nymph speaks, but her voice is garbled. Sigrlinn decides now is a good time to pull herself back into her body. If she can.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Hoser seems bewildered by Eve's question. He whinnies.

Sigrlinn wakes up slumped over the horse and Dawn's lap.

"Oh," Amber says as the Huntress' eyes open. "She's awake!"

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn blinks and shifts slightly as she comes to, then smiles at the nymphs and straightens up. "Thanks for your help. I'm fine now. I looked into the horse's memories a bit -- he might head back to where he came from if I leave his mind alone now, and that might help us find your other two friends."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Amber says, "Lead the way, then."

Dawn asks, "Are you leading the way, or is the horse leading you, or...?"

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn pats the horse's neck. "It'll be him leading the way. All I got was an image of where he came from, not any sort of directions on how to get there."

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Sigrlinn is able to get the horse to move. Whether or not any of the nymphs used their charm to coax the animal into cooperating is unclear.

It takes about thirty minutes to get there, but our heroines soon see a crude shack in the forest, dimly lit by the orange glow of a campfire.

Sapphire took the liberty of flying ahead. She races back to Kell and Sigrlinn and says, "I don't know what to make of it. It's quiet inside the shack, and outside is an unattended fire. The flame is strong, so I doubt it's been burning for long."

 

[tbgg]

Kelleia

Kell asks Sapphire, "Did you actually look inside the shack, or just fly above it for a while and watch? What exactly did you do when you were here earlier? I think knowing that would help me to figure out what to recommend next."