Rollohi-ep31-script

Prologue

 It is night of day 3 of waxing crescent for six of the party. In the halfling village Cied has resisted temptation. Pod has felt reassured and the pair are keen to get to irontown and report.  

 

We stay with the main body. 

31.1 

 

Victory, but the forester's lodge is something of a ruin on one wall. Xantu brushes off the offer of healing, saying that it will mend itself. 

"We should rest a short while then once the horses are fit to move, try to find the halflings" 

"Wait!" - Kylie 

"What is it?!" Jack, popping back from organizing the ropes 

"Burnt ant guts... wards off more ant attacks.. carve the other parts..." 

"Wait! This sounds..." 

"If we can do it quick 

..." 

"Umbert! See if you can get the fire going!" 

"Hah let a dwarf see to fire!" 

 

The party becomes animated. With no Pod to sound a fearful tone, they work hard despite the dark and cold. There are consequences. Ingle Umbert and the bruised Xantu take a hp damage and they have a 1 point penalty to activity. 

How ever that be, the ant ash is laid around the lodge in a wide circle then the three exhausted fall deeply asleep.  

The other three come up wth a plan so crazy it just might work. 

If kylie wears both elf boots and cloak  she could potentially journey safely to the halfling vilage, and guide the other two here. Kylie: no, it has to be you Jack. 

Jack Faints in shock. When he comes to, he is wearing both cloak and boots. 

"You need to get moving. I dare say the halflings might be on the road early." 

"What if they left late and I've missed them?" 

 

"That's where we girls come in. We ride north and cut the road. They could not have made that trip on ponies in such a quick time" 

 

Jack wastes no time on monologs or thanks. Instead he holds out his hand in friendship, eryn shakes it as a fellow warrior, then he turns and runs. 

Lost: no but he has to pick his way carefully.  

He travels four leagues. Two encounters. 

Enc 1 neutral (7) range 160 enc 2 indifferent (9) range 200 

They are tiger beetles, not noticing, and  a Wyvern, far too busy going somewhere. 

 

Does jack intercept wully pod and Cied? Yes 

 

Jack warns Wully about the iron town disaster. Wully has a thought. If he stays with them, he can present his plea to viscount Yhibh Espeque. Does he? Yes and is quite ready for some discomfort. 

 

Knowing the 2 girls are to the east, does Jack advocate heading on? Yes but there needs a fair debate first. 

 

Cied: yes but if Jack calculates they will have already gone south then no. 

Pod: yes 

Wully: yes 

 

So the four go the wrong way. The road will take them east with no chance of getting lost. But first, they will need to go north or noreast.  

Enc check: yes. Human. Is it the girls? Yes but only after Kylie goes. 

"Hoi ho! EEERRYYNNNN!" 

 

(If they do so, will they see Eryn and Kylie? Yes and link after Kylie leaves Eryn) 

 

Now to explain that, we need to skip across time and go back to look at Eryn and Kylie after they parted ways.

 31.2

Let's just check in with our two heroic lasses as leaving a crude note for the snoring trio they ride north.  

No encounter. They hit the west road to irontown at dawn or a little after, on 4th  

Waxing Crescent. At this same hour the halflings are trotting away from halfling village and Jack is just about a league out southeast of it. After an hour those four will meet and decide to try heading nor-nor-east 

 

 

The girls see noone and ride slowly west before looping around, through low lying lands, back south west.  

Another (possibly final) encounter check, but this ties a bit closer to those ancient lost ways... no but as they ride, it feels to Kylie that she has traveled this way before. 

"Have you seen something? Is something there?"  

"A road, a gate, a lofty hall or avenue tall grown with flowers.." Eryn, I may once have seen this, right here " 

"I know elves are very old, but those are just gills and dales" 

I think Kylie has had quite a lot of self-knowledge recently. Does she open up Yes. 

"<laughs> Eryn... I'm probably only a few years your senior. But it's as though I remember earlier... lives I suppose" 

"Oh. Ok" 

Does Kylie act on this feeling? Yes and 

"I'm headed in " 

"For how long?" 

"This needs to be done afoot. Lead my horse over to the lodge and return in... three watches." 

"Uhhh... let me mark this place... so, that lone bluff with the grey strike... that stand of trees... alright, I'll meet you here again in three watches" 

Kylie has slid off her saddle and takes some gear from the saddlebag, then with barely a wave walks away. 

 

Singing softly and sadly to the horses, Eryn organizes saddlebags. But as we know it is barely minutes later, the halflings and Jack hail her. 

So let's see where Kylie goes. 

 

Has Kylie discovered a complete and unified path up into the plateau? No and nothing like that. Has she emerged more than a league farther? No. Has she found evidence of ancient civilization? No but she walked along sylvan ways. Does she have to go back the way she came? No. Has she attained any benefit at all? No. 

 

Secure in her own fighting ability Kylie is taking a monster risk if you'll pardon the pun. Encounter: no. 

Chance of forage: yes and plenty.  

Getting lost: no. She forages and waits for Eryn. 

 

Second watch as she waits: 

Eryn is on the trail left by Jack: no encounter and is more or less tracking Jack successfully. Since she was instructed to "meet" Kylie she isn't surprised to see her. 

31.3

Let's pop back to the weary three. Do they get a clear two-watch sleep? No. One watch? Yes but dawn chorus and a visitor. 

Does the forester turn up? Yes. Male, prime of life, unattractive but not unpleasant. 

**** 

The Forester: Ouzi 

The forester, Ouzi, was built like an oak stump—stocky and low to the ground, with a face that seemed to have been carved with a dull knife. His nose was a bit crooked, his jaw perpetually slack, and he had the slightly sad, distant eyes of someone who spent more time looking at trees than people. His clothes, smelling faintly of pine pitch and damp earth, were patched but clean, and his movements were quiet and deliberate, betraying an unassuming competence. He was, by no measure of the word, handsome, but he possessed a simple, earthy calmness that made him not at all unpleasant to be around. He was the sort of person you might forget you'd met until you suddenly found yourself leaning on his steady silence. 

OUZI's Baron and the Missing Foresters 

Ouzi serves Baron Yves Jhorne, a man known less for his wisdom and more for his petty greed and obsession with appearances. Baron Jhorne views his forest not as a valuable resource or a wilderness to be respected, but as a giant, green vault for timber and game. 

The Baron's Neglect 

Baron Jorne's interests lie in courtly intrigue and hosting lavish (and expensive) feasts, not in the mundane logistics of his woodland. He has always seen foresters as little more than simple peasants, easily replaced. 

 * The Budget Cut: When Baron Jorne's spending outpaced his income (a frequent occurrence), the first thing he did was drastically cut the number of foresters to two, then one—ouzi. He simply decided that ouzi was "strong enough for the work of three." 

 * The Illusion of Safety: The Baron firmly believes in the absolute safety of his domain. To admit there are monstrous giant ants capable of killing his men would be to admit weakness and disorder, and it might even damage the price he can charge for the lumber. Therefore, any disappearance is quietly dismissed as "desertion" or "accidental drowning." He simply refuses to acknowledge the danger. 

The Missing Men 

You are right to suspect the ants! Ouzi has no help because the giant ants got the others. 

Ouzi was originally part of a team of three. About a month ago, the forest's patrol routes began to take on a strange quiet. 

 * First, the Trapper: Gareth, the team's youngest, vanished while checking snares on the swamp edge. The Baron's steward declared he "ran off with a milkmaid." Ouzi, however, found a peculiar, acidic scorch mark on a tree trunk near Gareth's last known location. 

 * Then, the Chief Forester: Master Tobin, a gruff but experienced woodsman, disappeared a week later after trying to find Gareth. Ouzi found a disturbingly large, chitinous leg fragment partially buried in the moss near the giant oak, a find he carefully hid and has shown to no one. 

Ouzi knows the Baron will not help, nor will he believe him. He is alone, trapped between an indifferent, vain lord and the creeping, hungry expansion of a horrifyingly intelligent insect colony. 

Does ouzi decide to continue serving the Baron, or is this the moment he decides to strike out on his own? 

 

Right, time for a+2 reaction on meeting our three sleeping beauties. 

 

7 total!? Oh dear this may not be the potential new friend or party member I thought. 

 

"What have you done?!!!!" 

"Hello there! We were attacked by ants" 

"The idea of running away never occurred to you?!" 

"They were on us so quickly,  appearing from nowhere" 

This gives Ouzi pause.  'From nowhere' is how his comrades got taken. 

 

"I'm guessing you're adventurers" 

"And these are our horses. We defended your lodge from..." 

"defended... my... lodge..." 

"Well... defended ourselves. We could easily all have been killed. We're waiting for the others." 

A reasonably short time later, Ouzi and the adventurers have jury-rigged a wall, and Ouzi is assisting the three to rig a outsize saddle bag arrangement to carry the ant thorax and abdominal armor in.  

"Now masters, I've done right by you. How about searching out the nest? I've lost my two comrades and my master doesn't wish to help" 

Ouzi fills in the blanks.  

But Umbert has some bad news for him. 

"I can make some estimates or even use some of this charcoal on this wall..." 

"My wall" 

"And show you. Even granted all four archers could loose it will take around ten minutes of solid fighting to kill even one of those behemoths. We got lucky. Again. And Xantu - how are the ribs? Really?" 

"Painful."  

"So one front liner badly hurt in less than five minutes. No, the math makes it impossible. Now, if we find something like a charm, or an infinite fire, we could do something..." 

"Wait, though." This is xantu. "We're not more than twice a days march from lake town. And we know a party of graybeards that can take on monster ants." 

Has ouzi heard of them? No and assumes Xantu is just fobbing him off 

"Bah, if you can't help, at least don't bother with a fancy yarn" 

Xantu drops his hand to his hammer.. but it's not there. He isn't geared up yet. 

"I'll pretend to misunderstand you, boy, but dont test me" 

Ingle points a stern finger "Listen, we are doing you a favor. Who do you work for again? Jorne was it? We are in good standing with Viscount Yhibh Espeque. Indeed we travel there. We will add this mission to our appeal." 

 

Ingle seems to be intending to go to the viscount.  But that's not the case. This is a lie, a false trail. It is a step towards Chaos for the cleric.