Pursuing the Exiled Prince - Game Thread

[gryffydd65]

"Well met in deed minstrel. Will you break fast with us? All I have to share is venison . We seek news from your travels." Zand says as he puts the knife away and lets the sack fall to the ground.

Cara sits down and unpacks the little bit of food she managed to find. "Tell us about yourself kind sir." Cara says with a smile.

[Tibbius]

The traveling man introduces himself as Honore, a merchant of Angleae who is on the road from Cumry to Ogon. He mentions that when he left Cumry, just a couple of days south and east from here, there was a bit of gossip about a half-naked northerner with a big sword who walked into the town proclaiming himself a prince. Most people thought he was crazy and few took notice or did anything about it. Last that Honore knew of the matter, the so-called prince had gotten a room at the Paddling Duck inn and was looking for employment.

"And what is your news from the north?" asks Honore. That is an indirect way of asking why Zand and Cara are in the southern highlands.

[gryffydd65]

"Our prince Cal Arath, of the Northlands, has been exiled by the usurpers who murdered his father and stole his throne. We are all that is left of his household. We are looking for our prince so we can join him and help him gather an army so he can win his crown again. " Cara says as Zand nods. " Thank you for the news. We might find him soon."

[Tibbius]

Honore seems both impressed and a little bit amused. "The lords of the highlands are not likely to welcome an exiled flatland prince," he says. "Good luck to you! Are you in a hurry to continue to Cumry, or will you stay the evening and eat with me?"

There is time to make some distance further across the hills before sunset, and with Honore's guidance you have a decent chance of finding Cumry in the open moor south and above the hills. Do you continue or camp at the cave?

[gryffydd65]

We camp here and share our food. Zand sleeps closest to the man keeping Cara safe.

[Tibbius]

It rains again that evening. Water drips onto rock and dirt at the entrance of the cave, at first making it hard to sleep then becoming a comforting background noise that makes sleep deeper than usual. The pack mule drowses just inside the cave, its warm animal smell adding comfort.

Around daybreak the weather clears. In the shadow of the hill outside the cave it is cool, the bright green grass is damp and the dirt muddy. The merchant begins to load his mule. "I'm headed west," he says. "There is a little track marked by white rocks, going around this side of the hill and onward to Cumry. My path lies the other way - there is my next marker at the top of that hill."

Do you follow the path southeast to Cumry, or go east, or head south, or go west with the merchant?

[gryffydd65]

"Till we meet again. May the wind always be at your back. " Cara calls out. Zand waves and then rearranges his pack.

" Come the town of Cumry can't be far. Maybe more luck will shine upon us. " Zand says leading the way.

[Tibbius]

You travel day-long without much happening. The earth and grass gradually dry in the sunshine, staying damp on the shadowed northern faces of the hills. Eventually, late in the afternoon, the ground begins to level out; you have reached a green and gray moorland of shrubs and grasses and soft damp soil that descends very gently from your present position toward the south and east. To the southeast, plumes of white smoke mark the horizon. Cumry? It looks like another day's walking to get that far, so it probably is time to make camp.

As you settle in to eat your dinner, clouds roll up from the southwest and a light rain starts falling. You're exposed on flat ground, no real cover to be found. What do you do?

[gryffydd65]

"Well Cara, it's going to be a wet night, we need to huddle together to keep warm. No fire tonight, maybe we can get a hot meal when we get to the town." Zand says trying to keep their spirits up.

[Tibbius]

Cara exposure [1d6] = 1
Zand exposure [1d6] = 1[1d6] = 3
clear? [1d6] = 1 [1d6] = 3

Despite your best efforts to huddle for warmth, the rain soaks and chills you to the bone and you awaken shivering and coughing in a cold pre-dawn under a lowering grey-black sky.

-1 Toughness: Zand Toughness 5; Cara Toughness 2

The air is thick with rain, visibility short and directions hard to judge without the guidance of the sun. Do you put the hills to your back to head roughly southeast, continue kind of east along the feet of the hills, or do something else?

[gryffydd65]

We head out to the south east, looking for the plumes of smoke that we had seen yesterday. " Come Cara , we are almost there. Let's hope our luck changes. " Zand says as he heads out .

[Tibbius]

It is a chilly morning and you shiver in the light breeze. The rain dwindles as you walk generally away from the hills. As the air clears, visibility improves. You see first that you are off-course and need to veer left to reach the smoke plumes, which again stand against the sky. A few minutes later, you see a group of small figures a mile or more in the distance, well to the right of the smoke plumes. You count a dozen of them, one significantly larger than the others. They may be armed.

Do you approach, hide, or ignore the others and continue to Cumry?

[gryffydd65]

Zand waits a few minutes trying to determine if they are in horseback and if he can see any sun glinting off exposed armor or weapons. "Well Cara, I have a feeling we may have a need for your gift of gab. Let us proceed towards the group, if they are friendly our luck is good and if they are not, well we could never hope to sneak by nor do we want to be tracked liked dogs. So head held high and when we are close enough sing a lullaby that might help with their manners."

Cara looked at Zand "I have sung many a little one to sleep, let's see if I can tame the wild beast if I have too."

[Tibbius]

The distant figures are walking, like you, but they are headed off to your right away from Cumry and away from you. They have their backs to you and show no interest in turning around. It would take some running and yelling to get their attention; it probably would not be hard to leave them behind you. It is a cloudy morning and there is no bright sunlight to glint on metal, even if they were wearing or carrying metal.

[gryffydd65]

We continue on just watching them as we continue to the town. "Well we were lucky, if that is our prince, we should be able to track them easy enough and if it wasn't then maybe we got lucky trouble hasn't found us." Zand says looking toward the town.

[Tibbius]

You arrive at the outskirts of Cumry late in the afternoon, when the sky has cleared and the warm sun casts long shadows to your left side and ahead. First there are little huts with gardens around them, people working the gardens, and a dirt road going along among the huts. Then there are stones paving the road; then reeking gutters along the sides, and then fifty yards later the first real town buildings.

The buildings of Cumry are two and three stories high, wooden structures with the upper stories overhanging at all sides so that the alleys between the buildings are nearly covered and the gutters along the main street run right under the overhangs. Sporadically along the gutters there are piles and puddles of waste dumped or fallen from the upper stories. However, last night's rain washed most of that away, so the smell is not too strong.

The main street ends at a central square surrounded by shops and inns. You easily identify the Paddling Duck, above the door there is a board cut in the silhouette of a swimming fowl and painted bright yellow.

As you stand at the edge of the square, watching the people moving about between the open shopfronts, a puff of multicolored smoke arises from next to the big well at the center of the square. As the smoke swirls upward and dissipates, you recognize a young man wearing scholarly robes. It is Clever Aveus, the apprentice to old Ventus the court wizard. Ventus was beheaded by the usurpers, but Aveus must have escaped!

What do you do?

[Tibbius]

By the way - Zand and Cara both get 1 XP each for surviving the troll, and another 1 XP for surviving the night when Cara got lost. 2/5 toward your first advancements!

[UselessBlob]

Aveus the Clever waves the smoke away from his face and coughs. "Well, that was less pleasant than I thought it would be. Note to self, teleportation spells smell like a goat struck by lightning. Now where the blazes am I?" he asks nobody in particular. He takes out a heavy book and pages through it, muttering something about maximum distances and a bad ham sandwich.

[gryffydd65]

Cara rushes over to the familiar face. Zand watches horrified as Cara gives Aveus the Clever a hug. "Oh Aveus, a familiar face, how did you get hear? Have you seen the prince, tell us about your trip." She realizes that Zand wasn't standing next to her. "Zand, come over here, it's Aveus the Clever. Surely you have seen his performance. "
Zand slowly walks over still unsure of himself as a town always made him uncomfortable. "Hello I am Zand, hunter and sheriff of the prince's forests."

[UselessBlob]

Aveus was taken aback by the sudden human contact. The woman who was hugging him looked vaguely familiar, possibly a bard that was at the court when the coup happened. He didn't have any recollection of her companion, but if he really was a ranger then that made perfect sense. Wizards would never go outside unless they absolutely had to.

With flushed cheeks he extricates himself from her grasp and responds. "Um, I've been hiding in the dungeons this past... week? There aren't any windows there, I have no idea how long it's been. Anyway, I scried for the Prince's location, but rat's blood and bread mold don't make for the best ritual. I only know that he either is in this area now, or was until very recently. What do you know of his whereabouts?"

[gryffydd65]

Cara starts the tale involving the troll, being lost in the woods and finding the merchant. "So anyways we see a group of men walking away from here and one of the men is taller than the rest. I can't recall just how tall our prince is, can you?" Cara asks the wizard.
Zand shakes his head. "I've only really dealt with him when he was on horse back. "

[UselessBlob]

Aveus rubs his barely-there beard in contemplation.

"Hmm... he's taller than me, I know that, but I never had a reason to know exactly how much taller. A hand, maybe a hand and a half. Wait, why didn't you get a better look? It wouldn't be that hard to tell whether or not they are our consistently shirtless prince. Oh well, what's done is done. Let us investigate the inn."

[Tibbius]

Entering the inn and making inquiries, you find the folk in there are fairly friendly even in spite of your foreign flatland accents. One of the toothless drunkards sitting near the door calls out to you in his slurred voice: "Hey! Are you with that big burly shirtless fellow?"

[gryffydd65]

Cara curtsey at the man. "Why yes I believe it maybe, do you know which way he might of went?"
Zand keeps an eye out for you never know if trouble will find you.

[UselessBlob]

Aveus quietly fidgets behind them, afraid that one of those "bar fight" things might break out at any moment. As a second son of minor nobility, Aveus never had any reason to enter such an establishment, and as a wizard's apprentice he spent all of his time at the castle or the laboratory. This is the furthest from either that he has been in years.

[Tibbius]

The old man laughed. An odor of sour whiskey rolled from his mouth, augmenting the similar reek from his skin. "He's off with Jenkins Black," he said. "On a job I reckon. Best be careful or the watch'll have him, quick as a knife."

[gryffydd65]

"Who's this Mr.Black? We need to find him and our prince. Please kind sir, help a lass out." Cara says trying to charm the man.

Zand starts to get nervous when the knife part is mentioned. He unconsciously slids his hand near his own knife.

[Tibbius]

Cara being charming [1d6] = 6[1d6] = 1[1d6] = 3

The old man looks warily at Cara. But her charming voice and mannerisms affect him. With a toothless grimace, he says "I reckon can't do much harm for a couple more foreigners to visit Black. He might be glad to have the three of you, anyway. Here's how you get to his place -" and he gives simple directions to a "warehouse by the river."

What do you do?

[UselessBlob]

Aveus butts in with a "Great, thank you, let's go!" and drags both Cara and Zand outside. Once at a sufficient distance, he quietly but harshly berates Zand for making a threatening move. "What were you doing you fool? Everyone knows those kinds of people are itching for a fight! You could have gotten someone stabbed!"

[Tibbius]

You have directions to a warehouse by a river, where the prince is supposed to be preparing for something shady. What do you do?