[WFRP2e] The Power of One - Part 1 - "In Sterquiliniis Invenitur"

[MrAbdiel]

Your night eyes are good, but daylight is better - just the ability to see if long distances and not encounter gloom or tunnel corners is refreshing and new, and these hours, you decide, ought to be spent in an effort at foraging both for something to eat and a place to rest.

Your first effort is to follow the birds. Birds have nests, and perhaps eggs; but there are too many of them, too scattered, for your eats to track any to nests. The ones you're able to follow are the peering, conversational voyeurs who reveal nothing; and are beyond your equipped ability to catch. You make an effort to try to nab a fish, too; leaning over the edge of the stream, even calf deep in it; trying to snatch with your hands and stab with your knife; but the effort is for nought.

Pacing the immediate area looking for a place to rest in relative safety, your eyes do come across something unusual. First it seems to be a small rock, barely worth noticing - but it rests in the elbow of a curled tree root, and the contrast of the loose object to the bark draws you closer. It's not much, once you pluck it into your palm and look over it; apparently, a snarl of dried plant roots no bigger than your smallest finger. But the natural knotting of the roots have formed an odd shape - a clear semblance of a closed first, with index and middle fingers up, crossed. It strikes you as significant, somehow; and you have no trouble binding it up in one of the tattered flaps of your rags.

Spoiler: OOC:

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You're going to be hungry, tonight - we'll roll that soon. But you do gain 1 Lucky Charm.

As the sky shifts from blue to dark blue to black-blue above you, your search for shelter seems to pay off - the earth beside the stream here rises up into a tree-capped hillock, and in its side beneath an arch of roots is an entrance to an earthen cave that certainly would avoid much of the night's chilling wind. A mucky, cloying odor wafts from within - perhaps something has died, within - but it might be worth chancing for the shelter alone.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Want to investigate the cave, or take your chances spending your first night above ground more exposed?

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

Though the hunger stirred within her belly, Nameless found it impossible to be angry. She walked along that bank, the blue river flowing beside her, the sweet chorus of nature her sole companion as she wandered in the cradle of surface beauty. To think such a place was even possible after dwelling within the bowels of the earth for so long, a verdant paradise of trees, birds and water and that she might walk among it for even a moment, let alone the rest of her life.

Pursing her lips, nodding and drawing in that clean, pine-scented air, Nameless determined that should the gutter runners come for her, she'd go down swinging. There was no chance she would return to that pit in the ground, no second longer she would endure the custody and bondage of the ratmen. She was born on the surface and she would die on the surface.

It was during this rumination that Nameless' attention was drawn up to the branches above her, the offshoots of the tree trunks that swayed gently like fans with bodies of green leaves catching the wind. It was a beautiful image in and of itself, but dotted through the foliage were black birds, their feathers catching the light of the sun as their heads jerked about in sharp and sudden movements. One cawed. Another returned. Those black eyes peering and beholding, before dark wings spread and the animals took flight as a murder.

Grinning at what she saw, Nameless held up her right hand and scooped it through the air, index finer an thumb outstretched to mimic the image of a bird soaring through the wind. To be up there, with wings, choosing where to go and when to leave, the ultimate freedom.

When nightfall crept across the pinetops of the forest, Nameless was peering curiously at the fist-shaped root she had retrieved, her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed in contemplation.

Bah! She would figure it out later. Perhaps it would bring her luck. Or maybe someone would trade her something for it. Or maybe the ability exchange it for food and clothes was the luck?

Seeing that cave buried into the roots of the tree, Nameless smiled and entered, having no qualms about the scent. It wasn't any worse than where she came from. And this was her cave.

[MrAbdiel]

You wander in; the earth soft and mossy beneath your feet. It's not a deep cave - maybe thirty feet in, before it hooks left for a slow curve of another thirty to a final corner. There are small bones, littered about; but no large ones, which is comforting. If whatever lived here dined on small creatures, it could not be so dangerous.

Or so one might think. The stench grows more ripe as you venture in - but then you hear the rhythmic breathing as you reach the last corner. Cautiously, you poke your head around the earthen corner.

Reclining in a dried mudpit, sleeping with inapproachable peace of mind, is a monster. It's as big - perhaps bigger - than the rat ogres you once had to feed; covered head to toe in grey-blue rubbery skin, with webbing between its fingers and toes. Warm, reeking air rolls off it as it snoozes; and seeing it, with its huge tusks and teeth, you conclude that the reason there are small bones scattered about is because such a creature must eat the big bones; and the small ones are merely those that slip from its clumsy hands.

The little knife in your hand feels pitifully small, against such a monstrosity - you feel supremely unconfident on delivering a killing blow against such a thing, even as it sleeps.

But there is detritus, scattered nearby it. Perhaps... it has left more than tiny bones. Perhaps, something that could be of use.

Spoiler: OOC

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Wuh-oh.

Your choice. If you want to retreat from this place right away, give me a Silent Movement roll at +20%.

If you want to search around the den on your tiptoes before you sneak out, give me a Silent Movement roll at +0%.

Heads up - fate points refresh after an IC night's rest. Don't be afraid to use 'em.

EDIT: You may, of course, attempt to solo the troll.

[BananaPhone]

Nameless


Nameless stood there, feet compressing against the soft mud, her eyes as wide as nickels as she beheld that...thing.

She backed up immediately and left the cave. She then walked quite quickly along the river bank, her body given wings and any sense of duress from the elements oddly supressed.

[MrAbdiel]

It's probably best you spotted the cave and investigated it - you dare not imagine what might have happened if you hadn't, and had instead just camped nearby, within its hunting ground.

With careful steps, you extricate yourself from the cave without waking the beast - and then once outside, make haste away from the den.

When the adrenaline wears off, you find the next best shelter you can - a hollow log, easilly enough swept of bugs - and curl up inside. It's not much less comfortable than the stony floor of your old cell, and the cold night wind still reaches out to chill your skin; but after the flight from the assassins, and the travel through the woods, and the brush with the monster back there, you are so, so tired.

Spoiler: OOC:

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It's not the safest option, but it might have to do. If you want to stay awake through the night so not to become vulnerable, you can do so - You'll take an accruable -10% to all tests that might be impacted by fatigue, and you'll be able to roll me a Perception test (+0%).

If you'd like to take your chances and sleep, you take no penalty; and need make no perception test.

Either way, give me a Toughness Test (+20%) to avoid infection on your wound. Your resistance to disease does apply.

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

With the night chewing at her skin, Nameless could not help but drift off to sleep. She had been awake for longer than 24 hours, survived a deadly encountered with gutter runners, watched her surrogate father die, buried him, barely avoided an encounter with a troll and won her freedom. It had been a long day.

To sleep...perchance to dream!

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: You Dream.

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The rats, in their grand throng; in their unholy place. They dance, they caper; you at the fringes, try to get away up through a tunnel in the ceiling... but it's too slippery, and you slide back down. Furry clawed hands grab your ankles, and your wrists, and pass you over the top of their mob down the pit, down the layers of the assembled creatures, down to the pit of blood and slit throat corpses. One of them grips your hair; you feel a flash of heat on your throat...

You wake. The world melts back into your senses. You are above ground. You ran. You escaped. Rashabang died - or atleast, fell, and fled, perhaps to curl up and die somewhere else. But you're here. You're alive. You're free. A shard of sunlight is cutting through a crack in the log, warming your neck; providing the phantom sensation from your dream. You brush some curious ants and beetles off your skin and pull yourself free of the log, stretching and taking in the breeze of another mild, and quiet day under the sun. You drink from the stream. You feel your stomach growl.

Your first day free taught you that preferable as it is to be up here, you are not yet safe. Perhaps, today, you will get a little closer to leveraging freedom towards safety.

Spoiler: OOC:

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It was a chilly night, but you warm as the morning comes; and your wound doesn't seem to be getting infected. Recover one wound from the night's rest.

What now? Upstream from you is the troll cave; downstream a mystery. Away from the stream, away from the mountains and the rising sun, deeper woods - but woods without a stream of water, your one precious discovery so far.

Do you want to keep travelling, or try your luck spending a chunk of the day foraging? You aren't particularly skilled in it - but there's no way to succeed at it without rolling!

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

Nameless woke up and dragged herself from the wooden confines of the log, her little protective cylinder having been her first bed as a free woman. Or girl. She didn't know the difference.

Nor did care! Her stomach growled, but she had been hungry before. She had awoken when she wanted to. She stood and looked out upon the beautiful morning of light and sunshine cresting the pine-tops and filling the valley, reflecting off the stream and warmly kissing her skin.

She smiled.

Setting herself to the task of continued travel, Nameless returned to the riverbank and once more continued down its length. To venture into the unknown woods was perilous. The water was her source of life and cleanliness. If she wandered off and got lost in the pines, then she would be dead within days. Best stick to the river.

[MrAbdiel]

Pine might very well be the only tree whose name you know - but as you observe while travelling, the trees here are very different to those in the far north. There are some with that familiar scent, but not the steepling shape; they weave narrow trunks into the air and then a haphazard balloon of branches and needles near the top. And other trees all around are different entirely, with all kinds of shapes of leaves. But they appear, atleast, to be in regrowth; healthy and surging with life, having recovered from a great abandonment of leaves which crunch soft under your feet.

A couple of hours of travel following the stream takes you, finally, to something new:

Some kind of campsite, here; modest, or even poor; but someone has dwelled here. A rickety tent made of scrubby, badly skived hides stretched over branches leaning in a pyramid formation sits in front of a circle of stones, surrounding a pit of ash. A cluster of fish bones, and a pair of chewed-on fish heads, lie discarded in the fire pit. The ground around the tent looks to have been purposefully cleared - and there's no sign or sound of its owner, or owners.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Gadzooks! Signs of life!

Give me a Search check (+20%, for the fine and fair conditions) to scour around the campsite for useful things.
Give me also a visual perception check, at flat, to keep an eye out.

[BananaPhone]

Nameless


Nameless' ducked down instinctively when she saw the campsite, her fight or flight instincts kicking in immediately. Trying to hide herself in the bushes as best she could, the teenage waited for as long as curiosity would allow, before slowly emerging and cross the distance between herself and the cantonment.

Pursing her lips, eyes swiveling about as she remained sharp for wherever the owner of this place may be, the towering human slowly crept about on a hair-trigger, her knife in hand, but not yet wielded menacingly - rather just there, 'in case'.

She started by counting the number of bedrolls, followed by the number of used cooking utensils. That should give her a good indication of how many where here or nearby.

[MrAbdiel]

You pick through the camp site, doing your best to determine the occupants from what you find.

No utensils at all. Cooking over this fire has been done by putting a stick into a fish's mouth and putting the fish over the fire. No bedrolls - a heap of damp, moldy grass has been piled up inside the tent as ground matting. It smells of sweat, and urine. You have no tracking skill - but there are two rocks pulled up, beside the fire. This tells you atleast two people use this camp at a time - though perhaps the rocks are for two keeping watch, while others sleep? You can't say for sure. But it doesn't look like an army has been here - a small group, for sure.

Searching in the immediate area, you find several different locations where dung is piled up until appalling little mounds. But, fortunately, that's not all.

Behind the camp, shrouded by the big fan-shaped leaves of a tree-hugging vine is a heavy wooden trunk. You can't imagine carrying it with you - or rather, you can, because forced labor has been your life - but you imaging it would be not much different to forced labor, and that isn't very inviting. It is well made, though clearly the lid and sides have been viciously attacked and chipped with weapons in a clumsy attempt to open it. A fat iron lock build into its front remains smugly fast; its keyhold stuffed with broken sticks from various idiotic attempts to pick it. Lacking a way to open it yourself, after inspecting it, you cover it back up - but take note of the leafy vine behind which it hides.

In addition, behind the tent within arm's reach from beneath its rear face, you brush aside some of that matted grass and find a wooden 'lid', beneath which is a cavity dug in the ground. Nestled within it is a leather satchel; what once might have been a fine, rose stained bag before it has seen a great deal of irreverent use. Within it are its owners few belongings they did not see fit to take with them, wherever they are - and judging by the faintest traces of heat in the fire pit, they left earlier today; and probably intend to come back.

Within, you find a length of firm, waterproof string wrapped around a grooved wooden circle and a fist sized, leather pouch with a few compartments housing different J shaped hooks. A handful of desiccated red mushrooms, wrapped in a torn square of cloth. A necklace adorned with the small, cleaned skulls of birds, and rats. Another leather pouch, this one containing seven copper coins embossed with symbols you don't recognize; each of those coins grimy with the obsessing fondling of dirty hands. A leather bound tome, its title glittering in gold-leaf characters you never learned to decipher; half of its hand-inked pages torn out... perhaps for kindling? A wooden pipe, engraved with a poorly rendered, abstract form of a busty woman gyrating in dance on one side. Two worn stones of different shades, that seem to have been clashed together over and over. A clay jug, with a cork stopper - out of which a desperate spider escapes and scuttles off, when you pop it open. Finally, a scuffed brass tube engraved mysteriously, a little more than a hand long. It has seams, and ridges, and the marks of artifice - perhaps some kind of grenade?

Looking up from your find to make sure no one else has turned up to disturb you, you make a note that the the grass that leads away from this camp has some marks of wear from repeated travel. This is the first 'path', or close to it, that leads away from the stream that you could theoretically follow away from this camp, or back to it. It seems likely that whoever uses this camp frequently, perhaps daily, travels out that way.

Spoiler

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You can drag the chest around, if you want - but it's going to slow you right the hell down. But you can take any or all of...

1 Slingbag
1 Handful of Mushrooms
1 Fishing Reel (Good Quality)
1 Animal Skull Necklace
2 Leather Pouches (Small)
1 Cloth Scrap
1 Book (damaged)
1 Wooden Pipe
1 Flint and Steel (Poor Quality)
1 Clay Jug (1 Gallon)
1 Brass Oddity
1 Large tent (Poor Quality)
7 Pennies

After that, you ought to decide what to do now. You can continue following the stream; or you can follow the trail to see where it goes, and perhaps learn who you are stealing from... Or atleast what's worth leaving this stuff behind to seek after.

[BananaPhone]

Nameless


Nameless perused the makeshift campsite, her mind already piecing things together and forming a coherent story in her mind. At first, the idea of them returning and, potentially attacking her, was not desirable. However, by now the teenager had become desensitized to violence. She had seen plenty as a slave to the Skaven, not just from them but among her own collared kind. Being a girl of rather attractive features, she had had to fight off more than one mad or desperate creep that wanted some desperate relief from his suffering. Likewise, there had been the poison globe incident, and the other with the warpstone into the belly of that rat that had attacked her. She was not shy about violence.

But she didn't want to attack these two fellows. From what she could gather, they were thieves, or brigands living on the fringe of society. They had stolen, or acquired, that well-made chest and that they had attempted to bash it open implied strongly that it was not theirs. Likewise, no cooking utensils, the barest of camping amenities, no real path to the camp and hidden away from a road. They were thieves, bandits most likely. At this point in her life, because she didn't know any better, Nameless did not begrudge them doing what they needed to do to survive. It was a world she knew well. But that leniency worked both ways, as all was fair in love and war and there was no honor among thieves.

First, Nameless took those pennies, but she chose to redeposit them - underneath the stone that was furthest from the tent. That, she guessed, was the subordinates chair. She left one penny just poking out from underneath it, to ensure it would eventually be found. That would cause a...suspicious interaction between two desperate thieves, if her guess was right.

Her second action was more elaborate.

Gathering up those fish-heads, Nameless went and smeared them against that chest to get the smell into it.

Then she left the camp.

And headed back to the den of the River Troll.

Along the way she placed the fish heads, however far enough it took. Just far enough to stretch the distance out, but not too close that she ran out of fish heads. The smell was repugnant, especially when the wind caught it and sent it blowing into the den of that Troll. But that's what she wanted. The troll could follow the strung out trail all the way back to that camp, to whoever resided there and to that locked chest. Believing it contained more goods inside, it was her hope the stupid creature would smash it open.

Finally, she washed her hands in the river to rid the scent from herself, before she returned to the camp, and climbed a tree a safe distance away. Perched up in her little hide-out among the leaves, she waited....

[MrAbdiel]

It's a pair of plans of not insignificant cunning. A troll like that would have to be hungry; and would have to range a fair bit, to get enough food. It might be dumb enough to crack open the chest - hopefully, it wasn't full of food, for that would defeat the purpose. And it might even wipe out the campers... which would be sad, but also perhaps necessary. And you lurk in your hiding place, waiting to see the fruit of your fragrant labor; morning turning to evening.

But you hear them, before you see them. Shrill; giggling; self delighted; sneering and mocking voices whose words you don't understand but whose tones are as malicious and wicked as the rats who once kept you. There are four of them, as they wander into the camp; green skinned; gangly; ugly; mean. They might be as tall as men, if they weren't all hunched forward in a forever craven posture of scheming intensity. They wear 'armor' made of crusty, untanned animal skins. Two carry lumpy wooden cudgels; one a spear with a wooden head lashed to it; and one a miner's pick in contrastingly decent condition. They're leading a horse which seems unhappy to be there; burdened with half a dozen bloated burlap sacks carried over its back. The quartet of goblins unload the sacks into a pile beside their tent, one of them ties the reigns to the nearest tree. Then they get about the business of settling in, for the night.

One goes to the bag, produces the fishing line, and starts foraging around the camp for bait. Two gather sticks from clusters they've already accumulated nearby; and the fourth tears a couple of pages from the book in the bag, wadding them up and tossing them in the fire pit before he starts building the fire. The first drama erupts when, apparently unilaterally, the one with the spear decides to stab the horse through the neck. The creature screams and kicks; but as a domesticated creature, it is utterly at the mercy of its captors - something you cannot help but sympathise with. As it strains against its tether and then sinks down in shock to die, the goblins gather in a rambunctious group to begin bullying the killer. This, it seems, was not the plan; and they slap and shove and rebuke him until he is cringing and whining in a tone that suggests a protest of innocence. Finally, the one with the pick takes a small, sharp knife from a ragged boot and forces it into the speargoblin's hands; standing punitively sentinel over the stabber while, apparently as punishment, he begins to roughly butcher the beast.

As this drama simmers down, there is a cry from one of the other goblins - he has discovered the poorly concealed penny, barks in irritation, checks the bag to confirm the theft and then hollers to gather the four around the now cracking fire. Accusations fly. The fisherman accuses the butcher. The pickman seconds the accusation. But then the butcher, cringingly, mounts some kind of cunning verbal defense that shifts suspicion back to the firestarter, who called the meeting to order in the first place. The pickman seconds this accusation also; the fisherman gets on board, and the butcher, almost hysterically delighted to have climbed up off the bottom rung of the pecking order, hops foot to foot and eggs the inquisition on. The firestarter's defense does not convince; and soon, the other three are kicking the crap out of him. He covers up and takes it like a champ rather than going for his club and defending himself with lethal force, suggesting this is not an uncommon sort of brutality roulette that they have all accepted; but soon the sullen, bruised and bleeding firestarter is charged with cooking the meagre fish that have been caught, and then a huge hunk of horse meat from the previous, now forgotten crime.

The smell of it cooking is amazing. You cannot remember the last time you had cooked meat or fish that was not cold, and chewed in tiny flakes from already picked bones.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Oops - it's goblins! Four goblins it seems, though one has been beaten half to death already. None of them are straying far from the camp, right now.

Also... It's been most of a day, and the troll hasn't shown up. Perhaps it's... not that hungry?

What do you want to do? Wait in your hiding place? Try to sneak way? Dive-bomb attack to die gloriously?

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

Nameless watched from a bit away and above, her eyes narrowing at the sight: goblins!

She had encountered plenty of the vile little beasts as slave for the Skaven, but none as free agents on their own in the wilderness. From her time around them, she had nothing good to say. They were just as vile, domineering and sadistic as the Skaven were, but weren't half as clever. Possessed of low-cunning, they were cowardly little sh*ts.

But that horse. That made Nameless cover her mouth with her hands as it died. The relationship between man and horse was long, and something in that primordial symbiosis still lingered within Nameless as she felt her stomach sink at the sight of its demise. Even the subsequent infighting taking the goblins strength down by about 25% did not cheer her up. It only hardened her heart to them.

However, that cooking...

Nameless felt her tummy rumble again. She had never in the past decade smelled something as seductive as what was in that pot! How were the goblins able to cook that well?

No matter. Nameless had to fight the urge. She wanted to climb down, maybe sneak around and slit their throats in their sleep to steal that food. It would be worth the risk, she knew that. But...

That horse had screamed into the empty night air and thrashed about as it had died in what could doubtlessly be heard for miles.

Its belly had been slit, its meat carved up - its blood emanating its scent into the air.

And thirdly, that cooking. The scent was beyond incredible to the former slaves nostrils, but she knew the power of scent. She had cleaned the cages of enough rat ogres and fed them numerous times to gather an understanding of the power of such a smell to carry on the wind and lure.

Besides, it would be the height of embarrassment to climb down now, only to have that troll come along in 15 minutes time.

No, she would wait. Steeling herself, Nameless leaned back against the tree trunk. She had waited a decade. What was another few hours?

Besides, if the goblins could walk a domesticated horse back to their camp within a day, that meant there was civilisation nearby. Hope!

[MrAbdiel]

The evening crawls on.

The goblins roast chunks of horse; gorge on them, rare and bloody; then roast more. They eat, infact, until they are bloated; having stripped much of the meat off the neck, and ribs. It makes sense - a beast of that size is more meat than four goblins however hungry can handle. It will go bad before they get through it, so best to over-eat now, while it's fresh. You've eaten bad meat before - and only someone in that desperate situation would. Strangely, they have not eaten the horse's legs. These, carved off from the joints, are stacked to one side, in the blood pool of the equine massacre; perhaps for some other purpose.

With the stars winking down at you through the canopy of the tree, the night draws on - and still, the troll seems reluctant to appear even with this extra sensory provocation. Perhaps it can't smell, over its own stench? Perhaps it has already eaten? The damn creature just seemed not to be manifesting.

Firestarter and Butcher are left on guard duty, sitting on the rocks facing away from each other as two other goblins, snore away in the tent with full bellies. Predictably, these two are not on speaking terms right now; they watch the dark around them with unusually grim determination, as if that might spite the other.


You are so focused on listening for the crash of a troll in the distance and keeping your eyes on the wretched goblin guards that you don't spot the new entrant into the camp until it's too late do even consider doing anything about it.

It's a man - older than you, but not old, certainly - with a shaggy mop of curly black hair, and a wispy beard that has not manifested in full strength yet. You spot him because of his beige color tunic when it's picked out by the firelight; but by then he's managed to make his way right up to the camp. He holds in his hands two wooden rods joined by a rope threaded through the end of each... and with a face full of some cocktail of anger and fear, he rushes into the camp from behind the tent. Butcher, spear across his lap, blinks lazilly and turns just in time to do absolutely nothing as the flail clocks him in the upper left arm. There is a crack of bone and a pitiful goblin caterwalling as he tumbles off his stone seat, yelping and wailing. Firestarter, facing away from this incursion, looks over his shoulder in dumb shock at this arrival. The two goblins in the tent simply moan; apparently too full of horse to respond quickly to an alarm even so pained, and urgent.

It's a good hit - but whatever this fellow's intentions, he is picking a fight he is likely to lose, once the other goblins get their act together. The man is unarmored, and clearly inexpert.

But if you intervene, you'll be... two unarmored, inexpert, outnumbered humans. The odds would be better... but are they good enough, to risk for a stranger in the night?

Spoiler: OOC:

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P.S., I'm doing some of the rolling myself with a discord bot called Jodri, which is AMAZING for WFRPe stuff; so if you're wondering where some of the rolls are, they are there. Can send screenshots if needed, but trust me bro.

If you want to join this combat, you'll need to roll initiative.

The Flailer's initiative is 9.

The Goblins will be (1d10+3)[9]

Butcher and Firestarter will spend next turn surprised, still; Butcher's also managing a nasty crit, and Firestarter is already beat up. Pickman and Fisherman, incredibly, are still asleep - gorged on horsemeat, dreaming of that time they kicked the hell out of Firestarter while he was wailing and yelping.

If Nameless is going to wait it out, give me merely a hide roll at +20 as the goblins are suddenly more alert of threats around them.

If she's going to dive in, you can either spend a turn climbing down and join combat the turn after, or risk it for the biscuit with a crazy jump-charge into the combat. You'll make Three consecutive agility checks, one for each three yards you're dropping into the combat. If you fail any of them, you'll fall the remaining distance. Pass or fail, I'll count it as a charge, and let you roll as if your charging attack had the impact quality. Even if you twist your ankle and fall on your ass in the attempt.

And with that, it's time for me to go to bed!

Edit: Flipped a coin for the Tiebreaker.

Round 1:

Flailer 9
Gobbos 9 (Surprised/Sleeping!)

[BananaPhone]

Nameless


Nameless watched, pursing her lips as she did so. Seeing the hooded man emerge out of the darkness in a whirring fury could mean only one thing: this man owned the dead horse.

What other reason would he have for tracking them down and throwing himself heedless into the fight?

Swallowing, Nameless made a few calculations.

If she helped him, he was her ticket to civilisation. If he was passionate enough to avenge a horse, chances are good he would show sympathy to her situation. Wouldn't he?

But doing so put herself at risk. If they didn't beat the goblins, they would surely have to at least flee.

If she didn't help him, then she'd be stuck up here, waiting for a trap of her own making that wasn't appearing to spring. What's more, she was getting hungry, and even if she waited for the goblins to leave and go about their day, she'd be running a strong risk of drawing their attention in the wild if she did manage to sneak away.

Perhaps her best chance was with him.

Nameless quickly moved and scurried down the tree, her knife soon in hand as she came up upon the camp of goblins fighting the human, the darkness still cloaking her.

[MrAbdiel]

While you shimmy down the tree, the flail-wielding avenger continues his rampage. He is not especially strong looking; and has no grace, or élan in his movements. You have only foggy memories of playing at war with boys from the village in the north; but even you can see there is no soldier in him. The weapon he is using is plain, unvarnished wood; not bloodstained, or capped with metal. A tool designed for something other than killing. It's awkward for him to heft as he moves, with big overhead chopping-swings and not a drop of the mock-swordplay that a girl named Mey-la once possessed - and a mile from the liquid steel murder in the movements of the skaven killer-caste.

But hot-damn, if it's not a little impressive; the lad has caught them napping, and snuck up, and left one braying in the dust with a ruined arm that squirts blood from the ruptured green skin. And then, staggering in his stride but resetting his blow, he plows on forth and swings the flail again - this time at Firestarter, who throws himself forward off his stone into the dust to avoid the blow. But not far enough - the flail's head cracks down on the goblin's calf, breaks a bone through the skin, and now two of them are screaming and bleeding.

Butcher, one ruined arm flopping at his side, scrambles to the tent and starts jabbing the sleepers with the butt of his spear. They start and bleat, fumbling blearily for their weapons.

Spoiler: OOC Round 2 Outcome

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The Flailer charges again, and wonks the pre-tenderized goblin Firestarter for enough damage to crit his leg, leaving him helpless!

Goblins recover from surprise. Butcher spends his turn jabbing Fisherman and Pickman awake. They are prone, and not yet armed.

At Initiative 10, Nameless begins Round Three. All targets are theoretically within charge distance.

[BananaPhone]

Nameless


Nameless pursed her lips and swallowed as she watched it unfold, something coiling up within her as she took half a second to watch.

In the pits of the skaven, she could never come to a fellow humans defense, no matter how much she felt instinct compel her to do so. But here? Something stirred within her.

"Ahhh!!" her banshee scream ripped through the clearing as she barrelled forward, her towering figure ploughing through the foliage and blasting aside any of the weak shrubbery that stood between her and the nearest goblin - one of the sleepers.

[MrAbdiel]

You have fought, before. You have killed, before. You have striven for your life amidst the chaos of a battle, before. But for the first time, you let loose with no reservation - there are no masters to think about, who will shovel you to the rat-ogres or send you back to your cell when it's over. There is no one here, whom you do not intend to kill, who will accuse you and see you thrown into a pit of corpses with your throat cut. There is you, and the enemy; perhaps an ally too. And then there is the wide, wide forest; the only uninvolved witness to the battle, and your part in it.

The stranger with the flail takes a backward step, lifting his flail in an awkward block as if he expects you to fall upon him in your wrath. But you blow by him in your charge, using the weight of your body to shoulder-check into Butcher's ruined side. You swing wild at his face, and he leans away from it; but you bring the knife in your grip down into the meat of his thigh as he totters and wrench it back. The bloody gouge spurts unwholesome black-red blood; and flopping backwards, he wails and begins crawling away from you. The two in the tent - Fisherman, and Pickman, are finally on their feet, now; club in the hand of the former, pick in the hands of the latter; and they menace you, looking for a moment to attack this wild, frightening new assailant.

Spoiler: Round 3 Resolution!

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Stranger with the Flail steps back and takes a parry stance. Butcher and Firestarter are now both bleeding, and helpless. The other two stand and ready weapons, but can't attack right away.
Your move! Strike and parry stance, you suggested before. Still want to go with that? Or All Out Attack in hopes to reduce the enemy from 2 to 1?

[MrAbdiel]

You lash out with your closed fist and feel it clock hard into the bony skull of the pick-wielding goblin. He reels, but the blow almost seems to focus him - suddenly, now that he's the one suffering, he can take you as a credible danger. He and his club brandishing offsider face off with you together; they make tentative swipes and moves, but neither is bold enough to commit to an attack that would forbid them an chance to defence themselves against your looming blows.

The stranger, watching this duel unfold, seems to gather his wits; recognizing, finally, that you are very much focused on his enemy.

Firestarter stops crawling and wailing, now. His torments, at least in this world, are over forever.

Spoiler: OOC Round 4 Resolution!

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Pickman takes 4 wounds! Firestarter finishes bleeding; Butcher continues. The stranger seems to conclude which side you are on, and will rejoin the combat in the following round. The upright goblins miss you, but take parrying stances!

[MrAbdiel]

With two of them harassing you, you are in danger of getting flanked; and you skitter back on the calloused balls of your feet as they menace forward, making warding strikes but finding no purchase. Pickman makes a move to get around your side, but the stranger finds his decision and charges in again - a mighty blow but one his opponent, this time, is ready for. The goblin sneers and dodges - but now, atleast, you're shoulder to shoulder with someone fighting with you. This, too, is a novel experience.

As if intending to enhance the drama of the moment, the forest goes quiet except for your collected breath. The other wounded goblin has fallen silent.

Spoiler: OOC: Round 5 Result!

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It's a wash - lots of misses, this round.

Time to experiment a little to see if we can speed things up. Let's try double turns - each turn you take two turns, as does your enemy, just for PBP sake. I'll be generous with it - if the enemy crits you harshly in their turn 1, I'll let you reconfigure what might have been your projected more cavalier turn 2; but in an early game with a lot of whiffs and parries, running two turns-a-turn might be the go.
So make two turns worth of actions, and I'll do so, and I'll resolve them as if they happened in a normal turn-by-turn sequence.

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

Nameless' heart thumped inside her chest as she swiped, her little knife finding flesh, but dodged back out of the way of returning swipes.

The adrenaline pumping in her blood, the life and death situation...it was intoxicating. After such a miserable existence, Nameless felt alive.

Turning and shooting a glance at the fellow human, a temporary understanding between them, Nameless moved to the side, moving in to swipe and parry...

[MrAbdiel]

Together, goblins and humans enact their microcosm of the battle that has played out since beyond the history of either: greenskins and man, warring for the fate of the surface world. Given these more even odds, you naturally pair off into two duels; Pickman at you, Fisherman at the stranger. For him, fighting the creatures one-on-one seems to go well - they struggle back and forth in a weapon bind with club and flail before the goblin, in a display of strange irony, trips when his heel strikes the hoof of the massacre'd horse; one of the stacked, cold legs projecting just enough into his backstep to make him vulnerable to a punishing down-strike that crushes the goblin's hips and leaves his screaming, bleeding, and dying.

Your luck is more mixed. You are careful not to overcommit yourself, trying to keep mobile; and your manage to strike out again and land a bleeding slice that carves through the goblin's wretched armor and into its chest. But the attack costs you an opening; and this time, the cretin exploits it well - tricking you into dodging back in time with a lunging blow that punches the spike of the pick into your bicep and out the other side. In a burst of instinct and adrenaline, you shove off the weapon before the goblin has a chance to twist it and cause even more damage - but the pain his hideous, and the blood pours out of your upper arm from both sides.

Still, trading the knife to your other hand, you are still upright - and so is your ally. This goblin, slashed and battered, is all alone.

Spoiler: OOC!

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Alas! A parry to no avail - he lands a whopper of a hit: 12 wounds to the right arm; 8 off your total, after your toughness reduction. Now you outnumber the last goblin 2 to 1, for another +10% to hit. Take two turns and finish the bugger off before he gets lucky again!

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

What was it that she felt rush through her body?

Other than mauling, brutal pain as her arm was pierced through?

Hatred. Sheer, bright hot hatred.

Screaming a mix of agony and fury, Nameless battered away the pick-axe with one hand and lunged forward - her small throwing knife driving straight into the creatures eye as she tumbled down on top of it. Tears blurred her vision, hot pulsing blood beat through her head as she withdrew that weapon and hammered furiously at its neck and its chest - deliberately striking the parts where she could puncture the lungs and sever the arteries so that it would choke to death on it sown blood beneath her.

[MrAbdiel]

You lunge, and stab, and stab again; until your whole body feels leaden and exhausted and your brain tells you that the messy of green skin and gore beneath your hands has been dead for a superfluous thirty seconds. As your senses come back to you and you begin again to feel the penetration of your arm and smell the blood and goblin filth, you hear a sound that is not novel to you - human weeping is a sound your ears know well.

Just as you'd guessed, the man seems to have come about the horse. He kneels before the butchered and ruined tableaux of the beast; the badly flayed hide draped over a few sticks, the legs cut away and stacked oddly to one side; the head and neck and body gouged and cut and scraped for meat from the last night's feast. The eyes scooped; eaten first.

He sobs quite loud, echoing in the night; his trembling hand finding a patch of the horse's face that still has its rusty colored pelt undisturbed. He strokes it, and babbles in the rapidfire language you heard the slaves of the region speaking. You understand none of it; except that it is not for you, but the massacred beast.

Then he does turn to you, after all; starts speaking, as he rubs tears from his face with a wrist so not to smear himself with blood. He seems to take you in, then, for the first time; the strangeness of this towering, scarred young woman who slunk down from the trees to aid him, earning a wound in the process. A little back and forth of not understanding each other establishes for him that you do not speak his tongue, and that he does not seem to recognize the portions of the surface languages you do in fact know. But he gestures to your bleeding arm and, once his intention is clear, bandages it with a patterned yellow handkercheif from one pocket. It quickly stains red; but the pressure slows the bleeding, atleast.

Now, with the adrenaline wearing off and with blood lost from your veins, you remember how greviously tired you are. How desperately hungry. How cold, in the night that rolls on in the absense of the creatures you have killed.

Your inability to understand the man's words doesn't seem ultimately have stopped him from talking to you. Having greived, starts moving about the camp; first retrieving the damaged reigns and bridle from the horse's body, then going to the goblins, one at a time, and shearing off their left ears with a small, sharp knife from his pocket - a neat little contraption where the blade seems to fold out of the carved-horn hilt.

With the ears taken and apparently pocketed, he comes to his next challenge - and pauses, fists on his hips, looking gloomily at the heaped sacks that came in, on the horse's back.

Spoiler: OOC!

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You have survived your first combat, and made an unintelligible friend! While he's going about doing his business in the camp, what are you doing?

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

Nameless had stabbed furiously at the goblin, allowing years of pent up anger to flow through her arm and into that knife as each stab of the weapon withdrew an arc of bloody droplets.

By the time she was done, she was visibly panting, exhausted and starving...and then the pain in her arm returned.

"Ahh....!" is all she can whimper as she grips at her arm, the pick having punctured through the muscle tissue, but seeming to have at least passed through cleanly. She had seen puncture wounds before, she knew it would heal with a month or so of rest, but that didn't make it hurt any less than a son of a bitch.

When the other male approached her, Nameless initially scuttled backwards on her butt, her knife coming up defensively. It was mostly the operation of instinct, or at least habits that had been hammered into her during her slavery under the trats. Few people acted out of kindness. But when he gently moved down, hands open and softly wrapped that cloth around her arm to stymie and stop the bleeding, Nameless...smiled.

It was a goofy smile. Sweet even. But it was a smile nonetheless.

<"Thank you."> she said, in Queekish, her voice surprisingly gentle, given that she was splattered in blood and had just charged out of the darkness, screaming and waving a knife around.

When the pain in her arm subsided enough, Nameless wasted no time in darting over to that pot and stuffing as much of the stew as she could in her mouth. Like a greedy guts growing kid, she wolfed it down in a rather undignified manner until anything remaining in that pot had disappeared down into her tummy.

That need satisfied, Nameless then went about quickly gathering the remaining things: the tent, the fishing line, the bag, the mushrooms, book etc.

<"Hey, I've got something over here!"> she said to her fellow human. Obviously, to him she just sounded...weird. Very weird. Her chittering, fast language like nothing the humans had. But the way she reached out and tugged on his sleeve and pointed over to the back of the camp was enough to draw attention, as she took him to present the chest.

<"We'll share whatever is inside, yes?"> she said, her smile warm, head tilted, as she gestured to the chest, and then to him and her back and forth. Even with body language, it was clear she wanted to share the chest with him.

[MrAbdiel]

The stew was horse and fish based. It would have been foul to taste buds with any discernment at all. It is the best thing you have eaten since you were forsaken by the sun.

Your new friend looks queasy, but gracious; you are obviously in a desperate state, and he is able to put out of mind the ghastly act of devouring some portion of his horse, considering how you have helped him in avenging it.

When you alert him to the chest, he takes a look at it; but is animated by a certain urgency that precludes being interested in its contents. He is more interest in the sacks, and going back the way he came; dark though it is. Through a profusion of gestures and patience, you come to an understanding: he will concede the chest to you entirely if you help him move it, and the sacks, to wherever he is indicating - a task that, without a horse, will require at least a few trips. With that offer, he gets on the side of the chest and hauls up one of its side handles with his right arm so you can use your uninjured left. It’s heavy, but not immovable - probably not full of coins, or metal, or rocks.

Spoiler: OOC:

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Does the arrangement satisfy Nameless? Is she willing to trust him to guide her back out of the woods?

[BananaPhone]

Nameless


Pursing her lips, a part of her, the paranoid survivalist, told her to just knife him in the back and run off. But they had fought together. He could have betrayed her easily by now. While she had gorged herself on that stew, he could have easily clobbered her over the back of her head with his bat. He could have grabbed her injured bicep and twisted, permanently disabling her. Or an older man out in these woods, alone, could have done even worse things to her...

But he hadn't. He seemed despondent about the horse, but otherwise gave off the impression of just a guy mourning the loss, thankful for her help and willing to make trades again.

Swallowing, Nameless nods, moving off into the woods with him.

[MrAbdiel]

Fortunately, no treachery ensues. With his flail under the his other arm and the chest between you, you start making your way together though the gloom of the forest. He knows the way, it seems; but you have the night-eyes to prevent him tripping and falling and making the whole operation painful and difficult, so an easy synergy quickly emerges. He continues to talk to you, as you go; perhaps a gesture designed more to sooth his frayed nerves on the adrenal cooldown, than to actually communicate anything.

It's the better part of an hour, before you emerge from the trees.

The first thing you notice is the moon; full, and lonely in the sky with its wholesome silver glow. No trace tonight of the green moon, which the skaven call 'Morskrit'; and just as well. Instead, there is a banquet of white stars in the sky you have not seen in so long; and this last night, dared not clear the canopy of the trees to witness.

The second and third things you notice at the same time - the cart, and the dog. A small cart, designed for drawing by a single horse, lies off the side of the road furthest the forest's face. It has been upended, though it seems undamaged; turned over gently, perhaps. And the dog leaps up to guard it - a gold furred beast with an unusually long tail; and the bright, intelligent eyes of a guarding breed. The skaven hated dogs; their word for the animals had some of the human connotations of monsters and spoilers. But like with the horse, you are not so sheltered from your humanity that you do not recognize this friend of man, also. He springs up from where he lay by the cart, and charges up at the pair of you; giving you customary bork bork bork! of canine enthusiasm and alarm until his master, your new companion, calls him to heel and assures him with a scruffling of the fur on his neck that the stranger is no threat. You set the chest down for a moment, resting your arm from the strain; and the dog, whom your stranger has called Rocco a couple of times now, is all a-sniff of you, in curiousity.

A voice echoes out from under the cart; small, and tired. It precedes a young boy, perhaps ten years old and crowned with black curls, crawling from beneath it. You can't help but notice how different he is, from how you are used to seeing children; burdened in the terrible conditions of labor and confinement. This one is healthy, and content, and mostly clean; even for having been woken from a nap, beneath a cart on the side of the road. He trots over to your companion whom you might guess is his father, and they embrace each other.

The child asks a question. The father hesitates, and looks at the bundle of reins taken from his hip, and offers a reply; one furnished with horizon-pushing gesture of the palm, and a little shrug of the shoulders. The child responds immediately, pointing back and the forest and down the road, and chirping in some animated call to action. The father hushes him; offers some quieter, soothing words; and the boy accepts, with some sniffling.

Whatever the boy had been told about the fate of the horse, it was likely a kinder lie than the awful truth of it.

Still tear-faced, the child turns to you, looks over your looming self, and asks you something that causes his father to blink, and puff a little laugh.

"Ah... Gaulfredo." He offers to you; and then pats his own chest indicatively and repeats slowly, for your benefit. "Gaulfredo."

And then, with a hand on the boy's head: "Vittorio."

And finally, with a firm rub of the dog's back that it seems to receive with wonderment as unsolicited praise worth panting over: "Rocco."

Then he makes a gesture to you, in expectation and hope.

Mey-La. Nee-Ruh-Kaha. You have two names, both given to you by people who owned you. Another name too, you think; but it's buried in the back of your skull under layers of suffering, like mud that has hardened to sediment over some precious forgotten relic. It's not the first time you have tried to retrieve it; but this time, like the others, it does not rise for you.

Spoiler: OOC:

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A little RP'ish scene, for ya. Importantly, how does Nameless respond when probed for a name? Does she give one of her slave-given names, or pull a word she knows as a 'fresh start' name, or politely offer nothing, permitting them to figure out their own name to add to the pre-existing two?

[BananaPhone]

Nameless

Is this what working together felt like? Without the threat of the lash or vicious 'encouragement' by sadistic task-masters?

Nameless didn't know, and for about an hour she didn't care. Without the threat of the goblins - and having greedily gathered up all of their possessions for herself - Nameless walked along behind the unknown man with one strong hand wrapped around the handle of her chest and the sounds of nature around them. The mans talking was welcome. Honestly, she liked it. It might have his own reasons for the verbal diarrhoea, but Nameless appreciated the sounds of a fellow human who was not under the coercion of a Skaven taskmaster. Just listening to him talk felt normal. Like this is what normal humans did. They carried things around the beautiful forest and they talked.

The melody of his language stood in stark contrast to the swift, fast-paced chittering of her own. Her own, as if she had willingly learned the Skavens rapid-fire language. The language she had been forced to learn as a slave. The mans was instead more melodic, as if she were listening to a gentle music among the soft breeze of a forest. After a decade of brutal drudgery and hissing rats, it was beautiful to her.

When they arrived at that cart, Nameless oddly deferred to the mans judgement. This was, after all, his realm. If he appeared scared then she would be. But when that - dog!! - arrived and he showed nought but affection, so did Nameless. But then a boy emerged - a healthy boy! Not some wasted looking, pallid little miserable wretch, but an actual boy, with a vigilant father...this is what human children were supposed to look like.

When the dog ceased its guard-like growling and instead switched its mood to gentle curiosity, Nameless indulged thoroughly.

She knelt down, hands out, allowing the dog to lick her face as she giggled and laughed. She ran her hands around the dogs beautiful head, patting and stroking its most prominent features as she kissed it between the eyes, on the forehead and under the ears/against the cheek. For a second she almost seemed to have tears in her eyes, an immediate love for the animal visible upo her mien as she had to tear herself away to address the youngling.

Towering above him at 6'5", Nameless offered an awkward, but genuine, smile down to the lad, along with a wave.

<"Hello!"> she said in Queekish, until the male then performed his 'what's your name?' body language theatre.

When Nameless pursed her lips and hesitated in answering, the more emotionally intelligent could tell that she understood the question but had to think of a response. That meant she had no official name - only what she would call herself now.

And the only praxis with which she could currently express herself was the disgusting language of the rat-men that had taken everything from her.

Swallowing gently, a pregnant pause lingering in the air between them, it was clear Nameless understood the question. Finally, she shrugged.

<"I don't know yet,"> she replied in Queekish. Not that they understood.