The Old Forest

Here's some quick OOC entries on a few items...

Syrena recovers 2 of 4 arrows. One was lost and another snapped when the armored goblin fell on it.

Gennadius gains dagger, knife, or hatchet by field recovery. Description open-ended, CB writes if desired.

Gennadius recovers bolas.

Will assume Gundus does Lay On Hands back at shelter, a scene of safety and pause recovery. Damanadros may get the healing, but I'd ask for more clarity on it since the last entry was left open-ended. Damanandros, strangely as it may sound, is not the lowest on HPs. I think Gennadius and Xeno are both at 2 or 3 HP (Len, post up on that if you can - I read 2 HP for Gennadius from CB's last post). Robago's call in the end of course (and maybe y'all will judge it's already occurred), I just didn't want to unfairly skew the decision by the severity of descriptive writing about Our Man Damanandros, which of course has been explicit.

On Healing by Medic Gennadius:
As mentioned, Xenophon is already under care. He can get another daily boost later, but not at this time in the morning.
As I understand it, Gennadius can treat 1) himself, and 2) Damanandros, and each patient would get the possibility of a Cure Light Wounds effect if Gennadius gets a good roll. CB, have at it on the Proficiency check(s) if that is intent and the correct interpretation of it. And/or whatever else is correct instead.

Request Leo to comment on whether or not Damanandros takes time to restudy spell(s), and help my understanding on what that calls for in time requirements.

Looking forward to responses to Damanandros's zinger suggestion.

Interesting entries. Decisions to make.

Here's one entry I want to put out...

CB is right above. No PCs saw any creatures or people other than goblins and some normal vultures flying around in the air overhead. And yeah, there was a corpse of a big vulture laying in the mud and water. But The Goddess, the Harpy, the Skull Vulture - none of that was seen by anyone other than Damanandros. I debated on writing it out in the open at all - considered doing the whole thing by "Note" to Leo - but decided to publish at least part of it, but for the fun of the game in OOC and I know it is sort of lame for everyone seeing too many "Note" boxes to someone else.

I did purposefully hide some of the later developments of the scene and the Zaharan dialogue completely, for concern that it might influence decision making too much during the goblin trail battle or now afterwards. So keep all that in mind as PCs respond. It seems like the most obvious place the pit setting looked like was a goblin torture/murder area - complete with little goblin tunnels through the thicket, a pulley and rope system for victims, and vultures around used to eating any leftovers or abandoned victims. Damanandros's own account and his conveyance of it to the others may be a strange and confusing story to hear for the others. And we'll all have to leave room for what he tells, what he doesn't say, and maybe even what he gets wrong about it.

I know you all know this. Veteran players are used to hearing stuff that characters don't, and even sometimes making their characters not make things as clear in an effort of simulating realism. I'm just mentioning as a collection of thoughts, and because the rescue scene lasted for a week or so posting, there was a LOT going on - I know with so many entries it's sometimes best to pull everything back together at a moment to sort out and clarify.

Based on some of the recent posts, a list of ideas below, not meant to steer but simply to frame out discussion at least, maybe decision...

Some options for next movement/effort seem to be:

1) Go back through the thick draw to the goblin ditch torture pit, to attempt a recovery of the skull that Damanandros mentions (that is also not well understood so far)

2) Relocate to a different location that might be safer, and take some time to recover.

3) Press on at the planned pace to Saromen Fro (Tower 4), the next operational Legion tower and supposedly the location of Callus Eramus.

4) Anything else is open too, of course.


Option 1 notes are generally known. The ditch pit is about 15-20 minutes of fast paced march from the lumber yard shelter, through constrictive terrain as you know. The last part of the approach requires the use of the little "tunnel trails" to pass through the thick brush. Goblins were seen in the vicinity, obviously.

Option 2: Going back to Tower 2 does not seem like an option. The unwelcoming Centurion there said travelers not allowed to camp within 2 miles of the fortification. Relocating forward on the trail would seem to put some space between the party and a known location of goblin activity nearby. Not much is known about other locations on the trail ahead, with one exception. Supposedly ahead about 4 miles should be the ruins of Tower 3. It is a worksite for another tower that was under construction, but the project was halted and abandoned. It is unknown exactly what the facilities are, but apparently there was at least some rock work completed before the effort ceased. The location is expected to be near a draw area of low ground that may have some flooding.

Option 3: In normal situation, the Party would have gotten an early start at dawn to begin a 13 mile march to Saromen Fro (Tower 4). Again, assuming normal pace, that would take about 6.5 hours. Starting at 6 am, that would put the arrival at the vicinity of Saromen Fro around midday. ***Noteworthy: if you refer back to Gundus's letter received, Eramus did not actually say to meet at Saromen Fro directly. Instead, he said he wanted to meet the group at the junction spur intersection - where the route to Tower 4 breaks off from the Lusetem Trail. Interesting?

He said he would be there to meet the group, starting a routine of being there at the intersection every day at midday, starting on "Half-wax in Pendaelon". That's moon time-keeping references (very common practice btw, though culturally an older way) which means at the increasing half-moon. Turns out pretty easy to mark: the full moon will present tonight, so Eramus would have started the midday meet-up attempt program an entire week ago.

All that said, on all options, keep in mind one additional factor: Damanandros's reduced movement rate. This guy has leg injuries on each side. They aren't life-threatening, but they are debilitating. He just cannot move as fast as normal walking speed. TBD on exact effects and how long it persists, but he will not be able to keep a normal pace. In a few tests, he seems like half-normal pace is his new max for the moment.

Ahh - ok. Looks like I'm getting a bit confused on what/where/when. I thought when there were entries of moving back along the trail, recovering weaponry, pressing to return, etc., that was implication of withdrawal and return to shelter and cached gear.

Reading it back over now, I can see where it might have been that Damanandros made the appeal to go back down into the ditch to recover the skull while the group was still there at the high ridge, end of the trail, still overlooking the torture ditch flooded debris field below.

Sorry for confusion. Thinking that Damanandros said something earlier than I pictured seems reasonable, so maybe the group isn't back at the shelter yet.

Will see if Leo can give us an entry to clarify 1) when does Damanandros make the appeal to return back into the low ground area, and 2) what does he mean and why should the party invest the time to do it.

From there (or in parallel, whatever timing happens in this PBP topic discussion pickle) I'd like to hear input from others on whether to invest the time/effort in that, which should assume taking on the incidental risks (also unknown, but maybe anticipated).

I've got to digest this healing by medic Gennadius in a different issue. All looks great, but I'm going to say that's on hold momentarily until we figure out where/when everyone is and what are the immediate actions prioritized.

It was just after they pulled him to the top of the ditch from what I was thinking. He also sounds like he is talking out of his head, it was a tough day.
The skull was the only thing he could think of with any significance to what he just went through. Was it magical, would it help him understand what the creature was? He just knows it was SOMETHING that he could grasp onto to try and make sense of it all.

I don't think I was in that bad shape. I had posted I was back up to 8/10 hp after Gundus and Gennadius aided me, plus rest. Here's my receipts:

I went to 4/10 when I got hit with beetle acid.
Gundus laid his hands upon me, bringing me up to 6/10.
Gennadius neutralized the poison with birthwort, reducing the attack penalty to -1.
CB rolled something called "Xenophon healing" for 2. I don't remember the details, but I took it without question like a thief in the night. Brought me up to 8/10

Hopefully the herbs help with the ongoing poison that's dragging down my attack by -1.

Len, I thought this was a hit. That's why I thought Xenophon went back down to low HPs during the goblin trail fight, and I later wrote about 2 injuries (one from beetles, one from armored goblin).
Is that wrong?