[RP] Crag's Secrets: Chapter 1 - Arrival

Sadur follows the path till hut (in a company of dog or anyone who would follow). Knocks calling Anyone in there? aloud
He talks to the dog: How dumb of me, if there were anyone in there, they would be watching the spectacle our captors delivered here
And he try to open the doors and see what is inside - intrigued by personality of the host and hoping to learn some.

After gathering whatever supplies were due him, Kimbek turned towards the others. "What is our next plan of action? I feel like we should make our way to some safer place for the night. I am not certain these environments are suitable for resting in."

As evening descends upon them, Kimbek swiftly moves to light a torch. "At least we have enough of these for a while." He is startled by the whooping sound of some night creature (a bird?) in the distant foliage. "And let us hope that we encounter nothing significantly larger as we make our way out of this place."

"I'm willing to listen to suggestions, but for the moment it seems we have ample firewood here" Shallan waves at the broken crate "and surely fire will keep away most of the forest creatures?" Shallan is trying to display confidence but wilderness survival is not her skillset... and she's tired now the adrenaline is dying down.

Bartholomew reviews the crate's contents. Thank the One True God, we have supplies. Quickly estimating the volume of material, he calls out please take five days worth of rations, a bedroll, and a torch. There is enough of those for us all. Bartholomew appropriates five rations, a bedroll, a torch, and a waterskin for himself. Looking more carefully, he realizes that the pieces of shattered chain could serve as nails or pitons/spikes. Given the need for survival, he takes everything he can get. He rolls the spikes into the bedroll and places the nails into his pouch.Bartholomew notices with interest the mirror and symbol being looked at by Belladona and Shallan. I could not remember any reference to jackals in the religious history of the nation, but the One True God behind the rebels? Bartholomew racks his brains for any possible references in the scripture which may support the actions of the rebels.As everyone supplies themselves, Bartholomew takes a step back and surveys the immediate surroundings. Following the party to the hut, Bartholomew reflects on the conversation and suggests it is getting late, and traipsing through an unfamiliar—and likely deadly—environment in the dark of night strikes me as foolish. I think you all have good ideas. Even if this hut is too small in which to actually lie down, it serves as a point of reference that can be seen from a short distance. If we set up a fire near the hut, we have a location in which we can rest and from which to start tomorrow. However, we must set watches, and the watcher must sit with their back to the flames so as not to be night-blinded.

Looking at the assemblage, Bartholomew considers that only the core group can be trusted to watch faithfully. The other loyal retainers are either too frightened or too far lost in apathy. We need to break the night into three parts. I believe we have four capable guards, Sadur, Kimbek, Belladona, and myself. The princess must remain under guard—she may be the future of the kingdom. This means that once every four nights, one of us should get a complete night's sleep Bartholomew says with a smile. For tonight, I volunteer for the least desirable middle watch, unless someone else prefers it. Who will be taking first and last watch?

Belladonna joins the others to carry her share of rations, bedroll, waterskin, and torch. As she looks over the supplies that are left, she notices quite a few ginkgo nuts and half-eaten ginkgo fruits among the supplies the crate has spilled. She looks out of the corner of her eye at Pepper and now notices her tummy bulging. She was so focused on Pepper having a broken bone that she overlooked her sluggishness as exhaustion when it was actually overeating! Pepper must have been distracted when leaving her pen by the smell of her favorite snack. Enticed by a good meal, hunkered down behind the mounds of supplies, they must not have noticed her chewing away and sealed her in. She tuts a little and gathers the now discarded fruits and nuts up. Pepper can at least finish her meal later and the ginkgo nuts are seeds and could eventually be planted, whenever they settled down. In an emergency, the ginkgo nuts are medicinal and may be helpful to the others in making medicines.

Belladonna stops to look at the strange mirror and symbol secreted away in the crate when she is drawn away by what the others suggest for settling in for the night.

"I agree we should rest instead of getting lost in the dark. As you say my lady, a fire should keep away most skittish creatures and a watch is certainly advisable. I think splitting the watch into two 4-hour shifts should be suitable however. I doubt I could sleep longer than that considering our extreme change in surroundings." She sweeps a short arm around themselves.

"Even if we only move a little from where our captors dropped us, it would be better to be away from any food remains that may attract unwanted critters. I can certainly take the first watch as I will want to make sure Pepper and everyone settles in fine. Maybe we can see where Mr. Sadur went and if he found a good sleeping spot?"

Kimbek looked up. He had completely forgotten about Sadur as they were dealing with the falling container. "Sadur...? Yes, where did he go anyway?"

Decide amongst yourselves who takes first watch, and wake me for the second. Bartholomew arranges his newly acquired bedroll near the hut and promptly lays himself down to sleep.

Still at the deck of their captors' aircraft Brother Bartholomew was trying to figure out what all of this could mean. He especially was drawn to the possible symbolism of crew's masks - all of them being an exact copy of the same shape - unmistakably reassembling the jackal's head. Unfortunately he didn't manage to recall anything significant from his memory, that in turn was based on the reports that came to his little office at the castle. In fact there was something about jackal's attacks in little town at the north-west border of the Kingdom, but initially he discarded it as someone's mistake... as he knew that literal jackal - the animal - don't live naturally in their country. Could it be a mistake in the description and the subject was actually right? Without his documents... he wasn't able to confirm anything of this.

Now when he was looking at their find in hidden box - a mirror and the symbol of One True God, he started to think that maybe he should start to look for some symbolic references in his scriptures. And in fact he remembered something: there is some references of Seth - the one of enemies of One True God - having the jackals as his messengers. But it don't make too much sense - for now - as Seth is an idol of chaos and wrongly understood unlimited freedom, where the captors you have encountered were almost inhumanly ordered and organized. So most probably, if religious symbolism should be used as parallel here - jackals are anything like friends to One True God. Besides - after re-examining the box where the two items where hidden Bartholomew is quite sure that the items were NOT meant to be found by the crew of the aircraft. Only the container crash made it discoverable without looking in this exact place.While he was looking through the scriptures, Bartholomew came across an interesting fragment, where the mirror is described as important aspect of as an important aspect of achieving self-awareness and getting rid of hypocrisy, as one should first look at oneself before judging or lecturing others. This gave him the idea that the mirror they found might not be as ordinary as it looks.

Sadur open the door to the hut carefully. As this is very small hut, he finds only a small stool standing in the middle of it. In fact the hut is so small, that for someone with as broad frame as Sadur sitting on the stool - he would almost touch the walls of the hut with his arms. He notice that is a quite nice peace of furniture as it would by taken from much nicer or fancier place, having even some leaves carvings on it's legs. The hight of it is perfect for someone with shorter legs... in example for a dwarf. He notice also that if someone with similar height as himself would stand on the stool his head would be exactly at the level of a small window (more like cut out square in fact...) that is facing towards the clearing they have landed recently. With wise advices from Bartholomew, surprisingly strong personality (for such small body) and leadership of Belladonna[we will see about the effects after the roll :) ], helping hand and inspiration from princess Shallan herself, intelligent remarks of Kimbek and Sadur checking their environment the group started to prepare their first camp in the mysterious jungle in the middle of nowhere. At least from their perspective.

The group came to an agreement among themselves about the watches and prepare to get some well deserved rest, not being sure what is better: the cold and hard surfaces of the cages from the giant mechanical pterodactyl's back, or plump, dump environment of engulfing jungle surrounding them with unknown dangers and mysteries. Fortunately dried up a little by the strong flames of their first common fireplace fueled by the planks salvaged from the container.

Recovery Checks. 1 Success.

Shallan almost protests that she can take a watch, but she's stressed exhausted and the adrenaline from reacting to the container has long since left her system, she barely makes a bed for herself before collapsing into it.She wakes up early and puts herself through some of the katas that Bartholomew tried to teach her years ago... her form is pitiable and her limbs quickly begin to ache, but it feels good to stretch and prepare herself for the day.

She joins the others for some breakfast, any compunctions about poor rations forgotten in her hunger.

A toy hut? Sadur look inside with a surprise and return to the party to inform about his finding.
With Silver by his side Sadur feel safe to take first watch. Although barbarian consider clearing to be a more appropriate place than a forest path, but he keep his opinion to himself and try to clear vines and bushes around the camp as much as possible.

As the refugees set up camp, Belladonna finds she has inherited the role of quartermaster, organizing the removal of resources from the crate and setting up of the camp. She is not really used to directing people, but for now she does have a vision of what they should be doing for their camp. Half the group organizes items from the crate into food, wood, and miscellaneous. They then transport the items to the new campsite. The other half go straight to the campsite and prepare it for sleeping. They collect debris and put it to the side, separating dry from wet that could be used for fire or shelter. At least it isn't raining so they can make a big fire to keep critters away and to keep everyone warm while they sleep on their bedrolls near the fire.

Once everything is transported to their new campsite and the fire started, she learns Kimbek can cook.

"Mr. Kimbek, can you direct some of us to make something to eat tonight?" She smiles at him and hands over the food items they found that are most likely to spoil first and save their rations. Even roasting the fruit would be better than eating it raw to prevent pathogens.

While everyone eats, she plays her flute and tells stories to provide entertainment before people go to sleep. She eats her fill of what is left and then focuses on finding a space for Pepper to sleep out of the way, but with still enough room to run if something bad does arrive overnight. Though she no longer has a brush to dry brush Pepper, she looks over her again to check for any injuries she missed and then plays a song to her on her flute that she used to play when they were on the road. She feeds the dinosaur the last of the ginkgo fruits, saving the ginkgo nuts for later.

As she prepares for bed, she takes a moment to release the watch to Sadur and discuss what he has seen. "Very odd Mr. Sadur. Maybe, as the shorter people here, we can look out of the hut tomorrow and see what they were looking at? Sounds like it was built to scout or hunt to me. You would know more though. Can you also be on the lookout for where we should go tomorrow to find water? Signs of animal tracks perhaps?"

She promptly lays on her bedroll near Pepper and falls into a dreamless sleep from exhaustion.

The night has passed without any new events. You all wake up relatively rested, with renewed energy for action. Among other things, this results in greetings and expressions of appreciation from the survivors commenting on the good organization provided by Belladonna.

After eating the last of the excess food rations you found among the remains of the container, you start packing and getting ready to go. After another inspection of the surroundings - this time in the light of the rising sun - you find that in the vicinity of the clearing, which seems to be at the bottom of a shallow basin, there is only a mini-hut and a relatively visible path leading from its door (now the place of your camp) towards the west. You realize that if you do not want to go in a random direction or in some other way check the area first - your best choice is to stick to the mysterious path, which in a natural way seems to connect the mini-hut... with what awaits you at the other end of it.

With the rising sun you can feel that today is going to be a very hot day, which apart from the high temperature may not be so bad and will dry out the stuffy air a bit and prevent any possible fog.

What do you do?

During the surveying the camp and clearing's nearby area KImbek has found what he was looking for. An item shaken out from one of their captors by the magically awaken chains.

A crowbar looking as new as if it was made yesterday.

Sadur just politely nod to Bartholomew's morning thoughts and concentrate on packing his few belongings. He is waiting for others just as impatiently as his dog sniffing the path ahead.
Wilderness could be dangerous, your highness. Should we scout ahead with the silver ?