Octagon - Another Purpose - Game Thread.

When everything settles down, Ronna slowly raises up from her hiding spot. She watches the others for a while and then starts walking towards them. Her steps are jittery from the adrenaline rush and she chuckles nervously a few times.

"Well done", she says. "Very well done."

Ronna walks over to search for her spent darts and takes furtive looks at combatants, trying to evaluate who she might be able to try and help with her touch.

Lucas jumps back to shore. He's a bit winded after the battle, constantly trying to hit them where it hurt. "Perhaps it would be best to rest for a minute. Our path should be clear now that we've routed them out of the way." He goes up to a fallen avatrol and looks through the hole in its skull hoping to see what lies ahead.

As the dust settles, Mandoric realizes that his ears are ringing from his own use of the cypher and his head aches. He kneels on the platform resting his head in his hands. When he has gathered his wits he cries across the canals in a weary voice,

"Is this platform a safe place to have a longer rest, Zinobia? If not, can someone help me and my seskii across the canals? "

Jax's anger in battle subsides and he begins to compose himself a little bit. This is the most fighting he's done in awhile so it's gassed him a little bit. He notices Mandoric's calls for assistance.

"I shall help you across if you need it friend" Jax mentions with a smile.

Nyom, seeing that Zinobia has easily dispatched of the last beast stops in her tracks. Looking about she looks to see where the rest of the party is gathering and will make her way towards them.

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OOC: I have no idea where she is in relationship to the others, so I'll throw a couple of jump rolls in for good measure.

Mandoric and his seskii jump across the canals, Mandoric aided by Jax, and his seskii aided by Mandoric.

I wonder if we can 'zoom out' a bit of action-by-action detail and move on to the next 'scene'?

EDIT: Aargh! What a pointless time to roll two 20s ;-)

He raises his head and says cheerefully "Fernowalker guts! It was nicely done!"
He turns to Ronna - "My respect and thanks, you saved at least one life today"
He turns to Jax, smiles and then turns to Lucas "Vona Seers say that you should check on raw bone skull. Some people can see things in the hole. But you need to get rid of the muscle and other bloody mess. And thats a bloody business. And.... Avatrol skins. Are very valuable. I could suggest to make some bloody skinning here, and i could use some help in that then. But if you will find crafty person, and Yosh-Ul have some too.... you could get nice armor that reflects different numenera beams and energy rays. Any help could be very useful, but it's damn bloody.
And i suggest that ones who need rest should rest while we are skinning this crap... Eat, drink too... I think i will take us through safer area... i think i know how to navigate there, but if anyone need rest... perhaps we should do some short break now... we can also skip rest and skinning, if you like...
also if you want to rest, i suggest that it should not be more than hour... that is a maximum time we could allow to ourselves to nap and camp here"
He pulled his skinning knife and started to examine the avatrol he recently killed.

Two person helping Zinobia or declaring recovery/rest is enough to initiate some short break.
Break could include 1 hour rest + 10 min rest, 70 mins, as suggested by Zinobia, and it is the time he will need to skin the animals with help of someone from the group.
Aternatively if you want to prevent naps / camps you should talk to the party with request and reason to skip that in order to influence their decisions.
Zinobia seem to be sure and calm about making some one-hour camp

Lucas sits and rests for a minute. "Ronna, if you are willing, I think I use a helping hand on getting back to normal." After sitting for ten minutes regailing anyone who will listen about being a moisture farmer and how amazingly different actually being out in this foreign world is compared to the drudgery of life at home or being able to actually kill an avatrol and hopefully look through its skull to the future. He doesn't ramble and his energy is positive, never disparaging home or the wastes.

After sitting around and catching his breath, he heads over to where Zinobia is skinning the carcasses and asks how he can help. He's none too familiar with the process but he is eager to learn. At the very least, he is able to cut the head off of one and scrape the skin off to get a chance to glimpse the group's destiny.

I tracked my arrows after each shot. I should be up to date.

Mandoric sits on a rock, and focusses his eyes on the sky above. While Zinobia and the others busy themselves with the carcasses, the ringing in the merchant's ears slowly diminishes, his thoughts begin to clear. However, he will probably not feel like himself until he has a good night's sleep. The seskii waits for the first avatrol to be skinned before tucking in to the softer parts of the meat and vitals beneath.

Ronna smiles, looking much more relaxed and at ease than just few minutes ago. She walks over to Lucas and touches him gently on the shoulder. A pleasant warmth spreads quickly from the tip of her fingers and eases aches and pains.

"There", Ronna says. "I hope that feels better."

Ronna gently pats Lucas. Then she wanders over to the orosomia plants and starts looking for her darts.

My dice rolls just keep getting better and better...

"If it's one thing I like more than a good fight, its a quality piece of armor. Let me help you skin those Avatrols so it will be a quicker job."

Jax begins to walk over to the Avatrol Zinobia is at and also begins to examine it.

"Ugly beasts. Where do you recommend we start on this thing?"

Nyom works her way over towards Jax and Zinobia. Although not all that interested in actually partaking in the skinning, she is curious to see how the work is done. Sitting crosslegged she rests a bit while she watches the others start their task.

Zinobia started his bloody action. He cut the bodies with his sharp knife, and carefully and skillfuly peeled the skin from the animal's corpses, asking for help from Jax and Lucas here and there. "Hold here", "Pull here", "Take it up and hold while i finish to skin this part" and so on.
After finishing each of the three corpses he went to the platform's end, and dipped the skin into the liquid, and then waited for liquid's recollection. Then he made quick work-out of the frozen bloody remains, cutting them off the skin.

He cut nice big chunk of meat and gave it to Mandoric's seskii in the middle of the skinning process.

After one hour he finished his job, presenting bag with rolled skin pieces in it to Jax.

"Here, you should deicide who will use that. Who is the winner. Very crafty person will be able to make full body medium armor with that. But he needs to be very skilled one. This material is very hard to work with. "

He cut few meat pieces into some cloth he pulled from bag, separated and cleaned three skulls , puting them in the dust right before Lucas, nodded to him, and dumped bloody avatrols remains into the canals. Then he advanced few metres to the north, turned towards the party and said:

"The job is done. We should go. Lets wake, friends, we have long way ahead. Only if you want to look into theese.... If you want....But then do it quick, please, we must move. Anyways.... if they do something, they do it only once... so, you wont need too much time.... So... Lets go. " - and he pointed on the column of three skulls on the ground in front of Lucas, and then went to the top of the hill, observing the north direction horizon from it.

"I'll try to lead us through safe way.. i think i know one"

Party may do their turns. Zinobia is initiating movement and next, or the one which is after the next action will be transition and will advance party further.
Zinobia gave cloth with skins to Jax, Jax pls update the inventory
Ones who will do "skull watching" - please roll intelligence roll. I will decide which skills could be applied to the roll by myself

Since no-one else seems to need her help, Ronna sits down and has a breather herself. She is clearly having very mixed feelings about the skinning of the avatrols - she sits looking the other way, but can't help glancing at the progress regularly.

When Zinobia announces that it's time to leave, Ronna promptly stands up and dusts her breeches. As her natural inclination is to let others lead the way, walk behind them, she waits for everyone to get going. Finally, when all the skulls are free, she hurries to the nearest one and peers through the hole in its skull.

OOC: How many darts did I recover, by the way? I assumed 1, with those rolls.

Lucas can barely contain his excitement. "Do I have to ask it a question? Or does one just look through and think about where they are going? Or does the mental state of the observer have no bearing on the visions?" Lucas says mostly to himself, thinking out loud. He takes the skull in the center and holds it aloft, nose to nose with the skull. "What can we do to have the best chance of success?" He decides to ask the skull while thinking about the journey ahead, then closes his eyes trying to envision the team dodging falling boulders and slaying unknown hordes, finding lost numenera all along the way. He turns the skull ritualistically, though what ritual he is following is being made up on the spot, and opens his eyes to see through the presented portal.

With effort succeeded at diff 6 task. With possible training, diff 7.