It's mid morning in a thick forest outside Unity.  The light of the sun filters through the dense canopy and dances across the reasonably well maintained packed road.  In the middle of the road is a large, apparently abandoned, carriage.  The horses and rider are nowhere to be seen.

(OOC: This is for new characters to jump in.  You have 3 options:  1) Arrive by the road from Unity implying you're leaving the city.  2) Arrive from the other direction.  3) Was wandering around in the woods for some odd reason and came upon the scene that way.)
This message was last edited by the player at 03:54, Fri 14 Nov 2008.

Reverie is walking just off road, preferring the shade of the trees over any open area like the road during the day. She was headed to Unity when she spots the carriage and easily gets curious. Reverie speaks in a soft and melodic voice.

"A carriage with no horse or rider?
What kind of clues can I acquire?"

Reverie steps closer to the carriage and curiously peeks inside of it, assuming nothing stops her. Her guard is down to some degree, not even thinking something like this could be a trap. To anyone looking, this cloaked girl is wearing strong red colors mixed with black and gold. Not exactly camouflage either in the forest or even at night. Her hood is down, allowing anyone to see she herself is rather dark with interesting yellow designs on her ears and forehead... and red eyes.

(Side note: Is this going to have a map, or is this an encounter at all?)

The map:
http://spreadsheets.google.com...3bxPD0pRTTaeQIJj6Zdw

Black represents the table top the map is resting on.  >.>
Tan represents the road and is easy terrain.
Orange represents the forest floor: Loose dirt and leaves.  Easy terrain.
Deep green squares (looks black on my screen) represent tree trunks and is hindering terrain (impassible.)
Green represents thick underbrush and is difficult terrain.
The carriage is a large object and is indicated on the road with 4 squares.

There will be an encounter.

A beautiful human woman walks towards the party.  Her skin (what you can see of it) is pretty tanned.  Her jet black hair reaches down to the middle of her back, tied by a simple red string.  By the way she's dressed, she's obviously a warlock.  She speaks softly, but clearly to the party.

"Greetings.  My name is Lana Shihoin.  The people in Unity told me of an adventuring party that had left town recently.  If you are they, I would assist you if you allow it."

She bows politely to the entire party.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:56, Fri 14 Nov 2008.

After chasing after the scampering small squirrel  the Elf Ranger looked into the distance, from what he could see and hear with his ears and sensing a  presence with his great perception there were others near him. After days of wondering through the woods his sanctum he finally found other forms of life besides the creatures that scurried across the forest floors. He climbed into the nearest tree and looked out into the distance and saw Humes and yet maybe other life near a carriage, this was odd to see something just left there to sit and not moving but at the time that was less of his concerns. In the Elfs mind he had no idea if these people would be friends or foes. The elf's pet hawk was sitting on his shoulders nibbling at the Elfs' pointy ears.

"Knock it off Aries" the elf spoke to it in elven tongue

The hawk just chirped and gave another teasing nibble.  The elf smiled and the pet the hawk on top of his head he then turned his attention back onto what was happening with his heightened sense of things in the world he managed to come to the understanding that the young beautiful human girl was greeting the others. He watched with intensity from the tree tops as he watched he pulled out his wooden pipe made from his homeland with elven symbols that read  "For the love of the wild, and nature" and began to blow smoke rings watching ever so closely
This message was last edited by the player at 07:37, Sat 15 Nov 2008.

(OOC: Forgot to mention, the North road is the one that joins the highway to Unity.  The South road leads to... some... other... place.

Also, the only persons at the scene are PCs.  No NPCs... yet.)

Reverie ducks a little at the sound of someone approaching but when she sees Lana, Reverie calms herself a little. At hearing Lana mention Unity, Reverie's ears perk up some. While still speaking softly and melodically, Reverie's voice picks up in volume now that she knows someone else is present.

"I appreciate your benevolence
and gladly accept all assistance.
And although I'm not from Unity,
I'm going there most assuredly."

After all.. here she is, an Umbreon, blatantly not human or even something remotely common and this human from Unity comes up to her and offers a hand. Seems the rumors of Unity's equal-opportunity efforts are true. She presents the carriage that is all alone. Driverless and horseless.

A lone boy is walking the road coming from Unity, having wanted to take a stroll. He was permitted since he can take care of himself and his Warlord teacher said stuff to the effect of "a boy's gotta learn to fend for himself" and other manly-man stuff Eli doesn't really get much. All he knows is he loves nature and is here to admire the autumn leaves.

But he hears voices up ahead and goes to investigate. Two females and a lone carriage. For all he knows it's theirs, but... why no horses?

A lone gnome has been wandering the woods out of boredom and needing a break from the scenery in Unity, Shale is on his way back to Unity when he notices the carriage and those around it.

Thinking to himself, the gnome wonders what is a carriage doing out here with no beasts of burden to pull it? And being curious, the Gnome wanders a bit closer making sure to keep his shadow walk ability active as he moves around circling his way towards the carriage for all he knows, those at the carriage could be its owners, or could be looters, or they could be horse eating nutballs, or maybe just adventurous individuals who could be even more unpredictable. But naturally his curiosity is getting the most of him so he works his way closer to the carriage to learn more about what is going on.

_{[OOC: Shale is taking ten on his stealth checks so a Perception check of needs to beat a stealth score of 18 as Shale is using both the terrain and shadow walk to maintain the concealment needed to remain stealthed. (He'll be circling around in the area he is in to insure shadow walk stays up if he feels he doesn't have enough cover/concealment from the terrain itself, if he does end up moving his stealth check drops to 13.)]}
This message was last edited by the player at 20:58, Sat 15 Nov 2008.

Walking on the road back to unity after collecting up a few supplies for a ritual, Michael stops upon seeing the Carriage that is missing any horses, but seems to be drawing a bit of a crowd, although at this time Michael isn't sure if anyone in the crowd owns the carriage, if they are inspecting it, or looting it. Figuring that he won't learn as much from watching as he would from interacting, in addition to the lack of hostile or criminal actions at the moment, Michael figures he might as well make his presence known.

While holding his staff in his left hand, Michael places his right hand on the hilt of his sheathed longsword as he approaches. Michael then asks rather bluntly, “So what's going on here?” with the tone of his voice indicating more curiosity than anything else.

Lana, taken aback slightly by Reverie's poetic prowess, composes herself and starts examining Reverie.

"You're not human, that's obvious.  What are you, besides adorable?

She goes to pet Reverie.

"I'm not going to hurt you, little one.  I would like to see if your fur is as soft as it looks.  Are you hungry by chance?"

The grinned as more and more humes stumbled upon the carriage, this was getting exciting. He could not resist the temptations anymore, it had been way to long that he has been able to talk to other people other than himself. Since his long trip from his home land he had gotten bored of the conversations that he had with himself, and all the critters ever talked about was about eating and sleeping it was quite boring to him.

"Lets go see what all the fuss is about Aries" the elf said to his hawk companion

The bird chirped and fluttered down to the carriage where he perched himself waiting for his master to come from the tree lines. From what the elf could make out there was no negative energy spewing so he decided to make his decent to the forest floor.

"From the looks of it there is a party going on down here and no one  invited me, that’s quite sad" the elf yelled out to the crowd of people as he did he did a somersault off the branch he was standing on and landed on his feet with cat-like grace. As he got his bearings back into place he looked into the group and gave a grin.

"Greetings to all" He pulled out his pipe, lit it and took a few puffs before continuing, "I am Julious and that over there is my pet companion Aries" Julious pointed to the hawk who was sitting on carriage chirping about. "What do we have here a meeting of the minds or just some odd event, in any case I brought the pipe who brought the ale?"   He Chuckled and waiting for a response he puffed away.

The sound of a distant horse-drawn carriage can be heard slowly approaching from the North.  It will probably arrive within a few minutes.

http://spreadsheets.google.com...3bxPD0pRTTaeQIJj6Zdw

[Private to Lana Shihoin: Indicated your location on the map with an L]
This message was last edited by the player at 03:26, Mon 17 Nov 2008.

(OOC: I'm going to assume Lana's post actually came before Michael's. If you look at the time they were posted, they posted at the exact same time, therefor Lana's player didn't know of Michael's upcoming post. And I doubt she's the kind to just ignore someone who's asking a question.)

Reverie blushes at Lana's touch and leans her head into Lana's hand some. She is about to respond to Lana when she sees Michael show up. To his question, she answers:

"I was on a trek to Unity
When I saw this carriage before me.
It was like this, just as you see.
And if you're wondering, I'm Reverie."

Upon seeing Julious and hearing his question, Reverie smiles some and giggles.

"I'm sorry, sir, I have no ale,
and meeting minds could serve us well.
I'm sure you heard my name be said,
So come and let us break some bread."

She pulls out some of her food as if offering to share and be friendly. She looks from Michael to Lana to Julious and seems ready to spend time with them.

Eli is slightly intimidated at first, but after listening in, decides these grown-ups aren't hostile. He walks over to them. "Nice to see so many here to help solve such a mystery." the boy with rich clothing states. He doesn't have the snobbish accent one would expect from a child of luxury, but then his outfit is quite... arcane. "What's inside the carriage? Does it look like it was raided?"

After listening to what the others say, Michael comes to several conclusions all of which can be best summed up as 'that no one here knows how the carriage ended up like it is'. Michael then speaks up with, “I'm Michael,” before he turns to the Julious Treehugger and adds, “Alas, I do not have any ale either, but if I did, I doubt this would be the time to be dulling our wits as something possibly criminal has occurred here. And since we don't know if whoever left the carriage like this is still in the area, we probably should keep on our guard.”

Michael then turns to Lana and Reverie, and while Michael isn't quite sure what Reverie is yet, he does know that she doesn't seem to be hostile, which is a good thing. When offered the food, Michael responds with a gesture to Reverie to indicate that he isn't hungry at the moment before he then asks, “Thanks for the offer, but I'm not hungry right now.” as Michael considers if someone has already headed off to let those in Unity know of this situation. Michael then mumbles to himself, "Probably should learn a bit more about this situation before reporting it to the proper authorities in Unity, since otherwise there would be too many unknown variables, and that would bring lots of questions.”

Michael then glances at Eli and can tell quickly from looking at the boy that the child must come from wealth, as most children didn't wear fine clothing on a day to day basis. Additionally, Michael recognizes the arcane nature of the boy's attire and figures that he is isn't an apprentice wizard as apprentices typically are too busy studying or working to travel about so freely, so the boy must already be a fledgling wizard in his own right. Michael then rubs his chin with his right hand as his left continues to hold his staff. “I'd agree that this is definitely a mystery, but since it seems like most of us have all just stumbled across it at roughly the same time, I don't think anyone has had time yet to properly investigate the carriage yet.”

Grinning to himself, the gnome silently thinks that this could be the perfect solution to his boredom, as he continues to try to stealthily observe the situation as he tries to decide upon what he should do next. At least for the moment, his curiosity is keeping his fondness of jokes at bay, since Shale has realized that this situation isn't one where jokes would be appropriate. Which is something that causes the gnome to stop grinning, as a situation for which jokes are not appropriate while quite likely to be interesting, is also equally likely to not be amusing, but due to his curiosity, it isn't one he can just walk away from and mostly his reservations about revealing himself keep him from moving closer to personally inspect the carriage.

_{[OOC: Still hiding using stealth.]}

Julious looks to the creature named Reverie and gives her a small smile, "aww no ale you say? That’s too bad". Julious begins to stretch then looks around at the rest of group. He noticed the small boy named Eli and gave him a wink.

"This is some mystery I do say, what possibly be going on here its quite queer if you ask me." The elf laughed and took out his pipe again and began to smoke. His ears perked up he listened for a few moments and looked into the distance forest.

"By the way ladies and gentlemen my senses are telling me there are several on comers somewhere in the near area. Someone is close by he or she may be hiding in the shadows of the forest. Either I’m going out of my mind or this magic herb is getting to my head”

“Aries!” Julious yells out “Go search the area see what you can find out”

Julious pulls out his bow and notches an arrow as he does he listen closely to the surroundings. As he did it reminded him of when he was a small elf boy his father trained him up to he old enough in the elf society to be the age of an adult and go into an adulthood. There were countless tests that young Julious had to go through before he could prove to the elders that he was old enough and wise enough to go out on his own into the real world. The entire vigorous test shaped him up to what he was now. The never ending trials to become a beast master was so challenging for the young elf but it gave him a heighten sense of perceptions. He looked out and watched the forest cautionsly.

DM Ruling: It was pointed out that a perception check was not made against Shale.  The updated rules say that a stealth check is opposed to the passive perception of each individual in a group you're hiding from.  Even if your stealth check beats the passive perception of the ones you're hiding from, they can actively try to find you with a perception roll on their turns.  Until combat starts, it's assumed one is taking 10 for their stealth check.  Shale's would total 18, Julious' passive perception is 18, therefore Julious knows Shale is present and has a vague idea of what direction.  My name is Narrator and I approve this message.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:06, Fri 21 Nov 2008.

Lana looks around at the abundance of people that have shown up in such a short amount of time.  She pet Reverie's fur a few times, noticing how remarkably soft it was.

"Little Reverie, Your fur is so soft, I wish my hair was that soft.  How do you get it like that?  Thank you for the offer, but I am not hungry either."

(OOC:  I am a huge fan of soft hair.  My hair is so soft.  Don't judge me or be jealous that whenever my ponytail comes undone, choirs of angels sing from on high, lol. :P)

Lana turns to Michael.

"My apologies for cutting you off, kind sir.  Allow me to introduce myself to all who are present.  My name is Lana Shihoin.  I'm a Warlock who made a pact with darker forces than most. (Dark Pact)  I have no idea of what this carriage is doing, besides sitting here.  It was here when I arrived.  I'm curious to see what is inside though."

Lana reaches to the pouch on her side, obviously searching for something.  Looking slightly disappointed, she turns her attention to Julious.

"Unfortunately for you, I have no ale either.  Although the smells coming out of your pipe are rather alluring.  What exactly is that you are smoking?  It smells oddly familiar."

Turning her attention to the wealthy boy, Lana gives him a curious stare.

"Your clothes show you have Arcane background.  Are you a warlock or a wizard perhaps?  If not, I would imagine your family would be rather wealthy."

She gasps, holding her hand over her mouth, a possible realization coming to her mind.

"Or maybe, are you lost, little boy?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:22, Fri 21 Nov 2008.

Reverie blushes from the compliments and turns her attention to Michael again when Lana talks to him. Upon hearing Lana mention "darker forces", Reverie turns from curious to happy again as she smiles. Darkness = good in her mind. When she notices Eli from his making himself known and Lana addressing him, she reacts similarly. Though she can't help but wonder what a rich kid is doing out here too... maybe Lana is on to something. Not wanting to be rude, she doesn't interrupt.

She continues to assess the situation and think up poetry on the topic as well as ponder how beautiful the people around her are.