OOC: I may, but I don't think you find that I actually have to - can you imagine how quickly that would knacker even Adonis? ^_^

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 Sir Campbell takes the blade offered him with a confused expression that suits his features well, then transfers it to his right hand and draws his short pig-iron gladius with his left, the blade hardly worthy of the name and yet inherently far more suited to the sort of short, chopping blows that are best used to slice through greenery.

 "My folk, now answere me; Boda doth him bymene. Lo! Lemman swete, now may thou see; A sory beverech it is. Ye that pasen be the weyye; What ys he, thys lordling, that cometh from the vght?" he begins to sing, a song of the Prophets sacrifice old even in Albion that raises in praise even as he steps forwards to raise the blade first to let it be seen, and then to bring it down to clear their road.

eldor buries his fingers deeper into the soil, a bead of sweat on his brow.

Rael eyes dart to the side "You made him angry... " he mutters "... perhaps it is not too late, perhaps we could offer it a gift and depart in peace..."

Adonis has barely chopped off a few branches when there is a a shivering and the trees draw back once again - and stay there.  The path is clear.   Eldor returns to his feet, sweating with the effort.

There is a sudden scratching sound from one side and then a cry from Kjaelos.   He, Karl and Thomas have suddenly sunk up to their knees in mud where a moment before the ground was firm.  Rael manages to jump free in time and the mushy ground does not reach Eldor or Adonis.



[a sword ain't a machete but I reckon Adonis would still have good arm for chopping.  I once went through thick Indonesian forest with some local guys, little wiry men but they chopped their way tirelessly through the foliage at a great rate.  Of course when I asked to try they politely let me, but after 10 mins we had hardly moved forward at all so I relinquished my post in the van!]

The sinking into the mud threatens death. Thomas begins to flail at the sucking mud to try and pull himself free. Such a threat will spur most men to action...no one wants to die like that.

Karl lays his staff flat for any in reach to grab onto.  Perhaps, if he could reach the edge of the bog...

Rael curses as he leap away from the sucking mud "Don't fight" he shouts at the sinking men then turn his attention to the woods calling in a foreign language.

Karl lays his staff out and Eldor is close enough to grab it.

Kjaelos heeds Rael's advice and keeps still, while Thomas, thrashing, slowly sinks up to his waist. 

The shushing sound rises louder at Rael's words in the strange tongue, but the way east stays open.

 "Out of Empibe I broughte thee, Ther thou wer in thi wo; And wikkedliche thou nome me, As I hadde ben thi fo." Sir Campbell continues to sing lustily, setting the chopping to the rhythm of the sound that rises over the rustling of the undergrowth until the last branch the Campbell is about to cut twists and seeks to retreat - and with a bow of the knights head is indeed permitted to retreat...

 ...but the cry from his allies is a more serious matter and it demands his breath and bone and so the song ends as - with a swish of steel through the air - he reverses the blade in his right hand and drives it feet-deep into the earth, retaining the short-sword in his left as he reaches for his knightly belt and unfastens it, giving it a swift shake and sliding his empty scabbard to the end of it - giving him around five or six feet of leather to extend his reach and a solid point to grasp at should he need it as he tries to flick the belt out towards Sir Keith, "Take it if you can reach for it man!"

Eldor drops a crouch, laying his bow down beside him he grabs the staff and starts to pull.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:18, Tue 01 Feb 2011.

Thomas sinks up to his waist and then a little more and stops. He looks around and begins to try to move to the edge of the bog struggling through the liquid earth. Apparently, he can put his feet down one solid ground beneath him.

Rael grumble under his breath "Did you understand it?" he asks Eldor "I would suggest you stop singing and swinging that big cold iron meat cleaver of yours... it does not help."

Then he cautiously approach the sinking mud trying to help pull out the closest companions.

Eldor manages to pull Karl out and and he crawls to his feet, half-covered in mud.    Thomas grabs Adonis' belt and with Agonising slowness begins to inch his feet towards the dry ground.  Kjaelos throws one end of his cloak to Rael who begins to pull on it.

Suddenly a short dark figure, almost like a young Rowan tree with legs, appears on the path before you, just out of reach, and gesturing angrily.   The swishing sound grows louder and appears to be its speech.  After a moment you realise that it is pointing at Eldor and summoning him over.

Eldor finishes pulling Karl out then turns at the sound and nods.

He moved towards the treeman and drops to one knee waiting for the creature to react.

 Inch by painstaking inch, Adonis drags Sir Keith out of the mire, blood starting to trickle from his injured arm within moments but endured with knightly disregard for the little slings and arrows that trouble mortal flesh, the arrival of the man of the woods greeted with a glance but no more for the moment, all the Albish knights energies instead turned towards the salvation of his companion.

The figure hands Eldor a small sprig.   

Meanwhile Thomas is finally brought to  the edge of the bog, Adonis' muscles aching with the strain.   To actually pull his feet out he is forced to dig with his knife.       Kjaelos, less sunken, makes it out more easily.

Eldor felt light headed the task given him was a great honor and he bowed low in acceptance of the task.

With the sapling in one hand he took a pouch from his belt and gathering some soil he half filled it. using his elemental power he purified the earth and gently laid the sapling in it adding a few drops of water from his flask he sealed it shut and hung it gently round his neck.


"Friend of the wood I will take this gladly and grow a fine wood for your children to live. I ask one thing in return the humans you see behind me mean your land no harm they are ignorant of the ways of nature and are as children in your eyes. I ask that you allow us safe passage through your land as the task they have been set if not completed could effect all creatures of this land."

Eldor is not sure if his speech was understood but, whatever the reason, the figure slips back into the woods without another sound.  Silence reigns again and the drenching gloom of the forest seems somehow lessened to a simple sadness.

Once Adonis and Thomas have recovered their breath, you make good progress towards the east and an hour before sunset you are at the base of the low cliff where Adelbert's rope hangs down.  Another half hour and you are atop the cliff whence the hills roll gently downwards to the east.

[You may take the rope or leave it.   There is a faint track east which the monk told you leads to a strange village populated entirley by children]

Rael shake his head and clean the mud from his hands "Let us go from this place... I want nothing with the good folks."

After they had removed themselves from the bog and traveled on east. The motivation slowly comes back to Thomas and he recovers his blade from Adonis. Once to the top of the cliff he voices, "Do we take the rope or leave it for the others should they need it?"

 Rolling onto his back in a muted clatter of armour, Sir Campbell takes a few moments to breath deeply and slowly after Sir Keith is hauled from the clutches of the mire, even his improbable constitution strained by the exertion - and if the utter lack of thanks or acknowledgement received is taken ill then there's no sign of it some few minutes later when he painstakingly hauls himself back to his feet and retightens the blood-soaked bandage on his arm.

 Thomas's blade is recovered from the earth where it served as an anchor and in due course, the group is eastward bound once more, where the task of climbing for most of half an hour is one undertaken uncomplainingly by the Albish knight, but one that leaves him pale-faced and shaking by the time he's at the top of the cliff, cradling his wounded arm against his side.

 "It's not ours and there should be no more cliffs to climb an' I have our directions straight. Master fairy, do you concur or have I missed aught?" he replies, as the matter of the rope is raised for debate.

Eldor looked at the knight and nodded "If both our bearings are correct we will be inthe lowlands soom. I would suggest keeping away from the village occupied by only children and press on to our destination if we need I can hunt for game on the way."

You leave the rope dangling and head cautiously east.  In less than an hour you are on the reverse slope of a low hill which overlooks a small village - barely more than a cluster of huts.   Figures move around, lighting a fire in the middle of the  settlement.

Eldor and Rael's sharp eyes notice movement on the hills around the village, anyone continuing on the path east would not go undetected.

[It will be dark very soon and so to skirt around would risk turned ankles and broken legs.  You could camp where you are but the only water is a brackish trickle.  Or, you could advance to the village...]

 Usually Sir Campbell would be the first to argue for pressing on come hell or high water, indefatigable and apparently insensible to anything but actually impassable physical barriers (and any barrier he can penetrate with blows from his head wasn't impassable), but he's been unusually quiet for the last half-hour or so of the march and once appraised of the sentries softly voices his counsel, "We needs must press on without entanglement, but must rest the night. Let us camp then for an hour or two and rest until it is fully dark, then let the dark-piercing eyes of our fae companion lead us past the watchers and find us a haven on the far side of the thorpe where we might wait the 'morn."

Thomas was not one to contradict a peer but as sharp eyed as the elf might be, he could not see in the full of dark and unless the elf was going to watch all of them plant their feet in every spot they risked having something truly ill befall one of them.

"Sir Adonis, do you believe that wise to progress in the dark. Where the fae can see in the dark, we cannot at all. I am no coward to be unmanned by the dark but we risk serious impediment should be falter in the dark."

He views the village. "We might be just be better served by passing through the village and gathering clean water and food."