On every world, in every dimension, through every plane there is a forest. Deep, dark and mystical, it is a place that the common folk of the worlds fear to tread. To those who enter, while dark and forboding, there is a sense of magic about this place.

As you walk deeper into the forest, you come across a path, wide enough for two to walk along easily. The path soon comes to a river, a river that flows quickly, but it is swimmable if you can swim. The path winds along the edge of the river until you come to a bridge, and across the bridge is a tavern.

Other than the tavern, the forest expands in all directions. All manner of wildlife can be found here, and it is possible to spend days, weeks even months wandering the forest. The only known way in or out of the forest is the path. Exploring in other directions simply takes through more and more trees. It is told that many have been lost by exploring.

Meriwether was lost & it was not for the first time. No matter how far or how many lands he had traveled, the Englishman was no woodsman... nay outdoors-man! Sure he had no qualms about roughing it yet he had always required the assistance of someone closer to the Earth than himself. He walked along the darkened path not altogether sure how he came to be here. Where ever here was?

The woods had a magical air about them. That did not mean they were not dark & somewhat foreboding as well. More than once his hands strayed to the pearl handles of his Navy Colts. There was a tingle along his spine as the hairs about his neck began to rise. He then remembered a few people of his past & how they would laugh at him if only they could see him now.

Their faces flitted before him... some smiling, some laughing in amusement, & others still shaking their solemn heads in disapproval. Running Fox who had guided him to Fort Laramie. Kaa Ju Hein, who had kept him from freezing to death outside Bent Creek, with her dark brown eyes showing disbelief that the greenhorn had not learned from past mistakes. Artemus Carson, who for a white man, seemed terribly good at tracking & home in the wild. They had brought the Loreman children to Springfield Missouri.

Meriwether was soon brought out of his reverie, as he spied a river & then a bridge which crossed it. What was that then? A homestead... Roadside Tavern?... A Country Inn? It did have a sign hung before the door. Glad for a respite from these Bloody woods, the Englishman made for it with all speed. He quickly crossed the bridge & made it to the Inn proper. The sign seemed weathered & old but a fresh coat of paint had placed a stylized wolf-head upon it.

The Shootist gave a silent shrug of his gaunt shoulders & pushed inside...
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:47, Sun 25 Jan 2009.

      Quintus walked deeper into the Baltic countryside. This forest held enemies of the Roman legions, but Quintus had been instructed to go ahead of the patrols. His uncle had displeased the Caesar, now Quintus was to pay for that. The trees closed behind him as he paced forward. He passed the Far Watch and nodded as he walked. Before he passed too far, he turned met the eyes of the Far guard and pulled his service gladius. Keeping the scabbard he drove the sword into the dirt. The Far guard would come and retrieve it when he has the chance, or not. At this point Quintus didn't care. He just hoped that his uncle had done what he had done for the right reasons. Pulling his cloak a bit closer around his shoulders Quintus hoped the Baltic warriors would give him a swift death.
      With a bit of surprise, Quintus noticed he was walking down a path, he recognized the tracks of horse and cart. This was not what he expected. The light was wrong. It seemed to emanate in the area instead of shining down from above or originate at a campfire. The sounds of the birds was strange. he recognized the hoot of the local owls, but there was the chirp of the swallows from back home. And many bird calls that he didn't recognize. Periodically there was the sound on the trail he walked upon of hoof striking stone. He hadn't seen any horses since leaving camp, but this didn't set him on edge. This forest wasn't the place for violence. It was eerie, but Quintus knew he would leave this forest before he died.
     With that assurance the Roman, continued to march forward. His military bearing showed as he glimpsed the building. How odd, thought Quintus as he approached, Very well built, if old. Nothing like what he had expected. The craftsmanship was wrong, the styling, the forest, it was all wrong, yet it was also the most right thing he had seen. "Now how do you suppose that?" With those words Quintus mounted the steps and stepped through the doorway.

Stepping outside the door, Sliver pulled it closed behind him. As he stood on the verandah, he let a quick glance flick back through the window at the blonde woman to whom he had been speaking. Adventure, fortune, and a seemingly forced retirement from her home. The latter, certainly, was something that he was familiar with.

His boots thudded softly on the stairs as he walked down them to the path below, but Sliver did not continue to follow the path. He walked a little ways from the tavern itself, standing in the clearing that swept up most of the area around the tavern on the other side from the river.

Slowly, he paced around the tavern, and soon he began to walk along the edge of the river.

He could not help but think that it was, perhaps, time to settle back into who he had been born to be.

She awoke with a start and a familiar stiffness within her joints. Sitting up slowly, she gazed around, carefully. It was sadly not the first time she was in such a state, but she was confident she had never been here before.

With a grimace Vanessa rose, checking that no harm had come to her and trying to remember how she’d gotten here.  She’d been on an assignment… things had been going horribly wrong… vague images floated past her minds eye and most of them surreal and inconsistent.

Taking in her surroundings, her eyes followed the path, to the bridge and the tavern ahead.  She wasn’t foolish enough to think that her colleagues would there.  Blakely wouldn’t have left her if he had options, certainly not to go for a pint.  But perhaps, there she could learn something about this strange place she found her self and deduce how she’d arrived here.

"Strange place to fall asleep, this close to accommodation." Sliver said, looking across at the woman on the path.

Stepping out from the trees was a lithe man, fairly average height, his body was slim but clearly well muscled. He swung a leather jacket over his shoulders, as though he had been carrying it while he was walking through the forest. His eyes, though, were intense, animalistic, even.

"Is everything okay, ma'am?" He asked, taking another couple of steps closer before he stopped.

Thanks for the observation. She said dryly, but wasn't going to volunteer to a stranger that she had no memory of going to sleep and had no idea why she was there.  Yes. I'm fine... thanks....It...was dark.  Well that was a lame explanation, but it was all she had at the moment.

She watched the stranger.  Come here often? She smirked at the bad joke, but hoped he might provide her some clues.

Garrett walked purposefully through the shadowed wood.  His elaborately decorated and eminently dangerous blade strapped to his left balanced by the seemingly anachronistic addition of the 44 automatic on his right. Clad in a nondescript but expertly tailored uniform that could not be dated or categorized to a particular culture let alone country.  He didn't fit any particular place let alone the dark shrouded forest he now traversed.  He carried a pack of dark material and bore several other miscellaneous devices about his person all with little in the way of identifying characteristics.

In the distance he caught sight of the tavern gripped the hilt of his sword and continued on as if expecting action at any moment.  He maintained the same cold stoic gaze as he approached the pair now entering the establishment.

Having picked up their conversation he forced a smile that didn't touch the rest of his face and in an oddly divergent accent he called out, "Hail, and well met."

Sliver took another step or two closer to the woman, but he certainly didn't appear to have any sort of concern or other reaction to her excuse, no matter how simple or complicated that it might have been as to her reason for being there.

He had learned over the years - particularly these last several, just how much humanity kept hidden secret. It hadn't been a thought to him prior to that, that there would be reason to hide anything from anyone, even intentions.

"Here? A couple of times." He said, looking up at the tavern. "I'm not much for social gathering these days though."

He turned, seemingly before Garrett had actually spoken, and his intense blue eyes stared across at the man who approached.

"To you too." He said.

Yeah, me either, usually. Vanessa glanced to the Tavern, wondering what kind of social gatherings were held.  Though nothing looked particularly sinsister...yet.

The sound of another, drew her attention and she studied him briefly.

Greetings. Vanessa answered as well, thinking that might be a safe response.  With the arrival of someone new, she took the opportunity to take a step back from Silver.

From the breif exchanges, she knew she was neither literaly or figurative in Kansas any more.  In fact, she was nowhere that she thought she even might be.  This was a mixed bag.  At least strange adventures were not out of the ordinary for her. The voice in her mind's ear, chuckling at that.

Gallus heard the gathering of people before he saw them. He changed his course to intercept these new contacts and was pleased to see different people than before. His large hulking frame, well over seven feet tall in his power armor, strode through the trees like a giant from mythology. "Does one of you pay fealty to the Emperor of Man?"

After receiving a greeting from the pair, Garrett approaches more openly releasing his grip and bows or more accurately nods to the two.  Facing Vanessa but with a slight glance at Sliver he responds, "Did I hear correctly that you have some experience within?  Perhaps we three could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement but first allow me to introduce myself.  I go by Garrett, Garrett Drake."

At the approach of the fourth he steps aside in the direction of Vanessa interposing himself slightly between her and the mechanized warrior.  After the battlesuit speaks he responds, "That title is unfamiliar."  He continues to eye the armor with suspicion even surveying the wood behind.  Just because he didn't feel like there was danger didn't mean old habits would die.

Sliver cursed himself for not detecting the approach of the hulking man that approached. At least, he thought it was a man, he couldn't be certain whether he was completely human or something else.

As Gallus approached, though, Sliver moved to a much more wary position, his knees bent, one hand hanging low as though ready to balance himself into a crouch if need be. He hadn't had a chance to answer Garret's question, instead, asked about fealty to some emperor.

"Don't recognize it here either." He said in response to Gallus.

Gallus removed his helmet and placed it under his arm, the service studs on his eyebrow giving off a faint glimmer. "It seems that I am still alone then. I was hoping that one of my battle-brothers would be here with me. It would be good to see a familiar face." He shifts slightly, his backpack giving off wisps of smoke as it vents exhaust. Whirs of gears can be heard as he moves, letting those around know that there is more to his armor than just protection.

"You never know, you might get lucky." He responded to Gallus disappointment. "You never know who's going to show up to a place like this."

He paused, looking along the path behind Garrat, the way they had entered.

"You never know who's never going to show up again, either." He added.

Vanessa had not known how to answer the giant's question and was happy the others had. It was definately her experience that answered questions did not meet with the best of receptions.

She had also gotten the odd impression that somehow these two were trying to protector her from this new... being.  A moment of indignance, nagged at her.  She had taken care of herself just fine... on the other hand, where WAS she??

Vanessa had often prided herself on having seen it all, or at least a lot, but the... being before as he took off his helmut was more than intriguing.  With difficulty, she drew her eyes away from him, back to the others.  She had also learned in the past, it wasn't polite to stare.

If you don't mind...where, exactly are we? She knew that the question would tip her hand slightly, but then surely her naivete about her surroundings would do that also.  Perhaps better to be straightforward about that.

"That is a question I have as well."

The large man who walks up is dressed in a 21st century suit.  Dwarfed by the man in powered armor, he still stands at well over 2 meters and is solidly built.  Despite his size, he made no noise as he approached.  Even now, each step is taken with slow deliberation, there is something unnatural about the way he moves, and despite the darkness, he wears dark sunglasses.

"Where has that painted keeb dropped me now?"

"If there are no answers here, then I shall retire back to the building." With that he turned and walked back towards the inn.

With the large seemingly non human scary guy heading toward the Tavern, Vanessa turned her attention to the new, semi scary human guy who'd now arrived.  He was of a type at least that she was more familiar with, and felt a little better that he too had seeminly no idea where they were.

Misery loves company? she thought.

She glanced to Silver, he seemed to be the most likily to provide some kind of answer.

The voice has little inflection in it.

"Sorry... I don't mean to be rude, the name is Mason."

He offers his left hand forward, keeping his right clear.

"What did he mean, 'building'?"

Upon Gallus' announcement that he would be retiring for the evening, "Good evening then, soldier."  He spoke with a degree of familiarity bound from years of experience with warfare and those that wage it.

To Mason he nods without accepting the outstretched left, "Well, I extend my invitation to you as well then, sir."

After Vanessa spoke to Sliver, "Yes, but why don't we move inside for the answers we all seem to seek."

With the assumption that he will eventually be followed he enters the establishment, wiping his boots and removing his pack as he goes.

[To: The Wolf's Head Tavern]
This message was last edited by the player at 02:13, Wed 04 Feb 2009.

"You know what, a drink might help the explanation of all of this go down easier." Sliver said, chuckling lightly and following Garrett towards the tavern.

"Name's John, by the way." He said, looking at each of those who might be joining him on the short walk to the tavern.

"A bar huh... very well.  Follow the path I guess."

Mason waits for others to go before starting out himself, his head slowly moves from side to side.  The style of dress of these people is odd to say the least.  He was used to seeing people carrying swords around, but some of the other weapons were just plain odd.  Plus that powered armor, that was beyond any tech out there, and he kept up on tech.  He wasn't sure whether or not even the APDS rounds would crack open that tin can, didn't matter too much, the joints might be armored, but never as much, if it came to that, he should really have and Anti Vehicular Missile.

Vanessa. She answered, still skeptically looking between the others.

Going to the tavern did not seem the greatest of ideas to her.  She'd much rather have answers, but that didn't seem to be going to happen.  Since she didn't want to stay out in the woods, she sighed and fell into step with the other.

So... John? We need a drink to have this explained? She prodded.

[To Tavern]

"Going from experience, it usually helps to have something to settle the nerves." He said to Vanessa, before standing aside, letting the other three climb the steps to the tavern first.

Talon ran foreward in the forest.  The ogres had been chasing him for a while now, and he was getting exhausted.  Looking around, he realized that the forest was different...darker somehow.  Slowing down, he listened for sound of prusuit, hearing none, he started to look for a path or something to lead him out of the forest.

Following what he believed to be a game trail, he followed it to a river.  Looking for a bridge or some way across, he decided to try it in a different way.  Reaching into his belt pouch, he pulled out a small vial.  Pouring the powder onto the ground, he chanted in the old language, causing the powder to rise up and solidify.  Stepping on the now solid disc, he rode it across the river.

Wandering farther along, he spotted the tavern, seeing the lights, he wandered foreward, hoping that the ones inside were friendly.

<To Tavern>

As Mason goes down the path he starts to build up speed.  As he approaches the place he entered this world, he is at a dead run.  He pulls the gun from the holster and is ready to reenter his own where and when.  When he left, there was a lot of lead flying around.  No telling what he will be returning to.