In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 739):

Am I still madly fleeing or have I calmed down and started making poor excuses?

In reply to Tanek Sanasin (msg # 740):

In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 739):

OK - so despite the darkness, broken here and there by shafts of moonlight - Sanjar attempts to get everyone to hasten away, first crossing the brook or stream to be on the other side to Solisma and the Bakru then following it on its downward course to the West...the party is going to basically 'run', 'flee' or hurry along for at least ten minutes or so before stopping to draw breath. Rhaskos' ability to navigate in the dark surely provides some guidance that helps avoid a twisted ankle or a head smacked on a low hanging branch along the way, and stops anyone straying away from the group.

Then as it feels like you are able to pause briefly and take stock. Despite being lost in the midst of virgin forest in the depth of night and not knowing where safety or danger may lay, the immediate danger is behind you.

How much longer do you want to follow this course? The party desperately needs rest, and it is still some hours until sun-up.

Sanjar will ask Rhaskos to help search for a suitable and if possible defendable campsite as they slow to a sustainable pace but keep moving westward, attempting to use the stream to conceal their true path while having someone ( volunteer? ) lay a false trail or three away from it.

In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 743):

OK who is volunteering to follow Sanjar's plan and volunteer to get lost in the woods in the dead of night while laying a false trail...?

In reply to Simulacrum (msg # 744):

"Sanjar, they know the island and they're magical.  I don't think laying a false trail is going to affect them, I think our best chance is laying enough distance that they don't feel the need to follow us.

Or, you know, we could go back into what's-her-name's lair..."

Sanjar sighs, nodding.  His own state of fatigue leaves him no better, and practicality trumps cleverness in such times.  "Very well.  Let us concentrate on keeping forward until we find a suitable location."

In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 746):

The party is too tired to keep up 'pursuit' speed for long, and the ground is treacherous, broken, thick with tree roots and in places slippery. After a while the stream cuts a path turning slightly to the North. The canopy suddenly changes and falls away, for you have reached the edge of the forest and lower-lying ground. The forest has given way to peculiar vegetation - grey-green stems, but thick as a man, and reaching up to heights of between 3 and 10 meters...and then someone sees they are in fact giant shrubs and flowers, grown big enough to tower above your heads. There is a strong smell of decomposing vegetation mixe with something sweet, and the air here is damp.

Is this a good time to try once again to make camp, imagining you are at least out of the woods..?

Sanjar readily agrees to any such suggestion.  Likely out of drop dead fatigue more than anything else.

In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 748):

Tanek sets out to find/clear an area to make camp, while also looking around to try to identify the sweet smell. It could just be scents from the flowers, but experience has told him that decaying corpses can also smell cloyingly sweet.

In reply to Simulacrum (msg # 747):

Curious, Kordan will experimentally cut a small slash into one of the stems to see what happens.

In reply to Kordan Mardahar (msg # 750):

The moonlight filters though here no longer blotted out by the forest canopy and bathes everything in silver-white.

Rhaskos does a scout of the area, and seems satisfied that there is nothing lurking in the vicinity, but he is troubled by the flora. Kordan cuts at one of the stems, and finds its exterior fibrous and tough to cleave, sap oozes from the wound where his blade has struck the stem's sappy capillaries. They are, simply, giant flowers. Every plant here in the low ground seems to be a mutation upon normal shrubs and flowers, grown as big as trees.

Tanek sets the camp, kicking up the ground to find where it may be driest. As he does so the sweet smell is something that from time to time wafts up from the mulchy damp floor and is dismissed again by a breeze.

Wary of pursuit and in  but exhausted, the party finds no problem getting to sleep. A watch rota is set, but when morning breaks everyone is still slumbering. Finally roused and perhaps with a sudden shot of fear of where you may find yourselves int he light of day you see the giant flower-heads above have opened to greet the sun as it climbs into the sky.

A second night on Solisand has passed. The appointed rendez-vous with the Foam Follower on the West side of the island draws near.

Kordan feels a breath of sea air from the South, and Rhaskos starts to feel uneasy about the strange noises he can hear, like the insect hum and chatter of a meadow only deeper, louder. Time to take stock...

It seems you have located Haliskome, the target of your expedition, and her ship in the bay at the South East corner of the island; but if so she and her crew know you are here too. Then there is the mystery of the other people, on the North side of the island, and who is that woman with them? And you have discovered an underground complex, a vestige of some more ancient past, which is apparently abandoned except for by some terrifying demoness who has solicited your services in slaying the island's nymph, Solisma...

Sanjar will attempt to get his bearings from their current location to their intended rendezvous.  If he thinks he has a good handle on things, that is where he wants to go.  No missing the boat allowed.  Time to move, back to the boat and a well deserved rest, then maybe back to this horrible place with renewed confidence.

In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 752):

Who remembers when the rendez-vous was set for?

...

I felt like I did.

Until you asked me.

In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 754):

I'm pretty sure it's real soon now. If I recall, we were just going to have time for a little side trek and still make it, so we're probably running behind schedule.

In reply to Kordan Mardahar (msg # 755):

OK, I just checked (its a few hundred posts ago). It is now some 20 hours since you left the beach rendezvous with Safra AmPrishad. The next rendez vous is tomorrow evening - 30 plus hours away.

NB you have slept; fatigue is restored; also those how have spent MPs have their healing rate in MPs recovered.

Moving on: The intended rendez vous is almost directly due West of here. The immediate vicinity is low ground, a veritable forest of giant flowers - the sea shore cannot be far away to the South; the densely forested hills are behind you to the East; what lies to the north is unknown, but of course that way is deeper into the interior.

So guys, do we go make the rendezvous and report in? Or strive ahead and miss the rendezvous and check in on us again in another week?  Sounds like we have one day of activity left.

I'd be willing to make another approach towards the southern encampment, but from the west.  So that when/if we need to depart from that, there is nothing between us and the rendezvous.  Like an icky forest full of evil tree women.  Or something.

In reply to Sanjar Zand (msg # 758):

Ori is inclined to agree with Sanjar - his proposal makes good sense.  After all, they are here to visit Safra's revenge upon Haliskome.  Let's be about that and give ourselves a clean run back to the boat.  There, we can rest, equip ourselves with some pitch and set to the dryad bitch's forest with a firebrand.


So... Ori is for looping to the south-west (?) then tacking back east to the Haliskome with a view to putting an end to her.

In reply to Orinastron (msg # 759):

That sounds like a reasonable plan.

In reply to Kordan Mardahar (msg # 760):

I think we should also consider what to do in the face of another gnome battle. The last time we won one of those was by killing the summoner. That's not really an option with the dryad transforming into one. Sanjar, do you have any magicks that might disrupt her or empower our weapons?  I feel like I may as well be trying to stab the ground to death when seeing her manifestation.

Also, my piercing attacks didn't seem to do much to the Bakru. I didn't notice, were anyone else's attacks successful at damaging them?

I suppose we could venture back into the cave to see if the spirit there has anything to offer us, but I feel like she'd probably just kill us instead.

In reply to Tanek Sanasin (msg # 761):

You could travel a couple of km south and hit the shore, then follow it to the bay where you encountered Haliskome's gang.

Or go back through the forest and the underground complex with the demoness in it...

I am away on a business trip right now and don't have access to what I need to do an updated map

Sanjar doesn't volunteer any new sorceries he is willing to use at this point, staying silent on that topic.  He thinks heading south to the southern shore and following it east to Haliskome's group is the wiser course.  He has little interest at current in heading back to tangle with the Dryad of Fury without being better prepared first.

Yeah, Kordan's totally at a loss as to what they can do against the dryad, gnome, or snake-haired creature. Mortal flesh and blood though? Let's go hunt down Haliskome.