Nurzhan follows closely behind Raven as she runs to join Minmorc and Riza beside the unconscious elf. Grakk and Bulldust follow after just a few more moments and Moffdust follows more slowly, tut-tutting about unwelcome visitors. Now Oopses and Dregz are the only ones still at the campsite.

The elf is a male wood-elf dressed in studded leather armour, dark green tunic, brown trousers and soft leather boots. He is armed with a longsword, dagger, longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows. His belt pouch yields 6 small gems and 50 silver coins. He is not carrying food or water or other gear that might indicate he was travelling far. He is unconscious from his wounds but Minmorc's application of the wand obtained from the previous stop at the haunted settlement in the forest is already slowly starting to heal his wounds. However he still looks in pretty bad shape and it will obviously take several rounds before the elf regains consciousness.

Moments later everyone hears Jurz coming back from the direction of the spikey wall of tangled vegetation.

"Der ring wid der tree is full of de elveses" he calls as he makes his way towards camp.  "we's need to go now ..." he says with conviction.

His dog Rog hears his voice and comes bounding through the undergrowth to meet his little goblin master.

"Lotsa elves means lotsa arrows." Minmorc will grab Vera, will coup de grace the elf and will head back to the camp to grab the rest of his gear. "Riza, sorry I stole yer kill but we gotta go."

Riza says nothing much when Minmorc finally slays the elf, she does smile an evil grin and say "only good elf is a dead elf, let's move" she will make herself busy collecting everything of use from the corpse, she will take the arrows if she can use them, she will also bring the elf's weapons back to the others, if no one takes them she will dump them on the fire. She will also pocket the silver and gems.

Then with her bow at the ready she will move off with the others at speed.

Bulldust looks at the dead elf for a moment then shrugs and trots back to the campsite. He quickly starts shoving the partly-cooked-but-mostly-still-raw pork back into the various sacks and bags that people had carried it in before.

The elf's arrows are too long for Riza's little bow so Nurzhan decides to add them to his collection. Riza pockets the coins and small gemstones from the elf's belt pouch. Grakk takes his dagger and its scabbard. Nobody has much use for anything else of the elf's gear so Riza tosses his sword and longbow on the fire.

In reply to Wyrm of Wyrd (msg # 177):

Arlein leaps out of the brush at Jurz's shout and walks up to rub Minmorc's leg as hes looting.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:42, Sun 24 Aug 2014.

Arlein the cat comes back. She rubs up against Minmorc's leg and sniffs once at the elf's corpse. Yes, it is just as dead as those boars were last night. It is a bit weird though, as its wounds are very slowly healing up again.

Meanwhile, back at the campsite, Nurzhan curses loudly in Orcish when he pulls his greatsword out of the large hunk of boar meat that he had spitted on the sword over the fire. He burned his hand on the hot metal of the greatsword!

In reply to Wyrm of Wyrd (msg # 179):

"Arlein!" Oopses states relieve as the group returns to the camp.

 "You said there were more elves? Wincing as Nurzhan shouts.

 She too went back to the fire and started stuffing meat into her packs. She grabbed the meat that was smoking too, then grabbed her bedroll and her pack, ready to light out of there as fast as she could go, with the rest of the group.
 "Hurry hurry, don't needs feathered sticks poking into me! Rak! Go go go!"
Once done gathering stuff, she readied her handiest weapon to defend herself and her new friends.

"I will stay at the back of the group," Nurzhan offered. "If any elves chase us I can fill them full of arrows as soon as I see them."

"Dere is loads in de tree ring.  I blocked up dis entrance but dere are still anudder two ways out of dere." Jurz says as he loads stuff onto Rog.

As soon as his mount is loaded and ready to go, Jurz will climb up onto Rog and settle himself in the saddle.  He turns the riding dog in the direction they were originally heading, looks back over his shoulder and starts his mount walking  ...

"Lets roll ..." he says squinting slightly.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 16:12, Mon 25 Aug 2014.

Moffdust helps pack the meat so they can get out of there faster.

"How many elfs is lotsa elfs?" She asks Jurz. "Is there more of thems than us?"

"Dunno.  I'se didn't waits to count de elves.  One was coming for de tunnel befores I blocked it and der is many more in dere as well." he says over his shoulder as he continues riding.

 She stalked along with the others in that peculiar gait that her kind had, which was a lot like a crows, or a rooks. She kept bobbing her head and looking around, trying to spot elves in the darkness. She hated to think of feathered sticks flying through the air toward their backs. Her shoulder blades itches at the thought.
 "You thinks we ken get away from them? They ken see good in darkness too cain't they?"

 "Its getting light soon." he reminds the bird woman.  "Den everything can see." Jurz continues as Rog keeps walking away. "I's don't knows ifn we's can outrun them.  I knows we can't if we's don't try ..."

In reply to Jurz (msg # 187):

Oopses just cradles Arleen and waits for the party to make up it's mind.

The group consensus rapidly becomes clear. Waiting around to face an unknown number of angry elven archers doesn't seem like a very good idea to anyone, so the group quickly packs up and heads south as swiftly as they can. Initially, Jurz and Rog have a bit of a head start and lead the way south. Nurzhan appoints himself as the rear guard and makes sure everyone else is ahead of him, or at least level with him as they travel south.

OOC It takes about ten rounds (1 minute) for the last of the group to pack up and join the exodus. By now everyone has been travelling all through the night and everyone was looking forward to resting through the day. Most have not had a full meal yet as they were busy starting to cook the boar meat. Undoubtedly fatigue will start to slow the group down before very long, while the elves are probably comparatively well fed and rested. The daylight in the forest is not bright enough to bother anyone with sensitive eyes, so at least that is not a concern. Jurz and Rog are out front, Nurzhan is at the back, and everyone else is in a loose group between them. Does anyone want to choose a different position, specify distances between different groups or make any other preparations as you all head south?

The little goblin priest had been trying his best to ignore the brief encounter with the lone Elf.  As he muttered to Oopses, "Dey'll jus' cut of its 'ead and' throw it aroun' !"

But news of more Elves, possibly already en route to the group's present location was bad news indeed.  Quickly Dregz stuffs the Holy Book back into his sack, for safekeeping, and gets ready to run, calling out to the more muscularly brained in the group, "Can' youse make it look as if dat Elf killed 'imself ?"
This message was last edited by the player at 05:22, Fri 05 Sept 2014.

Riza will keep herself hidden as best as she can, but will stay near minmorc for protection if things go bad. She knew she would be getting tired like all the others, but hopefully they would be able to find a safe place to hole up

Jurz slows a bit and while the others are catching up he reaches around for his bag that still contains some of the raw meat.  "Anyones want any of dis?" he asks holding chunks of the food out to people.  "We's can eats dis stuff as we walk." he adds hoping that the extra food will stop them tiring quite so quickly.  He makes sure that there is enough left for him and Rog to each have a share of the meat.

While meat is sorted he relies of Rog to be aware of any potential threats to them from the front, but once the meat distribution is completed he settles down to path-finding and watching out for enemies - particularly elfsies.

In reply to Jurz (msg # 192):

//The raw meat was nothing new, it just didn't have the crisp of cooked meat. still a lot better then bugs.


Oopsies grabs a chunk to niblble on with one hand.

Nurzhan answered Dregz's question to get the little green goblin moving.

"The elves won't believe he shot himself with arrows or stabbed himself with his own sword, 'cos he shouted out about filthy orcs. If they heard that they will know about us anyway, so we just gotta get away quick as we can."

When Jurz starts sharing out meat Nurzhan takes a few bites of the meat he is already carrying and stays right at the back of the group.

Bulldust stays close to Moffdust in the middle of the group as they hurry south. He is carrying some of the boar meat too, so he tears off a chunk and shares with Moffdust.

"Or died playing 'Wilson' ?" is Dregz last attempt before joining the moveable feast that is the group's retreat.