Adia-Ny slips through the undergrowth after the cleric and his cohort.  About fifteen minutes have elapsed since they left the scene of the battle, mostly taken up with Adia having his injuries attended to. They were travelling much slower than he and their trail was easy to follow. Ogres are not well known for their stealth abilities. With luck he would overtake them before long.

OOC: Right, I need to know what precautions you will be taking while following the trail so if you can post a descriptive IC on this it would be good.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:10, Wed 07 Feb 2007.

Moving quickly through the undergrowth, Adia-Ny falls back into his training.  His many long hours of physical conditioning combined with meditations and excercises allow him to control his heart-rate and breathing to pull even more speed from his already fit body.  Falling into an easy, loping gait, he slips through the light woods and undergrowth in the direction in which the enemies had vanished.  Considering that ogres are large and brutish, and don't even seem to be attempting to cover their tracks, he stumbles accross their path almost immediately.  Flitting from cover to cover, he moves as quickly as he can through the woods.  Fully conscious of the severity of his injuries, he proceeds cautiously from then on.  Not that he wouldn't sacrifice his life if needed, but it would avail no-one if he were to be caught and killed, alone out here in the middle of nowhere.  The young man picks a hiding spot, and then scans ahead.  Seeing the way to be clear, he sets his sights on another hiding spot, then runs forward, stepping lightly over broken branches and dropping into the new spot, only to repeat the process over and over again until he finally catches sight of his quarry in the distance.


Also, he's not trying at this point to get close enough to overhear them, but just to see where they are going, how many of them there are, etc.  He's going to keep them just at the edge of his sight, letting them move on before he advances.  He's using the natural cover available, combined with distance to keep himself from being noticed.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:11, Wed 07 Feb 2007.

Adia moves quickly in pursuit, the only delay being the caution he rightly exercises in avoiding detection.  The trail is easy to follow leading almost due East from the moathouse. The ground riases and falls and is mostly scrub giving good cover.

Before he can catch up with the enemy, they reach their destination. Cresting a hill he finds himself looking down a cliff face with the bad guys below. Adia is in time to see the cleric and mage enter a cavern, heading back towards the West.  They are shortly followed by most of the group leaving a pair of bugbears who hide in the undergrowth near the entrance, obviously posted as lookouts.

He estimates the distance from the moathouse as less than 1/4 mile.

                                      /
                                      |
                                      |  b
       MMM                            |X
       MMM                            |  b
       MMM                            |
                                      \

M moathouse
X cave
b bugbear
| cliff

OOC: there is only one ogre the others are demi-humans of various sorts.

Adia-Ny crouches silently near the hilltop, taking care not to give away his position.  He watches as the raiding party vanishes into the cave and the two bugbears take up their guard positions outside.  Satisfied that they have reached their destination, he begins to creep away from the area until he is over the crest of the hill.  Even then, he continues to stick to cover and creep along until he is another hundred yards away.  Only then, confident that the intervening distance, the hilltop itself, and the vegetation, were adequate to mask any sound, does he begin to run.  Dropping himself once more into his meditative trance, he runs flat out.  Despite the fact that this group hasn't even pretended to cover their tracks, he nonetheless sticks to the trail they themselves had made.  Just in case.  He really didn't want them to know they'd been spotted, and figured he'd use their tracks to cover his own.  Covering the ground rapdily in his trance-like state, he sprints all the way back to the moathouse before turning towards the town.

Adia-Ny has no trouble retracing his steps then catching up with the caravan.

OOC: if you can go ahead and post on the Hommlet tread, up to you what you tell them but given the possibility of a spy being around it might pay to tell the truth....