The Ball bounced happily along the ground ahead of the two following it.

It did an odd little dance, bouncing high in to the air, looping around, then falling back down. It alternated whether it looped left or right, and it also seemed to alternate whether it made a noise when it landed or not - an odd occurrence not seen before. Every right handed bounce seemed to find a stone or other piece of loose dirt and made a small 'snick' sound. The day was quiet enough for now it was usually audible. The Ball itself took on the browns and greens of the surroundings, as if a mottled mirror. The light of the day was high and bright, making it hard to tell if The Ball had a glow or not today.

The road itself was a reasonably straight dirt track - used but not well traveled - leading along the edge of a local woods. The woods finally thickened to the edge of a forest, but the road - for now - happily skirted around it. As did The Ball.

This road apparently went to a small village called Stonebridge. The rare traveler on the road could attest to that. Though they also warned that the 'stone bridge' of the name didn't exist anymore. Seemingly it was destroyed in the 'shy orc war' a generation ago. This dirt road led to that destroyed bridge, though at this time of year the river should have a ford closeby to pass and allow access the village itself. Others advised cutting through the forest when it thinned back out to woods and finding the proper road around the other side of New Stonebridge, rather than follow this one to the ruins of what used to be.

The forest was a lush green, and seemed quite inviting. However, it had to be noted that the quiet of the day should have yielded far more birdsong, and perhaps even the rustle of creatures from the undergrowth at least once or twice. Instead there was nothing. Not even the trees seemed inclined to move despite the occasional breeze, resolutely dense and becalmed.

The taller trees soon wilted once more from proud, tall and thick trunks to the thinner woods once more. Although the lush green did not leave these younger trees, even as the dirt of the road seemed to permeate the floor of the wood, making it look dull underfoot. Indeed, the road occasionally skirted in and out of the perimeter of the wood. Or perhaps the wood had simply slowly encroached on the road over the years.


The ball bounced a couple of times up and down as if excited, and then thumped with quiet finality on to the track. It rolled forwards then back tentatively in the direction of the road's continuance, then stopped.

Whatever was going on, clearly their guide was awaiting for those behind it to do....something?


Welcome to the game!


So, I've set you up on a path, but you have a few choices here.

1) You can now narratively rewind if you like to see how you got here. Or at least you can have your characters dwell on the time that has passed and discuss it between them.

2) You can retcon a few rolls or interactions along the way to get more information about where you are headed to.

3) Carry on from here right away, and decide what you want to do. You can head towards the river this road apparently leads to, or you can cut through the woods looking for the better road.

Or something else, of course :)


Obviously you can do some of 1) and 2) with some OOC questions first in the OOC before posting if you like.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:01, Tue 02 June 2015.

Meri had already decided several times so far that this was one of her least favourite days ever.
In fact, it was probably her second-least favourite day...  No, make that her third.
Lot of competition for that position, she reflected, her gaze hardening slightly, the only outward sign of her innermost thoughts.

Nym's insistence that the strange ball was trying to tell them something, wanting them to follow it to who-knows-where, had finally dragged her away from her work and made her decide to go along with the hare-brained scheme of following it to see where they'd end up.
Also, she'd decided that if she did go along with the thing's wishes, maybe then it would leave her in peace.
She certainly couldn't do much about it, seeing as the damned thing was apparently indestructable!

Although she hadn't admitted it, she realised she was curious.  She had never seen anything like this before, in all the time she'd been studying her art.
Maybe her old mentor would have known what it was.  She hadn't seen him in years though, didn't even know if he was still alive, or if he had blown himself up with one of his random alchemical experiments...

But deep down, a part of her did want to know what this thing was, where it was taking them, and why...

That was the real reason she had allowed herself to be persuaded to close her workshop and embark on this insane journey.
She only hoped she wouldn't have cause to regret this.  She had more than enough regrets for one lifetime already...

She adjusted the weight of the backpack on her shoulders, hearing the soft clicking of Timur's joints as he gripped onto the pack tighter to avoid falling off.  She shifted her staff to her other hand, two of the small crystals set into it around the centre grip still shimmering with a soft blue glow as they had been since she had set out.

The landscape they had travelled across so far wasn't unfamiliar to her.  Back when she had first arrived in the village they had just left and taken up residence in the old workshop, a former smithy long abandoned by its previous owner, she had taken the time to explore some of the local area.
She hadn't travelled this far along this path though, and she was certainly unfamiliar with this village of Stonebridge, as others on the road had named it.
Was the ball leading them towards this village for some reason?  Or somewhere beyond it?

Her thoughts were interrupted as their bizarre guide seemed to stop suddenly.
She stopped and stared at it, glancing up ahead and then from side to side before looking back at the ball with an irritated frown.
"What?  Is this where you wanted us to go?" she asked, not too kindly, clearly wondering again if this had been a waste of her time after all...


OOC: Wall of Text Powers GO! :D
Tried to include a little bit of "flashing back" slightly to how we ended up here.
Also, more in-depth description of Meri is on her profile if you haven't seen it yet, and need it to determine how NPCs see her :)
This message was last edited by the player at 22:27, Tue 02 June 2015.

Nym wanders along the path, keeping vaguely close to Meri and the Ball as she follows along. Her multi-coloured robes swish softly as she walks in her soft footwear which is covered in leaf-like patterns. She holds in one hand a staff almost as tall as she is, twisted in design as though someone started making it to one pattern but then changed their mind multiple times along the way and partly made it into several others as a result. The area close to her hand seems to change colour at random intervals. Slung across her back is a pack containing the rest of her possessions, such as they are.

Nym herself is currently in the guise of a half-elf with shimmering silvery-blonde hair and pale yellow eyes which seem almost to glow as they catch the light. She walks along with her free hand held out before her, palm up, and is watching, fascinated, as tiny, multi-coloured sparks dance around in the air just above it.

When the Ball and Meri both stop walking, Nym does too, though she's paying more attention to the sparks in her hand than to anything else that might be going on around her.

The Ball moved forwards and back once, twice, then three times with insistent urgency. It even seemed to take on the odd surface appearance of Timur, if one were to look closely.

However, having apparently exhausted its communications, it then started to drift lightly on the air, as if picked up by a rogue air current. No more solid seeming than a bubble, it drifted over to Nym's hand and started twisting around in small spirals as if to see the sparks clearly. It even took on some of the brighter flashes, though always on the opposite side of itself, as if the magic of them had travelled through the sphere and out the other side.


Lol, so basically its no help. Or wants you to go on first. Or this was all a long running joke. who knows with The Ball!

Either talk amongst yourselves, or decide OOC which way you want to go. The two leading options are through the woods to find a road to 'New Stonebridge', or onwards to the actual ruins of a stonebridge, and presumeable 'Old Stonebridge' too.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:29, Wed 03 June 2015.

"Oh, you like the sparks, Ball?" asks Nym with a bright smile, making a few more sparks and tiny lights in different colours before looking around as though having realised the group, such as it is, has stopped.

"Which way is it?" she asks of no-one in particular, then frowns slightly. "Where are we going, again? Ooh, the trees are pretty!"

She looks around admiringly at the scenery as though having only just noticed it.

Meri stared at Nym for a moment then shook her head and looked in the direction they had been heading.
"Well, I don't know about you, but unless that bit of scrap had a good reason for bringing us here, I'm going home again" she muttered.

She sighed and began to walk towards the ruined bridge.
"May as well look around the place, might be something worth scavenging" she said.

"Might even check out the new village too.  Maybe someone there wants to buy a doorstop!" she added with a glare towards the ball.


OOC: Hehe, checking out Old Stonebridge in case there's anything there :)
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 17:50, Wed 03 June 2015.

Nym glances from Meri to the Ball, and back again.

"Um...balls can't stop doors." she says. "They're round. I thought you knew stuff?"

There is barely a pause before Nym practically skips along the path after Meri.

"Let's see what's over there, then!" she says cheerfully.