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06:03, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

03 - The Second Expedition.

Posted by The KeeperFor group 0
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 70 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Sun 31 May 2020
at 21:28
  • msg #51

03 - The Second Expedition


Brigitte also moves forward, to get a better look at the object that Janey had moved. She watches her feet hoping to not stand in anything that it spread about the site. "Well it is safe to say that this is the place where the mischief took place.".

-
This message was last edited by the player at 23:39, Sun 31 May 2020.
The ritual site
Sun 31 May 2020
at 23:09
  • msg #52

03 - The Second Expedition

Brigitte stands at the edge of the charcoal patch and peers at the heap of brush. The object thus imprisoned seems to be a greenish grey and of some unfamiliar stone, rounded and smooth in those glimpses she can make out between the emphatically piled-up twigs. Its exact size or shape are unclear, save that it is certainly no smaller than Brigitte's head and lying rounded-side up. An unease stirs in the Countess like an uncoiling snake at being this close: she has the strong sense that bending any nearer would begin to result in pain, the way heat suggests the same about a fire.


Sigils to sticks to drawing, the entire place is one inescapable working of power, out here in nowhere, in the bush. Jack looks at the teeth, truly looks, and it seems as though his awareness of space and time takes a lurch under him.


[[sure, Jack can take a SAN check. Forewarned but traumatic allergy to stick glyphs and all that.]]

There are flies here as there were flies there, little legs tapping on his skin, little tugs and tickles easy to dislodge but never quite gone away. There are a few on Garangwaari, crawling as though on the dead: two on her right shoulderblade, one on her left calf and one perched on her loincloth as it crosses the hip. The last insect rubs its forelimbs together as though in anticipation, stops, rubs again. The others crawl. Garangwaari does not heed them, looking out as though transfixed by a storm only she can see.

All the flies edge roughly towards her spine, one of the higher ones taking off and edging in from her ribs - it seems strange and almost obscene that those ribs move under the dark skin and she breathes, full of unbitten meat and skeleton...
Sgt. Wilkins
NPC, 25 posts
NSW Corps officer
Sun 31 May 2020
at 23:10
  • msg #53

03 - The Second Expedition

Seeing the intensity with which Jack appears to be staring at an Aboriginal woman's backside, Sgt. Wilkins snatches off Jack's hat and dings him about the head with it.

"None of that," he orders.

The hat does get set back in its place, if haphazardly, before the sergeant wanders around and sets to poking things, flailing vaguely at flies as they rush up from his investigations. "Hmm."
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 71 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Sun 31 May 2020
at 23:42
  • msg #54

03 - The Second Expedition


Noticing that the woman has not moved Brigitte moves to her side, flapping away some of the flies she asks "Are you all right ?" Having made enough notes and sketches she puts away her book while waiting for an answer.


-
Garangwaari
NPC, 3 posts
Wife (not yours)
Mon 1 Jun 2020
at 00:21
  • msg #55

03 - The Second Expedition

Flapping at the flies at least disperses Brigitte's portion about her shoulders, though they soon return. Garangwaari starts a little at the question from nearby, her dark eyes visibly changing focus from some far-off point to Brigitte's face. "I...cannot speak them to you, but we thought right: this place is between the stories."

She points out, far across the landscape beyond the trees, a line that almost but does not quite cut the distant blot of Cleary's farmhouse. It's hard for her to tear her eyes away, but she gestures at the ritual mess about them. "This thing...it has carved into our dreams."

She shuts her eyes as though at sudden pain, beginning to tremble, then sits to be sure she doesn't fall. "Wait, please. No hugging. Bad memory sometimes..." she takes a deep breath, steadying herself. "I think this whitefella did kill your men, your children. He is very sick from ghosts."
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 72 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Mon 1 Jun 2020
at 01:59
  • msg #56

03 - The Second Expedition

Brigitte was going to get out her note book again and then thought better of it. "The stone in the cage does it have something to do with his sickness ?" She points to the object out on the outcrop.

-
This message was last edited by the player at 22:37, Mon 01 June 2020.
Garangwaari
NPC, 4 posts
Wife (not yours)
Mon 1 Jun 2020
at 10:19
  • msg #57

03 - The Second Expedition

Garangwaari looks over there, seeing only the heap of brush from this angle. "I don't know what that is," she replies.
Jack Duggan
player, 81 posts
a wild colonial boy
Tue 2 Jun 2020
at 01:10
  • msg #58

03 - The Second Expedition

Jack Duggan rolled 88 for Sanity 44.

At the Sergeant's strike, Jack starts as though awakening. Hat clapped back on his head, he nearly retaliates, but controls himself.
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 73 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Tue 2 Jun 2020
at 01:30
  • msg #59

03 - The Second Expedition


"I was wondering if whoever did this would want to return, I mean if the stone is the source would they not want to do it again ?"


-
Garangwaari
NPC, 5 posts
Wife (not yours)
Wed 3 Jun 2020
at 15:33
  • msg #60

03 - The Second Expedition

"Maybe he thought it work proper the first time, that none of you find out," Garangwaari suggests. "Or it's no matter, after some time. He put you off long enough for some thing to happen, then he don't care." She waves a fly off her nose. The site oppresses.

It would be possible: if Brigitte hadn't left word to send investigators in the event of their not returning it would likely be months before anyone realised their time had been stolen away, unless someone found the journals in Thomas' room. Garangwaari looks at her hands and swallows. "Charlie said the one who went crazy stole a woman," she says, not knowing if the reminder was needed but clearly affected by it. "He said probably it was not to have her for a wife, that the crazy fella would only kill her or let her go, but...it is hard, to be stolen."

That seems to be all she has to say about that. Behind her, Sgt. Wilkins kicks a stick-glyph viciously over the edge with disgust, his general comment on the ritual, and looks at those gathered with impatience. "More enlightened, are we?" he asks.

The flies thrum and dance above them. Further out cicadas scream. Jack seems to be having a bad time of things, and the smell doesn't help.

[[Jack apparently loses 3 SAN from those scary sticks. Sorry about that.

Responding here to get these things down, but let's try to give Thomas a chance to get a word in, too.]]

This message was last edited by the player at 15:36, Wed 03 June 2020.
Jack Duggan
player, 82 posts
a wild colonial boy
Thu 4 Jun 2020
at 11:47
  • msg #61

03 - The Second Expedition

Jack stares at Thomas for a moment without making eye contact, then blinks and shakes his head.

Sanity loss noted
This message was last edited by the player at 11:48, Thu 04 June 2020.
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 74 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Mon 8 Jun 2020
at 01:01
  • msg #62

03 - The Second Expedition


"Yes I think we intend to try and find that poor woman after we have finished up here, which looks to be very soon." She looks to the Sergeant before adding "Do you think we should do something about the stone ? I don't want to touch the thing but.. can we leave it here ?"



-
This message was last edited by the player at 03:17, Mon 08 June 2020.
Sgt. Wilkins
NPC, 26 posts
NSW Corps officer
Mon 8 Jun 2020
at 16:29
  • msg #63

03 - The Second Expedition

The sergeant considers this, narrowing his eyes at the heap of brush. "I don't see why not."

"Natives don't want anything to do with a cursed rock, Tom Cleary's now the nearest living person our would-be sorcerer could get at to boil up - barring ourselves and the Towler woman - and he's well protected at that farm. If said sorcerer ain't in my custody already, then 'e don't know we're comin' up on 'im and we'll 'ave 'im caught before ever he can come down 'ere."


He frowns at Garangwaari a moment, then shrugs. "Could push it off into the shrubbery down there if it makes you feel better."
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 75 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Mon 8 Jun 2020
at 21:56
  • msg #64

03 - The Second Expedition

In reply to Sgt. Wilkins (msg # 63):

"No, no lets leave it for now. No one should touch it, lets be on the way after that poor woman." Brigitte prepared to descend back to the horses without up ending herself in the process. She placed her notebook away as she mounted her horse and waited for the others to do the same.


-
This message was last edited by the player at 21:15, Tue 09 June 2020.
Thomas Daniels
player, 36 posts
Police Detective
Tue 9 Jun 2020
at 15:11
  • msg #65

03 - The Second Expedition

Thomas takes in the scene with new eyes and listens to what the others have to say about the area.  Squatting down to take a closer look at the sheep head and pointing at it to the rest of the group.  "You see this head.  It does not seem to have suffered the same affects as the rest of the area.  Not sure what it all means but it is obviously of some importance."  Standing back up and brushing of his pants.  "If there is nothing else to see or any other questions I am in agreement that heading back down to the horses is the next logical step in this insane path that we are on."
Sgt. Wilkins
NPC, 27 posts
NSW Corps officer
Wed 10 Jun 2020
at 11:46
  • msg #66

03 - The Second Expedition

"If you object to the walkabout and/or 'ave some certainty as to whether Miss Towler is deceased - prefrably with where you buried 'er - feel free to confess," Sgt. Wilkins replies, herding those remaining above back towards the way down.




Below, Brigitte finds Giselle where she left her, but Murphy and Henry are off among the cicada-haunted trees leading their beasts and Brass, leftward and upslope. The former man seems to be teaching the latter how to recognise branches, or possibly brownsnakes. It takes a moment to spot Ngamurudyin crouched very still a little way beyond them, though the Compass has clearly found a trail.

Murphy raises a hand to wave when he notices Brigitte's reappearance. He doesn't shout. For a moment Brigitte remembers the natives' earlier report of how many people had crossed the land unseen by Cleary, and the mention of tracks with a black man's shoeless, soundless tread passing through between the settlers' investigations yesterday and today.
Jack Duggan
player, 83 posts
a wild colonial boy
Wed 10 Jun 2020
at 12:35
  • msg #67

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition

Sgt. Wilkins:
"If said sorcerer ain't in my custody already, then 'e don't know we're comin' up on 'im and we'll 'ave 'im caught before ever he can come down 'ere."

"Unless, a course, Sergeant, he's done his fiddlin' trick again an' ye've lost a week or so an' he's been an' gone t'Cleary's. Or might be he's here among us but indivisible-like so as we can't see 'im."

The metaphysics of it all confuses Jack somewhat and he shakes his head again and moves to assist Brigitte in her descent. Once safely at the foot of the rock and with his employer mounted, Jack goes after Murphy to recover his horse.
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 77 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Wed 10 Jun 2020
at 21:19
  • msg #68

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition


Brigitte had stopped for a second to examine the sheep skull that Mr Daniels had pointed out. She does not touch the thing but tries to get an idea what is different with it before continuing down.

Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 54 using 1d100.  Spot hidden =50%.

She thanks Jack for his help and the watches the rest of the men.


-
Sgt. Wilkins
NPC, 28 posts
NSW Corps officer
Thu 11 Jun 2020
at 15:09
  • msg #69

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition

"Just a ray of sunshine you are, Duggan," Sgt. Wilkins remarked, gesturing to Garangwaari that he was prepared to be last above.

It had been amply evident to Brigitte that unlike the other bundles, this half-desiccated mass was not a boiling heap of maggots.

Murphy greets Jack as he comes up. "Hey. We've got a fair trail here. Man - we'll call him Bowen - came by laden and went back light. Did y'learn anyting above?"

Back at the rock's base, the sergeant nodded Thomas to mount up and headed them up to bring the groups together.
Jack Duggan
player, 85 posts
a wild colonial boy
Thu 11 Jun 2020
at 19:48
  • msg #70

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition

"Oh, aye?" Jack responds, then comes close to Murphy and pitches his voice very quiet.

"Lissen, Murphy. May be I got a touch a th' heat or I'm jus' plain losin' me mind. But up top there, fer jus' a moment, mind... I thought I seen someone wasn't there. Y'know I seen those kids' ghosts back at th' Ryan spread, but this's diff'rent. Not a ghost, but someone slippin' sorta sideways through th' world. Keep yer eyes open, man, an watch what ye say, even when ye think ye're alons. Right?

"Sure, let's get mounted an' see where th' will o' wisp leads us then."
and he swings up onto Brass again.
The Keeper
GM, 127 posts
Tue 16 Jun 2020
at 01:25
  • msg #71

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition


It was no easy trail, ascending into the Blue Mountains. At first it was merely a slow ride whilst breathing hot, forest-sheltered air, the natives taking turns to get some way ahead and find the trail there. They rested over noon, heat-sapped among the shivering leaves and thoughts deafened by cicadas until awareness was reduced to taking air into the pile of hot meat that was their bodies and letting it out again.

Though there were less flies further from farmland and the ritual site, nonetheless a few dogged insects came to crawl about and inspect those there. Sgt. Wilkins took a nip of rum and rationed the prisoners' water tightly, portioning more to the horses. The warm liquid felt barely there.




Later, they passed through a clearing that briefly sent Jack's mind reeling though the echoes of a dream that was and was not a dream: the blackened stump, the arrangement of twigs before it. He knew those like a landscape, each leaf and lump and fern, the way a child would know the exact shape of a healing scab. Ngamurudyin confirmed it: "Duggan fella come from up, fall down here. No-boots whitefella come drag 'im." Then Garangwaari had called that the trail was found again and they moved on, leaving that memory of a red face and white teeth where it was.

Then as the afternoon drew on and began at last to dim, the forest started to close in like latticed fingers over some captured thing. Garangwaari and the baby were off keeping track of the nearest water sources as Ngamurudyin followed the trail alone, often picking up sign now invisible to the rest. At last Jack and Thomas were given instructions to thrash the brush for snakes and then given knives (his own, in Jack's case) and set to cutting a path for the horses through the untended undergrowth whilst Wilkins watched, his pistol laid against the saddle ready at hand. They became glad of the water rationing, then, as the level heat kept under the trees only encouraged the sweat the work raised, until they might as well have poured buckets over themselves. That the supply lasted until they broke through to a patch of straggled brush and heath on a broad ledge below a higher cliff seemed mildly miraculous.

[[If either of you wish to roll back shirtsleeves or remove shirts entirely, give me a Luck roll. If not, CON roll, please.]]




The guide wives made camp as though commanding it to appear, a small fire started on the rock within moments of Ngamurudyin's attention on the task. Garangwaari asked Brigitte to bring her sword and help her cut certain boughs and roots, making a funnel from the bark of one down to a likely hollow in the stone before asking that the lengths of wood be chopped again, placing them on a simple arrangement of two rocks and a dead branch so that the water from within ran down to the basin.

"This is one day water, needs to be used when you cut it or the next morning," she warned, testing it by taste for any contamination from the bark.

Wilkins had told Jack to walk down the horses, though they were hardly hot from excersise. Murphy had quietly stepped in and taken that task with no more than a look, taking charge of getting the animals watered within good sense and rubbed down with gentle grace. The sergeant set to making supper, cutting two potatoes into tiny cubes over his billycan and throwing in a few pieces of portable soup. When the horses had finished he'd added sufficient water from the 'tap', salt and pepper from his spicebox, and left the stuff to its own devices whilst getting out and butchering half a loaf from the Cleary farm.

The cicadas begin to quiet as the stars appear. Henry points out every snake he finds whilst trying to make himself a secure sleeping spot. The soup cooks, and is eventually distributed via tin mug and bowl and bark cone-cups fashioned by the natives, along with the bread. The horses eat their grain and the humans now are only warm, not baked or boiled as on the way up. Not thinking about another day and a half of this at minimum they might find some rest.

Then the sergeant pulls Calder's field journal from his saddlebags. "Right then, since it's what we're 'eaded into, who fancies a bedtime story?"

~

Jack Duggan
player, 86 posts
a wild colonial boy
Tue 16 Jun 2020
at 15:47
  • msg #72

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition

The clearing with the twig-figures almost made Jack want to weep though he couldn't tell why. He kept his head, asking Ngamurudyin to show him the signs that led her to say he had been dragged here and fallen.

After, he was glad for the mindless labor of cutting trail. And grateful for Murphy's help tending the horses. He saw to Brigitte's mount and to Brass himself.

The water and soup were like a feast. When Wilkins suggested a read from Calder's journal, he felt he could face it.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:49, Tue 16 June 2020.
Brigitte d'Anjou
player, 80 posts
I can't drown my demons
they know how to swim.
Fri 19 Jun 2020
at 01:10
  • msg #73

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition


Brigitte nods as the water is explained to her, she makes a mental note to follow the directions. She helps as best as she can around the camp as they prepare for the night and then takes a seat with the others to eat her dinner. She raises no objections as the Sergeant offers to read from the journal, to be honest she was surprised that he could, most "hard" men like him cannot.


-
Thomas Daniels
player, 37 posts
Police Detective
Fri 19 Jun 2020
at 16:20
  • msg #74

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition

Thomas dismounts once the group stops for the night and watches as the ladies of the party quickly set up camp and keeps an eye on the Sgt. has he prepares the meal for the group.  Seeing that everyone has a job to do Thomas moves off a short distance taking time to be with his thoughts.  Once Thomas feels his head is clear and Sgt. Wilkins offers to read from the journal Thomas comes back and takes a bowl of soup and finds a seat waiting for Wilkins to read the journal.

OOC
09:11, Today: Thomas Daniels rolled 46 using 1d100.  Luck 55.

Sgt. Wilkins
NPC, 29 posts
NSW Corps officer
Sat 20 Jun 2020
at 21:01
  • msg #75

Re: 03 - The Second Expedition

The horses huff quietly from their places, settling down to the quieting night. As it turns out, Sgt. Wilkins does not read well or easily and has to keep his place on the page with his finger. He does well enough, however, given the advantage of having deciphered the text for himself the day before.

"Awright then. 'November twenny-second: we ascend into the mountains. Poor Cotton left at Cleary's farm, shaky an' barely coerent. I wish 'im a swift recovery. The little white cockertoos are common here: their diet must differ from those on the river plains. Lots of fascinatin' adaptations to the drought in evidence. Budgery-keranga confirms that much of the native flora wants fire an' will hardly germ-in-ate otherwise. Whilst extremely interestin', in combination with my own observations the notion makes me a little nervous...' "


It starts calm enough, but as the story - that is not a story, but a real recording of events, as evidenced by that little book - goes on the group become glad of the way the sergeant's rough voice and accent off the Estuary bring them away from Calder's words.

When he's reached the end of the entry for the 24th he shuts the book with a relieved snap. "...those two came back in the mornin' but we'll leave that for another night. Any'ow, if anyone hears any thumping or drums or party persons of enny kind we're goin' to leave 'em be."

He leans back, like a teacher declaring the end of a lesson. "Murphy, you've got first watch, that right?"

Murphy gives a small nod and rises to do that or assist anyone who'd like help bedding down for the night. The trees below and above their lit shelf of rock sway and clatter quietly all the way into the dark distance.
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