Jack feels that he senses Cotton's mind as they stop and start in tracking his wanderings: He's lost here. He's wakened and don't know where he is or what he's about.

The scream brings Jack up short in his musings and he turns his head in the direction he thinks it came from.

"That sounds just like..." He shakes his head and mutters, "Wish Murphy was here."

"This heat." was all Brigitte could think about and the incessant noise of the insects. The scream woke her from a slumber of near exhaustion from the walk. She looked in the direction and then followed the rest of the group as they investigated.

"Had the lad slipped and fallen she thought."


-

The two trackers are ahead of the others on the path, and Ngarungadurung’s eyes flit to those of the Compass Woman.  [Language unknown: “Ulove ailar enc etwhal t veratetio. Undmanwil mo ndethu-outhasven eaumenion o u, chhinime hobut poar iv strtedoul chic evewh we u ine.”]

Ngamurudyin makes a quiet noise of agreement, looking off and up to where the scream had come from, her keen sense of direction determining their position perhaps to the footstep.

[Language unknown: "Her ntcaev, inon,"] she remarks, rising. Sergeant Wilkins gestures at them, moreso at Ngarungadurung, tensed.

"His friends?"

Ngamurudyin shakes her head. "Maybe ghosts." She frowns. "Cottonfella go down that way." She gestures with a flat hand at perhaps a little less than a compass-quarter to the place the human scream had just come from, though there is no sound but insects now, that constant confusing cicada scream.

"Ghosts," the sergeant repeats, like a curse. He looks at the trees that way, then at the area the scream had come as though those trees might look any different and provide a clue, lips pressed tightly together. He takes a swipe at the sweat of his brow with his sleeve and glances over at Brigitte to see if the party's most "delicate" member had any thoughts on which way they should go.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:49, Sun 19 July 2020.

"Follow the natives, I think they have the best of it. Let them do their job...." She looked to the native guides and would follow behind trying not to get in their way.


-

Jack nods at the Countess and shrugs at Wilkins. He'd feel better with a fowling piece, or at least his cudgel in his hands, but figures the Sergeant would even begrudge him a stout stick. He'll look to the aboriginals to keep them safe from harm.

The sergeant looks from the direction of the scream to Brigitte, then waves the natives on, scowling. It's not clear if he's relieved or resentfully restrained by the noble's decision. "Awright, keep after Cotton. Probably not much we can do for whoever that was anyway."

He's tense, however, and Ngarungadurung gets the impression that should an ambush occur by anyone remotely the same colour as him he should avoid the redcoat at once lest he be assumed of their party, even if the attackers were plainly Gundungurra or strangers from over the mountains. Ngamurudyin gives a glance that says she's also aware, but quietly tracks Cotton onward across the indifferent ground. They swing downward in a direction that might be northeast, though under the trees it is hard to tell. For all the Europeans know after so many turns they might be walking back on themselves.

---

The group eventually come out by the creek in a chorus of sawing cicada-echoes and a sting of sudden sun, everything ochres and yellows and brightness. The water runs broader here but still deep, particularly at what looks to be the entrance to a gorge some thirty or fourty yards upstream to their left. A rise of rock like a crumbled castle wall juts from the landscape on this side, its opposite a road's width away at the narrowest point and more closely colonised by trees, slumping down gently into a broad gravelly place that might be a billabong when the stream was in flood. Flies begin to find them.

Ngamurudyin paces out, looking for any indication of Cotton's direction, moving cautiously to the edge of the creek. The sergeant stands and squints about at the empty place, taking its measure. The cicadas never cease.


[[Jack, may I have a mystery roll, please?]]
This message was last edited by the player at 14:57, Thu 23 July 2020.

Jack hangs back a bit in the last of the woodsy shade.

Jack Duggan rolled 84 unknown.

Brigitte expected the air near the river to be "clearer" perhaps a little lower in temperature... she was wrong. She had a near paralyzing need to wet her scarf before they moved on, but at this point she would wait to see if it was safe.

She watched their guides as they looked for Cotton in a sea of browns and reds.



-

Ngamurudyin had been crouched to cast about for any faint traces on the rock and packed clay at the water's edge, but now she is straightening again, frowning towards the cliff on their side, her body absoloutely tensed. The sergeant notices and looks that way, too.

In the quiet of unspeaking breaths the cicadas and their echoes overlap; filling the open space, doubling off the rocks and water; filling the air drawn hot into five pairs of lungs; filling the blood from that air and pushing further, filling all space for complex thought. The humans breathed in the heat, and the sizzle of cicadas could no longer easily be told from their own pulses, heartbeats rising to the call of...what?

Jack takes a step and picks up a thick, heavy fallen branch from the ground. He gives it a testing swing, a grin crossing his face. He looks at Wilkins and takes another step in the sergeant's direction, then stops, branch still clutched in his hand, staring at the redcoat's head.

The sweat that pops out on his face and palms has little to do with the sun and heat. He takes a sudden, sharp breath, turns his back on Wilkins and flings the club into the trees.

"Graah!" he expels his breath. Taking off his hat, he rubs his trembling  hand over his head and takes several steps back into the shade.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 17:35, Fri 24 July 2020.

Brigitte sees what Jack is about to do and yet she does not intervene or even give a warning. She watches the branch cartwheel into the brush as he seems to come to his senses. "Here Jack I will get some water." and with that she takes his scarf and her own and goes and gets them sopping wet.


-

The sergeant looks round at the crash of the branch into the undergrowth, readied violence rising up in him like a thunderhead. He looks at the branch rocking a moment where it lies, at the sweating back of Jack's neck, then at the Frenchwoman deftly taking the kerchief from about the young man's throat with her own fair hands, her expression neutral.

Wilkins bristles, the overheated killing urge finding no outlet until a gadfly lands on his jaw and he smacks it hard, leaving the insect smeared redly across his stubble. As Brigitte steps over to the stream through the constant scream of cicadas and at last feels a feathering of cooler breeze she notices the natives are still standing quite still, attention on the cliff. For a moment, with the water running blessedly cool over her hands, she hears it too, or almost hears it: a different texture of sound up there, of rapid motion.

The sergeant is still staring at Jack's shoulders. "What...?"

He doesn't get much further, interrupted by the distinct snap of live wood being struck by something large hurtling headlong up above. Jack looks back. The water pours clear and cold off the cloth in Brigitte's hands. The Aboriginal man draws in a breath as though bracing for impact. A white youth runs out onto the cliff.

He's not Cotton. He's brown-haired, yes, but lighter, taller and with a longer stride that those below can see is about to betray him since he's staring back in terror as he breaks from the trees, not noticing the narrow slice of cliff underfoot. He does see in the next instant, though, and tries to brake himself, desperately throwing his weight back though also looking behind for whatever is coming after. There's a lound crunch and scrape of gravel. The cicadas scream and scream.

The young man hits the ground hard at an angle, doubtless taking skin from his arms though the impact thumps any cry out of him. For a moment it looks like he might stop before his tilt turns critical, but then he's rolled and is falling off the edge, a body that had known earth and solid surface all its life given into the new element of air. He has time to scream - time for the scream to colour with pain as he strikes a jutting piece of the formation and his arm is laid open to the wrist - before the angle of his neck and skull meets with the base of the rock and his last short flight is silent, a pale arm flared up in leaden unconscious farewell.


        "AAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGH~*"


The watchers hear a plunging splash they cannot see. The cicadas continue their yelling. The creek runs clear and calm and bright across its stony bed as leaves flicker their pale surfaces to the wind. Through the numb horror of watching another person die those gathered surface towards a still worse realisation: that was the same scream.


[[SAN checks, everyone, please.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 01:07, Sat 25 July 2020.

Jack Duggan rolled 61 for Sanity 40.

Jack moves up toward Brigitte and the water, looking to see if there's any hope the man is only injured.

Brigitte was unable to take her eyes off the falling man, or boy she was not sure. As he fell into a crumbled heap she looked to the top of the cliff to see what had caused him to run.


Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 12 using 1d100.  SAN.


-

"No you don't," Wilkins says, grabbing Jack by the collar and hauling him to heel. There's a strange raw waver and crack in his voice.

The water flows on quietly as before and the body does not surface. Brigitte watches the trees the youth had stared back at with such desperate terror, fleeing for his life, and sees nothing of note. There is a broken branch up there. There is the line of blood on the rock where his arm caught just now and tore so cruelly into the skin. It is brown, days old if not weeks. A kind of vertigo not of body or height but of Time siezes Brigitte for a moment, leaving her sense of when she is reeling a handful of seconds (minutes? hours? days?) out of true.

Up above, the only movement is from trees in the wind. Jack can feel a slight tremor in the sergeant's knuckles at his neck.


[[Brigitte, that's a loss of 1 SAN for you.

Poor Jack loses another 4 and is having a very bad time of things. He's doing better than the sergeant, though. We...were very close to turning Fifteen Smooth Rounded Rocks into an episode of Happy Tree Friends just then. Scary dice.]]
This message was last edited by the player at 21:57, Sat 25 July 2020.

Brigitte half sits or falls onto her rump as something set her off kilter. She takes several deep breaths as what ever it was subsides and she wipes her face with the wet scarf as she outs it around her neck.

"From the seated position she asks did anyone know who that was ?" She looks at the blood again as she speaks.



-

The new man—if anyone were to be watching him—seems impassive. Almost as if he expected something like this… He studies the cliff face in a pensive manner.

01:13, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 5 using 1d100.  SAN 70.

Ngarungadurung's sweep also sees the blood the falling whitefella left, and its age of days or weeks, there on the rock, and the way the body does not rise from the river. The cicadas yell uninterrupted and in the quiet the heat beats down like a cosmic pulse. A tension rises in his chest, though whether from within or from some external stress upon the air he cannot tell.

Ngamurudyin starts to pad across to where the lad should have washed up, if what they had seen made sense in Time. The lighter-coloured soles of her feet are so close to the colour of the rock it is as though she un-leaves footprints on the trackless expanse as she goes, pulling her traces off this stranger-country.


[[That's only a loss of 1 for Ngarungadurung, rather good all things considered.]]

In reply to Sgt. Wilkins (msg # 41):

Caught unaware and yanked off balance, Jack sprawls heavily at Wilkins's feet. Anger flares in his eyes that are suddenly bulging like a drowning man's, he gasps for breath for a moment before finally drawing in a huge breath.

Hands clenched in impotence, he mutters, "Ó, tú salach, mac lofa fraochÚn. Fanann tú."

He climbs, shaking, to his feet, glaring at the water instead of at his enemy.

Jack gets two deft applications of the sergeant's boot before he's up, once in the ribs and once in the backside to encourage him to heel rather than stagger off elsewhere, hard enough to smart but not to bruise. His baleful muttering draws a hard, snarling response from the sergeant, less a shout than a blow of furious, focused sound: "Get back in line, Ryburn! D'you want to die again, fall outside the redoubt an' make us listen to you pleading your saints and mother for six hours, yew 'orrible little man? You will stay behind me, Private. what will you do?!"

Ngamurudyin looks back long enough to see that no deadly violence is immediately occuring, then walks on. She examines the cliff. Ngarungadurung has no idea why the redcoat is so angry with the smaller foreigner, though there had been something in his bark and snarl like the alarmed remonstrance of a parent seeing a small child about to set their brushfire against the wind. An anxiety and fear of physical harm that belonged to neither of them yet plunged to the gut.

Jack's reaction, or at least the lack of whatever the sergeant seems to expect from the dead young man his mind had put in Jack's place, seems to break the moment's hold. The sergeant looks away and scrubs the fly-remnants off his face with his sleeve, alerted to their presence by the way a drop of sweat had wavered through the stubble and caught there, trembling. The air is so hot.

Sgt. Wilkins addresses Brigitte as if that outburst had not just happened. "I would imagine that was Jacob Cadlow, apprentice surveyor." The body does not rise. The fear of drowning is still heavy in Jack's chest. "-or his ghost."

The water blesses Brigitte's brow and the wet cloth shades her nose and mouth as though for a moment she breathed within the cool tiled depths of a cathedral. There is no taste of blood or boot-dirt in the trickles that reach her lips, and the slightly startling cold on the back of her neck becomes an extremely good feeling, soaking a slow-spreading line down her back and replacing the irritating damp of sweat across her chest. A fly of the big, furred biting kind investigates the folds of her skirt across her knee, its intents opaque.

Jack staggers back from the Sergeant, not from the kicks or even the threat of further violence, but from the raw grief in his face and the ragged Ness of his...caring. That any such tender feelings could inhabit the soldier's prickly carapace is as profound a shock as any he's experienced these past days.

"Stay behind ye, Sergeant, aye." he says as he takes a position behind the man.

He shivers slightly, looking at the clear, rushing water.

Ngarungadurung doesn’t understand the what is going on between the whitefellas. He watches the apparently heated exchange blankly, then turns and rejoins the Compass Woman to consider the pool where the young man’s remains should be.

[Language unknown: “At il voriouate om ai ateastver ck ainestble ut t ome ulllel.  An eauichshe adble larpr ureromare.”]

He scans the trees and shoreline downstream, evidently looking for something.

The water was a relief but it came with a very uneasy feeling. She passed Jack his scarf back and then looked at the blood on the rocks again. It was starting to feel like they just witnessed a reflection in time....

"I think that fall happened some time ago...."



-
This message was last edited by the player at 22:27, Mon 27 July 2020.

"Thank'ee, Milady." Jack accepts the wet neckerchief with gratitude, wiping his face with it, letting the rivulets run down his throat and onto his chest, then looping it about his neck.

"Y'mean, like at the farm?" he asks, nodding, "An' th' ghosts in Calder's book?"