The tree that had been behind Jack is tall and slim and graceful. The forest is so loud and wide and full of space all choked with twisting vines and undergrowth, like a gasping when there should be easy breath.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:24, Sun 08 Nov 2020.

In reply to The Keeper (msg # 34):

"Sure, it's th' tracker! Gahrungahdong!" Jack calls out, "He found me! He's talkin' to a tree! I think."

Jack steps aside, out of line between the blackfella and his tree.

Jack Duggan rolled 41 for POW 45. Thanks for the reminder.

[Language unknown: "Ort ce."]

Ngarungadurung beckons for Jack to follow, and points to the imprints left by his feet on the earth: fall in, step for step.

"We should wait for Murphy," Jack says, looking in the direction the voice seems to be coming from. But when the man moves off, he follows, matching his steps to the other's as best he can. He doesn't want to be on his own in t5he bush again and Ngarungadurung is the only human he sees.

"C'mon, Murph!" he shouts as he takes the first couple of steps.

The reply comes flat and distant from the bush: "Headin' for yeh." It's hard to tell if he's closer at all. Jack is distracted by the quiet click of his companion picking up his weapons and pacing off, and the blurred seen-unseen glimpse of a white man waving at him then moving out before them both, more like a memory than a current happening.

Jack follows, and has the strong, strange sensation of at once walking along the ridge of a mountain's very peak, deep drops plummeting away from him to bone-smashing depths unseen, and also being in a thin gulley, closed off and muffled. The landscape does not change. The ground underfoot is solid, the air warm. Fallen leaves crackle with their motion, the sound almost a texture under the cicadas' rasp.

[Language unknown: "Elday n is ceast,"] the tracker says, but Jack doesn't understand.

[Language unknown: "Out u we estoveeardinlin toto bledinort es ek onprbemiio strfo ar..."]

The walkers pace on through the trees. Jack begins to suspect they're about to do a small loop by the way their path curves whilst Ngarungadurung speaks quietly to the shimmer of a man.


There's a far-off "Can y'speak up, Duggan?" from somewhere currently a little behind and mostly to their left, then long quiet with just the cicada sawing and the leaves.

-
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:11, Mon 09 Nov 2020.

"Here, Murphy!" Jack shouts with something like desperation creeping into his voice, "I'm here!"

Jack thinks that he ought to stop walking, just sit down and wait for Murphy to find him, or else death. But he's terrified of being left alone again. So, he plods along behind Ngarungadurung through the cicada-buzzed-- forest?.

He's minded of the tale his Grandad used to tell of the tinker bewitched by fairy music, unable to stop dancing while the pipes played.

The forest remains a forest, despite the sensations of following Ngarungadurung's footsteps, perhaps in turn following a ghost. Finally, after several pulses of cicada sawing an answer drifts back: Murphy sounds concerned himself. "Aright - are y'tryin t'come this way? You're goin away from us. Far's I can tell."

He pauses, then calls further: "We think we just saw a woollyman, too, so keep lookout - don't make it angry if y'see it, just look too much trouble t'fight. I'll be there directly, honest t'God."

Jack comes to a halt, his mouth dry and cottony with the heat and with fear.

"Here 'garungadung, hang on a bit. Let Murphy catch us up, eh?"

If the tracker will wait, so will Jack, but he's still unwilling to be left behind: What if Murphy never comes? What if his voice is just some trick?

"MUUR--PHYYY!!" he wails.

[Language unknown: "N pawa eeou Romintnot. Usnt thahersan teat ill preei olne loare p neset."]

If Ngarungadurung senses Jack's distress he makes no show of it; instead he crouches at the splayed roots of a large ficus tree. He scoops forest debris and earth out to make a small depression then sets about assembling tinder and sticks for a small fire.

---

12:49, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 2 using 1d100 ((2)). Fire-starting.

Jack catches up with the tracker and sees immediately what his intention is.

"Fire, great idea, Murphy'll smell th' smoke. Here, mate, try these."

He fishes around in his bag and finds the waterproof case with his lucifers. He strikes one on the rough bark of the ficus.

[[currently on teabreak - Jack, roll me Survival there, and if you fail it, Luck.]]

Jack Duggan rolled 40 for Luck 55.

Jack Duggan rolled 39 for Survival 10.

The Darug man calls fire to the snips of tinder and kindling with the absoloute ease of a gesture, a flame licking up as soon as tinder touches the hot point of wood rolled between his palms. A flame also flares up brightly from Jack's phosphor-stick, setting small lichens briefly crawling with sparks in the channels of the gnarled fig's bark.

The chant of the insects presses heavy and Jack becomes once more aware of the strong scent of surrounding eucalyptus over the sulphur from his stick, the air itself pulling the flame high and broad; he drops it onto Ngarungadurung's fire before the eager burning reaches his fingers and the delicate heaping of twigs slumps and sparks, forcing the native to lean back on his heels. There's a suggestion of a female voice far off, though it can't be caught through the cicadas.

The sparks fly, dancing above the little scrape of cleared earth, up and up like bright snowflakes above the tinder-crisp leaves. They blink to black embers just before touching hanging filaments and leaves. The ground shivers.

Then Murphy's dust-coloured riding-beast has pushed hard through the brush behind and the hunter of men reins up to look around for trouble, pistol in hand. Seeing none, he dismounts and shoves the firearm away, patting his horse on the neck. He steps up to Duggan, his colour high but his expression showing only concern as he grips the younger man's upper arm.

"Are you aright?" he asks, searching Duggan's face for anything the lad might not dare say. "No...no, you're not. Come here, come here t'me."

Without giving him time to be embarrassed Murphy shifts his arm about Jack's shoulder and pulls him in for a few seconds of warm, familial pressure in a hug given like a shot of rum. "They're gettin to yeh, aren't they?" he asks in letting go, somewhere between exhasperation and relief.

[Language unknown: "Alave ne sttic?"] he asks of Ngarungadurung, curious about the fire.

The dark man points to Murphy's wounded leg.

[Language unknown: Pr ce a korndetho. Ore k etbean. Ter ameee nackes rut pallha?]

Brigitte again displaying riding skills that would have made her riding instructor blush, but to see her friend was a relief. She gets down off the horse to look at the man before asking "How can I help ?"

Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 73 using 1d100.  First Aid = 40%.


-

Jack shifts his feet as Murphy releases him, his neck colouring a bit in embarassment, his face grinning with brotherly pleasure.

"Go along wi' ye, Murphy," he protests, his brogue coming to the fore, "It's not two hours since ye seen me. Ah! and ye done yerself a mischief there."

At Brigitte's appearance, he ducks his head, "Milady, are ye well?"

He steps to take the bridles of both mounts.

"It's you that was callin out soundin all 'Murphy! I'm fair set t'be eaten by woollymen!' " Murphy responds with a sliver of a grin, the alarm exaggerated enough to make light of it rather than a dig at Duggan's courage. "As for this, 'tis scarce a scratch, but our friend thinks that speared devil had a poison in his mouth and the way it felt at the time, I'll not doubt it..."

He draws a huntsman's blade that's not quite a dagger from his side and offers it to the Darug man. [Language unknown: "Is na wa oun m es, papre com itwil p,"] he says, seeming quite trusting of Ngarungadurung's intent.

The horses aren't quite calm, sticking close to each other and keeping their heads up, shifting about. Murphy looks over at Brigitte's question, glancing at his own saddleware and becoming a more even pink as he asks: "Ah...well...if y'had any clean cloth t'spare I'd pay you back next I was in Sydney...not sure if it's bloodlettin or magic he's about, but I might surely need that."

He hoiks his left trouserleg up and starts gathering it back, lowering to one knee (Ngarungadurung can see that indeed every hair on the man is that weird orange colour, like he has a store of ochre under that fish-flesh white skin). Reaching the knee he hisses sharply in pain and works slower: those nearby see first a redness touching the taut skin over the joint, then the cloth coming away from the bite with gummy strands of vile yellowish congealment. The toothmarks are raw redblack sores ringed with the stuff and all the flesh that had been briefly in the witch-thing's mouth is dull and darkened greenish as though festering infected for days.

Murphy swallows hard and takes a moment to be sure he's something like downwind of the horses; Ngarungadurung gets some of the stench, death dwelling in a body whose heart still beat. "Jesus..."

Some of the veins around the infection look dangerously dark, and the reddened, breaking and blistered skin pulse-pushes out as they watch, blackening near the wound. It's suddenly clear that Murphy is sweating far too much even for the heat, perhaps not helped by the sight. Ngarungadurung is pretty sure that had they waited another ten minutes the best outcome would be Murphy surviving one of them cutting off the limb.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 09:53, Fri 13 Nov 2020.

Ngarungadurung carefully lays the knife edge-long in the centre of the small fire. Then he palpates the veins of the red man's leg to test how far the infection may have spread.

He mutters, [Language unknown: "Hitone styin ess actr ca ss traerewhi onsreatic po le."]

He looks to the two bystanders, making a gesture of tying a knot of rope above the red man's knee.

"Mmh," says Murphy, trying not to say anything else whenever Ngarungadurung pushes on something that hurts. Ngarungadurung can feel the infection easily enough, since it feels like the affected tissue is burning under the skin with an unsurvivable fire: From the mark of the Speared Man's incisors it stretches the full length from Ngarungadurung's index finger to the base of his palm at the greatest extent, heading up towards the body of the man.

"Duggan, could y'get out th' salt an' red dirt I have this-side-front o' my saddlebag there?" Murphy asks when there comes a moment he can breathe. "It's my thought I might be needin' them, and the water."

"...and, ah, perhaps a sound stick," he adds, a little spark of nervousness in his tone. [Language unknown: "Ess hiic ica?"] he asks Ngarungadurung.

Jack hastens to retrieve the requested items, setting them carefully in reach of Ngarungadurung or Murphy. Then he whips off his neck scarf (Pegeen's neck scarf, though he gives no thought of that in his eagerness to help). He twists it tight and loops it around Murphy's leg where Ngarungadurung indicates and ties it tight, picking up a stick to twist it tighter.

[Jack Duggan rolled 46 for EDU 55. In case it's needed.]

Brigitte will help as well, as much as she can. She offers up some strips of cloth like she used to bind her own leg.


Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 22 using 1d100.  First Aid = 40%.


-

[Language unknown: "M t ear eeous necest ll. Ee men m tesetr. Na ll thos he in."]

Ngarungadurung hands Murphy a stripped gumtree stick to bite down on.

He signals for the party to brace Murphy; Brigitte to hold him close at the shoulders, Jack to put his weight on the legs and keep them from bucking.

Ngarungadurung himself puts Murphy's foot between his knees like a vice. He peers at the knife, shimmering in the heat. When he's satisfied that it's hot enough, [Language unknown: "Iv!"], he plucks it from the fire and cuts as fast and as smoothly as he can.

---

22:04, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 53 using 1d100.  The cut. EDU (65).
22:05, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 6 using 1d4+2.  The damage. (Medium knife 1d4+2).