"No!" Sally's response was sharper and harsher than she had intended, and she followed it up with a forced smile and an apologetic nod of her head.

"I.. I don't think that would be a good idea. He was expecting you all to come here, find him here, or be brought here by him. I don't think we and he" she shuddered for a moment, ""should be up there together."

She looked around, then took a few steps closer to the group, lowering her voice. "I feel like we're being watched."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:35, Tue 02 Feb 2021.

Sally's horse grunted and sidestepped a pace with the fervour of her opinion before she kicked on those few steps, almost covering the slight start of the sergeant. The redcoat looks at the ladies, then at the decidedly unsconscious Bowen, and back to the women again.

"I don't think 'e would be in much shape for mischief, but as you like...I feel I ought to stay with 'im, but I'm not letting Murphy nor 'seeing ghosts' over there rush off alone. Madame, you got the other witchysticks, I'd 'ave you go up with Murphy if you will."

"Miss Towler, I leave it to you if you want to go 'elp guide them around any traps such as we might not know of, and either way...I'll send Ngrmurroodyin, in case."

Anything the sergeant might have said further is interrupted by a distant resumption of the enranged animal screeches Brigitte had heard earlier. The horses' heads rise at once in alertness. Murphy shifts uneasily in his saddle, gazing up and seeing nothing but the bush.

""Agreed, and should he give you any trouble at all I would end him here and now and be done with it. All this revolves around him and should he not be alive I get the feeling it may not come to any conclusion." She readies herself and remounts her horse.


-

The sergeant frowns in Brigitte's wake as she moves away, resuming contemplation of the prisoner. "Hm...by all accounts 'e was gentle as a lamb 'til 'e got up here," he remarks, looking out at the view shading towards golden over the mountains.

"'Til 'e started listenin to...whatever it is, some kind of thing that's been up 'ere since before the blacks started leavin' well enough alone. No, that could be anyone, won't end intil we're off their nest patch. Just mind it ain't any of us gets like this." Murphy gets the sharp end of the sergeant's attention at that last and twitches his shoulder in a shrug.

The others ready, the redcoat looks to Sally to see if she's going up with them. The cicada noise somewhat muted below seems to have fallen into synchronous rhythm, like the breath of some great beast, or the heartbeat of something vaster still.

Ngamurudyin shifts her head the better to hear some variation of the annimal noise above. "Dugganfella yellin'," she remarks.

Sally looked back at them, trying not to shake. She felt torn between staying here, running far away (and probably getting lost again) or staying close to the group.

Finally, after what felt like days, she gripped the handle of the knife, her knife, the beautiful, deadly weapon she now had in her hand thanks to Thomas and felt re-assured.
She nodded.
"I'll be coming with you, then."

The three riders and one swift-soft-footed painted woman ascend as hurriedly as they can, hearing the animal sounds above grow sharp with fury. Duggan has stopped yelling now, if indeed it had truly been his voice amongst the angry grunting squeals.

The horses seem perplexed by their own instincts, moving upward and toward potential danger like descending a physical slope. The riders feel it, too, though more as a tugging on their familial instincts, the idea that some precious child or children are nearby; an uncertainty as to whether those children are safe.  Flies land on them, crawl on them and fly off, only to return again, and so on. Every drop of dry-soaked blood is sought.

At length, every pulse seeming too long, they come up near the high point of the ridge and find a track like a path in this place humans have not haunted for so long. Below them the cicadas faintly sing, and above and before them there sometimes carries that same beat, thrummed by thousands on thousands of flies.

"Can we go straight up here?" Murphy asks Miss Towler, pointing flat-handed in the direction of the intermittent screeching.

"We can follow the path. Not far now, there's a fork in the road ahead and that should take us to them. It'll take a bit longer, then going straight through here", she indicates the brush ahead, "But I don't think I'll be able to calm my horse if something jumps out at us."
She pauses, thinking.
"And Bowen may have laid some traps, too. No, the path would be better."

Brigitte concentrated on the riding as best as she could trying to push anything else from her thoughts. She listened to both Murphy and Sally but added nothing to the conservation as she scanned the surrounding bush and scrub.

At the talk of traps she decided to extra vigilant given her last encounter with one.



[[GM edit: making a sneaky roll sneakier.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:05, Thu 11 Feb 2021.

Murphy looks up at a fresh burst of agitated sound, then back to Sally, seeming distracted. "A'right," he acknowledges the information, murmuring a quick clarification to Ngamurudyin and turning his horse's head to kick on.

The group trot cautiously along the path, the light already a deeper gold and warmth lifting from the stones as the afternoon wears away. The horses' ears twitch constantly between the flies and desperate listening for the first clue of any rushing danger. Murphy rides as though barely restraining himself from kicking on and leaving the rest to pick their way in his wake, something almost fey in his stance. The flies wander on his wounded leg, suck remnant water off Sally's clothes, find the blood spots in the folds of Brigitte's skirts.

Sally's estimation of distance proves accurate: the guide and riders reach a place where the path splits beside a rubbled slope falling sharply to their right. The horses snort and twitch with deep and increasing unease. Then a quirk of the breeze slams them with scent like a breaking wave: old blood, rot and fermentation sharp as vinegar. It is far too familiar to Sally, as is the nonsense sensation of coming home. Brigitte manages not to think and not to think and not to think.

A couple of stick-forms hang from a bush a little way upslope, a set of three badly-cleaned horse teeth aligned on a cleared place below with absoloute, maniac precision. Murphy flinches and turns upward towards that awful smell and the urging pull that still sits in and on their minds like heat on the skin. The air feels very thick.

"I don't like this," Murphy remarks, though still urging his mount through her resistance, still climbing towards a place of dread. From along the track's continuation in some distant place there comes a shot.

"It's fine", Sally responds, her voice a little quavery.
She turns her head toward the shot.
"They're friends. They're my friends. It'd fine."

She nods at the distance, with a reassuring smile.

There is a particularly loud and furious screech from just beyond the grove that seems to be the source of the smell above:

*HREEEEEEEEEIIIIINNNGH!!!*

Brigitte did not put voice to her feelings, but just continued on her horse while looking for signs of danger. She had loosened her sword in it's scabbard, but kept both hands on the reins as they moved forward, at the sound she stopped her horse and looked to the others in the hope they may have recognised it.


-

Murphy gives Sally a look both perplexed and suspicious at her mention of having "friends" up here, and is about to query Brigitte's halt when a rapid rustling through the scrub below the trees ahead grows nearer and nearer. A thing bursts from the undergrowth: a mass of grey fur and eyes and too many limbs like a fat man's torso gone feral on its own account, crashing through the high weeds and alpine growth like a boulder hurled by a giant's fist. There is a spear and a knife sticking out of it, and attached to the spear by a desperate grip and willpower more desperate still is Ngarungadurung, his legs being dragged along behind the thing in a crackle of vegetation, dust smoking in his wake.

The nightmare-beast screeches as it barrels downhill towards them: *HREEEEEEEEH!*


[[So, that will be a SAN check and a Ride check from everyone not Ngarungadurung, who currently has Other Problems. They've been having a time of it up there, for sure.]]

With his left hand in a frozen, desperate clench around the spear Ngarungadurung bumps and fumbles for the hilt of the knife with his right hand...

---

22:26, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 63 using 1d100.  Speculative: DEX (65) Knife grasp (1/2 or 1/4?).

Ngarungadurung grasps the knife easily enough, senses heightened by his current straits feeling the bruise bloom across his ribs as he manages to interpose his fingers between them and the hard hilt. Pulling it free whilst jolting along at speed may be another matter entirely, especially if his unwilling steed's poor vision caused it to run under the hooves of the riding-beasts now snort-squealing their own alarm around him.

[[That is, success to grip, but in the circumstances it'll be a Hard STR roll to get it free - let's see how the others' Ride rolls go first, though.]]

Sally sits calmly and watches the dream-beast charge towards them, knowing that at last she was seeing the creature that had wandered the trees of Bowen's camp clearing so often in the night. Her horse shudders and snorts, trying to back away, but Sally's calm stance seems to comfort her. Sally rubs her knife-gripping knuckles through the speckled hair of her beast's shoulder and keeps her gaze on all that unfolds.

15:24, Today: Sally Jane Towler rolled 38 using 1d100.  Sanity.
Nothing moves me anymore.
15:25, Today: Sally Jane Towler rolled 12 using 1d100.  Ride. (Vs. 15 - I was soooo sure I'd be flung to the ground.)

[[GM edit: opportunistically shovelling roll results into an empty post, officially waiving the 1 SAN lost even with success in this case, because Sally really has, as is often said in the vernacular, seen some shit. She also soft-of knew Screechy existed, so it's probably a relief for her to finally see what was clambering about dropping sticks now and then, even if it's approaching her at speed pincushioned with weapons and and dragging an Aboriginal guy.

Oh, and Ride failures depend on context...here I would probably do a Luck roll for anyone failing, since there's the prospect of just being carried off into the wild by a horse not wanting to be there, having a horse bolt upslope, maybe into a trap through terror + entity influence, plain falling off, being hurled over the edge, or overcompensating for a rearing horse and hurling oneself and one's horse off the edge.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:08, Sat 13 Feb 2021.

Getting more of a fright then anything else as the scene played out, she was just in time to calm her horse as she watched the animal and their guide struggle. As the beast ran towards the party Brigitte spurned her mount forward and then unleashed a savage upswing from her sabre.


Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 21 using 1d100.  San = 59%.
Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 32 using 1d100.  Ride = 65%.

Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 1 using 1d100.  Sword = 55%.

The thing swipes as Brigitte charges in, allowing her swift reflexes to send the sabre plunging almost a third of its length into the beast's chest. It staggers.


*HRN!*

[[ ... May I have a STR roll, Brigitte? Only that is definitely an Impale.]]

With a turn of her wrist and using the momentum of her mount she drags the blade up through the torso and chest of the animal.

Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 48 using 1d100.  Str 35%. Was never going to roll four successes in a row.


-

...where it comes to a jarring halt against what might be a collarbone or scapula or something less comprehensable and sticks, jerking the hilt from Brigitte's hand as the creature regains still more awkward use of its forelimbs and trundles on.

"Mind th' feller there!" Murphy calls, then notices Ngamurudyin has stepped two paces forward to stand right in the thing's path. "Ngamuru-!"

The woman's stone-headed club blurs over her shoulder and comes down with a sharp *CRACK.*

Much like Brigitte's, the blow should be enough to fell any mortal thing, yet though the creature buckles and comes to a near-halt, it staggers around her, biting and blindly swiping at the new threat. Ngamurudyin evades the attacks easily, baffled by the way it does not die. [Language unknown: "Pro n ard? For e rat?"] she asks.

[Language unknown: "Re wa ev lo, forck,"] Murphy tries to motion the natives away, his horse wide-eyed but controlled one-handed as he draws his pistol. Brigitte manages to turn her horse about a little way above him on the slope. There is no sight nor sound of Jack.


[[ ..I...I...that's 14 damage...whenever anyone can get the weapon out. Screechy is now triple-bound to the solid world and I am laughing so hard. Ngarungadurung, your STR roll is normal now - I'm handwaving 7e's complex system of extra dice and gang-ups into that.

Also Brigitte nearly slashed her sword up right near your face, so you can be scared of her if you want. _{Brigitte is kind of terrifying on a horse.}]]

Trying to cling onto the rampaging thing like it was a whitefella riding beast, Ngarungadurung grasps the knife hilt and attempts to wrench it free.

[Language unknown: "Hound nallleel ettean ll mi, tio lehomi! Ha ou chmo! T witte!"], he calls desperately.

---

10:23, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 5 using 1d100.  STR (50).

Ngarungadurung pulls the knife free; grey-silver blood pours out and hangs as though solidified in ribbons like frozen smoke, cold whenever his wrist passes through any with the creature's bucking and shaking. It seems liquid enough, just disconnected in Time, caught between Dream-substance and present being.

Murphy takes in this information, thinking quickly: "Madame, could y'try to get th' spear out from your horse there, he says it won't die 'til that's done...ah, fire in a midden... [Language unknown: Sheonserswilson, ce of p ersallent ermihi leshatpro tho re hitano, even onted ofen sabre?"]

Ngamurudyin nods, keeping the severely dizzied thing's attention. Murphy glances upward with anxiety but nudges his horse to circle back. "Just try to shout and keep it from hurlin' over the slope there," he advises Sally, half a tense smile saying he's sorry this simple mission seems to have got complex.

Brigitte gave a nod as she pulled on the reins to bring her mount to bear. With a kick she covered the short distance and with a grab from an outstretched hand she had a hold, a pull upwards and it was free. Brandishing the weapon in triumph above her head.


Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 26 using 1d100. Dex success
Brigitte d'Anjou rolled 11 using 1d100. Str success



-
This message was last edited by the player at 01:17, Wed 17 Feb 2021.

A trail of greyish blood rises high into the air as the tall, pale woman whips the spear high above her tall, pale horse. The droplets turn and glitter in the air for just the space of an indrawn breath, and then Ngamurudyin has snaked her arm inside the guard of the staggered, shrilling thing and tugged out the sword.

*HREEEE~*

The creature collapses into a pile of ash and damaged eucalyptus leaves as though it never was. Ngarungadurung manages to hide his face against his arm before thumping into the pile, though he still ends up coughing somewhat, fine particles catching at the back of his throat.

Giselle tosses her head and sidesteps, not at all sure what's going on. Ngamurudyin offers the sword back up to Brigitte and then a hand to Ngarungadurung. His front and her arms are grey, though the mixture of bound world and Dreamtime matter is already skittering into dispersal by the wind. The cicadas pulse distantly down below. Murphy pushes back his hat and looks upslope with anxiety, then back to Ngarungadurung.

[Language unknown: "Ta sheyintheenc pl Dugganfella? Trcail an o?] he asks, and above is still quiet. There is a thrumming of flies.

Ngarungadurung takes a moment to pick himself up and frowns at what had been right behind him, as puzzled as Murphy as to why Jack's not there. Murphy tenses, ready to at last ride up at skillful speed, when there comes another crashing approach, coming on fast. Brigitte reins around, blade trailing blood that blows away as dust, but then Duggan emerges from the foliage and jogs to a halt, battered, dirt-smudged and hat askew but grinning as though he already knew they'd be alive.

---

Jack comes to a standstill as the foliage parts and he finds his friends, and Sally there alive. A grin splits his face: “Dia duit!” he calls fervently, "God bless all here!"

He advances on Ngurungudung and grabs the native in a heedless hug, laughing. He stops and steps back, smiling abashedly, "Ah, 'tis glad I am t'find ye in one piece."



This message was last edited by the player at 08:52, Wed 17 Feb 2021.