Ngarungadurung half-walks, half-crawls his way along the branch, until he is positioned above the thing and the small man struggling beneath it. He readies the spear in two hands with the point downwards like a pick. Then he jumps, a cat falling out of a tree: his body flat, leading slightly with his feet and knees, but further ahead of them, the spear tip.

---

Ngarungadurung will try to do a 3-point landing on the beast with spear tip and feet. Hopefully he can use the additional momentum to add to his spear attack, and then either cling on to the beast' back, or roll away to safety. The Keeper can roll for me on this one since I've no idea what combination of rolls this would entail.

Things blur in a downrush of air and smeared colour: Ngarungadurung jumps, his stomach lurching at the sudden change of gravity, and almost at once is heaving aside his spear's point of contact, leaning into the leverage as weird muscle and bone give way, thumping his knees into the creature's upper back to complete his displacement of its weight from Jack's body. For a moment not even the space of a blink he is held up as though riding on the thing, and then his weight has crashed them down and the spear through, right knee nudging against the shaft, the left slipping to catch Duggan hard in the ribs.

*HEEEEEIIIIIGH!*

The beast squeals and whips around the arm most at liberty, spraying the mortal men with a spatter of scaldingly cold greyish blood. Ngarungadurung snaps his upper body back on sheer instinct, the hooking digits barely missing his chin, the spearshaft wrenched from his grip and then wobbling away from him as he falls. He has time to note the proximity of his elbow to the sharp rock beside the trench before the creature has turned, swiping and snapping and forcing him to scramble back as Duggan coughs.


[[You just want me to roll DEX for you because with your highly specific turns of luck you'd end up with Duggan-Dropbear shishkabob, I see you...all right, we're simplifying this into a drop attack, no grapple:

21:24, Today: The Keeper, on behalf of Ngarungadurung, rolled 17 using 1d100. DEX

*some of your Keeper's typical paltry damage rolls later*

That's 6 Damage on Screechy, 1 on Jack.

Hokay, you now have an exceedingly angry drop bear on a stick...whiiich actually fails to hit Ngarungadurung at all! Hurray! (it's still a STR roll to un-impale that spear, though.) Duggan, what would you like to do?]]

Jack rolls away from the snarling, flailing tangle of drop bear. He comes to his knees facing Ngarungadurung and the beast, drawing his knife from the sheath on his belt.

The imagined animal ignores Jack completely, focused on the source of its current impaled state as it tries to bumble close enough for a clear swipe.

[[I...think I've messed up round order somewhere but it's all good/to your advantage - Ngarungadurung, your action here, please.]]

Seeing Dugganfella scramble free of the beast, Ngarungadurung puts distance between himself and the thing, heaving a rock at its bulk to further draw its attention.

---

15:37, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 65 using 1d100.  Throw (60) a rock.
Not really worried about hitting, just a distraction...

Despite the possibility of being in pain, if that was a thing dream-creatures could feel, the animal pauses and looks at the trajectory of the object that just passed it, resting on all five limbs. Then it appears to remember Ngarungadurung's proximity and starts unevenly trundling for him again, being very vocal on what it thinks about stabby tree-thieves.

*HRRRNK! HRRRNK! HRGHEEEE!*

It would be comical, save for the thing's persistence in the face of what should be a disabling injury and the very real swipe of its claws. The dull pulse of the flies is almost their own pulse now, its tempo increased.

[[To you, Jack. We're now in proper DEX order with Screechy on the ground.]]

Jack follows the beast, looking for an opportunity to stab it from behind as it stalks Ngarungadurung.

Jack Duggan rolled 8 for Stealth 50.

The thing doesn't take any notice of Jack at all, though its furious swiping does seem to have Ngarungadurung on the defense at present, two swats coming alarmingly close to his shins.

[[Ngarungadurung is up (at the weekend), and Jack, I believe/am saying your next attack is at advantage with the sneaking and gang-up, so go ahead and roll an extra die to take the better result when the time comes.]]

Somewhere away downslope behind him, Jack hears the movement of some large thing or things through the bush. The sound is quickly erased by the disgruntled squealing of the impaled dream-animal, however.

*HRRNK! HRRRNNNKKKR!*

Ngarungadurung sends another rock winging past and jogs further forward, looking for... he knows not quite what... a cliff edge, a hollow... something to further destabilise or ensnare this ungainly Dreamtime beast.

[Language unknown: "Pl blevenoer!"] He shouts at Dugganfella, and makes a yanking motion with both hands, [Language unknown: "Oul pa day rimila!"]

---

22:54, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 77 using 1d100.  Throw (60) a rock.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:56, Fri 12 Feb 2021.

The creature turns its entire self to look towards the sound of the rock, then refocuses on the sound of motion as Ngarungadurung crashes his way through the straggling weeds and creepers, arcing downslope. Jack sidles aside to stay behind the thing, aware that his spear is around here somewhere but more focused on the grey back and dripping grey blood.

Ngarungadurung jogs and hops his way out of his pursuer's reach - noting the animal is no more agile for having a spear through it - noting the trench edge, a few sticks, and just a few loping steps on at the entrance to the corpse-grove, a few loops of whitefella cloth fashioned into a crude rope tied about the lower limb of a tree. There is of course the ditch there, too - if he ran a few steps he could easily clear it, though it would mean a leap into that dread place.


[[Jack can get an attack in if he want, though.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:52, Fri 12 Feb 2021.

Gathering his courage, Jack rushes forward and drives his knife into the shaggy gray expanse of the creature's back, about where a man's kidney would be. He drives the blade deep and yanks upward and out while backing out of range (he hopes).

Jack Duggan rolled 6 for Fighting Knife 50%.
Jack Duggan rolled 6 for Knife damage 1D4+2+0.

...at least, that was the intent. The knife goes deep, bites something that might be bone, tangles in wet living substance with a burst of cold grey that would surely mean the death of any mortal beast. As Jack's sweating hand twitches instinctively for a better grip instants after the strike it is as though his fingers pass through the hilt and he realises he did not fully pull it out and now the creature is turning...

*HREEEEEEEEEIIIIINNNGH!!!*

Jack's hardly aware of whose limbs are whose or how he's moving in his desperation to avoid the charge. A single claw catches his right shin, adding bright red spatters to the pattern of fog-grey blood across the earth.


[[So..that was a roll under 1/5 of your Skill and guess what? Bladed weapons Impale! So that technically did twice the damage, definitely enough to put Screechy down...if the knife was not now stuck in the wound, magnifying the thing's anchorage to this time and real-world place.

Yes, I rolled Jack a free STR roll to un-impale his weapon. No, it did not work. There is now an angry drop bear with a knife and a spear sticking out of it.

Fortunately, it seems that when the assailant is not the dread creature known as Horse, the dice roller thinks Jack deserves minimum damage - another 1 point of ouch, and hey, at least this thing isn't manifested straight from the concept of death, right?

Ngarungadurung, carry on!]]

As the creature lumbers towards Dugganfella, Ngarungadurung reverses course and runs towards the thing's exposed back, leaping at it with the intent to grasp and pull free the spear, the dagger or both.

---

A pair of speculative rolls to help the Keeper move the narration along...
10:58, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 41 using 1d100.  DEX (65) speculative roll.
11:01, Today: Ngarungadurung rolled 99 using 1d100.  STR (50) speculative roll.

Ngarungadurung flings himself at the dream-beast, body twisted with hand outstretched to reach the spearshaft as deftly as a tree goanna snapping at an unwary bird. His fingers find and encircle and grasp the weapon, bringing a flash of satisfaction just before the knifehilt punches him painfully in the ribs under his own weight. The animal under him buckles briefly, then throws itself into a panicked, lumbering run downslope and alongside the leftward edge of the corpse-grove as fast as either man has ever seen it go with that awkward pentraped gait.

*HRRNK?! HRNK! HRNK!?!?*

Ngarungadurung has little choice but to hold on, hands gripped around the grey-slicked spear, knees dragging through the dirt as they hurtle downhill mostly by momentum. There are moments when bursts of flies wash over him like rain as he bounces behind the thing that should be dead, his knees seeming to find every rock, hard branch and upthrust thorn in this patch of uncaring country. The dream-beast charges through the shrubbery and careens off a couple of trees as it goes, hastened by awareness of Ngarungadurung's 'pursuit'.

As far as Jack can see, the native bucks and whips about the half-poisoned space on the thing's back like a snake possessed by the Devil, then rapidly vanishes under a shrub.

[[All of which to say, Ngarungadurung takes 3HP damage from that fumble and has almost left the original area of combat...Jack, may I get a POW roll from you, please? Those Who Are Not Geese are getting anxious.]]

Jack Duggan rolled 96 for POW 45.
Honeymoon's over, I reckon.

Jack follows along as best he can in the wake of beast and blackfellah.

At least, that's what he thinks he's doing, what all his will concentrates and pushes his body and stinging leg to achieve. Direction yaws. It is the land that seems to heave about in a swing of trees and trench and hanging sticks, not Jack. Jack knows, down right through himself to the hammering heart, knows he is following, running to help. He's going to help, he's not going to be too late this time, there won't be a slick floor of blood - fending himself off the wall by the doorway as he ran out, a sharp turn - a little sheet-wrapped form glimpsed bundled on a lathered horse - ghosts hanging high, bloody sheets in an unknown wind. There won't be screaming, distant screaming unreachable in the night - Sally Jane Towler collapsed to her knees, bonnet skewed across the back of her neck, face wet and crumpled with tears of utter, wrenching horror - Bowen's forearms dark with blood - he will get there.

Jack's breath scrapes in his throat like a wire brush, like he's running uphill. The horse skull grins at him. The going is easier, a clear place, and the ease of running hones his will like momentum, assures him this must be down, that he will save them. He's vaguely aware of staggering, stumbling, his hand touching the packed and poisoned clay and pushing off it as though the contact pushed resolve throughout his blood, knowing this time he will make it. He will save them. No hanging grove of meat where his view could spin only horror to horror, no red hands clenched on his throat, knife in his calf, sword splitting skin, shell heated unbearably against trapped and writhing infant flesh...he has to get there. He'll get there.

 

He has to save them, unmake that happening, undo all the terror and the harm. Jack touches earth again, vaults into a rounded place and stumbles a little towards the foul water at the bottom of the bowl of its centre. His blood hammers, fired with anxiety and adrenaline. He is in the nest. It is where he is supposed to be. The rocks are smooth and rounded and quiet where his breath comes loud, and most are cracked.


[[Spot Hidden, Jack!]]

[Oh hahahahahahaha!

Jack Duggan rolled 45 for Spot Hidden 50.]

For a few pounding heartbeats the web of shadowed cracks across smooth stones strikes him with a spike of terror that all the eggs have been visited by some terrible injury. His instincts seek a foe to fight with desperation to defend, seeing only poisoned soil and quiet trees and the gently greening blue of afternoon sky.

Then he sees a little push of movement from the third-closest rock and relief floods every part of him like breaking surface after aching for air. He could almost let his body fold to its knees with the great lift of anxiety. They're not hurt. The children are not hurt. They are hatching! Dizzied with alien impulses, Jack could hug them.

[[babies! :D ]]

Jack slowly folds into a kneeling position in the center of the clearing. He sighs, somewhere in the midst of resignation and regret and contentment.

He reaches out to gently pat the top of the nearest egg-stone.

The trees whisper softly and for the first time in a span Jack cannot exactly measure he has peace. The rock under his hand is smooth but not polished, comfortable. Some sense he does not truly understand feels the baby turn over within, feels its mute and sleepy reflection of his companionship like a warm push of love.

He should stay here, where he can make sure they're safe. Their nature lies beyond his grasp save for their vulnerability and innocent struggle towards life, but surely no more than that matters here. He looks about, takes in each small shove and shake of the stones within their settings as it happens. In some places a thin drool of fluid stains cracking shells; three eggs away, the motion he noticed first repeats itself with the determination of a slow yet inevitable miracle, gradually prising a top section of shell from its place. It feels holy to witness such sights, the first - the very first - contact this being has ever had with Earth's air and light.

The shadows shift, gently. The flies begin to find him again, though it's hard to care. Beside him the marred and thickly mineral-laden water is a pool he could cover if he made an X of himself, severely shrunken by the drought: odd crystalline traces of its contents ring the bottom of this rounded hollow. Jack gains a little, tugging worry that maybe it's not enough, but then clear water would be dangerous, he knows this in the way he knows that thirst requires drink.

Yet where would he get liquid sufficiently admixed? He might pollute milk with a peck of salt, save there is no cow to hand. Jack catches a glimpse of the red smear beside his leg, but then the darkened stiffened cloth of his kerchief touches the underside of his jaw and he remembers saying something to her, dimly since anywhere not here seems extremely far away and less than real. He had said something before he left. It seems at once important and an idle passtime to grasp it.

Three eggs away, the little champion of the brood manages to push out a chunk of shell the size of a coin. The fragment falls and rolls a little way in the dust, quickly coated.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:30, Sun 14 Feb 2021.

Sweat trickles from under Jack's hat, down his cheek to drip from chin onto chest. He wipes the wet away from his skin and his fingers brush the bit of metal dangling from the delicate chain round his throat. Her cross... Peggy's crucifix.

His own voice whisperss in his mind: "It's I'll come back t'ye, Peggy Sullivan. If mortal breath is left t'me. Watch for me, my love."

Shaking his head, Jack blinks rapidly and sees where he is.

He's in the nest, a large, shallow depression part-ringed by fifteen smooth and rounded eggs. Why and how he came is a blur of stark emotions and logic that slips away when sought.

Another small chip of shell falls from the egg furthest along; the infant creature manages to writhe a...tongue, or tendril, or tentacle, something with no buisness having that shape or form and moving that way in air - out of its confinement, pushing with another. For a moment Jack has a horrible lurch of faith, his hand absently caught on God as Man: that perhaps these things were not made by God, and not the Devil either, for created himself Lucifer could only mar what creation allowed. It was impossible, and yet the texture, movement, scale of the waving limb were so other as to be beyond his understanding as made by He who created all things of Earth. Yet this was a land of marvels. The infant feels blindly about its shell and retreats to take a rest from the exhausting task of birth, one flushed-pink tendril-tip curled like a soft snail on the edge of the hole it made.

The temptation to stay and perhaps even make the comfortingly definite choice to offer his blood to the little ones exists, unprompted and unprompting, no more than that. The others - if there are others, time and reality gone hazy beyond the lip of this one nest - are not nearby and he is alone with this in the quiet landscape. Then again, this is her crucifix and her scarf, and somewhere out there Peggy Sullivan exists, expecting him to come back to her. The air is warm but he's still drawing it, for all that aches.

Jack Duggan rolled 9 for Sanity 34. Wow

Jack gets slowly to his feet. Though there is a tug at his heartstrings that urges him to stay and give his all to foster these wee creatures, there's another tug that pulls him to get home to his own Pegeen.

With a last, gentle pat on the egg he's been touching, Jack starts to pick his careful way step by step out of the nest.

The unhatched child inside the stone nuzzles his mind in response with blank infant affection, incapable of judgement or any complicated thought. They do not peep or cry like little birds, but he can still feel the small unsounding calls as he walks carefully between them, disturbing nothing in his path. He has to look back at the edge of the nest, just to confirm they are, truly, safe. The children are safe.

He thinks it, hopping down from the slight bank of the nest edge, feels it and feels the knowledge pushed down to firm certainty with each step of his weight on the earth. The relief does not leave him.

Jack understands more clearly now just how much Peggy had offered him, and freely. It might be miraculous to be understood entirely, stripped flesh to bone, paradoxically annihilated into near-immortality - for whatever nested here had done so a long time, a memory of millennia - in unknown deep places, but that was too much. What he had with his best girl, it was a love exchanged in pieces like straw between nesting birds, and he - they - would live with it.

The sun scatters golding light across the barren patch and Jack picks up pace since although he feels the immediate danger to anything nearby is past, there are places he should be. He jogs downslope, the breeze cooling everywhere sweat sticks to cloth, a good mute clench of excitement somewhere inside that someday he might see Peggy again, kiss Peggy again: that that possibility existed somewhere in the world.

He follows the trail left by Ngarungadurung, stride lengthening through weeds and ducking under shrubs, and lets the sharp stench of the corpse-grove well alone. The fear and the horror of the place no longer stick so deeply; despite the lack of weapons, Jack feels that should he need to defend this new confidence will keep him like armour, like Daniel out of the lions' den. Jack runs downward and the world feels very much alive.