Though, find isn't the best word for it.
Up ahead, 50 feet, in the bushes to the right of them, something seems to stir. The bushes shake and a high pitched growl can be heard coming from them.
.oO(What kind of beast is that?)
Better look sharp, Dumboven.
Tyros looks at the nearby forest for a suitable tree to get up if need be.
. o O (Such a high pitched growl...)
Cycles through his memories to see if he recognizes the noise.
Reaches back to his bow but finds it uncomfortable and hard to remove unsheathes his boot knife instead.
. o O (Hopefully it won't be big.)
Listens intently for anything near by.
Whatever is in the bush scrambles out and to a clump of trees, 30 feet further away. Somehow neither of them get a good glimpse of it.
. o O (Hmmm...)
Beckons Tyros to circle around the bush, and then heads around the other side himself, stearing clear of the tree by a good five feet.
Slips his boot knife back into his boot and loops his bow off his shoulder, holding it lightly.
.oO(It flees from the bush where it was hiding. It was growling all the time. So it can be either scared and trying to make us scared too or it's calling out more of its kind.)
Dumbuven! It's afraid! We should lure it out before more come to its aid.
Tyros waits for Donnavin to answer, while hold ing tight to his bow, already aiming into the site of the creature's hiding.
Quietly and calmly. "We don't know if we can eat it."
. o O (His feet are quiet, but his mouth is not.)
Loops his bow over his shoulder again, looking at the tree suspiciously, and starts to climb, trying to leave his right hand room to dangle at his boot knife.
. o O (Hmmm....)
Peeks through the canopy, looking for a glance of what it is.
The growling falters for a minute and then resumes.
Behind Tyros something stirs in another bush. And growls.
.oO(Another one... just like I thought. His calling out for his friends.)
Tyros quietly speaks to Donnavin.
Try to shut him up. More will come.
Tyros puts his bow on his shoulder and unsheathes the two twin swords. He starts going in the direction of the bush, hoping to get a better look at the creature.
Looks down briefly to gauge the fall between him and the ground.
. o O (If I need to reach Tyros-friend quickly I hope the drop wont hurt.)
Becomes much more keenly aware of the boot knife.
Looking down he finds himself to be about twenty feet up. He should be able to survive a jump of that distance if need called for it. And it just might.
The thing in the bushes makes some strange noises as Tyros moves closer.
Too close perhaps. The bushes almost seem to reach out and grab him.
No, scratch that. They do reach out and grab him. The leaves wrap around the ranger's arms and legs making it very hard for him to move further.
He too feels a trickle falling from above onto his head.
Notes Tyros's dilemma and looks quickly up in the tree to see if it is the same strange plant, then releases the tree, turning his body as best he can to land on his feet and running to the plant.
. o O (Hunting never used to be this dangerous, sometimes a bear, or boar, but never often. I wish I had my sword, and my armor.)
Draws his boot knife on his way down.
[If he can reach the plant this round he charges whatever is holding Tyros (+11, 1d4+2, 19-20 x2. AC10), if not he'll charge the plant next round.]
Tyros keeps getting closer of the stiring and growling bush and, suddenly, is grabbed by what seems to be its leaves. He starts trying to cut them with his twin swords, focusing on trying to get loose from them.
[ ooc: I don't really know how much damage i can cause with them, and I don't know how to organize it in a way for the DM to understand it. can you help on that, Kneyejailb? Thank you.]
Tyros struggles to break free of the shrubbery, but it wraps around him tighter.
Something starts throwing pinecones at both rangers.
And laughing.
. o O (No one is dying, no one is dying, no one is dying...)
. o O (Yet.)
Feels the jerk on his hair and grunts, being held up now only by his hair makes all efforts to swing back ahold of the tree and cut the snaring vines.
.oO(Stupid thing! A pine tree would never do this to me... nor a blinky... I hope.)
Tyros also starts to growl slightly as he tries to hack his way out of the grapple, his temper begining to slowly rise.
Tyros manages to cut his way out of the bushes grip, but the shrubbery starts to reach for him again.
Something else takes off running through the underbrush to the right and between both rangers.
. o O (Oof!)
Reaches out to try and catch the fleeing creature as it passes by.
. o O (Whats going on!)
Springs to his feet and chases the creature.
"Tyros-friend, come on."
Donnavin takes off after the thing in thje bushes and gets a good twenty feet into the foilage before he notices the small drop off ten feet in front of him.
Whatever it is he is chasing seems to have gone over it with little effort. He can see the bushesbelow moving as the creature runs through them.
He can not see what it is yet, though.
Resheathes his dagger in his boot.
Again?!
.oO(So maybe i was wrong about the pine tree thingy.)
Tyros starts haking viciously at the trees' limbs, not really caring about the fall. [/i]
The creature below in the bushes stops moving.
Tyros struggles with the tree branches, and then tree let's him go. He falls to the ground, but manages to land on his feet.
. o O (Neither are plants.)
"Tyros-friend. Mm?"
Turns around and heads back to the tree, looking for the hunter.
.oO( Is the forest turning itself against me? What have I done to anger it?)
Suddenly, Tyros takes notice that Donnavin is not on his sight. He remembers seeing head to some bushes right to him while he was trying to reach the hostile pine tree and goes for that same direction.
Dumboven!
Tyros quietly calls as he spots his fellow hunter.
Tyros sees Donn coming towards him.
Donn sees a few pinecones flying from the tree towards him.
"Something fell down a cliff up ahead."
. o O (Maybe we should just leave it there.)
Bats away a few of the pine cones.
"And I don't like these trees."
I don't like the trees either as they seem to be trying to hurt us.
Do you think we should try to follow the... thing? The growling from the bushes gets a lot louder.
Draws his dagger and seeks out the growling bush. Confident it will try to wrap its vines around him wait with the dagger, ready to intercept the tendrils and shorten their reach dramatically, and perhaps the lifespan of the growling bush.
"It's salmon."
. o O (Eh?)
"I chunky stone frog food tree in Garic's loof..."
Concentrates.
"Eggy nut sticks! Orange foo giggle mop!"
"Ook!"
"Dual wielding flaming bearded dwarves!"
. o O (I can't lobotomy chemistry biology archaeology economics tuition!)
Grabs Tyros by the shoulders.
"Viney oomph beer. Pool que nibble moon cow and spoon ping I posted!"
Growls "Demmion's tuition!"
What's salmon?
Eat frogs? Oranges?
I thought we were trying to hunt... is grabbed by Donnavin and starts to think Donn went nutty.
Moon cow? What are you talking about?
As if reacting on his instinct, Tyros gives a slap! on Donn's face, hoping he'll stop joking.
"You goateed trouted me!"
"I mean you slapped fjord."
Lets go of Tyros and turns to one side, spitting as if to get some nasty taste out of his mouth.
Half spit, half whispered "Floomph...trebled...drowning paladin..."
Rubs his head, feeling his tongue come back under his control.
"I hate bushes."
Searches the previous site of the bush for anything at all.
What should we be searching for? We have nothing to do with that thing... we should be hunting for boars or so... not trees or things that run.
A few more pinecones thud into the ground near the hunters. And then a high pitched voice calls out from the direction of the drop off Donn discovered earlier.
"Help! Help!"
"I don't have any rope."
Both can plainly see the plants below being shaken but can't see what is causing them to move.
A voice calls out from the bushes. "Help! It's trying to eat me!"
Donnavin catches a shadow approaching behind them out of the corner of his eye, but not soon enough to stop it from knocking Tyros over the edge of the drop off. But when he turns to see what it is, it is gone.
Tyros lands in a heap at the bottom of the ten foot drop. (Tyros takes 2 hp of damage)
. o O (I'm going to kill something...)
Boot knife loosley held sits very still, listening and scanning the trees for movement.
and is hurt by the fall. He slowly gets up and shrugs to get off the dust from his shoulders. .oO( No need to push
I was already coming down.) Tyros tries to see if he can spot the place from where the little voice came from.
"No! Not my baby!"
Donn feels something small slam into his back but he holds his ground. When he turns around to see what hit him, there is nothing there.
. o O (.......)
Moves further away from the edge of the cliff, making wide, cautionary arcs with his knife.
. o O (I hate plants.)
.oO( I hate ale...)
He stops about 15 from the bushes and speaks in a normal tone of voice.
How can i help?!
[ooc: if the victim does not answer, then try again in a louder tone of voice.]
"There's no time to waste!"
The bushes begin to shake violently, and the voice begins screaming.
Donnavin's flailing around with his knife fails to connect with anything. He does notice a pile of pinecones next to the tree that grabbwed Tyros.
And it seems to be getting bigger.
[Climb +6]
Unfortanetly, he seems to be too late. He can see nothing in it and they have stopped moving.
Donnavin watches the pinecones. The pile if definetly getting bigger. Pinecones appear outr of thin air on the top of the pile.
Tyros takes an arrow to his bow and shoots into a nearby tree to see if there's any reaction.
. o O (Hmm... not natural.)
Nudges them with his toe, knife held just at arms length.
. o O (Lliueliel might have known...)
It is silent for about a minute, and then the yelling starts again. "Help! It's dragging my baby towards the river!"
"My baby can't swim!"
Tyros can see the bushes thirty feet from where his arrow landed moving.
Donn sees and then feels a pinecone hitting him in the forhead.
It came from up in the tree.
Something hisses in the tree. "They're mine. You can't have them."
Tyros loops his bow into his shoulder and unsheathes one of his swords. He then jumps to the foliage near the wasted arrow and starts hacking at the bushes, just in case.
Eyes the tree vehemently before turning his back to it and heading towards the drop off again.
"Tyros-friend. Where are you."
Looks at the bushes below for the man, dagger still in hand.
. o O (Throw another pinecone...)
Very much intending to use it.
Donn spots Tyros standing in a pile of twigs and leaves.
The voice calls out again. "Now its trying to drag my baby up a tree!"
Tries to negotiate the drop with minimal damage to himself.
Tyros continues whacking away at the bushes in case he missed something earlier.
I'm right here, Dumbuven!
"No! Don't push my baby into that pit!"
"Please! Get off my baby! You're squishing her!"
"No! Babies aren't suppose to bounce!"
"Help! Help!"
Donnavin notices that the dirt clods have stopped pelting him when the baby is in danger in a tree not ten feet from him.
"Quick! Catch my baby! She's going to fall!"
Waits for the baby to fall.
"Tyros-friend. Leave it, this is not hunting."
Shouldn't we try to help it?
Tyros takes one glance at the tree to see if anything else happens there that's worth noticing.
[ooc: "No! Babbie aren't supposed to bounce!" ???????
)Looking up at the tree Tyros sees what appears to be a small body dangling from a branch. Its hard to see clearly due to the pine needles, but it is the right size to be an infant.
Donn sees it as well.
"She's going to fall! Someone please go up and get her!"
.oO(Wouldn't a baby be dead by now?)
Do we help it or not?
Looks at the dangling form.
. o O (...fine!)
[OoC: Stays where he is, but if the baby falls he tries to catch it.]
"She can't hold on much longer! Oh no!"
The baby loses it's grip on the branch and tumbles another three feet down before catching itself on another branch. This time it is clearly visable to both rangers.
It appears to be a roughly one year old human girl. It screams in terror again as it dangles about twenty feet above the hunters.
"Please! Please help her! I'm begging you!"
. o O (If its not a pup, if, it... rrrrrrrrrr)
Glares up at the struggling baby.
"Let go."
Puts his arms out to catch the infant.
. o O (If its not a pup, it dies.)
And starts to fall towards the ground. A few feet before it hits the ground, it changes slightly as wings sprout from its back, and it flies back up ands two pinecones strike Donn's back.
"Monster! Babies can't survive a fall from that high!"
The lifeless body tumbles towards the ground.
Three voice cry out. "No!"
Two arrows fly from out of the tree Donn is under and hit Tyros in the arm. A third arrow skims over his shoulder from behind him.
Iniative:
Pests:16
Donnavin:14
Tyros:10
Tyros takes 3 hp of damage leaving him with 5.
. o O (Not a pup.)
Unslings his bow from his shoulder and slides an arrow into the notch.
"You..."
Fires at any arrow volleying target visible.
) As Tyros grins at his acomplishment, three other arrows fly from the other tree and crave onto his left arm and shoulder. Tyros lets out an Uff! and then drops his bow, letting his right hand reach for his wounds and droping to his knees. The excrutiating pain of the damage inflicted upon him and then the rage. The following rage of being hit from an undeclared enemy. Tyros takes the dagger from his boot and throws it at the tree and then grabs his sword in his right hand and gets up, his left arm dangling beside him, leaking blood all over the floor.
You still need to kill me!
With this he advances to the tree running like a demon. Once he gets there he grabs his sword with his mouth and tries to climb the tree from where the arrows flew from.
[Climb +6]
TYros makes it half way up the tree before an arrow flies down and hits him in the shoulder. A second arrow whistles past his ear and thuds into the ground.
Donnavin jumps out of the way of an arrow that suddenly appears thirty feet to the north of him and then flies towards him.
The voice that they heard earlier calls out from the tree. "You killed Kano, you bastards!"
Tyros takes 2 hit points of damage leaving him with 3.
. o O (Wha...?)
Spins and watches Tyros attempt to climb the tree. Fires into where he hopes the arrow that kissed Tyros's shoulder came from.
Tyros sees the arrow slowly dashing in his direction, like a slow motion capture and feels his shoulder be perforated by it. But, funny enough, he feels no pain, only an itching. His mind was no longer in the physical realm. His body was truly one of the many homes that one's soul can take, like his father used to say to him when he was a child. He could still hear the threats of the things that attacked his home, and then a bump. His body fell to the ground on the impacto of that last arrow. But he still felt no pain. He got back into his body and suddenly felt the dazling pain that had been dealt to him. A deep chock it was and a spasm went through his whole body. He still felt that little inch of anger flowing through his veins, consuming every inch of sanity in his mind.
"Home... sweet... home..." Tyros whispers and gets up to try to make one last charge at that god forsaken tree, trying to reach it with every force still left in him and then climb. He takes his sword that had fallen to his right and starts running again at the tree as fast as he can while shouting in elven:
I'll see you in hell again!
[ooc: climb +6 if he can get near that tree]
Tyros continues up the tree until he reaches the branch where he thinks he saw the arrows appear at. His early life spent in the trees proves to be a help as he manages to keep his balance as he swings his blade.
And it helps him regain it after his attack cleaves through empty space.
An arrow appears out of thin air next to Tyros, and buries itself into the trunk of the tree behind him. Another arrow slams into Donnavins side from somewhere to the north of him.
"We won't forget this murderers! We won't forget this!"
Donnavin takes 8 points of damage.
.oO(You won't even remember how to think once I get a blade through your head!)
[Ooc: if Tyros sees anything he tries to get to where that thing is, if not, he will try to get even higher in that tree]
Nocks another arrow, draws, and releases in a smooth exhalation.
. o O (Time to die.)
Fires a second arrow like the first with a smooth breath.
Tyros still can not find a target. What ever these things are, they can certainly hide well. Tyros pulls himself up to the next higher branch.
"You'll pay for this!"
Donnavin sees the two bodies on the ground being lifted up and then they start flying away. He can hear a few quiet words as well. "They are still breathing. We've got to get them back to Mother quickily."
Donnavin also realises Llyala has been very quiet through this whole encounter. Where is she?
I'll find you...
. o O (Come out come out...)
Aim's up, hoping the arrow tossing creature will show his face.
. o O (...wherever you are...)
[readied action to fire if he sees a target.]
Donnavin gets an arrow of before they and the bodies turn invisable again. The arrow strikes the space where he saw them at, and then stops and falls to the ground.
"We will find you!"
"And you will rue the day you attacked us unprovoked!"
Tyros climbs higher but sees nothing. He does hear the voice shout out it's warning though.
. o O (How about shutting up?)
Fires in the direction of the bodies being carried off.
[i] Tyros climbs down the tree into the ground to see if he can still gain sight of the creatures.[/color]
An arrow that completes its arc and lands in the bushes.
Pants.
"We're going back."
Retrieves whatever arrows he can before looking for a way back to the road.
)Dumbuven, what are you doing?
What? leaving? what about those thingys?
Tyros shrugs and then starts looking for his bow.
The way back to the road is easy enough to find. Climb up the drop off, and then trudge past the remains of a few chopped up bushes.
"Llyala! Come on."
Waits.
Will we continue to hunt?
Llyala is slumped down behind the tree that pulled Tyros up. An arrow protruding from her side. She appears to be snoring.
[Heal +4]
. o O (Llyala...)
Examines the arrow at the same time, trying to identify it, perhaps with the one that is still sticking out of his side.
Notices theres an arrow sticking out of his side.
. o O (:sad: Ow! Focus on Llyala.)
Hopes to keep her asleep until the arrow is out.
.oO(She bleeding... if that wound infects it might look bad. I wonder if I can find any mushrooms to act as an anti-infecter...)
Tyros starts looking for some mushrooms in the surrounding area.
The arrow appears similar in size to the one poking out of Donnavin's side, but the fletchings are a different color. The one in Donn is green, the one he pulled from the wolf are bright green.
Llyala stirs and licks Donnavins hand and then gets to her feet and licks his face. She doesn't appear to be in any pain.
Tyros searches the surrounding area for any fungai with medicinal value but fails to find any. He does find some mushrooms that might go well in a stew though.
.oO(Mustn't waste any opportunities.
)We should get a better look at that arrow, Dumboven.
Tyros looks at his own shoulders and finds the arrows still craved in them.
And mine too... ouch...
Tyros tries to see if the arrows are too deep to be pulled manually.
[heal +5]
"Good girl, come on up. We're going back. Hunting's done for now."
. o O (She's okay.)
"Tyros-friend. Come on. We're going back."
Looks at Llyala.
"whew."
Looks briefly at the arrow in Tyros's shoulder.
"Worry about it later."
Sets his face very grim.
. o O (pinecones, bushes, arrows. Grrrr...)
Llyala licks Donnavins hand again and then rushes off into the bushes and returns a few seconds later, a fat hare clutched between her teeth.
They rangers head back towards the city emptyhanded. But at least the wolf had a succesful hunt.
You can return to the city now. But you are ten days behind the current day. Of course so are a lot of other players. :-p.
Make up the lost time however you think works best. Resting to heal your wounds might be a good idea.