Bang!

Continued from Something Lurks

The DM: As the party is concerned with Vafrandir's health, which is winnowing away a bit at a time, they hear a tremendous bang and a scream. It comes from west of the crashed ship, upwind, about a two hundred yards away, where there is a cluster of rocks.

Pandred: "What NOW?" I will kick the spider's hairy body and set off towards the sound. "Odds! Hold him, will you!"

The DM: How fast? I presume as fast as you can go. As you rush, you see Willa stagger into sight atop a large rock, holding an unfamiliar backpack, before collapsing forward and rolling down to the ground.

Embla Strand I hurry out and run to Willa as fast as I can.

Pandred: Ditto.

The DM: Pandred reaches her first. She's hurt, having taken some burns on her face. The pack next to her is definitely unfamiliar; valuable, dark grey in colour and bearing the emblem of the King of Denmark & Norway, Christian the 5th. Your king. Willa is muttering, half-heartedly trying to reach under her doublet.

Embla Strand "Willa, what's the matter?"

Vafrandir: To answer the earlier question, no I don't have any additional salves.

The DM: That's a pity.

Willa: [dazed] Fjall is dead.

The DM: She struggles to reach under her doublet and gives up.

Willa: ... healing salve ...

Embla Strand Do we have any more? Is Willa in danger of dying as well?

The DM: It occurs to Embla that this is what Willa may have been reaching for. It should be obvious, however, that Willa can't have known anything about the spider or Vafrandir.

The DM: Willa doesn't seem to be near death, however ~ though she is badly hurt and perhaps below zero hit points, but not wounded or bleeding that you can see.

Embla Strand Thanks. With Vaf needing 5hp to live, I'd rather use this salve on Willa unless we have another salve.

The DM: Vafrandir actually only needs 2 to live. The poison will drop him to -25; he has gained 14 hp back; so he is approaching -11 right now. 2 more will get him to -9 and he'll live. Better hurry.

Embla Strand "Willa, this will save Vafrandir's life. Pandred, stay with her!" I take the healing salve from her and make haste back to Vafrandir.

The DM: Vafrandir is unconscious. Roll a d4 to save Vafrandir's life, Embla.

Embla Strand 3!

The DM: Congratulations, you're allowed to live another day, Vafrandir. You're at -8 hit points. Please roll a d20 to see if you wake up.

Incidentally, Willa is up 140 experience from the damage she takes. I'm working on the spider experience now.

Vafrandir: I roll a 14.

The DM: Vafrandir's wisdom is effectively 2.2 right now; so your roll doesn't make the wisdom check. You'll have to suspend adding this experience until you wake up.

Pandred: I love XP the way one loves a child, but first things first. "Willa, what happened?"

The DM: She's unconscious also. She'll need a day to heal before she can speak. You look around, however, and unexpectedly you see something that looks like a flag sticking up among the rocks.

Pandred: Like a flag? Do I recognize it? I'll approach if I need to get a better look. I seem to recall there was a helluva banner in our possession, or at least in Lothar's.

The DM: This doesn't seem to be that. It is a tent flag; you see two different scenes; one is Fjall's dead body laying amidst what appears to have been an exploded fire trap spell. This is overtop a scene that is much older - a tent, a skeleton lying in it with a broken femur, signs that the camp was lived in perhaps 3 years ago.

Pandred: Let's see to Fjall first. I'll be careful not to disturb anything.

The DM: Longer than expected. I'm here now. Pandred, it does appear that Fjall was killed by the fire trap.

Embla Strand I haul Vafrandir outside.

The DM: The battle took place outside the ship.

Setting Camp

Embla Strand Right! I look for a place to set up camp so Willa and Vaf can recover.

The DM: The best place seems to be the protection of shelter where the tent was placed, as described above. The tundra being all the same here, the wind gets nippy at night. This being summer, it isn't so bad; but apart from the rocks, the terrain goes outwards for half a mile before it rises up the slope across the valley. How far from the ship do you prefer to be?

Embla Strand That'll do, I suppose, if there are no more tricks or traps at this campsite. I move both Willa and Vaf about 20' from the campsite and then go investigate the campsite with Pandred.

[OOC Vafrandir: Just letting you know I'm paying attention to the feed here even though I'm unconscious]

The DM: So noted.

The DM: The campsite itself seems to be the only flat area amid the rocks that you can use. The tent, skeleton and area looks as if it has been undisturbed for a very long time.

Pandred: Understanding that this may be a very dangerous location to set up, I start setting up camp. What is still in usable condition at this site?

The DM: Mostly nothing. It has all been exposed to Norwegian rains and winters for three years.

Pandred: You know what, I didn't even think about it. Either way, we'll use our own goodies.

The DM: It takes about 90 minutes to set up your camp, get Vafrandir and Willa comfortable, make some food, etc. During that time nothing else emerges from the ship and all is peaceful. The weather is unchanged, pleasant without rain; it is getting onto mid-afternoon, with the windward swinging around to the northeast.

Pandred: Okay guys. Vafrandir is down for the count, at least for a bit. I've got d4 hp I can drop on him per day. I want to keep exploring the vessel, but being down a man isn't ideal, and frankly given just how much HP he lost we could very well clean it out before he gets back to working HPs. Do we want to wait here a day or two, rest up and try again when he's gotten 2d4+2 HP from rest/salve? Or would Em and Marcule like to join me in the vessel tomorrow and see what we can find? We're done with the boat for today at least, I think.

Oddsdrakken: What about the bag they found?

Pandred: What about the bag they found! Let's see the bag they found.

The DM: As I said, it had the King's seal on it. But it also blew up when it was opened, so ...

Pandred Now, having eaten a fire trap to the face once in my lifetime before, I'm not keen on doing it again. I also have no idea how often they can trigger. So... what does the bag look like? Could we engineer like, a fifteen foot long shepard's crook to hook it open?

The DM: Embla certainly could. She has an amateur-status skill in setting traps, so she could probably open it without any chance of it going off again. She could also say that fire traps work only once. Unless there is something else in the bag that is also fire-trapped.

Pandred: I volunteer to yoink it open then. Let's take a gander.

The DM: The bag contains a small silver circlet of twisted metal, a circlet/headband, with half a dozen large and beautiful cairngorm stones in it, each about the size of a thumbnail. The Danish crest is part of the design. It also contains a closed scrollcase. To save time, Embla feels almost certain that there's no fire trap on the case; if it contains paper, the firetrap would destroy it, and it doesn't smell like an active trap is there. There is scorching on the inside of the bag and on the outside of the scrollcase.

Pandred: Marcule, pretty sure you're the only one of us who can read. So the scrollcase is pretty much entirely your province, assuming we try to read it at all. How is Willa doing? Is she well enough to ask how she and Fjall came to be in possession of the bag, etc.? I'm happy to let her rest the evening if she can't manage now.

The DM: Willa is unconscious, like Vafrandir. At present, there's nothing to read, unless one of you wants to open the scrollcase.

Embla Strand I open the scroll case.

[OOC:Marcule: Im sorry but my husband has been Diagnosed with a viral infection and I won’t be able to play for the remainder of this week. I feel bad I have been so absent since joining. I am really looking forward to playing with you guys and I hope to be back on the wagon next week. Good luck all.]

[Embla Strand So sorry to hear that. Take care, and I hope the recovery is swift!]

The DM: I'm sure you can count on Marcule to read it. Without getting into excessive detail, the scroll delivers a land grant to whom is apparently a Scotsman, Hamish Ross, of 8,000 acres upon the island of Askøy west of Bergen, for services rendered to Christian IV, the King of Denmark, against the Swedes in the Battle of Femern in 1644. The document was to be delivered to Ross so that he could take possession of his lands; the document is dated May the 10th, 1647.

Embla Strand What is the current year?

The DM: 1650. Today is May 29th.

Pandred: Neat, three years almost to the day. I'm surprised nobody came looking beforehand. It may not have been worth it, or perhaps it was an unexpected reward. Either way. I'd love to claim it as treasure, but maybe we should put some effort in to returning it to the intended recipient. I'm sure we could hire someone in Stavanger to deliver it, or maybe even get this ship up and running and do it ourselves.

The DM: It's always possible someone did search; one problem with searches is that if someone is expected to be one place, say 100 miles east of here, and that area turns up nothing, where else do you look?

The DM: At present, it is effectively a treasure, but it is of no specific value to you. You really have no way of getting this ship up and running. And, another point in fact, you are in possession of a king's grant that was not entrusted directly to you. You have no personal right to bear it and explaining its presence in your possession could get, well, sticky. I tell you so because, living in a monarchically controlled world, this is information your character would know inherently.

Pandred: Well then, at the risk of exploding my head, I'll slip on the circlet, try the fit etc. I do think it's worth it to try and find out about this Hamish person, but we've got invalids. They waited three years for a package, they can wait a bit longer.

The DM: The circlet does not appear to be magical. I should add, first, that it is the sort of thing you'd expect to be worn by a noble in Denmark/Norway, so that the intended owner would be legitimately a Thane, and also that I can't give you experience for it because you didn't actually risk for it [dirty, filthy DM trick].

Pandred: Then, while I'm sure I look suitably regal, I'll put it back in the bag. I'd very much like to hear from Willa at first opportunity. I don't intend to go back into the ship this evening.

Embla Strand After setting camp, would I have time to forage for additional provisions?

The DM: Not a day's take. You can look for two hours, and we can calculate the results; you might find a little food. But for all you know, there might be stores in the ship that have survived.

Embla Strand While there's probably nothing dangerous left in the ship, I'd rather wait for Vafrandir and Willa to wake before exploring futher. I pass on foraging. Pandred, I'll accompany you tomorrow into the ship to see what we might salvage.

The DM: Shall we jump forward to tomorrow then? Assuming there are no encounters (can't promise anything), then Vafrandir and Willa will both rest a point, Pandred's bottle can dispense another 1-4 and maybe either will wake up.

Pandred: That is my hope. Yes, please.

Embla Strand Please.

The DM: Good. I hope this is moving along well enough; small incremental changes from day to day. Let's pick this up tomorrow morning.

Vafrandir: Sounds good. That puts me at -7, correct?

The DM: See the next post.

This thread is continued on The Next Morning.