the next 20 or so minutes while others travel to town...

Alric going cautiously further down the mountain slope trying to backtrack the victim's steps (around 2 minutes) you reach a natural terrace at the same level with the mystery hole/den, though it it a good 200' away. Looking about the tracks you come to several sage bushes, but that first one found in particular seems like her last one before bitten. Her steps look like they start being irregular from there.

You begin to probe the bush with a long stick (fishing tackle rod or arrow, you're choice). Something small flies out, likely a bird but you can't tell it happens so fast. Quickly looking about it seems to fly off southward, you return your attention to the bush.

There's snake tracks about and within this bush, yet you cannot find the snake. You look again because the nearest snake track suggest it moving into this bush from a nearby gopher hole. Perhaps it moved back out into that same gopher hole? You'd have to make a more thorough check (either Perception to sense anything else weird around, or Survival to make better sense of these tracks).

(I am assuming Mal is with you. If so, Mal sniffs that sage brush and starts to growl lowly and back away.)

Yes Mal is with me

+4 to each of these, Hey Skills I have

Perception 17 + 4 = 21
Survival 7 + 4 = 11
handle animal 18 + 4= 22


I am trying to figure out if their is an active danger here, in the bush.
Rolled the handle animal, hoping Mal will help track or indicate danger, He doesn't do any fighting if he can avoid it Cowardly dog!

How large is the burrow/hole in diameter?




Alric moves cautiously around the bushes trying to find whatever is upsetting dear Mal. If nothing develops he will follow the trail down to the Burrow.

Alric

Well, you'll be damned if that makes a lick of sense. You could swear that the snake tracks don't backtrack into that gopher hole. But you chalk it up to the recent excitement and difficulty of reading tracks inside a bush.

Keeping your senses sharp, you feel they remain with you as you don't sense anything in the immediate vicinity that is a threat. Naturally as the brush gather here and there in places you take greater precautions with your fishing rod/arrow, just in case. Seems painfully normal, birds chirping and lizards scurrying with the occasional insect buzzing on by.

And Mal just won't have any of it: that bush sets his spine hair on edge. Good thing you bond well with animals. You can't calm his growling, but as you head off to the cave/den he follows you as best he can, circling the bush slowly, constantly facing it and growling until a comfortable 15' distance.

He doesn't really return to normal, his hackles remain up as he follows you tentatively behind. The cave keeps looking more and more like a large animal burrow; possibly worthy of a bear, but how successfully could they be on this dry side of the mountains? Takes about a minute to get there, being cautious about the brush, loose dirt, and varying terrace size.

You hear the sound of Mal's footsteps stop 30' away, but you finish that distance so as to take your peek. Looking back you could swear Mal's shaking and looking at you with deep worry, he looks left and right and whines ever so softly. Peeking, it seems like a regular den, the smell of animal funk and boney remains wafting towards you.

Ah, it must be an animal. Wait, before the noontime sun puts a deeper part of the den back into shadow for the day, you catch what seems to be a wooden mine support and joist. Your glimpse before the shadow reclaims it suggest it is quite old, possibly forgotten.

Mal barks, likely from the stress. Everything seems quiet though. Maybe the bear?, coyote?, or wolves? are out hunting right now.

Bright politely takes a drag off the peace pipe thanks them and politely takes her leave of them.

Quote from: Opaopajr;784624Karnath & Hanalee, you see the town more clearly now, thank goodness, turning the shanties from house-shaped blips into distant but recognizable roofs & doors.

Another two minutes, you think Karnath, dear Goddess give us strength!

By will be done, she muscles onward.

Unlike what he has heard in many a night time fire side story he listens to his animal companion. Alric steps away and heads back toward the first bush that raised Mal's hackles.

He takes Mal a good ten feet away and has him sit, though it might take a try or two to get him settled.

He moves back to the bush and readies himself drawing out his short sword he'll take a few wacks at the bush hoping to loosen whatever is frightening Mal and to perhaps settle his own nerves. He would rather look a little foolish hacking down a defenseless bush then find out some vampire plant was living well on the country side.


OOC - please no initiative ... please no initiative

@ 15 minutes between Alric & the rest of the group

Alric

/hack, hack, stab, hack!    *phew*
...
/snort.    Mal clears his nose, and you look back to see a few leaves eddy around him. The smell of sage is quite nice about you. Mal looks about at the leaves and insects, then returns his eyes to you with a satisfied pant — like he's smiling.

Dogs, they can be strange.

Oh! There's a small bone now on the ground. Must have been dislodged from a tangle of twigs from that thorough thrashing.

OOC: Everyone else, feel free to comment about what you do, but pardon me if I try to get Alric up to the same temporal moment as you — he's alone and living on the edge.

OOC - Quick Alignment check, Nope can't beat my dog

Alric feeling somewhat foolish just looks at Mal with a near murderous glare. "Just for that it stays there till later. "

Alric will continue back toward the den. Scouting in a full circle around it looking for any other clues, He has stumbled upon bears before and prefers there not be any repeats. His legs can't handle the run after last night.


Rolled a 5 +4 for perception and a 10 +4 survival ,after some serious bad typing.

OOC: Oh my, not inspiring rolls, are they? Well, let's see what they can still do.

Alric

Mal is squinting and panting in the sun like life couldn't be better. So obedient, not even going after that bone even. As you look back midway to check his obedience you see a happy Mal with moths resting upon his sweaty nose -- must be the salt and moisture -- and he's not even shaking them off, panting away.

Back at the Forgotten Claim? you scout around it as much as you can, a semicircle as being caught by a bear while climbing nearby will be inconvenient. Giving the entrance a reasonable berth you search the terrace edge, and find the expected bone shard here and there of what would be a predator's den. Nothing immediately assaults your senses as out of the ordinary, but honestly, how familiar have you been with this side of the mountains?

The tracks though, that you are better sure of. Looks like a lot of tracks for a forgotten claim. Heh, you even spot a mix of bare human footprints, along with boot and moccasin prints, amid the multiple dog like paw prints big and small. Not really making much sense out of them right now, especially time-wise; perhaps you're a bit off from the excitement earlier today.

Maybe a make-shift shelter for a stumble-drunk from the downtown saloons. Maybe a few bandits long in the past. Maybe undisturbed baked mud-prints from when it was a working claim. Whatever it was, it smells like it belongs to a medium- to large-sized animal predator now.

Oh! There's a larger bone, looks like from the leg of a doe deer. Maybe a conciliatory gesture to Mal... later, after he's shown himself more worthy. At the very least you'll have more time to investigate which animals are here.

Bright Feather will wait at the road for Karni to tell her she has runners out to bring the healers and it may be safer to wait for them to come to us rather then all the way to them.

Quote from: Marleycat;784889Bright Feather will wait at the road for Karni to tell her she has runners out to bring the healers and it may be safer to wait for them to come to us rather then all the way to them.

So you will run back towards the downtown entrance? OK. I will have a delay of 1 minute as you waited for the ceremonial passing & puffing of the pipe, so as to be respectful.

Oh, CON check. Running after their strong stuff, kinda challenging.

Seeing and talking to Bright Feather, she will ask Hanalee to stop so they can set the litter down, telling Caden as well, then they can wait for the runners from the elders to arrive.

8+3....11 she's no doubt coughing a bit to catch her breath.

two minutes pass with the main group

Caden

The braves point you uptown and shout to go to the Elders' Place, then yell out asking you where & how far is the snakebite victim. You notice they are not slowing down to talk.

You continue on jogging, you never realized how far a mile and a half is until there's an emergency. You see the Main Street Well area in the far distance, just another +500', got a ways to go yet.
------------

Karnath & Hanalee

Just handful of hundred feet away from town proper two braves meet up with you. They quickly say they are from the Elders' Place and that your First Waters friend told them of the emergency. As they say this they reach for the litter and try to take both of your places.

Thankfully a chance for a second wind.
------------

Bright Feather

Ancestral Bear, where on earth do they get their supply? That stuff can stun a horse. And they smoke that multiple times a day? No wonder the acolytes do most of the talking.

Running on this stuff is harder than you thought. You try to cover the usual speed you can, attempting a handful of hundred feet in this next minute. Gravity is strong, you crave a good sit down and anywhere might do for now. Running, you begin to see things go past you in a slower rate. So this is what it feels like for High Elves and Humans...

(Nothing big, just Spd 30', and a useful tidbit about the potency of the Elders' tobacco.)