Count Numbers

Fellowship: The Heart

[Roll: 8: I get away quietly, drawing no attention.]

Being stealthy is hard with tracking animals and already being spotted. He'll need one hell of a distraction. He-

Lucien checks his pockets for the sticks of owl jerky he has on him, similar to what that ratter mongrel was snuffling. He crumbles them in his hands to meaty confetti, the tearing making them fragrant. It'd be silly to assume that just because the hunter is a cannibal their pets are too... but with owls, it's a sure bet.

He throws the peppery chaff over his cover, catching the owls attention as it hails down on the cannibal hunter. The owls track the meat as it flies, making the air heavy with a gamey smell, and scatters over their owner.

The hunter is distracted. The owls are well-trained enough not to attack him, but they haven't figured out it's the jerky the owls are stalking towards now, not them. The distinction might not even matter, since they're covered in it. Lucien's the lesser threat, left ignored as the handler gets the owls back under control before getting eaten. The owls have lost Lucien's scent as they're sent snuffling towards their handler...

Lucien keeps low and quick for the elevator shaft, socked feet muffling his steps on the wrought iron rungs of the ladder he takes up the shaft.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Tristan nods. "That makes sense. My fear is that if we meet it before we understand the problem, it will not let us observe it, ending in bloodshed. I had thought - if it is a place it cannot go back to, it is a place we cannot find by following it. We could look for where it cannot be, but could have been? Perhaps where a new mineshaft has been cut? Or a dam has formed in an inconvenient place?"

To observe without being observed is an unforgiving art: A thousand rights are undone by a single wrong. Tristan's more hesitant about that single point of failure than he is about the thing itself.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Tristan thinks about it. "I think so. The land had something to say about it, anyway. We shared beer, and a large beetle crawled from the dirt and scattered the smaller bugs nearby. I think that means we shouldn't look for where the thing is now, but track it to where it has come from. Another interpretation I made is that it might mean we need to defend ourselves better than the surface bugs did, but I think it less likely."

He massages the muscles in his hands as he thinks. "What do you suggest? I can only find where a thing has been, I have never had to find where a thing is from. Though," he goes a little red in the face as he realizes how it sounds, then steels himself to say it anyway, "If we do find it, we could try asking?"

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

"Thank you." Tristan bows his head. He takes a fallen leaf and makes a larger shade for the scattered pillbugs with it. "Thank you too, little ones. Sometimes the message takes a toll on its messenger."

He stays until he's finished his beer. He is in a communion with the woods here, not a transaction. Leaving as soon as you have what you want is disrespectful. It's rude. So he savours his beer and thinks for a while. Listens, and breathes. He collects the cups, and bows his head again when it's time to leave.

Then he's off like a shot back to Nin, a thoughtful grimace. This has all the hallmarks of a Sign that'll be more obvious in retrospect.

He considers the common themes. Something large being driven from its home, trying to move into someone else's? Conflict brought by displacement... The solution might not be bloodshed, then. Find where the threat came from, and learn why it can't go home. Or maybe just put up more of a fight than the pillbugs did.

Nin's still talking when he gets back. He'll wait for her to finish before he intrudes. If he's needed, she'll ask.

He stands away from the stall and bouncing on his feet instead, resisting the urge to do pushups. Or chinups. Or- He hasn't fired an arrow today! Is his knife sharp? When's the last time he stropped it? (Yesterday.) Could he light a fire right now, if he needed to? (Yes.) Does he know?! (No.)

He is waiting very patiently for Nin from a reasonable distance, so as not to bother her.

Fellowship: The Heart

Lucien grins. This isn't a dream, this is something far stranger.

Fascinating!

Now he's having fun. Let's assess the situation, shall we?

The archer isn't the Angel, and this market isn't a food court, but they have a sort of... thematic consistency don't they? Abandoned food stores, enemy with a deadly ranged attack and a death motif - but this one he trusts is a bit more real. Maybe he's not in the right place yet, but he's closer to it.

Mostly because this new presentation comes bearing train imagery, and he's aware of what the bloody things can do to your head. It explains a few things.

Fight or flight: Does he take this one, since it's not as scary as its last iteration as an Angel - or does he keep trying to run away? See how the world reacts?

He throws himself into half-decent cover and draws his revolver, considers it. Bloody useless thing. He buys time while he thinks - just says whatever's on his mind for a moment while he hunkers, hoping the archer thinks harder about what he's saying than he is.

"You have the nicest collection of bones I've seen in a dog's age, don't you, Chuck? Where'd you get all those? Me, I grow my own, but I've never thought about making a necklace out of 'em. Seems like it'd hurt. You're going to have to tell me where you got the idea. You got a tailor? I'm looking for a new one. Actually, Chuck - you don't mind if I call you Chuck, right? You just look like a Chuck to me - you know where I could get a new pair of good boots? I'm thinking waterproof this time, and you seem like you'd know!"

[Look Closely - 4+3+2=9: What is going on here/What do my senses tell me, What will happen if I Get Away again, What in this environment could help or hurt me? I find one of these out the hard way. (Frankly, I deserve it)]
[Bad Feeling: What's the fastest and what's the safest way out of this?]

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Tristan is eager and brash, but he is also curious and superstitious himself - until now, he'd assumed the matter was brigands to be disarmed and disabled. Their hesitation gives him pause, but Nin immediately sets herself upon that task for him. This gives him a chance to slip away, and find her again soon.

[Weird 1+5+1 = 7 = I ask one question of the other world]

He has hunted in this place, and he has left an offering of berries and water after every success. He is familiar to this place, now. Nin can talk to the people about what they've seen; Tristan is going to find a quiet place of prayer closer to the forest, where he will bring two cups of beer: One placed in offering, and one for himself. He closes his eyes and he counts his breaths as he drinks.

He will have communion with the spirits and listen to what they have to say about the threat, what has disturbed the woods here.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Just as he was taught.

Fellowship: The Heart

This has to be a dream, right? Not a rhetorical question.

Lucien wracks his brain for the last thing he remembers, what got him into this foodcourt. What's he wearing here, by the way? Not that it's important, but it'd be lovely if he had shoes right now.

The idea that this might be a dream doesn't make him feel any safer, mind you. The Heart is a strange place, and he's willing to take it for granted that harm done to him here is harm done. And we must always face our dreams alone...

Still, the Angel can only hurt what it can see. This one doesn't take a genius.

[Roll 2d6 = 4+3+1 = 8]
[I get away, fast and without taking harm]

Lucien grabs whatever large bits of shrapnel he can, and throws it one way as he bolts the other, running as fast as he can. The Angel shoots what it sees, but it's still pausing between shots. He can cross a solid eight meters for every second his clay pigeon gambit buys him, enough to get him out of line of sight again.

He dives over the cash register of a food-court counter, and breaks his way into the kitchen area at a crawl. Knifes, deep fryers, spices, and as many reflective surfaces as he can take advantage of.

He probably can't outrun this thing forever, but he doesn't have to. He just had to find a decent position of ambush. Something he can fashion into a simple trap in one direction, while he can hide with a weapon near it. If the trap works, good. If it doesn't, he can nail it while it's distracted.

And if that doesn't work, he was dead anyway.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Spring has meant four hours a day of archery practice. It's been a productive season; If the winds are gentle, he can't miss a bullseye from fifty paces now, and his muscles have grown to take the strain. Practicing while wearing armor has been an added challenge from previous years.

In summer the humid nights will make for good practice at working in the darkness - learning to hone his eyes to see without the aid of torchlight, to shoot and fight in it, to better see using his ears and nose.

It also means sleeping through the muggy days instead of enduring them, heavenly.

When he's not training, he's preparing in other ways, trading labour for lessons from any traveller who has a skill worth learning. Lessons in sewing and in stitching wounds, the administering and treatment of poisons, knowledge in common law and uncommon lore. Anything and everything he can do to make use of the time his body heals in. For summer? He plans for more of the same.

He's a tight little ball of youthful ambition, Tristan. He doesn't know when the time will come for him to prove himself, but he knows it can be measured in days. Taking breaks from his training fills him with needle-pains in his stomach and an unbearable itch in his limbs. One lesson that hasn't stuck is learning how to chill out.

All work and no play makes Tristan a sharp tool and a dull boy.

He's chomping at the bit to take to the woods with a hammock and a pack of provisions and make ambush. Or if the threat is more than he can take, to stalk the threat to its hideout and bring the news back to the stronghold. But Nin is the specialist here, at tracking and trailing.

He stomps down his impatience as he takes to Nin's side, but he's still vibrating with enthusiasm to be helpful as best he can. These are the moments he lives for.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

I'm happy with farms and forests, I'm happy with the enemy choices, and with the square stone keep on a hill. I'd vote for archer's overlooks and a palisade wall, but I'd also be happy to swap either for the "unusually rich treasury", or to trade both for stone outer walls and a well.

Likewise, crossbows if we take the archer overlook, I'd like the armor-piercing if we're taking on knights loyal to the king. No other preferences for the armory.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

I have the right to own a trained warhorse and own a kite shield. My current horse is named Apricot. I wish I had the good sense to take some apricot seeds back to England with me. Fool.

I love this so much