Scene VIII: The Neverending Forest

[Stormbringer]

The Bean Bunch gather about the collapsed cairn and begin pulling apart bits of fallen stone, looking for anything of interest within the rubble.

Beneath the stones they uncover scattered silver coins — sixteen in all — and a stone tablet, presumably once placed upon the cairn. The tablet has engraved upon it the following words:

I know a shore, a frozen waste, I travel it by boot and karve.
But when the fever takes my wit, then up is down and close afar.
The harsh wind lashes yet again, to drive me through this numbing pain.
My friends, I suckled on their bones and burned their hair to warm my toes.
Tomorrow, I will cut them off before another waste I’ll cross.
A soft, warm whisper in the wind: Cut out your eyes and flay your skin.”

Help or hurt, it matters not.
To save yourself, tend to the lot!


To the south, to the west and to the east of your position, there is nothing but an impenetrable wall of frost-encrusted pines, surrounding the ruined cairn in a semi-circle.

To the north-west, staring through the falling snow, you think you can make out a silhouette of some sort in the distance; a ghostly figure?

To the north-east, you believe you can see a path leading between two walls of trees, deeper into the woods.

All of you feel the biting cold gnawing on your flesh; you should get moving!

[Animalmother]

"Boys, we've either died an gon to to hell or those posion berries is messing with our wits. Either way we had best get our shit together and out of this predicament"

"We spilt into pairs and try each path? But keep within eyes of each other..."

[Sly Boots]

"Not sure about that Pornelius ol' chum, the paths are diverging and if this wind and snow picks up we'll lose sight of one another in short order.

"I can't pretend as to have any great inkling as to the best path we should all take, but if it's a choice between the uncertainty of the forest versus the certainty of a ghostly figure, I'll pick the former every time. 'Sides, we'll more likely find shelter and firewood in the forest."

[Wrathbone]

CK nods.

“If you see any chess pieces, or lepers for that matter, shoot first and ask questions while you shoot some more.”

[Stormbringer]

The Bean Bunch push through the blizzard in the direction of the silhouette.

Could everyone give me a GRIT test please?

8 is the target number to hit (after your personal modifier).

[Sly Boots]

The Bean Bunch push through the blizzard in the direction of the silhouette.

Uh... that's the opposite of what I suggested

[Stormbringer]

Goshdarn it! I misread your post.

THE BEAN BUNCH PUSH NORTH-EAST, THOUGH THE BLIZZARD, IN THE DIRECTION OF THE PATH BETWEEN THE TREES!

[Wrathbone]

GRIT: 18 + 2 = 20

[Sly Boots]

17 for the Grit test.

[Sly Boots]

Also, I'm not going to be around much today from now, niece's birthday party. Try not to get Doc killed

[Animalmother]

8 + 1 on GRIT

The dice have abandoned me of late

[Stormbringer]

The target was 8, so you're good!

[Mantis]

Sorry, been a bit of a weekend.

7+2

[Stormbringer]

The Bean Bunch push through the silent blizzard, cold but not yet frozen. They head north-east through a passage in the wall of trees and find themselves in another, smaller, clearing, surrounded on all sides by a wall of thick pines. There does not appear to be any way out of here save for the way by which they arrived, but in the centre of this clearing is a stone well. A winch for lowering and raising a bucket is placed over it. The bucket, full of frozen water, sways in the cold breeze.

[Animalmother]

So...who wants to climb down the well to investigate?