Sick Day - 28 Kuthona 11am

For the first time since arriving the rains stop. The sky remains a blanket of grey, the sun desperately trying to shine through the thinner patches and only succeeding in  a few thing pillars. Shalelu sits on a fallen log and takes inventory of her arrows. She runs her thumb over the arrowheads looking for dull spots and providing them an edge with a small, gritty whetstone.She knows she'll need the sharpest points to make the most of putting down something and large and terrifying as an ogre. She sighed, thinking almost longingly of how easy goblins are to kill. She heard a sound in the distance and lifted her head to triangulate it. There it was again, a low deep sound, not rhythmic. Standing, she dropped her whetstone, quivered her arrows. She dashed across the clearing between the small woods. As she neared the source of the sounds, herself silent, her heart sank. "Ogres..." Around the bend in the road, she saw a small band of ogres. She scanned the forest across the road for Jakardros. The ogres seemed to be trying to crudely flushed the forest for them. She cursed, unable to find either Kaven or Jakardros, and decided to warn the party. "Ogres. Seven of them," Shalelu said as she ran into the middle of the came. "On the main road. Didn't have time to see if Jakardros or Kaven were watching but I don' see how they'd 'ave missed them!"

Wheezing as Vrinn sits up with alarm, his mind starts working, trying to think of something, anything that could be useful. Despite knowing that he's lost the confidence of the party with his arrogance and the harshness of his words after letting the power go to his head, he has to try. "How far away?" he asks Shalelu with a furrowed brow as a plan formulates, but needing some time yet. His hands instinctually reaching for his swords, he coughs again, hacking up a glob of bile and fungi and spitting it in the same spot where he'd been doing that for the past few hours. "Seconds? Minutes?" he probes after inhaling a deep breath, his voice calm as he looks to Shalelu for answers.

Gulo cocks his head to the side, loading his musket "A few minuets, three maybe five. Probably following up on on yesterday's incident. Best case scenario they are going out to the woods on their volition against their leaders orders, thou more likely they're being sent to find us and if they do not come back that will put them on high alert."

Synovia thinks for a moment, "Miro, could your bird fly to the Arrows and have them double back here but stay hidden once they get here. You  and Gulo get Vrinn hidden then take position in the tree line. I'll stay here when the Ogers get here they'll think I am easy prey, you guys can ambush them and I'll do what I do best, stab things.

Gulo nods, dragging Vrinn into the seclusion of the thick brush "Synovia, should they manage to capture you I promise you will not make it to the fortress." he says in a solom tone.

Vrinn scratches his chin, his customary pose of thought easily identifyable by now before slapping Gulo's hands away as he tries to move him, still with enough strength behind them to remind the hobgoblin that there's some fight in him yet. "Gulo's first assessment might not be wrong. If they are indeed a patrol, they'll just send more if these ones don't get back. Miro, can you use your magics to disguise our camp from the road? If not, Golu, you and Shalelu gather some brambles, thickets, branches, shrubs, whatever you can and disguise us the old fashioned way, we'll also need someone to put out the fire. Use dirt, we don't want steam or smoke or a smell to give us away..." he says, looking around at each of his party members. "Synovia, you have the biggest feet, you'll leave the easiest tracks to follow. They're on the road right now, so take Chuffy and run as hard as you can, jump if you have to, but make sure that they can see that we've been using the road and give them a trail to follow before you lose them. If they do catch up with you, Chuffy can make a distraction, smoke sticks or poorly aimed bombs or something like that to buy you both some time to get away safely. With that and hiding us from the road, with some luck they'll walk right past us without even knowing we're here." Vrinn says, talking animatedly, hurriedly. His feet itch with the desire to stand and help, to do something. Instead he wheezes and farts. (Oh, plus accent. You get the idea)

Synovia nods, then looking between Vrin and Gulo says" Do either of you have caltrops?"

With a big grin, Vrinn locks eyes with Synovia and nods "Better..." He says, reaching for his pack. Unstrapping some straps, he tosses a large metal pair of teeth to the ground in front of her "Ogres probably wouldn't even feel caltrops. A bear trap on the other hand..." he lets the sentence trail off with a wink

Gulo points over to the sharpened stakes, 6 in all "I intended to cover them in waste, but as they are they will work for your purposes." He says, dumping fresh earth onto the now dying fire.

"Chuffy do you happen to have tangle foot bags?" she then begins to take off armor "Gulo, Miro help me with this."

Gulo nods, coming over to aid, muttering "I have never understood human's facination with heavy armor, too cumbersome and noisy to be worth the risk."

"it makes us harder to kill, but I saw something in Magnamar that I with I could get. It is a cloak clasp that when you activate it, it turns into a set of plate armor."

"It would seem a better use of magic to make a cloak that is as strong as plate, but I'm not a dwarven mage smith."

"Gulo that would be brillant!" she says with a grin.

Suddenly Synovia stops, "Vrinn, do you think Ever would like to have some fun with some Ogers?"

Vrinn lets loose a slight grin towards Synovia at the thought "I believe she would... If I knew where the bloody girl was at" he says while looking around, trying to find his inky companion. "Ever, want to go with Synovia and Chuffy and play some pranks on some big smelly ogres?" he asks the empty air in front of him, almost as though he's talking to himself unable to spot where she might be from his bedridden state.

A dark smoky presence unfurls from Vrinn's bag a knotted rope of Vrinn's spare socks is unceremoniously dumped on his lap as a vaguely slight and feminine shape takes form above the rogue. White eyes narrow in mischief and an airy giggle greets Vrinn. "Yessssss! Stupids." She begins to fly excitedly, threading herself through wherever she can before disappearing into the boughs of the trees, an occasional shadow and giggle.

Chuffy steps out from behind a tree, where he appears to have been hiding and listening in. "I have just the thing for such an occasion..." He makes a mysterious looking flourish, reminiscent of Miro's magical gesticulations. A seemingly ordinary looking flask appears in his hand, and he takes a long pull from it. Burping a bit, he offers it to Vrinn. "Hey, I found this in the last town. People kept calling it liquid courage. Tastes funny, and makes me feel funny too. But not the exploding kind of funny. Ja, ok, let's get this ogre with!" Chuffy charges off after Ever, weaving slightly.

"Wish me luck" and Syn runs after them

Miro sits at the fire looking into it deeply.  "Perhaps we can use one last attempt not to fight.  If I were to cast an illusion over the camp to make it appear as if it isn't here... then perhaps we can avoid giving away too much information aswell as insure Vrinn's safty until he is well."  Miro stands and begins to map out the camp quietly.  "If we bring down the tent and pull it closer to the fire then I should have the skill to mask it from view.  Should any of them disbelive it then we will fight, and I am prepaired for such an occurance.  Vrinn, given your current ailment perhaps it would be wise to remain at a distance with a bow?  Maybe with me, thus I can insure your continued existance aswell as have protection should I be in trouble."  

Meanwhile, Syn< almost as a after thought grabs her bedroll and extra blankets, then heads out with Chuffy. As they walk she says " Chuffy, could you make a fake campsite while I leave a false trail?"

"Oh, ja, sure. Is easy. No. What do ogres think is a campsite? Hold on, I'll piss on everything." Chuffy reaches into his pants before pausing. "Where are we doing this?"

Miro nods.  "Scuttle the fire, and my illusion should take care of the rest.  If we should the footprints retreating to the river it will be impossible to tell which way we went as rivers wash away All tracks."  Miro looks about.  "Then we can take shelter IN the tree's and pray against hope they think we left.  If not a height advantage is never unwelcome.... eh Shylalu."

Gulo raises a brow, having already killed fire, as he works on getting Vrinn to his feet, whispers "Are you certain of his Sanity Kommandant? Magic tends to warp the mind."

Syn and Chuffy head back the way they came then begin leaving a false trail to the location of where they can set signs of a false camp site. As they travel she says to Chuffy "Just leave signs of a campfire, place the stakes and trap in semi obveious places, etc.'

Chuffy pulls a vial of alchemist's fire out of his pants, looking at it curiously. "I don't remember putting you there... For being so naughty, you can be a campfire." Chuffy skips beside Synovia as they head towards their destination, arms swinging by his sides. "What are these steaks you're talking about? I've only had jerky for the past few days and my teeth are getting loose from all the chewing. I wonder if I could find a way to soften it all up..."

(STEALTH CHECKS FOR MAKING IT TO RENDEZVOUS POINT - CHUFFY, SYNOVIA) (SURVIVAL/KNOWLEDGE NATURE CHECK FOR FAKE CAMPSITE FOR ALL INVOLVED)

((Miro: 12 Knowledge nature))

Sounds of excitement from the ogres fill the forest "Ya slyshal ikh!", comes a deep, rumbling voice.  "Gde?!" "Ya naydu ikh v pervuyu ochered!" At these, there is more bellowing and chatter, the ogres near. The fake camp has a functional fire and few places that look as though they had been sleeping places for creatures roughly the size of the party.

"Shalelu, see if you can't drag those brambles over to cover the way it to our camp. Gulo, try to wipe out Synovia's and Chuffy's tracks from where they left" Vrinn asks of the two in a hurried, hushed tone as Miro completes his own preparations, the orges voices now able to be heard echoing through the branches. Vrinn himself retreats with Miro and unslings his bow, stringing it and with his quiver at the ready, just in case. (Survival roll 13. Asked those people to do those jobs because of that roll. If I had rolled higher I would have had Shalelu who is more at home in the forest and better able to cover the tracks do that, and give the grunt work to the grunt, Gulo. A few other things, but ehh, rolled a 13...)

Gulo nods, going to his work with the efficiency of a seasoned hunter, erasing the tracks before swifty climbing to a branch out of ogre reach, going prone and readying his rifle, just in case. {Survival 27, Climb 23, I got fucking lucky.}

Synovia hears the Ogers approaching and finds a place in the bushes to hide. 28 perception to find place 20 survival to hide 

Chuffy takes a vial in each little fist and downs them at the same time. As he begins to fade from view, he drifts upward into the sky. He waves lazily at Synovia as she scrambles for cover. A tiny little fart marks his complete disappearance from sight. (Note: I am flying up 60 feet into the air, and then remaining there. While still, Invisibility grants a +40 to stealth bringing Chuffy to a +65 modifier. If it's all the same, I'm not going to bother rolling.)

Miro closes his eyes and for a brief second dissappears, reappearing on a limb high in the trees.  With a quick motion of his hand he casts levitate so as not to require balance he does not have and then begins the intense chant that would seemingly erase the evidence of their pressence here.  His eyes open and glow a light blue as the scene before them begins to swirl and melt like paints on a canvas.  Like brush strokes the scene shifts from one of life, to one of pure abandonment.  Maintaining last gesture with his hands Miro focuses intensly on the scene adding a few more details here and there before settling in for what could be a long time.