[HQ Ignorance] Scene 57: The Graveyard Shift (and new player, Damien)

[Sam Elliot]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Lev Lafayette
<lev_lafayette at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> Whilst mopping up great numbers of the skeletons on
> the south side of the Deu proved simple enough, Icthya
> was hardly one to carry out simple tasks alone. Edging
> closer and closer to the water's edge, she found
> herself in the midst of the remaining army of
> skeletons and their vampiric leaders. The Vampires
> were ordering the skeleton to build a makeshift bridge
> of the wrecked trees. It tore at the hearts of the
> Aldryami-in-disguise to see the bones of their
> brothers and sisters treated so rudely and for such an
> ill use, but they kept their silence. Keeping just
> outside the possible range of Detection magics they
> whispered among themselves for a possible plan of
> action. Stay on the south bank? Destroy the bridge?
> Cross with the others? The possibilities were endless
> - as long as they remained undetected.

Icthya gathered her small force together about her. Her elves, draped
in the rags of long-dead humans, some had even picked up pieces of
rotting flesh and draped these over themselves to complete their
disguises. It was all the same to them, live flesh or rotting, just as
a rotting tree trunk can smell sweet to a human. Anyone who chose to
study these apparent zombies for long, though, would see the vitality
in the glowing violet eyes. But so far, the enemy had been dismissive
of what seemed to them to be cannon fodder.

Icthya's elves were practically glowing with the glory of the moment.
Victory, though still a desperate possibility, was in sight, and they
were there. An elite force, thrust forward into the midst of the
enemy, to strike a decisive blow and secure their new forest for
evermore. How could they not be alive with energy?

"Let us thank the Great Mother Aldrya that we are here at this moment.
I have sown the seeds of a Great New Forest!" The huntress could not
help herself, she was utterly seized by the moment, carried away by
her earlier victory. She didn't even notice as some of her small army
winced at her ego, so uncommon among her kind; too long away from her
forest, they thought, but the moment passed.

"Don't worry that so many of ours have fallen," she exhorted her
warriors, "it was ever thus with our kind: ten thousand seeds cast for
one great, wise oak. Our new home is but germinating, creeping out of
the soil and casting about for light. In five hundred years, there
will be five hundred great trees in this forest. They are there even
now, hearing our song, these elders of a future time. And they will
have ten thousand offspring. And some of us will be there among them,
five hundred years hence." She looked significantly at the elves
before, knowing full well that most of them would die today.

"Even though we may die today, our forest will be secured. These
humans we have besieged, they will soon know of our heroism, and will
thank us." Here, she faltered a little. She had never trusted humans,
though recently she had grown to understand a few of them.

"For now, we must take this bridge. We have no idea of its import, but
anything to disrupt our lifeless enemy's movements will help our
cause. We must cast the structure, carved from our brethren, into the
waters. The river is our ally now, and we must trust it to take the
fallen to another place where they will return in the Great Cycle."

"Do not despair, guard yourselves from the lifeless magic of our
enemy. Our Song is so much greater than theirs! Let us feel Joy in our
struggle. And let us wait for the opportune moment to strike..."

Carried away as she was, Icthya barely perceived that she was using
the language of he companion in the fellowship, the human knight
Azhur. She did pause to send a message to the banner holder that there
was a bridge over the Deu which they would demolish. She then spoke to
her eternal companion, the centaur spirit Moment Yearning, bidding him
rush the bridge when released, to clear it of the enemy.

Consulting with her lieutenants, she told her small army to remove
their disguises and take to the treetops. She set up several spying
positions, so that she and her command could choose the right moment
to strike; the moment which would most disrupt the enemy. In spite of
her overweening pride at having planted this forest, she resigned
herself to death; to rejoin the Great Cycle*.

OOC:
Aim and Some relevant abilities:
Caude maximum disruption to the enemy, by taking and sinking the
bridge, preferably with loads of undead on it.

Proposed main ability:
Released Fetish's Rushing Crushing Hooves 10W, to storm the bridge
(but see Hide from Prying Minds below)

Other relevant abilities:
Distrusts humans 13 -1
Patient 17 +2 Wild 18 -2 (these rather cancel out)
Camouflage Self in trees 3W +2
Plant lore 18 +2 (the attempt at the reconciling with death in the speechifying)
Worship Aldrya 17 +2 (she is getting all Azhur)
"Man" trapping 15 +2 (planning a trap)
Planter of Segurane Forest 13 +1 (could use as a -ve - the pride
thing, which I could take as an ability/flaw,subsequently)
Friendship with Moment Yearning 19 +2
Member of Talor's Fellowship 18 +2 (again, could take as -ve)
Hide from Prying Minds 12W +3 (could use as main ability, of course)
Vital Song (spell) 15 +2 (I didn't write this in but I got tired :)  )

Gives a possible 7W2 I think.

Plus any combat stuff of course...


* Bloody ecologists (he says, being one) - Lev - at this juncture, I'm
perfectly happy if my character dies in a heroic effort, possibly
doing saving-the-day type stuff; or to trade injury levels for extra
levels of victory/defeat (Mythic Russia rule I think). HP will
probably be spent. If Icthya dies, I'd hope to take another elfy (or
runner?) character...