Choose your path to greatness, obscurity or death. A multiple choice LP

[Vernydar]

6 votes for proposal 2, 4 for proposal three. Proposal 2 was: Circle the village looking for signs of the attackers. Wait for the fires to die out then investigate and loot. Afterwards, take a path toward Bitak that runs parallel to the cart road, but is in the woods.

14 – The massacre at Qoor

You decide to cross the river upstream, out of sight from the smoking ruins. You are particularly careful, staying deep into the forest, and proceed west for a couple of hours. Then, you cross the river in a shallow place and keeping under cover of the forest you ebb closer to the village, ready to hide or flee at any sign of danger.

You get a better look at the village, and see it's still burning. You retreat for a couple of kilometers, find a spot hidden between some bushes and hide for the night. You rest uncomfortably, haunted by unpleasant dreams. You do not sleep much, and at the first light of dawn you get up, decided to discover as much as possible.

The fires seems to have died out completely, no smoke rises form the village anymore. A stinging smell of burned wood still permeates the place though. You circle the village, looking at it from all directions while hidden in the forest. You don't see anything that moves, and are quite sure that the village is empty. Gathering your courage and steeling your nerves, you enter the village from the side where the forest is closer, ready to flee if need be.

The houses are all burned. And so are the small gardens near them, and anything outside. You look a little inside, seeing here and there some items that survived the flame, but do not stop yet. There is one thing that is clearly missing. There are no bodies around. You keep walking througt the village, looking for clues. Then you reach the small opening in the middle of the village and stop. You have a hard time keeping your breakfast down....

In the middle of this small opening lies a heap of corpses. There's at least forty bodies here, maybe fifty. And they are all headless. Gathering your courage, you get closer. Yes, all the bodies have been decapitated. The heads are nowhere in sight, and an overpowering stench is starting to permeate the area. You thank the fact that it's still relatively cold, had it been warmer by now this place would be a horror.

You look away a few minutes,trying to calm yourself, then you start looking at the bodies again. You see horrible wounds on those bodies. These people have been cut down with heavy weapons. Maces, spears. Some have large, gaping wounds. A couple seem to have been done in by huge axes or swords. Then you notice something even more disconcerting.

Some of these people wear uniforms and armor. You remember clearly, your father had clothes with the very same pattern! Some of these people were soldiers in the king's army. At least five of them you think, and they have been killed in the same way as the other villagers, their chain armors smashed or cut through violently. Whoever did this was strong enough to kill a patrol of the king's army!

And why no heads? You look around in the plaza, but there's none in sight....

Suddenly you straighten, and strain your ears. You think you heard something... There! You hear in the distance footsteps. Heavy footsteps. No wait. Hooves! Many of them, in the direction of the road. And also, faint voices.

What are you going to do? (semi open choice)
1) Try to find a house still partially standing, hide there and observe what happens
2) Quick! Flee in the direction of the forest! You could be hidden there in a few minutes
3) The river is closer! Go there, find a rather deep place, try to hide in the water behind some rocks
4) Other. Make your proposal, and put a number on it.

 

[ScubaV]

3

I don't think 1 is going to be sufficient cover, plus there are probably some hot coals still inside. 2 seems decent, but it will take longer and if for some reason this group has hunting dogs looking for survivors they'll find us easily. The river is closer, can mask our scent, and if they still find us, should slow/stop horses and heavy infantry enough for us to make a getaway. The potential risk is that we don't know how to swim, so hopefully we don't step in a current and bring the LP to a swift and inglorious conclusion.

If this turns out to be a detachment of the king's soldiers we can always pop back out. This is all very interesting. It could be a foreign attack or maybe the king's own soldiers are trying to suppress a plague breakout, but then why behead everyone. Curious.

 

[Monty]

3 - ScubaV makes some good points.

Our would-be adventurer has had an interesting time of it so far, perhaps he's reconsidering a career in farming right now.

And hopefully it's not Curufinwe's 'Wielder of Fire' tm

 

[Stygian Lurker]

1) We should find out who are the attackers.

 

[Urist McLurker]

3

 

[newcomer]

3, I hope the river current does not change suddenly...
4 (I hope we don't get some weird disease by staying with lots of corpse...)

 

[Curufinwe]

4)

You know guys... although it's a bit gory and most uncomfortable, the best and fastest hiding place is right in front of our faces and we can watch and listen from it as well. Just shift some corpses, crawl in, make sure his head can't be seen (since they're all headless), voila. Our character is composed, he should be able to pull it off without any B-movie gagging or coughing right when the villain shows up.

If it's the guys who did this, they won't give a second glance to the corpses. They heaped and beheaded them all to give a show to someone, they won't burn or dispose of them.
If it's the royal army, we can wait a few minutes to make sure it wasn't THEM who did it (most unlikely, considering there are some of theirs in the pile) then pop right out like a jack-in-a-box and yell 'Thank Adsal it's you guys!' and take it from there.
If it's looters... we're screwed. But I don't consider it likely, since many hooves are there.

My personal bet is it's a merchant caravan. As I said, those guys put up a great show for someone and when better to do it than when you know someone is coming soon?

We shall see.

Edit: I think the river is a Bad Idea. If by some bad luck they spot us and they're hostile, the've got horses, they'll be on us before we can say 'Oh shit', considering it's easily crossable.

 

[Hoodoo]

4)

 

[Jick Magger]

Curufinwe's plan sounds just crazy and morbid enough to work, I'm with him.

 

[Esquilax]

Brilliant idea from Curufinwe

Going with 4)

 

[Kalin]

4) sounds good and beats the risk of drowning. Besides, even if they are looters, we might be able to talk ourselves out of any unpleasant situations, given that our character is charismatic, intelligent and has a calm personality. After all, we could be useful to most any party, what with our survival skills and ability to read and write.

 

[Monty]

Let's hope whoever it is doesn't decide to make a funeral pyre over the corpses.

 

[TOME]

Curufinwe's plan is great apart from on thing. Anyone would be deeply scarred doing something like that, but our guy is very young and still developing so he could find whole hiding under corpses-experience very, very disturbing. Remember, our choices do have an effect on the character's psyche.

I vote for 3. ScubaV makes excellent points.

Edit: Meant to vote 3, not C

 

[newcomer]

Let's hope whoever it is doesn't decide to make a funeral pyre over the corpses.

Well, if that happens I guess we would just accidentally suicide the main character & this LP will end prematurely
And Vernydar will be heartbroken...

 

[CappenVarra]

3

 

[Arpad]

4

 

[Kalin]

In retrospect, 4) might be too risky as well. I suppose I'll flip-flop to 1).

 

[Vernydar]

Ok, vote is closed. Writing the update now... Option 4 wins by one vote

 

[Vernydar]

Ok, 6 votes for option 4, 5 votes for option 3, 2 votes for option 1. The heap of corpses it is.

15 – Under a mountain of corpses

Considering you hear the sounds of their voices already they must be near. And you do not know how to swim, you fear of drowning if you go to the river. No, your best bet is right here, under that heap of corpses. Quickly you get close and while fighting to keep your stomach calm, you start to crawl beneath the corpses. This act disturbs you greatly, but it's a matter of life or death!

You get under some corpses and make sure your head is hidden while still allowing you to look outside. It would not do for this "corpse" to have a head. You finish in the nick of time, at the very moment you still yourself you see the first horse entering the small plaza. You can only pray that you are hidden well enough...

A column of horsemen enters the small plaza. There must be at least thirty of them, armored in chain and steel, and armed with two-handed weapons, spears and maces. These people are not wearing your kingdom's colors, and in fact the very shape of their clothes is strange. They are also quite pale, like people who do not live much under the sun... They have a few shaggy, huge dogs with them. You hope the smell of the corpses is hiding yours....

The one at the head of the column looks around, and frowning heavily he barks an order. He is not speaking in the language of your kingdom, you have no idea about what he's saying. The column scatters, the horsemen dismounting and dividing in groups of two. They seem to be doing another search of the village.. you sure are happy you did not decide to hide in a house. After a couple of minutes, they also start to burn again all the houses that were not completely destroyed. You think they are using some sort of flasks full of oil, only it burns much better and faster than normal oil....

A couple of them poke around the mountain of corpses. You have never been very religious, but you pray whatever god there is that they do not find you. They laugh as they kick and poke at the corpses, sometimes mutilating them some more with their weapons.... It feels an eternity, but then it ends as they leave and go back to their horses.

The leader looks around, gives a nod, and then barks another command. One of the horsemen, a man with strange tattoos on its face, moves a bit to the side and lets loose a chilling sound. This sound cannot have come from a human throat. For a couple of minutes, nothing seems to happen. Then, you hear something getting closer to the village. Some sound of heavy steps, a huge number of them. You strain yourself, trying for a better viewing angle. What you see truly scares you.

From the direction of the road, behind a line of burning houses, comes a huge mostruosity. A centipede, at least 15 meters long and 2 meters wide. The insect comes closer to the plaza, and you think a few of the horsemen are also trying their best to hide their fear. Then, once in the plaza, it starts.... burrowing under it, vertically. Slowly but surely the huge monster disappears under the ground. But even once it's completely below, you can feel the soft vibrations as it continues to dig, to what purpose you have no idea.

The leader seems satisfied and barks another command. The column quickly reforms ranks, and then disappears down the road. You have no idea where they went, or what they wanted. The only thing you know is that you can still feel the monster below you. It is still digging, but for how long? Should you really stay here anymore? If you move, will it notice and follow you? Or maybe, were the corpses left here as food for the centipede?

And what shall you do now? Where shall you go? (Open update)
Once again an open update. The situation is too dire and too varied for me to limit you to a few possibilities. If you want to make questions, I'll answer them, if Kyoss can know the answer. Please put a number on your proposals. If you need the map, it's in the previous post.

 

[Curufinwe]

1) Run. Like. Hell. To the river. The centipede can probably hear the vibration from our footsteps, so trying to surprise it and rush for the waters is our only realistic choice. Besides, composed or not, I think our good Kyoss would be scared shitless right this moment (I would).

After (if) we make our escape we can do what someone proposed last update and head for the city keeping parallel but not on the cart path.

Things went south and batshit crazy very fast. This is bad news, not only for our hero but for the whole area of the kingdom.

On second thought, we need proof of what we saw. Before running the fuck away we should probably rip an armsman insignia from one of the corpses, possible without making too much noise. We need to warn people about this, but we need a modicum of proof. Without it we'd probably be considered the village idiot and sent back our merry ways.

I can't think of any other thing or item we can bring as proof, sadly.

 

[ScubaV]

Yeah 1 sounds good. The centipede is least likely to notice us when it's busy making a metric ass-ton of vibrations itself, so we should haul ass, but I agree taking an insignia is worthwhile.

 

[TOME]

Great idea with the insignia! I second that. We need to have some kind of proof if we want people to take us seriously.

I don't know if the centipede can sense us if we try to sneak. After all, thirty men wearing steel armor and marching is bound to make pretty loud noise and vibrations. And I don't think the centipede is going to leave us alone in the river if it notices us while we run. But I agree, the river is going to our ticket out of here. So

2) Rip the insignia from one of the corpses. Sneak towards the river. Grab a piece of wood and use it to float along the stream away from village.

Just wandering what happened to our gear? Did we leave it behind on the other side of river? If so grab it before leaving.

 

[Zwist]

1 sounds reasonable. I do have a feeling that we are not going to need proof, these guys were not to subtle, chances are that they are at war with the kingdom. And might have been for a long time, considering the trading caravan we found.
Taking an insignia should however not cost us to much if the centipede does not hear us while we corpse-cuddle. Which is probable as it has not done so yet.

The river has another advantage, we can get rid of the smell of gore we are seeped in right now, wardogs tend to smell that.

 

[Esquilax]

I'd like to make a possible addition to Curufinwe's suggestion: we need to ditch some of our clothes. Toss whatever we're wearing in the river if we have to, the scent might be enough to distract the hounds that are with these soldiers.

 

[newcomer]

1

The more disturbing question is where they come from, considering we don't even know where the border of our kingdom is.
Btw, rather than tossing clothes down the river, would't it make more sense to bury them somewhere near the river? The clothes might be found downstream by a similar group