CLOSED | Nug Quest

[nonvenomous]

WHO: Adrasteia, Holden, Jone, Joselyn, Sawbones, Val de Foncé, Wysteria, and Dick.
WHAT: Poachers run afoul of a Riftwatch research expedition.
WHEN: Cloudreachish. Time is a flat circle.
WHERE: Minranter River, Free Marches
NOTES: Animal cruelty, some gore.

JOURNEY:

Their trek north across the Free Marches to the Minranter is light and mild: Jone’s mule, Loghaine, hauls the bulk of any heavy gear. The wind stays brisk beneath steady cloud cover, only rarely committing to rain, and there’s an inn to curl up in once they reach the river. Have a drink, rent a bunk with a moth-eaten blanket, splurge on the “luxury” suite upstairs.

For those that aren’t willing to cough up the coin, there’s always the stable.

Further into the wilderness, the white noise roar of the river at night makes for restful sleep and long watches, where the crack and rustle of a bear through the underbrush or the sound of approaching horses might go unheard until it’s too late. At times flashing eyes reflect the watch fire from the treeline, only to melt away without incident. Pawprints pressed into the river sand and traces of bone-littered scat hint at the nature of their nightly visitors -- more fascinating to some than others.

DESTINATION:

Vultures spiral overhead -- an ill omen, easy to mark at a distance. Far below, hoof-beaten grass is streaked with gore where a herd of nugs was pursued out onto the river flats, blood still wet despite the wind, one little body left broken underfoot on the trail. They never had a chance.

Ravens squabble and hop between flayed corpses left to stiffen on the beach. Flies zip from haunch to haunch, spoiled for choice.

There are a dozen nugs here, most of them quite young. Their skulls are crushed, the sand churned with tracks where they struggled.

A few still have their hides. The leather is mundane, for anyone who has the heart to check.

Further west across the river, campfire smoke drifts skyward over the trees where the sunset fades orange to purple. A pained squeal carries across the distance, accompanied by the sound of cruel laughter on the wind. Eventually a few of their voices rise in song.

The killers are close, and night is falling.

AFTERMATH:

An earlier drizzle keeps the fire from spreading into the surrounding wood: by the time the battle is dying down and the nugs are freed, the flames have dwindled to a forlorn lick across blackened canvas and crates of supplies. And the corpses: some burnt, some on the beach, one bobbling slowly downriver.

Something should probably be done about those.

The two fade-touched nugs they’ve rescued need tending. They are wild and distrustful, but they are also exhausted, and injured, and desperately thirsty.

Near the remains of the campfire, a spit-roasted nug still has attracted a fly or two, but still has meat on the bone. There are fade-touched nug hides to be found on the wagon that survived.

A few dazed mounts linger where they were tied off at camp or tangled in the woods nearby -- at some point, a dracolisk had plunged past Jone into the battle-darkened water. Like the armor of their previous owners, they’re rugged and diverse -- beasts captured, won and stolen. A great, shaggy white Avvar horse has taken to Adrasteia, lipping at her sleeve.

Let them roam free or round the others up for an easier ride home.

Comments

Adrasteia, will match format

[kantikoy]

→ a. How it started (mostly at the inn)

[ Everyone is standing around deciding who is sleeping inside, or in the stables, or otherwise unpacking and unwinding and preparing to eat. Conversation has lulled, and Adrasteia holds up a finger. ]

What if... what if we pooled our funds and piled into the 'luxury' suite, which hopefully has blankets that aren't moth worn to the Deep Roads and back. [ A beat. ] I did bring a spare blanket.

[ Because you never know. She thinks several people to the bedroom up the stairs makes the most sense, though. ]

→ b. How it's going (discussion before the attack on the mercenaries)

Adrasteia is one of the ones who checked the hide on the dead nugs, because, well. They're dead. Might as well put the materials to some use, right? Not that she's terribly pleased with whatever's happened here... people who hunt animals for this sort of sport aren't usually a kind sort, in her experience.

Not that she's expecting they'll have much of a values discussion with whoever did this.

The laughter has carried across the river and Adrasteia looks up, then away.

"Do we want to deal with this now, or in the dark of the nighttime?"

→ c. Wildcard me

[ go for it ]

jone, ota.

[poleaxed]

a. JOURNEY.

As night falls, Jone crashes through the underbrush with a deer slung over her shoulder. It's a yearling stag, two antlers barely poking out from the crown of its head. A gash through its throat answers the question of how it died.

"If we're on anyone's land," Jone says, setting it down, "we found it like this."

b. DESTINATION.

It's been a long, expensive, weird fucking month. Excuse Jone if she's not too excited to step through nug viscera-- she'd have to clean her boots for the second time today. Guiding the mule around the mess is easy-- he seems to share her feelings.

"This is a bit fucked," she says casually, "'least it ain't some cult. You ever seen something like this?"

holden, ota

[acreage]

ON THE ROAD

It's late enough that it might be early, and Jim Holden has taken one of the night watches. It might be someone else's watch, a point of fact, whom he may or may not have bothered waking. He only shrugs ruefully if found out, says,

"I wasn't sleeping anyway."

RIVER FLATS

He'd taken the sight quietly. Moved onto logistics, drawing the natural conclusion of what probably happened, considering where they might set up their own camp. But he can be found later, eyes on the smoke rising in the west, arms folded and jaw tight.

"We should scout them out and find out what we're dealing with first."

WILDCARD

[ grabbyhands ]

dick OTA will match format

[nonvenomous]

Stables:

Having heard out whatever arguments for and against a slumber party in the fancy bed upstairs, Richard is one of the first to quietly depart, and eventually finds himself in an empty stall. With his bedroll unfurled over clean straw and his shoulders propped back against the boulder of his pack, he’s quick to have settled in for the night, reading by the light of a small lamp while he waits for the elfroot to take hold.

Thot kneads where she’s curled up in the crook of his arm. She’s a leggy black shadow against his tunic, her eyes slitted into fine green lines. Warm. Content.

A distant rumble of thunder overhead promises rain through the night; horses shift and swish and sigh.

He pauses in his reading, slow to place the squeeze behind his ribs as nostalgia.


Wilderness:

Dick is peeing when the wolves come.

There are two of them, circling out of the brush to put a stutter in his stream. He straightens, locks in eye contact with the larger of the pair -- and finishes, quickly. Half false bravado, half the thought that he’d prefer for his corpse not to be found with pissy pants.

He’s out on the very fringes of the campfire’s reach, obscured by brush.

Thot the drowsy owl, previously content to snuggle with whoever’s on watch, bristles upright, suddenly alert, and launches blindly away for her master. It’s probably fine.


Wildcard:

[ startle me. ]

Val de Foncé || ota

[degenere]

wilderness.
"Look!"

For the fifth time this night, Val slaps a hand out onto the arm of whoever is unfortunate enough to share a watch with him. He is staring fixedly out into the darkness. His eyes are very bright and shiny in the firelight.

He points. His voice has dropped to a hissed whisper, thick with excitement. "Do you see! The red tint of those eyes--that is the little cat of the Free Marches! Entirely nocturnal. They are nearly impossible to observe in the wild. We must get closer."

And leave the sleeping bodies of their comrades behind? Yes. It's fine. Val is already gathering up his commonplace book, ready to begin sprinting and note-taking.

destination.
Val is no great lover of nugs. He is more an appreciator, in that he appreciates all creatures for what they are, and nugs--as creatures--are generously included beneath the banner of appreciation.

"And there is no sense in such brutality, besides," he says aloud to whoever is nearby, continuing a conversation he was conducting with himself in his head, as he crouches beside yet another nug corpse. Gently, without any fastidiousness, he folds one little paw over its blood-spattered chest.

"We have no choice but to punish this crime."

NUG RESCUE (1 thread for those who want to help)

[nonvenomous]

The rake and clank of steel cleaving through steel from the river is a footnote to the churn of flame through the camp around them, toppled tents and an overturned wagon belching embers and black smoke. A corpse lies face down across the campfire with a bolt through his neck and two more in his back, the heft of his battleaxe burning in his death grasp.

Another barely made it out of her tent; smoke curls from the sweeping Venatori spines that spoke from the more impressive scraps of her patchwork armor.

But fuck them, right?

The nugs are here, huddled shivering together at the rear of a crate, one wrinkly pink and the other a rich brown. They’re both blinkered and muzzled with leather wrapping, streaked with dry blood where they’ve been jabbed with hot pokers through the wide-spaced slats. One squeals in (muffled) terror at the sound of approaching footfalls, and the other rockets into a panicked scramble, battering blindly around the walls of its rickety prison.

Rather than bother with a lock, the crate has simply been nailed shut.

Sawbones | OTA

[okayimin]

b. Destination

"It's a blasted waste," is the opinion offered to anyone close enough to hear it. "You could feed three families off those nugs easy, even if they are on the puny side. And now it's all gone to rot."

Disgust changes to open speculation pretty quickly. And not long after that, Sawbones will head over to some of the more complete nug corpses, pulling out a knife. Waste not want not, after all.

c. Aftermath

Sawbones, not being a fighter of any caliber, had steered very clear of the pointy ends of the battle, occupying herself with making sure they didn't accidentally burn the forest down with the poachers. Once all the appropriate bodies have stopped moving, she pops back out, bag in tow.

"Here, help me with this one," she says, grabbing the ankles of the body in the river to start hauling it out.