From: Paul, Brett Subject: Bamf [20] Has anyone ever been Wassailing? A quick timetable: You reached the beach and set up camp last night. Greg was on watch when the encounter with Medizar happened. After that, some time passed (you're not sure how much), and you ran from the beach west into the forest. You ran a short distance and came to a swamp. The ghost ship pursued. Hidden among the trees, you watched as the ghost ship deployed two smaller boats (it would seem that the name on the stern of the ship has been removed at some point). In just over an hour, the smaller boats reached the shore to the north and southwest. Setting up a watch, you continued to rest on the edge of the swamp. Greg and Brady were on watch when the dead man walked up near the camp. Just before dawn, the ghost ship loaded the smaller boats back onto it and sailed off to the south (southwest of you). After that, you were able to catch up on lost sleep and get your bearings again. When you are ready to travel, I estimate it is approaching 11:00 am. The bush that John had reshaped is still metal-looking. Greg (and probably several others) examine the body that came wandering up last night. You see that it is wearing similar clothing to what the undead were wearing on the island. It is not wearing shoes, nor any jewelry. Brady says a prayer over the dead man. John is able to remove the changed bush from the ground and carry it with him. It is about as heavy as a small tumbleweed. [This is the first post where I have made use of the group having a leader. Please let me know how you think it worked out. If you don't like it, please tell me ASAP! Not only does the GM have to be happy, but he needs to keep the players happy, too.] After gathering your equipment and trying to construct some makeshift packs, etc., you decide to head south along the swamp. Marshall takes the lead, followed by Greg and Brady, then John and Dana, Saif and Jeff (two by two :). In about an hour, you have started to round the bend of the forest to the south of your camp, and begin heading west again, looking for a possible trail through the woods that are now on your left. You continue along for another forty-five minutes, and you come to the place where the undead dragged their ship ashore. Looking around, you see footprints leading off in every direction, mostly into the trees to the south and southeast. You also see footprints returning to where the boat shoved off again. A few hundred feet down the shore from here, you see what appears to be a path to the south. Deciding that you're tired of the smell of the swamp and the mosquitoes, you decide to head down the path, wary and cautious, fearing a possible ambush. Travel through the woods seems to go well for you. The forest is quiet, and you hear birds singing around you. The area is alive with creatures running around. Familiar squirrels and chipmunks can be seen running through the trees. The path is not too overgrown, and is certainly easier than walking in the muck near the edge of the swamp. You are walking through the forest until the sun begins to sink low in the western sky. As the light in the sky dies, you look through the trees of the forest and begin to make out lights from the city in the distance. It lies slightly south, and to the west (if north were 12 o'clock, the city is at 8 o'clock). You begin to emerge from the forest about half an hour later. The edge of the woods is probably about two miles from the city. In the distance, you can see the lights of the city. You see some people coming and going on horseback and in carriages. You see sturdy-built houses and towards the middle of the city, you see some larger buildings, probably 4-5 stories tall. From here, you can't tell how people are dressed, but you can tell that this is not a modern society like what you have grown accustomed to. [Greg had the thought that some of you, specifically Marshall, Dana and Saif, could go to the town for a while (maybe half hour to an hour) to scout it out while the rest of you sit in the woods waiting. That way you don't look like a group of madmen from the swamp. Since I'm taking my direction from him as leading the group, I'll go with that. - Brett ---------- From: Paul, Brett Subject: Bamf [20] Approaching the city This is only going to Dana, Marshall and Saif, the ones who were "volunteered" for checking out the city. I know it's a bit of a strongarm tactic, but it beats 3 posts full of "I'm going. Me too. I'm staying. I wanna go now." Etc. Please forgive me. :) You walk towards the town, not seeing any people for about the first mile. As you approach, you see a road to the south of you. You angle your walking in that direction, and finally meet up with the road. You see now that it is made up of gravel and dirt, but it is well packed and hard. You begin to walk down the road, towards the city. You see a carriage coming ahead. It is being led by two horses, one a chestnut brown color, and the other a mottled grey/white color. The carriage is nice, though not overly ornate. As it passes by you all, a woman leans out the window. She smiles at the three of you and waves briefly. She disappears inside the carriage momentarily, and when she pokes her head out again, she throws some coins to you without a word. She is pulled back into the carriage about the time it is passing directly by you. The driver didn't even look at any of you. He was wearing a long leather-looking black jacket that covered the rest of his clothing. He was also wearing a hat similar to the one worn by Medizar, tall (like a stereotypical magician's hat). As the carriage passes you, you can barely make out another shape within it, as his large hand closes the shutter on the window to the carriage. You hear voices from inside the carriage, but you do not recognize the language. You continue on down the road (probably picking up the coins on the way), and reach the first building. You guess from the smell that it is a baker's shop. The front window is a large glass window, and the writing on the window looks like someone threw spaghetti at the window. [How good is your Arabic?] Saif stands for a moment, puzzled at the writing... - That's all for now... Let me know what you think of how far you've come, and where you want to go. I'll get a more descriptive, um, description to you as soon as I can, but I ran out of time today. :) - Brett ---------- From: gdinkelm@ccs.lmco.com[SMTP:gdinkelm@ccs.lmco.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Textbooks anyone? > From Brett_Paul@kne.com Tue Aug 12 20:39:30 1997 Before Marshall leaves, I approach him and ask if he has any textbooks with him that I could borrow... I'll spend as much time as possible reading the texts I can get a hold of. Those of us out of the town should probably start a fire, and set up a campsite. We should only need one guard, though we should probably try to be ready for trouble in case the scouts come back with unwanted guests. Greg ---------- From: Marshall T. Vandegrift[SMTP:marsh@intrlink.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Textbooks anyone? At 10:38 13-08-97 -0600, Greg Thomas Dinkelman wrote: >Before Marshall leaves, I approach him and ask if he has any textbooks with him >that I could borrow... Unless I lost my pack somewhere, I've got high school level books on Latin, Pre-calc, and Chemistry. Hope they help. BTW, why do you want them? Marshall T. Vandegrift (mailto:marsh@intrlink.com) ---------- From: Saif[SMTP:saif@xmission.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Approaching the city > As it passes by you all, a woman leans out the window. She smiles at > the three of you and waves briefly. She disappears inside the carriage > momentarily, and when she pokes her head out again, she throws some > coins to you without a word. Saif glances down at his clothes and then over at Dana's and Marshall's. "I didn't think we looked quite _that_ bad." He picks up the coins and examines them. > You hear voices from inside the carriage, but you do not recognize the > language. Can I get an idea what language it might be related to? > You continue on down the road (probably picking up the coins on the > way), and reach the first building. You guess from the smell that it is > a baker's shop. The front window is a large glass window, and the > writing on the window looks like someone threw spaghetti at the window. > [How good is your Arabic?] > > Saif stands for a moment, puzzled at the writing... "Interesting.... It's almost exactly but not quite totally unlike Arabic." He points to the line over the "letter" to the far left. "I'm fairly sure this should be a "ya", but the line should be under, not above it." He then points to slash over the second letter to the left. "That makes me wonder if this is supposed to be a fatah or a kasra." Stepping back he says "Well, several possibilities. It looks like basic Arabic but with some modifications. Either all the dots and diacritical marks are reversed, or perhaps some of the letters are shaped differently. My guess would be this word is "thikriaay" or "thakriaay", which has something to do with the word for thinking or idea, "thikra". But then again it might be something like "Bakrai" for bakery." He shrugs. "And then again it might be a language like Persian that uses Arabic letters but the words are all different. Insufficient data. Let's peek inside and see what we can learn in there. Then I'd like to find a few more shops - or better yet, a library of some sort." Saif is obviously enjoying this little puzzle and seems anxious to learn more. Saif ---------- From: gdinkelm@ccs.lmco.com[SMTP:gdinkelm@ccs.lmco.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Textbooks anyone? > From marsh@intrlink.com Wed Aug 13 12:16:04 1997 > At 10:38 13-08-97 -0600, Greg Thomas Dinkelman wrote: > >Before Marshall leaves, I approach him and ask if he has any textbooks > with him > >that I could borrow... > > Unless I lost my pack somewhere, I've got high school level books on Latin, > Pre-calc, and Chemistry. Hope they help. BTW, why do you want them? > God thinks I should study more. :) Greg ---------- From: gdinkelm@ccs.lmco.com[SMTP:gdinkelm@ccs.lmco.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Water While we're stopped with the other group off, I want to see if Brady can do something... If we take some of the pond water in one of our containers, can Brady ask God to purify the water so that it's safe to drink? Greg ---------- From: Marshall T. Vandegrift[SMTP:marsh@intrlink.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Approaching the city >> As it passes by you all, a woman leans out the window. She smiles at >> the three of you and waves briefly. She disappears inside the carriage >> momentarily, and when she pokes her head out again, she throws some >> coins to you without a word. > >Saif glances down at his clothes and then over at Dana's and Marshall's. >"I didn't think we looked quite _that_ bad." He picks up the coins and >examines them. "After not washing or changing clothes for a few days, perhaps we do." >> [How good is your Arabic?] Doubleungood. >> Saif stands for a moment, puzzled at the writing... But at least everyone's isn't :-). >Let's peek inside and see what we can learn >in there. Then I'd like to find a few more shops - or better yet, a >library of some sort." "Or even better, some place of learning. There might be someone there who understands a language one of us can speak. I'm all for seeing what's in this building though, especially since the place might have something to do with 'thinking.' "BTW, what other languages can the two of you speak? I can sprout a bit of simple Latin, but that's about it." Marshall T. Vandegrift (mailto:marsh@intrlink.com) ---------- From: Saif[SMTP:saif@xmission.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Approaching the city > "BTW, what other languages can the two of you speak? I can sprout a bit of > simple Latin, but that's about it." "Portuguese fluently, Spanish passably, and I can ask where the bathroom is in French, Italian and Japanese." Saif ---------- From: Animalz@aol.com[SMTP:Animalz@aol.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Approaching the city << As it passes by you all, a woman leans out the window. She smiles at the three of you and waves briefly. What does she look like? Typical anglo-european or something else - for example, middle eastern? Can we tell anything about her style of dress? Any ornamentation or insignia or anyhting on the carriage or her attire that might give us an idea of a cultural influence that we are familiar with? << She disappears inside the carriage momentarily, and when she pokes her head out again, she throws some coins to you without a word. Oh, yes, definitely take the coins. Also, take a good look at them - similar to the ones the ghosts were after? At least we didn't get spat upon. :) So maybe our clothing is okay as far as being acceptable for beggars or lepers. :) << reach the first building. You guess from the smell that it is a baker's shop. "Mmmmm.... smells good. DO you guys think we should go in and see what they have to offer? That's assuming that we are even able to communicate in the same language." << The front window is a large glass window, and the writing on the window looks like someone threw spaghetti at the window. [How good is your Arabic?] Well, compared to my command of English or Spanish, I'd have to say.... oh, well.... perhaps... something slightly less than... ZILCH! :) I'd like to take moment while standing in front of the baker's shop and, firstly smell the bread and secondly look around at the other buildings as well as this one. Can we gleen any information from the style of the buildings, the materials used, decoration and ornamentation. Are there any other shop or street signs or written material? Are they all in "arabic"? Any other people wandering around or in vehicles? How are they dressed? What are they driving in? How hungry are we going to get just standing here smelling fresh baked breads? Do we get a saving throw vs excessive salivation? :) -Dana ---------- From: Saif[SMTP:saif@xmission.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Approaching the city > "Mmmmm.... smells good. DO you guys think we should go in and see what they > have to offer? That's assuming that we are even able to communicate in the > same language." "Who cares about the language. We can point and look hungry." Saif smiles and then walks into the bakery. > What are they driving in? How hungry are we going to get just standing here > smelling fresh baked breads? Do we get a saving throw vs excessive > salivation? :) To make a ST you need to resist. Saif isn't even bothering to resist. Saif ---------- From: Animalz@aol.com[SMTP:Animalz@aol.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Approaching the city << "BTW, what other languages can the two of you speak? I can sprout a bit of simple Latin, but that's about it." >> I'm probably better at reading Latin than speaking it, given enough time to puzzle it out. I could probably get the gist of what is being said if it is spoken to me, also. Other than that, and English of course, I can do passably well in Spanish, although the sublties would escape me. Haven't really had much to do with the language since high school and I won't even hint at how long ago that was. :) (Okay, so that in itself is a little hint... :) A smattering of German, Italian and French only in that they are related to English and Latin. Dana ---------- From: Animalz@aol.com[SMTP:Animalz@aol.com] Subject: Re: Bamf [20] Before we leave In a message dated 97-08-14 04:50:43 EDT, Brett_Paul@kne.com (Paul, Brett) writes: << They've gone. I didn't make that overwhelmingly clear. I sent a separate post to the three of them. The rest of you are sitting around waiting and reading. >> Before the three of us traipse off into this unknown town and unknown dangers (BTW - thanks, Greg, for "volunteering' me :) perhaps we should agree on how much time should pass before the others get all worried. In other words, "if you guys haven't seen or heard from us by noon tomorrow, come looking" or some otherwise agreeable time period. And if anyone comes to you saying that we sent them, they'll pass on a specific message that we predetermine just so you know if its a trap or something. Like "We bring Greetings from the Great White Light" or somesuch. What do you all think? Am I being too paranoid? Also before we go out of the woods, assuming that it is cool enough for me to be wearing my sweatshirt, I'm going to turn it inside out so the writing isn't visible (should also be cleaner that way :). That way if English writing is objectionable for any reason, even if just unfamiliar, it won't make us stand out any more than otherwise is inherent in our strangeness. (Yes, I know, this is somewhat after the fact since I already posted something about us already being in town. If the timing is a problem, then I'll do it after we have gotten into town and before anyone there has taken a good look at us.) Dana