Hob pushes west into the wooded foothills with rivals and foes at her heels.

---

Undertake a Journey: To the Pillar in the Flooded Valley – Dangerous

Roll: Undertake a Journey, Wits, +1 leaving Autumnrush where I hold numerous bonds – Miss (lol)

So I left Sayer’s lumber camp at a brisk pace. There was no moon but the blossoming aurora and its translucent green tendrils provided enough light to see the thickening trees atop the western hills. I had a lead over Sayer’s scouts, Batah and Delos, but I still hoped to reach the tree line before dawn, where, unlike these logged out grassy hills, I wouldn’t be visible from miles away.

It wasn’t until I’d crested the first broad hill that I paused to catch my breath and looked back to the way I’d come. Autumnrush was no less impressive from the west than it had been from the south when I’d first arrived with the Sustainers weeks prior. The tendrils reflected off of the fjord, further illuminating the port and pulsing and dancing across the Twin Pillars. I tried to make out Cera’s longhouse upriver to my left, but from that far west, most of the Overlook was swallowed by the Valley Bas.

My stop had been well timed, two small shadows were just leaving the flames of Sayer’s camp below, headed in my direction. Good, I’d gained enough distance that, no matter how swift they climbed, they shouldn’t be able to close the gap with me before I reached the forest, so long as I tarried no further. I turned and pressed on, climbing briskly upward towards the ridge of the next hill.

And so I reached the next hill, and then the next. But I was foolish. I shared my vision between the tree line ahead of me and the dancing shadows and trailing scouts behind, but neglected to look to my right. To the north where I might have spotted the pair of figures matching my path west but slowly moving ever closer to intercept me.

It wasn’t until I’d almost reached the first trees, the last push to the forest above, that I finally noticed the shadows off the path parallel to me, scrambling up the same hill and nearly upon me. I allowed myself a moment of fear, of shock, and then I breathed and focused. If I did not allow myself to falter, I could still reach the forests before they cut me off.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron, break line of sight – Weak Hit, tired; Endure Harm (-1), Health (3) – Weak Hit, press on

I panted and planted one boot in front of me and then the other, clambering forward with my hands at times, when the path grew too steep to run. And then I reached the first trees, panting and planting, and then the next trees, gradually thickening and bunching together. I could no longer see my pursuers, but they were still close enough to hear the scrape of boots and muttered swearing.

I pressed onward, the trees crowding to each side of the path and the sounds of pursuit fading from earshot, or maybe they were just drowned out by my labored breaths. I reached a bend in the trail and paused for a moment to catch my wind, just a moment. I could see no sign of the pursuers on the path behind me. Maybe they’d given up for the time, exhausted like I was. Or maybe they had stayed off the trail altogether and were moving through the trees. I eyed the shadows in the woods to my right. It was darker here than on the hills, the forest canopy shrouding much of the aurora’s light. I tried to steady my breaths, to quiet them enough to hear the crunch of boot or rustle of branch. Nothing, yet at least. 

My hand rested on Lightdrinker’s ebony handle. I thought to step off the path myself and wait, to ambush or hide, to find out who they were before I acted. But it was nearing dawn and the longer I waited, the closer Sayer’s scouts drew. I would rather not face two pairs of threats at once, so I took one last deep gulp of restful air and turned to round the bend. I would push on for now, gain some distance and give myself time to think.

Roll: Undertake a Journey, Wits – Miss (Well, shit) 

Roll: Oracle, Would my pursuers shoot before talking? Likely – Yes

The snap of a twig from the trees I’d just turned from and I spun back to face it. I had rested too long, had failed to quiet my breaths enough, had wasted my escape! Then the twang of a bow and, startled, I recoiled and twisted away, exposing my back and crouching to bury my face in my arms.

Roll: Face Danger, Edge, +1 Shieldbearer – Miss, Complication; Endure Stress (-2), Heart – Strong Hit, Opportunity, shake it off (3 Spirit)

Well this is interesting, both a complication and an opportunity developing from the same action. I wonder how that might play out. I haven’t yet rolled a hit on this dangerous journey so far though so I probably won’t be too hard on myself with the complication.

I flinched. Not something warriors should do and not something I am proud of. But I was surprised. And that startled fear may have saved my life, as I was immediately knocked forward by the thump of an arrow hitting the shield strapped to my back. I froze on all fours.

“Shit!” from the woods behind me, the archer realizing that their arrow had not been true.

“Shit!”, me accepting that I had messed up. I should not have stopped, I should have stepped off the path, I should have been ready for battle. But it was not too late now, not the time for reflection. So I ignored the blade’s excited chittering and lunged forward, scrambling on my hands and feet into the forest before me, into the shadows. I threw myself into  a shallow gully, a dried stream burnt away by the height of summer, and hunkered down behind a thick root and trunk. I immediately set to removing the shield from my back, a difficult task while not standing. At least this time I had my shield with me though, and so all was not lost. 

I heard the muffled crunch of a boot from the way I’d fled and peeked over the root to see two figures step from the trees, one massive and one lithe, cautiously crossing the trail to my side of the woods. I couldn’t make out their faces though, as the canopy was so dense that it blocked the dancing lights and cast shadows across the trail.

A jeering taunt. “Come on out, girl. Don’t scurry through the shadows. Don’t think that we won’t find you.”

I recognized the voice even before I gripped Lightdrinker’s ebony and drew the knife from its sheath, just a fraction, just enough to open the thread and paint the greys across shadows.

It was Reese’s partner, the free warden turned thug that I’d beaten and humiliated on the Docks and had, in return, marked me for vengeance. She had an arrow notched and was scanning the shadows I hid within. Beside her, the long scar from an old axe wound to her companion’s thick head confirmed it. Reese himself, too large to be so quiet, was almost to my side of the path, brandishing a frightening two-handed axe, raised and ready to strike.

I had anticipated them trying to pull something like this. I’d been waiting for such ambush since Verena and I had been chased from the shadows that night we first approached Lio. But I hadn’t expected it to happen so far from Autumnrush. They must have been too wary to strike in the crowded streets under the bright aurora and followed me from the port, skirting north around Sayer’s camp when I’d entered it in hopes of catching me on the other side.

“You didn’t think we’d let you just run off without answering for your insult, did you, girl? Come on out, I promise I can stalk the woods better than you. There’s no escape.”

She was wrong. With Lightdrinker, with the painted glows, I could move faster in the shadows. I could flee into the darkness of the forest. But they sought vengeance and, if I escaped, they would try again. I had warned them what would happen if they faced me again, had told them to remember their first defeat. I had run from them long enough.

I am going to interpret the previous opportunity I rolled as giving me permission to narratively use Lightdrinker’s ability during this encounter, granting me whatever fictional advantages being able to see in the dark would allow. -1 Light Track.

Reese was just reaching the trees, maybe a dozen feet from the streambed. His companion, not far behind. I would flee no further. I removed my pack and tucked it against the trunk.

Speaking loudly from the shadows, “Why do you skulk in the dark? Is it because you are afraid to draw the circle and lose again? Afraid to face me alone? So you stalk and ambush like bandits?”

I left Lightdrinker cracked from its sheath, left the thread open and, answering the blade’s call to be drawn, stood and stepped over the thick root I’d been hiding behind.

“Well come and get your prey then, cowards!” I swung the blade down to cleave the shaft from the arrowhead still embedded in my shield and readied myself for battle.

Roll: Enter the Fray, Reese and Kimura, Dangerous, Heart, +1 Blade-bound – Strong Hit

Normally the two of them combined would be a Formidable foe but the opportunity allowing me to narratively use Lightdrinker gives me enough of an advantage in the dark to lower their rank to Dangerous.

Roll: Strike, Iron – Miss; Endure Harm (-2), Iron, +1 Lightly Armored – Weak Hit, press on (1 Health)

I stepped forward, Reese charged. The man could not see in the dark, but enough of the aurora’s light pierced the branches that my shadow and voice revealed me. I sidestepped his rush and slashed the blade across his back as he passed me. Or, at least, that was my intention. My legs were weak from the climb, weaker than I’d realized. I attempted to push off with them and launch myself out of his path, but they instead cramped and faltered. I managed to avoid the downswing of his axe but not his shoulder, which slammed into my shield and threw me backwards over the root into the dried streambed.

I hit the ground hard and sprawled. The warcrew’s leather protected me from the rocks but I still lost my breath to the tumble.

Reese gave a boisterous chuckle as he stepped over the root into the shallow gully and began to raise his axe to strike me down.

“I remember you being faster when we first met.”

So did I. And then the axe began to drop.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron, +1 Shield-Bearer – Miss, complication (ugh, there’s already a complication pending)

Asset: Shield-Bearer – Sacrifice shield to ignore harm and take initiative.

But I had grown used to reclaiming my wind. This was nothing, no poisoned chill to seize the breaths from my chest. I simply needed to force myself to inhale and it would return. So, as the axe fell, down towards my head, I lifted the shield . The sturdy wood stopped the deathblow, but the weight of the axe and man together split and pierced the board, it’s bearded blade suspended an inch above my face. Had Reese swung any harder, he would have given me a scar to match his. Had he aimed any lower, he would have taken my forearm where it was strapped to the shield, not that it didn’t feel like it might fall off on its own anyways from the impact of the blow.

Reese braced his foot on the splintering board to pull the axe free and finally finish me off. So I let him have the shield, sliding my arm out of the strap as I rolled to the side. And as the board fell to the floor and he swayed to his back foot to avoid falling with it, I rose to my feet, the blade already humming and arcing.

Roll: Strike, Iron – Weak Hit, 4 Progress

A long wide arc that slashed across Reese’s back as he desperately struggled to liberate axe from wood. The blade sighed, the man grunted in pain and fell to his knees, and I readied myself to finish him. But before I could, an arrow flew by, just missing my leg, and then another. The archer could not truly see her target in the shadows, seeming almost as likely to hit her companion as me, but she was as fast with her bow as she had been with an axhandle, and I would need to stop her before one found its mark.

I was angry now. They were fools! They would have fared better to challenge me in the open, under the sun, than skulking and stalking. Waylaying me in the shadows while Lightdrinker was at my side. Hindering my path to the heart of the aurora, to Pella. They acted as raiders and so, as I had warned them before, I would put them down like raiders.

Roll: Turn the Tide, Strike, Iron, +2 Honorbound – Strong Hit, 10 Progress 

With One foot planted atop the root, the archer was firing down into the streambed. Close enough that she could parse our shadows. I forced my tired legs to launch me forward and, leaping, I slashed the blade at her knees. She was swift though and saw me closing, bounding backward and retreating while she notched another arrow. I vaulted over the root and continued my attack. She loosed the arrow, it went high as she stumbled and almost tripped. I imagined it was difficult to fire a bow while backpedaling in the dark. I could only imagine though, as sprinting through Lightdrinker’s painted glows to carry the blade to its target was not difficult at all.

She quit backpedaling and began to run, notching another arrow as she sprinted. We left the trees and as she reached the middle of the path and turned to again fire, the blade finally found her. A sigh and startled scream and then the dull thud of body hitting floor. 

Roll: End the Fight (10 Progress) – Strong Hit

And as I watched her collapse, a cry arose from behind me.

Reese, blood pouring from the slash on his back and ribs, charged from the woods with his axe held high to chop me down. The blade pulled and I followed, a quick upward swing that took both of his hands. His charge stalled, the axe fell to ground, and he looked to his forearms in confusion, to where his hands should have been. He turned to me in shock and anger, screaming a defiant roar. The blade again swung, again sighed, and the roar quieted.

And so, as the first soft glows of morning began to compete with the dancing tendrils for domain over the sky, I roared. I howled at the bodies. I let the blade fall from my fingers as I screamed at the green glow of the blossoming aurora until I collapsed to my knees, gasping for air. Finally, I hunched forward, head to earth, waiting for my breath to return.

Roll: Oracle, do scouts catch up due to delay from the ambush? Likely – No

And then I remembered that Sayer’s scouts were coming. If I delayed any further, they would be upon me, bloody and tired. I needed to leave. I pushed myself to my feet and, bending to retrieve the blade, I saw the tattoo on Reese’s hand, severed but still gripping the haft of his great axe.

Were those tusks and a snout snaking across his inner wrist and forearm? I reluctantly kicked the hand over to see the rest of the tattoo. It was clearly a boar! But different than Haf’s had been. It was smaller and less flowing, made by cruder hands. I took a step back in shock, he had not had this when I’d fought him on the docks. I took a moment to recover from my surprise before leaning back in to examine it. It was indeed fresh, still dark and scabbed.

My mind raced. I rushed to Reese’s companion’s body to confirm and, cutting the straps of the leather bracer and rolling up the sleeve of her bow arm, found one matching. It was fresh as well, bleeding from where the bracer had scraped against the scabs.

Where had they gotten these tattoos? Were they brands of fealty like Pella had said of Haf’s? Did they serve the same master, some unknown raidcaptain or warleader? One with a presence in Autumnrush? Troubling thoughts.

Foreboding clues towards this potential new threat satisfies one of the two complications rolled earlier in the scene.

I was about to search their belts and pouches, but then the dawn broke from the east, from the way I had come, and reminded me of the scouts. I could afford to delay no further to examine the bodies unless I wanted to do so in the presence of Batah and Delos, two men who may or may not have been sent to kill me. I needed to go.

I sheathed the blade and staggered back into the woods to retrieve my pack from where I’d tucked it behind the trunk and root at the edge of the dried stream bed. My new shield, the banner of Longbridge, was splintered and useless, one third of the boards and the entire left wing of the wyvern having been split completely off by Reese’s axe. It was thought unlucky to lose one’s shield so early in a journey, but it had fulfilled its purpose, it had saved my life. And surviving an ambush and that massive axe seemed like good luck to me, so I didn’t let it concern me.

I considered bringing what remained of the shield with me, as the iron boss looked undamaged and salvageable, but I doubted I would find many carpenters or armorers in the Wilds to craft me a new one. So instead, I discarded the pieces onto the path between the two bodies for the scouts to find and then fled the dawn, again pushing westward. Let them understand that this had been my work, they may not be so eager to follow after learning so.

Roll: Undertake a Journey, Wits – Miss => Burn Momentum – Weak Hit , 2 Progress, (three misses in a row with zero progress on a journey would be too much to bear)

Roll: Advance a Threat – The threat works subtly to advance toward its goal or the danger escalates, +1 Menace

The threat advancing is a result of the second of the two complications from earlier in this scene (the other being the boar tattoos). Though Hob has not delayed in addressing the threat, time is passing and whatever is going on with the blossoming aurora is escalating, even if I do not yet know to what end or purpose.

And so I hiked west, ignoring my exhaustion. The ambush had delayed me but I refused to allow it to stall me further. I saw no sign of the scouts. I didn’t know if finding my shield among the two corpses had prompted them to pause, to wait for Sayer to ascend the hills and warn them of the danger. Or maybe they had pressed on and were almost upon me, just out of sight. So I kept my breaks short and dragged myself forward though I feared I might collapse.

I reached the first fork in the path and turned north as Pella’s directions had stated. Always the northern trail, always to the right, until the trail ended and a pass through the mountains would lead me to a flooded valley and the newly discovered Pillar. Then I reached the next fork, north again. With each branch the path became smaller, less traveled. I was no tracker, not like Pella, but it seemed as if the trails had been recently traversed, what looked like bent branches and flattened underbrush. 

As the sun rose, the thicker canopies over the thinner trails compensated for the heat with a deeper shade. By mid-day, the sunlight had consumed the aurora, but by afternoon the dancing tendrils had returned. The sun was still high and bright but the translucent greens were growing stronger, vivid and thickening, radiant enough to now rival the sun itself. I did not know what this meant but it clearly seemed like a bad sign. Whatever purpose the blossoming aurora pursued, I feared it had moved closer to achieving it.

As the sun began to set, and the lights could again dance across the sky without competition, it became clear just how much brighter they had become since the morning. I could walk all night under this new green sun without aid from Lightdrinker. I wished that I was able to press onward, but I was near my limit. I would need to rest soon or collapse on the trail.

As if the forest shared my concern, I soon came across a campsite where the path had been cleared and flattened (by bedrolls?). The fire pit looked old but recently used. I could not tell how fresh the charred wood and ash were but hoped it was the remains of Pella and the Sustainers’ campfire, hoped it was confirmation that I followed in her steps. A small stream crossed the trail just past the camp, close enough to the mountains that summer’s heat had not yet dried it up. I drank and refilled my waterskin, and then I tried to rinse Reese and his companion’s blood off of my leathers. The creek was reddened but the stains remained.

It seemed a good place to rest, but I would not use the camp. I feared Sayer and their scouts, or whoever else may have entered these trails, to stumble upon me sleeping. So I left the path to find a small clearing obscured from the campsite. If they passed by or stopped there for rest, I might observe their numbers without being seen. I removed my pack, leaned against a trunk, and tried to force myself to finish the salted herring that I had been nibbling on throughout the day (I had little appetite after the bloodletting of the morning and was now too exhausted to be hungry). And then, as the sun fully set and the blossoms conquered the sky, I slept.

Roll: Make a Camp, 4 Supply – Strong Hit, recuperate (2 Health), relax (4 Spirit)

Roll: Heal, Iron – Weak Hit, 4 Health