The group is hanging out in their tent in the Copper Hills Fort. Ethelred is working on his model ballistae. As the test fails and the model collapses, Alexis exclaims “that’s it.” He gives a quick visual scan of his companions and continues, signaling everyone to come in close; a conspiratorial whisper.
“We don’t belong here. Yeah, we need to find..” Alexis looks at the various walls of tent and then finishes “…it. But we should be out there.” He gestures to the forests to the north and east.
“I didn’t realize what was wrong until I was looking at how uncomfortable Gus was while we’ve been in the tent. The longer we’re here the worst he looks. And then it hit me. We don’t need to be here right now. We should be out there. And then everything clicked:
We set up a base on the goblin/warg hill.
We offer the refugees from Thater a place with us in the woods.
We conduct our experiments and scouting from there.
We check in with the fort regularly.”
“One, or two, of you will have questions, so let’s hear ’em” Alexis looks between his three companions huddled close.
Clearly a bit frustrated and only half listening as he stairs at the failed “ballista”… it should have worked.
“If we are going to leave the Fort and our personal servant is not going to bring us food every day we will need some cooking supplies. This tent will probably be useful. A mule would be helpful. Also some supplies for the woods, like traps could be helpful.
I will require a few items before we leave to make the balista.”
Red starts to count on this finger, numerating items he will need.
“I would like to leave as soon as possible to start setting up our new base, and preventing the poor souls from Thater from starving to death. A mule is almost certainly out of the question. But we can check in with Thrandelson about getting additional supplies we might need. Mostly I’m thinking we will want to get any highly refined supplies here since it will be hard to get those things out in the forest.
“Keep your list to what you and ‘T’ want to carry out to the hillock.”
Telosh arches arches an eyebrow, winks at Alexis, and motions,
Shields. good plan. Spies?
“What are these refugees fleeing and what help can we give them? Running a refugee camp isn’t exactly the Crimson Calling’s area of expertise, is it?”
“They fled Barra, and we can give them a better diet than what they’re currently scrounging. In exchange they can cook us better food than what we normally eat, although not as good as what squire Perez brings us. It’ll be there choice, but I feel we’ll be giving them a better shot than waiting outside the walls of the fort.”
“Some extra hands and experience could be helpful in crafting a weapon to use against the three armed giant. The ballista I have been trying to build hasn’t gone well so far. I know much about the core building, but lack the knowledge of weapons needed to really make this work properly. If I can’t make a decent version soon we may have to come up with a new plan.
With more hands digging a nice pit becomes more of an option….”
“More hands, more options. And hopefully fewer grumbling stomachs”
“What are we going to feed them?”
Telosh looks at Gus as well as Alexis.
“Gus has shown incredibly proficient at keeping us fed. I have faith that he will be able to feed 4 more. And I’m hopefully that one, or more, of those from Thater will have some food preservation skills, or others that will augment our excellent Gus.”
“Four? Oh! You just mean Yatchel, Katrin, Gamela and Heward? Not ALL the refugees from Thater?”
Alexis looks surprised at the suggestion regarding all the refugees from Thater. “I’m no Barrick of Ghanil.”
“Have you been holding out on me, T? Do you know where all the remaining Thater refugees are? If we had a whole village, I might have some additional ideas.”
“You know I always hold out on everyone Alexis,” Telosh smiles and winks at hi ‘fellow’ Sutheroni.
“We met a few folks, but weren’t there others milling about? Maybe they’re not refugees? I have a hard time telling with Aegirians…”
“Before we go inviting the people from Thater to our new ‘home base’, should we not scout it out and work to establish it a bit. We should make sure it is safe, has some basics ready for others. I don’t recall water being too near by fore example.
Gus should scout for track to make sure the wargs have not been patrolling since we were last there.
Once we know it is safe and we think it could work for our group then we can work to invite them.”
“That’s fair. We might as well check in with them when we head out, see if they want to be as well fed as we are.”
Ethelred glances between Alexis and Gus.
“Sure… just don’t imply that our boy servant will be feeding them if the hill spot doesn’t pan out. We want to help them.. but we also don’t want to disturb our situation at the fort right now. We are just making some small in roads here.”
Gus looks a bit lively after hearing about moving out of the shadow of the fort.
“I can feed 4 more with at least one person coming with and helping. Telosh is always a big help. I don’t need anything but what I already got.”