Hannah's Quest (30 Nov 2001) Hannah, daughter of Lord November, journeys through a dark forest.

The Golden Woods
Normally the sight of these woods would fill a traveler's heart with awe to see the enormous golden-barked trees that stand easily twenty times a man's height, but now there is a feeling of dread about them, to see their branches weighted down with snow almost to the breaking point, ice-frosted shadowy creepers winding their ways from massive branch to branch, curtains of vines obscuring paths. It is as if darkness and age has befallen these woods, and with winter settled in, signs of life are few.

It is night, and moonlight falls in pale shafts through the canopy. Behind is the silhouette of the massive Hawksmoor Keep, which borders the Dark Woods with its noisome swamps and clutching vines. Ahead, half a day's walk past the edge of the forest, would be the village of Pendleton, where one could sleep safely in the inn or in some farmer's stable.

This far from Hawksmoor, still within sight, it is safe to wander. Past that ... well, there are traps and there are illusions, and there are bandits that might think nothing of robbing a single woman unarmed. But Hannah's stealth and woodcraft might get her past the latter, and for the former, she hopes that the long-gone Lord Explorer Thomas's gift of finding runs in the family to at least a little bit. She'd found her way into the keep when it had just fallen under siege, hadn't she? Well, then, that ought to prove that she did have the talent -- if those oh-so-careful Explorers didn't think she was too young to risk herself!

There is such space between the giant trees as to make going nearly any direction easy, but where feet have trodden, dirt paths have been worn into the undergrowth that are easy to make out, even in the poor light. The path would appear to lead straight away from here toward the direction of the rising sun.

Hannah casts a quick glance behind her before starting on the path, just to make sure that no members of the Keep have followed her. She did make sure to protect herself with a glamour that would render her "inconspicuous" as she left, but one never knows. Nodding silently to herself, caution now satisfied, she sets out on the path, lantern glowing softly to give herself a little of a guiding light through the dark trees.

The woods are silent, save for the distant "Whoo! Whoooo!" of an owl ghosting through the branches as it seeks mice, a prey gone, alas, quite scarce with the unseasonably long winter. Those in Hawksmoor have speculated why the winter of this Year should have drawn on so long, for it ought to have been March or even April by this time. Something must have happened to influence the passing of the Year in Mirari ... but what? Ahead at least, the path descends to run alongside a river over whose surface the ice has grown thickly.

Adjusting her well-worn cloak more tightly about her with her free hand, Hannah walks carefully, as lightly as possible, trying not to make much sound. If nothing else, I've learned to walk fairly silently in all my time training at the Keep, she muses. All the better not to be heard by those I don't wish to hear me.

The fortress fades into the hazy darkness behind Hannah, so indistinguishable from the darkness all around as to worry her with its disappearance. Once it's out of sight, should she be whirled around by some device of the Dark Witch's, there'll be no telling which way to go to return.

Mindful of her intended mission, the auburn-haired girl pauses to look for a likely place to first mark her path. Wouldn't do to lose my way this early into things! she chides herself, scanning the area for a place to scratch an arrow where only well-trained eyes will see it.

Several places look likely: she might carve an arrow into the side of a tree with her rapier, arrange dark pebbles atop a snow-covered boulder or on the ground, or even scratch the surface of the river itself. Barring a sudden melt, which seems unlikely, her footprints should remain visible for some time yet.

Hannah decides that perhaps an arrow carved into the side of one of the nearby trees would be best for the first marker. She glides over to one old giant, then kneels down beside it and places her lamp carefully on the ground nearby. Drawing her rapier as quietly as possible, she scratches an arrow pointing back towards the Keep into the trunk with its blade, near the ground so it won't be easily spotted.

It may be a small thing in such a large forest, but having an arrow in plain sight to guide the way back gives Hannah a great amount of comfort. She feels ready again to confront the path onward.

Nodding in satisfaction, Hannah sheathes her weapon, retrieves her lantern and stands. With another careful glance around, she goes back to the trail and moves onward once more.

The trail wends along the river for some time, and Hannah with it perforce, until she hears motion. Her own footsteps are silent and she is difficult to see in her dark gray cloak in the moonlight, but someone on the other side of one of the massive trees is whistling as he walks, and kicking up a bit of snow in the process.

Instantly, Hannah opens her cloak and hides her lantern behind it, not close enough to burn anything but near enough to muffle its light. She creeps towards one of the larger trees which stand near where the whistling is coming from, but keeps the trunk between herself and whoever - or whatever - is making the noise, hoping to see and yet not be seen....

"A-looting we go, a-looting we go," sings a raspy voice on the other side of the tree, and then whomever it is laughs as he pauses to adjust his grip on something being dragged, for now that he's stopped, Hannah can tell that there had been noise from it being pulled over the ground. "Ah! Sure and the fellows down there won't mind if I treat myself to another gulp to warm me up for the rest of the way, eh?" The lantern is uncomfortably warm under Hannah's cloak, and while the beam of light has been cut off, she can see a slight glow under her cloak, so that if someone were looking directly at her, they might be able to tell there was a screened light source there.

Hannah curses silently under her breath and extinguishes the lantern, hoping that the moonlight will be enough for her to see by, since the lantern is obviously too big a risk right now. Gathering her courage, she places her free hand on the hilt of her rapier and peers around the tree, hoping to glimpse the owner of that voice.

pft! Out goes the light. It will be a little while before Hannah's eyes fully adjust to the darkness, but what she can see looks like a rat-headed kobold dressed in many layers of rags and carrying a nasty-looking serrated bone sword slung over his shoulder, tipping a keg over so that the cork-hole in the top, unplugged, will pour some dark liquid into a pewter mug. The bandit appears not to be looking her way at the moment. "Good, good, some rum in my tummy and I'll be good fer the rest o' the way," he cackles to himself.

Hannah thinks fast. Soon that monster's going to see me, since he's about to cross my path. Might not be able to fight him off, but perhaps...? Drawing her rapier silently once more, she focuses inward, concentrating. Large, she thinks. Very large. Muscular. With a club instead of a rapier, and a large rock instead of a lantern. Feeling the rush of power expand outward into another form to hide her own, Hannah steps out where she can be seen.

The glamour is invisible to Hannah herself ... but the effect on the kobold is impressive, as he blanches and staggers back, mug falling from his hand to splash red across the snow. "YAGH! A giantess!" Cursing ill luck, he turns and runs off into the distance quickly, plowing great furrows into the snow. The keg thunks back onto its base with a quiet slosh.

The "giantess" stares after the kobold for a few moments until he is completely out of her sight. When the coast is clear, the huge form dwindles back down into the shape of an auburn-haired girl, who is grasping a rapier tightly and breathing many sighs of relief. That's right, run away! she urges him silently. The more you run, the less I'll have to do!

Fortunately it appears the kobold is inclined to do exactly that, for he is soon gone from sight, in the direction of some other part of the forest -- his trail does cross the river, Hannah notices. Her own trail leads onward, however, and moonlight illuminates it only in patches.

Hannah remains where she is for a little longer, taking that time to sheath her weapon again and re-light her lantern, setting it to burn with the lowest flame possible that will still give out some helpful illumination. Then she returns to the path, forging carefully onward.

The trail wends onward past the kobold's trails, and Hannah follows it until it forks. There, she casts her lantern's light down both paths, but finds nothing to illuminate her decision on which way she should go. To her recollection, the path should run straight with no divergences until the edge of the forest; there are no other dwellings within the Golden Woods than Hawksmoor -- unless it's some settler who's moved into the woods recently, and that seems doubtful. Both paths look equally empty as far as they run into the darkness.

Hannah's eyebrows draw down in concentration. She does not like the fact that the divergence of the path does not gibe with her recollection of the way she remembers it should run. She steps closer to the fork, casting her light down each path in turn. Could one merely be an illusion? she wonders. And if so, how could I tell...?

If one is an illusion, Hannah remembers her old tutor saying, a prim and proper bark-skinned fellow, well, it can only fool the eye, not the hand. Unless of course, the Dark Witch whose magic has clouded the woods is so powerful a mistress of illusion that she could fool even that sense as well -- but that, she recalls, is the hardest sense to cloud with illusion. Sight alone offers no way to tell the two paths apart.

Remembering this, Hannah turns towards the very beginning of the right-hand fork. Kneeling down, she holds the lantern near to the ground and reaches out with her free hand to touch the path, watching and feeling for any change...

This path feels normal, at least as far as Hannah has gone. What she sees seems to match what she feels.

Hannah stands and turns to the left-hand fork now, but takes a step onto it rather than just remaining at its beginning, for the sake of comparison. Again she kneels and puts out a hand to touch the path.

Almost immediately, she feels her hand brush an invisible rock, where her eyes tell her that there ought to be nothing there but bare dirt.

Inwardly thanking her old tutor for his sage advice - and glad that she thought to listen to it! - Hannah moves back onto the right-hand fork of the path and follows it instead, glancing around carefully as she does so.

The other path appears to run true for some time, but as Hannah comes to a modest gorge, she is glad that she has passed it by. With illusion befogging her eyes, she might well have fallen straight into it, rather than finding, however shaky and weighed down by snow it might be, a bridge crossing the gap here. Hannah recalls crossing this bridge a Year ago... Then, it seemed rickety. Now, well...

Hannah dislikes the look of the bridge now, not knowing how much it could have rotted under the weight and water of heavy snows that fell from the skies most of this Year. Coming closer to it, she casts about for another way of crossing - one that hopefully won't drop her to the bottom of the gorge in a painful heap!

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This site serves as a chronicle of sessions in an online roleplaying campaign moderated by Conrad "Lynx" Wong and May "Rowan" Wasserman. The contents of this site are (c) 2001, 2002 by Conrad Wong and May Wasserman except where stated otherwise. Despite the "children's fantasy" theme of this campaign, this site is not intended for young readership, due to mild language and violence.