RED OAK: ARCHIVE

[Woe]

Locations are getting confused. Very! And just to confirm something, Anna saw the treed nisha changing, not another nisha changing? We only have one known tango right now, up in the tree? And, Bruce+Kilian are on the roof with missile weapons, Freya+Talin+Tiana are flying up a tree, and Anna is out in the open being a diversionary target? If so, I'm all caught up.

Roll for initiative! Assuming I win and the above all is true, the dwarves will attack whatever they can, the climbers will attack whatever they can, and Fido will haul Anna to safety.

I know, it's a more complicated plan than usual.

[Longman]

She's pretty sure it was the one that ran up the tree. Kinda hard to tell but a fair bet...

Your assessment is all accurate except that Anna is now at the base of the tree, under some cover. She can climb the tree, if that's what you want. She's almost up at the end of the round. Fido has enough sense to stay out of the way...

Kilian has now reloaded his x-bow...he can't see a thing and Bruce has no decent missile weapon and is wondering what he doing up here. He can't see a thing either.

Tiana has successfully ferried the two archers all the way up, and they are entering the tree-house and can be wherever you want them to be, next round.

On the way up...neither of them could see what Anna was talking about, either. She was the only one who saw the transformed human.

It's your round again. No more shots were fired that round and you are all basically in the tree-house or on top of it, except for Fido.

[Woe]

I think I found some of the confusion. I thought Tiana was climbing a tree near where the nisha climbed, or worst case, the tree itself. She's not providing an elevator service to the top of the fort unless that's the best place to put the archers. The three of them are on the attack, spider-charging up the tree that has the nisha. Tiana should be taking the archers to the best location to fire upon the nisha.

Also, Kilian told Bruce to get a bow from downstairs, and told Anna to get near the treehouse. NPCs just don't listen to him like good ol' James did... except for the not listening time which had him running away from an attacking wyvern and ultimately causing his death. I guess that's one way to save on salary costs though.

We should probably be more descriptive about "the tree" when we're in a forest. Kilian wanted Anna to get into the fort, and Tiana wanted to climb a tree near the one that had the nisha (to avoid getting dropped on) or the tree that had the nisha (because ultimately, the nisha will die). I think those (fort tree, nisha tree) are different trees.

[Longman]

We should probably be more descriptive about "the tree" when we're in a forest.

Or, we need a map! Definitely, always basic maps from now on.

OK, so Tiana and co have climbed the Nisha tree, with shields! Incidentally you did suggest the fort roof as a good location for archers, and it is...that's why I had Tiana go there...

Anyway if they climb the nisha tree, that makes things a bit different. In the second round, the archers can both see the lousy culprit that just shot Anna and laughed. You are 40 feet in the air and he is 60 feet above you. Do you shoot him next round or keep going? He may have reloaded this round.

Anna did get shot, that part is unavoidable. She has climbed up the tree-house tree and is now safe, and is in the room with the downstairs trapdoor. She's just starting to feel a little bit nauseous.

Bruce has got a bow and is on the roof. He still can't see anything though.

[Woe]

I'm going to be a bit careful here because I don't know what the characters know and what they don't. For example, because Anna isn't near any of the characters, I am assuming nobody knows that she is feeling nauseous, and nobody can see her. Jane could, but you'll need to work out the Jane/Anna alert to Kilian before he can do something about it.

We should probably switch to rounds and initiatives. In the last round as Tiana is climbing, what did the archers do? Did they shoot, or are you waiting for me to give actions? If the latter, I'll give actions for "last round" since Freya won't be firing. If they shot, did they hit anything? If you decide that they can't do anything in the last round, I can accept that.

Assuming they didn't fire and still have their actions: Talin will drop the shield and shoot at the nisha. Freya will sling her bow, get out some rope, and carefully tie first Talin then her to Tiana.

[Longman]

Let's just call this Round 1. Things has gotten too discombobulated to do anything more complex than that. We can refocus it from here.

Talin shoots the nisha. He critically fails and misses his next action.

Freya does as instructed, tying the team together and stashing her bow.

Tiana climbs 40 up the trunk of the tree.

The nisha reloads (presumably).

Bruce and Kilian are on the roof and scanning for things to fire at.

ROUND 2

Anna has entered the tree-house and makes it known to those on the roof she is not feeling so good.

Bruce still can't see either of the nisha and starts asking about whether he can drink one of the healing potions seeing as he is down 5 hit points.

Fido is at the base of the tree, hiding.

I need actions for your 4 team members only.


PS - keep up the good work. You are close to a good thing here.

[Woe]

Kilian
"James, dem healing potions don't work well on dwarves. It might make ye sicker. Ye take one down to de redhaired lass though, and make sure she drinks some. Ye will be safe down there too. Dem tall 'uns are almost wrapped up with dat one." He points at the potion with the healing topper. "Oh, and dem weasels drink dem too. Dat one we cut earlier? 'e may come back for us. I'll be down in a wee moment."

Climbers
Whoo hoo! Check out this idea. Freya and Talin can now melee with the nisha, right? Can they attempt to push him off the branch and have him plummet to his doom? That's the reason Freya came up with the tiedown idea, plus it's just a good idea... safety first! Another idea that may be possible is that Freya/Talin hops off and holds tight onto the trunk or a branch; and Tiana hops around the nisha to trip him up with the extended rope. Goal is for nisha to plummet to his death without the party being harmed. I know that Talin can't act next round, but that's still The Plan.

[Longman]

Er...no, sorry. You would have been able to get to him except when you get to the 100' mark, you can't find him.

Freya can see a weasel running off along a tree branch, but she has stashed her bow. At the end of the round it is 80' away. It is going away from the tree-house and the two dwarves do not see it.

Talin misses his action in this round so cannot shoot.

Bruce clambers below, and offers Anna some healing draught. As she takes the bottle, he notices she is clammy and sweaty and her pupils have expanded a bit.

The strange woman Jane looks on from the next room. "She'll need more than that, soon enough" the woman says quietly. "I'll tell you what she needs, and you let me go, and promise not to tell anyone back in Cyn Dol that you saw me here. How is that for a bargain?"

On the roof, Kilian is still scouting. He is pretty sure the injured one has fled. He is aware Freya keeps shooting something, but can't see what it is.

[Woe]

(That's between Bruce, Jane, and Anna. Let me know what Bruce decides. If Anna dies because Bruce gets stingy with the potion, he'll have to answer to Fido! And no punting and having Bruce come ask Kilian what to do. Those NPCs got themselves into this mess, and they need to get themselves out of it. )

Freya (and Talin?) will cry out to Kilian and point at the fleeing weasel. Maybe Kilian will be able to get a shot next round. Freya will get her bow back out, and Tiana will rush the archers over to the weasel.

I'm getting really confused now, and a map probably won't help. The three of them scaled the tree that the nisha was in, the nisha turned into a weasel. I think I follow that part. But the nisha is running on a tree branch that spans at least 80' away from the tree trunk? That's a huge beech tree with branches that long.

[Longman]

No, you're not getting confused. I think I'm just imagining much denser forest than you are, with branches that overlap with those of the next tree, all the way up the trunk. They can run from tree to tree, you see.



And no punting and having Bruce come ask Kilian what to do



"Kilian!" calls Bruce. "Seems like young Anna has been poisoned. Jane is offering us a deal. You come down here, I'll keep guard up top."

In the other scene, Talin recovers from his fumble, and Freya now has her bow out. Unfortunately, neither can see the nisha, which must have fled up to about 160' by the end of the round. You can hear some rustling in a tree across from you, but that's all.