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Maximus has nothing to camp WITH, besides attempting to make a low fire, and then just sleeping in his own clothes. So, he does try to make a low fire.
*
What usual streak of luck that seemed to flit about the Pencerdd as brightly as his shepherd's hood deserted him in the last scrum. There was healing to be add, a grace from beyond by the Bright Lady, but he's still sore from where the two inch-long thorns had raked up his arm and across his shoulders. It means that leaning up against the base of a tree within easy reach of the light of the fire, small as it is, is blatantly uncomfortable.
The glow is welcome, the reach of heat even more so, and he can feel it sinking into his boots. Taliesin is weary and his lids keep drooping. The shard of rosewood is safely tucked away into the satchel at his hip. The mandolin, with its two broken strings, lies alongside his extended legs. His chin drops to touch his chest and it awakens him; a sharp inhalation and he looks around again at the woods. Everything's been quiet, but that means nothing in the Celidon.
"Glad to have a fire." It's a conversational lifeline, tossed out for anyone to snag. Either he needs to stay awake or sleep. There's no happy middle.
*
The battle with the…tree monster and spriggans was not a particularly pleasant one for Sir Gareth, but at least it's over and they have the first sliver they've been sent for, and now it's time to rest. Unfortunately, his camping supplies were on his horse, now long gone. Well, it's another challenge, and at least he found his sword. "Rest, comrades," he bids the others. "I'll take the first watch."
*
"Delightful. You'll take the first watch. What's a watch without anything to eat? Tomorrow…we will be fighting like /peasant boys/." Agravaine groans up to his feet. "Come closer to the fire, Taliesin. That tree may not be safe. Ants. Spiders. Who knows. And I…will do the job of hunting." Though how the fuck he's gonna do that when he's clanking around…with a /sword/…
*
Camping in the rough in Celidon Forest may be less difficult and more comfortable than some suspect. Deeper along the path away from a particularly suspect pond, deadfall can be collected, though it's fairly damp. Moss and fungi patch the trees. Mushrooms poke out, and the only berries growing this early in the spring are withered and white. At least the glow of any fire is golden-red, not white and black. Weariness settles heavily and the night grinds on and on, making for no easy endurance into the night. Sleep creeps in on dark footsteps, sneaking up heavily on all who dwell in the dark.
And that first watch sinks away into velvety blackness, taking its toll, for even a weary, pained soul needs rest sometimes. And what was the bard up to when he keeled over to cuddle some moss…?
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 18
*
ROLL: Tigra +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 14
*
ROLL: Strange +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 17
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 12
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 10
*
The Master Bardd seems to wake up again as someone addresses him — who, what, oh — and winces as he shifts his shoulders.
"I am perfectly content to deal with ants or spiders. But fine, oh noble Knight, if you insist, I shall move closer to the fire." With an audible groan, he does this weird scootching shifting thing that gains him the extra two feet of space and he crosses his legs to slump in a sitting position. Ow, that doesn't work, stretching the muscles of his upper back. After some ridiculously-awful curses muttered, he ends up on his side, indeed pillowing his head on a serendipitous collection of soft moss. Curling in upon himself, he's out in less than a minute: slack-mouthed, blank-faced, exhaustion claims him.
The dream overtakes him swiftly. The floor beneath him is hard, cold, but it means nothing. The hours have passed in a seamless blur, but he rests his head against his wrists. His hold around the sword's grip with two hands provides the resting point for his furrowed brow and the church around him is silent. But wait — a voice, shattering his concentration and the hallowed quiet with words: "She's alive." His heart ratches up into his throat as adrenaline floods electrical-ice through his veins.
Taliesin curls up more still, foldings hands away into his doublet. He seems like he just can't get warm enough, like cold flirts about the edges of his body. In his sleep, he frowns and mumbles in a low, incoherent tone.
*
Well, it wouldn't be the first night Gareth has spent hungry, not while questing. He doesn't say that aloud, though. "Good luck, then," he bids Agravaine. Certainly wouldn't say -no- to having something to eat. Stifling a sigh, he rises to his feet to stand watch, intending to find a place to stand where the fire won't ruin his eerily sharp night vision. Unfortunately, the stress and fatigues of the day and the fight, the oppressive atmosphere, and the weakness that comes from want of food, sap his strength. Before he knows it, he's slumped against a tree, sound asleep, blissfully dreaming of stretching out in an invigorating sunbeam, the light gleaming along the edge of a fabulous sword. If pressed, he won't be able to explain where the twitching tail came from.
*
Maximus falls over into the moss, sword still in his hand, when he's overcome with sleep. Dammit. Now he'll be so hungry in the morning. Maybe there's some peasant shack around here they can raid in the name of the king's army. Or…maybe just in his name. Cuz…he's the /king/. Agravaine slips off into dreamy land of being something a little more than he probably deserves. There's a cheering crowd. His eyes light. He's loved.
Better still, Agravaine realizes, he's not alone. He looks to his left and sees the other figure, tucked neatly behind the curtain, too shy for the glory that Agravaine basks in. He waves, indulging the crowd from this balcony, more cheering. Long speech about mushrooms…because this is still a dream and it makes sense at the time. Then he turns, letting the curtains breeze against him, and he listens. "Excellent speech, my King." He smiles and looks over to the voice, eyes lingering on that familiar form.
Agravaine's gauntlet-covered fingers wiggle against the moss as he reaches out in the dream.
*
No hint of the silver-piece moon dots the sky. Even the shadows lie thicker in tarry patches brindled by little variation. Dead embers lie in the makeshift hearth, the tripod of charred twigs and branches giving off the faintest trace of woodsmoke. Damp soil proves no impediment. Gloved hands ease out the pouch with surprising agility, curling around the extracted object. A figure with helm low over its face straightens, the sword at its hip almost scraping the ground. The slap of the hood flutters up as the knight turns, flapping with a little rustle. A concerted slap follows on Taliesin's chin, fabric formed into a spear point that keeps jabbing and poking until sleep is forced to recede on the wind.
Already the knight is in retreat through the camp, his strides light rather than tramping fast. Hand held out, he draws a black, rippling oval.
Agravaine's fingers wiggle over a bit of smoldering moss.
Sir Gareth tips over from the tree that isn't quite a sunbeam.
*
"Mmnnfff…no." It's the complaint of the half-awake, the one still trapped in his dream. "Nnnnstahp." A particularly sharp jab in a bundle of nerves and Taliesin jerks awake with a loud gasp. Bits of leaf litter fly through the still air of the forest from an arm flailed about, as if warding off a fly. "Who the…whuh, what." His immediate reaction is to check his satchel. Wait a second.
The Pencerdd frowns, sitting upright as he pats it and then sticks hands inside it. "No!" He breathes, the whites of his eyes showing. For being sore, he's awfully quick to his feet. Thank the gods the firelight is so low. His night vision takes over even as the dregs of sleep sluice away to the wash of cold fear. How was he asleep?! Who was supposed to be watching?!
The tug of the shepherd's hood pulls his attention away, off to the trees, where the retreating figure can barely be seen in the ultra-dim light. "YOU." The hiss of the Master Bardd might be loud enough to heard as he takes off at a dead run. Or maybe it's the kick-up of dirt and twigs into the general vicinity of Agrivaine's face. No armor to slow him down or give away his position for its clanking.
*
Who was supposed to be watching? Why Sir Gareth, of course. But he fell into a sort of…catnap. And then he falls over in a clatter of armor, jerking awake and leaping to his feet with inhuman grace. He crouches for a moment, fingers curled as if to claw into something, but then straightens with alacrity. The small fire is more htan enough for him to see what's happening, and he draws his sword as he runs towards the mystery knight. "Stand your ground!" he calls.
*
Its so amazing that everyone is so excited and running around and kicking up dirt and making demands that NO ONE hears Agravaine's soft little affectionate murmurs and how he nuzzles in with the moss with a happy smile on his dirty face.
*
The smoldering pile contains the remnants of the fire's warmth and light. Embers singe both Agravaine's matted curls and skin. He nuzzles into burning sphagnum moss, and puffs of smoke rise where the burning bits meet dry bits, and so it goes.
The black-knight dashes to the ichorous circle and flings himself into it with an explosive collapse of space that smells heavily of sulfur and burnt incense, swirling up. A glimpse by Gareth and Taliesin at the shield on his back is a concerning giveaway however. It's Sir Percival's…
*
"NO!!!" This shout of denial is far louder than its original whispering and Taliesin slides to a sudden halt, keeping his feet, chest rising and falling as he looks frantically around the unending expanse of forest. The bar-like trunks provide the illusion of no space at all for one to have disappeared! "SEVEN HELLS!" The air around the Master Bardd explodes outwards in a manifestation of his temper abruptly lost, but it quickly settles, the last of the leaf-litter fluttering to the ground as he straightens, tall and mad as bristle-tailed cat.
The shepherd's hood patpats his neck and he rolls his shoulder in dismissal even as he realizes that sulfur lingers. Great. Demonic influence. Blinking on the Sight means his irises literally glow in the dim light — no hiding it this time, the frosted-violet hues — and he reaches out to pull reality into his hand. It stretches and flexes to a screaming breaking point before snapping back into place, but now…he holds the taint of the knight's abrupt retreat in his palm. His crushing fist is white-knuckled as he wheels, nearly running into Gareth. "Sir Percival," the Pencerdd spits in black rage, stomping past the Knight and back towards the guttering campfire.
*
The knight certainly doesn't stand his ground, instead diving through…well, whatever that is. Gareth approaches, but stops, nose wrinkling in disgust at the sulfur smell. "Pfegh,"he says eloquently, before watching Taliesin do things to reality that he hopes never to see again. "Not necessarily," Gareth says, following at a respectful, even cautious, distance. "He had Percival's shield, or at least his emblem, but I could see nothign under his helm. I've been known to identify friends by smell, but that…stench made it impossible for me. I think a trick is far more likely than Sir Percival turning his coat."
*
When Agravaine is burning, he definitely wakes up…wakes up to HELL. Dammit, thanks a LOT, WORLD! Not just…his own reality, but this altered shithole of an environment, full of trees that want to kill them, angry pixies, traitorous ex-companions with some sort of shard-fetish, and he's pretty sure he accidentally ate some weird moss in his dream. So it is that the camp is faced with a different sort of Agravaine than the one that was forced to fall asleep tot hat nice, warm dream. He stands straight with some clanking and gives his singed hair a petulant and confident toss. A dimpled chin lifts as he regards Sir Gareth and Taliesin. "I have had enough tricks from this place. We have no choice. We will have to approach all of this from another way. If we cannot best the forest, then we must threaten it and gain its help." He lifts his voice, "DO YOU HEAR ME, FAE FOLK?!" He shouts angrily. But, he's also reaching out with his mind to see if there ARE any intellgent brains to force under his command.
*
Darkness collapsed on itself reveals the soft, inky forest. No sight of the man where the fading cloud once was. Behold some nice trees and scraggly ferns poking their fronds through the cold soil. What trace of him remains is little. The campsite has been tossed a little, packs looked over, but it seems like 'Sir Percival' knew exactly what he was looking for.
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 49
*
As Taliesin arrives at the fire, having covered a couple dozen feet in ground-eating strides, he's worked off some of the edge of remaining ire. Not only that, but Sir Gareth makes an excellent point. The singed ends of Argrivaine's hair are distantly noted, filed away as fodder for another terribly ditty poking ghastly fun at the proud Knight, but the Master Bardd is in no mood to pluck strings and sing merry tunes.
Unless it's to the fall of whomever rifled through their packs.
"Agrivaine, what are you — never mind. Sir P — " He stops himself with visible effort, clearly needing to fight emotion over cool logic in the face of being caught obscenely off-guard by this thieving interloper. "Whomever that was has the rosewood shard." He lifts up his clenched fist, narrowed eyes incandescent with flinty amaranthine color. "I have their aural fingerprint, a taste of whatever dark method they used to escape us. Give me not a minute and I'll attempt to trace the path he took. We are getting that sliver back," he snarls, teeth flashing in the lower light.
Rolling back his shoulders, Taliesin then closes his eyes and tucks his chin slightly. The air around the closed fist roils with visible inverted-light, shadows contained by a limn of silver-blue, and the Mystical compass within his mind spins, its arrow attempting a true north of the feckless thief.
*
Gareth draws up short at Agravaine's singed state. For a moment, he's about to inquire of it, but then the other knight's rage is evident and he decides to hold his tongue. He shakes his head as Taliesin gets to work, and begins to pace to limber himself up after the spell assisted sleep. He frowns after a few steps, adn then resumes, and any watching might notice his hips had a bit of sway to them before his pause.
*
Tigra leaves, heading towards RP Nexus [O].
*
Tigra has left.
*
Maximus fusses at Taliesin, "By all means, cast your magic. I am trying to get this…nature…under control. By next nightfall…all of this will be orderly and under my command!" He boasts, such as Knights do…particularly when they know they won't have to actually back that up, alone.
*
A call sings out into the enchanted woods, for this is Cat Coit Celidon. Were another wiser soul here, one who might smile thin and ragged at Taliesin, he might tell them this is the Forest of Madness. A place so old that even the trees remember times gone long before mankind, and recall the great battles of the fae amidst their primeval presence. One of those splits away, treading a path in a blaze of ephemeral green, a caged flame in the woody heart. It looks human only in some senses, and clearly is not. Twigs twist into a crown of sorts, and the wooden frame is supple rather than creaking. "Who calls?" The words are only above a whisper and feminine. "Why do you disturb my repose? I care not for mortal matters, knight."
Shadows of darkness are something which Taliesin and Gareth might chase, naturally. Measuring them is an agonizing event, all said and done, given the pattern isn't linear and the speed of travel exceeds Taliesin's speed on foot, even mystically enabled.
*
ROLL: Wanda +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 56
*
With a shudder of the mentally-visible compass needle that nearly shivers in complaint, he has a distant sense of where the demonic tracery travels and opens his eyes. His face turns in that direction, testing the veracity of his spell, and his brows dip down sharply again. Gods below, the predictability of the beacon is hellacious to track; it keeps skipping about madly, jumping what might be miles at a time for each traveling.
His cheekbones show visibly for the consternation and grinding of his teeth. Taliesin glances over at Agrivaine, ready to throw an equally-fussy if not even snide comment back in his face, but the sudden presence of something summoned by the Knight's powers gives him pause. He lowers his fist slowly, eyeing the entity with plain caution and suspicion. Vines woven tightly to form thick tendons and semblances of bones gives it form and from within, a pale green light shines, pulsating in the mimicry perhaps of a heart.
"Well, it's a good start, Agrivaine. Go on then, ask the creature for help." While the Knight deals with what he's summoned up, the Master Bardd is going to keep attempting to pin down a precise location for the rapidly-shifting beacon. A Gate might be in order.
*
"Ohhh…I am Sir Agravaine, and you will do as I bid. You and this whole forest are about to care. The heel of civilization comes down! You…and all your forest friends, are going to find us that sliver of rosewood that was just stolen from this place, or we will raze this place to the ground. And that's just the start of it. After its burned down, we will put down farms, and cities, and fill in all the memory that this place was ever here. There will be NO NOOK for any creature to hide in. There will be NO MAGICAL HILLS and no singing trees. There will be /rock/, and progress, and the humming nonsense of humanity taking the place of chirping birds. And don't think that I won't, creature! You have this one chance to lead us, peacefully, to our goal, or I will roast sprites on a spit for my breakfast!" Maximus, in any age, does have a knack for monologues. He lifts his hand and sword for dramatic effect into the air.
*
One wink and the shadows vanish into an inkstain wreathed by the infernal, that stain more and more diluted where it tangles with the warping magic of the Celidon Forest. Taliesin's efforts are herculean and yet something tampers with his talent to devise his way through, diluting his bard-given talents some, even as he tries to thread a needle through a jumble of threads put together by a deranged feline.
"I am a dryad, knight. I do not leave my forest." All those old tales about the fae hold a variety of truths and lies, common knowledge and hearth wisdom. The wood-sister stares at him, the voluptuous arcs of her body forming an hourglass no woman made of flesh can manage, in part because she doesn't need to digest actual food. Eighteen inch waistline? Pfft, what a massive pine. Her hands rise to punctuate her words. "Such threats when you are travelers and guests are unseemly. A sliver of wood might I provide you and send you on your way but no wood of the rose tree grows here, and never has."
Trees rustle around her. She tips her head. "Already you are too late to catch the brother of your flesh and metal bark. He takes the White Woman of Avalon from the trees. I hear the screaming."
*
"Squirrels…" Agravaine points at the ground, "Shit on you. They shit all around this forest. And piss. So this…shit-piss forest…that's what you have." Agravaine is clearly distressed and hungry and he's had enough of nature and its been…24 hours. "We need to /catch/ that man and save that woman. Can you show us the way?" At the end, he tries to be polite. He can appreciate her glowing wasp-waisted elegance and her situation. Probably…he shouldn't be the diplomat.
*
ROLL: Strange +rolls 1d10 for a result of: 9
*
ROLL: Strange +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 45
*
Hrimhari arrives from RP Nexus.
*
Hrimhari has arrived.
*
While Argrivaine attempts to play Be Diplomatic With the Angry Forest Creature, the Master Bardd tries to block out the sound of the Knight's voice and the leafy-whisper of her replies. His eyes shut again as his face scrunches in extreme concentration. Gods below, it's like trying to catch a fish in fast-running water; he keeps getting a grip only to have it slip away again, clearly with an advantage due to natural inclinations to its environment.
"Wait, screaming?" The dryad's words bring the Pencerdd back to the present with a rude yank. "The White Woman of Avalon — …oh gods." His mouth goes dry as he looks to Agrivaine. "She means Lady Viviane. No time to lose!"
Attempting to lock on to the distant unpredictability of the thief, he raises his other hand and quickly inscribes a circle in the middle of murky forest air. A crackling Gate opens up, its locale hinging loosely on the faint beacon's location, and Taliesin is quick to leave behind the dryad, simply because it's bound to the forest proper and this thief is far beyond it now.
Out onto a ledge he steps and he's quick to stop with an "ACK!" and accompanying yank backwards of the scarlet-cloth shepherd's hood that chokes him briefly for its abrupt movement. Shards of rock and pebbles skitter down a very rocky slope. Before him spreads a valley; the ledge is high enough than one wrong step means a looooooonnnnnng and gritty tumble down the corresponding slope.
"Agrivaine!" The Master Bardd calls over his shoulder, looking through the still-open Gate for any sign of the Knight.
*
"What. Are you. Doing here?"
The voice is familiar, and belongs to a knight in emerald armour, with antlers on his helm and a cloak of leaves draped over his shoulder. He bears a large, single-edged battleaxe (that looks as though it was grown rather than forged) in his hand, and stands there on the ledge to which Taliesin has just Gated.
Behind the Green Knight is a portal of his own — like a garland of leaves and vines — that slowly fades away. "Are you following me, Minstrel?"
*
The dryad needn't deliver scorn when her expression is rampantly inhuman, her movements opposite those what someone might expect. "The knight is tired and bitter in his waking hours. Hazelnuts would ease your gripes." A curl of fingers to palm shows the ripening bush a distance from their camp, green light twinkling 'round it. "I can." A pause will follow with all Taliesin's shouting and flapping about, for in her eternity, this concern is not anyone's to rush.
Agravaine has about a moment before a very strong, wooden palm shoves him through the gate while grasses on the other side sprout out of cracks in the goat path to bind him fast so he doesn't go toppling over the ledge and forty feet down onto some pointy rocks.
*
Maximus doesn't need to be hinted at more than once. Ok. that's not true. Sometimes he never takes the hint. But this time, he does, and there's a little shoving, but he's mostly willingly following Taliesin to the edge of the world and certain danger and OH GOD A PRECIPICE! He tries despserately to look put together on the other side of this, and valiantly puts himself between the green knight and the bard, even though there's no actual logic supporting his belief that he can do much to defend the other man versus…being shoved off a precipice.
*
And then there's a Knight in his face! And a Knight stumbling in front of him and why is everyone stumbling, what in the Seven Hells?!
"ACK! Agrivaine, what — " The scarlet-cloth hood has to do more pulling and, again, chokes out the Master Bardd shortly in order to keep him from ragdolling down the slope to his doom. The Gate collapsed the moment after the bold Knight with the broken feather stepped through and thus, Taliesin presses himself against the nearest verticle surface of a gathering of boulders.
With a short sigh, he glares over Agrivaine's shoulder at his foliage-hued acquaintence. "I'm doing precisely what needs to be done and that's not following you, despite your lofty expectations," he says tersely. "Though maybe you can be helpful after all, oh Verdant Dandy." Bardd is ignoring large battleaxe entirely. "Did you see any sort of maligned creature travel through here? It would have left sulfur and displaced air in its wake."
*
The Green Knight goes silent for a moment, ignoring the elements (they are on a mountainside now, after all), and finally glances from Taliesin to Sir Agravaine, and then back to the Bardd.
"Thou art confused," says he laconically. "May name is not 'Verdant Dandy', String-Plucker. I am tracking… a demon. It stole something — I know not what. The trail led me here." A pause. "The sulfur and displaced air could have been thee."
*
Behold, a windy valley scoured by airy lashes, and a deep gouge cut from the gentle pine-clad forests. Well below a scree of boulders and treacherous gravel lies some kind of path paralleling a swift river headed for the sea, not passing through much greenery. It's a narrow, miserable place left wailing in the cold. The drop-off lacks for a nice landing point.
Agravaine may be chuffed to know there is lots of moss, however.
No one appears to be leading horses down there, however.
Instead, a pale girl in a white samite robe stares up at them from a ledge. Her coltish knees point forward, her arms crossed over them. "Oh, names, names, names. Sir knights, your cause is lost. Turn back, to spare your lives. There is no way forward that ends well for any of us."
*
ROLL: Maximus +rolls 1d20 for a result of: 9
*
Agravaine rattles his sword and lets out a AHHHHHHH!! sound of humorous frustration. "What is going on?! Who are you?" He asks of the Green Knight. "And who are you?" He asks of the woman just chillin' on the ledge below them. Then he yells at Taliesin for no reason, "What did you do, I had that entire forest in the palm of my hand!" Cuz he did not!
*
Taliesin's eyes, still faintly a-glow with Mystical power considering his continual subconscious attempts to home in on the beacon, slit at the Green Knight. "Oh-ho-ho, your woodness is showing, good Knight. Please, please keep giving me reason to fillet you upon the strings I pluck, I beg you." Toothy grin is toothy. Then Agrivaine is yelling and the Pencerdd wrinkles his nose, absolutely unused to anyone raising his voice at him in an angry manner. I mean, truly, most times, everyone's cheering or laughing.
"Agrivaine, you did not have that forest under control, stop. She was set to poison you with mushrooms, for all you know!" Holding up an imperative hand, he leans over the edge and looks down to see…gods below! "Agrivaine — Knight, move!" Sliding past him means shimmying between hard rock and metal armor and then he's even darting around the Green Knight, though he does shove…just a little. Just a testing amount. Just in passing, promise. "Lady Viviane!" He's attempting to make his way down to where the white-growned young woman sits so blithely.
*
"That is not a forest in thine hand," the Green Knight tells Sir Agravaine with a frown, and then spins around to look at Viviane, and his eyes go wide. Glancing sidelong at the Bardd, he retorts:
"Begging is for nursemaids, but it doth seem to come naturally to thee…" and with that he leaps down the mountainside, slowing his fall with conjured vines.
*
Agravaine may not make it without exploding or being slapped. You know. Sometimes a man just needs to be slapped. He is definitely descending into freak-out. And then Taliesin is just…going down the ravine like it isnt full of rock-slidey limp noodle doom without having FIEM ZII GRON prepped or anything. AND THEN Green Knight jumps down too and all he can think is that they are going to all fall and he's going to be here on the precipice all alone. All alone. He drops to his knees, safely, peering over the edge while he looks for their way back up. He will absolutely micromanage every foothold.