The Great Golden Hoard Game Thread

[Valesse]

Waking just early enough to see the brilliant colors of the rising sun, Valesseka quietly started to put together her pack stealling careful glances at the sleeping Gondorian. If she was careful, she could be a hour or more ahead of the nobleman before he could make his breakfast. Éomeléo could stand some more sleep, she figured, smirking to herself. For his beauty rest and my wealth.

Sneaking small bites of stale bread, Valesseka hurried northward away from the river and out into a vast field billowing like the angry waters of the sea. The wind had picked up noticably as she ventured into the plain, which made the burning sun more tolerable. It'll be a shame if that Lord goes a different way... She huffed, hair blowing down in her face, forcing her to quickly forget about her previous thought. With a growl she man-handled it back behind her ear just in time to be hit with a blast from Manwë.

"Gracious!" She gasped, the wind was taking a turn for the worst, and walking was starting to become more laborious than it should have to be, especially with her sail of a skirt. To add insult to injury she could feel her precious face burnning with the intense gales of wind, so the girl hastily pulled her wool shawl over her head and close to her cheeks. Relieved for a moment that she would be able to save her complexion from the elements, Valesseka sighed and continued further into the plain. But her relief was short lived.

Surging again, a mighty gust forced the Arnorian to check her balance, and in the process carried off her shawl. Valesseka squawked loudly and chased after the run-away article as fast as the terrible wind would allow. Just out of reach each time she bent down, or tried to pin it with her stave, the shawl took to the air, then tumbled across the ground only to be tossed in another direction. Valesseka became more and more infuriated at the thought of loosing what would be one of her capes. There are mountains coming! Mountains! I -need- this shawl! I can't give it up! She also knew the longer she chased it around the plain, the longer Éomeléo had to catch up with her... or that the other adventurers had to get toward that treasure, and this, simply, was unexceptable.

Swallowing hard, Valesseka pulled her throwing axe off of her hip and waited for the shawl to tumble on the ground again. Wincing as she did, Valesseka threw the axe soundly onto the shawl, making an alarming gash across a corner, but none the less pinning it to the ground. Mournfully she pulled the axe off of the shawl and put it back on her hip before examining the damage. It would be alright... if one could ignore the gash... scoffing at her own impulsive rescue, Valesseka carefully wraped the shawl around her head and shoulders before pinning it to the rest of her attire with her prized brooch.

Valesseka was sure this meant that she earned herserlf an good sound meal, though cursed that the wind and her poor packing ensured that this was impossible. She would have to settle for jerky.

[Thinlómien]

Thin-Gloomy was on a better mood than he had been on in ages. The journey to Rhûn had done wonders to him. He was much more fit than before the journey, his normally pale skin had got some colour and though he was still thin, he was not as sickly skinny as he had been. And though he was gloomy like always, the idea of a great treasure awaiting him gave him new strength, mentally as well as physically...

North, north, I wander north, Thin-Gloomy hummed an old dwarvish tune with his own words, There will be a great golden hoard, and I will be the last man there. River will drown me, wood will cheat me, knight will beat me, beast will bite me...

Thin-Gloomy's song stopped suddenly. Beast will bite me indeed, he thought. He had arrived to a river's fork and saw a huge bear fishing there. It was so concentrated in its food that it didn't notice the dwarf. Thin-Gloomy backed slowly and silently. He did not wish the bear to hear him.

Had I noticed it earlier, I could have driven it way by simply making so much noise that it'd have run away. Now it's too late and there's only one of me and I'm too small to scare it away, he thought, remembering the beorning Barlath who had told him that bears were actually timid creatures and feared humans. And best not to make it angry, by making noise or shooting it, Thin-Gloomy decided, it might have cubs around hidden somewhere and then I'll certainly die.

I guess I'll only wait then. It can't fish all the day, Thin-Gloomy decided.

Hours proved him wrong. The bear seemed to be a clumsy and a stubborn one. It caught only one fish, but didn't give up. If it continues that way, it'll be night before I can continue my journey. I must do something...

Thin-Gloomy walked back to the woods he had come from. He didn't go very far, though. He collected some dry wood and lit a big fire edged with fist-sized stones. He hoped the stones would prevent the fire from spreading further and setting the whole wood in fire.

The trees blocked all major winds, but the air was still moving. And it was moving towards the river fork. Thin-Gloomy climbed to a tree and spied the bear. It had started to grow restless. It had certainly smelled the smoke. Thin-Gloomy climbed down and add more wood to the fire and threw fresh leaves into it. Like the dwarf had expected, there was even more smoke from the fire. He coughed; it was difficult to breath this close to the fire. He climbed to the tree again. The bear was gone.

Now there's only the future forest fire to be put out, he thought. The river fork was too far away for him to carry enough water to extinguish the fire, so he had to wait it to die away by itself. Even though he watched that it didn't spread and threw the water in his waterskin to the middle of the fire, he had to wait for more than an hour before he could continue his journey.

He crossed the river fork from the shallowest spot and refilld his waterskin. He hoped the still slightly smouldering remains of the stone-edged fire wouldn't be able to spread to a forest fire.

[Nogrod]

Novgorod was marching straight on through the grassland with fair speed and in high spirits. The sun was shining, and not regarding the low-lying shrubs, the terrain was easy to walk. Suddenly he ran into an area of familiar blue on the ground. “Blueberries!” he shouted and ran to the bushes, laying down on the ground and guzzling the sweet and ripe berries. He just loved them, had always loved.

But soon he came to think of continuing with his journey. I’ll not leave these to anyone else to pick. I’ll have to carry as much I can with me. With that he took a quick glance around to see what there was to make a basket or other kind of vessel to carry the berries. His mother had taught him how to make different baskets when he was young and he still thought he could make one from almost anything.

There were a couple of birches and poplars but they were too stunted to produce any reasonable quantities of bark for the purpose. That was sad because birch-bark baskets were both easy and fast to make and solid in use. He would have to come up with something else. He studied the shrubs with a keen eye. The stalks were thin and had just a little of broad leaves in them. The grass was knee high and had thin spindly stalks. These will have to do, Novgorod thought and took to his task.

First he searched four thickest stalks from the shrubs and cut them to different lengths. Then he took them one by one to be pre-bended. His mother had taught him that that way the stalks would slowly learn and get used to their new form and would then settle to it at will. He took a stalk with both his hands from the middle and started to bend it easily, being careful not to break it. He did all this in rhythm, moving his hands slowly farther away from each other with every bending until he reached the end of the stalk. Then he re-performed the operation. After he had handled all the four he left them to rest for a while.

Next he gathered some of the youngest and thinnest shrub-stalks to make strings for tying. He carefully gnawed the surface of the stalks to break it. This way the stalk would become supple and yielding. Then he rubbed them between his hands, twisted and turned them for a couple of minutes to gain more elasticity.

Now he had what he needed to begin the work. He went through the bending operation once again with the thicker stalks, but this time he went all the way through to bend them into a round shape, both ends of a stalk overlapping each other by a few inches. These he then tied up with the strings he had just made. Very soon he had four round circles of different sizes. The smallest one he put in the middle, the next in size around it and so on. Then he needed again some more stalks from the shrubs.

Novgorod picked four thicker stalks and eight thinner ones and came back to his framework. Carefully he slipped one of the stalks over the largest circle and then under the next one. This way he continued, slipping it over the third and under the middle-one, then over the other side of the middle-one and under the second, over the third and lastly under the largest one at the other side of the circle. He soon realised that he had not done this for a long time as it proved to be pretty difficult. The second stalk, that he threaded between the circles in a straight angle to the first one, proved even more complicated as the first stalk tried to move and go off its place as he was handling the second one. In the end he managed to slip the second through the framework and now it had nice cross-stalks keeping the circles at place. And as he had picked as curved stalks he could find, the basket was starting to get into a shape too. It was not flat, but a bit convex. After I get the two others in here, I’ll have to press the framework a bit to make the basket deeper, he thought, and performed the same operation with the two remaining thicker stalks, threading them through the circles from the middle of the triangles the two first ones had created.

Now the framework felt a lot more secure and threading the thinner ones in to the eight triangles the four thicker ones had formed was much easier. And the overall form began to settle too. It might carry, maybe three pints of berries, Novgorod estimated. That could just be enough...

Oh, if I just had some decent bark now! He thought disappointedly as the framework of the basket was ready. It would be so easy to just cover this framework with them. Well, no can do... So he resorted to a different version of a basket. He ripped a whole lot of grass and carried them to his basket-to-be. Then he took them a small handful at a time and threaded them over and under the stalks he had slipped through the circles. The first handfuls were pretty loose but as he added the stuff, they started to hold more firmly and in the end he had filled the holes between the largest circle and the one next to it. Soon he had all the holes covered and the basket was almost ready.

I need something to carry this with... Novgorod went again to the shrubs, searching for pretty thin but long stalks. In the end he had what he wanted. He moulded them to yield as earlier, but this time he plaited them into a real rope of a kind as it would have to take on the whole weight of the full basket. Then he attached the ends of the self-made rope to the brims of the basket and tried how it bore. That’s okay. It’s not a masterpiece but will do for me.

Novgorod had spent almost an hour with all this and felt he was in a hurry again. He emptied the bushes quite fast and filled the basket with the ripe and succulent Blueberries. The few remaining berries he stringed into a long stalk of grass, like he would have been making a necklage from the berries.

Carrying the basket and every once in a while slipping a berry or two to his mouth from his “berry-grass” he continued his walk, singing the little song the dwarf had taught him years ago. He was in even better mood than he had been at noon. The sun also, was still shining.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Éomeléo woke up and immediately realised that Valesseka was gone. She was clearly an early starter. Getting slightly worried, the Gondorian assembled a hasty breakfast and started to jog northwards. If he was going to sleep more than any of the other adventurers (and this was practically a given) then he would need to travel faster than them by day.

It was a pleasant country to run in. Vast plains adorned with all sorts of undergrowth. Éomeléo knew that there were mountains in his future and knew that he would have to get there posthaste to stand a chance in this hunt.

The day passed, and Éomeléo was doing fine, but in the afternoon, the further north he went, the conditions changed. Grey clouds formed and the wind picked up. Pretty soon it was whipping poor Éomeléo like an abused dog and he whimpered pitifully as he jogged. He then slowed down and marched.

He was perked up by a previously unimaginable instance of horror: the wind had stolen his feathered hat, and was carting it off into the distance! Yelping in despair, Éomeléo burst into life and gave chase. The wind was always that little bit faster than him, though. Every time he got near to his hat, the gales cruelly snatched it back. Realising that the Lords of Weather were privy to the workings of harsh twists of fate, Éomeléo attempted to formulate a plan as he ran. At first he thought of shooting the hat with his crossbow, but it is fact that the young Gondorian is not the best shot even in good conditions, and so the success of this method was far from guaranteed.

For about 10 minutes of chasing the hat, Éomeléo could think of no better idea. It was then that he noticed he had entered a particularly busy section of undergrowth. Sensing the presence of numerous animals, Éomeléo paused. Just like that, the hat seemed to pause too. He picked up a small stone and threw it into a very large bush to his left. All this accomplished was to send a single rabbit scuttling away out of sight. There was another way, though; it was something that Éomeléo had often done as a child in the gardens of Gondor. He would enchant them with the music of his ocarina. He had always believed it worked by magic and his parents had never discouraged this belief.

So he played. He played for about a minute, and he even began to think the hat itself could be charmed back, for it seemed to dance about, and move closer to him. Soon enough, the music attracted the presence of several animals. There were rabbits and ground-birds, and a couple of very large hares. One rabbit spied the brightly-coloured hat, and shyly moved towards it. Pretty soon, the hares spotted this, and bounded onto the scene, scaring the rabbit away and catching the hat. They jumped onto the top, crushing it slightly, and then Éomeléo made his move. Silently adjusting his crossbow, he calmly shot the hare, piercing both animal and now-motionless hat.

The animals scarpered, and Éomeléo finally retrieved his hat. Ignoring the suggestion that the hat had been caught in a new swirling wind in the slight dip of the land, Éomeléo praised his magic ocarina, and set about finding some water to wash the hare's blood from his hat.

[Sleepy Ranger]

Ransley was making his way silently in his chosen direction, one hand resting gently on the hilt of his sword. "Stupid Eoln..." is all he could think of as he moved forward. He had by no means made any attempt to hide his hate for the elf. Along his path he had carved, "Eoln is a sissy elf." into various things. It wasn't long till he arrived at a river. The bank would be a perfect place to carve another message for the stupid elf. He drew his short sword and dropped to a knee and began to carve 'E-O-L-N I-S A S-I-S-S-Y E-L-F'. He then seathed his short sword as he rose back to his feet.

He streched his arms and looked forward. "That's interesting..." he thought as he noticed a yellowish-brown bear fishing on the opposite end. He looked at it for a while, fully aware that the bear too knew of his presence. The bear however kept fishing, seeing no reaction Ransley decided to cross the river but the moment he put a foot into the water the bear turned to him and growled. "Ah... how damned." thought Ransley as he withdrew his foot, careful not to look the bear in the eye.

He begin to move into the river slowly and steadily, both hands away from his swords. No point making the bear think he was a threat. Animal evasion came natural to Ransley and a bear was an easy one. He knew well enough it would be a waste of energy to charm a beast such as this when he could just get away from it in a snap of his fingers, not literally but around that easily. He took a deep breath and repeated the steps in his mind, "Walk backwards and away from the bear slowly, keep speaking calmly and loudly and do not look into its eyes." All check.

He would need a way to get across though. He had not thought of that, luckily there were a couple of thin tress on the bank. He did not want to but had little choice at present. He drew his sword and cut one of the thin trees from the bottom, letting it fall diagonaly across the river. He fell a few more and placed them the same way forming a makeshift bridge leading diagonally away from the bear. "Here goes..."

Ransley put a foot onto the bridge, he was aware that his steps would have to be quick and light and all the while he would have to concentrate on not looking the bear straight in the eye and speaking calmly and loudly. The odds were not quite in his favor, just how he liked it. So he began, barely letting a foot touch the ground as he made his way across. Looking at the bear but not into it's eyes while speaking calmly and loudly, "I am only an illusion, pay me no heed. Go back to your fishing as I vanish into the distance. Look at yummy salmon, mmm tasty, go on and reach in. Pick one up and take a bite."

By now Ransley had reached the other end of the river, the side where the bear was. The bear had still not diverted it's attention from Ransley just as he had suspected but it was no need to worry all he had to do was keep doing th... oh damn... the bear had started to advance towards him. Well there was still no need to worry, plenty of trees around. "If thats how you want to play you big lagoot..." He drew his metallic sheet. "Come and get me."

Ransley ducked behind a tree as the bear approached him, turning away from the bear as it turned towards him. He kept moving from tree to tree whenever he found an opening as the bear kept cricling each tree Ransley passed. A couple of minutes later Ransley had completed a complete circle and found himself behind the bear. Not exactly something he had wished to do but the bear just did not seem natural to him. It was trying too hard, he drew his short sword as the bear began to circle the tree and impaled it in the top right corner of his neck taking a pot shot to his head with his metallic sheet after that.

The bear stumbled forward a bit and dropped to it's side. Ransley put the sheet back in his bag and moved over to the bear slowly. He searched around for and medicinal plants and then soaked them in the river. He then pulled his sword out of the bear's neck and pressed the plants against them. It was a tough animal, it would make it through. Once he was done nursing the bear he went over to where it was fishing and found a few salmon there. He picked them up and dropped them down near the bear. "You'll need these, champ."

He smiled at the bear and went back to the river drawing his short sword. A few fish wouldn't hurt him either. He waited there for a while and caught a good number of them himself. He looked them over, almost twenty of them. He grinned and placed just one in his bag. "They spoil fast, this will do for dinner." He then went over to the bear and dropped the rest of the fish by it. "You'll need these too, champ." To his surprise the bear raised his head and nodded letting out a low growl as to say thank you.

Ransley nodded back at the bear. "And remember Eoln is a sissy elf." With that Ransley headed off, continuing his journey till nightfall.

[Naria]

Narleah wasn't in the best of moods this day. The suns rays were relentless upon her head and her floppy hat provided little relief. It was extremely hot, making Narleah more and more miserable with every step. "Bah, is this treasure really worth all of this?" She scowled. Soon she came upon a thicket of berries that looked to have been cleaned out of its supply. "Aye, I wonder who or what has been here....and not too long ago either." She pondered this for a moment. Narleah figured that the culprit must have been the one that introduced himself to her as Novogord the night before. She was not at all impressed with the carnage that took place and kicked the bush in front of her. Almost immediately berries fell onto her foot and rolled to the ground. Narleah was very hungry and wanted desperately to eat some of the swollen fruit.

She took her hat off to examine the situation and give her head a scratch, "hmmm of course, this will work!" Holding the hat out in front of her. Narleah knelt down to take a closer look at what the bushes held for her and spied a copious amount of berries hanging from the bottom. "Ah ha, he didn't take all of them." With an evil grin on her face, she tasted one, then another and another. "Mmmm so good," smacking her lips together she filled her hat. Narleah groaned, "This will not do, I am so hungry and these will be finished before I leave here." She needed to fill her belly and just then a thought occurred to her, I am small and these berries are lower to the ground, I wonder if I were to lay down and pull myself under them. She lay on her back and pulled herself underneath the thicket. "Yes, this will work just fine" She said with a proud tone in her voice. Narleah was so close to the berries that she didn't even need to use her hands, she just raised her head off of the ground and began plucking the berries off with her teeth. If someone had not seen her wiggle under the bush, one would have assumed that a boar or a small bear was in the thicket gorging itself. The sounds that Narleah was making was horrendous, loud slurping, slapping and gulping noises as she swallowed each mouth full. She was having quite a time in her blueberry world.

A large belch escaped her belly and Narleah was satisfied. She wiggled her way out of her feeding den, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve as she picked up her berry filled hat and continued on. However, what Narleah did not realize was the mess on her face. She had blueberries everywhere! The pulp and skins were caught in her teeth, beard and hair; not to mention the juice, it was all over her skin. Narleah looked like a hairy blueberry, she was oblivious to what she looked like, nor would she have cared, and set off into a now setting sun.

[Valier]

The sun began to set on the second day. The wind was dying down and the adventurers began to settle down for the night after a long day. One traveller did not move that day, Galadster felt ill from the sun on the first day and decided to stay put at his first camp till he felt well enough to continue. (did not finish in 36 hours)

Night 2 has now begun, You have 24 hours.

Players please pm me your votes for your daily favorite, these are due in by the start of Day 3 (24hrs)


Players that may converse are in groups as follows...


Group 1
Eomeleo
Valesseka


Group 2
Thin-Gloomy
Ransley


Group 3
Galadster


Group 4
Glirdingo


Group 5
Narleah
Novgorod


Group 6
Kafkalina



All players that are in their own groups, may not converse with other players on this night, players in the same group may chat away....