(Skyseas of Gensokyo) Nazrin Quest (Part 3)

[DracoOmega]

>How many Kunai do we have in our possession, in addition to the two we used on the spiders?
>Are we capable of flinging more than one Kunai at once?

>You have 3 in your possession, all of which were used during your last battle.
>You have two hands, so you're certainly capable of throwing two at once, although aiming for two separate targets at the same time would make it harder to hit either of them. Your aim is more precise with your right hand than your left in any case. Technically, you could fling more than one with a single hand at once, but at that point you wouldn't count on hitting anything usefully; you're a competent shot, but not a masterful one.

[Hello Purvis]

Yeah, but while doing, the spiders are very likely to take a lot more advantage of the situation than we are. We get a pitchfork, okay, and they get time to put out a lot more guards. And as I've reiterated several times, if we run into trouble and draw back, we can still do all of that and have that much more information to work with. The propose is to give up an advantage that is time sensitive and easy to lose for something we can literally do whenever we please. It's a poor trade of opportunity costs.

[Oldmansour]

Wow. That was quite a debate.
First of all, when Nar said 'three people', Purvis, I think he was including Kips, who managed to avoid this debate, but also wanted to fall back, as I recall.
Second of all, having had some time at work to consider the situation, I recall what Draco parsed when we were chasing the first little one. That we could have overtaken it had we wanted. I have no reason to suspect the bigger ones are any faster. Which means that if we get ambushed us again, and we decide to run, we can outrun it. And in military terms, it is best to have information about what you're preparing for before preparing, such as location and numbers. So here's what I propose.

We take a moment to rinse off our wound with canteen water, then go forward again, try and find the big source of scent. Along the way, we look about for more water. There has to be something in here - a brook, a stream, a gully, SOMETHING - that hasn't been contaminated, that we can use to refiill our canteen and wash our wounds more throughly. We probe deeper to try and find the lair, and find out just what we're in for. Assuming we find it before getting attacked again, we can decide then what we do from there.
BUT, if we get attacked again on the way to the lair, we fall back and regroup. I'm willing to risk being ambushed once more with the gear and wounds we have, but not twice. That would be pushing our luck too far.

Does that sound fair to everyone?

[Narouge]

rinsing off the wounds first is what i wanted to do. so i for it.

[Hello Purvis]

Forgot all about our poor Canteen. Let's do this.

[Hanzo K.]

I'd still rather pull back. But it looks like that ain't gonna happen unless we get swarmed, the way things are going.

[Oldmansour]

I'm not gonna let it get that bad, Hanzo. One more ambush is my limit, I'm not prepared to risk anymore than that. Not yet, anyway.

>Use some water from our canteen to rinse out the acid wound, enough to ensure the leafy bits are washed away, at least. Have a swallow if we have any left over.
>Once said wound stops stinging from that, rise and get our bearings.
>Set off towards the source of the scent, as near as we can determine it to be coming from.
>Look for any signs of water as we go, the sounds, the smells, anything we can associate with proximity to fresh water.

[Hanzo K.]

If you really think it'll work, go right on ahead.
Just keep in mind that sometimes, one ambush is all it takes.

[DracoOmega]

>Use some water from our canteen to rinse out the acid wound, enough to ensure the leafy bits are washed away, at least. Have a swallow if we have any left over.
>Once said wound stops stinging from that, rise and get our bearings.
>Set off towards the source of the scent, as near as we can determine it to be coming from.
>Look for any signs of water as we go, the sounds, the smells, anything we can associate with proximity to fresh water.

>You take out your canteen, and pour some water over your wound to rinse the dirt and other debris off. It stings a bunch, but you've almost sort of gotten used to everything involving your shoulder stinging at this point. It does feel cleaner once you're done, if nothing else, though the water the runs onto the ground is tinged unpleasantly red. You have a swig of some of what's left over.
>You give yourself another few moments, but figure that waiting for your shoulder to stop stringing is a lost cause at the moment. You get your bearings and prepare to move out.
>You set off towards the scent, at least as best as you can determine it at the moment, while keeping your senses peeled for water or more spiders. In stark contrast to the frenzy of a few minutes ago, the walk is without incident, and nearly as mundane as when you first set foot in these woods. It's almost enough to make you wonder if your encounter was something of an anomaly. Your lock on the scent remains much more vague than earlier, although you think you're still moving in more or less the right direction.
>After several more minutes of trekking, you hear the sound of running water, somewhere to the northeast.

[Oldmansour]

>That's a lovely sound.
>Change course towards the sound of water.
>Have we seen any signs of anything indicating something other than spiders living in this part of the forest?

[Hello Purvis]

>Do keep wary of possible ambushes and unusual noises.

[DracoOmega]

>That's a lovely sound.
>Change course towards the sound of water.
>Have we seen any signs of anything indicating something other than spiders living in this part of the forest?

>It indeed is a pleasant sound to hear at the moment.
>You change direction and head off towards the water.
>There are some signs of other wildlife in the area, yes. Perhaps scarcer than further to the west, but certainly not entirely absent.

>Do keep wary of possible ambushes and unusual noises.

>You've been keeping your senses especially peeled since the first spider encounter, and you're not about to let that slip until you're more comfortable that you're in the clear.

>After a short walk, you catch sight of the brook. It is a very tiny stream indeed, less than a foot across at most points, but it should serve your purposes. The water looks clear and unsullied by anything unnatural.

[Hello Purvis]

>Fill that canteen after making sure there are no bears around.
>While doing so, check around the stream, if it has proper banks. Any interesting tracks we can see?
>Afterward, have some good drinks, and wash our should again if we think there's any benefit to be hand.

[Oldmansour]

>Rinse off our kunai and face as well. And the burns on our leg and hand.

[DracoOmega]

>Fill that canteen after making sure there are no bears around.
>While doing so, check around the stream, if it has proper banks. Any interesting tracks we can see?
>Afterward, have some good drinks, and wash our should again if we think there's any benefit to be hand.

>You have a look around the stream to make sure it's unoccupied, then fill your canteen. On the whole, bears are actually something of a rarity in these parts, but it never hurts to be cautious.
>While doing this, you scan about for tracks. The are scattered signs of a few small animals having walked here, but nothing you would consider interesting.
>You take a drink from the stream. It's not the coolest water you've had, but it's still quite potable.

>Rinse off our kunai and face as well. And the burns on our leg and hand.

>While you're at it, you rinse off your face and the acid burns on your hand and ankle. Neither of them look very serious. Patches of skin are an angry red and a touch raw, but the acid didn't burn deep enough to have drawn blood except at a couple tiny spots - small enough that they've already basically healed shut.
>Next you rinse off your kunai. It takes a bit of scrubbing to get the spider gunk off of them, dried as it was getting. Wisps of murky blue swirl away with the current as you work at it. Still, they look much more respectable for your efforts. You dry them off on your shirt once you're done and stow them again.

[Oldmansour]

>Pocket two kunai, but keep the third one in hand. Just in case.
>Take a moment to enjoy the respite, the sense of knowing on battle is done but another is yet to come. Glad I didn't take you with me, Honeysuckle...
>Continue on.

[Hello Purvis]

>Hell, wash our face and hands, too. See how much spider gunk we can get off.
>After that, try to catch the smell again.

[Oldmansour]

>Let's not wash off too much. It might help disguise our scent from the rest of them, assuming spiders use scent.

[Hello Purvis]

I don't think smelling of spider gore is going to hide us any more than smelling like blood is going to hide you from most animals.

[Oldmansour]

Touche.
Disregard my previous post.

[DracoOmega]

>Hell, wash our face and hands, too. See how much spider gunk we can get off.

>You've done about as well at that as you're likely to get without proper soap. Your hands look more or less fine, but they still smell... pungent.

>Take a moment to enjoy the respite, the sense of knowing on battle is done but another is yet to come. Glad I didn't take you with me, Honeysuckle...

>You take a moment to savor the calm and the clean, feeling a little glad not to have accidentally dragged poor Honeysuckle in over her head. Talk about an initiation by fire...

>Pocket two kunai, but keep the third one in hand. Just in case.
>Continue on.

>After that, try to catch the smell again.

>You keep one kunai in hand in case you need to fend off something quickly, and then continue back to the south, trying to hone in on the scent. A few more minutes pass without event. There are a few conflicting scent trails in the area which make it somewhat harder to tell exactly which way it is you want to go; you think other spiders have walked past here, though it's hard to be certain. The scent is a little hazy here.
>And then the wind shifts and you get a distinct wiff of what you were following originally, from the southwest. You've actually moved past it, traveling north of your original route.

[Oldmansour]

>Does this location more or less correspond with the direction of the scent we were tracking in the first place?

[DracoOmega]

>Does this location more or less correspond with the direction of the scent we were tracking in the first place?

>Given that you aren't certain where you are now in relation to where you were then other than the scent, you can't really say. The scent was east of your first position, and southwest of your current one. Accounting for how you've moved in the meantime, this isn't obviously wrong.

[Oldmansour]

>Head that way, then. Slowly.

[DracoOmega]

>Head that way, then. Slowly.

>You head slowly and carefully in the direction of the scent. After a time, the terrain grows rougher than in much of the rest of the wood that you've covered thus far, with slopes becoming steeper than more frequent. If you had to guess, it's possible this may be the northwestern extent of the hills that rise up along the northeast of the pastures before they get swallowed by forest. While you're definitely approaching something, you still see no immediate sign of spiders for another couple minutes.
>As you move around a small rise, you think you catch the sound of legs scraping against bark, a short distance ahead of you.

[Oldmansour]

>Duck behind a tree.
>Crane our head round to have a look from cover.

[DracoOmega]

>Duck behind a tree.
>Crane our head round to have a look from cover.

>You duck behind the nearest tree, then crane your head around to have a look in the direction of the sound. You see nothing amiss.

[Oldmansour]

>Wait a few moments to see if anything appears.

[DracoOmega]

>Wait a few moments to see if anything appears.

>You wait a few more moments. The sound stops, but you still see nothing.

[Oldmansour]

>Sigh quietly. How vexing.
>Continue on, but give a wide berth to the area that sound was coming from.