(Skyseas of Gensokyo) Nazrin Quest (Part 3)

[Oldmansour]

>Search in a southeasterly direction.

[DracoOmega]

>Search in a southeasterly direction.

>You follow the edge of the slope to the southeast. The terrain beneath your feet is still fairly rugged and uneven, though navigable, but the steep incline remains to your left for some time. Eventually the hillside starts to curve to the right as part of the hill sweeps out in sort of crescent. Soon you find yourself traveling more south than southeast and then nearly west. At this point, a section of the slope to your side flattens out, giving way to a broad gentle rise. The hillside beyond this remains steep, making this section almost a sort of valley cutting into the hill.

[Oldmansour]

>Which direction would that gentle rise take us?

[DracoOmega]

>Which direction would that gentle rise take us?

>It appears to extend generally east-southeast, although you can't see the lay of the land beyond a short distance.

[Oldmansour]

>Move that way, then, see if it takes us around the hill a little, if nothing else.

[Hanzo K.]

>Be sure to examine for anything that looks out of place too.

[DracoOmega]

>Move that way, then, see if it takes us around the hill a little, if nothing else.

>Be sure to examine for anything that looks out of place too.

>You move towards the area where the hill flattens out somewhat, keeping your senses sharp for things which seem out of place. While the rise is relatively gentle, it continues to steadily ascend as you walk. The hillside to your left remains fairly steep, though glimpses of the upper reaches that you can see through the trees suggest the slope is far from uniform. You might be able to find a way up if you probed for one.
>After a little while, the ground around you starts to slope gently downward. You think you may be able to emerge on the other side of the hill if you keep going forward. You can detect a faint scent of spider in this area - not enough to suggest one is closely present, but enough to make you suspect that some have passed close by relatively recently.

[Oldmansour]

>Is the scent of spider the only sign of their presence in the vicinity? No webs, no... signs of feeding?

[DracoOmega]

>Is the scent of spider the only sign of their presence in the vicinity? No webs, no... signs of feeding?

>Nothing that you've yet seen.

[Oldmansour]

>Can we determine the scent was going to and/or from the top of the hill, or over it?

[DracoOmega]

>Can we determine the scent was going to and/or from the top of the hill, or over it?

>You couldn't really tell where they were going without physically tracing said route, and even then it might be a vague thing.

[Hanzo K.]

Well, you guys think we should try to track it?
I got a feeling it might lead us to something important, or useful at the least.

[Oldmansour]

It's worth a shot. We've got nothing to lose by trying, anway.

[Oldmansour]

I'm going to assume that you have no objections, Purvis. Or anyone else, for that matter. So, with that...

>Try to get a bead on that scent.

[Hello Purvis]

As long as it doesn't lead us too far off from our nebulous goal.

[DracoOmega]

>Try to get a bead on that scent.

>You start to wander the local area, trying to narrow down a potential trail the spider might have taken. This proves fairly difficult, as the more prominent scent you've been tracking competes with it, as well as what are likely numerous older trails through this area. After several minutes of sweeping the vacinity, sniffing at trees and bits of ground, you think you pick up the more immediate path it walked along. You follow it for long enough to get a general idea of where it was going. The trail seems to extend south-westward in one direction and roughly northward in the other. You can't determine which way the spider was traveling.

[Oldmansour]

>What lies in those directions, as nearly as we can tell from here?

[DracoOmega]

>What lies in those directions, as nearly as we can tell from here?

>Northward leads to where the hill slopes up, while southwestward leads back in the general direction you came, although angled somewhat more to the south. From your current position, you see nothing obviously notable in either direction aside from changes in elevation.

[Oldmansour]

>'Somewhat more to the south.' Would be more or less in line with the farmsteads, or Easthaven proper?

[DracoOmega]

>'Somewhat more to the south.' Would be more or less in line with the farmsteads, or Easthaven proper?

>You have no idea how steadily the spider kept to that direction beyond the immediate vicinity, and you are too far into the wood to know what lies exactly in that direction in any event. It may well miss most of the pasture, and it certainly is not angled far enough south to reach the village itself.

[Oldmansour]

>Mark this location in our memory, then follow that trail south. At least until the trees clear enough to let us see some ways, or until we see something interesting.

[DracoOmega]

>Mark this location in our memory, then follow that trail south. At least until the trees clear enough to let us see some ways, or until we see something interesting.

>You do your best to mark this location in your memory, as unnotable as it is, and follow the trail south. This is quite slow going, since there is little visible evidence of its passage, and the scent trail is subtle enough that you often find yourself needing to do course-correction when you realize you've drifted off the mark. The is little sign of the trees clearing, nor do you see anything unusual along the way. The trail does start to wind after a several minutes and becomes even harder to follow - you think it may have looped around on itself at one point - but you could continue following it if you wanted. It seems to be heading more southeast at the moment.

[Oldmansour]

>Produce the twine, wrap a piece of it around a tree, cut it with a kunai and tie it off. Landmarks, yo.
>Does the scent appear to be strengthening or weakening as we've traveled?

[DracoOmega]

>Produce the twine, wrap a piece of it around a tree, cut it with a kunai and tie it off. Landmarks, yo.
>Does the scent appear to be strengthening or weakening as we've traveled?

>You use the baling twine to tie a visible marker for yourself on a nearby tree.
>It seems fairly similar, particularly given its vagueness. The sort of distances you're dealing with here are unlikely to be enough for the scent to have decayed at your starting point noticeably either more or less than at your present location.

[Oldmansour]

>Continue southeast for a bit more.

[DracoOmega]

>Continue southeast for a bit more.

>You continue to follow the trail southeast as it wanders about. Several more minutes pass without sight of anything more exciting than a squirrel and a blue jay.
>The trail is starting to get more confused now. You think several different spiders have walked through this area in the last little while; it's increasingly difficult to tell trails apart.

[Oldmansour]

You may have been right, Hanzo.

>Can we get any sense of how long ago a little while was?

[DracoOmega]

>Can we get any sense of how long ago a little while was?

>Somewhere between hours and a day or two, most likely.

[Oldmansour]

>Can we determine if the disparate trails were going in roughly the same direction?

[DracoOmega]

>Can we determine if the disparate trails were going in roughly the same direction?

>You believe they were going in different directions, although it's not always easy to cleanly separate them.