THE PATHLESS WOODS - PART 1

[goneawaymod]

the pathless woods

PLOT DESCRIPTION
Far to the west, deep in the mountains, there is a forest where none may tread. Superimposed into the wilds, it has only grown wilder. But these once-quiet woods are peaceful no longer. A town built around an iron foundry is encroaching on the wilderness, enraging the spirits within.

Complicating matters: many refugees of the Go-Away war have been taken in by the town's residents, relieved to finally stop their wandering through post-apocalyptic wasteland. They have now made it their home, a place free from Jorgmund's de facto apocalyptic wage enslavement. Some have also been altered by Stuff and have no chance of refuge in the Livable Zone.

Meanwhile, Jorgmund is eyeballing the resources of the forest and wants the New Hires to exacerbate the conflict and convince the humans within to move within the Livable Zone ("for their own good, you see;") to allow for "resource acquisition." The New Hires must choose whether to stay in Jorgmund's good books, and if not, must decide whether to try to mediate the conflict, choose a side, or face the deep, dark dangers of the woods to find two lost people that some of the spirits believe can act as a bridge between two worlds.

All the while, they must fight off "demons," corrupted forest spirits changed by rage and hate. These demons can be influenced by the rage and hate of the New Hires as well.

SCENARIO

As they're driven to the drop off point, the tinted, reinforced windows of the transport vehicles gives them occasional glimpses of but it's not what they might have expected. Thought some areas are burned from fires that ran out of control, this wasteland isn't filled with scorched earth, just the skeletons of buildings slowly being retaken by the wild, trees growing through cracked concrete, vines swarming the outside of abandoned buildings unchecked. Some areas look like spherical chunks were suddenly carved out of reality, sometimes bisecting buildings. Water collects in these hollows in glittering pools that are ringed with moss and flowers.

The price paid for this life renewed was far too high, but the wilderness cares nothing about prices or unfair trades and retakes what once belonged to it faster than it might have in the past, due to the reality-warping influence of Stuff. There are no people in sight. The land is filled with bitter ghosts.

Soon that becomes literal. They start to reach areas that aren't much more scorched than the rest of the world, but there are still remnants of the war that have wandered away from battlefields, the way even the rural countryside might have some errant zombies after a zombie apocalypse. It starts with people in gas masks and military hazmat suits reaching for the convoy as it passes. The drivers blitz past them without stopping, long since used to hazards like this. People in the rear vehicles will see what happens after the first vehicle in the line ignores them - the gear collapses in on itself all of a sudden like no one is wearing it. In other areas driver-less tanks gather in herds like animals, scattering and driving away when the convoy gets close, as if skittish.

They are let out once the roads become too rugged for the vehicles, near the rocky hills they're meant to traverse. They're told the range of the rig's sensors, the outer limits they can go to before the collars claim their lives instantly. For this mission, the range had been extended to about 60 miles instead of the usual 50 because of how far out the settlement they're supposed to contact is from the rig.

The drivers are considerate enough to warn them about Stuff monsters in the countryside, telling them to be on their guard, and to be very careful of who - or what - they trust, because things that seem human often aren't.

Then they have to start a long march and don't run into much trouble until they get into a small valley in the hills in the late afternoon. A caravan of people driving oxen, laden with supplies, is trying to get them through a narrow gap mountain gap. The group is an unusually mixed group, some of the individuals look as if they've been changed by Stuff into something fantastic.

Some Stuff is in the air in this area, mostly solidified but still fluid enough to wreak some havoc. The group, fearing war or running from it, sometimes have their fears projected around them. Waves of unreality occasionally sweep through, briefly plunging everyone into murky strips of time that are shaped by the idea of war. Nothing gory but filled with the pale shadow of it - bullets zip through the air, there's chaotic yelling in fog that's suddenly appeared, the ground is rocked by explosions - but then each strip of unreality passes or can be escaped by simply charging a few steps forward.

What stays consistent in reality or in these strips of unreality is that the supply caravan is under attack and only armed with massive shoulder mounted flintlock rifles. The group will find they can speak to them, that they've suddenly been granted knowledge of a slightly archaic form of Japanese, the common language the mixed group speaks, just like some of the New Hires randomly learned English upon exposure to the rig for the first time.

If they can get the caravan to the mountain gap ahead, they'll leave the dangerous valley behind them.

Some of the threats the group must contend with that are there both inside and outside the weird strips of unreality:

a) demons

The corrupted forms of great beasts of the forest, these massive creatures have been changed to demons by their rage. They scuttle around the group extremely fast, the corruption forming spider-like legs, attacking aggressively, the squirming dark worms on their bodies killing any living vegetation it touches.

The more rage the New Hires feel fighting them, the faster and more powerful they are, as if it fuels them.

If any of this corruption touches someone, it burns right through their clothes, creating a bruise-like blight on their skin, a situation they'll have to find resolution to later - or they'll die.

Many of these demons were once boars but a few are massive deer, their pronged antlers squirming with corrupted essence. They at least can be killed but it will take multiple attacks that actually reach the beast under the corruption to finally put them out of their misery. Once killed, the great beasts have all the flesh dissolve off their bodies until only bones are left. They curse the humans with their dying breaths.

b) Flamethrowers

Not soldiers, not people, these entities are like moving statues of cracked calcification that looks like pale ceramic. Between the cracks in their skins, roiling yellow-white flames can be seen sizzling inside. They attack by getting close to people or grabbing them and suddenly stoking their internal fires so that the flames scorch whoever is near.

They can be killed if the fire is extinguished - fortunately there are streams and other sources of water around the battlefield due to a recent rain. They can also be killed if enough force is used against them, but it takes a lot for the ceramic to crack. If it can be broken or damaged, then they collapse in on themselves and burn away into gray ash.

c) Artillerymen

Phantom soldiers shoot artillery fire from a distance. Fortunately, it is weaker than real artillery, with less fragmentation, but a direct hit can still kill you. They fade and vanish when someone gets close, without needing to even be killed, but their weapons need to be destroyed or new soldiers will coalesce out of the mist and use it again.

d) Samurai

The samurai seem to have the ox drivers and their handlers especially afraid, looming out of the mist to attack with their blades and arrows and fading back into it again. They can be killed if characters are fast enough or get the timing right by attacking and forcing them to reappear in another spot. Fortunately, their movements are somewhat predictable.

OOC DETAILS
➤ This is a multi-part plot. Later parts will involve speaking to npcs in Irontown and deciding how to handle the whole conflict.

➤ Characters will have both canon gear (and clothes, if they prefer it over their field uniforms) and the wilderness supplies described in the gear section of the game mechanics page. They will also be allowed to have canon weapons they came in with or will be given a weapon they're comfortable with.

➤ Feel free to ask questions in the question top-level below.

Comments

[garmr]

general

Guts finds himself guarding the rear, feeling most comfortable with an eye on the oxen and the other Hires ahead of him. He seems calm enough with his role of lending a hand to anyone who might be lagging a bit behind, be it an ox driver or Hire finding the steep rocks a bit too slippery.

For the first time since arrival, he has also donned the black plate mail of the Berserker armor, though the added weight doesn't really impede his hike up the mountains much. For those with magical inclinations, it may be possible to sense that the artifact is cursed - an ominous thing that spells an ill fate for whoever wears it.

spooky monster preamble

In the middle of a particularly narrow pass, Guts stops and turns around, as if spotting something. A sharp pair of eyes may notice the rune on his neck, ordinarily a simple scar, is now seeping out a thin red line of blood.

His eye is fixed on the treeline of the hills behind them, perfectly still except for the sudden jerk of leaves in the distance.

"Something's coming."

aftermath

It could have been demons, or artillerymen, or a mix of them that turned the precarious line of supplies into a chaotic battlefield. A brief and terrible explosion of violence that leaves the caravan a mess, strewn apart by the latest attack they'd managed to fend off. A few oxen had been tossed off the cliffs (inevitable in the narrow strip they were attacked in) and it's now their task to try and get the survivors up and moving again.

In the midst of it all, Guts will approach one of the Hires with something in his hand that had been lost in the battle. Perhaps it was a lost weapon or ammunition dropped in the heat of the moment - he just recognizes it as having belonged to this particular individual.

"I believe this is yours."

[greyerrant]

Loken is standing over a slain demon, chainsword idling. He looks at the proffered gladius, and his voice rasps through his vox emitter, far less smooth and calm than the last battle they shared.is

"Yes. My... blade. Yes."

He takes it back almost roughly, his movements a trifle jerky, as if fighting his own enhanced body to come down from the kill-urge that fills him and then almost whispers.

"Thank you."

[garmr]

Guts picks up on this while looking down at tense movement in Loken's hand. He's not exactly a stranger to mid-battle bloodlust, but the Berserker armor forces him to be more tempered.

He occupies himself reloading his cannon arm, figuring Loken just needed a moment to gather his senses. It's all very archaic with its powder and roundshot, but sometimes a thing that has a big explosion is all that's needed to melt off a demon's face.

"Somethin' ain't right about these monsters."

A little dirt gets kicked over the last of the writhing worms as they evaporate.

[greyerrant]

"Demons." He says, the word dripping contempt and barely concealed anger. He swaps magazines in his bolter, doing something similar to what Guts is doing, though a slightly more technically complex version.

"I've... seen too many demons."

He does not elaborate, simply smoldering with barely suppressed anger.

[garmr]

That's definitely some demon-related trauma in his large friend over here.

"You okay? There's going to be more of these things."

The faint, ambient sting of the brand assured him of this. Maybe they wouldn't be ambushed now, but there's no doubt that more would find them.

[greyerrant]

That information seems to focus Loken. Well, sort of. "Then I shall kill them all." It doesn't seem like boasting. Just a statement of intent so firm it might as well be fact already. He stows his weapons, returned and reloaded by mag-locking them to his body.

"Not that I would say no to help."

[garmr]

"The company owes me more black powder when we get back," he responds in kind, certainly not one to deny Loken a demon slaying buddy. He's only meant to use this thing sparingly, but circumstances require otherwise. Ah well.

"You ever see any demons like this?"

Once the bones are dry of flesh, he feels comfortable examining it with his dagger, prodding at the bones and dead earth beneath it.

general

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday whistles as she looks up at Guts in full black splendor. "Damn. Who'd you kill to get that suit?"

Something radiates off it, something subtle and rancid as meat just a skosh past the expiration date. It doesn't feel right, somehow; feels like she keeps catching the eyes in the strange wolf-hood looking at her. It's hard not to stare right back. Hostile magic always puts her on edge.

She doesn't like seeing it on Guts. Maybe it shows in her face.

[garmr]

"It's a gift from a witch. It can be a pain... but it's useful in a fight."

When he looks down at Saturday to greet her, he notices the slight unease, and knows where it is probably coming from. He's been warned enough times already about the armor's curse, but trudged along anyway.

He's still alive, and isn't that enough proof that it won't turn out the way everyone expected?

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday narrows her eyes, glaring at the armor for just a moment. She could swear she heard someone laughing, in the back of mind.

"Magic, then? Feels like the bad kind." She surveys the armor again, metal fingers itching. 'Ni-chan doesn't like the armor, either. "You know what you're doing with it?"

[garmr]

"Yeah."

Sort of. He hadn't thought about it too hard because the situation had yet to get so dire, but Guts isn't entirely sure how he'd call himself back if he had to use the armor.

"I usually have a magic user with me to help keep it tempered. This time around I'll just have to do it myself."

He'd almost done it, last time. All he has to do is push a little harder...

[wheyoftheadept]

"...an' you've done that before, right?" Saturday is giving him a very suspicious look. He sounds like her when she's about to do something real dumb. But there's dumb and there's dumb, and the black vibes off that metal are something she'd hesitate to put on for anything short of an apocalypse.

"Some things do cause too much friendly fire to be practical, y'know. You're gonna be a unit."

[garmr]

"..."

No, he hasn't. His brief silence should say that much. Guts figures he will eventually have to contend with this fact if he was going to wear it into battle without his guide.

"If the situation gets bad enough that I have to use it, then I want you and anyone else around to get as far away as possible."

[71lines]

"Mm? Oh." Well, she'd been using the rifle in the fight. Up until it had run out of ammo and she'd broken the buttstock over a phantom samurai's head. She takes it and slings it over her shoulder, letting it hang with the bow she'd... appropriated. "Thanks, Guts. You see if everyone else ended up okay?" She was pretty sure that they had, but Tenten hadn't done a full headcount.

She had been scouring the narrow area for intact arrows to go with that. Not a lot of luck, honestly, but there were a few here and there. And she wasn't squeamish about pulling them from corpses.

[garmr]

It isn't often Guts gets to glimpse a literal ninja go full tilt on some enemies - it was nice to have some companions to fight with. He fell back on his own ranged weapon of choice - his repeater crossbow. Just turn the crank, aim, fire a bunch of arrows into people's eyeballs.

Unfortunately, the bolts he had were far too short to lend to her, so he'll join her in pulling out whatever arrows could be scavenged from corpses and dirt.

"Just some nicks and bruises on our end. Two of the oxen got lost over the cliff," he says it unceremoniously, rather used to counting up casualties after a skirmish like this.

[71lines]

She'd be just fine with throwing them, but Tenten's not going to pester Guts about that. He needs them more than she does, after all. Besides, a crossbow would have better penetration. Even that little arm thing.

She makes a mental note to ask him about his arm when they get back.

"Two oxen would be devastating for a family, but for a bunch of merchants like this?" She shakes her head, bending over to pull an arrow out of someone's eye socket. It's barely even enough to mention. "At least we ended up with people who know how to handle themselves."

[garmr]

"Not bad for a group of villagers. Makes you wonder how they put this all together."

Podunk townspeople don't often have the ability to hold their own against monsters. Whoever the leader was had trained them well.

As for his arm - it's build is skilled for a medieval blacksmith with no machining tools, but crude by any modern standard. He forwent a gun to keep the bow and cannon, old-fashioned as it may be. It's what his hand knows best.

A corpse is rolled off another one lying beneath it - this one has an arrow or two sticking out of the ribcage. Well then. Time to start pulling these bad boys free.

[71lines]

"Ninja or samurai training, I'd guess. Probably samurai." As rare as those guys were, their teachings would spread better to people who couldn't harness chakra. And if any of these people could, they would've. "Still, they would have done better to hire some ninjas."

She leans down and pops one of the arrows out, then tosses it over her shoulder with a noise of disgust. Cracked shaft. The other one, though, is just fine. She tests the setting of the head, gives a satisfied nod, then wipes the gore off on the ground before tucking it into her belt. She'd get a proper quiver later.

"You know, for ghosts, there are some really boring arrowheads here. You'd think that they would have died with their good stuff." Maybe they were looted, though. But who would loot a ghost, wonders the girl with looted weaponry.

[garmr]

“Not sure about that. I didn’t see these samurai make use of any guns like they did. Lot more arrows and swords.”

Those rifles really did make a difference here. Lighter than the cast iron cannons he knew but not quite as alien as Jorgmund’s weapons. Instead of every spare merchant or villager getting a polearm they had one of those guns.

Not that he was complaining. Facing down an army with rifles would be much harder than The cozy familiarity of mowing down spooky horse archers.

[credit_not_blame]

"My shoe!" Stacia says, delighted. Just because she can run and fight and climb in her low wedges doesn't mean that they'll stay on her feet in a mad scramble. "Well, aren't you just a regular Prince Charming!"

She takes the shoe out of his hands and leans against a rock to put it back on.

[garmr]

Guts does not consider himself a prince nor charming, so his hand will unceremoniously fall back to his side. Do werewolves even need shoes? This is the first time he's been traveling with one.

"Let's not stick around too long," he says, trudging on ahead over the boulders and dead bodies.

He was right at home bifurcating rows of samurai and getting spattered with blood alongside her, but another rear ambush wouldn't be good for the caravan.

[credit_not_blame]

Stacia stomps her foot to make sure her shoe is on securely (or at least as securely as it can be) before trotting after Guts.

"Are we just leaving the bodies?" she asks, glancing around at them. "Shouldn't we bury them? Or at least not leave them on the path?"

[garmr]

He looks down at the body he was about to step over. Getting rid of the corpses laid in his wake was never really a concern for him, but it would be a problem if it spooked any oxen.

So, considering her suggestion, he nudges one corpse off the edge of the cliff into the abyss below. The one useful thing about being in a narrow mountain path, he supposes.

Guts glances back to check if there were any living stragglers behind them. At first glance he had thought that he'd seen the last of the caravan go on ahead, but he could have missed a merchant or two in the crossfire.

[credit_not_blame]

"...I can't tell if you're not big on talking or if you're annoyed with me," Stacia says as the body tumbles away. "Is this about the fact I ran off? Because I was running off to get a good sniper position, not because I was abandoning everyone."

[garmr]

“No, I appreciate you watching my back. Fighting all bunched together would be bad on a narrow road.”

It was a little weird that she’d chose the back line with her abilities but - hey, that choice is up to her. He’s not going to stop her. It’s easier for him to swing a seven foot sword around when someone else wasn’t in the way. That was part of the reason he liked hanging at the rear of the caravan.