[Let's Play] The Legends of Skyfall: Monsters of the Marsh

[deaddmwalking]

Half vote for clearing them.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to try to clear them as well.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, try clearing.

[Beroli]

You try to clear away the surface of the dam to reveal the lower section of the nearest mast. The packed mud is not hard to dislodge, and soon you are scattering handfuls of twigs, grass and other vegetation. When you are about three feet down, water starts to seep in, but you have reached a black band painted around the mast. A few more inches and, if there is a gold one below you will know this is from one of your father's barges. Indeed, as only the 'Doone Duchess' is missing the proof should be conclusive.

Bracing yourself, you heave a stout branch out of the way and there indeed is the gold band. Unfortunately this has set off a potentially disastrous chain of events, as the branch had locked the lower end of the mast in place and now the weight of the upper end, hanging unsupported over the muddy riverbed, makes the whole mast act as a form of lever to pry a large chunk of the dam loose.

Water floods in, under enormous pressure, and the dam starts to collapse.

Weakened by the section levered loose, the dam is starting to disintegrate in the centre. The whole thing is likely to go in seconds, releasing the pent-up water to flood down the bed of the Sol.

You approached the dam from downstream, not upstream. Your canoe is now fifty feet away at the bottom of the reverse slope, and you would be fortunate to reach it.

Try to reach your canoe?
Cling to a mast and hope for the best?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 12
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 9
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 3 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality).
Provisions: 9 days
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger

[Thaluikhain]

Cling to a mast.

[deaddmwalking]

Cling

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to cling to a mast.

[Beroli]

Clinging to the mast, you feel the dam collapse around you and are carried downstream on a wall of water. The mast has a pronounced tendency to roll over beneath your weight, and you have to discard your pack and belt, along with your weapons, in order to have any chance of survival. Roll E+4H; the result is 12, less than the 15 required, and you drown.

Rewinding...

Some instinct telling you that disassembling the dam even partially while on top of it would be a bad choice, you leave.

Return to your canoe, drag it over the dam, and head north?
Return to your canoe and head back south?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 12
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 9
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 3 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality).
Provisions: 9 days
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to drag the canoe over the dam and head north.

[deaddmwalking]

North.

[Beroli]

Above the point where the Luna flows in from the North East, the Sol is deeper but much narrower, and there are no further navigable tributaries joining it. Paddling upstream you travel a further twelve miles before you emerge from the Dunmarsh, then four more miles through pleasant grassy meadows until you reach the edge of Centaur Forest. (This journey takes eight hours but you can stop in the meadow for a meal, or indeed camp there safely for the night if you wish.)

The forest trees are mostly mature ones of considerable size, and you can see spacious glades and rides, extending away on both banks. The river is about two hundred feet wide and rather gloomy, as the trees on the banks stop almost all the sunlight reaching the water. The Centaurs who live here are renowned as fierce defenders of their territory, and few travellers have been permitted passage through the forest, even by water.

Paddle on into the forest?
Paddle down the Luna River?
Go back down the Sol to the dam?

Also vote on whether to eat in the meadow.

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 12
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 9
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 3 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality).
Provisions: 9 days
Travel time so far: 8 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed

[deaddmwalking]

Lots of instant death. Centaurs defending their forest sounds like a warning that we'll die if we do that. So half vote for Luna.

[JourneymanN00b]

I will also vote to paddle down the Luna River, and not eat at the meadow to save Provisions.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, to Luna, not eat yet.

[Beroli]

The Luna is a fairly deep, narrow river which flows out of the Eastern part of Centaur Forest by the small village of Woodbridge. From there it flows South West for four miles through pleasant rolling meadows before entering the Dunmarsh. After another two miles it skirts a high, upthrust crag, known as Dragon's Mount, and a mile further on is joined by a small stream from the East. Then it continues South West for twelve miles to join the Sol.

Stop to investigate Dragon's Mount?
Turn east along the small stream?
Paddle as far as Woodbridge?
Go back to somewhere you've been and do something else?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 12
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 9
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 3 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality).
Provisions: 9 days
Travel time so far: 8 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed

[deaddmwalking]

I think Dragon's Mount sounds interesting. Let's do that.

[Thaluikhain]

May as well.

[JourneymanN00b]

Sure, I also vote to investigate Dragon's Mount.

[Beroli]

The Luna flows around the North and West sides of Dragon's Mount, an upthrust crag of black rock which towers several hundred feet above the surrounding Dunmarsh. You have never passed this way before, but have heard ancient legends that it was once the lair of a mighty Green Dragon which roamed the skies above the marsh.

If there were any truth in the old tales, it would indicate that there are probably some fair-sized caverns in or beneath the Mount, and you wonder if they might have been taken over by the barge-pirates.

You paddle up and down looking up at the heights above. The sides bordered by the Luna climb almost sheer to the peak, but you can see the mouths of some caves up there. They look rather small for a dragon, and pretty inconvenient for storing cargo, but you suppose some form of hoist might be rigged.

A small unnavigable stream runs into the Luna by the North Eastern corner of the Mount, and apparently emerges from a cleft leading back into the far side of the Mount near the Southern End of the Eastern side. It has carved itself a narrow valley, lined with trees and bushes, along the Eastern side of the Mount, and stretching East and North from there is a large meadow. This small valley looks very muddy, perhaps churned up by the feet of beings carrying heavy loads? Even if not, the cleft might provide a route to an interior.

The waters of the river are deep here. You wonder if there might be an underwater route into the Mount, which amphibious marsh-dwellers might use. It would seem an awkward way to unload cargo, but you are a strong swimmer and should be able to manage an underwater reconnaissance. You have not noticed any particularly dangerous water creatures in the Luna so far.

Investigate Dragon's Mount more closely?
Go east along the small stream?
Paddle as far as Woodbridge?
Go back to somewhere you've been and do something else?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 12
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 9
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 3 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality).
Provisions: 9 days
Travel time so far: 8 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed

[deaddmwalking]

Half vote for east along the small stream. Assuming that's the cleft.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to investigate Dragon's Mount more closely, as I believe we need to check out this route to the end.

[Thaluikhain]

East via small stream. Underwater caving is not something to do on a whim.

[Beroli]

This channel flows from the Western side of a lake quite straight for nine miles until it joins the Luna about eleven miles from its confluence with the Sol. Travelling its length takes some four and a half hours. For most of this journey you can see a tall, solitary crag towering above the flat marshland. This is Dragon's Mount, which you know to lie on a bend in the Luna some few miles to the North East (and which you are traveling away from at the moment).

This lake is roughly square in shape, some four miles across. One stream flows into the North East comer and two channels flow out. One, on which you approached, goes West from the middle of the Western side while the other flows South East from that corner.

Navigating the lake will take two hours. There is an island in the centre.

Go down the northeast stream?
Go back down the west channel?
Go down the southeast channel?
Investigate the island in the center of the lake?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 12
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 9
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 3 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality).
Provisions: 9 days
Travel time so far: 12.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed

[Thaluikhain]

Investigate the island, I guess.

[deaddmwalking]

This small valley looks very muddy, perhaps churned up by the feet of beings carrying heavy loads? Even if not, the cleft might provide a route to an interior.

I feel a little lied to. They didn't discuss the mud or any entrance to the interior at all. Just '9 miles later'. I was hoping for a dry entrance to the dragon's hoard...

But since the moment has passed, let's investigate the island.