quest log | wilder training

[faileas]

Who: Those who signed up for the High-Risk Quest "Wilder Training"
When: 08/09 to 08/12
Where: A camp on the south-western edge of the Wilde.
What: From the quest information itself: "Outside of the recruitment, the Wilders are also offering training for anyone who'd like it regardless of bonds and experience. They'll be taken into a safe, slightly infected area in order to hone skills of magic (both Witch and Monster based), how to handle different weapons available, have lectures on things to look for in the field, and finally a test to see what they've learned. No notes allowed."
Warnings: None in the log post itself; if anything comes up, let us know, and we'll make sure to add it here.

The Way There

The training camp party gathers just outside of the city's walls before the sun begins to rise; once heads are counted and everyone is accounted for, Yvette Tressa - the same Witch who led the expedition into Smugha Cave - will start the march through Dead Man's Land, following the river. It isn't quite dark at this period of dawn, the bare landscape painted a washed-out blue by what small light there is, and as the sun settles into the early morning sky they reach their first destination - the edge of the Wilde. Rowboats large enough to fit five or six people (or a few significantly larger people) bob gently up and down where they're tied, the runes marking around the area marking it as protected by a barrier; keen eyes will notice these are the same as what the Wilders and the Coven have been setting up around Smugha Cave.

The party is herded into the boats and sent up the river into the Wilde, the boats gently rowing themselves against the current. The trees of the Wilde have slowly, almost imperceptibly, been shifting to a new color as summer turns into fall outside of it: browner and fully dead, with fewer leaves hanging from their branches, as if winter has finally come. The air is also significantly cooler the deeper they row into up the river, the breeze a sharp string of cold when it blows, and several Wilders shiver despite their being used to it. The journey is a quiet one, the river ducking out of the Wilde when the sun is at its highest point - the area is changed from the familiar fields around Aefenglom around this small bend, with dozens of flowers waving their faint scent in the still chilly breeze. No two flowers look the same, but the boat ride doesn't stop there: it continues back into the Wilde, leaving the sweet smell behind them.

The sun is still visible where they dock, noting it as a little later in the afternoon; further ahead, the river splits two ways, and it's to the left side the party will be guided. As they come upon the split's left side, the trees begin to thin in a way similar to the area around Smugha Cave, their branches cleaned up and the start of infection scraped from their sides - and then abrupt barrenness as it becomes clear just what the trees now suddenly missing have been used for: A fortified camp, well-protected by its high, sturdy wooden walls, the tops of them sharpened to a point. As the party draws closer, runes of protection are easy to notice, carved line after line in the thick, wood logs.

Training Camp: Sauf

Located on the edge of the Wilde (the red dot; the navy dot is Smugha Cave, for a point of reference), Sauf is a fairly large camp equipped with all of the basic necessities. Used year-round for various training exercises, Sauf is home to around twenty "permanent" residents - that is, those who have volunteered to stay the year - and otherwise hosts trainees, instructors, researchers, and so on. Look-outs are positioned all around the camp's edge, manned by at least one pair of Wilders, and a large communal fire pit sits in the middle of the camp. The main entrance is on the south side, with smaller ones located on the other three sides.

The north side of the camp is where characters will find their living quarters for their weekend stay: large, sturdy tents designed to hold several dozen people comfortably. Given the Wilde's chill, these are kept toasty and warm through the use of small piles of heat stones similar to the larger ones found in the city during the snow last month. Also on the north side is the mess hall, where characters can get some grub or hang out and mingle with their fellow trainees, mirrorbound and native alike.

The east and west sides of the camp are where the training takes place. Each side has a different function, however: the east side is for more individual-based training, with dummies and moving targets, both magically-repairing, and instructors, while the west side is for arena-based training - that is, fighting one another. Any type of match-up is considered fair and reasonable, and fights go on intermittently over the days, as does betting.

Finally, the south side of the camp is home to the meeting hall, a large stone building; while not currently in use, it remains an important fixture nonetheless. The healer's wards are also located here as two tarped areas that hug both walls, which provides medical help for those coming in or who have been injured during training, and protection for those venturing out.

I. A Primer On Witches


In addition to weapons training - which, specific to Witches, comes in the form of long-reach weaponry such as lances, quarterstaffs, or halberds - they offer instruction in spells that come in handy while needing to defend oneself and others in the Wilde.

• Abjuration 1: Barriers, shields, alarms.
• Abjuration 2: Healing (both lower level and advanced courses), dispels.
• Alchemy 1: Potion-brewing for healing draughts, magic draughts, potions that can cure basic ailments (poison, paralysis, sleep).
• Alchemy 2: Arrays to create on-the-go bombs (palm-sized) of the offensive and smoke varieties, weapons of various types, all from materials able to be found around and on oneself.
• Conjuration 1: Temporary camps (tents and campfires), various magical weapons, food and water (not very filling nor hydrating, essentially as a just-in-case thing).
• Conjuration 2: Living creatures such as animals and insects, a variety from the harmless/watcher-type to more offensively-based ones.
• Divination 1: Scrying on the fly using pocket mirrors, running water as a medium, speaking with animals (sometimes not extremely helpful given their lower intelligence).
• Divination 2: Finding magic via a scavenger hunt, how to enter a dream-like trance to access the subconscious and interpretation of signs found there.
• Enchantment 1: Charm spells that work against either humanoids, Monsters, or animals, which make the target more friendly or a straight-up ally; some target will know they've been charmed.
• Enchantment 2: Strengthening spells such as for physical, mental, or magical power, as well as elemental imbuing for weapons and other objects.
• Evocation 1: Single-target elemental spells and how to control them, particularly fire and ice for the latter, with elements also including earth/stone, water, lightning, and wind.
• Evocation 2: Multiple-target elemental spells with the same instruction and types as above, as well as multiple-target healing spells.
• Illusion 1: Visual illusions (people, animals, items), larger illusions (areas, buildings, bigger varities of aforementioned types).
• Illusion 2: Audio illusions, how to tie them together with visual illusions.
• Transmutation 1: Transforming oneself or one's items and back again, as well as mending minor objects.
• Transmutation 2: Transforming other people or other people's items and back again, as well as how to do it sneakily.

II. A Primer On Monsters


In addition to weapons training - which, specific to Monsters, comes in the form of short-reach weaponry such as swords and axes - they offer instruction in the special traits and perks each Monster has, particularly ones that come in handy when defending oneself or others in the Wilde.

• Arachne: Speed/jumps and web-spinning, either as traps or in use as rope, whip, etc.
• Chimera: Fighting blind and/or deaf to avoid charms, illusions, and curses.
• Dragon: Breath abilities, both how to use them and the finer points of control.
• Fae: Creating illusions and seeing through them, with a heavy focus on landscape and areas rather than creatures or objects.
• Faun: Plant growth, with a focus on naturally revitalizing plants and ones with more offensive uses, such as bomb-nuts and carnivorous flowers.
• Harpy: Singing lessons, as well as flying lessons with the use of wind magic should one have it.
• Merrow: Water magic, with an experimental focus on purifying it for drinking or bathing purposes.
• Naga: Speaking to water and empathizing with it, as well as instruction on the proper and ethical usage of hypnosis.
• Puca: Impersonation practice, with shapeshifting into someone they know or see and mimicking their voice and way of speaking.
• Turnskin: Sense training, particularly smell and hearing, with the use of blindfolds.
• Vampire: Casting thralls, and proper measures to take against the sun.

III. Partnering Up


Skills and spells are both useful while out in the Wilde, but one's biggest asset is their partner - or partners, plural. The Wilders will pick at random two or three people to partner up and do a variety of things in order to build trust and clear communication, such as your ordinary trust-falls or a game of telephone, as well as things that might be a little more on the side of seeing just how far they can go: clothes-switching (you don't know a man - or Monster - until you've walked a mile in their shoes), taking care of an inanimate object together, and being connected to one another for several hours, courtesy of some enchanted pair bracelets that won't allow their wearers to move more than a foot from the other half of their pair.

Outside of that, they'll be offering up the opportunity for those without Bonds to try temporarily Bonding to whoever their eyes land on first (with a quick, non-ceremonial shot of silver liquid), as well as fighting together against other pairs or tamed beasts (with or without the Bond) in the arenas.
IV. A Little Exploration


On the final day of the weekend training excursion, everyone is once again gathered - this time for the test promised to them. It isn't a pen and paper test, however, but one to test how well they've retained the training offered to them. In the early morning, the group will set out north-west of the camp; the path begins well-trod, but overgrowth soon begins to get underfoot. Patches of frost begin to show up as well - perhaps it's the Wilde's odd season at work.

Or perhaps it's something else.

Entire trees are encased in ice, their branches looking like arms reaching out or twisted around themselves; the bark resembles faces, with hair curled to their chins, and while some may have the sinking feeling that appearances might not just be appearances, the humanoids frozen mid-stepping from similarly frosted trees may all but confirm it.

Dryads, frozen in time, the Cwyld dark and trapped beneath the ice - or maybe those are remnants of the fire that was an attempt at culling the infection before it could begin. Some of them are cracked and broken, their limbs lost, while others are perfectly preserved.

There won't be too much time to stop and stare, however; this is a test, and the enemies of the day become apparent:


• Ice wolves. With a chilly bite and a tendency to work in pairs and groups, it's worth doing just the same to take them down. Their paws are black and crusted with mud and Cwyld infection, their eyes bright and unseeing - and though they may be blind, the rest of their senses have become even stronger in response.
• Snow elementals. Large and actually made of a mix of ice and snow, their patches of Cwyld streak across their white bodies - it makes them easy to see in all the white, but gives them some resistance to the traditional use of fire to melt them. They primarily rely on ice spikes and other related magics, ut will throw a heavy punch if gotten too close to.
• Withered ents. Ordinarily peaceful, these normally massive moving trees are as tall as a one-story house due to hunching over from the cold and ice that covers them. Similar to the wolves, their large, gnarled hands are covered in the black of the Cwyld, but only one eye is the blind white that marks infection - the other is hollow and sunken in. Roots and heavy earth shakes are their primary skills, being otherwise slow to move, and they avoid fighting where there are dryads.
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Comments

[divineconfetti]

( to a shinobi, sight is a very important sense.

so to be robbed of it is like having a hand bound behind his back. or, perhaps, being without his prosthetic — a "one-armed wolf," just as the moniker the sword saint had given him declared. even before he had come here, wolf's eyes had been keen in the darkness, allowing him to track movement, discern the optimal paths of traversal or attack. now he is without that, cut away into a realm of dark.

but, when the wind shifts, he begins to understand. sight is an important sense to humans, yes, but to beasts — to a wolf, it paled in comparison to scent. he can smell the needles and sap and bark of the trees, the muted decay of the leaves underfoot, and, over it all, the beacon that was the scent of the target.

wolf carefully begins to stalk forward. he isn't sure how he will find his way through the trees. he is not expert enough yet to be able to know exactly where they are based on scent alone — for now, it is a compass, not a map. he makes his way towards worick slowly at first, occasionally feeling out his way with a guiding hand through the darkness. but then he gets too close, apparently, and his quarry decides to make a run for it.

a sharp, predatory thrill runs through wolf, instincts so sharp and sweet he has trouble suppressing them. he immediately lurches forward to follow, and the scent combined with his hearing (as his ears swivel to triangulate the footsteps) helps him divine the path worick is taking through the trees.

he's gaining. it's not perfect — there is an occasion where he partially runs into a tree, striking his right shoulder. he grunts, adjusts, and continues onward, determined and dogged. )

[neutralally]

[One thing Worick should have considered before bolting off - the noise that such an action would create. The rustling of grass and foliage is bad enough without the added factors of crackings sticks, skidding rocks, and the hard thumps of his shoes encountering all of it. Why hadn't he thought to take his shoes off? Stupid.

But then again, being the city boy that he is, this is the first time he's ever been in the cross-hairs of someone so animalistic. Guns, knives, fists, those are things he's capable of dealing with. Heightened senses, fangs, and claws? Not so much.

Still, he's quick thinking, and while he runs he begins tearing a small piece of cloth off the greater whole. This small piece he throws off to the side behind him, hoping it will be enough to cause confusion and allow him to remain in the lead.]

[divineconfetti]

( the owl had taught him that martial skill was only one half of being a successful and fearsome shinobi. if you could kill and do nothing else, you were little more than a butcher — no, shinobi found their strengths in their ability to disappear when eyes searched for them, for when ears strained, and how they could find others when they similarly wanted to vanish. he had still been purely human then, yes, but his eyesight had already been keener in the dark, and he had trained his other senses to almost preternatural acuity.

the senses of the turnskin, however, are completely different. it is almost overwhelming, like there was a tub's worth of sensory input being dumped down a narrow drain. it takes him a while to sift through everything. the scents of the forest, of the camp being carried along on the wind... it distracts him. once worick begins to quiet his movements, he occasionally has to lift the shred of cloth he holds to remind him of what he searches for, in the din of scents.

he is doing this when he comes across the scrap of cloth that worick had dropped in order to divert him. it certainly does do that; wolf's movements slow, confused at the "forking" of the path of scents. he begins to walk along the incorrect one, towards the discarded bit of fabric. but with every moment in this "game," he is learning. he senses how one scent is greater than the other, even though both begin to fade as seconds stretch on into minutes. he then abandons the incorrect path, veering back towards the first. his movements are steadily becoming quicker and more confident as he begins to piece together where the trees are by the smell of their bark and sap and how his ears can catch all of the sounds echoing through them in his ears.

with more time, he will eventually begin to gain and close in. and the wolf is a patient hunter. )

[neutralally]

[He can tell that his plan worked when he suddenly doesn't hear the sounds of the other man trailing after him. But it doesn't offer him much relief, only a little bit of time to plan his next move. If he keeps running, eventually he knows that he'll be caught. But if he switches directions...

He settles his gaze on one of the trees ahead and picks up his pace. Once near enough, he begins climbing up the side of the tree, using the strength of his arms and legs to push himself higher. There's not been a lot of need for climbing trees in the city, but he has had to scale the side of a building or two in the past decade. It's not so different.

Finally reaching a grouping of low branches, he places a ripped piece of the cloth among the leaves. By the time he's leaping out of the tree, back to the ground, he can already hear the sound of Wolf back on his trail.

Keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible, he creeps around to the opposite side of the tree and breaks away for another grouping of trees ahead. As the distance between them diminishes, making slower progress might be the only thing that keeps him from being revealed too quickly.]

[divineconfetti]

( following the trail inevitably leads wolf to the tree. he stops at its base, breathing slowly, deeply. a scent leads on, but it doesn't really seem to be the one he was meant to track. that one is not here, at ground level, so there is only one other option for where it could have gone. wolf's blindfolded head slowly turns up, and it's a little unsettling to see; he can't see anything still, but he gets the instinctual sense of what had happened.

verticality is usually of no issue to the shinobi. his prosthetic arm is equipped with a grappling hook, so it would be a simple matter to begin to climb the tree. but blind... not so much. it's a realization that stymies him.

and yet, he has to climb. so he does, very carefully. though the shinobi prosthetic had made this easier for him with its capabilities, wolf had been plenty capable beforehand. he makes his way up to the branch where the cloth was tied after a few long minutes of careful climbing (during which he only bumps his head maybe once or twice).

he reaches out to the source of the smell, drawing the torn piece of cloth closer to him. he realizes the trick that had been played; it was clever, as splitting the source of the smell into pieces was slowly making it diminish. that must have been why he missed it a moment before.

wolf drops back down to the forest floor, landing on all fours. it takes him a moment longer to reorient, finding the scent trail that worick had left in his wake as he left the tree and his diversion behind. he can smell it now, the scent of the target cloth embedded there, though it was weaker than what he holds in his hand now.

so he sets to following again, dogged and deliberate. except now he's thinking that the rules of the game are not so accurate; it's not that he's hunting the cloth now, so much as that he's hunting worick himself. )