Clearing the Trail[Plot][Closed]

[Orcleous]

Orcleous had finally regained himself and move to push back toward the center of the group. Most of the giant spiders seemed to be dead, but Orcleous still needed to keep his guard up. As Orcleous made his way to the center he heard the cry of Aegis. The mercenary turned and looked in his direction. It seemed that he was in need of aid. The spider monster seemed to have been knocked over along with a Aegis himself.

"This is bad", spoke Orcleous aloud as he began to rush toward Aegis position. If Aegis dies then they will get no pay, not to mention the whole trip would have been for nothing as nothing would have changed in the desert. Orcleous preferred to actually accomplish something when he swung his blade. Killing for the point was always better than killing for killing sake.

Orcleous rushed forward to Aegis position, but it seemed that he was beaten there by a knight he had noticed from before. "Pshaw, there goes my chance for a bonus", spoke Orcleous under his breath as he walked up to Aegis. As Orcleous walked up to Aegis he looked at Aethan. "Quick on your feet there sir knight", spoke Orcleous. His voice was devoid of any sign of malice, but Orcleous was a bit jealous he got to kill the monster that was going to kill their employer. When you do that kind of stuff you usually get paid more, or at the very least get better logging when the group stopped somewhere. Still it was first come first serve. If Orcleous wanted to play the hero and gain the respect of their boss then he needed to be around their boss when the fighting started. It was his fault for wondering off, thought that could be blamed on the spider monster that attacked him, and not positioning himself to gain an advantage. The swordsman offered the hero a hand as he looked down at the man. "Careful out here boss. We can't have you dying on us. You have a city to rebuild and we need coin to be repaid."

Orcleous thought the statement was appropriate for the situation, but then again it could come off as a bit rude. It really depended on who the person was. To Orcleous Aegis did not seem the uptight kind of person so he did not think the man would be bothered by the line.

[Kyle]

Kyle shook his head when the man offered him his healing tonic. He didn't want to be in debt to this evil man. That way he could face him later with no reservations. Slowly the injured pair hobbled over to the cart, staying away from the remaining spiders. Kyle then helped the man onto the cart and turned around to face the spiders. But. . . they weren't there, there was one spider left fighting, whilst the rest began to flee. He reached into his backpack and brought out some gauze for wounds, unrolled a swath, cut it, and handed it to the man. Kyle got him to the cart, he should be able to bandage his own leg. Kyle then tried to move his own arm, but it was feeling weak and it wouldn't move very far, and it was bleeding profusely, he was starting to feel a little faint as well. He pulled out his vulenary, poured a little on the bandage and tried to tightly wrap up his arm, it didn't go to well as he was losing blood and only had one arm to use. He only got it loosely around his arm before he reached into his backpack for the herb he gave people to slow down bleeding, before realizing that he was all out. Damn. He walked over to the cart and fell over onto it next to his dog, putting pressure to the wound, hoping it would slow down before it got too much worse.

[Ryuzaki]

"Thanks."

Ryu quickly wrapped his puncture, firmly and snugly insulating the wound. With the assistance of the vulnerary's healing solution, if he could take it easy for a little while he'd be as good as new, except for a nice scar.

"What... What the hell happened?" he said, looking around at the others. Most were in some form of pain, injured and battered. The corpses of the Bael surrounded them, and the air was no longer filled with the discordant sounds of combat. "Where... How... These things... They're not supposed to exist. How are they here? Where did they come from?"

Shaking slightly, Ryu looked around warily again, not trusting the landscape and expecting another wave of... something... to come charging at them. It was quite the frightening situation. Brr.

[Feren]

Feren's eyes narrowed at the display of magic. He didn't care much for mages... unless they were on his side. He made a mental note to keep an eye on that one. He noticed the creatures retreating but did not relax. Seeing his employer, and therefore his payment, in danger, he rushed to aid but was beaten there by the heavily armored man. He stopped and appraised the man.

"Can't say I see leaping, spider skewering knights often."

He let out a laugh before checking himself for wounds. He only had one gash to deal with and several bruises. He bandaged his arm before facing away from the group, focusing on their surroundings in case the creatures decided to make another attempt.

"Everyone alive?"

[Aegis Hawk]

As the two mercenaries helped him, Aegis made sure to observe. The first had been far less obvious about the reasons, but Aegis knew the kind well enough when they had both come to save him. At the offer of Orcleous' hand, however, he knocked it aside as he finally rose to stand. "Do not offer me help again...this journey is not for your coin, if you had any bit of smarts to you. Maybe you don't understand more coin comes from what this trip brings instead of how you line your pocket!" With a careful jerk to move away from Orcleous, he made his way back to the spider he had left his sword in. The Bael was still kicking for a moment before he put his foot on the creature, grabbed the hilt, and then twisted it violently to end its life. Pulling it free, he looked the bug-splattered blade over before running it on the Bael's corpse.

"Hopefully everyone is alive...and not thinking of their pockets instead of the damage the trip has sustained!"

The end of the sentence carried obvious venom as he shot Orcleous a look. The mercenary had become his center of frustration it seemed. The next thing on his list as he started walking was to secure his shield, his eyes examining the scene. The freaks were slain, but so were some of their horses. One or two were just outright missing. Once he had the shield slung over his shoulder, however, he finally sighed and spoke loud enough for all to hear.

"Forgive my anger...but the truth is that we need to find what horses we can. It appears one or two may be missing...four are dead. The cart is going to be cramped, but some of us will be forced to ride with the supplies. We can't all ride on the same horses..."

Finally, he moved back to where he had been knocked down, grabbing and lifting his axe to rest on his shoulder, his gaze setting on the city again.

"You'll all get your pay...don't worry about that. Worry about seeing that we all live long enough to drink and laugh about this."

[Orcleous]

Well it seemed that Orcleous had gotten on the bad side of his boss. "There goes my bonus", spoke Orcleous to himself as he stepped over to the side. Well getting on his boss's bad side was to be expected really. He did just act like a money grubbing mercenary, but then again Orcleous is a money grubbing mercenary. In truth he wondered why the man would think other wise. Who else would take such a crazy mission other than men looking to make a great deal of coin from it. Well who else other than that crazy red head guy. He hoped the poor fool was still alive. He really did not seem like the fighting type to Orcleous, but then again Orcleous did not seem like the mercenary type once you got a good look at him. He was still pretty young for a sell sword and Orcleous did not have the groggy mercenary face yet.

"I guess I will go find the horses", spoke Orcleous as he dashed off after one of the wayward beast. Orcleous still needed to do some patch work with their boss. He may not get a bonus, but he still needed him to put a good word out for how skilled he was. One thing that could make or break a mercenary was the talk between patrons. A good word from a patron would push you into a job that a man with skill alone could not get. Their is one thing to be known as a skilled warrior, but another to be known as a good mercenary. Mercenaries that make their patrons happy and get the job done are the mercenaries that become legends. Their names travel the farthest and their pockets are lined wit the most gold. To be famous, is the dream of all mercenaries.

As Orcleous followed after the tracks of the beast he made sure to keep his hand on his sword hilt and his eyes on the horizon. They had already been ambushed by giant spiders earlier and Orcleous did not want to suffer the same fate again. The world seemed keen on throwing every evil and deformed monster it had at the young swordsman. In Bern, he had fought zombies and later in the same year he ran into a dragon. Now he was up against giant spiders. Orcleous shivered at the though of what could be next on his adventures. "What is next a Cyclops", spoke Orcleous jokingly as he followed the tracks.

[Ryuzaki]

"Right, this is really creepy." Ryu looked around warily. Nobody was talking, one of the men had just run off to look for horses, and there were dead spiders all around. The spiders smelled, too. Like... It was an earthy, bitter smell. It cut through the air and stunk like nothing you'd ever imagine. It was awful.

Sighing, Ryu took out his weapons and began to clean them, using the hem of his cloak to polish them into a gleam. He then used his blade to look at his appearance, grimacing at the spatters of gunk all over his cloak. It would need a good soak in a river the next chance he got. He also looked at his leg. The vulnerary's solution had thankfully come into effect; the stabbing pains now were a dull throb, and the wound had stopped soaking the bandage with blood, although he doubted it was sealed yet.

"Damn, those things were nasty. I'm... Gonna go find something. Bye."

[Ryu exits]

[Kyle]

Kyle merely sat up as Aegis went on about gathering up the remaining horses and people's pay. Neither of those really concerned him, but anything to get along faster was good. He stood up holding his left arm tenderly trying not to re open the wound. IT hurt so bad he almost wanted to cry. Almost. Even with the potion it still was killing him, but he still needed to do things.

He began trying to heard horses closer to the wagons so people could grab them, but to little success. Sure some of them went close, but many just scattered towards the caravan. At least the ones in this area weren't moving away from the caravan anymore. He really didn't like the beasts, it was dreadfully uncomfortable to ride them and they weren't even that smart. Hopefully the trip wouldn't take too much longer on these things.

[Reid]

Reid's heart was still pounding at a rapid rate, his first combat experience and he hated every second of it. He brought his arms to his lower chest and folded them, he was trying to create a nonverbal barrier between himself and the others so they would possibly leave him alone. Legs still shaking he began to walk over to where he was sitting before the attack, bending over he gathered his writing supplies and put them in his bag which was near by.

"Bael, a breed of spiders that can grow to the size of a house was long thought to be extinct. That's the most I know of these... monsters, I've only read about encounters with them from journals that were barely eligible. In all of my research I've seen many types of monster show up, these didn't even sound as terrifying as most of them. Let us count ourselves lucky we encountered them. I never found out what happened to them, only that they stopped appearing in text so I had a theory that they were wiped out by humans and or dragons around the time of the Scouring.

I cannot honestly say why we haven't heard of them being alive still, I could understand if they went into hiding once they were being hunted. There's a possibility that they remained in remote locations such as this and any that encountered them never lived to tell about it. We're in no shape to set off right now, but I fear if we don't we may not be as lucky." Reid would have loved to give more advice on the matter, but the only adventure experience he had came from reading about them. He kept watching the surroundings in fear of another attack, his heart rate was still pretty high.

[Dietrich Landrik]

The Bael scattering in a rout, Berg holstered his bow and the arrow he was saving for a strike. He turned around to his new focus, Landrik being wounded. Fuchs was himself removing his thigh plate to focus on his wound that he easily patched up. The blonde swordsman with bloodied hands turned around once more and fumbled with the straps on his leather armor, struggling to get it off of him.

Berg kneeled down and calmly opened the clasps and removed the armor, Landrik now starting to become dazed with the blood loss. The large man sprinkled the small vulnerary's contents onto the gash and placed a large padded white cloth on top of the wound. After bandaging it up, he let him get a drink from his canteen. He would need to regain his strength. Raising him up and placing into the back of the carriage, Berg sighed. Landrik would now need to be put on light duty at best, but thankfully they had enough medical supplies for his injury to not be life-threatening.

Fuchs was already on the case about the horses, whistling them in and calming the ones he managed to come into contact with. "This horse is Landrik's. Who needs to use it?" he asked blandly, not really calling too much attention to himself over the din of conversation. Still, the offer was there.

[Orcleous]

"Where is it, where is it", spoke Orcleous as he began to look for the spooked horses. He had followed their tracks for quite a bit of time, but he never seemed to catch up to them. Time began to pass as Orc chased the horses and before he knew it the sun had already set. By the time he found the horse, which was drinking at a small oasis, it was pitch dark. Orcleous was forced to make camp for the night and by the time morning came his trail back was long gone. Unable to get back to the unit and lost Orcleous decided it was best to pull out. He had a long trip back to civilization. He hopped that the others achieved their goal and forgot who he was. He would hate to get a bad reputation as a job ditcher just because he got lost while looking for the horses. Even if he did nto get paid for the job he at least got a horse out of it, though he really did not want one. "Great another head ache", he spoke as he mounted the horse and began to ride out of the desert.

[Orc leaves thread]

[Dietrich Landrik]

In typical mercenary fashion, all the others didn't care or pay notice to Landrik's heavy wound or replied to Fuchs' inquiry. Just as quietly as he had asked, he joked with himself. "Gee Alwin, why does your mom let you have two horses? Yaaaaaaay." With reins in both of his hands, he walked up to Berg. "Do you think he'll be OK? I mean, he took a pretty heavy hit there." he asked, sighing. He didn't look all that great to be travelling into the desert if at all.

Berg inspected Landrik's wound once more, and fixed his bandaging a little bit more. "I'm... I'm not sure. I wouldn't risk it. The pay's not worth having a mate die on us. They're going to need this cart to continue onward. It'll be risky, but let's take these horses and find a house or better yet a clinic to find shelter in to nurse him back to health. If we can find a healer and a doctor, he should be as right as rain once more. Let's head out quickly, he doesn't have much time." Berg ranted excitedly, stressed out at the situation. Begrudgingly, they lifted Landrik onto Fuchs' horse and Fuchs made sure he was kept upright. The horse moved forward at a steady and calm pace, only manageable from Fuchs' skill with animals. Otherwise it would've still been in a frenzy due to the attack from earlier.

"Alright, I think we're good to go. I really hope we can get him to someone in time. Got really lucky having the vulnerary and bandages right away." Fuchs commented in a serious tone. In nearly no time at all, they were already on the road in the opposite direction from the rest of the group.

[Landrik leaves thread]

[Kyle]

Kyle looked around as most of the group started to disperse after the attack by the giant spiders. It was surprising the gall that they had, some of them were stealing horses that now more than ever were vitally needed to continue, not that they appeared to be at this rate. Heck, they barely had enough horses left to get everything moving, hopefully would be smart and go back to the village. IT would be dangerous to continue.

He walked over to Aegis and started talking. "This doesn't seem to be going to well, I'm going back to the village, but I won't steal horses like the other ones." Hopefully he would also go back then they could regroup and try again. Signaling his dog to follow, Kyle took off down the road at a jog leaving behind what was left of the group.

[Kyle exits thread]