Realizing all too well that hiding in your flimsy shelter of leafless vegetation in such a cold would not likely end well, you finally decided to put trust into your instincts and to approach the humongous creature that froze in wary anticipation.
You slowly stood up, made a deep breath, leveled your head in the way that allowed you to stare at what was supposed to be the creature's face. You slowly spread your arms downwards and away from your hips, with the inner side of the palms exposed to the being, and began to close the distance smoothly, putting a faint surprised smile on your face. The creature remained mostly motionless, only shifting its weight from one leg to another ever so slightly while you were approaching it. Still, this visual sign failed to compromise your composure. When some mere four meters were separating you, the thing broke the tense silence, vocalizing a series of sounds from under the appendage that seemed to be its featureless head.
Surely, you did not know how to respond in its language, so you have decided to compensate the lack of knowledge with gesturing, shrugging ever so slightly, and for a bare moment diverting your gaze to the bottom left. The creature reacted with two more series of sounds that were shorter compared to the first one and sounded somewhat confused if only you could scan and interpret the intonation correctly. You reciprocated via girthing your frontal features with your hands, bringing your chin level closer to your upper chest, and delivering the "I can not understand you, but I hope you won't hurt me" message via the entirety of your appearances. Silence ensued. The world did take its toll on your stance, however, as the chill building in your quickly numbing limbs started to grow way too inconvenient, and you have sensed an uncomfortable itch in your nose.
When the creature seemed to be about to respond, the unforeseen took place: you sneezed. Sharply, loudly, bowing forwards, and reflectionally spreading a pair of white-feathered appendages protruding from your back. The ensued sensation was of the exquisite sort of pain that felt like a mix of soreness and overextension. The beast reacted instinctively, taking a step backward and, for a brief moment, elevating the flat object on its left hand. You froze in the stressed expectation, hoping that you haven't just provoked it for anything violent. After what appeared to be the three longest seconds in your short life, the thing eased its posture, made a singular chuckling sound, shook one's head, and reached with its hand for the plate that, as it turned out to be, concealed its jowly, unshaved, yet somewhat amazed and noticeably smiling face from you. You unconsciously let out a sigh of relief, mimicking the chuckling sound the creature emitted a moment ago but with your flowing and sonant voice. The contact was, thankfully, established. The entity turned out to be more resemblant to you compared to your initial expectations and, luckily, a well-mannered one, even if a bit intimidating.
Albeit you felt like standing there a bit longer, yielding to the curiosity of studying your new bulky friend, the surprisingly social creature surely had other plans or pressing issues on its mind. It broke the eye contact to turn around and detach the piece of long fabric from its back for some reason. This obscure reason cleared out when your new friend enveloped you in it, cocooning from the chilly surface of the world and persistently falling snow, turned around, slightly lowering its shelled corpus, and gestured to you to get on its back. Were it your charms or just some banal luck, but this very night you met not just a polite but also an empathetic (at least towards you) creature, realizing your fortune, you accepted the invitation for a ride on this husk's back. You were thankful for not having to shuffle the sharply-cold substance with your feet, as well as somehow sure that the creature won't take advantage of you.
The ride on its back wasn't long, though. All you managed to do while clinging to the neck of the creature was to perceive a series of natural noises disrupting the winter forest ambiance and, on one's mind, to give your new buddy the nickname which copied the sounds its carapace produced while on the walk - clank. The soon arrival to what seemed to be Clank's humble resting place confirmed your theory of exposing your position to the creature via the warble of your post-awakening shrieks.
The camp itself looked minimalistic, albeit well-hidden from the outside. Situated around the black trunk of a branched tree, deepened to the degree that allowed you to see the black earth beneath the removed snow carpet, and properly walled off by the crispy white substance at some distance from the center of the clearing. At the center, chalked pieces of wood and stone radiating warmth were neatly piled. A snow-covered triangular cover of thick fabric as isolation and wooden branches as supporting pillars to one of its edges was also there, neighboring with the cylindrical bag stuffed with the various objects you can not discern through its surface. Clank had put the cocoon containing you under the "roof" of the shelter before lending you a medium-sized yet heated stone taken from the center of the camp (so you could use it to warm up, apparently). Then, he handed you a small meaty chunk on a bone, accompanied by a loaf of some corny cuisine. The meal was accompanied by a sudden pat on your bright-haired top, after which he hid its face behind the "head plate" again, and left the borders of the camp. He told you something before going away, leaving you to your very first earthly meal and the somewhat mixed feelings.
Back then, under a makeshift shelter, you were digesting not only the food (that tasted good mostly because you were hungry and not because it was specifically made to be delicious) but also the impressions you've gathered so far. The most prominent of them all was the fear of the unknown. This realm already seemed too vast and scary to you - the small and inessential particle that was left to the mercy of fortune. You felt irritated because of your helplessness and at the same time challenged by the need to discover as much as you can in the shortest amount of time. The score of questions swirling in your mind was comparable to a chaotic swarm of nectar-crazed bees at the time. At least, you've been lucky enough to get help early on. The realization of how more challenging the circumstances would have been should the fate unfold slightly differently, calmed you down to a degree, feeling with relief from being on the isle of relative safety. Now, when your thoughts were occupied with the opinions on the person that has picked you up and their motives, the uncomfortable realization crawled into your head: Clank was missing for a bit too long for you to feel calm. It was starting to feel increasingly concerning. Were you abandoned? Did he meet the thing that thundered the area with its roar? Or maybe... You frantically played the possible scenarios in your mind, growing gradually more agitated to leave the camp and to get the hold on the things yourself.
When you were about to venture into the unknown, you sensed a living spark swiftly approaching the camp from the North, substantially calming down your nerves as a result. Then, when the second spark appeared coming from the same direction, you began to wonder whether did Clank brought some friends or not. You unwinded from your improvised "cocoon" to take a look at the visitors, trying on the fabric as if it was a toga or a robe, but what you saw at the encampment's exit was not the kind soul that took you out from the woods. An unknown hulking being in a different carapace instantaneously struck you out unconscious with the unbelievably mighty smack across your face.
When the senses recovered, you were drifting in the lulling darkness. Not the type that preceded your awakening to this world: you felt the warmth from one side, could hear the voices from beyond the dark, and your body felt tied to something big in an uncomfortable pose, making your wings ache even more. Desperate for some clarity, you began to wriggle, trying to lease the tie that fixated you on something massive and moving. These rebellious attempts of yours resulted in but a punch hitting your abdomen and the rag falling from your face, making the whole scene visible to you. It was still dark and snowing, you have been tied to one of the two humongous, armored, quadrupedal mounts who moved in a convoy, escorted by three more creatures with the same complexion as Clank but with differing shells, leading the hand-tied Clank himself. The beast that ambushed you overwatched him from the close distance, holding the conversation neither of them, judging by the intonation, seemed to enjoy. The second creature from this group walked in the vanguard of the column. What drawn your attention to it was its even more massive gauntlets, the left one of which was ablaze. Your inner senses sharpened once you have seen the tendrils of flames coming out of its palm, sending signals to your brain, specifying that you can distantly sense the affiliation of this creature to one of the natural aspects - to the fiery school of conflagration and radiation. Apparently, you have even more tricks up your metaphorical sleeve than you are aware of. The last creature that seemed to belong to the group of ambushers (and also seemed to be the shortest of them all) walked slightly behind you, studying you either with disgust or with contempt seeping through its covered by the metal visor eyes.
Once you finished inspecting the entities in your visual range, the fourth ambusher appeared with the burly, houndish creature by its side. It has swapped the post with the blazing-hand vanguardist and entrusted the odd beast to it, letting them scout the area ahead in the newly-assembled duo. The convoy carried on, as you were hanging down melancholically, the 'shorty' stopped staring at you and instead occasionally took part in the exchange between the ambushers' leader and Clank that seemed more like an interrogation. The column carried you on forth through the night and snowfall, but your intuition wasn't cheering you up. Judging by the hand movements of your pal, he wasn't eager to see the destination point either, carefully attempting to covertly lease the ties when the captors diverted their attention from him.
What happened shortly, would probably stay in your memory until whatever progenitor made you will call you back home: soon enough, your inner senses indicated the something living lying in hiding ahead, something bigger than these two convoy mounts. Your suspicions were confirmed once the night ambiance was shattered by the sound of vicious barking, a monstrous roar akin to the one you heard earlier this night, yells of a creature that went to scout the area. The ensued cacophony then got mixed with the disgusting sounds of tearing flesh, and clangs of the carapaces of the two other captors who bolted forward to aid their comrade who has been ambushed by the gargantuan predator. Only the 'shortie' was left guarding the mounts, you, and Clank.
As the symphony of savage sounds, yells, and roars grew louder, accompanied by the periodic flashes of light emerging from the woods ahead, Shortie grew visually panicked. In stark contrast, Clank seemed to be unnaturally calm, monotonously speaking to the distressed, lonely captor, turning the table on him. He was now playing on Shortie's distress, hammering something into his head with low, collected, and slightly sarcastic voice. Soon, Shortie's shaky equanimity broke under the traitorous spells of Clank, and he grabbed three small spheres from the belt of the latter, hurrying to the epicenter of the raging carnage, leaving the post he was entrusted with and not even looking back.
Clank used this window of opportunity to finally drop the binds that he was carefully sprawling all this time, to grab his confiscated bag as well as you, causing additional discomfort to the already twitchy humongous mount in the process, and to bolting into the dark woods with you and the bag on each of his shoulders. Through the hastily thickening veil of falling snow separating you from the place of escape, you managed to see only a couple of light flashes lighting the night for bare seconds, and a few distancing muffled cries.
If your first night in this world wasn't crazy enough already, the pace and complexity of the route Clank picked completed the impression. He carried you and the loadout for as long as he could, using the peculiarities of the terrain to confuse the traces. Then, when he ran out of strength to carry all the burden, he put you on the ground so you could follow him. After a few hours of rushing through the rugged terrain, tired and cold, you reached a small clearing in the forest with a lonely rocky sub-cavern providing a perfect place for a shelter. Your companion, sufficiently exhausted after the run, took some time for a breather and to inspect whether or not the former captors chased you. After calming down both physically and mentally, he began to establish your new temporary camp.
You, in the meanwhile, felt tired physically, and _______ (write-in) emotionally. Your face hurt from the strike that it has endured, your legs felt as if they were about to shatter, and the chill was creeping at you again. It was still dark, and the snowfall subsidized a bit, your companion was establishing the new shelter, and so you certainly have had some time to spend.
_______________________________________________________________________
When in towns, camps, or other places of rest, you can vote on how to spend the time within the given limit of metaphorical
time points. Vote for the priority actions within the set limit. Those of you who have played "The Darkest Dungeon" should understand what I mean. But unlike the Darkest Dungeon, the actions have more consequences past the mechanical benefits mentioned in the description.
6 Time points for this stop.
[] Inspect your companion in details
-1 point
[] Ask for the aid to the bruises you've got
-1 point, Normal Charisma attribute check (15)
[] Watch his actions and try to help where you can be useful
-3 Points, Easy Intelligence attribute check (12), Easy Wisdom attribute check (12), The action itself and each successful roll decreases the - Wisdom ignorance debuff by 1/3 point
[] Try communicating with your companion on a subject _______ (write-in)
-2 Points, repeatable, easy Intelligence attribute check (12), easy Wisdom attribute check (12), The action itself, and each successful roll decreases the - Wisdom ignorance debuff by 1/3 point if the topic of the question is correctly picked.
[] Try to study your Thaumaturgy affinity
-4 points, normal Intelligence attribute check (15), easy Arcane skill check (17), The action itself and each successful roll gives the 1/3 of the next level
[] Try to study your Spirit affinity
-4 points, normal Intelligence attribute check (15), easy Arcane skill check (17), The action itself and each successful roll gives the 1/3 of the next level
[] Write-in
mind that I will assign the time cost for this option depending on how time/efforts-consuming and complicated it is.
((this is the easy one, 24 hours))
((And yeah - I'm a slow writer
))
