Act I, Part Twelve: A Band of Explorers
GustavYou give Oscia a rundown on what you're looking for and draw her a few sketches of plants which you suspect could be useful before resuming the training of the new recruits.
[3] After a few days doing almost nothing but exercises to increase their stamina, you tell the men to do a daily drill during the morning to keep improving their physical shape, before starting to show them the basics of making simple attacks and parries. Progress is very slow, and although by the end of the day they have memorized what you taught them, you don't think they could do any of it reflexively.
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Friedrich[5] You find people with various ailments relatively easily. The town has no doctor or surgeon of any kind, although a few of the herbalists can do their share of simple healing - but they know little more than you. [6] So you make the rounds of the peasantry, applying bandages and balms on cuts, setting a few bones here and there - and gaining a lot of practical experience with first aid and basic medicine. However, the next day, two people show up at the castle, asking to be seen by the healer in residence. They're shown in and you treat them, slightly puzzled - and they inform you, when you're done cleaning the cuts they've made in the woods, that they will tell people from the town and the region that you're a true doctor. It seems like you'll get more of these visits...
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DavianYou send a runner to inform Lord Swanberg of your discoveries, before marching on to continue your exploration of the region.
The western border of the earldom looks less miserable than the parts close to the mountains. There, hamlets are rarely surrounded by walls, and farms are less bunched up; the locals aren't quite as afraid of being isolated in the countryside. However, there are still riders patrolling the roads, and a lot of men carry bows or axes in broad daylight; you are still in the borderlands.
The inhabitants of these parts tell you that you are currently close to the limit between the earldom of Karhold and the duchy of Theram. The Duchy, which lies to the north west of the earldom, delimits the northeastern border of the kingdom. You're also told that Redhall, the duchy's capital, is the second largest town in the kingdom and lies close to the northern border.
You stop your journey at an inn standing on the side of a river which marks the limits between the lands of the earl and those of the duke, one Wilhelm Theram. You would say the inn lies directly to the west of Hadvard.
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FaranYou leave the town along with a large group of workers and a few soldiers to go look for good construction wood in the forest. The walk is relatively short and uneventful, though you do notice that Oscia (who has no trouble keeping ahead of your group while maintaining a seemingly leisurely pace) is stopping infrequently to look at an sometimes uproot plants.
In the forest itself, [2] you find very little quality wood. There are no oaks in the less dense parts of the forest, and a few woodworkers comment that they suspect the pines present here would fare poorly against the region's humidity were they used for buildings. [?] A few of them report that, after having spoken with a few of the region's trackers, they suspect good quality wood could be found higher in the mountains, where hunters speak of great oaks which used to be cut down, back when the region still had a woodworking industry.
[6] You suspect you could be able to design a crank-powered saw, if you had the metal necessary for it, but it would need to be powered by a flow of water. There is only one river in the region, the one next to the castle; however, the forest is too dense to build anything quickly close to the mountains, and bringing the wood far would be difficult, as the water hides too many rocks to allow workers to simply send logs rolling downriver.
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OsciaGustav tells you that he'd like to have you collect a few herbs for him, and gives you a briefing of what he wants before you go with Faran into the forest. [1+1] Although you do your best, looking at different plants and comparing the leaves with the details left by Gustav and uprooting a few to get a look at their roots, you have a hard time finding what he's looking for. You've never really seen a climate like this before; all of the leaves look similar, and all of the plants seem to be the same size, and since the flowering season's over it's even more difficult to find anything worthwhile.
You refuse to return to the castle empty-handed, deciding that at least some of the plants you collect must have a use, and that Gustav, a trained herbalist, might have a better chance identifying them. Since you have plenty of time on your hands while the others try and fail to find any good wood, when you come back you have a dozen unidentified small plants with you.
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Geldryn[Research and research-like rolls have been changed; research now accelerates over time]
[1+1,5] Once more, you make very little progress as you attempt to crack the code, finishing a few more days with a headache and a bad mood. The code is at 10% of being cracked.
[9+1.5] You are much more successful as you read the engineer's books, making a lot of progress when it comes to understanding the theory behind engineering.
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[5+1] Arkran is very productive in the yard, pushing the workers to put up the building's walls and start the roof's final structure on the shrine. Shrine construction is at 70%.
A runner arrives from Davian, informing the Inquisition of his findings thus far.
At last, the Recruiter, Ramsay, wakes up from his sleep, confused but otherwise healthy-looking. He takes a few careful steps, and informs the Inquisitors that he could resume training for the troops.
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Topic: Inquisition - IC thread (Read 6829 times)