Quest Quest

>>110795
>Relight the candle and go investigate the sound.
A D V E N T U R E

>>110795
>>Ignore the sound and go to sleep.

>>110803
Second

>>110803
You relight the candle with the matches on the table. You open the front door and cup your spare hand over the flame to keep it going in the rain. As you step outside, you hear the sound again and you can tell it's coming from the barn.

When you approach the door of the barn you're confronted with an awful odor. It's like the sweat and grime of working in the field, but after a lifetime of no bathing.

You open the door, and hold the candle out in front of you.

Your good horse, Pusher, is laid out on the ground. The other is no where to be seen. You take a step toward the horse and the candlelight illuminates the rest of the barn. There's a large figure crouched over Pusher, covered in furs and breathing heavily. Your horse is dead.

Do you:
>Call out to the figure.
>Yell to try to get your father's attention.
>Arm yourself with the nearby pitchfork.
>Other.

>>110825
>Yell to try to get your father's attention.
>Arm yourself with the nearby pitchfork

>>110829
You let out a yell "PA!", as you reach for the nearby pitchfork.

The figure appears startled by the yell, as if it didn't realize your presence. It lets out a bloodcurdling snarl like a rabid wolf, and lunges at you. In your panic you drop the candle but you manage to grab the pitchfork.

Before you can react, you're knocked backwards through the barn door by the figure. It's pinned you to the ground, and you struggle under its hulking mass.

But, the creature pinning you to the ground is still. It landed impaled on the pitchfork. Your quick thinking has saved you.

As you try to slide out from under it, you get a pull by the shoulders, jerking you free. Your father heard your yell and came as quick as he could. He has a spear in hand, looking familiar with the weapon, but you've never seen it before.

>>110853
>"Son, what happened here"?

>>110856
Step away from the corpse "Thing came outta nowhere pa, killed mah horse. Charged at me, but I put up the pitch fork and I think it's dead.."

>>110867

You step away from the corpse "Thing came outta nowhere pa, killed mah horse. Charged at me, but I put up the pitch fork an' I think it's dead.."

"Good work son. Didn't bite you did it?"

"No pa, but what is..."

"Now's not the time. Go back to the house and grab me the kerosene, some supplies, and whatever you absolutely can't do without. Where there's one, there's more. We have to burn the body and the horse, and leave."

"What's goin' o-"

"NOW! No time for questions! I'm gonna go get our other horse, can't have gone far."

Your father heads off toward the woods, following the fresh horse tracks effortlessly in the mud by the light of his lantern. You take one last look at the creature that attacked you before you head back to the house: it had green scales rather than skin, and no blood gushed from the wound like you'd expect. You're not sure what it is, but it's certainly not human.

>>110890
Back in the house you pack your bedrolls, a few days supplies, and the kerosene. You're not sure how long you're going to be gone, but hopefully that's enough.

You look around the house and think what else you might need to take. Your arms are almost full with your father's pack, but you can probably grab a couple (2) more items.
>Your trusted hunting bow you made back in your 14th summer.
>Your copy of "The Trials and Travels of King Eberick", your favorite and only book.
>The oak shield hanging over the fireplace, bearing what you assume is your family crest.
>Pa's walking stick, marked once for each year he's had it
>The little metal lockbox that pa has always kept from sight under his bed
>The tobacco tin and pipes you keep on the table

>>110907
>>The little metal lockbox that pa has always kept from sight under his bed
>Pa's walking stick, marked once for each year he's had it

Pa might need this stuff and I don't wanna get smacked across the face because I didn't bring it

I need to take a quick break, I'll be back in about a half hour.

For future formatting, I'm going to stick with:

Blue when you talk.
Red when someone else talks.
Green if it's a 3 person conversation.

>Carrot text works fine as your options/prompts/etc. when I'm asking for input.

>>110924
Well thanks for the quest so far op

Will follow

>>110907
>>The little metal lockbox that pa has always kept from sight under his bed
>oak shield

>>110910
Well I mean he's got his spear so doesn't seem he'd need a walking stick that much

File: horse.jpg (9KB, 260x194px) Image search: [Google]

9KB, 260x194px

>>110910
You grab the old metal lockbox from under pa's bed. He doesn't even know you know about it, but you figure if it's such a closely guarded secret it has to be important to him. You also grab pa's walking stick by the door, remembering that you'll only have one horse between the two of you, and you could be in for a long trip. You give one last look around the house, decide everything is in order, and walk back out into the rain. Before you go, you remember to do something you've never felt the need to before: you lock the door and grab the key from under the eave of the thatched roof. Tonight doesn't seem like the night to trust in the kindness of strangers.

Looking around as you head back to the barn, you don't see your father. He must be out looking for the horse still. Curiosity gets the better of you. You set down your father's things in the barn and look closer at the creature that attacked you. Covered in furs, you can see how you'd think it might be human in the dark, but in the light of your lantern it's clearly something very different. Covered in dark green scales that seem to drink in the darkness of the night, the back of the creature resembled a snake in human form. Much bigger than a man though, it had to be 3 hands bigger than any man you've seen and twice as broad of shoulder. It had hooved feet and short stubby fingers with great long black claws. Turning it over, it's face was surprisingly human-like, but with slanted black eyes, rows of sharp teeth, a sunken nose, and no tongue. It was a fearsome sight to behold.

Remembering your father's plans to burn the corpses, you pull the pitchfork out of the creature and drag the body a ways from the barn. You walk back to do the same to the horse, but when you get back into the barn, you can hear Pusher's pained breathing. You could have sworn it was dead earlier.

Do you:
>check on the horse, seeing if it might be able to be saved
>grab the pitchfork intending to put the beast out of it's misery
>wait outside the barn for your father
>other

>>111005
>check on the horse, seeing if it might be able to be saved. and grab the pitchfork while you check

>>111005
>>check on the horse, seeing if it might be able to be saved

Not sure if you op technically consider this cheating >>111018 as it has technically 2 options instead of 1

but if its not then I pick that one instead

>>111024
I'm more giving suggestions than hard and fast options. If something is clearly going to fuck the whole story up, I might intervene, but I'm going to try to make anything work.

>>111018
You know your nerves are getting the best of you, but you grab the pitchfork before you go to check on Pusher. With the night you've had so far, you're not leaving anything to chance.

When you walk over to the horse, the first thing you notice is a large chuck of torn away flesh on the horse's shoulder - despite that, you were right. The horse is breathing, and it seems to be getting stronger. You know that if the horse is to have any chance of surviving you need to stop the bleeding. You reach into your pack and grab your spare shirt, and tear it into strips to wrap the wound. You grab a handful of nearby hay to pack the wound before you wrap it.

When the first stalk of hay touches the wound, the horse goes mad. It flails like a newborn foal, and you jump back to distance yourself from the spasms. You're not quick enough though, and a hoof catches you in the left hand, splitting the skin and erupting in pain.

The horse is clearly beyond saving, so in your right hand you take the pitchfork and plunge it into the horses chest, hoping to put it out of it's misery. No such luck. The horse keeps flailing as if you hadn't stabbed it, and all you can do is back away and watch the display, awestruck.

Your father bursts through the barn door.

"Stay away from it! Did it get you?!"

It's all you can do to whisper "...My hand." In such a short time the pain was becoming unbearable.

You can see the concern well up in your father's eyes. "I'm sorry son." he says. He makes to hug you, but pins your right arm behind your back and tackles you to the ground. "Your hand has to come off before it can spread" You struggle, but he ties your arm and legs with the wraps you had torn for the horse's wounds. He walks out of the barn, and is gone for what seems like hours. All you can focus on is the growing pain in your hand. You might be crying or screaming, but you can't think clear enough to be certain, it hurts too badly.

Then before you realize what's happening, your left hand is draped over a log and your father is swinging the axe. Consciousness fades.

>>111058
FUCK, fuck sake

>>111058
You wake up by a fire. You're alone. It's not raining anymore, but it's still a few hours to morning judging by the light.

You look down to the hand that was in burning agony before, but now there was naught but a bandage and a dull pulsing pain. It still feels like you can move your hand, even though you can see there's no hand to move. You're hungry and tired.

Looking around, you can see there's a makeshift campsite set up. There's a roasted rabbit skewered and laying on a nearby rock. Yours and your father's packs are laying on the ground nearby.

Do you:
>Go back to sleep
>Eat the rabbit
>Wait around until your father gets back
>Other

>>111071
>other
Open that metal box we grabbed from the house

>>111071
Wait around until your father gets back

>>111074
this

>>111074
>>111076
You decide that you can wait to sleep until later, you want to ask your pa about what happened. Looking for a way to busy yourself, you decide to go through the packs and inventory what you have for supplies. You were in a rush leaving and didn't think about what you were grabbing.

Adjusting to using one hand is harder than you expect, and the simple task of going through the packs proves tiresome.

In total, 5 days of food if split between two people, a few spare shirts, a couple knives, a waterskin, a bottle of mead, a pot for boiling water, 2 bedrolls, 20 or so feet of rope, a lantern, some small amount of kerosene, and a big folded up waxed canvas tarp. You also found the lockbox you grabbed for your father.

Curiosity gets the better of you, and you sit back down at the fire trying to figure out how to open the box. It seems impossible without a key. You start to slip back into sleep while you're still turning it over in your hands.

No sooner than your eyelids drop, your father comes walking back into camp.

"Ah, that old thing, huh? I was hoping you'd never find that. That's my great shame. Kept it as a reminder of what pride is worth. Bought it for too much and couldn't even figure how ta open the thing."

You look at your father, weary-eyed as he was, and even though you suspect there's more to his story you decide not to press him.

>>111107
You sit in silence across from your father for a while. His age wears heavy on his face, the first time you've ever noticed. The first fingers of sunlight reach over the trees.

"Fires above, what happened back there pa? What was that thing? What did it do to the horse and my hand?"

Your father shakes his head. "My boy, last night the old stories became real. That thing was an Unman, a destroyer, like in the stories your ma used to tell you when you were just a little thing. I've heard tell of them coming back to these parts of the world, but a man in his drink will say just about anything to impress you. I didn't know they were more than tall tales to tell you the truth m'boy."

"But what about my hand? And the burning?"

"I'm sorry son, I should have warned you. So much as a scratch from an Unman will unmake you. Drive you mad. Turn you into one of them. Leave you as nothing but a husk, hungry and looking to spread. The hand had to go, otherwise all of you would have."

"And burn the corpses so they can't come back, I suppose."

"Aye. This leaves us in a situation. We can't go back to the farm. Where there's one, there's more. The sheep, rabbits, wolves, they can all be turned. We need to leave. I'm just not sure where we'll go from here."

>>111148
Is there no town or castle nearby?

>>111148
We need some higher authorities to speak to

surely there is a lord or something to go to

>>111148
You think about your situation. You only have supplies for a few days. You can't go back to the farm. Your hand surely needs some real medical attention. The rest of the valley needs to know what's coming.

Do you:
>Go south a day's walk to warn the Ridleys, your nearest neighbors and the closest thing you have to friends. This would take you deeper into the valley, but they'd likely provide you with some help.
>Go north, what would be a days ride but likely 2 days by foot, to Gamon's Field, the town at the entrance of the valley. They'd have a real doctor and they have the greatest population to warn, but your resources are limited.

>>111170
north

File: tumblr_mrffvpAni51rz2qoko1_500.jpg (160KB, 353x635px) Image search: [Google]

160KB, 353x635px

>>111182
You head north and immediately fall into a hole, breaking your nec-

Nah just fucking with you. I'll start on the next part in an hour or so. North it is. If anyone has any other ideas they want me to try to incorporate, feel free to shoot.

>>111189
What is the level of society are we dealing with here?

like if it were a time line what time?

16th 17th century?

>>111192
Hmm. Vaguely medieval. No guns, books are transcribed by hand, but there are early mechanical clocks.

There are countries, broken into districts, that contain towns, cities, and farmland. The particular country you're in is a poor one. The level of influence that the crown has in the valley is very low. They don't even see a tax collector more than once every few years.

By the way, naming shit is tiresome. Anyone know of a fantasy location name generator or something like that?

>>111204
Heres a good one

http://fantasynamegenerators.com/

yeah naming shit is a pain in the ass even I have immense trouble naming shit without resorting to this

>>111234
Thanks.

>>111148
>>111170
>>111182
"Gamon's Field" you say after a while. With the pulsing pain in your wrist you're reminded about the risk of infection, and the move that might have saved your life could also be the one to end it. You know that medical attention is needed, and you're only going to find that going into town.

"I figured it would have to be that way" your pa says, "That hand of yours is probably going to need a real doctor. A shame though, we've got hardly 2 pence to rub together, and in town they don't tend to trade in friendship."

"It's our only option though pa, and we've got to warn the Mayor of what's coming. We'll have to make it work."

"Well, if this is what we have to do, we may as well get a move on. We've a long walk ahead of us.

You and your father gather up your belongings and strike camp. When you go to put the lockbox back in his pack, he waves you away. "Keep that old thing if you like, maybe someday you'll figure it out."

So uhhh op did you want to continue or you done for the day?

I love this btw. Here's to hoping that we eventually raise the gdp of our poor area to contend with the other counties in the country.

Rolled 152038, 216712, 39875, 40806, 145551, 152331, 46625, 84218, 56318, 104826, 101958, 324685, 254199, 189811, 158832 = 2068785 (15d345678)

Two days no op. op dead.

>>120361
i hope he comes back because it was starting to get good

>>121875
Have a bump then.

>>132597
No sense in bumping a auto-sage thread

op had a stroke D: