Posted on 2011/10/16
The market is fuller than Joe expected and he guesses that everyone else is taking advantage of the break in the weather to both buy and sell their goods in the market. He buys flour, cheese and a small pat of butter, a bag of dried beans and another of dried peas, bread and a don't ask pie, an end of cheap hard sausage, cabbage and onions and swede, a packet of hazelnuts, another of currents and a third of cheap herbs to make a hot tea with. He moves on, buying hay and straw and bran for the stable and some extra snare cord in case he can get out into the woods on foot.
Joe carries his first load home as fast as he can, and then hurries back to see what else he can find before the snow traps him again. He finds potatoes on a back stall, and bacon scraps on another, then a tiny pot of honey and a bag of oats for porridge, as well as some more dried fruit (pears this time), a half dozen eggs, a pair of bones for making broth, and a flagon of ale. His final purchases are a twist of salt and a hefty bundle of firewood, and he trudges for home well loaded but satisfied.
That evening he dines on buttered bread, a thin slice of sausage, ale and few dried pears, while Bramble stares at him with wide wistful eyes that begrudgingly follow every mouthful of food Joe eats. Then he sets beans to soak and the bones to simmer for broth and slides into bed still laughing inside at the look on the young lord's face. Sure it might have consequences, he decides, but by the gods it was worth it! One more little piece of revenge accomplished.
The next two days bring more snow and Joe spends them cleaning and mending his own clothes, the harness Merry uses to pull the cart and the pack-saddle that he loads Nipper with regularly. On the third day, a warmer breeze blows into town and the snow melts slowly and grudgingly under its influence. Joe looks at the sun up in the pale sky and decides to go and see if the path to the forest is open yet. It is, he finds when he reaches it, and he heads into the edge of the trees, where the snow was shallow to begin with, to set a few traps and see if his hand and his luck are still with him. As he sets the fourth snare, he hears snarls and sounds of animals fighting coming towards him.
Joe ducks behind a tree as the sounds race closer and drops a hand to the nearest knife. Then a blurred trio of wolf shapes come tumbling past him in a knot of grey and white. They spill out yards away from Joe to reveal a pair of wolfish skeletons facing off with a more normal, but translucent wolf ghost. The ghost crouches for a moment, whining very like Bramble does when she's scared, and Joe's free hand finds a stone among the mud and snow.
He stands and hurls it at the skeletons, yelling, “Hai, pick on someone your own weight why don't you…!”
Posted 2011/11/6
The stone smashes into the side of one of the skeleton wolves and a rib breaks off. The wolf jumps and spins to face Joe with the second skeleton not far behind it. Remembering his last encounter with skeletons, Joe grabs a fallen branch to use as a club, rather than trying to use his knives on something with so many holes in it. As both skeletons lunge at him he swings wildly and clumsily, missing both of them, but making them leap out of the way so that they in turn miss him.
The ghost wolf lunges at the skeleton with the broken rib, but its transparent teeth slide useless through the tail bones. The skeleton flinches and its teeth snap together just inches from Joe's face. Joe frantically swipes at it with his makeshift club and manages to catch it a solid blow across the head, knocking it back into the second skeleton. Both begin snarling threateningly even as the ghost slides in again, this time managing to grab a hind leg bone from the second skeleton and yank it free. Joe's next swipe goes wide as bony teeth sink into his right leg and pull him off balance in turn. The second wolf wheels on three legs and goes after the ghost wolf, trying to grab its lost leg back – and missing each time.
Joe scrambles for balance in the churned up mud and slushy snow, swinging the club as much to get some space as to hit the skeleton wolf. Then the wolf trips on a hidden loop of bramble and Joe takes instant advantage, smashing the club down so hard that the wolf's bones all tumble apart. Meanwhile, the ghost wolf drops the bone it had grabbed and goes for the neck, where the throat would be in life. The skeleton scrabbles with paws and tries to pull free, but its blows go straight through the ghost.. Joe stalks up behind the pair, lines up his club and manages to get in a perfect critical blow, breaking the second skeleton into pieces too, before hefting the club again and turning to look at the ghost wolf, wondering if he will have to fight that too.
The ghost wolf looks warily back, tongue lolling out of its open mouth, and then it backs up a pace and nudges the bones of the second wolf. Whining with frustration it fits its head into the skull so that the bone melds in and vanishes as a perfect fit.
Joe heaves a sigh of relief. “Your bones are they? No wonder you didn't want them walking around on their own.” He crouches stiffly, suddenly aware that his leg hurts, and lines up the bones so the ghost can get at them more easily. Done, he uses the branch club to push himself upright again and leans against a tree to watch the ghost wolf take possession of its bones again. Finally, the wolf shakes itself complete and dashes off into the forest.
Joe grins, shakes his own head and resets the fourth snare. Moving on, he sets a fifth and a sixth before he suddenly feels something like a cold mist hit his backside and turns to see the ghost wolf standing there again, nosing him.
“You again?” Joe says. “What now?”
The wolf walks up, drops a bright red stone at Joe's feet and fades away completely…
Posted 2011/11/27
Joe bends stiffly and picks up the stone. Closer examination shows some sort of rune etched into one side of it, and he slides it into his belt pouch. If he has to, he thinks, he can always take to that alchemist who identified the fire flasks for him. He also sets 2 final snares for a total of eight before limping home to thaw out and tend his battered leg. After warming his outside by the fire and his inside with a bowl of beans and broth he rolls up his torn breeches to clean and bandage the punctures and scrapes left by the wolf skeleton's teeth. Finaly, he pulls a clean and mended pair of breeches over the bandages and sets the torn pair aside to be mended later, hoping he can get the blood out of them.
He hobbles slowly down the stairs to tend Nipper and Merry and set them up for the night, before clambering back up to his house and crawling into bed. Bramble insists on curling up next to him and for once he lets her, glad of the extra warmth.
Next morning, he finds himself even stiffer than before and stays inside as much as he can, sprawled in front of the fire as he rub and stretches life back into aching muscles. By the second day he is feeling somewhat better – at least enough to make the trip to the market, and then later out to check his traps. he finds 3 rabbits, a squirrel and a weasel in his snares and resets them them for luck. As he trudges home, the clouds break and shafts of sunlight stab down through the trees….
It looks like the story of Joe ends here, but you can check the original thread to be sure.
This game is DMed by Heros_Backpack from the wizards.com boards. He holds the copyright to all content.
Here's the original thread, complete with comments from other posters.