Chapter 3.7: Surviving in Orlane

Early in the morning of Day 28, Morton staggers down the smooth granite stairs, carrying his dear Arya's corpse in his arms. Arriving at the door at the bottom of the stairs, he tries unsuccessfully to shift her weight so that he can work the latch with the fingers on one hand. He is forced to shift and sling her body over one shoulder so that he can navigate the door. Steadying her body with one hand allows him to hold a dagger in the other. The weapon might not avail him much if he encounters any more skeletons, but he feels better with any kind of weapon in hand. Leaning to the right to counter-balance the weight, he proceeds down the long corridor toward the trophy cases. Turning the corner, he is surprised to find Lyrel missing. ::She said she would be guarding our rear:: he thinks, ::but perhaps she also thought better of it.:: Moving south past all the trophies, he reenters the Merikkian sanctuary and crosses the tiled floor, stepping carefully to not slip in any of the pooled blood. His focus is single-minded; he doesn't spare even a glance toward the opulent and fantastically valuable statue of Merikka. Instead, he heads for the Temple doors which Chase barred earlier. He stops at the door and leans Arya's body against the wall, holding her steady while he stretches his back and catches his breath. Listening carefully, he hears no commotion outside, and clearly no one is trying to batter down the doors!

Lifting the bar, it is heavier than he expected (or perhaps he is more tired from carrying Arya's dead body than he realized), and it drops to the tile with a clatter. He winces, but there are no cries of alarm. He opens the door cautiously; he blinks in blazing bright light of morning. Despite all the drama inside, nothing seems to have changed outside: there are no petitioners waiting to enter the Temple. Morton looks around suspiciously; someone would have had to replace the bar after Lyrel had left, but there is no sign of anyone laying in wait.

He considers his next move. He's got to take Arya's corpse somewhere to be laid to rest in honor and grace befitting such an angel come down from heaven, cruelly cut down in the blossom of her youth. But who to trust in the town? Some people would understand and have sympathy, but surely there are many in the village who would be suspicious of an adventurer that they already blame for their troubles carrying a dead body. If the Constable or others like him confronted him, he wouldn't be able to outrun them with Arya's corpse weighing him down, and the idea of abandoning her surprisingly muscular body to their predations is unthinkable. Also, he is hopeful that the others will come to their senses and follow him out of the Temple soon to regroup and plan; he doesn't want to miss them.

On the brink of exhaustion, Morton realizes that his luck can't hold forever; if he waits here, someone from the village will show up eventually to seek the services of the priests, and he'd rather not be here to answer any awkward questions like "Where are the priests?" or "What happened to you?" or "Did you kill that girl?" So he slings Arya's corpse over his shoulder again and staggers out into the daylight, closes the Temple door behind him, totters down the broad stone stairs and across the overgrown courtyard, and proceeds through the Temple gate to circle around the outside of the 8-paces-tall Temple wall, setting Arya's cooling body down in the shade behind a tree so he can squat and think. The view atop the hill gives him a good vantage of the village spread out to the west, and if anyone comes from the east, he'd probably see them coming up the road from the south, so he would have time to hide.

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Arya (dead)
Morton (1/15)

Morton is convinced that he will be bored, as most of the activity he sees is quite mundane: a family toiling in their vineyard further down the hill, fishermen rowing out onto the lake, various people hurrying to their destinations, from their postures obviously anxious about the threat of being abducted by the bloodthirsty adventurers that are the subject of all the village gossip. But Morton doesn't have to wait long before something happens that actually grabs his attention. Scarcely an hour has passed since he emerged from the Temple, when he notices a figure determinedly approaching the Temple hill. A solitary figure is briefly visible in between the houses walking on the other side of the lake, then Morton gets a clear look at it as the person crosses the bridge: a heavily-armored dwarf carrying a stout staff. The dwarf turns north and begins making his way up the hill, clearly intending to visit the Temple. Morton can already hear the clank of his armor from here.

Since the deputy is not expecting to see an adventurer in the shade under the tree, roll your Stealth check with ADV if you wish Morton to escape the dwarf's notice.

Proceeding up the hill, the dwarf does not notice the badly-injured half-elf lurking in the shadows. Instead, he walks straight through the open gate of the Temple and into the courtyard out of Morton's view behind the wall. Several minutes pass, then the dwarf appears again, jogging down the hill and back across the bridge, his heavy armor clanking and jingling as he goes.

Morton is at the base of the trees on top of the Temple Hill above Orlane. Do you want to hide the body here - cover it with grasses and leaves, for instance - or take the corpse to some other place not on the hill to hide her?

As you can see from the map of Orlane, there is the vineyard down the slope a little ways on the northwest side of the hill. There is the lake a little bit further (still pretty close) to the southwest. To the north and east (not on the map) are the farms that the two of you traversed when she was still alive a couple of hours ago. There's also houses in the village, some of them obviously abandoned.

Perhaps half an hour goes by. Many miles to the west, deep in the Dim Forest, the Dungeon Busters are ambushed by bandits in the Dim Forest. At about the same time, Morton sees a large group of people approaching and crossing the bridge with the armored dwarf at the front of the pack. By this time he has concealed Arya's body further, but if all those people come up the hill, there's a much greater chance that he will be spotted.

@WanderOne - Where would you like to go: up a tree (Athletics check), down the hill (DEX check), just circling behind the tall Temple wall (Stealth check)? It sounds like you don't want to confront the dwarf, but if you did want to bluff you could also try to act innocent and walk past the group on their way to the Temple (Deception check).

Morton rises into a crouch and begins scurrying backwards well before the crowd crests the hill and reaches his hiding place. He is lucky that he had not met Donovan previously, such that when the dwarf sees him silhouetted moving between the trees, the stout knight doesn't immediately recognize Morton as one of the reviled adventurers who've been causing so much trouble.

Instead, Donovan thinks that the furtive red-headed figure might be a survivor of the slaughter he found when he went looking for help inside the Temple. "Hey!" the dwarf calls out, but Morton continues out of sight around the corner of the wall. Now Donovan suspects that something is wrong after all. "Come back here!" he calls out, but Morton is gone. "Go see who that is - he might be scared after all the violence." A handful of people in the mob run the rest of the way up the hill and into the shade, then there is a cry of shock as one of them trips over Arya's dead body. Quickly uncovering her, they see: "It's...it's a girl!" Dead and stripped of her heavy armor, Arya's delicate features, petite frame, and lustrous black hair make her seem younger than she was. "She's been KILLED!" The crowd rushes up to join them, gathering around the body. Like Morton, Arya is not recognized by anyone living in this group. If Donovan suspects that she was an adventurer, he doesn't show it. Instead, he says: "That person I saw must have been trying to dispose of her body after killing her."
"But who was she?"
"Who knows? Probably just an innocent traveler who had the bad luck of running into one of those bastard adventurers. Now he's getting away!"
"Let's go get him!"
"Yes, but not everyone. You, you, you, and you: chase after him. He went around that corner - you might catch him yet." Three of the villagers take off jogging, tightening grips on makeshift weapons. The last one tears off in a sprint in the opposite direction, clearly intending to catch the culprit (Morton) if he tries to move around the wall.

Donovan continues, "All of you," he points to about half of the group, "Spread out and spread the word that one of the killers is out in broad daylight. Let everybody in the village know, and always travel in pairs." As they begin to move off, Donovan addresses the last few, "The rest of you, come with me. I still need your help in the Temple. Some of the killers might still be there."

Morton is most of the way down the hill by the time the villagers catch sight of him. They yell in recognition. "You can't run forever, murderer!"
"We'll catch you! Sooner or later you'll pay!!!"
They pick up pebbles and fling them as they make their way more carefully down the slope; none of the rocks come anywhere close to Morton. Soon enough the half-elf is in crop fields of tall grain, out of their direct sight (though they will be able to track his path pretty easily). He'll have to circle back to meet the others in the party later, after they've dealt with or evaded Donovan and the others and come out of the Temple.

Quickly outdistancing his pursuers, Morton runs through the fields, startling some farmers, and keeps running until he enters the outskirts of the Dim Forest to the north of the Orlane farms. Avoiding a group of woodcutters, he continues north and then begins to slow down, catch his breath, and consider his next move.

Where can he go now? He doesn't know the region very well, Morton realizes, and the border is more likely to have people looking for him. He decides that he will have to try to make it to Hochoch on his own. He knows that town, and the rest of the Dungeon Busters are there. He hopes that he has led some of the bad guys away from his friends in the Temple, and that they will be smart enough to push for Hochoch, too. Hopefully they'll meet in the woods on the way back!

Pushing deeper into the Dim Forest, he begins fighting his way through the underbrush. After a while he finds a game trail, and the going gets a bit easier. Stopping several times to listen, he satisfies himself that there is no close pursuit: he's lost them for now. But he led them on a merry chase for a while.

Less than an hour later, Morton stops at the first creek he finds and takes the time to adjust his appearance, this time using up the green dye from his Disguise kit. After working the dye in for half an hour or so, he figures that his hair must be a really vibrant green, just judging by how his hands are now the piercing emerald of a tree frog. He sets out again, making his way west as best he can figure without a good view of the sky or any landmarks. Even following game trails, the going is slow: the trails meander without a clear destination, and he has to keep switching to new routes to continue heading in the right direction. Using Cecily's Road would be faster, but would it be safe?

Stopping only for short breaks to catch his breath, Morton is careful to keep moving, the memory of the undead that nearly killed him fresh in his mind. He knows that at least one zombie remains, roving around somewhere. In his condition, his best hope is to see a threat coming and to outrun it. As the hours drag by, his mind goes to other stories he has heard from the Dungeon Busters, of enemies they've faced in these self-same woods: bandits, goblins, even an owlbear (whatever that is)!

He knows that he will have to stop eventually; his adrenalin has worn off, and as the dim green glow of the forest in daytime fades to the deep black of night, Morton feels exhaustion approaching. He won't be able to hike two days' travel without stopping. But every time he thinks that he must settle down for the night, there isn't a good, sheltered place to do so. Night creature stir and scurry in the bushes all around, hidden by the cover of such thick foliage. Despite the scratches on his weary limbs, Morton keeps telling himself that he'll find a better spot soon. Just a few more steps, and then stumbling a few more...and then staggering a few more...and so the paces become miles.

At first he thinks he imagines it, but in the distance, Morton starts to see a faint glow of distant illumination breaking the visual monotony of the thick forested darkness.