Hexplore24 — Day 11
Inky Swells
Cool for the season
The sky remains dark, clouds casting inky shadows on one another as they swell and fall like slow waves rippling across the landscape.
No encounters during the night with the stalking shapes, save in dreams. But all three are on edge as they hastily pack up camp and prepare to hike back to Beacon.
It's never felt so close, yet still feels so far.
They only need to travel 2 hexes. I will roll the errant event (hazard die) each hex - and a 1 means the weasels have caught up with them.1
Packed and ready, they set out, each focused on a safe return to Beacon.
Errant HAZARD DIE roll: 22
Belus will become double exhausted and either need to drop something or he will reduce overall travel points by 5, which is okay today.
As they hike, the sky's churning clouds causing a glittering of droplets of light to burst through here and there, Satis and Goster notice Belus slowing down, the fast pace and his poor night's sleep impacting him.
"Do you need to rest?" Satis asks, concerned both for Belus and his answer. She too is feeling faint.
"No. I will rest in Beacon. We must keep moving," he insists.
So they press on, tired, driven by fear of the shapes they know are on their trail.
Last HAZARD die roll: a 6.3
So they march and march, and as they keep glancing over their shoulders, they also begin glancing ahead, Beacon’s walls and buildings and wisps of smoke drawing closer until, with a sense of relief and near disbelief, they walk into the town and out of the wilderness.
They are safe.
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The way the hazard die works, a prior roll of 5 established the next encounter would be with Giant Weasels, which are very dangerous and could likely kill all three of my travelers.↩
A roll of two on the hazard die forces a choice: rest and take an extra event die that makes a random encounter more likely, or don’t rest and become exhausted. It’s at this point in my notes I have to think about how I’m going to handle exhaustion. I’ve omitted that section because I’ll be writing a blog post that better explains the choices I’ve decided to run with.↩
I was so happy when this didn’t come up a 1!↩