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Day Four
In the
morning you eat rabbit on a stick. Eva has lost her cooking
equipment so she set some traps during the night. After getting
a late start she says "We might find the pirogue if we stick to
the water's edge." She does have her bow and quiver.
"Let me walk in front so I spot any gators in our path."
Interestingly there seems to be a path
going right next to the water's edge. It is an animal trail,
very narrow, and not straight. You hear a splash up ahead.
Probably a gator escaping from your approach. Eva seems to make
a lot less noise than you, but occasionaly she stomps very hard on
purpose. This time you see a gator slide into the bayou farther
up.
[get one experience point for learning to frighten gators.]
"There
it is! Lucky for us its on this side. I don't see the
other oar though. Do you think you could use the spear to pole
us along?"
You remember the water
being over your head when fighting the turtle, but that area seemed
abnormaly deep. "I think so." With that the two
of you drag the pirogue out of the bayou and turn it over. The
swamp water is dumped onto the bank. It washes around the
cypress knees and trickles back in. She examines the bottom.
"Looks right." Y'all turn it over and get back in.
With the butt of the spear you push off from the bank and out into
the current.
For two hours you get used
to standing in the back of the boat. Pushing along with the
spear is easy enough. Avoiding the stumps and snags takes a
little work. Steering comes slowly. Just as you are
getting to where you have the knack of it you notice that the clouds
have been thickening.
[Get two experience points for learning to pole.]
It starts
with a darkening of the sky. The clouds seem to get blacker and
lower. That distinctive smell that precedes a lightning storm
laces the gusts of cool wind. It starts with a soft drizzle.
The drizzle gets stronger and turns into a solid rain. Someone
turns the rain up a notch and it becomes big fat drops of water.
Someone turns it up another notch and it comes down harder.
Unbelivably the rain gets stronger and comes down faster. This
is the heaviest rain you have ever seen. Its only been five
minutes and already there is a small puddle in the bottom of the
pirogue. Someone turns on even more rain. Now it is big,
fat, hard, fast, and thick rain. At this point even Eva sits
up. She is looking at the surface of the bayou which is jumping
and splattering with rain drops. Then the galloping rain
starts. The entire surface of the bayou is agitated by rain.
Eva speaks up to be heard over the
rain. “I heard a story once that it rained so hard that
anyone caught in the rain without a wide brimmed hat would
suffocate.” You and she are already soaked to the bone.
The pirogue has about 10cm of water in it. “I think we
should go for shore." She look at the water pooling in the
bottom. "And get under the pirogue!” This you
do.
[Get three points for experiencing hard bayou rain.]
Once under the trees the rain isn’t nearly as bad. The bayou is still ablaze with rain drops. The water level is rising. Before long the bayou begins to overflow the banks. The two of you turn the pirogue over, get back in it and sit. Eventually the water level rises around you and you are afloat again, this time over what had been the bank. Now you understand why a pirogue has a flat bottom and isn't built like a canoe. It can float in five centimeters of water.
[Get four experience points for learning new capabilities of the pirogue in shallow water.]
This goes on
for an hour. When the rain finally lightens up to just a normal
rain you use the spear to find that you are in one meter of water.
The bayou looks pretty fast and dangerous right now, but the flooded
woodland looks clear and safe. You continue on. Rowing
the pirouge through a cathedral of trees and Spanish moss.
After a while you realize that maneuvering around the trees is taking
time, and it is easier to just use the spear to push against the
trees themself instead of the forest floor. This works very
well and you begin making excellent time. You start leaving a
wake in your path.
There are many snakes
in the bayou and swimming around in the flooded wood. The flood
must have driven them all from their holes. They are
everywhere, but they swim away as you approach.
The rain clears at dusk and the mosquitoes swarm. They are
irritating little things. Biting, taking little slurps of blood
and flying off. There seem to be thousands of them. There
is almost no wind in the wood and this plays to the mosquitos
advantage.
Eva grabs leaves off of an
overhanging vine, crushes them and rubs them on her skin. “I
was named after this ivy. It’s called Eva.”
She hand you some. You notice relief immediately.
Apparently if you smell like a plant the mosquitos wont eat you.
[Get five experience for learning basic mosquito repellent.]
Poling along
at a brisk pace you make twice the distance you would have rowing.
That and the wind from moving that fast dispurses the few mosquitos
and gnats that are still buzzing around. It has been dark for a
while but the moon has come out strong. You didn't see any
point in stopping. There is no where to sleep or cook.
You can see everything clearly in that eerie night vision grey. Ahead
you can see a largish mound rising out of the water. Land.
You may get some sleep this night after all. Eva speaks up.
“Oooh. An Indian burial mound. We can cook
something to eat there.”
With that
she takes an arrow out and asks you to go towards one of the snakes.
It is doing that serpentine motion that only snakes can do.
Most of its body is visible on the surface of the water. She
stabs it behind the head in one swift stroke and throws it into the
pirogue. There it twists and curls as though still alive.
It take a full ten minutes to stop moving.
You pole the
pirogue onto land next to a large fallen log. The mound is
clear of trees and is covered with soft grass. It looks
inviting and restful. As you get out to pull the pirogue a
little higher onto land the giant fallen log rears up and swings
around. It seems that log you landed next to is a giant cotton
mouth water moccasin. The beast is about one hex in diameter
and nine hexes long. It doesn’t look inclined to share
the mound or to retreat.
This may be the
fight of your life. It is two hexes away. Let's hope you
set vs. charge and do great damage. Lucky for you the spear is
in one hand and the other is pulling the pirogue. As you turn
to face the beast, you notice Eva has already knocked an arrow.
Giant cotton mouth water
moccasin 9 Hexes long.
ST 40 Bite 2D, save 3D vs. ST
or take 1D damage from poison
DX 11 no armor, no
minus to hit because of its enormous size
IQ 6
MA 8
The strange thing about
water moccasins is that the smaller they are the more deadly the
poison. The normal sized one that Eva killed for dinner would
be a 5D vs. ST or 4D damage. An infant, about a quarter meter
long, would be 7D vs. ST or 6D damage.
[Get 51
possible experience for killing the snake. Some of this may go
to Eva depending on how much damage she does and if she gets the
killing blow or not.]