<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Challenge Conclusion</div><div class="spoiler_body">This all occurs after retrieval of spears, collection of trophies from the spider, naps, treatment of injured legs, etc.<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Reliyian's Athletics roll beats the challenge difficulty: unmitigated Success.</li><li>Reliyian's Notice roll beats with the challenge difficulty (after recieving the invoke from <em>Extra Set of Eyes</em> provided by Eshalu's earlier success and use of a Fate Point on <em>Longing to See the World</em>): unmitigated Success.</li><li>Eshalu's Stealth roll ties with the challenge difficulty: Success with minor complications.</li></ul>My current thinking is that the slightly-flawed-but-still-mostly-success will result in a boost that I'll bring into play down the road (most likely after Healergirl's return). So the camp is a fine selection ... for now.<br/></div></div><br/><strong>The Wilds of Dra Sirdu: Refuge, or Whatever Passed for It</strong><br/><br/>Travel before had been precarious, but fairly easy: the three able-bodied women had been able to maneuver around the various unpleasant shrubs and trellises blocking their paths. Now, not only did Eshalu's injury make travel slow and difficult, but the disturbance and its whole-sale slaughter of various plants had apparently unsettled the surrounding forest. Spiny branches shifted unexpectedly and entire bushes bent towards them menacingly, as though driven by an unseen breeze. It was nowhere near the frantic lashing that Reliyian's accident near the wall had caused, but it meant that walking became as much a matter of evasion as it was navigation.<br/><br/>Still, with the young mage in the lead to scout ahead and offer her aid in struggling past the most determined of the leafy interlopers, navigating around the wall took a relatively short period of time. True to Eshalu's prediction, a small stream ran roughly parallel to the great stone edifice, though to call it a river would be a little over-dramatic. It was barely visible from just feet away, the thick, evil-looking undergrowth hiding it just as surely as the wall had. However, consultation of Aeryn's map suggested that it might be one of the bodies of water marked as running deeper into the territory of the spider they had originally been dispatched to investigate (or, more accurately, avoid and sneak around).<br/><br/>As the group followed the river, it widened and deepened, fed by other tiny brooks. As its size increased, so did the breadth and depth of the ravine it cut into the surrounding land. After many minutes of walking (though, by the movement of the sun, likely less than an hour), it offered up something much more promising than hints of an even greater arachnid than the one they had just faced. A tangled mass of trees grew from atop the opposite wall of the river's valley, their intermeshed branches and trunks forming an overhang for a surprisingly roomy cave hewn from the dirt by the trees collective roots. If any further proof was needed of long-gone meddlers in the forest's growth, here it was. While the centuries hadn't left the cave in perfect condition, between the newer roots that had vainly poked their way through its roof into the open air and the ruined remains of what once might have been a bench, it lacked any of the gnawed bones or more gruesome hints that would have indicated an inhabitant (or, at least, a threatening one).<br/><br/>Cleaning it out and perhaps fashioning a cover or some camouflage for the open cave mouth (lest some other creature decide it liked their renovations and attempt to move in) would take some time, but that it had lasted this spoke favorably of its durability.