You Are Walking Through The Woods Tomorrow and...

[printcraft]

How did I get into this woods?

You are at a white house, see a mailbox, and open it. You find an announcement which says that you're the winner of a 4 days and 3 nights all-expense-paid vacation at a Resort, which is located in West Shanbar on the Road to the South in the Valley of the Sparrows. You decide to go.
But as soon as you approach the pass leading down into the Valley of the Sparrows, you begin to suspect that something is wrong............



Is there a limit to the number of things I can carry?
Or do I have a bag I can place the items in?
Do I have to drop the knife to pick up the scrap of map with the note written on the back of it? (no one has thought to turn it over)

 

[Jack Ryan]

Well, since it appears the story continues whether I'm reading or not, I'll catch up and try my hand again. I've marked the bucket. Small stick, some of the char from the fire that someone let go out. I've marked NEWS, since no one told me I couldn't. I have a bottle of water, that I drank. I'm going to use the spring and bottle to dump some cold water over the worst areas of itch to try and wash it off, knowing that it's going to be hot soon and that stinging nettles and sweat don't mix real well. Then, I'm going to refill it, but not drink it, yet.

Knowing that the big red number 10 in the upper left is readable when north is up on the map, I can see that heading down the ravine south-east (about 105-110º) will take me to a larger stream (probably the dry creek bed I walked to get here). Along the way, I'm gonna look for some witch hazel leaves to help the itching.

Let me know if I'm doing ok or got eaten by a grue.

Looking around at the bucket it seemed way to open on the sides to be the correct location to mark the bucket but just one way to be sure. Turning to walk down the rock bed you see open relatively flat valley...

You are standing over the bucket you found. You are looking at the hillside probably 10-20 steps away. Water is running barely out of a pile of rocks at the bottom of a steep hillside. You could walk up it holding on to saplings here and there. You can't see the top of the hill throught the trees from the bucket.

If you turn 180 from there you see head high briars, weeds, tall weeds with yellow blossom. Thistle weeds the small low rock bed you are standing in drys up quickly and runs down hill to a deeper even more dry rock bed. Walking down that leads to a deeper ditch with no running water in it. A 15 minute recon on this determines there to be no water running at all, no water up stream and only a muddy pool with green slime on top the other way.

Nope, if you are on this scrap of map, you are not in that narrow ravine where you look nearly straight up steep sides in every direction but one.

At least yer not so thirsty any more and your paranoid fear of any water bottle that doesn't say Walmart on it is starting to wear off. This stuff don't taste half bad and through the clear tea bottle you can at least see nothing swimming in it with the naked eye.

Every thing feels better clean and you almost feel like you've civilised the woods a little today. Kinda hungry though. I'd keep my rifle handy and take another look around. Kinda figure out if I'm on this map or at least when I'm facing north. This piece of map didn't blow in from Alaska, it's got to have something to do with something around here. Those blue lines mean stream or intermittent stream, normally surface water run off. I wouldn't drink from that nasty crap. Beavers spread some pretty bad parasites not to mention worms of every kind from every mammal's crap in the woods running down in to it.

 

[Jack Ryan]

It looks like someone is tending to this patch. I found a garden weasel, some rubber hose, several 5 gallon buckets, another Bic lighter, and two folding chairs. These chairs will be a welcome relief from sitting on the cold damp ground.

A guy could get killed and used for fertilizer by drug gangs messing around in someone's patch. Luckily you were only dreaming.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Is there a limit to the number of things I can carry?
I don't know for sure about you but with me it's more a matter of how much I'm WILLING to carry. If I leave the house packing a bunch of crap how will I carry home my prizes? Heck I've been know to pick up a couple bricks and think I've really got something. I've I had to leave something behind to get them I wouldn't have that brick at home today.


Or do I have a bag I can place the items in?

I just about always stick a walmart bag in my pocket if I plan to go in the woods. I don't think you guys thought of that though so you had to poke a stich through your squirrels legs and hang them on your belt until the first ones rotted and all their little crawleys found a new home.


Do I have to drop the knife to pick up the scrap of map with the note written on the back of it? (no one has thought to turn it over)

I don't have to. What you think this is some kind of game or something? The back is blank white paper except for where your grubby paws touched it.

 

[indytechnerd]

Looking around at the bucket it seemed way to open on the sides to be the correct location to mark the bucket but just one way to be sure. Turning to walk down the rock bed you see open relatively flat valley...

Nope, if you are on this scrap of map, you are not in that narrow ravine where you look nearly straight up steep sides in every direction but one.

At least yer not so thirsty any more and your paranoid fear of any water bottle that doesn't say Walmart on it is starting to wear off. This stuff don't taste half bad and through the clear tea bottle you can at least see nothing swimming in it with the naked eye.

Every thing feels better clean and you almost feel like you've civilised the woods a little today. Kinda hungry though. I'd keep my rifle handy and take another look around. Kinda figure out if I'm on this map or at least when I'm facing north. This piece of map didn't blow in from Alaska, it's got to have something to do with something around here. Those blue lines mean stream or intermittent stream, normally surface water run off. I wouldn't drink from that nasty crap. Beavers spread some pretty bad parasites not to mention worms of every kind from every mammal's crap in the woods running down in to it.

Ok, I'll grab my rifle, knife, map, baggie, water bottle. Let's figure out exactly where we are. Let's head up the hill (does the rifle have a sling?) to the point where we saw the spring coming out of the ground. I'm guessing it's just off the East side of the map, since it's not marked on this scrap. I'm also guessing that the bucket is actually near the 600' contour just below where I've marked East, since the land is more open there.

Keeping my eyes open for that darn grue.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Ok, I'll grab my rifle, knife, map, baggie, water bottle. Let's figure out exactly where we are. Let's head up the hill (does the rifle have a sling?)

Those pants you found had a belt on them.

to the point where we saw the spring coming out of the ground. I'm guessing it's just off the East side of the map, since it's not marked on this scrap. I'm also guessing that the bucket is actually near the 600' contour just below where I've marked East, since the land is more open there.

Keeping my eyes open for that darn grue.

Until you figure out a logical way to know which way is NSEW where you are standing, you have no way to orient the map even if I said you were on it. You are floundering around in the bottom lands of a valley, you don't know what time it is and you don't know what direction you are facing or need to go.

Even this is an improvement over that last 24 hours and you feel a little better.

 

[indytechnerd]

Knowing that the big red number 10 in the upper left is readable when north is up on the map, I can see that heading down the ravine south-east (about 105-110º) will take me to a larger stream (probably the dry creek bed I walked to get here). Along the way, I'm gonna look for some witch hazel leaves to help the itching.

Let me know if I'm doing ok or got eaten by a grue.

Until you figure out a logical way to know which way is NSEW where you are standing, you have no way to orient the map even if I said you were on it. You are floundering around in the bottom lands of a valley, you don't know what time it is and you don't know what direction you are facing or need to go.

So, if this is a standard topo map, the large red numbers are only facing correctly if North is up. If this is not the case in JackWorld, let me know.

 

[Jack Ryan]

So, if this is a standard topo map, the large red numbers are only facing correctly if North is up. If this is not the case in JackWorld, let me know.

Yep, the top of the map is north.

Put the map down and tell me which way you are facing and how you know that? No one brought a compass with them. No one has a GPS, your wits, what is common in...., and your wits are what you have. When you can stand there and point NSEW then you can compare features you see to determine if and/or where you are on the map you have.

It's hotter'n blazes out, the sun is near straight up far as I can tell. Haven't felt a breeze all day.

 

[indytechnerd]

Looking around at the bucket it seemed way to open on the sides to be the correct location to mark the bucket but just one way to be sure. Turning to walk down the rock bed you see open relatively flat valley...

Yep, the top of the map is north.

Put the map down and tell me which way you are facing and how you know that?

Moss grows on the north side of trees, ant hills and spiderwebs are on the south side. There's the 'stick-in-the-ground' method of tracking the shadow to mark an east-west line. A perpendicular stick to that would point me north-south.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Moss grows on the north side of trees, ant hills and spiderwebs are on the south side.
Good luck with those.

There's the 'stick-in-the-ground' method of tracking the shadow to mark an east-west line. A perpendicular stick to that would point me north-south.

That will work.

Now you move out more away from the bucket in to better sun. Take a couple sticks and a couple rocks with you. Stomp down a bare spot. Do the stick thing. Scratch the compass markings in the dirt and set the rocks on the north south line running through the stick poked vertically in the ground.

Now you've got a rough clock and a reliable compass to refer back to so long as yer not gone long from it. Just check the shadow, reference it to the semi permentant N-S line with the rocks and any where you want a pretty good comparison to the orientation of something you think might fit the map poke the stick in the ground and check the shadow to orient the map and see if it matches the terrain. If you feel it's been more than 15-30 minutes better make some allowance for movement compared to the shadow or go back and re-check.

Stomping around in the valley brush you got milk weed seeds all over ya and there was a little white plastic bottle near where you kneeled down. Like a 35mm film can but white and the lid was fastened on and just flipped up to open. It was empty.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Turns out you are on that map after all. The bucket is about straight south of the "6" in 600 at the mouth of that little bitty ravine in the north facing hill side. There's no blue marking from it on the map.

It's a karst area and water is here and gone there back in to the ground. It comes right out of the pile of rocks at the bottom of the hill and unless it's wet weather there's just a rocky bed that might look damp or even dusty dry ten feet past water sinking in to the sand and gravel.

 

[printcraft]

(printcraft casts level 3 Spell of Enlightenment)

 

[Eddie]

Pick up the little white bottle near the milkweeds and examine it more closely.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Pick up the little white bottle near the milkweeds and examine it more closely.

Open it up, it might have some "AccuCheck" strips in it.
Or, it could have something else in it now that the accucheck strips have all been used.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Open it up, it might have some "AccuCheck" strips in it.
Or, it could have something else in it now that the accucheck strips have all been used.

Smart guys, eh? I'll just tell ya what to do with it. I already said was empty, that's a clue to put something in it. Out here it might have had another full mag load of 22's in it, maybe some reflective light tacks, ear plugs, matches, some kind of useless crap Geo cacher guys hide, all sorts of stuff might have been in it.

But it was empty.

You green horns have some stuff you need to carry and no way to carry it you should be making, collecting, or putting in something that cool you've found.

You should have made some char cloth out of a few pieces of those cotton pants so you can make a fire when ever you want, that bottle would keep that good, you should have used your knife and peeled the label off that tea bottle to use for starting fires that will fit in that bottle with char, you should have pull off a handful of those milk weed seeds to use for wind finders or you'll never get close to any thing bigger than a squirrel, you could have put your flint in there in nothing else.

Blouse those pant legs, wash that mud crap off those bug bites before they get infected, roll up what ever won't fit in dang pockets in what's left of those pant and knot them. Poke a stick through that and a couple belt loops so you've got at least one hand free to keep briars off you and let's see something.

I'm frigging hungry for one thing let's get a couple squirrels on a stick while we have a fire going to make char, rub some of those ramps on there and some spice bush. I'm tire of this just barely surviving bull crap.

 

[360]

I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I'm tired, I'm hot, I filthy, my feet hurt, I'm ready to go home. Just walk down stream 15 minutes and you come to a pine grove and a path. The path is going the same general direction as the stream and you back at the truck, by the road, in 30 minutes or so. The dead guy on the path was kind a nasty look'n, freaks. Never know what you'll see out here any more. Pop can rolls out the door when I open it and being the conciense kind of guy I am I pick it back up. Reaching for it in the bushes I find a the most awesome 1911. Cool, if I ever need a throw down I'm in good shape now.

 

[printcraft]

(printcraft casts level 3 Spell of Enlightenment)

I'm tired, I'm hot, I filthy, my feet hurt, I'm ready to go home. Just walk down stream 15 minutes and you come to a pine grove and a path. The path is going the same general direction as the stream and you back at the truck, by the road, in 30 minutes or so. The dead guy on the path was kind a nasty look'n, freaks. Never know what you'll see out here any more. Pop can rolls out the door when I open it and being the conciense kind of guy I am I pick it back up. Reaching for it in the bushes I find a the most awesome 1911. Cool, if I ever need a throw down I'm in good shape now.

Enlightenment spell works!!!

Receive 100 gold
XP +10
Health +5
Mana +3

 

[rcjack86]

Is this like some twisted, l-o-n-g haiku, Jack?? I've been drinking Scotch while Mrs Paddling_Man has been mowing.

The sound of the running water off that hill makes me need to go take a leak.

BRB

Way to go! Make HER mow!

 

[Jack Ryan]

I'm getting request from "constant reader" to reopen this or possibly start a new game.

Does every one know how to play now the practice session is over?