Alex Havel.

• Vitality 2
• Quickness 3
• Fortitude 4
• Auspicious Days: 1
• Inauspicious Days: 0

Card Drawn: 10 of Hearts.
Hazard: An accusation.

I spent the next two days in that cave, as the rain continued nonstop. If it hadn’t already had some wood and branches in the back of it to get a fire started, it would have been a miserable couple of days. I was able to dry out more wood near the fire, so I had plenty to keep the cave warm the entire time.

Before I left, I dried out and stacked up plenty of wood in the back incase another weary traveler had to take refuge here after I’ve left.

With how wet the ground was after the rain, I was grateful to find a road to walk along. Nothing major, wide enough for a horse drawn cart, or a couple of people walking side by side with a little space in between them. But the earth was packed down, and as long as I avoided the ruts and puddles, it was mostly dry hard dirt.

When traveling through sparsely settled lands like these, it was hard to judge how far you were from the next village, but I knew I wasn’t going to make it to one today, so I began looking for a place to stop for the night around late afternoon.

I could have just set up my tent like I normally did, but the skies were still pretty grey, and I did not want to risk it raining again.

Just before sunset, I found a small homestead. It looked quiet. No fires or lamps on in the small cozy house. No one out doing any last minute chores. They had a decent sized garden out back of the house, and a barn. I knocked on the door, but no one answered. I didn’t expect anyone was home.

I sat down on their porch and wrote out a short note.

“I hope you don’t mind, I am passing through and fear it will rain again tonight, so I am going to stay in your barn. Here is a little cash, and a pouch of healing herbs I’ve gathered, to thank you for the use of your barn, and some of the vegetables and fruits that I picked.“

I placed the note, the money, and the pouch on the table next to the door and weighed them down with a rock.

I took a walk through the garden and picked a few squash and peppers, and some berries. Not too much from any plant, and only from ones that there were an abundance of.

With night setting in, I went into the barn and made myself a bed up in the hay loft. The barn was empty. It looked like they kept horses and a cart in it. Maybe the family was off visiting relatives, or had gone to the nearest village and haven’t returned yet.

I woke early the next morning to the sound of a door slamming open. I hadn’t done much but lay out a blanket on some hay, and use my bed roll as a pillow, so it only took me a minute to pack up and get ready to leave.

I grabbed my pack, and my walking stick, and left the barn. At the same time, a young man came out of the house distraught. He jerked to a halt as he saw me standing in the yard. He screamed something about his family and lunged at me drawing a knife from his belt.

Quickness 3d4, 1, 4, 4

I was able to dodge to the side and use my walking stick to knock the knife out of his hand. I felt bad as I likely broke some of the bones in his hand as well, but that was preferable to letting him kill me.

He held his hurt hand against himself as he lunged at me again. Still snarling about how I killed his family, and that I had come back to do the same to him.

I tried telling him that I hadn’t done anything to his family, but nothing I said did any good. I could hear hooves in the distance, getting closer. I clipped him on the head, hard enough to daze him, but hopefully not hard enough to do any real damage, then took off into the woods.

It didn’t take long before I heard people trying to follow me through the woods.

Fortitude 4d4 2, 3, 3, 4

It took a while, but with some luck, and skill gained from spending a lot of time in the woods, I was able to lose my pursuers. I had found a small alcove under a fallen tree that I was able to squeeze into. It wasn’t visible, I only found it because I saw a fox come out of it as I neared it. After two hours they finally gave up, but I waited another hour before coming out.

I had no idea what had happened to the poor kids family, but I knew I didn’t want to stick around to be accused of it. I had hoped to stop at the next village for a day or two and restock some of my supplies, but that wasn’t an option now. So I set off, aiming to go well north of it before coming back south towards the next village a few days travel away.

End of the day.

I rolled 2 stats. Fortitude and Quickness. When you roll, you take the highest roll and that is your score. So a 4 and a 4.
My omen score, determined by the card I drew was a 10, and my skill check sum was a 8, so today was an Inauspicious day.

Though I succeeded in not getting stabbed, and in getting away, today was still a bad day, but I learned from it, and my unused skill, Vitality went up by one.

So tomorrow, I will start with Vitality 3, Fortitude 3, Quickness 4.

Her Odyssey Written By: S. Kaiya J.
Get your own copy here: whyhieratic.itch.io/her-odyssey
Her Odyssey is a solo journaling game built on the Caltrop Core system. All you need to play it is at least 1 d4, though 5 is recommended, a full deck of playing cards including the jokers, and somewhere to write your story.