Tracking the movement of those still left behind him, Holm is ready this time when the shadowed knight suddenly appears behind the redhead covering their retreat. Barely pausing in his run, he fires another blast of red energy in the knight's direction. He lets out a whoop as it strikes true, and confident in the redhead's ability to take advantage of the distraction and escape, he continues to dash towards the portal.
BA: Force Ballista nat20 to hit for 14 force damage, and the knight is pushed back 5 ft. (into The Void?)
A: Dash
Movement: 45 ft. toward portal - BA across gap - 15 ft. toward portal
The arrow finds a gap in the knight's armor where helm meets breastplate. Even as a thick black liquid oozes from the gap, the man - or creature - still doesn't seem bothered by the damage. In the next instant, his breastplate is cracked inwards as the crackling red ball of energy slams into it. Briefly, the knight's hateful glare shows surprise as he's thrown off the edge.
In the background, the ever-present chant turns into a metallic roar...The world begins to crumble around you. Stone and brick cracks and breaks apart, falling into the foggy abyss below. Those of you still not at the portal pick up the pace, leaping over the holes that appear as the very ground falls away, struggling to stay upright as the entire realm shakes.
As the last of you arrives, you dive through the swirling vortex. Your vision briefly goes black as your entire body turns ice cold.
When your vision returns, you find yourself on the mountainside path, halfway between the village of Vault and the Temple of the Sacred Light. The marks etched into your skin flare, and the portal you came through begins to shrink until it dissipates into nothing.
Looking up towards the mountain, you can see its peak has been blown off. A massive tear in the fabric of reality itself sits above the ruined remains of the temple, leaking a sickly black ichor. Through the tear, you catch glimpses of the the ghostly blue and green sky of the realm you just fled. Abandoned tents and camping supplies line the road, and a gentle snow falls from the sky...
Lucian’s eyes open, and immediately he gets up, shivering. He rolls up his sleeve, studying his tattoo for a moment, before looking up the sky, to the ruined mountain… ”what could have caused this…” whispers the wood elf. “That rift… in the sky… is it not familiar…” he sighs, looking at his surroundings, then to the others. He quickly counts to make sure all of them are there.
he brushes off some snow from his jacket and approaches the others, helping them up and making sure they are all okay and not mortally wounded. “Is everyone… for the most part, alright?…”
Holm blinks the spots from his vision, reorienting himself after the strange feeling of passing between dimensions. His arm burns under the metal bracer, which he sends one final pulse of shielding energy through before willing the metal arms to retract and letting his sleeve fall back over it. His gaze follows the dark skinned elf's up toward the sky, and to where the temple should have stood.
"The mountain...there's no way anyone could've survived that." He looks around at his odd band of comrades, most of them seeming to be mages of some kind. "Yet somehow we did, thank the paragons. I'm fine, but this one took quite the hit back there," he says, holding out a hand to help the thin hammer-wielding mage to his feet. "I'm Holm, by the way. You all fight well, I doubt any of us could've survived whatever that realm was without the others."
Everyone can take 10 temp hp if you'd like (I think Korran still has AoA he may want to keep, but these won't expire until a long rest). Holm's eldritch cannon will hide out of sight for now, but is technically "active" for another 59 minutes or so, just as a note.
“Indeed… seems all of us are at least somewhat competent fighters. Oh, I’m Lucian, by the way.” He rolls up his sleeve again to observe his new tattoo around his forearm.
”I didn’t have this before… do you all have something like this too?” He asks, sitting down on the side of the road.
Stumbling a few steps forward, Dante holds up a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of sunlight reflecting off the snow until they can adjust to the brighter lighting. He turns around in time to see the portal close, scratching at the sensation on his hand. Next he turns to the mountain, and the sight makes his heart drop. "Cass...?" No. His friend had not been there. He'd looked. She was camped somewhere else. Or was on the road, getting as far away from this blasted conflict as possible.
As he finds himself bathed in a warm light once more, he becomes aware of the others again and turns away from the dreadful tear in the sky. "Call me Dante. Yes...I have a mark that was not there before." He says, showing the back of his hand
He takes a look around the abandoned tents to make sure they're truly abandoned but is far too distracted by thoughts of his friend to truly focus on the task.
Roland holds out his arm, revealing the mark to the others, without looking at the others. He gazes straight ahead for a bit, until the little white animal bites him on the ear. He comes back to the moment slowly.
"I am Roland. I am the counsel, and body guard of the Prince. Though now, after what just happened, ..." he pauses. Then he stands up, "I am Roland from Loria."After another brief pause, he continues, "I don't know what just happened, I assume none of us do, but for now, we are together. We fought well and worked as a team. Considering we all have these same damn arm marks, well... Well I don't know what that means"he says looking around. "I guess for now, we stick together?"he says questioningly, then adds, "none of you seem to be sentinels, if so, speak up now."
"Some of you were hit by those undead, who needs healing? I can help."
Dante:The tents look abandoned enough to you. Though now that you've taken a closer look at them, you notice a few odd things. Tears in the canvas. The odd blood stain. But no bodies.
A certain poem proposes that some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. After crossing the portal Korran felt like he experienced both. The mark of his arm burned as darkness left his eyes. He accepted Holm’s help while standing up. For a moment even the sight of the destroyed temple was a welcome one. Then he noticed a wound in the sky, bleeding shadows.
“Korran of… Well, I’m a travelling bard so nowhere, everywhere, makes no difference really.” He said as the others started giving their names. His eyes turned to Roland. “The hit was kind of brutal, but it’s better to heal an ally only when he falls unconscious. The spell will have more impact then and we may need a different magic even if we don’1t fight again.” The armor of ice dissolved as he accepted the energy from the eldritch contraption. “We should look around, pick up anything useful and get away from here.” He dropped the wharhammer and materialized a scimitar on his right hand. The blunt weapon disappeared immediately. “Maybe go to Vault?”
Korran didn’t wait for an answer to start rummaging the supplies. Doubts still echoed on his mind. Were they saved by some higher being? If so, why? The mark on his forearm still flaring.
Notes: @DM, let me know if some check should be rolled.
Holm sighs, rolls up his sleeve once more, and goes to remove his bracer. The smooth, silvery metal comes to life as it did in the fight, and several thin strips of metal unlatch from around the underside of his arm almost like the legs of some large insect. Holding the now-open bracer in his left hand, he rotates his right arm to reveal a design of spiderwebbing red lightning on the inside of his forearm, surrounding a small metal plate embedded in the flesh with a faintly glowing ruby at its center. "It was...burning...during the fight. The voice, the knight, the portal, it seemed to all make it flare up. These marks, they must be related to why we survived." He looks to Roland. "Loria, huh? Sounds like someone had a bit of a sheltered upbringing if you think a sentinel would just announce their presence in a group of mages like this. They're smarter than that, you know.”
He looks up to the ruined mountain once more, the nonexistent temple and the rift. “Vault seems like the best move for now. I doubt we’ll find anything up there, and who knows what might pass through that rift in the next few days, given what we’ve already faced on the other side. Maybe we’ll find more survivors on the way down, or at least some usable supplies.” He allows the bracer to clamp back down on his arm, covering it with his sleeve out of habit, and moves to investigate some of the nearby tents for signs of life or available equipment (investigation18).
[[ Also, I will just say that 5r/5.5/2024/whatever did do an okay job at making healing better besides just when you're down. If Roland has cure wounds up, that's like a potential 20 hp of healing with just a level 1 slot, and I assume Korran doesn't have much more than that total. Just a thought, I'm not the injured one or the one with the healing spells prepared lol ;) ]]
Korran: Roll an investigation check and let me know what you're looking for.
Holm: Moving closer to the tents, it becomes immediately obvious that a bloody fight took place here. Some of the interiors are covered in blood, so much that its hard to believe whoever it was let from is still alive. Still though, you don't see any bodies. It's also apparent that this was a sentinel encampment, as you spot some of their heraldry within the tents. Much of the supplies appear to have been picked clean, though as you move further up the path towards the mountain you're able to find a few things worth keeping:
Korran: Your search isn't as fruitful as Holm's. You begin lower down the mountain path, and very soon realize that almost everything worth taking in these tents have already been taken.
You don't find much in the way of weaponry, aside from a few simple steel daggers.
Holm emerges from a nearby tent, tying a sack to one of the sides of his backpack while awkwardly trying to carry a second shield, this one with a large golden eye at its center. Once he secures the bag, he hefts the shield in his free hand and carries it over to Roland. "Those spikes you summoned were quite the feat of magic, as I'm sure your healing is too. You should take this. If memory serves, I believe it bears an enchantment that may help you react a bit faster the next time we're in a situation like that." He finds his eyes drawn to the rift above the mountain once more as his mark begins to itch under the bracer in his sleeve. "I doubt this madness is anywhere close to over."
He slings a couple sets of chains and manacles off one shoulder and lets them fall to the ground near the rest of the group. "These could be useful, but I don't have the space in my pack to carry them at the moment, so they're fair game for whoever wants them. Oh, and can anyone read this?" He pulls a thin roll of parchment from a scroll case at his belt and holds it out to the others. "It looks like a spell scroll, but it's not any arcane working that I recognize."
[[ Korran is the only one here with silence on his spell list, so the scroll is all yours Makkiu! ]]
Dante unstraps his shield from his arm, watching two of the others search through the tents. "It seems odd no, that there is no one around?"He looks back up towards the mountain, and the tear bleeding in the sky. "How long were we gone I wonder. I would think there would be armies storming the mountainside to get to the temple by now."
"Perhaps you are right, and Vault is where we will find answers."
"From here, it seems our options are up or down. We may not find many answers in Vault, but I'd say it's a fair shout better than finding our early deaths up there," Holm says, pointing up toward where the top of the mountain should have been, and the crackling tear into a dark blue-green realm. He tugs his shield straps tight, pats a hand on the dagger and scroll case at his belt out of habit, and begins walking down the mountain path, hoping that his new companions will follow. They may not be friends yet, but here in Dravica the other magic users were at least allies against the sentinels, whose swords he knew would take no issue with his nationality if he were caught as a lone mage in these lands.
"Thanks, " Roland says as Holm hands him the shield. He gives it a once over, then nods. Dropping his own common shield on the ground amidst the rubble of the camp.
He too eye's the rift hanging over the temple, and pulls up the hood of his cloak. His cloak turning to a dull green and brown, hoping to provide a little bit of cover from any prying eyes.
With that, he'll turn and follow the others off to Vault.
He was carrying rations under both arms, holding a potion vial on his teeth and with a coil of hope over a shoulder when Holm talked about a scroll. Korran stopped mid step and noticed that no one else seemed so invested on the acquisition of seemingly abandoned good. Putting the loot on the ground he went to check on the artificer’s finding.
“It’s double strange when you notice the marks of fighting.” Reading the scroll he recognized its syntax. “I heard about a lot of battles, but in none all bodies are carried in the aftermath. At best important people are taken, dead or alive, as prisoners or examples to be made. Makes me think the people here were transported, like us. Maybe we died by burning and they by battle.” The image of the undead crossed his mind. “Maybe they didn’t have a friendly voice to hold whatever was on the other side.”He finally recognized the writing.“Oh, this is the Silence Spell. I’m still learning to use it but I’m certain.”
As Holms handed him the item he accepted and returned to his findings, packing everything but the potion.
“Anyone wants it?” Korran asked showing the vial with the red liquid, starting to walk in the direction with the village with the others.
If no one speaks up, Roland will take the potion. "Always room for additional healing" he says. "Let me help carry some of whaty you found, never know what maybe needed."
[Roland will take the rope and five pounds of rations if that helps]
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Tracking the movement of those still left behind him, Holm is ready this time when the shadowed knight suddenly appears behind the redhead covering their retreat. Barely pausing in his run, he fires another blast of red energy in the knight's direction. He lets out a whoop as it strikes true, and confident in the redhead's ability to take advantage of the distraction and escape, he continues to dash towards the portal.
BA: Force Ballista nat 20 to hit for 14 force damage, and the knight is pushed back 5 ft. (into The Void?)
A: Dash
Movement: 45 ft. toward portal - BA across gap - 15 ft. toward portal
DM - A Humblewood Adventure | Holm Erebos - Dread Tyrant
Extra damage for Lucian’s attack because I forgot to roll extra damage for the critical hit!
9
The arrow finds a gap in the knight's armor where helm meets breastplate. Even as a thick black liquid oozes from the gap, the man - or creature - still doesn't seem bothered by the damage. In the next instant, his breastplate is cracked inwards as the crackling red ball of energy slams into it. Briefly, the knight's hateful glare shows surprise as he's thrown off the edge.
In the background, the ever-present chant turns into a metallic roar...The world begins to crumble around you. Stone and brick cracks and breaks apart, falling into the foggy abyss below. Those of you still not at the portal pick up the pace, leaping over the holes that appear as the very ground falls away, struggling to stay upright as the entire realm shakes.
As the last of you arrives, you dive through the swirling vortex. Your vision briefly goes black as your entire body turns ice cold.
When your vision returns, you find yourself on the mountainside path, halfway between the village of Vault and the Temple of the Sacred Light. The marks etched into your skin flare, and the portal you came through begins to shrink until it dissipates into nothing.
Looking up towards the mountain, you can see its peak has been blown off. A massive tear in the fabric of reality itself sits above the ruined remains of the temple, leaking a sickly black ichor. Through the tear, you catch glimpses of the the ghostly blue and green sky of the realm you just fled. Abandoned tents and camping supplies line the road, and a gentle snow falls from the sky...
Out of initiative!
Lucian’s eyes open, and immediately he gets up, shivering. He rolls up his sleeve, studying his tattoo for a moment, before looking up the sky, to the ruined mountain… ”what could have caused this…” whispers the wood elf. “That rift… in the sky… is it not familiar…” he sighs, looking at his surroundings, then to the others. He quickly counts to make sure all of them are there.
he brushes off some snow from his jacket and approaches the others, helping them up and making sure they are all okay and not mortally wounded. “Is everyone… for the most part, alright?…”
Holm blinks the spots from his vision, reorienting himself after the strange feeling of passing between dimensions. His arm burns under the metal bracer, which he sends one final pulse of shielding energy through before willing the metal arms to retract and letting his sleeve fall back over it. His gaze follows the dark skinned elf's up toward the sky, and to where the temple should have stood.
"The mountain...there's no way anyone could've survived that." He looks around at his odd band of comrades, most of them seeming to be mages of some kind. "Yet somehow we did, thank the paragons. I'm fine, but this one took quite the hit back there," he says, holding out a hand to help the thin hammer-wielding mage to his feet. "I'm Holm, by the way. You all fight well, I doubt any of us could've survived whatever that realm was without the others."
Everyone can take 10 temp hp if you'd like (I think Korran still has AoA he may want to keep, but these won't expire until a long rest). Holm's eldritch cannon will hide out of sight for now, but is technically "active" for another 59 minutes or so, just as a note.
DM - A Humblewood Adventure | Holm Erebos - Dread Tyrant
“Indeed… seems all of us are at least somewhat competent fighters. Oh, I’m Lucian, by the way.” He rolls up his sleeve again to observe his new tattoo around his forearm.
”I didn’t have this before… do you all have something like this too?” He asks, sitting down on the side of the road.
Stumbling a few steps forward, Dante holds up a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of sunlight reflecting off the snow until they can adjust to the brighter lighting. He turns around in time to see the portal close, scratching at the sensation on his hand. Next he turns to the mountain, and the sight makes his heart drop. "Cass...?" No. His friend had not been there. He'd looked. She was camped somewhere else. Or was on the road, getting as far away from this blasted conflict as possible.
As he finds himself bathed in a warm light once more, he becomes aware of the others again and turns away from the dreadful tear in the sky. "Call me Dante. Yes...I have a mark that was not there before." He says, showing the back of his hand
He takes a look around the abandoned tents to make sure they're truly abandoned but is far too distracted by thoughts of his friend to truly focus on the task.
Perception: 6
Roland holds out his arm, revealing the mark to the others, without looking at the others. He gazes straight ahead for a bit, until the little white animal bites him on the ear. He comes back to the moment slowly.
"I am Roland. I am the counsel, and body guard of the Prince. Though now, after what just happened, ..." he pauses. Then he stands up, "I am Roland from Loria." After another brief pause, he continues, "I don't know what just happened, I assume none of us do, but for now, we are together. We fought well and worked as a team. Considering we all have these same damn arm marks, well... Well I don't know what that means" he says looking around. "I guess for now, we stick together?" he says questioningly, then adds, "none of you seem to be sentinels, if so, speak up now."
"Some of you were hit by those undead, who needs healing? I can help."
Dante: The tents look abandoned enough to you. Though now that you've taken a closer look at them, you notice a few odd things. Tears in the canvas. The odd blood stain. But no bodies.
A certain poem proposes that some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. After crossing the portal Korran felt like he experienced both. The mark of his arm burned as darkness left his eyes. He accepted Holm’s help while standing up. For a moment even the sight of the destroyed temple was a welcome one. Then he noticed a wound in the sky, bleeding shadows.
“Korran of… Well, I’m a travelling bard so nowhere, everywhere, makes no difference really.” He said as the others started giving their names. His eyes turned to Roland. “The hit was kind of brutal, but it’s better to heal an ally only when he falls unconscious. The spell will have more impact then and we may need a different magic even if we don’1t fight again.” The armor of ice dissolved as he accepted the energy from the eldritch contraption. “We should look around, pick up anything useful and get away from here.” He dropped the wharhammer and materialized a scimitar on his right hand. The blunt weapon disappeared immediately. “Maybe go to Vault?”
Korran didn’t wait for an answer to start rummaging the supplies. Doubts still echoed on his mind. Were they saved by some higher being? If so, why? The mark on his forearm still flaring.
Notes: @DM, let me know if some check should be rolled.
Holm sighs, rolls up his sleeve once more, and goes to remove his bracer. The smooth, silvery metal comes to life as it did in the fight, and several thin strips of metal unlatch from around the underside of his arm almost like the legs of some large insect. Holding the now-open bracer in his left hand, he rotates his right arm to reveal a design of spiderwebbing red lightning on the inside of his forearm, surrounding a small metal plate embedded in the flesh with a faintly glowing ruby at its center. "It was...burning...during the fight. The voice, the knight, the portal, it seemed to all make it flare up. These marks, they must be related to why we survived." He looks to Roland. "Loria, huh? Sounds like someone had a bit of a sheltered upbringing if you think a sentinel would just announce their presence in a group of mages like this. They're smarter than that, you know.”
He looks up to the ruined mountain once more, the nonexistent temple and the rift. “Vault seems like the best move for now. I doubt we’ll find anything up there, and who knows what might pass through that rift in the next few days, given what we’ve already faced on the other side. Maybe we’ll find more survivors on the way down, or at least some usable supplies.” He allows the bracer to clamp back down on his arm, covering it with his sleeve out of habit, and moves to investigate some of the nearby tents for signs of life or available equipment (investigation 18).
[[ Also, I will just say that 5r/5.5/2024/whatever did do an okay job at making healing better besides just when you're down. If Roland has cure wounds up, that's like a potential 20 hp of healing with just a level 1 slot, and I assume Korran doesn't have much more than that total. Just a thought, I'm not the injured one or the one with the healing spells prepared lol ;) ]]
DM - A Humblewood Adventure | Holm Erebos - Dread Tyrant
Korran: Roll an investigation check and let me know what you're looking for.
Holm: Moving closer to the tents, it becomes immediately obvious that a bloody fight took place here. Some of the interiors are covered in blood, so much that its hard to believe whoever it was let from is still alive. Still though, you don't see any bodies. It's also apparent that this was a sentinel encampment, as you spot some of their heraldry within the tents. Much of the supplies appear to have been picked clean, though as you move further up the path towards the mountain you're able to find a few things worth keeping:
OoC: If there are specific items or types of things you're looking for, let me know. Otherwise I'll just keep rollin' on a table.
Rolled on the campaign log: 13. Korran is looking for things like rations, potions or weapons. Rope would also be welcome.
Korran: Your search isn't as fruitful as Holm's. You begin lower down the mountain path, and very soon realize that almost everything worth taking in these tents have already been taken.
Holm emerges from a nearby tent, tying a sack to one of the sides of his backpack while awkwardly trying to carry a second shield, this one with a large golden eye at its center. Once he secures the bag, he hefts the shield in his free hand and carries it over to Roland. "Those spikes you summoned were quite the feat of magic, as I'm sure your healing is too. You should take this. If memory serves, I believe it bears an enchantment that may help you react a bit faster the next time we're in a situation like that." He finds his eyes drawn to the rift above the mountain once more as his mark begins to itch under the bracer in his sleeve. "I doubt this madness is anywhere close to over."
He slings a couple sets of chains and manacles off one shoulder and lets them fall to the ground near the rest of the group. "These could be useful, but I don't have the space in my pack to carry them at the moment, so they're fair game for whoever wants them. Oh, and can anyone read this?" He pulls a thin roll of parchment from a scroll case at his belt and holds it out to the others. "It looks like a spell scroll, but it's not any arcane working that I recognize."
[[ Korran is the only one here with silence on his spell list, so the scroll is all yours Makkiu! ]]
DM - A Humblewood Adventure | Holm Erebos - Dread Tyrant
Dante unstraps his shield from his arm, watching two of the others search through the tents. "It seems odd no, that there is no one around?" He looks back up towards the mountain, and the tear bleeding in the sky. "How long were we gone I wonder. I would think there would be armies storming the mountainside to get to the temple by now."
"Perhaps you are right, and Vault is where we will find answers."
"From here, it seems our options are up or down. We may not find many answers in Vault, but I'd say it's a fair shout better than finding our early deaths up there," Holm says, pointing up toward where the top of the mountain should have been, and the crackling tear into a dark blue-green realm. He tugs his shield straps tight, pats a hand on the dagger and scroll case at his belt out of habit, and begins walking down the mountain path, hoping that his new companions will follow. They may not be friends yet, but here in Dravica the other magic users were at least allies against the sentinels, whose swords he knew would take no issue with his nationality if he were caught as a lone mage in these lands.
DM - A Humblewood Adventure | Holm Erebos - Dread Tyrant
"Thanks, " Roland says as Holm hands him the shield. He gives it a once over, then nods. Dropping his own common shield on the ground amidst the rubble of the camp.
He too eye's the rift hanging over the temple, and pulls up the hood of his cloak. His cloak turning to a dull green and brown, hoping to provide a little bit of cover from any prying eyes.
With that, he'll turn and follow the others off to Vault.
He was carrying rations under both arms, holding a potion vial on his teeth and with a coil of hope over a shoulder when Holm talked about a scroll. Korran stopped mid step and noticed that no one else seemed so invested on the acquisition of seemingly abandoned good. Putting the loot on the ground he went to check on the artificer’s finding.
“It’s double strange when you notice the marks of fighting.” Reading the scroll he recognized its syntax. “I heard about a lot of battles, but in none all bodies are carried in the aftermath. At best important people are taken, dead or alive, as prisoners or examples to be made. Makes me think the people here were transported, like us. Maybe we died by burning and they by battle.” The image of the undead crossed his mind. “Maybe they didn’t have a friendly voice to hold whatever was on the other side.” He finally recognized the writing. “Oh, this is the Silence Spell. I’m still learning to use it but I’m certain.”
As Holms handed him the item he accepted and returned to his findings, packing everything but the potion.
“Anyone wants it?” Korran asked showing the vial with the red liquid, starting to walk in the direction with the village with the others.
If no one speaks up, Roland will take the potion. "Always room for additional healing" he says. "Let me help carry some of whaty you found, never know what maybe needed."
[Roland will take the rope and five pounds of rations if that helps]