Meanwhile, in the Westwoods...

Raven goes into the house, calling out for her father.

"Raven, dear!  What are you doing home?" It's old Sereth Ellevy, the housekeeper. "Your father said you wouldn't be coming this year.  Did you get his message?" Surprised as she is to see you, it doesn't stop her from giving you a bug hug.

------

Mindartis steps through the hoop and vanishes...

Quentin stays with the Prince sighing as he says, “We’re going to get you back soon. I promise.” He turns to Del and says, “Thank you for not letting me just....blast into the cube and free him.”

"It's a long story."  Raven says with a sigh.  "Where's dad at?"  She returns the hug.  "Also we need to find space for two foals i rescued on the way here.  And I have some traveling companions outside, who will need a place to stay."

"Oh, how lovely to have guests!" says Sereth. "I'm sure we can find room in the barn for your foals, and guest rooms for your friends.  Your brother is away at the castle at the moment, and shouldn't be back for a few days.  I'm afraid your father has gone off into the wilderness, hunting down the blights. I'm afraid I'm not sure when he will be back.  He left three days ago, and said he expected to be gone no more than a week."

Elwin had been eyeing Mindartis as he gathered his things. Now that the barbarian had stepped through the hoop, he stopped to wait, timing the elf's absence.

Del stares at the empty space. Bitterly Effin' hell. Imagine my shock that the barbarian's rash decision turns out to be rash

 ((You guys will have a few days of downtime, if you have anything you want to work on....crafting, finishing Quentin's new spellbook, dissolving sugar off people, foal training, looking to sell your sugar, etc.))

"thanks."  Raven says, giving another hug.  She then returns outside to make sure everyone is doing alright outside and to bring them in to get them settled inside.

Time passes, with no sign of Mindartis, by the way.

Quentin will spend the time worrying about Mindartis on top of finishing copying over his new spells into his book. He of course will overlook while the Prince is being de-crystallized. When he hands over his spellbook to Elwin for safe keeping, assuming he sticks around, he asks him “Hey....can we....can we talk?” 

"Where did Mindartis go?"  Raven asks as she ends up not spotting him when she returns outside. when she finds out she swears and tries to consider options.  "Do we head back North again, and try to meet up with him at that same spot, or do we think he was captured, as the cottage may have had more gnolls or such there..."

Elwin, more hopeful than anything else, turned to Del at Raven's question. "I suppose you can contact him still?"

(( @JacWalke: How long will it take Quentin to copy the rest of his spells? ))

(10 hours now because I no longer get half time on certain spells.) 

I can cast sending again in the morning. We have time to craft a message to Lord Meathead - I do not think we should head in any direction until we know at least what plane he is on. I want to give as full information I can - how long from Lomalos to here for the aid the king is sending? How long would it be from here to where we first transported at the mushroom circle?

For this afternoon, Del wants to take a short rest examining the tin box. We should explain the situation to Raven's people, since there might be danger from Auntie and the gray elf and gnolls. And learn what we can about defenses and our situation here. Where is here anyway - is this part of the Court of Whispers or what?

Just for a cool gesture, Del will lay the Princes sword atop the sugar crystal. We can start dissolving sugar in the morning so - if the king sent a high level spell-caster and adequate diamond dust - we can restore these poor sods on arrival

Elwin handed Del the tin box, then stared at the strips of wood that were used to weave the hoops. "I'm not much of a spellcaster," he began, "but knowing about these hoops should undoubtedly be a help. I'm going to see if I can figure out anything about this wood."

(( He will spend a couple of hours trying to gather what he can about the wooden strips, how they work, if they can make more hoops, etc. He'll do this through physical examination, using what little arcane knowledge he has, using Prestidigitation to generate magical energy as needed, and through actual tests with the strips, individually and together, especially as he bends them into various shapes. Not sure what skills will apply, so here's a few checks -

Investigation: 7
Arcana: 21
History: 9
Nature: 15
Insight: 1 ))

((Well, those are some seriously sucky rolls, dude...except for Nature.))

Elwin notices that the wood is not split along the grain...in fact, the grain of the wood seems to twist and bend in completely random directions.  From this he deduces that the wood is taken from the roots of what must have been very large trees. Also, that however it was cut probably involved some sort of magic or some extremely deft and precise cutting method.

Prestidigitation helps to bend the thin strips of wood without cracking them, but when Sereth the housekeeper sees what Elwin is doing, she suggests that soaking the strips would probably be a more practical way make them more pliable.

(( Yeah.... frankly, I'm going to start using Orokos.com instead for my die rolls, if that's alright with you. ))

Elwin acquires a bucket and some water, and spends time forming hoops of various sizes with the strips of wood. He'll attempt to make some out of nothing but greyish wood strips, some out of nothing but vibrant wood strips, and some out of nothing but normal wood strips. He'll also attempt making hoops in the various combinations (greyish-vibrant, greyish-normal, vibrant-normal, and all three.)

(( If anything new comes from working with the wood further, I'll make new rolls on Orokos, or whatever is permitted. ))

((To be honest, I'd rather you stuck to the dice roller here.  It's frustrating, but so are real dice.))

With a few more tips from Sereth, who has some basket-making experience, it is not difficult for someone of your dexterity to get the hang of the weave.  You are able to successfully make several hoops over the day, improving with experience.

Del warns the household about the gnoll raids.  They are indeed in the jurisdiction of the Court of Whispers, and Castle Whisper is less than a day's ride away, so they feel fairly secure here. They are used to gnoll raids and think of them mainly as something that happens to the south of the river.

The tin box pretty much looks the same as it did the last time you examined it...are you doing anything different with it?

(( Default rolls it is! ))

Elwin had several hoops made by the end of the day. He then began testing them to see if they actually acted as portals.

(( Do they? Or is there a roll to make? *fingers crossed* ))