Tests and Trials Game Thread

Ernos starts out the day with keeping himself entertained playing with fire - in a room with no flammables, of course.  After a while, though, he pushes himself upright and starts heading upwards, simply saying "I'll keep watch."  Once he gets close to the surface, the tiefling casts Disguise Self, making his skin pale and his hair near-white.  His clothes, too, are made to be snow-white, though his cloak retains its shimmer.

Once he reaches the surface, he lays down, burying himself slightly into the snow, eyes scanning the horizon from his cover.

He will watch for an old autobiography.  He will pick out the one he will read by it being the one with the fanciest or most unique materials used for the covering and binding.  

Cladmir is an old soldier-for-hire.  So hurrying up and then waiting for extended period of time is nothing new to him.  Aside from sparing with Kroshav to keep in shape, he would do what he had done best as a soldier who survived all these years... endless preparation (checking his armor and sharpening his blades) to keep himself from getting bored and letting his guard down.  

Jaq decides to follow the age old metaphor, as best he can remember it, and judges a book by its cover. The book he selects has a gold (plated?) cover with silver and mithral swirls along with (glass?) gems. The title is "Me and my many travails, Part I" the author's name looks to be Lord Duke Tygaard the Sixth. It is about as thick as Jaq's hand and easily weighs 20 lbs and is easily over a thousand pages long. The Lord Duke appears to have dedicated the book to himself, with love and the first lines of the book reads,

"The first travail in my life, once having freed myself of my Lady Mother's womb, which I did entirely on my own, a first I am told, and without pain to my Lady Mother or effort on her behalf, was the unfortunate trick of the gods having been only born a Lord Duke, or rather had been born second in line to be Lord Duke which was eventually corrected by the verysame gods but not before my not so dear syster endeavored to ruin all the chances that were rightly ordained to me via understanding of the great ability they brought into the world..."

Scanning the next couple of pages, Jaq is unable to find the end of the first sentence.

----

Ernos joins a pair of golems up top, both drifted with snow. Neither moves to acknowledge their new companion. It is very cold, and even covered in the snow Ernos is not going to be nice experience.

((@Hound, give me a perception check))

---

Cladmir is confident he has the sharpest sword and best maintained armor in the Archives!

5

Ernos doesn't see anything approaching the Archives entrance during his watching but from time to time does notice faint wisps of smoke from various points in the forest below, all more than a day's walk away in good conditions. That he can see them at all implies either large fires, wet wood or a combination of the two.

Kroshav would have ventured a short distance from the entrance, searching for signs of Gethren's presence. He'd probably give it a day or two before wanting to get back to finishing out Lurn's tomb.

"I'd been thinking of carving a bit symbol of Kelemvor outside the cairn, but with Gethren searching for Lurn, I don't want him to be able to find him. I think maybe a plain burial for now, and maybe after we're sure that the bastard's dead and gone, can come back and leave a marker."

((Ah, fires...  Ernos' specialty.  :p))

Ernos is going to keep watch as he is until it gets dark.  He'll want to see if he can see any pinpoints of light from the fires making the smoke, cold be damned.

Ernos stays put and after a while is pretty sure he is either warm or numb to the cold. Once darkness falls he thinks there might be light coming from one fire, the one closest to them. The others are either inside, blocked by trees, too far away or too small for him tell.

((Doing anything with that information?))

Rolling his eyes at how the book starts, he decides not to give up hope to quickly.

He will pick a page nearly 1/3 into the book and see if the man's writing ability has increased with some hours of practice.

He will also, if the book is not too fragile, leaf through the book to see if anything or any loose pages of paper have been placed in the book.

Satisfied with that, Ernos pulls himself from his hiding spot and heads back inside, dropping his disguise and repeatedly casting Prestidigitation to heat his clothing, the last dusting of snow melting off as he does.  Feeling numb to the cold for a time may have been handy, but he's not fool enough to believe it's a good thing to stay that way for any longer than need be.

Descending into the library, the tiefling seeks out the others, telling whoever he can find, "Fires in the distance, can see the smoke.  One visible, nearest us.  Hunters seem unlikely but possible, maybe one or two other travelers like myself, but it's probably a sign of trouble.  Might be the one pursuing us has others with him, and they aren't all hiding their flames."

After all the readings he's done previously Cladmir will attempt to recall any information he may have accumulated about possible creatures around this time of the year and if there could possibly be any group of hunters operating in relation to that.

Intelligence: 13

(( super duper result! ))

Jaq is determined to see how Lord Duke Tygaard managed to get through life given his unluckly lot and skips ahead several hundred pages. He finds the pages, being far from brittle, are difficult to turn as each page is stuck to the following. He has encountered this a few times before with new books that no one has ever read and knows to be careful as to not rip a page of this historic recounting. On what he guesses must be around page 250 (they pages are not numbered) he begins,

"...it was a Wednesday or maybe a Friday when I was served my noontime meal, as with the meal I had to break my fast and  I selected to eat only quail eggs served in nine different manners, scrambled, poached, boiled, deviled, basted, coddled, pickled, shirred, coddled and raw, which I ate in the reverse pattern as I partook the meal to break my fast, for refreshment I selected beverages that matched each of the methods of eggs in color and temperament, unfortunately before I could finish my lunch, I had only been eating for an hour, when my despicable syster interrupted me with news of some family member having died, I recall not which one, perhaps a cousin or maybe an aunt, my syster, can you believe it, actually made the pretense of shedding tears over this person, while I, being a strapping lad, was made to look callous in front of my syster's ladies in waiting, especially the blonde one that I now barely tolerated my shrew syster..."

After this Tygaard starts ranking the attractiveness of his sister's ladies in waiting before skipping either forward or back in time an indeterminate amount of time to point out when his sister again humiliated him in front of peers of the realm by taking him aside pointing out he had spilled a red sauce (identified as having come from breakfast and being delightful) down his shirt. There continue to be no signs of anything but commas, though his penmanship appears to be improving.

----

Cladmir, having been kidnapped and dragged under a mountain, isn't as aware of the specific inhabitants of the forest as perhaps Kroshav, Joe and Jaq. He does recall that there are notable numbers of tribes of goblinoids living in the forest that would need to likely forage far and wide in the winter months. He is pretty sure the hobgoblins are relatively new arrivals, but thinks the goblins have always lived there. He doesn't recall anything about dwarves sending anyone out hunting but guesses it may be possible. It is potentially also the elves of the Duchy on patrols up into the forest, but that would be just guessing.

"We should probably check out the smoke and fires, right? Make sure they aren't something we need to be concerned with? I can send Ealu to have a look, she might blend in well with the snow, and raise less suspicion than us, and as long as I'm close enough, she can talk to me and tell me what she sees. I'm not one for sneaking around too good."

"It may still be some travel to reach them, but worth the confirmation, I believe.  While I am no sneak, I can disguise myself and approach more openly."

"I can see if Ealu would permit you to rider her closer, if things go sideways, she can get you out of there, or at least let me know if you need help."

It's a measure of how Kroshav's attitude has changed towards Ernos if he's possibly permitting him to ride his mount.

((It is going to be slow going with Eula in the deep snow getting to the forest, once in she isn't going to be much faster than Ernos due to the snow and ice covered roots and the like but probably a bit.))

((Well, an empty gesture of character growth then.))

"I appreciate your offer, but riding such a striking horse would draw more interest.  To investigate subtly, a poor wanderer is the best appearance."