Watch out for Tasmanian devils.

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Day 4, Second Ten-day, Month of Elient – a bit over one days travel at Giant pace from Nesme.

The party wakes next morning to a howling gale blowing straight out of the Spine of the World. Harshnag seems to almost relish the cold of the wind and indeed it does feel to the party as if it is below zero. As D.O.R.K. is getting Golemogote ready for the days travel he notices that the elephant is shivering in the cold. It is then that she realises that with Toruun having left she has no way of powering the blanket that they used to keep the elephant warm.

Ebonitus says to D.O.R.K. "Perhaps the Earth Mother will allow me to prepare Sacred Flame and I could ensure that we can continue to warm the mesh and keep Mr G. warm." With that Ebonitus communes with the Earth Mother and prepares his spells for the day, including sacred flame.                                                                     

 Long through the night and well into morning, D.O.R.K stood in contemplation of the previous day's events. But by the time morning came her eyes were just as dully lit and her actions stiff as they were after the event. Still, D.O.R.K followed through on the usual preparations, though altered slightly so that Ebonitus, Herself, and Lukian now benefited from some of Red Knight's Vigor for at least most of the day. She also returned to using shield and spear, knowing without a certain goblin, the risks were too high.

At Ebonitus statement, the construct says nothing. Nor did she do anything to further assist or comment on the elephant's plight. She just waited and watched and if nothing came of it, then... so be it. A hollow sounding command would be made to get the elephant moving once everyone was ready to go. But if he still refused to obey, D.O.R.K, without fully understanding how the blanket worked, and frankly not being in no mood to try, she'll just grab her things and say to the others, "We will need to go on foot from here."

--->Dork's, Ebonitus, & Lukian's Max and current HP goes up by 10 from 3rd level Aid spell.

Ebonitus says to D.O.R.K. "Perhaps the Earth Mother will allow me to prepare Sacred Flame and I could ensure that we can continue to warm the mesh and keep Mr G. warm." With that Ebonitus communes with the Earth Mother and prepares his spells for the day, including sacred flame. 

Radiant damage is more like "Holy" damage most often described as burning or blinding light but that is generally just flavour and doesn't specifically heat the target up so not sure that plan will work.     

(OOC: I looked backed to post #2748 to see what Toruun had done, that is why I chose this action).

Quote from Whatwall >>

(OOC: I looked backed to post #2748 to see what Toruun had done, that is why I chose this action).

 (@Whatwall: You know what's worse? He told D.O.R.K that directly, and I completely forgot about it. lol)

The Heat metal spell does fire damage which means the metal heats up. Sacred Flame does radiant (holy damage) which means that the blanket glows but doesn't get warm .

My mistake i didn't pick it up at the time i thought he used Heat Metal but i was wrong. Ebonitus can continue with Sacred Flame approach,

Day 4, Second Ten-day, Month of Elient – a bit over one days travel at Giant pace from Nesme

It is about mid to late morning before Ebonitus manages to replace his spells, get Golemogote ready who trumpets with gratitude and wraps his trunk around Ebonitus’ neck and blows in his ear – a sign of elephant gratitude. D.OR.K. is in his usual position astride Golemogote’s neck, while Lukian, Devin and Ebonitus make themselves comfortable in the howdah.

As the party sets off Harshnag walks beside them. He leads the party down the river until eventually it joins with a much larger one which Harshnag says is called the Surbrin River. The name of this river rings a bell because it is the same river that joins with the Dessarin River at Yartar. Harshnag heads upstream for the next day and a bit following the remnants of an old road. At times they have to cross small stream and rivulets which Harshnag easily steps across and Golemogote simply wades through splashing the water high, fortunately for Mambo they are all crossed by fallen logs that smaller creatures use as bridges. Their potential as bridges after Mambo has used them as bridges is however questionable! The travel is uneventuful whether it is because they are travelling with a particularly large Frost Giant or their gods are looking over them is a moot point. As they travel Harshnag explains what he knows about Nesme that it was once a well-fortified (large walls festooned with ballistae and catapults, etc) town standing on the east bank of the Surbrin River opposite a castle equally well fortified. It was attacked during the War of the Silver Marches over a century ago by a horde of Orcs aided by an ancient white dragon named Arauthator; here he spits on the ground at mention of the Dragon’s name. “Aye my colleagues and I did not get to the town in time to save it but we did manage to get many of the people to safety!” he comments. Late on the second day he halts and says “if you continue to follow the trail around that hill you’ll find the ruins of Nesme.”

Devin stretched and climbs down from the howdah to walk around a bit and gather his thoughts.  He looks up to the sky to judge how much daylight is left.  

"Judging by your words I would say its safe to assume you don't intend to join us.  But that may be best as well, hard to sneak around with one your size."

Looking around at the others, "The meeting is set for tomorrow.  One of the parties is likely to already be there.  I say we camp here tonight and early tomorrow we sneak into town and see if we can find the meeting.  Hopefully we can eavesdrop and learn something.  Maybe even interrupt it if it seems necessary."

(@All: Going forward, for what it matters, unless something interrupts or renders it impossible in the mornings, D.O.R.K will make a point of always casting a level 3Aid on Lukian, Ebonitus, and herself each day. So that at least from roughly morning to dusk, the buff should be up.)

In response to Devin's suggestion, D.O.R.K looks first to Devin's Tressym, which hopefully hadn't been burned or run off at some point, and then over to Ebonitus. "If that is to the be case, into town may be difficult with our mount." She then looks up to Harshnag. "If you would when the time comes, assuming you intend not depart completely from the area, might you also know or secure a place for Mr. G here? At least until our current objective is complete." She asked plainly, then looked to the others. "Is there a preferred method of interruption that you all have preemptively?"

"

(OOC: I assume Ebonitus has been using water walk as necessary to enable Mambo to accompany us, I do not think we can leave him behind.)

Ebonitus thinks it might be a good idea to continue to help Mambo to control his heat and flame output. So whenever we camp, he pulls out his crowbar and wraps a couple of layers of rope around one end to act as a kind of insulated handle. In the initial stages of practice Ebonitus will lay the crowbar on the ground and have Mambo try to gently warm it. Once Mambo seems to have the hang of this, assuming that 50' of rope will not be completely charred by this time, Ebonitus will hold the crowbar by the rope handle, and developing finer tuning on the warming of the crowbar, ready to drop it instantly if it gets too hot. Ebonitus would also like to use Dawnbringer's assistance as required to help with this fine tuning.

"I think it may also be difficult to sneak into town with Mambo at our sides" says Ebonitus, "but perhaps we can use him as a distraction. I know he will not allow himself to be left behind."

To D.O.R.K. "I am not sure as to my preferred method of 'interruption', but I think we should use my Pass without trace to get relatively close and try to find out more before we interrupt the meeting."

To Harshnag "Thank you for leading us thus far."

(OOC: I assume Ebonitus has been using water walk as necessary to enable Mambo to accompany us, I do not think we can leave him behind.)

Edited main post to reflect this - i had assumed that Ebonitus would take it anyway.

 D.O.R.K cants her head to the side briefly, then shakes it to the side. "Apologize. It seems my phrasing was misleading to some extent. To elaborate, I wish to know what would be acceptable in the event that interruption is even necessary." She explained. "I am no longer such a stranger to the possibilities of needing to improvise. However, after the last battle some days ago, I would be sorely remissed in not preemptively exploring a potentially combat scenario. For instance, what if one or several us are split up? What if one or all of us are moments away from discovery, but one of us could potentially act as a decoy? The possibilities are numerous enough that it would be impossible to account for them all. But, if its at least some..." She trailed off from there, gaze lowered and eyes flitting about in their sockets as if searching for answers in the ground. 

"I suppose it would be determined by the nature of their conspiracy.  The Black Network is involved so we know their goal is profit and power.  As for the Fire Giants?  I do not know.  They had been trying to put some sort of large construct back together.  To what aim I do not know."

Devin looks up at Harshnag, "Do you know what the Fire Giant's goal is in recreating this construct?   We thwarted them Triboar in obtaining a piece. Though for how long I cannot say." 

Back to D.  "Our intervention would be to stop them, by attacking if needed, to thwart their plans if that is what is needed to stop their evil plans.  And I can only assume they are evil if the Zhents are involved."

 "Do you know what the Fire Giant's goal is in recreating this construct?   We thwarted them Triboar in obtaining a piece. Though for how long I cannot say."  Devin comments

Harshnag shakes his head "sorry I'm not sure exactly what the Fire Giants are seeking to achieve"

"I'm afraid there's no amount of planning we could make that would do us any good going in blind," Lukian says brightly to Dork. The elf has been this way all day — usually cheerful. "We should go to bed early and rise early. The four of us small and not glowing folk can sneak in there to see what is going on. If we should engage, we engage. If not, we don't. If we need help, I can send for Mambo." He looks at the others then holds up a finger. "I will say after my last attempt to attack first and alone, I think we should stick together. Less chance of one of us getting picked off so easily."

Quote from GrantFromCanberra >>

 

 "Do you know what the Fire Giant's goal is in recreating this construct?   We thwarted them Triboar in obtaining a piece. Though for how long I cannot say."  Devin comments

Harshnag shakes his head "sorry I'm not sure exactly what the Fire Giants are seeking to achieve"

 

 "The best we know is that the Ordning has been destroyed by Annam the All-Father and the different giants are now battling for places amongst the hierarchy which will be recaste.  Perhaps the Fire Giants see this construct as a way to elevate themselves?  The cloud giants have been collecting lost artifacts from the past as a means to elevate their position within the giant hierarchy.

Somehow also some sort of blue dragon may be behind these things, manipulating behind the scenes.  Great powers are at work.  Another, who had traveled with us for some time had told of a dream the leader of her order had.  

My superior's dream was of ants and lizards, but I now see that they did have a deeper meaning, though not all of it makes sense, even now. My superior dreamt of an ant nest full of massive ants. They flew and walked around, performing a variety of tasks, some bringing food, some bringing rocks, while some ants carried others into the center of the mound. Then a huge foot stomped the entire mound to bits, while a blue-scaled lizard watched from the bushes. The foot could be giants, I now see, but what the lizard is, I do not know.

And another told us of this dream

Our Lady High Priestess dreamed of the giants in the same order. Only, all of them had a replica of Our Shining Lady’s coin on edge in front of them. She says there was a great bang, and the giants set off rolling the coins in front of them. Then, she awoke. Prior to the giants, however, Tymora, in the form of a silver bird, flew out from the land over the sea."

"We seek to solve this issue and set things right.  But there is still much we do not understand."    

Turning to the others.  "Let us rest and leave early in the morning and we will see what we will see."

Day 6, Second Ten-day, Month of Elient – Not far (< 2 miles) from the ruins of Nesme

The next morning the howling gale that has been blowing into the party’s faces for the past two days has still not let up and it is bitterly cold almost as if it was below freezing. Harshnag grins and says to the party as they get ready in the pre-dawn light “well at least any guards on the road will be trying to keep warm rather than watching out for strangers!”

Before the sun rises at – about 5.45 am – the party has left camp. Before the party sets off Ebonitus beseeches the Earth Goddess to hide them form their enemies and those who would do them harm Pass without trace whilst D.O.R.K seeks the Red Knights support for their mission focusing particularly on Ebonitus, Lukian and herself Aid.

As the party sets off Mambo flares up brightly but then quickly dies down as Ebonitus communicates messages and images that he and the party are going to sneak into the village of Nesme and Mambo has to stay behind. Sulking Mambo goes and stands in their small camp fire make it very much brighter.

Stealth rolls:

Devin 20

D.O.R.K. 12

Ebonitus 14

Lukian 29

Map coming