"Sure. Sure. It's just that I seem to have a deeper understanding of how to imitate people I've met. I feel like, if I put my mind to it, I could easily portray...oh, I don't know...Gundren? Sildar? Rosene? Even the leader of those Redbrands back in town..."

As he lists off each name, he idly flips his hand without thinking and a full image of each person he mentions appears in the air next to him. He appears not to notice the apparitions he is summoning.

"... interesting" Elra isn't sure if she likes the idea of Arvel imitating her anymore. Or anyone else for that matter. "It still seems like a really cruel thing to do to someone without warning."

"She never claimed to be kind. But it does seem like a useful new talent to have. I'll have to think about it for a bit. It may help us sneak into the castle."

A small replica of the castle appears in the air next to Arvel.

"Um, Arvel," Elra asks, her eyes starting to glow as she looks to the castle. "That's not real is it?"

Arvel blinks and looks to where Elra points. Seeing the illusion of the castle in the air he seems genuinely shocked. He waves his hand hesitantly at it and it disappears.

"Well, that's new too."

A word leaps unbidden into his mind.

**Ilkivalta**

The image of a stool appears. He steps up to it and waves his hand through it.

"Visible but not solid. Pure illusion."

Elra nods, "Huh, interesting." She approaches it and poke at it, watching her hand go through. She laughs, "If I didn't know that this Lady caused you so much trouble I might say that she was funny."

"That's the Archfey for you. Inscrutable."

Elra turns to look at Arvel, eyes still glowing faintly, "I don't know much about the Archfey. The Loremaster wouldn't let me read any books about the Feywild. He didn't want me going out and looking for it I guess... um... no offense... I'm sure you didn't want any of.... I'll... I'll just stop talking now... sorry." Her cheeks turn a bright shade of scarlet.

Ethan watches Arvel turn into Elra and pretend to be her quite convincingly, before Arvel turns into Ethan.

Ethan's mouth open wide in shock at Arvel's claims.

When Arvel finally regains control, Ethan shakes his head.

"You know you almost had that totally correct! The artificers do in fact have a voice changer device."

"It not a choker though, just a normal looking necklace. Also the metal isn't the hard part, the Musical Instrument Crafters Guild already had an easy way to make the necessary harmonic strings that are contained inside the amulet."

"The hard part was creating the localised silence field to stop the original vocalisation while broadcasting the new vocalisation in its place."

"If you do a rough and ready implementation, the voice sounds a little off, like its not coming from the right spot, or isn't the right volume, or is slightly delayed."

"But that was incredible! If I hadn't lived most of my life studying at the University I would be totally convinced."

"Could you do that Spider guy?"

Zeke snorts and chuckles at Arvel's impression of him, but then promptly stands up and stalks off for a quick sweep of their perimeter and backtrail, mumbling under his breath '.....actually not a bad idea to make sure no one has scouted our position while we rested....'

Shaking out his blade to its full length, he lopes off to check their surroundings.

Arvel stands up straight and holds a hand out archly, his skin darkens and his hair turns bone white. His armor transforms into dark robes.

"From the depths of darkness my minions shall rise and crawl across the land, shrouding all in the shadows of their webs. Muah-hahaha!"

"Something like that?"

"Ahh," Elra's eyes go back to normal and her voice becomes much louder than usual, stumbling backwards. Once Arvel returns to normal, she takes hold of her throat. "That's... never happened before... weird..."

"Luckily for you, a moment of quiet reflection and prayer and it's mystery should be made clear to you. I'm sure your god is much more caring and less capricious than the Lady."

"Right..." Elra nods. "Do you have any more though about the vision you had? Or maybe I should ask the Loremaster if spider venom causes hallucinations..." she starts thinking, before pulling out her journal and flipping through the pages, looking for the next blank one to start writing on, stopping at what Arvel left behind. "Arvel..." she says.

Arvel holds up a finger to his lips in a silent shush and winks.

Elra's cheeks turn a slight shade of pink, but she looks back down at the page and flips to a blank page. "Arvel you really need to work on your penmanship," she says, trying to cover for her pause. "Course, that's more of a Denir thing, but he is Oghma's brother god."

The further Zeke gets from the party the more interest spiders in the surrounding forrest seem to take.  They draw nearer to him, descending from the trees and appearing from dark places...

Ethan settles in and get his equipment out.

He places out his leather work mat and then starts pulling out tools and materials, along with half finished devices.

As the day goes on Ethan spends time fixing things, creating new things and testing his designs.

After having a simple lunch, Ethan take a break for a few hours, but is up again before evening, to finish his work and then pack-up his equipment and materials.

 Fae would watch Arvel, Elra and the others curiously from the shadows where she had been preparing her spellbook and studying up on a couple new spells of interest.

Portent: 19 | 12

Feeling like everyone was preparing to take the next steps of their journey, the wizard would finally take a few steps forward to join the group.

Tarja stood watch while her friends rested, pacing around and watching the wildlife. She had been relatively unhurt in the fight - the mighty frame of the massive horse she'd transformed into had absorbed the brunt of the attacks aimed at her.

But it hadn't been enough. Not quite. She wondered if she could transform into something even larger. Heading back to the cliff, she put her palm on the cliffside, focusing on the mountain and drawing power from it to inspire her. What about one of those warhorses that she'd seen soldiers ride? Somehow that didn't seem like that much of a challenge anymore. And the larger spiders she'd seen didn't seem so hard to imitate, either. Maybe instead of a giant wolf spider, she could be a fiendish giant spider? Well, as long as Elra isn't nearby. Wouldn't want to scare her. Maybe a Giant Frog from the river would be better. A giant frog seems like just the thing to eat giant spiders.

 Tarja tests out her abilities by briefly transforming into the meanest biggest Crocodile she's ever seen, with hide as thick as leather armor and teeth like knives. Yes, she could definitely do bigger shapes than she'd tried before.

She felt the power of the animal form, the strength of the muscles, but also the vital essence of the land that gave the animals their power. Why should she give that up when she was a dwarf? Perhaps she could channel Primal Savagery even without fully transforming.

She settles in and prepares spells for the castle infiltration to come. Gundren will be free soon.