This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Perception 21
Perception 6
Stealth 8
Dolkum is quite taken by the harmonious landscaping and architecture, all very well designed and executed to be aesthetically pleasing as well as efficient as well...the opera and the setting sun just going well together....
Job? o, that's right. They are here on a bodyguarding job. Dolkum looks around for those layabouts he saw earlier...
Mittens’ (or rather, Pooky’s) magical cat-form drifts silently up to the top of the aqueduct and wall, its legs moving slowly as if creeping upwards on the air, and Mittens is surprised to see, just as it reaches the level of the aqueduct, 25’ up, the shape of the glowing cat disappears behind the night sky. At that moment, Pooky and Mittens both note that the sky and stars must have been an illusion, which dispels in an instant from their view, although Dolkum and Ednyss haven’t figured that out yet.
The cat reappears to Mittens’ view as he sees through the illusion, immediately in front of, and then over and behind, a humanoid figure wearing dark desert clothing of black and deep earthen tones. He holds in one hand a glowing talisman hanging around his neck. He had been peering over the edge of the bulwark, watching you. Upon being discovered, his eyes widen, he lets go his talisman, which stops glowing, and --Ednyss and Dolkum see him for an instant as his illusion dispels-- he pulls back from view and you three hear him (but can’t see from where you are) moving or running or jumping away. (He does not attack, so Mittens’ frostbite was not triggered.)
Ednyss’ dash is triggered and he rushes between Mittens and the wall.
As Ednyss blocks Pooky’s view, the odd little doll looks in the other direction, and turning, sees movement in the trees, perhaps 100’ away to the east.
From her perspective, Varielky barely sees a blob of gentle light drift upward from her compatriots, then it seems to disappear. When it reappears above the aqueduct a moment later, it takes a few seconds to digest what she sees next: the blob is now illuminating someone’s face--attached to a body wrapped in dark clothing--atop the aqueduct, who was not there just a second ago, who hastily ducks and then jumps up onto the wall and over the other side, onto the section of aqueduct beyond the palace wall, perhaps, disappearing from view.
(OOC: Everyone please roll two Perception saves. Pookie can continue to give advantage to Mittens while within telepathic range.)
(OOC: Mittens gets Inspiration! Brilliant move.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
As Ednyss steps up to block Mittens from any danger, he just barely makes out the humanoid figure before the figure disappears. Taking a closer look at the place where the figure disappeared from view, Ednyss simply backs up a bit to get a better vantage point by which he might be able to see which direction the figure ran in.
Mittens is impressed by the illusion for half a moment before he curses at how easily he is distracted my magic. Pooky sends him a mental warning about the trees, and Mittens shouts out, "Someone's in those trees!" He thrusts his staff in the direction of the fleeing figure, and the crystal on the end of his staff flares with a blue light for a moment as he says a quick arcane chant. In the vagabond's mind, they hear Mittens shout out something in a strange language, and they see a day or crackling green energy lands through the air and strike the aquaduct. With a flash of light and a sizzling sound, the aquaduct they're fleeing on disintegrates into a fine gray dust under their feet, leaving nothing but empty air.
Action: cast phantasmal force on the fleeing figure. Intelligence DC 14 save, or believe the aquaduct disintegrates underneath them. Mittens hopes this will cause them to call of from the aquaduct.
Varielky takes a few steps forward but then stops herself. The figure already escaped from view and she can hear Mittens is alive, at least, when he shouts about someone in the trees. The agreement was that if they need her help they'll call her name so obviously, they didn't need it yet. More frightening, however, is the fact that someone can just disappear and reappear as they like. As far as she knows, someone might be standing right in front of her and she doesn't even know it. Varielky stays in place, waiting for the signal. Until then, she'll stay where she is. She reaches forward with her hand, though, just to make sure nobody is there. It is pointless, perhaps, but nothing hurts by making sure. Then, she closes her eyes. If she cannot see her enemies anyway, she shouldn't rely on them. With her eyes closed, she tries to relax her body and slow her heart rate so she can listen more carefully, although with the opera behind her she knows she'll probably miss it. Still, she tries to hear any steps, jumps... anything of sorts, especially ones coming closer to her.
Perception 1: 18 Perception 2: 13 Perception for listening, if it matters: 21
Let’s wind this back one step. In the prior post, the spellcaster atop the aqueduct had already done this: Upon being discovered...he pulls back from view and you three hear him (but can’t see from where you are) moving or running or jumping away. The important point being, he was out of view before your next turn.
The first sentence in Mittens’ spell phantasmal force states: You craft an illusion that takes root in the mind of a creature that you can see within range.
Therefore he won’t be able to cast that spell. Since it’s the first time he’s tried it: he starts the incantation, calls to mind an image which he will force into the mind of the illusionist atop the aqueduct, but by the time he is ready to discharge it, his target has vanished and the spell dissipates. He doesn’t lose the spell slot.
Dolkum cannot see the figure either, so throwing a javelin at it also won’t work. I mentioned that the figure was 25’ above you, so even backing up far enough to see its (former) position over the edge of the aqueduct will put it out of range. The illusion was the size of perhaps a 10’ cube. Dolkum sees the figure disappear from view. Looking the other way, he also barely sees something moving away from him through the trees where Mittens pointed.
Ednyss backs up, but only just in time to see the figure disappear over the edge of the rampart (the palace wall, heading north), and then it is out of view again, hidden by the square tower which abuts the aqueduct and wall just at that spot.
Just to be clear, the humanoid is now completely hidden from view to all four of you.
Varielky’s rolls are good enough to discern that there is definitely nothing of note within her hearing or visual range to see or hear whatsoever. Whatever is happening, it's not happening where she's standing, and she has a gut feeling she should help her friends.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
There is not much that Ednyss can do if he cannot see this figure, so he simply prepares himself to assist Mittens with whatever the wily cat has planned. If he does see the figure, then he will attempt to order the figure to "Approach."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“The mark of a successful DM is when you have caused more player deaths with doors than dragons, demons, or devils.”
Re: Dolkum cannot see the figure either, so throwing a javelin at it also won’t work. I mentioned that the figure was 25’ above you, so even backing up far enough to see its (former) position over the edge of the aqueduct will put it out of range.
My mistake: Dolkum could move to a place where the figure’s last location is in long range for a javelin. However, when Dolkum arrives at that spot, now 30’ back from the aqueduct, the figure cannot be seen by Dolkum.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
"Is everything alright over there?" Varielky shouts, although not too loudly. Just enough so that she's sure the others hear her over the music coming from the building. She takes a few steps forward but waits for an answer. She wants to go and check what's happening but she's not there for no reason. She has a duty she signed for and she plans on carrying it out unless there's a reason not to. Besides, her eyes maybe just playing tricks on her, although that's not what she thinks is happening. "Tiny warrior? Priests?"
Hopefully this will help more than hinder. Here is a detail sketch of the aqueduct, buttressing, wall, towers around arbor. The red X is where you saw the figure, now perhaps hidden around behind the tower closest to you. The blue X below is where Mittens & Dolkum are. The arrow shows where Dolkum went to try to aim a javelin. But if the figure is on the wall behind the tower, no one could see it from any position on the ground, I think
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
"Is everything alright over there?" Varielky shouts, although not too loudly. Just enough so that she's sure the others hear her over the music coming from the building. She takes a few steps forward but waits for an answer. She wants to go and check what's happening but she's not there for no reason. She has a duty she signed for and she plans on carrying it out unless there's a reason not to. Besides, her eyes maybe just playing tricks on her, although that's not what she thinks is happening. "Tiny warrior? Priests?"
Varielky is about 250’ away from the others right now. If they’re going to hear her at less than a full-throated scream, she’ll have to move much closer.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
Ednyss scratches his beard and looks to Mittens. Normally Ednyss is pretty good at noticing things, but he has just been distracted and Mittens seems to have a better idea of what was happening than him. "Mittens?" He also waves his hands in the air to signal to Varielky that everything seems mostly okay.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“The mark of a successful DM is when you have caused more player deaths with doors than dragons, demons, or devils.”
(OOC: I think the PbP lack of “richness of signal” as they say is making it hard for you guys to get what’s going on here. Just to recap:
1. The two floral-liveried guys who were talking about having struck it rich and wanting to retire were in this general area, under the aqueduct, until you Lost track of them and haven’t seen them since.
2. Ednyss saw dark shapes fall from the aqueduct downward. Knowing now that there was an illusion in place covering/obscuring what was occurring on top of the aqueduct, one might conclude that the illusion was there so the shapes (humanoids, perhaps?) could get into the palace unobserved, perhaps via the aqueduct, dropping onto the ground for some purpose.
3. the spellcaster was revealed (to their distress) and ran away and hid (or kept running?). This happened after the shapes had fallen down already. If the spellcaster’s mission was to get the shapes inside, it’s mission accomplished for the spellcaster.
4. You have seen some kind of movement 100’ away, on ground level. That’s a distance which for example, dark shapes, if they were humanoid, could easily have walked to (and had plenty of time) during the time starting when Ednyss saw the shapes fall until the moment when Pookie first saw movement in the trees. Or maybe it’s the floral-liveried guys passing their flask.
)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries //Dev Horndin Curious Critters
((OOC: Oops! Sorry about that. I must have read that post wrong.))
As Mittens points his staff up at at he aquaduct, he wonders why his spell doesn't work for a moment. He shakes his staff, trying to get it to work before he realizes what went wrong. "Gosh, I'm dumb. Completely forgot I have to see what I want to put a spell on." He turns sheepishly towards Ednyss and says, "Sorry. I was being stupid for a second. Anyways, there was some movement over by the trees. Should I raise the alarm now?"
(OOC: Ah, I see. I thought the others stopped midway on their planned course. I don't know why. I thought they're only ~100 ft. away.)
Having received no answer, Varielky decides to run after her teammates to see what's happening. The opera still had time before it will end and there were four other guards there. Hopefully, nothing will happen in the few moments that she's away. Because she didn't receive an answer, even though the cat said he can magically boost his voice to be much louder, Varielky sprints towards the others, ignoring the uncomfortable armour for now.
Perception 21
Perception 6
Stealth 8
Dolkum is quite taken by the harmonious landscaping and architecture, all very well designed and executed to be aesthetically pleasing as well as efficient as well...the opera and the setting sun just going well together....
Job? o, that's right. They are here on a bodyguarding job. Dolkum looks around for those layabouts he saw earlier...
Mittens’ (or rather, Pooky’s) magical cat-form drifts silently up to the top of the aqueduct and wall, its legs moving slowly as if creeping upwards on the air, and Mittens is surprised to see, just as it reaches the level of the aqueduct, 25’ up, the shape of the glowing cat disappears behind the night sky. At that moment, Pooky and Mittens both note that the sky and stars must have been an illusion, which dispels in an instant from their view, although Dolkum and Ednyss haven’t figured that out yet.
The cat reappears to Mittens’ view as he sees through the illusion, immediately in front of, and then over and behind, a humanoid figure wearing dark desert clothing of black and deep earthen tones. He holds in one hand a glowing talisman hanging around his neck. He had been peering over the edge of the bulwark, watching you. Upon being discovered, his eyes widen, he lets go his talisman, which stops glowing, and --Ednyss and Dolkum see him for an instant as his illusion dispels-- he pulls back from view and you three hear him (but can’t see from where you are) moving or running or jumping away. (He does not attack, so Mittens’ frostbite was not triggered.)
Ednyss’ dash is triggered and he rushes between Mittens and the wall.
As Ednyss blocks Pooky’s view, the odd little doll looks in the other direction, and turning, sees movement in the trees, perhaps 100’ away to the east.
From her perspective, Varielky barely sees a blob of gentle light drift upward from her compatriots, then it seems to disappear. When it reappears above the aqueduct a moment later, it takes a few seconds to digest what she sees next: the blob is now illuminating someone’s face--attached to a body wrapped in dark clothing--atop the aqueduct, who was not there just a second ago, who hastily ducks and then jumps up onto the wall and over the other side, onto the section of aqueduct beyond the palace wall, perhaps, disappearing from view.
(OOC: Everyone please roll two Perception saves. Pookie can continue to give advantage to Mittens while within telepathic range.)
(OOC: Mittens gets Inspiration! Brilliant move.)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
As Ednyss steps up to block Mittens from any danger, he just barely makes out the humanoid figure before the figure disappears. Taking a closer look at the place where the figure disappeared from view, Ednyss simply backs up a bit to get a better vantage point by which he might be able to see which direction the figure ran in.
Perception: 6
Perception: 8
(OOC: My rolls were tragic... Hopefully someone else rolls better...)
“The mark of a successful DM is when you have caused more player deaths with doors than dragons, demons, or devils.”
Perception: 21
Perception: 13
Cor! Bloody He***! That's the problem! This night has been a little too perfect! We've been looking at an illusion, yes?
Insight to try and figure out just how big is the illusion...8
Perception 1: 9
Perception 2: 16
Mittens is impressed by the illusion for half a moment before he curses at how easily he is distracted my magic. Pooky sends him a mental warning about the trees, and Mittens shouts out, "Someone's in those trees!" He thrusts his staff in the direction of the fleeing figure, and the crystal on the end of his staff flares with a blue light for a moment as he says a quick arcane chant. In the vagabond's mind, they hear Mittens shout out something in a strange language, and they see a day or crackling green energy lands through the air and strike the aquaduct. With a flash of light and a sizzling sound, the aquaduct they're fleeing on disintegrates into a fine gray dust under their feet, leaving nothing but empty air.
Action: cast phantasmal force on the fleeing figure. Intelligence DC 14 save, or believe the aquaduct disintegrates underneath them. Mittens hopes this will cause them to call of from the aquaduct.
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable
Varielky takes a few steps forward but then stops herself. The figure already escaped from view and she can hear Mittens is alive, at least, when he shouts about someone in the trees. The agreement was that if they need her help they'll call her name so obviously, they didn't need it yet. More frightening, however, is the fact that someone can just disappear and reappear as they like. As far as she knows, someone might be standing right in front of her and she doesn't even know it.
Varielky stays in place, waiting for the signal. Until then, she'll stay where she is. She reaches forward with her hand, though, just to make sure nobody is there. It is pointless, perhaps, but nothing hurts by making sure. Then, she closes her eyes. If she cannot see her enemies anyway, she shouldn't rely on them. With her eyes closed, she tries to relax her body and slow her heart rate so she can listen more carefully, although with the opera behind her she knows she'll probably miss it. Still, she tries to hear any steps, jumps... anything of sorts, especially ones coming closer to her.
Perception 1: 18
Perception 2: 13
Perception for listening, if it matters: 21
Varielky
Dolkum draws a javelin and throws it towards the figure on the aqueduct Mittens targeted.
Attack: 18 Damage: 7
Let’s wind this back one step. In the prior post, the spellcaster atop the aqueduct had already done this: Upon being discovered...he pulls back from view and you three hear him (but can’t see from where you are) moving or running or jumping away. The important point being, he was out of view before your next turn.
The first sentence in Mittens’ spell phantasmal force states: You craft an illusion that takes root in the mind of a creature that you can see within range.
Therefore he won’t be able to cast that spell. Since it’s the first time he’s tried it: he starts the incantation, calls to mind an image which he will force into the mind of the illusionist atop the aqueduct, but by the time he is ready to discharge it, his target has vanished and the spell dissipates. He doesn’t lose the spell slot.
Dolkum cannot see the figure either, so throwing a javelin at it also won’t work. I mentioned that the figure was 25’ above you, so even backing up far enough to see its (former) position over the edge of the aqueduct will put it out of range. The illusion was the size of perhaps a 10’ cube. Dolkum sees the figure disappear from view. Looking the other way, he also barely sees something moving away from him through the trees where Mittens pointed.
Ednyss backs up, but only just in time to see the figure disappear over the edge of the rampart (the palace wall, heading north), and then it is out of view again, hidden by the square tower which abuts the aqueduct and wall just at that spot.
Just to be clear, the humanoid is now completely hidden from view to all four of you.
Varielky’s rolls are good enough to discern that there is definitely nothing of note within her hearing or visual range to see or hear whatsoever. Whatever is happening, it's not happening where she's standing, and she has a gut feeling she should help her friends.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
There is not much that Ednyss can do if he cannot see this figure, so he simply prepares himself to assist Mittens with whatever the wily cat has planned. If he does see the figure, then he will attempt to order the figure to "Approach."
“The mark of a successful DM is when you have caused more player deaths with doors than dragons, demons, or devils.”
Re: Dolkum cannot see the figure either, so throwing a javelin at it also won’t work. I mentioned that the figure was 25’ above you, so even backing up far enough to see its (former) position over the edge of the aqueduct will put it out of range.
My mistake: Dolkum could move to a place where the figure’s last location is in long range for a javelin. However, when Dolkum arrives at that spot, now 30’ back from the aqueduct, the figure cannot be seen by Dolkum.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
"Is everything alright over there?" Varielky shouts, although not too loudly. Just enough so that she's sure the others hear her over the music coming from the building. She takes a few steps forward but waits for an answer. She wants to go and check what's happening but she's not there for no reason. She has a duty she signed for and she plans on carrying it out unless there's a reason not to. Besides, her eyes maybe just playing tricks on her, although that's not what she thinks is happening. "Tiny warrior? Priests?"
Varielky
Hopefully this will help more than hinder. Here is a detail sketch of the aqueduct, buttressing, wall, towers around arbor. The red X is where you saw the figure, now perhaps hidden around behind the tower closest to you. The blue X below is where Mittens & Dolkum are. The arrow shows where Dolkum went to try to aim a javelin. But if the figure is on the wall behind the tower, no one could see it from any position on the ground, I think
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
Varielky is about 250’ away from the others right now. If they’re going to hear her at less than a full-throated scream, she’ll have to move much closer.
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
Dolkum waves his companions closer.
All right folks. I'm flummoxed. Could this all be a big distraction?
Ednyss scratches his beard and looks to Mittens. Normally Ednyss is pretty good at noticing things, but he has just been distracted and Mittens seems to have a better idea of what was happening than him. "Mittens?" He also waves his hands in the air to signal to Varielky that everything seems mostly okay.
“The mark of a successful DM is when you have caused more player deaths with doors than dragons, demons, or devils.”
(OOC: I think the PbP lack of “richness of signal” as they say is making it hard for you guys to get what’s going on here. Just to recap:
1. The two floral-liveried guys who were talking about having struck it rich and wanting to retire were in this general area, under the aqueduct, until you Lost track of them and haven’t seen them since.
2. Ednyss saw dark shapes fall from the aqueduct downward. Knowing now that there was an illusion in place covering/obscuring what was occurring on top of the aqueduct, one might conclude that the illusion was there so the shapes (humanoids, perhaps?) could get into the palace unobserved, perhaps via the aqueduct, dropping onto the ground for some purpose.
3. the spellcaster was revealed (to their distress) and ran away and hid (or kept running?). This happened after the shapes had fallen down already. If the spellcaster’s mission was to get the shapes inside, it’s mission accomplished for the spellcaster.
4. You have seen some kind of movement 100’ away, on ground level. That’s a distance which for example, dark shapes, if they were humanoid, could easily have walked to (and had plenty of time) during the time starting when Ednyss saw the shapes fall until the moment when Pookie first saw movement in the trees. Or maybe it’s the floral-liveried guys passing their flask.
)
DM for Candlekeep Mysteries // Dev Hornd in Curious Critters
Perhaps we ought to move back to the opera house? I got a bad feeling about this.
((OOC: Oops! Sorry about that. I must have read that post wrong.))
As Mittens points his staff up at at he aquaduct, he wonders why his spell doesn't work for a moment. He shakes his staff, trying to get it to work before he realizes what went wrong. "Gosh, I'm dumb. Completely forgot I have to see what I want to put a spell on." He turns sheepishly towards Ednyss and says, "Sorry. I was being stupid for a second. Anyways, there was some movement over by the trees. Should I raise the alarm now?"
DM- Azalin's Doom
DM- Surviving the Unsurvivable
(OOC: Ah, I see. I thought the others stopped midway on their planned course. I don't know why. I thought they're only ~100 ft. away.)
Having received no answer, Varielky decides to run after her teammates to see what's happening. The opera still had time before it will end and there were four other guards there. Hopefully, nothing will happen in the few moments that she's away.
Because she didn't receive an answer, even though the cat said he can magically boost his voice to be much louder, Varielky sprints towards the others, ignoring the uncomfortable armour for now.
(Dashing towards the others.)
Varielky