Champions of Prophecy (IC Thread)

[ben-zayb]

Anoush hesitated momentarily but decided to catch the book anyways. He leafed the book quickly, and tried to see if there was something unusual about it, aside from the warding aura.

"There's no observable unusual effects, so I can't identify what the enchantment really does. At least not yet.", he replied to the young paladin.

Then an explosion erupted, destroying the book and severely injuring Anoush. "Well, Joan, I believe that would be an Explosive Runes spell. At least we can now move on", he said as he wiped off a handful of blood from his face. Apparently his voicebox is still intact, so he kept on speaking.

"We're still days away from our destination, and the weather isn't exactly on our side. If you want to observe his other belongings, I guess you can just bring them along--might not be a good idea, though. Anyway, I could use a little aid here."

[tigerusthegreat]

As he opens the book, there is a very concentrated explosion that destroys the book, and injures Anoush (36 damage, no save). The book is nothing but ash, but nobody but Anoush is injured. The letters are undamaged.

[The Dark Fiddler]

"Oh, no! I'm sorry!" Joan rushes to Anoush's aid, forgetting the letters on the bard's corpse in her haste. She channels her divine energies into him, praying for Illum to heal her companion after her blunder.

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(1d8+7)[9] for a cast Cure Light Wounds
An extra 10 from Lay on Hands.

"I... I was careless, I am truly sorry." After tending to the worst of Anoush's wounds, Joan remounts Ivory and keeps a solemn look on her face. She almost goes to put her helmet on, to try and hide in it, but decides that the cold would have made it uncomfortable at best. "I suppose I'm ready to continue on, then," she says quietly.

[Simba]

Rado sees the explosion, feels the heat and the pressure of displaced air. He steps up to Anoush and mouths a prayer to the Lightbringer. The he picks up the letters to look at their seals.

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CLW on Anoush: (1d8+5)[12]

Knowledge (Nobility and royalty): (1d20+9)[12]

"Are you feeling better now?" He asks absentmindedly as he studies the letters, frowning. "I know I should know these seals, but I just can't place them. Give me some more time, will you? Oh, are we moving on already?"

[Techwarrior]

"As much as I would love to give this guy a proper burial, we don't have the time. If we were closer to the town, I'd suggest we take him back there. Let's move him off of the road, and then continue on our path." Vassikyn doesn't like the idea of leaving this poor guy out here, but he knows that there's nothing he can really do. He says a quick prayer to Illum under his breath.

[only1doug]

"As you wish Vass"

Heilan dismounts, says a brief prayer and helps with moving the corpse.

[Simba]

Rado walks with Heilan and Vassikyn, praying to the Lightbringer for the bard's soul. Once the corpse is put down he arranges it to the best of his ability, placing a small token of his faith in his hands. He utters another prayer, asking Illum to consecrate the improvised grave.

With a sad face he turns away, getting ready to leave with the others.

[ben-zayb]

"I feel better, thanks."

He then looks at Vassikyn and asks, "The weather might get worse. Should we proceed?"

[Techwarrior]

"Yes. If we stop for every dip in the weather we'll never get where we're going. I wish we could do something more for him, but we're on one of those 'Fate of the Whole World Rests Upon Us TM' quests." Vassikyn goes back up to his horse, mounts up, and waits for the rest of the party to be ready, then takes off.

[tigerusthegreat]

As you leave the minstrel, more wolves howl in the distance. Continuing on the road, the sleet and ice gets thicker, and the way goes slower. The howling of the wolves gets more constant, and added to it are soundings of a hunting horn. Soon multiple horns can be heard.

[Simba]

When the hunting horns and wolves seem close enough to become a real threat Rado moves his mount close to Anoush and Teene. He utters a short prayer to Illum.

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Rado casts Greater Status on Anoush and Teene.
Duration: 1hr/lvl
Effects: Monitors the position (distance & direction) and condition (unharmed, wounded, disabled, staggered, unconscious, dying, dead, etc.) of one touched living subject per 3 levels at any range. In addition, the caster may cast beneficial ‘touch’ spells of up to 2nd lvl through the link.

[Techwarrior]

"Keep your eyes peeled. Looks like whatever came after out bardic friend is coming after us." Vassikyn draws his crossbow and double sword, and keeps an eye out for anything unusual, ready to shoot at anything that attacks the party.

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Spot check- (1d20+2)[7]
Listen- (1d20+7)[22]

Vass readies an attack with his Hand Crossbow to attack anything that he sees that appears to be trying to attack the party, and draws his Double Sword, putting it in his offhand. He can't use it without dropping the Crossbow, but he'll be that much closer to being ready to attack.

[ben-zayb]

"At the ready..."

Anoush carefully withdraws a wand, while looking and listening for anything that might suddenly come out in the open. His owl follows his lead and observes as well.

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Spot: (1d20+20)[23]
Listen: (1d20+9)[15]
Spot(Owl): (1d20+8)[23]
Listen(Owl): (1d20+16)[36]

@TigerusTheGreat Is the mist thick enough for us or the enemies to hide?

Anoush is psionically focused by the way.

[huyneo]

Teene looks at the others with her own stern expression. Reaching into the folds of her cloak, she pulls out her metal baton. Believing in the others' ability to spot the foe and point them out, she prepares for potentially the worst, taking the a deep breath. Looking at the others, everyone was ready for this. Holding out the baton in front of her, she readies a spell in her mind at a moment's notice.

"Just tell me what direction and I'll fire."

[The Dark Fiddler]

Joan brings her lance to bear silently; although she wishes to mention that whoever is coming is unlikely to be whoever killed the minstrel, because of the lack of an obvious cause of death. Wolves don't wield necromantic magic, do they? Regardless, she's already caused enough trouble for the day, and there was no need to argue with their newly appointed leader at the first sign of trouble.

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JoanSpot - (1d20)[18]
JoanListen - (1d20)[20]
IvorySpot - (1d20+7)[17]
IvoryListen - (1d20+14)[29]

I guess that, since everybody else is doing it, I'll give you rolls too. Joan's probably too busy worrying about her concerns regarding the wolves to actually pay close attention, so feel free to circumstance that up. Not like she'd succeed anyway, with no modifier.

Edit: So of course she crits.

[tigerusthegreat]

The sleet blocks you from seeing very far (15ft vision), however, none of you see any foes in the sleet yet. The horns sound again, and you guess they are still a few miles away, but they are definitely closing. The wolves have not sounded their howls again.

[Techwarrior]

"That's a lot farther off than I thought it was on first hearing it. Let's be careful these next few miles, we don't want to get into anything we don't have to, and more importantly, we don't want to get caught unawares."

[huyneo]

"The let us move forward then. Perhaps we'll be a more suitable position to fight in the case that we must confront them. Maybe they might just pass by us. But just as Vassikyn says, we should not be taken by surprise."

Teene stores the baton back into her cloak. Pulling on her hood to better cover her face, she grabs the horse's reigns and starts to slowly move forward.

[ben-zayb]

*chirp* *chirp* the owl chirped to confirm that there's nothing to watch for... yet.

"Alright, onward then", Anoush repeats, as he directs his steed to move along. He and his companion still keeps their vigilance in case anything becomes unusual.

[tigerusthegreat]

The party continues on through the sleet, which seems to be getting worse as you continue. The wolf howls stop. After about twenty minutes, the hunting horns sound again, sounding further away than before, but not by very much. Visibility is poor enough now that you run the risk of injury to your mounts on the road if you push on. However, if you don't, those with the hunting horns might catch up to you

[Techwarrior]

Vassikyn is aggravated by the weather

"We need to stop. We can't make anything like decent time like this, and we could get injured if we press on. Let's see what we can do about finding some kind of shelter from this, and maybe after that we can do something about fortifications."

He turns to those he thinks of as casters; Rado and Teene; before asking a question.
"Do any of you have any magic that could help us see in this blasted weather, or perhaps do something about making some fortifications, or just make it so that whatever is out there can't find us?

OOC:

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No OOC offense to Anoush if he thinks of himself as a caster. All Vass has seen him do is attempt to disarm a trap

[Simba]

Rado

"Sorry, but I can't be of any assistance there. I will pray to the Lightbringer for spells to that effect once I get some rest."

[huyneo]

Teene shakes her head in frustration, trying to remain as dry as possible.

"If I could, I would. Unfortunately, I did not expect this weather to truly become a problem. My specialty would not help in this situation otherwise. I pray that we are not hampered too much... Perhaps we should continue on foot to ensure the horses don't get injured. We may engage the enemy, but perhaps we can find a more favorable battleground."

[only1doug]

Heilan feels his spirit dampened by the weather, "this accursed sleet is probably sent by the forces of the shadow to delay us, the innkeeper mentioned unseasonal storms blowing in every night."

[ben-zayb]

OOC:

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Are they still on the road? Because I can't imagine how the party risk injuring their mounts that way. If it's the road itself, we only just need a means to fly don't we? If it is, maybe Anoush could think of a way, though that would mean leaving the horses, which is a bad gamble at this point.

Anoush tries to keep his cool as he contemplates on their terrible predicament.
"So we either risk traveling further or be a sitting duck for our enemies... Not much of an option, huh?"

After hearing that the Cleric and the Arcanist don't have the capacity at the moment to help, he then offers his to Vassikyn, "If you are willing to abandon the borrowed steed, I have a plan that might work--though it's a really bad gamble with only the slightest chance of success, I'm telling you. Otherwise, I could at least search for a nearby shelter now."

[Techwarrior]

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I'm imagining that the heavy rain has made the road turn into a nice trail of mud, horses could quite easily break ankles in that. Are all of the casters spell slots prepared? What Rado said at the least might have suggested that, or did he mean he could pray for those spells tomorrow?

"You find us some sort of shelter then Anoush, then you can fill us in on this hair-brained scheme of yours. Let's get everyone off the road somewhere safer, then we can try and figure out a plan, I don't like the thought of spending the rest of this journey dodging whatever is out there. We should flush out whatever threat it is to us now."

Vassikyn spends a few moments trying to figure out how far the horns sound.
[roll]1d20+7[/color]

[ben-zayb]

"I'm on it." With that, accompanied by his owl, Anoush flies off and tries to see if there's a better view from above (up to a fifty feet or so). If not, he'll go back to ground level and explore the sides of the road for any manmade structure, cavern, or even a fairly large tree. He'll try as much as possible not to stray too far away from the group. After a while, he will report his findings to their leader.

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This scouting stuff is pretty ugly in this situation, actually. He might get lost at worst.

He's using Fell Flight (30ft. good maneuverability) by the way. Anyway, possibly relevant rolls:
Search: (1d20+16)[24]
Search(owl): (1d20+4)[21]
Spot: (1d20+20)[26]; +3 in shadowy illumination
Spot (owl): (1d20+8)[20]; +8 in shadowy illumination
Listen: (1d20+9)[17]
Listen (owl): (1d20+16)[32]

[tigerusthegreat]

The owl sees a.group of large white wolves rapidly approaching you from the west. It also reports that there are large groups of gnolls closing from the east, presumably the ones sounding the horns. There is a sheltered cave not far from here, off the road to.the north.

[Techwarrior]

"Lets make for that cave and see what we can do to make a stand there. I have a couple of ideas, but if any of you come up with something, don't hesitate to speak up. Joan, you said you studied tactics, what would you suggest?"

Vassikyn turns to follow Annoush to the cave.

"So... Where did you learn that one Annoush?"

[Simba]

"Right, let's get going, then."

Rado follows the others to the cave.