The Standing Stone IC

[RaggedAngel]

Over the course of eighteen seconds Damien slowly restores himself from the specter's initial assault. He keeps a constant watch on the woods as he does, not willing to to taken by surprise again. Once he is feeling at full strength again he moves over to the woman, careful not to upset her further. "Hey, there. It's alright. You're safe now. We drove the spirit off. Are you okay?" He speaks quietly and slowly, unsure of how much damage the ghost had done to her.

[unseenmage]

Draruuc feebly slaps the crossbow into his knee in frustration. "Glad as I am you all sent that creepy thing packing, it looks like I've used one of these...", he rattles the Schemas where they hang at his hip, "...to no purpose. Again."

Coughing he adds, "Perhaps I can help with the aftermath if nothing else." He hops from the saddle and sets himself down in the grass, legs crossed. He does nothing to hide his weak knees. He drags out Piddin Kmu and begins instructing both Homunculus to fetch and carry things for him. It's obvious he's preparing for some casting or another.

"Kmu here managed to spy some structures and maybe even paths from the sky. I'll have him draw a map in the dirt as soon as I've magic-ed back some of my tuset strength.", he calls to the others.
"Anyone else need some magical refreshment? Each dose will cost me a minute plus and some small personal essence; but I've no problem burning up a few memories keeping you lot healthy. Especially seeing as I'd surely be dead now if not for your skills.", Draruuc grins weakly in everyone's general direction.

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Lesser Restoration only heals 1d4 ability damage per casting.
If this is instead Ability Drain, then I don't think I have a spell for that.
And I'm unsure it it'd be too metagame to ask.

I'll roll for the 11 castings he has and we'll just use the rolls in order until no more are needed or wanted. Even if everyone else decides that we need to head for shelter right away we can just use these rolls either while Draruuc is mounted or after we get stationary again.

Each casting takes 13 rounds. And 7 xp apiece. (Sadly, the Talisman of Transference doesn't allow for xp costs to be shared for spells or infusions.)
(11d4)[3][2][2][2][3][3][3][2][3][3][1](27)

[Sallera]

Sei holds her position for long seconds, until the sounds of the forest return - and then a little longer - before dropping the thread and collapsing onto the ground. Leaning back on one hand, she pulls a flask from her pack, uncorking it one-handed, and takes one gulp, then a second, before going into a fit of coughing. Maybe she'd have a headache in a few hours, but for now, the pleasant fire spreading through her chest was more than worth it, dulling her awareness of the damage the horseman's aura had done to her body.

Struggling to her feet, Sei puts the drink away, the spark of light still glimmering in her palm fading away into its usual protective warding. She wasn't sure whether it made people view her as less of a threat when they were discouraged from violence toward her, but the ward did seem to encourage a certain calm in her immediate vicinity. "Hate this hate this hate this..."

Sighing, she moves around to the other side of the woman, crouching down to try and look her in the eyes. "...Hey. You're alive. And you're going to stay that way. Do you have a home nearby?"

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Sei will take the first three rolls, then, Con/Dex/Str, leaving her with one point of Dex damage. I'll IC that later, once enough time has passed.

[Jeff the Green]

Rook takes a moment to expand the fog to completely cover the battlefield before circling around to his allies and the surviving woman and whispering to each that it is an illusion.

He scans the forest, and once satisfied the spectre is not returning sighs a sigh of relief. "What was that thing?" he wonders aloud.

[RaggedAngel]

Damien shakes his head slowly, his sword still in his hands. The blademaster's eyes scan the woods slowly, the false mist a faint afterimage. "Whatever he was, he was a swordsman of considerable skill. He parried a couple of my attacks with a technique I recognize, a very precise skill that not just anyone can learn how to do. We need to be very careful."

[unseenmage]

Draruuc pipes up from his procedures, "It was evil, and bad. Probably dead too. That presence it had... It was just vugok evil is all it was." He shakes his head at the futility of his lack of words.

After a pause he adds quietly, "And I'm grateful to you all for driving it off. Very grateful."

[Jeff the Green]

"Well, that's very enlightening," Rook mutters. "Something maybe dead, definitely scary, and good with a sword. I never could have figured that out on my own, thank you."

He sneaks off to the forest before anyone can answer his snark, hoping to find his paralyzed cat.

[TheFallenOne]

The woman keeps on wimpering without reacting to any words directed at her, almost catatonic. But with the time it takes for Draruuc to finish his proceedings she slowly regains a measure of awareness, speaking barely above a whisper. "Ossington. Have to reach Ossington. Safe there. Warded." The homunculus meanwhile draws a crude map indicating there is a large structure a few miles to the northeast and a line going in roughly the same direction and beyond it that might indicate a wider path or perhaps a river not far from here.

[Sallera]

"On the bright side," Sei says, "it's not like we can fail to notice it coming when it shoves its aura inside us before it's even close enough to see properly." Draruuc's occasional successes with his magic had made her feel a little better, but that only meant the spirits were starting to go to her head instead.

Bending in to listen as the woman begins to speak, Sei nods, awkwardly patting her on the shoulder. "Ossington, right? We can get you there. Can you show us the way?"

[TheFallenOne]

"I... I know the way", she says hesitantly. "But I'm not from there. They were collecting the people from the outlying farms, bring us to safety. I didn't really understand what this horseman is supposed to be until..." Her voice falters and she breaks off, averting her eyes.

[RaggedAngel]

Damien walks over to where he dropped his oak staff, brushing it off. He brings it over to the woman, kneeling down to give it to her. "Here, you can have this. It may not do much to that horseman, but that's what we're here for. I've always liked having a staff in hand when I walk; partially because you can club things with it, and partially because oak is a very peaceful kind of wood Helps me feel connected to nature, you know?"

He talks calmly, seemingly relaxed, and his chatter about the staff is meant to take the woman's mind off of the ghostly rider. He helps her up, if she is willing to stand, and if she doesn't accept the staff he doesn't seem to mind.

[Sallera]

"Sounds like they know a lot more than we do, then. Or at least a little more," Sei amends; it didn't take a lot of knowledge to realize the rider was dangerous enough that people would need rescuing from it. Of course, the residents of Ossington hadn't done a very good job, and neither, for that matter, had she.

Shivering uncomfortably at the reminder of how many corpses lay nearby - Rook's false fog on the ground and the rather more pleasant fog creeping into her head had almost let her forget - Sei draws a wide circle in the air, light bleeding in from the edges to form a pale golden disk, which floats steadily in midair. "We can take the dead with us on this, I guess? Or at least some of them. The dog could take the others. Maybe that building the homunculus saw has something we could use to bury them, or we could just find a bunch of rocks."

[TheFallenOne]

"I... I had a weapon. Threw my spear after him." She stills, looking at the broken body pierced by the spear shortly after you arrived. She accepts Damien's staff, evidently and reasonably unwilling to collect her former weapon, and ponderously gets to her feet. It's hard to tell with reddened eyes and disheveled hair hanging into her face, but she might be in her early twenties and would probably be considered homely even in a better state.

"That building must be the chapel. We can leave the bodies there, but we should reach Ossington before nightfall."

[Sallera]

"Chapel, huh? Guess that works." Taking the shoulders of the nearest corpse, Sei grimaces, attempting to lift it high enough to reach the obediently following disk and nearly pitching over backward as her weakened limbs prove quite incapable of the task.

"Little help?" she mutters with a scowl, glancing at Damien.

[RaggedAngel]

Damien has kept his eyes on the woods, so he seems a bit surprised when he finds Sei annoyed with him. "What's that? Lift the bodies? Sure, no problem. Just watch my back with that magic sword of yours. How'd you do that, exactly? I've never quite felt a power like that before." He moves the corpses with ease, and you notice that his lean arms are quite a bit stronger than they look.

[Sallera]

"I don't really know?" Sei makes it a question, stepping back as she realizes Damien can move the dead more easily without her help than with. "It's just what Torm gave me. The priests had all sorts of explanations for why I can do the things I can do - those things specifically, I mean - but not so much for why I can do them at all. Like, that sword apparently takes the form of Duty, Torm's greatsword. Maybe they know exactly how it all works, and they just don't trust me. Maybe all they know is what I know."

Belatedly realizing she's started to ramble, Sei frowns. "I guess it makes sense for divine power to be simple."

[RaggedAngel]

Damien shakes his head slowly as he lifts the fourth body onto the floating magical disk. "I just don't understand. I never have. You've seen the things I can do, right? Calling up flames, shrugging off enchantments, I can break stone with my hands, turn invisible, do this shadow illusion thing..."

He breaks off, peering at the young woman intently. "But I've never been able to heal anyone, not even myself. That's supposed to be something that I can do; hell, it's supposed to be easy. Way easier than the kind of focus it takes to shrug off things like whatever that ghost did to us. But I can't. The dwarf who tried to teach me said that it takes devotion to heal someone. I can inspire, I can lead, but devotion is something different, it seems. I guess I just hoped that you would know more than me about that kind of thing. I still wish that I could heal people."

[TheFallenOne]

The bodies are loaded onto the floating disk with the unpleasant consequence of a pool of blood and guts forming in its shallow bowl. By the time Damien is finished the final body reappears as Rook's spell runs out, the floating axe turning out to have split the man's skull. The woman wimpers at the sudden gruesome sight and forcefully empties her stomach, but manages to remain on her feet. Shortly after Draruuc finishes his ministrations as well.

[Sallera]

Sei laughs outright at that, a bitter and rather unpleasant sound. When next she speaks, her voice has dropped to a whisper, inaudible to anyone but Damien despite the several feet between them. "Devotion? Ask the priests about devotion. I don't have any. Maybe that's why I can't heal people, but I don't know how much they really have either. Isn't trust supposed to be part of that word?"

Spoiler

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Message, which Damien could use to reply if he recognizes it and feels so inclined.

Somehow, Sei is really fun to write when she's drunk.

[Jeff the Green]

Rook's overly-sharp avian ears follow the conversation until he is able to return with his limp cat in his hands. "Devotion is easy," he says. "The gods are more numerous than foundlings in a famine, though some of them are less burdensome. Out of all the deities you can't find a single one whose goals match yours, or who can offer you the power or protection you need?"

"And speaking of power, Sei," he continues, "your version of Duty is called Eldritch Glaive. As the name suggests, it's not usually associated with divine power, but is rather favored by fiends and their servants. Mephistopheles in particular, I believe. I imagine that's why the priests didn't tell you; it's generally considered a bad idea to inform someone capable of materializing her own weaponry that said weaponry comes from trafficking with the baatezu rather than divine inspiration." This last sentence, while not dripping with sarcasm, is quite thoroughly moistened.

[Sallera]

Sei snorts derisively, favouring Rook with a lopsided scowl. "You think I'd be out here, doing this, if this light came from the other side? If this weren't Torm's power," she adds with a toss of her head, "I wouldn't be wearing his colours and doing his work."

[unseenmage]

Draruuc distractedly listens in and watches the others salvage corpses for burial.

His breathing still labored, his arms weighted like lead, and his gestures jerky. He almost wished he'd kept what little healing magic he'd managed to himself. 'But then as they've proven twice now, it's more important for them to be in fit form than for me.', he frowns some at this thought; but pride must fall before survival.

As he finishes his rituals and the last of the dead are loaded up he reorganizes his equipment some, offloading what he can into the Bag of Holding carried by Piddin Kmu. Unwilling to part with his Haversack stuffed with alchemy or his crossbow he divests himself of his armor and a couple of magical doodad's instead.

"I have less interest in standing around taking hits than I do in being capable of fleeing.", he explains to no one in particular as the Homunculi begin removing his armor for him.

Chiming in on the discussion of magics, "To me magic is magic. I need no faith or magic in my blood. I simply take the potential from the things in the world and twist it about a bit to make magic happen."

He casts his gaze on Sei, making sure to catch her eye in return, "That said, I care not from where you fetch your strength, so long as you're willing to turn that strength in my defense. Act in whoever's name you gotta, it's the result that matters not the power source."

[TheFallenOne]

After another hour of travelling you reach a scar through the woods, dark soil stretching for miles and miles where no tree grows and even grass and flowers are reluctant to go. The makeshift path still makes a slight bend here and there, but overall is mostly straight in stark contrast to the mud trail you trudged along before. The chapel is halfway to Ossington, requiring a short detour into the woods again to the left of the scarred land.

The building is clearly old and if not for insistent chanting coming from inside one might think nature has already reclaimed the place. Ferns crawl up the octogonal facade, long cracks run along the central dome that despite reaching easily 30 feet into the air is dwarfed by the surrounding trees, their reaching branches looming over the edges of the structure. A sapling is sprouting out of one of the cracks, with time promising to do further damage to the derelict building. The four stairs leading up to the doorless entrance are worn with age and use, their once sharp contours smooth and uneven. Few people stray here it seems but to bring food and homage to the idols inside and the lone priestess occupying the chapel as the woman tells you.

[RaggedAngel]

Damien looks around at the others, shrugs, and then ascends the four short steps to knock on the door frame, attempting to to not startle anyone. "Hello?" He calls out to the cathedral. "Is anyone in there? We have wounded and dead in need of attention and burial."

[unseenmage]

"What a run down pile of ter.", Draruuc mutters as the building comes into sight. Shaking his head at the sight, "Does no one hereabout know how to maintain a structure's integrity?"

Draruuc dismounts and quickly strides around the building exterior, examining everything from the foundation to the frame. At one point he's even laying on his belly to get a better look at the underside of the structure. His survey is hasty, but thorough. He's looking at both the building's usefulness as a defensive position and trying to guess what god or gods it might have been dedicated to.

He also does his best to listen closely to the chanting, trying to identify it's purpose or at least it's religious significance.

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Knowledge Architecture & Engineering to determine how defensible the building is:
(1d20+13)[18]

Knowledge Religion for what god(s) the building is dedicated to:
(1d20+5)[23]

Knowledge Religion to identify the chanting:
(1d20+5)[15]

[TheFallenOne]

The prayer continues for half a minute, then pauses. "Enter the chapel of eight gods then, but don't interrupt until I finished my ministrations."

Draruuc

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With no windows and a single entrance it is well defendable. It once was of sturdy make and will still endure some decades(although the sapling in the crack could be dangerous) but if someone attacked it with even light siege equipment it could become a death trap.

You can't tell who is venerated here from the outside.

[RaggedAngel]

Damien enters quietly, moving surprisingly softly for a man so heavily armed. He keeps his hands at his sides and his weapons sheathed, doing his best to seem unthreatening. He takes his stock of the inside of the building before motioning for the others to come in; if there happens to be some hidden threat, he plans on letting it focus on him rather than anyone else.

[Sallera]

Either unnoticing or uncaring of Damien's caution, Sei follows him into the chapel, more than eager to be rid of corpse-stench. Rocking from one foot to the other, a tad unsteadily, she waits impatiently for the woman to finish her prayers.

"Could be worse," she says as she looks around the building, seemingly to no one in particular.

[Jeff the Green]

"You're the closest thing to a priestess here," Rook mutters to Sei. "Aside from the, er, priestess, that is. Any idea what eight gods this chapel is devoted to?"

While the feathered flimflammer is quite attached to his goddess, he is practical and ecumenical. Blessings from Tyr, or Helm, or Mystra he would certainly take if available. If Oghma is among the eight, though, it would be best not to draw his—or, more likely, his mortal or immortal servants'—attention with Leira's triangle dangling from his neck.

[unseenmage]

Draruuc rounds the building looking satisfied with himself. He has Kmu fly up and keep watch from the very top of the building, telling the little homunculus to keep especial lookout for grisly horsemen but to notify him if anything non-nature-like approaches the building.

Sidling up behind the others, but staying just outside the doorway, he considers relaying what he's learned about the building to the others and decides against it for now. 'That the place is dholec old is obvious, and as we're up against something that flows through walls like smoke does air it wouldn't mean much difference anyway.'

For now he leans against the exterior wall and listens, paranoidally watching the trees and unconsciously rubbing his hand across his aching chest.