"She looks a little pale still but I suppose that's just the lost blood... I believe you."
"Magic is quite the thing. Our lives would be much harder, if not impossible, without it."
"Magic is quite the thing. Our lives would be much harder, if not impossible, without it."
"One cannot become overreliant on it though. Magic does marvelous things, but it has its limitations - and vulnerabilities."
Toramin smiles.
"Without magic of my own that would be difficult. But your words are wise, Master Dalton."
~~~~~Grand Tour, Day 18~~~~~
Rilka’s eyes open wide as the healing magic floods into her. She glances from side to side, attempting to understand the scene of two dead lions and her torn and bloody clothes.
”What happened?” she asks. Her hands touch her face and come away wet from the lion’s saliva. ”Looks like I almost became a snack. Thank you, thank you, thank you for keeping me from that fate. Did anyone else get hurt?”
She squats by a lion, impressed by the size and power and of the teeth and jaws. After a few moments of introspection she chuckles, ”This could make a really nice coat I bet.” She leaves the lion and gathers up her gear that got thrown from her during the lion’s attack.
”Will the scent of blood bring other predators, Viktor? I’ll be ready to leave soon, mostly need to make my extracts.”
One available third level.
Toramin laughs at Rilka's comment about a coat. "Could you skin one of them, Vicktor? Mistress Featherfeet should have a memento."
Rilka awakes, and while all of the pain is gone except for a dull throbbing, there is still a remnant of the attack. A huge bite mark that stretches from her right shoulder, across her chest and over to her left hip. Most of it is easily covered by most clothing, although the highest part creeps over to her collarbone and would require something without a low cut.
Viktor grimaces at the scar. "I am sorry, my healing has limits. Sometimes more powerful magic is needed for such things." He shakes his head. "They are predators, attacking what looks like the easiest meal. I imagine your size singled you out." He chuckles at the coat comment. "I could indeed do that! It seems your outfit was mostly shredded by the lion anyways. It's a good thing you have magic protecting you." He shakes his head at the warning of blood. "The cold air keeps the scent from traveling too far." After he gets his choice of cuts from the lion that Toramin slew, he piles them on the disc conjured by Dalton. "That's a handy trick. Thank you." He takes more care carving up the lion that Bjorkus killed, the one that nearly killed Rilka, skinning it carefully. He reaches the neck and pauses to look at Rilka. "You want the face and mane attached, or no?"
While Viktor does his bloody work, Bjorkus waits mostly silent immobile save the occasional shiver when a stray draft manages to make the cold intense enough to penetrate his furs and his thick hide.
When it looks like the guide is nearly done he helps himself to a few of the beasts' bigger teeth and claws for later.
"You should keep them, Rilka; it would look so fearsome."
"Indeed it does. I can have it rest over your shoulder or head. Although the size of the face may look disproportional...perhaps just the mane?"
~~~~~Grand Tour, Day 18~~~~~
”I simply thought it’d be warm,” Rilka answers trying to decide about the head. ”So it’d fit over my head like a helmet? Hmmmm, it’d be one thing if I had killed it and displayed it as a trophy. It’s quite another to be one bite away as a meal. So let’s leave the head off.”
She inspects the tracks left behind by the two lions. ”Didn’t you say I’d be a meal for cubs? Should we attempt to find them and train them? Would your clan like them?” the last question posed to Toramin. ”Though there’d probably be an adult male in their den.”
Viktor nods, cutting the fur around the neck and leaving the head on the ground. He takes off some more cuts from this one as well, then drapes the fur over all the meat. "Alright, let's keep moving. Only an hour 'till my next cave." Bjorkus and Toramin pick up Coralla and Dalton again and the party continues.
Despite the lift, Coralla still passes out before Viktor stops. And he stops in the middle of a frozen wasteland, with no cover to be seen. He starts searching the ground, then smiles. "Aha!" He smashes his tower shield on the ground, and with the cracking of ice a hole opens op. "An old abandoned dwarven tunnel. There was a cave in so it's no longer used, but it still provides good shelter." After some climbing, everybody is in and Viktor starts the midday fire.
Rilka stands behind Coralla, massaging her shoulders. ”One hour at a time. Focus on right now, not the distance we will travel today.”
As they eat lunch, Rilka asks Viktor if the cave-in was natural.
Bjorkus watches over Coralla in silence during their midday break.
Viktor shrugs. "I suppose so, I wasn't there when it happened."
In ten minutes Coralla wakes, groaning. "I'm getting tired of these headaches..."
It seems blood ran thicker than money. Yet surely these stores were not all of the same vein; the transmuter tried another, asking similar questions for purchases. One of them will be willing - but at what price?
"Yeah, I just wondered if the tunnel was collapsed for a reason. To keep something out."
Nodding in sympathy about the headaches, Rilka looks through her alchemist’s kit, searching for a mundane solution to Coralla’s problem. If she knew polypurpose panacea, and had the energy to prepare it, it would be easy to take care of anyone’s headaches. But she feels the depletion of her magical reserves. She doesn’t have many more left for the day.
~The Grand Tour Day 18~
Dalton believes it was a natural cave in.
"The earth shifts from time to time, which causes tunnels to collapse. Some of these mountains remain volcanically active."
As Toramin eats some lion and offers, "It might be possible to to get the skin enchanted Rilka. I'm looking forward to seeing my family. Dağın Kalp cannot be that much further."
"Yes, it does look normal to me - well, as normal as a cave-in can be. In any event, I am looking forward to the next portion of this vacation."
Viktor roasts two of the lion legs over the fire, sprinkling some salt over it but keeping it pretty simple. It has a very gamey taste, but filling. "I'll get the lion skin cloak stitched up tonight when I have the time."
Bjorkus considers calling it a night himself but knows he can't rest until one last element of the party was accounted for. He summons Sylpha to have her help him collect the donation buckets and count their contents.
At the end of the counting they get about 2.5k in various coinage, mostly copper and silver.
"I need you to one more thing for me tonight Sylpha. Take this and drop it with Gabrielle. She's in charge of the whores tonight were workin' for her and she'll make sure they all get paid. Tell her the girl that made a man outta Gabe's supposed to get double. This portion needs to go to Hobbe - him and his boy did all the cookin'. This one's meant for Morgrym and the masons. Save the big one for last. Find whatever hole Firyin's passed out in and drag him to Liamsho. Give the big sack to the priest - he'll know what it's for."
~~~~~Grand Tour, Day 18~~~~~
”I thought curing — is that the term? — the hide to be worn would take longer than that. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
~The Grand Tour Day 18~
Viktor laughs. "I wasn't gonna do anything that fancy. If you want that, best wait till we reach the dwarves." After lunch is eaten and everybody is recovered, they set out on the trail again.
An hour out and Toramin has to heal himself from fatigue. Dalton and Coralla are suffering as well. The next hour Dalton can barely stand.
Toramin carries Dalton for the third hour and keeps him from passing out. Bjorkus gets ready to shoulder the struggling Coralla, when suddenly a spray of snow bursts up from behind the party, showering them in white powder. Four shambling creatures, humanoid size and shape, stand up. These beings are gaunt humanoids dressed in tattered rags, their skin pale gray and ice crystals formed on various parts of their bodies. Their hands end in claws and translucent icy blue nails. their eyes are frozen solid and show no signs of life even as they step forward.
The terrain around the party isn't promising. The land is very rough, with various rocky edges, and at the south is a forty foot cliff, although there is a snowbank at a gentle incline about sixty feet east of them.
Rilka
Dalton
Coralla
Bjorkus
Viktor
Toramin
Enemy
Fail
Fail
Fail
Hour 2 (DC 16)
Fail
Hour 3 (DC 17)
Fail
Fail
Bjorkus packs up his last few things as the group prepares to depart for the final leg of their journey. He shifts the contents of his pack to make room for his tied up bedroll and the brick of dried pesh meets his hand. He recalls what the vendor had said and his times interacting with regular imbibers of the herbal hallucinogen. He said it’d make me strong and I’ve never seen a peshhead worried when he was high… The bull breaks a corner off the pressed brick and sticks it into his bovine mouth to chew. It wasn’t anywhere near a portion as it was explained to him but he wasn’t sure how it’d affect him.
After the party’s been traveling for a while the chemicals from the potent dried herbs finally hit him along with a mild euphoria. He felt strong in a way that he hadn’t felt for weeks now and content (or something close to it). His melancholy and troubles were still there, just muted and easy to ignore. The bull’s pace quickens as the weight of his failures and weakness were forgotten for a time.
Unfortunately with such a small dose the effect doesn’t last long. Bjorkus is reaching for another pinch when the frostbitten undead emerge from their resting places. He hesitates and falls back.
The sight of the soulless shambling undead remind him instantly of Acera and her skeletal gunslinger. I can’t fight that!
"Hoar Spirits! Though not the ones that Bjorkus likes."
Toramin moves forward and assumes his stance.
If they move forward:
"Good afternoon, my friend. I have a bit of a proposition for you."
Explaining the details, Dalton knew Ninnec would have a better knowledge of the city's inner workings than he did. He mainly wanted to see how the experiment played-out; the profit was a secondary boon.
"If done right, you should have buyers flocking to you. But it is crucial people do not realizing the bottle's neck you create - it may upset them."
”Get ready for a cold of cone! They’ll try to freeze us to death.” Rilka says as her hand darts to her holster and draws her pistol. Her finger trips the silence trigger so that she doesn’t cause an avalanche as she fires. ”Anyone have fire?"
Barely conscious as he was, Dalton knew he had to extract himself from the front line. "Make haste! Miss Featherfeet is right!"
The foppish man invoked acceleration around the group, turned, and bounded away.
Rilka draws and shoots right through the nearest undead's head, causing it to whip back as frozen brains are splattered over the snow. Then it keeps shambling forward. Dalton buffs the party and then takes his leave from melee. Coralla squeals in terror as the undead rise, but Bjorkus sweeps her up and takes her into cover behind the lip of a nearby overhang. Viktor charges through the snow, getting in front of Rilka and bringing his blade down. "Stay together, stay together! These bastards will swarm you!" His blow scrapes off of frozen skin. Toramin steps over with Viktor, bringing down his own strike and smashing apart a chest of one of the undead, but it yet stands.
Almost as one, the four undead raise their hands and seem to say something, although no noise comes out. Toramin sees they are casting defensively; clearly these undead are intelligent. The two middle ones have no output for their actions, but the northern and southernmost ones both blast out massive cold magic from their hands, covering Rilka, Viktor, Toramin, and even catching Dalton, although Bjorkus and Coralla are shielded by the rock above them.
Suddenly, five more of the frosty undead burst out of the snow, staggering to life as they peer around at the warm bodies in their home!
Rilka
Dalton
Coralla
Bjorkus
Viktor
Toramin
Enemy
Extra attack with full attack
+1 on attack rolls
+1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves
+30 movement speed (up to twice normal speed)
Rilka - 8 damage
Dalton - 20 damage
Coralla -
Bjorkus -
Viktor - 15 damage
Toramin - 10 damage
HS1 - 21 damage, CoC used
HS2 - CoC used
HS3 - CoC used
HS4 - 21 damage, CoC used
HS5 -
HS6 -
HS7 -
HS8 -
HS9 -
Chilled to the bone despite his abjuration for the day, Dalton sought to repay them. If the cold will slow me down, I'll do the same for you!
But first, some positioning.
Toramin creates a storm of lashing chain in his effort to destroy the closest undead abominations.
As the cold strikes her, Rilka inhales past her clenched teeth. She steps behind Viktor to guard his back and fires her pistol at one of the new hoar spirits, just beyond the range she’s most comfortable shooting at.
The sight of even more hoar spirits bursting from the snow almost sets Bjorkus to fleeing but the knowledge that Coralla was taking cover behind is enough to make the bull stand his ground. Still, if he didn't distract the things she'd be killed by their blasts of frost and there was nowhere else to run. He'd have to distract them but how could he possibly fight so many powerful undead when Acera's toys had easily overpowered him. He wasn't strong enough.
Grabbing a bigger chunk of pesh from his pack, Bjorkus tucks it into his mouth and pushes Coralla back. He lumbers forward and jabs his horns into the nearest undead.
Rilka hops off a small edge and fire her new pistol, winging a chunk of dead flesh off of her target. Dalton gets himself out of the line of fire, going aerial. Coralla listens to Bjorkus's warning and takes cover, too scared to argue or even speak. Then he pushes through the snow and impales the undead that Rilka shot, ripping out crystalline guts, but the undead yet stands. Plus he feels the deadly cold set in around where he gored with, freezing him. Viktor chops at the one Rilka shot in the head, destroying it utterly. Then he puts his blade twice more into the next one, opening up wounds. Toramin drops the one he injured, then destroys the next one as well, leaving only the one behind the group.
The final hoar spirit next to Viktor claws at him, but finds no purchase in the paladin's defenses. The hoar spirit that Rilka just shot raises it's hand, dousing Rilka, Viktor, and Toramin in ice magic. Three of the ones by Bjorkus close in on him, clawing away at the half-minotaur. Half of their claws break through, injuring and making bone-numbing cold reach the core of his being, freezing him in place. The last one goes after Coralla, stumbling along and raising its hands to blast her in icy death. She screams briefly before collapsing, frozen skin clinking against the rock.
A tenth undead sprays out of the snow, standing up to join the hunt for warm blooded creatures, frozen eyes turning with a haunting glare.
Rilka
Dalton
Coralla
Bjorkus
Viktor
Toramin
Enemy
Rilka - 12 damage
Dalton - 20 damage
Coralla - 18 damage
Bjorkus - 15 damage, pesh effects
Viktor - 22 damage
Toramin - 19 damage
Haste All friendlies (7 rounds remaining)
Extra attack with full attack
+1 on attack rolls
+1 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves
+30 movement speed (up to twice normal speed)
Pesh Bjorkus (1 hour remaining)
+1 Strength
-2 Con and Wisdom
-2 on saves vs illusions and mind-affecting effects
HS5 - CoC used
HS6 - 21 damage
HS7 -
HS8 -
HS9 - CoC used
HS10 -
Ascending further, Dalton drifted over Bjorkus. Since their blood was spilled below, it only was right he sacrifice some of his own to ensure their survival - at least for some of them.
Toramin doesn't see Coralla fall but he does hear her scream and the sound of Bjorkus fighting so he moves to help his friend. He draws more energy out of the earth to heal his wounds and fight fatigue.
Toramin moves towards where he heard Bjorkus fighting.
Rilka shivers as another blast of cold hits her, stealing her body’s warmth. She hears Coralla’s scream and knows they are at a disadvantage tactically. Too spread out, she thinks, but if we get too close together we’re perfectly grouped for getting frozen. With the new spirit’s arrival, she knows fleeing may be the best now.
”Bjorkus use the vial I gave you! Teach them to fear the bull!” she says as she moves into a better position for her next attack. She takes aim at the spirit to Bjorkus’ left and fires again. ”And everybody, we may need to retreat!”