Sirhan straps on his shield readying himself for whatever the outcome of our parlay might be.
"I am Sirhan the Steel Wolf, and we are traveling through these lands to explore and cleanse it. Not looking for any sort of confrontation with someone of your standing Paralictor Vance."
Diplomacy:
Sirhan's voice growling in his voice as he yells to be heard might make it hard for the Paralictor to understand him.
Peitry hangs back and views the black clad knights, running over his spells prepared in his mind he tries to formulate a sequence for their casting order in case things got ugly.
Jin does not activate his flight yet but his bow is in hand and readied. He rides is horse out 20 ft to the side of the group, no closer to the knights but a bit apart from the others.
More bloody Asmodaens. Do they so hate demonkind, to ally with the Imodaens so easily?
First the giant woman and now these? I am cursed my shadow.
I felt your displeasure the moment I touched it. Forgive me, my Shadow but it would be prudent to whittle them down before closing. This is NOT a duel and we could be out here for days.
I don't trust them. We should be cautious.
A hex is already on my lips, if Things go bad, I'll curse them with clumsiness left first, then right.
Jin calls loudly,
He calls out in return.
We are riding in the name of Iomedae and we have an contract of the church of Iomedae. Could you exhibit such an document?
He couches his lance in a holster on his saddle. Then pulls something small from a saddle bag, and rides forward slowly. The other knight with him slings his rifle across his back and does the same, his hands in plain sight.
Jin keeps his voice low [smaller]I will go with you, my hexes need no weapons or hand waving. I will be armed
Jin kips his horse foreward. He puts away his bow.
Kenan stows the bow and the arrows and rides slowly forward.
Sirhan takes his hand off his sword, making sure the Paralictor can see his hand are empty and follows Kenan and Jin Forward.
Once you are about thirty feet from one another, the Paralictor stops his horse, and holds up a large document sealed with a blob of white wax for you to examine. "Let me see yours and we can close the rest of the way on foot." he says, raising up the visor of his helm to reveal a middle aged human man with short curly black hair, and pale skin. There is a large pink scar running diagonally across face from his left eyebrow to his right cheek.
"Their Hellknights." Peitry mutters to the group before they head out to parley.
Peitry steps back next to his horse but stops before mounting up again to view the procession and smacking his lips, his integrated paranoia making it hard for him to relax. Staring at the two knights he decides he will target the gun wielder if things got ugly, a mounted ranged combatant could wreak havoc to the group if left unchecked, the melee characters might have a hard time catching him as he'd probably do his best to avoid them and keep his distance. Peitry had several spells prepared that would either ground him or could outright kill him and his horse. Either those or he could enhance the groups speed with magic. He'd see.
Kenan pulls out the contract, unrolls it and holds it for a few seconds up. Here it is.
Vance slowly dismounts, as does his man, they advance on foot leaving their weapons behind. When he's up close, he looks at the document briefly before saying, "Looks to be in order. Let me just have a look at you properly, make sure there's not any demons hiding amongst you." His eyes blaze a firey red as he spits an infernal verb from his mouth.
He cast detect chaos
He looks at each of the six briefly before nodding, "Well met." he says holding out his hand to Kenan. "Might I ask which way you were headed?"
Peitry catches the verb and runs it through his mind, reqognizing the language.
"Detect Chaos." he mutters, "He's as paranoid as I am."
'Devils and demons are always at each others throats, maybe they have news of our destination?' "We're heading south-by-south-west. We've set our goal at a town in that direction. Do you have any news of the wastes for us?" Peitry pipes in at the knight.
As Jin approaches he calls up his inner well spring of power. He kept the magic deep within his breast, ready for release should the need arise.
Jin tries to gauge their intent by reading body language.
"I left fort Clydwell two weeks ago with a company of seventeen other Hellknights. We were due west, for the old Fort of the Nail about thirty miles west of here." He pauses and a grimace passes over his face, "We were well prepared to fight demons, but the fort has been taken over by undead." he says bitterly. "They waited until night when my men were most vulnerable and then attacked. They forced us into a barn, trapping us there..." He trails off and his eyes go unfocused as he relives the events of the story.
The junior hellknight lifts his own visor to reveal a very young blonde haired man, with blue eyes and freckles. "It's not your fault Paralictor. There was nothing you could do." he says, placing a hand on the older knight's shoulder. The paralictor looks at him for a moment, and then nods once before continuing. "They had us trapped there for days, constantly under attack. Finally when only a few of us were left we lit the barn on fire in desperation. Only young Treyvan and I were able to escape through the flames. Now we return to Kenabres, to report to our superiors and request new orders."
Crissor dismounts and stays near the rear of the party listening to thier tale, the paladin folding his arms over his chest.
"Did you get a look at what sort of undead they were? Zombies, skeletons or something else?" he askes hoping to gather a measure of what they faced, just in case they ran accross a similar attack.
Vance looks at Crissor with derision and says, "Zombies and skeletons? Do you take me for a child? I am a hellknight sir. The forms of abomination were many and varied, and I have no names for most of them. But they were no simple shambling corpses. They are intelligent and powerful." He spits into the dirt and sneers.
And there were 17 more of you? Well then that sounds like a nice place to avoid. The hell knights are no novices to battle. I wish you well on your journey, Sir Knights. Your warning is well heeded.
Jin half bows, not taking his eyes off either and moves to remount his horse.
Peitry, we should note the location on our map. At least as a point of reference for later.
"The same for you. May you slay many demons." the Paralictor says, beginning to turn back to his mount.
Sirhan looks at the the Paralictor "On your way from the barn to here, what did you face and how long did it take you to here." trying to not offend the Paralictor and watches the 2 seeing if they might be telling the truth
Diplomacy
Sense motive
"We encountered nothing. It's a day's ride from here to the west."
Peitry nods at Jin and takes out the map, going over to the Prefect he asks him to point out the location of the Keep and marks it in, thanking him he rolls up the map and puts it back into it's scrollcase.
"Noted." he says to Jin on his way back to his mount. Climbing up he looks to the group waiting till they're ready to head out.
Thank-you Peitry. How about the rest of you? Shall we continue?
Time: 08/18/4712 12:35
The two hellknights eager to be off, mount up and waving farewell, ride off eastward. The party continues with it's exploration, sweeping back and forth across the plains. The vista remains devoid of anything more interesting than the occasional small grove of trees. After breaks for meals and riding all day the group eventually reaches the point where continuing further will only risk exhaustion.
Time: 17:00
"Guys, I need too rest. I can prepare an endure elements spell for the lot of us in the morning but as of now I can only cast the one. Jin, if you have it on your spell list that would be a great help. I'll have too burn allot of energy into casting it on all of us. "
Peitry, maybe Crissor and Rogarson can support you. I think a rest will be good for all of us. I can do the first or the last watch. At the middle watch it is too dark for me.
"I have a rope trick spell memorized. It can get us out of this blasted waste into an extradimensional pocket for seven hours, we'll only need one guard at each time to guard the entrance, two if your feeling lonely, but it should allow us to recuperate from this blasted heat as the pocket has it's own more comfortable environment."
"Jin, do you have endure elements on your spell list? It would aid greatly if you could take care of a couple of the castings."
Fort:
Fort:
Fort:
Fort:
Fort:
"I think rest will be good for us, I can take the middle watch as I can see in the dark quite well."
I am sorry Peitry, I cannot cast that spell. If this oppressive heat persists, we should buy a wand of it when we return. I did research the spell once and found there IS a more.powerful version which could effect 4 of us for 6 hours each from a single cast. It is a second tier spell however and once again, beyond my ability. I can take a watch as well. I can see in the dark and only need 2 hours rest.
"I can take last watch if you need to rest for your spells, Jin. I can commune with my powers in the morning so last watch shouldn't be a problem.
Fort Save
Fort Save
Fort Save
Fort Save
Fort Save
3d6
Ok. So I'll take 1st Watch, then Crissor, Sirhan , then Kenan. No offense Kenan but since we have 3 members with Darkvision we should use them. You can take watch as the sun breaks and guard while all the casters prepare their spells.
Forgotten damage
"The watch sounds well enough to me." thinking a moment "Peitry is that realm you can make big enough for the horses as well it might not be good to leave them unattended in these lands, they might be somethings dinner."
I'm not offended, Jin. Like I said, I know my disadvantage at night.
Crissor gulps a dry throat and takes a swig of his waterskin. "That's a good point, I'd like to make sure Logano here is safe." he pats his horse gently. I just bought him too.. He puts his hands on his hips and looks up at the sky for a moment, his fur and armor making him pant a noticably in the heat.
Camp is made quickly with the help of the extra-dimensional space. After a couple hours the sun goes down, and with it the heat begins to mercifully fade.
Soon it is bitterly cold, and a fog sweeps over the land. This persists until morning, when the great angry red orb of the sun burns away the mists and begins heating up the air again. You eat a quick breakfast and the spellcasters get ready for the day.
Jin the first up before the Sun. Bright light hurt his eyes and he preferred the dark anyway so barring taking 2hours at midnight he was up all night so for the most part there would always be 2 people on watch. He had not cast any spells yesterday and so kept what he had prepared.
Honestly Dur Dagnir, besides you, this ring is probably the main reason we made it this far. We have traveled so long, just us, barely stopping. It is odd to be camping down like normal people again.
For his personality or the fact his is willing to share Magical Lore with us?