Bishop wakes up in the morning and prepares his daily list of spells with a slight modification for our current situation. then gathers the companions together near the waters edge and casts water walk on the 3 companions and 3 camels.
"Ok, we each have about an hour to walk across the river and any other water between here and there. Now where to?"
Bishop also casts his daily Magic Vestment with the lesser extend rod.
You cross a little ways upstream of the crossing, just out of sight of the towers. One of the camels balks at the edge of the water, but Kit is eventually able to coax it across.
Even better than that. I believe we go back to the other side of the bridge keep, and thumb our noses at the jerks charging usurious rates for crossing!
And THEN we'll head on our way.
That's probably not a good idea. They might send the bird out of spite.
Dakkar knows he's not a big enough dragon to gloat. At least not yet.
While Kit enjoys a good nose-thumbing as much as the next guy (I guess in this case, the next guy is Iskender), it probably wouldn't be prudent.
This seemed to be the first time that Kit was suggesting prudence, so Iskender decided not to make a big deal of it, and only to hope it would be the last time. "Very well, on to other things I suppose."
Giving the bridge a wide berth, you eventually circle back to the road. Not long afterwards it turns from a track in the dirt to a causeway made of carefully-fit ancient stones. The craftsmanship resembles that of the bridge, being so finely fit together that even after who knows how many years of use there's still no gap between the stones that make it up. On either side of the causeway a low wall rises, sometimes half-buried in drifted sand.
After a few hours of travel, you see water ahead, and before long you come to the shore of a sea, whose waves lap against the causeway's wall. Not long after you hear a soft thumping against the wall in time with the wash of the waves--a quick glance reveals a large metal box of some sort bobbing on the waves and knocking against the wall.
"Given the quality of landborne hazards in this strange land, who knows what sort of creatures we'll find in the water!"
Iskender looks at the large metal box and determines it is too large for mage hand to retrieve.
"With that said, who is going to retrieve that box? A metal box floating is quite peculiar. It's not loaded with gold, we can bet, but who knows."
I don't mind getting it. Kit volunteers.
Dakkar looks into trying to lift the box out of the water.
And apparently fumbles it.
Iskender shakes his head at Dakkar's amateurish efforts.
Dakkar loses his grip on the box, lunges after it... and ends up going in himself.
Kit will help Dakkar out of the water then attempt to grab the box.
Dakkar is almost too surprised to keep his head above the water, but fortunately the waves are pushing him back towards the causeway, too. After some struggling and with some help he gets back on dry land.
Once that's done, Kit pulls the box out, being a bit more careful after seeing Dakkar's struggles. It's a fair-sized box, that looks to have some sort of lock on the front, long since rusted shut. Its surface is also encrusted with some sort of mollusk which look vaguely like clams or mussels.
Bishop shakes his head and just watches his companions interact with a box in the water.
"Sadly, I have nothing that would help in this situation except bashing it."
"I've got nothing!"
Bashing it is! Kit says as he hefts his greataxe.
With a couple of whacks Kit is able to break off the rusted lock and open the box. Within are 85 coins, of a type you've never seen before. The inscriptions on them seem to change as you look at them from different angles. There are also five empty vials within.
"So that is most peculiar."
Iskander will cast detect magic and check this out...
One of the vials is magic--it seems like it could work as an admixture flask.
"Don't know if those coins would be any use as money... but we could probably sell them anyway. Unless they turn out to be important somehow."
"Now that you have all the shiny things from the box, shall we continue on the journey?"
"I suppose we shall."
You travel along for a little while longer before the weather starts to turn to the worse. The wind picks up, and dark clouds rumbling with thunder start moving towards you from off the coast. You don't see any shelter nearby--there's the causeway with its low walls, on one side the water, and on the other empty wasteland.
"A troubadour such as myself isn't afraid of a little weather, but I do understand if some of you would prefer to not get wet."
Dakkar shrugged.
"I don't mind. I've been outside in the rain before. And I don't have any hair to get soggy."
As the storm draws nearer, you can see a worrying number of bolts of lightning flashing between earth and cloud. The nearing rumble of thunder barely has any breaks between strokes.
"On the other hand, that storm is starting to look like that kind where you get struck by lightning twice. Anyone done anything to make a local druid mad? We should probably at least look for somewhere with something tall to get struck instead of us."
Dakkar looked out across the wasteland. Even land that seemed empty seldom was entirely. There might be a boulder or burrow somewhere at least.
Kit would use his knowledge of Geography to figure the best place to take shelter.
There aren't any great spots. There are some rises in the wastes on the other side of the low wall along the causeway. One in particular looks like it might be tall enough that lightning would prefer it to a person, if the person were crouching. Your animals... well, maybe they can be coaxed to jump over the wall and then crouch along with you?
As the lightening comes nearer, Bishop will judge how close they are to being in danger and then just before the deluge hits he will expend a mythic power through the Recalled Blessing ability to cast but not expend Resist Energy, Communal (60 total mins split among 4 party members and 2 animals for 10 mins or resist electrical 10). If for some reason, the danger lasts longer than 10 mins, Bishop will repeat the process.
"Well with this protection, we could continue on unless the first bolt that hits us is stronger than what protections I can provide?"
"We could try to make a shelter of some sort, if anyone is carrying a bunch of canvas and wood."
"I certainly don't have any handy spells to provide us a place to rest safely."
The storm sweeps over you suddenly, and bolts of lightning rain down on you. Fortunately Fenwick's protections hold, and just as suddenly the storm blows further inland.
"There we go! Let's press on."
Dakkar looked at the retreating clouds.
"That is not how normal storms behave. Someone with a lot of magic made that happen. Let's hope they weren't aiming at us specifically."
”If so, their aim sucks.”
You travel on for a little longer as the sun sinks lower in the sky.
Just as it's getting late enough to think about camping, you see a small structure up ahead on the causeway. Unfortunately as you draw near it you discover something else--the causeway itself has been damaged here, a large chunk of it having slid into the sea, leaving only a precarious ledge along the inner wall too narrow for your 'camels' to cross.
"Hey look! there is a structure ahead on the causeway." :)
People in these parts have not been very friendly. What are the odds that our luck is changing? Kit says sarcastically.
The scorch marks around the edge of the collapsed area certainly don't make it look like a landslide caused this damage.
Looking ahead, the structure looks like it's some sort of checkpoint, a small fortified structure straddling the causeway. Its gate lies half-open.