The party travels under the heat of the late-day sun for several more hours, then continues on after sunset by the light of the stars. The night is still oppressively hot and damp, and for someone like Adi who's new to the country, the heat feels inescapable. The nearly full moon rises soon after sunset, making the trek up and down each hill and dale less treacherous. The party sees night spiders scuttling into the silver-lit rocks when they approach, and occasionally hears the calls of owls and wild dogs. They reach the bottom of Krane Hill after about four hours of walking.
A little after midnight, they come to a small grove which rings with the cries of galagos. They stop to eat the rest of the rabbit and oranges, and Juno picks some groundnuts to give the meal some variety. It looks like a two-hour climb to the top of the hill - Juno is pretty sure the moon would still be up by the time they got up to the Citadel, if the party wants to make a forced march to the top. Otherwise, they can make another rest in this grove, though Juno believes it will rain around daybreak (potentially disrupting sleep).
Nesica actually quite likes rain. She would even would prefer to wait until the morning if it is going to rain.
Juno is able to tell Nesica that the rain is pretty spotty up here in the hills - probably lasting less than two hours. There will also be more lightning!
Deciding that the heat simply outweighs whatever protective advantage it provides, Juno slips her chain shirt off and packs it away for the march.
Adi hardly speaks while traveling, the smothering heat is omnipresent. She picks up a pebble, casts Prestdigitation to make it look like a piece of ice and pretends it's cold in the hopes it'll make her feel better.
It doesn't.
Juno finds her clothing breathes much better without heavy layers of chain and leather, though the nighttime walk and rest is still dangerously hot. Adi's pebble does actually lend her a very low-level psychic heat resistance, she thinks - though she's little better off than Juno.
After arriving in the galago grove very early the morning of Toilday 5 Lamashan, the group spends about 4 hours resting. It's not enough to completely ease their heatstroke, but a short nap can be surprisingly refreshing. There's even a small stream for bathing, which Whimsy certainly takes advantage of once its pack saddle is removed.
After their break, the party resumes their climb. It's actually darker than before - the moon has set and the stars have been recovered by thunderheads - but Nesica just starts casting light every so often to illuminate the way. Before long, she's aided by flashes of lightning in the hills below. After the second hour, you leave behind the bunchgrasses, shrubs, and succulents the party has seen elsewhere in the hills and enter the dead forest that rings the top of Krane Hill. Not a leaf is in sight, the ground bare and white and the trunks of the trees charred and black. There is an insistent whiny buzzing, only slightly muted by the humidity, that periodically seems to come from about 20 meters ahead of the party on the track. But whenever they get within 5 meters of its apparent source, it suddenly stops. Later, it starts up again, 20 meters ahead.
At one point in the circumnavigation-cum-ascent (the track winds around the hill in a partial spiral), the party comes to an intersection. The track joins a larger road which comes straight up the hillside from the west. Those knowledgeable in geography are fairly certain this road goes directly to the coast and the settlement called "New Krane." The other direction of the road, of course, leads towards Citadel Krane, which the party will reach in about 10 minutes. The first droplets of rain are beginning to fall.
At this crossroad, Nesica calls for a stop and shakes her obsidian wand for about 2 minutes trying to get it to function. 'I think it's beginning to become unstable. I can barely get it to respond.'
She just barely manages to get out enough healing to cure most of the parties nonlethal damage.
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Juno seems to be bearing through the heat, but is still muttering to herself about magic ponchos. It might be the heat, or it might be she has a practical plan and is deeply regretting not implementing it before now. She gratefully accepts an offer of more healing, but warns that "You should try to conserve the charges you have left, if the return trip is anything like as bad as this.
"We need a more permanent solution than that wand. Got any ideas?"
After their short rest, the party continues up the hill. The rain quickly intensifies, so that by the time they reach the top, it is a downpour with driving wind. There are massive cracking noises off in the dead forest now and again, probably either from wind or lightning.
At the top, the hill is level, as if a giant came along and chopped off the peak of a mountain. A few of the dead trees advance onto this flat and gravelly space, but none come close to overshadowing the central object: a large fort with three towers, made of red-tinged pale stone blocks and streaked with black soot. As the party leaves the dead forest, the soundscape gets louder, with cloud-to-cloud lightning arcing overhead and thunder rolling up from the hills to the east. The sound of the rain, which quickly pummels what soil there is to mud, overwhelms all.
There seems to be a ruined gate directly in front of the party, next to the closest tower (which is also ruined). A youngish tree - the first living one up here - is growing in the entryway.
Nesica's going to take the time to get her bearings. She's using perception to scan the tree once the group gets closer, taking 20 . She also casting detect magic over it as she gets within 60 feet. If this is still being actively used as a fort, it could have protections set up.
@Adi 'Our permanent solution used to be a Caydenite named Ilisa. Unfortunately she's currently on a mission. I'd try and locate another cleric, but we seem to have annoyed most of the religious folk in town. The other idea is if we can get access to a thing called a page of spell knowledge with environment protection magic on it so I can start casting wards. That'd do the trick, but we'd need to pull the money together for it. I was eyeing a few recently, in fact.'
Nesica also hands Adi two of the scrolls; detect undead and protection from law.
'Cast the first while we approach. Cast the other when we think we're about to find someone. I'll hang onto the scroll of remove fear. Hopefully I can get it to work in time if we need it.'
Nesica identifies the tree as a white-flowering kusia, a pioneer species that grows quickly in forest gaps. The tree is not known to be poisonous - in fact, it can be used in medicine - and she doesn't see anything dangerous about it, but it is strange for it to be growing where nothing else survives. Nesica does not think it grew here naturally.
"I was thinking ponchos. Enchanted ponchos, that let us not be dependent on any one person staying. We do seem to have a bit of a rotating roster.
Juno casts a critical eye across the entrance, eying the stone.
"Juno, did you know that I get at least 3 requests a week by guild members wanting ponchos to go with their guild hat? Are you encouraging people to adopt the poncho as standard guild uniform?"
Ponchos have been inexplicably sweeping southern Garund in a wave of The Fashions for nearly a decade now. Somehow, everyone knows about them, but no one knows where they were invented.
As the party walks underneath the dripping boughs of the kusia, they are suddenly struck with a terrible fear. They got free, but they hear quick, heavy footsteps coming towards them through the rain. They have to get away.
If you succeed at the save, you can manage your fear and are shaken for just one round.
"A poncho is an incredibly practical and also stylish accessory and everyone should have one," Juno says before they pass beneath the kusia. As they do, Juno thinks back on her knowledge of Sargavan nature whether it seems familiar.
Previous roll should have been 1d20+3+2, with a half-elf racial bonus on checks against enchantments, with a result of 19. Also forgot to roll initiative.
Adi feels brave today, but is slow to react, being caught in the middle of saying, "I think they'd look great! Also, having an easily recognized uniform seems useful for seeing each other on missions and for raising public awarene- huh?"
Nesica had been on guard the whole time, and now that she realizes something's coming, she knows it must be someone truly powerful to be able to evade her senses. She can't worry about her friends - she has to run, and hope they are running, too. She hears heavy clanking footsteps, faster now, behind her.
Nesica drops whatever she's holding and runs off to Juno's right, away from the gate. She quickly disappears into the rainstorm.
"Wha-hey! Wait, come back here! I need a decent caster!" She glances over at Adi. "No offence."
She will, however, back up fifteen feet, still shaken by the fear effect, readying an attack with her musket.
Adi uses the detect undead scroll and takes Juno's cue, backing away 20 feet.
Whimsy follows Juno and Adi, its eyes looking worried underneath its dripping furry brow.
Adi incants from the scroll and holds a hand up with palm facing towards the gate. A tingling sensation ensues - undead are present.
"I don't see a target," Juno says, casting her eyes around for a potential threat. She looks at Adi. "What does the scroll telly you? Should we move up?"
Juno looks carefully at the space underneath the tree, catching fuzzy dark glimpses of the towers and walls through the rain. Straining her eyes, she sees a small, unglazed clay vase lying in a doorway in the wall just behind the shattered gate. But she sees no "targets," and she does not hear the heavy mailed footsteps she heard a few seconds ago. She also does not hear Nesica's frantic splashing.
"Undead ahead. Go forward.
Adi continues focusing on the spell.
Focusing on the buzzing in her palm, Adi identifies a single, strong undead aura. The aura comes from a very dangerous undead.
Juno moves forward fifteen feet, keeping her musket raised and an attack readied. She motions Whimsy to stay with Adi with a hand motion, and asks Adi, "Can you tell if they're moving, or if they've detected us?"
Whimsy happily follows Juno towards the gate.
Adi keeps focusing on the spell, and lets out a gnomish squeak of surprise. She tells Juno that the aura is dangerously strong, though it seems to be suffusing a whole area rather than emanating from a specific point. Juno decides to continue to the gate itself. Inside the fortress, she can see the outlines of buildings through the rain. Rubble is scattered over the ground in front of her, and there is a bleached horse skeleton lying just to her left inside the gate. Whimsy begins nosing through a scattering of urns to Juno's right - most of them are broken. Juno sees no sign of the undead which Adi referred to, though she feels uneasy standing in the broken gateway.
Nesica, quickly swinging back into a more pleasant mood, becomes distracted by a frog appreciating the rain and tries following it for a bit. She's really lost.
As she's wandering, she finds a cave - a crawlspace under a rock, really - that has been scorched by soot. Something is making a rattling sound in the back of the cave.
Juno passes an embarrassed hand over her eyes. She nods at Adi, and says "keep watch on the gateway, if anything comes through let me know. I'm going to go find Nesica." She sets out at a run, striding away from the tower and trying to track her frustrating colleague.
You move at half your normal speed while following tracks (or at your normal speed with a –5 penalty on the check, or at up to twice your normal speed with a –20 penalty on the check). The DC depends on the surface and the prevailing conditions, as given on the table.
Juno starts off at a run, then quickly realizes that she's lost the trail. She wastes about a minute walking back to where she started and relocating Nesica's tenuous trail on the gravel-strewn rock.
Juno continues moving, scanning the ground for signs of halfling tracks and keeping her keen ears open for sounds of an alarmed, child-like voice. She looks back over her shoulder at Whimsy, and whisles for him to follow and help find his mistress.
Juno quickly jogs back to where she last saw Nesica, whistling to Whimsy, who starts following her but doesn't seem to understand what Juno wants it to do. Looking around, Juno finds a small rock that is still dry on one side - likely kicked over when Nesica fled. She finds similar signs as she keeps walking southward - in the forest, there are wisps of hair snagged on trees and places where the ashy soil was soft enough to hold a footprint. She follows Nesica's trail towards the east, down a cliff and into a pool of water. There, she loses the trail for a moment, but at least the rain has now let up.
Adi finds herself alone at the gateway to the fortress.
Adi pets Whimsy while waiting for Juno and Nesica to return. It wouldn't do for them to come back, only to be unable to find her, after all. That said, she finds a quiet and dark spot on the outer side of the wall to hide.
She begins to keep a watch out for her companions.
Adi sees a hunched form approaching through the rain to her northwest, about 50 feet inside the fortress' walls. It is crab-like in its movements, but looks larger than Whimsy. It seems to be snuffling about on the ground, and does not yet notice her.
While hiding, she's going to use a charge of her wand to heal herself.
Juno continues following the halfling's trail, muttering under her breath bitter invectives against stupid adorable halflings who need looking out for by embittered ex-mercenaries. She kicks a couple of the rocks that lay in her path, which go skittering off into the snow leaving little craters where they bounce.
As she goes, she looks over her shoulder to check on Adi, and make sure she's not being mauled to death by a lich or squashed by an ogre.
Adi's breath catches in her throat and her eyes go wide. She goes completely still, watching that... thing
Suddenly, a second crab-like creature comes around from inside the wall. It is very, very close to Adi now, and its feathery antennae are waggling in her direction. (It's about 15 feet away now.)
Adi screams at the top of her lungs and runs away as far as she can in the direction Juno went.
"JUNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
Adi runs south over the gravel, towards where she saw Juno and Whimsy a minute ago. Juno hears a faint scream from above the cliff.
Juno hears the scream, looking in that direction, and while she has no idea what's going on,
she feels a sinking feeling of disappoint that,
once again, S~$#(tm) is about to Go Down.