Danica jumps for joy when both her friends are cured of the curse. She embraces both her friends and then says to them, "Not to worry, I would have used my sword on both of you if you guys turned." There is a awkward silent for a moment then she slaps Tolvan on the arm, Praise the Bright Lady I was not put in that situation. A test I would not like to take."
Danica approaches her new paladin friend and shakes his forearm. "May the Dawnflower bless our paths to one day reunite. The honor and pleasure was all mine to stand next to you in battle. I pray that you find your way back to us."
Kimberly looks to Oathar, don't go, I fear for your safety alone. I know the Inheritor protects you, but so does Pharasma. she has put us all together to battle this evil. Pharasma, Sarenrae, and Iomedae. an unstoppable force.
Kimberly will even give her the pleading eyes look.
Anna stops and stares at Oathar as he announces his intention to leave. She shakes her head vigorously and runs up to him to protest.
"No, you don't! Don't you remember the visions? You're needed! I'm actually used to having a paladin around!"
Danica walks up to the group then turn to Oathar. "The lady has a point. Why mess around with fate. It has been foreseen." Danica nods to Anna logic.
Oathar turns and bows his head. "Then I shall stay, at least this night, though I fear my heart may not be true. I must pray to Iomedae tonight and seek her guidance."
He dismounts the horse, and walks slightly away from the farmhouse, to be alone with his thoughts.
Danica nods in understanding as at times she prefers to be left alone to commune with Sarenrae.
"I will take first watch when the night comes." The inquisitor looks over to Tolvan, "Prepare your spells..." then she looks over to Kimberly and Oathar. "Commune with your gods..." she pauses and thinks about all the creatures they have faced. "...for we will face a malice we have never seen. Alone we will fall and fail but together we are unstoppable. Tomorrow we will face another obstacle that we will barrel through. We are committed." With her statement a warmth washes over her friends, one they have felt during battle when she tries to boost their morale but this time there is no battle. This time she inspires courage just for the sake of inspiration.
During the night, each of the group experiences, within a dream, a vision - or rather a revisitation of the vision they had previously experienced, after their completion of the Dusk Moth ritual.
Each, individually, sees the following:
A beautiful elven woman, with dark hair, silvery eyes and a coy but distant smile, stands before a curtain of rolling light. She wears a long silver gown that reaches up to her neck, so that only her head is bare. As you move closer, you notice that swarms of butterflies spiral around her, and that she herself has butterfly wings, containing all the beauty of a clear night sky, wafting softly against the heavenly light that surrounds her.
She speaks, and as she speaks her words echo against themselves, reflecting slightly in the movement of the butterflies:
"Welcome, faithful servant of the gods. I am Desna. I thank you for your restoration and cleansing of my temple. I should now reward and strengthen you, for I have seen the futures that may be, and some that will be, and I know you will be tested in the times to come."
"First," she says "I must show you what you will face ..."
A dark door, like an infinite tunnel, opens in the wall of light. Beyond the door, a vision forms. Away and in the distance, a ruined tower stands, lit by a blood moon. Before the tower stands a black-robed necromancer, wearing a bone breastplate.
The door shimmers, and the vision within is replaced.
The area beyond the door seems to be far beneath the ocean depths. Shards of old buildings just from the sea floor, their stones cut with unholy writing. Moving slowly through the stones is a giant, terrifying creature, a treelike monster with tentacles for branches and hooves for roots, and its trunk decorated with gnawing, drooling mouths.
The door shimmers again.
In a cave, with numerous tunnels for exits, stands a beautiful woman, clad in red and black, with pale skin and dark hair. She moves her arms in complex gestures, so that the air between them sparks and broils. She throws back her head and calls out, and as she does so you see the white fangs among her teeth.
The door shimmers again.
A tall creature, of human form but obviously long dead and with a face racked by decay, dressed in ancient wizards robes, stands atop a high spire beneath dark, churning clouds. At his gesture, the clouds themselves move and boil, and lightning splits the sky.
The door closes. Desna looks on in concern. "All these things, you must meet and conquer. I do not envy you these tests." she says. "But know this: I shall look down upon you, strengthen you and ward you against the evils that may come. For those who serve the gods are strengthened by them. Take this, my boon. And take heart."
She touches your forehead, and you feel a flash of ... something. A pure energy seems to enter your body, change it, fill it for a moment with light.
And the vision is over. After that your dreams are warm and cheering. In the morning, you wake rested and strengthened.
Anna wakes, blinking, in the farmhouse's master bed that she had brazenly claimed for herself and Tolvan. She shakes him awake. "Tolvan! I think I had a dream meant for you. Desna was in it."
Feeling better and very glad that her morning did not involve another dose of that belladonna mixture, she dresses quickly for the next part of the journey.
Smiling at Anna Tolvan nods. Yes, for me, but for you as well. For all of us I think. Desna is the dreamer after all. We have been shown the way forward so that we can prepare. He moves to her and kisses her lightly on the cheek. I shall take Danica's advise and begin to do prepare now, and I for one feel my will is for it. He sits back with his spellbook and begins to memorize arcane symbols.
Anna snuggles behind the wizard and rubs his shoulders while he goes over his spell book. "Danica's picked up Andjela's habit of big speeches," she observes dryly. She peeks over Tolvan's shoulder at his books.
"You know, I think I can pull off some of those tricks," she grins, then points her finger at a bottle on the endtable. A pale blue ray shoots out from her finger and the target ices over. She blows a few chilly motes off her fingernail. "Not bad, huh?"
Both impressed and a little flattered Tolvan encourages Impressive. Looks and brains. And with your accuracy I am betting you can do precision damage with that ray.
Oathar awakes and shares his dream with the others not too surprised that they shared it also. He is prepared to ride on toward that goal.
Anna beams, then finishes getting ready.
It's about a day and a half's ride on to Feldgrau. The party stops to camp overnight and arrives, well rested, at the (apparently) abandoned town sometime late morning. Entering the settlements from the north-west, they first come across the ruins of a small farmhouse and two outbuildings, their roofs long collapsed, exposing splintered frames of grey timber. Beyond, a sodden, un-sown field stretches to the edge of the shattered town of Feldgrau.
The barren earth is scarred with muddy trenches and covered with a perpetual wash of low, swirling fog. Dead trees, like pale and wiry skeletons, grasp at the grey skies, casting their long, ghostly shadows over the crumbling ruins.
[ooc]I've added a map of Feldgrau to the campaign maps in the header information. I've used the version with its markers so that you can reference the map in posts. Although you're starting at F1 (the farmhouse) on the map, the numbering isn't particularly significant and you can investigate the buildings in any order. Equally you can investigate unnumbered buildings ... just use the references on the map to indicate where you plan to go.
"Cheery place," Anna comments softly. She flips up her hood as she glances to the others. "How about I scout a little? I'll check those first buildings to see if they're occupied. I'll go invisible if something jumps out and come back to get you."
Just before Anna leaves, Kimberly grabs her arm, be careful ok? Kimberly has a concerned look in her eyes.
I'll keep a lookout for your signal.
Before Ana leaves Tolvan casts Mage Armor on himself and Danica. He then recommends If you have an anti-plague drink it.
Kimberly hears Tolvan, she fumbles through her bag and pulls out a couple of vials. sifting through them , ah-ha, here Anna take this. she gives Anna an anti-plague vial.
"I have a couple vials," she says in irritation, as if she plans to get bit again. But before she sets out, she produces her own dose and gulps it down.
She checks her crossbows to make sure they're loaded with silver bolts and loosens her daggers in their sheaths. She gives Kimberly a wink and moves to the first trench.
The track doesn't seem to be overseen, and there's no sign of life in the town. Of the nearby buildings, one , the largest of the cluster, seems to be a forge, a second a chandler's shop - there is a picture of a candle on a fallen sign - and the third a simple home.
Right before Anna heads out Tolvan will cast Message on the party and then whisper to Anna <<Check out this closest building first. And call us at the first hint of trouble.>>
After a quick reconnoiter, Anna appears back with the group.
"All's quiet," she reports. "An old forge, a candlemaker's, and a home," she recites as she points to the corresponding buildings. "We should move up, and then I'll check out the next group of buildings."
There are no traps, but you notice some tracks in the earth beneath.
"Thanks Tolvan."
"I say let's investigate the small structures first. Anna can open the door while invisible and then one of us throws a rock inside with Light spell casted on it."
You notice several sets of tracks, both wolf and human, leading into the town, and towards the buildings that Anna just checked out.
"Thanks Tolvan."
"I say let's investigate the small structures first. Anna can open the door while invisible and then one of us throws a rock inside with Light spell casted on it."
[dice=Survival]1d20+13
Kimberly waits with Tolvan, keeping an eye on Anna as much as she can.
Anna reaches into her thieves' kit and pulls out a small bottle of slick oil. She dabs it on the hinges before stowing it and drawing her dagger. Then she gently pushes the door open to peek inside.
There's an immediate blast of fetid air, a stench of death. The door opens into a single room, with two rooms off to east and west, and stairs running upwards. There's no sign of life. But at the centre is of this first room is some kind of makeshift shrine, made of wood and bound with holly and mistletoe.
On the crude altar lie the very bloody remains of a male human, his chest sliced and then levered open into a spread eagle, with most of the organs removed and then cast onto the floor of the room. On the corpse's forehead is a tattoo of a gagged skull.
Anna doesn't retch but a part of her mind makes a mental note to do that later. She stayed quiet and on alert as she moves in to check the other rooms before the others come in and make a racket.
Anna finds nothing else; the house is otherwise deserted and has been stripped of any worthwhile possessions.
"House is otherwise empty," Anna whispers into the message spell. "I'll check out the next set of houses. Won't be long."
A large open forge stands in the far corner of this building, surrounded by deep stone basins and next to a huge black anvil atop a bench. Another workbench, laid with metalworking tools, polishing stones, and dried oilcloths, partitions the forge area from the remainder of the room. Two doorways exit through the wall opposite the forge.
Moving into the farmhouse after Anna gave the all clear, she sees the alter, and quickly turns away. Pharasma will not judge the ones that did this very favorably. All who live must face her judgment.
Kimberly offers a prayer of passing to the victim. also she tries to determine how long ago this sacrifice was made.
Danica informs her teammates on the shrine. "Guys, this is makeshift shrine to Jezelda, demon lord of werewolves. The tattoo is a symbol of the Whispering Way."
"Let's continue with doing some recon with the other buildings. Maybe later we can desecrate that shrine....maybe consecrate it to one of our good deities."
"Okay, gross," Anna responds to Danica after hearing her suggestion for the makeshift shrine. She then whispers through the spell, "I'm in the forge now. Two doors. I'm going to go check them out."
Anna then creeps along the wall sticking to the shadows, then peeks inside each door before progressing further.
@Anna: The second door leads to a set of stairs, going up. At the bottom of the stairs are two bodies, covered in cuts. Their foreheads have the same tattoo as the body you saw on the shrine in the farmstead. There's movement upstairs.
Anna cautiously slips up the stairs just enough to get a peek at what's moving.