Ameiko snorts. "Hey, I had to learn somehow."
Shalelu wrinkles her nose and pokes at one of the cots. "These look flimsy."
"I'm in agreement--eating here could be more hazardous to Ameiko's health than a ninja's blade."
...did she just make a joke?
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You pull Zaiobe into a nearby crowd after draping a cloak around her shoulders to hide her wings. The harpy huddles close to you and tries to make herself as unobtrusive as possible.
The crowd doesn't take notice of you as you blend in, and as you glance behind you, you see the large longbow of the assassin at the edge of the crowd--and the human holding it. A well-built woman with blonde hair is standing at the edge of the crowd, her chain shirt looking rather smudged and dirty from the fall she took earlier. Her eyes dart around...
...and you can see her expression turn frustrated as it appears she can't see either you or Zaiobe.
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"Those 'goblin brain cookies' certainly gave Father Zantus an interesting few days before word got around that it wasn't an infection."
Shalelu wrinkles her nose and pokes at one of the cots. "These look flimsy."
"We'll warn Kelda about that," she said, giving a knowing smirk to Ameiko.
"I'm in agreement--eating here could be more hazardous to Ameiko's health than a ninja's blade."
Valeria paused in surprise for a moment and stared at the elf for a second, wondering if she'd heard properly.
”We lost her for the moment.” Friday sends to Zaiobe.
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Shalelu looks you in the eye. "I'm serious."
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Zaiobe looks up at you. <Should we kill them? Or just try to escape?>
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Lia's lips find yours again, with a bit more confidence than before. Her trembling eases.
Friday shakes his head. ”I don’t know if she’s alone. Let’s get you out of here.”
Kasha melts into the kiss, losing herself in Lia's presence, the dangers momentarily forgotten, nothing else mattering.
Shalelu looks you in the eye. "I'm serious."
"Um, uh, o-okay."
When she knew Shalelu wasn't looking, she mouthed to Ameiko; "Was she joking or not?"
Ameiko looks at Shalelu...
...then looks back at you and shrugs.
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You and Zaiobe reach the Hunting Serpent Inn without much trouble. When you enter the front doors, you notice Lia & Kasha sitting at a table, locked together in an embrace.
Friday scoops up the wounded harpy as they retreat, less her running cause more internal damage. When they reach the inn and he spots Kasha and Lia he knows he will feel bad for later for interrupting them. ”Kasha! Healing!”
"Ameiko's death." Kelda snorts. "Why else would they attack her and no one else?"
She starts looking around for something...
[dice=Survival?]1d20+7
...and she points to a trail of blood leading into a nearby alley. "There. Something of interest, eh?"
He stood there looking at her like someone had just goosed him. he broke into a slight smile and shook his head.
"Well of course, the simple answer. I'm tired and thinking harder than i need too i suppose."
He followed her point and smiled more at the blood.
"Beautiful and skilled. Perhaps we can follow along a bit and see if we can find anything or should get the others?
He offered smiling broadly at Kelda.
Barely hearing the door burst open, Kasha is startled by Friday's shout, the urgency unmistakable in the solemn warrior's voice. Looking up, her eyes widen as she sees Zaiobe in his arms, an arrow sticking out of her side.
" Gods! What happened?" she asks jumping up and racing over to them. "Put her down on the table." she says assessing the degree of the injury and the best way to remove the arrow.
”Assassin.” Friday responds as he does as Kasha instructs. ”We were going for a walk and I got careless.”
"You're likely the reason she's still alive" the shamaness says tersely, inspecting the wound. "This is going to hurt."she says to Ziobe apologetically, before pressing a compress against the wound and carefully withdrawing the arrow.
Turning, she hands the arrow to Lia "Be careful not to touch the arrowhead, but we'll need to later."
Drawing a wand from a slim holster on her belt, she activates it focusing on the harpy's wound.
Friday opened his mouth to respond on reflex but caught himself, needless arguing wouldn't accomplish anything, other than possibly distracting the Shamaness while she tended to Zaiobe.
He was getting careless in more ways than one, he told himself. Disregarding potential threats, the urge to backtalk. Panicking.
Sloppy. That needed to be remedied.
"Thank you, Miss Kasha." he says after he clears his head and sees her administering the wand to the harpy's wound.
Kelda snorts. "We can handle anything we find, no? Let's see where this goes."
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Ameiko and Shalelu pause in their inspection/cleaning of the room. "So, Ravenscraeg... we should make sure everyone else has done whatever shopping they need before you depart."
-------------
Zaiobe gasps in pain as Kasha removes the arrow, and then sighs in relief as her wand closes the rest of the wound. Lia gingerly holds onto the arrow with shaking hands, her face paler than usual.
"Wh-who did this to you?" Lia asks Zaiobe, her trembling returning with greater strength than before.
The harpy holds out her hand towards the half-elf.
"Take her hand. Zaiobe speaks through telepathy, but she needs to have physical contact." Kasha says, rubbing Lia's back to comfort her, while glancing at the door and any windows.
"Ulfen, not Tien." Friday mutters aloud before turning to the shaking woman. "Thank you for your assistance, Miss Lia." he says softly to her.
He nodded and grinned tightening his grip on his glaive with a smile.
"Of course, can you follow the tracks? I will admit, ive never had the talent for that."
He added ready to go.
"Good idea. And I think this place is as clean as it's gonna get. Let's head back and get the others, then I can start on adding these new spells into my book."
Kavell and Kelda follow the trail of blood in the alley as it turns sharply to the right and disappears into an open cellar door behind a small house--one whose doors hang open, limp and powerless in the breeze. The stench of blood gets stronger as they enter, and soon its source becomes clear--the black-clad body of one of the ninja from last night lies in the centre of the home's root cellar, leaking blood from every orifice. Several feathers with blood-red tips lie strewn about the corpse like a ritual circle.
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Kasha, Friday and Lia manage to treat Zaiobe's injury well enough that the harpy is able to stand without wincing.
----------------
Valeria returns with Shalelu and Ameiko in tow, new lodgings secured (as well as a measure of discretion from the innkeeper of the Iron Hearth).
----------------
Once the rest of the caravan has moved, the time to assault Ravenscraeg draws nigh. The party sets out for the fortress to the south, their weapons readied, their armour polished, and their spells tingling at their fingertips. Snow begins to fall as they leave... a portent of things to come, perhaps?
------------------------
After two days of travel to the south, the tundra gives way to craggy hills overlooking the faraway Grungir Forest. The hills rise sharply ahead into a steep and craggy shale
escarpment hundreds of feet high. Tucked into a narrow defile between two of these crags is a stone-and-timber longhall and tower, weathered and gray. The hall stands nearly one hundred feet above the base of the cliff, with only a single wooden stair
climbing in a series of switchbacks up the cliff face to its front gate. All is silent save for the raucous caws of the ravens that congregate atop the hall’s tower and ridgepole high above.
The snow begins to blow about in a cold, strong wind. The party's resolve burns brighter.
"I dont like the looks of this place at all, Anyone have any ideas how to get up there that dont have us walking up a lone and obvious stairwell?"
He began adjusting a strap on his armor before his fingers nervously tapped along the haft of his glaive.
Having begun her day casting a spell that allowed her to ignore all but the most extreme of climates, Kasha stares up at the imposing structure, paying no heed to the icy snow and winds. From the satchel she wears over her shoulder, Sly peeks out his fur having shifted to its ermine white phase as they continued their travel north. ”I’m sure they have an easy way to shoot at anything coming up those stairs in the open. I wonder if they also have sentries posted. Maybe taking their place if we can take one out.”
"Well, I've figured out the secrets of arcane flight on the way here but, I didn't prepare it this morning - thought some magical acceleration would be a better option once we got inside."
After a moment, she shook her head before rubbing and adjusting the thin gold band encircling her head. "Sorry, I think the magic in this new headband is making more verbose than usual. It's feeling really weird. Like my head's running a hundred miles an hour... why am I thinking of that as a measure of speed? How am I even able to conceive of that sort of speed? I think it still needs a bit of tweaking."
The trek through the hills to Ravenscraeg is, oddly, uneventful. The cold wind nips at the party's heels as they march, alternating between buffeting them with harsh gusts and pushing them onward with swift gales. Snow begins to fall as the longhall draws closer and closer. Soon, the party reaches the cliff to begin their ascent.
A rickety wooden stair climbs the cliff face in a series of switchbacks to a fortified hall ninety feet above. The stairs and rails are built of timber planks, silver with age, and climb haphazardly through a series of railed landings on their winding ascent. In some places the stairs and landings are secured directly to the rock face, and in others they hang free upon wooden supports and buttresses driven into the rock. Lichens and moss cover the stairs and rocks, with pale vines, roots, and blooms of nightshade, willowherb, and bog tea sprouting from occasional crevices in the stone.
After at least three landings of stair climbing (during which the winds don't stop howling), the party reaches a short flight of stairs rising to a landing abutting the cliff face. A small hollow in the rock is plastered over with what looks like a huge wasp nest.
"Uh, guys; I don't think that wasp's nest is empty. And I think they don't like company."
"Whatever it is, it's waking up!" Kasha says with a sense of urgency. "Fire might be good"
”On it,” Valeria remarked as she drew the wand from her belt and fired it at the wasp’s nest.
The wasp nest catches fire immediately and smoke billows into the sky. Suddenly, above the crackling flames, a loud BUZZING sound cuts through the air!
Emerging from the burning remains of the nest is a strange beast that resembles a horse-sized wasp, with a spider's head and two long appendages ending in pincers. Parts of its diaphanous orange wings are smouldering as it starts to take to the air.
"Okay; bad news, that's a spider eater. Good news; there's only one. Paralysing stinger, and if one of us gets paralysed, keep it away from them."
Wand still in hand, Valeria fired off another blast at the spider eater.
With it out of range he instead prepared to protect the others. Readying a vicous stab at the creature if it moved into range of his friends.
[ooc] Readying an attack action when it closes within 10 feet.
Valeria's rays strike the spider-eater on its underbelly, erupting into tongues of flame that scorch away several bits of its exoskeleton.
Friday readies his spear as the giant insect approaches.
The spider-eater flies off to the side before bearing down on Friday--taking a spear to the abdomen and a glaive to the head before it strikes with its stinger!
Friday remains still.
Realizing just how dangerous the spider eater is, Kasha extends her hand, conjuring the tempestuous winds and rain of a mini storm, buffeting the giant insect partially blinding it.
"Friday are you okay?"
He asked as he moved forward and struck at the insect again!
As the storm clouds burst across the creature's eyes, it flails about. Something shiny flies off one of its legs and lands on the steps.
Kavell's glaive skewers it through its head, and it plummets to the ground several feet below.
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"Well... that could've gone worse. You don't want to know what it does after it paralyses someone, trust me."
As she spoke, she walked over to check out the object that fell from one of its legs.
The object appears to be a silver necklace with nine black pearls. It's in good enough condition to be quite valuable.
"Huh, wonder if I can use this as the focus for something..." Valeria mused as she looked over the necklace, making sure to check it for magical auras. After a moment, she noticed that Friday was still paralysed.
"Give it another minute or so Friday, you'll be fine," she said, resting a hand on his shoulder.
Kasha takes a moment to study Friday's wound, assessing any long-term effects of the poison.
After a few minutes Friday begins to sway and twitch. "That was unpleasant," he says with a slightly slurred tone.