Gavin takes the time to relate all the information gained this week during the informal preparations for breakfasts.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As Maximus and Lyra lead the way for Gavin and Joska through the impossibly tall grass, they suddenly stop short at the sound of rustling vegetation on both sides of them. It had been clear from the air above while they were using Gavin's magic to travel as mist across the open plains that there was something very unusual about this place, but it wasn't until they started pushing their way through thick blades of grass which reached up even over Maximus' head by a foot or more that they really began to feel how unusual it was.
There was something beautiful about the vibrant vegetation that made the place feel almost idyllic, and yet there was something about the volume of rotting material on the ground that gave a real sense of foreboding. That sense was immediately amplified by another rustling sound- to loud to be anything small, but too brief to be the wind.
Before anyone can speculate on the source, a pair of giant lizards--each as tall as a man while still on all fours--appear in the foliage, within arms reach of Maximus and Lyra...
The lizards hiss in surprise and each bite at the warrior closer to them.
Taken slightly aback, "Boy o boy, have you two messed up." Maximus quickly draws his sword and grips it tight with both hands before swinging it hard from right to left.
"Giant grass" Lyra says with some amusement as she swatted another stalk with her sword "I guess if you can have giant rats, bats, and people, it makes se-" her sentence is cut short by a massive lizard chomping on her steel side. "What they?? Oh, Giant Lizards!" she grins, before stabbing and slicing in a quick series of attacks once the reptile reared back to bite again
Reacting as quickly as he can, Gavin summons magical energies and lets them settle onto his allies.
With this blessing, you call your allies to move forth and empower them to conquer and become victorious. Each round for the duration of this spell, each of your allies can choose one of the following bonuses for that round at the beginning of its turn (their choice).
-Increase its speed by 30 feet.
-Stand up as a swift action without provoking an attack of opportunity.
-Make one extra attack as part of a full attack action, using its highest base attack bonus.
-Gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls and a +2 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves.
-Cast a single spell of 2nd level or lower as if it were an enlarged, extended, silent, or still spell.
Joska's white-stone office in the Research Institute seemed so very far removed from the strange grassland, it was almost difficult to believe that it had been less than 24 hours since they'd all been gathered there...
"With the Witness engaged in his research, and Gaius assisting Iker with a small project," she had offered, "I have an assignment the three of you could help me with..."
Investigating an 'anomaly' had seemed like a fairly straightforward task, and the chance to exit the Tower in everyone's future for the first time was enticing. Nothing in their briefing--nor their expectations of the future--had quite prepared them for towering grass and giant lizards.
"Remarkable," the mage remarks a the sight of the creatures. She mumbles a simple cantrip for viewing magical auras and continues, "they appear to be completely normal monitors, of one of the species common to this region, but they're easily twice the size of any I've ever heard of before- and it's not a transmutation, they've just grown this large... but that would take decades longer than their typical lifespan..."
Both of the lizards hiss again, a very different hiss, as the Maximus and Lyra's blades bite into them. The one Lyra attacked pulls back and vanishes into the grass. The other bites at the knight once more.
Taking a nasty bite, Maximus grimaces in pain before striking out multiple times against the lizard.
Lyra moves quickly behind the lizard to help out Maximus. "You okay, big guy?"
"It will be difficult to see these creatures coming in the tall grass, but they seem to understand when they have bitten off more than they can chew. Hopefully they tell their friends we're not to be made a meal of." Gavin says, doing his best to listen for other movement.
Despite the sloppiness of his attacks, Maximus connects with his first and third slash. Lyra, meanwhile pushes her way through the towering grass--her impressive speed more than making up for the difficult terrain--before landing a thrust of her own. As tough as the overgrown lizard may be, it proves insufficient for the onslaught and the creature collapses.
Gavin's sharp ears can pick up the sound of the wounded survivor moving away for sixty or eighty feet before it fades into the gentle rustling of the grass all around them. He does not hear any signs of other immanent threats.
"This grass would have to either grow exceptionally quickly, or for a very long time too..." Joska observes while the others stay at the ready. As the tense moment passes to a claustrophobic peace, the wizardess crouches to examine the thick layer of decaying vegetation on the ground. "If they were growing for a long time, there certainly shouldn't be this much detritus... unless, maybe, its decaying exceptionally slowly..."
She stands and wipes her hands on her robe before concluding, "In either case, there seems to be some disturbance in the flow of time here, which could explain the anomaly that was discovered. Shall we press on?"
"Gavin, Max is hurt, could you heal him?[/b]" Lyra asks as she cleans her blade with a cloth. "We can move on after, Joska" she gives the scholar a smile.
Having traveled for some time with the Witness, Gavin makes note of the dead lizards size, approximate weight, shape and size of teeth and claws, scale tone and texture, and anything else he thinks his friend will want to know.
Then he tends to Maximus' wounds before they renew their exploration.
Lyra moves quickly behind the lizard to help out Maximus. "You okay, big guy?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. Just an annoying bite from that overgrown lizard."
"Gavin, Max is hurt, could you heal him?" Lyra asks as she cleans her blade with a cloth.
Then he tends to Maximus' wounds before they renew their exploration.
Nodding to them both, "Thanks, Gavin, that's perfect."
Maximus resumes leading the group southward through the grass. Joska had made clear that they would need to explore on foot in order to closely observe the flora and fauna, but the wide open sky above the grass certainly felt more welcoming than the thick grass they were pushing through.
"Perhaps I'm being too hasty in proposing a time-related cause..." the researcher pondered as she followed along. She looks over at Gavin and the faintest hint of disappoint dances across her face at the reminder that there is not another scholar present. As it quickly fades, she smiles warmly at what she takes as the priest's interest and continues, "our work in the Tower, I suppose, causes a natural bias in that direction. It could also be that the anomaly is connected with the positive material plane- an influx of positive energy might foster abnormally long lifespans or rapid growth, and it could--possibly--slow decay enough for this kind of accumulation..."
Despite the wizardess' voice, Gavin and then Maximus hear a distinct buzzing sound ahead.
The group barely pauses at the sound before continuing confidently towards the buzzing noise. Pushing through more of the impossibly tall grass, they quickly arrive at an unpleasant sight. A decaying deer lays amidst several broken blades of grass. Its fairly large, but no larger than any hunter would expect with the rather impressive rack of antlers it possess. The source of the buzzing is immediately obvious as a thick swarm of stirges swirls about the carcass.
Sighing, "Great. Stirges. I don't suppose any of you have some type of blasting spell that can get rid of these things all at once, do you? Because if we have to kill these things one at a time, we could be in real trouble."
Gavin takes a deep breath and exhales a magical inferno directly on the little vermin and their meal.
Lyra pauses with held breath in hopes that Gavin's blazing ball of fire destroys all the little winged terrors, but unfortunately no.
"Oh, this is not a good idea." she says mostly to herself, just before she rushes into the buzzing mess. Her hope is that it will distract the hordes from trying to eat their cleric.
Maximus begins to summon the power within himself to transform into another form, better suited for dealing with swarms, but his mind is flooded with so many options that he gets lost in thought trying to decide on one. Joska, on the other hand, follows Gavin's lead, launching a second fireball into the swarm. She is careful in placing it so as to avoid damaging Lyra in the process.
The stirges, perhaps because of being distracted by the immanent scent of Lyra's delicious blood, are notably less successful at avoiding this second blast. Those few that haven't fallen prey to either explosion, nor the swordwoman's blade quickly disband, leaving behind scores of fresh tiny carcasses, and the desiccated remains of the deer they'd been gathered around.
"This looks like a normal adult deer..." the mage observes, "but it and the stirges are all normal size..."
"Goodness and Gracious, I am glad the stirges at least are not following the pattern." Lyra exclaims as she cleans her blade "Can you imagine a thousand of these the size of my torso... or worse Max's!" she grins at the other warrior.
"Any thoughts why only some of the creatures are giant sized? Something they ate?"
Joska winces slightly at the thought of bloodsucking stirges the size of Maximus' meaty torso, then lets out a single wry chuckle. She contemplates Lyra's question for a moment and then answers, "most animals grow to their full size when they reach adulthood, and then stop growing, but many reptiles and fish continue to grow throughout their entire lives and their 'full size' is only determined by their lifespan and what size their environment can support... if things here are living for an exceptionally long time, or growing extremely fast, then most animals--like this deer and the stirges--would reach full size relatively quickly and live that way, but the local lizards, snakes, frogs, and such could all be enormous."
"How would we determine if the anomaly is extended life as opposed to altered passage of time?" Gavin asks, not really sure if there is a functional difference between the two.
"Hmmm" Lyra hums in curiosity about giant lizards and accelerated time, imagining them getting bigger and bigger until one stomps through a city with the townspeople running around its huge foot like ants.
"Is it affecting us?" she thinks about the parts of her body that would be growing constantly. Hair and nails? She holds out her hand, pulling off her glove, looking at her nails.
The fashion in various places for women is to let them grow, and even paint them, but not Lyra's. She keeps them short as can be, with the occasional tooth marks on them from nerves or boredom.
"I think Miss Posfurore may have the right idea," Joska offers in response to Gavin's question. "We likely haven't been here long enough to notice yet, but if something is causing accelerated growth we might observe our own hair and nails growing with unexpected speed... or course, that assumes the effect is some sort of field, or something in the air... if its something in the food chain, it would require an enormous amount of dead animals to effect all this vegetation, but it could be in the water- in which case, it might not affect us at all..."
The mage quietly contemplates these thoughts for a moment and then states, "At any rate, I don't think extended life--nor accelerated growth--is the anomaly but rather potential symptoms of an anomaly. The anomaly itself may be some kind of dimensional rift, a temporal disturbance, or maybe even a powerful ritual or artifact gone awry. Shall we press on and continue our investigation?"
Lyra listens, then nods satisfied she is not growing talons. "Okay." she agrees to pressing on, slipping on her glove again and pulling her sword out to be prepared.
"Indeed, but proceeding with caution"
"Goodness and Gracious, I am glad the stirges at least are not following the pattern." Lyra exclaims as she cleans her blade "Can you imagine a thousand of these the size of my torso... or worse Max's!" she grins at the other warrior.
Initially grinning, that grin quickly falls and a look of confusion appears before, "Wait... what?!" He looks down at his torso and measures it with his hands, trying to determine if he needs to lose some weight.
The mage quietly contemplates these thoughts for a moment and then states, "At any rate, I don't think extended life--nor accelerated growth--is the anomaly but rather potential symptoms of an anomaly. The anomaly itself may be some kind of dimensional rift, a temporal disturbance, or maybe even a powerful ritual or artifact gone awry. Shall we press on and continue our investigation?"
"Sounds good to me. Let's keep rollin'."
Joska and Gavin return to their positions behind Lyra and Maximus as the two very different warriors fall back into their tight formation and begin moving forward again. They press through the forest of grass for several minutes before Gavin signals a halt at a crashing sound off to his right. As they wait quietly together, another sound like a burst of wind swooshing through the overgrowth comes from the same place followed quickly by another crash slightly closer. The pattern repeats twice more before Joska whispers, "it sounds like a huge frog leaping through the grass... if it keeps going straight I think it will miss us, unless you want to attract its attention..."
"I need to see this. Be right back" Lyra grins before disappearing in the weeds.
Lyra will move slowly and steadily, hopefully, close enough to simply see, not to be jumped on or offend.
"If our goals the collection of information, we should attempt to interact to some degree." Gavin offers, unsure if it is the pursuit of knowledge or concern for his friend that motivates his desire to press on.
Then he boosts his old eyesight, in order to keep an eye on Lyra better.
Shrugging, Maximus waits where he is. "It's just an overgrown frog," he mutters to himself, checking under his fingernails for dirt as he does.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Joska cracks a slight smile and waits quietly with Maximus while Lyra slinks off to scout. Gavin, with his magically aided sense, watches the swordwoman as she moves away, though by the time she's twenty feet away there's too much foliage between them to see anything.
Lyra manages to position herself in line with where it sounded like the crashing was heading, and just in the nick of time. No sooner had she settled into position than the beige underbelly of huge frog sails over her head and crashes through grass to land not ten feet from her. Its mottled green body is the size of Maximus' and it sits on long, lithe legs, like her own if she were a foot or two taller. It hesitates for a moment as its long sticky tongue darts out and wipes one of its crystal-ball sized eyes. Then, with little fanfare, it leaps again and lands beyond where she can see.
A few minutes later, the dark haired swordswoman comes back Beaming. "It LICKED its own eye." she says in mock elated horror. She lets that sink into the air around her, then sighs with contentment. "Okay, I guess we should be working toward a why instead of simply enjoying being out of the tower."
With a few quick sword slashes she clears a spot to rest comfortably on the ground, then reaches out with her senses into the land.
Joska seems pleasantly surprised as she settles in to wait for Lyra to commune with their surroundings. "I suppose I should have asked before we came if anyone could do anything like that," she remarks with a slightly-sheepish half a smile.
Ten minutes pass peaceful while the swordswoman meditates. When her eyes open, the mage asks, "were you able discern anything valuable?"
Lyra opens an eye before starting to commune, giving Joska a smile "I'm not exactly the spellcasting type" then she starts... ten minutes of sitting, has her pop open both eyes and exclaims "It's the water!" she pops up.
"Sorry, I don't have anything more than that, but we should look for the nearest big body of water."
She looks around for signs on which way to go.
Nodding and raring to go, "Big body of water! I'm on it."
"The water? Interesting..." Joska answers as she stares thoughtfully off at nothing. "There was that big stream north of here," she offers, referencing a sliver of blue they'd all observed slicing through the wide sea of green below when they'd flown in with Gavin's mist-magic.
Lyra looks around and realizes that, after ten minutes with her eyes closed, she's lost track of which way was north. Thankfully, before she has to admit that, Maximus quickly orients himself and begins leading the group northward. Even slowed by the dense vegetation, it only take a few minutes to reach the stream.
Water a foot or two deep flows slowly through the pebbly bed, which spans eight to twelve feet in the section the group can see. The grass along its edges is particularly tall and thick, but also trampled down in numerous places- a sure sign of frequent animal activity. Joska casts a simple magic detection spell and begins concentrating on the water while Gavin's enchanted, old eyes scrutinize it as well.
The color and almost-faintly-glowing sheen of the liquid remind you of the substance that dripped out of the strange cube carried by the faceless anitom in Rosethorn Manor (before it caused the big explosion).
"OH, look closely." Gavin says, pointing out the droplets.
"Tiny bits of blue on the edges of the bubbles. Joska, I can enhance your eyesight if that will help you spot them. Do we have anything we can take a sample back in?"
Lyra squints but sees nothing, "So the water itself isn't magic, but drops of the blue inside it, is?" she asks the cleric with honest curiosity.
"That might be a bad idea," Joska answers the priest. She doesn't have time to elaborate, however, before Gavin finishes his simple orison. The tiny drops light up like tiny pinpricks in his eyeballs, leaving the priest dazzled as they dance around in the foam.
"It's difficult to interpret, because each aura is so small and so overwhelmingly bright, but in the foam where they form a bit of a mosaic, the aura reminds me of the Tower's portals... I've never seen anything like this fluid though..."
She rubs her eyes as her spell fades and then she answers Lyra, "that's correct, but the way those tiny particles are suspended in the water, anything that drinks this water, or draws it up through its roots, is likely to take in some particles as well..."
"Is this a case of the tower leaking into this timeline, place, realm? Is this something we need to correct, to keep the balance and harmony of the timeline or should we just allow it to happen because it is supposed to?" The last discussion with the Witness is still in her mind, and it was not a pleasant memory. So Lyra had no idea what to do here.
"...We've never found any evidence of the Tower leaking anything before..." Joska answers with notably less confidence than she typically displays. "We should head upstream and look for a source... if this is actually something the Tower is doing, it's highly unlikely we'll have any ability to change it, but if there's some other cause it may very well prove to be something we should correct."
She hesitates for a moment, as if debating saying something more but then sighs and asks, "is there anything else anyone can think of that we should do here, or are we ready to continue upstream?"
Seeing Joska's hesitation, Lyra asks "We are in this together, at least for the moment, so if there is anything you think of that is important or need us to do, please share. Please." the swordswoman asks, friendly, not confrontational.
"I believe we are ready. Is there anything we should do to protect ourselves from this phenomenon? Also, do we know how long this portal will remain stable?" Gavin responds.
"I have to be careful about exactly how much I say about certain things," Joska confides to Lyra in a somewhat hushed tone, "but it can be difficult to know where to draw the line now that you are all... sort of... part-time members of the Institute." She looks around for a moment, clearly slightly uncomfortable, and then continues, "we research the Tower, and its effect on history, past and future. We don't, generally, try to control events... but what's going on here--whatever this anomaly is and the effect its having on the local flora and fauna--didn't used to happen, which means it was probably caused by someone from the Tower... or, conceivably, by the Tower itself, if it were to start leaking something. When someone, or something, from the Tower changes the flow of history like this, we try to research what caused it and how. And, occasionally, if it seems like the event might have a significant negative impact on the world, we may try to mitigate or even undo that disruption."
She seems rather relieved with Gavin's more practical questions and answers, "We definitely shouldn't drink the water, or eat anything that drank from it. I'm not certain if walking in it would have any effect, but I think it would be safest to just stay out of it entirely- perhaps even return to our gaseous forms and fly above the stream, at a reasonable speed, until we locate a potential source? Normally, we'd have at least an hour left on this portal, but if this anomaly is distorting time I can't say with any certainty?"