You are a group of experienced adventurers with several successful adventures under your belt when you receive a message from some acquaintances of yours. The Sarwals are some of the most powerful wizards in the entire world and their daughter Arezi sarwal a wizarding prodigy in her own right who can cast 5th level spells at the tender age of 16 has vanished. All their attempts to located her have failed and so they turn to you for help.
You are on your way now to go to their mountain castle near the village of Sarwal to find out more. A tad inconvenient is the fact that strange magical interfere in the area makes magical travel directly to the castle impossible. As such you had to travel to the outskirts if the area and travel the rest of the distance on foot (or by mount)
Your not aware of the exact source of the interference but it was here before the Sarwals built their castle and had something to do with why they chose to give up adventuring and retire to this place. The village itself is relatively new it sprung up shortly after the castle did. This place was far too dangerous before because of the local orcs and giant population that reside in the mountains but once the two most powerful wizards in the nation decided to set up a residence here those quickly vacated the area and it became safe to build a village here and so it was name after it's protectors.
"I've worked with the Sarwals before, though it's been a long time. They had me help with forging a number of objects that they intended to enchant." Obidiah tells the others.
"It was a bother back then that magical transportation was blocked around their home. I'm not surprised that nothing has changed."
Liam leaps to the top of a large boulder. "We've got to be getting close, but I can't see anything that looks like civilization just yet." he says, with a shake of his head, before doing a backflip off the rock and landing on one foot in front of the rest of the party and their mounts.
"Don't know nothing about no 'blocking magical transportation', but I'm gonna make sure this still works..."
Devlin launches a small kinetic blast 120' away, and tries to Ride the Blast...
Ride the blast still works normally but devlin does notice the interference and feels like he might be a few inches off from his intended destination. He feels short range transportation is likely fine but anything further than a couple hundred feet should be avoided.
As the group moves along and discusses their destination Jonuli adds in, "I hope we are able to assist them with their problem. They have been most helpful to me in the past. If we really want to see how far it is I could always fly up and look."
Mae wanders along the trail, poking in bushes, scanning the horizon and occasionally striding into the air to hunt about in the cliffs. Oh ye gods this walking about everywhere is dull. This land is dull and I bet its people are boooooooring. Is this really going to be worth it she asks no-one in particular.
A small, silver scaled, dragon sits on her shoulder and regards the whole experience with utter disinterest. Today she has taken the form of a dashing young human in in pure white doublet and leather trousers carrying a wickedly sharp looking rapier.
Make another DC28 will save
Mae generally takes 10 on her disguise check when using Veil. Again, obviosuly, the group know who she is but she prefers to hide her true identity when out and about but she often uses different ones from day ot day or even sometimes from hour to hour.
Ride the blast still works normally but devlin does notice the interference and feels like he might be a few inches off from his intended destination. He feels short range transportation is likely fine but anything further than a couple hundred feet should be avoided.
"I don't know what it is, but yeah, something's mucking with me a little bit. I can power through, but somebody going farther than my 480' would probably be a bad idea. Got no idea what that means for an actual mage type."
*****
vs dc 28
vs dc 52
vs dc28
Obidiah walks up to the next rise and raises his left hand to shade his eyes against the glare of the sun.
At only four feet tall and dressed in bulky plate armor, he gives the appearance of being as wide as he is tall.
The steel plates of his armor gleam in the afternoon sun. His helmet is slung at his waist, leaving him bareheaded with long red-brown hair flowing down onto the pauldrons of his plate.
His full beard is collected into five strong braids each gathered by golden rings that hang to a steel belt buckle covered in dwarven runes.
A fine red cloak, fastened across his shoulders hangs down his back. Slung across his shoulders is a magical knapsack containing the majority of his gear, a dwarven short bow, and a quiver of black-fletched arrows.
In his right hand he carries a heavy steel warhammer. The head of the hammer is covered in geometric shapes and magical dwarven runes.
On his left forearm he wears a mithral buckler. The face of the buckler bears the holy symbol of Torag circled in more dwarven runes.
While he does not go to the same efforts to conceal his appearance that several of his companions do, they know that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to this dwarven warrior.
As you are close now a few of your start seeing the village in the distance and you quickly notice something is off.
The village is in ruins. Less than a third of the structures of the village are still standing and so far as you can tell there are no signs of life.
"S~%&, that don't look good"
Devlin picks a vantage point up on the hills beside the trail, where he can get a look down on and past the village. Hurling an extreme range kinetic blast he uses Ride the Blast to take him to the vantage point. He surveys the village from above.
Jonuli stands in shock for a moment and then says "That about sums it up." He then pauses for a moment and wings grow from his back and he flies up into the sky above the rest of the group to get a look ahead.
Liam observes the scene from the group's location. "We should get down there and see what happened."
The devastation is widespread you see craters from impacts and some structures look like they were melted by acid.
The town center looks to have taken the least damage and you actually see signs of barricades having been build at the entrances to the town square.
You go down into the down and signs of battle are obvious but you don't see any bodies.
As a note the Caste itself is just barely visible from here it's about a mile above the village build atop a mountain and as far as you can see if hasn't suffered any damage.
There is a winding path from the village that leads up to the castle.
Before they head to the town Mae takes out an old silver chalice from her pack, mutters a simple spell to fill it with water and then drops a single tear into it. Muttering a second spell, the water begins to glow.
She offers it around, Here, drink from this, it may help us keep a look out for things.
Mae looks around the desolation a little disconsolately. I wonder what might have caused such damage? She casts a simple detect magic spell looking for any lingering auras and casts her eye about for signs of trcks or other evidence.
Perhaps we should enquire at the castle, maybe the wizards will know what happened, assuming they survived this
Mae examines the damage with a careful eye and is quickly able to determine a number of things by examining the lingering auras and the damage to the structures.
For starters the fire damage to the structures shows signs that it was quick and did not linger so likely magical explosions like fireballs.
The acid damage on the other hand lingered behind for some time so it was likely from a non magical source perhaps a creature with an acid based breath attack.
Cracks in the ground and the damage on the buildings also show signs of intense shacking likely from the casting of an earthquake spell.
There is also a lingering aura of conjuration that seems to linger all over the town square and all over the Inn thought mae can only tell it's the after effects of a powerful spell but not which one.
From this Mae is able to deduce that the attack included at least once caster of a skill level at least equivalent to her own and a flying beast (it left no tracks on the ground) that can breathe acid. Evidence suggest that there was also an army on foot.
Looking around the buildings that appear to have the least damage
are the the ones around the town center namely the Inn&Tavern (a single structure) and the general store.
A little bit outside the town you also notice a church and cemetery.
Obidiah drinks from the cup offered by Mae.
"Even with a destruction like this, there should have been bodies and survivors after such a battle." Obidiah says as he walks through the wreckage looking for signs of survivors, clues as to the nature of the attack, or tracks left by the attackers.
Mae will fill the group in on what she has noticed.
Hmm, I suggest we ward ourselves against acid and if you can you should remain airborne. Earthquake can be extremely debilitating. Do we want to search the town or head to the castle? I could do with a drink, maybe this army left something in the Inn
With that she heads over to the inn, checking it out for dangers before she enters.
Examining the site Obidiah goes over to a house were he can see the door was broken down with an axe. Inside he sees signs of a struggle and finds an axe head embedded in a wall. The shaft was broken off.
He manages to pull it out and looking around he finds the broken handle.
Examining the weapon he can tell it is of orc craftsmanship, the smith was unusually skilled for an orc but the weapon was poorly maintained which is typical. There are orcish runes and markings on the axe but he doesn't recognize them.
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Mae enters the Inn and sees that meals and drinks are still on the tables thought they seems to be spoiled. She also smells a stench of decay coming from upstairs. The all too familiar smell of rotting flesh.
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Looks like we may have dead people in the Inn calls out Mae. She heads back outside and the air walks up to the upper floors to peer in to the windows just in case something is lurking inside.
She casts a simple extended deathwatch spell to detect the presence of lurking undead.
Obidiah nods in thanks as Mae's familiar abjuration magic takes hold.
"I see a lot of the same signs, lass." he answers after she shares her insight.
"If there's flying enemies, we should be careful to maintain the element of surprise. In case they are circling nearby on watch." he continues.
"By Torag, It's always a bother when they fly away and you have to chase them down."
Mae looks into the windows of each room but is surprised to see that each one appears to be empty and she sees no signs of any creature alive or dead and cant figure out were the smell might've come from.
A note on deathwatch it doesn't allow you to detect creatures that you are not aware off (Ie: cannot detect creatures trough walls) it simply lets you instantly know if the creature you are looking at is alive dead, undead, construct, healthy or wounded. But you need to be able to see the creature for it to work. I know the wording for it is confusing.
Not sure whats up here, i can smell something but theres nothing obvious moving about
Rune flys to the town invisible, so as not to startle people in it, through as she approaches town she keeps invisible, so as not to alert any possible threats in the area to her presence.
When she lands she enters a building before undoing her invisibility and joins the others for Mae's Wine.
"I don't know what happened here, but it's a mess."
Rune will check the *Kirk for any clues
"Little hair of the dog, Mae...", Devlin drinks from the cup, "Sure, works for me."
Devlin wanders the village, using his tremorsense to peek inside buildings, and following up by sending an elemental whisper inside to check things out from the inside.
+30 skill +10 tears to wine -4 no alertness because elemental whispers is manifest
+15 ranks from Devlin, +3 class skill, +1 wisdom
Obidiah casts Detect Magic on the orcish axe head that he found in the house.
He walks back out into the street and spits.
"Orcish trash .... the weapon was better made than most they would carry, but it hasn't been cleaned or sharpened in an age." he tells the others.
"Seems like a formidable force attacked this place. Some creature that flew and breathed acid, a potent spellcaster, and orcish foot soldiers."
"All of it disciplined enough to both attack and then clear the battlefield afterwards."
"Not in the nature of most orcish scum."
Rune heads over to the church and she approaches she sees holy symbols of Iomedea.
Looks to be a modest sized church which probably housed a high priest and a few clerics. There are no signs of battle here at all but the doors are left open. Rune finds the place deserted and clearly looted of all treasure and healing items. At first glance there are no signs of battle here but she notices dried blood in the bedrooms she comes to the conclusion that the clerics who lived here were all killed at night
by an intruder that did not give them the chance to defend themselves and then looted the place even taking the bodies.
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Mae decides to go back inside and this time follows her nose. She goes upstairs and into one of the bedroom. Following the smell she opens a cupboard to find a dead gnome. The body seems to be a female adventurer still in full gear. She has a cloth wrapped around her face and died with her hands over her mouth and nose.
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Rune seeing a signs of a planned assault inside of hallowed ground says
"Justice will be done."
After finishing with checking the Kirk heads to the General Store to check for any other clues before returning to the group.
Maw sighs wistfully at the dead gnome, Such a shame, so much potential lost. Why is she protecting her mouth and nose?
She leans down and whispers a simple detect poison spell while remaining alert for danger.
Mae's hunch proves to be correct the gnomes body is filled with deadly poison. She has a +1 shortbow, 20 arrows, a masterwork dagger (small), +1 studded leather armor, +1 ring of protection and an amulet of natural armor +2 as well as a pouch with 300 gold coins.
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Rune heads to the general store.
The doors to the store were broken down and the shelves of the store are all empty having been looted. You search and find a hidden compartment behind the counter (dc 30 perception to notice) with three leather bags of 200 gp each and a loaded +1 light crossbow. Seems the looters missed it.
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Mae tries to identify the poison with her spell.
She will also collect up the poor gnomes gear and gently close her eyes. When we have time I will return here and make sure your shell is returned to the First World. Fly free my friend.
As Rune looks about the store she notes the looting and finds the hidden compartment.
"Seems someone was start to hid a bulk of their coin in a secret spot.
I'll make sure these are divided among the party."
When she meets up with the whole group they can see Rune's adopted the form of a 6'2" Elf with likely Fey blood.
"Seems this was well planned, they even Killed those of the cloth in their sleep before looting it.
And the General Store's Owner we smart in that he hid is coin well,
And this is what was found."
She shows the 3 bags of gold and +1 Crossbow and bolt.
"I don't like the look of it, it's very well planned, and executed, we'll have to hope that they aren't coming back or are watching us right now."
Obidiah settles his helmet on his head and starts to circle the village outskirts, convinced that no large war party could have come and gone without leaving a trail.
"There's bound to be evidence of their coming and coming somewhere out here. Especially if they took prisoners and carried off the dead."
Liam helps the others search the town.
Obidiah is correct while they army apparently did but a lot of effort into hiding their tracks It's impossible for a group this large to move about without leaving a trail. A trail that goes right up the path up the mountain towards Sarwal Castle.
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Liam is looking around when something under a piece of rubble catches his eye. His examines it and finds a green scale.
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Rune looks over the scale
Looks to be a green dragon scale she can't tell much else.
"Oh great looks like we'll need to add a green dragon onto the list of what attacked here."
After partaking of the wine Jonuli searches the town square. While everyone is in sight he makes a few gestures and says a few arcane words and everyone can hear him, "With a spell caster of that level about, I wouldn't be surprised if all of the corpses were animated as undead. Be alert for the dragon. If need be I can engage it on more equal terms." All of you have seen Jonuli transform into a medium or large gold dragon before.