Pick |
Pick mulls over the suggestions from both Ialia and Calen.
"White Hair up in sky - very... easy to see. No way to hide. If use magic, use for her, I think. You two choose."
He shakes his head in the negative in regards to Ialia's question about if he can talk while in dog form. Someday, but not yet. "Three barks is danger, come help."
Pick will ride til they are clearly out of sight from any of the villagers, then slide off his horse to the ground. After a moment's thought, he takes various items off his person-- he cannot use them as a dog, after all-- and puts them into his saddlebag, in case the others need access to them (lesser extend metamagic rod, wand of cure light wounds). "Lead my horse?" he asks Veil. Then, the dwarf closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. Think dog... earthsniffer, fourpaws, wagtail, sharpears, wetnose....
A handful of seconds later and a rusty-colored mutt of no particular breed crouches where the dwarf previously stood. The dog shakes its head once to clear out some lingering dwarf-thoughts. It rolls in the dirt of the trail to get its coat a bit shabbier-looking, and then pads back towards Goldfields and the house in question.
Pick would be pretty useless if we're diplomacizing at the inn. I know very well the wisdom of Not Splitting the Party, but in this case, it might be reasonable, if the other PCs want to continue on to the Helm. Pick and Ialia should be able to catch up fairly easily? Or if the party wants to wait that's fine too!
Stealth: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (3) + 15 = 18
(I think the +15 is right in dog shape, it should be close at any rate. I can doublecheck this evening)
Ialia Frostmoon |
"People rarely look up unless they have a reason to," Ialia responds. "Save the spell for now."
Then to Pick she replies, "You can hear me as long as I can see you, which won't do us any good if you go inside. Hopefully this is nothing."
Ready.
Samara of the Sword |
Samara’s concern is obvious from her eyes. She takes the horse’s reins from the dwarf. ”OK. Three barks, I come too.” With a flick of her wrist, a magical sapling (familiar to Pick), slides into her hand. ”Want yizard armor?”
Ialia, after you cast Message I believe you don’t need to maintain Line of Sight, just stay within distance and Line of Effect as the spell can wrap around corners, etc. If Pick gets shut inside a building the spell will end. At least, that is my understanding of it.
Joreld Huntsilver |
"Alright. Good luck, Pick", Joreld nodded.
Calen Derethor |
Calen tips his hat slightly toward Ialia and Pick, his face calm but his eyes intent. “Fair enough, Miss Frostmoon. We’ll keep the magic for a rainy day.” He glances at the rusty-colored mutt that Pick has become and nods approvingly. “Good thinkin’, Pick. You’ll blend in easy like that. And don’t you worry—if we hear those three barks, we’ll come runnin’.”
Pick |
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Pick is skeptically silent to Ialia's assertion that people rarely look up. In his experience of farmers and their ilk, checking the sky to assess the time of day by the sun, or to see if the rainclouds look like they might be clearing up, or to check if that shadow on the ground is a bird overhead or a wyvern... is frequently enough done. But he does not speak his thoughts on this aloud. This is possibly because he is a dog and cannot talk.
Instead, when Veil offers to use the wand on him, his canine head tilts to one side, curiously. He had not understood that the 'yizard armor' could be cast on others. Interesting. The dog gives a single bark of assent, and holds still for the casting, before the aforementioned trot back towards the village goes as mentioned.
GM Slowdrifter |
Just to check I'm reading things right, Joreld, Samara and Calen are all waiting on the road outside the village rather than continuing on?
Padding into the village, Pick-as-dog tries to stay out of sight and find a suitable place to watch the door of your target house. The other dog you had seen by the man in the rickety chair barks once as he locates you and trots over to give you a good sniff. An old mutt, a companion dog rather than a working beast, he is satisfied that you pose no threat and wanders back off to lie by his master. The man in the chair follows the dog's lead, trusting that the rust-coloured interloper is no threat if the other canine is happy with its presence. A stray dog is perhaps a bit unusual but nothing to raise any kind of suspicion.
It's a definite contrast to Ialia. As she lies over the rooftops of Goldfields, a middle-aged man - not one you had seen previously - calls out loudly, "Hello miss. What are ye doing up there? If ye're looking for something why not come down and see if it's something we can be helping with?" The tone isn't overtly aggressive but there's certainly a wariness to it. At his shouts, another couple of residents step out of their houses to see who the man is talking to. After looking and not immediately spotting Ialia, they follow his gaze into the sky and go to stand with him.
Ialia Frostmoon |
edit: wtf?
Sure, now they want to be helpful, Ialia grumbles to herself. She has half a mind to tell the guy to mind his own damn business. Instead she ignores him and continues to try to support her team although her efforts have been wasted.
Pick |
A mutual sniffing session occurs as the two dogs get to know each other. Pick sometimes thinks it would be nice if two-legged people were open to being sniffed as a greeting ritual. It seems so much more straightforward than trying to talk your way through introductions, with all the potential for misunderstandings and so forth, and of course words can lie... smell doesn't. Usually.
After introductions are concluded, Pick the dog wanders, aimlessly, over to the house in question, to sniff around the scent trail that hopefully the tall cloaked figure left in their wake. He wants to get the person's scent if nothing else-- the next step will be to scratch at the door and look pitiful and hungry, most likely.
Let me know what, if any, rolls you want for all of this, or feel free to roll yourself if it's easier, GM!
He doesn't share Ialia's idea that her efforts have been wasted. After all, nobody is going to think twice about a stray dog when there's a flying woman to gawk at.