Elena D'augustino's page

Elena draws her sword and prepares to dive for cover.

"So. Uh. We get glory from this, right? Glory is good, right?!

Elena takes her pemmican and sighs.

She too, shall scout ahead with Rook.

HEy guys, Lost a few days due to more computer issues. @_@ Getting caught up now.

Stealth: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16

Elena said, "Well soldiers, lets go do what we signed up for."

And she slipped ahead into the shadows.

Sorry! I had a few days without a computer.

So yeah, I'll stand between the party and the Scouts and pinch hit?

So I guess Elena should be between the main scouts and the main party, just so she can relay and act as backup as necessary. She IS a rogue after all. :D

1d20 - 1 ⇒ (12) - 1 = 11
1d20 - 1 ⇒ (1) - 1 = 0
Elena picks up the caltrops. She isn't happy, and has no idea what's going on. She turns to the rest of the squad, and gives them a brave smile.

"Well. That. Um... is really impressive and helpful?"

She honestly can't muster the energy to be snarky. This was all starting to look a lot bigger and more stupid than she had imagined.

"That-is-interesting-and-helpful-right-soldiers?!" She shouts, with forced enthusiasm.

It would be nice to know who we're fighting. :P

Elena returns to the group, wishing she'd paid more attention to the politics of the situation, and spent less time drunk. Who were they up against that would sling demons about willy-nilly? She rejoined formation, awaiting their next order.

Elena continues to observe the battle. She didn't see this one coming. Why in all the hells didn't they have at least a company giving that team fire support? This was crazy.

Insight: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (17) - 1 = 16
Well, that wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be.

Elena observes the conflict, and feels vindicated in her decision to not send her squad barreling down into whatever fresh hell this was.

Elena has a bad feeling. She decides to take the risk, and go investigate the tree quietly, without anyone noticing.

She whispers to Borak, "Keep everyone together. I want to check on something, it will take but a moment."

Stealth: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21
Constitution: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21

Blackjack, baby! We're in business!

Fortified with new armor, and her improved footwork, Elena decides its time to see what's down there.

Elena likewise goes to upgrade to studded leather.

And after that, she tries to find Krak. She doesn't much like the idea of leaving whatever was under that tree unexplored.

Elena pulls out a deck of cards. Anyone who has the guts could play, but she suspects she'll have a lot of spare coin when she was done. As she shuffles, she finds her attention drawn to Borak's speech.

"Laying it on a little thick there, aren't you?" She said, "It's their first night, let them relax a bit before things get heavy."

And then she started dealing cards.

"Rook," Elena said, "Go inform command of what we're about to investigate, and hurry back. This looks like its going to get messy."

Elena nodded.

"It will take a runner only a minute to reconnect with our other escorts and ambassadors. They can do this as we eat, and unless we're recalled, we'll have plenty of time to investigate. I doubt our forces want to ignore such demonic presence that we'd need to cross right overtop."

Had to keep things above-board after all.

Elena felt vindicated by her choice to look further into this, though what she'd found left her dumbstruck.

She steps forward to take a look down into the depths below.

"... Right, I need a volunteer to go back and report in on everything that's happened, and to inform them that we're investigating a bloody under ground cavern that might lead directly to a supernatural threat unleashed by the enemy."

She sighed.

"It's going to be something a wizard did. It's ALWAYS something a wizard did."

"Lets investigate this dog a bit more. It's no hell hound I've ever heard of."

She couldn't help but follow the dog, intrigued by its mysterious nature.

Elena stumbles up to the tree grumpily.

"Draco, you're on latrine duty for the next month."

Still, the experience had taught her to be quicker on her feet. That had to count for something.

Free Action to speak, so...

Elena's ears were bleeding, and her hearing was a bit off from the blast, so she ended up shouting instead of calmly speaking.

"Riswynn!" She shouted, "Draco blasted me in the face!"

Elena beats a hasty retreat, sound ringing in her ears, reeling from Draco's blast.

"Draco you idiot! What the hell was that?!"

She moves to the back of the line, blood gently seeping out of her ears.

Elena uses her action to disengage, and moves to the back of the line behind the rest of her allies. She needs a medic bad. That said, it's okay Draco, just try to avoid that in the future. XD

Elena laughs as she darts forward.

"I've been accused of many things Borak, but no one has ever questioned my dancing."

And then she promptly waits. As a rogue, it doesn't help Elena much to attack until an enemy stands either off his game, or next to one of her allies. She prepares an action to attack once the enemy strikes the unit's lines.

Elena waved her arm at the befouled tree.

"FIRE AT WILL!"

If she was going to give a ridiculous order, it might as well be truly outrageous.

Elena draws her sword, and motions awkwardly at the tree with it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, should I order a charge on a tree? Is there precedent for that, like with an army of dispossessed lumberjacks or something?"

The challenges of command.

Elena draws her sword.

"Well squad, stick together, don't die. And I'd much prefer the Halarian be here to see this, because I REALLY don't want her to think we killed her damn tree. Can we hold off on stabbing it until we get her back here to see we didn't kill her tree?"

She shouts, "Halarian! There's a problem here."

Ah geeze! Sorry guys, I posted with the wrong alias by accident! And it won't let me remove it. ;___;

Elena was of much the same mind.

"Well, lets go examine a tree."

And she started after it with them.

Elena nods to Chase, following the elven elder.

She waves to the Ambassador.

"I guess we're in the clear. We should probably make sure that the Elder stays safe for now. Seal the deal, as it were."

Elena says, "You may leave now, but you can come back later when the land has rejuvenated. If you do not leave now, you'll all starve. Sometimes, all you can do is get out of the way, but it doesn't stop you from returning another day."

"Alright then" Elena said, "I'll go tell the ambassador what we know. Personally though? I just want them out of harm's way."

She walked up to the ambassador.

"The elves here are starving. The fire seems to have destroyed a lot of the community. Their spiritual leader refuses to let them leave though. That's going to make this a lot easier and a lot harder: the remaining elves are a little loopy with hunger, but if we can convince this 'Halarian' to take their people out of here and get food somewhere else, we'll be good to go. Or we could convince them to join the army, we'd feed them, they'd fight, good deal?"

Elena shrugged, giving the ambassador a smile. This was good information. He could do a lot with what they knew now.

At this point, Elena translates for anyone who does not know Elvish as the discussion continues.

Elena can't help herself. She hands them some of her trail snacks, a bit of jerky.

"There are no animals anywhere around here. Where did they all go? ...and how are wood elves starving in their own woods?"

So far, she was chalking this up to Sorcery. Did she have an expert on Sorcery available?

Elena sighed, turning to the diplomat.

"Sir, let my people talk to the elves here, something about this just doesn't add up. Might save us walking into a trap."

Wood elves, hungry, in their own woods? This didn't make any sense.

Sorry. I was pretty sick the last few days. I only got back to my computer a few minutes ago. ^^;;;

Yeah, Elena's going to hear your words, but she doesn't really know who can do what beyond the mere basics yet: She'll stick where she is for now, but later on, she'll be smarter about shifting where it's tactically advantageous. ;)

Elena was going to stand next to the Diplomat. Somebody had to salvage this if he was just as haughty to the elves as he was to his escort. This could be a disaster, and if she had to smack him in the back of the head with the hilt of her sword, and take over, she would.

What would they do, arrest her for being competent? Besides which, she probably had someone magically knowledgeable in her squad who could concoct a story about "domination magic" or "sorcery" or possibly even "sorry sir, this diplomat was a construct full of sand, obviously an enemy decoy."

These were all terrible ideas. She bit her lip gently. Normally, she did that to look cute at parties. Today, honest fear was bubbling in her stomach.

Elena looked around. Food was done, time to find the ambassador, and figure out whether or not they were good for something this tenuous. She had a bad feeling about all of this, and maybe the ambassador would be a brilliant and cunning master of diplomacy that could properly deploy this coalition through the woods with the peaceful cooperation of the Wood Elves.

But she didn't know yet. It was time find out.

Elena ate her cruel, warm gruel, quietly hating herself for her terrible life choices. New Rule: Riswynn needed to do all the cooking for the squad. She'd probably be able to make even gruel appetizing.

So, protect an ambassador. Easy enough. Hell, Elena could even BE the ambassador if things went horribly wrong. And wood elves were great! They usually needed a drink or two before they started getting really fun (especially after a night of dancing)... so yeah! Time to go to work.

Elena has no trouble getting up. She hadn't gotten hammered after all, and that meant that she was awake, alert, and generally hating the world. she readied her gear, and went to make sure everyone else was ready.

She was a soldier now. Yes. A soldier. She certainly didn't look like anyone else in the camp, but she was going to try and act the part.

It was going to be a long day.

Nah, Monk Weapons are a very restrictive, very standardized list at this point. It makes sense, given their number of options this time around.

Elena twitched. Dark elves were known for being sneaky. Chalk that one up as another fine scout. Now for business. She'd been told: get people into a routine when things are good, and they'll stick to it when things are bad. Meanwhile, the appearance of Draco had caused even more cracks in her poker face. Sudden Dragonborn appearances tended to do that.

She nodded to both of them courteously.

"I'm Elena D'Augustino. And right now, I'm in charge. Get some rest, lets sort out the watch order."

She took a bowl from Riswynn, considering her options. Well, she had to eat at some point. And then she was stunned, unable to believe her tongue, the impossible had happened, the fishhead soup wasn't terrible. She couldn't bring herself to look at it, but it was flavorful. Riswynn needed to be protected. By the gods, she made Fishheads edible!? What sorcery had allowed for such a feat?!

Right.

So, she quickly threw together a set of 5 two hour watches with the group. Technically Rook would only be set for two hours of them, but she was pretty sure that he'd be up the whole time no matter what, with the whole sunlight-is-his-bane thing. When he would actually sleep was anyone's guess, but everyone was making sacrifices for this coaliton, right?

Right.

She sighed, as day passed to night, and she came to grips with her current circumstances.

Sounds perfect, lets make it happen. ;)

Looks like Night is totally upon us. I'll say she threw together a quick watch order, which you can decide at random, and if it doesn't matter at all, HOORAY! But if it does matter... one exists?

Just trying to save time where possible.

EDITED: As additional realizations occured.

Point it out to her so we can get on with it then. ;)

... we're totally getting stabbed in the night. *cries*

Oh. Right. Long rest doesn't have Pathfinder's "spend an extra hour resting, and you'll be fine" mechanic.

...Errr, 8 hours. Huh. So guys, how do we work that out mechanically? ^^;;;

Paranoid for setting a watch order in the middle of the army encampment? Maybe. Or Maybe Elena is just using common sense. ;)

So yeah! Watch order, everybody, who's taking when? I assume we have 3 standard 4 hour shifts during the night?

So far so good. Elena said:

"Eat and rest while you can. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. We need to assign a watch order. I need my keen Elvish and Dwarvish eyes up front to hash it out."

She wish she could say she knew what she was doing, but as the legendary sage of spirits (wine, usually,) once said: sometimes all you can do is fake it until you make it.

Elena sighed.

"You", she pointed at Borak, "You're my new corporal, because you care enough to defend your men from a potential threat regardless of how terrible or awful it might be, even your own commander. ...but that was still insubordination, so assume your duties when you're done digging the latrine."

She grabbed a nearby shovel and tossed it to him.

She pointed to Chase, "You have common sense, but you should follow your own advice. That said, you'll find that I'm easy enough to work with."

She pointed at Hedgerow, "You... it's nice to have a competent scout. Welcome aboard."

Elena then addressed the group as a whole.

"I won't pretend to be any great commander taught from birth to stab, kill, and conquer. But I will tell you that history has placed men and women FAR less experienced and skillful than myself in positions of greater authority... and they turned out alright. You'll find I'm pretty spectacular, actually. I don't intend to order any suicide charges, and I recognize that many of us wish to live forever. I will however say this- we have work to do, and our work is the slaying of the enemy. And I intend for us to do good work here on this battlefield. There will be no unit finer, whom the bards sing of more, than ours when this is over. And then the drinks are on me, well, IF you survive long enough to reach the bar."

Elena was of the opinion there were much worse motivational speeches in the history of the battlefield.

... Why not? Regardless of whether she does or doesn't, she IS of noble birth, and she's damn well going to act like it until someone orders otherwise. ;) Lets run with it.

As a side note, hilariously, Elena would be ridiculously good at the 5e Unearthed Arcana Mass Combat rules as a commander if she made Persuasion an Expertise skill. I may have to do that at some point, depending on how the campaign progresses. ;)

As a further side note, DOES she have any authority in this grouping? It'll affect how she responds a great deal. XD

But yes, I'll remember to bold next time. My bad, sorry about that, like I said, a little rusty. ^^;;;;

(edited for clarity)

A young human woman stands off to the side. She seems unsure of how to approach the group, but a few key things mark her presence: first, she's obviously noble-born. The key way you can tell is that she's not covered in the detritus of the camp, and obviously hasn't been marching for very long. The second is the signet ring on a silver chain around her neck. And the third is the fact that her armor doesn't appear to have seen combat, and second-hand, worn and oft-repaired armor is just a fact of life these days. She's spritely for a human, maybe five foot six, with short cut dark hair, and piercing blue eyes. At her hip is a rapier, the classic sword of a noble duelist.

She gives the group an awkward little half-wave, and then says.

"Um. Hello? I think I'm supposed to be here. The deployment orders were a bit smudged."