Are we going to sleep on top of the hill? We can see anything coming. I think we should post watches. I would like to take the last watch. I didn't sleep well last time we slept.
Beckons for help unstrapping the body.
Something beginning with R
"Rope?"
Isat helps lift Hrothgar's body from the centaur.
"I'll take first watch."
"I'll take second."
Paper stretches out and falls asleep with the practiced ease of a legionnaire.
<Modius helps unload his dead friend.>
The hilltop gives a commanding view of four neighbouring hills. The mountain, with its impossible floating spike is placed with a sculptor's care at the centre of the view. The first two watches pass gently. It is strange to sleep in daytime. The breeze is cooling, and the sun warms you all, making blankets unnecessary.
On the third watch, Modius and Crassus are awake. The rest of you are asleep.
Modius sees a giant figure walking the hills. It is about a mile and a half away, and has come out of the tree cover. It is dragging a stag behind it with one hand, and has a tree trunk club slung over its other shoulder. It is wearing a pair of deerskin trousers and leather shirt. It has grey stonelike skin, and is gaunt and spindly. It looks to be twenty-one feet tall. It walks surprisingly gently. It is hairless, and the sun shines on its granite skin.
It is looking in your direction. Crassus stands and waves slowly. The creature waves back. Crassus looks to Modius, and points at the giant, as if to say 'look!'
<Modius looks at the centaur blankly.>
"Do I look impressed?"
After a good sleep, with no incidents, no insect worries and no other strange sights, all of you are rested.
on the way back to the path, there is a small patch of piercing white sand. It is about thirty foot across by fifteen foot wide, and the sand seems to be tumbling down a hillside. There is no other sand anywhere around. Crassus keeps to the hills. As you draw close to the tip of the sand line, you see a distortion, like a mirage in the air. Through the haze, you see more sand, and a green ocean full of reefs. The rip in reality is too small to admit entry. You can hear the sea. Crassus looks skittish. He waves you all past in a bit more of a hurry.
"Is this part of Lysoskevos plan, Crassus?"
A night's sleep has restored Isat's curiosity and he nods towards the sand.
Paper looks at the small tear in reality
"This is fascinating!"
"Absolutely tantalizing. Naturally we can't go through. It's almost, planned."
<Narrows his eyes at Crassus.>
Crassus looks a little bewildered and hurt. He casts a quick look at Modius.
"Gods come and go. Old deities are compost for the new. Titans fall to Olympians. Romans take our gods and craft their own tales. This has always been so. What is dark about these times is the loss of the spirit. The loss of magic. There were men once who could shake the world, and challenge the gods. In Homer's time, there were such men. Lysoskevos is the last of them then. Perhaps his plans include a way to make the two worlds whole again. You will find him at the end of this path. There are three markers until then. The ban on fire and spilling of blood stands. Fireflies will give you light when you need it. All of the water here is wholesome.
At the foot of the tower is the path of panic. only those whom our food warms may set foot upon the path. The door will only open for you if he wills it. He may be unconscious. Do not wake him. I hope you remember these bans. There may be other perils I am not aware of. I have never crossed the hills. There are paths there that lead to other worlds, and other times. They are older than Lysoskevos, and are legacies of the godling he bought this realm from. Not even he knows where all of them lead. We will return the stars for you, and we will leave the sun in the sky until Crassus returns."
Paper looks at the small tear in reality
"This is fascinating!"
If you study it closely for a while, you can smell the sea, but also woodsmoke. Voices call out in an alien tongue. The sea is greener than you have seen before. A tree leans out at an angle from the sand, with some sort of large gourds on it. There are a few other gourds in the sand.
Looks nervous and agitated. He looks at the gap like it is a snake.
Looking wistfully at the tear "My old master told me that at the culmination of my studies, I will be able to cross the sea of silver to distant worlds and other planes. I asked him when I would finish my studies, and he laughed and said "Hopefully sooner than I will." He never lied to me, but I thought him a liar when he told me his master could bridge realities. "
"Is that home? Is that Midgard?"
Shrugs. He points to the path. He keeps looking at the treeline behind you all.
Resolutely turning his back on the just visible world, Isat concentrates on the path ahead.
"We are here as guests. Our host is waiting."
Paper nods, and turns away from the beckoning beach
"Right you are Isat, as usual. I do not want to keep the master of this realm waiting on me."
Paper follows Crassus
<Follows>
The path winds between the hills for a while, gently following the valleys. Occasionally, untiled footpaths connect with the marble road. Crassus tends to keep low, but he goes above occasionally to look ahead, and to check behind you.
It is easy going. After a few hours of steady progress, you come to a well. He draws water for you all. The well is made of dark gneiss and shale.
After seven hours of progress, the hills flatten. Ahead, about three hours walk further, is the beginning of the woods of the fey. Crassus takes his tunic off and turns it inside out. He reaches into a pouch on his flank, and takes out five horseshoes. He hands one to each of you. he scratches 'no names' in the dirt.
"Iron for protection? That's old magic. And we'll heed your warning." Isat carefully doesn't name Crassus as he takes the proffered horseshoe.
Paper takes the horseshoe gravely
"It shall be as you wish, noble one."
"Normally I'd say I'm fine with the cross, but I think the circumstances necessitate open-mindedness."
<Takes the horseshoe.>
Quietly "Keep your cross and steel handy too."
Mutters: "There's a time for everything."
Toward the end of the hillside path, there is a hill that is surrounded by small red stones. The ring of stones must be a quarter mile in circumference. On every twelfth stone is an inscription in Greek. "Great evil is sealed within. Do not disturb these stones."
Nothing is visible. Strange whispers seem to come from within, and the smell of fresh dirt. Although Crassus seemed very disturbed by the earlier rift, he doesn't seem at all perturbed by this ring.
The sun has not moved all day, and this is starting to wreak havoc on your sense of time. Sooner than you thought you would, you find yourself in the shadow of the fey woods. The trees ahead rustle quietly in the wind. Oaks and rowans predominate, but there are twisted hawthorns dotted here and there. The woods are open and airy, with such a profusion of flowers of all hues that they seem to burst with discordant colours. There are flowers from too many seasons, and all in the fullest bloom, as if some presence were unwilling to relinquish as much as a petal to the corrosion of time. The corner of your vision is host to sudden flashes and twitches of motion, but nothing is there when you look directly.
The woods are alien. Your instincts are to not cross within.
Crassus again stoops, and writes "NO NAMES"
Despite the profusion of flowers, there are suspiciously few insects here. No bees or butterflies hover over these little clearings. Although the woods are open, some trick of perspective keeps you from seeing far within.
Abruptly, you become aware that someone is close to you. You did not see her get close. An old woman is barely thirty feet from Paper and Isat. She is wrinkled and round, with flat breasts and a simple red dress that falls to the ground. She has a cane of hazel in her gnarled plump hand. She is quite short. No taller than four and a half feet. Her eyes are friendly and twinkling.
Perception checks please.
looks alarmed, and watches you all in fear of your reactions.
How in the hells did you get so close? Who are you?
"I am just an old, old wife, who once was tall and comely. I stood on a stray sod, I felt a cold wind, and now am bent and lonely.
What do you seek in this inchy wood? It hides badgers and martin cats and much else besides. You can call me Biddy, and I can call you Jack."
A black kid goat peers from her red skirts.
Startled from his reverie Paper whirls and lays a hand reflexively on his gladius. remembering the rules he withdraws his hand fom its pommel.
"Old mother, you startled me."
Paper's eyes narrow as he tries to get the measure of this new surprise
"Woman. You leave crow tracks. We should not treat with you."
Startled: "Father and Son!"
<Modius remains silent after that.>
Everyone:
Perception on mystery woman (1d20 6=21)
Trying to take any cues offered by Crassus, Isat opts for being polite and merely bows to the old woman.
"Greetings mother. Perhaps you, like us, are journeying here?"
Isat
"I have not journeyed at all. I am in the place I was born, and I have never set a foot outside my valley sweet and fair. You are a handsome set of heroes. Meaty and mean, and full of life. Come give an old maid a kiss. Give me a kiss, or the seven miles will be seventy time seven miles, and every stone crooked, and every wind cold."
Waves his hands and shakes his head vehemently.
Stratos speaks in his babeltongue, and presses the palms of his hands to his eyes. When he lifts his hands, his eyes have turned silver and cloudy.
"This is not a being we should talk to. It is a fiend from the hells. It is evil through and through, and it is trying to break a ban. I don't know what it needs, but it wishes us spite. I detect great evil here."
"Better seventy miles well travelled over rocky ground and through harsh winds than the sweetness of illusion and no sure end. Old mother, our troth is already plighted. We will not pledge with you."
Isat nods towards the path behind the woman's legs to draw attention to the blight of her passage.
"Come friends. Our host awaits us."
The creature looks toward Paper, and smiles.
"You look like a man of respect and courtesy. I am sure you have noble blood. What is your line?" "Tell me true"
Will save DC 15, or reveal your family name to her.
"Be silent centurion."
Paper struggles and blurts out
"I am of the Cornelius Papyrii gens witch! You use sorcery to force me to break my pledge, which means you have no hold over me!"
I think we need an initiative check, to see who does what in order.
Actions are:
Creature has gone first by default.
Paper revealing his family name.
Modius cracking him one in the kisser. Touch attack vs. AC 10 to muffle him, or unarmed attack to punch vs. flatfooted AC.
Crassus trotting forward to intercept the creature.
1d20+4=10
Isat can use the guidance spell to give a +1 on save or skill check, by saying something inspirational, and putting guidance at the end of it. It is an at will orison. Prot evil will make the save unnecessary.
Stratos casting something.
1d20+2=20
Rufinus staring in confusion, but darkening to anger...
1d20+6=12
Init to use guidance on Paper (1d20 1=11)
Wishing once again that his reflexes were quicker, Isat calls out commandingly "Be silent. Honour your family with silence."
The most important initiative, is of course, for Paper. As soon as we heve that, we will be able to work out what is happening when.
The effect is a charm (compulsion)