"Interesting..." Staryth looks at Ormiz and the others, "Any ideas on the specifics of whatever magic they used?"
"Sorry mate - I'm not a wizard"
"Well... Err..." Grimward scratches his head with uncertainty."I think there might be spells that makes things go dark." He finally says with a shrug.
"Yes, alas the specifics elude me as well," Staryth admits with a sigh, but also looks a touch bemused. For those of the Blood of Nex, we certainly aren't showing signs of wizardly lore.
"If those we seek are not here what more can you tell us? How did this all start?"
"If you could show me the last place you saw them I may be able to track them."
"May we come closer and take a look at your ziggurat? I did not want to hurt the birds, only scare thwm away so we could get a closer look.
Scowling the woman replies,
"No, you may not take a closer look at the ziggurat. There is no purpose to such and it is sacred, and none of your business. You would only try to get inside and die, great heroes have done so, it is a place for the great alone. But I will show you to the last place I saw them, though I doubt you can track them after so long a time. You should go to the Karoun and ask them why they are such deceitful dogs."
"Thank you, that would be kind of you," Staryth bows
Gwen taps her foot impatiently at the circuitous bargaining. When the others try to figure out what is going on with the spell, she simply tunes out. Magic is as foreign to her as the Tian language. She knows that it exists elsewhere, but it isn't something she knows anything about. However, she might care about it somewhat now that she risks running into it.
Muttering under her breath Jadwaya turns and begins striding away from the group, her movements ungainly, but surprisingly swift. As she moves she scratches at her eyeless eye socket constantly.
Cresting a nearby hill she points to a long scree sided valley that follows the dried up river bed, where only a few thorny shrubs and brown unhealthy grass grows and points to a point ahead where the valley winds behind another great hill,
"There, I am sure they made their way back to that still town of theirs," she adds spitting to show her contempt.
"There are lots of spells that do that. Deeper Darkness comes to mind." Vance says with a shrug. "Makes a sixty foot globe of anti-light that even stops dwarves from being able to see."
"Thankyou, let's see if I can find something."
Criss walks down the valley in the direction offered and begins searching for traces left behind by those others.
After several minutes Criss comes back shaking his head, "You were right. Tracks are too old, nothing to find. Is that the way to their town? We need to talk to them. We may have something to stop these things from happening any longer."
Grimward shrugs, "I'll give it a go."
He checks for tracks.
"Indeed, our thanks," He says to Jadawaya as the others give a shot at tracking.
Jadwaya nods, waving a hand dismissively,
"Yes this is the way to their festering warren. It is easy you follow the valleys until you reach the sprawling mess it is a top a great hill with a lake at its base. Now go a way."
With that she turns and begins walking back towards the ziggurat muttering.
Grimward nods at Jadwaya, politely acknowledging her help.
"Guess we got a good old fashioned wasteland trek." he says to the others.
"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" he adds with an ugly grin.
Staryth smiles, "Lead on..." The bard moves wearily.
Vance shrugs, holsters his weapon and follows.
The group trudges off down the valley, seeing little of interest upon its scree lined slopes until they round a gentle curving turn and find themselves in the midst of a forest of skeletal trees. Gnarled twisted things the trees, reaching barely six feet in height, look almost fossilized and are covered in a flaky white residue which has coated the floor of this sheltered stretch of valley.
A path has been crudely hacked through the trees leaving dry dessicated stumps that seem to be crumbling away to nothing in its wake. But its obvious that the trees have somehow encroached upon it and are in the process of swallowing it back up again.
Strange fetishes, made from twine, animal skulls and what look like tarnished copper coins sway gently in place nailed to the trunks of trees all along the path. The trees which bear such designs seem to be recoiling from them, there branches frozen, but looking like they are straining to distance themselves from their odd adornments...
Not overly concerned with the withered trees, Grimward carefully approaches the fetishes, curious of their purpose.
Grimward can sense an aura of moderately powerful magic from the fetishes, but his training is not sufficient to tell him anymore.
"Hmm, some pretty strong magic here. Vance? Staryth? Can one of you guys work it out?"
"Well, not likely... but let me make some wide guesses," Staryth says looking things over, "I was never formally trained in some of the more technical points of magic."
"Never really got the hang of cantrips, but my theory isn't bad. What's the aura look like."
Ormiz follows Vance and Staryth, hoping to pick up some clues.
"Huh - I wonder what that white stuff is?"
Not being able to use their own detect magics Staryth and Vance are unable to determine much about the fetishes.
Gwen eyes the fetishes with clear distrust. "Creepy. Looks like a warning. Just what we need -- some crazed head-shrinking natives mad about us encroaching on their sacred land. Like that crazy vulture woman wasn't bad enough..." She has little to add to the quest to identify the nature of the fetishes, but that doesn't stop her from keeping her firearm out in an abundance of caution.
"I wouldn't reccomend it as a tourist spot, no," Staryth agrees.
"Are they warnings to keep people away...or of something else," Criss wonders, seeing the trees shaped and bent so strangely. Gwen was right, very creepy. As the others discuss magic Criss takes a closer look at one of the fetishes for himself. The garish and disturbing features decorating the skulls seemed familiar...
"Is it safe to pass through? " he asks the magically gifted of the party. He didn't feel safe, the feeling that something was watching him made him look over his shoulder. Probably just the skulls wierding him out.
"Hmm, not sure." Grimward replies.
"If I had to guess though, they might be some sort of warding. To keep away evil spirits or some such." He glances at the trees nervously.
Exhaling loudly, he walks up to the closest fetish, examining it wwith caution (but only with his eyes).
"I suppose the best thing to do would be to follow the path, but try not to touch the fetishes."
"Yeah, I wasn't going to touch them anyway. I think that white stuff is powdered bone or something."
"Powdered bone? Human bone or... sorry, being raised in Geb has scarred me with a morbid streak," Staryth realizes the question is probably a touch on the grim side.
"Let's assume animal and leave it at that." Grimward says grimly. He leads the way through the path, falchion drawn.
The group begin to move onwards through the dead forest, the skulls keeping them grim company as they go. The continue onwards for almost a mile before the path vanishes before them.
A broken skull lies before them, that of a rat perhaps, careful inspection reveals a glimpse of the path continuing some two hundred feet ahead. It looks like it would be possible to traverse the trees to reach it, but such progress would clearly be slow and...
"I got a bad feeling about this." Grimward sighs glumly.
Playing on a hunch, he leans down and picks up the damaged rat skull, holding it carefully in his meaty hand.
If I'm wrong, this could get nasty.Still holding the skull, he then carefully makes his way through the withered forest, making for the path up ahead.
Grimward moves out amongst the trees picking his way carefully through knotted roots and around twisted trunks and claw-like branches.
And a slight haze appears in the air around him, its suddenly hard to keep his eyes open and he wants nothing more than to yawn as his limbs turn leaden and everything begins to feel like such an enormous unnecessary chore...
He closes his eyes and begins to sink down when suddenly the skull in his hand pulses and explodes into a shower of shards jolting him into wakefulness!
The trees continue up the sides of the valley on either side, but do not quite reach the hill tops, it might be possible to back track and climb around them, but the going on the steep scree covered slopes would be very dangerous, and any slip would likely land one in the midst of the trees again.
Ormiz watches Grimward warily, then jumps back as the skull explodes... suddenly grateful for his hesitation.
Some sort of soporific spell? Anaesthetic fog?
"Right. Does anyone have a rope? We tie ourselves together and run for it, together, I reckon. Anyone falls or sleeps we drag them out. No-one left behind."
"No rope here, I'm afraid." Staryth answers, though his eyes are on where the skull WAS.
Shocked, but at least awake, by the exploding skull, Grimward flees back to the others, stumbling his way back to the edge of the path.
"Damn, that was too close." He gasped.
After taking a moment to calm himself he rummaged through his backpack, producing a long length of hemp rope.
"Bad news guys, it's only 50ft. Sorry, I didn't expect something like this." He pondered the situation for a moment.
"If you think we should cross, I can grant each of us a small blessing to strengthen our minds. It will only last a minute, but it might give us the edge to cross."
Something crosses the half-orc's mind. He turns to his companions with a grin.
"Huh. Just a thought. It looks like something... Maybe the trees or something else, tried to overcome my willpower and send me to sleep. I got that can shield my mind against mind-magic. It's called... errr... Oh yeah, protection from evil. The name's a bit of a trick though, it can shield the mind against any magic attack on the mind, evil or not."
His happy demeanor drops.
"But... I only got one spell left. Too much healing done. And it'll only last a minute. At most." He adds with a shrug.
Staryth contemplates, "I think Ormiz brings up a good point. The real question is will those who make it be able to retrieve any who fall?"
Vance unclips an epaulette and removes his own rope from his shoulder, handing it to Grimward without a word.
"I'll do it. I'll go first." Grimward says.
He ties both ropes together and ties an end around his arm."Who's next?"
Ormiz stands forward. "I'm in."
"I have rope if you need more," Criss offers. He had been looking at the slopes considering other options but all seemed equally as dangerous... how does one choose which way you prefer to die?
"Tie me up where you think best... well, you know what I mean," Staryth replies, offering an arm.