One by one you tumble through the portal onto alien soil.  Brother Zelias lands alertly on his feet, feet sunk past his ankles in mud.  He can already feel the mud sealing the gaps between his toes.  Ravex lurches through next, staggers forward a few steps before tripping over an exposed root.  With a depressing splash, he kisses a mud puddle, crusting his lips with dirt and sludge.  Vaulting after him is Farren who hops on a boulder just to side of the road, the only secure perch in sight.  Then Gethin hurtles through the portal, kicking up great gouts of water with every stride.

Before you can even consider returning through the portal, you feel your hearts shudder with the boom of thunder. A second later, or two or three, lightning strikes in the sky, a tine arcing to your very stretch of road!  Drawn ineluctably to the portal, it sizzles upon meeting. Both portal and electricity vanish in an instant, ionizing the air.

Wordlessly, you gather your group together and peer about yourselves:

Between the heavy clouds and the endless rain, you might as well be blind. In the occasional flash of lightning, however, as the rain is forced aside by a gust of howling wind, you can just barely make out the road ahead. A veritable river of mud twists and winds through a copse of gnarled trees and along a rocky coastline battered by whitecapped swells.

And beyond, visible only by the brightest thunderbolts, stands a town. From what you can see, the buildings are old and patched, and the roofs are shingled peaks. Just another village, it seems, but something about it sets your teeth on edge and your skin to crawling. But then, perhaps it is just the cold and the rain . . .

OOC Saves v disease in init order.

PC         Init   AC F   R   W   HP        Surges     AP  T   notes
Zellias      24   23 19  22  20  27/50     8/8   (+12) 0   2  diseased?
Farren       17   20 16  20  16  36/45     7/7   (+11) 0   2
Ravex        16   24 21  18  16  36/61     11/12 (+18) 1   2  diseased?
Gethin       16   25 18  17  19  61/61     11/13*(+15) 1   2  LoH*, diseased?

Zellias shudders against the cold rain, feeling drained and debilitated from the fight against the slaad.

"I suggest we find someplace warm to rest in that town over there, unwelcoming as it may seem," he says.

15:33, Today: Brother Zellias rolled 3 using 1d20. Save vs Disease.

Ravex lets the rain wash off the mud as he attempts to shrug-off the last battle.

He grumbles something about slaads and demons before giving the others a confused look. "Hey now... where'd that musical fella go?"

16:05, Today: Ravex rolled 3 using 1d20. Save Ends.

"Dale left through another portal," Gethin says glumly, sloshing mud off his dinged (probably because it has no layers) plate mail.  He feels that Dale's departure is a personal failure in some way.

Not even stopping to get out of the mud, Gethin removes his rerebrace.  With a tin traveling spoon, he digs mercilessly at the flesh where the demon scratched him.  Little orange-red maggots fall, sizzling, into the murk below.

"The demon's danger is not yet passed.  We must find somewhere dry and see to treating you."

Divine Mettle on self, +1 Tip = save vs disease

01:07, Today: Gethin Ballider rolled 9 using 1d20+4. save vs disease (divine mettle).
This message was last edited by the player at 05:17, Wed 15 June 2011.

The rain is no cleansing ally. It collects in puddles, sometimes ankledeep, in the road. Even in the coldness of the late afternoon storm, Ravex and Brother Zelias feel the flush of fever. Worse, Gethin catches them unconsciously scratching at their mottled skin, exposed or otherwise. By the time the party has reached the outskirts of the town, it's drenched in misery.

A roadsign sign announces the name of the town: Ashenport. Its name draws fragments of thoughts to Zellias, the traveling monk, something that he must have heard before and had fascinated him ever since at a level just below consciousness.

"When a traveller in north central <unrecalled> takes the wrong fork at the junction of <unrecalled> pike just beyond Dean's Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country."

This must be that lonely and curious country.

Although still rendered gray and miserable by the constant downpour, the town of Ashenport looks better up close than it did from a distance. You can now see that many of the buildings are sturdier than they appeared; a few are even made of quarried stone, rather than wood. Even in the inclement weather, several shops trickle with customers, and the light that escapes through many a window is neither bright and cheerful. Sporadic people trudge their way along the muddy roads, shoulders hunched against the rain, going about this business or that.

The salty tang of the sea, and the lingering odor of a hundred years of fishing, insinuate themselves around your mouth and nose. Even the torrential rains and winds cannot completely strip the powerful stench from the air.

PC         Init   AC F   R   W   HP        Surges      AP  T   notes
Zellias      24   23 19  22  20  27/50     8/8   (+12) 0   2  diseased (-2 will)
Farren       17   20 16  20  16  36/45     7/7   (+11) 0   2
Ravex        16   24 21  18  16  36/61     11/12 (+18) 1   2  diseased (-2 will)
Gethin       16   25 18  17  19  61/61     11/13*(+15) 1   2  LoH*

This message was last edited by the GM at 19:43, Wed 15 June 2011.

Ravex squints against the rain as he trudges forward. Despite his discomfort, he doesn't react to the cold or turn his head away from spray. "Damn weather." He mutters as he watches the residents with a weary eye.

"Let's find a tavern, or an inn. The rain's starting to annoy." He nods back to Gethin and Zellias.

"A healer first."

"If I do not miss my guess, this disease will prove fatal to you if left untreated.  I have some skill in healing, but a true healer would have more.  And he may have supplies that would help in the treatment of your condition."

Sloshing down the muddy road, Gethin looks for a tell-tale steeple or unusually large and gnarled tree.

"Ha! Worry about the monk, holy man. It'll take more than a few infernal maggots to do me in!" Ravex chuckles, despite the itching.

Zellias murmurs something to himself and then repeats it a little louder. "This is a lonely and curious country indeed," he can be heard saying.

The monk moves along with the others, peering into the village streets, looking for signs of a herbalist, healer or holy place where he might find the aid Gethin suggests. He also keeps on the lookout for anything potentially threatening or particularly weird.

13:31, Today: Brother Zellias rolled 25 using 1d20+11. Perception .

As they walk, Gethin tries to unobtrusively inspect the diseased.  But skin lesions and itching are hardly unique symptoms.  Maybe it's that "just eyeball it as he walks" is not standard medical practice, or maybe Gethin knows less about the disease than he thought.  At any rate, when they get where they're going, he knows no more about their condition than when they set out.

Heal to diagnose disease = 13

Time: Afternoon

Prodded by Gethin's fretting, you bypass Ashenport's one and only house of hospitality, The Smooth Sailing Inn and Tavern (Location 1 on the town map), which sits directly opposite The Bountiful Tide General Store, (Location 2) and continue along the town's central street until you arrive at a grove of ash trees (Location 4):

Here, in the center of town, a densely thick copse of trees grows, and all of the trees are drooping and weeping in the heavy rains. A full 75 feet across, the grove is far too healthy and far too well tended to be mere chance. Clearly, this grove is something the people of Ashenport take very seriously.

None of the trees appear to be especially ancient or commodious.  In fact, they appear quite flush with their own verdure.

You're on the outskirts of Ash Grove. A few locals hurry past, on their way out of the storm.


This message was last edited by the GM at 22:09, Fri 17 June 2011.

"Hello?" Gethin calls, as they enter the grove.  He silently motions for the others to sheath weapons and put on long, pious faces.  Gethin inspects the grove, looking both for its keepers and for some indication of its patron.

Religion = 28 (natural 20)

19:01, Today: Gethin Ballider rolled 28 using 1d20+8. religion.

No one has any trouble putting on a long face in the face of a heavy downpour.  The piety would probably go unnoticed with the obsucation of the storm.

There doesn't seem to be an official caretaker present at the moment to respond to Gethin's salutation.

As he inspects the grove, he discovers that it becomes quite thick around the center.  If he wants to investigate further, he will have to push his way through the aspens.

Farren takes the lead here, apparently much less glum in the grove than in the soggy roads. She slips through the foliage like it's not there, but doesn't break the silence she's held since the group went through the portal.

Farren picks the thickest point of entry, a spot where two ancient aspens have become intertwined and a hawthorne bush closes the gaps save for one that has escaped all but her notice.  A few seconds later, she's reaches the interior of the grove without having been scratched and starts to poke around.

OOC Farren may make a search check at -2.

Farren is keen of eye and nose and ear.

OOC:
19:12, Today: Farren Einsender rolled 23 using 1d20+11. Perception -2.

In the heart of a grove, Farren finds a stone idol, chipped and stained, partially buried within a thatch of tall grass. She carefully unearths it, brushes off the dirt, and carries it back to the others on the outskirts of the grove. Gethin recognizes the idol as being dedicated to Melora, goddess of the wilderness and the sea. She appears to be emerging from a whirlpool to behold a canopy of trees.  The plinth had some inscriptions but chiseling has demolished the writings.

Gethin remembers one of them...

You are on the southern edge of the Ash Grove in the afternoon during a heavy storm. Any locals that pass by scurry quickly on their way out of the wet.

Zellias stands silent and still in the grove, thinking that the goddess of nature, sea and storm certainly seems to be in a foul mood this day. Perhaps it is because her likeness has been ignored and mistreated in this place.

"Well, this grove seems to be neglected," he says. "Perhaps the inn will offer us more comfort."

"I agree." Ravex tones, his soggy hair-scales looking not unlike a rust-filled mop on his head. "The monk might need a healer... but I just need a good night's rest. Stand'n in the rain for hour's just going make it all worse for both of us."