Setting Out
With Kora's apprenticeship celebration done, your bags packed, and spells traded between Torvek and the various Art-using folks in the company, you get one more good night's rest in Ashabenford and then set out onto the road again. It's a glorious summer day, and with Krackor riding a horse conjured for him by Torvek, the group makes rapid pace across the plains.
Summer is a lovely time to visit Oakengrove Abbey. The trees are all in full leaf, the glorious green of an ancient grove in excellent health. Its caretakers are in finer spirits as well, tending the trees and undergrowth in short sleeves, their old arms wrinkled by both age and sun.
Oakfather Gannon Durei meets with you as soon as you make yourselves known at the gate. At first he tries (again) to recruit you to adventure in the temple's service, but when you decline, he agrees to store your material in the temple. It costs 50 gold a year, but he promises that it will be buried somewhere in the vast abbey and hidden from all save Silvanus's priests.
Your business concluded, you retrace your steps to Ashabenford, restock your supplies, and march out to the east. The road is busy (for Dalelands standards of busy), and a sudden thunderstorm drenches you for a bell one afternoon, but otherwise your journey is uneventful all the way to the Standing Stone and a full day south.
Almareth leads the way, Solonor's champion extremely familiar with this stretch of forest. Though his patrols usually take him through the forest and not along the road, he knows exactly where all the rough patches are, and guides you through them.
Midmorning, however, Almareth pauses. He can't say precisely what is wrong, but he knows something's changed. Holding up his hand, he brings the rest of the group to a halt, eyes searching outward just as the ground erupts. Four ankhegs leap from the ground on either side of the trail, where they had been waiting for someone to wander through. Their mandibles wave eagerly as they surge towards you.
((ooc: As is traditional, I'm following a new character introduction with a battle, to walk everyone through the process when it's less life-or-death. The format for combat posts is pinned, but I've also included it here.
Format for combat posts:
<orange>((ooc: [Describe Actions Here]
Initiative: [Initiative Roll]
Weapon speed: [Weapons Speed/Casting Time and Modifiers]
Total:
Modified THAC0: [From combat sheet, show situational modifiers separately]
Attack: [Attack Roll]
Damage: [Damage Roll + Modifiers]))</orange>
Everyone please roll initiative and declare actions!))