"There is always a balance to be struck, an equilibrium to be found. Between summer and winter, between birth and death, between the heat of battle and the languor of peace.

"Does that mean there is some balance between life itself and death?

"It is this puzzle that has vexed so many over through the ages. A puzzle that the doers of things would do well to pay some mind. Perhaps even going so far as to listen to the humble tellers of tales."

 - Blace The Bard, known opening line at adventurer taverns.


And we have a new thread! With new enemies, and if you look to the adventure tracker you'll see newish allies to help. But for now, time to go loot some loot then check up on some old enemies and potential allies...

Meri stood in place for a moment, lowering her staff and watching the remnants of the Phystal's unexpected explosion dissipate into the air.

"Not bad" she murmured quietly, glancing in Nym's general direction before propping her staff on her shoulder and following the dryad towards the boat to see if it contained anything else useful...


OOC: And looks like Nym actually managed to seriously impress Meri with that one :)
Anyways, going over to check out the shiny loot! :D

Nym doesn't answer, and simply stands there for several moments, breathing hard but with a huge grin on her face, like a child who's just won a race and hasn't quite recovered from being out of breath just yet.

"Wheeeee..." she mutters at last, and slowly sinks down to the ground, plonking her staff next to her as she sits down, then lies back with her arms spread each side of her. As she leans back, the little owl (whose colours have stopped swirling quite so fast) steps forward from her shoulder and instead sits on her chest, looking toward the boat.

"Lots of fun...wheee...all the fun...phew! Busy day...and we only just woke up..." Nym is saying, apparently to herself.

Hehe battle over, adrenaline starts to wear off, Nym's on a rather worrying 6hp but she's still "coming down" from using her magic to the extent that she did so she's nto about to pass out or anything. She'll check out the shinies when she's had a few minutes to get her breath back :).

Battle over, so you guys can take a short rest and go recharge those encounter powers and also spend those healing surges.

While Nym spaced out after the battle, Celindara looked equally dazed after the battle. Thanks to Meri, her colour looked better, and she did not seem unsteady on her feet despite the constant assault she had been under. She just seemed lost, which was understandable given the target of her ire had turned to ash and residue.

She looked to Meri, and her certainty came back. "My thanks for your strength." She flexed her wounded arm, even as she subconsciously dug her wounded foot in the earth as if to draw strength and healing form the forest. "Some of my sisters could heal as you could, I remember." She seemed sad for a moment, but then it seemed to pass. "Please, I know how it works. You gave strength to my arm. Let me repay that strength back. The power of the forest flows through me now, and that power can replenish yours."

Celindara seemed to get roughly how your infusions work, maybe. So she's offering two of her healing surges to restore your infusions. You have good enough Heal skill to see she probably isn't in any danger of giving too much - she seems quite solid after such a strenuous battle!

Inside the boat itself, it could be seen how haphazardly the pickings The Phystal had clearly taken from people had been dumped, and how much more they had spilled out during the battle.

There were lots of odds and ends - some chillingly mundane items from villagers most likely - and others the weapons and equipment of inexperienced adventurers. It seemed that Allyn's concern was perhaps the tiniest part justified, as none of the items seemed to be of fey make.

Most of the items were of substandard construction, but some did bring Meri's attention. There was a dagger with a green gem for the hilt. She had not encountered either of the flying daggers up close, but she was certain this was a third. Luckily it had fallen under a knapsack, and The Phystal had not found it in time. It was inert for the moment, but Meri had previously worked out that the thing was probably activated by a word. It was definitely not a fey item, but looked oddly wicked in its construction, less like a tool than a implement of pain. Something in the thinness of the blade or wicked edge.

Up to you if you want to take it or not, you can always break it down for magical parts if that's not against Meri's religion, or figure out its trigger and use it against enemies later. Though it might not stick to attacking who you tell it to attack, as Nym found out. Hence the warning of it seeming evil. Use at your own peril!

There was also something unusual. It was an almost mundane magic item used by forgers and artificers, a pair of forgemaster's gloves. However, its abilities to ignite the forge in the morning and protect the wearer from the heat and sparks of the place had uses to the adventurer too.

Heh, I wonder what this level 6 magic item is...

There was also some caltrops in a bag, probably enough for three good uses. They could be useful for Meri in building her own traps, but they were also serviceable in and of themselves to hinder a foe at the right time.

You can either use them as 90gp worth of trap components at some point, but these caltrops are also a consumeable item - I've given you three - that create a zone that will slow enemies. I'll post the power in the magic item thread and you can figure it out :)

The Phystal did seem to have a personal possesion in the boat, a very fey looking belt pouch that was tucked in to the corner of the boat. It contained two potions that, for the moment, were unknown. Neither looked poisonous though. One was deep blue like the river water itself, and the other had a healthy greeny-yellow tinge to it, like wine.

Obviously some time or some rolls will let you know what they are. More for narrative fun, at worst Celindara might know what they both are :)

Looking with a more mercenary eye at what was left, Meri spotted that there was about 50 gold pieces worth of coin and trinkets. And that was probably also about the worth of the boat itself - providing she could repair it.

That's right, the rowboat if you want to ask the dryad nicely for raw materials could be repaired with make whole, and is worth 50gp. Loot everything! Sell everything!

Even the camp seemed a very professional affair. While all fey in origin augmented by plunder, The Phystal and his warband were clearly adept at surviving in the wild. Their equipment was of a superior quality, their supplies well assembled, and they even seemed to have detailed notes of the surroundings. It was written in fey, but Meri was sure she could translate the diagrams and words simply enough to get some benefit.

You can gather up the remains of the camp itself in to what is effectively a hunter's kit. You can either keep it for yourself, or get rid of it at some point to an appreciative collector/shop. It is also worth 50gp, which is funny that figure keeps coming up given I had all these items assembled independently!

And meanwhile, as Nym luxuriated in the grass of this place, two gemstones twinkled back where she had battled earlier....

Don't forget the sapphire and fire opal from the two flying daggers. Combined the two gems are worth 250gp!


Anyway, the adventure tracker has a summary of the stuff you got, and I'll add more descriptions in the items post today or tomorrow. Yay! That's like @650gp of stuff all told :D And a 1800gp magic item, of course. Not too bad for a morning's work...

After a minute or two, Nym sits up. The owl on her shoulder makes a little twittering noise and flutters off, going to sit in a nearby tree and stare around unblinkingly, apaprently now generally curious about the surroundings.

"Hmm, what to do now?" murmurs Nym, looking idly around. "Ooh, it looks like someone dropped these..."

She scrambles over to where the gemstones from the daggers have dropped onto the forest floor, and picks each of them up, holding them before her eyes to admire the way they sparkle in the light.

Don't worry, I hadn't forgotten about them ;). Was it the fire opal that was 100gp and the sapphire 150, or the other way around?

Also gonna burn my last two Healing Surges to get myself back up to 24/37hp. I hope we don't get into any more fights today, or if we do I hope I don't get hit ;).

Other way around I believe, and yay! Let the looting begin :D

Check my OOC post regarding what you current hp should be - I believe that you get what is effectively 7hp more 'healing' than you think, so will actually be at 31/41hp

My hp is now 42, not 41 ;). I'm pretty much done with my level-up, after some deliberating. I'll update my sheet in a bit...

You mean 37+5 isn't 41? Well if you want to go with your 'normal' mathematics and not hper non-euclidean maths, fine. *runs*

"If you'd like to" replied Meri hesitantly.  "I can replenish my own power, though if we run into something else, a little extra goes a long way."

Heading towards the boat, she looked over the equipment in it.

What immediately caught her attention was the gloves.  Propping her staff against the side of the boat, she reached for them and pulled one on, flexing her fingers experimentally.
"Been meaning to make a pair of these for myself" she remarked with a grin.  "Bit of a customising job on these and I can save myself the expense."
Tugging the other glove on, she examined them for a moment, concentrating intently.  A flicker of flame coursed over the fingers briefly before going out again.
Nodding in satisfaction, Meri turned her attention back to the items in the boat.

Picking up the dagger, she examined it thoughtfully.
"Might be useful, though unpredictable in its current configuration" she murmured to herself, placing it aside for now.

Taking up a small bag, she opened it cautiously, finding a set of caltrops.
Nodding to herself, she placed these down beside the dagger.

Next item that caught her eye was the pouch containing the two bottles.
"Any idea what these are?" she asked, holding them out to Celindara...


OOC: Not sure if the dagger is Nym's style, but Meri won't mind parting with it if she wants it anyway :)
Also are we divvying up the gold?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:15, Tue 26 Jan 2016.

While Nym played were her new shiny toys, Celindara looked to the two bottles. She opened each up, the wine like one first, then the water like one.

"Mmm, smells like honey of the bees on the warmest summer's day," she said. She swirled the liquid around once or twice, then her face fell. "Oh, I remember this. This used to be such a happy draft. It is something that allows someone to speak to a fey."

For some reason finding it on the fey seemed to make the dryad sad and angry in equal measure.

Potion of Feyspeak, description in the items thread :)

Of the second potion, she rolled it around. The resemblance to water ended when the thick goop barely moved inside the bottle. She sniffed it and almost gagged. "Oh, I never could stomach this. I always wanted to try, but always cheated in the end." She looked to Meri. "This....mix.... allows a person to walk on water, or I suppose any liquid, as if it were solid ground. Although it tastes exactly like eating well trodden mud, and you can't just nibble part of it. It has its uses, especially if the rains are heavy. The Phystal might have escaped us even if we had sank the boat. Or at least, he might have tried..."

The was something ominous about how she said that second part. And who knew, it might be related to how she 'cheated' in regards to walking on water.

And this is a Potion of Water Walking, description also on the thread. The foul gloop part is actually the real flavour (haha) text of the potion, I might have extrapolated its exact taste :D


At the southern mouth of the area, now that the battle had died down, the doe walked in to the area with the fox waving a more leisurely route back and forth.

Many was bouncing around in the air ahead of them both, and seemed relieved when everyone was alright in the glade. At least, everyone he could see, because luckily the two downed fey were hidden by the grass for now Indeed, perhaps he had been the one to persuade the others to come formwards. Though it was noticeable he always kept his 'making friends' eyestalk behind his back whenever he got near any of them, as if to prove he was being respectful and good.

"Meh-reh! Nih-meh Yay!" he said happily, rushing forwards, then rushing back to the fox and doe and waving his eyestalks in beckoning, then rushing forwards to his two friends again. "Yoh ah oh-keh?" he said, trying to pronounce the words properly and only slightly failing. He moved towards Nym and Wuffles first, as much to see what she was playing with apparently, the light sparkling on the gems.

See, everyone else was fine and no evil enemies were doing anything nasty behind you lot :D

Useful though a dagger might be, it's definitely not Nym's style to try and stab anyone, or at least wield something capable of doing so even if it would never be used for that. Plus I like the damage bonus on my staff ;).

"Many!" calls Nym cheerfully as the beholder reappears. She waves at him from her position sitting on the grass. "Everything's alright. See? I just found these on the floor. There were these nasty flying daggers but they've stopped now and they left these behind..."

Meanwhile, in the nearby tree, the owl swoops down to land on the grass nearby, looking over at Many and making happy-sounding little twittery sort of noises.

"Well, might be useful.  You don't want any of them?" asked Meri, gesturing to the potions.

OOC: Not that the NPCs usually get a share in looting, just thought I'd ask anyway :)

She glanced back as Many reappeared, a hint of a smile appearing on her face before she reached down to pick up the caltrop bag, tucking it into a side pocket on her backpack.

Taking up the dagger as well, she examined it cautiously, tapping the gemstone in its pommel and then balancing it carefully on one finger before shrugging and tucking it into her belt.
"Can maybe use that too.  Doesn't seem to be Fey design, wonder if he took it from someone like these other items."

She reached down, picking up the scimitar the Phystal had carried, drawing a few inches of the blade out of the scabbard and examining it closely before giving a nod of approval and propping it next to her staff.

"Well, if he was the one causing all the trouble around here, attacking anyone who entered the forest, I think the townspeople might relax a little once they realise what happened.  If we find Blace alive again then she can tell them.  I don't plan on returning there."
Crouching down, she ran a hand over the hull of the boat, examining the parts that had been damaged by the explosion from Nym's magic.


OOC: Free boat might be handy if we plan on heading downriver :)  Which directions does the river run here?

Celindara looked to the potions confused, or perhaps still dazed from the battle, before answering at large. "I can speak the language of the fey, just as they once could speak the language of the dryad," she sad with a small sigh. "Though always when the elders met, it was the customer for each to drink a draft of the others' language, so prove that every word said could be said without misunderstanding. Back when the fey lived here, and deigned to speak with the forest's guardians rather than lie and desecrate." She had a 'harumph noise. "The potion could only be used by the fey to make another talk to them - after all, you would bring your own if you wanted to talk to them. They must have captured some of your friends and taken their things. Made them talk, most likely about me. To make the villagers hate me."

She squished her foot angrily in the mud, then pulled it free, turning the foot left and right to ensure it was healed well enough. She then without much care to the dirt on her foot squelched her feet in to the dryad boots.

"Oh, the second potion, yes!" She gave a wicked little smile, as if a child confessing something naughty to an impartial adult while her parents were away. The matter of the fey and the insignificant matter of a whole villager hating her seemed to be dropped. "I did say I cheated and never used it." She turned to the river, and gave a small and complex little song, lilting and beckoning. A small section of the river started churning as if the needlefish had found prey, but the churning was too circular and rhythmic. A moment later, the whirlpool that formed then lifted itself from the water as a water spout, and danced for a moment on the surface of the water.

"There are many spirits of water and air, earth and bark in the forest," she said with a giggle. "Who needs to walk on water when one of the forest's children will take it upon themselves to help you fly over it!"

She gave a small theatrical bow to the water spout, and it slowly sank in to the river.

And that water dervish was to be your final opponent. Why would it attack you (or you want to attack it) if its under the dryad's control? Who knows? Oh yes, as always me. And I'm not telling until much later in this game :D But it seems happy and friendly now, so never mind!

Meanwhile, the doe walked across to Celindara and Meri as if to see what all the fuss was. Celindara raised her right hand as if to stroke the doe's head, but it shied away and detoured around her. Celindara looked hurt and confused, as the doe instead looked to the boat with an air of curiosity and disgust in equal measure. It backed away from the boat and walked in between Meri and Celindara.

It bobbed its head to Meri and them looked to Celindara's injured left arm. Awkwardly but at least with some range of motion Celindara lifted her hand again, this time the injured one, to the doe. The doe this time came forwards to sniff them lick the hand, then the injuries. Celindara gave a relived giggle and allowed the doe to tend her wounds in its own way. "I may be the guardian of the forest and its warden, but even I do not fully understand its ways at times," she said. She looked to the water, and her face faded to a neutral, dazed expression again, as if deep in thought, or within deep thoughts.


Meanwhile, over with Nym both Many and the fox wandered near the sorceress. Many bounced happy up to the trees, calling out "Heh-ello wuh-ffles!" as he danced around her tree. Whether his broken speech was caused by him still trying to sound the words or not, or whether it was broken by his happy bouncing was hard to tell. He had perhaps been practising non stop excitedly on the others during the battle.

The fox meanwhile walked over to Nym directly, looking to each gem in idle curiosity. It curled up on the grass near Nym, but its lazy gaze shifted between the opal and sapphire in turn as much as regarding the changeling.

Many finally floated down to Nym, buzzing even more excitedly around her head. He dutifully looked to her gems, nodding in excitement at how bright and shiny they were, and said so proudly to the fox. However, it was something almost invisible he was balancing on his own telekenesis eye that seemed to have him excited to show Nym.

"Loo-keh loo-keh loo-keh!" he said, holding out his eyestalk, bent slightly upwards so it was clear he was balancing something invisible on it. It took keen eyes to see it, but it seemed Many was managing to carry Celindara's third, almost invisible companion, a tiny ant. The ant seemed - as much as such things could be reckoned - happy enough to be carried like that.

Give you guys a chance to react to the wall of words. Oh, my memory is Meri had Goodwin on her back, is that correct? I can go check if no one remembers for sure.

OOC: Yep, carrying Goodwin around.  I'd actually forgotten he was there in the heat of battle, as perhaps Meri did too, hehe :)


Meri frowned slightly, as if something the dryad had said or had reminded her of had troubled her for a moment.
Then she picked up the last of the items she had set aside, looking around for Nym and then glancing over the rest of the area they had fought in.

"I think that one I attacked early on might still be alive" she remarked, pointing in the direction of the bowman she had traded shots with at the start of the battle.
"Wonder if he knows what happened to Blace?"
Picking up her staff again she went over to see if her fallen foe was still there...


OOC: Assuming the bowman is still there and hasn't recovered and fled by now...

"Hey, Mr Foxy!" says Nym cheerfully as the fox comes over. She notices him looking at the gems and holds them out. "You want a closer look?"

She puts them down on the ground between herself and the fox, then is distracted by Many. She giggles at the tiny ant he's levitating.

"I've never seen a flying ant before!" she says. "Well, no, actually, one time I did see a nest of ants and they were all bigger than usual and they had wings and they were all flying away. It was a very hot day - maybe they wanted to cool down. But not tiny ants like this - I've never seen one of those with wings before. Hey, Many, maybe one day you'll be able to make me fly! That would be fun! Maybe I can make myself fly. I'm too heavy for myself right now - I can only make little things float and only if they're really close...kind of like you can."

She claps her hands excitedly and giggles again.

"But I'm sure you'll be really good at floating stuff when you're bigger!" she says happily. "And you'll be able to do all sorts of different things as well. And we can have lots more fun!"

The bowman that Meri had downed did seem to be both alive yet still unconscious. Close to he definitely did not show any of the signs of crystals embedded in his skin that The Phystal possessed. However, his angular features were even more alien with the face at supposed rest. Far more angular and elven than Eladrin or elves. Meri had heard of wild elves, but they were usually just the less civilised elves, a sub race. This was truly what a human child might imagine a wild elf to be, terrifying and strange. Whatever common blood fey possessed and still flowed in a far diluted form in Meri's veins was manifest in this one.

There was an odd stirring at Meri's shoulder. For a moment it could have been Celindara coming over and putting her hand on Meri, but it seemed the dryad was still lost in thought. No, it was The Stick - Goodwin - who was moving awkwardly on Meri's back, as if keen to see the fey bowman too.


Anyway, you have a prisoner - want to search / bind them first, or just poke them awake and having a Pleasant Meri Chat (tm) with them?


The fox shifted reluctantly - or perhaps with feinted reluctance - from its curled up rest and padded over to the two stones. The fire opal's colouring matched the fox's remarkably well, but it only gave a cursory set of head bobs to that one. It was the sapphire it seemed to be interested in. It sniffed it, pawed at it, then even turned its head sideways and started gnawing at it.

With a quick head tilt backwards suddenly the gem flipped into its mouth, and with an odd 'gulp' it swallowed the stone hole!

The was a pause, as it looked as if nothing had happened, and then suddenly it started coughing noisily. A moment later, the stone shot back out of its mouth, a little less dry than before. The fox blinked at both it and the others, then walked back over to its previous position and curled up again. It closed its eyes as if to sleep, but the eyes were hooded, and it was clearly looking to the sapphire as if it didn't trust the thing not to leap in to its mouth and choke it again.

Odd foxes are odd, what can one say :p

Many nodded as well as he was able balancing the ant, laughing at the talk of flying and flying ants. He then looked very serious, and hovered towards Nym. With a gentle outstretch of his eye stalk, he floated the ant towards Nym, and landed it perfectly on her nose. He then rocked around laughing with little 'ee ee ee ee' noises.

However, the talk of magic drew him back to the conversation, even as the little ant roamed ticklishly on Nym's nose as if getting comfortable. [Private to Nym: Not that Nym will realise this, but while the ant chooses to stay on her - and if Nym let's it play on her - she will gain a +2 bonus to strength checks and strength related skills. I think that's just Athletics?]

He looked to his two working eyes. He waved the one on the end he'd carefully been putting behind his back around the doe. "Mah-keh frien-dez," he said, then hurriedly said, "buh no mah-keh frien-dez, mah-keh bah-deh noh frien-dez frien-dez." He said. "Frien-dehz. Feh-reh-neh-deh. Seh. Friend-seh. Friends! Friends!" He seemed happy that he finally managed to get his mouth and tongue around the complicated word, but Nym used it so much it seemed he had finally got it.

Still, clearly magic was more fun than words for the moment. He waved the previously ant balancing eye around. "Ah this foh fly-ying!" he said, giggling. He gave a try at lifting Nym, but to no avail. He then pointed the eye at himself and launched up in to the air as if the eye had done it, giggling when he fell back down again.

He then looked at his other two eye stalks, and they looked to each other warily. One at a time he put them to his mouth, and stretched the tip of his tongue to try and taste them. He shrugged in a way only a beholder could. "Whah el-seh? Moh mah *hic*, moh mah *hic*!"


Lol, Many wants to learn, and he hasn't spontaneously manifested anything else yet :D
This message was last edited by the player at 10:27, Fri 29 Jan 2016.

Nym watches the fox as he comes to investigate the gems. She looks a little confused but then giggles as he swallows the sapphire, then loooks concerned when he starts coughing it back up again. When he manages to do this and goes back to being curled up on the floor, she giggles again, then goes to pick up the stones (magicking away any fox slobber that might be on the blue one).

"Well, that's not something I've seen before." she says conversationally as she does so. She plays around with them for a few moments, levitating the sapphire, then turning the fire opal briefly invisible before causing it to reappear again.

She then puts both into a random inner pocker of her robe before turning in time to have the ant levitated onto her deerlike snout by Many. She giggles and reaches up with a finger to see if the ant will crawl into it, but is then distracted by Many's success at pronouncing the word "friends". She immediately laughs and claps (though a little more carefully than usual, wary of accidentally harming the ant).

"Yaaay! Well done, Many!" she cheers. "You got the hang of that word! And it's an important word. Friends is important. Are impotant. All of that. Yay!"

She watches as he inspects his two currently non-functioning (at least in a magicl sense) eyestalks.

"I suppose you'll manage to do more things eventually." she says. "I couldn't do everything I can do all at once. It's fun finding new things I can do."

She holds out a hand, palm upward, and wiggles her fingers slightly - little coloured lights and puffs of smoke start to trail out of her fingertips, drifting upward to float above her hand - a ball of smoke with four little trails coming out of it, then a glowing light in the middle and one on the end of each "stalk", each light matching the colour of Many's eyes. Nym looks over at the little beholder and grins.

Meri peered down at the bowman for a few moments, as if trying to figure out what exactly he was.
Then, shrugging, she began to make a methodical search for any weapons or other items on him...


OOC: No rope to tie him up with (really gotta pick one of them up someday, hopefully the place where I get an alchemist's kit will stock them!)
So yeah, I'll just help myself to anything he's got on him, and move his weapons well out of reach before waking him up for a pleasant little chat :)

Your adventurer's kit should possess one as standard. Nym possesses rope with a tiny bit of the end cut off if you didn't grab one of the kits :)

Edit: More importantly, its very conceivable that a coil of rope is either in the mundane possessions of fey either from themselves or from someone else. After all, as Celindara pointed out, the fey have the feyspeak potion to speak with prisoners, So they've have needed rope most likely!
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:11, Fri 29 Jan 2016.

My inventory doesn't list any rope - I don't have an adventurer's kit, I just took a few of the bits individually since I didn't need any of the things that make light/fire as I can do that magically anyway :).

"Any rope over there?" asked Meri, heading back over to the place where the Phystal had set up camp.
As she looked around, she glanced back to check the others were still occupied with their own things before speaking up quietly, her words clearly aimed at Goodwin.
"So was he one of the group Blace said you were with?" she asked.  "Thought you might have recognised him or something."


OOC: Also, throwing in a Nature roll to see if I can figure out exactly what that guy is.  Like half-elf, half-something-else?  Meh, rolled 9 (6 + 3).  Really not my day for good rolls today, after that one over on Rebirth...

If he's Fey, try rolling Arcana - that's the skill for identifying Fey (as well as any other inherently magical creature, also constructs like golems and homunculi).

Nym looks around.

"Ropey-rope?" she asks. "Nope, got no rope."

She giggles at inadvertently rhyming.

"Nope-rope. Nopey-ropey. Hee hee hee..."

OOC: ooo, better one :)  Arcana 32 (13 + 19)  I know EVERYTHING!  (or maybe that would have been a 20!)

I would swear you guys used a rope and dagger to get across the ravine for Stonebridge Falls? Who was it that had to cut the end off their rope that was tied around something then? Was that in Rebirth? I'm going mad....


Celindara reacted slowly to the comment on rope, but raked around and found one, walking over leisurely to hand it over.


You don't need a nature roll to know he's just a a proto-elf, basically. It would be like if you ran in to a neanderthal that had survived and evolved just like homo sapiens. Same root, different path :)

Edit: Oh, double post. Hmm, hold on to that arcana roll. Too good not to pay off somehow with more lore or something else, but you don't really need it for what you asked :) As you'll see below, I do recall good rolls at times and will try to pay them off fully ...

While Celindara was still looking for rope, and with the others still distracted with each other, Goodwin reacted. There was a pause then he rocked back and forth in a yes. There seemed to be less reluctance in his movements, though it could be imagined there would still be embarrassment. However, if he had any more to say regarding the fey, he either was keeping it to himself or hadn't figured out the best way to communicate it yet.

The fey's possessions were simply - most likely he was stripped down for battle and the hunt, with the majority of his possession part of the camp or back where he called home. There was a thin little knife tucked in to his boot - a good find as it might have helped him escape. His short sword was not as elegantly crafted as The Phystal's scimitar, but was still an oddly facinating twin blade twisted together to form a still thin main blade. He had a simplistic but well tended bow, and a quiver of white fletched arrows with a single black arrow set to the other side. There was an ring of entwined grass one one of his fingers, but Meri naturally felt no magic from it more than something that might preserve the grass from dying.

As Meri had suspected before, there was a tiny clay pot on his belt that was clearly able to allow the man to dip an arrow in to the poison she had smelled last battle. The poison itself had ran out, leaving an oil residue with odd black flecks in it.

However, in a small belt pouch she found some raw berries than she had previously recalled were the root of the poison. However, there was also a couple of small black leaves in the pouch too. Thinking on the residue, it seemed that the two needed to be mixed to create the poison then. However, she actually recognised the berries now, Pilla berries, whereas before it had merely been tales and knowldge of the scent of the juice. She recognised the berries themselves as dangerous if too much were used, but did have healing properties to to make a flickering heart beat once more. And the black leaves seemed to have a milt anesthetic affect even touching them. It must be the combination that reacted poorly in the body and became a toxin, but separately they both had beneficial healing uses.

I just wanted to pay off a little more the 31 you got in Heal a while ago in relation to the poison. I'll list the effect of the leaf/berries for good and ill in the mundane items thread :)



Meanwhile, the ant seems to happily crawl along the back of Nym's hand, in plain sight if she looked but staying out of the way of random clapping and object manipulation.

Meanwhile, Many danced at the sight of the lights and sparks, making many 'ooh' and 'aah' sounds, and randomly giggling and sayng friends for no good reason other than to enjoy hearing the sound of it said correctly.

However, then he seemed to have an idea, and started leaping at Nym's hands, swallowing the air and the puffs of smoke in large mouthfuls. His eyes then widened and he belched and coughed, maybe realising it wasn't such a good idea.

Still, he looked to each of the eyestalks, and they looked to him. He licked each in turn, then waved around the one on the far side of his head. At firs tthere was nothing, but then there seemed to be the fainted of traces of coloured smoke in the air.

Many seemed overjoyed, despite the lack of real manifestation. "Look! Look!" he said, bouncing. It seemed Nym's reassurances that thing took time had stuck in his head, and he was learning some patience.

When Meri called across for rope, he looked around distracted. The eyestalk for a split second manifested what looked like a small amount of tailor's thread, that puffed out of existence a second later. Many apparently heard of smelt the puff, and started spinning around looking for the source. He shrugged when he couldn't see anything, and instead joined in with Nym's little song.


Yay, Many might have a new skill soon! None offensive yet, interesting enough... Is that a good or a bad thing?

"Ooooh..." says Nym excitedly, staring at the spot where Many briefly conjured...something. "You made a thing! What was that? It looked a bit like smoke, or string...or something. Smoky string? Can you make some more?"

Btw have we found out at all whether Goodwin was familiar/allied with the Phystal at any point, or was he just some other elf that was here for some other reason? I can't remember what Celindara said about him other than that he maybe tried to do something hostile to her so she cast a spell on him intended to do something to him, only instead of the intended effect it turned him into a stick...and then somehow he got from her forest to the hands of that orc shammy.

Meri nodded.
"Well, would you prefer it if I kept him alive?" she asked with a hint of amusement in her voice as she sauntered back to where she had left the elf and began to tie him up.

Lowering her voice, she added quietly.
"I doubt there's much hope for the other one though.  Nym can get a little... carried away sometimes!"

Blace said he had fallen in with some bad crowd, and his agreement with Meri just now that the fey were who she was talking about seems to confirm it was The Phystal. It still doesn't explain how he got out, of course. I suspect this might become the Captn Jack Sparrow story of getting off the island...

All Celindara knew was that Goodwin had tried to magic her, and her 'stop that' 'song of stillness' spell had turned him to a stick.


Many looked surprised that he'd manifested anything, He looked doubtfully at the eyestalk and gave it a few speculative waves. For the moment, it seemed unresponsive. "Uuuh...nyoh?" he said uncertainly. "Cah-neh you?"


Over by Meri, Goodwin gave a small odd shake his head - well, the top of the staff - though it was hard to tell if that was a definite no or just a shrug.

Celindara had come across to see what was happening, the doe walking by her left side. For the moment, she seemed to have no advice nor wish to impede. "Can you speak with fey?" was all she asked.

OOC: So if we ever figure out how to get Goodwin turned back, and ask him how he made it all the way to that cave, he'll just go: "Sea turtles, mate!" ;)


"Well I'm not as... involved, as everyone else here, so you can tell me things" remarked Meri with a faint hint of impatience in her voice.
She fell silent again though, not pressing the issue, instead finishing the job of tying up the archer.

At Celindara's comment though, she scratched her head and looked up.
"Actually no.  I suppose I could use that potion.  I was only going to ask him if he knew what happened to Blace.  Unless you want to talk to him?"


OOC: So yep, offering Celindara the chance to play Good Cop (or Bad Cop depending on how ticked-off she is with these guys!)
If she's not interested in talking with them, I suppose we could use the potion.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:38, Fri 29 Jan 2016.

Nym holds up a finger and uses it to "draw" in the air, a thin line of smoke spilling from her forefinger as she traces a few lines, soon producing a crude depiction of a four-legged creature with pointed ears and a bushy-looking tail.

"I can do this any time I want." she says, happily.

She pokes her finger into each of the drawing's "eyes" and they start glowing with a reddish-brown hue, similar to the way the eyes of her smoke-Many did a few moments previously.

"Oh, I could, couldn't I," she says, seemingly having not thought about the matter. She looked at the fey. "He seems so young. I suppose you all do. But yes, Blace, if you think she is in danger, I can talk to him."


Any last things to do before you want to wake him up then? Oh, and roll me a thievery check regarding the bonds. That will form the escape DC he has to beat if he thinks about escaping. Though obviously you can always try to intimidate him (with a +5 bonus) to temporarily keep him afraid. But the downside to intimidation is that it tends to leave the target unfriendly and less co-operative after the initial fear has passed.


Many tries the same thing, but it seems the little puffs of smoke last too short a time for the moment, and nothing more solid seems to want to appear. "Aah weh," he says sadly after trying for a while and playing with Nym's shapes, and then looks across to see what everyone else is so interested in.

OOC: Well the Phystal was the one Meri was angry at, this one just happened to get in the way for a little while.
Meri's comment to Goodwin about not being so involved was that she's less likely to get angry at anything he might admit to getting up to in this area, since she doesn't really have as much of a personal connection to this place or its people as Blace or Celindara might.
As long as he wasn't planning on heading over to her workshop and looting the place.  That's about the only thing that would affect her, hehe.
So she's not going to be too fussed if he does escape anyway.  As long as he doesn't go for his weapons and try to resume the fight on his own, which might be somewhat suicidal!
Happy to wake him up anyway :)
Thievery check: 20 (9 + 11)
This message was last edited by the player at 19:19, Fri 29 Jan 2016.

Hehe, pity he wasn't awake to see what I did to his boss... ;)

"Yes, don't worry about it, Many." says Nym encouragingly. "One day you'll be able to do lots of things, and I'm sure you'll do them really well. And you'll be really big and we can play magic together!"

She claps her hands again, then starts inspecting them closely to see if the ant is still there.

"Hey, little anty..." she says. "Are you lonely away from all your other ant friends? Ants always seem to live in really really big groups, so I suppose you must really like each other. It's like a really big, really busy city only it's tiiiiny. Compared to the cities we live in, I mean. Well, not me. Cities are very full of many people and they always seem very busy and shouty and sometimes they get all nervous when I'm talking to them. I think cities must be very scary places if you live there long enough, otherwise people would just be happy all the time. And there wouldn't be very many places to have fun with magic without accidentally blowing up a house, or something. I bet people do that sometimes, though, blow things up. Wheeeeee, boooom! And then everyone runs away. But I don't think I ever blew up a house. Or a person. That wouldn't be very nice. I like when people are happy and nice. It's fun!"

Technically Nym is correct - as far as I know she hasn't (yt) blown anyone up. she's just melted them, incinerated them, destroyed their brains with psychic damage, zapped them with frozen lightning...

And Many didn't see any explosions of fey either, so it's all good :D

The ant was still on Nym's hand, happily exploring without going any further. If the ant had any insights regarding Nym's words, it didn't do more than wiggle its tiny antenna to communicate it.


Meanwhile, back with Meri the fey had some predicatable reactions when woken. Seeing Meri he tried to immediately leap up to attack her, but was instantly rocked back painfully to the ground by his bonds. He tried to twist as if to reach his boot, but either he realised the knife once there was gone or he knew he couldn't reach it. He then gave a strangle, wimpering noise that had nothing to do with fear and twisted his body and arched as if to try and slip the bonds. Or perhaps it was to look around the battlefield - certainly that was how it ended, with him twisting around to see who was around.

He finally looked to both Meri and Celindara properly, and said a single harsh word.

Celindara bent down, craning her head for a moment as if to place the accent or words. She then spoke some equally angular but less harsh words. It provoked a series of short, barked words from the fey followed by a smoother but no less nasty sounding final comment.

There was a loud 'crack' as Celindara caught the fey's cheek with a powerful open handed slap - thankfully with her uninjured hand, given how she rubbed it afterwards.

The fey was knocked back to the ground, to roll around shaking off the pain.


Lol, so Bad Cop, Bad Cop it is then? :D

Meri stood back slightly, leaning on her staff and watching the Fey warily for any signs he may succeed in wriggling loose from his bonds.
She glanced towards Celindara as she spoke, although didn't seem to understand the words either of them were saying.

At the slap though, a hint of a smirk flickered briefly across her face, whether in approval or simply finding the situation vaguely amusing, it was unclear.
"Guessing he's not talking?" she asked.


OOC: Not sure if Meri knows how to be Good Cop...  Not that he could understand her anyway :)

I'll quickly update then, and if Meri doesn't instantly start putting the boot in, then I guess Nym can wander over as she pleases :D

"Talking to much about things he should not know about," Celindara said, clearly put out. "He is also asking about the others. Maybe you should talk to him."

She took a step back, clearly unsettled by something.


[Private to Meri: Your passive insight won't buy you anything about Celindara's concerns, but it and your elf language ability might spot that the fey is perhaps deliberately accenting himself to be less intelligible to you, since there are some vague language roots. He may have said some word that was like 'heart' just before Celindara slapped him.]

Meri glanced after Celindara with a puzzled look, then turned to face the Fey again.
She lifted her staff, propping it lightly across one shoulder.

"So can you understand Common?" she asked.  Then said something else in another language, most likely the Elven tongue.

"Or perhaps you know this language?  The one you spoke to her in seems similar, but different.  Common roots perhaps."


OOC: If I've mis-remembered and Nym can speak Elven, let me know and I'll make the hidden lines visible :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:41, Sat 30 Jan 2016.

Yeah, Nym speaks elven, so I revealed the lines since she might check today ahead of you :)

The fey looked to Meri with an apparent lack of comprehension, then again looked around before settling his gaze back on Celindara and Meri. When Meri had put her staff away Goodwin had shifted to again get a better look. The fey seemed to notice, eyes temporarily blipping to her shoulder.

I'm afraid you'll need an actual Insight roll to tell if he genuinely can't understand what you said or not. [Private to Meri: However, your Passive Perception is high enough to spot the fact he looked once or twice to Goodwin and there was some flicker of something there. As Goodwin is moving around, it is very possible that the fey has managed to see the face and recognise it. Or perhaps knows Goodwin is a stick anyway.]
This message was last edited by the player at 19:09, Sun 01 May 2016.

Yeah, I speak Elven, but only because it was part of the Feat I had to take in order to unlock the Feat which let me take a cantrip - otherwise I'd only have Common ;).

Meri frowned slightly and glanced back over her shoulder at Goodwin for a moment.
She eyed the Fey for a moment longer before shrugging and speaking up in Elven again.

"Well, if he can't speak anything we can understand, it's not like he's much use to us alive, unless one of you two wants to try and talk to him."
She was still watching the Fey intently as she spoke though.


OOC: Just to see if he reacts to the bit about him being not much use to us alive ;)
I suppose I could use the potion, but not much sense wasting it here if he actually can understand me and is just being awkward.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:29, Sat 30 Jan 2016.

To clarify, Nym isn't actually there with you right now - she's still sat on the floor over by where she killed those two daggers during the fight. So she's aware you're talking to the guy but isn't necessarily paying much attention.

OOC: Meh, well unless Nym can speak Fey, I doubt there's much to be done here anyway.  Suppose I could try the potion anyway before we just put him out of his misery...


Meri smirked and shook her head, looking somewhere between amused and slightly exasperated at the situation.
"Ok, if you know this one, can he actually speak anything else?" she asked, glancing back at Goodwin.

Without waiting for a response, she called back to Celindara.
"So, what do you want done with this one?"

When Celindara finally started paying attention again, her mind still wandering it seemed, the dryad looked a little shocked at the fact that <ei was speaking of killing the fey. No matter how indirectly, and no matter that she had been ready with the fire and vengeance not too long before.

"Wait, what? Not alive? Why... shouldn't we...send him back to tell others to show respect and not come back?" Celindara sounded almost upset, and again swapped from her sometimes knowing and wiser proclamations to sounding young.

[Secret to Meri: Meri watching the fey's face didn't see any flicker of emotion on his face until Celindara looked upset, and then there was a subtle frown and intense look, as if he was awaiting more information or trying to work it out. It was very likely - though not certain - that he truly hadn't understood what was going on, and was scrambling to pick up clues from reactions. He still seemed to be smarting form the slap and in no mood to actually speak to Celindara again.]

Edit: Oops, forgot something...

Goodwin had made a motion when questions, but it once more could have been a 'no' or a shrug of not knowing.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:56, Sat 30 Jan 2016.

"You're assuming he won't just return with others then?" replied Meri.  "We'll see though.  May as well try this."

She reached for the Feyspeak Potion and eyed it for a moment before pulling out the stopper...


OOC: So unless Celindara or someone else stops her, I'll just have Meri drink the potion here.  Not too sure how it works, does it just give Meri temporary ability to speak Fey?
This message was last edited by the player at 23:57, Sat 30 Jan 2016.

Presumably Nym won't stop her, but I'll let Nym say so and then relate the effect. The potion description and the potion you will be able to brew will effectively let you understand and speak to fey. However, because the wording is vague and the reference is to beasts, then... well, let's just say this specific potion will have an additional effect that will seem logical in hindsight I won't bake in the standard version...

Yeah, unless you want to call Nym over to try and use Insight to read this guy, she't not really interested in talking to him right now.

She sort of did but Nym ignored her... I think you'll find Meri was trying to watch the fey herself so couldn't really pull focus away more than that comment. IC Nym hasn't really demonstrated the higher Insight you as a player knows she has btw :p I think it might be up to you to poke Nym to prove it at some point.

Anyway, I'll update for Meri drinking the potion then. It's one of those good news / bad news thingies... I think overall it works out well and better it happens now :)


The potions was as honeyed as the smell and Celindara suggested, yet did have the more refreshing taste of bubbling sweetened wine. Instantly Meri could tell something was slightly off. She'd had enough experience brewing potions to realise the base ingredients and perhaps even replicate this sometime. However, there was some odd bitter aftertaste.

Worse though, if the potion was to affect her language, she knew she should feel it. Instead, it felt as if something...external...had happened, that the magic of the potion was not affecting her mind how she would expect.


Celindara's eyes widened after a moment as the import of the words came to her. "But they wouldn't, would they? This was just that Phystal, the fey have left this forest alone for centuries. You've got me worried now."

[Private to Meri: Meri felt odd. She had an odd knowledge in her mind that Celindara wasn't worried, it was just something she had said because she felt it was expected, and would be a good excuse for her to go back to thinking about whatever it was she was actually worried about.

Looking to the fey bowman, she could somehow know he was uncomfortable, and trying to hide looking around the battlefield and looking to Goodwin.

There seemed to be no other odd link, not to the forest creatures nor Nym nor Many.

Time to pay of that huge Arcana roll before.

The potion was suppose to allow someone to understand and be understood by fey. With a dawning suspicion, Meri realised that fey didn't have to be humanoids with language. They could be beasts with a more limited vocabulary. The base potion most likely allowed one to not only communicate the language but intentions. If The Phystal had taken this potion along to interrogate prisoners, it was not a stretch to think he might have augmented that effect. So that the potion could let him understand any subtle non-communication cues, and the likely collary of being perfect understood - his resolve and willingness to torture or kill, say - being equally impressed on the one interrogated.

Meri could probably brew a normal version of this potion without this addition burden, but for the moment Meri had probably just opened a two way link where she could neither lie tp nor be lied to by the fey bowman nor Celindara. Was that a good thing, though?

Hehe, imagine taking that later in less controllable and reliable company :D Anyway, have fun with that. Hopefully it goes without saying to keep telling me Meri's true intentions, etc when she does something. Obviously you usually do it, but now it will actually be automatically understood by the other two. Stupid magical effects :p I meant evil DMs, that's what I really meant.



]

Meri frowned slightly and shook her head as if to clear it.
Her previously unconcerned look seemed to have disappeared, as if something had happened that she hadn't expected and whatever it was had damaged her calm somewhat...

Sighing she shook her head again and glanced back towards Celindara.
Then, focusing on the Fey once more, she spoke up in the same Elven language as before, although this time there was a hint of an odd accent to the words, as though some deeper meaning was there, but hidden from most others.

"Can you understand me now?" she asked.


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Hmm, reminds me a little of that ancient language in the Inheritance Cycle which is used to weave magic and makes it impossible for anyone speaking it to lie.  Although the elves in that universe are so familiar with the language, they can get around that limitation to some degree by "nuancing" meanings or implying things in certain ways to make someone think they meant something else.  Or by omitting things entirely.  Loopholes of a sort.

Anyways, right now it's probably obvious what she said before about not feeling so "involved" with events here.
Possibly a spark of anger at the Phystal "killing" Timur earlier and attacking them being what got her more involved.
She might still be stinging a little at being rejected by Blace and Goodwin before, but there is that part of her that just can't leave them both to die if she can still help, the light lurking behind the darkness in her.
Her intent now is to find Blace, although a part of her is also wondering about what Celindara said.  Are there more Fey out to destroy her, or was the Phystal the only one?]
This message was last edited by the player at 21:34, Sun 31 Jan 2016.

The fey's eyes narrowed, then he said [Secret to Nym: some words in a harsh, unknown language. The words were unfamiliar but there seemed to be some 'affirmative' intonation such as elves used, and the last word might have been said like a name.  ][Secret to Meri: , "You know I can. Where is the Old One. Where is Delsaran?" Meri understood the fey meant the other fey that attacked Nym, and the Phystal respectively.]
[Private to Meri:
Not familiar with the series!]

Meri glanced back towards Nym, mentally evaluating the chances of survival of anyone who might have attacked her during the battle.
"They're dead" she replied evenly.
[Private to The Altweaver: Not that I wanted to kill them, but I was occupied elsewhere, and they did attack us.  What did they think would happen?]

"I'm more interested in the woman who had him before" she continued, gesturing towards Goodwin to indicate her meaning.
"Is she dead, or somewhere else?"


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Grey text being Meri's thoughts behind her words.  Not sure if it's actually thoughts or just intentions that get transferred here :)

The Inheritance Cycle is the series that Eragon was from.  Not too bad, though I prefer the books.]

[Private to Meri:
It's more intentions that get transferred.]

The fey's face fell at Meri's words. [Secret to Nym: He spoke more harsh words in his own language, negative this time. And perhaps a word like 'stick' in elvish. ][Secret to Meri: There was a calculation, he was trying to tell if Meri was lying. But she had taken the potion, and clearly he must have seen the ruined boat. A cold look that communicated hatred settled on his features. She did not need a potion to know the fey was simply now playing for time to figure out how to take her with him, even if he died doing so. And she could understand whatever the purpose of the group, it had died with the other two, he was somehow not as connected to it. His expression and stance had seemed to scream defeat and confusion and then grasping for a purpose, finding simply revenge all that was left.

"Why would I know who that is? It's a staff. Not one I've seen." the fey said. But after a moment of confusion regarding the staff and Meri's question Meri could feel he did know both. And there was no way he could not know what she meant after all, because Meri's question would have allowed him to understand it was Blace and Goodwin. The fey seemed to be not fully aware of how the modified potion was working, and so was trying to answer the questions truthfully without being fully honest. His attention seemed torn between Goodwin and Meri, perhaps the old quest and new vengeance.

And as an OOC comment, you know this is likely. It sounded like whoever Goodwin was originally dealing with - the fey - gave him a method to take the dryad's voice that couldn't be replicated. So it is likely they've been looking for him and not finding him. After all, if they could silence the dryad they would have used it against her at the start of the combat :)]

"Blace? Dead?" said Celindara in confusion, and looked to the fey. She took a step forwards, uncertain.

[Secret to Meri: And Meri felt a strange headache suddenly. Heh, roll me a perception check and an insight roll please :D
]

Perception: 23 (10 + 13)
Insight: 25 (17 + 8)  Woo! :)

Yay!

[Secret to Meri: Meri felt as if she was trying to understand two voices at once. It was like when Krunluc had spoken to her through the stone, in a way. She understood now that obviously he had been pushing his words as telepathic conscious thoughts, but his underlying orcish words and real intentions had always been bubbling underneath, sometimes harshly at odds with what he had said to her that first time communicating.

It was the same but different with Celindara. She was genuinely worried for Blace, yet for some reason Meri simultaneously understood the dryad both wanted to ask further questions about Blace, and wanted to do nothing more than get back to her more important deep thoughts. It wasn't like the fey, who had conflicting concerns. Nor like the Nym-like ability for Celindara to be childishly happy or scary angry in turn. No, it was some new quirk as if the dryad was she was genuinely in two minds about everything.

And worse, Meri spotted out of the corner of her eye that Celindara was sub-consciously still wiping her right hand on her right breech leg.

Hmm, wonder what's wrong with her...]

Suddenly the fey jerked backwards. The bonds around him loosened slightly, he had clearly been trying to work them, but it did not seem voluntary his body's movement. He looked as if he was having a fit, his jaw clenched. And the left side of his face - where Celindara had slapped him - possessed an ugly, black area. Not a bruise exactly, for it had trailing black tentrils to it, as if outlining the veins beneath his skin...

That doesn't seem good!

The doe by Celindara's side backwed off, with a restless head motion as if skittish. And over on the ground near Nym, the fox suddenly lifted its head from its curl, looking around sharply towards the fey.

OOC: Oh crap!  (O.o)'


Meri had been about to ask something else when something odd seemed to happen.
Backing away slightly, she moved her staff in front of herself in a defensive position.

"What's happening?" she asked, looking back at Celindara.


OOC: Rolling Arcana to see if I can figure out what this is...  23 (10 + 13) - 10 again, I think this dice likes 10s...
This message was last edited by the player at 23:07, Sun 31 Jan 2016.

Nym pauses in watching the ant crawl over her hand and looks up as the fox raises his head.

"What's up, Mr Foxy?" she asks, following his gaze toward the little gathering of humanoids.

She gets to her feet, careful not to accidentally squish her insectoid "companion" in the process or brain any nearby creature with her staff. She looks over toward the others to see what's going on, but for the time being doesn't go over to investigate up close, perhaps waiting to see if it's worth looking at before she exerts any further effort in doing so. The owl, who has flown back up to the branches of a nearby tree, has turned her unblinking-and-probably-therefore-slightly-creepy gaze on the strange fey.

Perception for "wtf is happening"...hmm, 13. Insight for "whatever is happening to that bloke, does he look like he knows about it or wants it to happen"...18. Arcana for "if some weird magical thing is happening, do I jhave any clue about it"...20.

Lol, maybe you can see why I wanted to know if you were staying out or not Nym... didn't really want to start anything interesting elsewhere when I knew without you there things would get...umm....happening-y....over by the fey...

As with many consequences in this game, it's neither altogether bad nor altogether good...

[Secret to Nym:
While 'Mr Foxy' didn't answer, Nym could see a few things for herself, as confusing as it all looked. There seemed to be ropes around the fey jerking around, though why they weren't done up was silly, if Meri had wanted to capture him and stop the fey moving around.

It was hard to see exactly what the jerking fey thought, he did seem to be in pain, and also seemed to try to turn to Meri and Celindara - as if to ask for help, or perhaps to accuse them of something.

What was happening though, it didn't seem to be externally magical. Not only did neither of the two by the fey seem to be wiggling their fingers or staves theatrically, but more importantly there just wasn't that feel of magic in the air.

To save time and as you have good Nature, rather than get you to roll I'll just add that it looks more like someone being poisoned. Indeed, having been poisoned twice by them recently in succession, it would be an obvious guess. Correct? Who knows, but a logical leap to make :) ]

Celindara looked shocked at what was happening. "I don't...is it poison? Oh, look at his face. Did he eat poison? Did I shake loose some poison they had ready in case they were captured?"

The fey's cheek was indeed blackening. [Secret to Meri: And to Meri's linked mind the fey was definitively looking to Celindara as the cause, not showing any signs that the claim of poisoning itself were true.

Because you rolled good arcana before and because of the mind link, I'll give you this one....even a 23 shouldn't have been good enough to get this confirmation:)

The two simultaneous 'understandings' of Celindara's words continued, but some suspicion made sense. It was like Celindara was under a magical compulsion. Subconsciously she was fighting it or trying to be herself, but it was forcing her to do something - or as it seemed, think on something. It was why she had been so distracted. She did not seem to be lying about having no clue why the fey was suddenly spasming, the compulsion just seemed to want her to not care about it, nor Blace, nor anything else around and to instead focus elsewhere. Whereas, of course, her conscious mid couldn#t help but care about it all.

What/who was compelling her, or why, or how, and when it started...all those were simply not apparent. At least Meri had been warned by the expanded potion!

Heh, so there you go... ]

OOC: Hmm, does that poison look like something curable?  Rolled 22 (11 + 11) for a Heal check.  (I think it was going to roll a 10, but landed upside down, hehe)

Lol, you need to chisel a '2' from the '1' on that 10 :) It will also make it lighter so it lands face up :p

[Private to Meri: If it is poison, you need to know roughly what it is to have a hope of curing it. That would involve actually looking at his mouth and face. Also, the easiest way to counter something so virulent would of course be to burn/remove the ara - but it being part of his head makes that much harder if not impossible, annoyingly!

I'll let the check carry if you want to investigate him further. You are welcome to reroll after new facts emerge - though the general needs to Heal a poison like this won't change - but I will take the new roll whether higher or lower :)]

OOC: Well the 11 is directly opposite the 10 on that die, so if I can keep confusing it into landing upside-down, I can improve most of my rolls by 1 :)


"Someone or something is compelling you, meddling with your thoughts and making you do what they want.  You need to fight it off" said Meri, looking to Celindara.

Moving closer to the Fey, she reached out a hand to hold him down, trying to closely examine the area where the toxin was taking effect.


OOC: Taking a closer look.  Trying to touch him on areas covered by clothing rather than skin (and hoping those shiny new gloves keep anything off my hands, just in case).

[Private to The Altweaver: Not sure if I can also gain some understanding of the poison's precise effects by sensing over the mental link?  At least he should know of Meri's intent of trying to figure out what's wrong to heal him, if he's still linked with her like that.]

Lol, fair enough :)


[Private to Meri: The potion is still an augmented version of feyspeak, so getting him to actually speak to you will help far better than relying on magical sensing of his non-vocal cues. Especailly since most of those are screaming 'OOOW!']

Nym takes a few steps closer but continues to hang back as she doesn't seem to really have much of a clue what's going on.

"Ooh, he doesn't look very well." she says. "What's the matter? Did you eat something bad? Or did a little buggy bite you or something?"

Well, I have plenty of ways to destroy people and very few which might heal anyone, and nothing which could cure poison so I think I'll just stay back and let Meri deal with it, her being the healer and all ;).

OOC: Assuming the healer has much of a clue what it is either...


Meri frowned and shook her head, glancing back briefly at Celindara then focusing her attention on the Fey again.
"Hey, look at me.  Concentrate on what I'm saying.  Do you recognise the poison?  I can try to help you, but I need to know what it is, what it's doing to you, how it's working..."

Yeah, maybe I've told Meri in private to burn it all to the ground and kill everyone, which would definitely be in Nym's wheelhouse. Also just because I haven't made you roll Nature yet regarding what's happening, doesn't mean it wouldn't be something you could do!

"What?" said Celindara angrily to Meri, "well that's clearly not true at all. I have have important things on my mind, and I can't be doing with all this distraction!"

[Private to Meri: Unfortunately you don't get the dual mental shift. It seems of course the compulsion is happy for Celindara to be angry, and Celindara seems to get genuinely angry at the accusation that she could be compelled :)]

Meri struggled to look at his face and visible skin while not getting her hand too close to the area itself. The fey still thrashed and grunted quietly in pain, but managed to mumble out a few harsh sylvn words. [Secret to Meri: "The black gift....But not for me. Not a gift. It will take, not give."

Knowledge. Somehow Meri understood the 'give and take' was knowledge. 'Not for me' brought about the same feelings of this fey not being as devout or wanted as the other two - too new to the quest, a newer recruit. The understanding of the black gift was harder, but brought a mental image of The Physal again. The black crystals, so dead, had seemed wrong. Had something infected The Phystal and his magic then?

Not a poison, the fey seemed to be making the word 'gift' mean something different. It felt like a disease, or a virus. And something, somehow, alive...

It was perhaps very wise Meri had not touched the skin. The black area of skin now just seemed like dead, parched flesh, his cheek sunken and hollow making his words slur. But there was movement under the skin, and slowly down his neck and up his temple there were black tendrils following the path of his veins. His left eyes seemed to be darkening and glistening...]

Nym saunters a little closer, peering over at the Fey, then looking at Meri and Celindara.

"Well, all sorts of things happening here!" she says. "Can you make that man get better? He really doesn't look very well..."

Lol okay, I'll roll Nature as well, then, to see if Nym has any random flashes of inspiration in that area...ooh, she may well do, as I just scored 26 :).

Lol, the inspiration will no doubt end up being 'Burn it with fire and kill it' I tell you :)

[Private to Nym: The fey's face was a blackened mess on one side, as if something was on or under his skin - it was hard to want to tell.

There were also little tendril of black going along the path of his veins. It was like some odd, icky parasite. Usually with those you had to kill the body then pull out the horrid feelers.

Told you didn't I :p]

OOC: Okies, running another Heal check to see if I can figure out how to cure that.  Then maybe try and slap some sense into Celindara!  21 (10 + 11) - 10 again???  That die is creeping me out a little now!

Unfortunately my "epic post" mind fuel just got used up over on Rebirth, where Swift appears to have found her moment of destiny :)  (Probably just before she gets brutally murdered in the boss fight!)

Nym walks the rest of the way toward the little group, squinting as she peers more closely at the fey-man's face.

"Ewww, I think he's got an icky wriggly bug-thingy in his face..." she says, her deer-like nose wrinkling and her ears twisting around in distaste. "Can you splat it and then pull all the bits out?"

10 of us, 10 of us, 10 of us, 11 of us!

[Private to Meri: Oddly, Nym's comments as if the thing is some sort of parasite or bug might not be a bad idea. It seemed ot be virulent, perhaps intelligent, and invasive. Maybe treating it like an actual creature rather than a poison or even disease may be better.

Of course, for the two middling Heal checks I can't give you any brillaint ideas here. Really fire, acid, cutting the infected area seems the barbariac yet effective way to swiftly disinfect the area. Obviously skill and maybe magic might be needed to ensure the fey does not die doing it!


Certainly you're running out of options here - scary black thingie!]
This message was last updated by the player at 18:32, Tue 02 Feb 2016.

OOC: Ok, REALLY got no idea how to deal with that without cutting a hole in his head!  Maybe zapping him and hoping that kills it but not him?

Really, maybe the collateral damage of experimentation here is fine to ensure Celindara doens't suffer a similar fate.

Personally I'd just pour a vat of acid on his head and be done with it :)

I'd certainly let either of you use a power if you describe the application of it well enough, but I will have you roll damage and if it is greater than his negative bloodied value it will kill him.

You also have the fire power from the forgemaster's gloves, vials of acid, and I forget what other powders and potions. Feel free to experient! Actually, especially with those powders, as the are very easy to apply only where you want them to be applied, and both allow you have non-damaging results if you knock a target to 0hp :) Sure, madness or terrible scarring, but still..not ...whatever this black stuff is doing....

Um...I think I'll let Meri do the "try to roll low damage so you don't kill the guy" thing :D. Let's hope the earlier OOC slaad discussion hasn't leaked through into the game already :O.

OOC: Well would probably need something more like a Cleric class to cure weird parasitic stuff like this.  Meri's occasional alchemical meddling is probably the closest she ever gets to being a proper healer.
Still, she might know enough to stabilise this guy and pull him back from the brink if I just give him a little jolt...  Just a little one...


Meri frowned and shook her head.
"Ok, if you're still sensing my intent, you probably won't like this one little bit.  But, right now, it's for your own good.  Sorry!"

In a rapid movement, she jabbed at one of the smaller crystals on her staff and pressed the glowing crystal shard tip against the centre of the blackening patch of skin on the Fey's face.
A moment later, a sudden crack of discharging energy echoed across the clearing...


OOC: Dunno if this counts as an actual "attack", so do I still need an attack roll?
Used Static Shock.  Damage roll: 7 (2 + 5)  Low, but owie!

Lol, who knows what is happening Nym! :p Oh,and it might not have been totally visible and obvious to either of you (or maybe it was), but your rolls and recommendations boosted Meri's own rolls and options given.


And nice low roll Meri!


The fey jerked backwards in agony as Meri's shock wracked his body, but it seemed mostly the black ugly stain that actually took the damage. The skin at the edges blackened, but part of the 'mass' of his cheeck wriggled in a way that no longer fully seemed like real skin and bone. Part of it steamed away to nothing, and a healthier gap was visible with a ring of black and the partially retreated tendrils still around.

What was stranger was that Celindara suddenly called out. "This? But it cannot be!" she said, her voice far clearer and stronger than before. However, her reaction was to look in horror to her right hand, and despite the pain in her left she drew her blade.

[Private to Meri: Meri, you can tell definitively she is about to shop that hand clean off! ][Private to Nym: Nym, umm, you possibly don't need a high passive insight to spot Celindara might be about to do something to her hand, but I'm giving you the result anyway :p]

Ok, so the blast iss having an effect. I didn't suggest healing magic or potions before because they wouldn't have worked, but now you've got the thing on the defensive and wounded, you can heal him before trying again. Or try something different.

Of course, now you've got Celindara going mad...or too sane..or something. It's combat timing-ish, so try not to do two standard actions, but you can move and do a 'minor' and still do a single big action.

Also, roll me an acrobatics check if you are going to try to get to Celindara in time, on top of whatever check you make for anything you are going to try. Assuming you try anything :D

Edit: Oops, hitting 'post' helps you guys see the post!

Flipping the staff around, she jabbed at one of the blue crystals on it, sending one of her healing infusions into the Fey's body.

Glancing around at Celindara, her expression shifted quickly to horror and then anger.
"What in the nine hells are you doing?  I'm trying to figure out how to cure this thing!"
In a quick movement, she leaped over to try to grab at Celindara's sword hand...


OOC: Using a minor to heal the Fey for now (Whatever his healing surge value is + 4).  Also making a move to try and stop Celindara.
Acrobatics check: 9 (7 + 2) - Ok, not good...

(Tempted to knock her out for now since she seems to have completely lost it and is also now distracting Meri from trying to figure out how to kill this thing!
People never learn that distracting Meri from her work tends to result in painful injury!  Though might let it go this time since she seems to be working on that part herself...)

"Wait, what?" says Nym, somewhat confused as Celindara seems about to turn her own sword on herself. "Noooo, no choppy!"

Even as Meri makes a move, Nym also steps close to Celindara, reaching for her sword hand and trying to disarm her.

Okay, so presumably Celindara didn't mean to cast "ugly toxic-bug-parasite-thingy" on that guy's face and thinks shes' got one in her hand or something. Either way I'll try and stop her doing anything too, err, abrupt. I tried to think of a magical way to do this as that would be Nym's first thought, but my first idea is somewhat beyond the bounds of what Prestidigitation can do and everything else involves violence so I'll just go with trying to sort of...dextrously flick the sword out of her hands or something. So Acrobatics for getting near to her first of all...15. And then I'm guessing...Thievery? That's the skill for doing sleight-of-hand stuff, I believe. I want to either move her fingers about so she drops the sword or it gets flicked away, or manoeuvre my hand so I manage to tweak it out of her hand end up with it myself. Thievery result...ooh, a nice and respectable 25 :).

The fey glared at Meri then flinched as a new blast hit him, he seemed almost confused when there was no pain just relief with the next 'attack'. He settled on curling up, recovering from the previous pain.

Meri was slower because of this, the only reaction her words illicited was Celindara's determined yell of "You cannot!" as she raised the blade.

It was then that a deer shaped robed figure managed to do ... something... complicated... that resulted in Celindara staggering backwards still with a hand, and without a blade. She blinked and looked towards her left hand. "Ow," she said, clearly feeling the pain of trying to use the injured arm so vigorously. She then looked to her right hand and wiggled it, seemingly unconcerned about it now, in fact she seemed amused by it.

Lol Nym, feel free to write yourself what the dexterous thing actually is. I'm also more than happy for it to be just some blur of something, because that's also a funny mental image to think of the confusion afterwards :)

She looked to Meri then NYm with a small giggle. "Well that was silly," she said in a more reasonable tone of voice. She looked to Nym. "Thank you for stopping me." She looked back to Meri. "You're right, I was under some compulsion just then. But I'm all better now. Such a funny thought to have. I like my hands! Still, maybe I should go check on what I was thinking about before, just to be sure." She looked to the fey on the ground. "You seem to have things in hand. Good luck!"

So saying, she turned and started walking away. The deer that had been skittish still behind her tried to block her, and with a small confused laugh Celindara tried to dance around it. "Hah, in hand!" she laughed to herself as she tried to leave.

See, everything is fine, well done, nothing to worry about... good hustle people!

Meanwhile, the fey ground his face in to the dirt with a groan as he tried to roll on to his hands and knees, and started scrambling along the ground in the opposite direction, as if to escape...

Meri, out of interest and for no reason, what did you do with the Fey's possessions like the small dagger and short sword? Carry them or leave them lying on the ground? No reason of course...
This message was last edited by the player at 21:41, Wed 03 Feb 2016.

OOC: Would have left them on the ground some way away from him behind Meri.  Got too much stuff to keep track of as it is.
If Nym had died in that last fight, I'd now be assuming Celindara had become possessed by her spirit, hehe.

Anyways, trying a Nature check to see if I can figure out just what the heck this thing is, since I assume I got close enough to have a look at the hand Celindara was trying to chop off there.
Oh FFS, 10 again!!!  16 (10 + 6)  (O.o)'

Oh well, as long as Meri put then a decent distance away then nothing bad can happen :p

[Private to Meri: Meri will have just enough knowledge of Nature to understand that this thing is not natural. Whetever it is - disease, parasite, infestation, poison - it has been manufactured for some reason, and by someone or something.

And yes, having a high passive perception and making the effort to get close to Celindara will indeed net you seeing her right hand. The palm was as blackened as the fey's face, except there did not seem to be any deterioration like the fey's face, but there was the hint of tendrils and colouring under the skin.

See, everything is fine!

Edit: Oh yeah, and you can feel the edges of Celindara's intentions - without any dispute in her mind she's wanting to go see 'the heart' the fey mentioned to her.

And yes, the fey is making for his abandoned weapons with malicious intent in mind for Meri and Nym.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:06, Wed 03 Feb 2016.

Yeah, I don't expect even Nym really knows what she did just then - just some weird dextrous manoeuvre with her free hand (I've remembered Nym is stil carrying her staff) which meant that she ended up with the sword but without doing Celindara any harm (twisting her wrist painfully or anything like that). Yay for being a Dex class even if it's not a Rogue for once :D.
Anyway, I don't think that guy is gonna be able to do very much even if he does get his hands on his weapons...unless he's not planning on using them on any of us...

Nym stares at the sword in her hands with some level of confusion, as though unexpectedly finding herself with something she doesn't really know what to do with. Though that's probably near enough what's just happened.

"Um..." she starts to say as Celindara turns to go. "What were you thinking about before? Wait, don't you want this back?"

She waves the sword in Celindara's direction, then hesitates.

"Or are you going to try and chop bits off yourself again? That's probably not something you should be doing..."

She starts to follow the dryad, staff waving randomly in one hand, sword in the other.

"Did something get inside your head or something? Is it making you do things you wouldn't normally do? That doesn't sound very nice. But how would you know if something was making you do weird things if it was messing with your head to make you not realise that it was in your head making you do weird things?"

She pauses, both physically and verbally, as she apparently tries to work out what she just said and determine whether it makes sense. Half a moment later, she eitehr succeeds at this or just gives up, and continues after Celindara.

"What would you normally be doing at a time like this?" she asks. "Is this right? What about the elfy-person? Didn't you want to ask him about something? Does your deer friend...hee hee...deer friend...dear friend! Deer friend. Does your deer friend want to tell you something? He seems like he's trying to stop you. Sorry, she. The male ones have the branchy things, don't they? Hey, deery-deer, is something wrong?"

"Manufactured parasite or something similar" muttered Meri.  "Seems like someone out there is too much of a spineless gaa'taat to come over here and do their own dirty work."

She glanced around at the Fey, her expression only growing angrier.
"And if you can still see my intent, you'll know I was trying hard not to kill you just now, hence why I healed you afterwards.  I don't want you dead, you fool.  But keep heading for those weapons and I might decide you're more trouble than you're worth right now!"

Raising her staff, she pointed it towards him, crackling energy beginning to arc along the staff and wreath itself around her.
"Your choice.  Make it now, I'm in a hurry!"


OOC: Readying Thundering Armour attack and will definitely use it if he grabs for any of those weapons...

Also if anyone is curious, "gaa'taat" is a Dhakaani word that means...  something really not very polite to whoever it's aimed at!

[Private to The Altweaver: Intent will likely show Meri only really kept him alive because she wasn't fully aware of his relationship with Goodwin (and didn't want to go killing what might be his brother or something for all she knows), and also because she'd originally planned on asking if he knew where Blace was, something that's been over-ruled by the current situation.
Her feelings of not knowing exactly what's going on in what seems to be a time-sensitive crisis is only making her extremely irritable.

So that and the probably visible signs of charging up magic on her most likely indicates a definite possibility she's not bluffing there.  Removing a possible threat from getting in her way will likely take precedence over saving his life (something that she did actually want to do to start with).]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:30, Wed 03 Feb 2016.

"Oh no, that compulsion has gone, don't worry," said Celindara lightly to Nym regarding the chopping off of hands, and waving away the sword in Nym's hand. "I was thinking about the heart of the forest, the fey aren't supposed to know about it, not if they're going to be so beastlky about things. You should come with me and see it! I shoulod really go see it, just to make sure it is still protected."

Celindara considered the matter of compulsions. "Well, I suppose they'd make me do things I wouldn't normally do. And you'd spot it was something you wouldn't normally do, wouldn't you? I suppose your friend was right, I'm not sure why I was so worried about Blace or the fey themselves if there might be a problem with the heart. I'm sure it's all fine, in fct I know it is, but I should go check on it anyway."

Celindara laughed about the 'deer/dear' friend, though still couldn't quite get around the doe. "Well, about this time given what the fey said about the heart, I should check on the heart. It seems odd to do anything else." She gave another false walk around to be blocked again.

"Well, this is bothersome." She looked to Nym. "Could you just...try to entertain her or something. You look similar, I am sure she'll be friendly to you. And then you can catch up later and I can show you the heart of the forest, when I know its safe." Celindara smiled encouragingly at Nym.

Seems a perfectly reasonable request :p


Meanwhile, over with Meri the fey hesitated for a moment. However, Meri could feel the intent of the elf. He was still in his 'better dead than disgraced' mood, assuming the quest had failed with the death of the others. The hesitation passed...

However, before the fey could move again, and Meri deliver a devistating attack, Many bobbed in the way - blocking the fey from the weapons but also getting in the way of Meri's clean shot.

"Nyoh! Nyoh! Nyoh!" he kept saying. He was poking an eyestalk at the fey, as it happened his 'make friends' eyestalk. His 'nyoh's got more desperate as the fey was unaffected and tried to swat the little beholder away, trying ot move through himto get to the weapons. After a closer swat, Many used his 'lift things' eye instead, - apparently delivering a telekenetic 'slap' to the fey's wounded cheek.

The fey grunted and staggered at the pain for a moment, and Many gave a final, "nyoh!" with his 'make friends' eyestalk.

This time the fey slumped then stood up, with drooping shoulders and a blank expression. He looked around left and right and then simply stood still. Meri suddenly felty a compplete lack of any intention from the fey.

Many looked to Meri with a speculative smile, as if hoping to be congratualted but afraid he might be yelled at.


Lol, since you went to all the effort of saving him, I thought it was maybe poor form for you to be forced to blast him. It doesn't seem like you're going to be able to turn him like Crass or Gobbat - or at least certainly not as 'easily' -  but at least he's still around as an information source for later :D

Meri blinked in surprise for a moment then lowered her staff.  The crackling energy around her slowly faded away until it fizzled out completely, disappearing with a small shower of sparks.

Cautiously she approached the Fey, looking him over and checking on the injury to his cheek to see if the parasite or disease or whatever she was dealing with had survived.

Then she looked towards Many, reaching out a hand and stroking him gently.
"You really are better..." she said quietly with a smile.

Picking up the discarded weapons, she glanced back at Celindara and then to Many again, lowering her voice to a whisper.
"Careful around her.  Whatever this thing is, I think it manipulates them to do what someone else wants."

With that, she examined the Fey again.
"If you're still in control of him, can you make him tell me if he knows what happened to Blace and where she is?" she asked, looking back at Many.


OOC: Not too sure if Many actually controls him and can make him do that, or if the Fey has just given up for now, but thought I'd ask anyway.
Also, yep, she thinks he did a nice job there.  Yay! :)
Do I need another Heal check to see if that whatever-it-is is still alive and spreading?

[Private to The Altweaver: Pretty much exactly what she meant before about using that manipulation power to save someone from being killed, though maybe not quite the situation she imagined, hehe :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 12:53, Thu 04 Feb 2016.

"Heart of the forest?" says Nym. "That sounds important. Um...what if there's something nasty in you, like that icky bug thing was in that guy over there..."

She gestures vaguely toward the fey.

"What if it wants you to go to this heart thingy, so it can...do things to it? Maybe you should wait until we're really, really sure that all the bad stuff is definitely gone..."

Insight to see if Celindara seems like she's properly herself - I know I don't really know her that well, but maybe I can still tell if something seems...off. Got 22 :).
Also, Arcana to detect nearby magic to see if there's anything dodgy in the area, or at least specifically on Celindara if I can't widen my magic-sense too far...she should presumably only "feel" like her own magic and if there's some kind of parasite in her or she's being affected by some kind of spell, maybe I'll be able to notice it? That's the theory anyway...hmm, 18.

The ugly black wound on the fey's face was still there, though perhaps Meri's previous shock burst had weakened it aswell as damaged it. There seemed to be a perceptible pulsation to the cheek that had nothing to do with the fey's breathing though.

No Heal check needed, you've given yourself breathing room with the 'black gift' but it will still need some final assault. Still, while the fey is pacified you can kill the thing at your relative leisure, just note that doing so is very likely to break Many's hold of the fey. For the fey since you've used a limited healing resource, I'll let a static shock deal with him, and I think you've cushioned him well enough not to kill him with another blast. Still roll for damage if you decide to do it, because he might just fall unconscious :) [Private to Meri: For Celindara...you know, if you suspect she has the same thing, I mean she could just have grubby hands...I'll need a similar level of initial resource used up if you get the opportunity. So like a potion, daily power, etc rather than just constant at will attacks :)]

Many looks ecstatically happy and pleased with himself at Meri's praise, bouncing around a little. He then adopted a serious face - especially after the warning on Celindara - as he tried to help further. "Heh elf-eh mah-neh, whah-teh ah-bouh-teh ny-ah-see wooh-mah-neh Blah-see?" The fey said nothing, and Many looked discouraged, about to start again.

Although, of course, Meri might realise that Many actually has no way to speak to the fey, given you proved earlier he didn't understand common. Still, the rat friend from a few days ago seemed to happily follow Many around, so presumably the fey might answer Many's questions honestly. If the ray 'made friends', it sounded like a charm or compulsion effect, which usually allowed for such things. So maybe if Meri translated?
[Private to Meri:
And yes, I love that without conscious thought I managed to have Meri's previous comments paid off! Imagine the world where Many instead just death rayed the guy and laughed maniacally :p]


Meanwhile, Celindara reacted to Nym's questions. Unfortunately, it was a quick anger that seemed to have come out of nowhere, disproportionate to Nym's reasonable arguments. "Me? Infected with anything? Why would you say that? You sound just like that fey, taunting me about the heart of the forest, except you're trying to stop me going there. Why woulnd't I go right now? Of course I'm healthy! Do you really think I would risk my sisters' memories and the safety of the forest."

She then looked angrily to the doe that was still trying to block her way. "And get this...creature...away from me!" she yelled. For a moment she looked shocked with herself, but then her doubts just disappeared, as if somehow reassured that she was correct in being annoyed.

Again, perfectly reasonable reactions here. It's all good :p

[Private to Nym: That's the good thing about high skills, isn't it, even if you don't get high dice rolls, the results still aren't terrible in and of themselves :) Anyway, while Nym doesn't know Celindara well, the last outburst is certainly out of character for what she's seen. Nym would have noticed the shock, and of course when they first met, Celindara seemed to be make it clear that these creatures were a representation of the forest she served. So not heeding a warning or unease from them seems...very odd.

Nym won't be able to feel any magic in the area, so of course unless it's too subtle to detect, there can't be anything external happening that's being directed towatds Celindara or radiating off of her. So maybe it is something parasite-y, or maybe more like the Nature magic that Meri and Nym had to try and repair with Goodwin not too long ago.

And to save you rolling again, I'll just say that if you're paying this much attention to Celindara, your passive perception will notice her right hand does look a little blacker than the left...]

Meri eyed the Fey for a moment, then glanced over at Many.
"I think I need to translate" she said quietly.  Looking back at the Fey, she did her best to translate Many's manner of speech into Elven.

OOC: How long have I got left on that potion by the way?

"My friend here asked if you've seen a woman named Blace recently.  She would have been carrying this stick before I found it.  Do you know where she is now?"
She gestured back at Goodwin as she spoke.


OOC: Also trying an Arcana roll to see if this "Black Gift" thing is something natural or magically created for a specific purpose, such as controlling people or making them act according to someone else's plan.  23 (10 + 13) - Ok, how many 10s is that?  This thing is actually starting to scare me now!

Seems like if someone wanted to destroy the forest for whatever reason, infecting its last remaining guardian and getting them to do it would be the ideal way.
Meri appreciates good strategy (even if she does plan on killing whoever is behind it if she happens to find them!)

EDIT: Also, how close are we to the nearest sturdy looking tree?  (You may be able to guess why I ask!)  ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:23, Thu 04 Feb 2016.

Nym strolls around Celindara, conveniently managing to stop righ tin front of her and block her path alongside the deer.

"Aaw, you're not being very nice to your poor deer...hehe...dear...friend. She's just trying to help you. You're friends with all the things that live here, right?" she says. "So if a friend is trying to tell you something, you should listen to them, even if you don't think they're right, because maybe they can see something you can't. And the point of a friend is that you can trust them. So you should do that even if you think they're wrong."

She looks at Celindara, her eyes flitting quickly over the dryad. She points toward Celindara's hands.

"Eww, look. That doesn't look right." she says. "Unless one of your hands is supposed to be a bit more black and icky-looking than the other one? I think maybe you should have a look at it and umm...we probably need to do something...and you'd better not touch anyone in case it makes them go all black and icky too. Imagine if you touched any important bits of the forest with that. They would go all icky! And if it was a tree, all the trees are sort of linked together, aren't they, because underground all their roots must be all tangled up and stuff. So the icky black stuff would spread aaalll the way along aaalll of them. Ew."

Will continue to conveniently be standing in front of Celindara, assisting the deer in getting in her way whilst still staying out of reach in case she decides that trying to push or grab me is suddenly a good idea...

@Nym: That's an interesting combination of things you are trying without a skill check :p Decide which is more important to you, then roll me Acrobatics or Bluff or something for the other (your choice the skill, there might be a narrative difference, and I'll need some justification for Bluff or something else).

So presumably you'd want to stay out of harm's way, and will just be rolling success in blocking her path. You can instead ensure you block her path, but will need to roll to stay out of harm's way if Celindara continues being angry...


Meri spoke to the fey, but her voice sounded a little odd, and there was an odd feeling in her brain. It was the real effect she'd except from a speaking potion with the language slowly slipping in to her consciousness. That of course meant the enhanced part of the potion might be about to wear off any moment. [Secret to Meri: There was indeed a lag in the reactions she was getting, but it was hard to know if that was Many's magic or not...]

The fey looked to Meri slack jawed. "Blackwood," he said simply. [Secret to Meri: Meri could feel, but as if though a mental fog, this wasn't facicious. He simply meant Blace was either in the forest or in the village. There was also a tinge to it, either he didn't care about her, or he did not fear for her safety. Which was odd, as there was no feeling behind the words that he knew because he had seen her or actually knew where she was. There was just some odd sureness that he wasn't wrong. Of course, that might just mean he knew The Phystal wished Blace no harm, or had not been in a position to harm her. The mysterious figure they had seen earlier of course... who had that been... might be something not factored in. Even Alynn herself might have turned on Blace. This fey may not know or know of either of them.]


The potions's feyspeak lasts for 5 minutes, but I was planning on having the 'full understanding' wear off very soon, so may as well start that process now rather than just have it stop all of a sudden. So you have a few minutes of speaking to him, but maybe a few rounds of conversation left before losing the understanding part.

Oops, sorry, you are right beside a copse of sturdy trees! No real effort needed if Many will do the honours of gesturing towards them or bobbing over there :)

[Private to Meri: As for the 'black gift', oddly if something was just a virus to get everything, then why would the fey not think it was meant for him, or would not help him complete the mission? Indeed, if this thing was supposed to infect Celindara, why had The Phystal been so coy and not come at her directly. Why was Goodwin's mission to steal Celindara's voice, not just distract Celindara so she could be infected nor delivery the substance to her directly. It seems very odd. The infection tactics really did seem the better and sneakier tactic, so this felt just off.

The phrase 'gift' just seems to imply something for a specific person or set of people, and the fact the substance seems unnaturally manufactured just adds to that feeling. ]

Oh yes, skill rolls would help, lol. Okay, so how about Acrobatics for staying in front of her whilst staying out of reach, and Diplomacy for trying ot persuade her to calm down a bit and think about her situation and look at her dodgy hand and stuff...Acrobatics roll is 15, Diplomacy 24 :).

"Hmmm, well, I suppose that's a start" muttered Meri to herself.
She glanced towards Many, lowering her voice and speaking in Common this time.
"Can you get him to go over to the trees and stand against one?  Need to secure him better so I can try and remove that parasite thing from him."

OOC: So yep, will lead him over to the trees and undo the rope from his hands and then quickly use it to bind him to the tree by tying it around his body and arms and around the trunk.
Not sure if I need a roll for that.  I know some of these manipulation abilities tend to give the victim a chance to break free if they think you're doing something that might be a threat to them.

If all goes to plan...

Meri switched back to Elven, speaking to the Fey again.
"So this...  'Black Gift'...  Do you remember who gave it to you?  And where they might be now?"
She glanced back at Celindara for a moment as she spoke.

"Oh cour-seh!" says Many happily to Meri's request, and gives a 'shoo' gesture to the fey over to the trees. When the fey just gives Many a blank look, Many is momentarily embarrassed. He gives smaller conspiritorial and encouraging waves across to the fey, which meet with similar blank stares. While giving an 'everything is fine' wane smile to Meri, he gives even more insistent and smaller 'you're embarrassing me' sets of gestures to the fey that the fey raises an eyebrow slowly at but otherwise does nothing about. Finally, Many actually bobs ahead of the fey, and starts making towards the trees himself, looking back and giving exagerated 'oooh' noises and other indications of excitement about the trees and how cool it would be to be over there. The fey finally follows his 'friend' and Many gives a 'whew' of relief. A completly over the top 'see, no problems' set of vigourous head nods is given to Meri, and then Many happily bobs and weaves his new 'friend' over to the trees. He even gives a quick, excited "loo-keh, loo-keh" call over to Celindara and especially Nym to see what he's managed to do, perhaps still not quite sure exactly why Nym and Meri are so worried about the dryad.

Despite any concerns regarding the connection Many has, it appears that as long as the fey is not in any danger, nor being asked to put himself in danger, the link stays strong. [Secret to Meri: And even as the intention effect fades, Meri's last thoughts were certainly not of killing the fey, quite the reverse, so he stays put. Meri can feel the knowledge of fey language becoming stronger in her head even as the intention effect finally bleeds off. ]

Yeah, you can give me another thievery check for this, but with a +5 bonus for a more solid anchor and also for a more willing participant! :D

"The dryad," he says to Meri, gesturing across with a lazy head roll to Celindara.

Oh my goodness! The shock! Who knew! Umm, everyone by this point I think. :) Still, nice to have confirmation isn't it, since sometimes I don't make these things as straightforward as they appear!

Celindara's face flashes anger again, and the set of her jaw and flaring of her eyes are suddenly not so friendly. Rather than the airy figure a moment before, The Dryad - the witch of the woods that terrified the Blackwood Village - is standing there. It is suddenly easy to think about the power of centuries must possess, After all, there was a reason she was the last of her kind still standing in the war she spoke of...

And then the moment passes and her face breaks to a confused look and then a small understanding smile. "Oh, you're just worried about me going out alone!" she says to the deer. "You are a dear friend," she says, giggling happily to them both as if she hadn't been about to threaten them a moment before. "It's alright, I'll go with both of my new friends, and I won't leave you behind. Was that all it was?"

She looks across to Meri, with perhaps a small flash of impatience, tapping her foot. She seems to not have heard Nym's other comments for a moment, slowly turning back to her. "Sorry, what? My hand?" Celindara lifts the blackened hand up and turns it left and right. "See, nothing wrong there," she says, barely looking at it. [Secret to Nym: Nym can now see quite clearly how dark that hand is...and worse, the blackness is now passed the wrist, and surely it wasn't like that before?]

"See, we're all good now," says Celindara, reaching that hand out for the doe despite Nym's warning. The doe shies away, and without missing a beat and with barely more than a flicker of puzzlement Celindara uses her left hand to stroke the deer's head.

Ddin't need for you to roll both, but very good Diplomacy, so she's calmed down a little. Your acrobatics is only good enough not to be in harm's way right now, but that's still good enough. However, I've made it that Celindara has of course now got the doe in striking distance, which might be bad if things go badly. Who can say!

[Secret to Nym: Nym then noticed a small amount of movement by Celindara's foot. It seemed the fox had stirred, and without notice had undone some straps on the boots the dryad had put on from the boat. He looked to Nym, and blinked once in some oddly deliberate way, as if he would have winked if he could. He then began the far more delicate and complicated task of using his snout, mouth and paws to start folding one tie across the other...as if to eventually tie the two sides of the boots' straps together...

So maybe you'll need to do that pulling focus thing Nym does so well while the fox tries to ensure Celindara can't get away easily, or of course if Nym is subtle enough herself then she could try to help with Prestidigition :)

Obviously Diplomacy or Bluff to draw attention - depending upon if you're still trying to get Celindara to see sense, or just pulling focus. And if you're going to try anything to help, I'll need Bluff if you haven't rolled it, and Arcana for any magical attempt itself to see how well you do it under less than ideal conditions! :)]

Nym barely glances downward at the fox but she suddenly sems to brighten.

"Nooo, no no, you didn't look properly." she chides the dryad. "Look, see..."

She holds up both her hands, despite the fact that they're still clutching her staff and Celindara's sword, and slowly twists them horizontally so that the things she's holding remain vertical rather than waving around and possibly hitting someone.

"See, my hands are both the same." she says, suddenly acting as though the two of them are playing a game. "Both the same colour. Now it's your turn. Hold up both your hands and we can both look at them and see if they're the same. And you're not allowed to do it all quickly, you have to be slow and hold them up and we both have to decide if they look the same. And you're not allowed to put them down again until we've both agreed the same thing. Right? Now come on, let's both have a look and see what we think..."

So I suppose this counts as the "pulling focus" thing, as I'm trying to not only get Celindara to actually properly look at herself, but also not to look downward and possibly notice the fox. Does this count as Diplomacy and Bluff, therefore? If it does, Bluff roll 19, Diplomacy 13. Hmm, could've rolled those a bit better (base rolls 7 and 5) :(.

OOC: Thievery roll: 23 (9 + 9 + 5)


Meri finished tying the last knot in the rope and stepped back.
She glanced once more in Celindara's direction, a distinctly wary look on her face now, then turned and whispered to Many.
"Ok, stay back for now, I need to get that thing out of him, and he's probably not going to react too well.  As for Celindara...  I don't know what to do with her, best take this one step at a time."

Reaching into a pocket, she pulled out the thin knife taken from the Fey and edged closer before quickly moving in and gripping his head, trying to hold him still while cutting the thing out...


OOC: Ouch!
Dunno if it'll help, but rolling Heal to try and avoid doing too much damage.  Aiming more for surgical precision than hack-n-slash here.  30 (19 + 11) - ooo, good one :)  Must be all that careful tinkering with small detailed artificery stuff :)
Also hoping this thing only affects bare skin rather than gloves.  Don't really fancy Nym's chances of fighting off both Meri and Celindara!  (O.o)'

30? Wow, ok, no worries anymore, this is one rescued fey and screwed black weird goopy thigie. And sure, it's tinkering with artificer stuff and not because of any history of lock picking with thin knives or perhaps nasty torture sessions or anything! :p

And sorry, I messed up with something. Remember your thievery skill gets to use your +4 int mod rather than +0 dex bonus for trap and lock related checks. That's from the arcana trapsmith feat, rather than the plain old trapsmith theme (stupid names).

I should have made it clear that as far as I'm concerned, that would include thievery checks to tie someone up. So maybe the fey shouldn't have gotten free last time (though it didn't matter in the end there) and so this time he definitely couldn't get free - thought your 23 was good enough anyway as it happened.

"Oh-kay!" whispered Many conspiratorially with Meri, and gave a few theatrical bobs backwards that would have done Nym proud. Many's eye shot open when Meri brandished the knife, and his eyestalks bobbed warily.

The fey screamed the moment Meri started cutting in to him, and scrambled at his bonds. However, they were too good, as was the setting where he was placed, and he could do nothing except eventually black out. Though he still seemed to be breathing and alive, Meri could see.

The black flesh she pulled away, and it instantly hardened and blackened to a coal like substance when removed from the fey's skin, and then dissolved to nothing. Meri was sure it wasn't in some insideous new form, it had dissolved in to nothing, whatever Natural magic had been driving it apparently needed a connection to a living host.

The tendrils under the skin did not need to be pulled out. Without the central mass of black tissue, it seemed that the tendril liquified and poured out oddly. All Meri had to do was cut some small channels to let it all out, but the fluid, too, simply pulled out as if on some form of instinct and then evaporated without enough mass to sustain itself.

The fey's cheek was a mess, grey dead flesh but self sealed. She cut away what she could safely, but the fey was beyond scarred there. Still, compared to death, it was surely better.


The odder reaction was with Celindara. She seemed a little irritated that Nym was banging on about hands again, but seemed to for the moment go along with it in good grace. However, when she lifted up both hands, she seemed to deliberately put her left hand far behind her right, shadowing it.

"You're being so silly, really, they look fine. I have looked. I am looking. Is this an odd game or riddle or funny trick? I#m sorry, it's been so long since I've done something like this." Despite making a show of looking and turning her hands slowly, she was clearly looking ot the shadowed left not the right one, and  when she showed Nym she adjusted the two hands again so the shadowed left was further back as a comparison.

Bluff good enough as a moderate roll to draw focus for the moment without being conclusively good, but yeah, Diplomacy not cutting it I'm afraid. You'll have to rely on the power of Roleplaying or Ideas here. Thouguh I liked getting her to look at both hands :)

However, when Meri first pulled out the dark flesh from the fey, Celindara doubled over as if she was in pain. For a moment far more clear and terrified eyes looked up to Nym. "Help," she whispered. However, the moment passed and the slightly glassy look came back to the dryad's expression. "Excuse me!" she said, putting a hand to her mouth. "I think I burped!" She giggled, then smelled the hand, but then shrugged and looked back to Nym expectantly.

The fox, meanwhile, had leapt back when Celindara had staggered, and went back to the ties again to have to start afresh.

Meri stepped back, peering at the Fey with a hint of some unidentifiable emotion.
"Sorry about that" she murmured.  "At least we saved his life.  Thanks to your help."
She glanced around to Many and smiled as she said the last part.
"Probably best to leave him there for now though.  I expect he won't be in a particularly good mood when he wakes up" she added.

Cleaning off the blade of the knife and then slipping it into her sleeve, she turned to look at Celindara again, glancing at her hands whenever she could see them.
"It seems that Blace may be back at the village" she remarked casually, stepping closer.  "I'm not so sure the Phystal attacked her at all now.  In fact there are three possible attackers I can think of.  What do you think?"


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Hmm, tempted to just try and distract her with the old faithful "Hey, what's that over there?!" trick and then attack her hand and hope I can damage the thing enough to restore her self-control before she proceeds to kick my butt all over the place...
Would Meri know anything about hamadryad resistances or abilities or that sort of thing?]

"No, no, that's not right." says Nym. "You need them both up next to each other, see?"

She holds her hands up again, next to each other.

"And we both have to agree, remember? I still think your hands look different from each other. Here, maybe if we make it a bit lighter you'll be able to see them more clearly..."

She glances briefly down at herself and her robes suddenly start glowing their usual myriad of colours, providing light once again and hopfully removing any possibility of Celindara using trickery of light to prevent herself seeing what's wrong with her.

"And you have to look at both hands. The same amount. You're not allowed to look at one more than the other. I didn't do that with my hands."

She pauses for half a moment as thuogh considering something.

"Have you never done this before?" she asks. "I'm explaining the rules. Do you want help? I can help you, if you want. Would that be good? Tell me what you want me to do..."

Hrmm, gonna roll Arcana and Nature to see if I can get any kind of info on what this thing might be and how to stop it - Nym wouldn't want to "attack" Celindara with her magic to try and destroy it. That thought wouldn't even occur to her right now. I think we may need Meri to assist but I'll see if I can get any more info to work out what this thing is and how to stop it short of doing what Celindara almost did to herself a minute or so previously...Arcana 16, Nature 12. Hmm, don't expect those will help too much. Still, maybe the "ask me for help" query will penetrate and I'll get a response - would you need a roll for that as well?

Yeah, sorry Nym, low rolls, plus you've actually rolled both Nature and Arcana already against this thing. Nature gave you the parasite like comparison that I think has served Meri well, and Arcana was a tad low but let you know it was a compulsion but not an externally originating one. Nothing really more to learn I'm afraid, you know what to do as a player even if your character wouldn't want to do it :D

I like the robe flaring up, with a better Diplomacy roll last turn I might have had that make a difference in regard to testing her. As it is, I think it will stand in for distracted Celindara from the fox at her feet instead. Since otherwise, the dryad might have noticed when Meri came over!

As Meri got closer, she could see what Nym had seen earlier. The blackening effect was beyond Celindara's hand and now on to passed Celindara's wrist. Indeed, it was starting to come up to her elbow now.

Celindara was dazzled by Nym's robes - or perhaps simply compelled to think that - and waved away the light, turning away from both it and of course looking to her hands. "No, I don't like this game. Why won't you let me win when I won? Fine, your hands look odd and I will never say anything differently." She stuck out her tongue and looked around to see what Meri was doing.

When Meri came back, Celindara gave a small clap. "See, now you have finished wit hthe fey, we can all visit the heart. I'm glad that unpleasantness is now over!" Celindara looked to Nym. "So yes, you can help me get to the heart! As before! No time for games, now!"

She looked back to Meri as if something came to mind. "Oh yes, Blace. See, back in the village, safe and sound, not attacked by The Phystal. So that's alright. So we can all go now, yes?"

She suddenly gave a hooded look, far more suspicious. "We're going now? You're not going to try and stop me and delay me now. This is important."


Nym managed to delay Celindara with talking, but I don't think the magical compulsion will really let her go.

"Hmm, no, we didn't both agree that your hands look different from each other." persists Nym. She seems a little edgy and glances over toward Meri. "Hey, Meri, look - what do you think/ Do you think Celindara's hands look different from each other? They do, don't they? How do we make them both the same again? Maybe we can...hmm..."

She brightens as she seems to get an idea, and steps swiftly out of Celindara's line of sight while the dryad is busy addressing Meri. Then she changes form again...

Suddenly it appears as though there is a second Celindara standing where the deerlike humanoid was just standing. This one is still holding the staff and the sword, but subtly places the former on the ground behind her so that she holds only the sword. Then she shifts her stance so that she's holding herself the way Celindara normally does.

"Hey, look." she sayas in Celindara's voice. "Hey, Celindara. Will you listen to yourself, maybe? There's something wrong with you. A really bad thing. Come on. Look at it and try to make it go away. Or let Meri help you get rid of it. She's good at that."

Okay, so random idea - disguise myself as Celindara and make like I'm her trying to persuade herself, or something. If she's that messed up in the head she might temporarily forget about Nym or something, and get confused. Normally to see through my disguise a person has to roll Insight versus my Bluff (the latter gets a +5 bonus). I think we'd better just do what e can to get Celindara to co-operate with us while Meri deals with the parasitic whatever-it-is...

Ooh, that's an amazing idea, let's see how Meri can capitalise on it. But yeah, Meri, you have huge leeway to capitalise on this!

If things get convoluted I might ask for that Bluff roll, but I'm not expecting to need it, and even if I do Celindara's Insight would only be 16.

OOC: ooo, very nice trick there Nym :)  Are you the Good Twin or the Evil Twin? ;)


Meri looked as though she had been about to say something else, but Nym's unexpected transformation seemed to make her pause and watch for Celindara's reaction.

She glanced back towards Many, checking that the Beholder was out of harm's way, then made a quick movement with her hand, dropping the Fey's thin knife out of her sleeve and into her grip.

Waiting for the right moment, she suddenly darted forward, making a grab for Celindara's infected hand and raising the knife.
At the same moment, a red aura flickered briefly around the glove on that hand, manifesting into a surge of fire as she struck...


OOC: This may hurt a little...

[Private to The Altweaver: Oki doki.  Using the knife + Forgemaster's Gloves fire attack (adds +4 fire damage to whatever the knife does, if you need a damage roll for them).
As before, aiming to quickly surgically remove the black goopy thing while trying to avoid cutting anything vital in there...]

Celindara went from looking suspicious and irritated to downright stunned. Whatever was compelling her was not some external malevolent force with a full will of its own, and so the 'black gift' had to use Celindara's own personality and wishes against her.

The compulsion - if it had any sentience of its own - was in a tough position. Allowing Celindara to know that this was a trick and couldn't be real was to open up the part of her mind that would start listening to Nym's other arguments before. And yet allowing this confrontation to continue was equally dangerous, as the method of controlling Celindara had been Celindara. And now her own wishes were being manifest in the flesh as a counterpoint.

The protective daze was all the opportunity Meri needed to work as quickly as possible. Her grab and stab was timed perfectly, the forgemaster's gloves igniting the moment Meri wrapped her hand around Celindara's own, and the knife striking true away from Celindara's wrist and further up the arm.

With the fey it seemed that once the thing - whatever it was - had broken down from damage it had been a liquid. Therefore Meri hoped that burning out the source would allow her to try and cut the smallest of wounds with the needle thin knife to allow the fluid to drain out. If it had become solid, and the tentrils could coil inside deeper, they might be in trouble.

Luckily though, the moment Meri ignited the fire around the the dryad's hand, her look of glass eyed confusion turned to clear eyed pain. "The Blight!" she cried out, shaking but clearly keeping still to allow it to be attack, but before Celindara could say anything further Meri was already turning her unresisting  arm around.

Celindara's hand blackened in a way horrible yet more natural, and there was a feel of the arm jerking as if something was moving upwards. Meri managed to prcisely cut two channels where the tendrils were most obvious, as the same black ooze started pouring out of the dryad's arm, evaporating harmlessly to nothing before it could drop even a third of the way to the ground.

Celindara finally drop free as the ain proved too much and she collapsed to her knees on the ground. She was sobbing from terror and pain and perhaps even relief, but it seemed very real emotions. She clutched her wounded hand and arm to her body, almost doubled over.

The sobs stopped briefly, and she looked to the two companions in turn. "Thank you," she said very quietly, and then the pain and relief seemed to take hold of her again and she doubled up.


Aww, poor Celindara, but she'll be ok. You saved her! Yay you! Also, this has basically become a complexity 2 skill challenge, so as well as feeling good about everything you just accomplished, you also get 400 shiny XP (200XP each). And for all your cool ideas, etc, let's also throw in 100XP bonus, and give Nym Inspiration for an inspired idea :)

So yeah, feel free to administer some narrative patching up, maybe some kindly words, and then I guess you can ask Celindara what the heck is going on!

"Sorry about that" said Meri quietly as the fire on her gloves slowly flickered and went out again
Dropping the knife, she reached back, pressing her fingers against the remaining blue glowing crystal on her staff, while holding her other hand above Celindara's injured one.

The blue luminescence in her eyes flared brighter for a second before disappearing completely and becoming a faint blue misty aura which flowed into the wounds, cooling and healing some of the damage.

"I think someone may have infected you with that on purpose.  But this was nothing to do with the Phystal or the others, they had their own plan, it wouldn't make sense to just attack or try to... 'steal your voice', if they could use this instead.  I think this was something different."


OOC: Ok, using healing infusion to patch things up again.

[Private to The Altweaver: Wondering if this is actually what caused the war, if all the dryads were infected by it, then their former guardians like the Phystal would have been forced to turn against them to try to protect the heart of the forest (whatever that is).  Or does this seem like it would have been more of a recent thing, since the infection hadn't spread that far yet?]

Woohoo :D.

Nym claps her hands together happily even as she changes for again, becoming something similar to her previous form (the one she had before she copied Celindara's appearance) but somewhat different - now she looks rather more equine, a horse-like humanoid rather than a deer-like one. With splodged green and blue fur, like blurry leaves against the sky. She has a mane, of sorts, the scruffy hair sticking out in all directions and some probably-quite-silly-looking ears which twitch and turn about. Her eyes are orange.

"Oh good, you're better!" she says to Celindara. "See, it's good that you let us help you, isn't it? Now you don't have the icky black stuff in you any more. So you don't want to go to that heart place and try to touch it, do you? Oh, and is your friend alright?"

She turns to look at the deer that Celindara had touched moments before, trying to see if there is any discolouration evident.

So is that 300 exp total (each) or was the bonus included in the 200? And did I actually use my Inspiration yet? I can't remember. I shuold note it on my sheet. I think I did actually, didn't I, on some kind of reroll near the end of that last combat with the fey/wisps/flying daggers...

"No, the...the doe is fine. I...did not touch her with the blight," she said wearily. Celindara composed herself, standing up painfully, but with Meri's ministrations the pain seemed to have eased. "Why are my boots untied?" she mused for a moment, as if to distract herself from a malestrom of thoughts. The fox, off to the side, moved off innocently to curl up at the edge of the group and feint sleep once more.

Nym can check on the doe, but the deer will indeed seem both less skittish again and will have no discolouration present.

Celindara finally looked up to address Meri's comments. "You are both right and wrong. I do not believe I was infected deliberately. I think if I had been even half a minute slower to the boat this would not have happened. I do believe this was because of The Phystal, but as you say their plan was not to control me."

The dryad sighed, as if wondering how to explain. "Centuries ago, many many centuries ago, the fey and the humans formed a pact to avert war. The humans were stopped from their encroachment of the forests, the ring and the river formed as a boundary, and and in return the fey gave them the smaller woods at the edges beyond the ring. And taught then the tricks of the fey to be one with the land, to have respect for it and thus have it provide bounty beyond measure. The humans then were proud but fair. And...what is the word...they had a single ruler, a family, ruling from a house. A lord, yes. There were were a few lords in those days scattered around claiming vast tracts, but this family were fair and ruled justly. And so the balance was maintained for many centuries."

Celindara looked wistful then sad. "And then two centuries ago, the elder son of the house fell to darkness. Corruption and a lust for power were in his heart, and he called to or was called by someone...no, something. I believe the group called themselves the listeners in their own language, but we called them the cult of the blight. They were beings from...elsewhere, and we never truly understood their purpose. They worshipped something greater, and one of their most common tools was was what you just saw - The Blight. Though I have heard they called it the gift, or the judgement."

She was clearly revolted by the memories. "They must have come from.....elsewhere. They did not seem to truly understand us, and that seemed to be their need and weapon. They needed the connection, and the elder son gave them that, to the land, in the tradition we had taught the humans. They did not need to do anything more to the humans, for they had his heart - literally and figuratively - and knew they could therefore obtain willing control of everything outside. Next it was the fey. But we were many species living together. Tied to the land in a way they needed, but all so different. Their power was specific - The Blight targetted to a single person, attuned to them to kill the parts of them were of no use and bring forth the desires that were. Yet they did not understand us truly. I do not believe they found any willing fey who would turn for power, so instead they tried to understand and then turn those closest to power. Of course, families have bloodlines. What was targetted to one travelled to those closest in make up. And so their secret plans were revealed, as the extended familes of some died, and as the close knit families of some powerful fey either too became ill and confused or suddenly a whole family were acting in concert, oddly, selfishly."

Celindara shook her head. "I daresay with the power of nature and infection they possessed they perhaps could have wiped us out, but that did not seem to be their method. There we were fortunate, but only there. Their method still pitted fey against fey, sowing distrust between communities and between races. It took too long before we fully became aware of the problem. By that time they had taken some of the deeper forests, to use up to form their weapons. And they had taken many victims, picked off of the edges of our communities to be used as raw components for the blight." Celindara blanched. "My sisters and I were, in our way, fortunate. Each of us is bonded only to our trees. Despite being sisters in purpose and soul, each of us was an individual. The Blight could only take us one at a time - thouguh it seemed that with each death the cult gained awareness of how to target those closest to that hamadryad. Still, as a means to control the land we were the least effective, for we were its guardians not its masters. And to their methods were we the most resilient. Of course, the distrust of the time meant we were feared and suspected for it."

Celindara was looking deeply to the grass, clearly not welcoming the memories. "Eventually many of the fey from the other side of the forest simply went back to their homelands, rather than risk being cut off between humans and the cult's growing influence. Leaving us alone to fight the battle in the Blackwood. With a heavy heart we burned a third of it, and the fey that had once lived there never forgave us for that. And it was not entirely successful, and the cult managed tomake it to the heart of the forest - the Blackwood itself, the Great Tree seeded by one of the ancient elder trees of the first forests. It was there the last of the fey and hamadryads battled, to stop the cult and the elder son from infecting that ancient tree."

A single tear fell. "We were not successful. Those not struck directly by the blight had to kill those that had been. And when you kill one, as you have seen, the blight lives for a moment, looking for a host that can never sustain it. Killing the next one if it finds a vessel. We were all infected, we were all doomed to die. Weakened, we could not stop them reaching the tree and using the blight they had crafted to link finally to our lands in a way not even the fey could have provided. And yet at the moment of their triumph we struck with our own desperate plan. The elder son had been the anchor. And they had tied themselves to our forest and land. And so they were vulnerable. I was the closest. it was my hand that struck the blow. I tore the heart from the elder son, blackened as it was with the blight, and offered it to the a Spirit of Winter. We had petitioned for its aid, in the case that all would be lost. to allow it to take our land, let it have its reign for a long winter. All we asked for was that it slumber as it must and give us our summers. The blight was nullified and died, for it needs heat and life and thought to sustain itself, and winter is only slumber and death. And the cult died as their means of keeping to this place died."

Celindara had idly been drawing a giant tree in the dirt. "The blight in me was destroyed when the spirit took the heart and turned it in to a frost gem, a new heart to bind it to the land. But all the others - all my sisters, all the fey that had stayed behind to fight - there would be no respite for them. And so one by one they died, knowing that in death the blight in them died too. I walked the burned lands to make sure, but found nothing but death. Even the few pieces of life I could encourage there was simply twisted with death. The blackleaf these fey used as their poison grows on the few trees I managed to encourage to blossom."

Celindara shook her head. "The Phystal, the old elven guardians of the forests, they could detect the blight. I suppose one of them must have been, in the dark times, infected. I did not think to look abroad. Think to look to a family infected, able to hide by being the ones who were the detectors themselves, passing The Blight and its purpose from generation to generation."

Celindara sighed. "The Blight inside was fixated on the heart. It must have been its purpose, manufactured during the end of the war before they achieved their victory. A sad echo. And yet it would have worked, if it could have infected the frost gem - the new heart of the forest. And that must have been why The Blight could affect me, as I am attuned to the heart too. Though of course not a perfect conductor. I may have blackened and died before I reached the heart. Again, my thanks. You...you do not know what it is like to feel that terror once more. To see the impossible nightmare you have dreamt about for centuries suddenly appear from nowhere. Thank you. Once again, thank you."

Celindara looked around as if to break from the thoughts. "The fey must be a distant relative, enough for the blight to try to infect him, but not enough for it to do anything more than poison him in its last thrashes for new life. What The Phystal's plan was, and why it wanted my voice? I suppose my voice is my power, and not just for what I can do, but also it would be a way to communicate with the forest. You have the heart and mind of the forest, and you have its full power to twist to your command."

Celindara seemed confused though. "But...if this was the danger all along, lurking out in the world. Why now? Why not when I was first alone. Why has it taken two centuries for this last vestige of the cult to show itself?"


And I'll leave all the words there for you to react! As a DM reassurance, while Celindara might make some assumptions, all the facts are facts. This is more story info dump than 'from a certain point of view' comments.

Meri seemed silent for a moment, looking back at the Fey, then at Many and then back to Celindara.

"Not knowing them as you do, the only reason I can think of is that...  Things have changed recently.
When an orc shaman opened an ancient portal, miles away a simple metal ball in my workshop was affected by that and the combination of my own magic and Nym's and created a new form of life based on an existing one.
Closer to the location, ornamental butterflies created by another artificer came to life briefly.
A travelling wizard had his cat familiar altered, turning it into an odd hybrid of dog and dragon and giving it life beyond its master.
A spell backfired and turned Goodwin here into a stick.
These are only the things I know about.  I wonder what else might have happened elsewhere, what other things might have been affected.  Perhaps this is unrelated, I don't know for sure.  Just a suspicion."

Nym listens to Celindara's story and then nods as Meri comments on the recent changed magic that had affected various things.

"Yes, lots of things are certainly pretty weird, that's for sure." she says. "It doesn't sound very nice, this horrible Blight thingy trying to eat the forest. What would be the point of that? Then all the trees and things would be all...dead, and stuff. That's not fun at all. Maybe we can find where the Blight thingy comes from and get it to stop. Does it only work on foresty people or would it hurt us too?"

Nym is gesturing as she speaks and glances at her hand as she does so, noticing that she's still holding Celindara's sword.

"Oh...um, do you want this back?" she asks, holding it out with the blade pointing downward. "I don't really like swords. They're a bit too...sharp and pointy. Rather easy to maybe hurt someone accidentally..."

Many had been hovering scared since the fey had been operated on, his eyes wide and eyestalks slithering over his head as if looking for ears to block out so he didn't have to hear everyone fighting. Now that it calmed down, he bobbed forwards a little.

"Is..is it-teh oh-kay?" he said in a carrying, theatrical whisper, looking suspiciously at Celindara and hiding behind Meri and Nym in turn as the opportunities presented themselves.

Celindara looked around at everything, including trying to see Many properly. "Because of the influence in of the spirit of winter, the normal fluctuations of nature and magic do not register here. I had not realised the..incident..with Goodwin was so common. If magic is out of balance so, Nature is always affected too. Whatever this portal is, no good could have come from it, I fear. Perhaps it stirred things yes..." then Celindara thought of something. "No, wait, Goodwin was already trying to steal my voice when he changed. The tensions recently have been months in the making." Celindara sighed, and looked aboe the trees longingly. "I am connected to the forest, and it is so vast in size and in time, but... it is also so little and so empty compared to the world. I can forget how disconnected I truly am from all of Nature here, but... that is the price of being the guardian of Blackwood."

She took the sword from Nym with thanks. "Yes, a blade is no small thing. It can end life, cause pain and maim. And that is something never to take lightly."

Again, Celindara managed to go from looking young to looking old to back again just by the expressions on her face, and the brief weight some deep thoughts clearly placed on her. It passed though.

"And no, the blight has long gone here. Each year the new birds sing me their song of sadness when they see the dead side of Blackwood. I walk there when I can bare it, to make sure. The forest, its people, were all just fodder for those..listeners. The matter that make us up just raw materials for them to break down and use for whatever it was they ultimately wanted and needed."

Celindara sudden put her hand to her mouth. "Blace!" she said looking, to the others. "You were worried for her safety. And...and she used to press me on the history, I told her what happened, and she never seemed happy. I had been insulted, it was one of the few times I was ever angry with her. I thought she was being insulting and human, thinking I would allow evil to fester. But...of course...maybe she knew of The Phystal. Maybe she knew we were being watched, that he was around. She always said she was trying to keep so many sides from fighting, but I only ever though about myself and the villagers. I didn't think now how strange it sounded what she spoke of. Maybe she was trying to warn me, but I wouldn't listen, because I thought she was being insulting and poking in to old wounds that were not her business. Oh my, I feel so stupid!"

On her back, Meri could feel Goodwin stir. He seemed to shuffle for a moment, and then seemed to be giving determined pulls in the direction of the river, upstream - towards Blackwood village.

So yeah, how might be a good time to summarise what you know about Blace. And yeah, it seems Celindara at least is now invested in finding Blace too. Obviously, you guys have options, Leave Celindara to go look, since the fey seemed to think Blace was fine. Though of course what happened to Goodwin is still a mystery., He seems like he wants to go find Blace.

Investigating the dark side of the forest, I won't lie, is a potential thing you could do, but you might find that your allies will want to go elsewhere. They won't stop you, but they may well not go with you. You can of course leave them to it, you have done enough that they are a little more dependable than NPCs now - they're your allies, it even says in the title! :D

Also, I maybe have one last thing to spring on you - not in a nasty way - but I'll let you all react to Celindara's words first and discuss your next move a little more.

"It's ok" replied Meri, looking back at the small beholder with a reassuring smile.  "Thanks for your help back there."

In reply to the mention of Blace, she looked back at the Fey.
"When I drank that potion earlier to try to interrogate the bowman, it had an effect I wasn't expecting.  Not only were the two of us able to understand each other, but there was a link between us that went beyond mere words.  As if we could understand each other's intent on an almost instinctive level.  He knew I wouldn't harm him unless he forced me to attack him to defend us.  Just as I knew he would seek revenge for the Phystal and the other one at the first opportunity."

She looked back at Many and then at Celindara.
"Thanks to Many's ability to subdue him, as well as the effect of the potiom, I was able to question him about Blace and know without a doubt that he was not lying.  I don't believe they attacked her.  In fact I suspect I know who did."

Her eyes narrowed with a hint of anger as she continued.
"When we first arrived in the village of Blackwood, we encountered someone named Allyn, guarding the bridge over the river.  From other accounts, it seems she has been actively intimidating anyone passing by, trying to stop them entering the forest.  When she found out we wanted to go in there, she attacked us, forcing us to defend ourselves against her and her gang.  Three of them died in the attack, and Allyn herself was knocked into the river, where she probably got chewed on by the fish, but seems to have survived and escaped.
She knew we had wanted to meet with Blace, although I don't think she knew about Goodwin.  And from what Blace told me of Allyn, it's likely she wants revenge now.  I'm wondering if she would have attacked and threatened Blace, thinking she knew where we had gone..."

She frowned slightly and reached back, drawing out Goodwin.
"Was it Allyn who broke you before?" she asked.


OOC: Grudge Match: Round 2? ;)

Clearly relieved at being, er, relieved of the sword, Nym turns around and retrieves her staff from the ground. At Many's nervousness, she looks over at him.

"Aaw, it's okay, Many." she says. "The icky bad stuff is gone now."

While Celindara and Meri discuss Blace, Nym remembers something and starts peering closely at her hands and arms as though looking for something.

I hope ickle wickle anty friend hasn't been inadvertently squished at some point :(.

Many looks to the three of them and the doe briefly as if to make sure Nym isn't lying to protect him, then gives a little 'yay!' that everything is alright. "Yoo-ah wel-cah-meh! Wel-cahm. Welcome. Yeh yeh, welcome." Many nods happily and them goes over to play wit hthe doe, speaking excitedly nd far too quickly about how he made the fey stop trying to hurt Meri, with al the exagerrated eyestalk waving and fey type scowling implied.

Meanwhile, as Nym checked herself, Celindara looked across. "You do not have to check yourself, the blight is gone and I did no- oh, I see." Celindara seems to have spotted something. Nym's neck perhaps tickles, then her cheek, and then on the tip of her nose the little ant reappeared. It seems to stare at Nym, waggling its antennae.

"She says she is annoyed you kept moving your skin, but she forgives you," the dryad interprets, apparently able to hear the ant or know her thoughts.


Celindara goes back to the conversation with Meri. "I am not sure why the potion would let him know your intentions too, but otherwise it seems in line with my guess for its use. I suppose The Phystal did not care what his prisoners knew, as I suppose that means they did not live to tell what they learned from him in return." She seemed angry but had to calm herself. "At least Blace was not attacked by him, though this Alynn sounds abominable. I am sure Blace is skilled, but against someone so ruthless...no, if this Alynn has harmed a hair on Blace's head, she will learn what the forest does to one who hurts a friend of that forest!"

She looked to Goodwin on Meri's shoulder, as the staff stirred. However, all he did was give two vigorous swipes backwards and forwards for 'no' to Alynn being responsible, and then pointed with impatient determination towards Blackwood Village.

I guess Celindara isn't thinking of the intimidation aspect of the potion, but she's probably right about no survivors! :(


However, just as Goodwin points, there is a rustle on one of the copses of trees in that direction -  in the location where Meri had fought earlier.

Indeed, a familiar looking form emerged in to the light - it was the Shadow Stalker! Though the aggressive manner and red eyes were gone, the creature was far more cowed and lopping, and its eyes seemed pinker as if simply irritated rather than on fire. It was back to the rough leggy shape that Meri had seen in the grove battle before. It seemed to awkwardly lift some small object in its hand, gesturing to Meri.

However, any thoughts it might be a weapon would be unfounded, as it them laid the item on the ground, and darted back in to the shadows. It did not become visible again.


Lol, so make of that what you will. Again, DM reassurance, you're not about to get attacked. I think both of your passive Insights are good enough to spot that. So, do you see what the stalker has that he is offering?

Meri peered at Goodwin curiously.
"So not Alynn then.  Strange.  Even so, going back there will likely be walking into trouble again if Alynn is still there."

Returning Goodwin to his previous place at her back again, she shrugged and looked over at the boat.
"Well, I suppose we could sneak in and see if Blace is still around there and then get back out again as soon as possible..."

She broke off and reached back for her own staff at the sight of the Shadow Stalker.
Although as the creature didn't attack, she relaxed as it disappeared again.
"What was that about?" she muttered, cautiously approaching the object it had placed down.


OOC: Hmm, curious...  Will go up and poke it.  What's the worst that could happen? :)

I think I can update for this without Nym needing to react.

As Meri walked forwards, she saw it was the clear stone. It seemed that somehow, it had managed to come loose again.

And yes, if you check your backpack you'll see your neat repair work got ripped again. Perhaps Timur's parts managed to catch on the inside... I mean, who knows what caused that :p

Meri's eyes widened in surprise as she recognised the object.
Quickly she reached down and snatched it up, before turning to examine her backpack.

Glancing around her suspiciously, she eyed the stone again for a moment then returned to where the others were.
Sitting down, she took off her backpack, examining the torn edges closely...


OOC: Can I tell what might have caused the damage?  Like is it a clean cut from a blade or ragged from something chewing on it or snagging on it and tearing it?
Seems too coincidental to be a coincidence...

"Oh, sorry." says Nym to the ant as the tries to look at it, an act which is somewhat tricky given the now equine shape of her head and its less-than-perfect ability to see whatever is directly ahead. "Let me know if you want to go back on the ground. Um. I'm not really sure how you can do that, but...um...well, er, I don't know..."

[Private to Meri:
And won't you join me in the new thread for no good reason...

To answer the question, yes, it seems to be the same little rat knawed hole, but this time you will need to discard a ration because there seems to be a tiny rat actually still inside it :) Living, not dead!

But first the other thread...]

Celindara laughed. "She says she is fine as she is on you for the moment." The ant moved off of Nym's nose, seemingly going to sit on her shoulder instead. "I would not be surprised if she disappeared soon though. Ants are far too industrious to spendtoo much time away."

Celindara gave a small bow to the ant for the time she had given the dryad already.

"Hee hee..." giggles Nym. "Well, I don't mind if Little Miss Anty wants to go back to whatever she was doing before Many came and said hello."

She looks over at Many.

"Looks like you've been getting in lots of good practice at all your lovely magic today." she says. "And at talking. That's good!"

That last post was made as Goodwin and I suspect it was supposed to be Celindara ;). Also, shouldn't this ant technically be a male? I thought only queens were females. Unless this universe has equal opportunity employment for ants or something :D.

Actually, it will seem weird, but Goodwin is actually right. More often that not I'll post as the current guide if you are on a 'path', and the side characters if not. Orwhen you really went off the path for a while, did you notice Altweaver became the actual guide? :)

You've restored Goodwin and his purpose, and after some distraction with Celindara you're seemingly ready to follow him again, so I'm posting as him showing you're all 'weeeeee, go get Blace!'.

For the villain I tend to post as them if you are on a directly connected combat. Which was why I was trying to be tricksy posting as 'The Dryad' when you were first attacked :) And after that, I thought it funny to still post as her for the combat at least because you were sort of following her, and because she was your ally :)


Hmm, there is a reason the ant is being called female, but you are right I forget individual male ants being the workers. Feel free to ask in character :D


Many rushes over, rushes back quickly to politely say a quick bye to the doe, and then rushes back over again to Nym. "Yeah yeah! Loh-tsah tah-keh, loh-tsah mag*hic*". He danced around for a moment, happy.

Lol, feel free to try and teach him more if you like. Maybe something is happening briefly in the background, but I'm sure we'll be moving off momentarily :D

Nym claps her hands excitedly at Many's happiness, then glances down at herself, having realised her robes are still glowing. A moment later, they stop doing so.

"What other things do you think you might be able to do?" she asks, returning her attention to the beholder. "Is there anything you think you'd like to do? I mean, with magic, you could do anything, maybe. Because magic can do anything. I don't know what exactly beholder magic can do, but I suppose we'll find out, won't we? Have you found anything new in any of your eyes?"

As Nym powers off her robes, in the corner of her eye she can see that the ant has settled on her shoulder, an odd little speck of black in the light of her robes, becfore they stopped radiating.

Many bounces a little in front of Nym. "Pah teh ah-dah beh-hohld-ahs. Ahm beh-ter!" Many says happpily and hurredly. "Ahd lih-keh to mah-keh fih-er an-nah see erreh-teh an-nah hear erreh-teh an-nah tal-keh to erreh-teh an-nah lif-teh more ting-gehs...tings..theh-ings..things! Yeah yeah, all the things! Do erreh-thing!"

He waved his fourth eyestalk, as if to encourage it spontaneously do everything else, but it seemed resolutely unmagical fro the moment. It looked at the three other eyestalks sadly, and the other three eyestalks to look at it, and Many then made a beholder shrug with them. "Shoh-eh me ligh-tehs and teh here ahn goh-neh again!" he said, bouncing.

Nym might intuit that in terms of practising prestidigitation, making things clean and dirty is possibly the best start, especially just dusty things, because obviously dust is small and always in the air, so really your making it come and go at your command rather than having to magically summon or unsummon something larger.

But obviously up to you if and what you show him. I mean the sparks, etc are brief flares of raw magic too, so maybe as easy.

In game terms I don't want Many to ever get too good at it since it's one of Nym's primary thingies and cost you two feats to get! So he might master an aspect, or might just take ages since it is a complex and wide ranging ability.

Meri suddenly looked up, peering around and blinking as though she had just woken up from a trance.
At some point she had stopped examining her backpack and had turned to looking back at the clear stone, but now she stuffed it into her pocket and looked back at Celindara.

"Ok, have you ever heard of something called the Thrak'i?  Because they may be the ones responsible for the Blight, or at least inhabit the place affected by it.  Also I think there is a connection to what I was speaking of before, albeit a tenuous one..."

She looked back at Nym as she continued.
"Also, when I told Jorri and Tym that the portal might still be dangerous.  I may have severely underestimated just HOW dangerous it was..."

She trailed off there and looked back down into her pack.
"Also..."
Narrowing her eyes, she suddenly darted a hand into her pack and grabbed at something there.  Raising her hand back out she showed the others a small rat she was holding onto.
"...why is there a rat in my pack, eating my food?!"


OOC: Yay, the mystery of the recurring backpack holes is solved! :D
Also, Meri seems to know things she didn't a moment ago...  Curious.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:56, Tue 09 Feb 2016.

Nym gives another happy hand-clap at Many's success at finally pronouncing the word "thing". When he tries and fails to do more magic, she gives him an encouraging (though somewhat weird-looking, given the equine shape of her face) smile.

"Lights?" she says at his question, and raises her free hand, palm-up. "Like this?"

From each of her fingertips a tiny glowing speck appears, each one a different colour. They grow in size and start to float upward as they get bigger, at the same time moving toward each other until they converge and disappear in a little shower of multi-coloured sparks.

Then she is distracted by movement from Meri's direction and her eyes light up (not literally) as the half-elf holds up the rat.

"Aaaaawww, fuuuzzziiilll!" she practically squeals. "Aaaww he is so cute! Look, is he friendly? Hello, lickle ratty. Do you want to be friends?"

She has stepped over to Meri and is peering more closely at the rodent, reaching up slowly with her free hand to see if the creature is friendly.

Ahh, nope, sorry, it seems I can't possibly make a character like this who is uninterested in rats - Nym just basically gave exactly the same reaction I would in that situation :D.

Meri stared at Nym with a bemused look for a moment, then held out the rat towards her.
"Well, it's yours if you want it.  Just make sure it doesn't chew any more holes in my pack!"

Reaching inside the pack, she pulled out a journeybread ration (or at least a chewed mangled mess that had apparently once been a journeybread ration at some point).
"Here, I found it inside this, so it may as well finish that off, I'm certainly not eating it now with rat fur and stuff in it!"


OOC: There may only be two of us, but we seem to be picking up quite the entourage now...
Also yep, I had a feeling Nym would react that way ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 18:42, Tue 09 Feb 2016.

Lol, you as a player are more excited that Many the character :p

Many doesn't really have the chance to try and duplicate Nym's example before Meri makes her least scary announcement and revelation. Many's eyes go wide and he  squeals in delight. "Rah frieeeend!"

He darts across to Meri, though with Nym in the wya he just bobs to the left and right of her shoulder and hovers respectfully under Meri's arm, eyestalks waving over the top. Very deliberately Many puts his 'make friends' eysstalk behind his back. "Rah friend," he says quietly and happily under Meri's arm, a little nervous but bobbing around.

Sadly for Many, you guys will probably spot that the rat looks a little larger than the one Many 'befriended' a few days ago. Of course, the rat could still be the one that ate in to Meri's backpack last!

The rodent twitches its head around as if trying to see Meri and work out where it is. It shakes a little in Meri's hand, but for the moment stays in it. When Nym comes close, it does try to crane its head out to sniff at her fingers tentatively. The rat looks startled when Meri moved around and pushed her hand towards Nym, but then seemed to move closer to Nym's hand as if to leap there.

Celindara comes in from the side, a smile at the reactions to the rodent. "Hmm, he does not seem to be from the forest. I believe he has a name, which none in the forest do except me," said Celindara.

"Yeah, yeah, called 'ee ee ee ee'," says Many giggling. Then he says, "if you wah, oh couh-seh.  Soh-reh foh mah-ken friends wih mag*hic* not mah-ken friends with be-ing friends," the beholder said, apparently embarrased and not really being able to look at the rat.

"I'm afraid the name does not mean anything," says Celindara to Meri. "The one you said, not the one your...friend...said," she clarified. "They did not introduce themselves when they started attacking," she said, briefly bitter, but worked to shake off the mood and enjoy the happier reactions again.

Edit: Oops, double post. Hang on, a quick addition and it should be good.

"Aaww, littl ratty, do you want to say hello?" asks Nym, holding out her hands to see if the rat will climb onto her. "But don't try and hurt the little anty on my shoulder, okay?"

She looks over at Celindara.

"What's his name, then?" she asks. "I don't speak Ratty language."

Meri held out her hand towards Nym's, opening her fingers and letting the rat move onto Nym if it wanted.

"Well, whatever they are, it seems defeating them might help to save more than the forest" she mused quietly.

She glanced back towards Goodwin for a moment.
"I was also informed that Goodwin's condition is actually the result of two spells that were interrupted at the same time.  One was yours, which you should be able to undo, and the other...  Well, that seems to have been linked to an object that has become a part of his current form, and only he can undo it if he remembers who he used to be."
She looked towards the stick again as she said the last part.


OOC: Just checking, does he have an amulet or some other trinket visible on him, albeit probably looking like carved wooden details now?

The dryad looked serious. "Well, it seems ensuring Blace's safety is even more important, then," she mused. "Whatever these foes are, they might be trying to carry on the work the cult started. Those lands are for the fey to rebuild should they find their way again, not for some new evil to take advantage."

Naturally, Celindara might be happier to think this is the name of some new thingie rather than entertain that the old evil is back.

The rat happily jumped to Nym's offered hand, exploring and skirting around it whilst maintaining its balance - albeit something by digging in with tiny sharp claws.

Celindara looked across to the rodent. "I do not know its name. Nothing in the forest save myself has a name, they simply exist to each other, and what each is to the other changes upon the moods of the observer. I am only Celindar because my sisters and I chose to root ourselves in the world of mortals, be a link between worlds. To any others in the forest, I am the bringer of food, the annoying noise, the walking tree, the obstacle, the warming space, or the laughing wind. And that would be my name simply to one of the forest's children, depending upon what they were doing. I am so used to simply hearing the melody of the forest that it is unusual to see one from outside, pinned down by concepts alien to the forest. It would be nice to speak in their language, I suppose, but we in the forest always understand each other well enough. Perhaps whoever names him is around somewhere, in the village, and we could ask?" She then seemed to realise what she said, and looked alarmed. "The village," she said quietly to herself, looking around the forest.

"Ee ee ee ee," came a small voice fom now under Nym's arm, as Many moved position to sort of look to the rat without really being seen.

Goodwin shifted on Meri's back, both seemingly impatient at the delay now, tugging towards the village, but also maybe feeling the scrutiny. Unfortunately, the shape of the elf on the staff was just a crude representation of a person. His elongated neck nor under his chin showed no signs of anything resembling an amulet, though when an object was named he did feel as if he was shifting to avoid people looking at his central trunk.

Good idea, but as Celindara is about to explain, there's actually a mechanical D&D thingie involved where shapechangers don't drop there stuff, they just get absorbed in to the new form and are 'gone' until he shifter changes back.

Celindara looked to Goodwin too. "Hmm, I have heard that while those whose shapes were not their own, the werecreatures inflicted by changing shape, people who use natural magic to shift form like druids do not lose their items. They just...become part of them, in some odd way. I have never seen it nor explerienced it."

Celindara then stood back. "Still," she said, her voice starting to sound less wise and more petulant. "Wihle I owe you many thanks and a great debt, I am not sure why I should..."

However, her voice trailed off as the doe came right up behind her, and the fox ran up too. For a moment it looked as if it was going to scurry up Meri, but at the last minute thought better of that and scurried up Nym's robes instead, wobbling to a perch on her other shoulder. The ant was still clearly on the first shoulder, and by Celindara's reaction, was probably equally looking at her reproachfully.

She sighed. "Sometimes the forest's voice is subtle and hard to hear, its intentions unknowable to even its faithful guardian. Other times...less so. Of course, even if the forest did not ask me to forgive Goodwin, I and the forest owe you much. I will do as you ask."

Celindara opened her mouth, and for the first time the song she sang was oddly unnatural and unpleasant. The effect was gone a moment later, but other than the odd feeling of having heard it, nothing seemingly had changed.


The effect will likely be something neither of your characters have ever heard, because there's no reason for them to have been able to have heard the effect of something being sang in literal reverse :)

Also, just to re-iterate to Meri and make it clear to Nym, while Meri is exactly right in what she has said in regards to what Goodwin needs to do, this is not something you now will just bully him in to doing with enough diplomacy rolls and talking at him :p There's something he has to do, or needs to be done, first.

Just to make sure the game doesn't stall while you all try and get Goodwin back right this minute!

Though Meri, you are welcome to finish the short rest here by repairing both your pack and Timur. Mechanically Timur can come back any time you get to rest after a fight, etc, and as we've established you can repair your pack again while walking.

"Thank you" said Meri, "From what Blace said, I got the feeling he wasn't exactly willing to go along with whatever his friends wanted him to do, maybe he was forced into it.  I don't know the full story there, but maybe he can tell us himself someday."

She looked back at Goodwin.
"Well, it's up to you I suppose.  I'm still not sure why I took an interest in getting you changed back yet.  Especially when it was made clear that my help wasn't really wanted."
She sighed and shrugged.
"Maybe just trying to be better I suppose" she said quietly with a glance and a smile towards Many.

Reaching into her pack, she repeated her previous procedure of adding a combination of alchemical reagents to the tear in her pack and activating them.
While waiting for the repair to finish, she drew out Timur's body from the pack, speaking quietly, almost in a whisper.
"It's strange, after what happened to him, I... remember things I thought I'd forgotten before, like part of me was asleep and just woke up again.  Maybe..."

She didn't continue though, merely reaching into her pack again and pulling out a wooden box with an intricate design made of carved branches and leaves and mechanical looking shapes outlined in metal inlays on the lid.  Inside were several small tools, like portable versions of some of the ones back at her workshop she had used for more basic repair work.
Examining the damage caused to Timur by the arrow earlier, she selected some tools and began to work on repairing it.

"I might be able to patch up that boat too if that would be an easier way into the village.  Though the bridge is probably guarded again, and Allyn will likely attack us on sight this time, in fact it's likely she's actively searching for us."
She paused in her work and glanced towards Celindara.
"It might be dangerous for you there, if the people of the village still believe you were the one responsible for the Phystal's attacks."


OOC: So yep, we can use the boat if we want, but if the river leads back to that bridge we were at before, we'll probably end up a sitting target for anyone with a ranged weapon guarding it.

[Private to The Altweaver: I actually have a bit of a character thing involved in repairing Timur, so he won't become active again until Meri goes to sleep.  (After the first time though, I'll just have it work with the regular mechanics)]
This message was last edited by the player at 13:24, Wed 10 Feb 2016.

Oh, if only we had some ranged attacks of our own that could totally wreck people ;).

"Ee-ee-ee-ee..." giggles Nym as Many repeats the name he's given the rat. "Eeee...maybe I can just call you Ee, for short. Or is there some other name you would like?"

She is then a little surprised as the fox comes trotting over and suddenly climbs up to drape himself over her antless shoulder. Placing the rat on her chest so that he can grip on, she reaches up with her free hand to give the fox a gentle scratch on the side of his neck.

There is a flutter of movement from a nearby tree and the little, multi-coloured owl swoops in and alights on Nym's head, swaying gently with her movements and looking around with the eyes that have completely failed to blink at any point since the familiar has been in this form.

Nym giggles at all this attention and seems generally very happy.

"Aahh, look at all the lovely friends!" she says, then reaches around for the beholder. "And you too, of course, Many!"

In my head, the ant is on Nym's right shoulder and the fox on her left. Her right hand is the one holding her staff while the left one is the one she's currently trying to use to give Many a little tickle. Woo, meet the multi-coloured, walking menagerie! :D

OOC: Yep, we should be fine since we're building our own animal/familiar army! ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 17:41, Wed 10 Feb 2016.

Lol, Team Familiar is growing! Pity Timur isn't awake to see it *sniff* [Private to Meri: Cool, it does seem to have become a character beat now!]

Goodwin shifted on Meri's back as if to avoid the attention, and then started his incistent 'that way' again regarding going. Though perhaps in some deference to thankfulness, he wasn't trying to hit Meri's head to get her attention. That seemed quite a magnanimous gesture given how their interactions had started.

It was Many that waved happily to Meri. Maybe he heard what she said, or maybe he just wanted to share his joy at the playmate that had apparently come back, but he had spotted her smile and positively beamed.

The rodent in Nym's hand didn't really react to the new name, but didn't shy away from the growing menagerie either. Many bobbed up to see the little rat properly, howevering around but close enough to Nym's hand. 'Ee! Ee! Ee ! Ee!' he said, agreeing with Nym's name or trying to speak to the rodent.

Celindara looked to the river. "No, the bridge before the village is north east of here. If you follow this part of the river back, you will be coming to the village from the south. Ish."

Celindra seemed wistful and angry in turn. "Yes, without Blace I'm sure the villagers will be their usual selves. Oh well, at least if we find her and tell her it is safe, perhaps she can start telling them the truth. If they will believe it."


The river flows under the bridge, along the side of the village, and then loops back in to the forest. Or at least this little part does. So you don't have to worry about Allyn and her bridge if you use the rowboat to go back :)

Finishing working on Timur, Meri eyed him for a moment then tucked him back into her pack.
Getting up, she went over to examine the boat more closely.

"Should be able to get us there" she remarked.


OOC: Not sure how long all these repairs will take though (as well as how many reagents they're costing), can I even do them all at the same time?
This message was last edited by the player at 14:54, Thu 11 Feb 2016.

The damage to the boat is cosmetic because Nym missed with her attack, or else you would have no boat! So really it's just making the blown apart oar be restored so you can actually go upstream :) And since a club would be 1gp, I'll say an oar is no different.

The more important thing is all the scary residue that infected Celindara has long since evaporated away!

OOC: Ahh ok, so it was the stuff left over from the Phystal-splosion that the infection came from?
Edited previous post.  Happy to move on as soon as the others are ready (assuming we can fast-forward to when I'm done repairing my own stuff?  Don't want to use up all my intricate repairing descriptions too quickly!)

Sure :). Nym is just busy being distracted by all the various cute little critters - she will just need reminding that we're going to try and find Blace. We didn't reach any conclusion on whether Goodwin could be reverted, did we? I seem to recall Celindara didn't know how to undo whatever happened to him because she technically didn't do it as it happened unexpectedly when she was trying to cast a completely different spell on him. So we'll still have to see if we can get him fixed at some point...

OOC: Well Meri seems to have gotten the idea that the effect that turned him into a stick was caused by two spells at the same time being twisted by the magical effect that created The Ball, The Dog, etc.
One component of that being Celindara's spell (which she apparently just undid), and the other being the spell that Goodwin himself tried to cast on Celindara (which only he can undo since it's linked to an item that is now fused into his stick form).
As for where Meri got all her recently-acquired information from...  Well, that's known only to her at the moment ;)  hehe.

Yup, feel free to time jump with a post of your own Meri summarising her 'ta da!' without needing to detail exactly the effect. And of course yell fro Nym to come. :)

I think we can assume everyone just ooh'd and aah'd over the fuzzle :p


Oh, and Nym, you might appreciate having played a little more D&D, that many shapechange spells basically say 'all your items are just away somewhere else and a part of you'. So the Goodwin part of the spell is now effectively tied to him, and so really he can break the spell by realising something or doing something.

Hence my OOC warning - no, you can't just talk at him right now and make him change. Something else needs to happe, or happen elsewhere. But you are really close now to changing him thanks to your varied efforts :)

Who knows, maybe you'll come to recall The Stick days as the good old days of Goodwin :p

OOC: Well I don't mind waiting a bit if Nym wants to say/do fun stuff :)
Also I wonder what Goodwin will be like if he gets changed back.
Maybe he'll go back to thumping Meri on the head, causing her to inflict varying degrees of violence upon him.  Ahh, happy memories of our first times travelling together :D

Yeah, I'm familiar with the "your stuff merges with you when you shapeshift" from the Druid class. With Changelings it's a bit different since it's not really a "true" shapechange - your body does change, but it's only mimicking the shape of whatever you're wanting to look like, which is why people can see through it with a high enough opposed Insight roll (very difficult, though - I think my Bluff would be 17 even before I rolled against that and I'm not even trained in it! Though Nym doesn't really care about keeping her nature a secret, so...).
Nym has nothing more to offer, really - you can just tell her we're going off to find Blace now and she'll be willing to come once she's said goodbye to whichever of the various creatures aren't going to be coming with us (and Celindara, if she's not coming with us) ;).

OOC: Ok then.  Let's get this show on the road... umm, I mean river!


Meri gave the boat one more quick look over, then returned to the others.
"Well then, may as well go see if we can find Blace.  I'm sure she'll be thrilled to see us again."
Her voice held a noticeably sarcastic tone at the last part.

Picking up her backpack, she examined the patched tear in it, then slung it over her shoulders, tucking Goodwin behind the straps again.
Taking up her own staff, she headed over to the boat, placing the staff down in it and picking up a stout wooden club for use as a makeshift oar...


OOC: Not too sure who's coming with us exactly, I'll leave it up to Celindara whether or not she'll be going to visit the "friendly locals" or not.  Might be handy to have her with us if we run into Allyn again, since I just used up the last of my surges to recharge my infusions...
Also, was that enough of a rest to get our encounter powers back? :)

While Meri was casting her eyes over the boat, the rodent in Nym's hand started getting skittish. It scrambled to the back of Nym's hand and leaned down as far as possible to drop down to the ground. Depsite the height of Nym, the rodent managed to make it with no apparent discomfort.

Many looked momenterily distressed, but it only appeared the the rat - Ee - was both looking to be a little less the centre of attention, and also started looking on the ground for the crumbs of food that had fallen when Meri had presented the rodent from her backpack.

Mny zoomed down to ground level, and was all eystalks trying to lift crumbs in Ee's direction and bop grass to the side looking for more. He scrambked around, all gittery himself, as if it was the biggest catastrophe he was trying to prevent. Each mosel of food was discovered with a large 'yay!' or 'whew' followed by a very gentle presenting of the food to Ee with levitation, Many staying as far back as possible with his friends eyestalk tucked behind his back.

Ee bit a few of the offered pieces out of the air, but before too long started sniffing around Nym's robe.


Meanwhile Celindara had looked across to Meri. Despite knowing intellectually there was no danger, the dryad still seemed worried about the place which had managed to infect her with The Blight. Something that until now she had thought was a distant unpleasant memory.


I'll leave it there to let you guys react. I'll need to check the Bluff score, seems high for untrained (at+12I mean, Iunderstand the 17 comes from your shapechange addition). Might be some stacked feat bonuses? If the builder is giving the score though, then must be right though.

Edit: Oops, and I've taken so long Meri you posted again :) Anyway, I think it still works perfectly, but I'll still give you time to react to each other and so on.

Actually, maybe I'll add one thing...

Celindara seems sad, but does not appear to be making for the boat herself. When she speaks, it seems clear that she is not simply scared of the thing that infected her before.

"You are right, I suppose," she says to Meri. "I have a duty to the forest, and the villagers have not been reported as friendly. Perhaps for some their roots still grow deep and they drink of the Whispering Waters in their hearts. But their heads are knotted oaks, and I am not sure I wish to be seen."

She seems very torn, but Meri's earlier comment had perhaps stuck with her.


Lol, Celindara's participation is actually in your hands. I don't think either of you need an Insight roll to realise that maybe she's thinking about the larger world, and after all has probably been alone for centuries. Aside from Blace, and then Goodwin, she probably hasn't spoken to many people over the years.

So it might not take the highest of diplomacy rolls to persuade her to come, assume you want her to.

You are right though, it could be dangerous...

Hmm, let me see, my Bluff skill is calculated as follows...+6 from Cha Mod + half-level, +2 for being a Changeling (also gives +2 Insight), +2 for level five Xoasitects bonus (also gives +2 Arcana), and the last +2 will be from...ahh, Jack-of-All-Trades Feat :). So if I ever train it, I'll lose that +2 in the process and my skill will bump up to 15. But I have no plans to do that any tme soon - I'm sure there are much more interesting things to spend Feats on :D.

Nym bends down so that the rat can jump down from her more easily and she watches him and Many for a while as they search around the floor for crumbs of food.

"Blace?" says Nym, apparently just noting the name Meri has used. "Oh yes, what did happen to her? Well, she seemed a bit grumpy...but maybe something bad happened to her. I suppose we should go and find out just so we know if she's alright."

She waders over to Celindara, walking rather oddly in an apparent attempt not to dislodge any of the remaining creatures that are currently on her (though the owl has never shown any sign of being at risk of being dislodged by her movements).

"Well, maybe the villagers won't want to see you..." she says, "but maybe you can sort of...wait at the edge of the forest while we go and see what's going on, and then we can come back and tell you. Or maybe one of your friends can come with us and we can tell them, and then they can come back and tell you. But I wouldn't mind coming back here anyway - I like coming back to see friends again. It's nice to talk about stuff and see what sort of interesting things they have..."

Yeah, I can see the villagers possibly going "Zomg evil forest-witch-person, kill it!" the moment they set eyes on Celindara, but I'm sure she has ways of being there without being there, as it were, and therefore staying safe whilst still keeping an eye on things. Maybe she can give us a broken off twig from one of her trees or something which we can use like a sort of magical walkie-talkie :D.
Do we actually need to go to the village, then? Do we know for sure that's Blace's last known location? I thought Celindara brought us the broken Goodwin that she'd found in the forest somewhere (meaning Blace was no longer in the village)?

OOC: Well Meri got the idea from talking with the Fey that Blace was still in the village, and suspected that someone might have attacked her and/or taken Goodwin from her and broke him and threw him into the river (since Celindara said she found him in the river, almost snapped in two, if I remember right).
Meri suspects either Allyn (though Goodwin said it wasn't), or one of Goodwin's former friends seeking revenge on him.
Also he does seem to keep pointing towards the village as if he wants us to go back there quickly.  Back to following the Stick!  hehe.

Yeah, if you're looking for Blace or traces of her if you think she's taken, then where else to start but the village?

The fey did indicate she must be in the area ans they hadn't harmed her. Goodwin was found in a finger of the river, which flows from the village down to this part of the forest. So whatever happened could mean that he was attacked or dropped in or by the river and drifted downwards.

As pointed out, he clearly wants to go back there.

And yes, you haven't written your changling bonus on the character sheet which brings you up to twelve. You have both your fey bond and jack of all trades that grants a feat bonus, so by what you have on your sheet it would only be +10. But it is +12 so all good! Impressive for an off skill, except everything you've taken buffs it so not unsurprising!


Celindara mulled over the comment, putting her hand on Nym's shoulder. "Yes...I could come with you at least as far as the edge of the village, and then dismount on the other bank. Though I have no way to contact you. The children of the forest are its children, they would not go in my place and I would not want them too..."

It took a moment to realise Celindara had actually been picking up the small ant from Nym's right hand.

However, the fox scampered down from Nym's left shoulder, and with no care in the world bounced across to the boat and hopped in. It went to the back, found the bag of trinkets and other items, and curled up on it like a miniature dragon on its horde.

"Still, a friend of the forest I have no say over..." she said with a small smile.


So Celindara could come with you as far as the edge, my mr foxy might decide to come further. WHo knows with that fox though. Interesting, of course, that he's apparently not properly a part of the forest!

I don't think I included the racial skill buffs just because they're not included in the "race features" part of the skill sheet, where I was copying my stuff from into the RPOL sheet. It's really just a sort of nice coincidence that a whole bunch of my stuff buffs Bluff - none of my character feature choices have been taken because they gave bonuses to that particular skill, that was just, well, a bonus ;).

Incidentally, a "horde" is a very large group of creatures. A "hoard" is a load of stuff someone has stashed away (treasure or otherwise) ;). Unless Mr Foxy is sitting on a big swarm of ants or something? ;)

"Bye bye, little anty." says Nym as Celindara removes the insect from her. "Don't worry, Celindara. You don't have to go to the grumpy old village of weird grumpy people if you don't want to. I didn't think we'd be going back there. It wasn't very interesting, really. Well, I suppose it was at first...they were having some sort of party, with music and food and stuff. And Blace seemed nice. But it all sort of got...less interesting. But I suppose we'd better go back there to find Blace. Hopefully we won't run into anyone else on the way. That might not be very fun."

She watches as the fox goes over to sit in the boat.

"Oh, you want to come with us, Mr Foxy?" she says. "It's okay if you don't want to go near the houses and the other bits of the village once we get there. But I don't mind if you want to stay."

She smiles and gives a little hand-clap. The owl on her head stays put and turns her gaze toward the boat. Nym reaches blindly (but carefully) up with her free hand and feels around for the owl, holding her hand beside the familiar's feet once she's found them. The owl's gaze shifts to the changeling's furry hand and she steps onto it. Nym lowers her hand so that the owl is at roughly chest-height and the owl sidesteps up her arm until she's sitting on the sorceress's shoulder. Nym then strolls over to the boat, staff swinging as always, and she goes to settle herself inside it at the end not currently occupied by the fox. She puts her pack in front of her and lays her staff down lengthways in the boat.

"Time to go, then, is it?" she says. "Ohh, what about Mr Ratty? Hey, little Ee-ee-ee...do you want to come?"

She looks about for the rat.

This is gonna look weird when we get to the village, lol - fairly normal-looking half-elf wielding a staff, accompanied by weird humanoid horse-person in multicoloured robes and wielding a weird staff that she doesn't seem to know how to hold carefully, a small multi-coloured owl with slightly freakish-looking too-large round eyes that never blink, plus a fox, a tiny beholder, and possibly a rat as well. Well, it'll give them something to talk about, I suppose ;).

OOC: Look out Blackwood, the Mad Squad are back! ;)
Has Nym's staff been described at some point?  Curious what it looks like now.  Or does it keep changing along with her?


Meri eyed the fox for a moment, then shrugged and waited for everyone else to get aboard.
"Hopefully we'll be back soon.  I'd rather not stay in the village any longer than we have to" she remarked.
Pushing the boat off its perch on the bank, she quickly hopped on board, grabbing her makeshift paddle again and steering it into the current in the middle of the river...


OOC: Assuming we just go with the current here, or do we have to row against it?

Rowing against it I'm afraid. Give me a Dexterity check for fun and profit. Nym, if you will be helping, give me one too :)

OOC: Been doing skill checks up until now.  Stat check would be 1d20 + (number listed under "check modifier")?
If so, got: 14 (12 + 2)

Indeed!

What happened to Mr Fuzzle? Did he come with us or stay sniffing about in the clearing? And presumably Many followed us and is either hovering above/alongside the boat or has settled himself somewhere in the boat with us. Did Celindara board as well or have we left her behind? Just want to be sure where everyone is :).

He's come with you. I can detail that when I do the update, thought it easier to get the rolls out of the way to do a single one. Ee was sniffing around your robe to get more attention, so presumably you can pick him up at some point. And yes, Maay with hover around you and Ee, and Celindara will board aswell.

So, would Nym help row or would she be fussing over the fuzzle and fox? :)

She probably would if she was asked, but whether she'd have the accuracy or the attention span to do it (and do it properly without accidentally whacking anyon) for a decent amount of time is another matter ;).

Ee scurried around the feet of everyone, seemingly skittish but staying with the group. Many offered to lift Ee on to the boat, and whewn the rodent didn't immediately run away, the beholder gently levitated the smaller rat in to boat.

Ee immediately darted to some of the sacks, whether looking for food or just looking for shelter was unknown. Many gave a pateint if sad look that making frineds the long way was more effort, and settled himself down in the front to look to see what Meri was doing. It appeared that speaking and bobbing and magic had taken its toll on the little beholder, and despite it only being late morning if that, Many let forth a large yawn which he was far too slow to stiffle.

Celindara getly wiped her hand on to the doe, apparently depositing the friendly ant on to the centre of the doe's head. The doe seemed to take it with good grace, and stood still while Celindara spoke in some ancient language and bowed to the ant.

Celindara then gave a slightly less formal but no less friendly farwell to the doe, giving the animal a surprise hug and heartfelt apologies for ignoring her before.

Celindara then practically skipped towards the boat, and then practivally dragged her feet actually getting in to the boat. "Maybe one little water dervish?" she mused, then luckily thought better of it.

Under the watchful gaze of the fox at least, she plonked herself in the middle of the boat, and then looked very confused. "It' is all so much....quieter and muffled on here," she said, her tone of voice not indicating if this was a good thing or not.


The group were then away! The doe stood and watched them go upstream, Meri making the best of things despite having to push along - for now - the three humanoids and their smaller companions. Still, the river was not too bad, and there were not to many dips, rocks, and swells to avoid.

However, there was one minor stumble, as the flow of the river and a hidden rock proved too much to easily avoid with the weight of the boat and its movement. A small swell of water splashed over the side. It soaked the occupants - though noe to the extent that they were knocked overboard - but upon later checking it seemed something had shaken loose...


Just one shy of the moderate difficulty of the task I'm afraid!  You can re-roll if you like with whatever method you can get (I think Nym is the one currently with Inspiration, but it is giftable) or knack for success, though that reroll you'll need to keep the second value even if lower.

For now you've basically succeeded, but I will need to you lose one item from one of your possessions. It has to be an item with a gold piece value to it, but otherwise can be as small or large as you like. If you wish to have some of the trinkets fall, then it will need to be 20gp worth. Anyway, I leave it to you guys to decide who loses something and what it is, and then otherwise you are free to react to the voyage safe in the knowledge you'll get to the village.

Unless Meri wants to reroll.... :D

Anyway, otherwise you'll do fine. It's like a Lone Wolf adventure, really :)

OOC: Haven't really been keeping track of gp values for things, unless it's something I specifically intended to sell later.
If you see anything about that value in my inventory, let me know.
Also this is exactly why I always developed a phobia of water when playing the Lone Wolf books!

Never forget Magnamund started life as a homebrew D&D setting...wahahhaha!

Hmm one of the potions - maybe the potion of delusion or cure light wounds given their limitations? Or you could lose the ancient coin, that might seem sad but appropriate, drifts in to the river to one day found by some confused person :)

OOC: Ah ok, well the Potion of Delusion sounds the least useful.  No idea how much it's worth...

Best not to think about it :p

Gp values of items of interest are usually in the item thread.

Meri eyed the rat sniffing around for a moment before picking up her backpack and moving it behind her.
Then she focused on trying to control the boat in the strong current, wincing slightly at the sudden jolt.
"I never liked water much" she muttered quietly to herself...


OOC: Do I need to make more checks to continue here?  Can see us arriving in the town with all our equipment missing at that rate ;)

As the boat movers off down the river, Nym gives a cheerful wave and a "Bye!" to the doe (ant presumably the ant). She then spends the journey switching her attention between various things, seemingly at random - she peers over the side watching the water, then ducks down to see what the rat is doing, then watches the fox to see if he'll do anything interesting, then stares off into the forest as though looking for interesting sights there, then sits and tickles the little owl (who is sitting on her head again) whilst muttering what sound like nonsense words to herself. She seems to randomly switch between each of these "tasks" as though attempting to keep herself occupied and sometimes sings quietly to herself.

"Rowy, rowy, rowy boat, rowy boat, rowy boat...floaty floaty floaty boat, boaty boat, boaty boaty boat..."

No more checks, I just needed a single check - or if both of you rolled, then two easy successes or one moderate success would have been fine. Paddling upstream is something to metaphorically do, literally doing it is much harder :D

Goodwin kept shifting impatiently as Meri rowed, but apparently having the good sense to not make himself too much of a nuisance lest be become a punting stick. Still, there was an odd excitement from him in his little movement that perhaps kept the group focused on the end goal and the potential for speed. Who knew what was happening with Blace and Allyn now?

Ee spent most of his time scampering about under fold and blankets without interacting too much. He did poke his head out to receive Nym's attention, sniffing at her fingers and looking to her expectantly,but even when poor Many decided to slowly siddle across, Ee didn't seem as interested in the beholder and his antics.

When the wave hit, Mr Fox and Ee did what animals usually did, which was shake it off, look around for a new drier place, and then go back to it. In Ee's case, it was back under some sacks.

Many was on the situation in a moment once he'd been startled awake by the a=wave and shaken it off himself. He rushed across and tried out both the new eyestalk and the unmagical eyestalk, to try and dry off Ee as he had seen Nym do. Sadly, nothing happened and he looked panicky and sad across to Nym. When Ee then disappeared again, Many bobbed back to where he had been with a small sigh.

Mr Fox for his part would simply lift his head, as if knowing whenever Nym was looking to him. He would sort of yawn without yawning and blink, looking ot her. One time he shifted, and accidentally seemed to dislodge some odd trinket from the blankets. It at first looked like a solid silver ball form a pendant. Howeve, closer inspection would show it was some oddly dwarvish curiosity. The shhere had square sections all over, each with a different rune. The rows and columns of them could be moved, twisting the sphere around on one axis or another to rearrange the runes.

Mr Fox put his head back down when it fell out, as if not interested in the interesting thing.


Celindara herself was oddly quiet to start with, but seemingly no less trying to distract herself as Nym. She refused to look out at the water after an initial neutral look. She then spent some time massaging her various wounds in turn. After that she looked left and right at each one of Nym's interests, and of course was as surprised as everyone else at the wave that lapped across.

"I could sing to a dervish. Just a tiny one..." she suggested to Meri. "Maybe some of the fish could push...?"

Once the excitement had died down, Celindara took up Nym's little tune in a distracted way. She provided a low, bassy hum that pleasantly shook the timbers of the little rowboat, making it resonate in quick time to Nym's rhyme.


I'll give you another beat to react or speak, and then I'll need a decision once you get in sight of the edge of the village :) But that's for next update!
This message was last edited by the player at 21:23, Tue 16 Feb 2016.

Oops, forgot to react to getting splashed...

When a load of water hits her, Nym makes a sort of "Blerrgghh" sound and shakes herself off, then runs her hands over herself to magically dry off. She watches Many as he tries to use his own magic, but gives him an encouraging smile when he seems unhappy at failing to do it.

"Aaw, don't worry, Many." she says. "You'll get it one day. You're still all tiny and stuff - you have plenty of time to grow up and learn more things. Think how boring it would be if you could do everything all at once - what would you learn then?"

She reaches toward the rat to see if he minds being magically dried. When the fox disturbs the small silver trinket, Nym peers at it with curiosity.

"Ooh, a thingy..." she says, pickig it up to inspect it more closely. "Ugh, horsey eyes aren't very good for this..."
This message was last updated by the GM at 19:23, Thu 18 Feb 2016.

OOC: Hmm, is that the D&D equivalent of a Rubik Cube?


"Don't worry, I got it" replied Meri.  "Just the current is a little stronger than I expected.  Been a while since I was on a boat, and in that case I wasn't rowing."

"In fact I was trying to stay hidden among the cargo at the time" she added with a grin.

She eyed the silver trinket for a moment, but was concentrating too intently on controlling the boat to pay it much attention...


[Private to The Altweaver: Would Artificer-y knowledge tell me what that thing is?  Just a puzzle box, or something more mystical in nature?]
This message was last edited by the player at 15:21, Wed 17 Feb 2016.

Lol, maaaaybe...

[Private to Meri:
You can certainly roll either Arcana or Theivery (int based) depending upon what you suspect :)]

Ee happily gets all dry and fuzzy and nuzzles Nym's hand for a moment before running off. Many gives a sad little nod about learning, but perhaps Ee ignoring the beholder is making him a little less optimistic for the moment.


Nym, you want to play around with it, or just look at it? Feel free to roll a skill if you want to examine it, or just a straight d20 roll if you're mucking about with it :)

Nym changes shape again, becoming more humanish in appearance, though her ears are still somewhat tapered and higher up on her head, and her colour scheme remains much the same (a mixture of blue and green in various hues, mostly bright ones). She looks a little like an elf, but not nearly enough like one that she could be confused for one.

"Hmm, that's better..." she mutters, now able to hold the strange silver trinket up close to her face and focus on it properly. From atop her head, the owl looks down at the object as well.

I'll just look at it for the moment, and play around with it after that if it doesn't seem like it's going to do anything horrible. I might as well roll some Arcana, in case this thing is magical...hmm, 13. Well, that wasn't great, lol. You said it looked Dawrvish in construction - is there some roll I could make to see if I know what sort of thing they might use this for? History or something, maybe? I suppose it might actually just be a simple puzzle thingy, a toy, but where it came from and what it's doing in this boat seems a bitt weird, if it belonged to the Phystal. I suppose he might have stolen it from some random dwarven adventurer he murdered or something, though.
Oh btw, I just remembered - what happened to the Fey guy Meri questioned? Did we just leave him unconscious in the woods or something?

This message was last edited by the GM at 19:24, Thu 18 Feb 2016.

Oops, forgot to update profile pic before sending the post - pretend the avatar I have on this post is also on the previous post ;).

OOC: Wow, what is Nym now?  Looks kind of like a drow with an odd palette-shift effect...

Also, oops, yeah, I forgot about the Fey with everything else that happened...  Think we left him tied to a tree (O.o)'

Also when it comes to intricate mechanical thingies, remember you have an artificer with you ;)  (Although she's kind of busy making sure we don't crash and lose all our stuff in the water right now!)

Yes, true...well, Nym will probably actually remember at some point that she can just ask Meri what the thingy is, if she can't figure it out for herself - it's keeping her entertained for the moment, anyway ;).

Nym isn't any particular species now - she hasn't been for her last few changes. She's just kind of...weird random things, whatever portraits I can find that look okay without having stupidly large pointy ears or looking all...you know...typical sexist Fantasy female :P.

Yeah, you can roll History. The loot of The Phystal does indeed seem to be taken from various adventurers that actually came to the forest- who knew Allyn was slightly right! - and is part of the trinket horde. Just wanted to give you something fun to play with, and who knows maybe replace what you just lost in terns of gp value :D

That arcana roll basically means Nym can't feel it being or seeming to be magical. Whateher it is or not is another matter, but Nym wouldn't believe so.

Also, couldn't edit the picture either :( Oh well!


Celindara actually had stuff to say about the fey and leaving him, I forget if I hinted at it or just forgot to have her say it. Feel free to ask her IC! :)

OOC: So Nym is now a hybrid Elf/Smurf? :)

Not sure if Meri would have forgotten the Fey.  She had some distractions of her own (to say nothing of her player being a complete ditz!)  But since she could probably still see him from where she was, I doubt she would have.
Then again, she might have thought it better than releasing him, since she got the idea he was planning to attack us again at the first opportunity he got.  But she'd probably have left his fate up to Celindara to decide at least.

Like I said I believe Celindara said it would be safe to leave the fey, if not I meant for her to say it. So feel free to have that happen 'off screen' to persuade Meri to leave, and Meri can now press exactly how safe the fey is now.

Nym starts fiddling around with the silver trinket, seeing if it can be twisted around or otherwise manipulated to make the runes line up in any kind of specific pattern.

Sure, might as well roll History to see if anything comes to mind about this kind of thing. Oh. Well, I botched so never mind, lol. I was thinking maybe I can roll Int to see if I can discern any particular pattern or method of manipulating this thing in order to "solve" it or otherwise make it do something...can't remember whether I add the Mod or the Mod + half-level when it comes to straight stat checks...20 if the former, 22 if the latter :).

Many wanders over to see Nym playing with the little trinket, his eystsalks almost crossing over themselves as he tries to look at the various moving bits.

Nym found the parts slid around very easily, an amazing work of craftsmanship. Though there did seem to be an odd 'tink' noise every so often that seemed to have nothing to do with her movements.

The 'runes' on the outside seemed weird, although angular and odd like normal drawf runes, they weren't really anything Nym had seen before. Each one had a circle featured somewhere, and it was funny to think they actually looked like a person in various poses - kneeling, standing, jumping, bending over, lying down, etc.

Thinking on it like that, it became obvious to see that the runes were actually all individual but many could be grouped in to that vague category. The kneeling ones were the most common and closest to looking like each other, and also easiest to put in a ring around the widest part of the sphere.

Since you said you wanted to solve it or makeit do somthing, so I will go ahead and say what happens doing that.

With the little kneeling figures lined up (and some others fell in to groups along diagonals and straights too) there was a completely different 'tink' and suddenly the sphere fell apart with little blocks just falling left and right. Inside, it appeared the sphere had been hollow, and inside was a small gold ring with two small brown gemstones set at the top of the band.

The ring did not feel magical, and small dwarvish script could be seem scrawled on the inside.

Yeah, you add your half level to the raw ability checks. As a metagame thing Meri also rolled checks against it, so I'll let Nym catch all the pieces if Meri wants to make a warning about the thing potentially falling apart.

The ring is worth 50gp, funnily the worth of the potion discarded. And the trinket itself, although broken, might be worth something to the right person. After all, someone else might value the craftsmanship of the puzzle box as much as the contents! But you'd most likely need to speak to someone curious to actually get them to pin a value on it! :)

OOC: Well Meri would probably still be concentrating on controlling the boat, but would she have the skill to reassemble the thing again?  Assuming none of the pieces fell out of the boat.  And also assuming it was actually "designed" to fall apart, rather than breaking.

It can certainly be a research project to check it out :) You rolled well enough on Thievery that I'm happy for Meri to spot the problem of it falling apart and so stop the pieces from being lost one way or another.

As the little silver trinket falls apart, Nym blinks in surprise and makes a half-hearted attempt to catch sopme of the pieces, but is more interested by what was inside the strange runed sphere, and starts inspecting the ring instead.

Well, hopefully the bits all just fell inside the boat and Many can go around hoovering them up for us or something ;). Nym is more interested in the thingy that was inside the other thingy...I had a weird sort of flashback to an incident in one of the Harry Potter books when this thing opned to reveal a ring :D.
So let's see...I'll just roll some Arcana, I think, for now, to see if I can tell whether it's a magical ring or just...you know, a ring ;). Nice, got 28 :).

Many suddenly burst in to action, making lots of 'oh' and 'ah' and uh' noises and he tried to hover backwards and forwards grabbing the more errant parts that fell from Nym's hands. It seemed his telekinesis was improving a little, as nothing went over the side of the rowboat, and there was a reasonable pile of blocks put in a pile by the time Nym could properly look at the ring.


The ring seemed very, boringly normal to every single one of Nym's senses for such things, even turning the gem to various angles in the light, or waving the ring around to see if magical after images were visible.

In line with that, the writing inside did not seem to be any form of writing that was used in magical inscriptions. Even in a writing not known, there were certain forms one started to recognise. This just simply seemed to be a set of normal dwarvish script, unmagical and probably personal.

[Private to Nym: Lol, and since you have high Insight, then perhaps a surprise ring inside something where to open it you line up someone on their one knee might suggest something to you as a player.... :D ]


The fox had actually gone form its semi=sleeping pose to look with cock-headed interest at the ring. Meanwhile, Celindara had stopped singing but did not seem to care for the item of the contents herself.

"We'll....be lanfding soon, I think," she said to Meri, perhaps half sure and half pleading. "There is an easy place to let me off before the turn in the river. And you can move around to the village on the other side. Or, if you need me to, I can come with you as far as the human's old mill. That is an easier landing for you, but sometimes smaller humans play in the mill. You might be seen - as might I."

[Private to Meri: For some reason mention of the mill made Godwin shake slightly on Meri's back. ]

So there you go, the ring is a ring, maybe more just a treasure or a 'hey, maybe find someone who knows the owner for some narrative thingie'. And in terms of the village, you have two potential landing points, one a little easier for you but you might be spotted, and one a little easier for Celindara. Or you can make two stops, of course, and she can just carry on around the bend.

Meri glanced towards the trinket as it came apart, although she had seemed more interested in the object itself than what had been hidden inside it.
Then her attention returned to controlling the boat, quickly moving it out of the path of a rock.

At Celindara's question, she glanced back.
"We should be ok on our own, there's no need for you to risk being seen" she said.  "I can land at the turn."


OOC: So yeah, dropping Celindara off at the first stopping point and making our own way from there.
Up to Nym if she wants to go to the mill, Meri could be easily persuaded to change her mind on stopping before it.

Just as an OOC DM thingie, if you stop at the mill the rowboat will be more available to get back to or even to sell off to someone later. If you park if in some bend of a river and try to wedge it or pull it up, you might not come back to it again later if it drifts off!

Nym eyes the ring closely for a few moments, then shrugs and looks around for the pieces of the object that contained it, picking them up and seeing if rhs can reconstruct the "puzzle box" around the ring once more.

"I think this might've been a bit important to someone." she mutters. "I should probably put it back together and then maybe see if I can find whoever it belonged to...or maybe someone who knows them. So...a dwarf, I suppose...unless this was just made by a dwarf, for someone else..."

[Private to GM: So, looks like someone out there is never gonna reunite with the person who was travelling through the woods to surprise them with an engagement ring hidden inside a puzzle box. Do dwarves even use engagement rings? It seems like it'd be more of a human thing. Well, whoever it used to belong to, I feel like we should try and find whomever it was supposed to go to and give it to them. Is there any other stuff in the boat that isn't ours, which we could look at to see if it belonged to the owner of the ring?]

Despite mashing the pieces back together, it seemed beyond Nym's skill to get the puzzle sphere back to its original state.


Lol, you might guess that Meri might be able to accomplish it as a project later.

[Private to Nym: Impossible to know whose items are what, really, it was all just adventuring equipment apart from the stuff I called out to you. And yeah, the engagement thingie is a little human sounding. Maybe it was as you say, a human proposing to a dwarf or just asking a dwarf friend to create something special. Or maybe a dwarf who picked up the habits of humans/was proposing to a human.

Certainly something to investigate as a fun little thingie at some point. I'll put it on the list! You can perhaps ask the elders of the village about what adventurers came through, or maybe Blace. Or maybe later go back to the captured fey and ask. There are certainly lots of way to get a lead on the person.]

OOC: Well, we'll drop off Celindara first, then maybe continue with the boat on our own from there.  Can we find our way back to where we dropped her off again?  Assuming it's easier to travel with the current than against it.

Yeah, you can find your way back here, it's an obvious spot just before the bend in the river here.

As Nym checked out the ring and puzzle pieces, Meri steered the rowboat to where Celindara gestured with increasingly intensity. The banks on either of the river were high here, and for a moment it seemed odd why Celindara picked this exact spot. It was not particularly well sheltered, and it took Meri all her effort to keep the rowboat where it was against the river's flow.

However, when the dryad began to sing, one of the trees very subtly leaned as if in the wind. And a branch hung down as if pushed by a very, very strong wind.

Celindara giggled, and grabbed on to the offered branch, practically leaping up off the boat so it rocked dangerously. She landed gracefully on the ground beside, and danced a small piroette for a moment.

Oddly though despite the childish behaviour, when she turned to look at the group she seemed far more elder in her features again - there was a serene look, and her smile just crinkled her face in a more mature fashion. Perhaps it was simply a contrast to how she had looked in the boat, in retrospect she had been a little more frightened than she let on, like a child caged up.

"Mmm, I can feel the forest again, I can hear its melody," she said with joy. She looked around for a moment without looking around. "Ah yes, I can still feel our friend by the river. The forest has him safely bound still. I am sure if the rain comes on it will put some leaves around him to keep him warm, and if we're too long it can maybe drop some dew in to his mouth." She laughed again, perhaps not all together pleasantly for the fey's fate.

She then looked to Meri, pointing across to another tree on the other side. "It might not be the most graceful place to go, but you can reach across to a branch over on the other side - the trees still hear my song if I sing loudly enough." She gave a happy sigh. "Sometimes I would skip one side to the other here, a dervish under my feet. But I can understand if you want to keep going to somewhere more... manufactured...to get off of this thing." She then caught herself. "I mean wonderful vessel! I enjoyed it, really!"

While Mr Fox settled down despite the disembarking of Celindara, Ee actually stirred. With a sudden motion, the little rat ran to the edge of the boat and leapt for the bank, scrambling up and through the undergrowth.

"Ee-ee-ee-ee, nyooooh!" said Many in horror, and darted out in to the forest after the small rodent.

"Oh," said Celindara as the beholder darted passed her. She turned back to tthe group, sounding a little more older and reliable. "Do not fear, the forest will not harm your friends, and I can feel them moving around. I can go fetch your floating...umm...eye friend if he tries to go too far. They will both be safe with me."

She then looked to Meri again, bending down to the edge of the bank. "Also, I believe you once more gave me your strength to heal me of The Blight. That strength was not meant for me, the forest gave it to you. I would give you back that gift once more, now I am stronger again."

Up to you two if you want to get out and go get Many and take him with you, or leave him here with Celindara. I promise if you leave him, he will be quite safe! Who knows, maybe safer than you....

Also presumably Meri would rather go to the mill than try Celindara's means of getting out on the other side of the river.

Oh, and Meri, Celindara is offering you her (last) two healing surges for your infusions. Up to you if you want to take them. Might be an idea, clearly Celindara did not mean to use them up when she gifted you her previous two :)
This message was last edited by the player at 18:27, Sun 21 Feb 2016.

OOC: Ah ok, so we're currently on the wrong side of the river to reach the village?
Got no idea where we are in relation to the village.
If there's no way to keep the boat here until we get back, may as well carry on to the mill.  Not sure if Nym (or at least her player) has an opinion on whether to keep the boat or not...

Are we likely to need to travel along the river, or can we get back here on foot if we need to? I suppose the boat is useful, but I don't suppose it's essential that we hang onto it. Maybe we should just leave it somewhere we can find it again (whenever we actually choose to get out of it and moor it up somewhere, I mean), but if it does float away it's not as if we can't continue on foot like we did before, just a bit more inconvenient if we do need to cross the river again and don't have a bridge or a friendly tree nearby ;).
Also, I don't really know where we are anyway. In relation to erm...other places, I mean ;).

Nym casually shoves all the bits of the puzzle box into some random pocket of her robes, keeping the ring with them. She giggles at Celindara's happiness to be back on land once again, then looks over as the rat suddenly makes a bolt for the shore.

"Oh...bye bye, Mr Ratty..." she says, giving a little wave. "Hey, Many...it's okay. He's probably just going home or something..." she tries as the beholder gives chase.

OOC: I do still have that Water Walking potion that could allow one of us to cross the river without being used as a chew-toy by the needlefangs.  Not sure if Meri could "reverse engineer" and duplicate the formula for that if she found an alchemist's kit in a shop or something in the village.
Even if we don't need the boat again, we could always get a little extra gp by selling it, and possibly all the Phystal's remaining loot in it. :)
This message was lightly edited by the player at 15:46, Mon 22 Feb 2016.

I'll get to a simple map at some point. If you think of the forest as taking up most of the west, you have the bridge where you fought Alynn leading to the forest, carrying on instead south hits the village, and carrying on south west to the edge of the village is the old mill, along the river. The river - or parts of it - snake back west in to the forest.

So you've drifted south west in your travels, so have come out lower than the village, and have currently (haha) been rowing against the river to get back north to the edge of the village.

Celindara has disembarked on the west back as the river came out of the forest. You'll go north a little then can disembark on the east back by the old mill. Celindara was suggesting you could use the thicker trees directly east to go in to the lesser woods on the east side, but personally I would carry on to the mill. You can jam or yank the boat on to the bank, but the bank is steep so it's not the best for disembarking really, nor making a quick get away! :D


So, are you happy to move onwards to the mill and leave Many in Celindara's care? Word of honour, no sniggering, this isn't me setting up either NPCs to have something nasty happen to them, they will both genuinely be there when you come back. Or will of course come after you if you get in to trouble...

Meri peered after Many as he disappeared off after the rat.
A slight hint of something that may have been concern (not an emotion that had ever shown itself in Meri before) flickered across her face before her usual emotionless mask reasserted itself.

"Probably be best to move on to the mill then" she said, turning her attention back to the river, and the direction they had been rowing in.
"If there is someone there, maybe they'll know where Blace is."

At the offer of strength, Meri turned back to Celindara with a curious look.
"Well if the forest gave it to me, then it was my decision to give it back.  Some help would be welcome, but only if you can spare it.  We still don't know if there are more Blight-infested around."


OOC: Yep, moving on to the mill then.  Also IC, Meri is very reluctant to accept help (typical for her), while OOC, I know I need all the help I can get!

I recharged both infusions already with the last of my healing surges, given that infusions seem more useful in a fight, not taking up a standard action that I might need to fight someone off and all that...

Plus your Infusions are what you use to heal other people ;).

Nym stares off in the direction Many has disappeared, then looks over at Meri.

"Oh, are we definitely carrying on, then?" she asks, and turns her attention to Celindara. "Can you make sure Many knows that we didn't leave him behind on purpose. I hope he doesn't try to follow us and get lost. Or maybe he doesn't want to stay with us any more..."

She looks back toward the spot the beholder was last visible as though expecting him to suddenly reappear and come shooting over to rejoin the group. The owl, who is still sitting on her head, stares in that direction for a few moments too, then turns her head (without twisting her body at all) to look in the direction of the village.

You can retcon taking Celindara's healing surges if you wish, otherwise you know where you can get two more later, don't you :p

Celindara nodded to Meri, and then looked around to Nym. "Your small friend hovers around you both enough that I do not think he would abandon you. I may not have anyone who is that way with me directly, but I have observed the forest and her children for long enough to recognise it when I see it. I am sure he will be as distraught over you not being here when he gets back as he was just nowlosing his own small friend, but I will reassure him you will be coming back. There are many sights in the forest for a keen mind to be distracted by, if you think he would be interested. And I know my own friend there will keep you safe as he can, just as I will keep you friends safe."

Celindara nodded to the fox, though perhaps there was a tone in her voice as if reproaching the fox as much as reassuring the others. The fox, for his part, looked up briefly as if having seen something else, and then laid his head back down.

Goodwin, on Meri's back, seemed jittery but generally very focused on going forwards again, and kept lurching on Meri's back to urge her to carry on.


As Meri kept rowing, luckily the mill showed up not too much later. The area opened up, the woods thinning. The mill had perhaps been an impressive three story building once, but the top storey had caved in. The wheel was mising, just an obvious area where it had been. That area was perhaps one place to park the boat, and would be well hidden.

There was also a proper jetty with rickety planks to the side though. It had certainly seen better days - and perhaps generations of kids running around on it damaging it further - but could also be used for tying the boat to.


The jetty will make it very easy to leave again, but the boat will be visible to the curious or pursuers. Parking in the shadow of the mill hides the rowboat but makes it harder to leave quickly :)

A minor choice, but I'll let you make it! There does not appear to be anyone around, but perception checks never hurt anyone! So go ahead and make some, please!

OOC: I'll take the surges then.  The fact that you keep reminding me they're available makes me think I'll probably be needing them soon! ;)

Perception check is:
23 (10 + 13) - My d20 is back to its odd obsession with 10s again...

I had assumed the mill was a windmill, but on the description and its location by the river is it actually a watermill? I don't suppose it matters too much but it's nice to picture the right thing in my head ;).

Perception check = 19.

Yeah, it's a semi-ruined and abandoned water mill. Well, it might be a saw mill, who can say from this angle :D

And cool, I shall adjust Celindara's surges to 0. Yay! I mean, no reason to cheer, nothing will happen to her...

As the rowboat approached the eddies and still areas around the mill, and Meri herself could concentrate more on her surroundings than steering, a sound drifted in the air. It was muffled laughter, as if children, and it was coming from somewhere near the top of the mill's second floor. It could be imagined a 'shh' followed briefly after it.

And Meri herself could also wear she could hear something else. The occasional music of metal tapping. Not like the forge though, more like armed warriors moving with weapons by their sides, or walking in armour.

Either way, it seemed that perhaps the shadow of the mill would be the better place to embark from - to hide from anyone further away, and to be hidden form the occupants of the mill itself.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:48, Wed 24 Feb 2016.

In mechanical terms, how many squares away from the mill would we be at this point? Well, how many squares from any windows, or holes in the roof, or anything like that which a small bird might be able to perch on and peek inside with any good sort of low-light vision they might have? ;)

OOC: Can I tell which direction the "metal tapping" noises are coming from?

Also, argh, kids.  Why did it have to be kids?!  Kids are creepy!
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogs.../2011/01/wolves.html

@Nym: As I've mentioned before I hate doing normal world to D&D squares because they tend to make no sense. Also distance is less of an issue when you aren't in combat time. I'm happy to say you can get close enough to let Wuffles (Wuff-Owls?) fly up to the higher window and look in. And tell you what she sees, because no one else would understand it anyway :D

@Meri: If the river is at your back, and the mill right in your way, the open jetties are to your left, and the noises are coming from beyond that, towards where the rest of the village is. But it's clearthey are close as in possibly just on lip of the hill in that direction, or coming towards the mill from your blind spot.

And aww, maybe they are teenage kids and you can shoot them without guilt!

Nym looks over to the mill as the boat approaches it. She puts her head to one side in curiosity at the noises coming from it, and at the movement the little owl on her head takes flight, fluttering on silent wings toward the near side of the building, landing near an opening and peering inside.

"Oooh, what can you see?" whispers Nym, closing her eyes and sitting perfectly still.

So little owly will fly over to the nearest window or other opening in the wall and look inside. I'll activate my power to see through her eyes so we're both able to see whatever's in there - my familiar will move position if needed to get a better view on things. Hopefully the inside of the mill is darker than the outside so if anyone in there does look in her direction they'll just see the shape of a bird silhouetted against the sky and not be able to tell what she looks like (weird multi-coloured owl with enormous eyes :D). She's only little (about the size of a little owl, as in the species "little owl", not an owl who is little, though she is that too ;)) too, so hopefully she won't raise too much/any attention ;). Normally the see-through-the-owl's-eyes power thingy lasts till the end of my next turn but as we're not in combat I suppose I can just drop it whenever I like?

Meri slowly began to move the boat out of the current and towards the mill.
While she was paying attention on where she was going, she occasionally glanced up warily in the direction Nym's familiar had gone, and also in the direction of the noises they had heard.


OOC: Okies, heading for the hidden bit where the water wheel used to be.  But taking it slow to see if Nym's familiar spots anything before we get too close.
Also keeping a suspicious eye on the direction those metallic noises are coming from.

Yeah Nym, the duration can be a little more flexible here. More importantly it's an at will standard action, so Nym can easily maintain it and still move around and speak even if this were combat. Ad luckily she's not got any more important hit poeple combat actions to do right now :D

Wuffles managed to find a few windowsills and half-collapsed boards, sturdy enough to take her weight and offer views in to the mill through broken windows and cracked walls.

Overall the mill's second storey had enough support structures still on place aroudn the outside to form some safe areas, it was only the central part that had taken the brunt of the top floor caving in.

On the right hand side of the mill, about half way between the front and the back where Wuffles was observing, there seemed to be a small group of five humans. They ranged in age from probably around 10 to 12, as humans marked their years. One - the tallest and skinniest - kept moving to the left hand side and looking out, despite the whispered calls not to. At one point the figure turned to look in the direction of Wuffles when she was silhouetted in a window. The figure seemed to be a skinny yet tall girl, frizzle hair and wide eyes. However, she showed no alarm at seeing Wuffles, simply smiled and mumbled 'ooh, little owl' before darting back to the others.

The group as a whole seemed to be about to climb out one of the right hand side windows, and were perhaps delaying to time it correctly with whatever was coming from outside on the left hand side. Or perhaps some of the smaller members of the group needed a little persuading.

While the group might then try to come around the outside of the mill to make back for the village, it would be far more likely that escaping from the right hand side meant the children planning on dashing to the woods on the far right.


Meanwhile, as Meri gently guided the boat, she could start to hear voices. Not anyone from inside the mill, but it was the drifting of more adult calls. They also had the cadence of orders - a barked sentence that always seemed to be the same gruff voice, followed by a clipped reply from someone else. Or rather, some other people, for there seemed to be more than one replier.


Obviously I can give you more details if there's something you want to focus on. Also, you can maybe come up with some options depending upon what the two groups are doing. If the children do run to the woods, do you want to dart in to the mill or stay outside? Jumping in to the bottom of the mill might be a good idea if the children instead decide to run around the outside of the mill on the river's edge, or you could just stand your ground knowing they're maybe as interested in hiding as you?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:29, Fri 26 Feb 2016.

Where are the adults in relation to the children and the mill? Can my familiar hear them (and so pass on their conversation to me) from where she is? Can she see them, and if not does it seem like she can easily get to a location where she can without being spotted? Also, do the kids seem afraid of these approaching adults, or is it more like they're hiding to get out of having to do work or something similarly mundane?

With regard to the see-through-my-familiar's-eyes power, I figure that I can't see through my own eyes when looking through hers, so need to stop using the power to be able to go back to seeing what's around me rather than her. But I can easily restart it any time (as it's an At-Will). Or just keep it going and try to navigate by hearing and touch whilst no doubt being somewhat disoriented by the fact that my eyes are seeing a totally different scene to what I can feel around me :D.

OOC: Hmm, not sure what's going on here.  Do any of those voices sound familiar?  Like Alynn's or someone else we might have encountered back at the village?  And do they sound like they're speaking Common or something else?
Also how far is the village from here?


Meri frowned slightly and reached back, drawing her staff closer to her before returning her attention to punting the boat towards the makeshift dock she had chosen for it.

As she drew closer, she looked up at the mill, searching to see if there was a way to climb into the building directly from the boat...

Map:
/games/63699/misc/gamemap.jpg?1456519547

The kids seem more like kids playing where they shouldn't, rather than actively fleeing. When the tall girl moved to the other side, there was no life or death terror, just the usual 'noooo, stop it' fear of being caught. The adults are around the hill area.

If you want Wuffles to go perch on the left hand corner that's fine, she can see then when they become visible in the distance. She'll have no additional benefit compared to the rest of you in hearing what the voices are saying. You'll really just need them to come closer and you'll all hear.

And yes, I agree about howyou use the powers. A little more precarious when you are near water or on a rowboat, but I'm happy to say there is some space to disembark before you started using Wuffles to spy :)


Edit: The barking voice sounds masculine, so not like Alynn's. The others you can't hear enough to tell. You don't recognise the voice, but you didn'treally encounter many people other than some entertainers before you left :D It does sound like human Common though.

The village is a short distance over the hill. YOu would see some buildings from the top of the hill (your characters wouldn't know this) but they would be a short distance away. Say a ten minute walk away?

Also, there's enough broken areas to get out from the boat first before then sneaking in to the mill properly on the gorund floor. But getting directly from the boat to the mill would be...let's just say perhaps an unwise level of Acrobatics check to attempt :D

"May be trouble", muttered Meri quietly, carefully nudging the boat into the space beside the old mill and getting to her feet, swapping the makeshift oar for her staff as she did.

Jumping out, she searched around for something to tie the boat to before approaching the hill, glancing back occasionally at the mill, but focused more on the direction the noises and shouts were coming from...


OOC: If it's just kids, Meri isn't too concerned about them spotting her.  She's more interested in finding out who's making all that noise and what they're doing here.
Heading up the hill to take a quick peek over to see if there's anything to see.  Trying to avoid being spotted by anyone who can see the hilltop from where they are.

Make me a stealth roll please!

OOC: Stealth: 19 (17 + 2) - Lousy skill saved by a good roll? :)

With skill rolls, the skill is just a bonus that you add to the d20 roll. So it was a good roll with not very much added onto it, that's all ;).

Nym doesn't really react much to Meri's mooring of the boat, instead staying put with her eyes shut.

"There's children hiding." she says quietly, gesturing vaguely in front of and below her as though to something invisible.

Nym will just stay put and see things through her familiar's eyes for the moment - it's like a fun game, sneakily watching the kids who are being sneaky and hiding in the mill from the mysterious adults that are possibly looking for them (or doing something entirely unrelated and the kids just don't want to be noticed) ;).

As Wuffles moved from the perch on the broken window to the corner of the building, Meri moved below as carefully as she could. It was obvious to see that there were enough broken areas of ingress to allow her and Nym to enter the mill whenever they needed.

Meri turned the corner and suddenly had to hug the wall. The hill she had been aiming towards was not unoccupied, the figures they had been hearing were now cresting the greenery.

If anyone had spotted the movement, it did not seem to be reflected in new shouts. Perhaps they has spotted Wuffles on the corner and just assumed any movement had been the owl flying around low.

Meri could only partially see what was going on, whilst for Nym it was far clearer. Some tall figure on the hill was gesturing left and right - one way to a far part of the woods, he other towards the vague are of the mill and river.

There seemed to be three or four more figures who walked parallel to the horizon then disappeared behind a dip on the hill. There were three more figures who started walking downhill towards the mill, though not in any hurry nor with any stealth that would show they suspected anything was amiss. One of the three - the rearmost, turned the the shouting figure on the hill and gave what might be a salute - though if so it was a little dismissive.

As the figures came closer, it appeared they were decently armed and armoured warriors. The armour had a certain uniformity to it, perhaps denoting them as guards, or merceneries from the same company - though a very respectible one, judging by the cleanliness of the leather armour and its red trimmings.

A pair of men - one stout and one of middling appearance - took the lead, while a taller than usual woman with a slim but athletic appearance was the one who had given the salute earlier. Rather than be some form of rearguard, the better trim of her clothing perhaps noted her as the higher ranked officer of the small group.

"-tell you, there's a bed in the mill," drifted a gruff voice, most likely from the stout man, his voice raised as if in argument.

"-never been young, y-" came a reply from probably the other man, briefly louder because he was turning to address both the stout man and the woman behind.

She reacted by raising her hand to her mouth, in what appeared to be a 'shh' motion as she gestured to the mill. Whatever she said was not audible, just a vague noise of low talking. However, she did not reach for a weapon nor hurry the two, so most likely this was still just a routine patrol rather than the guards knowing someone was around.


I'll pause there Meri, it's up to you if you want to make yourself known, hide more, or try and listen in better. Now you guys can try some Perception checks, but you'll only need them if you try to hide whilst still listening in. For as long as Wuffles and Meri are on the edge of the building, you'll hear the uncoming guards as well as possible.


Meanwhile, Nym personally could hear the scrambling in the distance of the children leaving the mill, sliding down on to some lower roofthen finally landing on the ground. The sound of voices hushing each other grew quieter as the children apparently tried to sneak across to the woods by the river once the guards were positioned better.

There was a few moments of silence before Nym perhaps became aware that all was not quite as it had been. Beside her, standing looking politely to the changling, was a 9 year old girl. He had a dirtied face, long dirty hair that reached to her waist, wide trusting eyes, and a battered one eared doll in the shape of a fuzzy rabbit clutched in her hands.


You have a new friend Nym! Or at least a new curious person to deal with :)
This message was last edited by the player at 19:43, Mon 29 Feb 2016.

Meri eyed the figures for a moment before slowly moving back and searching for the nearest way to enter the mill...


OOC: Okies, will try and find a way inside the mill and hide there, but will keep listening to try and pick up more info about who these guys are and why they're here (also for any hint they've found Nym!)
Perception is: 23 (10 (AGAIN!) + 13)

Nym opens her eyes, having become aware that something is nearby, since it was only her sight that had been elsewhere - perhaps the child's clothing had rustled, distracting her momentarily. She remains where she is, sitting in the boat, and looks at the small girl.

"Hello, there." she says, grinning broadly. "I'm Nym, short for Nymmylymmywowlywah. What's your name?"

Well, I expect Nym can get on just fine with a small child as long as they're as childlike as she is ;). I don't think I have a  telepathic link to my familiar, do I? We have to actually speak to each other (I think there is a specific type of familiar that is telepathic, though), so for now Nym won't have any idea what's going on away from the boat unless she activates her power again to look through the owl's eyes (she will get her proper name soon...well, I thought of it ages ago, actually, not long after she first burst into existence, but I haven't got round to Nym actually coming up with it and announcing just yet ;)).
Did Meri leave any of her stuff in the boat? Is it just me, my stuff, and the fox? Just so I know what's around me :).

OOC: Well I think Meri only had her backpack, her staff, and Goodwin, and she took those with her.
Can't recall how much other stuff is in the boat.

Yeah, I would just assume you have your own stuff Nym.

Meri got as comfortable as hiding allowed, and then tried not to move - as much to be able to hear through the broken mill as to avoid giving away her position.

Luckily the wind kept blowing the voices towards her, and also the voices were getting louder as the three warriors were quickly getting near.

It was the woman's voice that finally became audible again, and she was clearly angry at something enough for her voice to carry.

"-t condescending armoured bitch thinks-"

"Woah!" came a gruff and surprised reaction, "How come you're allowed to call her that, when it's me she punched in the face. With a gauntlet! I just called her a vicious sow and you hi- OW!"

"I'm allowed, and you're not, corporal," said the woman with a whip fast retort - and perhaps a physical rebuttle too. Only Wuffles on her perch saw that was exactly what happened, a backhand slap against the stout man's upper arm that carried a meaty 'crack' of contact.

"Sorry sarge," came the chastised if still gruff response.

"Why are we even bothering with this, then," came a more reasonable voice from presumably the plainer looking man.

"Because," came the woman's voice. There was a pause as if that was the end of it, but then a small laugh and she carried on - though with some exasperation mixed in. "Because we like Blace, and we want to prove there's no dragonborn mages she's colluding with. And more importantly, because the Elders have stuck their neck out now and I'd like miss high and mighty to stay miss chained and grouchy. Love to see her kicked to the Blackwood boundary and told never to come back."

"Still with chains on, I hope," muttered the stout man, audible because the group seemed to be far closer now.

"Sergeant!" came a new hiss, from the commanding sound of the male voice, it belonged to the man barking orders on the hill. Though clearly he was no longer on the hill. The rattling of his weapons and armour as he ran down the hill had been disguised by the rattling of the others as they moved.

"Captain."

"I could hear you from the hill, sergeant. What are you doing? Did you not see the movement in the mill?" The Captain's hiss carried quite well, showing both his closeness but also that he seemed to be ignoring his own chastisement.

"Kids, cap'n," said the woman with more laxness. "Saw 'em as we came in, saw 'em leave after we spoke up louder. They left for the woods. Nothing to be worried about."

"Oh. Well that might be sergeant, but what do you call that. Not like any species I've seen in this parts. And it's been looking at you."

Meri had no clue what the Captain was pointing to, but might guess.


For Wuffles, she could see that a stern looking middle ages man in brighter armour had descending the hill, and appeared to be now pointing to her. The athletic looking sergeant did not seem worried as she looked to Wuffles, but definitely had a questioning and curious look as she took notice of Wuffles odd appearance, now the group was in the shade of the mill and could focus better.


Anyway, I'll leave Meri and Wuffles to ponder all that. Nym, don't forget that you can always posts separately as Wuffles if you want to have your familiar act independantly of Nym. You are right, as far as I am concerned Wuffles needs to speak to Nym for Nym to know what's going on - though of course no one else will understand it.


Meanwhile...

The girl's eyes narrowed a little and her eyebrows creased. "That's an odd name. Who gave you that name? Mine is Stelaphee. I mean Stephalee. I don't like people shortening it."

She worried her bottom lip for a moment, and then held out the rabbit. "This was Mr Huggles when I was younger, but he's now Doctor Rabbit. You can call him Doctor for short. People say I shouldn't still have him."

The wide eyed look was back, and she had the vulnerable air of someone who was trying to ask a tricky question without asking one.


Lol, well this is a slightly older child, but I daresay Nym will prevail anyway :)

Meri pondered what she had heard for a moment.
"Do you recognise them?" she whispered, clearly aiming the question at Goodwin.  "Seem to be friends of Blace at least.  Doesn't mean they're friends of mine, but...  We'll see."

She continued to listen to see what they would do next...


OOC: Is this where we find out the girl is actually a Dragonborn Mage with a disguising illusion, and Doctor Rabbit is actually a healer who was cursed and changed into a toy rabbit, just like Goodwin was turned into a stick?  (O.o)'

Darn, you sussed it out!

Goodwin tapped Meri on the upper arm after some twisting, as if immitating the sergeant. However., the he started tapping her more insistently and numerously in the same place, making her arm numb.


Either he's using morse code, or trying to tell you something.To change the subject completly, I will say that Blace did in passing mention Blackwood (the village) had constables. So it couuuuuld be that. Who knows :) If so, maybe they have badges on their upper arms and that's why he's hitting you. Again, maybe, maybe not :D
This message was last edited by the player at 22:06, Tue 01 Mar 2016.

I think Nym was in the shape of a dragonborn when we fought Allyn. Just saying ;).

Up on the wall of the building, the little owl continues to sit perfectly still, looking down at the gathered humans with her disproportionately large eyes. She shows no reaction to being noticed.

Meanwhile Nym gives a little wave with one hand at Stephalee, then at Doctor Rabbit as they are each introduced.

"Hello, Stephalee. I don't think anyone gave me my name. It's just...my name. So that's who I am. Why is your bunny called Doctor Rabbit? Is he actually a doctor? Does he make people better? That's what a doctor is, right? Someone who heals people without using magic? Or rather, covers up the hurt bits or puts them back together so they can finish getting better by themselves. Why do people say you shouldn't have him? It seems like he's your friend. Why shouldn't you have your friend with you?"

She seems genuinely puzzled, and shows no indication of caring whether or not the rabbit is a normal toy or some kind of magical thing that can actually move or speak.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing that Nym didn't shape change between the Allyn battle and the Blace meeting...

The child looked to Nym then the rabbit. "I was sicker when I was small. Doctor Rabbit was my friend when no one else was. They all wanted to play. He wanted to make me better, but he couldn't. There was a real doctor who did that. So now I'm learning all about how to make other people better, without praying and waiting, and I tell everything I learn when I learn something. I know it makes him feel better. And I won't go off and play without him, when he didn't go off and play without me. That's just rude, isn't it?"

Lol, Nym's no nonsense friend policy might just go down very well here :D


Meanwhile, the Captain still did not seem convinced regarding Wuffles.

"There were reports of someone using the mill as a resting place-"

"Told you," whispered one of the corporals to the other, perhaps not quietly enough for both Meri and the Captain to hear. The Captain's stern look was visible only to Wuffles, but perhaps easy to imagine for Meri.

"-and," continued the Captain, "there are reports of ranger or some such person stalking around the outskirts. Despite what Blace says, I do not trust the dryad, if dryad there be. And I trust someone who skirts society and lives in the land even less. Especially if they are more empatheitc to the dryad than us."

"Nothing wrong with roughing it in the wilds. Captain," said the sergeant, perhaps hinting at a less village based history.

The Captain snorted. "Well sergeant, I want you out here looking to that bird and watching our backs while I take the men in here to make sure."

"Wait, is me being left out here a chastisement or complimented? I can't tell. Captain," said a frustrated Sergeant.

"Why can't it be both," said the Captain, before gesturing to the two others to follow him as he gingerly poked open the ruined door on the left hand side of the building.

The sergeant gave a pained smile and half salute half wave to the Captain than degenerated in to a dismissive wave off when the Captain's back was turned. The sergeant looked tt the owl briefly, but then turned most of her attention to the land back towards the village, and occasionally to the upper floor of the mill.


Snooping most likely guards are snooping around now.You should be hidden for now.

OOC: Hmm, so how many soldiers are searching the place now?
Also is there a way I can sneak outside past them?  The one outside sounds less likely to attack me on sight...

The wheel area is outside the mill, just with enough broken parts to allow very easy access inside the ground floor. There are three soldiers going inside right now. So Meri doesn't have to do anything to sneak passed them, all she needs to do is wait a few moments for them to go deeper inside and start their sweep.

While the little owl continues to sit motionlessly on her perch on the wall of the mill, Nym continues conversing with Stephalee.

"Yes,it would seem a bit sort of...ungrateful to leave your friend behind when he stayed with you when you weren't very well." she says with a nod. "So you're learning how to heal people? That's good. Do you have magic, or are you learning how to do it the...er...non-magical way? Which I suppose isn't really healing as such, since people's bodies heal themselves already. I think non-magic healing is just sort of...making sure the injuries are held together and they don't get dirty and things like that, so the body can heal itself anyway, with its own magic that everyone's body has, even if they can't really use it properly."

She looks toward the toy rabbit.

"So does Doctor Rabbit talk? Can he join in our conversation?"

Behold Nym's epic medical knowledge, lol. Well, for her being magical is the normal thing, so anyone who doe stuff without magic is doing it a weird way, just because magic is so much a natural part of her ;). And whether or not Doctor Rabbit just turns out to be a plain old stuffed toy bunny, it will make no difference to her because she tends to just take people as they are and go along with whatever they say about themselves (unless she detects that they're lying, in which case she'll probably innocently ask them about it).

Meri glanced once more around the interior of the mill.
Gripping her staff tightly, she waited for the soldiers to pass by her hiding place, intending to sneak past them and get back outside...


OOC: Okies, going to try being sneaky and creep past them when they enter the mill.
Not too worried if the one outside spots me, since I want to ask her where Blace is anyway...

Can anyone see Nym from where they are?  Guessing she's hidden behind the building for now?

Stephalee looks partially reproachful and partially sad at Nym's last question. "Doctor Rabbit isn't real. He can't really talk," she explains patiently. "But that's no reason to leave him alone, is it?" She looks aadly at the clutched doll, then moves on. "And no, bodies can't heal themselves!" she says, very sure of herself. "My body didn't. You need leaves and berries and twigs and sticks and fabrics and saps and gums and mashes and drinks and lumpy drinks and fruits and all the bad bits of vegetables and everything! I've been trying to learn about them all, but sometimes they make me sick when I try them out."

This girl certainly seems to have..umm..some knowledge. Who knows how good that knowledge is!


Meanwhile, Meri picked here way back around the broken wheel. The area of the wheel was separate from the main body of the mill, and the three armed men were making enough noise - despite trying not to - to make it not an issue to sneak back outside to the corner of the outside of the mill. As Meri left, she could hear the levels of noise pick up - apparently having seen no early signs of anyone, the men inside were simply trying to explore the area thoroughly not stealthily.


If you want to make yourself known to the woman outside, then feel free to just walk around the corner and speak. Or just walk as if walking along the river, of course :)

Nym is for the moment hidden where she is standing, and for the moment the discussion she is having wiht the kid is not loud enough to be heard. I think you are going to pull focus sooner than Nym's conversation would become an issue.

OOC: Hmm, budding alchemist/potion maker?  Maybe we should recruit her and the Doc to the team :)


Meri glanced back at the mill, listening to the noise the searchers were making.
A hint of a smirk crossed her face and she shook her head slightly before propping her staff over her shoulder and strolling along the side of the mill.

As she came out into the open, she glanced towards the woman standing there then leaned back casually against the wall of the mill.
"Do they always make that much noise?" she asked, her voice lowered to try to go unheard above the noises inside the mill while still being heard by the woman.  "If you're looking for someone, they probably heard that lot coming a mile off."


OOC: Hehe :)

Nym hasn't moved from the boat - she was sitting in it for the journey down the river, then started looking through her familiar's eyes after she (the familiar) went and perched on the wall of the mill while Meri was still mooring the boat. She stayed like that till Stephalee distracted her and she hasn't really changed position throughout the conversation.

"Well, Doctor Rabbit might have only looked like he's just a toy." says Nym with a shrug. "I might've missed him being alive. Except he isn't. So that's alright. Anyway...I'm pretty sure bodies can get better by themselves. I mean, one time I bumped my head on something and it hurt, but then it stopped hurting after a while. If bodies didn't fix themselves, it would stay hurting forever unless I found someone with healing magic to fix it, because my magic isn't any good for that kind of thing. Or I suppose I could find...magic...food...or whatever it is magicless healers use...umm...but anyway, I suppose it's possible to be so ill or hurt so badly that you wouldn't have time to get better before you died, or something. I think sleep is a bit magic - if I'm not feeling very well, when I go to sleep I usually feel better when I wake up, even if only a little bit."

She puts her head slightly to one side, considering something.

"So have you been eating lots of different things to see if they work to make people better from being ill or injured?" she asks. "Because that might not be a very good idea - there are lots of things that will make you ill, rather than cure you. And some things that are really bad for you. Even if you can make things taste however you want, they'll still hurt you inside if they're bad for you. Maybe you can ask the doctor about it. I mean the actual doctor, not Doctor Rabbit. Maybe he can teach you things about being a healer. Do you have no magic at all? Have you ever tried to find out if you do?"

Lol,or run away before you get used as practise! Creepy kids wanting to make you sick so they can make you better...


"Oh, I mean that stuff can get cured by bodies, but there's other times when bodies decide to get sick rather than get better," explained Stephalee patiently. "Or something," she then conceded. "Then you need to use other things. Not magic, no like, real medicine! And I've been speaking to real doctors, I learn from them when they take me seriously enough to teach me. And then I tell Doctor Rabbit because...well...because it helps me remember it all. And also I think he wants to know it too."


Lol, oh no, you've found someone who doesn't care about magic! Will Nym understand this at all?


As Meri emerged,the sergeant turned at the voice, her hand going casually to the pommel of the sword at her side. She gave a small smile, but she looked around and back to the mill. It didn't seem as if she were looking for the others, rather listening for how far away they were.

She then turned back to Meri. "Good morning. Personally I'm happy for anyone to leave long before we get here. If there's anything foul afoot, we'll find the evidence of it. Otherwise, it seems impolite to detain anyone on such a nice day."

The woman looked to the owl and then Meri. "Talking a walk along the river, were we? Taking your familiar out for a stroll?"


Despite the armour, or perhaps because of it, Meri's obvious magical staff is probably a give away to being a mage of some kind :D The fact she's actually an artificer is therefore funny.

Meri glanced up at the owl then back at the woman with a shrug.
"That one?  That one isn't mine.  It's not actually an owl, it's more of a...  Well, I'm not too sure exactly what it is."

She shrugged again then glanced beyond the woman in the direction of the village then looked back at her.
"Actually, I'm looking for someone I just heard you mention.  An... 'acquaintance' of mine was concerned that something bad may have happened to Blace.  Do you know where I can find her?"


OOC: Slight hesitation on the word "acquaintance" was deliberate, since Meri still hasn't quite figured out why she's agreeing to help him out. :)

Nym nods at Stephalee's comment on explaining her learning to Doctor Rabbit.

"That's a good idea." she says. "Then you get to talk about it more and I suppose it means you can remember it better, and maybe find out if you don't understand something and then you can go and ask about it again. That's nice that you want to learn how to help people."

She puts her head to one side, considering something.

"It seems strange to do it without magic, though. I mean...there must be some things that need magic to make better, at least if you want it to happen quickly. I mean, magic heals stuff straight away, doesn't it? But if you're using...erm...other things, then you have to wait for them to work. My friend heals people with magic - she's really good at it. She's a bit grumpy most of the time but she's really a nice person. I mean, she heals people, which is a nice thing to do, isn't it? Well, unless you just did it so you could hurt them again, but that would be horrible. Because it's not nice to hurt people."

She shrugs, looking at Stephalee.

"But you don't have any magic? That's a shame. I don't know what people without magic really do. I mean, they must have to use...things...to do whatever they want, and it always seems to take so much longer. Like cooking some food for yourself - if you don't have magic, you have to use a fire and a big pot and all that sort of thing, rather than just holding it in your hand and making the food hot. Mmm...always tastes good..."

She smiles to herself, absently raising a hand, palm-up, to about chest-height and causing a few random little multi-coloured particles of light to dance around her fingertips.

Stephalee looks to Nym happily and with some apparent relief when the shapechanger doesn't consider teaching a stuffed rabbit healing. She nods her head, her wide eyes back again. "Exactly!" she says, and even looks reproachfully at Doctor Rabbit, as if the moon eyes of the doll had been giving her disbelieving looks all this time.

"The only magic I've seen work was priest magic, and it didn't work. My mother doesn't think I can remember being that young, except I wasn't that young at all. The priest said his prayers on the other kids and they got better, and then when it came to my turn he tried to say the prayers but then said he'd done too many of them that day, and he'd have to come back tomorrow. Except it was the day after that, and by then he said it was too late and there was nothing he could do. Stupid prayers ran out and were too late. That's what happens with all magic, isn't it? It runs out and then what do you do?" She waved a hand around to the forest around. "But natural stuff never runs out, there's just all of it everywhere all the time and more and more grows! It's like air and food! So if you know how to do proper healing then you can heal everyone. Even if it takes longer."

Stephalee might just be a little bit mistaken about that, of course!

However, something Nym said was perhaps swaying the girl's earnest convictions. "Food does take too long to cook though..." she said begrudgingly and curiously. "Oh, where's your friend? Is she the one talking to the guard?"


Lol, now is perhaps the time for the NPC to point out you've lost your fellow player, since your character hasn't apparently noticed :p


Meanwhile, Meri was indeed talking to the guard - or at least, the guard was currently looking to Wuffles, but seemed happy to speak with Meri after admiring the bird.

"A very distinctive creature, certainly," said the sergeant after giving an appreciative whistle. "The plumage is all mismatched, and should be offputting, but somehow...maybe it works?"

The sergeant then looked to Meri. "Acquaintence, eh? Perhaps a bird owning ranger or some such?" The sergeant gave Meri a lenetrating look for a moment as if to see a reaction, but then shrugged. "Well, whoever they are they don't need to worry. I'm more worried about how well informed they are. Yes, Blace is currently detained. But only by the Elders themselves, and I believe it was a voluntary action on Blace's part. One of the hired hands had made a few wild accusations just before making a few wild punches. So even though that one is now locked up and likely to be kicked out of the village, we have to do some checking up on the accusations against Blace." The sergeant gave a little smile and a wink. "As I said, maybe we're looking for people, but maybe we don't mind if we don't find them."

The sergeant hadn't moved her hand from the pommel of her sword. She looked back to the owl, and then looked around the sky for a moment. "So, you said 'that one'. As in 'that one' isn't mine, which might imply there is one that's yours. Flying around somewhere, is it? I only ask because you mentioned overhearing me speaking about Blace. Except that was a minute or two ago, which someone casually walking along the river wouldn't have overheard. Makes me feel like I've been spied upon, one way or another..."

Meri might also have been slightly distracted regarding the last question, because the moment Blace's name and condition had been mentioned, Goodwin had started rocking against Meri's back, pushing her. Of course, the stick had a limited ability to indicate if he was pushing Meri to ask for more information, or simply go in that direction.


Lol, if only Goodwin had a working mouth :)

Oh, and Goodwin isn't being too subtle, so I'll need a Bluff or Stealth roll if Meri wants to hide his antics from the sergeant!

Meri showed little reaction at the 'bird owning ranger' comment.  Other than a brief ghost of a faintly amused smirk.
"Not exactly, she's...  Difficult to explain."
She glanced around, as if searching for someone (or perhaps wondering what had distracted Nym this time...)

"Well, I was resting in the mill before heading to the village.  And I do have rather exceptional hearing" she explained.  "I also picked up something about Blace being in league with Dragonborn mages?"
This time she made no effort to hide the grin that provoked.
"I don't know who made that accusation, but...  Were they sampling a little too much of the local ale at the time?"

She shrugged again and glanced up at the owl.
"My familiar?  I'm not too sure where he is" she remarked, her smile fading noticeably.  "Lost for now.  Maybe he'll return, maybe not..."

She seemed saddened for a moment, her thoughts briefly straying from the situation at hand.
Though she winced slightly as Goodwin's sudden prodding brought her swiftly back to the present moment.


OOC: Stealth: 5 (3 + 2).  Unless she's REALLY distracted by Wuffles, she probably noticed that :(
Meri actually does have an excuse readied if someone did happen to recognise the Stick somehow.  Depends on whether it'll work on Little Miss Suspiciouspants here!

Oh, Nym did notice Meri leave - she just decided to stay put and keep an eye on things via her familiar, and would probably still be doing so if Stephalee hadn't showed up ;).

"Ohh, the praying kind of healing..." says Nym, pondering for a moment. "Oh yes, that's the one where they talk to the gods and stuff, isn't it? Some people don't seem to have enough actual magic inside them to be able to use it, so they have to ask their favourite god to do it for them, or something. It seems a bit complicated, and I wouldn't want to go interrupting whatever the gods are doing just to get some help with...well, whatever I wanted help with. It probably wouldn't be very interesting to the god, after all..."

She shrugs.

"But my magic's always here, right inside me." she says, patting her chest. "I suppose if I use too much at once then I get a bit tired. Then I need a rest before I can use lots of it all at once again. But I can always do the little things..."

She holds up her other hand parallel to the first one and causes a small rainbow to erupt from her right hand and pour over into the left. then it dissolves into a cloud of tiny, multicoloured butterflies which dissolve into the air even as they start to fly away.

At Stephalee's query about whether her friend is talking to the guard, Nym looks over toward the mill.

Assuming we can't see them from the boat, otherwise the guard would have been able to see us by now, surely...

"Well, if she's a half-elf with a couple of staves and a grumpy face, yep, that's her." says Nym with a mischievous grin. "She's called Meri and she's very nice. Like I said, she heals people and I'm sure she'll get even better at it one day."

She looks back to Stephalee.

"I didn't know non-magic healing could do anything." she says. "So you can wake up dead people and stuff too? I've heard magic can do that, if you're good enough at it, but it's not something I'll ever be able to do. My magic's a different kind. There are lots of different kinds of magic, after all. Mine makes fire and pretty lights and all different colours, and lots of other things like that. Meri can't do any of that but she can make anyon feel better even if they're really hurt a lot. And she made a little metal man to be her friend. He's called Timur, but sometimes I call him Timmy. But I haven't actually seen him for the last day or two..."

She trails off, apparently trying to remember what happened to Meri's familiar.

"Well, I think maybe he's sleeping in her backpack. Well, he doesn't sleep, but I mean...I think he got...damaged and now he's having a rest. But Meri will fix him, and then he can walk around and look at things again."

Wow, I guess you guys just decided Timur was dead and no one told me :( He can get better any time you want - you monsters! :P

"Yeah, gods don't seem to interested in people," said Stephalee a little sadly.

She seemed surprised at Nym's insistence on not running out of magic, and delighted despite herself at the little show. "So, do you eat a lot of stuff? Like berries and sludge and gums and plants and stuff?" It seemed to be the only way for the girl to align Nym's limitless magic compared to the limitless of nature's 'magic'. "I've not heard of anything bringing poeple back, but that's because dead people don't eat, and living poeple don't feed them. Is that why there's just resting? They're just waiting for food?"

Stephalee looked to Nym and then to Doctor Rabbit. "Why does your friend have a little metal man that walks around? Is that magic? Can..can she make Doctor Rabbit come to life?"

And when Stephalee wonders where her life went wrong, and why she's been arrested for digging up corpses and feeding them quiche, maybe she'll remmeber this brief conversation... :p


The sergeant gave Meri another appraising look, but seemed to relent in sharing information. "Yeah, know how that goes, resting where you can. Was an adventurer before I found more 'honest' work. The accurser was not drunk, that might be her problem. Unfotunately Blace was seen in the company of, if you listen to the various perhaps merry accounts, a Dragonborn mage, a priest with an odd skin condition, a human, a drow... well, the list goes on. Goes on at length and in total contradiction when it was found out why we were asking. Seems like people like Blace, and don't like Al...the accuser whose name we're not supposed to release, and well - wouldn't you know people suddenly didn't see any dragonborn mages at all. Oh well, could be worse, could still be raining."

The sergeant's musing seemed to be interrupted by Goodwin's movements. Unfortunately, Meri had no real way to hide them. The sergeant's grip on the pommel of her sword tightened.

"Ma'am, you appear to have something in your rucksack that's moving. Or someone invisible pushing you. Would you mind explaining."

The sergeant had taken a subtle step back, and the comment about an invisible person did not seem to be delivered with any humour - there was definitely an edge of suspicion.

Stupid Goodwin!

OOC: Well, time to pull out the pre-prepared excuse and hope it flies...


Meri frowned slightly, possibly making a mental note to do something rather unpleasant to Goodwin later...

"Ah that, yes.  That was the other reason I was interested in meeting up with Blace.  You see, I'm something of a crafter of magical artifacts by trade.  And Blace was interested in whether I could make a wooden staff that could move in time to her songs as if it was dancing.
Strange request perhaps, but not the strangest one I've ever had.  That would probably be the time someone enquired about making a puzzle box that could open a portal to...  Well, you're probably not interested in that.  Suffice to say, I've been having some trouble with the enchantment on this one triggering at random times.  Still needs a little fine tuning once I get some more materials.  Or perhaps I just need to bang it against a rock a few times!"

She reached back and tapped on the tip of the Stick, then shrugged casually, still leaning back against the wall.
"Nice sword you got there.  If I had the proper components, I could enhance that with a simple fire enchantment" she added conversationally...


OOC: At least I assume Artificers can do that to swords with the proper ritual...  If not, I'll change it.  :)

Also Timur will return the next day (assuming we ever get to sleep with all this rushing around!)  Got a little bit of a character beat planned there :)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:20, Sun 06 Mar 2016.

Oh, I know Timur's not dead, but in-game Meri hasn't got round to "rezzing" him yet so from Nym's point of view he's just ben stuck in her pack all "dead" and stuff ;).

Also, good story about the dancing stick, Meri :D.

"Magic's not all about food." says Nym. "Magic's just...magic. It's everywhere."

She makes a few more little coloured lights dance around her fingertips again, idly twirling them around as she goes on.

"But Timmy's magic, yes. My friend doesn't just heal people - she makes magical things too. Items, I mean. Or she puts magic into items that don't already have any. Or both. Any of those things. Timur is a bit different, though, I think. I think a bit of Meri is in Timur, so he's sort of...more alive than if he just got...woken up by magic. He's her super special friend that will be there forever, even if he's a bit...sort of...broken, at the moment. And I have a super special friend too, but I didn't make her out of metal. She just sort of...popped out of me."

She pats her chest at the point that her familiar had first emerged from her, and smiles happily at the memory.

"It felt really weird, but in a good way, I think. I don't know if Doctor Rabbit will ever be able to come to life like that, but maybe if it turns out that you have magic inside you, maybe you'll be able to do something like that one day. I can't really say - magic is everywhere, but it's very different from place to place, and person to person. My magic is very different from Meri's - she makes items and puts magic into them, or uses her magic to fix objects or people that have something wrong with them. My magic is...well, you can see some of it, here..."

She holds up her hands, moving them around as coloured clouds of a smokelike substance emerge from them, which she shapes and fluffs around for a few moments until an image of Doctor Rabbit is formed, floating in the air in front of her. Then the image turns into the image of a more realistic rabbit which hops around in a circle in the air, does a backflip, then explodes into flower petals of multicoloured light.

"Of course, that's just one little thing I can do." she says. "But it would take far too long to show you everything, and I'm not even sure of all the things I can do. And I'm sure I'll figure out some more stuff as I go on, anyway. Magic is such a wonderful, changeable thing, and there are so many things it can do, even with it running through my blood the way it does I haven't had a chance to discovr everything I can do."

She shrugs and gives a nod of hear head.

"But that's alright." she says. "That'll give me something to do, won't it? Exploring but without going anywhere. Though I like the other kind of exploring too. It's fun finding out new things, making new friends. Friends are good."

Sorry Meri, meant to say yesterday, could you roll me a Bluff check if you are around? The lie will succeed, it's too good not to, I love it. I'm more looking to see how successful it is :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:31, Mon 07 Mar 2016.

OOC: Bluff check: 11 (10 + 1) - Back to my d20's favourite number again.  Hoping it's enough to make up for crappy Bluff skill :)
This message was last edited by the player at 19:57, Mon 07 Mar 2016.

Lol, yeah, I'm afraid in this case you needed a good bluff to get a fun bonus. Still, like I said a fail didn't mean anything, the RP lie was too good to screw you over with a skill check.


The sergeant nodded, then turned to the door. "CAP'N!" she yelled, perhaps too loudly given it was clear her commanding officer was just behind the door, "It's ok out here, sorry for the false alarm!"

There was a pregnant pause, and then an audible mumbling and clattering of armoured men moving back in to the mill.

Without even addressing what had gone on, she looked to her sword. "Sorry, don't really trust anyone playing around with my stuff. Blackwood is too busy and sees too many charlitans and tricksters. No offense."

Still, the sergeant dropped her hand to her side when she looked back up to Meri. "Anyway, I can see maybe why you were so interested in Blace. I guess when your friend said Blace might be in trouble, you saw whatever money you've sunk in to that staff dropping in to a black hole, right? Can't sell it to someone else if it's so specific and doesn't even work properly yet! That's good money after bad when the buyer falls through." The sergreant laughed. "Don't blame you, but don't worry. Blace is probably going to be fine, probably finished with the Elders today at some point. Take advantage of the cheap post festival board and food, and you might still find some travellers kicking around trying to sell wares before they move on. If you want to hold on I'm sure one of my men or I can show you the best shops in the village if you don't know them already. Then you can show Blace what you've got when she's free."

The sergeant then looked towards the woods higher up where the other men had gone. Goodwin took the opportunity to push Meri a single time towards the village, but then reluctantly stayed still.


At least you've put her at her ease, even if she's not convinced in your skill level yet :)


Stephalee looked to Nym and Doctor Rabbit several times as Nym spoke on the greatness of magic. "Friends are good," she said begrudgingly, "though mine didn't want me to come out of the woods to the mill. They don't know I came after them, and I think they've left without me."

Stephalee looked behind her to the woods, perhaps a little worried. She looked back to Nym with the wide eyes, wider when Nym does her tricks. "How...how do you know if you have magic in you, then? How come it can pop out of you but you can still do magic stuff?"


Lol, new student! The village did not need a doctor anyway, and I'm sure Staphalee's mother and father won't mind her running off to explore everywhere :)

OOC: Well, another wannabe healer on the team can only be a good thing, given our perpetually low HP and our habits of apparently antagonising every dangerous person or creature we encounter! :)
Also definitely curious about what the Bluff bonus would have been... :)


Meri frowned slightly at the mention of charlatans and tricksters, her blue eyes flaring slightly brighter for a moment, but then shrugged and nodded.
"Understandable.  Well then, I'll go shopping around at the village for now, I need to stock up on supplies anyway.  Just need to figure out where my friend went to first.  She may have gotten distracted by something shiny..."

She turned to move back towards the river, then paused and glanced back over her shoulder.
"Oh, I'll be sure to let you know if I spot any Dragonborn Mages in the area" she added with a grin, still giving the impression that she assumed anyone spinning such a tale must have bumped their head once too often.


OOC: Assuming she doesn't get suspicious and stop me again...


Returning to the river bank, she looked over to where the boat was, glancing briefly towards the girl Nym was talking to.
"We should get to the village.  Blace is fine, although she's being held by the guards for now.  I'll explain the rest later" she said to Nym in a low voice.


OOC: Realising that if Nym suddenly decides to change back into a Dragonborn shape again, we're in trouble.  Rather hilarious trouble, but still trouble, hehe :)

Couldn't have put it better myself :p

The Bluff would have just made the guard more certain of your skills and so might have taken you up on the offer to check her sword, or at least let you know of any fellow craftsmen around and given you an 'in' with them.

As it stands, instead she couldn't be sure if you were a skilled artisan in the middle of making something, or a far less skilled artisan trying to muck her way through :)

I wouldn't worry about Nym turning into a dragonborn again any time soon - she took that shape, what, yesterday? That's too soon to use it again already, even if she changes up the colour scheme (which she would do) ;). The bigger problem will be the possibility of her just blurting out what happened the last time we were in the area, if she doesn't realise she's not supposed to do so. But...high Insight and all that, if she can be given a hint or two she's probably sharp enough to take them ;).

"Well," says Nym to Stephalee, "I'm all magic. I mean, there's magic in me and there always will be. It's part of me. You know how you have blood in you, and even if you cut yourself and lose a bit, you still have plenty left and the bit you lost comes back over time anyway? I mean, it must do, otherwise you'd run out if you cut yourself too many times over enough years. And you get bigger - I mean, you're not going to be that size forever, are you? So your body must make more blood to fill up the space as you grow. My magic's like that - it's in my blood and my friend is made of a bit of my magic. So she's like...a part of my magic that came to life and is separate from me, and I suppose the magic inside me has filled itself up again. But she'll always be part of me...sort of, linked, and stuff."

She looks around as Meri approaches.

"Oh, hello, Meri!" calls Nym with a wave. "Hey, Stephalee, this is my friend I was telling you about - this is Meri. Hey, Meri - this is Stephalee. She wants to be a healer but she doesn't think she has any magic. Oh, and that's her friend, Doctor Rabbit."

She points at the stuffed rabbit the girl is holding.

"No problem," said the sergeant lightly, "the market square is close enough to the village square that I'm sure you'll hear when Blace comes out again. I can't imagine that woman will miss a trick to draw a crowd the second she leaves the village hall. What was your name again? I'll tell you you're looking for her if I see her first."

The sergeant then starts walking back and forth between the mill and the edge of it nearest the hill, apparently looking towards the woods for signs of the others. She gives a small wave at Meri's parting comment on mages, though seems distracted enough that Meri can't tell if it was taken with good grace or not.


Meanwhile, as Nym starts going on about blood, Stephalee's face looks more and more aghast - perhaps not the best reaction for someone looking to heal naturally. Still, Meri times her entrance perfectly to distract from the odd conversation.

Stephalee looks Meri up and down, and produces Doctor Rabbit on queue with some uncertainty. She makes the rabbit wave to Meri with one of its hands, though Stephalee herself puts the rabbit up higher, as if to hide behind her stuffed friend. Only one eye and a spill of hair is visible, the wide eye looking uncertain.

"You don't make new people out of blood, do you?" she asks quietly, moving the rabbit aside for just long enough to ask the question before putting it back across her face.


I wonder if Meri is used to these sorts of questions from people who have been allowed to talk to an unfiltered Nym for too long? :p

OOC: Slight retcon, since the question about her name came up...

"My name?" replied Meri, pausing and glancing back.  She frantically searched her memory, trying to remember if either her or Nym had mentioned their names around Allyn before.  Most likely.  Had she remembered and told the guards?

"I'm Nalu" she said, suppressing a faint shiver as some old forgotten discarded fragment of her mind seemed to spark back into life at the sound of the name...
"Blace probably wouldn't recognise it anyway, I deal in artifacts, not names.  She was pointed in my direction some months ago through an old friend of hers, Goodwin I think he was called.  Something that sounded like that anyway."


OOC: And back to the river...  :)
[Private to The Altweaver: And yep, I was just waiting for something to force her to revert to her old name! ;)]


Meri glanced towards Stephalee at the mention of making people out of blood.
Her expression looked baffled by the question, although a glance towards Nym and a slight roll of her eyes suggested she suspected where the odd notion had probably come from.

"Well, with the right materials I can make people out of wood, metal and crystal.  If you'd call them people.  Not everyone does" she replied hesitantly.

She glanced back behind her as if checking that the guards were still out of earshot and that the noises of searching the mill had resumed...

Oooh, an interesting character beat shaken loose there!

And lol, time for a little retcon of my own...


"Goodwin??!" said the sergeant with no small amount of heat, pointing an accusing finger at Meri, "you tell that slimy coniving little sneak thief that he still owes me ten gold and if he doens't want to be throttled or thrown in to a..." The sergeant ten composed herself. "I'm sorry Nalu. Sorry. Not professional. Also you said 'Blace's friend' not your friend. I hope your staff issues aren't his fault. Have a good day."

A little embarrassed the sergeant moved off, but the sergeant's hand involuntarily made some throttling motions curling in to itself.

Goodwin himself at least had the good grace to sink in to the small of Meri's back, and not try to push her onwards again for the moment.


Lol, and here was me feeling so sad you never showed off the staff to the sergeant :D

OOC: oops, didn't think she'd recognise Goodwin's name, hehe :)

Nym giggles at Stephalee's question regarding the possibility of making people out of blood.

"No, no," she says, "we don't make people out of blood. I don't think that's possible. I just mean that magic's in my blood. But I don't really make things. That's what Meri does. And I don't think her magic's in her blood like mine is..."

She looks toward Meri.

"It's not, is it? I mean, not in the same way. Hey, is Timmy awake yet? Did you fix him? Does he need fixing or is he not that kind of broken? Or can he fix himself? Maybe he can come and say hello. Well, he can't talk...at least, if he does it's never when I'm listening..."

Meanwhile, from her perch on the damaged wall of the mill, the little owl sidles away from the direction of the sergeant and then flutters back over to the boat, landing on Nym's head and staring at Stephalee with her oversized, unblinking and perfectly round eyes. Nym smiles and giggles, reaching up to tickle the owl's rainbow-hued chest feathers.

"This is my friend." she says, happily. "She's going to be with me forever and ever. Well, at least until I'm dead, I suppose. Then maybe she'll be with me wherever dead people go. I mean, if we become ghosts or something..."

As Meri checked for the progress of the guards - and could hear that they did seem to be upstairs and the front of the mill, judging by the hammering and footfalls - Stephalee reacted to it all.

"You made her?" asked Stephalee shocked, looking down to Doctor Rabbit sadly for a moment then back up to the owl. "But she looks real. Wait, she is real, isn't she? I mean...aren't you?" This last sentence was directed towards Wuffles herself. Stephalee looked between Nym and Wuffles. "What's your name?" she said loudly and clearly. "What's her name?" she said more quietly to Nym as if to not be rude.

Meri's gaze flitted back and forth between Nym and Stephalee as if wondering what exactly they had been talking about, and more importantly if the guards inside the mill had heard any of it.

Glancing back again, she moved towards the boat, climbing into it and looking up at Stephalee briefly as if trying to guess if it was safe to speak up around someone who might remember what they said and blurt it out to the guards later.

"You didn't tell her our names did you?" she whispered, leaning close to Nym...


OOC: She knows too much now...  (¬.¬)'

"Well, she sort of...made herself, I think." says Nym. "I'm not really sure..."

The owl bobs her head up and down a couple of times when addressed by Stephalee, raises one tiny claw and opens and closes it a couple of times in the girl's direction, then makes a few strange twittery noises.

"She doesn't really have a proper name just yet." explains Nym. "I've been trying to think of one, so I expect I'll come up with something soon."

As Meri addresses her, she leans toward the half-elf, grinning as though playing some kind of conspiratorial game.

"Yes, of course I did." she says. "It would have been a bit rude not to."

She turns back to Stephalee to see the girl's reaction to her explanation about her familiar (and said familiar's actions).

If you remember, Nym introduced Meri to Stephalee when she came over, so Meri will know that Steph at least knew her name at that point.

"Miss Clutchy!" says Stephalee proudly, before putting Doctor Rabbit up in front of half of her face again. "Or Mrs. Owl is good too," she says quietly, perhaps scared by Meri's appraising look and shifty whispering.


NPC Child Found Dead With Mouth Stuffed Full of Rabbit Doll. Gang Violence Suspected. News at 11!

A faint hint of something between confusion and exasperation flitted through Meri's eyes before she looked back at Stephalee.
"Excuse us a moment" she said with an obviously forced smile.

Leaning close to Nym, she lowered her voice to a whisper again.
"Ok, we need to make sure the guards don't hear our real names.  Allyn told them about our attack, so they're looking for us.
Allyn mistook you for a Dragonborn since you looked like one at the time, so they probably won't recognise you now, as long as they don't find out your name.  I told that one I was called Nalu, not Meri.
As far as she knows, I'm an artificer who only came here to give Blace a staff I made for her.  That's Goodwin's 'disguise' by the way.  Don't mention his name either, that guard seemed to recognise it.  As long as they don't know that we're the ones who fought against Allyn, they'll probably leave us alone and let us pass."

Looking up again, she glanced warily towards the woods where the other guards had disappeared to and then back to the mill.
As if responding to the situation, the odd blue luminescence in her eyes had seemed to glow a little brighter for a moment when she mentioned the name she was using...


OOC: Well, she's either one of us...  Or she knows too much! ;)  *evil cackle*

Can't think why she might be scared of Meri...  ;)


[Private to The Altweaver: Might be bringing back Timur a little earlier now actually.  Since she just "woke up" that part of her mind again :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 19:03, Thu 10 Mar 2016.

Nym is about to answer Stephalee when Meri leans down to whisper to her.

"Well, I don't want to meet Allyn again." she whispers back. "She wasn't very nice. Didn't she jump into the water or something? Is she all wet now and telling people we pushed her in? She had friends with her - maybe they can help her get dry since I don't remember her using any magic..."

She pauses, then seems to think of something.

"Why did you say you were called Nalu?" she asks. "Do you have two names? Or did you...hmm...isn't there some name you don't like being called, or something? I seem to remember one time...hmm but it was some time ago...well, I think I like Nalu better than Meri. It sort of...fits better."

She shrugs, the owl on her head barely reacting to the movement as she continues to sit perfectly still, her large eyes still focused on Stephalee.

"Anyway," continues the changeling, "you said Blace was alright. Can we go, then? We didn't have any other reason to come here other than to find out what happened to her, right? And we found out that she's fine, so now we can leave. And, um...find some way to get Goodwin changed back, I suppose. But we should go back to Celindara and tell her. And see if Many is back..."

She looks rather longingly back along the river, twisting in position in order to do so as she still hasn't moved from the boat all this time. The owl on her head remains in place, her own head merely rotating so that she can still see Stephalee. She raises a claw and "waves" again, as though to keep the child entertained while the "adults" talk.

Stephalee looks from Nym to Meri with wide eyes, waving Doctor Rabbit's hand uncertainly and still half hiding behind it.

The only reason she looks behind her is because, far off, it's clear the soldiers in the woods are calling out to each other. It does not sound like they have found something, it seems to be the half-hearted calls of people not finding anything and yelling to see if anyone is any different.


At Nym's comments, Goodwin resumed his urgent pulls towards the village, all the more frantic for Nym's apparent desire to give up.

Meri seemed oddly distracted for a moment, staring up at the mill with a distant expression.
At the mention of the name Nalu again, she flinched slightly and looked back at Nym.
"Never mind that now" she muttered.

Reaching back, she elbowed Goodwin then sighed.
"Well, we can at least get him back to Blace before we clear out of here.  They said Allyn was locked up.  Hopefully she'll stay that way until we're far from here."

With that, she climbed back out of the boat, returning to where she'd been standing before and glancing around to make sure none of the guards were moving in her direction.
"If you'd rather stay here, I probably won't be too long.  Depends how long it takes for Blace to be released.  Looks like that lot are almost done searching anyway."

She glanced towards Stephalee with another rather stiff smile.
"Don't mind us.  We're just passing through."

Please Nym don't take Meri up on her offer to do nothing!

Oh, I think we have established that Nym is pretty much incapable of doing nothing, at the risk of exploding from boredom or something ;).

Nym looks off in the direction of the village, then back to Meri and shrugs.

"Well," she says, "I don't really know if the village is very interesting. Maybe I can find something to do here...hey, Stephalee, what kinds of interesting things are around here? Is there anything fun inside that mill? It looks all old and broken and stuff, but maybe there's something to do in there. Is that where you were before? There were other people in there before, weren't there? But they all ran away when those guards showed up. Are they your friends? Did you want to go back with them? I know you said they didn't want you following them, but you did anyway. It doesn't sound like it would be much fun otherwise, if they just leave you by yourself all the time. It's better to do things with people. Well, with friends, anyway..."

As the last experience in the village wasn't most fun, Nym has no particular desire to go back there right now, but she can easily entertain herself somehow, I'm sure ;). Of course, knowing our luck Allyn will get released just as Meri strolls into the village and ends up getting into major trouble which Nym will have no idea about if she's not there...but I bet she will notice soon enough, somehow ;).

If Alynn did cause Meri any trouble in the village, there would be no way for Nym to know unless either of you put those methods in place. This far in to the game I'm not going to protect you both from the dangers of splitting up in a potentially hostile situation.

If you two are spliting up here temporarily, I'm happy to truncate Meri's shopping trip in to more of a summary form, then move the plot in the village along after that. It should mean the timing of everything is fine.


Stephalee looks to away from the woods for a moment, and looks around uncertainly. "The mill was supposed to have a strange old man inside it, but I don't think my friends found anyone," she said quietly. "They keep telling me it's too dangerous and I'll fall throug hthe floor, but they keep going in anyway and they let Melissanta go with them," she said with heat.

The boat rocked for a moment, and the fox - who had been sitting curled up in the boat seemingly ignoring all the happenings, suddenly darted towwards the front of the boat, then leapt off, then ran under Meri's legs as she was going to the corner again. The fox disappeared in to the darkness of the mill just as it sounded as if they Captain and the two other soldiers were coming out.

"Did you make the fox too?" said Stephalee in wonder.

There was some form of heated debate between the captain and the sergeant, but it appeared the sergeant was reassuring the captain that everything had been fine, and she'd just encountered a passing salesman heading towards the village. Meri didn't hear any mention of Blace nor the name she had given the sergeant.

Though there was more grumbling, it appeared that rounding up the men at the woods was more of a priority, and the Captain led the others diagonally towards the woods rather than back up the hill, though the swells of the ground around did mean they would soon be lost to sight.

Stephalee was looking back to the woods and the departing guards, especially when Nym mentioned friends, and nodded to Nym's question. "I really should get back to them, they'll be in the woods by the litte creek." She looked around to Nym and Meri. "I...maybe I'll see you around the village later? It is nice, honestly. Maybe not interesting all the time like yesterday, but it is nice."

Ok, so unless you want to stop her either of you, Stephalee will head off along the riverside towards the woods away from the village.

Meri, you have a clear route to head in to the village now if you desire.

Nym, you can go check out the mill if you like, and see why the fox is so interested in it.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:42, Sun 13 Mar 2016.

As the fox disappears into the mill, Nym watches him. She looks over at Stephalee's question.

"Oh, no, we didn't make him." she says. "He just decided to come with us. I wonder where he went..."

She stares off toward the mill with curiosity, then looks back at Stephalee as the girl says she's leaving.

"Alright." says Nym with a smile. "Maybe we'll meet you again some time. And Doctor Rabbit too. Bye, then!"

She gives a wave, the movement having no effect on the owl atop her head, who gives another "wave" too and bobs her head a few times. As the girl heads off in search of the other children, Nym turns to Meri.

"Well," she says, "I wonder what Mr Foxy just found so interesting about that old building? Shall we go and see? Or did you want to go and look for Blace? I don't really want to go back to that village again, or met Blace. It wasn't really very nice, was it? Well, I suppose the party was sort of fun...till things got all sort of...boring..."