Crouching in the weeds, Eoni looked over the two buildings suspended in the lake.  It looked as though they might have even odds of finding what they sought on their first try.

"Which one do you think?" she asked over her shoulder as she scanned the shore for watercraft that might get them out there.  "Which building?"

The center stone of her tiara now glowed with a magical light.  She'd applied it with Avandra's Grace during her first night watch and had grown quite fond of it.  It was, however, a beacon in the night to all foul if she didn't remember to pull her hood up to direct it's glow.

Valthur scans the putrid lake with a wrinkled nose. "I say that tower because it's closest, but I don't like the black waters surrounding either of them."

 Marklin watched the remains of a once great empire, a civilization that had spread culture and law throughout the land. The ruins marked the decline and fall of what had been right and good in the world. After careful thought upon the matter, offered his opinion. " It be a shyt hole, smells like an outhouse in high summer."

 The warrior shifted his weight and adjusted his grip on the hobgoblin long bow. He looked to their fearless leader. " Well Cap'n Eoni, are be going to be about it, or stay here an admire the ruins some more?"

Taerix slowly readies his bow, watching the ruins for any sign of movement.

"Does anyone know if lizard folk are out by day?" she asked, ignoring Marklin's prodding.  "Or see a boat we could use?"

"Maybe there's a walkway or bridge we will see when we're closer?" Sarah suggests timidly.

"All right," Eoni conceded. "Let's get closer but hide if you see any movement out there or on the shore.  We're looking for a way to get out to that tower.

"Taerix," she said, nodding to the halfling, "scout ahead of us and see what you find.  We'll give you some room and then follow."

The halfling cautiously makes his way out to the shoreline, looking for any sign of trouble. He fully expects something to come out of the water at him, and he readies his bow should that occur.

Leaving his companions some distance behind, Taerix silently stalks through the marsh, drawing nearer to the murky lake. The halfling spots several crude huts along the lake's shore. The huts are not clustered together, rather they are spread out at fairly large distances, seemingly all around the lake.

The nearest, a slightly crooked hut, leans on rickety wooden silts out over the lake's black waters. The hut is about 20 feet in diameter and has wooden walls and a roof of sticks and branches, all covered over with copious amounts of dark gray, rancid-smelling mud. The hut's floor is about three above the surface of the water, and its single entrance can be reached by a crude ladder made of broken branches lashed together with reeds.

A half-dozen or so lizardfolk mill about the hut, these engaged in various mundane activities: spear-fishing, net-weaving and sunning themselves in the fading light of day.

Switching his attention to huts a couple of hundred feet to either side of this one, Taerix notices similar scenes at these.

 The Warrior named Marklin squatted next to the rest of the group, hiding like field mice from a hawk, or so thought Marklin. He peered through the reeds and wanted nothing more then to get to his feet, below a challenge to the winds, draw sword and await the enemy. " What are we waiting for, anyway? We ain't gonna find a boat hiding in the reeds."

Taerix notes the position of the lizardmen and heads back to the others to relay the information.

Valthur waits and watches in silence. The black waters make him uneasy, and he quietly wonders to himself if the water will reach over his head and what evils may lurk below the surface.

"We can't take them all head on," Eoni explains.  "Even the Tiri Kitor didn't have the numbers for that.

"We need to sneak in, find it, destroy it, and get out with as little notice as possible.  For us to even reach the tower, we'll need a boat unless you want to..."

She stopped abruptly to look at Sarah and then the vast lake before them.

"What kind of big animals do you think live in that lake?" she asked deliberately, looking out over the dark waters.

"Can anything live in that?"

The Sister looked around to see if anyone else had an idea of what might live within the lake.  Finding none, she continued, "I could use Sarah's scroll to summon some lake dwellers to ferry us to the tower.  However, they'd have to be near in order to respond.  If I fail to choose the right animal, the spell will fail after three tries.  So we'll need to know what's out there."

" I say do it. We can't walk on water, nay fly..Well...we can't fly NOW.. we gotta get across the water."

"We'll have to get down to the water without attracting any attention," Eoni pointed out.  "Then maybe throw something into the water to attract anything that might work.

"If the lizard people are active now, it might be safer to go by night.  They might be able to see at night, but can they see as far?  Once we're onto the water, we might be all right."

"Any boats?" Sarah asks Taerix.

Aldara, too, is puzzled as to what can possibly be done to cross the waters.  "The scroll seems like the best course of action..." She looks at Taerix. "Unless you saw any boats?"

"I did not," Taerix answers. "Just the huts and lizardmen clans."

Aldara grumbles.  "It's a gamble, but I could attempt to charm one of them to help us if Sarah's scroll doesn't work out.  It's just that we might need to, ah, sedate the rest.  What happens to them afterwards is honestly no concern of mine."

Yes, because Aldara's track record with charmed creatures is the best.

Sarah retrieves the scroll, but offers no advice or insight about how it should be used (because she has none).

And because of her lack of insight and understanding, she asks: "How are fish going to get us across?  Can't ride fish."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:23, Wed 02 May 2018.

 Marklin stood guard with his longbow at the ready.

"I was thinking there might be alligators," Eoni replied to Sarah.  "I'm not sure what else might be out there that could carry us.  That's why I thought throwing something into the water might attract something we could use.

"If the lizard people are about in daylight, we might hope that they'll be fewer of them during the night and approach the water then.  Remember that even the Tiri Kitor preferred not to tangle with them, so I think it's best we avoid as many as possible.

"And I think we'll hold off trying to make friends with them as a last resort," she conceded to Aldara's offer of compulsory friendship.

"Taerix," she said once more to their halfling scout, "see if you can plot a way for us to reach the water after dark.  One that avoids any chance meetings with the locals.

"After that," she concluded finding a dry place to sit, "we wait until dark."

Valthur fidgets uneasily while the discussions carry on. "There's a lot of huts," he concludes. "If there's lizard men in every one, we'll have more or less an army of problems. So I'm all for sneaking in after they go to sleep. How deep is the water, anyway?"