When something is taken from us, it is said to be the will of the gods. And yet, when we ask of something from those gods, a simple question is always asked in return, a simple answer demanded from us.

"What will you give me?"

Nym was aware of Celindara shouting her name, and filling her vision.

"Nym! Nym! Oh, thank the spirits. You fell - you both fell down. At the same time. What happened?" Celindara seemed more childlike than she had a moment before, confused and uncertain.

Across the gigantic tree limb, Meri was apparently passed out on the ground. Goodwin was trying to shake her awake, but it did not seem to be working. The half-elf looked across, and seemed momentarily relieved when he saw Nym was awake again. He looked back with concern at Meri, then looked to Nym, lost. "What's going on? What's wrong with Meri. And Many?"

He gestured across to where Many was. The little beholder was rocking on the ground, trying to cover his head with his eyestalks, main eye open wide in alarm. "No no no no no no no!" he was repeating, clearly upset, lip wobbling.


Umm, so yeah, welcome back to the game again, and woohoo new chapter? So, Nym does have two ways to try and contact The Shadow - grabbing the clear stone out of Meri's pack, or trying to use the wish. Of course, Nym might be wanting to do neither of these things, since this was apparently what the Ultimate Big Bad Evil Guy was wanting you to do. Still, at the moment all signs point to Meri mentall or spiritually being the one still with that UBBEG...
This message was last edited by the player at 17:59, Sat 29 Oct 2016.

Nym blinks and look around, somewhat confused.

"Oh, hello, Celindara." she says. "I think we were just somewhere else, or maybe it was a dream, or something, and there was some big giant face person taking to us about Students and Teachers and nothics and himself as the Teacher, and...oh...some other stuff about...I don't know, corruption, and...stuff...I didn't really understand most of it. Oh, is Meri still asleep?"

She goes over to the unconscious half-elf, absently reaching up to tickle the chest of the falcon who has swooped down to alight on her shoulder the moment she has assumed an more upright position.

"Hey, Meri!" says Nym, giving her friend a gentle poke in the arm. "You can wake up now. The big weird face has gone. Well, he's certainly not here. That was that person that that Shadow thingy said we weren't supposed to think about, right?"

She glances around and notes the incredibly upset Many.

"Ahh, Many, look, it's okay." she says, going over to pick him up in both hands and cradle him against her chest. "I'm all awake now, see? And we just ned to wait for Meri to wake up too..."

She goes back to the half-elf and shifts the beholder into one hand in order to give Meri a little poke again.

The idea of contacting the Shadow would never have occurred to me if you hadn't suggested it OOC, so it's not going to occur to Nym any time soon ;). She's woken up just fine, after all, so that means Meri will be doing so too any moment now. She probably just sleeps longer because she's not quite as active as Nym is, yeah, that's it. Her magic's more sleepy and spend its time sitting inside inanimate objects waiting to be called upon, rather than flowing freely through a bloodstream and needing to be discharged every few minutes so as to avoid too much of a build-up ;).

"Noo, noo, bad face, Bad face!" said Many, returning the hug and wailing, clearly still frightened by whatever shared vision he'd had with the other two. He tried to squirm around so he could see Meri while still being fully hugged.

Celindara and Goodwin both looked concerned, but for different reasons. Celindara spoke first. "The Teachers? What was said of the Teachers? Are they not defeated?" she asked.

Goodwin pointed to Meri. "What about Meri? Is she still there with the.... what face? Who's face?" He reached for Meri's pack. "Is it that stone's fault? She went weird last time she held that clear stone from the portal!"

"I don't know." say Nym with a shrug, seeming rather confused at the fuss everyone seems to be making. "We were sat in the tree talking to you, then it all went dark, and then we were in this weir place that was all sort of...barren. And it had a weird sky with a sort of...sun-thing in it that was all red and swirly, and then this big face appeared like a really big, huge enormous giant, and he was taking in a weird voice that sounded all, I don't know, sort of...red, and he was going on about doing something with these things called nothics. And there were some Students that were doing what he wanted, and then they all forgot what they were so he could make them do...things...I don't really know. And he said they all learned really well because he was the Teacher. And he made their world. Or it already existed and they broke it, or something, but he didn't mind because that was what he wanted. And he looked like he wanted to squish us with his giant hands but it kept not working and it seemed like he was a bit upset about that, like something was stopping him but he was acting like he was doing it on purpose. And then he said he'd see one of us again soon and both of us some other time and then he sort of waved his hand like this..."

She moves her non-Many-holding hand in a mimicry of the gesture the entity had used to banish them.

"And then I woke up here and you were all acting all worried. And why's Meri still not waking up?"

She looks over at Goodwin.

"Oh, that stone we got from the thingy? I don't know what it does. I think Meri used it to find that Shadow-thingy, or something. I'm not really sure if the big-red-face-person is actually the same as the Shadow who came out of the big purple portal or if they actually are different people. Um...maybe if I have a look at it..."

She takes the stone from Meri's pack (or from Goodwin, if the half-elf has found it by this point) and looks at it.

"Um..."

She holds it closer to her mouth.

"Hello?" she says. "Is umm...anyone in there? Are you the person who made us both be asleep? You forgot to wake up Meri..."

"Teacher? You mean... the master of the cult?" Celindara looked with horror to Meri and then Nym. "That's why you fell? It spoke to you? And Meri's still possessed by it?"

The dryad took a step back in uncertainty, while Goodwin renwed his search. He moved back to allow Nym to take the stone.

It was only when Many squirmed again in Nym's hand too look up that Goodwin perhaps realised something was wrong, and Nym had stopped moving. "Nym?" said Many with a sniffle. "Nyh-meh?"

Lol, thread temporarily locked and who knows, maybe there's a new thread open somewhere else to look at...

Slowly, Meri's eyes opened once more.  At first her gaze looked unfocused, staring up at the leaves of the tree overhead, her irises that same pale blue-grey that seemed to be their natural colour.
Eventually though, the faint blue luminescence returned and she looked to Goodwin's face before sitting up again and looking around as if searching for something or someone in particular.

On seeing Nym, she seemed to relax slightly, although realising she was holding the clear stone made her gaze harden again.
"Did I disappear or something?  How long ago was it?" she asked, glancing to Goodwin and Celindara.


OOC: Sorry for the delay, meant to post something earlier today, but ended up going on a several hour long Wiki-walk and then had to go somewhere.
Just throwing up a quick post before calling it a night.  Anyways, Meri seems to be back! :)

"Oh good, you're awake." says Nym happily as she blinks a few times and looks around to see Meri looking at her. She quickly shoves the stone back into the half-elf's pack, looking guilty as she does so.

"Sorry, I just had to pick it up for a moment." she says. "I mean, I know it's rude to mess around with other people's stuff. But Goodwin said maybe it would help. And it looks like it did! Yay! That was a weird dream-thing we just had, wasn't it? But it looks like everything is still here. I mean, we're still in the big tree and everyone else is still here, so that's alright, isn't it?"

She gestures around at the other creatures present, then looks down and realises she's still carefully clutching Many against her chest with her other hand.

"Aww, are you alright now, Many?" she asks the little beholder. "Look, we're all awake and everything now, see?"

[Private to GM: I'll make my Wish as soon as I get a moment to randomly turn away and mutter something inaudible to no-one in particular. Fortunately that should be pretty easy to do without arousing any kind of suspicion from anyone as long as they're even vaguely familiar with Nym's personality ;).]

Wiki walks are always dangerous, though Trope Trips are the real legendarily bad idea :)

[Private to Nym: Yup, sneak it in whenever is convenient. I wonder if Meri's release was co-incidental, or happened when a way to detect the evil guy was suggested?]

Both Goodwin and Celindara shook their heads. Goodwin's face was torn between relief and guilt, Celindara's allowed for relief, but seemed to be mostly suspicious. She was the one to answer. "Neither of you disappeared, but both of you fell down at the same time. You were barely out for a minute, if that. But it was...very strange."

"Yeah, yeah, like, haha, like puppets with your strings cut, or something..." said Goodwin, with some nervous. "You're not really puppets of some red faced evil, are you?" he asked quietly, laughing before and after then looking worried.

"Meeeeeeeriiiii!" said the little beholder when Meri woke up, but then he turned when Nym also spoke up again. "Yay!" he said between sniffles. He looked around to Meri, but seemed as if he was reluctant to let go of Nym in case the sorcerer disappeared ina puff of smoke or stopped speaking again. With desperately waving eyestalks, Many gestured for Meri to come across and get hugged by free eyestalks.

You both scared poor Many. Yes, nothing else that could ahve scared Many, no joint mind linked experiences or anything :p

"So, why did the.... Real Teacher, or whoever this being is release Nym and not you?" Celindara asked Meri. She was clearly unhappy that something was messing with them all, when victory had been so certain just a moment before.

Meri raised a hand, rubbing at her head as if to check it was still attached properly.
She merely shrugged at Nym's apology then looked up at Celindara.
"He's not really the Teacher, I think he was just gloating more than anything else.  What we just fought, the Thrak'i, were apparently the shattered remnants of a race that once fought against something else called the Nothics.  I don't fully understand everything he said, but it seems what was left of them called on the Chained God and were pulled into the Abyss, becoming..."

She waved her hand in the direction of the place they had fought against the Teachers in.
"He referred to them as the Students, and himself as the Teacher, though I suspect that was just the way he was thinking of them.  Anyway, he sent me to the Shadow's domain, but not Nym.  I've no idea why.  Though I can't help but think of the last thing the Chained God said to me, that he would see one of us again very soon, and probably both of us again later.  It could have been a hint that himself and the Shadow are one and the same, or maybe he just wanted me to think that.  Hard to tell right now."

She looked towards the clear stone again.
"The Shadow claimed he wanted to hide from the gods, but by sending me to his domain where the gods would be immediately aware of my presence, a mortal soul in a place it shouldn't possibly be able to get to on its own, he said that the Chained God wanted to draw the attention of the gods to him to force a confrontation, and that he would now have to negotiate with the gods and try to warn them of the Chained God's manipulations.  And it also seems, that much against my will, I've now been dragged into this too by being sent there."

She laughed at that, although it was a rather bitter humourless sound.
"Well, I suppose it was asking too much for fate to just leave me in peace to fade away."

Looking towards Many, she moved closer and cupped an affectionate hand around him.
"I doubt you'll get that wish now either" she said to Nym, "he did say he most likely wouldn't be able to grant it.  Though maybe that's for the best, at least until we know whether he can really be trusted.  After all, if it's true that the Thrak'i wished for salvation, then their wish clearly had a lot of twisted strings attached.  I almost feel sorry for them, maybe destroying them was more of a merciful act than we realised at the time."

She seemed to study Nym for a moment, as if thinking something over, or about to say something else, but then looked back to Celindara.
"Can you tell if Blace is still in your forest?"


OOC: Not sure if Meri actually knew that those mind-twistery things were called Nothics, or even if they were the same ones referred to.  Or, as Meri thinks, possibly it was all a lie anyway, not sure if there's a way to confirm the story one way or another now.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:17, Wed 02 Nov 2016.

Well, IC we weren't told they were nothics, as far as I'm aware - that was just the name they were given in the narrative.

Nym looks a little confused at some of what Meri is saying.

"Well, I don't know...maybe they are the same person? The Shadow said they weren't. But maybe, if he isn't really the Shadow...or if he is but he's not really very nice...maybe that wasn't really the case...or, um...oh, I don't know..."

She looks confused for a moment more, then apparently shrugs it off and turns her head to look at the brightly-coloured falcon on her shoulder.

"Did you want to get back to flying, now?" she asks. "Come on, you can go back to your swooping around. That was very strange, what just happened, wasn't it?"

She turns away from the rest of the group, muttering to herself (or perhaps to her familiar) as she holds out an arm for the falcon to walk down and then take off from, returning to the air to continue enjoying the freedom of flight.

[Private to GM: As she turns away from the group, Nym mutters quietly...

"Okay Mr Shadow...I hope that's really you and you're really not actually the Big-Red-Face-Chained-Up thingy...so, I'm going to use my Wish now. So...I Wish that Meri won't ever be able to be affected by the Big Red...Other one, even if he's really you, and he won't be able to hurt her, or trick her, or make her believe anything that's not true, or otherwise have any kind of effect that might cause her to get hurt physically or any other way at all. Hmm, I hope that's alright..."]

"I'm not completely sure they are the same" replied Meri, eyeing Nym curiously again.  "But the one I saw in a dream after we returned to Stonebridge, and the one who spoke to me through the stone, I'm fairly sure both of them were the Chained God masquerading as the Shadow.  Whether he was simply twisting facts to make us act in a certain way or not, I don't know."

She shook her head, eyeing the clear stone for a moment.
"I'm almost tempted to call him by his name actually.  Reminds me of a customer I had once, wanted a new wand carved.  This batty old wizard who said something about fear of a name increasing the fear of the thing itself..."

Sighing, she thrust the stone back into her pack and stood up, looking over the view below...


OOC: Nym is all "that was weird, oh well, back to normal now!" :)  hehe

To start with I only referred to them OOC as Nothics. However, The Other actually indicated that the creatures with the one eye were called Nothics when he first started talking to you, so it's ok to know the name now :)


Celindara's expression darkened. "If this 'chained god' has anything to do with the Abyss, then he is not a true god, but a demon then. There are said to be six hundred and sixty six layers, each darker than the last, but I have not heard of anything chained there that was not the plaything of a demon, rather than a demon itself."

It was Goodwin that caught the next part of Meri's story. "Wait, so you were with The Shadow then? After? Well then, and there we were trying to use the stone to get his help you you. Well, I mean, no wonder things didn't work. I mean, they didn't, did they?" Goodwin looked to Nym. "I mean., Many seems worried about you for a moment, and you stopped talking, but, I mean, hah, you didn't see anything, did you? No... flames or red faced things saying 'fooled you' or... anything?"

Many meanwhile managed two way hug, eyestalks going both ways and head bobbing back and forth between the two magic users. He seemed happy once more, and all sniffles were forgotten. When Nym goes to move away, Many dismounts with an 'awwww' but happily goes back to buzzing around, apparently looking forward to seeing the falcon soar again.

[Private to Nym: As Nym says the words, there is an odd warmth for a moment. There seems to be just a reassuring sense, somehow, that everything is fine. Nym's fur for a brief moment prickles, as if some static - or low level magic - had just washed through the air.

OOC: Yay, so maybe the wish is granted. At the very least, if you distrust the wish giver, it's still a good meta move because you've effectively locked down the bad guy. He can't not grant the wish - or pretend to abide by it - without giving away who he is. So Meri is most likely safe from sneaky stuff one way or another. And hey, it could very well be The Shadow, cool ally, and so you've managed to get some actual cool protection for Meri. And hence,in a round about way, yourself.

Anyway, for a selfless action, and also for your diving in to Nym's origins, I think you deserve an Inspiration. And better yet, I will also give you one too! Cause it would be mean if I just sat here thinking you deserved one then was all 'anyway, what can I do... :)]

[Private to Meri: For a split second, there was an odd sensation in Meri's head. Like a tiny itch actually just at the front of her brain. Luckily, the sensation passed. It had been odd and disquietening.

Oh, oops, I accidentally used the word 'itch', and there's a cast member called The Itch. That was unfortunately worded, I mean you might start to suspect the two are linked. Wow, I mean I should go and correct that, but I mean I'm not sure how. I guess I'll just have to leave that where it is, and hope you don't get the wrong idea...]

Celindara broke any odd tension by speaking up to Meri's later question. "Blace and her 'friend' has ways to avoid my detection, it seemed. But now I know both their natures, they will not fool me like that again."

Celindara moved to put a hand on one of the branches that was cradling them all, and closed her eyes for a moment. She frowned, and then she took a step back, shocked.

"We didn't just lose a few hours!" she said, looking to the sky then touching the tree limb once more. "We lost an entire day. This is the second morning after the battle, not the first. Blace has had two days head start on us!"

Celindara sighed, but seemed to realise that after the miracle of both their success, and the tree, and the new hope for the forest, losing a day to catching up with Blace was perhaps a small price to pay. She still seemed put out though and took an extra moment to compose herself.

Then she took a step back once more, cursing this time. "No! I cannot sense the bard, but her 'friend' is still here. Not just here in the forest... he's at my tree!"


Dun dun dun!

Farren is back where Alynn was captured, at Celindara's home tree! That's... probably not good!

And yes, the trouble with facing off against a liar, and having multiples of the same person saying contradictory things, sort of does make it harder to know what to believe. I say believe everything! :D

"I'm no expert in religion" said Meri, "and I've certainly never heard of any god chained in the Abyss.  The Shadow also referred to him as The Eye in the Elemental Chaos.  Or at least what I thought was the Shadow at the time.  See, this is why I can't be sure!  If we ever find a place with a temple or a library, maybe I can search for any mention of either of them there."

She looked up at the tree for a moment.
"If it's true that the gods sealed both of them away, then Melora may know.  A pity I can't speak with her..."

Goodwin's comment earned a slightly puzzled look from her, but she simply shrugged it off, idly raising a hand to scratch her head.
"As far as I know I was with the Shadow.  I don't think I've ever spoken with the real one through the stone anyway.  The stone was part of the ritual that opened and closed the portal, and it seemed the makers of that place designed it specifically to act as a key of sorts to secure it against tampering by others.  Though its connection to the portal may make it vulnerable to being used as a conduit of sorts.  I don't know for sure.  Might try examining it later when we have more time."

She glanced towards Celindara as she spoke up, pausing to pick up her backpack and staff and scratching her head again.
Though her expression turned to shock at the news of where Farren was.
"We need to get back there now.  Is there a way to contact him through your tree?"
She quickly looked around for a way down to the ground again...

"Nym is all "that was weird, oh well, back to normal now!" :)  hehe" - And this surprises you? :)

Nym has been watching her ludicrously-coloured falcon-like friend swooparond in the air, but turns quickly when Celindara announces Farren's current position.

"Your tree?" she asks, looking somewhat concerned. "Oh, but...what if he tries to hurt it? Won't he get stuck like Alynn did? Is she still stuck? Oh, I suppose she'll be quite hungry by now. Maybe we should bring her some food, even if she wasn't very nice. Because it's not very fun to be hungry, so letting someone stay hungry would be a very mean thing to do..."

She peers carelessly over the edge of the branch she's standing on.

"Can we ask the nice tree to put us on the ground?" she asks. "Or should we just jump?"

She pauses.

"Oh, wait, you're not all wearing magic shoes, are you?" she says. "Well...I can jump. Um...is there some nice Hammy-drydadad magic that can save you all having to climb or figure out a way to fly?"

[Private to GM: Cool, I'd forgotten about Inspiration :D. And yes, I figured that wording the Wish in such a way that it ruled out any kind of deception should hopefully prevent Meri from every being fooled by, say, being approached by the Shadow going "Hey, look, I'm totally the Shadow, I'm not the other guy. Really. Honest." because now she'll just know, somehow, that that would be a lie. Even though she won't know how. At least, at first. If the Other Guy ever tries to do somehing to her and it doesn't work and she queries it when Nym is around, she will just off-handedly say that that was what she Wished for (though probably not if the Other Guy is still present). It also means Nym can just ask Meri if the Shadow is being legit (whenever they next meet him), provided the Other Guy hasn't managed to place a fake Meri there for Nym to talk to. Because I know you could totally be that sneaky and trick poor Nym like that :O.]

"The Elemental Chaos?" says Celindara, not quite sure what the name means.

"Umm...that's... that's the name of the place where everything came from. Everything. It's... a plane...of soup... but.... elemental soup. What, I've read!"

"Oh. The Elsewhere," said Celindara, nodding. "Not like soup. More like a maelstrom where the Elements themselves were born and came from, the Great Spirits. The gods put the firmament in place above it to keep it from destroying the Feywild and this world."

"That would be the astral sea," said Goodwin quietly.

Celindara continued. The Elsewhere is endless, and contains the strangest and hardiest of races only. And the Abyss. There is no centre to it.

"The City of Brass might be said to be a shelter in it. An eye, maybe?" asked Goodwin. "What, I read. I am a reader."

The discussion seemed trivial to Celindara, especially given the threat to her home. "Whatever this demon is, first we must deal with more of his minions!" She then looked to Meri. "After that, perhaps there are ways to contact Melora. After all, we have struck a blow in her name and freed a place she once consecrated."

Looking to Nym, Celindara looked to her shoes. "I have no magic that would protect from that drop. If the forest was healthier, I could ask for its aid, but this tree is not of the forest, and the rest of the forest will take time to come back to itself. But now I know it will."

Celindara looked down, and saw that deer headed titan was now coming towards them, climbing up the great height. Whether they were the next logical, or the titan had somehow sensed the dryad's distress, it easily reached in and offered the group an arm to climb upon it.

While the titan was not as massive as the skeletal construct had been, and while dwarved by the tree, up close it with nothing but each other to compare against, it was easy to be reminded of the large size of the thing. Up close, its stone-like face was impassive, but impatience could be read in to it. And its stone and mossy body may be more skin like or bark like or perhaps something else, but what is was unlikely to be was comfortable.

Still, it was their only way down.


I was going to jump further ahead, but I think it might be nice to give you both a moment to react - and even say goodbye to the tree :)

[Private to Nym: Who knows what sneaky tricks I might have up my sleeve. Ok, the answer is me, and ok, I was actually laughing at something I can do regarding Meri's new power. Hehe. Darn, that might actually take a while to pay off. Oh well :(]

[Private to Meri: Despite looking closely at Nym, Nym's antics and distractions seem pretty much standard Nym. If she was hiding something, she is very likely hiding something from herself as much as Meri.

OOC: I mean clearly I just delayed in order to stir up tension and suspicion between the pair of you, and Nym was hiding nothing at all. Honest. I'm just an evil DM turning you both against each other. I menn, you against her, as she'd never to anything to you. And I'd never suggest it.

Glad we sorted that out.... *runs*]

Meri grabbed up her staff and Timur and moved towards the titan, clambering onto the offered arm.

"I don't think Farren is a minion of the Chained God.  He seems to have his own purpose.  As far as I know, his kind usually serve the Raven Queen" said Meri, looking to the others while waiting for the titan to move them to the ground.

"We can only hope he's just waiting there for us to return.  Besides, if he really does serve the Raven Queen, he may know more of this demon than he let on before when Blace was around.  After all, the gods know of this now, only reasonable to suspect their servants may be made aware of the situation.  Particularly for the purposes of searching for the ones who released the Shadow."

She looked towards Celindara then.
"That said though, if he does try to harm your tree, you can count on my help in ending his threat."


OOC: So possibly he may be after Meri this time, which suits her fine as she'd like a chat with him.  But if he is there to try and destroy the tree, then we blast him out of his socks anyway.

Also, yay, titan rides! :D

Yeah, anyone wants to mess with the forest is gonna end up messing with us. And they'll get wrecked :D.

Nym waves at the titan as it approaches and hurries to pick up her things, shoving the various religious components and the holy symbol into the pockets of her new cloak. She then eagerly steps forward to accept a ride, but pauses, remembering something, and reaches to touch the nearest bit of tree branch she can reach.

"Bye, great big wonderful tree." she says. "Maybe I'll come back and see you again some day. That might be fun! Maybe one day I'll be able to fly aaaaall the way up, and see what's at the top! Lots of birds and things by then, I hope!"

She then turns away and steps onto the proffered arm of the titan, her staff clutched as precariously as ever in one hand while she holds on with the other. The falcon-like shape of her familiar can be seen in the sky overhead, still swooping around.

Incidentally, the familiar's name has now been mentioned once. Not in this post, but in an earlier one. I snuck it in as an off-hand mention and it appears I was so sneaky no-one noticed :D.

Well neither Melora nor the Raven Queen are talking to you, so clearly you've scared the crap out of two gods, and your big bad enemy is only able to talk to you in dreams when he's pretending to be someone else!

Lol, since you never look at the cast page then I guess you never noticed I might have renamed your familiar - I presume it's correct? :)

[Private to Nym: I did ask co-incidentally just before you name dropped your familiar if the names at the bottom of your character sheet were familiar names, then you went and answered the question by name dropping. I guess you missed my question though?]

And awww, bye bye tree! I daresay the plan is for you lot to one day come back here, but who knows how things will work out!

Celindara just sniffed regarding Farren, though nodded at Meri's offer of support. "If he has not harmed the forest, then I will do you courtesy of bringing no harm to him. And if he has tried to harm my home, he will be the one requiring your aid. But Blace is another matter. She betrayed us all, and she will never step foot in the forest again and live long enough to regret the mistake. And no one will be able to save her."

Yeah, Celindara is not best pleased with the betrayal, really. Even though Blace's comment regarding the cult still being around was correct.

The titan was easily able to navigate the tree. It was only once it settled down on to the lush, green canopy that was now the lake bed that it could be realised how precarious the leaves might have been. However, it appeared to be able to support the various animals and titans without any issues.

Celindara seemed surprised to be let down, and turned back around as if to speak with the titan.

The stone creature was already walking away.

"No, wait, my home. It is half a day from here at least! I need your aid, still!"

The titan did not turn around, and Celindara moved surprisingly fast to go in front of it. The titan barely stopped, and with the barest defference to the dryad's presence, moved a fraction sideway and step over her before moving onwards.

Celindara blinked, and looked back to the group. "I suppose the titans have been here since the beginning, and will be here until the end. The home of one dryad perhaps matters not to them." She seemed only angry for a moment, before her expression became rueful, and finally pensive.

It seemed that many of the other animals were also taking their leave. At least they paused for a moment before walking away, the fey panther - whole once more - and the three bears both gave a small dip of their head before going away. The birds actually stayed, flying overhead and playing with Ryn, dancing around the falcon yet not able to match the familiar's abilities.

Half of the wolves had already vanished in twos and threes, but some came over to Nym to lick her hand once or twice - it seemed they remembered her efforts to keep them safe in the previous battles.

The female alpha and her two strongest fighters came to stand before Celindara. One seemed perhaps more skittish than before, but that could have been the result of the strange resurrection. It took a moment, and more than one head bob, before the meaning became clear. They were not just offering their thanks or respect, they appeared to be offering their services as swift mounts.

"My thanks," said Celindara, looking to the companions and the wolves, and judging that the sizes and weights would not be a problem. "Oh, but only three? Perhaps-"

"No need to find travel for me," said Goodwin, looking sheepish. "I... I'm not coming along."

He looked to the group, and waved a set of defensive hands. "I mean, I would... I want to, gods know... but... well, I promised to speak to the fey. And I am, haha, a man of my word. Wait, that shouldn't be funny." Goodwin took a deep breath. "We lost a day after the fight with the phystal - and his grandmother, if I understood things correctly - and another getting here, and now another. And this tree has appeared. I think that one way or another the fey will be coming, and probably in this direction and... well, I came to help here rather than go there and... well, I think if I come along with you again then I might not go to the fey lands afterwards and I do want to be a man of my word. I didn't really have a purpose in life before. I'd like to see what it's like."

Aww, that's right, this should be the temporary departure of Goodwin to go see what the fey are doing, and go seed some future plots for you all :) Of course, what actually happens is up to you lot. Other than not splitting up, you're free to do what you want of course!

This message was last updated by the player at 15:22, Fri 04 Nov 2016.

Oh...wow, yes, yes that's correct :O.
[Private to GM: Ahh, I totally forgot I shoved the list of potential familiar names at the bottom of my sheet. D'oh! :D]

Nym crouches down offer a quick pat or stroke to the various creatures as they take their leaves, giving the more friendly wolves a quick scratch behind the ears but apparently aware that caution and respect should still be maintained with wild predators and not spending more than a moment touching each. To those that don't come over to her, she gives a little wave, bidding each farewell.

"Bye!" she says. "Bye bye! And you, yes, goodbye! It was lovely to meet you! You're all lovly! Thank you for your help follwing us into the strange Blighty place. I'm glad it's all gone now, and you have a nice new enormous tree in your forest. Yay!"

She looks up at Goodwin's mention of his own departure, rising out of her crouch as she does so.

"Ohh, you're leaving too? Is everyone leaving?"

She looks over at Meri and seems slightly uncertain.

"You're not leaving too, are you?" she asks.

OOC: I did actually notice you called him Ryn.  Was wondering at the time what that was short for (recalling Nym's habit of telling everyone a different increasingly unpronouncable version of her full name, hehe).


"Not yet" she replied to Nym with a hint of a smile.

Then she looked towards Goodwin, her expression unreadable.
"Well, be careful there.  Hard to tell how that lot will be thinking."

She turned to move towards the wolves, while from her backpack, Timur gave a sad little wave to Goodwin.
"Thanks for your help back there too.  Have to think of a way to repay you for that someday" she added, turning to look back at him.  "So maybe see you again, Woody!"
She grinned slightly at that last word, raising a hand in farewell.


OOC: Can't have anyone thinking Meri is softening up here, can we? ;)
[Private to The Altweaver: Though I suspect anyone with an Insight score anywhere above a negative value would realise that was meant as a sort of affectionate joke, rather than actually mocking him :)
In truth she is wondering how much the two of them might have in common, and is hoping they meet again someday so she gets a chance to ask him.  Good luck getting her to openly admit that though!]
This message was last edited by the player at 13:04, Sat 05 Nov 2016.

So we're going to have Ryn short for lots of funny names now? :)

[Private to Nym: Ah, they were potential names? I thought each time your familiar changed they had a different name :)]

Goodwin gives a small worried nod but a brave smile at Meri's first comments regarding the fey. "Well, haha, I mean I have a way with people, don't worry," he said with a reassuring smile and bow, sounding anything but certain.

He gives a small surprised wave when Timur appears to wave goodbye. His hand is still raised when Many comes up to try and give him a hug or handshake. Goodwin's fingers keep tangling with the little beholder's eyestalks. Goodwin eventually gets his hand free enough to give an apparently acceptable pat on Many's head. The little beholder then smiles and waves and says 'buh-bye!' then hovers back over to the group, but backwards to keep waving.

While Meri is walking off, Celindara gives a respectful nod. "Many the blessings of the forest go with you," she said.

"Umm, yes, I mean... I'd be happier with a stone golem thing, but... yes, any blessings would be welcome. Yes, blessings will be nice."

Celindara gives a small smile. "You won't be alone," she said, pointing upwards.

"Yes, praise be to Melora..."

Celindara points more insistently upwards. When Goodwin looks up, he sees that the black birds that were playing with Ryn were now flying over his head. Celindara continues on. "The forest will give you eyes, and if you need us they can fly back. And to those who know to look for such things, they will obviously be from this forest. They should prove your words and wuthority more than anything else."

"Oh, that's good!" said Goodwin, clearly having not thought that far through. Or perhaps having never needed to bother with proving his words in the past. "Well, I guess I should be going. Long road to walk, I guess. Unless, haha, they can carry me with theirs wings. I mean, they can't, can they?"

Celindara shakes her head. "That I cannot help you with," she says, and then looks confused over Goodwin's shoulder.

Behind the half elf, a giant, white stag is walking forwards. It stands a respectful distance away, but seems to have an expectant air to it. It does not look entirely natural, for its coat shimmers when the light hits it perfectly, and its legs and back seem far stronger than any other stag. This animal did not look as if it had to run from anything. [Private to Meri: It would remind Meri of the little statue she possesses.]

"Another blessing of the forest?" asked Goodwin, approaching it reluctantly. It bobbed its head and lowered its posture, in a way similar to the wolves before.

Goodwin paused longer when Celindara shook her head. "Not of this forest," she said. However, Celindara did not seem anything more than curious, and the birds above did not appear to change their behaviour either. And so Goodwin finally got on the stag's back.

At Meri's final words, he tried to wave away her talk of thanks, and so was completely caught off guard by the name. He looked between Meri and Nym as if the two might have swapped bodies during their recent divine encounters. Many gave a little giggle, and Goodwin then made a sound that the group had not heard before. It was a genuine chuckle.


Any unless Nym has any words for Goodwin, or there's any further reactions, that will be the hopefully only temporary departure of Goodwin. [Private to Meri: I wonder how difficult it would be to get Goodwin's backstory out of him. Probably about the same difficulty as getting Meri's out of her, I'm guessing half elves have complicated lives :D]

Lol, you'd think...
[Private to GM: Nah, they were a list of possibilities I'd come up with, all of them anagrams of various words that were related to the purpose/nature of said familiar :D.]

Nym seems incredibly relieved to hear that Meri, at least, isn't going anywhere, and looks over at Goodwin.

"Well, yes, if you have lots of important stuff to do, then you'd better go and do it." she says. "Otherwise I suppose it won't get done, and if it needs to get done, then it's probably best if you're there to do it."

She nods, apparently having decided that she agrees with her own logic, and raises a hand to wave goodbye to Goodwin (naturally said hand is the one holding her staff, so she nearly clobbers whomever is nearest in the process).

"Well, goodbye, then." she says. "Maybe we can met again some time, and then we can tell each other what kind of things happened to us while we weren't there to see them. I mean, what kind of things happened to each other while we weren't there to see them. I think? Yes. That. Probably."

From somewhere high above the group, a small shape swoops down and then hovers several metres above the departing half-elf, letting out a long, single note vaguely similar to the call of a falcon and yet unmistakeably not.

[Language unknown: "A ore has enere enckit, fomiri!"]

As the stag approaches, Nym looks at him with a sort of awed respect.

"Oooh, that's a lovely big stag." she says. "Look, it's like he's all...glowy. That must be fun. I hope he never falls over with those big antlers. I mean, what if he was running along and there was a tree branch sticking out, and...well, no, I'm sure he's far too clever for that...hello, Mr Stag!"

She gives a little wave to the stag (with the same hand as before) and watches as Goodwin mounts and departs, giggling at Meri's use of her former nickname for him. After he has gone from sight, she stays with her hand raised from waving.

"Yes...bye bye, Woody..." she says, seeming a little sad.

The sad realisation that the reason Nym is describing so oddly catching up is because she's probably never got to speak to a 'friend' again once they've parted company :(

[Private to Nym: Ah, I read them backwards when they looked odd, to see if there was a word there. Never thought about anagrams - now I'll have to check them again!]

No, probably not...

[Private to GM: Lol yeah, anagrams or foreign words are something I sometimes resort to when coming up with a name, though not always...but if so, then the word that's been jumbled up/translated will always be something that relates to whomever is being named :D. For example, I backed Path of Exile when it had its not-a-Kickstarter thing back in Beta (as in, it wasn't an actual Kickstarter as it was being run by the actual company, Grinding Gear Games, but they had tiered rewards based on pledges) and got a cosmetic kiwi pet as a reward. All pets do in that game is follow you around and make little noises (it's impossible to get any kind of mechanical advantage through any of the paid-for rewards, it's all cosmetic apart from the one that gives you extra stash space) so you can't officially name them or anything, but I gave mine a name anyway (I do that a lot). So after mooching through various words in an online Maori dictionary (GGG are a new Zealand company, hence the kiwi) I came up with "Peki", which means something like "cheep/chirp" :D.]

OOC: I'm not sure Meri has really figured that out about Nym yet.  Having gotten the impression that nothing ever really seems to bother her much.
(Also Meri's own naturally shaky self-esteem makes her think that no-one would really miss her anyway.  Except perhaps Many) :)

You happy to move on, Meri?

OOC: Yep :)

Cool :)

Goodwin nods to Nym. "Yes, we'll have to find a tavern somewhere, and I can hear all your tales, and I can tell you all about...no, wait, I really can tell you all about what I did. I mean... I always do... I mean... bye!" [Private to Nym: Nym's Passive Insight should be good enough for her to know he genuinely means he looks forwards to speaking with you again. Whether you think Nym actually has enough experience with people in this situation to know that is up to you :D]

And with that, Goodwin turns as if to indicate the stag should turn and move off. The stag, for its part, is not a horse nor has the temperament of one. It stands for a fraction longer while being admired, and a fraction longer still to let the half elf on its back understand who is in charge. Then just when Goodwin is uncomfortable and smiling nervously, it turns and leaves.

"Heh, Goodie-woodie!" says Many, singing the same to himself but making time to hug Many to prove he won't be leaving her either.

Celindara watches the half-elf go with an odd expression in her face, but is distracted by the restless movement of the female alpha beneath her. It seemd to be the stag, not the journey that is making the wolf restless though.

"I would not regret seeking to hunt that one, if I were you," she says to the wolf with a pplayful tone, "for many reasons."

With reluctance, the female alpha turns, and so to do the other two wolves. They get used to moving quickly with a rider above them, and soon are making good time through the forest.

The dead lands seem less dead, somehow, even though the colour has yet to return. There is something about the air that is less cold, or the light that is less harsh. Even the blacks of twisted trees seems simply a deeper brown. Twice Celindara stops the group, dismounting and walking to something off to one side. The first time she bows down to the ground, and cups a tiny green shoot. She laughs, and it seems far healthier than anything that has been in this place before. The second time she stops at what looks to be a dead tree. It blackened bark is peeling, but when she gently strips it off with a soothing touch and word to the tree, there seems to be a healthy wood and the glistening of sap beneath. She sings a gentle song and places the bark back like a bandage she had been checking on. That second time she practically skipped back to the wolf.

The group seems to make good time. There is the occasional animal that appears healthy and friendly, many walking in the opposite direction, as if coming from the part of the forest that the Celindara dwelt. These she greeted warmly. There were other animals, dark looking and more skittish. These the wolves growled at, and Celindara had a look of sad trepidation. However, they seemed confused rather than hostile, and most disappeared back in to the depths of the dark forest they had emerged from.

The group's passage appeared to be following a similar route to the one they had taken to get to the cult, which made sense. Therefore, the trees thinned and an area that should have been leading to the Great Tree should have been visible. It took some time to spot that while it was the same area, the Great Tree's twisted and reduced form was no longer easily visible.

Celindara lead them back up the hill they had come down, and the reason for the lack of sillouette became clear. The Great Tree had finally toppled, what had been left of it, uprooting the top of the hill. Only the roots were visible to start with.

Celindara seemed sad, but not surprised. Once more she stopped the group before they got to the top of the hill, and the area where the Spirit of Winter had resided.

She walked on alone, clearly something in her hand. [Private to Meri: It looked to be some small round item, like an acorn or other seed.] She walked until she disappeared, but soon came back again.

"The Spirit of Winter and his kin are all gone. For now, the centre of the forest is hollow. But the old must make way for the new. That is the way of nature." With that, she remounted.

The day was getting to well in to the afternoon before Celindara finally commented again. "We're getting close, now," she said quietly, looking around. The wolves slowed. "I have felt no movement. This Farren waits for us still. And Alynn has not moved, though she is still alive. And my tree gives no me no melody of distress, there is only peace and the song of daily living." Celindara looks around to Meri. "Perhaps you were right about him wishing to talk. And yet what would he want to say to us?"


Ok, I'll give you all a beat to react to the previous stuff, but more importantly decide on a plan of action here. Will you just simply all carry on forwards, do you want someone to scout first, do you want to make any preparations? Let me know! 

Meri peered ahead in the direction they had been going.  her expression was back to the neutral mask she tended to wear when keeping her innermost thoughts hidden.

"Depends on what his purpose is I suppose" she replied quietly.  "If he really is a servant of the Raven Queen, or if he's still aiding Blace for what I suspect are reasons of his own.  If he is still aiding Blace, then where is she?  Perhaps the destruction of the Thrak'i and maybe also the revelation of the Shadow's release have changed things."

She glanced to the left and right, as if checking for any other hidden watchers or signs of an ambush.
"Only one way to find out I suppose" she murmured quietly.


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Out of curiosity, trying to see if Meri can recall any information about the Raven Queen that might suggest why she'd be interested in this place.
Religion roll: 22 (16 + 6) - Might end up wishing I'd saved that roll for later if this turns into a fight!

Also rolling Perception to see if Meri can spot any signs that this might be an ambush (especially if Blace is actually there but just hiding herself from Celindara in some way).
19 (6 + 13) - Definitely going downhill fast now!]

As they pass through the healing forest, Nym occasionally reaches out to touch a leaf or tree trunk, whenever doing so won't unbalance her from the wolf who is so kindly bearing her weight. She makes quiet comments when she does this, usually words to the effect of "Yay, Mr Tree, you're getting better" or "Ahh, it's all going green again" and other such positive comments.

When they come to the toppled former Great Tree, Nym looks up at it, glancing over at Celindara when the hamadryad dismounts to walk toward it.

"Well," she murmurs quietly, "at least no more bad things can happen to it..."

Throughout the journey Ryn continues to flutter high overhead, tracking the party as they travel and occasionally swooping down to alight on Nym's shoulder or arm for a moment before taking off again, as though to remind the changeling that she's still there and/or hasn't forgotten her. Nym, for her part, tends to give a happy giggle when her familiar comes down to see her, and seems generally to be enjoying the fact that Ryn can currently fly about as much as Ryn herself.

As they draw nearer to Celindara's tree and the hamadryad comments on the locations of Farren and Alynn, Nym seems to be fairly happy at the news.

"Oh, so your tree is alright, then? That's good!"

Will wait to see if Meri's rolls affect her choice to just go onwards (I presume that's what 'one way to find out' means :)  ) Also last chance Nym for any preparations before going onwards if so!

Meri stopped looking around her then glanced back at Celindara.
"I don't think there's any ambush waiting here anyway.  Unless Alynn is free now and Blace is here and able to hide her presence from you.  Certainly I can't see any signs of others waiting nearby" she said in a low voice.

"Be ready just in case they are here to cause trouble for us" she said, glancing towards Nym and Many, and taking up her staff, holding it at the ready...


OOC: Happy to move on.  If we don't immediately come under attack, maybe we can all have a nice little chat :)

If they do attack though, we shoot first and ask questions to their smouldering remains later! ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:15, Mon 07 Nov 2016.

Nym shrugs, looking around.

"Well, if Blace is hiding here and waiting to be all mean again, then we can just maybe ask her to stop being mean..."

She glance at Celindara.

"But if anything bad had happened to your tree while we were gone, you'd have noticed, wouldn't you? I mean, you can feel things if your tree feels them, or something, I think? So your tree is okay? Let's go and see!"

Heh, "preparations"...since when does Nym "prepare" for anything? :D

The wolves let the group off their backs with some relief, but with no sign of resentment. The three wolves looked around to the group, perhaps not understanding quite any trepidation. The alpha took turns giving a respectful look up and down to Celindara, Mri, and Nym in turn. She even bobbed her head like a small bow to Nym - most likely for the aid to the alpha's back.

Celindara returned the respect in kind, singing a gentle, uplifting song full of hope. With that done, the three wolves then took off in to the depths of the forest, back the way they had come to rejoin their pack again.

Celindara looked to the group. "My tree is indeed not only safe, it seems at ease. Just... waiting. In a way that I felt before, but this seems an odd time to feel it."

Celindara looked to the area of her home. With Meri's reassurace that there is no visible ambush, the dryad ignores the obvious way in to her small glade, and instead gives a small few words and a gesture. Root and branches twist out of the way, to give a slim way through the thick folliage and approach her home from a different angle. She beckons the grouo to follow her, and moved forwards.

Many looks a little worried at this talk of trouble, but raises an eyestalk to his head as if saluting, and puts on a game face. Which looks more like he's straining to think, but is probably the most 'fearsome' face the little beholder can think to make. HE drifts forwards, slowly enough that the others manage to get in the way, sometimes with their legs which he 'accidentally' drifts behind.

"If Blace is inside, there are no more words to speak to her," mutters Celindara. "Though I have songs to sing her." The way the branches and roots twist as Celindara quietly hums show that Blace may not wish to hear those songs. At least, not when near anything sympathetic to Celindara's music.


The group are silent as they pass through the foliage, every twig and root appears to have perfectly moved out of the way, and only thick grass to muffle sound is underfoot. Branches part silently to allow an easy view of the who small area.

Celindara's tree perfectly in view. It seems that Alynn managed to get all the way inside, perhaps encouraged by the tree itself, before she was wrapped in roots and branches. She seems to have been hung like a hammock by the arms and legs, which may well be a little uncomfortable. This situation is not helped by a small fungus like pod sitting on her stomach, occasionally butting a nearby leaf towards her face so dew might gather and drip in to her mouth. This doesn't really help anything, as apparently the tree has wrapped a stout root around her mouth. Currently, Alynn seems to be unconscious - a small movement of the fungus shows the armoured figure is breathing and alive.

Across the way, sat on a thicker root, is Farren. He appears to be sat down, content enough. He's playing with a tiny rodent that dances around his hands, and that he occasionally feeds a morsel of food. He also sometimes throws some food towards another, slightly larger rodent camped on a root nearby. This one appears far less happy, with a sneaky air to its bobbing movements. The thrown food seems to have a careless air to it. As if Farren would be just as happy to hit the rodent and back it off further, rather than to feed it.

"Thah-teh's Ee-Ee! The real one!" says Many in a happy whisper regarding the first, smaller rodent in Farren's hands. A happy whisper that carries easily across Celindara's home. Farren stiffens, and looks up with a neutral expression towards the group.


Well, you've been seen. How do you react? :)

Nym waves goodbye to the wolves as they depart, and Ryn swoops in and beats her wings at then a couple of times in what might amount to her own gesture of farewell.

"Well, it's good that your tree's alright." says Nym happily as Celindara explains the feelings she is detecting.

She follows behind the hamadryad as the group makes its way through the song-conjured path toward the tree, apparently enjoying the slight bounce produced by treading on the soft, springy grass. She almost giggles, but manages to restrain herself and looks out into the clearing as it comes into view. When Many passes comment on the rat and Farren looks up, the changeling appears to decide that since they've been spotted, there's now no need to remain silent any longer.

"Hello, again!" she says cheerfully, waving with what fortunately turns out to be her free hand in the slightly confined space of the narrow path.

Meri glanced around the area, her gaze pausing briefly on Alynn with a ghost of a wry smirk dancing briefly on her lips before fading again.

Her staff was held in one hand, propped over her shoulder in a casual manner as if she wasn't expecting to have to use it any time soon, although it was clearly there and ready to be used if necessary.  Over her other shoulder, Timur's head appeared as he peeked out of Meri's backpack and looked around.

"Didn't expect to meet you again so soon" said Meri in a conversational tone, her gaze returning to Farren before moving to the larger rat near him, clearly studying it intently.


OOC: Looking over that bigger rat, trying to figure out if it's actually a rat or if it's something disguised as a rat like Farren himself seems to be able to do.
Not sure if that would be Perception, or Arcana (looking for traces of some kind of polymorphing magic) or Nature (trying to figure out if it's a natural creature) or something else...

So yeah, she's playing it relatively friendly for now.  Just a pleasant little chat.  Pity we don't have tea and scones here! :)

You can roll both Arcana to try and sense any spell, but Nature will be the better one to spot both Natural magic, or simply if the rodent is acting in a non-rattie way :)

Farren looks to Nym and Meri, nodding to the former and raising an eyebrow to the latter. "Again. Soon." He says the two words as if tasting them, or simply dwelling upon them like they hold great weight.

The conversation seems to disturb Alynn. Despite how tied up she is, she appears to realise who has come back. Anger of fear are hard to tekll apart, but she is clearly showing strong emotion. Her small 'friend' calls to the soft ground with a thump, and the roots react by tightening to ensure she cannot pull loose.

Farren looks across to Alynn's struggles for a moment, then back to the group. "Well, it seems our friend knows you, so that's exciting for us all. So... nothing about my appearance troubles you?"

He again looks with a neutral look to Nym and Meri. His gaze does flicker for a moment to Celindara, who silently moves sideways near to her tree, and regards Farren with a hooded look. Farren covers the eye movement by looking down briefly at the small rodent at play in his hand.


Tea and scones would have been the perfect thing to wish for from The Shadow :(

Anyway, this appears to be going well. Weirdly, but well. :)
This message was last edited by the player at 22:26, Tue 08 Nov 2016.

OOC: Nature: 8 (1 + 7) - Yeah, kind of fumbled that one.  Dice Karma seems to be collecting the payment for all the good rolls during that fight against the Teachers now...


Meri continued to eye the large rat, although she eventually shrugged slightly and turned to look back at Alynn as she returned to awareness.
For now, Meri seemed to ignore her though, looking back to Farren.

"Well, when I learned you were here, I imagined you'd either come to rescue her," she pointed sideways to Alynn to indicate her meaning, "and possibly destroy Celindara's tree, something Blace would have been prepared to do I'd guess.  Or else you wanted to talk to one of us."

She glanced back at Alynn for a moment then back at Farren.
"When you spoke with us before, I got the impression you had your own reasons for aiding Blace that might not necessarily coincide fully with her own.  And the longer you remained here without Celindara sensing any damage to the grove made me realise that you were looking to talk, not to attack us.  Which is more sense than some people we've met seem to have displayed so far..."
Her gaze flickered briefly back to Alynn as she said that, with another hint of a wry smirk.

Despite the brief amusement, her expression showed a noticeable concern as she looked back at Farren.
"Still, I'm guessing you or Blace may have learned the truth about the power I spoke of at the same time as we did?"


OOC: Lack of Blace in the area makes Meri wonder if she didn't fall foul of "The Other" when she went looking for "The Shadow"...  :)
This message was last edited by the player at 09:27, Wed 09 Nov 2016.

"Did you see the big tree?" asks Nym excitedly, pointing back the way the group has just come.

[Private to GM: Is it possible for Ryn to see the conversation from above the trees, or is there too much foliage in the way? Not that she'd necessarily be able to hear what was going on, but I was just wondering.]

Farren nodded slowly at the words, and took his time to reply. "You've said a lot of things to unpack, and I hope you will permit me the luxury of taking this slowly. If I can summarise your reply to my question and infer the fonal answer, it would be 'no'? In that, while you answered about my apparing in this place, you don't seem to have batted an eyelid about my physical looks. Interesting."

Farren tapped his free hand on the wood beside him. "So, this 'Blace', I presume of medium build, red haired, human, female, very good at pretending not to know a person and direct them back towards foes, if she finds that person coming to?"

Farren looked between Nym, Meri, Celindara and Alynn. "No, I did not come here to talk directly, although I am happy to. I certainly did not come here to destroy anything, that would seem...unwise. And I have not seen any tree bigger than this one, and it seems large enough for the moment."

Farren shifted, again highlighting that while his movements were not restricted, there was a coil to the roots than hinted this was a state of affairs that could change.

Farren pointed to the barely struggling Alynn again. "Out mutual 'friend' here, when the tree let her talk, seemed to indicate that I knew her and had somehow betrayed her. But that because the 'witch' of these woods, and her two murderous allies, would be back soon then she would forgive and forget if I would free her. Meanwhile, it seems my actual 'friend', or at least ally, is someone who would abandon me without a second though to enemies. Now, I could be wrong, but I would have to imagine given our friend's reaction, you are the 'woodswitch' and friends. Still, you seem happy to speak, and one way or another I don't believe I could refuse. Still, forgive me I find it difficult to imagine myself the villain in this situation. Perhaps you could prove your good intentions and... stop your tree from, well, from looming quite so much?"

Farren did not adopt anything more than a neutral tone as he spoke, but he was clearly analysing all that was being said, by whom, and how.

Celindara crossed her arms, and stood tall. "I know why you are here," she said to Farren.

"Really?"

"You were lost in the forest," she said.

"Well, yes, I did say that. Or impli-"

"You were lost. And those who wander the forest, their intention is ill, will not wander long. Those whose hearts are pure, the forest will welcome, and show grat sights." Celindara nodded to her friends.

"There is a third type. Ones who the forest cannot easily gauge. A woodsman walking, do they search for someone, do they have some secret ill they are bringing? Will they act rashy to fear? The forest will channel those to me."

Celindara paused for a moment, then said, softly and with a deadly tone. "For judgment."

"Well," said Farren calmly, "I have done nothing wr-"

"It doesn't have to be a huntsman or lost soul. It can be a wild beast. The forest does not care of killing from killer, it is the way of nature. But sometimes that wild beast does not act naturally. Predators who have gone strange too near the humans. Ones who begin to kill for the fact of it, not the effect."

Celindara stalked cloe, and the roots actually tighted around Farren's ankles. The dryad looked through the strange man. "Nothing you are saying makes sense, and your way is strange. This feels like some elaborate trap, and I am not some small rabbit to be snared."


So, unsurprisingly Celindara doens't trust him. And she has been alone for many years, so, you know, there may be times when she's used to following her own judgement on things.

So, now's probably the time to figure out what's up with Farren and carry on the good diplomatic work. Meri's whole 'let's be nice' is so unusual it might just work :p


[Private to Nym: Yes, this area is open now, so Ryn can look down on to it.]

Hmm, sorry, did I miss something? Why is Farren acting like we should be questioning his appearance? No description has been given so far in this scene, as far as I can see, beyond the fact that he's there (and accompanied by a pair of fuzzles :D). I mean, I can't remember specifically what he looked like, other than that he was (or appeared to be) a were-rat or something similar. And he seems to be takling a bit more "posh" than I remember, and acting as though he doesn't know who we are, when I'm sure we'd had conversations before when we met him back at that mill place where he had his "nest".
I think I may need to go back a couple of threads and dig out the posts that had our previous interactions with both him and Blace, since I can't really remember what was going on with either of them...the down side of a forum-based game, I suppose - a "recent" scene in-game can have taken place months ago and it's easy to forget wtf was going on :D.

Last post of chapter 2: link to a message in this game

He's marked appearance wise as a revenant of the Raven Queen. It's quite striking, but it's nothing you haven't seen before.

Everything else should be confusing, as he is acting very strangely. As if you haven't talked, when you have. Still, the more important question is, why was Blace able to act like she didn't know him, and send him back this way.

You haven't talked to him too much - he was the one that pointed out Mr Fox was far older than any of you (even him) and he also asked a question or two of Meri. Otherwise he's sort of sat on the sidelines scowling, or observant :)

Nym steps a little to the side so that she can see past Celindara and peers at Farren with a kind of fascinated confusion.

"So...you don't know who we are?" she says. "Are there two of you as well, or did you just forget us all? And Blace. I thought you were friends with her. Hmm...maybe there are two of you. Unless...hmm, well, you could be someone who isn't actually Farren but who accidentally exploded magic at yourself, or something, to make yourself look like Farren..."

Meri seemed to be peering intently at him as if studying something unusual, like a strange magical object she had become determined to figure out.

[Private to The Altweaver: (OOC: Trying Insight check to see if she can figure out if he's lying about not remembering them 14 (5 + 9).
And an Arcana check to see if she can detect any magic that might be affecting him and messing with his memories, particularly if it's emanating from that large rat 17 (3 + 14).
The Gods of Dice are still displeased with me it seems...)]

"So you don't remember anything that happened before?" she asked quietly.  "You called yourself Farren Wyde.  You were aiding someone named Blace, who claimed to have been killed by creatures she referred to as the Teachers, but had returned and was manipulating events in the area for reasons I'm still not fully aware of yet.  When we last spoke, you and Blace exchanged information on the Teachers and the Blight for information I had learned about the power that led me here, something I referred to as the Shadow, then you and Blace left to seek that power, while we sneaked away from your angry friend here to go and destroy the source of the Blight that was causing all the troubles around here."

She glanced around, fixing a suspicious gaze on the larger rat for a moment before looking back at Farren.
"Do you remember where Blace is now?  If she's still looking for that power, then she's probably about to make the same foolish mistake someone else did."


OOC: Meri is actually not too sure whether the foolish mistake in question was made by Krunluc or herself yet.  So keeping it just "someone" for now :)
Anyways, looking to see if she can jog his memory with a quick recap.

[Private to Meri: Yeah, I mean the insight roll is hopeless, so go ahead and either totally trust him or totally think he's being deceitful at your leisure :) Actually, I will point out one thing that's neither helpful nor unhelpful. Doesn't he seem unstressed for someone who has completely lost their memory. Even if he's telling the truth about the memory loss and not knowing what you are telling him, is there something he does remember? And why would he hide it if he does. See, totally not helpful yet not unhelpful questions :D

The arcana roll meets a moderate check, not a hard check. So up to you if you think the rodent has some sneaky and hidden power upon it, or if it's just an ordinary rodent :D]

Farren shook his head to the dual questions regarding remembering the group. "I recall nothing," he said, ""though I doubt there are two of me. I am not sure how these things work, of course..." He again looked at the group, as if there was soemthing they were not saying that was confounding him. He moved on with a shrug, looking to the dryad. "So if anyone should feel like a rabbit in a snare, it should be me. Of the five people I have met since coming to, four have said they know me, and the only one who does not know me apparently knew me best. So forgive me if I am the one who might harbour the feeling this is an elaborate ruse."

He did not look to the dryad again, nor to his feet. For Celindara's part, she backed away to allow her friends to speak to Farren, but did not indicate she was going to stop her tree from exercising any action if Farren made any further actions.

For his part Farren listened politely to Meri's words. "Farren Wyde?" he said, mulling the name over. "It does not sound like my name, but it's as good as any other. It seems you chose your timing well, for I now have no idea who the Teachers nor who the Blight are."

He slowly mulled over the rest of the information, as if catagorising a myriad questions in to useful and less useful questions, and a correct sequential order. "So, this Blace looked healthy and normal, if that was who was with me when I awoke," he said. "Unfortunately this forest of yours has turned me around, or else I would have no issue with telling you where we were. On the outskirts of the forest, at least, On a road. She was going away from it, with her right hand side still to the forest, if that helps. However, that was more than a day ago, and besides she sent me to you, it seems. So do you really wish to believe what I tell you of her actions? It may have been a ruse on her part. Have me killed and giving you false information in the process. Certainly it sounds as if she did something to me, the moment we went looking for this Shadow-power of yours. Anyway, you say she died and came back? So what powers does she have, this normal looking human? The power to suppress minds? Or twist them? I must say, I do not like the person you paint me as."

Meri frowned slightly as if thinking something over before speaking up.
"Well, you seemed the one most likely to listen to us and explain the situation, unlike Blace who seemed to have a grudge against the entire world, and your angry friend here who seems to prefer attacking first and asking questions later."

A hint of a smirk flickered across her face again, though this one didn't seem to be at Alynn's expense.
"I know little of your kind, only what I've learned reading books during idle moments in far off places.  A goddess known as the Raven Queen sometimes sends you here for her own reasons, and usually you never remember why until you happen to find your own reasoning for doing whatever you were supposed to do.  Maybe that's not a common way of it, but it happens.  It could be your memories were... 'reset' for some reason.  Most likely your purpose has been changed in response to...  Recent events."

Her gaze hardened for a moment, remembering the words the Shadow had said to her, but she continued quickly.
"I suppose it could also be that Blace was the one who removed your memories, perhaps she found the power she was looking for and didn't want to share it.  Who knows?  It sounds like the impression I got of her."

She sighed and glanced towards the direction they had entered the grove from on their first visit.
"Either way, I think I need to find her as soon as possible and see how much of a mess she's made and if it's still possible to fix things, assuming it even matters now."

She sighed again, looking suddenly wearied and saddened.
"So, what name would you like to be called by now?" she asked quietly.


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Well one other possibility she's keeping in mind is that the large rat is actually Farren in disguise, and this one is either another Revenant or an illusion or a polymorphed creature (probably another rat) that the real Farren is speaking through.
Exactly why he'd do that, I've no idea, perhaps in the hope that Meri might let more slip if she thinks she's talking to someone different than she met before.
She doesn't trust people easily, hehe.
Though she considers that possibility less likely than the idea that Farren actually has had his memories reset by the Raven Queen and his purpose altered in reaction to what the Shadow said about the gods now being aware of him and Meri.
Though the idea that Blace would have betrayed him is another possibility she's keeping in mind until she finds out what happened to Blace.]

While Meri and Farren converse, Nym wanders around the clearing a little, looking idly at plants, and eventually sits on an exposed tree root that doesn't belong to Celindara's tree and starts making little coloured sparks jump across her fingertips, hopping from one to the other and changing colour with each hop.

"Boink, boink, boink..." she mutters happily to herself as the sparks jump.

Please continue conversing to gather whatever info you can...just because Nym got a bit bored with the conversation doesn't mean I am :D. And anyway, she's still listening. Well, probably.

Celindara looks from Meri to Farren, as if the talk is making her head hurt, and actually joins Nym silently, moving quietly so as to not disturb the mage. The dryad seems content to watch the sparks dance, though occasionally a suspicious eye is cast towards Farren.

Farren actually seem to be relieved. "There, now you've said it. Now I can actually start to believe you. Yes, I do seem to have the cast of one sent back by the Raven Queen, don't I?" He seemed to look to Celindara, Meri and Nym for a good long time before speaking again, having arrived at a decision. "Well, you are correct. A reset, then. I do have one memory, one shining, clear memory. Well, two, but one is not my own."

He looked around as if, compared to what he could recall, everything else was just so much interesting fog. He finally looked back to the others. "I have no idea who you are, who Blace is, and what I was doing before. All I recall is waking up. But not here. Not anywhere this mundane. Knowing, knowing, that I was dead, Knowing that my dead mind's sluggish and unemotional thoughts were all that was separating me from going mad. For the Raven Queen is beautiful, in some terrible way I cannot truly convey. And I was before her. All I recall is her face dominating my vision, and some distaste filling what passed for my senses. And a feeling of words, an impression of them. Its hard to convey, it felt as if she said I owed her one of my lives, and she was owed many deaths." Farren stopped, looking through the others, seeing the scene in his mind, quite clearly. His tone was strange, and he seemed to almost be speaking to himself. He snapped out of it with a sigh. "And... then I woke up. Here. Alive. In a body. The shapes and sounds of the world trying to push their mundane attention on my mundane senses once more, while mundane emotions tried to pull at my mind. Blace looking down at me. I thought the concern of a stranger, but it could have been the fear of a murderer, finding their foe returning form the grave."

Farren stood up, apparently heedless of the threat of the tree, though he did not move, perhaps showing it was still a consideration. "So here is a hypothesis. I owed the Raven Queen one of my lives. That part confused me, but now i understand. I lived, out of service to her, in my first life, and I died She pulled me to her service. I failed, either by actually going to help this Blace, or simply failed in the ruse to be friendly to Blace. I was killed, and now I return again. 'Reset' as it were. Of course, I do not like the Raven Queen feeling She is owed a thousand deaths. Are they mine, for betraying Her? Or am I an assassin for Her? Neither sound pleasant. Or does She mean something else. This Blace you said was dead and came back. Maybe Blace is not alone. Maybe a thousand like her escaped the Raven Queen's clutches, and I was supposed to pull them all back."

Farren shrugged. "I do not know. My only other memory is of a city, that is not a city. It feels grand yet small, as if so far away. And familiar, even though I do not recognise it at all. It is an imperative form the Raven Queen, and yet useless to me." He looked to Meri. "It seems we arrived at a bargain once. Let us try another. Guide me out of this forest, and point me to the nearest city. Knowledge divine and geographic is what I seek, and a city would appear to be the easiest way to find them. In return, though I cannot tell you where this Blace went, we can skirt the forest until we come to the place where she left me. I have so few memories, recognising that place should be no problem."

His gaze blipped to Celindara, then back to Meri. "Do we have a deal? And you can call me what you wish. One name is as good as another when you do not know your own," said Farren "I'm guessing I'll be Farren Wyde until I find my own name." He doesn't even bother to look to see if Meri got the joke, and instead plays with the tiny mouse for a moment while the group decide. He tried to feed another piece of food to the skittish rat, but that one still seems in a foul mood.

Nym giggles slightly as Celindara comes over to watch her, and holds her hand out a little further so that the hamadryad can see it more clearly. She causes the sparks to collect above her palm and coalesce into a little fluffy cloud of every colour which then rains similarly-multicoloured sparks onto her hand, where the bounce a few times before apparently being "absorbed" into her furry palm.

Yet it does appear that she has been listening, for when Farren has finished explaining what has happened to him, she glances up.

"Oh, you're really from somewhere else and you died and went back there and got sent back here again?"

She pauses for a few moments, looking back at her hand above which the miniature cloud shoots out a few tiny bolts of lightning then adds casually,

"I don't think I really like Blace very much. She hasn't really been a very nice person."

She brightens a little looking back at Farren.

"But you remember that you can turn into a big rat-thingy, right?" she asks. "That was how we met you before. You had a sort of nest thingy up at the top of a mill near the village we were visiting. Well, we saw you a bit before that, but I mean, that was where we properly met you. So you're really not-actually-alive and got sent from some other place to do stuff here before you go back home again? Well...at least it gives you something to do, I suppose...and umm, well, maybe you can explore the world and make friends while you're here, right?"

She grins at him and the little cloud turns into a tiny sun. A tiny green sun, but stil...

Meri seemed to think a moment, looking back at Celindara and Nym, then to Alynn and finally back at Farren.
"Well, as ominous as the part about many deaths sounds, I suppose we can help for now.  Though I can tell you now that I'm not prepared to help kill anyone who hasn't done me or a friend of mine any wrong.  Also..."
Her voice trailed off there as if she had suddenly had second thoughts about saying what she had been about to add, she also glanced briefly over her shoulder at Nym and Many before looking back at Farren.

"Then we can leave the forest and you can tell me anything you remember about where Blace went.  Beyond that, I'm not too sure about geographical knowledge.  There are some towns around here that I know of."

She looked back at Celindara.
"As for what to do with her," she gestured towards Alynn here, "Do you have any preference?"


OOC: So yep, happy to lead Farren out of the forest, though Meri isn't really one to help someone kill anyone who hasn't already tried to kill her or someone she considers a friend (I wonder who they could be?) ;)
Also, what do we do with Alynn now?  Happy to leave her fate up to Celindara's judgement unless Nym has any different feelings on the matter...
This message was last edited by the player at 22:14, Sat 12 Nov 2016.

Considering Nym hasn't even acknowledged Alynn's presence throughout this whole scene, I think that might at least hint that there is a certain lack of friendliness and maybe even indifference to the matter ;).

Yeah,you already got XP from Alynn and beat her twice, don't worry, she doesn't have to be your problem unless you had an idea for her :)

Celindara takes the opportunity to move over to Meri. "Alynn presents an opportunity. This tension with Blackwood village was fostered by Blace, but perhaps I have been lax. I have not spoken to these elders in...hmm, how long do humans and their kin live? Perhaps I last spoke to the parents of the elders. Or their grandparents..."

She looks slightly embarrassed, even though it is clear she cannot actually recall. "Still, it should be me who takes Alynn to the village. Her insults were to both sides of the forest, but she escapes their custody first with Blace's help. They have first right of justice."

Celindara nods to herself, and there is some other emotion. Perhaps not fear, perhaps... excitement?

Something Celindara says seems to spark a look to the dryad from Farren. Still, Farren looks to Nym then her sun then Nym again, clearly prioritising the sorcerer's words. And as if trying to work out all her words. "I'd happily be friends with the world, I just have no idea how much it is friends with me." He looks to the group. "So we have a deal. I assure you, I have no desire to murder anyone, which is perhaps why I am in this situation. A god's command is a powerful thing, but I don't trust the god of death on matters of live. Especially when she forms ones such as me despite her hatred of such creations when made by others."

He looks to the resentful rat and the happy rat, then puts the smaller, friendlier one down on a root. "A rat myself? It answers one questions and raises far more. I wonder how one would go about doing that? Even without a memory, it should be as easy as breathing. Perhaps-"

Farren doesn't tell the group his theory, but it is clearly correct. His thin body squashes down and fattens out,his strange features twist to rodent features, and his black pointed fingernails extend to claws. It is the same transformation, but in reverse, as the group saw at the mill.

The tiny rodent looks scared and backs off, and the resentful rat looks more gloating and advances on its fellow.

"Noh! Ee-Ee!" says Many with worry, darting forwards but stopping when the giant Farren rat stomps forwards first.

However, Farren snarls at the gloating rat not the tiny rat, and when he advances on the tiny at to Many's terror, all that Farren does is 'bop' his giant nose to the tiny one's nose. They seem to make small noises to one another, and the tiny rodent seems less afraid. Farren then turns to the larger rat, and exchanges far less pleasant sounding squeaks and snarls with that one. Still, by the end of that the larger rat seems cowed rather than resentful, and backs away.

Farren twisted back in to his more humanoid shape, and then looked to the group. "Well that was less than pleasant. Yet unless you are all masterfully playing me, it appears I have another reason to believe you."

Lol, the man seems to have Meri levels of paranoia under his apparent dispassion!

Farren pointed to Many. "So why do you have a small beholder as a familiar? That is no gauth, yet like no beholder I have seen before." He looks to the group. "And yes. I know many things. I just have no memory of them. Just as I know if Blackwood village is close, then this is The Blackwood. And so Fivespears and... Threegates? ... is close to the south. I have no memory of being there or not, but I have so much knowledge. And yet it seems to be failing at your friend here."


I'll leave it there for now, but it seems you have a guide? You know, if the new picture, etc is to be believed? :)

Nym giggles and claps (forgetting her tiny sun and causing it to instantly poof out of existence the moment her hands meet) as Farren rediscovers his shapeshifting abilities. She giggles again when he speaks of Many.

"No, Many's not a familiar." she says. "He's our friend. He just sort of...well, he started off as this little metal ball thing in Meri's workshop, but then the ball came to life and then when all the weird magic happened later it turned out the ball was an egg and it hatched out into him! And he's very clever and he's learning how to be nice to people and do all sorts of different magic with all his eyes."

She gives Many a huge smile. Meanwhile there is the faintest of whooshing noises and the psychadelic-looking falcon alights softly on Nym's head. The changeling poings in roughly the right direction to indicate the bird-like creature.

"Oh, this is Ryn." she says. "She sort of...grew out of me a while back, except she looked a bit more sort of...doggy, then. She's my friend forever! And Meri has one too, called Timur. He's like a tiny little man, but he's made out of metal. He helps her make stuff. She likes making stuff."

I know technically it was the "weird magic" that caused the Ball to exist in the first place rather than hatch into Many, but Nym is paraphrasing here ;).

Meri glanced back at Nym as she talked about Many's origins then looked back at Farren.
"Indeed, he's still finding his place in the world.  Like me and you both perhaps.  I thought I knew mine already, but it seems I still have new crafts to learn."

She briefly eyed the larger rat again as she continued.
"I used to think gods actually cared about us once, a long time ago.  Once I even actively prayed to a couple, though I can't recall their names.  Then I came to the realisation that we have to count on our own strengths to survive in a hostile world."

At the mention of his name, Timur had clambered back out of Meri's pack, looking around at Nym, then he turned and peered over Meri's shoulder at Farren and the two rats.
Rather than drop back down into the pack, he remained in place this time, watching the scene with an almost interested look.

"I know little of this area" continued Meri.  "Only of Stonebridge, and Blackwood, and of what lies in the direction we came from days ago.  Beyond that, I hadn't planned on exploring far.  Though plans seem to matter little these days."
She grinned at that then indicated the larger rat.
"So who is your friend there?  He doesn't seem to like you very much."


OOC: Meri seems unimpressed by gods.  Particularly evil chained ones who seem to like messing with her life... ;)

Farren greets all the friends in turn, seemingly accepting their number, strange appearance and stories with no further comment. Many is nodding enthusiastically, grinning as broadly as Nym. "Beh-ter! Be-etter! Yeah, yeah, be-tter!"

Farren looks to the two rodents around him. "Well, my two friends-"

"Noh!" says Many, then looks a little guilty. "Ah mean, heh mah friend! He Ee-Ee!"

Farren gave a small nod and corrected himself without much of a disruption. "-our two friends here don't usually given themselves names." He then looked to Many. "But I am sure ... Ee-Ee... will be fine, as he seems to like you. I think he was looking for you." To Meri's comment, he nodded to the other one. "A little bit more of a mixed bag. Cruely treated I think, seems to know me. Seems he's not happy with me being nice to you. I'm not sure I appreciate all these friends I have that aren't mine or seem unpleasant. Still, perhaps they are all broken things, in need of support."

Faren shrugged. Whether his last comment was just regarding Blace and the rodent, or extended to everyone was not something he expounded on.


Many for his part hesitantly moved forwards, trying not to spook Ee-Ee, and also unsure of Farren. He kept looking back at Meri and Nym as if to make sure it was ok.

When he got closer, he seemed to realise he hadn't grabbed any food to offer to his possible friend. Farren either recognised the concern, or simply was offering the beholder the chance to do what he was doing earlier.

Farren tossed a small morsel of something, and Many caught it in his mouth and gobbled it. *burp* "Thank you!" he said, then his eyes widened. "Oh noooo, thah-t wah-s Ee-Ee food!"

The little pout was removed quickly when Farren rolled his eyes and threw another morsel. Many caught this one with his magic, though it wobbles as he tried to gently direct it towards Ee-Ee. The small rodent nervously came forward and accepted the food, and Many gave a little relived giggle. The small rodent then squeaked at Many.

"Uh-huh, uh-huh," he said happily, nodding and smiling. He then looked behind himself to Meri and Nym and shook his head with a more worried look. He clearly didn't understand what the little rat was saying, if anything.

Farren seemed amused, and spoke words in a harsh, gutteral language as he had once spoke to Blace. Many replied in something that seemed to be the same language, although somehow his pronunciations seemed to remove the harsh edges from it.

Farren turned to Meri and Nym and kept speaking, changing back ot the Common tongue without apparently noticing what he had done. "So, I do not recognise Stonebridge. Presumeably north or east of here? Since I somehow know the elf and fey lands are west, where this forest becomes another, older forest. It seems to me Blace would not go back to the village where Allyn has told tales of, so I suppose I won't get to see my old 'home'. To be fair, nothing is jogging my memory, so I doubt seeing it would help. So let's rule out going to the east if we can help it. I want to travel to a city, so I will go south. But I leave it up to you if we go north or go south to the edge of this place. It seems either is a gamble that I will recognise where Blace left me."


So, feel ree to react to all the reactable things. Since you know to get to Stonebridge you probably want to go east anyway, then your actual choices are go with Celindara towards Blackwood village (then decide who to go with / leave behind) or leave Celindara's company now and go south to further down the Fivespears road. Your call!
This message was last edited by the player at 18:53, Wed 01 Mar 2017.

Nym scoots closer to Many and Ee-Ee, giggling as the tiny beholder interacts with his little rattish friend.

"Ooh, what did you just say?" she asks him when he responds to Farren's use of the strange language by speaking it himself. "I don't know that language. What was that?"

Meri looked back at Celindara and Alynn before speaking up.
"Well, if you're headed to Blackwood with Alynn, maybe we could stick with you for a while, just in case the villagers don't react well to having you show up there.  Assuming they'd been hearing stories about this 'Blackwoods Witch' babble.  Maybe we can calm things down if they start getting out of control."

She looked back at Farren then.
"Also, while we're there, we may be able to find out more about this city you mentioned, get some directions to it at least."


OOC: So yeah, putting the OOC suggestion into IC-speak :)

Farren looks confused at the question from Nym, perhaps presuming he said something strangely to her. It takes Many giggling and saying, "You spoh-keh funnie to me! Like-" Many then mimes being the bigger, badder beholder again, which since Farren has never seen such an impression, was lost on him. He seemed to get the general gist though.

"Oh, I speak Underdark. I think?" Farren seemed to take it in stride. "I simply told your small friend rodent speech is not too difficult, it just takes time and patience."

"You-ah said 'death' and 'stalking'," said Many happily.

"Seems about the level of the Underdark. Well, I mean time and patience."


Celindara meanwhile seemed pleased that the group would continue with her. "I have no fear of the villagers, one way or another. But with Blace's poison removed, perhaps they will listen better. For my part I was wrong, for they had nothing to do with tension nor were they wrong in saying something was moving in this place. The Phystal and Blace are gone though. And Allyn will find their justice."

She smiled at the group. "Still, it will be good to experience the outside of the wood after all this time, with friends."


Farren looked around. "By the way you are speaking, the way south is not obvious? Well then, to Blackwood Village it is. Perhaps I can see this place where I stayed before. It seems safer to look around there while you are otherwise engaged. There might be those who would recognise me, for the wrong reasons?"


Actually, there was no indication Farren was seen by anyone, but he isn't to know that. And you lot can't be sure :) Anyway, up to you if you want to go right now, or if there's anything you want to do beforehand.

"Well, the place you stayed before seemed to be outside the town, in an abandoned mill.  At least that's where Blace went to meet with you, and we found a bedroll in there that suggested someone was staying there.  We could probably find it again easily enough if you wanted to look it over, maybe something you left in there before will jog your memory?"

She glanced around at Alynn, then looked back at Celindara.
"Thinking this over though, since we had to defend ourselves against Alynn before, it's likely she'll try to cause trouble by identifying us to the town guards as her 'attackers'.  Not that we were the ones who chose to draw first blood there."
The last part was added with a rather nasty glare at Alynn as she rubbed at the place where the woman had struck her before.

"I'd be happy to help, although now I wonder if our presence would be more of a problem than a help..."


OOC: May as well put OOC doubts into IC speak as well...  Though I'm thinking that even if we weren't with Celindara, Alynn could still kick up a fuss about Celindara "being in league with murderers" and not to be trusted and all that.
So not too sure if our presence would make much difference at this point.  At least physically being there we could tell our side of the story, so maybe there's that.  If they refuse to listen and attack us anyway, THEN we could always kick off the fireworks! :)

Hmm, not sure what language they'd speak in the Underdark.  Is that where Beholders are from then?  Sounds like a fun place to visit with all the death and stalking and other nice things :)

Yeah, I think the name is specific to the Forgotten Realms setting but the Underdark is just that setting's name for the "underground world" (as opposed to the "surface world, where we are"). It's where races such as beholders, Drow, and umber hulks (giant bipedal beetle-looking things that daze/confuse you with their gaze) live and it's almost like a whole other world in itself I suppose, like the underground regions in, say, Skyrim. To the point where any actions or knowledge checks that would normally require a Nature roll (foraging food, finding your way, telling the time of day) instead require Dungeoneering.

Nym smiles back at Farren.

"Yes, you can come with us and see the village." she says happily. "It was kind of fun when we went there before - there was some kind of party...but then it stopped being fun because Blace said some things. But maybe it will be nice again if she's not there any more..."

She looks over at Celindara.

"Don't worry, Celindara." she says. "We'll tell everyone how nice you are!"

If Alynn does try and get us into trouble, at least we have plenty of ways to mitigate that by explaining how the bad shit in the forest has been dealt with and what Blace was all about and stuff...hopefully my d20 will be nice and assist my high Diplomacy skills with decent roll results should I need to make any ;).

Also, can't help but notice that Farren has decided to travel with us (however temporaraily, depending on whether or not we decide to go to this city he's mentioned) for a while just as it's looking like we might be parting ways with our Bard... ;)

Celindara did not seem to see an issue, and Farren's expression merely showed caution than anything else.

"We shall go and I shall speak to them and that will be the end of it, I am sure," said Celindara with confidence. "The Pact has been stressed by Blace's actions, but despite her words, it should be clear to them as it is to me that no one has wished its end."


Farren looked around. "I doubt I will recall anything, but if this rest stop is on the way, then that seems a good idea. At worst, something might job your memories, and tell me what powers I have next. I'm hoping for teleportation, that would make all this so much easier." Farren then looked himself up and down. "Given my appearance, and given Blace's ability to manipulate everything, I am going to be reassured that I would not have revealed myself to this village, and would have stayed hidden as you suggest I did. Besides, I have a form to switch to if anyone gets close. Your little beholder friend draws enough attention that a large rodent is most likely not something to be given a second look."

Farren then looked to Celindara, and gestured to his foot. Although the tree had never constricted, the roots were still oddly coiled in a wide loop around his feet, and he had not forgotten that. Celindara paused for a moment, and then gave a dismissive wave, and a far more warmly toned humming. The roots uncoiled as if they had never been a threat.

However, those were not the only roots that moved. The ones around Allyn started to slacken alarmingly. Though they did not unbind her mouth, the warrior was moved to a standing position. She almost fell, although that could have easily throttled her. Her hate seemed to keep her upright, and her gaze burned. Celindara was unimpressed.

"I'm going to let you free of your bonds," the dryad said icily, "and you will make no sounds, speak no words, and do nothing except move back to your village for the judgement of humans. Understand you intended to hurt those under my protection, and intended to burn my home for your selfish, insignificant desires and emotions. Were you mine alone you would not breath a moment longer. Cross my words with a single word of your own and I will consider my own needs greater than Blackwood Village. Move to harm those under my care, or think you can attack me, and it will be a swift and final mistake. Seek to run, and it will be the second last mistake you will make. The last will be thinking my forest will give you any more mercy than I." Celindara gave a hollow laugh. "I offer a quick death. Nature does what it will. You may have time to regret your mistake, but that will not be time free."

With another humming and a gesture, Celindara dismissed the final bonds. Allyn managed to stand despite the continuing weakness in her limbs, and still managed to look to Celindara with hate, and the others. Still, she clearly bit her tongue, and simply nodded.

Celindara looked coldly amused. "I do not care if you understand or not. You are the one who needs to be sure you understand me." With that, she gave a gesture to a section of the trees, and a lilting tune. The trees opened up. Allyn looked uncertain - or perhaps even more furious - but then moved off. Slowly.

Celindara turned round, and her harsh expression broke immediately, especially when the little fungus creature that had been tending Allyn came over. "Yes, of course you can come and be my herald!" she said. There were other little creatures around, but they did not seem to be sad that they were not picked.

Farren, for his part, seemed happy to be escaping attention. He moved to Ee-Ee, and picked up the little rodent. However, what he did was reach across to Many, and gestured to put the little rodent on the little beholder's head. Many seemed so shocked he was still, and so Farren put Ee-Ee between Many's central eyestalks.

Many turned around very slowly to look at the others, looking terrified and with his lip wobbling. "It's alright," said Farren, "he won't fall, and if he wants to hope off, he's light enough to land without hurting himself." Many seemed dubious, but moved around very slowly. When Ee-Ee didn't immediately fall, Many started giving a terrified little noise that could have been laughter or a sob. However, then Ee-Ee seemed to happily move around, looking around and sniffing Many scalp.

Many giggled and shifted then his eyes widened in terror. However, it was clear that Ee-Ee wasn't going to fall, nor be scared. Many's small giggles become all joy and without fear, although he did make sure his movements were slow, and he kept himself near the ground. "Look! Look!" he said, making a slow tour of the group. Ee-Ee, for his part, did occasionally give the others an inquisitive look as he was brought near them.

Farren and the other rodent seemed still a little unsure of each other, but Farren offered the hand of friendship. The other rat ran up on to his palm, and reluctantly allowed himself to be put in to a chest pocket. Farren gave a small pause, obviously realising his body had done something automatically that his mind hadn't thought about.


I really didn't mean for this to become team little friends, but that's what's happened. At least you know I'm not going to AOE the whole group right this second. I'm not a heartless monster. Am I?

Anyway, some reactions, obviously smack talk or more warnings to Allyn if you like, and then onwards?

Nym seems almost as if she's oblivious to Allyn's presence and instead seems more interested in the antics of Many and the more rattish members of the group, although Ryn has taken off again and is hovering above the clearing. Nym crouches down as Many comes over to show her his new passenger and reaches out to let the rat sniff her fingers.

"Aahh, hello little ratty!" she says happily. "Don't worry, Many. Rats are really good at holding on to things - he'll be fine. I think he's enjoying himself!"

She looks around.

"So now we're all going back to the village?" She claps her hands together. "Yay! Maybe it will be more fun this time! Maybe everyone can be friends!"

Yaaay, go go Team Cute Forest Friends! :D

Meri said nothing further, but simply positioned herself to tag along at the side of the group with her staff propped over one shoulder.
Timur had climbed all the way out of her backpack and now perched on her shoulder, peering at the rat sitting on Many with a look that could have been somewhere between amusement and curiosity.

Although Meri seemed content to remain silent, it was clear she was watching Alynn warily as she went along...


OOC: We still need more cute things...  ALL the cute things! :D
This message was last edited by the player at 15:45, Thu 17 Nov 2016.

The rodent seemed happy with the attention, and Many was happy that Ee-Ee was happy with everything. Whether Allyn was happy with anything or not was hard to gauge, as she kept to the front and the head movements she used to ensure she was moving in the right direction were subtle.

When Celindara left, there was a rustle from the left. She did not seem concerned, and indeed it was simply a deer - most like the one from the sacred grove - come back. This time when she lifted her hand to the deer, it was happy enough to receive the dryad's sttention and songs.

"So the forest wants to look out for me when I cross the border? How sweet. May I beg a favour?" Celindara picked up the small fungal pod that was bobbing around with difficulty in the normal undergrowth. The deer tipped her head in assent, and the fungus was put on the back. With a small wobble, it seemed to settle happily. Or at least as happily as a little fungal pod creature could externally emote.

"Aww look Ee-Ee!" said Many happily, buzzing across to see introduce them both to the the deer and the fungus creature again, now the second was on a better level.


With them occupied, Celindara looked to Nym and Meri. "So if we want to get back to the village, we should go the route we took before. I... have not seen it for so long." She did wink as well at the first comment. It was only as the dryad started taking such a long, circuitous route that it became clear she was making for the small river in a strange way that curled back on itself and went near and far. It could be to ensure that Allyn and Farren had no clear  route back to the dryad's home, which was sensible. Or it could have easily been to extend Allyn's gloomy suffering, as she kept finding undergrowth and roots to tangle in, yet dared not curse.


If you want to do anything on the journey, yell. Meri, remember you do have the materials in hand to craft one of the neck slot items in the items thread (+2 amulet, psychic intrusion, etc) from the two original amulets. I daresay Celindara will be amenable to the transformation.

Oh, and also I'll be out tomorrow and I need to research some of the village stuff for when you return, so an actual village post will probably be later on Saturday or late on Sunday - since I've also got stuff on at the weekend :( So small fun stuff is probably easier atm until next week.

Nym gives a friendly wave to the deer and generally spends the trip half-skipping along, clearly enjoying herself and admiring the various sights the forest has to offer. She occasionally "vents" a few puffs or sparks of colour out of her hands or fingertips, or otherwise conjures various tiny colourful apparitions and often hums or mutters random things to herself when not otherwise interacting with anyone else.

Nym is happy enjoying herself but feel free to engage her in conversation or whatever :). At some point I need her to figure out that the pockets of the Deep Pocket Cloak all lead to the same place (I have it planned out in my head how that will happen) but we haven't had another sit-down yet where she can go through her stuff again - last time she did ended with her putting stuff into the cloak for the first time, so the surprise will come when she goes to take some of it out again. And then maybe Meri can do some linky-magic and we can make up for those Linked Bags of Holding we missed out on before (unless someone from the village randomly discovered the corpses of those two guys and decides to give us their bags as a present when we get there for all the nice stuff we did in the forest, or something ;)).

While during the journey, Timur was constantly looking around, as if admiring the scenery, Meri saw little of the surroundings they walked through.
Instead, she spent much of the time watching Alynn out of the corner of her eyes for any hints of an impending escape attempt.

For the rest of her time, she handed her staff to Timur to hold, then shrugged off her backpack and looked inside for something, pausing on one object with a hint of a frown and glancing back the way they had come as if she had just remembered something she had forgotten before.

Sighing, she looked back at the backpack and pulled out the amulet Nym had taken off to fit the clasp of the robe she was wearing in its place.  Pulling her backpack back onto her shoulders, she took the staff back and slipped it through the straps of her pack to hold it in place, then took off the amulet she was wearing too, examining both of them carefully, weighing them one in each hand for a moment.

Thinking carefully, she looped one of the amulets around her arm to keep it safe from being accidentally dropped while freeing up both hands, and began to unravel small parts of the oaken cord that held it, before taking up the other amulet again and deftly weaving it into the chain of that one.

Timur then seemed to glance around from his observations of their surroundings, as if responding to a silent instruction.  Diving into Meri's backpack for a moment, he pulled out a small vial of a brownish dusty substance and handed it to her.
Meri sprinkled some of this over each amulet.  Despite the dry looking nature of the chemical, it seemed to stick to the surface on contact, lingering there.  Meri handed the vial back to Timur, who returned it to the pack before resuming his position on her shoulder and turning back to admiring the forest around them again.

Carefully, Meri took both amulets and pressed them together, with the sides she had treated with the alchemical substance facing each other.  She continued to hold them there as she walked, still occasionally subtly eyeing Alynn as if deciding the two objects no longer needed her direct attention.

It was tricky to see at first, although anyone observing the amulets closely enough might notice the natural materials of each one seem to 'come alive' for a few minutes, regrowing and weaving around each other, joining the two amulets together, to the point where they remained together when Meri released one of them to reach back and detach one of the tips of her staff.
Holding this, she carefully began to move the glowing crystalline tip over the surface of the amulet in an odd pattern, as if very slowly writing something on the air directly over it.
As she finished this and reattached the tip to her staff, a faint shimmering pattern of an odd series of runic symbols flickered briefly on the surface of the amulet before fading again, leaving a vague ghostly imprint on the surface, like the silvery threads of a spiderweb weaved between some of the parts that made up the topmost amulet, only visible when looked at from a certain angle in the right kind of light.

Examining her handiwork for a few minutes, she slipped the new amulet over her head and closed her eyes with a nod of satisfaction.
She opened them again and looked around, as Timur dived back into her pack and pulled out a few scraps of metal shaped into a rough hemispherical shape with some kind of intricate parts fitted inside.  It looked obviously incomplete, like something she had once tinkered with briefly in her workshop before becoming distracted by a more important task.  Likely she had left it among the spare parts she always carried around in her toolkit and forgot it was there.

"Hmm yeah, I probably should finish that.  Good idea" she remarked quietly, taking the parts from Timur and studying them for a moment before reaching back to accept a variety of tools and more small intricate parts he passed to her, passing them back to him after she had finished with them.
The two of them continued to work together in their weird silent synergy as the group walked along, although occasionally Meri would glance towards Alynn again, hinting she hadn't completely let her guard down...


OOC: Tinker time! :D
(A.K.A.: Look, what I made.  I call it a 'Wall of Text'!)

Making the Amulet of Psychic Interference :)  Come on then, someone use a mind twistery attack on me now, go on, I dare you!  I double dare you! ;)
(Well ok, might not be too effective if they can use it twice, but, well what happens that first time will hopefully discourage them from trying it again) :)


[Private to The Altweaver: The other thing she's tinkering with is a little gadget that "unlocks" one of my new level-up tricks :)  Originally, it was an experiment she tried to help her understand the technology that made Timur's body move, though she abandoned it when some other project took her attention.  Can't recall what that other project was, probably a customer, some passing knight wanting a Shrubbery made or something! :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 13:08, Sat 19 Nov 2016.

[Private to Meri: It will be interesting to see how that one plays out then. You'll need it, we live in a cruel world where people see 'ne' at old women.]

Many happily moved around, showing of Ee-Ee then showing Ee-Ee things. Many tried to understand his little friend, and more often than not moved across to Farren to ask (politely) was was being said. Farren always seemed to respond and answer the question, but otherwise seemed lost in thought.

Eventually Many was growing tired, and dipping low to the ground. He seemed worried about dropping his little friend. He came across to Nym, to see if she would take the small rodent for a while.

If Nym would, then yay, you can have a little friend to play with. If not, then Many will try to make other arrangements :)

When Meri was keeping an eye on Allyn, it was clear to see that Allyn was counting off trees and looking at the foliage around. Since she was trying to hide her actions, she never looked backwards. Therefore she did not notice things like the undegrowth twisting back again at Celindara's gentle song, closing off what looked like a pathway. And once, when what looked like a tree amongst two others the slithered down on to the ground, moving away from the group silently, it's bark-like skin going greener on the ground.

Celindara barely paid attention to the snake, making a half-hearted shooing motion with her hand. She was rapt in attention seeing what Meri was doing. She did not see put out at all that Meri was combining the two gifts, and indeed seemed very impressed by the level of skill in doing so.

Meri's construction only once hit a snag. The magic of the amulets seemed sluggish and ill at ease when she first tried to bind them together. A small song from Celindara though, and the process continued as normal.

"I can hear both songs, one slightly louder than the other, now!" said Celindara. "What does it do now?"

Now then, surely you know Nym well enough by now to know how she's most likely to respond to a tired Many (wih or without cute fuzzle friend) coming over to her? ;)

Nym is clearly happy to give a ride to the little rat and offers Many one too, letting Ee-Ee climb up to her shoulder and offering to carry the beholder in her free hand while her other is occupied with idly swinging her staff like a walking stick as she goes (though she manages not to accidentally strike any of the local plant life or her fellow group members as she does so).

She doesn't seem particularly interested in whatever Meri is doing, either because she truly doesn't find it interesting or because she knows the half-elf prefers to be left to concetrate on her work instead of being hit by a constant barrage of questions about whatever she's trying to do. The changeling instead keeps switching her attention between admiring the forest, tickling Ee-Ee, looking at Ryn or Many, and talking to all of them about whatever random thoughts seem to occur to her.

When Celindara asks Meri about her handiwork, however, Nym comes over.

"Yes, what did you do?" she asks eagerly.

Meri looked up from the strange device she was tinkering with, as if suddenly surprised to find everyone interested in her work.

"Well, they still do the same thing, sort of.  But as well as the protective enchantment on them, there is also now a strong psychic shielding that can injure anyone trying to break through it.  Not quite the same as before, but more focused.  Unfortunately it'll probably need some time to restore itself after each use, but it'll help if we encounter anything else like those one-eyed Blight creatures we fought against."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:14, Sun 20 Nov 2016.

"Yay!" said Many, happy to sit on Nym's hand and watch Ee-Ee's scampering. He occasionally had a deep look of concentration whenever Ee-Ee made noises, as if trying to figure out the what the little rodent was saying. Ee-Ee took a few moments to get used to Nym, but then seemed happy enough scritching and scratching around on the changeling's robe.

"He seems to have taken to you, too," said Farren midly. "An unusually carefree rat." He then lapsed back in to his own thoughts.

Many nodded excitedly for his friend, taking it as a compliment. After a while, he seemd to realise something and looked to Nym. "Noaw Woodee ihs gone, cahn you teach me moh-ah lifty ma-gic. Plea-seh?" The little beholder seemed to recall Goodwin's promise too late, and most likely wanted to ensure he could lift food for his friend and perhaps even grab him if the rodent fell off.


Celindara seemed intrigued by the craftsmanship. "Those amulets were ancient, their ways set. The fact you can give renew them so, give them a new purpose and refresh their life. Their song is happier than I have hear it since... well, since their owners left them in my care." There was a small tear in her eye, but it seemed to be happy rather than sad. She gave a nod. "I knew the Staff of the First would be safe in your care. I cannot wait to see what new song you encourage it to sing."

Celindara gestured to an area to walk towards, perhaps taking some pleasure in the fact that Allyn did not notice right away and had to swiftly move sideways while trying to hide her sudden panic.


There was definitely a light noise of water somewhere distant. Finally, they were getting back to the water, mostly likely where they had left the boat when Many had come back panicking to them from discovering Ee-Ee and false Ee-Ee in Farren's clutches.


You still have some time to react and say / do stuff, but just setting us up to getting to the mill :) You might barely recall that last time, you guys had left Celindara and Many on this side, with Many disappearing after the false Ee-Ee. When you came back to Celindara from the mill (after the Blace/Farren confrontation), that was when you made for Celindara's home, etc. Seems like so long ago now :)

Meri seemed to have once again absorbed herself in tinkering with the object she was working on, and didn't react much to Celindara's comments beyond a hint of a smile.
Although anyone looking close enough might have noticed a very faint hint of a blush in her cheeks.

[Private to The Altweaver: (OOC: Yep, complimenting her on something she considers her new purpose in life is definitely a bit of a weakness with her :)  hehe)]

"I did have an idea that could use the staff's power actually, though I don't know if it's possible yet."
She paused to give her full attention to precisely attaching a tiny gold-coloured piece of a mechanism that looked oddly similar to the parts that made Timur's body move to another part inside the device before continuing.
"Since it and the cloak Nym is wearing were both linked by the power, and some would say the soul, of a single person, it may be there is still the lingering remnants of a bond between them.  Much as the way certain items develop a bond when specifically created as part of a set, thus increasing their power when they work together.  It may be possible to awaken something like that between the cloak and the staff, since there would already be a tenuous thread of a link between them now."

She shrugged slightly, pausing to examine her handiwork on the unfinished device, one fingertip idly turning a small toothed wheel, making the ones next to it spin as well, which in turn somehow caused a faint spark of light to ignite momentarily inside a piece of crystal attached to the mechanism.
"It would depend though on how much you'd want them to be altered.  If it works out the way I think it will, the staff might no longer even be a staff, at least not physically.  I'm still not sure exactly what effect that might have either."

Her voice trailed off there and she looked over at Nym.
"Does that robe have any powers you know about?" she asked.


OOC: So yeah, she is referring to that idea of linking her backpack with Nym's robe pockets, using the staff's power as a kind of 'conduit'.  Though that depends on whether Celindara is ok with having the staff used that way, or whether she'd rather it stay as a staff.  Bit of an IC doubt there.  She doesn't mind breaking her own stuff, but is guessing Celindara might not want her doing weird magical experiments with things she considers sacred, hehe.

Not sure Meri is actually aware of the power of Nym's robe either, hence why she's asking.  Just working out the nature of the link between them :)

The stuff about a bond between items created as part of a set was inspired by reading about item sets in one of the Adventurer's Vault books :)

Do I have the time and components to make that before we reach the village?
This message was last edited by the player at 15:14, Mon 21 Nov 2016.

No, there's been no indication yet that the cloak is anything more than a plain old cloak with a load of pockets. Don't worry, the discovery will come soon enough (whenever Nym next sits down and decides to go through her stuff) ;).

And yes, now I'm reminded of it, I do remember what happened last time we were here, with Many being left behind and stuff :).

Nym cocks her head to one side at Meri's question, and reaches to each side in order to open out the cloak and look at it, an act that is hampered somewhat by the fact hat her hands are rather occupied with her staff and the small beholder.

"Umm...well, it's umm...it's got...pockets." she says. "It looks kind of boring, but hopefully that'll change - things do usually seem to brighten up when I've had them a while. It's nice to have more places to keep all the things I find."

You have the time and components, since making this bag of holding just needs the staff and your own bag :) However, if Nym isn't going to reveal the power then we'll see when you actually get the chance to do this. I have the feeling you might hit one combat at least where you'll wish you had it :p

Or not, who knows - not even me!


Celindara seemed happy for Meri to use the staff. "Even if I had doubts, the new song you wove from the dying echoes of my sisters' old items would have dispelled them. And I had no doubts. Besides, these are tools of a priest long dead. The items are useless to me, no priest of Melora  - nor Melora herself - could begrudge change. Life begets new life."

She looked to Nym's cloak. "I could not say exactly what enchantments may be on the cloak. The old priests used to be very practical, very much relying upon themselves rather than magic. Even the staff we gave them was a luxury, as much to allow them swift passage through the lands in times of trouble and to show their true nature when the situation was dire enough that we must have no doubt. Still, there is some lingering aura to that robe. I can feel it has some song of nature to it." She paused. "Or more like assuaging nature, as if the cloak was not altogether natural..."

Celindara looked between the two items. "I would have no doubt the lingering aura of the priest would make a sympathetic magic between these two items."


Nicely pulled out piece of lore, I hadn't read about that yet :D

"Pockets..." remarked Meri, clearly at a loss.  "Well, being able to carry things around will probably be useful at least."

She looked back at Celindara.
"Maybe the power in it went dormant or weakened with all the years it must have been in there.  Or maybe it needs some kind of condition to make it work.  Can always figure it out later."

Returning to the device she was working on, she took a few crystalline parts, similar to the blue ones on her staff that held the infusion energies, and attached them to a couple of points inside the device, turning the mechanism again and watching glowing sparks flare into life in the crystals momentarily before fading out again.
Apparently satisfied, she took another similar shaped piece of metal and fitted it over the top.

The object now looked like a small slightly-flattened spherical piece of metal small enough to sit neatly in the palm of Meri's hand.  A single blue spherical crystal was set into a socket on it, and several small vertical cracks around the wider part suggested that some parts of it could open up or extend outwards.  For now, it didn't seem to be doing anything other than sitting there.
She held the object up for Timur to look over, and he also gave a nod of what seemed to be approval.

Tucking the device into a pocket of her clothing, she turned back to watching Alynn, taking out her staff and holding it propped over one shoulder again as Timur returned to admiring their surroundings.


OOC: If the boat is stirring up any memories in Meri, she's keeping them to herself for now :)
This message was last edited by the player at 14:02, Tue 22 Nov 2016.

Well, there isn't really any reason for Nym to randomly discover what the cloak can do right now - going through her pockets is the sort of thing she'll do to occupy herself when she's sitting around waiting for something interesting to happen, or if someone else asks her to look for something. But most of her stuff is inside her robes rather than the cloak, since she hasn't had the cloak long enough to have started really storing anything in it other than what was already in there when she got it ;).

Since she's already standing near the half-elf, Nym watches as Meri works on her strange device.

"What's that?" she asks, when Meri seems to have finished concentrating on it.

Meri glanced around at Nym as if surprised to find her watching what she was doing, or else simply pulled out of her distraction of keeping an eye on Alynn.

She dug her free hand back into her pocket and picked out the small device again, looking it over.
"It was just something I used to tinker with occasionally back at the workshop, never got around to finishing it until now, too many other projects to distract me I suppose.  I couldn't claim to be the first one to invent it though, there's a bit of a long story behind where I got the idea.  Was before we met anyway."

A hint of a faraway look lingered in her eyes as she turned the device over in her palm, then looked up at Timur who was still engrossed in his surroundings.
"Bit of a strange story too" she murmured quietly, looking back Nym.

"I suppose if the negotiations with the villagers go badly wrong and we end up sharing a cell, I could tell you the whole thing just to pass the time" she added with a wry grin.


OOC: Weird gadget is an in-story explanation for "unlocking" one of Meri's new powers, and also has a little chunk of backstory hidden away in it too :)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:40, Tue 22 Nov 2016.

Nym seems slightly disappointed.

"Ohh...can't you tell me now?" she asks. "What if we don't end up...sharing a cell together? Why would we be doing that, anyway? A cell? Isn't that where they lock up bad people? We're not bad! And I don't want to be locked up..."

"Humans can be strange, as can many mortals," said Celindara, clearly also interested in the story and sad that it wasn't going to continue. Even Many in the background gave a little 'aaaaaaaw!'

Celindara continued. "Sometimes good people get imprisoned, if fear or misunderstandings have their way. It might be that, to prove my innocence, the elders would ask me to be their 'guest' for a while. We shall see."

[Private to Nym: Allyn seemed to react with a small pause when Nym mentioned not wanting to be imprisoned. Whatever her emotion, she clearly carried on and did not show it to the group.]

Meri glanced around at the others, a definite look of puzzlement on her face before she sighed and looked back in front.
"Ok, fine, but I warn you it's not particularly exciting."

She stuffed the device back into her pocket before speaking.
"As I said, it was years before me and Nym met.  I'd left my so-called home behind some time ago, never been so glad to get out of a place since then either!  It was during this time that I met my master, the one who taught me most of what I know.
He told me he'd learned his own art decades ago in some land called Eberron, no idea where that is though.  Anyway, it's probably far away since after he'd finished his training, he'd spent a long time wandering and seeking out more knowledge of the path he'd chosen before settling down far away from where he started.  After I'd learned what he had to teach me, he suggested I might do the same, since I had no place to call home anyway, so the nomadic life might suit me better."

She paused, clearly digging deeper into her memory than she probably did often.
"I must have spent years travelling around different places, most of them I can't even remember the names of, or which direction you'd have to go to get there.  That wasn't important to me then.  Spent some time on ships, so maybe some are across the ocean.
Long story short, one time I met another Artificer.  More skilled and advanced than me, even than my master had been, he'd probably forgotten more than both of us put together knew.  In short, he was a genius.  Called himself Daedra."

Meri smirked and looked around at the others.
"Strictly between us, he was also completely insane.  You see he told me he'd perfected the art of how to create intricate machines so complex that they would also seem alive to most people.  But in truth they weren't, they simply did what they were designed to do, and did it well.  They couldn't change their path, couldn't think for themselves.  They were lifelike, but they could never be alive.  He became obsessed with trying to create a 'living machine', one that actually had a 'soul' and a mind of its own, albeit a synthetic artificial one.  I think that obsession was what broke his mind to be honest.  He had never figured it out, and his experiments to somehow fuse a part of his own soul into one of his creations seemed to be doing him more harm than good.  Every time he failed, he would fly into a rage."

She looked back at the path in front of her again as she continued, her amused expression suddenly fading.
"One of the devices he'd made for his experiments was an intricate 'engine', a beautiful thing, crafted purely from magic since no tools could be made that could work metal into such tiny and precise shapes as the small wheels that moved it.
It was a much much smaller version of the internals of a Warforged.  He'd been studying how they were made, since they were the nearest thing to a living construct he had ever encountered.  Unfortunately, no-one really understands how that works any more, and if someone does, he never met them.  But he'd used a crystalline heart to try to fuse a piece of his own soul into it to try to recreate that same life and sentience.
For some reason it hadn't worked, only some fragment, some remnant of energy, almost 'half a soul' lingered inside the crystal, so he'd thrown it into a pile of scrap and gone back to designing something new.
While I was there as his guest, I found that device and picked it up to examine it closer, wanting to learn how to forge intricate parts that small myself.
The moment I touched it, it seemed to suddenly light up and come alive in my hands, as if it had drawn power from me in some way.  At the same time, I felt as though a part of me had gone, had been 'pulled into' the device.  A part of me I thought had died and been left behind at my old home.  Maybe it just wanted to stay alive, to exist apart from me in some way."

A momentary look of sadness passed over her expression, but it was gone almost immediately.
"Daedra nearly hit the roof when he saw it.  Kept demanding to know how I'd done that, asking over and over again to show him exactly what I'd done.  I didn't know.  Then he started wondering out loud if my own soul would somehow be more suitable for him to experiment with than his own.  Well, as you can probably guess, I didn't stick around after that.  I got out of there as fast as I could and jumped on the first ship I found that was sailing away from there.
I never saw him again.  For all I know he might still be out there somewhere, sinking deeper into madness and still trying to create a living construct of his own.
It wasn't until I was on the ship that I realised I still had the device I'd somehow activated.  So I kept it with me as I travelled, to remind me that there were still things about my craft I didn't understand fully.
When I settled down and opened my workshop, I used some scrap metal I found to build a body to put it in.  And the rest, as they say is history."

She looked up at Timur as she finished, although he was still looking around at the forest and didn't seem to hear her.

Tapping at the pocket where she'd put the small device she'd just built, she looked back at Nym.
"Anyway, this thing was mainly me experimenting with magically forging intricate components like that.
I haven't perfected the technique yet.  So I can't do anything too complex.  Just simple functions.  Though combining this with the infusion crystal technique I used on my staff, I thought it might be useful if we run into more trouble."

She shrugged and fell silent then, looking over the boat as if distracting herself by checking nothing was missing...


OOC: Phew, warned them it would be a long story.  Tempted to add that to my word count for NaNo today, hehe :)
As I've already mentioned to our fearless DM, I'm reworking some of Meri's backstory on the fly here, since the one I started with was made up in a hurry and not as "in-depth" as I'd have liked it to be.
So where some parts of her history are still uncertain, I'm writing them as they become relevant.  I'm not really changing things that haven't already been set, just adding to the parts that are still to be revealed, so that hopefully once they are revealed, they'll be better than they were :)

And yep, the mad artificer is still out there.  He's actually an NPC from a D&D campaign idea I had.  Should be friendly enough (for varying definitions of the term 'friendly') if you don't meddle with his experiments, and make sure the conversation doesn't stray onto the subject of soul forging... ;)
This message was last edited by the player at 18:17, Thu 24 Nov 2016.

Hehe, an "engineer" with the name of "Daedra" who experiments with trying to use soul magic to power his stuff? Surely "Dwemer" would be a more appropriate name? ;)

Nym listens with great interest to the story, waiting till Meri has finished speaking before she says anything herself.

"Oooh, so...you accidentally put magic into it without meaning to?" she says "What happened to..."

She pauses, blinks, and looks between Meri and Timur.

"Oh. Right."

There follows a few seconds of slightly awkward silence. Then...

"Umm...so what does that do?"

She points at the indicated pocket on Meri's clothing.

OOC: Aww, but explaining stuff directly is boring, I prefer showing off my new tricks during a fight :)  hehe.
Actually it's an in-game means of triggering the "Swift Recovery" ability.


"It works a little like the crystals on my staff that store the infusion energy I use to heal us, though without directly drawing on my own energy to power the infusions.  Means it'll take longer before it's ready to use, but it might still be of help if things get tough" she replied.


OOC: What's a Dwemer?  Any relation to a Duergar?
The name was actually inspired by "Daedalus", father of Icarus (he of the "using wings and flying too close to the sun and dying horribly" infamy).
In the myth, he was a skillful craftsman and artisan whose story is kind of a warning to others to consider the long term consequences of their own inventions, in case they end up doing more harm than good.
Since I didn't just want to use the same name for my character, I ended up playing around with the lettering and came up with Daedra, which seems to be already used for something else.  Not sure if I'll change the name for my own game or not...

Sadly I've already awarded Inspiration, and I don't do fate points, so this cool backstory will just have to be satisfying in and of itself, and exist for the sake of existing :p Novel concept in a Roleplaying Game, I know :p

And looking up Dwemer all I can see is an elder scrolls race, rather than a person. Is that the close to the mark?

"Eberron?" said Farren, briefly coming out of his silence. "A place beyond the beyond. Those of Lemuria knew of it, or perhaps even came from there. Everyone knows our knowledge of the Warforged came from that ancient place. One secret amongst thousands now lost to modern minds."

No knowledge rolls needed - you can't roll high enough to confirm or expand upon what Farren just said, and certainly you won't know IC what the heck Lemuria is :) Whether you want to react and let him know he just basically said gibberish like it was common knowledge is up to you, of course :)

Many seems interested in Timur's origin story, and looked to the tiny metal man. "Juh-steh lih-key Wuffle-seh. Eh, ah mean Ryn-neh!" he said, nodding. The talk of new magic then distracted the little beholder, and he started bobbing around to try and get a better look at the new invention.

[Private to Nym: Lol, though I'm sure Nym won't notice that comment about splitting your soul and getting a familiar out of it :)]

Oh, I'm familiar with the story of Daedalus and Icarus...I'm slightly surprised that neither of you are familiar with the Elder Scrolls. The Dwemer were also known as dwarves (though "Mer" means "Elf" in that setting - Altmer are High Elves, Dunmer are Dark Elves, Bosmer are Wood Elves, Falmer are/were Snow Elves...and Orsimer are Orcs) and existed a long time before the events of even the first game in the series (Arena). They constructed cast underground cities full of strange mechanical things, partly powered by heat/steam and guarded by constructs (robot-like things) that were powered by soul gems. A soul gem is...well, a gem, and if you cast the spell Soul Trap on someone and then kill them, their soul is trapped inside the gem (if you have one on you that's the right type to take whatever kind of soul you're trying to trap) and said gem can then be used to enchant items with magical properties and stuff like that. The Dwemer made all sorts of weird stuff and there are plenty of stories/different versions of stories about what happened to them - it is said they were experimenting with some really uber magic (won't go into the details) but the end result was that they all just vanished, poof, all gone, and no-one knows quite what happened. But their cities remain, as do the mechanical constructs that guard them, and they all still work...
Anyway, the reason I got thinking of them was because the name "Daedra" is also from the Elder Scrolls - they are basically extra-planar creatures (I suppose in other Fantasy settings they might be called "demons" since they come in many varieties, are often highly aggressive, and can be summmoned and stuff) ruled over by Daedric Princes who are that setting's equivalent of gods (sort of) who themselves are worshipped by various people on Tamriel (the world in which all the action takes place within the games, except for the occasional quest that has you travel to the realm of a specific Daedric Prince, or Oblivion, the general world from which all the normal Daedra come from, or something).

Nym grins at Many.

"Well, I didn't poke a metal thing and end up bringing it to life and bulding it into the shape of a little man..." she says. "But I suppose it's sort of the same, a bit. Maybe? Well, we're certainly friends forever and ever and I know Ryn will be there forever even if she disappears."

She looks upward at the tiny shape of the falcon, still engaged in various aerial acrobatics as she tracks the group's progress through the forest.

"What's Lem-muuurrrr-ee-ya?" asks the changeling, abruptly turning her attention to Farren and adopting an expression of eager curiosity.

[Private to GM: Do elementals even have souls in the usual sense? Or maybe they sort of are a soul? I suppose if/when Nym gets her memory back she may not "need" Ryn any more, since getting her memory back will cause her (sooner or later) to realise that Ryn is just part of her and could be merged back permanently at any time, since as Nym isn't really a mortal creature that kind of thing probably doesn't work quite the same for her as it does for others ;). I mean, she's not really a Sorceress...she just thinks she is because backstory ;).]

"I don't really know much of Eberron beyond a few things he mentioned to me when he was in his occasional nostalgic moods" she remarked.  "He wasn't hugely sentimental though, so that didn't happen often."

She looked over at Farren.
"I've never heard of Lemuria at all though."


OOC: Hmm, the name makes me think of a place inhabited by lemurs...  Do they have lemurs in D&D?

Yeah, I haven't really played Elder Souls, just the very start of Skyrim, so I only got the reference from googling the wiki :)

And dire lemurs are no doubt a thing in D&D, and if not, you can be sure they will be ... :p

The name is actually from our mythology and was used in a D&D campaign I listened to and maaaaybe I like to set things up in case we go on for a while :)


Farren seems happy enough to elaborate. "Lemuria, Damari'i, Nobilia, there are many names for it. A lost land, a continent in fact, that populated out to our own once the Lemurian empire fell. It is said the Lemurians rubbed shoulders with the Great Spirits when those forces of nature first took their steps in our world. And that it was the refugees of that land that the Gods asked the dragons to, temporarily, stand aside for."

Farren looked to Celindara as if he was surprised Nym and Meri did not know. When the dryad also looked blankly at Farren, he rubbed his head. "Don't ask me how I know these things, or apparently even if they are true. They are knowledge I have from somewhere. I don't have memories of hearing them, reading them, being there. Well, not being there for the last, but even my knowledge of this area is second hand. I recognise nothing yet seem to know much. Or at least, have heard stories?"

He looked to the group. "Did I say anything strange like this when you knew me before?"

"Hmm, sounds interesting" replied Meri.  "I've never heard of the place at all.  Might be worth looking into it though.  If you weren't actually there once before, then it's possible you were given that knowledge for a reason."

She swapped a glance with Timur who shook his head and shrugged, then looked back at Farren.
"We didn't really talk much before" she added.


OOC: According to Wikipedia it's a (probably mythical) lost continent, kind of like the Atlantis legend.  Very intriguing :)

Yeah, the D&D campaign pitched it like an expedition going to America to discover a 'new world', but digging revealed tjayt there had been a mightly atlantis-like empire there once. Who knows how much this sticks to that premise. Alos, it's very likely Farren simply had red tales of this. What he's speaking of would otherwise be myth level 'first people' ancient. Howeverm how he would even read or hear of such things would be interesting. Like I said, you won't be able to roll any skill checks to confirm any of this. Indeed, there are few if any NPCs you will encounter for a while who could do the same :)

OOC: First people?  Hope that's not a Fringe reference.  Although Meri might have a knack for disarming a huge paradoxical doomsday machine that exists simultaneously in two universes and multiple timelines...  :)

Well, if Farren is a dead guy who keeps being rezzed with a new body each time, it's easily possible he was alive (or on one of his many not-quite-lives) during the time of the people of Lemuria, whether he went there himself or not...

Nym seems clearly fascinated by Farren's description of the mythical region of Lemuria.

"Ooh, the sounds really interesting!" she says. "Do you know any more interesting things that you don't know how you know them? I mean, I don't suppose it matters how you know them, because that doesn't stop it all being interesting. And if you keep being dead and then getting woken up again I suppose it's no wonder you can't really remember stuff properly. But I still like hearing about it. It's fun!"

First people like the first ones to settle a continent. The myths the Shadow shared were like creation myths that the Gods put humans and other mortals in this area once the dragons stepped down. However, this was the Eladrin myth they had drawn on their temple walls. It could be that the first people on this land travelled from Lemuria, and were blessed by the Gods in that way. Who knows what the real story is. Well, the Shadow for one, he just wouldn't have expounded upon it at the time because if it's true it would have been a technicality :)

Farren replied to Mer's first point. "If this image of a city that the Raven Queen implanted in my head is to do with the lost continent, then it may very well be a punishment. I have no sense this land has ever been found. At least, not to my ephemeral knowledge. Still, the empire was said - by whom I know not - to have been ended by a curse of undeath they somehow brought about upon themselves. It would be nice if that was all the Raven Queen wished, the deaths owed to her bringing the end of torment to the deathless."

[Private to Nym: For a fraction of a second there was a reaction, as if Farren had said something to himself that triggered a memory, however it seemed to disappear as quickly as it had sparked, and he shook the pang away.]

Many piped up nervously and said, "You wan-ceh said you-ah had-deh thah-ow-and life-tyeh-mehs!" Farren looked oddly for a moment, but either decided he hadn't heard the beholder correctly, or simply dismissed it as a misunderstanding.

Many actually once said that Farren had said he had a thousand lifetimes of knowledge, or something like that. Many was translating after the fact, so he might have misunderstood. Anyway, with all the excitement not something you need to remember.

Also, Nym, Farren did seem to recognise The Trickster, and mention how old the fox was in a weird way. Again, not anything you need to recall as a character, but just to remind you :)


The group carried on forwards, with Celindara keeping an ear on things but also ensuring Allyn and the group didn't get lost as she lead them in lots of loops and twists around the forest. Allyn had never got out of her armour, nor had she really rested it seemed, so she started to walk with fatigue, clearly only spite and hate keeping her upright. It also ensured she was kept docile. Celindara relented a little, and ensured rogue roots and tree limbs did not trip nor smack the warrior.

* * *

The time was passed with Farren endulging Nym's encouragement, and discussing the history of the region he ultimately wanted to go to. Apparently, he didn't know the history of Blackwood that well, other than the locations of places and the knowledge that the forest had been 'cursed.'

However, Farren took the time to explain in detail not only the 'known' history of Fivespears, but the history that presumably had been losts to the locals.

The city of Fivespears had once been a small town called Secondgate - existing as it does on the main south road - along with Thirdgate not too far south of Blackwood. Firstgate is the furthest south, and was actually the first settlement of the humans who finally ventured north to the wildlands beside the elven forests. Three Shields was established roughly between them all as the central city, the three shields for the three races that had formed an alliance - the humans with the elves and dwarves.

It was said that eventually due to mutual danger from The Backs, the chain of mountains in the south east, the alliance of the five had been formed. Dragonborn and also Minotaurs had come together as one, and Secondgate became Fiveshields.

The towns of Five Knights right beside the danger sprung up to form a staging area for defense, where therulers at the time convened for their battles, while Five Maidens had been founded border of the elven forests as a place where the queens and others had gone to for the most safety. The towns still exist today, though one more like a garrison town despite the lack of true threat, and the other simply a nexus for travel everywhere.

Farren then revealed how much of the known lore was false, though he could not tell where each came from. In reality, after humans had come to the area at First Gate, it was with the orcs and minotaurs of the region thye had formed an alliance. The region had a large dragonborn presence then, ones who supposidly traced their lineage to the Great Broods of myth when Dragons ruled. The three barbarian races - at least how the elves thoguht of them - managed to hold back and defeat the aggressive dragonborn. Indeed, it is thought that it was for fear of the dragonborn coming south that the Great Cities of the south originally made their push north.

Three Shields was founded on the basis of that alliance. It was the Halflings, forever forgotten, that took a liking to the humans and so brokered a mutual non-aggression with the elves, and even had contacts with the dwarves of the far north long before trading sealed that alliance.

The fivespears Second Gate would eventually take it name from was from the first time the five spears were laid down - the less aggressive tribes of Dragonborn finally making peace with the halflings, humans, minotaurs, and orcs once their agressive brethren and rulers had been killed or driven to the east.

Secondgate remained second gate, just famed for the accord, for a long while, as history wound around. The elves and humans non-aggression pact caused some problems when the orcs and elves themselves begane warring, and neither orcs nor elves really forgave the humans for taking a middle ground of aiding neither.

The threat from The Backs was most likely a Dwegar and Orc alliance, but the various stories always have them the thralls of more powerful agents. Necromancers, or dark gods, or whatever. Finally Fivespears was renamed Fivespears when the elves finally took up the alliance - now with the dwarves, humans, dragonborn, and minotaurs - to defend against this threat.

Five Knights was indeed the staging area for the resistance to the warbands, but many of the rulers and commanders at the time were women. Five Maidens was actually formed where the innocent and still unmarried sons and daughters were located as a sign of good faith, that the alliance would not be broken during the war. The fact that it was located upon the edge of the elvish forest was not so much for protection, as most likely a show of which of the five races was the most untrusting.

Whatever threat had tried to invade had been repealed. The dragonborn and minotaurs took the lands that had been cleared, and the elves used the new routes to trade with the other races of elves in the east. Fivespears became quite prominent for its crossroads to the dwarves of the north, elves of the east, and the humans down south. And indeed 'The Wheel' as it became known has become an area of human controlled town and cities that seem to maintain some form of peace in the region.

 * * *

By the time Farren had finished, the day had shifted and the group had made it to the oddly familiar area. There was the sound of the river which had grown steadily, and the sight of it and a distinctive cleft in the ground and groupings of trees marked this as the place where the boat can be left. Celindara knew immediately which tree it had been put near, and sang to unravel roots and leaves that blocked view of it.

Nym seems to half-follow Farren's lesson in the history of the area.

"Well...that's quite a lot of numbers." she comments. "Seems like they really liked putting those in their place names. I hope no-one asks me any questions about all these things that have happened, though, because I don't think I can remember any of it. I mean, not properly - I think I'd get a bit mixed up. Well, very. Um. But maybe I won't need to know it, if no-one asks me about it. So maybe it's okay. Lots of numbers and a war and minotaurs and stuff being nice to each other. Okay, yes, that seems like a nice thing to happen. And lots of fives."

She then seems to have distracted herself and starts muttering.

"Hmm, minotaurs. Moo-y cow-people. I like the moo-y cows! Moo, moo, moo..."

She then shifts into a more bovine-looking form, albeit one with fur patterned in a swirling, almost striped mixture of dark blue and pale yellow. With purple horns. And bright green eyes.

OOC: oops, I thought we were already at the place where the boat was...  Is it big enough to carry everyone?


"I found a banner a while back that seemed to relate to Fivespears" remarked Meri idly, after listening to Farren's explanation of the history of the area.
"Never really knew much about this area though, nor did I care to before.  I just decided it would be a good place to settle down and open a business.  Busy enough to turn a profit, but quiet enough so I could run the place with just me and Timur and still have time to do my own research."

She looked over at Nym as she shifted into the bizarrely coloured minotaur shape.
"Still, the place itself may have some kind of significance, considering everything that's happening here" she mused.


OOC: Can't recall exactly where Meri's workshop would have been.  Likely somewhere close enough to a town so she didn't have far to go to get supplies, yet not too close so she'd get pestered by people all day long.

Meri's workshop was in a loose settlement of dwarves/humans called 'Yarnholme' or 'Little Dwarton' depending upon who you asked. It's south of a large dwarf settlement called Dwarton (at the foothills and the Shai Mountains), and near the north tip of the woods you guys skirted around. It would be far enough away west from the great road between Dwarton and New Stonebridge that the settlement doesn't get constant traffic, but close enough that people could still divert to go there deliberately quite easily. As you might suspect from hearing about the 'Shy Orc War', perhaps your Yarnholme is the remnants of a few settlements that might have been crushed by the orc warband as it made its way south. It was certainly loose enough and accepting enough that Meri could just settle in without too much comment and pick a spot away from others without being the 'weird hermit'. Yet have enough people and connections to Dwarton that she could get materials and contracts easily enough.

And yeah, you guys have been walking and talking, and Celindara has been going round in spirals to confuse Farren and Allyn. Who sound like a folk rock group.

Many had tried to follow the story too, but his eyestalks had crossed and his constantly stiffled yawns had become small snores. Perhaps he did keep murmering 'five' in his sleep, it was hard to tell. Farren seemed interested in a description of the banner Meri had seen - or at least as interested as he ever gets - once the boat is sorted out.

Obviously he won't know you still have it, so feel free to show it off later.

The boat was big enough that it should accommodate the five of the group, and even the deer at a push. However, weight wise it seemed prudent to ditch the remnants of the phystal's plunder.

Celindara looked with disdain at the rusting weapons, clearly not wishing to simply tip them out on to the ground. The deer found a spot and started pawing at it. moving some dirt. Celindara sung to the roots and undergrowth and they parted as bestthey could, and Farren, with a wink to Nym, shapeshifted in to his rodent form and clawed a hole in the dirt while the boat was being moved.

Do you want to do anything before getting in the boat? You're not too far away from the mill now, so there will be no skill checks, etc to move between the two areas.

On seeing the mini excavation going on in order to hide the junk that belonged to the Phystal, Nym goes over to see, holding Many up nearer her face so that she can talk to him more closely.

"Hey, Many." she says. "Wakey, wakey! You wanted to see me moving things..."

She waits for the beholder to wake up and start floating, then holds out her now-free hand and assists in shoving bits of dirt out of the way of the hole the others are busy developing.

Might as well join in and at the same time respond to Many's request from earlier that I forgot to reply to at the time :D.

Meri eyed the weapons with a curious look for a moment, then shrugged carelessly.
"I could possibly melt one of them down with this" she remarked, flexing one of her gloves.  "But it does have limited power, and I'd hate to waste it.  Pity we can't lug them all back to my workshop, I could make something more useful out of them then.  Ah well, more important things to do first."

Retrieving the banner she had found, she carefully unrolled it on the ground, looking over the design while she waited for Farren to return.


OOC: May as well see what he makes of it :)
Also, does that mean we can't sell off all that loot now? :(

Well you got all the actual loot, this was just the odds and sods in case you needed anything before. You were never going to be able to sell it, this is an RPG over computer, not a computer RPG! That wasn't vendor trash! If in future you want me to include a part of your treasure as useless junk and force you to trek to grumpy store owners, I can oblige. :p

Speaking of vendor trash...

Once the hole was dug, changed back then cleaned himself as best he could on various greenery. He then walked over to Meri, realising she had the banner. He looked down at the banner, and nodded sagely. "As I suspected, I can confirm this is a Fivespears banner without the logos themselves drawing any recognition. I can't tell if knowing it was from there makes sense fro ma physical or verbal description, or if I've seen it on something myself." He looked over it left and right. "Hmm, seems to be a war banner. In strangely good condition. Have you looked for latent magic on it?"

Farren seemed oddly sad. "Knowledge without memory is not pleasant," he said finally. "Sensations usually beget memories and give you knowledge. ALl I have is stale knowledge. It feels insultationg. Even more keenly felt, given my first true memory is of a god. That''' makes it quite hard to feel attached to any of this."

He looked to river. "I was not invested in seeing the inn before, assuming nothing would trigger in my memory seeing it. I am more certain than ever of it now, but now that certainty means seeing the mill fills me with dread." He looked to Meri with a small laugh. "It's an emotional connection, I suppose?"


Once the hole had been dug, and the items placed in to them - Celindara looking doubtfully at them when Meri said they could be useful - she simply sung to the trees to move their roots back. The movement pushed earth over them, and they were buried well enough. Celindara seemed to sing something additional, and placed something from her pocket on to the earth.

"A small charm to stop animals from casually digging. I would not want them to cut themselves or poison themselves on the metals and other parts. You will know where it is if you ever want to reclaim it."

Many had been sleeping and sluggish until he realised why Nym was waking him up. He looked with interest as Nym manipulated what dirt she could, and he tried to continuously help himself. He definitely seemed to be able to keep up with Nym without tiring himself out too much. By the end he had a huge grin on his face, and looked up to Nym with wide eyes as if hoping she'd agree or show him something else.


Anything else you two want to do here, or are you happy to move in to the boat and onwards to the mill? Also, any preference to the approach? You can settle once more behind the mill, or this time you can go to the proper jetty.

OOC: Maybe I'm more used to computer RPGs.  Carrying stuff around in what seems to be a bottomless inventory and then selling off everything at the first shop, even though most items dropped from enemies in the first few areas only sell for something like 1gp each.  And for some reason the shopkeepers never seem to mind me lugging a ton of useless scrap, like mushrooms and broken swords and shiny pebbles and stuff like that into their shop and selling it to them...
Have to get around to trying that in a real shop someday :)


"I think it has some kind of enchantment that keeps it clean and undamaged.  I had thought of taking it to Fivespears or somewhere else around these parts.  Maybe find a historian or someone who collects things like this."

She shrugged and rolled it back up.
"I've no interest in war, so it's of no use to me.  Apart from replicating that enchantment on something maybe."


OOC: Yep, happy to hop on the boat :)
Maybe we'll meet Stephalee again.  I wanna see if Nym can get her to join the team, hehe.

Nym is as encouraging as ever toward Many's efforts, grinning at him and clapping, albeit somewhat awkwardly as she attempts to do so without accidentally clouting herself in the face with her staff. She doesn't seem particularly interested in Farren and Meri's discussion of the banner, instead watching with interest as Celindara uses her own magic to cover up the last of the Phystal's junk.

Yeah, nothing to add here, and no specific preference for approach tactics - Nym will probably just go along with whatever you want to do ;).

Oh, and I had completely forgotten about Stephalee till you mentioned her name and even then I can't fully remember...wasn't she a girl who was playing around in the mill or something, with the other kids but they didn't seem too interested in playing with her and then she went off to meet them or something?

OOC: Yep.  She had a bunny toy with her called Doctor Rabbit, and talked about being sick and seemed a bit disparaging of magic, since the local cleric had supposedly been unable to heal her, and she had been trying to figure out how to mix medicine out of bits of plants and stuff.
Potential future alchemist maybe, could get Meri to teach her how to mix explody things, hehe :)
Appeared in Chapter 3, message #205.

Two words: Doctor Rabbit :)

Edit: Meri beat me too it!

Farren nodded. "Historians or collectors will give you good coin for something historical like this. Though don't underestimate taking it back to an army barracks or regimental hall. They are less likely to give you a reward, but there is nothing wrong with being in good standing with a city's defenders."

As the boat was prepared, Allyn stood on the bank, but looked at the water in trepidation rather than the boat. Perhaps understandably. She looked back to the group, clearly wanting

Celindara gave an unpleasant grin to the others, and walked over to the warrior. "Something to say?" she teased in the way a cat would play with a mouse. "You can speak freely." Allyn seemed hesitant and unbelieving, but Celindara gave a wave and a nod.

"If you think I'm trusting any of your in this thing, on that water, after what those two m-"

Allyn's voice was cut short by the creepers Celindara had earlier used to pull herself on to the bank, now wrapped around Allyn's throat and yanked her off the ground. The creepers then drifted out, leaving the warrior struggling over the water.

"You've always been free to speak, and free to leave, I simply told you the consequences of those actions. Did you think something had changed?" Celindara was giving low little whistles and hums, and the creepers lowered the struggling Allyn closer to the water. There seemed to be some movement, as if something thing - or somethings - under the water were starting to swim to the surface.

Celindara gave a final tune and the creeper pulled back and dumped Allyn on the ground with a metallic thump.

Celindara looked around to the rest of the group. "I had worried she might dive in to escape, or might try to tip us all in. But now I see she is truly terrified of the river." The dryad looked to Allyn. "So I presume we shall still have your co-operation, even off of land?"

Allyn did not speak or move her head. She might simply have learned her lesson, or she might still be too traumatised from the near encounter with the water again.

One of these days I'll make you feel sympathy for Allyn :p 

Farren was the one to walk forward, but it did not seem to be to console the warrior, nor did he have any expression of distaste for the previous interaction. He did put his foot on the rear of the boat while pulling on the ropes, as if ready to steady it for Allyn's weight.

Allyn looked in suspicion at Farren, but Farren simply shrugged as if he didn't care one way or another. Reluctantly the warrior got in to the rocking boat. Farren then kept the boat stable, gesturing with his head for the others to get on board.

Celindara did not show any emoiton in the direction of Allyn, but whenever she was turned away from there she showed her own mix of either worry or excitement. Certainly she was feeling some emotion about continuing onwards the Blackwood village.

The deer with its passengers gave a small leap and the boat rocked alarmingly, but everyone managed to stay stable. The boat felt a little more crowded though, especially with Allyn trying to stay far away. Farren made a small set of movements to get in the boat and cast it off, seemingly oddly practised with the moves. He also happily grabbed a wooden implement he'd taken from the pile before it was buried, and used it to steer and propel the boat.

The journey, even against the tide, was reasonably brief. Farren seemed to have an oddly vacant stare as he did it. Soon the mill became visible, and Farren moved the boat to the shelter of the mill - immitating how the mages had landed the boat earlier.

Farren signed as he jammed his makeshift oar in to the bank to settle it down. "That was unpleasantly odd. I've clearly done this journey many times before, but I have no idea when or why. Or in actual fact how. It's muscle memory, like walking along a road you've navigated a thousand times and not recall doing it the thousand and first when you are deep in thought. No, more like breathing. If I didn't think about it, I knew what to do. The second I tried to think about it and consciously to it, or tie it to a memory, and I had no idea!"

Farren looked around the place oddly, clearly not having any more recognition of the place, yet also clearly having the confirmation of having been here. Celindara also looked around with an odd expression on her face.

Ok, so I'll let you react, and also decide who wants to disembark first, and if you want to do anything as you do.

Meri hadn't seemed to react much to Celindara's treatment of Alynn, showing no sign of either taking pleasure in her former attacker's discomfort or looking troubled by it.
Instead, she seemed to be thinking over Farren's suggestion of taking the banner to the city's military instead of selling it.

She didn't reply either way though, merely getting into the boat and staying quiet during the journey, as if deep in thought or simply preferring to remain quiet and watchful.

At Farren's comments, she looked back at him and then up at the mill.
"I know what you mean, in a way.  I feel the same way in the forest when I don't have something to distract myself with.  Familiarity, yet not a kind I understand properly."

She didn't elaborate on that though, merely clambering out of the boat and moving away to make room for the others, looking around for anyone in sight...

Ohh yeah, Doctor Rabbit! I remember now :D.

Nym seems rather too distracted watching Ryn circling and swooping above to really pay any attention to what's going on with Allyn. As the boat is prepared, however, she looks over at it.

"Ooh, back in the boaty-boat!" she exclaims happily, and clambers aboard. She spends the journey mostly either peering over the side at the water and whatever might be swimming in it, or watching the trees go past and perhaps trying to see if she can spot anything interesting between or behind them.

When they reach the shore she pauses to allow Meri to disembark ahead of her, then clomps ashore on her (strangely orange) cloven hooves, around which her footwear has continued to shape itself so as not to fall off.

"Hey, Ryn! Can you see the village from here?" she calls, looking up at the falcon who has remained above the group for the entire journey. "Is anything interesting happening?"

Just had the thought that since Ryn is a falcon (or, well, you know, close enough ;)) right now, maybe she can "scout" for us and see if there are any angry-looking guards stomping about the place or something :)

[Private to Nym: Ryn will see smoke and the normal signs of the village. There no obvious sounds or sights of anyone close.]

Celindara allows Farren to get off first, and then Allyn who finds a spot close to the boat as if not trusting being near the other two. Farren gets out easily and even remembers to put a foot down to help the deer hop out close to Nym, and then Celindara exit the wobbling boat.

She has an odd expression as she stepped on the ground, but seemed almost childlike in her glee. "It's been so long," she said, "I forgot what it was like to be disconnected from the f-"

Celindara's comment is cut off when Allyn shoulder barges the dryad full in to the water. She does not stop, rushing along the riverbank away from the mill and the rest, and heading to the woods on the horizon.

Meri, even though you said you were looking around, you've been paranoid about Allyn all during the journey, so I will give you a single action you can do right now in response.

Nym, you're far too distracted, so you can react narritively if you post fast enough but you don't get to do any actual actions. Though you (and Meri) can both roll Initiative for the firs tactual round after this surprise round. It's not really combat, Allyn is running away just now, but it is a combat in every other way (actions and timing). Any actions like checking on Celindara will be full round actions (though Meri can run to the riverside as a move action this surprise round setting up to check on her with a single action next turn).

All good?

At the sudden movement, Meri quickly spun around, almost dislodging Timur from her shoulder.
One hand had already darted to the vials on the bandolier around her chest, and in a rapid movement, she drew one of the blue-white ones and sent it spinning through the air after Alynn...


OOC: Alchemist's Frost bomb incoming (or outgoing...)!
Attack: 5 (1 + 4) vs Reflex. - Yuck!
Damage: 1 - Ok, that's just cruel...  Forgot this does half-damage on a miss.  What's half of 1?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:34, Tue 29 Nov 2016.

Always round down, so sadly 0! That's like the ultimate miss. I guess it respects the natural 1 you rolled :p

Anyway, roll initiative both of you, the surprise round is done!

OOC: Most likely fate claiming some payback for all those good rolls in the last chapter...
Initiative: 7 (4 + 3) - Not much better, I think everyone in the world gets to act before Meri does now!

Wow, the potion doesn't even have any bonus damage to it on top of the d-whatever? Harsh :O.

No sooner has Ryn flown down and alighted on Nym's shoulder to twitter a report, Allyn makes her move and starts to run. Nym merely gapes in surprise for a moment, seeming to be struck with a cross between surprise and a strange kind of delight.

Just a little reactionary post to the latest development before we actually start "combat"...Initiative is a pretty decent 21 :). In case I've rolled well enough to be going first, how many squares away is Allyn? It's just that I have a means of stopping her rather quickly (if it hits) but won't be able to if she's too far away. She really should know better than to run away from the Sorc with crazy elemental powers and an apparent mental disconnection from reality when hostile actions are taken against herself and/or her allies...

OOC: Yeah, I have its damage listed as doing 1d10 cold damage and the target is slowed till the end of Meri's next turn, while a miss does only half damage with no slow effect.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:06, Wed 30 Nov 2016.

Indeed, rolling a 1 on damage sucks, especially for the miss. Oh well! On to the good rolls when you need them. :)

Nym, 21 does let you go first, Allyn is more than 5 squares and less than 10 squares, if that's a good enough measure?

Less than ten squares? Yeah, that's good enough >:).

Nym's demeanour seems to change somewhat, instantly becomingmor excited and strangely focused as she stares at the retreating back of the armoured human.

"Ohh...no, no." she mutters. "No, you shouldn't be running away. That's not very good..."

A surge of pure white energy ripples down her arm, building into a crackling surge as it's channelled along her staff and out of the end, which Nym has casually tilted to point in Allyn's direction. Having run out of surfaces to run along, the bolt is discharged and zings through the air toward its target.

Yeah. So. Pinning Bolt makes people fall over. It seems about the most abrupt means I have in my arsenal of stopping someone from moving >:). Allyn hasn't done anything that might have caused Nym to send a lesser attack her way - you give this Sorc no reason to like you and her "combat mode" will take that and run with it so far that you'd better bloody start being nice if you don't want to get turned into a pile of ash. That is, if that didn't already happen...
Anyway, Pinning Bolt attack roll, here we go...hmm yeah, so that'll be 22 vs Ref agaisnt the heavy-stompy-armoured person, and 17 Lightning damage (if for some weird reason Allyn has any Lightning resistance, ignore 5 of it due to my current Wild Soul). And she's knocked Prone. And she's Slowed till the end of my next turn, though I have a feeling this "combat" won't be lasting that long.
Oh, and I have +1AC till the start of my next turn. You know, if I get one ;).

There was thrashing from the water by Celindara, and Farren moved to help her. Meri's quick reflexes had been denied by a jutting board of the mill, and the vial of frost had smashed and dissipated harmlessly on the wind rather than touching Allyn.

While she was making a fair attempt at escape, she had done herself no favours hitting Celindara first. The woman had been tied up for over a day and a half, had not eaten, and had been in heavy armour all this time - including a long walk around an unforgiving forest. Still, she seemed determined and didn't even look back.

Nym's bolt struck her full force, and she fell writhing on the ground, grunting and yelling in pain and frustration. The magic of it stuck her to the ground, and she was clearly simply prepared to kick and punch at anyone that came close to her.


So Allyn goes after Meri, so Meri you have your full suite of actions to use. Allyn is prone and unarmed, so while she could punch you if you get close, it's not for too much damage. Basically, do you have anything that can incapacitate her? Of given you can do mon-lethal damage at your choice, maybe you just hit her with a huge damaging spell and knock her unconscious :)

OOC: Hmm, I was going to have Meri go help Celindara and just let Nym blast away at Alynn.  Like I said, Meri doesn't really care enough about hanging onto her, so if Nym gets too enthusiastic and kills her while she's doing something stupid like this, she won't be all that bothered about it.

Does it look like Farren can handle helping Celindara ok though?  Will have Meri change her intent and go zap Alynn instead if so...

Farren hasn't used his actions to jump in to the river, so clearly he must have noticed the needlefangs, even if Allyn didn't tell him about them while you were all journeying back to Celindara's home. So he's perhaps stuck trying to work out a 'safe' way to get to her.

Meri's eyes narrowed dangerously as she watched the icy mist that exploded out of the vial simply blow away and dissipate into the air.
Clearly she was NOT pleased at having wasted one of them due to Alynn pulling a trick like this...

Reaching a hand back she drew out her staff, electrical arcs sparking into life and jumping between each tip as her hand closed around it.
Instead of attacking immediately though, she glanced back towards Celindara in the river then back to Alynn on the ground after Nym's attack.

Turning, she darted back towards the river bank, concentrating intently as she did.  The glow in the crystals on her staff flickered and went out as she reached the edge and leaned out, crouching down to stabilise herself better.
"Grab on to this" she called, holding out the staff towards Celindara...


OOC: So yeah, Meri considers helping Celindara to be more important than stopping Alynn.  (Or maybe she's just happy to let Nym use her for target practice and doesn't want to end that too soon).  I'll leave it up to everyone else to figure out which one ;)

Farren steadied Meri's leg, while also trying to reach out as a secondary anchor. Celindara had been scrambling for purchase in the water, but it seemed something invisible - perhaps a small dervish - had managed to catch her. It was enough to push her in range of Meri's staff, and Celindara grabbed for it with all her might. Farren wobbled but righted himself enough to catch hold of Celindara as Meri started pulling the dryad back up. The three formed an odd triangle, and leverage was enough to pull Celindara back on to the back.

All three of you are currently prone on the ground, a little wet but otherwise unharmed :)

Allyn, meanwhile, scrambled up as bet she could from the clawing magic, barely able to stagger much further towards the distant woods.

Allyn stands and gets a whole two squares further. Still within ten squares since it's easy to move. Anyway, Nym, your turn again.

Okay...hmm...can I get close enough to be two squares away? I suppose the answer to that will only be "no" if Allyn is currently nine squares away...

You can get within range with a move action.

Cool...

Nym skips energetically after the stumbling Allyn, waving her staff around but currently not channelling any magic along it. Instead her robes start glowing.

"Look!" she chants. "Look, I can make a big light!"

Indeed, her robes aren't just glowing, it's as if they're building up a charge...one which suddenly and with no warning other than Nym's words bursts out as a blinding light, dazzling anyone too close. Nym, however, merely stands there giggling and waving her arms about.

"Hee hee hee...funny!" she laughs. "It's so funny" You're so funny! And you only talk silly!"

This is basically the only other power I have which will induce a status effect and won't risk killing the target - I think we should take Allyn back to the village to face up to her proper punishment. If we kill her while she's just running away I think that sort of puts us a little into the wrong, even if she did attack us in the past and has just pushed Celindara into the not-piranha-infested water.
Anyway, so I'm giving the attack power on my robes its first ever outing, attack roll is ooh, a very nice 26 vs Will! Got some nice rolls right now :D. It's Close Burst 2 but I'm sure I'm far enough away not to accidentally tag anyone else (and would have moved over to avoid doing so if it was potentially a problem) so no need to make any more attack rolls I hope ;). Target is Dazed (save ends) >:).
And then I'll use my Minor to cast Babble on her. Because, I dunno, it's just funny to pile even more bad shit on her without actually harming her, just because I can. Attack roll 23 vs Will, and now she can't "speak intelligibly or use any effect that requires speech" (save ends).
If I get any more turns I've sort of run out of non-fatal stuff to do, though, so umm...if someone could get up and do something to actually stop her a bit better than me, that would be good ;).
Incidentally, I would have stopped two squares away from her, so I'm out of range if she decides to use her one action to try and hit me (since I can't see her having any means of Reach ;)).

Allyn hears Nym approaching and snarl, still staggering under the previous effects of the mage. She is unprepared for the blast of bright light, clutching at her eyes. Her curses and epithets turn to gibberish, which provokes louder gibberish and the occasional blind swiping. For the moment she is blinded and half concious, and all she can hear is the mocking tones of her own distorted voice and Nym's teasing.

Many had been shocked by the quick events, saying 'nooo' when Celindara was pushed in but 'whew' when she was quickly rescued. When he saw Nym dancing across towards Allyn, he let out a little 'nooooo' again and scrambled off towards her, eyestalks flailing in panic. However, his little 'noooo' becomes 'noooooooh? Yay!' He comes to a halt, drifting behind Nym, and then giggling at the sight of the warrior. He goes up to Nym's arm and gives her a hug with his eyestalks.

Many is happy that Nym showed some mercy :D Not sure why he was worried at all :p

Celindara stands bolt upright from the huddle she, Meri and Farren have half fallen in to. There is a harsh song on her lips as she looks across to Allyn, however it dies when she hears the mad sounding speech of the warrior. The dryad pauses for a moment, cocks her heas to the side, then lets out a childish giggle that turns to normal laughter.

She raises her arms and sings, but it seems to be somewhere above and to the side of Allyn. Something invisible shimmers in the air and swoops down, crashing in to Allyn and battering her backwards. She half flies half staggers passed Nym, and is tossed close to the dryad.

Allyn is still muttering in an unintelligeable tongue, but temporarily the fight and flight seems to have been knocked out of her.


Ok, so Meri, Allyn is now right beside you (give or take a square or two :) ). She'll have one action when she has an action, but narratively she's too disoriented to resist if you try and capture her right now, and mechanically it's not her turn :)

How do you want to incapacitate or secure her. At worst you can use a non-attack power non lethally, but it might be an idea to think about how you'd secure her anyway, as unconsciousness might not be the most secure method! You can delay to have Farren also help if it needs two people.

Meri quickly staggered to her feet, looking around to see how things were going between Nym and Alynn and just managing to sidestep as Alynn crashed to the ground nearby.

Her grip tightened on her staff, which seemed to come back to life again, a glow flaring up in each of the crystalline parts on it, with sparks travelling along its length and gathering on one of the tips.
"Well then, if you'd rather do this the hard way" she muttered, looking down at Alynn.

Raising the staff in both hands, she jabbed the glowing sparking end downwards...


OOC: Leaving it slightly vague for a moment on whether she's just going for a knockout blow, or if she's ticked off enough to actually just finish Alynn off, hehe ;)

[Private to The Altweaver: Yep, going for non-lethal Static Shock.  She is trying to be "better" after all :)
Attack: 27 (18 + 9) vs. Reflex.
Damage: 12 (8 + 4) (Lightning) - Ok, max damage...  Might have overdone it a little...  Not sure if that's enough to actually kill her...  IC, I suppose Meri's temper got the better of her.  (O.o)']

[Private to Meri: If its a character then even with lethal damage you need to go to negative half their health to outright kill them with damage. If it's a normal NPC, then anything below kills unless you choose non-lethal. Either way,m no damage cap :)]

Allyn barely looked up before Meri's blast of static smashed her down on the to ground, knocked unconscious easily. Apparently Nym's magic was so potent that even Allyn's unconscious breathing made small, odd noises.

Yay, you beat her up without killing her! Well done :) Take 100XP each for actually stopping her her, and a bonus 100XP each for doing it non-lethally. The actual reward is not terrifying Many and continuing to set a good example to him, and... well, you might seen the other reward soon enough.

Farren moved across to check on Allyn, then nodded that she still seemed to be physically unhurt with no threatening injuries.

Many dashed over to Meri, and after hearing Allyn was alright also gave a happy hug to the artificer. So Ee-ee wouldn't feel left out, Many then drifted across to his rodent friend and can him a reassuring little stroke with an eyestalk too.

Celindara recovered herself, and walked across to the deer - or more specifically, the little fungus creature on her back, which seemed nervous. Celindara spoke softly to it in an ancient tongue, and sang more than once to it too. Eventually, the little fungus creature hopped down, and with one final turn back to the dryad, and with Celindara's encouraging hand motion, the small fungus tottered off as fast as it could up the hill and towards the village.

"And now, we wait..." said Celindara.

"Oh, in that case..." said Farren, seemingly surprised that they weren't carrying on, "does someone want to show me where I apparently stayed in the mill?"


So there we go, the fungus is most likely off to try and contact the village elders or something, so you guys can relax for a little moment, get your breath back, and more importantly secure Allyn somehow.

Woo, exp is always good :D. Allyn really[ should have picked up on the fact that she can't get one over on us that easily by now...not that she's ever managed to get one over on us at all, but if she survives this and we ever see her again I'm not going to start underestimating her just because she's an idiot. I mean, she might be an idiot, but she's a dangerous one, what with the big sword and armour and all that. Oh, what happened to her sword? I think she had one to  begin with, didn't she? Did she lose it at some point between being knocked in the river and being...taken care of...by Celindara's magic? Because if for some reason she still has a weapon on her at this point, someone should probably go about removing it from her...

Nym seems to have become distracted again - Ryn has sidled down her arm onto her outstretched fingers and has started bouncing playfully up and down. Nym giggles but looks up as Farren asks about being shown to the mill.

"Ooh! I know where it is!" she says, waving her arm around (Ryn having taken off a split second before this gesture and fluttered to sit on the highest point she can find on the mill's roof). "Come on, I'll show you!"

That was in the style of the kind of person who would go "Ooh! Ooh! Miss! I know the answer!" :D

[Private to GM: Ryn will keep an eye on the terrain in the direction of the village - if it looks like anyone is coming our way she'll fly down to tell Nym. It'll be cool if I can manage to roll the telepathic familiar at some point but then I suppose I won't have the massive range on it any more so it may be less likely to be useful. But still, I'm sure I can find a way...>:)]

OOC: Sorry for the delay.  Some distracting things happened.


"Any of you have any rope?" asked Meri, lowering her staff again but continuing to stare down at Alynn, watching her closely for any signs that she might be recovering.


OOC: Wishing I could go on to the village just to see the faces of the Elders when a little walking fungus thing shows up and says hi :)

[Private to The Altweaver: Yeah, maybe there was some part of Meri that was starting to think Alynn had been punished enough after the little incident where she got strung up over the river.  But she's definitely used up any sympathy she might have earned now, hehe.]

Despite Allyn probably losing her sword in the river ages before, she did have it during the amush. So most likely it's back at Celindara'a home. Whether she has any other weapons, no one ever asked nor checked :)

Farren stood up to take Nym up on her offer. He looked back over to Meri. "I don't recall what I packed, but perhaps Alyyn herself has what you might need?" He points to Allyn's pack, still on her back.

With that, Farren gestured for Nym to lead on.

Allyn did not move further, odd noises aside, and Celindara seemed to be looking around at the trees and wildneress oddly, though not unhappily.


Presuming you remember the description well enough, Nym, to vague describe shoing him his old resting place?

Oh no, what happens if Allyn has loads of really cool loot in her backpack? It's not like we could get away with yoinking it while she's still alive...maybe she'll get executed in the town. Or maybe she only has a load of crap on her and it doesn't matter anyway...but I'm thinking maybe we shuold at least make sure she's disarmed for now - any weapons she has can be given to the village officials along with an explanation of what happened with her, so they can see we're just concerned citizens woried about being jumped by a crazy armoured lady with a really bad temper ;).

And I think I can remember enough of the mill to nbe able to give a vaguely correct description of its innards now. Hopefully ;).

Nym skips toward the mill.

"It's just over here." she says, unnecessarily. "It's a bit sort of...rickety, inside, but there was this little nest thing that you made..."

She enters the ruined mill and makes her way up the stairs to the spot she remembers seeing Farren's "bed" the last time she was here.

I'm hoping you've come a long way from those two innocent player characters who left a village home unraided because it might belong to some unimportant NPC :p

Meri, if you do actually want to search Allyn for weapons, etc as Nym suggested, roll me a Perception check. And let me know if you do raid her backpack, or respect her. [Private to Meri: I mean sure, Meri was starting ot be sympathetic, but you know, knocking Celindara in to the river...]

OOC: Perception: 30 (16 + 14) :)
Will take a look in her backpack, but apart from making use of any rope, probably won't loot it unless there's something really interesting (or dangerous) in there...

(Also hoping she hasn't rigged some kind of trap on it now!)
This message was last edited by the player at 01:18, Thu 08 Dec 2016.

Farren walked up behind Nym, taking great care. To start with he had tried to focus less, as if to recall any muscle memory of the climb. It had not seemed to stir anything,m and had almost seen him put a foot through a missing stair and topple in to the finger of the river below.

He sniffed, smelling something unpleasant - the half eaten bird carcasses - and moved away from them. His bed roll and little grass figures were still by the window, and he walked across.

At some point the rat in his pocket jumped out, and sniffed around until it found two fellows who cautiously came out. Then sniffed and fussed around each other, but Farren was too focused on the bedding to notice when the three came across, looking to him expectantly.

He picked up the grass weaving, and looked to Nym. "You say this was mine?" he asked the sorcerer.

His rodent friend leapt to the window and ran out of it to the bemusement of Farren. Slightly later, it came back with a mouthful of grass and placed it down. Farren gingerly picked up some of the blades, but seemed at a loss. "I suppose there is some way of consciously starting that I just don't have access to," he said. He put the bladesdown on the sill, and his rodent friend seem to regard them and Farren as if not understanding. There was a similar look to Farren from the other two rats, clearly not understanding not being paid attention to and most likely fed.


Down by the river itself, Celindara seemed happy enough to stand and pet the deer, both of them looking in the direction of the village. Celindara did occasionally loook over to Meri's activities though.

Meri's search was quite thorough, luckily. Allyn carried a belt pouch obviously on her hip with some coins, but seemed to have another within easy reach hidden further around her belt with. Then she had a far heavier belt pouch actually secured behind her back with most likely the bulk of her money. Along with the first oddly stylised dagger hidden there too. It seemed well placed to be missed on a search but easy to reach, but knowing there was one let Meri find the second thta was far quicker to get to hidden by a small secret leather flap of material on her upper leg.

However, Allyn had fallen oddly, and one of her shin guards had shifted enough for something to glint and catch Meri's eye. A third stylised dagger was hidden in her shin guard. Finally checking Allyn's boot, just to be thorough, was revealed a small pouch with seemed to have some hard stones - most likely gemstones.

As opposed to the thing on her person, Allyn's backpack was quite boring. It seemed to be the normal collection of adventuring gear - showing Allyn had either gone back to her room, or simply make sure she always carried emergency supplies with her, as opposed to fellows at the bridge. It did include a decent length of hempen rope. She also seemed to have some other items to aid climbing, and a small potion that seemed to be a Potion of Healing.


So there you go, four pouches with various monies, three stylised daggers, a healing potion, a normal adventurer's kit with only 2 rations and missing the sunrods, and a climber's kit (With grapnel, pitons and small hammer).

Feel free to take anything you want :)

OOC: Can I tell if the daggers are magical, or are they just kind of fancy looking?

Not magical, just oddly dainty and ornate (they actually have a grip that's shaped as if asmall hand is gripping it already). They don't seem like they originally belonged to Allyn, given her less than subtle greatsword :D

Nym looks at the grass weaving.

"I don't know." she says. "Maybe? I mean, if you lived here for a while, maybe you made them to stop yourself getting bored while you were...um...sitting up here..."

She looks over at the rats.

"I think your friends want to play with you." she says. "Maybe you should say hello? They might get upset or something..."

What happened to Ee-Ee? Is he still on my shoulder?

OOC: Sorry for the delay (again!)  Been getting involved in some local events here.


Meri looked over the daggers she had removed from Alynn, running a professional eye over the design for a moment before tucking them into her belt.
"Curious" she murmured to herself, but then shrugged and turned her attention back to the other items.

Pulling the rope out of the pack, she carefully bound Alynn's hands together, keeping a length of rope trailing away from the bindings to allow someone to hold on to her with.

She then tapped a finger thoughtfully on one of the money pouches and looked up at Celindara.
"I wonder, does the law around here allow you to claim expenses incurred while apprehending escaped criminals?  That was a waste of a good frost mixture there..."


OOC: hehe :)

@Meri: No problem, 3D people and events are just cooler than us *sniff* :p

@Nym: If you wouldn't have let Ee-ee go, then yeah, he's still on your shoulder. And Many would have followed you in that case :)

In the mill, Farren noticed the behaviour of the other rodents. Putting down the grass blades for a moment, he searched for some food. "I didn't feel and familiarity walking up here, and I can't seem to replicate these. Who knows, perhaps it was not even me. No, wait, I saw the bite marks in the birds climbing up. I only wish it was not me that stayed here. Although if I did not, then who knows what other creature did. It does seem to fit, even if I cannot connect with it."

The two rodents on the floor were far happier when they were fed with crumbs, though they almost immediately proceeded to fight with each other over them, despite the fact they seemed to be more than enough to share.

Farren tried to offer food to his own resentful rodent, but the rat was back to its usual demeanour, seemingly put out by Farren's refusal to make anything with the gifted grass. The resentful rat wandered off to pointedly search the edges of the room away from Farren. "Perhaps the weavings were of him," Farren said with a shrug looking at the retreating rodent. He looked to Nym. "Animals do not usually give themselves names, they just are what they are in the moment. However, if they did have names his would seem to be Dissapointment." He then looked to the other two rats bickering, and then Ee-ee happily sitting on Nym's shoulder, and the little beholder bobbing around happily behind Nym. "I'm not sure what it says about me, considering the company I keep compared to the company you do."

He examined the woven rodents carefully again, comparing them to the grass tufts.


Down outside the mill, Celindara seemed to take the question seriously. "That woman tried to harm friends of the forest, and burn down my personal home. She is lucky I am giving her over to the her own kind for judgement. I do not see why I need to give the elders her possessions too, other than they are useless to me and compensate me in no way. If there is anything you can take to compensate for her actions against you, they are yours."

Heh, so there you go, as far as Celindara is concerned, her answer is 'yes' :D It's up to your own morality if you take them of not. OOC, I did assemble her extended equipment list out of one of the lowest value treasure packets :)

OOC: Well, I don't get to be useful often, so I like it when I do get the chance :)


Meri looked a little surprised by Celindara's response, as if she had been at least half joking with her question.
Then she looked back at Alynn and then at the traces of melting ice lingering on the boards of the mill that had blocked her thrown icy concoction before.

"Well, why not, I suppose I'll hang onto these daggers too.  Maybe I can use them for something interesting.  Also, I don't think they're actually hers anyway.  Just don't seem her style, compared to that sword she was swinging at me last time we met."

As she spoke, she dug into one of the money pouches, separating out 20 gold pieces and pocketing them.


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: I think direct theft would be a little out of character for Meri these days.  Considering that before, she'd only have stolen to gain food and other things she needed to survive, but lacked the money to buy for herself.  Blame whatever medieval-esque system of capitalism exists in this world for forcing her hand :)  hehe.
Part of her motivation for learning her craft was to support herself more honestly and break out of that life.

So yeah, she's never been a "kill stuff and loot them" type of adventurer.  More a case of "kill stuff and take anything we really need (or maybe anything I can use to make cool stuff later!)"
Also, got to set a good example for Many, right? :)]

Nym will have let Ee-Ee get down if it seemed like he wanted to - if he seemed happy on her shoulder she'd have been equally happy to let him enjoy the free ride :).

"Well, your company is certainly very cute..." says Nym, watching the rats and then reaching up and giving Ee-Ee a quick scritch. "Hey, maybe I can help you with that? I mean, I don't know anything about making things with grass, but...I don't know...maybe I can umm...figure out how to get it started and then you'll remember?"

Nym is curious and has high Dexterity, so I thought maybe she could have a fiddle and compare the grass to the finished figures like Farren is doing, and figure out how they weave together? Her Int isn't terrible either ;). I suppose technically it would be a Thievery check to try and do fiddly dextrous things, since that covers stuff like Sleight-of-Hand and all that, right?

Ee-Ee would have happily stayed on your shoulder, especially with Many's extra attention whenever Nym was distracted.

Thievery seems well suited to trying out something like this by doing it repeatedly, yet still studying the original. And shouldn't need training. So go ahead and roll :)

Farren gave a non-commital shrug, regarding both his company and the idea. Still, he seemed happy to spend the time trying out Nym's idea.


Meanwhile, Meri found 20 gold pieces easily in the largest coin pouch, which felt lighter but was still decently full.

Celindara apparently had no further insight on the daggers nor mortality, and went back to keeping an eye out for the elders. She seemed oddly impatient, perhaps understandably given she had admitted she had no connection to these lands, and so could not feel the passage of her retainer.


So Meri, Nym has an activity that should kill time, is there anything you want to do to spend the time waiting? Also note, this counts as a short rest now. So if that alchemist's frost was your 'free' alchemical item, you can brew up a new free item now.

OOC: I keep forgetting I get a free item, so haven't made one for today yet (is it one per day?) :)
Only got 8 reagents left, assuming I need the same amount as the gold cost of the items I've learned to make?

You can refrssh your free item at the end of any short rest (ie after any battle, or at times like now), You just can only have one free item at a time (I will let you remake the free one if you don't use it and decide you need something different later).

And yes, otherwise you need components or access to them equivalent to the gp cost. If you at home or staying in a town I'd say you could just buy what you needed automatically. It might be an idea to look for a place that sells some in the village if you get the chance. Though for the moment you might find your free one and your backlog will tide you over.

Oh yes, I was going to ask about a Short Rest, since I used a couple of Encounter Powers against Allyn. I just only remembered it when I was nowhere near my computer to be able to post and ask about it ;). But I'll refresh them now, then.

Nym fiddles with the grass strands, her slightly chunky furred fingers becoming longer, thinner, and devoid of fur while she does so.

Figured that chubby furry cow-hands wouldn't be the best for fiddly wor, so just making a minor shapechange there ;). Now watch as I totally fail the Thievery roll anyway...ooh okay, 25. That's not bad :D. Note that Nym is just trying to get started on making a rat like the ones Farren has already made - she's not trying to make a whole one, just see if she can get enough of one going that Farren might see her technique and realise how to do it himself, or something.

OOC: Hmm, Nym seems quite good at Thievery...  *checks pockets for any missing shiny things*


Meri leaned back against the wall of the mill, looking around the area and casting an occasional watchful glance at Alynn for any sign she was waking up again.

Timur slowly climbed down from her shoulder and down one leg to the ground where he wandered over to peer into the mill where Nym and Farren had gone, then wandered around the outside of the building, poking at it in an almost curious way.

"So do you trust the Elders?" Meri eventually asked, looking towards Celindara.  "I mean if we manage to make peace between them and the forest, do you trust them not to betray it some day?"


OOC: Will spend the time making conversation for now :)

@Meri: She has a high dexterity and 'jack of all trades' plus rolled well. Being untrained, there's lots of stuff she can't do, like disable traps or pickpocket you :p Plus did you take the feat or something that let you use intelligence for thinking based thievery checks?

@Nym: Yeah, I think the process would end up something like this...

Examining the grass weavings Nym could at least see some start points (or were they end points?) The necks seemed to be little collars deliberately connecting head to body, so clearly some part of the head of body was the start. From there, it was a case of making loops of grass and trying to make something round shaped like a head, and see how it might have been formed.

Farren looked idly at first as Nym messed around, then tried some small things out himself. Sudden;y something clicked, and Farren looped the grass in a figure out eight, doubling it up and twisting it just so, so that he had a double circle. After that, he seemed to figure out how to build that up and add newer contours to the face.

The grass ran out, and his grass getting rodent friend still had not quite forgiven him. Luckily, Many was engrossed and happily rushed out to go get more when he saw the reason for them stopping. He made little 'ooh-woah' noises when he came back, clearly finding holding on to all the grass with his magic difficult. Still, he plopped a decent bundle on the ground, looking happy and checking from one to the other to make sure it was ok.

Nym, it's up to you if you want to actually keep trying to keep up with his fingers now, and learn what he's doing, or if she would just be happy to watch. Obviously it's also a fun thing to practise with prestidigitation to get some fine control :)

Celindara looked around to Meri. "The Pact should still be intact, I do not anticipate the requirement to forge a new peace with the Elders, providing we can learn and undo the damage Blace has done here. It's hard to be certain, for mortals live such short lives. But I understand that, for a mortal, only one of them betraying the pact in two hundred years seems ... good? And before that, when the first pact was established with the Drumtolls in times before, there was no issues that were not down to invididuals. Neither the family of Drumtoll nor the Elders once Blackwood Village was formed have ever given me trouble, until now. And that trouble seems to have come from Blace being a false friend. I daresay if I had been more attentive, or they had tried harder to reach me, this matter would have been settled easily. They have not entered my land except for the few adventuring parties, who sadly disappeared before I could work out who they were. Aside from the actions of the Phystal, I do not believe anything in the forest has been harmed nor taken. So if we can iron out this misunderstanding, I see no reason for them to break the peace."

Celindara considered the matter more. "And if you say the cult was established by some evil, chained god, then perhaps the corruption of the Drumtoll Heir was ... well, perhaps he could not help it."

Celindara looked sad and old, and her right hand twitched for a moment. She seemed to welcome looking for a way to move on from some unpleasant memory. "You, have you met the elders yourself? Or heard of them, when you spoke with Blace, or came to the village before? I must admit, it seems so long since I spoke with them. I know mortals can grow prunish and wintered, and change their opinions and have their happy hearts hardened by time. Do you think this has happened?"

Yeah, I'm untrained in Thievery but my skill is 9 because I have high Dex (my highest stat along with Cha...I think this may be the first DnD character where I've ever bothered with Cha, actually :O) and as Wuffy says, the Jack of All Trades Feat, which gives +2 to all untrained skills :D.

Nym giggles happily as Farren eventually seems to remember how to create the figures. She slows in her own fiddling with the grass but then a thought seems to occur and she glances around at Ee-Ee and grins. She looks back to the grass in her hands but is then distracted by the movements of Many as he returns with more grass. She gets a look on her face that says "Oh wow, I just had an even better idea!" and eagerly returns to fiddling with the grass.

[Private to GM: Nym's first thought - Okay, it looks like Farren's got the hang of it now, I suppose I should just stop.
Nym's second thought - But that seems a bit boring. Oooh, maybe I can make a little ratty too! I can make Ee-Ee!
Nym's third thought - Waaaait...Farren's already making lots of ratties. I'm gonna make a little Many!
How well it turns out, however, will be another matter, I suppose. It's entirely possible that it'll just look like a ball of grass with some grass strands randomly sticking out of it. But, well, she's certainly gonna try :D.]

OOC: Hope this isn't one of Nym's "better ideas" that result in large scale devastation to the surroundings ;)


"I never met the Elders when I was there before.  At the time we were only looking for Blace after Goodwin mentioned her name.  I think he believed she would help him, thought she actually cared."
She snorted and shook her head.

"Anyway, I wouldn't know the Elders, so I couldn't say if they were trustworthy or not.  Just that I rarely meet anyone I can trust.  When I first left my home, it was the first life lessons I ever learned, elves hold everything different in contempt, and humans will cheerfully stab you in the back if they think they'll get some gold out of it.  All I really know about the Elders is that they hired this to deal with the situation."
She gestured to Alynn to indicate what she meant.
"Though she seemed happier to keep taking the payment while attacking anyone who she thought might have been there to do a better job of it.  Even if they weren't."

She shrugged and looked over to Timur, who seemed to be happily examining some flowers growing out of a crack at the base of the mill's wall.
"Maybe that was just one bad decision though, and the Elders aren't all bad, as I said, I wouldn't know.  Not for sure."

She watched Timur sit on the ground, reaching out tentatively to poke at the flowers.  A rather sad distant look came over her expression as she did.
"Happy hearts..." she murmured quietly.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:02, Tue 13 Dec 2016.

Lol, the sad thing I can imagine it quite well. 'Yay, time to make a cute innocent harmless grass scultpure....' *BOOM, wind elemental destroys the area*

Luckily...

Farren seems to settle in to a half daze doing it. In part probably to help him carry on, and in part most likely because this would be how he would have whiled away the time. Still, he is paying enough attention to try and advise Nym when he thinks he seems what she is trying to do. "Of course, it's hard to teach someone when you can't recall how you have learned," Farren admitted himself, as he found himself unable to explain why he was doing certain things, and so couldn't quite describe the process.

Many looked excited at the two making things, but when he tried to do anything with the grass he absolutely did not have the fine control to do anything more than bending a stalk. Still, his expression went from 'awww' to 'yay' when he managed to do even that, and then the stalk when forgotten as Nym and Farren looked more interesting.

"Uh huh, yeah, yeah, looh-keh-ing good! Uh huh," said Many encouragingly to Nym, clearly having no idea what she was doing.

Still, at least it was far easier to try and make a grass ball, especially when trying to duplicate some of the finer tricks Farren could show off. [Secret to Nym: The little eye stalks were probably going to be more mistakes and loose ends.]


[Private to Nym: Yeah, you can make a cute little Many, no problem. Have it turn out as good or not as you like :p]


Celindara seemed a little upset about Meri's lower opinion of humans and the attitude of elves, though whether the dryad was upset that Meri had a negative view, or was taking it all at face value she did not reveal.

Celindara seemed to dance a little, and look around the land. "So strange to be freed of the voice of the forest. It's liberating and terrifying at the same time. I suppoe maybe that is why mortals act the way they do, they aren't connected to anything else, they are themself sized, rather than feeling their tiny part in a greater whole."

She stopped musing, and thought about something Meri said. "Why would anyone stop a more capable person from doing the work? If something needs done, the best equipped should do it. Well, I mean I suppose when my bloodsisters needed...buried... I took that task on myself rather than allow the forest to do it. But, well, other than that..."

Celindara looked to Allyn. "Did she truly think herself the best suited? She is alive while others seemed to have become items at the bottom of a boat, it is true. But, that seems to be from being a coward rather than good?"

As Timur was poking at one of the flowers, dislodging a bee that floew away, Many appeared, flying down the mill's side. "Tiiii-meh! Hey! Grah-seh! Grah-seh play!" The little beholder zoomed over Timur's head, and rummaged around the grass for something. He seemed to pull out grass, and then after several attempts managed to take a clump back up in to the mill.


Heh, Nym and Meri are perhaps operating on slightly different timings right now :)

Nym carefully turns over the grass in her hands, attempting to weave it into what, for her, seems like a rather complicated shape. On the other hand, her having evidently never done this before is apparently adding to the difficulty. But she manages to maintain concentration for a time, weaving smaller blades of grass into the larger ball, into which she has poked a fairly large indentation. The smaller blades she manages to twist into strange, stem-like appendages which she then manages to knot into the main ball.

Eventually, she holds it up, looking at it and then back at Many several times. She grins, an expression that looks as odd as ever on her bovine face.

"Hey, look, Many!" she says happily. "I made a you!"

She holds out the somewhat crude grass "sculpture" for him to see.

[Private to GM: So it's basically a grass ball with a sort-of hole poked into the "front" to serve as his main eye, then several short lengths of grass woven into thin "ropes" and stuck into the main body as his eyestalks. So it's probably recognisable as him to someone who knows what he looks like, but otherwise...yeah, it's just a grass ball with a bunch of other bits of grass sticking out of it :D.]

"Not sure really" replied Meri, almost seeming to welcome the change of subject.  "Judging by all the gold and jewels on her though, I'd suspect she was taking regular payment from the Elders to guard the bridge between the forest and the village.  Between the regular income and the risk of venturing into the forest without knowing precisely what was happening in there, she probably wouldn't be in a hurry to end the situation any time soon.  And she wouldn't want anyone else ending it either, since along with the loss of a regular income, her reputation as the leader of the only team capable of doing the job would probably take a hit too."

Meri sighed and leaned back, looking up at the sky.
"I wouldn't say I was the best one to do the job either though.  For one thing I'm still not sure why I decided to.  To figure out what Blace was up to?  To try to find more of the magical disruption from the portal's opening?"
She glanced over as Many came out to collect some grass and then quickly returned inside the mill.
"Maybe I'm just trying to be better these days.  I'm not always sure if I'm doing that right though.  It's one skill no-one ever bothered to teach me."

She returned to looking at the sky again.
"I'm certain destroying the source of the Blight was a good thing.  Yet, in releasing the Shadow...  What if there was a very good reason he was sealed away?  With people like Alynn and Blace, and probably me too, in the world, maybe giving everyone a chance at having their hearts' desires granted could be a very very dangerous thing..."

Many bobs around, nodding his head encouragingly, and making an odd noise like laughing. It takes a moment to realise that it's the bleating of a sheep, like Nym did a few days ago when Many first encountered one.

Lol, so Many's vocabulary has maybe improved that his things you made a 'ewe' :p I'm sure he'll be more appreciative when he realises exactly what it is!


"Perhaps you heard the song of the forest?" Celindara suggested when Meri was wondering over her actions in interfering. "It certainly welcomed you with open arms."

Celindara was more emphatic regarding the Blight. "Uncovering the Blight's existence and destroying it has possibly saved the world." She seems slightly embarrased. "Certainly, it has saved mine." She rallied. "I would not worry over releasing this shadow. If he was seeking freedom, then he would have found it, one way or another. Is it not better you know, than someone else? That he is beholden to you than another who would use his powers?"

Celindara sighed and looked to the forest for a moment. "Indeed, one is not always allowed to follow one's heart. Duty is important. and we can't always just wish for what we want. It is not responsible."

Nym stares at Many in bemusement for several moments, then bursts into giggles when she realises his meaning.

"Hee hee...no, not a ewe..." she says. "Not a sheep. A you!"

She holds the grass ball in the flat of her palm and causes it to float upward a little way. She then gestures with her other hand and causes an image of Many to superimpose itself over the grass sculpture.

"See?"

Meri shook her head with a rather bitter smirk.
"It's been a long time since I heard the song of the forest, and now that part of me is... dead I suppose, or at least somewhere else."
She glanced briefly towards Timur, who had stood up again and was running to try to keep up with a butterfly that had flown past.  Eventually though he stopped and wandered back to the mill, peering inside to see if he could spot Nym and the others.

"After my travels, I had decided to simply shut myself away from the world.  To lose myself in my work, the only thing I had left.  There was nothing out here I wanted, in all my wanderings, I had never found anything to make me want to stay out here, usually the opposite actually.  The forests of my old home, they should have been a place of beauty and peace to me, but they became little more than a memory poisoned by fear and hate and rage."

She looked down at the ground, closing her eyes.
"The truth is, I would never have chosen to come here on my own.  I had decided to simply fade away, to spend my years lost in my own world, a place I could control, where I could slam the door shut on the rest of the world whenever I wanted.  I...  Even when Many appeared to us, I didn't know what he was at the time.  All I knew was that something had come into my world, into the place I felt safe, and it was trying to pull me out of that, into a world I had rejected.  And so I attacked him, tried to force him away with threats and blows..."

She drew a deep shuddering breath and looked towards the mill.
"I don't think he really understood though.  He seems to forgive and forget that.  He should have learned to hate me or fear me, yet he doesn't...  He's so much stronger than I ever was, so much better..."

She brushed her sleeve roughly across her eyes and looked back at Celindara with a trace of her old wry grin.
"I thought I'd have to try to be a good example for him.  But only now am I realising that he's the one showing me a higher standard to try to live up to.  If you have anyone to thank for what we did, it's probably him."


OOC: This was actually going to be a short post, but the part of my mind that controls Meri must have been needing to get all that off her chest suddenly...

Many is still looking at it and nodding, trying to say how the legs look really good, when his brain catches up with what he's heard. He looks to Nym, and all his eyes go wide open, and his mouth breaks in to the widest grin.

"Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ee-ee-ee-ee? he says, either trying to encourage his rat friend to look more, or perhaps laughing, or perhaps both. He bounces around excited, looking at it from every angle, and when Nym then magically levitates it and creates his image, he actually starts bouncing off the ground and definitely tries to get Ee-ee to look too. He gives Nym a giant huge with his eyestalks, and then bobs and weaves around her hand, his eyes still wide.

Suddenly, the image of Many disappears, and the grass figure drops back in to Nym's palm. [Secret to Nym: Nym suddenly feels something very unpleasant coursing through her hand. A sort of...numbing chill that isn't cold.]

Many looks to Nym surprised, as if not sure why the magic disappeared, and his happy face is still fixed in a hopefuly grin that it's some joke Nym is making.


Back on the ground, Meri's conversation was eliciting a sympathetic and pateint expression with Celindara. However, then something Meri said caused the silence and look to have a completely different and altother harder flavour...

Meri, you may want to make it clear to your creature loving dryad friend that when you hit Many, he was a metal annoying ball of unknown origin. I'm not sure it's ever came up, and even if it has the dryad is distracted enough she may have forgotten...
This message was last edited by the player at 05:48, Fri 16 Dec 2016.

Nym is staring at her hand looking incredibly confused all of a sudden. She glances at Many and then at Farren.

"Um..." she says uncertainly, and reaches forward cautiously to pick up the grass sculpture again, as though worried it might suddenly do something weird. "That wasn't me. I mean...I just felt all weird. Did you notice that? It was like being cold, but...not."

[Private to GM: Did Ryn feel anything at the same time Nym did, or was it just Nym who was affected? Ryn is still sat on the highest point of whatever's left of the mill's roof, keeping a lookout for any signs of anyone heading our way from the village.]

Meri had fallen silent again, returning to looking down at the ground with a rather numbed expression on her face, poking idly with the toe of her boot at a small rock half buried in the ground at the base of the mill's wall.

Unnoticed by her, Timur had scampered back and seemed to be making some odd hand signs, as if trying to sketch out an image of a rounded shape and then gesturing like something flowing around that shape.
He then paused and raised a hand to scratch at his head, clearly confused on how best to illustrate what he was trying to say in an understandable way...


OOC: Meri is oblivious, while Timur understands but is rather hampered by not being able to make anyone else understand him.

[Private to Nym: Ryn felt nothing, and sees nothing around, it was localised on your hand it seemed.]

Many backs off a little. "Not me, not me!" he says, shaking his head vigourously, his little lip wobbling and his eye wide.

Farren meanwhile, had finished his own sculpture and placed it down across to his resentful rodent friend. The rat did not look around to him nor acknowledge the sculpture unti Farren shrugged and moved back, at which time the rodent moved closer and sniffed around it.

"Something the matter?" Farren asked.


Timur's pantomime went unheeded by Celindara, who also took to looking elsewhere, in this case back to the deer and towards the hill once more. "Well, then," she said a little stiffly at large, and let the silence lapse once more.

Poor Timur, can only be understood by Meri :D Well, I suppose if Timur would persist you can roll a Bluff check for him (I always figure Bluff is you controlling how you communicate, so actually being understood is a byproduct of being good enough to understandably lie :D  )

Timur emitted a faint noise like a metallic sigh, looking around for a moment before picking up the most roughly-spherical-shaped stone he could find from near the river.
Holding this up, he pointed towards the mill, making a 'floating' gesture with one hand before pointing with that hand towards the stone.
Then he placed the stone down in front of him and raised both hands, bringing them downwards as if trying to crush the stone, but then separating his hands to both sides of it, leaving it unaffected.

He then looked up at Celindara and gestured towards Meri, tapping one hand on his chest and shaking his head with an almost saddened look...


OOC: Bluff check: 18 (16 + 2)
"Tiny Familiar uses 'Interpretive Dance'.  It's sort of effective?" :)

"Oh, you didn't notice?" says Nym to Many and Farren when neither seems to know what just happened. "Hmm, maybe it wasn't anything. Or maybe it was. Um..."

A thought occurs and she stands up, then another thought occurs and she bends down again, placing the grass Many on the ground.

"Here, Many, you can look after this. I'll be back in a minute..."

She then clomps back downstairs to the entrance of the mill and leans out.

"Hey, Meri!" she yells. "Did you just feel anything weird just now? Like your hand went all cold-but-it-wasn't-actually-cold?"

@Meri: Familiar tiny interpretive dance is so cute it should be super effective, but safely is only sort of effective. Still, it is an effect...

Celindara doesn't immediately look around, however the deer seems to notice, and bops Celindara's arm. She looks surprised, and then looks to where the deer is looking. "Your metal friend is trying to say something," Celindara says briefly, before looking back to the hill.

Meri, since the time is a little bit loose, it's up to you if you want to react to Timur first and have Nym enter later, or if you want to have Nym interrupt the scene. Depends upon how long you think the two of you spent in silence :p


Farren gives a shake of his head to Nym's question and a suspicious look around. "Has it happened to you before?" he asks the retreating sorcerer.

Many looks puzzled by the antics and again shakes his head vigourously about knowing what was happening. Whne left with the grass sculpture, a little hesitantly at first, he moves towards it and starts playing with it with a small nervous giggle.

Nym, in case you haven't followed what's going on downstairs and missed my previous comment, you and Meri were slightly at odds timing wise since Nym was studying and making grass stuff. So I'll let Meri figure out if she wants to react immediately or resolve her immediate actions first.

Meri looked up, the numbed expression in her face barely even fading as she looked towards Celindara and then at Timur who looked in her direction and gestured towards the stone he had been holding.

Meri shook her head sadly.
"I did remember that Many was invulnerable to harm while he was inside the metal shell, but that's hardly the point, is it?" she replied with a faintly exasperated tone.

She sighed and straightened up, looking off in the direction of the town, frowning slightly as if thinking something over.
Then she glanced back at the mill entrance as Nym appeared.

She looked down at her hand and then back at Nym.
"No, why?"


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: First an itch, now a cold hand...  Curiouser and curiouser...  :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 13:55, Sat 17 Dec 2016.

"Oh. Because I did." calls back Nym. "I was just showing Many a little Many I'd just made, and then my hand went all weird and I dropped it. Hmm, well, maybe it was just...something, then."

She shrugs and retreats back inside the mill.

You can still call Nym back if you have anything more to say, otherwise she'll just go back upstairs and rejoin Farren and Many.

Celindara seemed hesitant, but moved closer to Meri while puzling out Nym's words. "Why did you put Many in a metal shell to protect him if you did not want him?" she asked, puzzled.

Nym: I'll add more for you if Meri doesn't call you back right away.

Meri, obviously you can answer Celindara in a quick sentence or in a distracted way if Nym pulls your focus :)

Edit: Nothing stopping Nym, so I'll post a little more mill action :)

Back in the mill, Farren seemed to be having some sort of disagreement with Many. Many's face looked crestfallen and his lip was wobbling, and he kept trying to stop Farren from going near the little grass sculpture and was saying something in presumably Underdark speech. Farren for his part seemed to be curling his arm around in a horizontal loop oddly back on itself to touch his own shoulder, while the other hand was trying to reach for the sculpture. He was saying something in the odd speech too, though it was hard to tell what it was - nor the tone of it - given how harsh the language sounded.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:28, Sun 18 Dec 2016.

Meri stared at Nym, looking confused as the sorcerer disappeared back into the mill.

She looked as though she was deciding between following her, or resuming whatever her original intent had been when Celindara asked her question.

She looked back, as if not understanding.  Then she looked towards Timur who gestured at her, as if trying to communicate something.
"Oh, I didn't..."
She sighed and shrugged, looking back at Celindara.
"I didn't put him inside a shell.  It was more like, he WAS a metal ball to start with.  I don't know how it happened.  It was just an ordinary metal ball I had laying around my workshop.  I forget what I had wanted to use it for originally.  But when the magical pulse was sent out from the Shadow's portal, it seemed to...  'awaken', for lack of a better word.  I didn't know what it was at the time, there was no clue that there was anything inside it.  It just looked like a solid metal ball that could float around and change colour and seemed completely impervious to anything.  It didn't speak, just kept trying to lead us somewhere with no clue of where.  It was only when we met the Shadow, when he removed the ball.  Showed it had been a shell.  When Many...  'hatched' from it I suppose.  It..."

She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked back at Timur.
"I know what you're trying to do, but there's no excuse" she said to him.  "You saw what I saw back there when that creature...  The point is..."
Her voice trailed off with a sigh and she turned to look back towards the village.
"I'm no better than the ones I fled from..." she said, her voice so quiet the words were barely audible.

"Oh. Ooh..." said Celindara at large, her face less impassive. She seemed to be once more sympathetic, and perhaps also slightly embarrassed, chagrined, or shamed.

Celindara looked in to the distance for a moment, but not to the hill. Perhaps it was to the past. She spoke at length, he voice soft as if from afar, turning to look to Meri half way through. She sounded more like her age than the normal, Nym like glee as she spoke this time. "In my experience mortals are not as bad as you seem to think, only two in my life have betrayed me or my people, though that betrayal was large enough to obscure the passive good all the rest did before. And yet you measure yourself worse in other ways than other mortals behave. When others have their beliefs challenged, they would not seek to be better. They would become worse, hardened in their previous believe, knotting a mental and emotional armour around themselves to not see themselves as wrong. Worse, forge harsher mental and emotional weapons against their victims, making those victims the villains to justify their own previous behaviour. You changed your mind and sought to be better. That is something more remarkable than you give credit, and you should not be so casual in seeing that or deflecting that. Certainly do not reject it. Your little friend may have pushed you to action recently, but you chose not to push back, as easy as many mortals find that rather than face heir natures."

She now looked directly to Meri, again with her previous sympathy and none of the harshness of before. "I have good and bad news for you, my friend... if... if you do not mind me calling you that. The good news is that you are not who you once were. I have not met this woman nor seen anything of her in how you are. She should no longer be an anchor weighing you down. The bad news is that she can no longer be an excuse for your behaviour. You are responsible for who you are now alone. You need to acknowledge that your good choices are yours, and your bad choices are not just from your past anymore." She looked around in the direction of Many. "The trouble with being better for your small friend is that it is easy to decide he would be better off without you, that he is the better part of you. I think you need to be better for you. You need to realise that the person you are now deserves no less."

She gave a small, shy smile to Meri, perhaps looking a little younger once more. "I know it is easy for me to say, but I feel it needed said." She stood a little straighter, looking to the hill. "Perhaps you are not the only one to stop living in the past and have it be an unwanted anchor, and look to their responsibilities of the present person they are. As fear inducing as that might be."

So there you go, no idea if Meri will now stop talking to Celindara, but at least she's not mad at you anymore :D
This message was last edited by the player at 17:21, Sun 18 Dec 2016.

Meri looked back as Celindara spoke, clearly listening to her words.
Timur moved up to stand beside her, glancing back at the mill where Nym had gone to, although it was only when Celindara finished speaking that he turned to amble back towards the building, peeking inside.

"I suppose my life is a series of ironies" she remarked quietly.  "An outcast from two worlds, human and elven, who fled from them and was accepted by a village of people shunned by both.  Dar.  Goblins.  Then it took the acceptance of an unusual example of a creature that is normally hated and feared by many races, the Beholder, to stop me from fully becoming that which I had fled from.  Or at least making me realise that my path was heading in that direction.  If there is one who writes our fates, then they have an odd sense of humour."

She grinned at that, then shrugged and turned away from the hill.
"I thank you for that.  And I do hope that somewhere out there, there are humans or elves who are different to those I've met before.  I'll do my best to give them a chance."

Looking back at the hill, she fell silent for a few seconds before looking back at Celindara and gesturing towards the door of the mill.
"I should probably see what that was that had Nym worried.  Hopefully it's nothing.  Better keep an eye on Alynn in case she wakes up and decides to run for it again."

Shouldering her staff, she moved towards the door of the mill, pausing to pick up Timur before going in and looking for Nym...


OOC: Will head inside the mill and look for the others.  Also keeping a watch for any cold-but-not-cold sensations :)

As Nym arrives back at the upstairs of the mill, she resumes her seat on the floor beside her staff and gives Farren and Many a questioning look.

"What's the matter?" she asks. "Did something else happen?"

Celindara gave a small, happy nod as Meri moved off, clearly having seen enough of Nym to not be too worried for the sorcerer.


Inside the mill, Farren looked up. "Many can't lift the your grass weaving, and I was just trying to tell him in he loops one of his eyes..." and Farren mimed again, "... then I could rest it in the hole so he can still play with it, but..."

"No! No! Can lift! Caaaaan lift! Look! Look!" Many wrinkled his forehead, stuck out his tongue from the side of his mouth, and then with normal ease lifted the little mock beholder. He actually rocked back, a little surprised but covered it well. "See!" he said, and then twisted the grass sculpture around and started talking to it and playing with it. To start with his laughter was nervous and he looked sideways at Nym and Farren aa few times, but soon he was genuinely enjoying Nym's thoughtful gift again. He seemed to enjoy pretending to be the big, bad beholder, and letting grass Many shoot invisible 'beh-tah' beams at him. He kept laughing ashe fell backwards, rolling on the floor.

"Hmm, I suppose I was mistaken..." said Farren at large, but he did not sound convinced. Still, he seemed to keep his council to himself, especially when Meri appeared.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:32, Mon 19 Dec 2016.

Meri looked around curiously, placing Timur on the floor where he turned to watch Many playing with the grass sculpted version of himself.

"Did you say something about a cold sensation?" she asked, looking towards Nym.  "Can you still feel that?"
She peered around the room, as if trying to spot anything that might cause such a thing...

Nym giggles as she watches and enjoys Many playing with the little grass version of himself. She looks around as Meri shows up.

"Oh, I just made this little Many for Many." she explains. "But he thought it was a sheep because I told him I'd made a you. I mean a him. So I made it float a bit and look like him and then my hand went all weird, like it was cold, except it wasn't, and I dropped the Many. Then I thought I'd come and tell you about it in case anything weird happened to you as well, but it didn't, so...well, I don't know. I can try it again if you like..."

She gestures toward her little grass beholder, indicating that she means levitating it like she did before.

Meri glanced around the room, at Farren and the other grass sculptures, then at Many and the sculpture of him.

"Ok, try it again, we'll see what happens this time" she replied, watching the grass beholder intently.


OOC: Trying Arcana check to watch for anything weird happening: 29 (15 + 14) - Looks like the mysterious forces of Dice Karma are back on my side again :)

Many makes a little 'awww' noise, but is enticed with the talk of magic and lets his little Many namesake go.

The sculpture lifts easily to Nym's magic, as always, and bobs around. Many giggles nervously. For a moment the sculpture dips, [Secret to Nym: and there is a slightly cool sensation, ]but Many backs off again. The sculpture goes back its normal bobbing.

Many sort of turns slightly, still looking at the sculpture, but mostly with his eyestalks. His central eye is oriented forwards tpwards Timur, though he looks sideways towards the sculpture alot. "Seeeee, no proh-blem!" he says confidently over his shoulder to Farren. Farren, for his part, is simply standing impassively.


[Private to Meri: Yeah, you can figure that Many might be starting to develop his anti-magic ability. Whether its something he can control, or if there's something you can make to help him control it, I'll leave you to investigate.]

Meri watched the grass sculpture as it moved, her gaze flitting briefly towards Farren, but then settling on Many.

"I think I know what happened" she remarked quietly.  "I thought we'd have a little more time to figure that one out, but it was bound to happen sooner or later."

She reached out a hand towards Many, gently cupping it around him.
"I think you know too, don't you?" she asked, offering him a reassuring smile.

Nym levitates the grass beholder toward herself and carefully catches it in one hand as she looks over to Meri and Many.

"Oooh, was it you, Many?" she asks. "Did you find some new magic and it mixed weirdly with mine? Did we...cross magics, or something? What happened?"

She is all curiosity as she looks between the half-elf and the beholder to see which of them will offer an explanation.

Many noticed he was in the middle of lots of curious eyes, and shook his head. "No no no no, nyot me, nyot me!" He tried to take the little grass scultpure back, but it only wobbled then something interrupted and it stopped. His lip wobbled and he pouted looking sad and scared.

Farren had moved over near Meri. "Looks like I wasn't mistaken, then?" he asked at large.


I'll leave Meri to explain to Nym and reassure Many :p

Meri glanced towards Farren, but her attention returned quickly to Many.
"I'm afraid it is" she replied quietly.  "But it's not your fault, it's just your nature.  You can't be blamed for that.  It has the potential to be inconvenient for us, but it is what it is, and I'm not angry at you for it, ok?"

She reached out a hand slowly to Many, lightly cupping it around him in what she hoped would be seen like a reassuring hug.

"You see, Beholders have evolved some interesting abilities over the years.  One of which is the ability to create a field around them that dissipates magic" she explained, looking back at Nym.  It doesn't affect their own kind of magic though, hence why they can still fly and use the powers contained in their eyes.  But it's the reason why Beholders don't normally use the same magic as other creatures.  Their own natural powers conflict with that."

She looked back at Many.
"Don't worry about it though.  I'll think of something.  That's what I do, remember?" she said to him with a playful wink.


[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Would Meri know if Beholders can control their anti-magic ability, turning it on and off at will, or if it's simply an "always on" type of thing?]

Nym looks curiously at Meri, then over to Many and back again as his latest ability is explained.

"So...you can make other people's magic not work?" she says. "Well, at least it was you who did that, and not someone else. I know you. So you did it by accident. That's alright. Maybe you can use it in future if we meet any bad people."

She doesn't seem remotely put out at the fact that Many had stopped her magic from working, and instead seems more excited at the fact that he's discovered another ability.

Many still looks little sad. "Buh... ah want to use grown up mag-jic!" he says. Still, he tries to put on a brave face for Meri and Nym and accepts the hug. Also he doesn't apparently want to show if he doubts what Meri is saying.

Farren looks a little pained as he interjects. "Don't ask me how I've heard, but I've heard apparently, or seen, or read, that beholders can control the power. Although I also understand they can't. I don't know what knowledge comes from where, so don't know which is more or less valid. Still, his anti-magic only seemed to come when he was very nervous or very happy. Perhaps if he can be taught not to experience extreme emotions, he could control the power?"

Umm, yeah, so if you want to teach Many not to be exited and happy about magic, then he could learn how to control his powers. Oh, and also realise if he's still terrified in a fight and can't control it, he would negate his own magical abilities to protect himself, and probably your powers too if you were close :p Well, until he learned to control it fully.

I think an actual device would be better, but it is an option. :p

From below, Celindara let out a call. "I believe we're about to have our guests appear!"

Hmm, yes, probably best not to have a beholder re-enact his own version of Frozen wih his own powers ;).

"Ahh, don't worry, Many." says Nym. "You'll get the hang of it one day. You just need to practice, and make sure you don't always turn feeling something into doing something. I'm sure there's a trick to it!"

She looks around at Celindara's call, then stands up and calls up through the remains of the roof.

"Hey, Ryn! What can you see? Are people coming? I thought you were going to tell me?"

Presumably Celindara knows people are coming because she felt it through the little fungus thingy or something, rather than actually seeing them, since I think Ryn has a somewhat greater vantage point than she does ;).

I mean she might if she was circling (but even then lots of trees around to block sight from the air), but all she's doing is sitting on the roof where you left her unless I missed something? You only asked her to scout before Allyn escaped, and there was nothing to see then. Celindara would spot Ryn reacting before Ryn could report to you, and because of their angles basically they would also both see the same thing at pretty much the same time. The top and bottom of the mill mean very little. [Private to Nym: If Ryn would tweet to you the moment she sees something, then the moment Celindara called, Ryn would tell you that the little fungus person was running back, and there was a person on the lip of the hill standing there not chasing after it anymore.]

Meri reached out her other hand, gently cupping them both around Many and drawing him closer to her, looking into his central eye for a moment.
"Well, it may be possible to control the power without sacrificing emotion, although that's a long road to travel, and not really one I know well."
A fleeting look of sadness crossed her expression as she said that, but she quickly shook it off, looking back at Many.

"Until then, I'm sure I can figure out something to help.  Perhaps some kind of magically treated lens you can wear that blocks the effect without impairing your vision, but one you can remove if you have to.  That can still be a useful ability to protect yourself against hostile magic."
She stroked him affectionately between the eyestalks with one finger.
"I'll need to get some more materials to work with, which probably won't be until we reach a bigger place like Fivespears.  But I'll work something out.  I think as long as you avoid looking directly at either of us if we run into a situation where we have to use our own magic, just like you did with the grass sculpture there, it'll be ok for now."

Meri looked up then as Celindara's call reached her.
"Well, let's go and see if we can sort things out here for now, then we'll try to make our way to Fivespears."
She raised her hand enough to allow Many to sit on her shoulder if he wanted to, while reaching down to pick up Timur with her other hand, allowing him to climb into her backpack where he peered out over Meri's other shoulder.


OOC: Okies, will head back down and try not to kill any villagers now :)

[Private to The Altweaver: Are my previous Arcana rolls enough to figure out how the anti-magic ray is working here?  Specifically seeing if it's possible to block it while still letting Many see through his central eye ok?  Like an enchanted crystal lens or something.]

Are you going down too, Nym?

Yeah, Ryn was on the roof...I thought if Celindara and Ryn saw the same thing at the same time then Ryn would've already been flying toward Nym as Celindara was speaking. But that's okay, I can have her do that anyway...

Ryn swoops down and makes some twittery noises in Nym's ear. The shapeshifter perks up and looks toward the hill, despite there being nothing to see as the dilapidated walls of the mill are completely blocking her view. She looks back toward Many.

"Yes, I'm sure we can help you and you won't need to stop feeling happy when you do nice things!" she sasy encouragingly.

She stands, absently shoving the grass Many into one of the pockets of her recently-acquired cloak and picking up her staff as she does so. Then she heads for the stairs, glancing toward Farren as she does so.

"Hey, Farren - there's people. Do you want to come and see the people? Well, just a person for now, but maybe there'll be more of them..."

Farren shrugs and follows the group down.

Outside, Celindara was standing tall. She had a reassuring hand on the deer's shoulder, and her little fugal retainer was sitting happily - if such things could be determined - on her shoulder.

"Some armed person appeared on the hill following my herald, then disappeared. I presume we shall not have much longer to wait."

Celindara was proved right when a large group of armed soldiers, moving in front of and flanking five individuals - slowly but surely came down the hill.

The Captain from earlier was visible, though his sergeant wasn't. Perhaps the stouter of thetwo guards that had also accompanied in the capain was in the procession, but it was hard to tell as the man had been unremarkable otherwise. The Captain did not seem tobe the leader of the guards though, there was a taller, leaner man in even more finery with a wicked looking rapier at his side. The Captain occasionally came close to make comments to his Coammander, and that Commander was the one to move closer to one of the five well dressed civilians to make a comment. As the group got closer, the commander's eyes were tight squints of questioning and suspicion, with a thin mouth in a frown and a well groomed moustache showing his care to presentation. His uniform had not a single crease, and the trim was red with gold highlights, very finely made.

The five civilians must be the village elders. They all carried themselves with an easy dignity, though they showed a range of attitudes from outwardly pleasant to overly arrogant,

One of the first was a larger, older woman with barely greying hair. She had a wider face, but a cool if not unfriendly expression. He outfit was thick red felt, and she had a golden pendant that perhaps marked her as the first amongst these equals. Or perhaps she simply showed the weath of her station and profession.

There was a balding older man barely behind her with a twin silver chains around his neck to match his silvered hair. He had a green doublet and brown leather coat that seemed to have some immitaion of the woods. He had a neatly trimmed round beard with moustache that then seemed to be deliberately grown out to fill out his sunken, face, and seemed too consitently brown to be naturally coloured. It seemed to be a narssasistic affectation that went well with his barely contained bousterous arrogance that was apparently from his mumbling as the group approached.

A tall woman approaching middle age seemed to be standing behind those two, yet was tall enough to see over them easily. She a purple dress or doublet with silver - it was hard to tell, especially with her long black hair that spilled everywhere. What was visible was the silver leaf trim around the purple material. She kept whispering things to the balding man that kept him muttering quieter, at least. She had a pleasant demeanour in her face and walk, but her eyes as they became apparent seemed to have something of Farren's detechment to them.

There were two men flanking those three, both younger looking. The taller and blonder of the two had a shock of hair that had been attempted to be put in to a smaller shape. His face seemed happy, and his dress seemed modest and workmanlike in some way - as if a shop owner rather than a shop worker. The short man on the other side had darker slick hair and his simple black and dark brown clothing was clearly of expensive taste, as fine as many of the others. His expression seemed neutral in some respects, and put upon in others, as his darker hair and clothing disguised his darker features but highlighted brighter blue eyes even at a distance. He seemed to have gold rings on his fingers, three at least, slim and subtle in their ostentaion.


By some consensus, the party stopped a little distance from the group. The guards and the captain looked around to the mill, but the commander never stopped looking to the dryad, except to take in briefly the other members of the group - animal and fungus and humanoid alike.

There was a long, awkward silence as even the blustering elder seemed as a loss for how to start. Celindara broke the silence first as she looked to the short dark haired man, "Lex, is that you?"

The man seemed put out to have been singled out, and then put out for another reason. Still, his reply was courtious and well spoken. "That... was my grandfater?"

"Ah, of course," said Celindara. Her voice had all the confidence and rich tones as when she had first greeted the companions a few days ago in the forest.

"Indeed," came the oddly deep voice of the red furred woman, "it has been sometime since anyone has reported seeing..."

"The witch of the woods?" said Celindara preasantly. The blustering man in green made rumbles despite a thin female hand gently then not so gently squeezing his shoulder. However, Celindara gave a small laugh that had some song to it, a few quick notes that somehow managed to silence the starting murmer.

"I came to apologise," Celindara said at large, waving a hand away. "As I realise now, it had been too long and I do not believe I know any of you. But I know Blackwood Village, and its history, and so I have no doubts of its people. And I hope you recall the tales of me, and of the Pact my sisters once made with your ancestorys. Sadly, we both made a friend of a bard named Blace. She acted as a friend to me, and an intermediate for you, and has sewed seeds of distrust between us. Or rather, has allowed an evil to build while using it to her advantage. She has gone, fled now, and so hopefully we can speak unaided as we once did."

Celindara gestured to Nym and Meri. "Fortunately, the evil that plagued the edged of my forest underneath my notice has been defeated with the help of these two, who are friends of mine and the forest. You should have nothing to fear from the forest once more. You have an regret for not being available to hear your plight personally, and my assurance that I will be more available in future."

Celindara left the elders to reply, but it seemed noth her appearance and words had left them speechless. It took the less aimiable man in green to break the silence, and it was with a muttered, "Does she expect us to believe-"

"-the words we hear with our ears? Yes, I expect so," said the red furred woman, her gold medallion chinking as she turned to speak to the man, and her deep voice managing a snap of irritation. She turned back to Celindara and gave a small smile. "You gathered us to... apologise?"
asked the woman, clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Celindara seemed to pay no attention any overtones. "Yes. And in tht spirit, I brought you something." Celindara gestured to Allyn, lying still unconscious on the ground. The group had perhaps not noticed the warrior, or had simply chosen not to see. Now they started reacting again, clearly recognising her.

Celindara again gave a small singing song before speaking, cutting off any angry grumbles. "My understanding is that this woman took money from you - after being recommended by Blace - to keep your village safe. And yet all she did was bully travelers, and attack some. Including my friends here. Indeed, she has only once stepped foot in the forest she was supposed to be investigating. That was three days ago, with Blace, torch in hand ready to burn my personal home. The forest delivered her to me, yet in the spirit of her having wronged you first, I give her to you. You can determine her fate using your own laws, rather than it happening in the depths of the forest under mine."

The elders were clearly looking for some trick, and were not sure what to make of the clear speacking and acquiessing nature of Celindara. However, it seemed that the dryad had this well in hand.

She then pointed to Farren. "This is Blace's accompance. I believe he has been hiding in the mill here and doing her bidding. He also came to the forest to harm me. He claims he has lost his memory, but that does not forgive his crimes. Still, once more, I give him to you for your judgment."

Ah, there's the complication! Anyway, I'll leave that giant cut scene there for you guys to mull over and react to. I might be able to give limited comments and results of rolls. Mostl importantly, after the break, you need to decide if you want to intercede on Farren's bahalf, and if so - how. Almost like this could become a diplomacy skill challenge of some sort, where you need to mediate for Farren to both Celindara and the elders without making things too weird for or with Celindara :D

Did someone say "Diplomacy"? Eeeexcellent...

Nym looks with great curiosity at the approaching group of people, her bovine ears twitching and tilting around and her fingers (which are still strangely long and fine from when she'd been working on the grass sculptures) idly tapping on her staff. With her free hand she gives the group a cheerful wave as they approach, but lets Celindara have her say first. And then it isn't entirely apparent as to whether or not she's listening, as her yes seem to flit randomly between the members of the newly-arrived group of humans, the ground, the sky, and any other random things that are part of her surroundings.

So while I would be ready for Nym to plunge straight in with her own contribution to this discussion, I think I will just hang back for a second to get some more info...can I roll Insight on the group as a whole or will I need to do that on each individual member (just the main five, not so much the guards)? Obviously Diplomacy rolls will be forthcoming when I start pitching in to help Farren but I want to size everyone up first, see what kind of responses I'm likely to get so I know who's best to talk to (or not) ;).

A group Insight check would be fine, and a success here would count as your first skill challenge success!

Alrighty then...hopefully my d20 is still in a good mood...hmm okay, average-ish roll but the skill total gives it a boost into "good result" territory - 25 :).

Cool, the results will need to wait until I get back to a better means of posting, but that's certainly a success :)

As Meri left the mill, she stood by its doorway, leaning back against the wall in a seemingly relaxed position, propping her staff up next to her and folding her arms across her chest.
Though anyone who knew Meri well enough would probably notice that she had left her staff within easy reach, and her glances over the people from the village were more wary than they appeared.
From her backpack, Timur peeked out over her shoulder, eyeing the village elders with a more curious look.

She glanced towards Celindara at the mention of Farren being Blace's accomplice, then looked back at the elders again.
"From what I know of his kind, I would say it's more likely he has lost his memory" she added.  "Such a ruse would have been pointless under the circumstances.  Also he had enough time to destroy Celindara's home or even to free Alynn before we arrived there, yet he chose instead to wait for us, to speak with us instead of attacking.  It's possible Blace may have used him as a temporary ally and then betrayed him when she no longer needed him or if some disagreement arose with regard to her methods or what she was seeking, though I'd have to find her again and ask to be sure.  Not that I suspect she'd be in the mood to answer questions.  She wasn't last time we met."


OOC: Meri playing Farren's defence counsel here :)
(*goes off to look for Phoenix Wright style "Objection!" meme I can photoshop Meri into...*)

Middling Diplomacy roll, with crap skill bonus, so uncertain...  Hoping Lucky 13 is enough!  17 (13 + 4)

Farren had accepted the invite by Nym with a shrug and a neutral expression, and seemed to take Celindara's turning on him with equal lack of expression. The elders seemed the ones surprised by the proclamations, and equally seemed to be not sure what was going on in relation to Farren. [Private to Nym: This seems to confirm that none of them had met Farren before, and so it also would suggest Farren is safe to walk around Blackwood Village.... assuming this doens't go horribly wrong :p]

Many had accepted Meri's offer of a shoulder to balance on, so she could feel the confused little beholder look left and right, and hear his own confused noises as he tried to work out why they were suddenly turning on Farren.


The group turned with surprise - as did Celindara - when Meri spoke up for Farren. Oddly, Farren didn't turn to regard Meri and either protest or agree or give thanks. He seemed to be concentrating on the group instead, perhaps mirroring Nym's actions. Certainly, the commander noticed, and his gaze did not leave Farren's. [Private to Nym: The commander seems to be fixed on your group, and so perhaps most likely to way in. The Captain and the other guards seem to still be watching for anything around, and so while the captain has looked around, he does not seem to be inclined to way in on anything over the elders or the commander himself.]

Celindara was the one to first address Meri's comment. "There is a very strong reason to suspect him of biding his time. And that is if I am not the target, but you. He has delayed you already and now leads you in a certain direction. He has not even offered offered the information he said he would for his freedom from the forest. I do not trust him, indeed by your own words I do not see what he has done to earn any trust. When you leave here I cannot protect you, and you have done too much for me and the forest for either of us to allow you to come to harm we could prevent."

The red furred elder interrupted, speaking as if to Celindara to start with, but looking to Meri. "Please, I do not even know the names of your friends. They seemed to have left our village so quickly before that no one even quite recalled who they were or their names." Despite the suspicion, the older woman in red fur gave a wide, expectant smile. "Also, what did you mean by 'his kind'?"

The blond man to the left raised an eyebrow, and spoke up apparently to the surprise of the other elders. "I have to agree with our lady of the forest, here," he said, a small hint of decorum seeming at odds with his unkempt hair and plain appearance. He gave a small bow in the dryad's direction. He gave an equal smile, that seemed warm, to Meri and Nym in turn. "I can imagine many rouses for someone to fake their memory. Indeed if this man has done crime against the forest, I do not see why anyone designated a 'friend' would speak up for him? Seems unusual..."

The short brown haired man on the other side of the elders seemed to harumph under his breath for some reason, and instead focused on Allyn. "It seems to me that we are not hearing all sides of this. Why is the Lady Allyn of the Red Hand unconscious and not answering for herself as she has done before?" His rings jingled as he gestured to her, as if to force the group to acknowledge the beaten woman lying on the ground.[Private to Nym:

The brown haired man seemed as if he had been going to make the fair haired man's point before, and had been stepped on. And so had not supported the statement but instead gone with a different comment. Also, the fact he said 'lady' Allyn pointedly after the fair haired man mentioned Celindara as 'lady of the forest'. It seems there's a reason these two men are on opposite sides of the group, there's clearly some reason they - or at least the brown haired man - is naturally contrary to each other. So you might not be able to appeal to both, and may need to pick one to appeal to, knowing the other could be a niggling problem. ]

The bald man in green seemed to find his opening, and added a far less concealed harumph of his own, and a vigourous shaking of the head. "Why are we having our processes dictated at all? Yes, Allyn escaped our custody and so should be tried now she has been captured. And yes, all witnesses should be ours too! This accomplice of Blaces should answer in her absence, given these new accusations. And why are these 'friend of the forest' being presented as if excempt? Why are they even taking here at all?"

The balding man had shaken loose of the tall woman behind him, and had even stepped in front of the leading elder woman.

And we'll leave it there fore now, other than to say...

Current status:
Hard successes 0/1, Moderate successes 2/5, Failures 0/3

You're on a level 2 skill challenge, which needs 1 hard DC success and 5 moderate DC successes. The diplomacy roll achieved a moderate success, so you've set yourselves up ok for this. A hard DC success would have been better, and you won't get to use Diplomacy again to achieve that until you've probably got near the end of this encounter and can push a different argument, or have simply accumulated more evidence and opinions on the current argument.

The insight was high (and Nym will get lots of info) but will only count as a moderate success. At the moment only Diplomacy rolls count for attempting the hard DC, but depending upon what you can argue for and set up with your roleplaying, you might make some other skill qualify.

Diplomacy is still relevant, at the moment any successful roll you get will give you +2 to an associated attempt with a different skill. And there's actually one more moderate success up for grabs if you can find it. You can't get another success for Insight, but if Meri wants to try it, then she can get a +2 bonus for an associated attempt too.

So basically, just RP this out, and I'll let you know if you if you've managed to buy any skill check attempts. Watch out of course, as skill checks no matter the reason can still add to your failures. Still, you have abilities and Inspiration available to mitigate those.

Good luck!

Meri looked towards the balding man for a moment, her gaze flitting quickly over him for a second before deliberately looking away again, clearly choosing to ignore his presence in favour of the others.

Looking towards the woman in red fur, she shrugged lightly.
"Who I am is not important.  I recently worked as an Artificer, in a workshop some distance from here.  We came this way a few days ago for reasons of our own, and became involved when we were attacked by those responsible for the disappearances in the forest around here.  The old guardians of the forest, corrupted by a dark power, a power that Celindara has now cleansed from the area."

She then looked towards the blonde man.
"As for Farren, I never said I trusted him.  Let's just say that I have a more dangerous enemy than him to worry about, so if this is a ruse, then it's not one I'm particularly afraid of.  And in fact it might be a quicker way for me to track down Blace again."
A faint ghost of a smile softened her expression for a moment, clearly seeing the blonde man as being more reasonable than the others and trying to respond in kind.
"I agree it is unusual, though we seem to have encountered a lot of unusual circumstances over the past few days."

She looked back to the woman in red furs.
"As for what I meant by 'his kind'.  He was sent to this land by the Raven Queen.  While I am no expert on divine matters, I know enough to recognise the signs.  And I know that the memory of one returned to the mortal world is never the same, so what he says is plausible, under the circumstances."

Turning her gaze on the brown haired man, she gestured to Alynn.
"As for her, we were happy to bring her here conscious and free to speak her peace, but she preferred to try to push Celindara into the river and make a run for it instead.  Given that she'd already tried to take my head off once, I decided it was better to recapture her than let her go to try again.  I'm sure she'll wake up again soon, though she might not be in a particularly co-operative mood when she does."


OOC: Trying that associated Insight check then.  24 (15 + 9)
Other than trying to set the record straight on Farren and explaining their own presence (at least as much as she wants to give away, while letting Celindara take the credit for dealing with the recent troubles), she's more content to just observe the Elders' reactions than get too involved :)

Also...  (I can't draw Meri, but this looks close enough!) :)
http://orig03.deviantart.net/0...53b5b0df-d8e1xu7.jpg
This message was last edited by the player at 21:06, Sat 31 Dec 2016.

Nym, meanwhile, looks over at the group of humans and gives another little wave.

"I'm Nym, by the way." she says. "Short for Nymmelinerifarrany. Celindara's really nice - she has her lovely forest that's all lovely again because we helped get rid of all the icky Blight stuff. It was all black and goopy and made things go bad. But it's all gone now and there's a really big tree there instead, and Celindara's going to go back to walking around the forest again and talking to people and being friends with you like she was supposed to ages ago before the Blight came and killed lots of things and made her all sad."

Barely pausing, she gestures to Farren.

"Farren is nice too, although he can't remember anything right now. But he made some nice little things out of grass. Maybe he did do some things before that weren't very nice, but he doesn't remember them so maybe it doesn't really count any more, or something."

She then points vaguely in the direction of the unconscious armoured human lying on the floor.

"Allyn isn't very nice." she says. "She's all shouty and likes to wave her big sword around and try to hit people with it, and she's all bossy and stuff. And when we were trying to talk to her a little while ago she just pushed Celindara in the river where all the nasty fishies are, like Meri just said, but Farren came and helped Meri get her out. And when she was in the forest she was going to attack Celindara or her tree. Or both. But we knew she was there and she ended up getting stuck while we went and got rid of the Blight. And that seemed to make Melora happy, and she's a goddess, so that's got to be a good thing, right? I mean, Celindara thinks it was Melora who made the tree grow, right?"

She glances at Celindara as though for confirmation.

Think I'll just name-drop one of the more benevolent deities and the fact that our actions were apparently enough to earn the brief attention of said deity...

That's actually a very good check Meri. So while it doesn't count as a 'success', feel free to give yourself a +2 to all future rolls this encounter rather than the next, unless I explicitly say otherwise. Basically you'll be able to tailor observations/answers/knowledge specifically to the elders.

The bald man noted the slight by Meri and his face reddens. And while they might not agree with the man, both the red furred woman at his side and the tall black haired woman behind them seem to harden their features a little. Perhaps a general slight against one elder is seen as disrespect to them all?

"A mysterious stranger helping?" said the taller woman at the back. "We had one of those before, though she at least had the courtesy of giving us her name - it was Blace, of course."

However, the comments of the old guardians seems to override the tall woman's concerns, and there was a general air of confusion directed at Celindara. When Nym mentioned the Blight itself, then that confusion had an angry air to it.

"Not guardians of mine nor the forest," Celindara explained, "but one of the old guardians, who abandoned their own pact when the cult rose two hundred years ago. A Phystal, of the fey lands. It seems that the Blight and the cult behind it had burrowed deep below the forest, held back but not destroyed by the forces of Nature. They fey that fled it seemed had been infected, or at least one family. I think it passed through the generations. This was why I could detect nothing. And this agent moved against us all, to free the ancient foe one more by poisoning me. Blace was in league with the phystal, but through the actions of my friends the phystal was destroyed. And upon learning that the fickle forces I had called upon had done everything in the letter, but not the spirit, "

"And how are we to know that!" aid the bald man, and there was at least one assenting murmur. "If the ancient curse has returned, you could be its puppet! These two could be its agents! You come to apologise with sweet words and wild tales after not being seen in generations?"

"One generation-" said the fair haired man without any humour, but was cut off.

"And then you appear claiming to have destroyed it? When the war took all of your people, if we are to believe that! If you are true to this village and the pact you pay lip service to, then you should turn all of yourselves over to our custody this instant until we can learn the truth for ourselves! And grant us safe passage to your forest to fight this thing that has you enthralled ourselves." The bald man then looked far less friendly. "Unless you are not even the dryad of the tales, but some imposter sent by our foes... foes who know we keep to no specific gods here, so you are free to tell your tales of this God or that one without challenge from a priest of theirs! Though you show yourselves when you speak of the gods of both nature and death!"

The bald man's rantings seemed to leave the elders uncomfortable. He was clearly going too far, and yet... there was no one thing they could argue against, either. Clearly the tales of the old times still held sway, and were terrible tales. [Private to Nym: The brown haired short man seemed the least comfortable with it all, and oddly the fair haired man seemed the one to nod occasionally with the bald man's words.]

Celindara stood tall. "Yes, all of my sisters and many good and noble creatures of the forest died. Some mortals did too, but many stayed true to the Heir even when his evil was obvious. Their sacrifice and my actions were not in vain, the blight was held in check. I will not ask your forgiveness for not coming here, when mortals were so prone to be corrupted. My sisters and I crippled and the forest crippled the Blight two centuries ago, and paid the price for it, while this village raised itself and grew fat. I did not need your help to finish what I had thought already done by my own hand. The forest sent its greatest fighters, and I had two strangers who were better friends to me in a week than the village that has owed me a debt for centuries. Where were you when the first indicators of the fey were seen? Why did a bard - and a false one - have to come to me rather than you? Why was the only action any of you took to trust one false person after another. You set this-" and Celindara gestured to Allyn - "-at my door, and by her actions would these two friend of the forest have been blocked at best, killed at worst. And then you would have sealed all of your fates and mine." Celindara shook her head. "I came expecting reason, but I see I should not have bothered. My gestures and sacrifices are meaningless now and the forest's sacrifices were in the past. And the words your ancestors said were hollow words if this is who upholds them now. I am not surprised you did not feel the grace of Melora when she finally cleansed the world of the horror mortals inflicted upon it centuries ago!"

Both Nym and Meri could tell that the elders and the guards were shocked and getting angry at the words, though perhaps there were one or two small indications that there was a small amount of shame mixed in with it. And perhaps even the occasional confusion at some of Nym's comments, especially regarding Melora. However, people rarely backed down when shamed, and always seemed content to double down on their own grievances.

[Private to Meri: During Celindara's rant, Farren seemed to take the opportunity to come closer to Meri. "So, this power, this Shadow you spoke of when we first met. What exactly is its nature? You both seem so keen on telling everything you know to everyone who will listen, so perhaps you might enlighten me about what scares you more than my possible betrayal. Perhaps tell me, before I am dragged away by the villagers. What might Blace have found and killed me for?"

For once it seemed Farren had actually dropped his neutral attitude. Clearly he was either afraid or angry at the possibility of being casually traded by Celindara and the elders. And perhaps the fact he might lose the one lead to his own current condition made him bolder in his questioning.]


Sooooo....

No actually failures generated! So despite this all seeming to go a little pair shaped, its all salvageable. Just you did drop a lot of knowledge and concerning things at once there :p

Still, you've also given yourself lots of nice avenues to go for now.

Meri, you could certainly try and explain the Blight to them, using a Heal check to back up explaining things well enough. Or try to wake Allyn up with a check, of course :)

Either of you can give a Nature check to figure out if there are any signs that a Nature god might generate if she did manifest her powers locally. Religion would also be good, but I think Nature is your strongest suit.

Celindara is perhaps starting to be unreasonable (she does get angry, it's almost like she's suffered great losses and never dealt with them properly or something!) and undoing her own good ideas, so, you know, NOW you could try Diplomacy and actually have it be a success as clearly this has spiralled away from Farren and in to some new and scary territory. Still, getting this sort of resentment aired should be better in the long run. As is the village knowing the full dangers they faced - Celindara may not have bothered :) If you try to Diplomacy Celindara, this would only count as a moderate success, but would be a new avenue with which to perhaps them attempt a final push later if you can get the elders to believe your stories.

And as always, any other things you want to try just say. I was tempted to drop the skill challenge and let this play out as RP, but I have a funny feeling that maybe it will spiral out of control very quickly if I don't give you both the ability to corral the narrative with some well placed dice rolling :D

To the assertions and apparently growing anger, Nym giggles.

"Noo, no, that's silly." she says. "If I was a horrible gribbly monster made of demon-doings, I wouldn't come all the way over here and get you all to come out here with loads of guards and stuff. I'd creep into your village and try to make friends with people and then be all creepy and take over withuot anyone noticing. Because that's really sneaky, and demon-thingys are sneaky. Hmm, I wonder if that means Blace is a demon-thingy? Well, she seemed to want to help the Blight, anyway."

She looks to the elders but points toward the forest.

"And I don't think Blight monsters would deliberately make a great big huge giant tree grow when they've spent a whole load of years turning the forest all icky and making the lake into a horrible big sludgy pit of yuckiness. With a giant skeleton thingy in it. I think if I had somewhere I lived with lots of people like me and then they all died to some big bad thing and turned half of the place I lived into horrible yuckiness while I was the only one left, I might decide to go and live in the bit that hadn't been touched yet too."

She ponders for a moment.

"Hmm, but I suppose that wouldn't have worked in the long run. But that's okay, because then we came along and Celindara realised that hiding from the thing that was getting bigger wasn't going to stop it getting bigger, so then we went with lots of wolves and kitties and big tree-people-things and got rid of it. And then the great big giant tree grew. And then we thought we should come back here and tell you. So that you know about it. Because, umm...you were supposed to have some kind of deal with the forest to help out if they needed it, right? And the same the other way around?"

She glances between the elders and Celindara.

"So now the Blight's all gone, nice things might start coming back to the forest, and you can all go back to working together to make sure nothing like that ever happens again! Right?"

I'll roll Nature now to see if I can get any more ammo for my next verbal barrage, but also Diplomacy for the verbal barrage that just happened ;). We didn't walk that far through the forest - that tree has to be visible even on  a halfway-clear day if you have an open line-of-sight to it...

Nature = 22
Diplomacy = Ooh! Crit! Total is 29 :D

Yeeeeesss...hear the words of the weird minotaur thingy with strangely-coloured fur, weird long-fingered hands, rainbow-coloured robes and a ridiculously brightly-coloured falcon on her shoulder >:).

Meri sighed and shook her head slowly, although she seemed to perk up again when Timur leaned forward from her backpack and tapped on her shoulder, as if saying something to her, although no sound was heard by anyone else.

Whatever happened though, Meri shrugged lightly and spoke up again, looking around at each Elder in turn.
"Ok fine, as I said, my name or my role in this aren't important.  So perhaps I'm the nearest you'll get to a neutral party in these matters.  But if you insist, I go by the name of Meri."

Then she turned to the balding man, though instead of ignoring him now, she fixed him with an intense slightly-luminescent-blue stare as though trying to physically imprint her words into his brain.
"We didn't come here to apologise.  The events that happen in the forest were the results of a situation that everyone here ignored, allowed to grow out of control.  The ancient curse as you call it never went away.  As Celindara says, the forest and its guardians took care of that problem when certain others were simply sitting around looking for someone to blame for it."

She pointed off into the forest in the direction they had come.
"As my friend here said, if you can get to a place with a much clearer view over the forest.  You will see that something new has grown in the place once dead and abandoned, now cleansed.  If any of you know someone who has more knowledge of Melora and her ways than you suspect I have, then by all means, call them here and have them witness it with their own eyes and pronounce their own opinion on it.  Until then, you'll just have to hope that Melora considers ignorance of the situation as an excuse for disrespecting her and insulting the one who has watched over her forest for so long."

Finally she turned away from the balding man again and looked back over the others.
"As I said, we didn't come here to apologise.  We didn't even have to come here at all.  We fought together, we all suffered mentally and physically to destroy the source of the threat to your village once and for all.  The problem was resolved, we could simply have stayed away, left you to the mistaken belief that your guard dog here had solved the problem by doing nothing more than sitting around bullying anyone who passed by.  I know little of the history of this place, so it was Celindara's choice to honour the pact that once existed between you all."
She gestured towards Alynn again, indicating who she meant with the 'guard dog' comment.

"And now our only thanks for removing this threat to all of us and seeking to reestablish relations turn out to be insults and threats of captivity.  Well, if that's the way it is, then we're happy to simply leave again.  Let both the village and the forest live in peace and stay away from each other if that's the nearest we can come to a compromise."
She gestured again to Alynn.
"If so, we'll leave her behind for you to do with as you wish.  Be careful though, she bites!"

She looked back at the Elders again.
"Up to you really if you want to discuss this reasonably.  If you think you have some means of testing whether I am a willing servant of some demonic power or not, feel free to try it on me."

Meri leaned back against the wall of the mill, waiting for a response to that.

[Private to The Altweaver: She made a barely noticeable glance sideways at Farren, narrowing her eyes slightly.
"I don't tell everything I know.  And there is a reason for that" she replied in a low voice.  "And you're not about to be dragged off by the villagers, not if I have something to say about it."]


OOC: Diplomacy x2 Combo!  24 (18 + 4 + 2).
Hoping to play on their inner shame a bit here while they're still reeling from Nym's "you're all just being silly" retort! :)

Also calling balding man's bluff about "you're all demons/Blight monsters/nasty things trying to trick us" with Meri going, "ok, if you have some way of testing for that, try it on me now!"...  (Since Meri isn't actually evil-aligned, despite appearances, I'm hoping she'll get through such a test ok) :)

Also if there is actually a priest of Melora or religious expert around here they can bring in, then hoping they'll recognise huge tree for what it is.

The bit about going "Ok, if you can't get along then just stay away from each other and live separately" is Meri's "last resort" card here, hoping to stop any ongoing conflict brewing up between the village and the forest and hoping maybe the Elders' descendants will be more reasonable when time passes and no-one else gets eaten by Blight monsters thus proving us right.

Also, balding man just triggered my trap card: http://orig11.deviantart.net/5...on_by_sirignazio.jpg
hehe :)
This message was last edited by the player at 14:13, Mon 02 Jan 2017.

Ooh, nice rolls, nice comments. I like Nym's previous happy go lucky comments and her no nonsense shaming this round. Definitely a good base to act upon, especially with Meri weighing in with the shaming.

As to seeing the tree, if you've been on the outskirts of London you'll know how obvious the shard can be, and yet turn a corner - even close to London centre - and the shard can disappear. Also, you guys were on the back of three powerful wolves when you came back, and you did take some time getting back. The Blackwood runs directly west - east which doesn't help, and you were off in the deeper west section. So you spend about 2/3s of a day brisk walking a few days ago, and about half a day rushing back. So it's quite far, the landscape dips, and also the old great tree in the centre was on its own hill, so there are natural landscape dips and raises to take account of.

Still, the elders would not have to go too far south in some of the higher surroundings to perhaps get a good angle to see a larger than usual 'dome' of leaves in the blackwood, especially given they are healthy leaves opposed the blackened surroundings.

The sound of Nym's giggling definitely evokes diffeent reactions from the various people. The commander looks sterner and at Nym, the captain and the rest of the guards actually stop looking around and look at the sorcerer, and Celindara, despite herself, seems to have a small upward twist of her mouth. Meri's retorts perhaps were less well received, however they seemed to make each elder look away from the group in their own personal reactions.

[Private to Meri: Farren gave a small conciliatory gesture, but otherwise reverted to an intense quiet, paying attention to the reactions of those around.
]
The balding man blusters, the fair haired man does not quite seem amused at the antics nor rebukes, the short brown haired man looks thoughtful, and the red furred woman and the tall black haired woman exchange a questioning look at each other.

The red furred woman sighs. "Llen, calm yourself, unfounded accusations will not do us any good. Especially when it seems that once more an evil grew without notice, and was finished where we could not see." She seemed to be pointedly looking across to Celindara aswell. However, she composed herself once more, while the tall woman again seemed to take it upon herself to have a hushed conversation with 'Llen'.

The red furred woman pointed to herself. "I am First Elder Frena Hardholme, and my family can trace itself back to the service of the Drumtolls. And trust me, none stood by the Black Heir's side, and few survived the war." The bitter twist to her words softened, as she seemed to compose herself. "And yes, those few survived because of the sacrifice of those in the forest."

Frena gestured to the bald man and the tall woman. "Llen is our Patriarch, and has served the council and the village for most of his life. He is a Drothy, and they have traced their trade and woodmanship to even before the Drumtolls took their manor in this area. There is not a man nor woman of that family that did not offer their services in the forest, especially during the war."

The bald man seemed furious to be singled out and have his name given, and he broke free of his discussion with the tall woman. Still,his pride seemed to cause him to at least acknowledge both his position and the legacy of his family. "And that was after The Pact took lands that could have been used to build our family's legacy," he muttered.

Frena carried on quickly. "His neice...or is it first cousin, such a confusing family twisting... is Ranata Drothy-Wille. She is our official representative of forestry. She would have been the one to seek you out, and urged us to renew communications with you, but unfortunately the council's will over-rode hers when Blace wormed her way in to the village."

Ranata gave a cool nod, though whether it was from being rebuffed by Llen, or whether it was from Celindara's outburst was not immediately obvious. [Private to Nym: It is more likely the reminder of how she had been ignored, which no doubt has caused much of the problems now! ]

Frena then gestured to the blonde man. "This is Gurt Coldbloom. His family is relatively new to us, but he is our representative of trade for good reason. He has been fair and practical in all his dealings, as is the reputation of his family."

The blonde man gave a small bow and smiled, for the moment going back to genial elder. The brown haired man gave a narrow eyed look across to the blond man. [Private to Nym: It could be that the brown haired man, who seems ostentatious as a merchant, either does not like the blonde man for being the trade representative, or does not like him due to his lack of history in the area. Or perhaps they have had bad dealings if they and their family have traded together.]

Frena turned to the brown haired man last. "And this is Felix Fortrath, indeed the grandson of Lexinald Fortrath, but a fearsome trader in his own right. But the family of Fortrath has always been of the village, the family coming from the north at the time when the manors and families of Boturn were slowly becoming the villages of today. He is our village representative, as was his father and father before him."

Felix looked around to Celindara, his rings jingling. "I voted for Ranata to meet with you. Though the stories my grandfather told of you put you as far more gently spoken and respectful." He gave an angry look to Meri. "We heard you came to the village, if you'd have spoken to us we'd have come to the aid of the forest!"

Still, Felix had the good grace to look sheepish at the end of his sentences, and the last few words to Celindara and Meri seemed to be more petulance of a child rather than the rebuke of an elder.

Frena shushed the elders as respectfully as possible. "So... it seems there are some misunderstandings and stories. Of... the blight and battles and large trees and wolves and Melora herself? Perhaps this would be best conducted in the Village Hall?"

Celindara's eyebrow arched, and her reply was haughty. "As your guests that could leave whenever they wished? Or as your guests as long as it pleases you? I will not have my friends, whose tale should let you know what they have done for this area, be imprisoned."

Frena sighed. "As your friend here, Meri, has suggested, perhaps a priest would be of use. I believe Mother Harann stays not a day's journey from here. Perhaps with a swift message she could be here in a few days to help us understand what has happened here? Not to say we doubt you, more to confirm if this threat has really departed, and to help us understand what this all means."


Ok, I'll leave it there for now. Yeah, you guys did well here. So the combined diplomacy successes not only net you the illusive Hard DC success, but also will grant both of you a further +2 to any more skill checks.

Nym's Nature check counts as a success too, so I'll PM some nice ideas. That means the current status is:

Hard successes 1/1, Moderate successes 3/5, Failures 0/3

Basically, unless you really put your foot in it, you've managed to get the basic success here. The elders will take Allyn and not believe her when she wakes up (they are shamed enough now by the Blace / Allyn mistake). Farren has been forgotten due to the bigger story going on, including Celindara being subtly reminded of trusting you.

So really, your task now is to not mess things up, but more importantly perhaps try and hurry things up. Wasting days in the village, or arousing suspicion by wanting to leave, is probably bad given Blace is out there doing things :) So if you can come up with the right evidence or arguments to convince them of the full truth of your words without them needing to wait for a priest or have a day's long discussion in the village hall, then you can explore and depart at your leisure :)

Bluff checks can be used to create the right sincerity to be believed (I think Nym probably can rely on this for her next post), Meri, you can always lean on a knowledge check or some other tactic if you are worried about making such a check, or want more ammunition for your next wall of text attack :D

Nym watches the interplay between the various parties, smiling brightly at the description of Ranata having wanted to do something about the forest. She seems to be considering, then speaks up at the next opportunity.

"Well, do you need[ to spend ages going and getting someone?" she asks. "Maybe some weird stuff has happened here, and you just haven't noticed because you didn't know to look for it. I mean, if a big powerful goddess made a giant massive enormous tree grow, maybe some other stuff happened? Like when you drop a big rock into a pond...or even a tiny rock...and there's ripples even though the main thing that happened was the splash where the rock hit. Maybe there's...I don't know, some bigger plants, or something? And did it get more sunny at any point? I mean, recently. I mean, yesterday, maybe, or the day before. Because there was a Winter spirit who was protecting the forest...well, sort of. I mean, he was supposed to stop the Blight from getting worse so he made the whole place have the same season the whole time, or something. But now he's gone so I suppose the temperature will go back to what it is in...you know, other places. Places that aren't here."

She trails off for a moment, then seems to interrupt herself trailing off as she thinks of something else.

"Oh! And if anything weird has happened, you might think it's Celindara doing it, right? Well, I don't think it would be. Because she's a hammy-dryer, and she's got a special tree that's...it's like, her friend and her home and stuff. And she can only do her proper magic in the forest where her tree is. Which isn't here. So she can't ask the plants to do anything."

She looks over at Celindara.

"Well, I suppose you could ask, but nothing will happen, right? I wonder what that's like, only having all your magic sometimes, rather than all the time. I suppose if that happened to me, I might not want to leave the place I was in, either..."

Don't know if I need to roll for any of that...Wall of Text damage, maybe? ;)
And that last part was kind of "Celindara can't do magic here because this isn't her forest so any weird nature magic that's happened isn't her...but even though she can't do much magic, we still can. So, you know, trying to take advantage of that would be a Bad Thing. For you.", but phrased in a sort of nice-yet-subtle sort of way ;).
This message was last edited by the player at 14:51, Wed 04 Jan 2017.

The replies of the Elders seemed to calm Meri a little more, beyond whatever Timur had 'said' to her.
Her gaze softened a little and she looked back at the one that had been introduced as Llen, as if reassessing him.

Nym's speech drew a rather puzzled but amused look from her, then she looked back at the Elders again.
"I'm not from this area.  In fact I can't even remember the direction of the place I originally came here from.  I was travelling a long time before settling some distance from here.  So I know little of the history of these lands.  While that makes me unaware of some things that may appear as clear as day to you, it also allows me to view this land and its people from an outsiders' perspective, a more neutral position unswayed by the attachments you have.  So if anything I say sounds offensive to you, that is not my intent."

She looked towards Felix.
"I was here before, to help someone who was seeking Blace for an unrelated reason.  It turned out to be someone else she betrayed and then discarded when they were no longer of use to her.  And while they fought bravely by our side to help cleanse the Blight, we have parted ways now.  At the time I knew nothing of Celindara, or the Blight, and thought Blace was nothing more than a simple bard, I merely intended to help this person find Blace and then leave to continue my own travels.  Thanks to Allyn whom I was told by Blace was working for you, I had formed something of a negative opinion of you before, so chose not to approach you.  And..."
She paused, looking a little saddened and glancing towards Timur and then to Celindara before looking back at Felix and continuing.
"Perhaps my own experiences of humans in other places, and other times, have prejudiced my own judgement in that aspect.  Maybe even an outsiders' perspective can be a little skewed in certain ways" she added with a wry grin.

Turning her attention back to Frena, she spoke up again.
"While normally I'd be happy to remain behind, I do know that Blace is still out there, and still a danger.
While I'd also normally be prepared to leave her to your judgement, I have reason to believe she has left this area, and is now trying to backtrack along the route I followed to get here.
To cut a very long story short, myself and Nym became involved in another situation a few days ago.  A situation that could have become very dangerous if left unchecked, much like the curse of the Blight here could have.  And if Blace has gone seeking to revive the source of that trouble for her own reasons, then she has suddenly become far more dangerous than before when she was hidden in your midst.
We know the exact location she is headed for, and we know the lay of the land there, so we may be able to stop her, but she already has a head start on us.
If there is a quicker way to prove what we say to you, then I am willing, but I worry what will happen if we delay more than a day at most."


OOC: Not sure if this would be Diplomacy or Bluff.  Given that she is telling the truth here (albeit leaving out a few critical parts) it might not be considered as bluffing...
This message was last edited by the player at 19:38, Tue 03 Jan 2017.

As I've mentioned before, I think of Bluff as the ability to quickly make yourself appear to be telling the truth. Funnily, the skills that allow you to disguise you are lying would be the same skills as ensuring people belief you. So yes, I'm happy to say it's a Bluff check to be believed.

Also, Nym, I like the fact that it's subtle intimidation you're going for. So I'm happy for you to roll Bluff rather than intimidation. As for the rest of your speech, it's covered under the previous Diplomacy check, and your good Nature check.

Two decent rolls here will break you out of the skill challenge and let you move on from here. You can afford a failure, it might just, you know, add a tiny wrinkle on your path to pretty much assured success at this point :D

OOC: Bluff is a pretty weak skill with Meri, so hoping for a good dice roll...
ooo, lucky 13...  Not too sure if that's enough.   15 (13 + 2)  Do I still get +2 to that?
If it's still not enough, I'll use Knack for Success to give it an extra +4 kick.

One more objection? :)
http://img14.deviantart.net/e4...dowlphin-d69tm4q.png

You do indeed get a +2 to that, which you will be pleased to know squeaks in to the moderate success you need. So your knack for success won't be needed...right now... :p And I do like these little asides to Meri's actions :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:35, Tue 03 Jan 2017.

I get to roll my highest skill on this check? Cool >:). Here comes a big ol' Bluff roll, then...yup, 27. I think that'll do :D. Incidentally, thanks to my high Cha, even my Intimidate skill isn't terrible (9), so if I ever do need to roll that then hopefully it will go fairly well ;). But Nym isn't really an intimidating sort of person. Well, not deliberately, anyway. Probably. Most of the time.

Yeah, I figured the sneaky intimidation and the other stuff deserved a Bluff roll rather than Intimidation or anything else. Anyway, one check shy of success :) Let's see what Meri's can get. I figure it's not a case of passing at this point, just how many resources get used (if any) :)

Edit: Oops, I forgot Meri passed yesterday! So yeah, skill challenge and general elder confrontation succeeded. Post and XP rewards coming soon...
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:36, Wed 04 Jan 2017.

Also, I think Nym manages to be most intimidating when she's ever so happy... and blasting people with fire :p

The elders listened to the group speak. Nym's comments on weather and signs seemed to draw the most confusion.

"Are you really suggesting that noticing a sunny day is a sign of the gods? Surely at least use Pelor..." said the blond man Gurt.

However, it was the gruff Llen who seemed to have to reluctantly comment. "We... don't usually get such sun, not in spring. Not this hot." He seemed reluctant to agree, but possibly Frena's comment on Llen's patriarch status forced the man to be the knowledgeable commenter of the area. "And the trees do seem more..flushed with green, despite the fact its not summer nor rained much yet."

Felix the brown haired man had to agree. "I turned away a man for trying to sell me his cart of fully ripe apples yesterday. I didn't even think to ask to see them..."

The group seem uncertain. It is up to Gurt again to raise the objection, looking to the dryad after giving Nym a suspicious look. "Why would you mention a lack of power unless it was a trick? Why would you not have power of nature, enough to..."

Celindara stood tall, and started to sing a beautiful and powerful song. The little fungal creature on her shoulder seemed to wriggle in happiness. Across the river, above the noise if its passing, a series of creaking noises occurred.

The trunks of the nearest black trees to the river began to lean over the river. Their branches lifting a little, waving leaves in the light breeze.

All the blades of grass and small bushes visible on the ground across the river also flatted in her direction, a silent protestation.

And then, slowly, the effect spilled out. As a testament to the power of the dryad, and her single voice, where her song carried, as far as the all widened eyes could see, the trees across the river began to creak and bend forwards too. The guards shuffled backwards, the commander's head actually moved left and right in alarm at the extent of the power of the dryad, and the elders shuffled backwards in shock.

On the group's side of the river, however, not a blade of grass stirred that wasn't moved by the breeze, in chaotic little sways. The trees only moved to the occasional dance of the air. This fact, eventually, was not lost on those of the village.

Ranata was the one to frame the group's curiosity. "If you have such control, why would you summon us to meet you here?"

Celindara looked to the black haired woman, perhaps rueful as her own anger had cooled. "I came to apologise," she said sadly, and perhaps something else Nym had mentioned caused her discomfort. "I thought the gesture might be appreciated, to meet you on your ground."

Felix seemed to be the one to comment. "We didn't know, my grandfather.. no tales have ever said..." he commented.

Farren seemed to dare a comment. "It's why Allyn was able to attack her, after all. The moment your forest guardian here announced her lack of connection to the forest. Your fish seem.. aggressive. It took Meri and I to rescue her, she was exercising no control there either."

Farren then took a step back in some way. Luckily for him, it did seem the revelation of Celindara's vulnerability built upon the previous shaming they had received. Clearly the comment before about the attack had not properly registered.

Celindara reluctantly continued, giving a neutral look to Farren herself, that the man had pulled focus back to herself to, however slightly, speak up for her. The dryad spoke softly. "I did come to apologise. For not coming to you sooner when the rumblings of your troubles happened. But... perhaps for something else, in my heart. As my friend has said, the cult was stayed the first time by a petition to a spirit of winter."

Celindara looked to the elders, but clearly it meant nothing to any of them. She carried on. "They are powerful children of the water queen, and I petitioned one of the greatest in desperation. The blight fell to fire, but fire would have destroyed us all in the forest. Perhaps, given how it all ended, that should have been what happened. Instead we had seen that cold could also lessen them. The spirit of winter consumes winters and buries summers, cold its plaything. I was facing the heir alone, my allies were dying, my sisters dead or dying, I was... I could feel that I was the focus of the forest now, and there was nothing else I could do. I gave him our seasons thinking it could destroy the blight. But all it could do was keep it bound, an infection burrowing beneath us, just waiting for the tiniest chance to slip the winter spirit's power. I denied you all your brightest days and darkest nights and the reflections of autumn for a false victory."

Celindara seemed downcast and small, and her face again seemed young.

None of the elders could quiet look at the dryad, and even the commander seemed almost embarrassed by the proud dryad's sadness and chastised expression. It was up to Frena to speak for the group, and she did so with a question. "You seem so old to us, outliving the parents of our parent's parents, and yet you are not the oldest of your kind by any mark, are you?" The question was said in a gentle, almost matronly way.

Celindara shook her head. "I am now, but no, the blight took our strongest and eldest first. The cult knew exactly who to attack in the last battles."

Frena gave a small shake of her head. "No, I do not think the cult did. Still, you clearly do not understand humans, in a way. You seem sad to have taken something from us, and perhaps you are right, but it is something we would have asked to be removed, if given the choice. I suppose I always thought our temperate ways were natural." She looked to the others. "I suppose this means we must prepare for the possibility of harsh summers and harsh winters. I suppose we must think to how we have treated those who complain of such things, and realise we may have been lacking in empathy. Perhaps if Melora has spoken to this land, we might do well to start listening, for we have for too long been sheltered from nature and its dangers by our guardian." This was said with a small look to Farren, echoing his own word.

Frena looked to Meri. "And you are right, it is too easy to think the worst of others. We have welcomed Blace too easily to ourselves, yet met with you and your intentions with the greatest suspicion. I apologise on behalf of Blackwood Village." She looked to Celindara briefly. "You and your friends are welcome to sit with us and perhaps we can listen to each others' tales together. And leave when you will, of course." She looked again to Meri. "If you must leave soon, and if you insist on keeping charge of Blace's friend, then... that might be for the best. But at least see our village once before you go."

Ranata looked to the guards, perhaps sensing the mood. "If the wood's witch can stand without her protection, then we should be prepared to do likewise." She said the affectation in a friendly way, but the gesture to the commander to take Allyn was less friendly. There was also an indication for the guards to then departThe commander, for his part, instead ordered the captain to do that instead, while the commander clearly intended to stay. The captain was about to object, but both Frena and Felix nodded, and as one the guards carried the unconscious Allyn between them, and reluctantly departed.


And I'll leave the wall of text finish there. So there you go, only five elders and a commander left - YOU CAN TOTALLY TAKE THEM IN A FIGHT NOW!

I mean... have 500XP (250XP each) for the success of the skill challenge, and take a bonus 100XP (50XP each) for the cool RP of it all. I did think of ditching the skill challenge in favour of talking it out, but eh, it muddled along well enough :)

Anyway, so feel free to react, and decide if you want to go with the elders and celindara, or as Meri has given you all an excuse, if you simply want to spot for supplies in the village and have a brief look around, then head off.

And apparently you need to decide a direction. Are you backtracking now in case that's where Blace has gone? Are you taking Farren south to Fivespears or Thirdgate as he wanted? Are you doing something else?
This message was last edited by the player at 08:23, Thu 05 Jan 2017.

Now that everyone seems to have "made friends", Nym smiles and gives a little clap of her strange hands.

"Yay! It's all happy again." she says happily, and looks at the elders. "Maybe your village will be more fun this time? It looked kind of fun before, with the thing where people were waving shaky-sticks around, but then Blace said some things that made it sound like a bad place so we left. But it seems much nicer now. So maybe we can go there. Maybe there'll be some food. Is there food? I like food!"

She looks toward Meri.

"We don't have to leave right now, do we?" she asks. "We can go and see the village and talk to people more properly than we did last time?"

She then switches to look at Celindara, apparently intent on addressing the entire group a bit at a time.

"And maybe you can see what the human place is like so you know um...what it's like. And stuff. And then go home to your lovely tree friends and the new special really big tree...which I suppose isn't ever goimg to be quite as good as your tree to you, because that's your tree and it always will be...but you can make the forest all lovely again and this time it will stay lovely because all the icky Blight is gone. And maybe the people from the village can come and see it...maybe you can take them there after you've been to see where they live?"

She looks between the hamadryad and the group of humans.

"And then you can all see that your homes aren't really all that scary to each other because the people that live there will make sure that nothing bad happens to the visitors. As long as they're nice. Which I'm sure you will be."

She beams at the entire group, then looks around at Farren.

"See? It's all nice. Maybe you'll remember some things about the village when we go there."

Wooorrrrddssss! All of the words. For everyone! Yay! Lots of wordage :D.

Meri looked over the Elders again, as if reappraising them all.
At Nym's question of whether they can stay a while, she glanced to her, then to Frena.
"Well, perhaps staying a little while won't matter so much.  At least we may be able to pick up some useful supplies for the journey."

She reached down for her staff, although rather than carry it herself, she held it up behind her, letting Timur take it and hold onto it for her.
Whether she was deliberately trying to put the Elders more at ease by not carrying an obvious weapon herself or not was left unexplained for now.

"Maybe we can find you another one of those musical sticks if they have any left" she remarked with a smile at Many.


OOC: Might have time for a quick shopping trip :)
Also still a bit fuzzy on the locations of everything.  Can't remember how much we let slip to Blace about where the portal place was, or if she has any magical means of tracking our previous route or anything, so uncertain on where exactly we might find her.  Guessing Stonebridge Falls is not on the way to Fivespears then?  Hoping we're not going in the opposite direction?
It would take a serious threat to get Meri to return that way, hehe...
This message was last edited by the player at 19:16, Thu 05 Jan 2017.

I do not believe you let slip too much regarding the location, and she might still think you're a dark elf what with your beholder 'familiar', and so think one possible direction is down. And she would only be as good at tracking as any other bard. That's the good news. The bad news is that you've been going reasonable consistently south. Blackwood forest stretches west, and the fey are west, but Fivespears/Thirdgate is south and Stonebridge/New Stonebridge is back north again.

And awww, Nym has summed up how the village and dryad can live together well. So well done, you two could have really messed up Celindara's speaking to the elders by coming along, but instead you've ensured the peace between the two will be deeper instead. So that's cool :)

"Firstbrush, well at least in spirit if not in season," said Frena, explaining the name of the festival. "I'm afraid the next celebration is next weekend, but perhaps one can be made tomorrow given the circumstances." She nodded to Celindara. "You are welcome to the village, to see what you have protected all this time, of course."

"And we would welcome seeing The Blackwood guided by its protector," said Ranata hurriedly. Gurt and Llen perhaps looked reluctant, but it was clear the will of the council had been decided.

"I should like that very much," said Celindara, with some suppressed excitement that was perhaps visible to Meri and Nym, having seen the dryads more playful moods. Many gave a small cheer too, and zoomed off to scuttle around Nym, clearly trying to explain to Ee-Ee what he had missed last time. "Ah lost mah stick, but if ah find it you can have it Ee-Ee!"


Farren did not seem too convinced regarding recalling anything in the village, but looked to Meri after her comment. "It is getting later in the day. Provisions and rest may be good, to get a fresh start. I have been looking around more, at the position of the sun and the forest behind. If it is falling how I think it is starting to fall, I do not believe Blace and I parted ways at this part. I think it was further south. If there is a road on the southern side somewhere?"

So Farren seems to think Blace was south, now he has seen the sky outside of the forest. However, he did question if Blace might have been pulling a trick. Still, I think you can safely go south if you wish to. Or, of course, you can go use the clear stone and ask that Shadow about it? :p

Anyway, so are you both happy to head in to the village again?

"South?" replied Meri, looking back at Farren.  "That's strange.  Are you sure it was south?"

[Private to The Altweaver: OOC: Trying an Insight check here.  Not too sure if he's just making that up to try and keep Meri heading towards Fivespears, rather than backtracking looking for Blace.  Yep, Meri is naturally paranoid, hehe.  20 (11 + 9).
Rolls are getting lower again...]

For a moment, she seemed to be thinking something over, and shared a look with Timur, as though the two were silently conferring between each other.
Then she shrugged and turned towards the village again.
"Well, no reason not to take this chance to stock up on provisions and rest a bit before we rush off again."


OOC: Happy to head for the village :)

Nym seems happy that Meri is agreeable to the suggestion of revisiting the village of Blackwood.

"Yay!" she says, giving another little clap of her hands but having to take care not to dislodge Ee-Ee or accidentally whack Many with anything. Ryn seems eternally indifferent and immune to anything Nym might do and simply continues to sit on the changeling's shoulder, swaying slightly with her movements.

Cool, let's do this - Blackwood Village, take two ;).

Farren shrugs to Meri's comment. "One can't be certain, but that's my best guess right now, and I'm afraid it is all I can offer. Perhaps ask if there is a road that skirts the south of the forest? After all, she abandoned me on a road. For obvious reasons I do not feel as if I will be as well received in answers as you."

He said it deadpan enough that it was probably with humour rather than resentment he contemplated his position with the dryad and elders. He seemed to content himself with checking on his small rodent friends - he apparently had taken the other two rats from the mill, spreading them around his pockets and one actually burrowed around his hair.

The elders were leading the way to the village, and Celindara had been pulled ahead by Ranata. The woman was quite eriodite, but was also clearly facinated by the dryad. Felix, too, seemed to hover, clearly amazed at the fact that his gransfather's tales had come to life. Any disappointment at the 'simple' hamadryad that had stood before the elders had been blown away by the retelling of her battle, and also the forest's movement across the river. Who knew how he might react to the tale of the cult's destruction.

Frena was at the side with Llen, apparently with Ranata busy, Frena too on the task of ensuring Llen was not too gruff.

Gurt was in the lead, and seemed quite happy to occasionally interject over his shoulder regarding the village as it revealed himself. His smile was wide and seemed genuine, but there was the occasional lack of brightness in the eyes or stiffness of phrase that perhaps showed he was not altogether pleased with how everything had gone. Perhaps the practical ma was simply not fully convinced by speeches of gods and monsters, especially having not had generations of tales in his own family tree to bolster such belief.

The guards marches far quicker that the group, and so only the commander was left to keep an eye on the group. He chose to position himself between Ranata on one side, and Frena on the other. Of course, that meant he was brought in to conversations by Ranata, Frena, and Gurt, and was forced to answer with reluctance.


Many was bouncing around, occasionally looking around on the grass is n the distance as if hoping to see his little stick once more. He excitedly pointed to all the buildings as he saw them, telling Meri and Nym, then shushed himself as he realised he might be interrupting Ranata or Gurt.


The hill climbed slightly, with the woods around closing in a little, forcing the road to curve. There was evidence of the occasional abandoned house in the shelter of the woods, showing that perhaps the village had shifted away from the wood and mill over the years. However, the occasional curling smoke showed that unlike such houses in Stonebridge, there was still work and occupants inside.

After the hill, the land crested down to a semi familiar sight. In the distance, from the other side, was the large green where the two mages had arrived at and met Blace. However, from their new vantage point, there could see that a larger road was to their east, and it was coming from another large open area in front of the green. This large area had far more buildings clustered around it, and it also seemed that many of the houses radiated from this new area. It had the trappings - carts, and small stands - or a market square in full swing. There seemed to be three impressive buildings dotted on the outside, and a few more solid buildings that were perhaps permanent shops or service buildings.

Clearly the elders were going to bias towards the village green, as beyond was the village hall and possibly some person chambers of the elders. However, it was Frena that looked across to Meri and Nym.

"You are welcome to come with us to tell more of your story, but the market is still in full swing if there is anything you wish to get before evening takes the businesses away. Also, you are welcome to stay at either of the inns tonight at our expense. Feel free to secure your rooms."

Frena looked to the commander. "I am sure Commander Molsove here would be glad to accompany you and secure any lodgings you need."

The commander blinked in surprise at being assigned such a duty, although he was perhaps caught in the fact that he had clearly been wondering how to keep tabs on the mages and revenant if they split from the group.


I'll leave it there for you to decide, but basically all the elders / dryad meeting will be is recounting what has gone on. So you can feel secure in leaving that info dump aside and going to spend lots of money!

Also, if you want to ask for any clarifications or speak to any of the elders (or anyone else) during the short walk, then you can retcon that in now before we move on.

Also, if you think you would have been listening to Gurt, you can have a +2 bonus to any Streetwise checks for Blackwood Village for the next few days :)

As the group walks toward the village, Ryn takes off again and hovers above the group, apparently taking stock of the village from above while Nym eagerly listens to everything being said about the place by anyone who happens to mention anything. She walks along swinging her staff and looking around constantly, apparently trying to take in as much detail about the area as possible whilst also trying not to trip over anything with her clompy minotaur-ish hooves (around which her footwear has, as usual, managed to somehow reshape itself so as not to become damaged or fall off).

When Frena suggests the things the group can do, she looks over with interest at the human.

"Ooh, a market?" she says. "Markets have things! Lots of things! That sounds like it might be fun! I wonder what kind of food they have? And what the sleepy-places are like. Ooh, there must be so much to see here!"

I'm pretty sure Nym can qualify for that +2, though so far I don't think I've use Streetwise even once. And thinking about it, that doesn't just cover this game but possibly every other game of DnD 4th Edition I've played. Still, may as well take a bonus if I can get one, just in case it comes up ;).

Meri looked around them as she trailed along after the group, taking everything in.  Though she was also listening intently to Gurt, even if she didn't join in the conversation.

"I might take a look around the market too" she replied to Nym.  "Maybe I can find more alchemical ingredients there.  And perhaps other useful things too."


OOC: Yep, even if Meri isn't one for joining in conversation, she likes to listen in anyway, just in case ;)
Not all that good at Streetwise though.  Meri is definitely not a people person!
Will definitely take a peek around the market though.
Looking specifically for alchemical reagents, and for any parts that could be used to make the anti-anti-magic thing for Many.  Though will keep an eye out for anything else that looks useful, like parts that can be used for other artificery gadgets or rope or ten-foot poles or handy adventuring gear or plot hooks :)

Streetwise is very much the 'figuring out the area' for villages, town and cities, and currently you've avoided those you've had the opportunity to come across. Streetwise is also one to retcon, such as I think the portal puzzle where Streetwise was used to see if in the past either of you had seen dwarvish writing in any detail on your travels.

Celindara noticed the others were preparing to split up, but nodded. "I will talk to the elders now, but perhaps... I can see some of the things you have bought and here of the market later?" She seemed excited on behalf of the others.

The deer had been walking along behind the group, but apparently having seen the crest of the hill, and seen that everything appeared in hand, it started hesitating and looking back to the shelter of the mill. Celindara perhaps noted its lack of focus now the forest was not in sight, and planted her little fungal companion on its back again. "You can feed and explore. While my friend is with you, we can find you when we are going back. If that is ok?"

The deer seemed to bob its head in understanding, then walked back down towards the water.


With some ways, odd looks, and general cordial farewell's for nows, the group was in the odd situation of being left in the company of the commander and Farren, neither of whom seemed inclined to talk. And both of whom seemed to be looking ot the other with idle suspicion. Many, instead, seemed to be the most energetic one, begging the others to hurry up as he drifted down with as much restraint as a young beholder could muster.

As the group got closer to the market area, before houses and other buildings began to block the view, it could be noticed that the extended market 'square' really broke down to several parts.

At the far edge appeared to be two larger shops, separate from each other but also from the remaining buildings around. Meri's sharper eyes spotted that one seemed to have some sign about 'curios' and the other seemed to be 'travel and medicines'. The curios was perhaps a place where old unusual items could be found. And clearly the travel shop might have normal gear as needed.

Off to the left of them, and furthest away, seemed to be a large building set apart from even the market. The fact there appeared to be carts being loaded and unloaded, and even the shining of people in armour, perhaps marked it as a staging area for the travelling south of good from Blackwood and the surrounding villages.

Following the two shops around to the right instead led to three impressive buildings - or at least impressive for a village. The closest was the tallest and one of the few multi-storied, probably three floors high. The furthest was a two storied building, that seemed plainer but more solid. If noth were inns, that would be unusual, but was likely. In between then seemed to be a single storey building that was some form of eatery.

The buildings on the closest side of the extended market square seemed to be either houses or service shops from the people hovering around, and in front of them and extending quite a way aroudn the extended square were makeshift stalls with clothing, food, and occasionally very ornate looking stalls that probably had 'exotic' items, trading from the city or rare items from the area.

Probably closest to the group if they biased a little right was a square within a square, The area was marked with simply pillars, and had carts and bigger stalls set up. However, these seems to be trading sacks of food and flour, stacks of wood, and all of the larger goods and perhaps services that the group did not need.


Many was just exitedly looking at them all, and bobbing around everyone's legs - even the commander's - to see who would make the first move to somewhere definite.


So, you can probably get normal supplies in the travel shop, but it might also be a good place to try for your ritual stuff - or at least ask.

The curios shop might have opdd things for your artificing, or at least be someone you can ask about magic.

In terms of just general fun and weird you could just wander aroudn the market stalls and see what catches you eyes - thoguh that has the biggest concentration of people, even as the day is wearing on. And that's also a place you might luck in to alchemical stuff.

Clearly the three inn/eatery buildings will be your main sitting down for food / figuring out lodgings place. When you wish to do this is up to you.

Finally, you can just make a circuit of the whole square, and so check out the other goods/services buildings, the staging area, and the square within a square with the carts.
This message was last updated by the player at 16:15, Sat 07 Jan 2017.

As they draw near enough to see the layout of the market/shopping area and its contents, Nym stands and stares for several moments, then claps her hands excitedly.

"Oooh!" she says. "There's just so much stuff here! So many things to look at!"

She seems about as excited as Many to see what's what and is already drifting off toward the first stall she happens to have noticed.

Nym, naturally, wants to see All of the Things!, but she will follow Meri if said half-elf wants to get her attention and persuade her to go and look at whatever Really Interesting Stuff she wants to look for...and I'm sure Nym and Many can both help Meri look for interesting alchemical/artificiery bits, even if neither of them have any particular idea as to what it is they should be looking for or what said things even do ;).

There's not really too much of a limit on where you go and what you do. If you create a situation that will take a large amount of time, then you might miss out on visiting the stuff you didn't pioritise, but that's unlikely. More likely is if you draw attention to yourself in a way that might spread - positively or negatively. That mkight change people's reactions and what they offer as you go further round.

So it might have an effect, but no real pressure. Just a chance to RP while shopping rather than seeing dry lists :p Well, maybe there's stuff hidden around...

OOC: I wanna see All of the Things too!  ALL of the Things!!

Meri peered around at the shops, eventually settling on the curios one.
"Well, feel free to explore" she replied to Nym.  "I'm going to check out that shop for now.  Maybe we can meet up again at the food place over there when we're done.  We can figure out a place to spend the night then too."

She moved off a step, careful to dodge around Many's hyperactive erratic flight path.
"Oh, just be careful not to get too excited and set something on fire or whatever" she added with a smirk and a glance back at Nym.


OOC: Thinking that Nym accidentally turning the village into a smouldering crater might adversely affect our new-found somewhat-amicable relations with the Elders a little bit :)

Anyways, Meri is planning on checking out the curios shop first.  Up to Nym if she wants to follow or go her own way :)

Nym did say she'd follow for the moment, so I'll post as if you ll go as a group, and can edit if you split up. Do remember you have an NPC guard that might have something to say if you split up without too much warning.

The group went around the edge of the market, as the easiest way to get to the curios shop. It still took them passed the front of many of the service buildings, which seemed to be various tanners, carpenters, one person who might have been a blacksmith, though his area was nothing like Tym's dependant forge - and seamstresses.

The figures hovering around the outside seemed to be using the opportunity to discuss busniess animatedly, one of the buildings apparently selling fruits and juices that allowed drinks to be bought from.

Continuing onwards, perhaps Nym's appareance, the dour guard or Farren, or Meri's default look kept some of the stall merchants from going out of their way to stop the group and pull them in. It was hard to see Many, as he was hovering around well infront of the group bouncing around excitedly, spinning so his eyes could see it all. Smells of confectioneries and clothing and some form of spices or other strong odours were in evidence. The stalls were clustered together, and while unsurprisingly for a village there was not a huge amount of them, they still seemed to form a dense enough cluster that it would take a good half hour to scour them all.

The curious shop itself declared itself to be the property of Davius Sleet, and that old wonders and undiscovered antiques were inside. There was a window displaying an old but highly decorated harp and some odds and ends of writing equipment that declared itself famous for having been the property of someone whose name clearly meant something in this area. They were highlighted with enough red and black curtains and coverings that it was hard to see anything else inside.

The door was well oiled, though the windows in it seemed diffuse as if to force someone to enter rather than see what was available from the outside.

When the door was opened, a tiny silver bell hung above the door was gently triggered, followed by a larger brass clanger. The smell of musk and metal and dust was almost overwhelming after the fresh air outside. The shop was definitely underlit, with candles strategically places as if to highlight some weapons and other odd things on the walls around, and make looking around require walking the array of shelving stacks and wall mounted shelving. There was some form of desktop along one wall to the right, in line with the window out front. There was stacks of boxes all over the counter. From somewhere, a male happy voice called out, "Hello there! Welcome to the realm of times past!"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:49, Sun 08 Jan 2017.

Nym, naturally, seems intent on seeing as much as physically possible even as she walks past it in the course of following Meri toward her shop of choice. Though she doesn't have as many eyes as Many she still manages to take in a fair bit, while her large bovine nostrils take in the various scents the area has to offer.

When they reach the shop she eyes the window displays with further curiosity, then follows Meri inside and turns her attention to the various visible wares. At the call from further within, she looks up and calls back in a similarly happy voice.

"Hello! Your shop has lots of things...and I saw the sign on the outside siad it belonged to someone called Davius Sleet. Is that you? Hello! I'm Nym, short for Nymmarkiowunduzziweldi."

Meri looked around the interior of the shop as she entered, the sound of the bell causing Timur to look up for the source of the noise with a curious look.

As the man behind the counter spoke up, she looked towards him with a nod, before continuing to peer around at the displayed items, clearly leaving the conversation to Nym for the time being.


OOC: Just browsing for now :)
Anything here look particularly interesting?

Meri, you can't actually see the owner of the voice yet, but I'm about to correct that, and he is indeed behind the counter, so that's ok :p

And yes indeed, many interesting things!


"Why hello Nym... Marcus... Wendy?... NYM! Hello there indeed. Please give me a moment..."

The voice sounded as if it was coming from somewhere behind the long, large counter, and indeed it was. Soon a small bald spot, then a large sprouting of jet black side hair, followed by a brittling greying beard with some form of jolly male face beneath was visible. The emerging figure did not infact move much further above the counter to start with, and a hand waved above head height. It felt as if the man was standing in some shallow pit behind his counter.

He then made some odd movements, and got higher and higher above the counter until he vaulted on top of it and sat down. He seemed far shorter in stature than a normal man, more like a large halfling. Except his features did seem human rather than dwarvish of halfling.

"Well hello there with my own eyes now," he said, though he scrambled around behind him for a pair of ornate glasses that he pushed in to his face, nodding to himself afterwards. "Indeed, Darius by first name, but more Sleet in nature." He smiled as if he had said something that made both sense and humourous sense, then his face fell. "You see, Darious sounds too much like 'devious', so I thought if I could maybe say the 'Sleet' part fast enough it sounds like fleet, or sleak, or something. Not sure..."

The man then composed himself and clapped his hands, looking to Meri with puzzlement as the artificer moved on, and so concentrated fully on Nym. "Still, you did not come in for me nor my 'wit', I daresay! You came in for my curiosities, and my great knowledge about my little curiosities. Oh yes, I know each and ever one very well. Hah, why do you know Erger the Bold? Why, I have have three of his items here in this very shop. People have told me eight tales for eight items, but I'm sure that three are true. Hah!"

He happily beamed.

Many seemed to share Meri's excitement at looking around rather than talking, and almost immediately skitterd towards some shelves. However, despite Meri showing it was ok to go ahead, Many seemed to remember his lessons on politeness very well. He skidded to a halt, rushed back to near Nym, and looked to the now surprised man with the widest eyes possible.

"Cahn ah look aht all of thah coo-ree-oh-sit-ties. Please-seh." A few of Many's eyestaks briefly looked to each other then Nym as if to work out if he'd said it all correctly.

"Why... umm... OF COURSE!" said the man, rallying. Many rushed away with a happy 'yay' deep in to some corner of the place.

"So," he said looking back to Nym, "presumably you and your...umm...friend?... are mages of some sort? Whatever can I help you find? Some trinket of Trilby the Terrible's, perhaps?"


Meanwhile, Meri got a chance to look at the initial items and layout. Oddly, at the very top of the walls, hung with candles right beside them, were three things that seemed trange to highlight. One was a simple white sword, blunted against use, with a plain black wrapped hilt. However, Meri's senses tingled that there was some residual magic to the blade. Further along were the shiniest manacles she had ever seen, oddly new and polished for such a mundane item otherwise. And the third was a tiny shelf upon which sat a small ornate bottle with some rich red-purple liquid inside. The top seemed to be fashioned like a perfume mister.

Feel free to roll knowledge checks against those if you wish. The manacles would be Thievery, and the other two Arcana.

Visible otherwise on the first shelves were what made the other three items stand out. In the dimmer light, each item had a small scrap of paper with a price, immaculately written and accented in black ink. Below that, in the tiniest of handwriting, and equally stylised and neat sentence or two. While it might give a name for the item, the rest of the description seemed designed to beguile not to directly sell - as if to force someone to ask questions, or become attached to the story rather than the item itself.

The odds and ends were all so strange. There were materials for writing and taking rubbings and iron filings and small medical stones and neat small books on animals. Yet they rubbed shoulders with single tarnished buttons and what appeared to be the occasional thief's lockpick or a map case.

Meri did get drawn to some lensed items. Near an antiquated bullseye lantern was somehow an associated red lense, perhaps made of ruby. And round the corner was a telescope that felt faintly of broken magic. There front lens was cracked, but there were still surely several lenses and mechanisms inside that were in tact, and the eyepiece seemed fine.

One of the odder things was a small glass case, in which were a set of large worms moving around a small home. They illuminated their own area, and showed themselves to be some species of glow-worm. And oddly, they sat besides what seemed to be some gambling dice, as if the most obvious bedfellows in the world.



In general, if you two could give me both an Insight and Streetwise roll, that would be cool. Otherwise, you can speak to the man, look around for other things, or poke around at some of the things I've already mentioned.

I'll probably post a full inventory of interesting stuff next turn along with costs.

Nym, don't forget you have that odd puzzle box. This might be the sort of person to show odd things to. If that also helps you realise the power of your cloak, then all the better.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:18, Tue 10 Jan 2017.

Something missing there?

Meri paused in her looking around, moving close enough to squint at a few items that seemed to have grabbed her interest, particularly the lenses, the sword and the potion bottle.

Timur was still sitting in her backpack, holding onto her staff with both hands while peering around the shop and then turning his attention on the strange owner, tilting his head to one side and studying him with a curious look.


OOC: Insight check: 16 (7 + 9)
Streetwise check: 8 (4 + 2 + 2) - Ick!  Meri has no time for the wising of streets!
And Arcana to identify any magic on the sword and the potion, also kind of intrigued by the red lens and telescope: 30 (16 + 14)

Oops, added the finish to that, and I'll resolve your rolls later on today once I have Nym's too. I guess Meri was too busy avoiding people in towns and cities to actually get a real feel for them, beyond the needs of thievery :)

Nym seems to feed off Darius's jolity and eagerness to speak, and gives Many a smile followed by a giggle as he asks and is then given permission to look around.

"Well, I've never heard of those people you mentioned." she says. "But I'm not from around here. We walked here from, er...the place where we came from. My friend is Meri. And my other friend is Many. Um. Meri is the half-elf. Many is the beholder. But he's only small. He'll grow up one day and learn how to do lots of fun things to make friends with people!"

She looks around at the assortment of oddities that surround her, then back to Darius.

"You have so many fun-looking things here!" she says. "Well, I mean, they don't all look fun. Some of them look kind of boring. But they're probably fun to certain people. Or maybe they're all fun and they just don't look it. Some things don't look fun, until you try them and find out that they are. Some of the things Meri makes don't look very fun, but they do all sorts of lovely magical things. She makes magical items. She's really good at it. I'm not really very interested in that sort of thing. I mean, putting magic into things like that. I can just...do magic..."

To demonstrate, she holds up her forefinger and a tiny golden humanoid figure appears just above the tip, does a silly little dance, then silently claps its hands above its head and disappears in a shower of tiny sparks, which change colour as they fall and fade away.

"I don't see any need to start putting it inside things - I'd rather it was free to just fly around in the world. But my magic's different to Meri's. And I don't think I'm really any good at making things to put it in anyway."

I had forgotten about the puzzle box but now you mention it I will see if I can get Nym to ask about it. But for now I think that little wall of text will do. She can bring it up later. After all, if I'd forgotten about it, I really don't know if she would have remembered ;).

Oh yeah...and you asked for some rolls...okay then. Insight first...woo, crit :D. That will be an enormous result of 32 :O.
As for the Streetwise...hmm, 20, which is actually a one-point-above-average result for me in that area :D.

When I read the latest GM post here, having just come from posting in my own game, I couldn't help but notice a certain amount of similarities between what's going on in both our games at the moment, with the PCs meeting a friendly human(ish?) character who's eager to show them a bunch of random-looking items that may or may not be junk :D.

We have indeed reached some sort of odd synchronicity, haven't we :)

Unnoticed by the two inside, Farren and the commander had apparently stopped outside. Farren had started to come in, but perhaps realising the small size of the shop, had decided to avoid any prolonged attention. That had forced the commander to debate about how bets to 'guard' the guests of the village, and chose to stand outside.

Meanwhile inside, Davius laughs at Nym's comments and antics and hops down from the counter, proving his lack of stature. He gives an appraising look to Meri regarding her artificer status, but leaves her alone for now to pick something out for Nym. "Indeed, some may look quite ordinary, but the story's the thing. There's one thing you can't put in to or take out of an item, and that's time. Time and its story!"

He dusts off what looks at first to just be an odd tarnished funnel. However, he brushes parts of it meticulously to show the odd scratches, It is hard to see what they could be, but Davius declares then to be initials. "EB!" he says happily, "Erger the Bold! This is one of the three items, you see." The little man put the small end of the funnel his ear and mimed putting the other end to a wall or door. "Erger spend three days and nights in the bedchamber of one of the Countesses of Drumtoll, and only one of those nights was pleasant, I am sure. He is said to have stood waiting the departure of the Count, for he was actually stealing the Five-eyed Goat he is famous for. And this is the very listening cone he used to do it! A servant eventually found him when the count left, and due to his fame let him escape. He gave this very cone to that servant, and the tale and the servant's small part in it has been handed down generation to generation ever since! Perhaps no use to so many people, but what is function compared to touching that history!"

The man nodded happily, and offered the item to Nym to inspect.

[Private to Nym: Nym most likely heard Gurt earlier talking about how the village, in general, is more expensive than cities owing to the lack of constant trade. More 'exotic' items for adventuring and truly exotic items that would seem mundane in a city tend to be rarer and so cost more, ironically priced only to catch the eyes of travelers who perhaps would know the expense. Gurt had highlighted a shop - most likely this one now you've seen it - where any old 'rubbish' was at least twice the price of what it was worth.

Still, Davius himself seems completely open and honest and genuine in his happiness. It would appear he really does put a great deal of stock in the value of the history of the item, even if that history is very local and would not be of the same value to a customer. That means that you could try to batter down the price, but it may at best offend but at worst maybe dispirit him to have that value diminished. However, that would mean that most likely anything you have, if there is a good story or history attached - would be of far more value than the item is usually worth.

Ie: Everything here may be overpriced, but you can always trade/sell off some of your own items at an overpriced way to balance it out. Just be sure to tell, or invent, the history. For example the 100gp gemstones are from the portal dungeon and helped power wraiths! They aren't magical nor worth more than 100gp except perhaps to him, if you gave him a vivid account of the story. That sort of thing. That's basically the secret of this shop, and the village really. Cities are at cost to the builder, and you can get more things, but there will be a time factor. Villages will have limitations and quirks, and this is Blackwood's. You need to find ways to reduce the costs or increase the value of your money first. The curio shop is a good place for the second one especially :)]


Meri meanwhile noted that the three items in light were not only high enough to be seen, but well out of the way. They were possibly the most valuable things on the shop, pie-in-the-sky possessions for most of his customers. That meant that the liquid in the bottle was very likely to be genuinely magical or very rare, most likely magical given its reasonably plain container. Propably some sort of magical perfume perhaps - that suggested it would have some form of attraction or domination or other charm effect. The sword had been blunted, and was no use as a weapon, and most likely had its enchantment broken if it had ended up here rather than passed on or sold. Still, the magic feeling from it was clear, and she could very likely use its residual magic, though unlikely any of the actual pieces of it - elsewhere. [Private to Meri: The sword was be a 1000gp magic item component for some big magic item, or you could break it down in to 200gp worth of residuum that can be used as components for anything - ritual, alchemy, or potion. ]

The telescope most likely had its major magical effect - if any - in the main lens, and with it broken that effect and sadly the magic from it was gone. Still, the remaining parts - as with many magical items - were of very good quality, and rather than use the lenses to magnify something far away, they could be made to focus the eyes to something smaller. They would definitely be good for a set of lenses to experiment upon for Many. Or for anything else.

The red lens seemed to not be magical, but well made. Most likely a low grade of ruby polished very well, or some arcane process to get the red glass otherwise. Either way, the main effect of the lens would be to make torchlight dimmer - very good for a thief's lantern, where the light could be hooded. Especially to someone of Meri's eyesight, it could allow perfectly adequate illumination when needed that would be less noticeable. And perhaps something like this lens that naturally filtered light would be a good basic for a lens for Many.

[Private to Meri: Timur found that the man seemed to be very taken with telling stories, and seemed perfectly genuine in his enthusiasm, sharing the cone with Nym apparently more to do with sharing the joy rather than trying to make the sale. This would tie in with the fact that the price had been displayed so prominently, and the function had been only hinted at. Instead, a more shrewd person would have fully sold the function and history, then made someone ask about the price.]

Meri examined the sword for a moment longer, but then turned away from it, apparently choosing to inspect the telescope and the red lens closer.
She seemed to be thinking something over, quietly muttering some complex arcane or alchemical formula under her breath as she eyed the items.


OOC: Does the sword, the telescope and the red lens have prices listed for them?

On Meri's back, Timur paused to tuck the staff he was holding between the straps of her backpack, securing it in place and then sliding down it to land on the ground.
From there, he ambled over to where Nym was standing, looking up at the shopkeeper as he explained the listening cone.

Nym takes the horn and looks at it, turning it over in her hands a few times, but for the moment seems more interested in Davius than in his wares.

"Wow, you know the names of lots of people!" she says. "I mean, I've never heard of any of them, but I suppose they're famous here, right? I suppose that means it might be difficult to get people to buy them...I mean, people who have travelled here from a long way away, like we have, because they don't really know about the history. But I suppose there are some people who like to travel around and learn everything about everything, especially history..."

She seems to realise that she isn't really going anywhere and redirects herself.

"I like things that are fun!" she says. "Like this..."

She hands the horn back to Davius and reaches into her robes, her long-fingered hand disappearing into an inside pocket and coming out with the pieces of the dwarven puzzle box she'd solved during the boat ride.

"See?" she says, holding them out. "It was a little...box, thing, and it had a ring inside it with a message. I suppose someone had got it for that person, but...well, they didn't manage to ever give it to them. I wonder if that person is still out there somewhere. Who was it, I can't remember if there was a name..."

She reaches into the same pocket and pulls out the ring.

I can't entirely remember where we got this...I think it was in the Phystal's boat along with anything else he'd pinched off people he'd killed, right? And I can't quite remember what the ring said although I seem to recall it was a romantically-inclined message, possibly implying the ring was an engagement ring or something?
Oh, and the pocket Nym got that stuff from was the pocket of her robes, not the new cloak - that's currently only holding the Druidy stuff we got when I got the cloak (so, the religious stuff and the Fey statuette, the latter of which I had thought would have a great story for Davius but which it would seem rude to try and sell so soon after getting it, especially since it was a gift from a friend). So no dimensional realistions just yet ;).

The box and ring was indeed something that was at the bottom of the Phystal's boat, and it opened when you lined up the figures to all be bent on one kneee - so it might have been an engagement ring. :)

Meri, the sword (nor the other two items high on the wall) has no price listed. The red lens is 30gp (and bares the legend 'This little thing protected this whole village!'), and the telescope is priced 20gp (and bares the legend 'A twinkle on the sea rescued me').


"Oh," said the man, his face falling a little at the comment about his local history perhaps not being as widely known as he expected. Still, he perked up at the comments regarding historians. His face then fell when Nym showed him the pieces of the spherical container that she had solved.

"Oh," he said again, but it seemed to be in recognition. "How did you get this? I exchanged this a few days ago with some guard or adventurer, what was his name, blast it. He took a fancy to the story of it. Or I think rather had hoped to turn the story of it in to a happier ending. What was his name, a reminder, a reminder... exachange, yes, what did he leave..."

Davius rushed off to one of the shelves, looking left and right on it and picked up some small polished balls of baser metals, each a different colour. He looked more to the tag, and then muttered, "oh, yes, of course!"

As he came back towards Nym, he seemed to notice what Meri was looking at, and then notice Timur underfoot. "Oh, hello little man! What's your story?" he asked, then seemed to recall he was in the middle of two different things. He put the balls on the counter, where they started to roll away, and meanwhile leaped up and dangled over the counter to get something behind it. He fell back to the ground on the other side with a tangle of straps in his hand.

He walked over to Meri, and showed her some sort of expanded goggles woith various small arms, with a broken red lens and straps. "Here, if you are looking at the red lens, you should look at this too. Too broken really to sell, and it's not got the interesting story. But if you wouls like the lens, I can throw the rest in for free, since your friend said you were a crafter. Anyway, excuse me!"

He then walked back to Nym. "Now, where were we?"

Meri looked surprised at the strange object that had been handed to her, turning to look towards Davius with a puzzled look, but then studying the goggles with a more interested look and a glance at the red lens.
She turned to face Davius, but seeing he was busy with Nym decided to wait for now and study the item more closely.


OOC: Intriguing...  :)

[Private to The Altweaver: These wouldn't be the Gadgeteer's Goggles would they?  Albeit in an apparently broken state... :)]
This message was last edited by the player at 01:32, Thu 12 Jan 2017.

In response to Davius' question, Timur scratched his head for a moment with a faint metallic noise, as if thinking.
Then he tapped on his chest and pointed towards Meri, but then realised that Davius seemed to have been distracted by other things, glanced up at Nym, then at Meri, before turning his attention back to Davius, apparently content to listen to whatever he was going to say.

Nym seems to find Davius's antics both amusing and interesting and waits while he goes to fetch the items. When he returns she points at the metallic spheres he'd apparently been about to show her.

"Shiny!" she says. "What are they? Oh, and this is Timur, by the way. Meri made him. He's her friend. Hey, Timmy, you want to come up here where you can see better?"

She reaches downward with her free hand to see if Timur wants to be lifted up to a better vantage point.

Nym will put Timur either on her shoulder (I think Ee-Ee is still sat on one, actually - I keep forgetting about him) or on a nearby shelf or other such surface, whichever he seems to have a preference for. Unless he seems like he doesn't want to be picked up at all. in which case Nym will just leave him to it (and won't be offended by a refusal - this is Nym, after all ;)).

Timur peered up at Nym, then moved towards her hand, allowing himself to be picked up before turning his attention back to Davius...

Davius spins on his feet again as he hears Timur's name, and bends down. "Hello again, little man. A construct, you say? Well you both look it and don't, you seem so alive! Well, you can look and touch as long as you don't break anything and ask me about everything." He then looked quickly to Nym. "Does he talk?" He looked back  down to Timur. "Can you talk?" He said it with a hopeful air.

Davius absentmindedly goes back to the balls while awaiting Timur's responses to himself and Nym, laughing as Timur becomes taller than Davius from his new vantage point.

To Nym, he says, "Oh, yes, the balls. Not really much to them, I suppose. I think he said he used them to tell the difference in liquids and the temperatures of fires, or some such thing? They were bouyed differently depending upon the liquid, and heated and expanded differently depending upon the temperature. I think there was a hoop somewhere to test them..."

Davius waved the though away. "I suppose it was more the story. You see, that little puzzle sphere there came from a young maiden, and it had belonged to her mother. And the story there was that before she had been married, she had actually been in love with some dwarf of Shai, or Dwarfton, or some such. And she - the mother I mean with all this, not the maiden - had found some small gems of the heartstone of the dwarf's family, and had managed to petition a famed dwarf practitioner to create both the ring and the bauble around it. But by the time she made this perfect gift, her dwarf suitor had died in some tragic battle or war or some such. Terrible business. A sad lesson on delaying love. Although I suppose the daughter would not have been alive if things had worked out differently, so who is to say!"

He then gestured vaguely back to the balls. "Sorry, so the adventurer who traded reminded me of the sphere with his own items he was willing to part with. I suppose the whole story was the thing, him looking for a ring or some such thing for his own love. She was going to be off on a caravan for a week down south guarding, and he was staying here to look in to the disappearances before meeting back up. I did tel him not to wait, after all, that's the story of the sphere, but, well..."

He then looked to Nym. "Wait, so how did you end up with the sphere?"

"Oh, I found it in a boat." she says, then apparently excited at having both an interesting story to tell and an interested audience waiting to hear it, starts talking and an ever-increasing rate. "There were some not-very-nice elves in the forest who were doing bad things. We were trying to help Celindara...she's the hamm-da-dry-dad who protects the forest. She's sort of like a tree. Well, I mean, she isn't. She walks and everything. But she looks like she's sort of got some tree stuff. And she's bonded with a tree because that's what she does. There used to be lots of them but now she's the only one left because of the Blight. That was the bad thing I mentioned. It was this icky black stuff made by...demon-things. Of some kind. It was their...um...leavings. But it was all horrible and it made the forest go all horrible. And there used to be a thing called a Pact, which I think was between the forest and this village and a load of elf families, but when the Blight came it all went a bit wrong and some of the elf families got, sort of, corrupted, or something, I think. And that was what this elf was like - Celindara said he was called the Phystal. I don't know if that was his actual name or some kind of title. I don't know if it was a word that actually meant something. Anyway, he wasn't very nice but when he was gone we found his boat and it had lots of things in it, like this little puzzle-thing and the ring inside it. And there was some food and other stuff...it had belonged to people the Phystal had killed - see, I told you he wasn't very nice. But he's gone now, and the Blight is gone. We helped Celindara, and lots of animals from the forest came and helped too - there were wolves and big black kitties and great big huge giant...tree...people...things...that looked like different animals. And they all helped and we went and stopped the Blight - there was this altar thing in the middle that used to belong to Melora, you know, the goddess? But it was all black and icky-looking because of the Blight but Celindara did her magic on it and it went all clean and them a huuuuuge great big tree grew up underneath us, but it was a nice tree and it carried us up rather than sticking branches through us or anything. And then we found a really old dead, um, druidy-looking-person, and they had some things on them which Celindara gave us. She's very nice. Maybe there's lots of other interesting things hidden in the forest that she can find for you. Maybe you can be friends!"

She says this last part with a smile and a nod of certainty, having evidently reached the end of her most recent verbal deluge.

Hope I didn't manage to completely smother poor Davius in words there ;). And that was the short version of what happened :D.

Meri moved a little closer as Nym was explaining their adventures in the forest.

She looked as though she had intended to ask Davius about something, and was waiting for the right moment to jump into the conversation.
Although by the time Nym had finished, she seemed content to just hold back with a wry smirk, as if waiting for him to recover from the barrage of words he had just been bombarded with...


OOC: Will see how he reacts to all that :)  hehe

Lol, I think I'm going to need Nym to roll a Bluff roll there, to see if she's believed or not :D As I said, Bluff is the ability to be believed as far as I'm concerned, whether you are lying or not!

Lol okay...yep, looks good - 22 :).

Ooh, just one below the hard DC you might suspect you would need... luckily for you, to tell the truth you get a 'truth bonus' of the person's wisdom / insight bonus if they are disposed to trying to see if you are telling the truth, so that's good :)

Davius's eyes widen a little as Nym continues, as he clearly tries to work out if Nym is telling the truth or not. Nym is speaking fast enough that perhaps he could be forgiven for not understanding what might be current events and what might be retelling of the hamadryad's history. Although clearly the fact that Nym was so outlandish, and with the strange beholder and homunculus the two people were clearly very magical.

Luckily, Many chose that moment to make a re-appearance. He sheepishly wobbled from behind some shelving unit, slightly encumbered. Each of his eyestalks was precariously wrapped around an item, except for his most right hand eyestalk that seemed to be jammed in to a small bullseye lantern (thankfully a store item and not a lit item). It caused him to wobble as he tried to extracate himself from its weight, whilst not actually let it smash on to the ground. His tongue was wrapped around some form of tongs, and on the other side of his mouth protruding from his bottom lip was a tiny penny whistle poking upwards. The whistle kept resting near his eye, and he kept trying to move his lip to get it out of poking him.

Davius gave him a long look, as if trying to assimilate what he saw while his brainpower was still trying to decode what Nym had said. His brain finally seemed to 'click' and he beamed, rushing over to help Many. Clearly he was foolish enough, by his easy demeanor, in allowing children in to the shop normally. Although usually not ones with so many eyes and so little hands.

Many slowly let some of the less breakable items in his eyestalks fall to the ground with too loud 'climks' and 'thumps', and with a few 'pwwwwp', 'pwwwp' noises, the penny whistle flopped forwards and out of his mouth with a musical 'tink'.

"Soh-wee," said Many miserably, his pronunciation hindered by the tongs still wrapped around his tongue.

"Hah, worry not, the story is always so much more fascinating than the item, don't apologise for taking an interest in things. I wouldn't have a shop otherwise!" He gentle extracted the tongs, which seemed rather old and blackened, gently placing them on a shelf where he also placed the three spheres. "For example, those tongs are about three hundred years old. Imagine that! Possibly still useful, but such a connection to the past! Why, Albert Findleson's grandfather himself was given those by the Earl of Drumtoll. The man had spotted one of the children playing to close to the fire, and dislodging a coal that had gone right for the curtains, fanciful, fey, light and prone to burst in to flames in seconds. The quick thinking man picked up the coal and threw it back in to the fire. Of course, it looked like the grandfather had been the one to dislodge the coal. The earl had apparently turned around with a look like thunder, which is also an odd phrase to me but there you go, and the child had instantly blamed the grandfather. Grandfather Findleson -  or was it just Findle then? - had apparently just stood silently, with his burned hand. The earl grabbed the tongs that the man hadn't noticed in his haste, and gave them to the grandfather. Said he should take them as a parting gift, because clearly he wasn't observant enough to be a housekeeper anymore. Then said 'so instead, maybe as the head of the household staff my child will have a little more respect for your loyalty and worth'. Apparently the earl had seen everything after all, and as quick as that - you know, once the grandfather had parted to get his hand looked at - he was elevated! Nice story, I think?"

As Davius had spoken, he had carefully extracted the lantern from Many's eyestalk, with the beholder giving brave little noises while his lip wobbled. Still, it came away without harm, and a little relieved 'yay' was heard. Davius was clearly about to launch in to another story, but clearly he recalled something. However, it seemed to be something he;'d said to Meri, still not yet Nym's bombshells.

"Oh, yes, the red lenses! Hah, there's the real story here, I suppose, not this lantern." He walks across to Meri, and Many follows him, clearly appreciative of not being yelled at, and the stories. "So, you see, about eighty or ninety years ago, back when there was more through traffic to Thirdgate from ol' Stonebridge, so Blackwood Village had less actual guards stationed around, bandits started preying on the village. Just picking off people on the edges, little raids and robberies and hold ups. Occasioanlly taking a village-bound wagon or small convoy too. Night was the worst, the more patrols went out to try and find them and stop them, the more the bandits would pick off the guards cause they could see them coming a mile off, the light, you see? And they were stretched thin anyway, so having injured guards and even the occasional death was just horrible, as you can imagine. Then along comes these little red beauties. Really well crafted, dwarf ruby I think. Guards could move around, shuttling people between places of an evening without being seen, or could search around for bandit sign without being as obvious. And they hung a few in the trees, sheltered right, so bandits didn't realise they were stepping in to light until they were too close, and in to our snipers. Turned thing around, got the village from being a place where the locals cowered and the travelers never stayed to running right again! So, you know, they sort of saved the village? Don't you think? Anyway, they sort of fell out of use and I think just got stolen or sold on or traded away as the guards became a bigger force needing money. Occasionally one will turn up, sometimes used by a thief or adventurer, or like that one in a pair of protective goggles from Harry. She used then to protect her eyes from the glow of her work, accidentally broke one, and when I didn't have a replacement just decided to find something else and sold them on instead. Goggles weren't much to me, of course, but I recognized the red lenses. She didn't even care! Can you imagine!"

Davius gave a shy smile, clearly hoping Meri enjoyed the story and saw the worth in the item. He then quickly went back to make sure all the items Many had dislodged were properly set back on their shelves and had the tickets in the right place. Occasionall he would then swap the cards around, with a 'oh, it was the whistle the cow ate', but otherwise he seemed happy to summarise some of the stories to Many. Many, for his part, nodded and made little 'uh-huh, uh-huh' sounds, occasionally looking across to Nym and Meri and beaming.

Eventually, Davius came back across to Nym. His brain still seemed to be processing what she had said, and perhaps editing out all the bits that seemed scary or fantastical. "Sorry, forgot about the item for a second there," he said. "Sad busniess, sad business. I think his ... well, I think she's still off Thirdgate way just now. I can take it back, if you like, and I can give you a finder's fee. I suppose the 50 gold that I originally had it on offer for. When she gets back, I can seeif she wants to take it away, and if not if she doesn't mind me selling it on to someone else who might have better luck with it. Third time being the charm, and all that?"

Davius then looked to Nym, clearly wanting to ask something. Eventually, he said, "the, the wi... i mean, the dryad. Hamadryad. She's... real? And... I mean... would she ever come to the village, do you think? I mean... come here, to the shop?"

You might find he's never going to quite process the whole cult of blight war. And the fey killing people might be scary. Still, knowing the scary reports in the woods might be done with, and the dryad being happy, those seem like things that might stick :D
This message was last edited by the player at 15:18, Sun 15 Jan 2017.

"Last I saw of her, she was talking with the Elders, so she's probably around here just now" remarked Meri offhandedly while studying the broken lens in the goggles again and glancing towards the red one on the shelf as if mentally calculating whether it could serve as a replacement or not.

She appeared to anyone who had been watching her to be deliberately pretending not to have noticed Many's little balancing act with some of the shop items, although a hint of a smirk had crossed her face then suggesting she found it more amusing than anything else.

"So who's Harry?" she asked, looking up from tinkering with the goggles.  "And does that telescope have a story too?"
She gestured at the shelf behind her to indicate what she meant.

Minor note - There's no reason for Davius to be aware of Ryn's existence unless he was looking out of the window before we arrived or something - she's been in the air since we were still walking toward the village ;).

Nym grins and giggles at Many's antics, and listens with interest to the story about the red, bandit-catching lights.

"Red light is invisible?" she asks confused. "Wow, I didn't know that. I thought it would just look like, um...well, a red light. So they'd still see it from a distance. Maybe they were just silly..."

At Davius's questions about Celindara she nods fervently along with Meri's explanation.

"She came with us from her forest to talk to the people in charge here." she says. "She's with them now in the, um, was it the Great Hall? Some important-sounding building like that. Maybe you'll be able to say hello to her later. I don't know whether she might like it inside here - it might be a bit too, sort of...enclosed, and not at all like a forest. But I'm sure she wouldn't mind meeting you outside. And maybe people have dropped all kinds of random things in her forest that she might be able to tell you about!"

@Meri: The red lens is from the goggles, and is the good eye, the other eyes lens is cracked. Obviously you can use the telescope bits in the free goggles instead to replace the two eyes, and use the good red lens and the free cracked lens pieces to make... something...

@Nym: Will amend for Ryn, I got confused her with Ee-Ee being on Nym's other shoulder.

Davius's eyes got wide again when it was confirmed that Celindara was actually in the village. "Here? Speaking to the elders? Oh my! That... I can't recall the last time that happened. Well, I can't recall really believing it had happened, but there were tales she was seen ... well, a few generations ago! Here? Oh my!" He muttered the phrase a couple more times in wonder as he looked through the windows.

Davius looked to Nym regarding the light, as if happy to distract himself. "Well, not invisible, but filtering it through the red lenses makes it illuminate a far smaller area dimly, so the light doesn't spill out further than the buildings or woods the guards were moving behind. I mean you'd still see the light in the distance if you could look directly for it... It just meant they could set up trap areas because the light wasn't shining through leaves and branches. I think?" Davius had perhaps more heard the stories rather than seen them in practise, despite having both parts available to him now.

"Harry is Harriet Northe, she's... well, I suppose she's a blacksmith of sorts? Ish? She has a small place across the market where she repairs items with magic. Her husband can do the rituals of mending on normal items, and he is an apolsterer by trade otherwise. She works more with metals and such like, but she uses various wands and staves of magic to... well, to melt and shape metal really. Hence the goggles, it gets quite...bright... at times."

She's a welder! But, you know, in a D&D way :)

He then beamed at the telescope. "Now, that one has a more personal story. It was my grandfather's. Well no, my grandfather's brother. On my mother's side. My granduncle? He was a mapper, well, actually, my grandaunt was the mapper, the granduncle was more the explorer type. It's how they met. Anyway, so he had gone to pre-explore the small chain of islands off the south coast of the Southern Cities, I think off Peros if I recall correctly? Anyway, so it was just a smaller ship not their usual boat and crew. And some small storm had caught him by surprise and stranded him on the coast. Well, I mean the small islands are unexplored for a reason, they aren't known for habitation and no one really sails there, it's off the normal shipping route. Still, one day when he was looking to the horizon with that telescope he'd seen some trading ship. But so far away, too far for the measures he had to try and attract attention, so he had said. However, then the ship actually sailed close! It turned out that sun had just managed to hit my granduncle's telescope, and twinkled. It was enough to catch the eye of the watchman, and because the islands positions were not well known, and not supposed to be inhabited anyway, a twinkle was enough to draw the ship over until my granduncle could actually signal. Isn't that amazing luck? He always said Pelor or Avandra was looking out for him that day, he was a funny man. From what I recall? I suppose I've more got my mother's stories in my head than remembering too much about him, really." He looked to the telescope. "It was supposed to be more than a telescope, but I never could fiture out how, and then it broke, and really things are just things. The story is the real treasure, and what's the use of it being locked away with me rather than being passed on. So please, take it if it is of use to you. Twenty gold pieces if I remember correctly!"


I'll just start listing what's available from a shop point of view (not an exhaustive list, these are just items that are actually in the builder, plus the telescope and three spheres, which aren't).


Block, tackle, winch 15gp
Tongs 2gp
Ruby lens 30gp
Telescope 20gp
Rubbing kit 2gp
Bull's eye lantern 15gp
Listening cone 10gp
Glass cutter 40gp
Surgeon's tools 40gp
Sage kit 150gp
Jar of gloworms 20gp
Iron filings and lodestone 10gp
Inquisitive kit 80gp
Thieves tools 50gp
Gamble cheats (both dice or cards) 50gp
Gambler's gear (multiple sets) 2gp
Map case 5gp
Three spheres 50gp

Love philter ???gp
adamant manacles ???gp
White sword ???gp