Korym blinks rapidly to clear his eyes, to confirm what he thinks he sees.

"Look!" he calls to the group. "The prisoner, he has slipped his bonds, and is climbing the cliff face."

The elf points at the man, "There is help waiting at the top of the cliff...we are scouts sent by Governor Nighthll of Greenest. We will try to get a rope to you...if you whisper a reply, I will hear you through my magic."

"Hope...can you climb toward him with a rope?"

---

Cast Message to speak to prisoner. Range is 120 ft.

Hope looks as Korym whispers, and curses under her breath. “He must be desperate….in his shape and this light, it’ll be damn near impossible on his own. He gets caught, they’ll kill him as an example.” She looks at the others. “We help him, there’s a chance they’ll know someone’s been here.”

She pauses for a brief moment, then sighs, grasping a rope, she sneaks to where he is and ties it off, as quiet as the shadows themselves, the group barely sees her - and they know where she is. She reaches above him and ties the rope off to a rock, then looks over. “C’mon” She muttered as she began lowering herself to help the man.

---

<OOC:  'Hope' rolled 18 using 1d20+2.  Athletics check.
'Hope' rolled 24 using 1d20+7.  Stealth roll.

…..so unusual, this dice roller likes me being sneaky!

Fina perks up at Korym's news.  "What?  Where?" she says, squinting her eyes against the darkness.  As Hope takes off, though, she finally allows herself a smile.  "Go get 'im, Hope!" she whispers excitedly, even though her friend has already vanished.

At least they might be able to save someone today.

As hope lowers herself down the cliff-face, the occasional loose rock slides out from underfoot but never seems to make a noise as it falls, or is such a light noise it doesn't echo across the cliff.

Eventually she makes her way down to the man, who despite some bruising and dried blood, doesn't seem too out of sorts, for a man recently beaten and then tied to cross for hours.

As hope literally drops in on him, he is so startled that he almost looses his grip on the rock-face, but in the end manages to stay where he is.

He is a lean middle aged half-elven man, with a thin mustache that trails into a thin goatee. He has a black eye, and several scabbed over cuts on his face and body; but when he sees Hope, he adjusts himself from the near fall and smiles. "Well hello there, fancy meeting someone like you here.

You don't look like a cultist, so I must ask, do you come here often?

If so I must say, I myself am not a fan of the service, I would instead recommend another venue, for whatever it is you are here for."

Hope was surprised at the upbeat attitude of the half elf, and rolled her eyes at his attempt at humor. She smiled. "Yeah....I always sneak around at the dead of night on tbe side of a cliff. Walking a path can be so boring. Now, if you can be bothered, how about we get out if here, then we can complain about the service."

She turns and starts back up the hill, muttering something about men.

Korym watches Hope descend the cliff, and then intercept the man climbing up.

"She's done it, Oraphina! She's got the rope to him, and she is climbing back up, and he is following her.

Perhaps, he will be able to provide some information to the Governor on what is going on in the caves?"

Once the man stands firmly atop the mesa, he dusts himself off, and looks around. "I must say, I do appreciate the rescue, but where are the others? I know someone sent me a message magically, but until you showed up I thought it was all in my imagination." He says looking around for the rest of the group.

Once he sees Hope has helped the former prisoner to the top of the mesa, Korym stands and moves to the outside edge of the mesa. He concentrates for a moment and small globe appears on the ground, radiating dim light.

"Over, here everyone...this light shouldn't alert them. But at least we will be able to see each other."

---

Minor conjuration - object radiates dim light to 5 feet.

"Oh, thank heavens," said Fina, her smile nearly visible even in the darkness.  "Hope's okay, right?  The guy's okay?  Nobody saw them?"  She made her way over to the light, preparing herself to welcome the visitor.

"Stay still..." Grune said as he began a stunted medical examination of the man. As the dwarf attended to the humanoid, giving him a physical in almost complete darkness and he was thankful that smile was concealed by shadow.

His cold calloused hands operated almost on autopilot as he tapped tender spots, tectonic nexuses of energy that helped Grune, from the perspective of Dwarven medicine understand the humanoid's overall health.

Thankful that the group could not stand by its previous resolution to do nothing and return to the town. Grune's humor returned as he said to the humanoid, "You need more iron in your diet."

Hope quietly followed the man over without a word. As they fanned over him, she rolled her eyes. “He’ll be fine….he had energy enough to try some gods awful pickup lines halfway up the cliff.” She busied herself seeing to cover any tracks they left. “We’d better move and quick - they find him gone and someone will come looking. We don’t want a patrol stumbling on us.”

Korym watches while Grune examines the former prisoner for injuries.

He hands his waterskin to the man, and passes him some trail rations. "It's the best we can do at the moment."

As the dim light, appearing much brighter to the elf's eyes, catches the man's face Korym gasps.

"Are you Leosin Erianthar? The monk from Berdusk!"

Korym fumbles in his pouch, "Nesim gave this to me, to return to you." He finds the broken choker, and hands it to Leosin.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:39, Wed 20 Oct 2021.

Fina's eyes go wide.  "NO WAY.  We were looking for you!"

At the mention of the pickup line, though, she crosses her arms and frowns.  "Doesn't sound very monk-y to me."

"Well met my new found friends." He says as Grune makes his way over to begin his assessment of the man's health.

As the dwarf pokes and prods the man, he occasionally grimaces or pulls back reflexively. "I'm afraid I am going to take this personally here in a minute my friend." He says before nodding to Grune's assessment of needing more iron. "Yes, I will endeavor to eat more of it, in the future."

As hope speaks up he laughs before groaning and holding his side, the laugh turning to a chuckle. "I wasn't making a pass my dear, but if your offering; I have many great one liners." He says finishing with a grin. "And I take my monk-y business very seriously I will have you know madam" He says with a coy smirk and a wink toward Oraphina.

"Oh free food? I'm famished, haven't eaten since... well a while now." He says as he takes the offered food and water.

Upon hearing his name, he perks up, his attitude becoming more exuberant. "Indeed I am, so you must have heard tale of my exploits then?"

"Oh, Nesim... Good lad, poor martial artist, but he has heart, and I think that's what matters really; and he found my choker! How wonderful" He says taking the offered item and tying it back around his neck. "Thought I had lost it in the raid."

"Now then as the pretty half-elven lady was so nice as to point out, staying here longer than need be is probably a good recipe for getting recaptured; and, well, I only planned on getting captured once. I doubt they will make the same mistake of letting me keep a knife in my boot twice."

Hope couldn't help but roll her eyes at the monk as he spoke. "Here i though monk's were supposed to show restraint, patience and oneness. All he show's is an ego the size of that army down there." She muttered more to herself than anyone.

She began looking for teh best way to escape without being noticed or tracked.

Einar just shrugs a bit moving to keep watch well he started too but he can't bloody see at night. "Not to be rude but some of us can't see and I'd rather not get caught this close to their camp. Let's get a move on."

"I'd rather not get caught at all Einar. They don't seem very welcoming to visitors."

Korym concentrates for a moment, and the globe on the ground disappears and a rod appears in his hand, giving off the same weak light.

The elf hands the torch to Einar, "The light is not strong, but it will hopefully be enough to allow for a slow, but safe trek to the north side of the ridge. If Hope leads, she should be able to keep us on a safe path.

We should be able to hide in the brush until morning, so we can climb down as we climbed up, under cover but in daylight."

---

Minor conjuration - object radiates dim light to 5 feet.

Oraphina giggled at Leosin's "monk-y business" comment, then caught herself, put on a stern face, and hustled over to Hope's side.

"He thinks you're pretty," she said, then burst out into quiet giggles again before grabbing her belongings and skipping over to Einar.  "I'll need the light to see as well.  Lead on, big guy."

He nods to Oraphina before holding the rod up so they could see it didn't extend far but it at least would give them light to travel with. He was content to stay quiet as to not attract any attention as they made their way around.

Grune brought up the rear. It was his plan that he would catch or correct any misstep of his comrades who were less able to discern details in darkness.

Hope snorts as Oraphina’s obvious attempts at matchmaking and rolls her eyes. Shaking her head, she leads the way for the group to safety.

Korym walks ahead of Grune, just behind Einar and Oraphina.

"Imagine when he sees her in her new blue dress!"

The group waits until first light, and sets off for Greenest. The journey back doesn't take nearly as long as it did getting to the raider's camp site in the first place. Meeting back up with Anarkun he is able to guide the group much more efficiently across the terrain, back to town.

Along the way it becomes very clear that Leosin's injuries are far worse than he would have everyone believe, while he puts on a playful or sarcastic front, he largely stays quiet and continually reassures anyone who askes that he is "fine, nothing I can't handle." But he begins to fall behind the group gradually, and just as the ruined city of Greenest is in sight, he collapses.

Looking him over again, large bruising can be seen across his stomach, where there was none before. It seems he had been bleeding internally and kept it to himself, the amount of trauma he has sustained makes it likely he will die of these wounds if he does not receive magical healing; the healing magic will stop the bleeding of course, but at this point only surgery will remove the excess blood and allow his body the chance to heal over time.

Hope lead the way, sparing Korym a look at the ‘dress’ comment, but none the less she led the way. She noticed the man dropping back, and his false bravado, but was still concerned none the less.

When he dropped, Hope swore under her breath. She went back and looked at him, frowning at the bruising. “We gotta get him back to town, and fast. Oraphina or Grune….can you heal him enough to stabilise him. Einar, you may need to carry him. I’ll run ahead to town and get things ready.”

With that, Hope set off at a jog to town….he needed help

Fina claps a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing outright at the dress comment, although her entire body shakes with suppressed giggles.  Her demeanor becomes far more serious, though, when Leonsin's condition becomes clear.

"Oh honey, look at you," she scolds, examining his wounds.  "Why didn't you say something?"  She rubs her hands together to warm them up, then gently places them on the bruised area to allow some divine healing to take place.  There's a faint smell of honey and wine - maybe mead? - as she performs her magics, willing his wounds to subside.

---

Using Lay on Hands to heal 10 points of damage.