Lysander speaks some unintelligible words and tries to light them up.  He draws his short sword.

Action: Faerie Fire
This message was last edited by the player at 00:54, Wed 30 Dec 2020.

Leysa nodded. At least, now, there was less certainty. She glanced around and decided that the fairies had the right of it. She backed away from the two angry things and whispered another prayer under he breath beseeching the world around her to aid the aim of her companions.

---

Move: V19
Bonus: none
Action: Cast Bless for me, Daladain, and Lysander.

Note: those three gain +d4 on all attacks and saves as long as Leysa is concentrating.

Seeing the creatures advance, Daladain cast a spell on himself. “Ne estas kiraso kontraŭ la sorto.” The air around him shimmered gently. As the magic settled he began to prepare something less pleasant for the creatures.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
“There is no armour against fate.”

---

Casting Mage Armour. AC now 16 for 8 hours.

Leysa’s break for the tree (one of the Coldwood trees) is a clever tactical move- the Windrazors can’t fly at her quickly from where it is without crashing into the wall of the canyon.  They aim for a high speed pass by Lysander instead.

In that moment, the Fairies do something.  It looks like a bomb of sparkling glitter explodes among the two creatures.  It doesn’t seem to do anything, but then, one of the two creatures, rather than flying towards a target, merely continues on, as if unsure of what to do.

Despair attempts to pelt the Faerie Fire glowing one with her sling- with the aid of the glow, she is able to score a hit.

Twisting as it flies past, a Windrazor misses Lysander with its dreadful claws, but manages to give him a bite for three points of damage.

They both continue on, with one wheeling around for another pass, and the other, the Faerie Fired one, aimlessly flying straight, not bothering to turn around.




 
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:55, Thu 31 Dec 2020.

Forgot to check for wild magic when I cast Mage Armour...

09:06, Today: Daladain rolled 7 using 1d20 with rolls of 7.  Wild magic check.

Daladain ducked as the Windrazors rushed past. He turned to see one of then begin to turn for a second pass, and decided that being out in the open was a bad idea. He dashed towards the canyon wall where the fairies, trying to keep close to the canyon wall. He then gestured and spoke some arcane words. “Mi estas la fajrostartilo, tordita fajrostartigilo.”

As he completed the spell he pointed a finger at the windrazor that was coming back at them as released a small jet of fire that struck the creature as it flew.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
“I’m the fire starter, twisted fire starter.”

---

Daladain
AC 16
HP 10/10
Moving to canyon wall near fairies then casting Fire Bolt for 4hp damage
09:03, Today: Daladain rolled 4 using 1d10 with rolls of 4.  Damage.
09:03, Today: Daladain rolled 24 using 2d20+9, dropping the lowest dice only with rolls of 1,15.  Fire bolt with Faerie Fire advantage.

Lysander will speak loudly to the one coming back for another run, calling the existence of the creature into question.

Thou creature full of foulest form,
be ye gone to where 'tis warm,
In fact, to where 'tis very hot,
you over pompous flying sot!

Then he will move towards the wall.

Action: Cast Vicious Mockery
Lysander rolled 4 using 1d4.  Vicious Mockery. (DC-13, or Psychic damage/disadvantage on attack)
Movement: To R-21

She watched the behavior of the strange pair of things closely as they passed by and noted their avoidance of the trees. Their pinpoint dexterity in flight seemed lacking. Perhaps, like many flying creatures, their form was more fragile than it looked as well? Still, that was a thought for another situation. Leysa concentrated on holding the enchantment she had cast while speaking eldritch words to send another bolt of greenish energy at the injured, lighted-up beast, "Stay near the trees if you can everyone!" she yelled as the bolt sailed through the aether. She cursed as, even with the arcane aid, seemed off aim.

---

Please remember that Leysa cast Bless on Daladain and Lysander. If it matters...

Move: none
Bonus: none
Action: Eldritch Blast. With Bless, Leysa hit AC 15.

Leysa the Emerald rolled 11 using 2d20+5, dropping the lowest dice only.  attack.
18:32, Today: Leysa the Emerald rolled 6 using 1d10.  damage.
18:31, Today: Leysa the Emerald rolled 4 using 1d4.  bless.

Petunia looks worriedly at Firefern.  "Will it work much longer?"

"No way to tell," Firefern replies.

One of the two creatures is still fluttering around looking lost, as if it can't figure out what it ought to be doing, even as its companion lines up for another attack run.

This one is more difficult.  Leysa is huddled next to a tree, the others are at the canyon walls, so a high speed pass is out of the question... unless the angle was just right.

It aims for Lysander, even as a hail of incoming spells and a sling bullet reach out towards it.    It must slow as it flies at him, becoming more vulnerable, but such is it's savagery that it does not seem to care.

It again manages to give him a nasty nip, this time for 5 pts damage.  But it pays a price.  Struck by all sorts of things, including, at the last moment, an arrow, it flops to the ground near Despair, twitching like a dying fish.

An arrow?

Yes.

With Leysa and Despair and the Fairies around, the visual description of "person" is rather broad.  This one is about five feet tall with a long, sinewy by build, short legs, long tail... and fur.   It's running towards you and shouting.

Shouting excitedly, though some of the vocabulary seems puzzling.

"Zootles!  Good Fortune With Extra Gravy, Wizards!  You're Wizards!"

 

Whether he didn’t hear it or didn’t care, Daladain ignored the newcomer, focused entirely on the remaining flying beastie. He tried his incantation again. “Mi estas la fajrostartilo, tordita fajrostartigilo.”

This time his aim was more precise and a bolt of flame leapt straight from his fingertip to the chest of his opponent, striking it hard and burning its leathery skin.

Daladain
AC 16
HP 10/10
Casting Fire Bolt for 10hp damage

09:10, Today: Daladain rolled 10 using 1d10 with rolls of 10.  Damage.
09:10, Today: Daladain rolled 23 using 2d20+9, dropping the lowest dice only with rolls of 10,14.  Fire Bolt (faerie fire & bless adv.).

Lysander sees that the remaining creature is out of his range, for now, so he spends a moment to heal his damage.

Action: Cast Cure Wounds
Lysander rolled 8 using 1d8+3.  Cure Wounds.

Perhaps its the attack snapping the creature back to its senses, or maybe the Fairy magic just couldn't hold forever.  Either way, the remaining Windrazor finally figures out what its supposed to be doing, and dives down towards the latest source of trouble.

Petunia the Fairy shouts defiantly:  "Begone foul thing or Daladain will hurl another Fiery Tortilla!"

Next to her, Firefern looks puzzled.  "I don't think that's what he said."

"I thought that's what he said," Petunia replies.  "What's a Tortilla, though?"

"It's a kind of turtle.  A small one."

Daladain hits it... fairly hard!  And so does an arrow, and Despair's sling bullet.

Blocked by the canyon wall, it cannot do a flyby attack, and so it flaps in the air in front of Daladain, scratching away and causing 4 points damage.

The stranger with the bow is hurrying to get closer, shouting encouragement.
Well... probably words of encouragement.  Sounds like it, at least.

"Snick that fitcher!  Give him the full sock!"

 

Lysander moves to attack with his short sword, hoping to end this as quickly as he can.


Move: to U-19
Action: Swing the blade
06:04, Today: Lysander rolled 12 using 1d20+3.  Attack.
06:08, Today: Lysander rolled 19 using 1d20+3.  Attack (advantage).

06:05, Today: Lysander rolled 6 using 1d6+1.  Damage?

Leysa winced as the second beast regained its senses to turn on Daladain. She then glanced sideways at the one spouting nonsense. Why did she attract the strange ones? Grunting in annoyance, she stepped forward to hurl yet another bolt of eldritch power at the creature.

---

Move: K19
Bonus: nadda
Action: Eldritch Bolt

11:05, Today: Leysa the Emerald rolled 8 using 1d10.  damage.
11:05, Today: Leysa the Emerald rolled 21 using 2d20+5, dropping the lowest dice only.  attack.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 13:30, Wed 06 Jan 2021.

As the creature scratched him down his arm, Daladain yelped in pain. He stepped back, pinning his back to the wall before swinging his crossbow into action. At this range he couldn’t really miss, could he? He aimed and pulled the trigger, launching a bolt at the creature. He fired low, grazing the creature in the leg.

Cursing under his breath he resolved to do better next time.

Daladain
AC 16
HP 10/6
Firing light crossbow, hit for 4hp damage

08:59, Today: Daladain rolled 4 using 1d8+3 with rolls of 1.  Damage.
08:58, Today: Daladain rolled 25 using 2d20+9, dropping the lowest dice only with rolls of 16,16.  Light crossbow attack (faerie fire & bless).

Unable to fly freely, the creature is a much easier target.  The group has it surrounded against the canyon wall, and together, they dispatch it.

It flops to the ground.  Its skin is gray and hairless and looks like it is stretched a bit too tight, but even in death it is bent in inhuman, boneless ways.

"Yuk," Petunia observes.

The beastial looking stranger gets closer- whiskers, thick tail, short dense fur.. he looks very much like someone crossed a Human with an Otter.

"Roarious Day!" the stranger declares.  "Those things have had me pinned down for days, trapped in this canyon.  Nasty beasts!  I am so grateful to you!"

He looks curiously at Lysander and Daladain, as if puzzled by them.

"You must be... Elves?" he asks.

Before he is able to get further with that thought, Petunia flies up, and giggles.  "No, they're not Elves!"

And the newcomer stops and stares, and then says, "Petunia!"

Who replies, sounding baffled:  "What?  How do you know my name?"

"Don't be silly, we met before the storm.  You left just before it began."

"That's ridiculous," Petunia says, sounding a bit worried.  "I was nowhere near here, and before the storm I was in the Guest House.  Firefern and Daladain know I was there!"

Now it is the Otter-man's turn to sound puzzled.  "The what?"

Petunia has an expression rarely seen on the Fey, because they are only very rarely weirded out by things.  Usually, they are the ones confounding others.  Apparently, not this time.

Leysa watched the scene unfold with growing incredulity. Eventually, she let it slide past like a ghost ship. She shook her head and sighed again. it was quickly becoming her standard reaction: exasperation. The Southlands were a strange place. Stepping forward with a bit more force than she actually felt, she glared down at the hairy man, "Though the only evidence for it is circumstantial, I would hazard a guess that you are a stranger to these lands. Perhaps... as with those creatures, a strange to this world. So, if I might suggest a radical course, why don't we start with introductions? perhaps, you can explain what you believed to have happened and why you might know Petunia?" Huffing again at having to suggest the obviously rational course, she bobbed her head in a slight bow, "I am Leysa. Some call me The Emerald, for obvious reasons. I am a warlock and follower of the path of nature." She motioned at her own scales to explain her name then looked at the others in her group for similar introductions.

"Most people call me Lysander
Some call me idiot
Just maybe they are jealous of
my poetry and wit
But that is of no consequence
just call me what you will
And if you need a brand new friend
Of that I have some skill."

Daladain gingerly ventured away from the protection of the canyon wall, heading towards the bodies. As he did so he reloaded his crossbow. When he got to the corpses he retrieved his bolt and began to search the bodies to see if they were carrying anything of interest.

When the stranger approached he spoke up in a friendly tone. “Greetings, I am Daladain. I’m a human from across the sea, a newcomer here myself.”

The Otter-man looks around curiously.  Especially at the "humans".

"A Human... never heard of them!  And here am I considering myself an explorer!  Well, that's what I'm supposed to do, discover things."

He does another appraising once-over.

"No.  Never seen your like.  I am Taroon, and I am Lutran.  One of the River Peoples.  I have never met anyone from across the sea, except for some Elves.  But I have met Petunia, though the chirkly little lass might deny it."

"Who are you calling chirkly?" Petunia asks.  "And yes I deny it.  I have no idea who you are."

"Of course you do, I just told everyone," Taroon says.

"I mean before that!"

"Allow me to remind you, and tell the tale," Tarhoon says.  "My homeland is on the banks of the Great River, far to the West.  I am an explorer, and there were tales of strange magic in this land by the sea, and I wanted to see for myself.  This is very difficult land to cross, and I was struggling, and I wanted to get to the coast.  That's when I stumbled across you, near the mountain at the other end of the canyon.  You said the canyon offered an easier way to travel."

"That's silly," Petunia says, "Why not the road?"

"What road?"

"You came this far and never saw a road?"

"On my right paw, not one," Tarhoon says.  "Well, we traveled together a bit, and even shared lunch and dinner, and you liked plums.."

"I do!" Petunia says, astonished.

"Lucky guess, she's a fairy, fairies like sweet things," Firefern grumbles.

"But I would have told you about the Guest House!" Petunia says.  "I live there, and you were headed straight there!"

"On my right paw again, you did not," Tarhoon says.  "But then the sky changed.  You said there would be a storm, and you had to get home to be safe, and I wouldn't be able to keep up, not being able to fly."

"So when I went... home... which way did I go?" Petunia asks.

"West, towards the mountain."

"I live to the East, at the GuestHouse."

"Then we have a picklement indeed," Tarhoon says.

Firefern, looking suspicious, interrupts with a question.

"Now just a moment.  You were surprised by Humans, but not her?" he indicates Leysa.

"Well she's Dragonfolk, of course, who hasn't seen Dragonfolk before?  Gliding along the river on their boats... quite a common sight."

He makes a short bow to Leysa.

"Your pardon, of course I mean common as in frequent, not at all as a social comment.  Certainly you can confirm to your friends that there are plenty of Dragonfolk on the Great River!"

Leysa inclined her head to the newcomer's introduction then listened to the debate. "Mr. Tarhoon, you need to stop making assumptions. Dragon.. folk? Never heard of them. It makes sense for a culture similar to mine to use that term though. My people calls us the Dragonborn. I am afraid I am not familiar with your Great River. It sounds magnificent though. My tribe is from across the ocean, like the humans and elves." She nodded and considered the situation carefully then shrugged, "It seems that you were heading that way." She points back the way her group had come from. "If you continue on another hour or so, you'll reach the ocean at the base of a grand cliff. Atop that cliff is the Guesthouse. A home to a mighty wizard... er, perhaps mighty isn't the correct word? Well, it is his home as well as these fairies and a few more."

Leysa regarded Petunia thoughtfully for some time then shrugged, "And, yes, there is a strange magic afoot in these lands. A magic of pure possibility and chaos. Given those facts, that you have met A Petunia seems reasonable. Just as likely, a particularly tricksome fairy pretending to be Petunia. Or, perhaps, this is the tricksome one? Anyway, it seems highly likely there are two Petunias or something far more mysterious occurring."

Two Petunias are better than one,
The telling of tales would be so much fun.

Never heard of humans? Curious indeed! Daladain regarded Taroon properly. “Human indeed, yes. We are a common sight across the ocean, and come in all shapes, sizes and colours from the darkest ebony to the whitest snow. You say you are a Lutran? I must confess I have never heard of your people either. Please, tell us something of your folk? We are here to explore after all, and gaining knowledge of the people we meet and things we find is all important.”

When Leysa mentioned about there being two Petunias he nodded. “The chaos here is strong, strong enough to make the walls between universes paper thin. It is not unrealistic to assume that this other Petunia is a mirror of our own sweet fairy, but from another existence. Indeed, maybe you, Taroon, are also from another world and you have slipped unknowingly into ours, or we have slipped into yours, who can say?

Did I find anything of interest on the corpses?

Daladain gives the dead creatures a good search.  They were clearly not flying around naked and unadorned like animals.  On the other hand, they were not dressed like people.  Somewhere in the middle is the best way to describe it.  They had no clothing other than leather wrappings and loin cloths, no pouches of coins and personal effects.  But they do wear leather bands and collars which are adorned in semi-precious stones and odd but large and intimidating teeth.

Well, the teeth aren't nearly so intimidating as they would be if they were still in the mouth of whatever thing had them, but still...

All of this can be removed, and traded for some coin somewhere.

******

"I was headed that way" Taroon says.  "Now I have no idea where I should head. Though a wizard would know better what to make of my situation.  That said, by my honor as a Lutran I should volunteer my help to you.  Where is it that you are going?  I might know a way... on the other hand if I am in the wrong world maybe I am no help at all.  But I am an explorer too.  It's in my fur."

He describes his home- on a distant place called the Great River, where villages of Lutrans exist, one of the "river people".

Firefern notes that he has heard of the Great River.  It's a river... and it's great.  That's all he knows.  Never heard of Lutrans.

The Lutrans are apparently one of several "river peoples"- the Dragonfolk are another.  A third sounds like some kind of prickly hedgehog or porcupine people.  Then Tarhoon gets up to Tortles...

"Tortles are real!" Petunia exclaims.

"They are all real," Tarhoon says, slightly soured.

"I'm sorry, I mean, I've heard of them.  From Elves.  Should we go back to the Guest House?  It's like, from here, one way is as good as another, and I wonder what Arcto would say about all this."

Daladain stashed the bands and collars in his pack to sort through later.

At the fairies suggestion of returning to the guesthouse, Daladain shook his head. “Our adventure has but barely begun, and now we have a new friend to accompany us. Let us explore this place further.”

OOC - did I miss us finding the source of the smoke? I thought we hadn’t got there yet, but may has missed something.

There is a task we have to do,
that would have us pushing through.