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Completed [Play-by-Post] Magic World/BRP: "In Search of the Sorcerer"

nikolokolus

Arcane
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May 8, 2013
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Rhenmyr scouts around the base of the hillfort and finds a game trail. It runs off into the forest, but where it eventually leads is anybody's guess.
 
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"Solon, I need some help in preparation for a spell. Let's go work on it in that clearing of trees right outside of the city."
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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May 8, 2013
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Solon nods and the two leave. They are gone most of the night and return around dawn looking drained and haggard but no worse for wear.
 

Grimgravy

Arcane
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
"Would you mind sending friend bird down this game trail to see if goes anywhere near the fortress?"
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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May 8, 2013
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4,090
Urash agrees and sends his bird aloft and several hours later he opens his eyes and seems mildly surprised, "Yes, the trail winds its way through deep gullies and around several large hills and intersects several other game trails that can take us close to the excavation site. It will be more circuitous than the other trail, and slower going, but it passes with a mile of the place I saw before. However, it's far too choked with brambles and low hanging branches to ride any horses along most of the path."

Time passes as the spell casters within the group make their preparations for the summonings to come and other people rest and pack provisions for the . . .

When Amon and Solon emerge from the forest and come back into the hill fort, Amon has a strange reptilian creature with thin membranous bat wings about the size of a large housecat coiled around his neck. The thing hisses reflexively at people and wisps of smoke curl from its nostrils as it regards you all with cold contempt. Amon shushes it and mollifies it somewhat (I'll leave it to Llywelyn ap Gruffydd to explain himself if he wants to)

Mab confers with Marcan to learn the names of some of Kaer Eanyn's long dead heroes, and asks Marcan to assist him in drawing forth an ancestral spirit; the long dead first chieftain of the clan (we can roleplay this out Siveon, or you can leave the result up to a dice roll; i.e. you can state your case and try to convince a spirit to serve, or Mab can enter a contest of wills and try to compel it to appear and serve).
 
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"We decided to get some help. This is Aodhan. He should greatly help us in the upcoming battle. I wouldn't stick your finger near his mouth however."

Aodhan looks like a deranged fairy dragon, glowing red eyes, scaly skin, probably smells like someone left something in the oven for too long.
 

Siveon

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Jul 13, 2013
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
"Cute little thing. We need all the help we can get, I hope Solon - that you're still prepared to summon the elemental."

Marcán decides to speak up to the first chieftain.
Is his name still remembered, or was that lost to time?
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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May 8, 2013
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"Cute little thing. We need all the help we can get, I hope Solon - that you're still prepared to summon the elemental."

Marcán decides to speak up to the first chieftain.
Is his name still remembered, or was that lost to time?
Solon indicates he'll need to rest but he should be fine in 12 hours or so.

the Chief's name was Cadeyrn
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Marcán bows to his knees, and speaks to the spirit.

"Cadeyrn, the first chieftain of our tribe, I am a humble bard of the druidic order: Marcán Macc Fionghall. I apologize for waking you, one who has earned the rest of many men. Today marks a great chapter for our people, one that could mark an end or a new beginning. The people have been beaten and kidnapped, perhaps worse. Men, women, children, for a strange and magical plot we do not understand. I am but one of a small band of warriors who seek to free them, but to do that we must get past this enemy. Their numbers are large, they come to rip apart what you helped create, in retaliation to the blow we've dealt to them. I beseech you o great Cadeyrn to hear my plea, when they come to our gates do not let them! Show them a fraction of the might of the clan, let them and their son's know that we are not to be enslaved! Curse them with plague and disease, no better punishment for bringing upon such a sickness to our clan. That is what I request of you - and that is all I will ever ask. I promise you that with your aid, our people shall be free to live in these lands once more. Or I will die trying. You have my word as a man, as a bard, as a fellow clansmen."
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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In the deep shadows of the village great hall, Mab strikes a roaring bonfire and calls forth to the spirit world after Marcán's invocation of the tribes first hero. A great guest of wind blows out the flame, leaving you bathed in the eerie red light of the embers in the central firepit. The flames spring back to life and to you great astonishment, a shadowy figure is dimly seen, but two cold-white lights for eyes glare back at you and make your bowels weak. The figure glides through the air, passing over the flame to reach out a blackened hand as cold as ice at Marcán. The ghostly hand passes through Marcán's skull and you feel like your soul is being laid bare, but you do not twitch a muscle.

Suddenly the hand pulls back and figure speaks with a raspy sepulchral quality that sounds weary and mournful, "You speak truly kinsman, but what do you ask of me? The dead sleep, and when awoken cannot tarry for long or leave their place of rest. Your enemy does not come here, he hides himself in the walls of our ancient foe; the place we threw down in an age gone by.

All our kinsmen face oblivion if he concludes the dark rite he seeks to complete, however, he waits, hoping to find the Earthstone he seeks - that your Druid wisely hid."
He points at the bonfire, "In there. Take the stone and bind me to it, that I can accompany you and bring vengeance to our foe."

The spirit falls silent and hovers in the air nearby seemingly waiting.
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
"I see, so be it."

Marcán sticks his hands into the bloody bonfire and pulls out the Earthstone.
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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May 8, 2013
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After dousing the fire first, you feel around in the ash and find a small lead coated box buried about a foot under the cinders, you pry open the box and find a smooth ovoid greenstone about a foot long and six inches in the diameter. The hairs on your arm stand on end when you touch it. When you pull it out and look up, the spirit is gone.
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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May 8, 2013
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4,090
Fast forwarding ahead . . .

Urash keeps sending his raven out to scout the road and trail to the ruins deep in the woods, he reports that the four men who escaped were killed in the yard and strangely were laid out end to end men were hunched over their bodies stitching their corpses together with wire. Another batch of prisoners were marched in from the northeast up a trail that climbs out of ravine deeper in the north woods, lead by none other than a black-cloaked, armored Hyperborean astride a massive black warhorse (your old friend from Zelkor's Ferry).

While Urash watches the fifty folks being marched in, they are lead to the center of the yard stumbling and walking stiffly, as though they lack any awareness of their surroundings or predicament. a half-dozen figures in ceremonial robes frog march each figure to an altar, lay them out and a tall man in a crimson robe makes ritual gestures over them and then slits their throat, with the blood being captured in a large cauldron at the foot of the altar. The corpses are then carried over to where the dead mercenaries are already laid out and the robed figures busy themselves stitching these fresh corpses to the others with more stiff wire. After the grisly work is finished, over fifty corpses are laid out on the ground in a weird approximation of a 'V' shape. Urash also spots the armored hyperborean handing the tall red-robed man a smooth polished greenstone very similar to the one Mab and Marcán recovered from under the fire pit. Thereafter the robed men and the armored figure retire to the inside of the tower.

You have all rested for another 24 hours and you recover all of your lost Magic Points. What do you wish to do?
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
We aid Urash in his summoning like we wanted to do and head through the forest. We did we rest for another 24 hours? He only needed 12.
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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May 8, 2013
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We aid Urash in his summoning like we wanted to do and head through the forest. We did we rest for another 24 hours? He only needed 12.
12 hours would get Amon, and Solon back to half their MPs by dawn of the next day. Urash is mostly at full MP, despite connecting with his raven through Bird's Vision. So you can certainly head out and hope to regain any other spent MPs during the journey into the forest. I leave it up to one of you to tell me what your plan is . . . or I guess we can assume you head off on the game trail and I can sort of fast-forward the action if you want? Solon intends to perform his ritual summoning when you are close to the ruins.
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Marcán would prefer to leave as soon as the elemental is ready, taking the game trail. The game trail would slow them down but it would hopefully let them avoid any trouble.
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
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After a short rest the troupe departs the hill fort with Rhenmyr acting as advance scout and Urash sending his raven aloft at intervals. The forest is preternaturally quiet and signs of life become more and more scant the farther you go into the deep woods, but fortunately no nasty surprises occur and you manage to keep from getting lost. A day and half pass and about an hour or two before sunset on the second day you come to the spot where the game trail bends off further into the woods and you are within a mile of wooded hillock to the east where Abazion and his followers have Marcán's kin in the old Hyperborean ruins. The slope is choked with vines and brambles to an almost absurd degree, so much so that you are all sure that it isn't natural.
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
"An elemental perhaps. We've close enough to point it in the right direction. Can move the foliage, and attack our foe."
 

nikolokolus

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2013
Messages
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Mab utters a short incantation and looks up slope and then shrugs, "A big fire? Whatever caused this is might have been a magic of some sort, but the vines and thorns are real enough. There's no magic that can undo what has been made."
"An elemental perhaps. We've close enough to point it in the right direction. Can move the foliage, and attack our foe."

Solon rubs his chin, "I can think of two elementals that could be summoned: one of earth and the other of flame to overcome this obstacle, but since we must bargain for its service and it will only perform a single task we would lack its services for whatever awaits us at the top. My own advice is to wait and find another means through, but I'll defer to the wishes of the group in this matter."
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
"Perhaps with a good axe we can cut our way through the brambles?"
Borric examines the bramble barricade for strength and how brittle they are.
 

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