The point isn't to be stealthy at all, but rather to mislead the Demon until it's too late to run. A Hag and it's monster retinue are much less likely to cause a Swaithe to run away.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jul 6, 2024 at 2:35 AM, finished with 6 posts and 2 votes.
[X] Go all together and hope the demon will defend its lair -[X] In addition to everyone using their standard defensive spells, Kori will cast Invisibility on himself and Urgor, and Protection from Evil on Warty. Sirim will hide in Mina's shadow. Mina will use her Disguise Self SLA to take on the appearance of a Hag appropriate for this area and use her Pass Without Trace SLA on Kori and Urgor. She casts Heroism on Gorok. If she hasn't already (to prevent the Demon from more easily noticing their approach), she stops her staff's Light effect.
[X] Go all together and hope the demon will defend its lair
-[X] In addition to everyone using their standard defensive spells, Kori will cast Invisibility on himself and Urgor, and Protection from Evil on Warty. Sirim will hide in Mina's shadow. Mina will use her Disguise Self SLA to take on the appearance of a Hag appropriate for this area and use her Pass Without Trace SLA on Kori and Urgor. She casts Heroism on Gorok. If she hasn't already (to prevent the Demon from more easily noticing their approach), she stops her staff's Light effect.
[X] Go all together and hope the demon will defend its lair
-[X] In addition to everyone using their standard defensive spells, Kori will cast Invisibility on himself and Urgor, and Protection from Evil on Warty. Sirim will hide in Mina's shadow. Mina will use her Disguise Self SLA to take on the appearance of a Hag appropriate for this area and use her Pass Without Trace SLA on Kori and Urgor. She casts Heroism on Gorok. If she hasn't already (to prevent the Demon from more easily noticing their approach), she stops her staff's Light effect.
"Do you remember how we tricked that xulgath shaman?" you ask after pondering a moment. The demons sees without eyes, or so at least you'd been told, but it's wits are no sharper than any others of its kind. Lies, not stealth, will have to serve. Urgor grumbles at the veil slipped over him as you don one yourself.
For his part Cob will be marching proudly ahead, for no one would be surprised to find a goblin in a place like this. He even suggests to Mina that she play along as well, but she has a better idea, or perhaps given the form, a worse one: Skin withered, bruise purple, lips torn, dry as dust, one eye blind, the other filled as a goblet with blood, hair the color of ash streaked ice.
"One of the mad sisters of the moon," she half-whispers, though if the demon is close enough to hear her all the preparations and spells have already given the game away.
Thus, without any light but the moon above, you step under the shadow of the trees. If there had once been a clear path among the roots and rocks covered with moss and slime it is long gone. Even Warty has to treat carefully, splaying out the pads of his feet as you help Urgor keep his balance. The dwarf takes your hand without argument.
Branches sway and rustle in the wind, here the swift flying shadow of a bat partaking of a furtive nighttime feast. Nothing larger than an insect moves on the bound, near-invisible specks against the bark even to your eyes. Then a hiss of warning from Gorok: "Something ahead."
Looking where he points you see the flick of a tail maybe. Instinctively you tense and ready a spell in your mind... only that is no demon, just another one of the many small scurrying things that seem to be everywhere in the Burnlands, this one with mask like markings and a stripped tail.
Realizing it had been seen the creature stands on its hind legs, just shy of two feet, counting the rock its on, and in one smooth motion tosses a rock at Mina's face. Forewarned, Cob jumps to catch it, but his fingers just graze the projectile that is stopped nonetheless, barely an inch from the illusory mask, caught in Sirim's shadowy grasp.
"What is the meaning of this?" you ask, voice low with anger from beneath your hood. You are not pretending to be human, but neither are you showing your face. Alas, the trickster does not seem overly troubled at either the show or magic or wrath. It gives a short sharp scream and dashes off... or at least tries to, as Mina's magic sends it tumbling into slumber.
"Do you think it's enchanted?" Mina's worried voice sounds strange indeed from beneath the horrid seeming. "Kori, could you read its mind?"
"I've never read a beast's mind, but I could try I suppose," you offer dubiously.
"The creature might be snared more thoroughly than a moment's enchantment," Sirim's voice comes, heavy with worry, but with questions unanswered to well.
What do you do?
[] Try to read the creature's mind
[] Take the strange creature back to the village where you might be able to study it more carefully
[] Capture it and keep looking for the demon
[] Write in
OOC: A bit short, but I figured this is important enough a moment both tactically and for Kori as a character to be worth a vote.
Swaithes have Speak with Animals and Charm Animal as SLAs, and Handle Animal as a skill. This trash panda could easily be a simple forest creature it has Charmed and trained for one use or another, now being used as a distraction. Since Swaithes also have Invisibility as an SLA, it could be nearby observing us, trying to figure out what we're up to.
[X] Mina and Sirim each use Detect Magic to begin searching around them for hidden presences while Kori uses Detect Thoughts to do the same. They remain largely stationary, just slowing turning in place to scan everything within a 60 foot radius of their position, with each starting in a different direction so that a roughly 270 degree area is covered immediately. If nothing is found, Kori will focus on the creature and attempt to read its thoughts.
One attacked my dog a couple years ago. It was her last trip outside before going to bed and the damned thing was in my backyard. Of course, Luna lost her mind and started barking up a storm. Instead of being scared off, though, it charged her. I got a nasty rope burn on my wrist when the leash got wrapped around it as I was dragging her away from the raccoon, all while the thing keeps coming at her. She got some scratches on her chest and I had to take her to the vet for a rabies booster shot, just in case.
That was a brave trash panda, but kinda dumb. Luna would have murdered it if I hadn't got her inside quick enough. She really hates small furry creatures, except for my cat.
One attacked my dog a couple years ago. It was her last trip outside before going to bed and the damned thing was in my backyard. Of course, Luna lost her mind and started barking up a storm. Instead of being scared off, though, it charged her. I got a nasty rope burn on my wrist when the leash got wrapped around it as I was dragging her away from the raccoon, all while the thing keeps coming at her. She got some scratches on her chest and I had to take her to the vet for a rabies booster shot, just in case.
That was a brave trash panda, but kinda dumb. Luna would have murdered it if I hadn't got her inside quick enough. She really hates small furry creatures, except for my cat.
We had an incident some years before with a possum and my oldest and smallest dog. She braved and almost killed it by herself, and was ultimately helped by us with a gardening hoe made enterirely out of metal (some moronic Waddle Dee had broken the wooden shaft many times during his infancy).
We of course did not want anything to do with the possum (who was almost larger than our dog, by the way), but the damned critter was either too vengative, or our half-cocker half-mongrel girl had the hunting instincts of a wolf while being cat sized.
At first I thought it must simply be some kind of raccoon ot possum but then I realized that the ability to chuck rocks would be far too overpowered for a simple possum
[X] Mina and Sirim each use Detect Magic to begin searching around them for hidden presences while Kori uses Detect Thoughts to do the same. They remain largely stationary, just slowing turning in place to scan everything within a 60 foot radius of their position, with each starting in a different direction so that a roughly 270 degree area is covered immediately. If nothing is found, Kori will focus on the creature and attempt to read its thoughts.
At first I thought it must simply be some kind of raccoon ot possum but then I realized that the ability to chuck rocks would be far too overpowered for a simple possum
Realizing it had been seen the creature stands on its hind legs, just shy of two feet, counting the rock its on, and in one smooth motion tosses a rock at Mina's face.
No idea how we should behave to keep up the charade, might as well enact Plan Radar.
[x] Mina and Sirim each use Detect Magic to begin searching around them for hidden presences while Kori uses Detect Thoughts to do the same. They remain largely stationary, just slowing turning in place to scan everything within a 60 foot radius of their position, with each starting in a different direction so that a roughly 270 degree area is covered immediately. If nothing is found, Kori will focus on the creature and attempt to read its thoughts.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Jul 7, 2024 at 2:55 AM, finished with 12 posts and 5 votes.
[X] Mina and Sirim each use Detect Magic to begin searching around them for hidden presences while Kori uses Detect Thoughts to do the same. They remain largely stationary, just slowing turning in place to scan everything within a 60 foot radius of their position, with each starting in a different direction so that a roughly 270 degree area is covered immediately. If nothing is found, Kori will focus on the creature and attempt to read its thoughts.
To eyes that see only the physical, night loving as they may be, the thicket still hides much, but to tilt the eye just so and... "There's a ward there, east side," Mina whispers, not bothering to pass it through Sirim, which makes you very glad no one seems to be listening in, as her tone does not match her conjured face. Gorok's axe makes quick work of the thorns that had scrambled their way up what's now revealed to be the orphaned corner of what must have once been one of the most solid houses in the village.
"How long would it take for buildings to fall this far into disrepair?" you ask Sirim. In Nar Voth, stone sits upon stone until it is moved by slopper, tunneler, or some purposeful hand, but up here where life-giving water falls down from the sky to birth green stems and wandering rivers, you could not begin to guess. As it happens neither can Sirim, though Cob has a thought.
"One life of longshanks, maybe one and a half, seventy, a hundred winters," he's as quick with the numbers as he is on his feet, already heading to the wall...
The creature! your attention snaps back to the place on the ground to find it already gone. You can still hear its thoughts slipping away like an ember in the night, but when you try to parse them out they slip away. You are not the only one cursing. Even Mina sounds a bit more like what she looks like, but no one wants to try to chase a beast through the underbrush when you already have an even better sign of magic.
Racoon Stealth to Hide (DC 30): 1d20+17 = 31 (Success)
Racoon Will Save (DC 13): 1d20+7 = 19 (Success)
It does not take long to find the rusted ring among the detritus and Sirim is able to banish whatever minor abjuration had been guarding it, but if the ring itself had not been enough of a clue the puff of red dust around the edge of the trapdoor makes it clear no one has opened it up in a long time, perhaps as long as the wall had been standing. The moonlight now glints silver off glass, a few scattered jars still sitting on worm-eaten shelves while others had given way, shattering their contents onto the packed earth floor. Bits of bone and the withered stems of plants made unrecognizable with the passage of years still exude an unwelcome smell out of the belly of the earth.
Not that it's enough to deter Cob of course. He bounces down... and then you hear something you did not expect from him: "We should go, this is one of Mother's places."
Even if you had never met Cob, never spoke to him about his life with the Stone Munchers, you'd be able to guess what that word spoken in that tone meant. There is one in the deep places of the world who assures even the most wretched and misfortune survival, at a price, one they will live to regret, Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters... the demon queen. Chain rattles somewhere close by as though Urgor has to physically restrain himself from charging down there and slashing all around with his axe.
"Well, well, well, do you see a circle in the floor?!" Mina calls down, trying to sound the way she looks, though only managing something akin to a sore throat.
"Nothing on ground, heads with holy lick," Cob answers as he scrambles out of the hole. Seeing no one understood him he explains: "When Mother licks you between eyes, new eye grows there," he jabs at the center of his forehead gingerly, as though concerned he might poke himself a new third eye.
"Religious insights aside, it would be unwise to put ourselves inside a pit with an enemy on the loose nearby," Sirim points out, still swirling above, looking for trouble.
It is at that point that it occurs to you that you're presently standing on unholy ground, still unseen, and as far as you're able to tell, still unnoticed. Why not put the spell to some use: "Keepers of this place, servants of the Jakal Mother, show yourselves and stake your claim or it shall be claimed as any fallow ground is, by the strong!"
