---[x] Kitsune (leader)
---[x] Janna
---[x] Queen Lizzie
---[x] Dennis
You are called Kitsune. And you are enjoying yourself.
You feel alert as you have not felt in decades as you walk along the rocky crag that so typifies this part of the world. The rugged escarpment below you falls away towards a foaming fjord fed and drained by the crashing tide. The pale sky stretches above you, brimming with energy. Ley lines thrum with power here, at the top of the world. The paths to Asgard are thin but still open. In this place Odin still reigns upon his lonely throne, last survivor of Ragnarok. You would fear his intrusion, if you did not know exactly where he was.
Janna is following along behind you with her delightfully stoic friend, trying hard to appear as nonchalant and unbothered as Lizzy truly is. In actuality you have been hiking for three hours. You will have to let her rest soon. It would not do to forget human needs.
The living thought, of course, trips over every root and stone, forever flailing. Always being hurt but never experiencing harm. How these 'Americans' can look upon a being with magic so clearly woven into its very form and not see it for what it was astounds you.
"So, Feldrake." Janna says, careful to disguise the panting between the worlds. "What exactly are we looking for?"
"My sanctum!" the staff replies scathingly. It always amused you to see how forceful it was, desperate to ignore its sorry state. A shred of what once was, screaming in the hopes that it would appear to match the whole it had once been, before it lost to something stronger.
You consider the irony for a moment, and then discard it.
"I thought your Sanctum was back in Peru." Lizzy points out.
"Okay fine. Backup sanctum. Sheesh. It's at the other end of the fjord, don't worry. Soon, we shall… okay honestly, my wards say this place was broken into months ago. So honestly, there might not be much left."
"Why did you even build it up here anyway?" Dennis asks, partway through falling into a treestump.
"This land is home to rare and powerful arcane beasts, glutted on the flow of magic and formed from the very bones of the earth itself!" Feldrake cackles as the rest of you stop to help Dennis free himself. "They proved excellent shock troops for my armies. I hope a couple of them are still alive."
"How would you know?" Janna asks as the small duck pops out of the stump and flies through the air. None of you deign to comment.
"Well, they feed off magic. So if they're still here, we should expect to see some weird, magic-y things."
Dennis points at the next thing to come into view.
"Something like that?"
As a light fog rolls into the outskirts of the staff's sanctum, you see the hulls of war-torn viking longships that had been dashed against the cliffs in centuries past. The relics of some forgotten naval battle that could have happened before or after Felldrake set up shop. An archeologist might have made a fuss about the out-of-place siege weapons and strange mechanisms that poured out of the shipwrecks, but a layman, and you, would be more concerned with the fact that the boats were beached 200 feet above the fjord's waterline and scattered against the sides.
Odd. You cannot recall the Valkyries using ships.
"Genuine air vikings! Don't get much more weird or magic than that!" Feldrake declares happily, in a tone that implies he would be marching forward if he had legs.
Intrigue Check: Is anyone (or anything) nearby?
DC 60 needed
88+21+22+9=140
Critical Success!
It's very quiet up here. Aside from a few distant ravens and the occasional rustle of underbrush, there doesn't seem to be anyone nearby for leagues on end. The path before you is littered with rubble, as if piles of stone were discarded here and there. Apart from that, there's- ah.
"Guys, I dunno what it is but… it just feels like Donald was here. I think we're on the right track." Dennis says.
"Uh-huh." Janna replies.
Dennis trips over a rock and falls into a very distinct duck-shaped hole in the ground. Hat and all.
"I knew it! We're clothe!" Dennis' muffled speech issues from the hole as he chews and then spits a clump of dirt out of his mouth. "I can almotht tathe it!"
The next rise passes faster now that the party has evidence this isn't all their wild goose's chase. As you rise over the last summit and look down… oh, you can't help it.
You start laughing.
Below you is an ancient earthen hillfort, wooden logs practically still covered in bark haphazardly lashed together into a defensive line.
"Look!" Feldrake whines defensively. "Impressive, isolated, good access to thralls. Pick two."
As you approach the fort, you realize the entrance, as much as it ever existed, has been destroyed. A pile of splintered wood now blocks the way forward.
A test. Excellent.
"Now then, Janna." You say, stepping aside with a flick of your tail. "This will be an excellent chance to see how your training has progressed."
"Piece of cake." she says, raising Feldrake.
"Without. The bird." You wag a finger, grin set in that most unsettling way. You don't get the responses you usually do now that you're with those used to you, but you are not a quitter.
Janna Occult Check: Remove the rubble without using Feldrake!
DC 50 needed
26+17+9=52
Bare Success
Janna immediately goes for the pad of paper she's been carrying for occasions like this, sketching out the basic shape of a fire sigil with only a few moments of hesitation. She taps it. And nothing happens.
"Argh, hold on…" She mutters, placing the pad on a nearby rock and trying again. A small puff of smoke rises from it.
"Agh! Who the heck can draw a perfect circle first time?!?" Janna complains, before reaching into her pack and removing a small sheaf of pre-prepared spell tags. Two fire sigils forced together in the act of activation and then thrust into the entrance detonate the pile in a great conflagration that sends debris raining down across the fort, shattering already damaged battlements.
No one ever said you couldn't cheat.
"Hey! Watch it" the staff squawks. "You're ruining my ruins!"
"Well done, little one." You say with an indulgent smile, before swishing into the now open-path with gentle satisfaction.
The interior of the fort is exactly as impressive as you imagined. It stands about thirty meters in diameter, populated with a single wooden hut shrouded in darkness.
"So what do these 'Meteorbeasts' look like, anyway?" Lizzy asks, somehow injecting even more sardonic disinterest into the term than her normal speaking voice.
"Titans of earth and magic, living rock itself infused with runic power, glowing with the light of the aurora itself!"
Stewardship Check:
DC 60
21+9+15+9=54
Bare failure
Distracted by imagining all the ways in which the thought's ambient magic might twist the staff's words against it, you are nearly upon the hut before a low growl alerts you to the glowing yellow eyes peeking out of the gloom, twisting lines of arcane symbology tracing the dark form to which they belong.
Ah yes, you think to yourself. It is not amusing if you are expecting it.
