Through the Woods
The temple of Eluna is... exceedingly busy. Full to the brim in fact with sleepy mages trying to find answers. You're off to the side of the main room, talking with an elderly woman with gray hair and gray eyes and a stern disposition. "I'll get right to the point. One of our Seers had a vision the other night. Something that might provide some answers about the nightmares. However he's a bit of a recluse and lives out in the Felwood. Which means we need someone to travel out there and get the information from him."
A man beside her grabs her shoulder and looks at her with wide eyes. "BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN!" He asks her, and she shakes her head silently before patting him on the back and sending him on his way with a few soft words.
"You can see that we _need_ answers. The faster, the better. Please hurry. Her light shine upon your path." She makes a motion with her hand as she says this last, offering you a blessing that is more than just words.
Randolf's shaggy red brows droop wearily over his eyes, and his gait is unsteady. Not even dwarves can handle a bender that goes on for more than three days. "Whatever we have tae do," he says thickly. "Just... so long as I can get a decent night's -sleep-." He looks up at Aimarra. "You ready tae get this done, lass?" he asks, before muffling a mighty yawn behind his fist. He gives himself a shake, rubbing his face briskly with both hands.
"By all the gods, yes." Dark circles under Aimarra's eyes says that she hasn't fared a whole lot better, and she rubs at her eyes. Her shoulders are tight and taut, and she shakes her head repeatedly. "The faster this gets figured out, the faster I get some sleep." She does spare a moment to look around her in no small amount of awe, at the austere marble pillars that support the magnificent walls of the serene Temple. Very different from what she is used to, but majestic and fitting all the same.
GAME: Aimarra rolls survival: (17)+15: 32 GAME: Randolf rolls Survival: (7)+2: 9 GAME: Randolf rolls Perception: (17)+8: 25 GAME: Aimarra rolls perception: (3)+14: 17
There aren't clear directions to this man's house. He lives in the Felwood so... that's not surprising. You make your way into the foggy, cold, and wet forest, and the chill of this region seems to go deeper than merely skin-deep. Indeed, you feel... watched here. An uneasy feeling considering the nightmares you've been having. Occasionally you catch glimpses of something out of the corner of your eye. A shadow moving through the leaves and trees. Yet when you look... nothing is there.
GAME: Randolf rolls knowledge/the planes: (5)+12: 17
Randolf plods along through the Felwood, his red-rimmed eyes darting back and forth beneath his brows. The cold normally wouldn't bother him, but the damp surely does. His beard is soon hanging heavy on his chest, glistening with moisture, and his robe and kilt are soon heavy and clammy against his skin. Muck leaf rot soon cake his boots, making every step a wearying chore. "Charming. -Charming-. Och, I might build me a summer home here meself," he grumbles, wrapping his arms around himself in an unsuccessful attempt to ward off some of the chil. Suddenly, he startles, looking off and to the side with wide eyes. "Beards o' me fathers!" he gasps, his face turning white as milk. "D'you -see- that?!"
If anything, Aimarra is even more on edge than usual, gaze pinched, muttering to herself and occasionally rubbing on her left forearm, despite the bandaged cut being beneath the sleeve on her right. Her every sense is doubly sharpened, and somehow, somewhere in the trip, her bow has ended up between her hands, an arrow nocked but not drawn as she expertly finds her way through the trails in the wood.
How she knows which way to go, who can say? But she moves unerringly, her eyes roving the trail, somehow decoding signs that only she can see. Randolf's query, though, rattles her out of her focus, and she looks up and around. "I see nothing, where?"
Randolf points with a shaking finger. "Right -there-!" he says. "It's plain as the beard on my face! That great, yuge bloody -horse-! Just -starin'- at us...!"
GAME: Aimarra rolls knowledge/nature: (1)+12: 13 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Aimarra rolls knowledge/nature: (16)+12: 28
Then, she sees it, once she looks, and her eyes widen. "That's not normal, whatever it is. No normal horse has black eyes like that. That's no natural animal. This might be the Felwood, but we probably ought to tell someone about that...." Despite the words, she eyes it appreciatively, if warily.
Randolf peers at the horse as well. "Oh, bloody -brilliant-. Surrounded by nasty, filthy, soggy wet forest, an -now- there's an unnatural horse o' death an' evil lookin' like it wants tae graze on -me-!" He grumbles angrily as he fumbles in his hip satchel, bringing out a couple of scrolls. "You handy wi' scribed arcanima, lassie?" he asks. "Got some protection scrolls here."
The horse nickers at you, it's voice deeper than any horse you've ever heard before. Then it starts to walk into the wilderness. Stops. Looks back. Nickers again, and then keeps walking. It does this a few times. Clearly trying to convince you to follow it. Because following an odd creepy horse in the forest sounds like a grand idea.
For answer, Aimarra shakes her head quickly. "My magic is the magic of the land, dwarf. I don't do the mumbo-jumbo." She's still watching the horse, though. "It wants us to follow it. Mark our place on the trail, and let's see what it wants,"
Randolf hangs his head with a gusty sigh. He stuffs the scrolls back in his satchel and pulls his battleaxe off his belt. With a grunt, he swings a couple times, the blade smacking wetly into a moss-covered tree trunk, leaving a deep X cut into the bark. "Aye, sure, follow the evil death horse of evil," he grunts as he starts trundling along after the equine. "Don't think it's likely tae lead us off a cliff, or intae some quicksand, or anything foolish like that do ye? Usually it's will-o-wisps that do that."
"If it didn't want us to see it, we wouldn't." Of that, Aimarra is certain. Creepy? Yes. Evil? Very possibly. "I'll mark as we go. I ought to be able to get us out of here if this goes badly." She narrows puffy eyes at it. "It's here for a reason. Let's find out what that reason is." She, too, starts off, but not before taking several small pebbles and sticks from the underbrush and setting up what appears to be a small stack, with one off to the side of it in the direction they had been heading, and a stick laid crosswise to it in the direction they came from. It seems to mean something to her, whatever it is.
The horse leads you through the forest. Which gets... increasingly wet until you're practically in swampland. It doesn't lead you to any pitfalls or quicksand, but it does lead you to an elderly woman sitting in front of a small cottage. The horse goes right up to her and she rises to her feet to greet it as fondly as anyone might a more... natural looking horse. Then she turns her old clouded-over eyes on you. "What brings you to this region dears?"
Randolf plods alongside Aimarra, eyes once again flicking hither and yon. He wrinkles his nose as his boots start to squelch in the ever softening ground. "Gaaah!" he growls as one foot goes in to the shin. "If it wants tae devour our souls, can't it just get -on- wi' it? Does it have tae make us suffer as well? Five -gold- fer these sodding boots!" Muttering and grumbling, he squelches and schlorps his way along, until they reach that cottage. She's not the one they're looking for, but... she's certainly someone. He clears his throat, giving the lapels of his damp robe a tug. "Aye, marm. We're here representin' the Arcanist's Guild in Alexandria. One of our colleagues in this area might have some knowledge we're seekin'. Some means o' counterin' the dreams that have been playin' havoc wi' the city's spellweavers." He peers at her curiously. "Ye... ye wouldn't happen tae know anything 'bout that, would ye marm?"
"I thought you wizards were the ones with the cleaning spells." Still, Aimarra doesn't sound any too happy herself, especially not at the wet. *shloop* *shloop* *shloop* *splat* go her boots through the muck, much like his, and she shivers convulsively. She ends up trailing behind the dwarf once she gets onto solid ground near the cottage, dragging her feet on the dry ground and grass as if to scrap the worst of the muck off of her leather boots.
Ah, the life of an adventurer. Wet feet.
She comes up behind Randolf, but the look she wears merely echoes his question, and she is content to let him do the talking.
"Aye. You mean Rothebert. He is the only one that lives out here besides me." She smiles a little and pats the horse so that it moves to stand beside the house. It watches you with its odd black eyes. "But I fear you will not find him where you seek him."
She motions to the table that she'd been sitting next to, and you notice for the first time that there is a pot sitting on the table. "Let me warm you travelers, have some hot mead. I too have had the dreams you speak of, and perhaps I can offer you some insight."
Randolf perks a bit at that offer. She said the magic word--'mead'. "Oh, that's most kind of ye, marm," he says, his sour mood brightening slightly. He makes his way over, rubbing his hands briskly together. Ask any dwarf, and he'll tell you--none of the world's woes are so bleak that a little booze can't make 'em better.
Aimarra, too, willingly trails the other two inside. A bit more chary about the mead, she is, but she will accept politely enough, amd sip as well, if more gently. "Kind indeed. So where is he?"
GAME: Randolf rolls fortitude+2: (10)+6+2: 18 GAME: Aimarra rolls fortitude: (15)+7: 22
The woman turns at the question and sighs, spreading her hands. "He's dead I'm afraid. Or rather... he will be soon enough. The Doomare keeps me apprised of such things." She smiles as Randolf starts to slip off to sleep and shakes her head. "Poor dears. You must be so tired with the nightmares."
Randolf tips back his mug, gulping it steadily, but without his usual gusto. He doesn't even bang the mug down on the table, nor does he even release a mighty belch to prove his victory over the brew. He sets the mug down, nodding his head slowly. "Oh... oh, isn't that a..." He yawns mightily, rubbing at his eyes. "Isn't that a... shame..." His head tips down to rest his chin against his chest. His next breath is a loud "SnrrrRRAAAWF..."
"Doomare?" Aimarra sips more carefully at her mead, watching the old woman intently. "Is that what your companion is? And what about the Seer? How do you know?" She doesn't seem to be going to sleep quite so readily.
"Yes." The woman blinks at Aimarra. "As for the Seer, as I said... The Doomare keeps me appraised." She hasn't moved since you approached the house. Her eyes flicker toward Randolf. "Would you like a blanket dear? It's a terrible chilly place these woods."
GAME: Aimarra rolls sense motive: (14)+2: 16
Randolf doesn't acknowledge the elder's offer. Nor does he seem bothered by the cold. Likely because he's -out- cold. Steadily sawing logs as he slumps in his chair. "SnnnnnNNNNRRF... mnnuhhrm... snnnnnnRRAAWWWF..."
Aimarra blinks, but narrows her eyes a little, and shakes her head. "The cloak's enough, thanks. Tell me, how do you know the Seer? What makes you think that he is dead, or will die?"
Aimarra blinks, but narrows her eyes a little, and shakes her head. "The cloak's enough, thanks. Tell me, how do you know the Seer? What makes you think that he is dead, or will die?" She looks over at Randolf, eyes him a moment, then none-too-gently toes his shin. "You snore so loud a passing artificer might think he's got company."
"More mead then?" She offers kindly, picking up the pot. She seems... impatient for some reason. "The Seer is my neighbor and I like to keep myself appraised of them." She's said that already. The woman taps her finger against the pot of hot mead and considers. Aimarra.
"As I said, the Doomare can sense when one is near the end of their life. It tells me such things." She smiles thinly then and motions to a nearby tree where some crows are parked. "Also the ravens told me that he has a werewolf for a guest. Don't be unkind to your friend dear, he can't help but sleep."
"Can't help but sleep, eh?" The words are drawn out, and Aimarra looks over at her companion again. "Thanks, but I shouldn't. I'll just keep an eye out and let him get some rest. It's been a long few nights for a lot of people. A Doomare must be quite the companion. How did you two come to be acquainted?"
Randolf cannot, indeed, help but sleep.
The woman's smile fades and she sighs. "I bred it dear. It's the cursed offspring of a nightmare and a horse." She smiles suddenly again and then drops the pot on the table. At once her appearance begins to change. Into the gruesome image of a humanoid. She eyes Aimarra and steps toward the other woman. "It's the mead dear. I poisoned it."
GAME: Aimarra rolls fortitude': (4)+7: 11
"Thought so." Suddenly, Aimarra's voice is cold and dangerous, almost a predatory snarl. Waves of illness and dizziness wash through her as she bolts to her feet, and she almost staggers, but catches herself on the edge of the table. "RANDOLF!" she shouts, as loud as she possibly can, her sword rasping from its sheath, the hiss of leather on steel. Instead of going after the hag at once, though, she turns and puts an even harder toe into the wizard's ribs. "THE BITCH POISONED US!"
GAME: Randolf rolls Fortitude+2: (2)+6+2: 10 GAME: Randolf rolls Fortitude+2: (17)+6+2: 25 GAME: Aimarra rolls fortitude: (9)+7: 16
Randolf tumbles out of his chair with a flailing of limbs and a whirling of robes and kilt. "GWAAGH!" He thumps down onto the soft ground and immediately scrabbles to his feet, ripping his wand off his belt as he goes. He doesn't even think. He just snaps his wand in a pattern, moving by pure muscle memory. "RE EX RAYA ZOS ALLEGROS!" he booms. A ghostly image of a rotating clock face appears over his and Aimarra's heads, the hands whirling speedily before vanishing. "Make it count, lassie!" he snarls, baring his teeth in fury at the hag. Sleep deprived, wet and cold, with muddy boots, and poisoned to boot. The dwarf's ever-loving patience has reached its -end-.
The woman, revealed to be a hag, eyes Aimarra balefully, her curse falling upon the woman wordlessly, but ineffectually.
GAME: Randolf rolls knowledge/arcana: (20)+16: 36 GAME: Randolf casts Haste. Caster Level: 7 DC: 17 GAME: Randolf casts Lightning Bolt. Caster Level: 7 DC: 17 GAME: Randolf rolls 7d6: (23): 23 GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+7: (10)+7: 17 GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon2: (13)+10: 23 GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon2-5: (5)+10+-5: 10 GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon2: (16)+10: 26 GAME: Aimarra rolls 1d8+3: (8)+3: 11 GAME: Aimarra rolls 1d8+3: (7)+3: 10
And the man at the back said 'everyone attack!' This isn't the first time Aimarra's felt that spell hit her, and she'll thank him later. For now, it's time to exact a little revenge, and she isn't nice about it in the slightest. Magic-fueled speed lets her close the distance between them, and the sword finds blood, once, the second strike whistling over her head, but the third sprays crimson across her face, temple to temple, leaving only ichor where eyes should be. "Stare at me, will you, bitch," she snarls. "I'll bury you!"
The hag steps back from Aimarra's fury, drinking a potion that heals her wounds but leaves her blind. Something that she can ill afford in a fight against the pair. "DOOMARE!" She cries out, and the horse responds with a whicker of noise, moving now toward its mistress.
GAME: Randolf casts Grease. Caster Level: 7 DC: 15 GAME: Aftershock rolls 1d20+7: (9)+7: 16
Randolf's bloodshot gaze snaps to the doomare as the hag calls to it. He narrows his eyes, skipping back a step as he sweeps up his wand once more. "Re ex re intaglios unctus!" he barks, sweeping his wand out in a wide arc. The soft ground, already slick with moisture, begins to glisten as a thick layer of buttery grease sweeps out like ice spreading across a pond. The doomare's hooves slip and skid on the greasy ground, but it stays upright. And is probably -really- mad. "Oh, piss up my -arse-!"
GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon2: (15)+10: 25 GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon2-5: (20)+10+-5: 25 (THREAT) GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon2-5: (6)+10+-5: 11 GAME: Aimarra rolls weapon2: (11)+10: 21 GAME: Aimarra rolls 1d8+3: (1)+3: 4 GAME: Aimarra rolls 1d8+3: (8)+3: 11 GAME: Aimarra rolls 1d8+3: (7)+3: 10
Aimarra presses the attack without mercy, knowing that the doomare is more than capable of _really_ ruining the dwarf's day. Her opponent now blind, the bloodied blade flashes again, ending up pinning her unconscious form to the floorboards of the cottage like a bug on a pin. "And _stay_ there." Ooooh, someone is not in a nice mood. She turns then to the doomare, and gives it a nasty stare. "Come closer, and meet the same fate, whatever the hell you are."
The doomare nickers at Aimarra, but seems to understand her well enough to not move. It looks mournfully at its mistress however. Obviously sad to see her departed. It seems an intelligent beast though, and simply stays where it is. Watching you.
Randolf's day is -already- ruined. Five gold for his muddied boots. He'll -never- get the smell of swamp mud out of them. He narrows his eyes as he turns his wand from the fallen hag back on the doomare. But it doesn't seem wont to charge them, or to otherwise seek vengeance for its fallen mistress. He slowly relaxes his stance, lowering his wand. "Go on," he growls. "Get ye gone, whatever the hell ye are. Don't ever let me catch ye again, or I swear tae Reos, I'll make -glue- out o' ye." He whisks his wand in a shoo-ing motion. "Go on, get!" He trundles back over to Aimarra. "You all right, lass?"
"Yeah." Aimarra's locked eyes, though, with the doomare. "She bred you," the ranger muses slowly, "from a nightmare and a horse." She tilts her head at it, studying it. "Do you know where the Seer is?"
The doomare steps back from Randolf, but eyes him and gives the dwarf a snort. It seems inclined to leave as suggested until Aimarra speaks up, and it locks eyes with her. It's hard to tell what the creature is thinking, but it nods after a moment and then turns and makes for the forest. Stops, whickers, and takes a few steps. Seems that the game of 'follow the creepy horse' is back on.
Randolf boggles a little bit as Aimarra starts addressing the doommare. He slaps a hand to his face and slowly drags it down, letting loose another sigh. "-Fuck-." It's about all the poor dwarf can muster at this point. He shoves his wand into its holster and starts trundling along after the doommare. "Right. So -now- it's goin' tae lead us intae the quicksand," he grumbles under his breath as he squelches his way through mud.
"It's about our only chance of getting to him alive." Aimarra's tone is short, and she pulls her sword forcefully out of the hag's corpse, keeping it to hand rather than bothering to clean and sheathe it, and following the doomare. "If the hag spoke the truth, the doomare knows where he is."
The doomare leads you to another house, but this one already shows the signs of having been broken into. It's in much better condition than the hag's... save the front door which has been ripped clean off its hinges. The doomare leads you right up to the building, but stays off the front porch.
GAME: Aimarra rolls perception: (3)+14: 17 GAME: Randolf rolls perception: (14)+8: 22
Randolf narrows his eyes as he approaches the cabin. "Son of a -bitch-," he snarls softly. He pulls his wand off his belt and begins moving cautiously forward. Every heavy footfall and wet schlorp of his boots rings like an anvil in his ears, but given the doomare they're accompanying, stealth is probably not an option at this point. He makes his way up the porch, wand held at the ready. With a grunt, he swings himself around the doorframe, peering inside.
Aimarra is close at his heels, sword at the ready. "Bet me the bitch sent whatever this is."
It's... A werewolf. Or you think that's what the gray-furred and many-fanged creature is that is hunched over the form of a... oh that's _wrong_. It's just chunky bits of red and gore laying on the ground now, but the vaguely human-shape of the blood-spatter suggests what the werewolf had been eating before you so unceremoniously enter the room. It's blue eyes are too-human and it growls as you enter the room. The very sound makes your hackles rise.
Randolf swallows hard as he beholds that terrible sight. His face once again turning pale as a cold sweat springs up on his brow. "Oh, beards o' me sweet tapdancin' fathers," he mutters. He tightens his grip on his wand, holding it on the werewolf. "Right laddie, let's have nae sudden moves now..."
The sound of the predator is once again enough to more than raise Aimarra's hackles - indeed, it sends chills down her spine, and raises something unheeded within her. She, too, bares her teeth in a none-too-friendly gesture. No doubt the horrible sight will sink in later, but for right now, the sword is what she needs. "Get behind me."
"The Nightmare comes." Says the werewolf, its voice a low growl that barely sounds like it should be words at all. Then, it goes out the window. The shattering glass goes in every direction, but the werewolf doesn't seem to mind that the glass is stuck in its fur as it goes out and rushes headlong into the wilderness beyond.
Randolf skitters back as the werewolf leaps into motion. "By -Reos-!" he cries, wand held out and ready to fire. But the werewolf wasn't leaping at them, but for freedom. He stares for a moment at that shattered window, before slowly straightening. "By -Reos-," he says again, quieter this time. He looks down at himself, then up at Aimarra. "Nightmare's nae comin'. It's already -here-." He holsters his wand, shaking his head. "C'mon, lass. We best be gettin' back tae Alex. Somehow, I think that someone dinnae get the memo that our Seer's a sodding werewolf now."
Aimarra simply _stares_ at the thing, as it flees, then at whatever it was eating. "Either he is, or he was just eaten by one." She wrinkles her nose, a shudder rippling through her. "Let's get out of here," she agrees, chilled to the bone. “You all right to get back?"
With that, she turns away, sword still in hand, and starts back.
-End