View source for PRP: Murder on the Arborveil Express

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== Log Info ==
*Title: Murder on the Arborveil Express
*DM: Aria
*Characters: Zahara (level 4), Fazahd (5), Dubtle (2)
*Place: The Arborveil Express, a wagon train on the road to Arborveil, a city in Alexandros far north from Alexandria.
*Time: October 7th, 2016
*Summary: The Morduzumite Inquisition hires adventures to assist Fazahd Masterbuilder in tracking down a wayward relic.
*APL: 4
*Encounter 1: 2 Magma Mephits (CR3)
*Encounter 2: Non-combat Murder Mystery
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Twelve days into the ugly end of one particular bout of Inquisition business, Fazahd finds himself desperately gathering comrades as the clock ticks. He needs to leave today to catch up with his quarry, and his usual go-to allies--those already officially conscripted into the Inquisition--are nowhere to be seen. They have lives and jobs too, after all, and sometimes that's inconvenient for an Inquisitor.

It was 8 AM when he put up the posting at the Adventurer's Guild, indicating that he needed adventurers by noon. Now it's 11:00, and nobody has shown up yet. His standards right about now just might be, "whatever I can get." He's waiting by the gates, having hired a few empty seats in one wagon, the last in a caravan of ten, to carry his group north. The other caravaneers are redoing their final checks. The guards are mounted and ready, and most of the passengers are already snug in their berths, or at least as snug as one can get in a covered wagon. Yep. They're all waiting on him.

The mission was a little vague too, though still potentially of great consequence. Sandy and Aria had been running down a single arcane energy signature for the last few days, trying to narrow down its exact location. The kicker? It was all too similar to what the group had already seen of tech in Morduzum. Someone either had snuck down there and retrieved something, or they were carrying derived technology of a very similar design and nature. And yesterday, it simply vanished, with a faint trail leading out of the city. Whoever it was, they had hired a horse in the night and escaped, perhaps realizing someone was onto them. Luckily, the Inquisition has a ranger on the payroll, and according to his intel, the path taken only leads to one city. Far in the northeast corner of Alexandros is Arborveil, the last city of any noteworthy size before one runs smack into the border with the Vast. If your target makes it there, there will likely be no catching him or her. Time is of the essence.


What's that, Inquisitorial council? Go on a hazardous mission that may or may not lead to violent death that nobody in the Adventurer's Guild will sign up for? CAN DO.

So here's Fazahd.

The Enginebreaker stands at the gates, cloak and coat fluttering in the autumn wind as he waits by a wagon at the side of the road, his expression a lead mask because really, it's either that or really get unimpressed with the world in general and he's just got too much of a hopeful priest in himself to do that.

So he just waits.


11:00 AM? What luck. That's when Zahara arises from her beauty sleep, almost on the dot, and begins her lazy toilette. One's got to take a fair good of time to really look good for some adventuring - yes, indeed, the right level of gilt, the right calico headwrap, all the festoonings. With her outfit attired as the most haughty, the most arrogant of all the little baubles and traditions of the peoples she's rubbed shoulders with - sailors and pirates aplenty - silk shirt, striped trousers, heavy boots, gleaming shirt of chain links, oversized leather gloves - last of all, is the bandanna atop her head, supplying a splash of color. A lazy stroll to the Guild after picking up a nice cool brew to start the day drinking, and the lazy swashbuckler wanders by the guild to see if there's any cash for danger available.


Dubtle might've been asked along by someone! Really, he's a Navosian and a little bookish and nerdy and knows a lot about history. Regardless, HE IS HERE. 
 
And so is his raven, sitting on his shoulder and preening itself. It looks quite pleased with itself. You can tell even in spite of the beak. Really, he was just hired along.


Swaggering herself on over to where the wagon is, Zahara moves to approach Fazahd, reaching up to tug at her headwrap in a kind of salute. "Saw the posting," she says, with a quick smile. "Need a quick blade to help fill out your gang?" she asks, struggling to not be distracted by the raven.


Nerds and swordswomen. Fazahd eyes Zahara for a long moment from his plaec by the wagon, then looks to Dubtle and gives the older dwarf a deep bow. "Come on, then," he says, and swings a leg up to board.


Zahara gives a little shrug at Fazahd's gruffness. It's not her fault that few are grateful when in the presence of greatness, after all. She instead boards the wagon and then favors him with a sunny smile. "So do we have any sort of plan to outpace the target on the path to Arborveil?" she asks. "Magic horse, perhaps? We could see about acquiring some sort of magic item if need be - it seemed that the transport we're running down was rather conventional."


Finally, both Zahara and Dubtle amble their way toward the increasingly desperate Reosian. Looks like that's all the help he's going to get. And so begins the noble expedition of Enginebreaker Fazahd Masterbu . . . "For fucks's sake! Stop standing out there with your cloak fluttering like an Aesiri manwhore, and get on the wagon, you POMPOUS ASS! We're /waiting/!" Well, then. That was inappropriate.

Luckily for you, that brusque scream came from within the last wagon. The same one you'll be taking. You'll have many hours to get to know your new friends!

With Fazahd's help, Zahara and Dubtle climb aboard. And you finally see why there were, very surprisingly this late before departure, so many empty seats in this wagon. There are two (barely) padded benches within this wagon, each one large enough for four people, situated left and right such that both rows face each other. And taking up most of the space on the left row are two half-sil women, adventurers themselves no less. Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford. If those names sound familiar, it's because they're two of the most infamous, reviled members of the Adventurer's Guild. Not because they're terrible people--though they objectively are by every standard measure of human decency--but because disaster tends to follow in their wake. Though they've never been directly responsible, they've been involved with at least two-dozen incidents apiece in which the words plague, zombie stampede, massacre, and/or unholy confluence--or once, the epithet "of ever-streaming tears of anguish"--were the operative descriptor.

Maybe Fazahd and company are just lucky to be oft-surrounded by people like that?

Will any of these details matter? Maybe. For now, Fazahd gets a chance to describe this job to his two companions.

The only thing going well for Fazahd and his impromptu inquisition today is that he has a toy. The arcanists and artificers within the Inquisition whipped it up for him. Put simply, it's a handheld device with a permanent Detect Magic spell tuned to the specific signature he's looking for. They boosted the range /way/ high, but they had to trade sensitivity and specificity for that. Now, if he's within one kilometer of the signature he's looking for, it will shift from green to red.


"That's a fascinating little trinket!" Dubtle seems enthused to see it do its work. Indeed, he's totally fixated on it, rather than Fazahd himself or even Zahara. His raven pecks him on the side of the head. 
 
"Ow! What doyou mean I'm being r-rude?!" he turns his eyes to the bird.


"Well, I suppose I shall have to become suited to be seated," complains Zahara good-naturedly as she seeks some way to take up as much room as possible - the end of a bench seems a good place to start. She seems to consider those on the left row as anathema, those who likely cannot recognize her greatness easily, and so she attempts to stay well away on the right row, so that she can more properly bathe those near her in her reflected brilliance. 


Fazahd gets on board, though he does so on his own time - shouting aside, Fazahd is in charge, and he isn't really a party to being shouted at. So he does indeed take his time as he goes along, mounts the wagon, and gives the half-Sils a flat look of absolute not giving a cowpat's heat for whatever it is they're trying to hurl at him. Because he has seen worse.

Once the wagon starts and they are on the way, the Enginebreaker deigns to speak. "We are pursuing a specific manar signature," he says. "The reasons behind this, you need not concern yourself with. Yes, it's going to be this sort of thing.

"Now, this device..." Fazahd holds up the item. "...will let us know when the signature we're tracking on the road comes up within a near distance. When we get there, we will locate the target, secure it, and act from there. We have no idea what is in there, no idea of its defenders, just that it hosts the source of the signature. This is as potentially exciting as it sounds, so we are going to be careful as we move toward the target."


"I know little about magic, per se, though I have been known to improvise with the right props," replies Zahara with a smile. "This device, tell me. Is there any way of blocking its signal? Or can it be relied upon entirely, should we come near?" she asks. "If it can be interfered with, we shall have to remain equally alert."


"We assume nothing," Fazahd says with a shrug. "But I certainly hope not."


Zahara inclines her head. "Understood," she says. "Now have you heard of the conduct of the Dran-Rune War? I have heard recently that a brave group of adventurers commissioned by some new Skyguild-affiliate cleared a pass closed with beasties recently..."


Three days and three nights is your travel time. Your caravan definitely moves slower than a galloping stallion, but you're comforted by the fact that movement over long distances is less a sprint and more a question of logistics and endurance. A single person on horseback without ample prepared supplies, if that's what you're dealing with, likely would have to stop to forage for provisions and would need to take a winding route to keep their horse watered. If all goes well for you, you won't be far behind when you get there.

It's the second night. You're not far from Arborveil now. The closest city at present is the small town of Derik's Reach, ten miles to the east. It's not the best place to make camp, at least from a defensive standpoint. On this particular long stretch of highway, you travel a narrow, semi-hardened road, roughly thirty feet wide. To the left and right are rough shoulders about as wide as the road, and just beyond that is a thick forest which easily conceals approach. But the caravan has stopped for the night out of necessity, on one side of the road, to allow other caravans to pass. There are a few fires for warmth, a few passengers sleeping by each, in addition to those resting within the wagon's themselves. There's only a skeleton patrol of guards to keep watch for bandits or monsters.

What are you doing tonight? Sleep is probably the sensible answer. One pays for fatigue in combat, when they need their body to fully respond.


Sleep? Yes. But thinly. Fazahd is no fool; he hangs chimes in the country around the road, thin metal arrangements purchased from Khazadi merchants in the Lower Market, forming a cordon. The music from their stirring is soft in the wind, almost haunting, but it is a very different sound from what a trespassing body will make.


Zahara's busy scribbling away in a folder that she's got. She seems to take up any downtime with drawing doodles. "Just have to create, constantly," she says. "It's what I do," if asked about it. And it's not entirely...nothing, but it's just a random, haphazard series of doodles and patterns running into odd caricatures and the like. It's really just that she's hyperactive and bored, and far too independent to do anything useful like sentry duty.


To be honest, three days and three nights is a long travel time for Dubtle. It's clear by the second day t hat he's actually dragging a bit. Th camp, once made, is at least a relief to him and he seems eager to get his bedroll out and get to sleep. But then he pauses and says, "Well.. I guess we're going to need a watch, aren't we." He sounds disheartened by the thought. His bird pecks him again. "Ow!"


"I'll admit," says Zahara. "I'm at my best with a good bit of sleep. I'm sure nobody in particular objects to me staying up late but sleeping in?" she asks. "That'll help cover some overlap," she argues fatuously.


GAME: Fazahd rolls perception: (2)+8: 10

GAME: Zahara rolls perception: (20)+1: 21

GAME: Dubtle rolls Perception: (15)+2: 17


It's 1 AM, which might as well be 10 for Zahara. She has been asleep at 3 and up at 11 for most of this trip, so she's still mostly awake. Fazahd is resting with one eye open, or so he thinks. It's not so easy to control these things, sometimes. And Dubtle is asleep next to him. The three are in their wagon. Their two fellow wagonmates, Vera and Ai, have been sleeping under the stars just outside.

Zahara hears it first. A faint sound of chimes on the wind. Dubtle does so a moment later, rousing groggily from his sleep, though it's hard to be sure when one is just waking up. There's no shout of alarm from the guards yet, though. Next to the two of them, Fazahd stirs a bit at the sound, but he doesn't quite wake up. Not yet.


Dubtle snooooooores. 
 
Dubtle is defintiely snoring. His raven is not too far from him. His staff is under his head and he has a soft pillow over it COMFY DUBTLE.


Zahara's eyes awaken, and something seems off. A sound. Chimes? But from where? Won't get paid if this doesn't go right. Get the serious fellow awake. And so she does that, leaning over first to start to try to shake Fazahd awake. She says one word, in something of a hiss. "Chimes."


Already prepared for danger, the shaking of his body only brings him out of it - if more slowly than he wanted. He rises, bringing with him the acid cannon that he'd had under his blanket.


The chimes sound again. They're coming from the treeline to the east.


"...mmmn? What's that?" Dubtle's noticing things. He's sitting up slowly, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "What, what?" The raven keeps pecking him. "WOULD YOU STOP THAT."


Fazahd is up, the cannon already coming to life in his hands - as is a unit mounted o his upper right chest, a box of smooth black metal inset with a single amber jewel. He touches this with his free hand, and suddenly rays of light spring forth from the stone to conjure a disc of force. You know, since he didn't go to sleep in his frigging armor.

He does pick up his shield, though. "Ready," he says, and prepares to intercept assholes.


GAME: Fazahd casts Shield. Caster Level: 5 DC: 14


Zahara indeed didn't sleep in her armor either - that's way too awkward and uncomfortable. "I'll guard the doorway at least. Sounds like chimes from the east," she whispers, immediately headed towards the outside. She does grab for her belt, with the pouches of smoke bombs and caltrops, hoping to fasten it around her waist before drawing her sword and heading outside of the wagon.


It has been thirty-eight hours since the caravan left. Thirty-eight hours of intense tedium and a sore ass from a jerky ride on a barely padded seat. And now, five minutes of desperate action.

Something is happening to the east. This carvan travels with a dozen guards. The night watch is four, though judging by the previous night, two of those tend to be lazily sleeping on any given night. And of the two actually doing their job now, one poor bastard is engaged in a fierce melee just by the edge of the treeline, near the chimes. He's fighting a defensive battle, each backward step forcing him into the woods, his assailant apparently having circled around him. You can't make out any details of his attacker's appearance, though. They're facing away and wearing a charcoal cloak that conceals the whole of their body. Are your ears not awake? Why hasn't the guard called out an alarm? No, better yet, why can't you hear the ringing of steel on steel? Nobody else seems to have noticed at all, in fact.

And just outside the wagon, you notice something else. The bedrolls for Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford are empty. You don't see them around anywhere.

What now?


SO, this isn't good. Dubtle is trying to figure out what's going on, but the fact that he's pretty green is showing in that some of this doesn't seem to occur to him. "What's going on?" he asks, glancing towards the bedrolls. "Where'd..." He frowns a little. Slow, dawning realizatino. His raven may be a little more on the upatke about this than he is.


Zahara figures those two are gone, but outside and wearing her gear, she's ready to take a step into that fight that she sees. "Well, someone's made the error of disturbing my rest! It's your lucky day, good sir," she says to the guard as she moves to try to take the side of the fellow being backed into the woods, figuring something may snap him from there. "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren you once..." She realizes from the lack of sound, then, that her speech is rather wasted, as she's guessing there's some sort of magickal silence effect. But still, her first urge is to go help out that guard, first snatching her buckler from its latch on her belt and snapping it on her right forearm, then winkling her rapier from its sheath with her left hand.


Zahara rushes in, but the mysterious assailant spins around as she draws close. There's a mask on his or her face. Zahara can barely discern that in the dark, though there are no further clues to their appearance. She can get a rough estimate of their height, though: around 5'8". Perhaps not helpful, as that's within possibility for a man or woman of most races.

The attack isn't quite successful, though. A very standard-looking longsword rises to meet that of Zahara, parrying the swashbuckler's charging strike. There's a forge in Alexandria which sells swords of that exact type in huge numbers. But again, there's no sound as the blades meet. The guard follows up from the assailant's rear now, trying to exploit the opportunity to end them. It's a killing strike, or it would be, but the mysterious attacker simply ducks low and rolls to their side, dodging it only narrowly. They seem like a very skilled swordsman.

And now with a bit of room, and clearly outnumbered by competent combatants, the attacker flees into the woods. There's no time to consider giving chase, though. A number of bright eyes are peering at Zahara and the guard from the woods.

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  ATTENTION  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Aria has dropped a TIMESTOP!

Please +init, then cease all roleplay and actions immediately and wait for Aria to instruct you further.

For in-combat commands, type: +thelp.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-


 ===================== Current Initiative Order - Round 1 =====================
 ---Init--Name------------AOO-Notes--------------------------------------------
     24   Fazahd   1  Flat-footed (0 rnds active)  
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     22   Mephit1     
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     11   Zahara   4  Flat-footed (0 rnds active)  
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     9    Mephit2     
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     6    Dubtle   1  Flat-footed (0 rnds active)  
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------


GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round One - Init 24.
      It is now Fazahd's turn! Mephit1 is next!
GAME: Note Flat-footed on Fazahd ended.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round One - Init 22.
      It is now Mephit1's turn! Zahara is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d100: (11): 11

Energy swirls around the first monster lurking in the woods. A portal briefly materializes, only to wink out of existence a moment later. Its summon was unsuccessful, apparently.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round One - Init 11.
      It is now Zahara's turn! Mephit2 is next!
GAME: Note Flat-footed on Zahara ended.

Zahara glances at the guard. "Let's retreat to the treeline," she says, looking back at the two others. "There's mephits here, but they don't seem to be doing anything. Let's see if we can get a reading off the device," she says, turning to the guard. "You. Stay with us. Those things may not chase."

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round One - Init 9.
      It is now Mephit2's turn! Dubtle is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d100: (99): 99

GAME: You roll initiative for Mephit3: Roll: 17 + Bonus: 6 = Total: 23

 ===================== Current Initiative Order - Round 1 =====================
 ---Init--Name------------AOO-Notes--------------------------------------------
     24   Fazahd   1  
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     23   Mephit3     
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     22   Mephit1  1  
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     11   Zahara   4  
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  >> 9    Mephit2  1   <<
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     6    Dubtle   1  Flat-footed (0 rnds remaining)       
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ==============================================================================

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round One - Init 6.
      It is now Dubtle's turn! Fazahd is next!
GAME: Note Flat-footed on Dubtle ended.

GAME: Dubtle casts Enlarge Person. Caster Level: 2 DC: 14

"Heeey, Zahara," says Dubtle, brightly, "Wanna be HUGE?" he doesn't really wait for her response. Instead, he begins to chant a magical spell which, indeed, begins to have Zahara growing, growing, growing... 
 
In the meantime, faz TOALLY blasts a Mephit.


As another mephit pops into existence, Zahara backs away from the treeline a bit. "Looks like we've got a little extra company!" However, she looks down, a little surprised, as she starts...to swell. Taller Much taller. She experimentally pokes her blade in front of her a bit, half expecting to hear someone say, "That's a huge bladeswoman!"

GAME: NEW ROUND!
      Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Two - Init 24.
      It is now Fazahd's turn! Mephit3 is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+6: (5)+6: 11

GAME: Dubtle rolls 2d6+3: (7)+3: 10

The fight is finally starting in earnest. The two creatures each go through the process of trying to summon reinforcements. The first can't quite manage to complete the portal, but the second does, and through the extraplanar opening emerges another pair of glowing eyes. Now that she has a better line of sight, Zahara can tell what the group is dealing with. They're small, orange winged creatures of impish proportions, but their claws drip with molten magma, and their eyes glow a smouldering, fiery color. She has likely heard of them before, even if she has never seen them. Magma Mephits. Minor outsiders from the elemental plane of fire. Why are they here? They just summoned reinforcements too, which means . . .

The guard, meanwhile, seems to brush off Zahara. "I don't follow your orders, lady," he says brusquely. This after the swashbuckler likely saved his life not moments earlier. He rushes up toward the wagons with Zahara, but he doesn't stay with her, instead disappearing around one of the wagons.

A moment later, the other patrolling guard finally rouses his comrades. "Alarm! Alarm!" comes the panicked scream. But the shouts don't come from where Zahara spotted the mephits. No, that guard was on the opposite side of the wagon train. You're being attacked from both sides?

The shouting sets off a flurry of activity. The sleeping guards nearby start rousing each other from their rest, scrambling to don their helms and chain before heading down toward the west. The civilian passengers, meanwhile, cower near the wagons, a few picking up improvised weapons, though it doesn't seem like many of them are fighters.

Your two fellow wagonmates are still out of sight.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Two - Init 23.
      It is now Mephit3's turn! Mephit1 is next!

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Two - Init 22.
      It is now Mephit1's turn! Zahara is next!

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Two - Init 11.
      It is now Zahara's turn! Mephit2 is next!

"You don't have to," Zahara replies gallantly. "But you might want to see what that is," she says. "In any case, I suppose we have to ensure nobody gets killed," she says back to Dubtle. "But, no doubt it will be at the cost of this diversion working most effectively. Almost certainly it was those two other miscreants - where would they have gone?" she says, spitting. "Anyway, at least I can see both sides now," she says, growing, trying to peer over the wagon to see the problem on the other side.


Two of the Mephits now rush out of the forest and start to close the gap with Zahara. They're close now, but thankfully, their attention is on her. Whatever is happening on the other side, the party will likely need to hold off the outsiders on /this/ side, if she's to save the civilians nearby.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Two - Init 9.
      It is now Mephit2's turn! Dubtle is next!

The third Mephit follows a moment later, all three now closing on the unarmored swashbuckler.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Two - Init 6.
      It is now Dubtle's turn! Fazahd is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+2: (12)+2: 14

GAME: NEW ROUND!
      Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Three - Init 24.
      It is now Fazahd's turn! Mephit3 is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+6: (4)+6: 10

GAME: Dubtle rolls 2d6+4: (11)+4: 15

"Ha! It worked!" Dubtle yells excitedly, seeming happy with Zahara's explosive growth into the ogre-size. 
 
Then he advances up behind a mephit and tries to twhock it with a stick and instead only sticks it in the mud. 
 
"Dang it," he says, yoinking it free. 
 
Meanwhile, Fazahd blasts another one with his ray. It seems to slag it good.


This is going to Hell fast. Really fast. Fazahd and Dubtle are still on the south side of the final wagon in the train. They can see both east and west. That's true now of Zahara too. With her height doubled by the Enlarge Person, she stands just about 11 feet tall now, and she's just barely able to look over the wagon next to her to see what's going on the other side of it.

You've got outsiders coming from the west, and either fortunately or unfortunately, it looks like the caravan's guards on that side have the worse fight. Shambling humanoid monsters of magma are making their way out of the woods, about a half-dozen of them. They don't look particularly strong, but they're certainly tougher than mephits.

By now, the caravan leader is awake too, screaming orders for the guards to awaken and defend the west side. A half-dozen of the guards have already met the outsiders, and the remaining six are in the final moments of donning their armor before joining the fight. By the looks of it, the lot of them are wearing medium armor, with large shields and longswords. And their training seems acceptable. They're typical mercenaries doing guard work, and they can probably handle themselves. So far, they seem to be holding their own, leaving the party to worry about their own side. It's not clear why the bulk of the outsiders are coming from that direction. It's a poor strategy, and these monsters aren't unintelligent.

Something is a little odd, though. None of the guards have crossed the treeline to the west, seeming to prefer to fight defensively on the shoulder, but you can hear screams of battle from deeper within the forest in that direction.


GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Three - Init 23.
      It is now Mephit3's turn! Mephit1 is next!

GAME: Mephit1 removed from initiative list.

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (16)+5: 21

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (3)+5: 8

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (1)+1: 2

GAME: You damaged Dubtle for 2 points. 16 remaining.

Two mephits remain, one of them on top of the party now. After Dubtle's failed attack, it lunges toward the historian, raking him with its claws. One strike lands, dealing minor but probably still painful damage.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Three - Init 11.
      It is now Zahara's turn! Mephit2 is next!

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1+2: (1)+9+2: 12

The greatly enlarged Zahara is far less impressive in practice than in word. However, she at least has the spell to blame. "This damn magic is throwing off my aim!" she complains. "You try a balestra when double-sized!"

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Three - Init 9.
      It is now Mephit2's turn! Dubtle is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d8: (5): 5

GAME: Zahara rolls reflex: (2)+7: 9

GAME: Dubtle rolls ref: (12)+2: 14

GAME: You damaged Dubtle for 2 points. 14 remaining.

GAME: You damaged Zahara for 5 points. 28 remaining.

Zahara puts up her arms as the fiery blast sears her skin. "Ach, dammit! These things hurt!" she says. "And I'm a bigger target for that spray now!" Her experience with being suddenly huge could have gone better. She'll make sure to take that up with Dubtle later, however unfairly.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Three - Init 6.
      It is now Dubtle's turn! Fazahd is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+3: (4)+3: 7

GAME: NEW ROUND!
      Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Four - Init 24.
      It is now Fazahd's turn! Mephit3 is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+8: (15)+8: 23

GAME: Dubtle rolls 2d6+4: (7)+4: 11

What WOULD they be doing withoiut Fazahd right now? His death ray absolutely slags another of the mephits badly, making it let out a little squeal of pain! 
 
Meanwhile, Dubtle does his level best (with panic etched all over his face) to swipe at a mephit again with his stick. "AHHH," he yells. It's his battle cry. 
 
It does not appear to be helping him.


The battle keeps raging. By now, all of the guards are in melee with the magma creature outsiders to the west. A few of the passengers are helping too. The two with you weren't the only adventurers. One looks to be a ranger, though not a very skilled one, firing arrows that have little effect on the humanoid monsters. The other is a wizard, apparently of middling experience. They wiggle their fingers, and a trio of magic missile streak outward, all three striking one of the outsiders, it falling to the ground and slowly vanishing from sight with a brief flash of fiery energy, apparently returning to its plane. By comparison, the mephits on your side are leaving corpses

Things look to be going well on the western front.

And that's when you hear a high-pitched scream from the woods. A woman, you can tell that much, though more than that is hard to know.


GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Four - Init 23.
      It is now Mephit3's turn! Zahara is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (17)+5: 22

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (7)+5: 12

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1: (4)+9: 13

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (3)+1: 4

GAME: You damaged Zahara for 4 points. 24 remaining.

Zahara tries to make a move to block one of the incoming claws, but her increased size makes her stumble against a nearby stump and the mephit's tiny claws draw blood from her enlarged frame. "Piss and blast!" she bellows in frustration.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Four - Init 11.
      It is now Zahara's turn! Mephit2 is next!

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1: (19)+9: 28

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1: (2)+9: 11

GAME: Zahara rolls 1d6+7: (5)+7: 12

GAME: Zahara rolls intimidate: (10)+12: 22

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+3: (2)+3: 5

"That'll show you, absurdly tiny mephit!" booms MegaZahara from far above. "Now prepare for your doom. Your corpse will warm my next potato cone."

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Four - Init 9.
      It is now Mephit2's turn! Dubtle is next!

Mephit 2 again starts to focus his energy. What's it planning to do? Dubtle might recognize the effect from the spell energy. It's a lava mephit power, similar to a pyrotechnics spell. Which means, just about now . . .

All of the fires in the camp suddenly wink out of existence as their power is harnessed by the mephit. Thankfully, it's the more benign of the two options. Maybe. A thick cloud of ash and smoke erupts from each one, the fog of war suddenly becoming that much thicker, enveloping the wagon train and the battle on either side of it. Right about now? Visibility sucks.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Four - Init 6.
      It is now Dubtle's turn! Fazahd is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d100: (34): 34

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+2: (18)+2: 20

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d6+2: (2)+2: 4

GAME: NEW ROUND!
      Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Five - Init 24.
      It is now Fazahd's turn! Mephit3 is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d100: (50): 50

Welp. 
 
...both Dubtle and Fazahd are not parwticularly useful at the moment! Dubtle's quaeterstaff with its iron shod goes whistling over the head of a Mephit. He was SURE he was on target there, but he doen't land it. Fazahd's blast scorhes the earth.


There are screams of confusion as the visibility drops to near zero. An occasional shout of agony from the guard's line indicates that attacks are getting through that weren't a minute ago. Then again, it's quite likely denizens of the elemental plane of fire aren't impeded by smoke, as humans are. The battle might be shifting. The caravan master screams amidst the impenetrable haze. "Tighten the lines! Shields up!" Hopefully, such tactics are enough to stall until the smoke lifts.

Meanwhile, Zahara continues to suffer wounds from the Mephit's claws.

Then you hear something different. The earlier sounds of combat from within the woods draws closer, and then suddenly those noises start to ring out more clearly. The combatants just broke through the treeline. Some of them are trying to get back to the wagon. It's noteworthy because it's the clear sound of steel on steel, meaning both combatants are humanoids, or at the very least, not elementals. And judging by the pace and intensity of the strikes, it's a life-or-death battle fought by skilled combatants. Not that you have time to worry about that now.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Five - Init 23.
      It is now Mephit3's turn! Zahara is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (9)+5: 14

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (15)+5: 20

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (3)+1: 4

GAME: You damaged Zahara for 4 points. 20 remaining.

With the attention of the mephit claws on her, Zahara is beset upon by brutal, hideous, shrieking clawbeasts with zero visibility around her. She doesn't seem very pleased, not at all. With the visibility devastated like that, and with pain and confusion starting to rule the day, it seems the mephits are turning the tide!

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Five - Init 11.
      It is now Zahara's turn! Mephit2 is next!

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1: (10)+9: 19
GAME: Zahara rolls 1d100: (30): 30

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Five - Init 9.
      It is now Mephit2's turn! Dubtle is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (19)+5: 24

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (17)+5: 22

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (1)+1: 2

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (3)+1: 4

GAME: You damaged Dubtle for 2 points. 12 remaining.

GAME: You damaged Dubtle for 4 points. 8 remaining.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Five - Init 6.
      It is now Dubtle's turn! Fazahd is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d100: (35): 35
GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+6: (9)+6: 15

GAME: NEW ROUND!
      Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Six - Init 24.
      It is now Fazahd's turn! Mephit3 is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+6: (19)+6: 25
GAME: Dubtle rolls 2d6+4: (3)+4: 7

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Six - Init 23.
      It is now Mephit3's turn! Zahara is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (16)+5: 21

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (20)+5: 25

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (2)+1: 3

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (2)+1: 3

GAME: You damaged Zahara for 3 points. 17 remaining.

GAME: You damaged Zahara for 3 points. 14 remaining.

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (15)+5: 20
GAME: You damaged Zahara for 3 points. 11 remaining.

Zahara's not having a nice time. Beset upon by the brutal mephits and hacking and coughing from the smoke, she starts to feel a sudden surge of real fear. But no! It's not going to end like this. And so Zahara prepares herself, teeth gritted, do spear the last mephit.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Six - Init 11.
      It is now Zahara's turn! Mephit2 is next!

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1: (6)+9: 15

And that one cleaves nothing but empty air, where she'd hoped the mephit be. A particularly unladylike curse is heard from her direction.


At least there's only one left... 
 
That is, to say, there's one left after Fazahd /melts/ the damn thing. He seems all grim faced and stoic because he's totes not-a-dorf Fazahd.

On the other hand, Dubtle is failing. This is not surprising. STILL. He's accomplish mission 'help ZAhara' and moves himself to provide a useful distractor for the sole remaining Mephit.


The smoke is starting to thin, but it's still just about everywhere. Thankfully, though, you can at least see in front of you, meaning it's a lot easier to fight. You can't see it yet, but the guards seem to be rallying again, and judging by their shouts along the lines of, "Here's one!" and, "On me! Finish it!" they seem be mopping up on their end.

But the fog of war is still thick enough that confusion is everpresent. Opposite the wagon Zahara is next to is the mage who had been pelting the elementals on the western front with spells. The smoke is still too thick to quite see that far, but there's a sharp scream, only for it to end a moment later as you hear a body crumpling to the ground, a flurry of now aimless magic missiles erupting into the sky, no longer controlled by their caster. And a moment later, the device on Fazahd's belt suddenly winks from green to red. The signature he's looking for is apparently not far at all.

Elsewhere, farther away, you can still hear those two humanoid combatants exchanging blows with their swords.


GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Six - Init 9.
      It is now Mephit2's turn! Dubtle is next!

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Six - Init 6.
      It is now Dubtle's turn! Fazahd is next!

GAME: Mephit2 removed from initiative list.

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+7: (12)+7: 19

GAME: Dubtle rolls 2d6+4: (11)+4: 15

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+4: (20)+4: 24

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+4: (1)+4: 5

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d6+2: (2)+2: 4

GAME: Aria rolls 1d100: (48): 48

GAME: NEW ROUND!
      Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Seven - Init 24.
      It is now Fazahd's turn! Mephit3 is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+7: (1)+7: 8

BLORCH. 

Dubtle /did/ hi well. And accomplished absolutely nothing when he did! And then Fazahd's ray goes sailing over it and ito the stratosphere. 
 
Somewhere, a bird may fall to earth. Or perhaps an airsship.

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Seven - Init 23.
      It is now Mephit3's turn! Zahara is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (11)+5: 16

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+5: (11)+5: 16

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1: (6)+9: 15

DM Note: Zahara unsuccessfully tries to parry the first, then dodges the second. Two panache expended.

GAME: Aria rolls 1d3+1: (2)+1: 3
GAME: You damaged Zahara for 3 points. 8 remaining.
 
GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Seven - Init 11.
      It is now Zahara's turn! Dubtle is next!

GAME: Aria rolls 1d100: (54): 54

GAME: Zahara rolls weapon1: (9)+9: 18

GAME: Zahara rolls 1d6+7: (3)+7: 10

GAME: Zahara rolls intimidate: (15)+12: 27

GAME: Aria rolls 1d20+3: (14)+3: 17

Attempting to fence with the creature leads to little immediate profit, Zahara attempting to block and then counterattack as she can, eventually stepping back out of range before she leans forward, sweeping the rapier up and then darting forward to damage the magma mephit with a pointed thrust. "Cursed little beast. You should have been a bedwarmer."

GAME: Aria advances the initiative order.
      Round Seven - Init 6.
      It is now Dubtle's turn! Fazahd is next!

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+4: (15)+4: 19

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d6+2: (4)+2: 6

GAME: Dubtle rolls 1d20+7: (5)+7: 12

GAME: Dubtle rolls 2d6+4: (2)+4: 6

...and then a smoking death ray. fires one last shot, slagging the mephit and turning it into a little pile of goop.


The claws of the annoying, brutish mephits prove far more deadly than the team anticipated, and by now, both Zahara and Dubtle are covered in wounds. Each strike is fairly minor, though. A bit of attention from a cleric will be enough to make those wounds disappear. Fazahd is still at a distance, unscathed, his marksmanship having won this small battle. If only that was their only challenge.

The wind picks up, and finally the smoke starts to clear. The party can start to see the grim results of this combat just as the smoke starts to clear. On the western front, things are just about over. The last humanoid outsider with a body of magma falls to the onslaught of several guards who have surrounded it. Its body disappears in a flash of fire energy just as it's about to go down, just like the rest of them. It's strange, given that the mephit corpses still lie there on the ground. What's the difference?

The guards themselves have various degrees of wounds and burns, but they all are alive and stable. Most are on their feet. A mix of luck and skill saved the day for them, maybe. In fact, with the corpses of their foes having vanished, the only trace of their battle now is the occasional splintered shield and scorch mark. Nothing else remains on that side of the battlefield.

If only everyone were so lucky. On the other side of the wagon Zahara is next to lies the corpse of the mage, a pool of blood beneath her, no longer growing. Someone killed her in the chaos of the battle.

And someone else is wounded grievously. In fact, there's still one minor battle going, though it ends a moment later. Finally you see who was fighting beyond the treeline, and you realize what the agonized scream from within the woods was from. There's Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford, your wagonmates. But Vera is lying on the ground bleeding profusely, her hands over her guts, trying to keep them from spilling out. She's going to die soon without healing magic. And Ai is standing over to her, fighting a guard, seemingly protecting her partner after she collapsed due to blood loss. It's strange, though. Ai and Vera are extremely experienced fighters; everyone in the guild knows that. They might be assholes who don't work well with others, but they're hardened veterans of the guild who typically accept its most major dangerous missions and succeed. How did this one caravan guard best one of them? In fact, watching the battle, the guard is moving with speed and skill far, far beyond a normal mercenary. It's all Ai can do to keep up her defense. At least until, a moment later, Vera pulls one last trick out of her hat before falling unconscious. When the guard is distracted, Vera pulls out a flashbomb and tosses it into the air above, the brief disorientation enough to give Liu an opening. A second later, Ai's slightly curved eastern sword runs through the guard's heart. He's dead, crumpling straight to the ground. But judging by the direction they're facing and the way they were moving, Liu and Vera were fighting a slow, defensive battle to get back here. Why? As the guard falls, Liu drops to her knees and clutches her friend. "Help me! I need a healer!"

And finally you see what all of this is about. There's a box, now smashed-open, that was in the trunk of the mage's belongings. Looking at the inside of the box, you see significant warding, enough to hide the signature of the device still within, obviously of design similar to that found in Morduzum. Someone was trying to take it, apparently, but they seemed to have been interrupted by the smoke suddenly clearing.

But there's nowhere to run anymore, for anyone. The caravan master acts quickly when he realizes two people are dead. "Guards!" He screams. "Quarantine the caravan! We have a murderer in our midst!" A quarantine might work. At the very least, looking around you, everyone who left with the caravan is still here, dead or alive. But the caravan master has the power now, and judging by the look on his face, at least for the moment, he has zero inclination to yield power to anyone else. Likewise, the guards look ready to cut down anyone who tries to leave or make the slightest bit of additional trouble. You have no moment for vigilante justice or rash action. "Do we have a cleric?" he shouts, seeing Vera's wounds. Apparently, they do, and the older man moves to stabilize the downed half-sil. "Heal that woman! Keep her alive until we can figure out what's going on."

And oh. That's a good question, isn't it.

/What the fuck is going on here?/


Zahara puts away her weapons. "I'm not sure I kept track of what was happening," she says to Fazahd. "There was an attack on this side of the wagon. The mephits. One of the guards was being fought into where they were. The person in black ran away. Then that redhead was injured and her companion started bawling. Was there anything I missed?" she asks, looking around the caravan wildly.


"First thing's first." Fazahd crouches down by the fallen Vera, producing from his belt a device that looks rather like a pistol-gripped syringe of brass and faintly glowing crystal, tipped not with a needle but a short, blunt spike of silver. He presses a button on the back of the device, and a ray of golden light plays over Vera's midsection, knitting the woman's stomach to the point that she is not in immediate danger of showing off Snowden's Secret. Then he looks at Aria. "Secure that chest, Aria," he says. "That belongs to the Inquisition, along with its contents. Let nobody take it from you."


Zahara rolls her eyes but moves to secure the chest. "...belongs to the Inquisition, along with its contents..." can perhaps be heard muttering. "The Most High and Holy Inquisition."


GAME: Fazahd rolls knowledge/arcana: (17)+8: 25 to Aria

GAME: Fazahd rolls knowledge/the planes: (2)+7: 9 to Aria


Blink. Blink. 
 
Dubtle is here, ofcourse, but there's limited availability of healing magic to him. He's more than happy to let Fazahd take the lead on that and follow along. He still seems a bit shaken, honestly, himself.


Fazahd thinks about why the bodies of the lava monsters to the west vanished, while those of the three mephits to the east didn't. His knowledge of magic gives him one immediate possibility. The monsters to the west were summoned by someone, and like most summoned extraplanar creatures, they simply returned to their home plane when they were about to fall. The three mephits to the east must have come here on their own. Why would the latter happen? He doesn't have an immediate answer to that.

Meanwhile, Vera's gaping stomach wound closes as the healing magic works on her, leaving her barely conscious. She'll likely need more healing in the coming days to fully recover, but she's stable for now. Liu looks up with gratitude. "Thank you."


"Something like that," Fazahd calls out cheerfully to Zahara, and looks back to the fallen woman as the other priest comes to stabilize and mend her. "Tell me what happened," he asks of them, and though his tone is gentle there is not much of a 'please' behind his words. "She'll be fine, though very weak for a bit. Now how did this fight start?"

Zahara hangs out by the chest, having little knowledge of planes and arcana and whatnot, unless it comes to figuring out how to set something off uncontrolled. That she's better at.


"It was him," Liu Ai points at the now dead guard lying a dozen feet from her. Judging by the precision of the wound through his chest, only a resurrection spell is bringing him back. "Vera . . . needed to take a trip into the woods. I went with her. On our way back, we spotted him. A moment later, he turned and realized we had seen him, and he attacked us on the spot." She pauses. "The three of you are with the Adventurer's Guild, right? You believe us, right?"


"I'm going to stay as a rook in this game of chess," declares Zahara. "And I'm going to be laying my sights on this game of chess. Let's say more that I don't disbelieve you than that I believe you, how about that?" she asks.


GAME: Zahara rolls sense motive: (20)+5: 25

GAME: Fazahd rolls sense motive+1: (4)+10+1: 15


You paged Zahara with 'She fairly sure she's telling the truth.'
You paged Fazahd with 'You're not completely sure, but she seems to be telling the truth.'


With these things it's always hard to tell - Zahara seems to drop her huffiness a bit, and starts carefully preening herself, making sure any speck of combat dirt or dissaray is removed from her corsage.


"I see." Fazahd looks between the two women thoughtfully. "And did you see who killed the woman whose trunk that was? The mage?"


Zahara glances at the trunk feeling its call. She doesn't open it. Not yet.


"...ah, well," says Dubtle, eyeing the trunk. He's inspecting it a bit himself. ".. I'ma just follow your lead, good sir. This sounds more your area of expertise than mine." He gives a nod towards Fazahd, then eys Zahara. It seems she is having similar thoughts to he, and the raven on his shoulder, with regards to the trunk.


"Who?" Liu Ai seems genuinely surprised to even hear that. That's right. Judging by the sounds you heard, they were still fighting Mr. Guard when the mage was killed. In fact, she has to look around for a few moments longer and actually see the other body before she realizes someone else was killed. "By the goddess. I met her last night, while we were making camp. Poor girl. And I don't know. I was focused on fighting him." She thumbs at the dead guard. "We both were. I have no idea who killed her." Well, that's simple enough. The two ladies seem to be telling the truth, so case clo . . .

"She's lying." That's coming from one of the guards, spoken almost in a snarl. In fact, that's the very same guard that Zahara saved, the one fighting with his back to the treeline against a mysterious cloaked assailant. "Durbo," presumably that guard's name, "told me that he was going into the woods to take a piss. I'm not sure what those two were doing, but he clearly caught them in the act, and he paid with his life for doing so."

Liu Ai stands again there, hands gripping her still-sheathed sword, eyes narrowed. "/You're/ the liar." She's ready to fight.

Luckily, the Caravan Master steps a bit closer, defusing the situation before the adventurers have to step in. "Take your hands away from that blade. Guilty or not guilty, girl, anyone who draws steel right now gets cut down. I'm not taking any chances." He looks at Fazahd sharply there. "You're an Inquisitor, right? And these are your comrades? You seem like you're trying to get to the bottom of this, and I respect the works of Reos. We need to figure this out before we get moving, and I'm leaving that job to the three of you."


"What I think is happening here," says Zahara to Fazahd, "is that these two are not lying, but rather they aren't telling us the whole story. They're not likely to. So we have to guess at it. Perhaps some other patron feels they should be the guardian of whatever we're trying to protect," she says. "There's value to be gained in the role of guardian, after all. "I wouldn't be surprised if they're as after this chest as we are."


GAME: Fazahd rolls sense motive+1: (7)+10+1: 18

GAME: Dubtle rolls Sense Motive: (12)+4: 16

You paged (Fazahd, Dubtle) with 'You're not completely sure, but he seems to be telling the truth.'


"It depends on what he was doing when he found them, my friend." Fazahd looks down at the two women. "Are the two of you intimate? Is that what he came upon in the woods? Or was there something else? I urge you to speak truly, for many fates will be decided here." He fixes his black eyes upon Liu Ai, still understanding, but iron stern.


Zahara winces at Fazahd's question. "I really...I really don't think..." She can't help but laugh helplessly. "Even if they were, I doubt they were making the beast with two backs in the forest on this job." She shakes her head. "Obviously the guard is lying, Fazahd."


"What in the Abyssal Plane does it matter whether we're intimate? Do you want to see a demonstration?" Liu Ai casts a brief wayward glance in Zahara's direction for some reason. "No. She needed to go, so I went with her. Apparently, it's a damn good thing I did."


"Just because we don't know the Jade Islander's full motives doesn't mean that they were doing that in this situation," replies Zahara. "I think they might know more than they're letting on about this escaping woman. Perhaps she was their target, and now she is passed away, and that is all we will ever know," she says, thoughtfully. "Maybe our runaway was trying to escape with the device, and even summoned help for her to do so," she suggests. "Our friends likely do not wish to be known as assassins, but they completed their mission. Only. Hrmm. That doesn't account for why the guard is saying that." She glances at the guard. "Ah! I think the wizard must have cast an illusion. So perhaps he is not lying after all."

Zahara is happy to babble out loud until someone tells her to shut it.


"It matters if he came upon you and decided to take liberties," Fazahd says bluntly. "I mean nothing by the question, but many hidden things happen at night - as we see now." He looks to the guard. "You sit down. I will come back to you once we have examined the scene."


"Oh, for the... " When Fazahd asks that question, Dubtle turns BRIGHT RED. This is not the conversation he signed up to be a part of! That's why he is now busily poking around and hunting fr ANYTHING out of place. Because it's less mortifying.


GAME: Dubtle rolls Perception: (16)+2: 18

GAME: Zahara rolls perception: (4)+1: 5

GAME: Fazahd rolls perception: (10)+8: 18


A low tree branch thwashes Zahara in the face. "My eyes!"


"Oh! Oh my! Are you okay?" Dubtle is definitely distracte dby Zahara's call about her eyes. He drops his spectacles and picks them back up a moment later after he was cleaning them. 
 
He's mostly backing Faxzahd's investigation up at this poijnt, allowing the more senior dventurer to take point.


The team decides to break off their interrogation for a moment, heading instead to survey the battlefield to the east, all three of them looking around.

A few things are instantly obvious with deliberate observation. First, there are heavy footprints with nearly flat soles leading out toward the treeline, and then heading back. Those deep impressions are pretty easily discernable as being made by someone in heavy boots with a lot of weight weighing them down. That's to be expected, though. That matches the path of the guard who Zahara saved, after all.

There aren't any other impressions, though. His assailant was likely light on their feet.

And judging by the guard's footprints--melee combat leaves a lot of turned-up ground beneath it as combatants pivot and throw their weight into strikes--he was only attacked /near/ the treeline. As in, he walked toward it before he was attacked, and there he turned to defend himself.

Fazahd, with Dubtle's aid, spots something glistening within the trees, though. The area seems to be clear of enemies, so he goes to investigate. Hastily discarded amidst a crumpled cloak, he finds a mask and a longsword. Bringing them back with him, Zahara will recognize those effects. The assailant was using these. There's something on the sword, though: a slick, possibly alchemical substance.


GAME: Fazahd rolls spellcraft: (17)+8: 25


Zahara points out most helpfully, "These were used by the assailant I saw!"


The substance seems to be Oil of Silence. That explains one thing. That's why the swords weren't ringing out when this attacker was dueling the guard. That raises one question as it answers another, though. If only the sounds of the /blades/ were silenced, then why didn't he call out for help or try to raise the alarm?


Fazahd busies himself with probing the scene, poking at things with a stick as he goes, ducking tree branches, totally not getting swatted in the face - though he does check on Zahara momentarily to make sure she's not blinded. And then of course, they find - along with the footsteps - the Goopiest Sword Ever. Fazahd crouches down to examine the weapon. "Oil of Silence," he says. "Which explains why we did not hear the ring of steel - but if that's the case, why did he not speak up? Perhaps..." He trails off, looking around once more.


"I think I've pieced it together," says Zahara, thoughtfully, after a little more consideration. "The guard was in on helping the woman escape with the chest. Vera and Ai interrupted them. The conspirators' mephits came to help, and the woman summoned magma beasties to cover her escape. Ai and Vera managed to kill her. The guard was going to be left for dead to the mephits anyway," she says, thoughtfully. "And the magma beasts disappeared when the woman died. There. I think that fits all the facts, does it not?" she asks. "I don't think we've got any proof to nail the guard, at least that I can see but I think we have enough to take claim of the chest and send everyone on their way. There's no way the fleeing criminal gets dead without their intervention."


GAME: Dubtle rolls Perception: (18)+2: 20

GAME: Fazahd rolls perception: (15)+8: 23

GAME: Zahara rolls perception: (1)+1: 2


You find one more thing. A key. Someone seemingly dropped it just short of the chimes Fazahd set up. It's on the inside of the perimeter, though.


It's just a simple gray cloak and a mask with an elastic band to keep it secure. It's hardly even a disguise, more like a simple way to conceal's one identity. They were smart enough not to use anything distinctive, though. Either that, or this was all meant to be disposable gear, so they bought the cheapest, most common stuff. Why the attacker /had/ this kind of gear on hand, only to ditch it after the fact, is anyone's guess.


Zahara gives a shrug. "Anyway. It seems we were dealing with magic to escape here. Certainly there could be illusions or the like. It seems like these two weren't lying, but it doesn't mean that all their motives were revealed," she says, heading back to the wagon. "But securing this chest was our mission, isn't that right?" she asks Fazahd of the device.


"It was," says Fazahd, eyeing the key on the end of the stick. "All right, let's go back. I want to examine the body and see what else we can come up with."


"Well, let's see. Does that key fit the chest?" asks Zahara, of it. "I mean, what else could it go to, other than that?" she asks.


"All right," agrees Dubtle, moving himself along after Fazahd. "This has gone very differently than I'd expected," he admits. "Things were simpler on the dwarven roads."


The party moves back to the wagon train itself. Most of the civilians there have little in the way of useful information. Without training, people are generally too panicked to see anything useful in combat. They do all tell you roughly the same story, though. Most were roused from their slumber by the alarm sounded when the humanoid lava creatures attacked from the west. The Caravan Master then rallied the guards, whipping them into fighting shape quickly enough and instructing all the passengers to hide near the wagons. He himself was standing by the lead wagon, facing the west as he shouted directions. The ranger and mage grabbed their weapons and started firing ranged attacks at the monsters to the west.

Nobody is really sure what happened to the mage. She had rented her wagon as a whole; it was just her and her box. And more than that, none of the passengers felt like staying near her while she was firing off offensive magic. So nobody was truly near her. And even the closest passengers to her location still have nothing useful to add. According to them, she was fighting one moment, and when they looked back a few seconds later, she was lying dead on the ground.

The box is definitely strange. The /key/ does fit it, though the lock is far more interesting than that. It's some sort of deadbolt. Once closed, this box can't be opened again without forcing it. And beyond that, the runes inscribed on the inside look like they do far more than just a simple Nondetection spell. The party can figure it out with a bit of inspection. They act as some sort of planar warding too. As in, they're meant to block the notice of a specific kind of outsider.


GAME: Fazahd rolls perception: (11)+8: 19

GAME: Zahara rolls perception: (14)+1: 15

GAME: Dubtle rolls PErception: (4)+2: 6


Zahara and Fazahd root around and find something hastily stuffed underneath the mage's carriage. It's a drawstring bag, one that initially looks nondescript, at least from the outside.


Zahara glances at the drawstring bag, and then raises a fist, suggesting the ancient game of stone, shears, parchment for who gets to unravel the drawstring bag.


Fazahd gives Zahara a flat look. "I have a hammer," he says with zero humor, and dips to collect the bag.


"...but that's tradition," says Dubtle in a marginal complaint to Fazahd after he declares he has a hammer. He seems amused, slightly, though, giving Zahara a shrug.


Zahara makes a face. "Fine," she says. "Have fun with it. I thought we were seeing who didn't have to open the mystery bag first," she says, deciding to go back to defending the chest, and her thorough self-preening.


"There are far too few perfect beauties in the world," Fazahd says, as plainly as if he were pointing out the color of the sky. "I'd hate it very much if yours were ruined by a trapped bag. As I have no beauty to waste..." He inspects the bag, and then - holding it out a bit - opens it.


The bag is empty. The team turns it inside out to make sure, and that's when they spot it. The inside of the bag also looks to be covered in runes of warding. But you don't really need any expertise in spellcraft to spot the difference between this and the box. Whereas the wards on the box were masterfully inscribed--so well done that they might well have actually been the specialty of our wizardess--the bag's sloppier spellcraft looks like cut-rate garbage procured cheaply. It's functional, though! Sorta. It's missing one thing the box has. It lacks the extraplanar warding.

But why is it there? The wizardess herself clearly could have made something better. And why was it hidden so haphazardly?


Zahara pauses for a moment. "Wait a minute," she says. "You'd better check to see if that's the right device that we've got there," says Zahara thoughtfully. "What if it's been somehow swapped?" she asks.


GAME: Zahara rolls perception: (14)+1: 15

GAME: Fazahd rolls perception: (1)+8: 9


Choosing to inspect the battlefield to the west, the team finds . . . a lot of nothing. There are scorched footprints aplenty, for sure. While they were on this plane, those monsters were real enough. And you see a lot of deep booted footprints scattered about in every direction, likely the guards rushing around in battle. There are even some thankfully small bloodpools from when a guard was struck, likely in that brief period when the fight had turned against them. The only solid trace of the battle is a single shattered point of a longsword--you saw one of the guards wielding a broken weapon earlier--that had broken off inside the forge-hot bulk of one of the monsters, left to cool down on the ground once the creature's body disappeared around it.

You also spot some shallower impressions, likely those of Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford as they went into the forest. You trace their footsteps. They went to a certain spot, turned around, and somewhere on their way back, the trail goes wild and becomes hard to follow. It's hard to glean any specifics that might corroborate their story or not. You do eventually find one more thing, though. Not far from where the trail goes crazy, three strange-looking rods are jammed into the dirt.


"Is it for some kind of game?" asks Zahara. "Some sort of wicky stickets?" She glances at the shattered point of the longsword, which clearly had cooborated that particular guard's story, and then at the others. "Oh! Could this be associated with the summoning of those critters, or perhaps the mephits?"


GAME: Fazahd rolls knowledge/arcana: (9)+8: 17

GAME: Fazahd rolls spellcraft: (2)+8: 10

GAME: Fazahd rolls knowledge/the planes: (7)+7: 14


Zahara's suggestion seems to be right. These are highly specialized rods meant for summoning outsiders. It's hard to really discern more than that. The tracks leading to the rods are hard to see; someone probably picked a path which had them tread on fairly hard ground, maybe specifically not to leave a trace. But you do see some deep, booted footprints leading away. For whatever reason, whoever planted these they abandoned their previously discipline marching and ran off suddenly.


GAME: Dubtle rolls Spellcraft: (13)+8: 21


Dubtle is able to determine that the rods are actually quite sophisticated and quite expensive; they're not even commonly sold among adventurers. They're capable of summoning a wide range of elementals. They require a skilled wizard to tune them before use, but with this particular type, you can pick the elemental plane in question as well as the rough power level of the elementals. Which is perhaps telling. These rods are capable of summoning far more and far more powerful elementals than what was seen. Meaning that wave of elementals could have easily wiped out everyone in the caravan, the party included. Either someone chose wrong, or their goal wasn't to kill anyone.

You also sense a delayed trigger on the rods, one that has already triggered, probably when the elementals were initially summoned. You can't tell exactly how long, but the elementals were probably only summoned several minutes after the rods were initially planted and activated. Why the delay? Who knows.

With the price tag on this kind of equipment, and the fact that someone was willing to leave these things here to finish the job, you're either dealing with someone for whom money is no concern compared to their objective, or you're dealing with highly skilled professionals who are getting paid quite handsomely to do whatever it was that they were doing.


Zahara frowns a little. "I think we should check the device carefully. I wouldn't be surprised if there's been a switcheroo," she says, looking a little nervous as she adds together the expense of the equipment in her mind. "Someone's paid quite a lot to pull something very convoluted."


"...fascinating! I never thought I'd see these!" Dubtle says that after he's done explaining the results of his investigation into these rods to the others. "They're beyond /my/ abilities, that's for sure. Of coursse," he adds, self-effacingly, "that isn't sayin too much."


To the best of your knowledge, the widget looks like the genuine article.


Zahara gives a little shrug. "Did we have any mission here, other than to secure the item?" she asks. "I mean, it seems like the young woman who was traveling with us was some kind of decoy. What I don't understand is how we never caught up with the travellers that we were trying to in the first place. They were travelling with us all along, and trying to get away?" she asks.


"You know, Fazahd," says Zahara. "For these kind of gigs, I really should keep a candle of truth in the ol' pack," she says, with a chuckle, glancing back over at him. "All right. I think the way to get started is to try to craft a timeline," she says, thoughtfully. "We could see if we could get answers out of the murdered mage, but it'll probably take far too long to get her to her guild so she can be raised magically," she says.

"So why don't you try starting at the beginning? I'll let you know if I've noticed anything mistaken. Once we've got a narrative, we can go."


Fazahd takes a seat in the grass by the trio of sticks, which he stares at in deep thought. His eyes drift closed, and he looks as if he were in sudden, deep meditation. "Let us go over the facts as we know them," he says. "Sandy and Aria detected the magical signature, and traced it leaving the city. We travel to just outside of Arborveil, along with our friends, where are attacked in our sleep. Mephits to the left of us, but also an assassin in cloak and mask, fighting a guard with a sword covered in silencing oil.

"The guard escapes death, and the assassin escapes, covered by the mephits - but they were not apparently do anything. While combat is going on, however, we heard screams and combat deeper in the forest to the west. The adventurers also in our caravan attacked the creatures as well, and that is when we heard a woman scream in the woods. After we killed the mephits, /then/ the device on my belt went on - it was at that time that the wizard, I believe, was killed. Her magical bolts went skyward, and she had crumpled.

"It was then that we discovered that the fighting in the woods happened between Liu Ai, Vera Cinderford, and the guard, whom she had killed - one who demonstrated an incredible command of combat compared to his fellows."


"Aria's not here, I am," grins Zahara with a Cheshire smile. "Now I thought the mephits were to the east, and then we found that there were magma-based beasts to the west," she says. "Let's see," she says, thoughtfully. "Oh! We should check the body of the wizard, to see if she was killed by one of those magma beasts," she says. "It would be a burn or crush, likely, is that right?" she asks.

"And let's see. We've got one hard fighting guard who was killed. One wizard who was killed. One attacker who got away. Three mephits, dead, and three rods to go with them. It seems likely that whoever placed the rods was the attacker who got away from me.

"It seems possible that the masked attacker was the one who killed the wizard. Perhaps they had an associate, a guard. That guard who was killed was...Hrmmm. But what were Vera and Liu actually doing?" she asks. "They must have had a mission too, that is not revealed yet. Or, one of them is the killer of the wizard, perhaps. Let us inspect her wounds to see if we can get any more information."


"It was then that we found the box with the device inside. Now, then. On top of this, the picture becomes clearer. According to Liu Ai, Vera went into the forest to presumably do her business, followed by Liu Ai. It was there that the guard came upon them, and by their account, attacked. According to them, this was because he realized they saw him. Another of the guards call them liars, say that Durbo, the guard, said he was going to do his business and went into the forest after the fact, whereupon they engaged in combat. He seemed to tell the truth, but then again, so did the other man.

"But then we find that he was attacked only when he neared the treeline, as the tracks tell us. Within the trees nearby we find the mask and cloak, and the sword dosed with the oil. We also found a key to the chest, and a hidden bag under the wagon with very rough shielding runes compared to the chest. And, of course, we are here, where we found the summoning rods in the middle of their return track. These rods, which are advanced, expensive, and on a trigger delay.

He looks to Zahara and Dubtle. "So. A dead wizard, a dead guard, mysterious cloak and mask. As you say, whoever killed the wizard likely broke open the chest as well, which is why we were suddenly able to detect the device - however, it would not be planar creatures, as the chest had warding against outsiders. The pouch we found did not. It is likely, then, that the pouch actually belonged to whomever sought to steal the device, which could shield the device from protection but not from extraplanar creatures, something which is not necessary if the extraplanar creatures are on your side.

"These...rods...are likely as part of the disruption. Is it possible that Vera and Liu Ai came upon these as the attack began, and the guard placed the devices. Or, perhaps they placed the rods, and the guard came upon them. Perhaps the guard was the masked combatant, too."


The wizardess seems to have been killed by a single expert blade thrust into her spine. No burn marks, so it's unlikely she was even touched by the monsters. It's hard to determine exactly what the weapon was beyond that, though. It could just as easily be a dagger, shortsword, or longsword. But she was facing west while firing spells at the humanoid magma creatures, and her back was to a wagon only two or three feet behind her, so whoever delivered that strike had very little room to maneuver.


"So they attacked from under the wagon," Fazahd suggests, looking at the corpse.


"Let's see. I'd put the masked attacker as just a little bit taller than myself," says Zahara thoughtfully. "Perhaps just an inch or two. We can see how tall the guard is, to see if that person can be the masked attacker or not, as well," she says, thoughtfully, heading over to check the guard's corpse, to see how tall he was. She then heads over to inspect as well. "Perhaps hiding in the bag somehow? Or hiding the rods in the bag?" she speculates.


GAME: Fazahd rolls heal: (1)+10: 11

GAME: Fazahd rolls survival: (1)+3: 4

GAME: Fazahd rolls survival: (17)+3: 20


The dead guard, the one slain by Liu Ai, is at least 6'4", too tall to be the masked attacker.

And Fazahd tries to determine if anyone attacked from the bottom of the wagon. Luckily for him, he has one useful clue that makes it very easy to tell. When the Mephits used their firework ability to create a smoke cloud, that cloud left a thin layer of ash around. And the mage was only killed after that. There are no voids or footprints underneath the wagon, though, to indicate that anyone was beneath the wagon at any time after the fires were extinguished.


Using that to examine the wizardess's vicinity more closely, he only sees numerous faint tracks running up and down the length of the wagon. That's not terribly useful, given that quite a few passengers were running that route in the chaos of that fight to get to cover.


"So we know that the dead guard was not the masked attacker," says Zahara. "It also looks like this was not dont by a weapon with a curved blade geometry at least. That means no scimitar, or falchion," she says. "Hmm. Oh! What about the wound?" She asks Fazahd. "I wonder if it's possible to detect what wounded Vera. Because if it was a magic missile..."

"But she was casting the spells," Fazahd says. "She was the one who released the magic missiles, and they scorch, they don't stab."


The wound is small, flat, and thin, with just enough width that a dagger, shortsword, or longsword makes sense. The team briefly takes stock of the weapons in the caravan. All of the guards use longswords, but most have daggers too, both as backup weapons and for utility. Cutting rope or meat are things a sellsword does with a dagger sometimes. Still, from what you and the passengers saw, all of them rushed in to fight the magma creatures.

For perhaps the same utilitarian reasons, lots of passengers have cheap knives or daggers too. However, most of the passengers were huddled together in clumps, and they seem to vouch that nobody left their ranks during the fight.

Among the adventurers and others present, the wizardess herself is carrying no weapon, nor does she even have a sheath for one on her person. Not her style, maybe? Vera Cinderford has a backup dagger, but she was likely in the forst being gutted at the time. Liu Ai seems to be fixated on that sword of hers and has no other weapons; the extremely long sword is too bulky to maneuver in the tight space behind the wizardess. The ranger has a short sword, but the passengers all swear she was fighting the magma beasts at range the entire time. The Caravan Master is using a scimitar alone, which doesn't seem like it could have made that wound. The cleric only has a simple mace. 


GAME: Zahara rolls perception: (6)+1: 7

GAME: Fazahd rolls perception: (6)+8: 14

GAME: Dubtle rolls Perception: (14)+2: 16

Note: This Perception roll is treated as take 20.


Zahara ponders for a moment, draws her Goblin army knife, heads over to the dead wizard, and jabs her in the calf with the wine opener, enough to create a small puncture wound.

Zahara shrugs. "I suppose it's likely the ranger," she says, after desecrating the corpse of the murder victim pointlessly. "It's a good thing I'm not in the Watch," she says. "But to me, the ranger could have...well....had some animal friend, like a steel-beaked raven, jab our wizard here in the back, and still kept up the appearances with her bow. That's the only card I've got left to play, I think."


"I'd wondered," Fazahd says. "But arrowheads don't just vanish, and she was in the thick of fighting."


Zahara shrugs back at Fazahd. "She could still have launched an arrow or two. They said she fought at ranged. She was shooting arrows into the fight. Perhaps she did that as well?" she asks. "She was still near the wagon physically, am I right? The only other thing I can think of is an illusion we have not yet spotted. There's evidence of sorcery and summoning, after all."

She finally sighs. "I guess they got away with it. We were able to protect the device, but sadly, well, the assassin's going to escape to fight another day, it seems." She smiles at Fazahd. "Let's take this poor girl and the dead guard back to their guilds, see if they'll resurrect them so we can find out what might have happened," she says. "They'll get away, I'm sure. But at least we'll know."

For his part, Dublte is following along with the others. This is mostly out of his wheelhouse, though he is paying attention. Learning.


You decide you couldn't care less about the sanctity of the guard's corpse. The truth matters more here. So you do the works with him. You strip off his armor and clothing, leaving him only in his boxers, to examine it all in detail. You check his weapons, his sheaths and scabbards, the inside of his boots, his socks. You even examine him for tattoos and distinguishing marks.

The armor, helmet, and sword are all exactly like those given to the other guards. There are no runes, marks, or secret pockets to say otherwise. Not a surprise. It seems to be gear issued by the caravan. He didn't bring any of his own, as he has no other weapons or armor.

His clothing beneath is standard peasant fare. You've seen very similar fashions on the poorer laborers in Alexandria quite recently. He likely bought this there not long before he left on this journey.

He was in perfect physical condition before he died, the kind of Olympiad body you'd see from an expert warrior hardened by both combat and routine exertion. He has quite a few battle scars too, all concealed by his armor, though they seem to have been well-healed. Tellingly, there's a tattoo on his right upper arm. A silver shield with a black stripe through it. Zahara might have seen it before. This guy was a mercenary once, a member of Blacksteel Aegis, an Aesiri company that's known for producing extremely skilled fighters. That is /odd/, though. If he went through their training and survived, he could get far better paying work elsewhere, even if he wanted a cush guard job. Simply put, he's vastly overqualified for this caravan, if he's truly one of that company. And the performance the party saw says he is.

There's a small leather pouch with him, again common issue for the guards here. It has the usual fare within. Flint and tinder. A hard breadroll. A waterskin. There's also a small pouch, which again seems nondescript from the outside. However, the party inverts it to check if it's empty, and they find the second surprise. Another pouch inlaid with runes on the inside. This one, though, isn't cutrate garbage like the other. No, it's finely crafted, and like the wizardess's box, it's lined with runes both for Nondetection and for extraplanar warding. It's not clear why the latter is so important. But this bag, unlike the other, would do the job of replacing the box's function. And the fact that it was created with such a small amount of surface area to work with hints at high magical skill or a high purchase price, just like the rods.

Meanwhile, Zahara examines the wizardess. She knows the basics of death, being an adventurer, enough to know that blood congeals after death and that rigor mortis sets in. Despite all her tests, it seems to be a normal, freshly-killed corpse.


"So it's as expected," says Zahara. "This fellow was in cahoots with the attacker," Zahara shrugs. "It still doesn't tell us where the last attacker went," she says, with a little bit of a shrug. "Yup, this poor gal's well and truly all dead."


GAME: Fazahd rolls spellcraft: (13)+8: 21


The box seems to be the real thing. And furthermore, while Fazahd really doesn't really get the details of abjuration this advanced, he knows a few things just from his basic knowledge of spellcraft. First, while an item warded by Nondetection isn't that hard to make for a novice crafter, extraplanar warding is very complicated, and it's generally the kind of thing you hire a specialist for. Beyond the high skill requirement, it also takes time and resources, so it's generally only used when absolutely necessary. This specific kind of abjuration might very well be the Wizardess's subspecialty, in fact, though you can't know without asking her.


"So we've got the correct box?" asks Zahara. "It's unfortunate that we can't lower the wizardess' debt to her guild with a suspect to apprehend, but, well, such is life," she says, as she looks around. "I suppose we'll have to tell the caravan master that we can't give him an answer - sometimes they get away with it, unfortunately." She shrugs. "It still seems pretty obvious, though, that the two operatives aren't some sort of evil assassins that have arranged this, given the guard's corpse and nature. That should be enough to declare their innocence to the caravan master," she says, with a smile. "So that's all wrapped up too."


As Zahara is talking, another guard on patrol raises an alarm. Again, two mephits attack. This time, though, they come from the west. And this time, they head straight for Fazahd.

Luckily, you've got eleven guards on hand who are willing to deal with them, and neither succeeds in summoning reinforcements. It takes a bit of doing with their nonmagical weapon, but the numbers are overwhelming, and the imps soon fall.


"Well," says Zahara. "I guess we could put it in the warded bag that we found, and then take it back," she says, with a shrug. "That should help keep it a little safer. Do you think that would work?"


"This mess, again," Fazhad roars as he helps blast down another of the creatures - he puts the device in the bag taken from the mercenary and puts the bag in his coat. Because that's enough of that. "Let us secure the corpses and return to Alexandria. We have ghosts to speak with before it's too late." The job, at least for now, is done.


"More of these things! I've never seen so many! I mean... I've never actually SEEN one at all until now! But they were all in the books all over the place," explains Dubtle, as the mephit is laid low.


"This is nothing," Fazahd says darkly. He does not go into further detail, rather goes back to secure the dead and explain the situation to the caravan master. And check in on the swordswomen, of course.


Zahara shrugs at Fazahd, and moves to follow him - and provide any backup in case there's another attack upon the box.


The team talks to the caravan master, convincing him that Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford are innocent, and their word is enough for him. Given the circumstances, the caravan cuts short its rest, heading directly to Aborveil. Per Zahara's suggestion, the party uses the heavily warded bag from the slain "guard's" corpse to protect the widget from prying eyes, both on this plane and beyond. Once the device is warded, Fazahd's detection device again turns green.

The body of both the wizardess and the dead guard are taken with the caravan, both stored in the now unoccupied wagon that the wizardess had booked. It's a half-day's travel at a rushed pace, but they arrive soon enough. And as expected, everyone but you quickly leaves for parts unknown, no longer wishing to be associated with this voyage gone wrong. Only Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford hang around for longer than a few minutes once the caravan passes through the outer gates. They seem to have words for the party--good ones, this time--apologizing for their earlier colorful statements about Fazahd and thanking the party for vouching for them. They have work in the city, though, so once their thanks are spoken, they depart.

The Wizardess is revived and restored at a temple in Arborveil, after you promise that payment will be delivered in due time by the Arcanist's Guild in Alexandria. She doesn't have any explanations to offer yet. The clerics say she'll need a day of rest before being conscious and able to speak. Vera Cinderford and Liu Ai show up at the temple too, to get the former fully restored before their /real/ job.

And you? You're in Arborveil for the night. It's going to be another full day beyond that before the same caravan turns around and heads back to Alexandria. The sleeping wizardess is in your charge until then. And by the time night falls, your former wagonmates, Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford, have already finished their job, saying they'll be heading back alongside you. If all goes well, in five days time, you'll be safe in your beds in Alexandria once more.


"We'll be travelling separately, thank you," says Zahara with a smile. "We're going to wait and see what we can find out around here, in Arborvale," she says. "Safe journeys to you two, though. And good luck on your journey, that you'll be departing on. Tomorrow," she says, rather firmly.


"Yes," Fazahd says. "But if you like, I can give you another dose of healing energy before we go - to make sure you're in good shape for the road."
"I think that's an excellent idea," agrees Duble, firmly, with a glance towards Fazahd and Zahara. He flashes a grin. Seems he is, in fact, liking the way they think.


Unfortunately, this a medium-sized town on the frontier with infrequent caravan trips into or out of it. And the few stables here don't rent out horses longterm, or with no clear return plan, since the city's stock of public horses is low. If the party chooses to pass on this caravan, it will be a few days longer before the next arrive. Liu Ai and Vera Cinderford certainly aren't waiting. But these are things to be decided later.


 [[Category:Logs]]