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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 3467153" data-attributes="member: 1210">“It is an unbelievable wealth of magic,” Otis declares in wonder. “All of these are magical!” The lead-lined box, along with a strange, padded interior made of some sort of heavy woven fiber, sits before our heroes, its lid open. Within are twenty small bottles of reddish liquid.“But how?” wonders Kyle. “This environment seems to suck the magic out of things. How could these have survived?” The lapidary-cum-wizard’s apprentice scratches his head in consternation.“Hmmm...” Otis contemplates for a moment, and then closes the box. “Aha! The box must have some kind of special properties. When I close it, I can no longer detect the magical radiance of the potions with my magic.”“Maybe we can tranthport the whole boxth,” Sir Cedric suggests.“We might even be able to preserve more magic items in there!” Dahlia exclaims excitedly. There is a crack as a lightning bolt strikes down, not far from the party. Lord Cedric cries out in startlement. Our heroes are reminded again that the very environment itself seems to be set against them in this age of madness.“We should be coming up on the ‘safe cave’ mentioned on the map of Harth’s that we found back in the Ghost Tower,” Sheriff Jorgen muses. “We can stop there, out of the lightning storm, and check the potions out.”Indeed, the intrepid adventurers have been following the map since they left the tower, heading towards the cave, and it is not much longer before they reach it. Along the way, however, a lightning bolt stabs down and blasts Otis! He is badly wounded. “Perhaps we should rest when we reach the cave,” Colder says wryly. The cave, when the party reaches it, turns out to be comfortably large, with no secondary passages. It does, however, have a spring in the back of it, which our heroes find to have a mineral flavor but to be perfectly potable. They fill a few empty skins, but are not too concerned with the issue of water, since Dahlia can create it almost at will. Kyle washes himself off as best he can in the little pool before the spring.Outside, the lightning continues; but the bolts cannot enter the cave, and so our heroes are safe, at least for the moment. They examine the box of potions. All of the potions look exactly the safe, and it appeared to Otis (while his detect magic was running earlier) that they are all radiating the same kind of magic. Boldly, the wizard drinks one of the potions.He gasps as some of his wounds knit. “These are invaluable!” he exclaims. “And maybe we can fit other stuff in there too,” Kyle smiles.The party tries inserting a dagger that they found into the empty space where the potion was. Unfortunately, it does not fit correctly, and it begins to tear the inner lining of the box. Otis removes the dagger immediately. “We must be careful not to damage this box,” he declares.Then rest and recovery- especially for the life-draining aspect of this deadly era- for a period of three days. Healing spells are cast, long term care is performed, and the electrical storm is given time to pass.It doesn’t.So, at the end of three days, the party sets off again. The map references an apple tree, but when they find it, it is burnt and destroyed. The party consults the map. “According to the elf who accompanies us here from our time, Harth is heading to the capitol,” Otis says. “That isn’t on this map, but...” He pulls out the map that he found when he searched part of the field of gnomish bodies that the party found. “It is on this one!” He unrolls the map and jabs his finger down.“Then let’s go,” cries Sir Colder.Lightning bolts strike down periodically around our heroes- sometimes at our heroes. Otis is struck by a bolt again, and he again suffers a significant amount of damage. Dahlia heals him as best she can (and then casts protection from lightning on herself as an afterthought), but the party is very nervous about the amount of lightning coming down. “I hope that this storm doesn’t last much longer,” Jorgen thinks aloud.When it is time to rest, Otis takes the greatsword that the party took from the fire giant in the Ghost Tower and plants it in the ground as a lightning rod. That night, the lightning strikes twice- and each time, it hits the sword. In the morning, our heroes find that the sword is twisted and blasted by the force of the bolts; it looks unlikely to be useable again.Under a bloody sky cracked with lightning, our heroes keep moving. The lack of any normal life is chilling. There are no birds singing, anywhere. There are no small animals, not even any insects. Here and there a few plants struggle to survive. Dahlia shudders at how unnatural the place feels.While they travel, of course, our heroes cannot use their makeshift lightning rod technique; again, the bolts strike down. This time, one hits Otis’ horse; another hits Jorgen’s horse, almost killing it. The party extracts a potion from the box and feeds it to the horse, which helps; but the poor beast is still somewhat hurt. Hours of walking over jumbled terrain... the going is slow. It drags on and on. Lightning almost hits Sir Fwaigo. Broken rocks underfoot. Ankle-turning, if one is not careful. Hard on the shoes, too, Sir Colder reflects. No people, anywhere, at least so far. At least, alive.Finally, an end to the day’s walking. Our heroes fall into an exhausted slumber, with only two at a time awake and on watch. Again, they set up a makeshift lightning rod. Jorgen and Kyle are on watch, deep in the night. They are talking quietly, alert for trouble. Suddenly, in the distance, there is a brilliant yellow burst of light.  It is miles off, but still plainly visible in the distance.  It is followed by a second, and then a third.  The lights fade after about ten seconds. They seem to have originated miles away.The party snaps alert and begins debating whether to investigate. “It isn’t that far out of our way,” Jorgen argues.“But we have to catch Harth,” Otis retorts.“We will invethtigate,” declares Lord Cedric.The party veers off towards the apparent source of the light when they beginning traveling again. They never even know when they pass through an area whose air is ripe with the plague called the dwimmerills. Fortunately, none of our heroes catch the magic-impairing disease. As they wander across the blasted plains of the age of madness, our heroes spot a pair of strange clouds of sparks and bursting flames. The two clouds begin moving towards them. “Are they hostile?” wonders Kyle, casting mage armor and moving back. The clouds are accelerating. Otis fireballs them, and then draws forth the rod. The clouds are plainly harmed by his spell, but both keep moving forward. The first rushes Sir Colder, who jabs it with his longspear as it comes, but it misses him. The other flows towards the more distant Lord Cedric. Cedric spurs his horse, and she springs forward. With a glorious crash, the two of them charge away from the approaching cloud and into the one that is attacking Colder, but they are dismayed to discover that they cannot seem to harm it! Their blows simply cut through it ineffectively!Jorgen charges the one that everyone is starting to dog pile with his lance. The shock of the impact splatters weird cloud-creature all over the place. Otis finishes off the other one with a volley of magic missiles.“What were those?” Kyle asks in wonder.Nobody has an answer. The party continues to move towards the source of the flashes. Now they can spot a weird, reddish forest in the distance ahead of them. Arguments break out about whether or not this is such a good idea, and the closer to the weird forest our heroes come the more the arguments grow. But closer they get, until ahead of the party stretches a strange, warped wood.  The deformed, off-colored trees rustle even when there is no wind. A strange, muted sound, like a multitude of sighs and groans, seems to rise from the wood. The trees are strange, twisted things, of no sorts that any of our heroes can recognize. Some are the dark red color of congealed blood, others a strange, fleshy pink-brown. Still others are the grey of meat gone bad.  The smell from the weird forest is disconcerting, as well; it smells of earth mixed with blood, rot and feces. Amongst the sounds is the pattering of a gentle rain of suspect-looking fluid that splatters from the tops of the trees.“We’re not going in there,” announces Sir Fwaigo.“I think that the source of the flashes was a little further to the right- look!” exclaims Kyle, pointing.In the distance is a village. But there are no signs of movement. There are cattle in the yards, however.“You should go check that out,” Goer tells Kyle. “Aren’t you our sneaky guy?” “I guess so,” Kyle answers, “but...”“Kyle, I dare you to go tie a rope to one of those cows,” Goer says.Kyle (who just can’t seem to say no to a dare) reluctantly takes a rope and starts moving towards the nearest cattle herd. “I’m gonna get myself killed,” he grumbles.Next Time: Will Kyle get himself killed? Will our heroes investigate the village? And what’s the next environmental hazard that they’ll face??</blockquote>

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