Dawnforge - The True Kings
- Thread starter Isida Kep'Tukari
- Start date
The group readies themselves and begins to travel up into the highlands. Darvekis is fairly quiet, seeming to conserve his strength, though as the group breaks for camp, he beckons Galen over to him.
"I know it's an imposition, but would it be possible for me to study your spellbook? They took mine and I would rather be useful if I could. But I know how possessive we wizards can be, and if you'd rather I not, then I understand. I have mastered a handful I can prepare without a book," Darvekis says with a sheepish smile.
The rest of the group can finish up making the camp, getting food ready, and laying out tents and bedrolls. While it's summer, the wind is fairly viscious in the highlands, and a blanket is sometimes needed. Food ready, the group can gather around the fire. Darvekis eats quickly, practically inhaling his food, then looks sharply upward. A fluttering bat is circling the campfire, then dives down to land on Darvekis' horns. "Flitter! You made it!" he says with pleasure, reaching up to scratch the little beast. "Sorry, he escaped before they caught me and I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to catch up with us."
The tiefling takes a huge sigh and lets it out, then turns to regard the rest of the group. "I thank you for what you've done. I know it can't be easy to trust me, no matter what the king has told you. I won't ask you to trust me, I know that must be earned. I have a question for you though.
"How are we going to get to Sildanyr?"
OOC: Ladies and Gentlemen, please turn to page 9 in your Dawnforge campaign setting, the color map. You are a bit north of the Shield River, on the southern and eastern edge of the Stormfell Mountains. North of you is the Goldspring Sea of Anderland. Now, Anderland has a treaty with the Valhedar Dominion, so the presence of a tiefling in your group is not necessarily a cause for alarm. You could travel along with roads connecting the Seven Cities if you wished. It would be relatively quick, though the roads (and rivers you'd have to travel down or cross) would be relatively busy. There would be more chance of you getting spotted.
You could go around Seaward and cross the Dural River, or go around Riversend and cross the Torvun river and get into central Ambria. Then you could go cross-country across the farming heartlands. The roads are small and poorly maintained, where they're not nonexistant, but there is less chance of being spotted by someone who might know the significance of your party.
A third option might be to skirt the top of the Emerlyn peninsula, go to Larakis (a seaport) and hire a boat. Then you could sail east, all the way around the Morningstar Mountains and into Frostwater Bay to get to Sildanyr. There would be minimal contact with anyone, that's for sure, and the going would be no slower than cutting across central Ambria.
This is all common knowledge for all of you, and what you didn't personally know you would have been told or could have learned in Deluin.
"I know it's an imposition, but would it be possible for me to study your spellbook? They took mine and I would rather be useful if I could. But I know how possessive we wizards can be, and if you'd rather I not, then I understand. I have mastered a handful I can prepare without a book," Darvekis says with a sheepish smile.
The rest of the group can finish up making the camp, getting food ready, and laying out tents and bedrolls. While it's summer, the wind is fairly viscious in the highlands, and a blanket is sometimes needed. Food ready, the group can gather around the fire. Darvekis eats quickly, practically inhaling his food, then looks sharply upward. A fluttering bat is circling the campfire, then dives down to land on Darvekis' horns. "Flitter! You made it!" he says with pleasure, reaching up to scratch the little beast. "Sorry, he escaped before they caught me and I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to catch up with us."
The tiefling takes a huge sigh and lets it out, then turns to regard the rest of the group. "I thank you for what you've done. I know it can't be easy to trust me, no matter what the king has told you. I won't ask you to trust me, I know that must be earned. I have a question for you though.
"How are we going to get to Sildanyr?"
OOC: Ladies and Gentlemen, please turn to page 9 in your Dawnforge campaign setting, the color map. You are a bit north of the Shield River, on the southern and eastern edge of the Stormfell Mountains. North of you is the Goldspring Sea of Anderland. Now, Anderland has a treaty with the Valhedar Dominion, so the presence of a tiefling in your group is not necessarily a cause for alarm. You could travel along with roads connecting the Seven Cities if you wished. It would be relatively quick, though the roads (and rivers you'd have to travel down or cross) would be relatively busy. There would be more chance of you getting spotted.
You could go around Seaward and cross the Dural River, or go around Riversend and cross the Torvun river and get into central Ambria. Then you could go cross-country across the farming heartlands. The roads are small and poorly maintained, where they're not nonexistant, but there is less chance of being spotted by someone who might know the significance of your party.
A third option might be to skirt the top of the Emerlyn peninsula, go to Larakis (a seaport) and hire a boat. Then you could sail east, all the way around the Morningstar Mountains and into Frostwater Bay to get to Sildanyr. There would be minimal contact with anyone, that's for sure, and the going would be no slower than cutting across central Ambria.
This is all common knowledge for all of you, and what you didn't personally know you would have been told or could have learned in Deluin.
Rystil Arden
First Post
"Sir Darvekis, we have your spellbook right here," Raynard gestures to the rescued tiefling's spellbook, "We ascertained the likelihood of this eventuality and planned accordingly. It would have been returned to you forthwith except that we did not wish to risk it falling into enemy hands in case our Rain contingent was not entirely successful."
Widowmaker
First Post
Sir Aravir will sit and listen to others for sometime. "Perhaps we should discuss what direction we travel from here. I am for heading for Seaward and cross the Dural River, or go around Riversend and cross the Torvun river and get into central Ambria. With the intention of being spotted by as little people as possible."
Sir Aravir waits to see what the others say.
Sir Aravir waits to see what the others say.
Starman
Adventurer
"Thankfully, we have your spellbook here, sir, so you don't have to rely on my meager collection. I do hope that we have a chance on our journey to discuss all manner of things arcane. I am very interested in the knowledge a master like yourself has accumulated," Galen says.
"I do think that we should return by boat. The fewer that see us, the better our chance of returning unscathed."
"I do think that we should return by boat. The fewer that see us, the better our chance of returning unscathed."
unleashed
First Post
Haedyn, Male Lowlander Spirit Adept
“Well, I know nothing of boats and there seem few places to hide in the sea if we are discovered, so if we seek a stealthy path, the backroads of Ambria would be my choice,” Haedyn offers, in probably the longest speech anyone has heard from him thus far.
“Well, I know nothing of boats and there seem few places to hide in the sea if we are discovered, so if we seek a stealthy path, the backroads of Ambria would be my choice,” Haedyn offers, in probably the longest speech anyone has heard from him thus far.
Darvekis claps his hands. "Splendid! Te'koth!" he calls firmly. The book, much to Raynard's surprise, grows three bony feet out of its spine, hops off the log and walks over to Darvekis, where it hops into mid-air, stays there, and opens. "Thank you, thank you very much, I would hate to lose this, I've invested so much in this it's almost like having another familiar. Except it doesn't talk back..." he comments idly. The small black bat that had been hanging on Darvekis horns gives an indulgent squeek.Rystil Arden said:
As the group discusses cutting across Ambria, Darvekis nods. "A good idea. I have... some bad memories of the sea. Nothing that can't be gotten over if needs be, but overland will be fine."
The group can get an exhausted night's sleep, setting watches as usual, but the night passes uneventfully. Up early the next morning, the group sets out on the first steps of their long journey. The terrain is rugged and the weather is cool, and everyone is sore from climbing up and down and up and down and up and down and sideways. Occasionally you spot forms watching you in the distance, but they bear the kilts of the highlanders and seem to be watching over you. It takes you a nearly week to get over the worst of the mountains, and by that time Darvekis seems to be nearly healed of his beatings and privations from his time in the slave pit.
He talks to you at night around the campfires, or sometimes on the trail, what it was like to grow up in the Dominion. He talks of casual cruelty and maiming, of betrayal necessary for survival, of having to think "of me and me and me" if one was to get ahead at all. Like all young tieflings with any aptitude for magic, he was taken from his family and thrust into the wizard academy. Forcibly bound to the aspect of Dominion and made to learn the art of the summoner to swell the ranks of Valhedar's hellspawn, it seems a little beating and starvation were a walk in the park, by comparison.
On the eighth day you were going to start hunting for a suitable campsight when you came across a most annoying delay. A very large tree, apparently blown down during one of the torrential downpours you had slogged through, had crashed down and blocked the road entirely. As the terrain on either side was rocky and treacherous, this was more than annoying. A very dejected-looking dwarf was seated on a stone next to the tree on the far side, a donkey and a tinker's cart tied up next to him. He was sighing extravagently as you drew up, and lifted his drooping face towards you.
"Hail and not well met, fellow travelers!" he calls in almost reflexive hospitality.
Bront
The man with the probe
Durring the night, Solara seems a bit less confident. She regularly has several objects glowing light near her, and if no one stops her, she provides them for around the camp site, though she does allow them to extinguish themselves when they sleep. Each morning, she performs a quick meditation as the sun rises, and seems to almost embrace the sun every time.
Solara smiles and greets him, "Hello there my friend. Why so glum on such a wonderful day? The sun is shining and sharing it's warm love with us all." She hopes to cheer him up a bit, as well as sense what he is here for.
OOC: Diplomacy +16, Sense Motive +11
Solara smiles and greets him, "Hello there my friend. Why so glum on such a wonderful day? The sun is shining and sharing it's warm love with us all." She hopes to cheer him up a bit, as well as sense what he is here for.
OOC: Diplomacy +16, Sense Motive +11
