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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nonlethal Force" data-source="post: 3427512" data-attributes="member: 35788">The party was able to find a trail through the valley that didn’t involve being attacked by flower spikes of any sort.  Since they lost time by backtracking until they could find another path through the valley, the sun had begun to descend in the sky as they started to climb out on the opposite side.  The valley wall loomed against them as though the druid had intended the climb to be intentionally steep.  It hadn’t quite looked so steep from the other side, but the lush vegetation helped disguise the truth.  The trail that the party followed switched back and forth as they made slow progress in climbing out of the valley.  The wide switchback trail added miles to their walk, and when they were able to finally reach the top of the valley they noticed that the additional miles had taken more time than they had anticipated.  The sun had almost completely descended in the sky.Ischarus sighed out of frustration.  “The valley disguised how late in the day it was getting.  We’d best find a defensible position and make camp for the night.  We should scout out the area before dark hits.  Somehow I have a feeling that the nights are more dangerous here than the days.”Charis peered down the trail and agreed.  “One thing is for sure about us.  We’re far weaker in the night than the animals around us.  Many of them are quite equipped for a night hunt.”The party split up into two groups.  Charis and Semeion took Ophee and scouted to the south of the path.  Ischarus and Rhema scouted out the northern portion of the immediate area.  After the designated half hour passed they returned to the path and reported.Rhema shook her head in disbelief.  “Nothing but trees to the north.  We could go back into the valley if we wanted to find some rocks to use as protection, but that would seem to defeat our purpose.  If we wanted the protection of the valley we should’ve stayed down there.”Ophee reported the findings of her group.  “We found only one reasonable place to the south, but it would seem that it is our best offer.”Ischarus picked up on Ophee’s inflection upon her use of the description of the site.  “Reasonable?  Just what do you mean by that?”Semeion looked off Ophee and looked Ischarus in the eye.  “The girls thought the place was defensible, and it truly is.  It is almost too defensible.  The place gave me the feeling of being contrived, if you ask me.  No good places to rest to the north – and only one good place to rest to the south.  That just seems artificial.”Charis smiled.  “But it is defensible, Semeion.  Contrived or not, we should be able to protect ourselves even if we are being set-up.  We’ll just post watches.  We can’t be caught off-guard, there.  There is only one way out of the cave!”Ischarus raised an eyebrow at the mention of a cave.  “Cave?  I don’t like the thought of going into a place with only one exit.  It’s easily enough protected, but we’re just as easily trapped while reinforcements come against us.”Rhema countered Ischarus, officially turning it into a male versus female argument.  In truth, gender had little to do with the argument.  “But, I’ll agree with Charis and Ophee.  We could get by with one watch per shift in a cave.  We could get better sleep than last night, and Ophee wouldn’t need to take a watch.  No offense, Ophee, but we still don’t exactly know you well enough to trust you.”Ophee shrugged.  It didn’t mean anything to her that she wasn’t trusted.  “Fine by me, anyway.  This way I’ll get a full night’s sleep.”Ischarus breathed in deeply and allowed the exhale to slowly emerge through his nose.  “Well, let’s go and look at this cave.  There’s no harm in looking, especially since if we don’t pick the cave it doesn’t really matter where we sleep.  Any place in the woods is as good as the next around here.”Several hours later, Ischarus stood first watch within the cave.  The voices of the women had outnumbered the voices of the men.  Semeion and Ischarus had given way against their better judgment.  Yet, Ischarus found himself crouched just inside the cave entrance.  He had a good enough view of the outside, and in that respect the women had been right.  There was no way that they could be taken by surprise.The first two shifts passed by quickly.  Rhema took the watch after Ischarus, and Charis took the watch after Rhema.  Semeion had requested to go first or last so that his sleep could be uninterrupted unless there was an emergency.  His arcane arts demanded more of his sleep than those of anyone else, so Semeion often was given the role of last watch.Charis yawned as she turned her head to look back at her sleeping husband.  For all the more logical and put together he was during his waking hours, she couldn’t help being attracted to the cute drool spot developing on his pillow underneath his mouth.  He slept with his mouth open, and often woke with a drool spot beneath him.  She would tease him about it in the morning just to make sure he didn’t get too high on himself first thing.As she started to turn her head back to the forest outside the cave, her ears picked up on the sound of a twig snapping.  Charis drew her pick and moved to Ischarus’ side.  She maintained her crouched position and was grateful that they had not made a fire for the night.  The absence of light from the fire allowed her eyes to transition from the darkness of the cave to the darkness outside with relative ease.When she reached Ischarus’ side she paused a moment to make sure that it would be worth waking Ischarus.  Her ears picked up the rapid movement of paw pads along the ground outside the cave.  Something with a significant amount of mass and four feet was headed their way.  “Ischarus, we’ve got company.  An animal comes.”Ischarus blinked quickly and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.  “Is it phrenic?”Charis shook her head.  “I don’t know.”Ischarus sat up and pulled himself to his knees.  He quickly removed his blade from its scabbard, and the ring of metal raised Rhema from her sleep.  Ischarus reached out with his free hand and rested it on Rhema’s forehead.  “Don’t get up, yet.  Something is coming, but I don’t want to alarm it with much noise.”With his sword in hand, Ischarus crept back to the right of the entrance of the cave.  Charis followed him until he stopped to peer out of the cave entrance.  She crossed to the left of the entrance and peered out.  Both Ischarus and Charis spotted the pair of green eyes peering into the cave.Several events happened at the same time once the eyes of the party locked with the green pair outside.  Ischarus and Charis both immediately recognized the eyes.  They had met these eyes before.  Ischarus called out with a smile on his face.  “Froves.”Charis turned her head to face the rest of her party.  She called out with more alarm than Ischarus.  “Froves!”Rhema’s eyes flashed open wide as the frove leapt into the cave.  Semeion’s eyes popped open and he was on his feet in a second.  He almost tripped as his feet made contact with Ophee, but he was able to keep his balance.  Semeion’s feet brought Ophee out of her deep sleep.As the large green-eyed wolf leapt into the cave, Ischarus’ sword swung against the assault.  The sword penetrated the invisible barrier that the frove had raised before attacking.  Ischarus called out with the discovery of the invisible barrier.  “Phrenic!  Beware!”  His sword would not be denied, and the blade bit through the thick coating of hair.  While the blow was solid, the frove was far from gravely wounded.Rhema lifted her hand and locked eyes with the frove.  Her hand waved in a large circle before her as she spoke.  “You do not desire to come any further into this cave, frove.”  The creature immediately looked as though it had a distaste for moving past Ischarus and Charis and challenging the spell casters.  Its body positioning changed so that it was more concerned with defending its own ground rather than claiming more territory.Knowing that morning was almost due to come and his magical energies would soon be replenished, Semeion expended his most powerful spell.  “Thin-tok arash.”  A green ball of acid formed in his fingers.  He flung the acid in the direction of the frove, but the ball of acid skipped by over the frove’s head and into the darkness of the forest.Ophee rose to her feet and in an instant she had a dagger in her hand.  She stepped toward the frove and sliced with a quick flick of her wrist.  The blade also penetrated the frove’s invisible barrier and dug into the creature’s thick fur.  The frove yelped in pain as the blade bit into the muscle covering its right front shoulder.The frove turned on Charis as if it knew that she had been the subject of attacks throughout the day.  The beast caught Charis on the shoulder and gave a mighty tug.  When the frove released Charis’ arm its maw was stained with her blood.Charis returned the strike with little regard to her own condition.  Her pick dug into the frove’s left side, but didn’t manage to puncture any vital organs.  The creature spun to protect itself from another assault, but Charis was not planning on another attack at the moment.Ischarus pounced when the frove turned to face Charis.  His sword sailed directly towards the frove’s neck and would have likely decapitated the beast had the creature’s invisible barrier not gotten into the way.  At the last second, Ischarus’ sword made contact with the barrier and his strike was deflected to the side.Rhema now knew that she was safe.  Ophee had challenged the frove’s position and between the three attackers and her earlier power the frove was unlikely going to advance toward her.  Knowing that she was in no immediate danger, Rhema used her mind control to stab deeply into the frove’s own mind.  Her thoughts spiked into the mind of the overgrown wolf and the creature snarled in pain.  A small trickle of blood appeared out of the frove’s right nostril.Semeion paused without attacking the frove.  He had spent his greatest spell in an overconfident failure.  He now decided to conserve his power for when the party might truly need it.  He watched as Ophee swung at the frove but was unable to penetrate the creature’s barrier.Apparently the cumulative damage to the frove had been enough.  The creature allowed a loud and pained howl to leave its chest as it retreated out of the cave and into the night.  A thin trail of drops of blood showed the path that the creature had taken.  It was obviously wounded and had decided that the party – or perhaps access to the cave – was not worth the fight tonight.[Sblock=Color-Free Speech Section]The party was able to find a trail through the valley that didn’t involve being attacked by flower spikes of any sort. Since they lost time by backtracking until they could find another path through the valley, the sun had begun to descend in the sky as they started to climb out on the opposite side. The valley wall loomed against them as though the druid had intended the climb to be intentionally steep. It hadn’t quite looked so steep from the other side, but the lush vegetation helped disguise the truth. The trail that the party followed switched back and forth as they made slow progress in climbing out of the valley. The wide switchback trail added miles to their walk, and when they were able to finally reach the top of the valley they noticed that the additional miles had taken more time than they had anticipated. The sun had almost completely descended in the sky.Ischarus sighed out of frustration. “The valley disguised how late in the day it was getting. We’d best find a defensible position and make camp for the night. We should scout out the area before dark hits. Somehow I have a feeling that the nights are more dangerous here than the days.”Charis peered down the trail and agreed. “One thing is for sure about us. We’re far weaker in the night than the animals around us. Many of them are quite equipped for a night hunt.”The party split up into two groups. Charis and Semeion took Ophee and scouted to the south of the path. Ischarus and Rhema scouted out the northern portion of the immediate area. After the designated half hour passed they returned to the path and reported.Rhema shook her head in disbelief. “Nothing but trees to the north. We could go back into the valley if we wanted to find some rocks to use as protection, but that would seem to defeat our purpose. If we wanted the protection of the valley we should’ve stayed down there.”Ophee reported the findings of her group. “We found only one reasonable place to the south, but it would seem that it is our best offer.”Ischarus picked up on Ophee’s inflection upon her use of the description of the site. “Reasonable? Just what do you mean by that?”Semeion looked off Ophee and looked Ischarus in the eye. “The girls thought the place was defensible, and it truly is. It is almost too defensible. The place gave me the feeling of being contrived, if you ask me. No good places to rest to the north – and only one good place to rest to the south. That just seems artificial.”Charis smiled. “But it is defensible, Semeion. Contrived or not, we should be able to protect ourselves even if we are being set-up. We’ll just post watches. We can’t be caught off-guard, there. There is only one way out of the cave!”Ischarus raised an eyebrow at the mention of a cave. “Cave? I don’t like the thought of going into a place with only one exit. It’s easily enough protected, but we’re just as easily trapped while reinforcements come against us.”Rhema countered Ischarus, officially turning it into a male versus female argument. In truth, gender had little to do with the argument. “But, I’ll agree with Charis and Ophee. We could get by with one watch per shift in a cave. We could get better sleep than last night, and Ophee wouldn’t need to take a watch. No offense, Ophee, but we still don’t exactly know you well enough to trust you.”Ophee shrugged. It didn’t mean anything to her that she wasn’t trusted. “Fine by me, anyway. This way I’ll get a full night’s sleep.”Ischarus breathed in deeply and allowed the exhale to slowly emerge through his nose. “Well, let’s go and look at this cave. There’s no harm in looking, especially since if we don’t pick the cave it doesn’t really matter where we sleep. Any place in the woods is as good as the next around here.”Several hours later, Ischarus stood first watch within the cave. The voices of the women had outnumbered the voices of the men. Semeion and Ischarus had given way against their better judgment. Yet, Ischarus found himself crouched just inside the cave entrance. He had a good enough view of the outside, and in that respect the women had been right. There was no way that they could be taken by surprise.The first two shifts passed by quickly. Rhema took the watch after Ischarus, and Charis took the watch after Rhema. Semeion had requested to go first or last so that his sleep could be uninterrupted unless there was an emergency. His arcane arts demanded more of his sleep than those of anyone else, so Semeion often was given the role of last watch.Charis yawned as she turned her head to look back at her sleeping husband. For all the more logical and put together he was during his waking hours, she couldn’t help being attracted to the cute drool spot developing on his pillow underneath his mouth. He slept with his mouth open, and often woke with a drool spot beneath him. She would tease him about it in the morning just to make sure he didn’t get too high on himself first thing.As she started to turn her head back to the forest outside the cave, her ears picked up on the sound of a twig snapping. Charis drew her pick and moved to Ischarus’ side. She maintained her crouched position and was grateful that they had not made a fire for the night. The absence of light from the fire allowed her eyes to transition from the darkness of the cave to the darkness outside with relative ease.When she reached Ischarus’ side she paused a moment to make sure that it would be worth waking Ischarus. Her ears picked up the rapid movement of paw pads along the ground outside the cave. Something with a significant amount of mass and four feet was headed their way. “Ischarus, we’ve got company. An animal comes.”Ischarus blinked quickly and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Is it phrenic?”Charis shook her head. “I don’t know.”Ischarus sat up and pulled himself to his knees. He quickly removed his blade from its scabbard, and the ring of metal raised Rhema from her sleep. Ischarus reached out with his free hand and rested it on Rhema’s forehead. “Don’t get up, yet. Something is coming, but I don’t want to alarm it with much noise.”With his sword in hand, Ischarus crept back to the right of the entrance of the cave. Charis followed him until he stopped to peer out of the cave entrance. She crossed to the left of the entrance and peered out. Both Ischarus and Charis spotted the pair of green eyes peering into the cave.Several events happened at the same time once the eyes of the party locked with the green pair outside. Ischarus and Charis both immediately recognized the eyes. They had met these eyes before. Ischarus called out with a smile on his face. “Froves.”Charis turned her head to face the rest of her party. She called out with more alarm than Ischarus. “Froves!”Rhema’s eyes flashed open wide as the frove leapt into the cave. Semeion’s eyes popped open and he was on his feet in a second. He almost tripped as his feet made contact with Ophee, but he was able to keep his balance. Semeion’s feet brought Ophee out of her deep sleep.As the large green-eyed wolf leapt into the cave, Ischarus’ sword swung against the assault. The sword penetrated the invisible barrier that the frove had raised before attacking. Ischarus called out with the discovery of the invisible barrier. “Phrenic! Beware!” His sword would not be denied, and the blade bit through the thick coating of hair. While the blow was solid, the frove was far from gravely wounded.Rhema lifted her hand and locked eyes with the frove. Her hand waved in a large circle before her as she spoke. “You do not desire to come any further into this cave, frove.” The creature immediately looked as though it had a distaste for moving past Ischarus and Charis and challenging the spell casters. Its body positioning changed so that it was more concerned with defending its own ground rather than claiming more territory.Knowing that morning was almost due to come and his magical energies would soon be replenished, Semeion expended his most powerful spell. “Thin-tok arash.” A green ball of acid formed in his fingers. He flung the acid in the direction of the frove, but the ball of acid skipped by over the frove’s head and into the darkness of the forest.Ophee rose to her feet and in an instant she had a dagger in her hand. She stepped toward the frove and sliced with a quick flick of her wrist. The blade also penetrated the frove’s invisible barrier and dug into the creature’s thick fur. The frove yelped in pain as the blade bit into the muscle covering its right front shoulder.The frove turned on Charis as if it knew that she had been the subject of attacks throughout the day. The beast caught Charis on the shoulder and gave a mighty tug. When the frove released Charis’ arm its maw was stained with her blood.Charis returned the strike with little regard to her own condition. Her pick dug into the frove’s left side, but didn’t manage to puncture any vital organs. The creature spun to protect itself from another assault, but Charis was not planning on another attack at the moment.Ischarus pounced when the frove turned to face Charis. His sword sailed directly towards the frove’s neck and would have likely decapitated the beast had the creature’s invisible barrier not gotten into the way. At the last second, Ischarus’ sword made contact with the barrier and his strike was deflected to the side.Rhema now knew that she was safe. Ophee had challenged the frove’s position and between the three attackers and her earlier power the frove was unlikely going to advance toward her. Knowing that she was in no immediate danger, Rhema used her mind control to stab deeply into the frove’s own mind. Her thoughts spiked into the mind of the overgrown wolf and the creature snarled in pain. A small trickle of blood appeared out of the frove’s right nostril.Semeion paused without attacking the frove. He had spent his greatest spell in an overconfident failure. He now decided to conserve his power for when the party might truly need it. He watched as Ophee swung at the frove but was unable to penetrate the creature’s barrier.Apparently the cumulative damage to the frove had been enough. The creature allowed a loud and pained howl to leave its chest as it retreated out of the cave and into the night. A thin trail of drops of blood showed the path that the creature had taken. It was obviously wounded and had decided that the party – or perhaps access to the cave – was not worth the fight tonight.[/Sblock]</blockquote>

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