Menace of the Icy Spire (Ozymandias79 judging)

[JoeNotCharles]

[sblock=OOC]
Balth's flavour text suggests you're already heading in the less steep direction - I'll give the other two guys until this evening to post if they want to do something different, and then assume that's what you're doing.
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[OnlytheStrong]

[sblock=ooc]

I'm back folks...... thanks for the patience.[/sblock]

 

[JoeNotCharles]

It's a long, slow slog to get to a point where the gully is shallow enough to haul the sleds down into it and then out the other side, but at least you aren't bothered by any of the lurking fey on the way. On the far side, you finally gain a good view of your destination: a tall spire of solid ice poking above the trees on the horizon. Inside the ice you can make out a looming, shadowy mass - you are reminded uncomfortably of the dead sailor frozen vertically in the ice by the hulk of the Celia.

You only have a few moments to take in the sight before blinding whiteness descends again as the storm redoubles itself. You hear a series of sharp cracks nearby as the tree trunks split in the cold. Balth is forced to duck as a stout branch, ripped clean off of a tree by the wind, tumbles past his head - not fast enough! It clips him above the eye at a high speed, opening a nasty gash.

[sblock=OOC]
Since you didn't specify, I'm going to assume Janus gives his 3 +1's to the people with the lowest endurance: himself, Balth and Murphy.

Janus and Balth didn't roll Endurance checks to go along with their last two skill checks, so I'll roll them now: 17 for Janus, 6 for Balth. Balth loses a healing surge.

Because you're taking the long way around, you'll each need to make an extra Endurance check, which I'll roll now: Balth and Murphy lose 1 healing surge each
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[sblock=Summary]
Welcome back!

Here's the situation: you and Larinza still have to make checks in this second round of the skill challenge. So far the skills you know will work are:

Athletics: DC 10: 1 success per person (Larinza and Shorrin have used them)
Nature: DC 10: 1 success per person (Murphy and Balth have used them) - unfortunately, Balth wasted his second check rolling Nature a second time, when he'd already gotten a success with it
Insight: DC 10: 1 success per person (nobody's used this yet)
History: DC 10: 1 success max (nobody's used this yet)

Right now we're at 5 successes / 1 failure. Resources expended: Shorrin: 1 healing surges; Murphy: 2 healing surges; Balth: 2 healing surges.

So what do you want to do next?
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[JoeNotCharles]

Double post.

 

[OnlytheStrong]

"This place gets more..... unusual by the step."


[sblock=Skill Challenge]

Insight roll= 20

1d20+1=20

Wasted a 19...... dang it

[/sblock]

 

[JoeNotCharles]

You move slowly through the dark woods. The trees press in closely here, and you are forced to shove through branches that grasp and claw at you. Even Janus's Thunderwaves aren't enough to clear away all of them - as soon as a path is opened, more branches spring forward out of the gloom. Suddenly you are confronted with a tangle so thick that the branches lock together into a veritable wall of thorns stretching off as far as you can see. Only a single, winding path leads into the thicket.

Shorrin looks at the path skeptically. "It's a trap," he says with conviction. He approaches the thicket with his hammer ready and moves to strike at the wall - but as the hammer approaches, the branches twist away from it, uncurl and melt away, leaving you standing in a wide, open clearing beneath a glowering overcast sky. The tracks of some huge, hoofed animal lead away from you, following exactly the path of the illusory trail.

Suddenly a fresh howl of wind stirs up the newly revealed snow, whipping it into your faces. By the time the gust dies down enough to see, deep difts have covered both the tracks ahead, and your tracks behind.

[sblock=OOC]
6 successes / 1 failure

You forgot to roll Endurance, so I'll roll it for you and waste another 19. Shorrin does not lose any more healing surges.

Larinza needs to take an action and an Endurance check for this next hour of travel, and then you all can start over again.
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[Moon_Goddess]

Larinza curls herself up against the harsh winds and tries to remember if anything her grandfather taught her would apply here.

Endurance Check; History Check (1d20+5=18, 1d20+2=18)


[sblock="OOC"]I appologize, I've been distracted I won't let it happen again [/sblock]

 

[renau1g]

Murphy tries to overcome the illusions of this place, hoping to assist the way Shorrin did against their influence.

[sblock=OOC]
Insight (1d20+2=10) Well... just barely
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[JoeNotCharles]

[sblock=Larinza]
The brief sight of the icy spire on the horizon reminds you of a fairy story your grandfather used to tell, about an island where fey magics kept an ancient evil imprisoned within a tower made of ice. The story didn't mention anything about a magical winter surrounding the tower - otherwise she'd have remembered it earlier! - instead it described the journey of a hero who made his way through the enchanted forest, dealing with fairy tricks and obstacles, before arriving at the tower and parlaying with the guardian of the icy prison, who granted him a wish for his heart's desire in return for leaving the way he came and leaving the ice unbreached.

In one of the hero's encounters, he emerged from the woods into an open field where a knight on a ghostly steed barred his path. The hero defeated the knight and took the shield of one of its past victims from where it hung in the fork of a tree, beside the path leading back into the woods. If the story has any truth to it, maybe that field is where you are now?
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The party slogs onward towards the far side of the clearing, where Balth is waiting for them. Several paths wind onwards into the woods; Balth has scouted a short way down each and found nothing to tell which is the correct way to go.

"That way," Larinza says, pointing to a path that leads under the branches of a large forked tree.

[sblock=OOC]
7 successes / 1 failure

Since Larinza's pulling a sled, that's actually 17 for both rolls - still enough to pass, though.

History: DC 10: The character recalls some specific information about a landmark on the way to the spire. (1 success maximum)

Just one more success needed! I need one more round of endurance and skill checks from everybody - after the challenge is over (8 successes or 3 failures, which doesn't look too likely at this point) I'll just roll the remaining Endurance checks myself.
[/sblock]

 

[JoeNotCharles]

Murphy tries to overcome the illusions of this place, hoping to assist the way Shorrin did against their influence.

[sblock=OOC]
Whoops, missed this post. Updating in a minute.
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