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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 927887" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 182The Company breaks camp and soon is flying across the snowy plains of Surgoil, Morningstar in the lead.  But about half an hour later Aravis feels another odd twinge in his head and Morningstar (independently) comes to a halt.“It’s gone,” she says, frowning.  “I’m no longer sensing a direction.”“I think the defenses of Het Branoi kicked in,” says Aravis.“We’ve been going in a straight line all this time,” Ernie points out.  “We should just keep flying.”Kay assumes the lead position, having the best sense of direction in the group.  They fly onward, high above the largely-featureless landscape, still speckled with giantish farms and villages.  Twenty minutes after the find the path spell stopped working, Morningstar informs the other that it has come back on again. “We haven’t passed it,” says Morningstar.  She adjusts Kay’s trajectory by a couple of degrees and they continue on.  For another hour this pattern persists, with Morningstar’s divination blinking on and off as it clashes with the mystical defenses of Het Branoi.   Eventually the spell expires on its own, but they keep going.  An hour later they spy a particularly large giantish town ahead.    Kay and Morningstar don’t think it’s precisely on the line indicated by the find the path, but it’s their best lead so far.  A few party members are made to be both wind walking and invisible.  “We should be looking for places where an invisible tower might be standing,” says Dranko.  “Lawns, courtyards, open spaces.  We’ll signal over the Rary’s if we run into something.”He means this last part literally.  Moving at top speed, half the party flies over the walls and starts whipping through the giantish town, staying low and avoiding giants.  They fly bodily through every likely open space they can find, hoping to smack into Het Branoi.  For the duration of the invisibility spell they search but come up empty.  Dranko has a moment of excitement when he rounds of corner and flies into a giant’s knees, but the giant merely looks around puzzled before continuing on his way.They fly on for another hour before a second large town comes into view, and this one is directly in the path of their divination.  More invisibilities are cast and another wind-walking sweep is made…  and this time they find something.It’s not an invisible tower but it sure is interesting, and more than a little disturbing.   There is a courtyard in the town, surrounded by buildings on all sides.   In the center of that courtyard is an enormous statue.  The base is a thirty-foot-tall, ten foot diameter stone monolith, slightly wider at the base than the top.  And atop this base is a enormous stone beholder, itself fifteen feet in diameter.  (The Company has seen beholders before.  There was a mutilated beholder in a rare-creature zoo in Zhamir.   The daughter of Ozilinsh’s old mentor had prepared an illusionary beholder to guard her library.  And Solomea in the Crosser’s Maze had briefly taken on the aspect of a beholder. )They fervently hope that if there are any real beholders around, they aren’t as big as this one!An interior balcony twenty feet off the ground runs the entire perimeter of the courtyard.  Two bored-looking giants dragging large clubs patrol this balcony, casting glances into the courtyard from time to time.  Thinking that whoever is in the tower might have the means to see them, the wind-walkers withdraw to rejoin the others flying several hundred feet above the town.Morningstar checks out the location in Ava Dormo.  She is surprised to find that in the Dreamscape, the courtyard is empty.  No beholder statue, no secret Black Circle tower, no nothin’.   But that discontinuity itself is a sign that they have stumbled across something of magical significance.  The Company withdraws a couple of miles from the town and takes the Divination Sink out of their bag of holding, to foil any attempts to locate them magically.An hour later, Dranko and Kibi (both invisible) set out to walk back toward the city.  No, they’re not planning an assault.   When they get with a mile of the place, Kibi casts prying eyes  and gives his little sensors instructions to spread out and stay hidden, scouting around the courtyard with the beholder statue.  Come back in one hour to report.  Off go thirteen little magical eyes.  Two of them return.   Kibi holds them in his hands and absorbs their information, after which he and Dranko return to the camp.  It’s dark by the time they arrive.“Eleven of my prying eyes were dispelled,” says Kibi as the others crowd around to listen.  “But the other two saw why.  I think the entire courtyard area is inside a huge Divination Sink.  There are four large round stones, one at each corner of the balcony.  I caught a glimpse of blue light coming from inside these stones.  As soon as a prying eye got inside the covered area it was annihilated.  But two of the eyes watched from a high vantage point, up near the top of the beholder statue.  I guess the Sinks don’t extend up that high.  They watched from there for most of the hour, and saw several of the other eyes blink out of existence.  They also watched those two guard giants make their rounds.  From so high up it was tough to figure out what they were doing, but they may have been involved in some kind of ritual.   They were walking in opposite directions, and making some gestures to each other as they passed.“But that’s it.  No one else came into the courtyard.  No one walked out of the statue.  The statue didn’t do anything.  It was… boring.”The Company talks for a few more minutes about the situation.  They are collectively of the opinion that the statue is Het Branoi, and that there must be some secret entrance to it.Ernie starts preparing dinner while the others wrap themselves in warm blankets against the wind.  “I hope the smell of my food doesn’t attract any of those fox-things around here,” he says.The Company looks around nervously at the thought.  Then Flicker pipes up:“Say, Aravis and Kibi, if we do get attacked by a fox, couldn’t you guys use magic missile to kill ‘em?  I mean, they’re super quick and dodge everything, but you can’t dodge a magic missile.  Right?”Everyone is quiet for a moment.   Aravis stares at Flicker, which is always unnerving given the wizard’s star-field eyes.   The silence stretches on long enough that Flicker starts to think he’d made some kind of faux-pas.“What?  It was just a sug…”“Flicker,” says Aravis.  “In the years to come, feel free to remind me of this moment, in case I ever get too sure of myself.  Magic missile.  Of course that would work!  It’s the most obvious thing in the world!  I have no idea why I didn’t think of it.”“Maybe it was the sight of Kay getting eaten?” says Flicker.“Maybe.”“Don’t feel bad, boss,” says Pewter.  “I didn’t think of it either.”Morningstar sits down next to Snokas while they eat.“Snokas, I need to talk to you about something.”“Sure.  Go ahead!”“You’ve probably seen by now that our group makes decisions democratically.  When there’s disagreement about our collective course of action, we take a vote.”“I’ve figured that out, yeah.”“I’ve noticed that every time, you’ve voted the same way as I have.”“Yup,” agrees Snokas.“Is that because you don’t want to disagree with me?” asks Morningstar.Snokas scratches his head.“No, I don’t think so.  More likely, since both of us are serving Ell, we just see most things the same way.  But if you want to me to vote with you when it matters, I would certainly be happy to…”“No, no!” Morningstar interrupts.  “What I’m trying to tell you is, I don’t want you to feel like you have to vote the same way I do.  You’re a full-fledged member of our company.  You should think for yourself, and decide for yourself how you feel.”Snokas thinks for a minute.“Yeah, sure.  That’s fine with me.  Thanks.”An hour later the Company is sleeping soundly, safe inside Aravis’ rope tricks.* *An hour after that, the Company is treated to as rude awakening as there is; their rope tricks are dispelled out from under them!  Whoomph!  The party is greeted by the shock of cold night air, followed closely by the shock of falling six feet onto the snowy ground.  Shaking off sleep with the efficiency of seasoned adventurers they start to scramble for weapons.  Dranko and Kibi, the only ones able to see in the dark, cast quick looks around them.  Where are their attackers?Ah.  There they are.  Above them.  And they’re…Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!Floating about thirty feet off the ground in a wide ring around the Company, are seven miniature beholders.   Each has a mottled purple round body slightly bigger than a soccer ball, with eight wiggling eyestalks protruding from the top.  Each also has a large central eye, and these are looking directly down at the party.As one all seven close their central eyes, and the magic starts flying.Each mini-beholder fires from the same three front-facing eyestalks.  That makes seven white rays of dexterity draining, seven arcing one-target lightning bolts, and twenty-eight magic missiles.  The magical artillery rains around the party, crackling and hissing.   Significant quantities of damage are taken by various members of the Company.There is almost no talk of fighting, though Kay quickly picks up her bow and slings her quiver over her shoulder.“We’ve got to get out of here!” shouts Morningstar.  “One more volley like that and we’ll start dropping.”“Agreed!” says Dranko.  “Ernie, can you give us cover?”  “On it!” answers Ernie.  He casts obscuring mist.  “How did they find us?” wonders Flicker aloud.“If they can see invisible people, they could have followed Dranko and me back after I cast prying eyes,” says Kibi.“It doesn’t matter!” says Dranko.  “But whoever’s in that statue must know that we’re here.  Crap!”“Gather up your stuff!” says Morningstar, her voice muffled by the fog.  “Once we’re ready I’ll cast wind walk and the wizards can teleport us back to yesterday’s camp.”[aside:  it’s standard operating procedure for the wizards to study a safe ‘teleport here’ location at each night’s campsite before going to bed.]“Or maybe angry giants will save us,” says Kibi.A few seconds later the magical mist vanishes.   The seven mini-beholders still hover above and around them, watching.  All of their main eyes are open again.   Kay takes aim and lets fly with an arrow; it sticks into the side of one of the bobbing creatures.  The beast emits a small shriek.“Why aren’t they attacking us?” asks Flicker, as he grabs for loose items on the ground.  “Oh, hey, Morningstar, I think this is your Ioun Stone.”“Just stuff it in your pocket.”“They can’t attack us,” says Aravis, “because they have us in an anti-magic field.   If they drop the field to attack, the fog comes back and they can’t easily target us.  It’s a stalemate.”“Not quite,” says Kay.  She shoots three more arrows, two of which find their mark.  The mini-beholder drops out of the air and splats on the ground like a half-deflated volleyball.“Either way,” says Dranko.  “Keep picking stuff up.”Hastily the Company gathers their belongings.  As they do, the beholders start to let out strange keening noises.“I think they’re communicating,” says Ernie.A few seconds later the beholders begin to shift their positions slightly, drawing in one end of the oval.   One Certain Step, at the edge of the party’s cluster, is suddenly enveloped in a small fog cloud of his own.   Just as it dawns on the party what the beholders are doing, the three creatures on Step’s side of the oval fire into the fog with their dex-draining rays and lightning blasts.  They can’t see him, but they’ve narrowed down where he can be to single small area.   “Augh!” shouts Step from his sliver of fog.  “Crafty little things,” says Morningstar.  “They’re trying to isolate one of us outside of the anti-magic zone.  But actually that’s just what we need if we want to flee.  If everyone’s got their stuff, crowd into that fog, and leave enough room for me and the wizards.”Everyone scrambles and jams themselves into the pocket of fog that’s outside the anti-magic field.  Morningstar moves into it and casts wind walk on as many of her friends as possible, making the total weight of the party viable for mass teleporting.  Then Aravis and Kibi move in, reach out to make contact with everyone else, and cast teleport.Just like that they are miles away, at the encampment spot of the previous night.“Sh*t!” exclaims Dranko.  “I’m getting sick of fleeing from ambushes.”“We’ve got it down to a science though,” points out Grey Wolf.“To think,” says Ernie.  “All those years I never cast obscuring mist, and now it’s saved our butts twice.  It’s good to know we have an out.”“We ran from baby monsters!” objects Dranko.  “Baby monsters!”“I hate to bring this up,” says Aravis, “but they found us once already, inside rope tricks.  They could do it again.  We even had the Divination Sink out.  We must be cautious.”Aravis casts Leomund’s secure shelter and the party piles inside, bringing the Divination Sink with them.  Ernie dumps his stuff next to one of the bunks and climbs into bed.  As the Company falls asleep for the second time that night, he mutters,  “I like beholders better when they’re selling us chess pieces.”…to be continued…</blockquote>

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