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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 3962283" data-attributes="member: 11697">A hand pushed back the edge of the heavy burlap tent flap and Tristol peered inside. He squinted momentarily at the brighter light inside, but he was smiling as he stepped out of the wind and into something that half resembled a patch of stability and civilization amidst the plane’s chaos. “You wanted to see me?”    “Please, do come in.” Highsilver said, motioning the other wizard to take a seat on a box as Leobtav produced another glass and poured a third drink.    “Your blindfold got sidetracked by about six inches…” Ficklebarb chirped as the aasimar stepped inside and sat down.Tristol looked confused for a moment and then blushed. “Yeah, that would be Nisha’s doing, but it’s actually practical.”His fox’s ears were muffled a bit by a strip of cloth wrapped around his head to dampen the ambient noise of the wind. No magic involved at all, but it worked, and he was a bit more susceptible to it than the others with noticeably smaller ears.    “I can only imagine how the lupinal is handling it.” Leobtav said. “The wind, and the nature of the plane itself. That can’t feel pleasant to her.”    Ficklebarb didn’t add any choice bits of wisdom, but for the moment he’d hopped down from his perch and was playfully amusing himself by snapping at the air as Tristol’s tail twitched side to side.    “You’d be surprised.” Tristol replied. “She’s been around worse, and she wasn’t having any of wearing something around her ears. Nisha tried it on her first.”    Tristol sat down and took a sip of the wine. “This is good. Thank you.”    “I’m glad you like.” Leobtav said, raising his own glass in toast. “Doran and I were just taking a moment to celebrate our amazingly good luck so far.”    Tristol nodded. “I’ll admit that I’m surprised. I expected us to arrive here and find the place crawling with howlers, tanar’ri, and all sorts of other things.”    Both of Tristol’s employers glanced warily at one another.    “Well, to tell the truth… we’re worried about that.” Highsilver replied. “Because it either means that the site itself is warded against creatures, or they’re staying away for a specific reason.”    Tristol frowned. “I haven’t seen any indication of active wards anywhere.”    “Indeed.” Leobtav said. “Which suggests that we’re either incredibly lucky, or there’s something keeping them away that they’re afraid of.”    “We’re not –that- lucky.” The elf agreed.    “So perhaps we should start out small, and stay close to the camp till we’re sure which of those it might be.” Tristol suggested.    “That was our thought as well.” Leobtav said. “It should also give us the time to determine how much the Crag has changed since our maps were made. And if there’s something powerful lairing at the Crag proper, we’ll see the signs before we run afoul of it by accident if we search too hastily.”    Tristol nodded. “The rest of the folks you hired and I should be fine with splitting up and leading each of those smaller groups, if we go with that idea, but if you’re expecting anything larger than a howler, it might constrain how many groups can go out at once.”    “Not if you included the two of us among in there.” Highsilver said, motioning to himself and the professor.    Tristol nodded, but gave Leobtav some more skepticism than the elf. “I know you were a member of the Guvners, and with a familiar you know at least a bit of spellcraft, but how much magic do you know?”    Ficklebarb sat up on his haunches, held a hand out and pinched two fingers together with a grin. Leobtav waved away his vote of confidence with a guffaw and a quick, “Bah!”    “Your dragon’s opinion aside, how long has it been since you regularly studied a spellbook?”    Leobtav pulled out a set of well worn but old books and patted a hand on top of them. Their spines still had the symbol of the Fraternity of Order proudly emblazoned on their spines, and he hadn’t been a formal member of that faction for years, which in and of itself dated his achievements.    “I know a fair bit of magic, and at one point a bit of fighting, but I haven’t picked up a sword in years. I’ve kept up with magic, but let’s just say I haven’t managed to find the time to progress any beyond where I was back before I met Doran here.”    Highsilver inclined his head to the human, “He’s not shabby by any means.”    “Nothing beyond sixth sphere.” Leobtav admitted, which put him a notch or two below the two more dedicated wizards in his company. “Admitting my shortcomings here, I might be no match for you in a spell duel, but I’d like to think that I’m versed enough in magic to keep myself safe from most things we might find here near the crag.”    “Unless we stumble upon a Balor or a dragon.” Doran said, slapping the professor on the shoulder with a grin.    Leobtav grinned and looked past Tristol. “Well I think you’re safe from the only dragon you’re likely to find around here.”    “Mrrrpgghhhh!” Ficklebarb said unintelligibly through a mouthful of fluff on the tip of Tristol’s tail, having finally caught that ever so elusive prey.    Tristol laughed and twitched his tail free. “He’s not exactly Garyx.”    “I think he aspires more for Hlal than anything else if you ask me.” Highsilver laughed.    Ficklebarb shrugged and hopped up onto an impromptu stack of books.     “Oh, a few other questions.” Tristol added, rubbing his chin. “Now I know what my group can handle, and you’ve told me about yourselves, but I don’t want to say that I know our other three non-scholars to the same degree. Clueless seems like he’s chatted up Frollis a bit, or tried to at least, and Florian looked like she was holding a little impromptu prayer with Settys before I came in here, but I haven’t really had the opportunity or the inclination to feel them out.”    Leobtav nodded. “Settys isn’t your average priest.”“Certainly not.” Doran agreed. “He’s deceptively skilled with that khopesh of his.”Ficklebarb tapped his claws noisily atop one of the elf’s spellbooks. “Library fines for Thoth’s Library: veeeery steep…”“Well that’s good to hear.” Tristol said. “What about spellcasting ability? I don’t think I’ve seen him use any clerical magic, at least anything obvious, though a few things on his person have a fairly strong glow of the divine about them.”    Doran gave a wrinkled grin and shrugged. “I’m not the person to ask. I know he’s a priest, but I couldn’t begin to tell you anything about divine magic. Cilret?”    The professor gave a shrug. “I’m no better on the topic. Laws not gods I say.”    “Ppppthhbbbttttt!” Ficklebarb blew a raspberry at his master, which was to be honest, a rather unique expression coming from a forked tongue.    Tristol chuckled and his tail twitched with amusement. “I’ll ask Florian when I’m done here.”    A sudden gust of wind rustled angrily at the tent and rattled its frame. The gale outside whistled with only somewhat muted fury, causing some of the real candle flames that dotted the room to flicker, sending the pseudodragon dashing for safety. Moments later he peeked out from over the lip of a large pot, seemingly meant for the camp cook, but conveniently for him misplaced for the moment.Doran smiled and shook his head, glad for the moment that his own familiar had been skittish but also smart enough to hide in an extra-dimensional pocket for the time being.“But in any event, that brings us to Frollis.” Doran continued. “And it raises the question of what all he’s capable of. For starters, he’s damn good with his swords, but he’s also not going to use them in a straight up fight, rushing head on into melee. He’s a bit like your half-fey friend in that regard, plus he’s got some magical ability to boot.”Tristol’s ears perked. “What sort?”The answer came quickly and was both informative and not at the same time, “Both clerical and divine.”“Eh?” Tristol raised an eyebrow. The man was all full of surprises.“I don’t know if he’s a cleric or a wizard of any sort, but he’s used quite a few tricks that I can’t honestly say if they’re all from scrolls, wands, or any sort of triggered trinkets. He carries all sorts of odd little things, most of them enchanted to some degree or another.”“And all dolled up with some Nystul’s auras so you can’t truthfully tell what is magical and what isn’t. He’s the sort of skilled man that you hire knowing that he’s good for the job, but you don’t ask too much.” Leobtav explained, looked away, paused, and then looked back with a frown. “That came off as way too creepy. My apologies. Frollis has a bit of a questionable past, but while he plays his cards close to his chest, he’s not a bad person.”    Tristol nodded and made a mental note to watch the man, despite the professor’s assurances. Clueless might be the best to shadow him, and as it was they’d already put them together once, and so they’d probably have those two working together again.    “So what about the bard?” Tristol asked. “A bard in Pandemonium?”    Doran smiled and nodded. “I think Cilret might have explained back in Sigil, she wanted to come along.”    “Quite insistent actually.” The professor explained. “She had her heart set on going with us.”    “Not asking to be paid was a big help too.” Ficklebarb chirped.    “Hush you.” Leobtav retorted. “I’m not that cheap.”    The dragon giggled and ducked back inside his pot-as-fort.    Doran shook his head at the incongruity of the pair. “In any event, she’s a pleasant person to be around, and she’s good with people and smoothing over edges and tempers if they happen to flare. In Pandemonium, even if her magic is probably next to useless, she’s welcome on that alone.”    Tristol nodded. He hadn’t met a lilland before, and so he figured that over the next day or so he might chat her up.    “So does that cover your questions?” Leobtav asked.    “About the people? Yes.” He replied. “But now that we’ve got camp more or less set up, I’m curious about where we go from here, and how we’ll be handling that.”    Leobtav smiled and pulled out his map. “Get comfortable and we’ll fill you in now. You can help us organize it all once we’re done.”    Tristol inwardly sighed. There was nothing like volunteering yourself for extra work, intentionally or not.    “So we’re thinking of about three places close to camp on day one, and from there…”***    Tristol lifted up the tent flap and made his exit, spilling brighter light out into the dimmer confines of the campsite. Their tents were arranged in a nested ring, two thick, surrounding a central campfire, with several smaller fires guttering and batting back the darkness at various points within the ring. Somewhere out amid the tents, he needed to find his companions and fill them in on their assignments while Highsilver and Leobtav found the others and did likewise.    Three locations, all near to the camp, and apparently they didn’t expect to find much, at least on the first full day of searching. Of course, not everyone wanted to wait a night before beginning their search of the Crag, or at least its periphery. In the morning there would be three full groups heading out to the three specific locations that Tristol had talked over with Leobtav and Highsilver, but before that there were going to be two smaller groups hunting the boulder-strewn fields of rubble leading up to those locations.    Tristol wasn’t in favor of that last idea, but some of the scholars seemed hellbent on going out and looking under rocks as soon as possible. It wasn’t going to find what they’d come for in the first place, but those same scholars wanted to use those two early searches to get a better clue of the lay of the area, and changes to it compared to their old maps, before the full searches in the morning.    “Hey Tristol.” A certain tiefling whispered into his ear a moment before she lightly hugged him around the waist. “Looking for me?”    “Everyone actually.” Tristol replied, returning the hug and giving her a kiss. “But you first.”    “Anything interesting going on?” She asked, looking back towards Leobtav’s tent curiously.    “Quite a bit actually.” He explained. “But nothing for us till the morning.”    “We get to sleep in?” Nisha teased, poking the small of Tristol’s back with the tip of her tail.    Tristol didn’t reply to the tease, but he smiled nonetheless. “We’ll be splitting up into groups then, but…”    “Am I with you?”    “Absolutely.”    “But as I was saying, some of the more impatient scholars want to go out tonight as soon as the camp is fully set up.”    Nisha nodded, “They’ll be going soon then, because we finished a few minutes ago.”    That would explain what she was wandering around looking for mischief.    “I think they’ve got Frollis set up to watch one small group, and then if Clueless doesn’t mind, they want him to watch over the other.”    Nisha shot a look at two random sages as they wandered past carrying assorted digging tools. She seemed skeptical. “You think they’ll be ok?”    Tristol nodded. “We didn’t find anything lurking out there earlier, and being so close to camp, I think they’ll be fine. Besides, if they have problems, we’ll be close by to help.”    Nisha was still giving that same look of skepticism. “They can find ancient runes, but I don’t think half of them could tie their own bootlaces without a book to give them step by step instructions.”    “Trust me.” Tristol said. “They’ll be fine.”    Several hours later once those first two groups went out into the gloom beyond the fringes of the camp’s feeble firelight, Tristol’s reassurances would be proven grossly premature.***</blockquote>

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