The Treasure of the Tierra Padre... [Knight Otu Judging]

[El Jefe]

Oirhandir was moved and intrigued by the stone tree. Was it a sculpture? A real tree, once alive, now turned to stone? But why do such a thing to a dead tree? And why cap a remote hill with such a sculpture? Try as he might, the elf just couldn't fathom the odd locale.

"Perhaps we should camp a little below the summit", he suggested. "It wouldn't do to be struck by lightning."

Oirhandir glanced about in search of relatively flat ground, even if only scattered patches that would accommodate a single bedroll apiece were all there were to be found. As soon as he satisfied himself that the party was situated as well as could be, he started setting up camp and preparing the evening meal. He focused on extracting the meat from the crocodile with as little damage to the hide as was possible.

OoC: Edited to add that I'll have sporadic net access until 1/15/05. Ghost Oirhandir if necessary.

 

[Xael]

"A campsite at the top of the hill would be visible to about every being in the swamp. And weren't we warned that other people might be interested in the treasure too? The top would certainly be more defensible position though. Anyway, I wan't to examine this tree a bit more. It doesn't make much sense to either to sculpt such a thing or turn it to stone, but either way, it's very probably a delibarate creation.", Almayce says. He then casts Detect Magic and checks if the tree radiates magic. He'll also quickly check the surroundings of the tree and the hill in general with the spell too.

 

[GPEKO]

Gath

Gath examines the 'rock-tree', but keeps his distance. "That be witch work, no doubt." He proclaims. "Me not want to camp close to that. Me not like. It be .. not common."

 

[Gurdjieff]

After a few moments of concentration, Rogier discerns a small, faint source of evil seething with avaricious greed somewhere directly below him.

"You might be right Gath, I sense a foul aura nearby. It is faint, but..."
Rogier takes a step back, pointing to where he stood just before
"There."

He grabs his weapons and stands ready if anything pops up.
If nothing pops up, he'll try and see if he can get to the Evil aura; if it is close to the surface he'll hack/dig his way to it, if it is somewhat deeper underground he'll start looking for a cave or an entrance.

 

[Pbartender]

Oirhandir glanced about in search of relatively flat ground, even if only scattered patches that would accommodate a single bedroll apiece were all there were to be found.

Th flattest ground to be found is within the immediate vicinity of the black stone tree. All other spots on the hill are either too sloped, too rocky, too thick with saw grass, or a combination of the three.

He then casts Detect Magic and checks if the tree radiates magic. He'll also quickly check the surroundings of the tree and the hill in general with the spell too.

Almayce can detect no magical auras eminating from the black stone tree, nor from anywhere near on the hill. Taking Rogier's cue, he does sense two magical auras below him, within the hill. They are both faint auras, one of which feels like a protective divination and the other which smacks of necromancy.

He grabs his weapons and stands ready if anything pops up.
If nothing pops up, he'll try and see if he can get to the Evil aura; if it is close to the surface he'll hack/dig his way to it, if it is somewhat deeper underground he'll start looking for a cave or an entrance.

Rogier waits several minutes, but nothing erupts from the damp ground. Poking about with his sword, nothing appears to be immediately beneath the surface of the soil.

OOC: With most detection spells, if you do not have line-of-sight to the object, you can determine direction, but not its exact location. Sorry.

 

[Gurdjieff]

"It is within the hill, somewhere. And if such is the case, chances are there's a cave entrance somewhere near. I suggest we check it out before it checks us out. If two of us search for such a cave, the others can set up camp for the night. I am not running away for something evil, but plan on erasing it from this place, for it has no place in this world."

 

[Xael]

Almayce grins slightly, half because he found some actual magic, and half because he's somewhat amused by Rogier's single-sided view of this foul aura. "There's some magic somewhere under the hill too, and some of it is necromantic.", he says, nodding slightly to the direction of Rogier when he mentions the necromantic magic. "I don't know exactly what it is though. But Gath is probably right about "witch-work". And I agree that we should try to find the entrance now. I can try another spell, but I somewhat doubt that the entrance can be found with it." *The entrance is probably hidden by more mundane means, but you'll never know...*

Almayce will cast Detect Secret Doors and check their surroundings and the tree again.

 

[Manzanita]

Iggy

"I'm not so good at finding secret caves. I'll help set up camp." Iggy makes sure his crossbow is loaded and close at hand while he works.

 

[GPEKO]

Gath appears reassured by the paladin's words. "Yeah! Rogier, you be right. This be no problem. We be smashing 'evil' in no time. Just like the rest. Nothing beats good smashing." Gath lets Rogier and Almayce search for an entrance and, while he helps the others set up a basic camp, he takes a look at the swamp around the hill. He might be able to see something interesting from their vantage point.

 

[Pbartender]

The others pitch camp, while Rogier and Almayce hunt for a means to delve beneath the hill. Almayce's spell detects no presence of passageways designed to be hidden, but a rudimentary search of the hill uncovers a low tunnel entrance half concealed by a rock and a tuft of tall grass.