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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 628218" data-attributes="member: 143">Book VII, Part 37Two days later found the companions riding north along the Vale Road in a persistent downpour that had already churned the route into a sea of clinging mud.  While they possessed magic to protect themselves against the effects of the cold and wet, they could not ease the discomfort of traveling in such conditions.  The army ahead had to be suffering at least as much difficulty, but despite pushing themselves and their mounts, as well as the spares provided by the Guild Council, they had not yet caught up with the General and his men.  Of course, with a two-day lead, and Goran pushing his soldiers hard, they might not catch him before Asbravn, if then.  The town was only about sixty miles distant from Iriaebor; a pleasant two-day ride in good weather, but in conditions like this is may as well have been three hundred miles away for all the distance they seemed able to cover. At least there was shelter, such as it was, along the way.  They were still close enough to the city for villages and farmsteads to dot the well-traveled road, although the farm they had stopped at last night had been recently abandoned by its owners in the face of the threat from the mountains.  That obstacle loomed ever larger as they made progress along the road, until it formed a great gray mass that dominated the horizon.   There was nothing to be done but to ride on.  Back in Iriaebor, Benzan had suggested teleporting ahead to Asbravn, where they could wait for Goran’s arrival, but as none of them had traveled there before, the best they could get for Dana was a second-hand description—not enough to risk magical transportation unless they were truly desperate.  They were riding down a desolate stretch of road, bordered by irregular copses of trees to their left and softly rolling hills to their right, when Cal suddenly felt a tingle as something light brushed against his perceptions.  “Greetings, Balander Calloran...” came a whisper at the edges of his mind.  “Hold!” he said, loud enough for his companions to hear him over the sound of the rain.  They hesitated, reining in their mounts. “What is it?” Dana asked.  “I think someone’s trying to contact us,” he said.  A moment later, the return of the voice confirmed his suspicions. “Yes, it is I, Cylyria.  Please tell Lariel to remove his pin for a moment, so that I may include him in the conversation.  It is... harder... to contact one with whom I am not closely familiar...”Cal passed on the Harper’s instructions, and soon they could all hear her whispered voice, traveling across the long miles between Twilight Hall in Berdusk and their current location.  “Hello once again, adventurers, and my old friend.”“What news, Cylyria?” Lariel asked.“Help is on the way, Lariel—I have personally petitioned the Lords’ Alliance on behalf of the citizens of Sunset Vale, and even as we speak the armies of the West prepare to march.”“By the time they get here, it’s likely the war will already be over, one way or another,” Benzan said.“Your view is cynical, Benzan, but I cannot disagree with the assessment.  Which makes your mission that much more critical.”“We seek to join with the army commanded by General Goran of Iriaebor,” Cal said.  “We will help, I’m sure, but we are just a few of many who will fight.”“Do not be quick to minimize your role,” came the voice.  “But I fear that your test will lie in a different direction than on the battlefield you seek.”“What do you mean?” the gnome asked.“As I said, at Twilight Hall we have been using our powers—myself, some of the other Harpers, and the servants of Deneir—in an effort to penetrate the veil of secrecy that our foes have draped around them.  They are skilled, and have power of their own to foil us, but what little we have learned we have forwarded to those servants of Good that accompany the army riding north.  But we have also detected something else, a task which demands help that the army cannot provide.”“A column has detached from the main body of raiders that flees the destruction of Asbravn.  They primarily count among their number almost a hundred slaves, captives taken from the sack of the city, along with an escort of hobgoblin warriors.  They are heading south, not north with the others, straight into the fastness of the mountains.”“South?  But that takes them closer to us.  Where are they headed?” Lariel asked.“The same question occurred to us,” Cylyria replied.  “When we attempted to use our magic to seek an answer, though, we were foiled.  There is an evil in those mountains, a black presence that hangs like a bubble of pestilence within our perceptions.  The priest Perambrath, lost in a divination-trance, collapsed as if hit with a seizure, and it was hours before we could revive him.  When he woke, he told us the little that I have now passed on to you.”The companions shared a long look over the lowered heads of their gathered steeds.  Rain continued to slough off of their cloaks, pattering on the saturated mud below.“Well, I guess we’re the only ones who can do anything,” Cal finally said.  “If we can find the head that directs these foul plots, better to strike at it directly,” Lariel added.“Anything that’ll get us out of this rain,” Benzan said. Cylyria’s voice came to them once more, fading as the spell ended.  “Good luck, adventurers...”“We’re going to have to find some way to travel faster,” Dana said.  “Even with clear skies, it would be a hard road up into the mountains, at least another tenday just to make it through the foothills.”“We don’t have a tenday,” Cal said. “We’ve taken on demons and dragons and just about every other thing with claws and teeth in these Realms,” Benzan said.  “Surely you spellweavers can figure out a way to magic us up there...”“A moment,” Cal said.  “I’m thinking...  Teleportation won’t do, we’ve already explored that... Dana, I don’t suppose your spell of flight...”She shook her head.  “I have pushed the duration to an hour and a half, at best.  And I could carry one of you, maybe, but any more...”“If you prayed for only that spell, could you use it more?”“No, I’m sorry.  Some of my spells—the flight, the teleport, a few others—they are a special dispensation from the goddess, unlike the other spells that I am granted.  I can only use them once per day, no more.”But there were other options.  Cal considered Lok; the genasi was the logical choice for what he had in mind, given the weight of his armor and weapons, but he recalled that the doughty fighter had a fear of heights.  He’d proven that he could conquer that fear, Cal thought, thinking back to a dark shaft in a distant place far to the north, but the gnome knew that the spell he had in mind was difficult and disorienting enough for the user without such concerns to hinder it.  So his gaze shifted to Benzan.  The tiefling took a step back, recognizing the considering look in his friend’s eyes, and his hand came up as if to hold the diminutive gnome at bay.“Now, wait a minute, let’s not be hasty here...”</blockquote>

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