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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 1899715" data-attributes="member: 5808">Part the Eighty-SecondIn which: the party either makes a brilliant tactical ploy, or a really big mistake.Some hours later, as the party passes out of the woods and into one of the grassier areas of Ketkath foothills, Reyu notices a lone raven high up against the sky.An hour later, it is still there.  Reyu brings her horse up beside Lord Agasha’s.  “Do not look back. I believe we are being spied upon.”“More goblins?”“A raven.”Lord Agasha is skeptical.  “A raven?”“The worgs who just attacked us did not leave tracks in the snow.  There are many other signs that Shesak is a powerful druid.  I believe this to be one of her companions.”“If she is so powerful, why does she have a raven while you have a bear?”“I said one of her companions.”Agasha nods.“I will inform my friends,” Reyu continues.  “When I give the word, we will all attack in concert.  Hopefully we can kill it before it can report back to its mistress.”“In this instance, my bow is at your command.”“Thank you.”Reyu gradually works her way to the other members of the party, informing them of her suspicions and her plan.  Soon, all are in readiness.Reyu stealthily lets an arrow fall into her hand, still hanging easily at her side.  She catches Eva’s eye and nods, following the silent sign with a shout of, “Now!”Reyu, Eva, Thatch, Anvil, Kiara and Lord Agasha all turn and fire their bows at once.  At the same moment, Lira and Annika each loose a pair of magic missiles.  Naturally, the magic missiles hit and when the bird hits the ground it has been skewered no fewer than four times with various arrows and a bolt from Anvil’s cross-bow. “Well,” Eva comments, “that bird is really, really dead.”Lira casts detect magic to see if the creature is under any kind of enchantment.  What she sees makes her heart skip a beat, regardless of the circumstances.  “What’s the matter?” Eva asks.Lira swallows.  “I think we just killed someone’s familiar.”“I thought only witches and those of their ilk had familiars,” Anvil announces.“The proper term,” Annika informs him, “is wizard or sorcerer.”Anvil barely acknowledges the correction.  “But they are the only ones who have familiars.”  He addresses Reyu, “Those of your kind do not have them.”“That is true,” Reyu is forced to allow.  “Umm…” says Thatch.  “I hope that bird didn’t belong to the archmage we’re supposed to find.”The party eventually puts that thought aside—quite rightly deciding that if they have murdered the near companion of one of the four most powerful wizards of the Halmae, there’s not a lot they can do about it now—and concentrates on what else is implied by the raven’s presence.If the bird was someone’s familiar (someone else’s familiar), and it was acting as a spy, then it seems likely that they are very close to Sheesak’s lair.The party decides to stop and make camp while Kiara goes on a scouting mission.She tries to behave as much like a swallow as she can under the circumstances (circumstances being that it’s the middle of winter and any self-respecting swallow would have migrated north or at least headed for the valleys in search of warmer climes).  So in the end, she splits her time between being swallow-like and being stealthy.Stealthy, when you are a very small bird, isn’t much of a problem.Skimming along the tops of the trees she soon comes to a cliff, looming overhead.  At the base of the cliff, a mound—almost a bulge of earth—rises nearly twenty feet up the cliff-face, creating a half-dome plateau outside what looks like the entrance of a cave.  Outside the cave entrance is a large stone alter, ringed by four immense standing stones, laid out in a semi-circle.Growing on the sides of the slope up to the plateau are four concentric hedges, Kiara looks, but she doesn’t see any obvious route through them.  She is about to fly in for a closer look when she notices a shadow gliding along the ground in front of her own.She glances back and sees a raven, circling above her.  She can’t be sure if it’s following her or not, but she takes cover in a small cranny of the cliff-face until the other bird flies on.  Then, she quickly wings her way back to where the rest of the group is encamped, to let them know what she has seen.  As far as she can tell, she isn’t followed.</blockquote>

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