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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 2106686" data-attributes="member: 5808">Day 3Near a waterfall, Lira once again tries to blow the horn that the party took from Sheesak the Druid ogre.  Annika had identified it as casting summon nature’s ally IV.  Kiara sounded it, and a rhinoceros appeared.  Lira hopes that her summoned puppy was merely a fluke.The noise of the horn is barely heard above the roaring of the water.  As Lira lowers the horn from her lips she sees that a grey wolf has appeared before her.“Hello,” she says.The wolf looks at her a bit quizzically, and after about 20 seconds, disappears.“Well, I guess that’s an improvement.”Eva pats her friend on the back.  “Maybe you just get dogs.”Day 4Benedic freezes in his tracks, hand going to his sword.  The rest of the group, arrayed around a small fire eating lunch, looks up.About forty feet away stands a large dog-like creature.  It growls angrily, eyes wild, and a thin trail of foam drips from its mouth.Lira whispers to Eva, “I didn’t have anything to do with that one.”Benedic takes a step back, cautiously.  “Everyone, get ready just in case it – ” Before Benedic can finish speaking the animal leaps at him…And vanishes.Faster than anyone can react, the dog reappears right beside Benedic, bites him viscously on the arm, and then rapidly backs away.Thatch comes charging forward, raises his sword in a mighty swing, and brings it crashing down… straight through the animal… and onto the frozen ground.  Thatch’s eyes go wide as he sees the dog is flickering, there one instant, and gone the next.  He realizes it must have blinked out of existence just as he was about to hit it with his sword.Benedic swears quietly, and shouts to warn the others, “Blink dog!” “What?” Eva shouts back as she draws an arrow.Benedic fires off an arrow that passes harmlessly through the animal’s flickering body by way of demonstration.  “It blinks.”Well, forget this Lira thinks grimly, and she casts magic missile.  Two bolts fly from her finger tips straight towards the animal.  Just as they are about to impact, the dog flickers out of phase… and with a shimmer, the bolts vanish as well.  A fraction of a second later, the dog is back, limping.Facinating thinks Annika, the force effect of the missile must be able to follow it through into the ethereal plane.  She begins to cast.  I could write a paper on that when I get back to the Academy.Reyu just has time to fire at the dog before it vanishes again.  This time it reappears next to Lira and tears a chunk out of her thigh.Fortunately, the party’s luck is turning.  Kiara and Benedic both hit the creature with their next arrow volleys.  Lira and Annika fire more magic missiles and Anvil charges forward, landing a solid blow with his sword.Although the animal is clearly in pain, its anger is even stronger than its injuries.  The dog vanishes again, this time reappearing right behind Anvil, who was the last one to cause him pain.  The dog rises as if to attack… and then falls to the ground.Not taking any chances, Thatch plunges his sword down towards the fallen carcass, gritting his teeth against the reverberations of steel hitting stone.  He holds his sword in place, and watches with grim satisfaction as the creature eventually stops blinking and solidifies around the blade.Anvil wipes his own blade, and as he sheathes his sword, notices Lira bleeding freely from a bite on her leg.“Here.”  He beckons, and Lira limps over.  Anvil begins casting a cure spell and is just about to seal the wound when a shout comes from Benedic: “Stop!”Everyone turns to stare at the ranger, who has tied off his arm above the bite and appears to be in the middle of dousing the wound with water from his canteen.“You want to have to slice her back open?”“What do you speak of?” Anvil demands.  “This is the healing power of Kettenek.”Benedic rolls his eyes in exasperation.  “Will it cure disease?  That is a rabid animal, and the bite could be infected.  You’ve got to clean the wound out before you cure it.”Anvil, although dubious, agrees to hold off as Reyu tends to Lira’s leg.Thatch looks on, grotesquely fascinated.  “How do you know when you’ve got it clean enough?”“We will know,” Reyu replies mildly, “when they do not develop the disease.”“Oh.”Lira grits her teeth as the bite is looked to.  “I hate blinking, misty, ethereal things.”Meanwhile, Kiara, being very careful (she assures Annika numerous times), pokes the dead blink dog with a large stick, getting a good look at it so she’ll be able to recognize it if she sees one again.Indeed, she finds, it looks almost exactly like the three animals cresting the hill coming towards them.“Guys…” she begins.Everyone stares.  The three animals come to a stop some forty feet away.  The one in front lets out a low, mournful howl.  The other two join it, and for half a minute their cries echo amid the mountains.  Then, they lower their heads and vanish.</blockquote>

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