Turn 5;The InfernoActions:Eat the rabbit, clean away the skin and innards and wait for the rest to be done talking. When everyone has said their piece, head to the soldier's camp with whoever else will come and do anything necessary to gain an audience with Lord Jace.
You skillfully clean the rabbits while the others talk, and after working some of the herbs that you gathered into the meat you set them on spits over the fire. As they roast you spend a bit of time carrying the scrap meat outside to bury it, hoping to avoid any animals moving into the cave. Your sapling runs down to the little stream and sticks its feet in while you work, and you guess that must be how he drinks. You walk down to the water and wash your hands, then when you stand up you find the sapling hanging off your backpack. Sighing a bit as it climbs up to your backpack while still dripping some water; you head back into the cave. Sitting beside the fire, you shoo the sapling off your pack and then set it next to the fire to dry. Finishing the cooking for the rabbits you hand them out to everyone, chiming into the discussion on a few points as you eat. While everyone discusses surrender options you spend some time using the leftover rabbit hides as well as branches and moss to make a half dozen torches. Tying the bundles of sticks and moss together you look disapprovingly at your product, hopefully if you only burn one at a time you will get there before the flames die out.
As the others get ready to go, you light one of the torches and hand it to Bree
she’s the fire person right? You wonder how effective your persuasion attempts will be as you head out the cave entrance. The walk is mostly uneventful with you out front and the sapling hopping along beside you. It dawns on you that you don’t want him getting in the combat, and so once you start to see the lights off in the distance you hoist him into a tree nearby. Telling the sapling to climb up and wait, you watch as he slowly crawls up the bark into the darkness. You can feel more than see the fires off in the distance, the heat wafting through the woods and bringing acrid smoke to your nose. Hurrying with the others you turn to see Bree sucking in the torch flame as you run, her arms beginning to glow. The sounds of battle reach your ears just as you break from the woods into a clearing the army was using as a campsite. All across the encampment you see men running carrying various items, while other groups fight knights against mercenaries. The bandits and mercs have painted their faces black and red, it’s obviously some sort of coup attempt and as you watch another tent catches fire and sends sparks soaring into the night sky. You see few soldiers, and they appear to be getting overwhelmed, a man in sliver and iron armor yells for help as 7 bandits move to surround him, he appears to be a higher ranked knight and you can see others attempting to fight their way towards him. Even as you watch though a blow lands on his side, and crimson fills the air, he continues standing but will need your assistance if he is to survive. You take out your bow and ready an arrow, you hear the others readying for a fight as well, and you tell them to try and get to the captain before he falls. That man might be your only hope to clean up the bandits and mercenaries, and he won’t stand on his own. You watch as Bree strides forward, flames from her torch curling around her arms as the wood crumbles to ash. Twisting flames from the burning tents begin crawling through the air towards her and you almost think that her eyes appear to have caught fire, you ready the bow and stride forward to help.
Action: Listen to the others conversation and relent to examination. Afterwards, head to the camp with the others. Eat food if hungry, but only if the others have already eaten.
Mostly Jim and Bree just discuss surrender options, and possible benefits paid to the soldiers and the townspeople. Marcus hands you some meat, and you eat in thought with the others. Finally it seems that everyone is satisfied with what will be discussed, and Jim goes outside to practice while Marcus lies down to get a few minutes rest before you head out. Bree comes over and sits beside you, asking to see if you were hurt at all, and though you try to tell her that you are okay she doesn’t relent. Pulling up your sleeves at the spots where the fabric had burned through, you are amazed to find that you are not only completely fine but that half a dozen old scars had disappeared as well. You and Bree both look over at Marcus a little uneasily; he’s getting a lot more powerful than any of you. He knocked you all out for a few hours and didn’t even seem exhausted by it. You see the sapling looking at you and Bree, and wave to it. It continues to stare at you, and sits down between you and Marcus.
The walk to the camp is quiet, though you are continuously worried that you’ll run into some advanced guard in the night. However when you manage to get within visual range of the camp, and have yet to even be stopped by a scout you begin to worry more. Walking from the woods into the clearing that the war camp was set up in; you are shocked to see the troops fighting amongst themselves. Men run off into the woods in all directions carrying armor and weaponry, and you see that most of them have their faces painted black and red. Marcus whispers to the rest of you that it looks like some type of coup by the bandits, and you agree though it appears that the knights are vastly outnumbered. Marcus points to one man fighting against a number of armed men and says that he believes him to be the knight in charge. Marcus takes out his bow and readies an arrow, while Jim’s eyes begin to glow with a grey light and Bree begins absorbing flame from the torch in her hands, you realize that the others are preparing to fight so you take out your hammer and ready yourself. Marcus tells you to try and get to what must be the General, and you just silently agree. You walk alongside Bree as flames come twisting from the nearby burning tents into her hands and arms, you look over into her face and see flames twisting inside her eyes. You shudder a bit at the sheer amount of energy radiating off of her.
Action: Await an explanation from Marcus and go over to Gerald to check for any burn marks. Try to convince the doubtful that we need to go to Jace's Encampment, if any. Help Marcus cook some of the meat he caught, and eat from the food stock.
Marcus whispers to you, trying to keep the others from hearing. “I think that when I attempted to heal Jim, I learned some sort of way to force a person’s body into a rapid healing type of sleep. At first I thought it had only affected Jim, but in my hurry it seems that it leeched to the rest of you as well.” You nod, and tell him that it certainly made you feel a lot better. Leaving Marcus to his cooking you begin discussing surrender details with Jim, including how exactly to try and approach the commander of the group. Once satisfied with your plans, and after having eaten you walk over to Gerald sitting on the far side of the cave. Sitting down and leaning against the wall beside him you ask to see where you hit him. After some fussing you manage to get Gerald to pull up his sleeves to show you where the fire burnt though, however there is no marks on his skin at all. You notice a look of shock on his face, and asking him what is wrong, he tells you how there used to be a number of scars on his forearms that have all disappeared. Before you can talk much more Jim comes back into the cave to tell you that his is ready to leave. Marcus lights a torch he had made while you talked to Gerald and hands it to you, and you follow Jim out of the cave.
The walk towards the camp is calm and quiet, with the torch light playing off the few remaining leaves on the trees. The warmth of the fire in your hands calms your nerves, though a forbidding feeling keeps creeping in that things will not go as planned at the war camp. You start to feel the camp long before you or the others can see it, you feel it’s heat pouring down onto you from very far away. Once the others begin to see or notice the camp, the heat is almost unbearable for you and it’s only when you realize that it is only in your head, you shut down your ability to sense the massive fires up ahead. In preparation you begin using your Flame Control to siphon off enough of the torch fire to build up a charge without extinguishing it. As the group slowly moves forward to the camp you light the other torch left and start siphoning from that as well. Finding you don’t need to actually have your hands free to control the fire, you walk forward into the clearing with both the lite torches fueling your inner fire. Marcus points out a group of convicts with their faces painted red and black, you see them all attacking who must be the leader of the knights and you stride forward into the field. The others flank you on either side providing some backup, as Gerald jogs up to your side. With a last flash you toss the torches aside as they crumble into ash and begin sucking in flames from the nearby torched tents. Fire twists through the air from the tents as they extinguish into smoldering piles, and you can feel the flames burning within your soul, you ready for the fight.
-Halfway Charged
-1 mana
try to formulate a plan that will allow Marcus to get back into town without giving away the fact we have magic. Head off away from the others and try to combine gather earth and earth shot to fire either a stone spear or several fist sized rocks at a tree.
Side with Bree, follow her to Lord Jace's encampment and have Bree attempt to negotiate terms of surrender as she is much more charismatic
Marcus seems to disagree with the idea of him going back to the town, he reminds you that without him you all have no one to try and patch you up. You think to yourself that you seriously hope he doesn’t shoot you again, as you take the food from the fire. You and Bree discuss details while the others rest, you notice Marcus head out for a bit and then when he comes back in you excuse yourself from Bree and head outside to practice one last time before heading to the camp. Picking a suitably flat spot, you sit down on the ground to concentrate. Putting your hands out to the sides you reach with your mind down into the soil and touching on a few decently sized rocks and begin to pull them towards you. Attempting to push them forwards you find that they go spinning off in random directions, without a large amount of force. When you try to shape them into a more weapon-like form, you find it beyond your abilities to form raw stone.
Deciding to try something different you reach for a connection with your tooth amulet, and find power come flooding into yourself. Everything seems sharper and clearer than before, and you notice that it appears as though a dull grey light is emanating from your eyes, as everything you look at is illuminated slightly. Shrugging it off you go back to attempting to combine your abilities so as to not need to actually have ahold of the stones to propel them. Looking at an old deadwood stump, you lift a number of smaller stones into the air, and with a flick of your hands send them blasting through the night air. The stones slam into the old wood shredding it apart, feeling your connection with the stones is still present, you push the stones outwards in separate directions and watch as the remaining shreds of the stump are torn apart as the rocks blast free. Satisfied and unwilling to expend more energy you allow the connection with your amulet to fade and wait as everything dulls back down to a normal state of being. You gather up a number of smaller pebbles and pocket them before heading back inside, you see everyone else pretty much ready to go and so you motion and head out.
The walk is quite, and you almost don’t realize that the group has approached the war camp until Marcus motions for you to hurry. Rushing into the clearing you look about at the large camp engulfed in flames, men with faces painted red and black fight with others who appear to be the normal soldiers. Meanwhile still others run off with weaponry and armor, or put the remaining tents to the torch. You think that you catch sight of a larger man with a badly scarred face directing the mercs and bandits in the takeover attempt, but he is quickly hidden by the fighting crowds and burning tents. Marcus directs your attention to a particular area of the fighting nearest to your group, and says that he believes that to be the knight in charge of the soldiers. Bree and Gerald walk forward with Bree siphoning fire from the ambient destruction and taking her lead you make the connection to your amulet. Your focus increases, and you can feel the power of those around you and Bree glows so brightly as to nearly blind you. Jogging to catch up with the others you take the stones out of your pockets and set them slowly orbiting you in the air, ready for a fight.
-Learned-Grapeshot-Control and propel small stones, can be used with deadly force under the right circumstances-Mana Dependent on size and power.
Before sleep, grab a couple dozen arrows and a couple of spare bow strings in case. If possible, head a short distance out of the village to try something – try to concentrate the power of the wind in the arrows to give them added force and accuracy. Try it on a tree or something.
If I have any power left, try something else. Search for a small stone. Throw it in the air above my head, and try to deflect it by concentrating the power of the wind in a way that blows away from me. Try a couple of times and see if I can do this passively, or rather as an instinctive reaction.
Then, after resting, try to persuade Ealdwine to come with me to the cave where I suspect the others are hiding. Regardless of his answer, head there and exchange stories of what's just happened. Take food.
You look through the house while the others are talking and manage to scavenge up a dozen more arrows along with a single spare bowstring. Then turning in for a few hours of sleep, you manage to nap for a bit before rising back out of bed. It’s still quite dark out but you are unable to stay in bed. Gathering your things you head out to the woods nearest your house to attempt a bit of practice. Readying your bow, you focus your mind and pour some energy into the arrow, drawing back the string you release the arrow and the power at the same time. A wave of air ripples outwards from the bow, following in wake of the arrow. It stirs up leaves and rustles branches in a tunnel of air, and when the arrow slams into the tree trunk it hits with such force that it rips a chunk from the tree, though the arrow shatters. You ready to fire another one when you hear behind you “I’ve not seen anyone shoot like that before Osgar. Though I suppose that explains how you fired so many arrows in such a short time.” Turning you look at Ealdwine standing behind you holding two bags, you drop your bow and he throws one of the bags into your hands. “It is food, we need to get going. Grab your bow and follow me, and don’t think about trying to run off.” You pick the bow up and shove the bundle of food in your pack.
You walk in silence for some time before Ealdwine speaks again, “So did anyone ever tell you that I was born with a twin? No probably not, he wasn’t very healthy and when we ran away together at the age of 12, I was the only one to ever come back. For a while people thought that maybe he had just found a life somewhere else, I mean we were gone for ten long years. The truth is though that we had to leave because my twin found something very unusual out about himself… he broke his neck when we were playing up in those ruins that you went drinking in, and if he didn’t stand back up a few minutes later with his head twisted right backwards. At first I thought I had just gone insane, but he put his head back straight and we went home, my parents didn’t even notice a damn thing. However he wasn’t right anymore, and convinced me to run off with him to make money and fame for ourselves. We went off and worked as mercenaries or soldiers for some time, though people always hesitated to hire kids to clear wolves out of the forest. However people quickly changed their minds when they realized who we were, and over the years I saw my twin die many… many more times, he just put himself back together each time and we went on. One day though, he didn’t get back up and that’s when I decided to come back home. So, if you think that what you are doing is strange to me, it is not. Don’t rely on your powers too much Osgar, don’t be like my brother, he never thought it would fail him. You’ll not need my help with the army here, at least you shouldn’t, so I am going to track down Lord Jace. Maybe we’ll meet up again or maybe not, hopefully when we do I can give you a lesson or two on sword useage.” He laughs lightly for a bit, “Hey, maybe you can teach me something then.”
With that Ealdwine splits off and walks away from you out into the forest, you say goodbye and just continue onwards towards the cave. Arriving there you find that the fire is still burning lightly, though you suddenly hear people talking on the other side of the mound of roots and tree’s that makes up the cave’s roof. Thinking it’s your friends you walk around and almost walk face first into a number of people gathered around talking. Slipping behind a tree you wait a listen to what they are saying. “So we gather up at the designated spot after the others finish off the last of the soldiers, then we do this raid our way right?”….”Yeah, those bastard knights thought to use us a free labor just cause they broke us outta those mine’s, well I suppose now they know why we were all in there eh? Hahahahahah.” They break up into laughter that sounds just a bit mad, and leaning around you count 5 of them. They begin to break up and head off towards the north so you follow along behind them. Not too long later you come to a spot in the woods where a large mass of the bandits have begun gathering, as you watch even more trickle in from the woods carrying weapons, armor and barrels of what you assume to be oil. Some of them appear to be injured, though it’s not stopping them from dipping arrows wrapped in cloth, into the barrels of oil. You attempt to count, though as you wait you figure at least 100 or more men are already in the makeshift camp and more are still filtering in. They appear to be readying for a major assault, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the knights.
+1 Mana
Learned Aimed Shot-High chance to break projectile-Mana Cost fluctuates with power
11 Arrows
1 Bow String
Make a earth spell that make a hidden trap.
Setting yourself up in your study, you get the fire going well. Turning to the table, you light a candle and sit down with the book. Flipping it open to the third page, you clear it of any writing and prepare to focus. You imagine a pit of hollow earth underneath a thin rune, and attempt to create the writing for the spell without casting it. Words and lines begin appearing on the page, as energy crackles from your hands into the book. Once it’s done you look with some satisfaction at the page depicting groups of people plummeting into darkness. Closing the book head to bed, while leaving it sitting on the study table, you glance back into the room one more time hoping that the fire won’t get the house to hot in the night before closing your bedroom door. You fail to notice the glowing rune on the back of the fireplace stones.
You fall asleep quickly, and pleasantly. However your dreams are strange, consisting of fire and smoke. Gagging yourself away you try and look around your bedroom though it’s filled with smoke and fumes, while flames are already beginning to lick their way up your inside door. You go to the window and push it open, leaning out the window to look the story and a half down to the stone streets. People are rushing about your house attempting to put it out, though you have to duck back in as flames push their way out of a downstairs window. Looking about you can only see the window and the door to the stairwell which is connected to the study, the stairs lead into the kitchen, and the front door is in the adjoined living area. You go to make a move to rush down the stairs, though you notice flames licking at your exposed skin. Attempting to pat them out you watch helplessly as your left arm begins to burn into ash, painlessly. You can feel the connection to your book, and the book must be on fire or near the fire… it’s killing you and if you don’t get the book and get out FAST you will be dead, even if you yourself get out.
-Learned Cave-In -4 Mana, creates a pit underneath a trigger rune which will collapse anything that moves over it into a deep hole.
-On Fire
-Book on Fire
-Spontaneously Combusting
***Turns slowed to action/reaction time scale. (Hopefully this should let me get a combat turn out every day or twice in one day)
Scapheap, you've rolled badly a number of times in a row. You have one, possibly two inventive actions to try and recover.***
Author
Topic: Hunted Magi -Turn 7 (Read 7621 times)