Anthr4xus

Kain and Harin's loud proclamations echo through the burned and ransacked nearby buildings and bounced off the town wall. A feminine voice called out from the same direction that Kain saw the dog disappear, "If you are willing to talk, we will talk." After a moment, three figures come around the corner of the building. All three have their hands empty and held out slightly from their sides, clearly unarmed, although they each have swords and other obvious weapons near-to-hand. They come to a stop at the intersection, roughly sixty or seventy feet away. Although they are are only a step our two apart, they are surprisingly different. The center figure is a female human, wearing scale mail and with her dark brown hair pulled back and tucked into her armor. She stands just short of six feet tall and carries a long sword at her side, a short rod hanging from her belt, and a shield on her back. She is out of the range of Haakon's spell, but he knows an arcane focus when he sees one. Her boots and armor are obviously well-worn and regularly maintained. The humanoid to her right is a male halfling barely half her height, wearing leather armor, two short swords and a bandolier of throwing daggers across his barrel-like chest. His nut-brown skin was almost the same color as his curly brown hair. His cleft lip twisted in an almost leering smile, revealing yellowing and rotten teeth. The figure on the right is a willowy and pallid elf, wearing chain mail with a heavy and well-used mace hanging at his side. A helm covers his head, although his silvery hair and pointed ears are still obvious. An equally obvious necklace hangs outside of his armor, a sprig of belladona on a silver kite shield. A similar motif is worked into the shield on his back, although deep gouges from various blocked attacks have heavily defaced the surface of the full-sized shield. The central woman take a step forward and says, "If you are living and not one of Drakov's goons, we would parlay with you. You can call me Willa. What brings you to Silbervas?" It is clear this is the same voice that called out before they showed themselves. Kain notices a faint creaking from the roofs in that direction can notes the tell-tale signs of archers moving into good shooting positions. They are remarkably well hidden and careful in the their movements, but as Kain catches the whiff of potential battle his training and senses come alive in anticipation. OOC Spotting the archers moving from observation posts to covering fire spots is the last Kain's Nat 20 will get you. A DC 15 Religion check (DC10 if a Ravenloft native) will recognize the symbol of Ezra, God of the Mists, as the holy symbol being worn by the elf.

The churning chaos around him made it hard to focus and control himself, yet even with that Lucas held on to his humor and himself with a firm grip. It was impossible to tell how long it took, but piece by piece he built his will into a shining golden key that stretched through the flexing distance between himself and lock on the great tower. With a gasp the key turned and suddenly the seizing tumult around him vanished, to be replaced by a calm, cool stone antechamber. A golden lock bearing his name was set in the stone wall before him. Similar golden locks were set in the wall around, yet the names on them were blurred and illegible. Lucas's focus was drawn to HIS lock again, and the golden key in his hands was practically burning his fingers.

"I would say that the Abyss itself is not chaotic, as non-existance by definition must be quite empty and still. It is the interplay of that nothingness with the somethingness of the Fallen World that causes chaos. I agree that it could be a proper view to see the Abyss as a flaw in the Tapestry, but given that the Tapestry is merely a metaphor for the totality of reality, how could one cause nothingness to cease when you only have somethingness to work with to do so?" he asks.

Arriving at the Plaza del Torio, Ehnola was greeted at the door by the butler/manservant that had carried Marygay from her townhouse. He escorted her into a foyer where Grazia was waiting for her. The old woman's steely gaze bore into Ehnola's eyes for a long moment and she said, "We will speak in the morning. Your rash actions may have turned up something useful after all." Gaeloraxus only hissed suspiciously in her mind. The next morning was pleasant, waking up next to Marygay. They even had a few quiet moments to enjoy each other before a loud knock on the door broke the mood. The butler called through the door, "The mistress awaits you both at breakfast." Marygay's eyes went wide and she said, "We shouldn't keep her waiting."

The group begins to spread back out into the nearest buildings. Falken examines the ground of the courtyard and the exiting dirt lanes. There has been an unbelievable amount of traffic through here over time, but nothing in at least a couple of days. There were several mounted riders that came through here at least three days ago, based on how much the rain had worn them away. Falken could tell that there were at least four riders, maybe more, that had rode in and rode back out again. There have been more recent foot traffic, although not much. Karlov, Harin and Kain were able to determine that all of the nearest buildings had at one point been shops or merchant stalls, but they have been abandoned for weeks. Kain specifically finds some tell-tale marks of a combat only a couple of days ago in one shop, between what he would guess was one living combatant and a couple of zombies. There were some scraps of decayed flesh, but no significant signs of bodies or blood. That hints at a possible hopeful outcome of the fight for the living. As Kain emerges back into the courtyard with the rest, he can feel eyes watching the group from hiding, although the specific location of the watchers was not immediately evident. Really it was just a raising of the hair on the back of his neck that set his well trained instincts on edge. Haakon finishes his spell, although it reveals nothing of note in the immediate area.

Almost every DM I know has done that one an Investigation, Perception or Insight roll at least once :) I know of at least one campaign that derailed as the Bard that made the roll was able to convince the rest of the group that there was a shadowy giant cabal that was working against the group and suddenly became the new big bad.

Akkit nods along with Sophic's story, looking at the few pieces of scrap that the Jawa were able to extract from the hold. He agrees with Sophic's conclusion. Meager profit with no real risk was basically free money, and no amount of free money should be disregarded. The hold also played the important and unspoken need to prove the story that bought you access to the sandcrawler in the first place. With higher hopes Akkit direct the sandcrawler on to the canyon you all pointed out as the crash site of the rest of the ship. It will take a little more than a day for the sandcrawler to draw close enough to dispatch a team. The three of you and Heshiman grab some food and find spots to relax for a bit. Show this Not sure if there is anything you all want to do while you are in the crawler or not, so providing a window.

Oh yes. If a Talon or conscript or innocent is struck down, the honorable or respected funeral treatment is a pyre. If you are poor or a casualty of a large battle or something, it is commonly a mass pyre, but the rich or powerful will have individual services. The corpse-field around Lekar is only so big because staking is the only punishment for any crime, and it is a sad and desperate times, so small crimes are frequent even with that risk, especially in the cramped city that is the last bastion.

The spiked corpses are, as Falken mentioned, just like the corpse field around Lekar, only significantly smaller in scope. If a corpse is properly spiked the end of the spike is in the corpse's brain, which means that even if the mists reanimate it, it effectively gets killed again immediately. It is also a very effective terror tactic in keeping the peasantry in line.

Garrison nodded in agreement, "Yeah, I think that is the only motive we really have to look at. You were doing the sponsor calls for people that were at the event, did any of them jump out at you as odd?"

As the group gathers and catches up in the open courtyard, they keep eyes on the seemingly abandoned and partially boarded up buildings nearby. Nothing moves nearby and the only sound other than your conversation is the creak of the bodies on poles outside the wall and occasional shifting of poorly secured boards covering nearby windows. Kain slowly approaches the dog, holding out a bit of rations. Even though the dog is obviously bone thin, surprisingly it gave Kain a look and then walked away around the corner of a partially burned building, disappearing from sight.

The three women catch up with the trio of Jawas fairly easily, their longer legs easily eating up the sandy distance. Each of the Jawas had some electronic scrap they were carrying. All three of you could guess that there was certainly nothing left of value in the wreckage. One can only hope it is the last time they have to revisit their former prison. It only takes a few minutes of determined walking to get back to the sandcrawler. The massive machine had just started to clear the canyon entrance. The rear entrance opens up, welcoming the expedition back inside. Heshiman and Akkit are waiting for you along with half a dozen other Jawas. The disappointment in the obvious low quantity of the scarp is evident pretty much immediately. Everyone waits to hear your report, even your Jawa retinue seem to be waiting to hear one of the three of you tell the story.

"The very quote!" he said with a nod. Nepungan leaned forward slightly and said, "I'm sure you recall the pentacle that Alcide showed you back at the start of your apprenticeship?" She murmured something and spun up something very similar, although in shimmering blue light instead of gold. "The space between each of the Realms represents the Abyss. It is the darkness of void and entropic loss." Baba Qiyamət nodded in agreement. He said, "The Abyss stands as a lingering remembrance of the Celestial Ladder through which the Exarchs were able to ascend during the First Wizard’s War. When the Ivory Tower of Atlantis was sundered, something went horribly wrong. A tear in the Tapesty cut off the homeland of the Mages from the Realms Supernal, and the city of Atlantis disappeared. What replaced it was the Lie, which made all but a few oblivious to the truths of magic. The effect of this event is known as quiescence and is one of the main reasons Awakenings are so rare these days. It is, in effect, a multiverse utterly devoid of Supernal truth; in layman's terms, things that cannot, and should not, be." He continued, "The Abyss is incomprehensible for the mortal mind (logic, after all, is an element of Supernal truth) and the main enforcer of the Lie. Only the Watchtowers pierce through it and bring forth some of the lost knowledge of Atlantis. All other efforts to break through the Abyss have been proven futile. Every time a mage uses the forces from the Realms Supernal, his magic runs the risk of ushering a bit of the Abyss into the Fallen World, creating what mages call Paradox. Some scholars of the Guardians of the Veil have theorized that the Abyss grows whenever a mage unleashes Paradox. It should be noted that the Abyss does not cause Paradox, it is Paradox. There is even a rare, but tragic, disease brought on by contact with the Abyss that manifests as a growing intuitive knowledge of the Abyss pair with a loss of the ability to communicate. This are the kinds of risks that one runs when experimenting with these kind of forces."

The police showed up with better-than-average response time, but still well after Ehnola had finished taking pictures as requested by her insurance company. As she was surveying the damage, which was pretty extensive even before she broke all the windows. At Gaeloraxus' suggestion she swept the house with her Sight as well. Other than the patina of disrespect, anger and bitterness that was splattered like a layer of emotional graffiti over all the damage she couldn't see anything, but Gaeloraxus hmmed and hawed in her mind. Eventually she teased out that he thought he saw signs that someone had been using magic to scan her space, obviously looking for something. The police took their report and the insurance company said an adjuster would be out tomorrow afternoon for their version. During her call with Margay, she was invited to come spend the night at the Plaza. Marygay speculated that Rhodes, or his organization, could be looking for her as well. Both Gaeloraxus and Marygay oddly echoed each other in saying, "Maybe it's a good thing that you didn't keep the stone."

I'm fine with that