Tales of Neutral Ground IC

[3SecondCultist]

Raz, having been volunteered by the rest of the group, clambers off of the horse he shares with Gryphon in order to find a better vantage point of the morass of bodies in your way. Although he does not face the rest of you, you can see that he's completely engrossed in his task. With newly keen eyes sweeping the air, tongue tasting air currents and squat nose collecting a bouquet of aromas, Raz appears just as he did underneath the sewers in Scuttle: a creature ready to hunt down its quarry. When he hops down to the ground, those of you still watching him note that his physical appearance has rapidly changed to reflect the beast within.

Unfortunately, that beast is not yet accustomed to the big city of Throneport. More than once, the shifter ranger takes a few steps down the 'right' path, only to get turned around in the crowd or knocked about by the sheer force of the momentum he's fighting against. Eventually, Raz does return with a workable route that will get you and the horses through with an absolute minimum of damage to you and others, but by the time that your three mounts have wound their way through the living labyrinth, precious minutes have been wasted. All the same, once you get to the other side of the crowd, the streets of the Thrane Zone become more navigable. Your charted course takes you straight up Barteros Street, to where it joins with the even larger Silver Way, at which point you will near the final crossing point into the Karrnathi Zone.

As your group of six sets off once more, you take note of the immediate differences in decor and architecture from the industrial city you just left behind. The grand styles of Thrane differ greatly from those of the ramshackle Port District, with clean cobbled streets and well placed glowing gold lanterns that emit no heat. Everywhere is flame carved into the stonework, which is obviously symbolic of the faith here. Unfortunately, you don't have a luxury of time to play art critic, and the scenery sweeps by you as you hurry forward towards your next obstacle.

You have passed many more strangers on the road and are just past the halfway mark to your next stopping point when you spot the sight of movement on one of the nearby roofs, as a pair of individuals come into view: no dirty bounty hunters, these, but by the looks of their cloaks they might be priests or spellcasters of some kind. "Here they come; do it now!" comes a shout, followed by a short incantation and the sudden creation of a pulsating silver beacon that hovers about fifty feet above your heads... and begins to keep pace unerringly with your mounts.

Spoiler: OOC

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So we've got 3 successes and 1 failure! Not too bad, considering how many obstacles you still have to go and the encounter I've got planned for you all at the end of this.

This is going to be a tricky obstacle: a magical targeting beacon that will let pretty much everyone know that you're open season. I have some ideas about how I would handle this, but I'll wait and see what you come up with first!