Kingmaker in the Forgotten Realms [IC thread]

[bcool999]

"I could likely follow the tracks back to where the cart met the trolls," Kuros replies confidently, "Fast chases tend to leave plenty of signs of passage. Especially when it involves cart tracks. Two lines of trampled vegitation stick out like a sore thumb, and there are only so many routes carts can take."

"As for whether or not it is worth the trip," Kuros shrugs his three pairs of shoulders, "I honestly couldn't tell you if we would find anything, but if we want to track them we'd best set out now. It's already afternoon and we might not make it back to our camp if we follow this trail back, but we should be able to find where that couple spent the night and we already found food and water."

[Mercurion 2]

As Kuros and Korlann looked for additional clues, a horrible cacophony arose in the glade, a make-your-ears-bleed noise that would make any sane creature wish they were deaf, a sound that would scar any child for life so unfortunate as to be subjected to the inhuman dissonance.

Dergosh began to sing.

♫Troll’s a fine meat when roasted,
Blackened, fried, or toasted
Baked thigh! Broiled eye!
Tastes delicious in pie or broasted
Cook ‘em with fire, over a blazing hot pyre
Or burn ’em to a crisp, like the elk by the wisp
Just never eat ’em raw, like one goblin I saw
Or a whole troll will grow out your jaw! ♫

[Saintheart]

Somewhere northeast of Thorn River Camp, The Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Late afternoon, Third of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Dergosh sang, and the Greenbelt responded.

Brightly-coloured birds went screeching up from the branches of the trees around the clearing as if an army of cats had suddenly appeared.

The ground boiled with dung beetles, centipedes, and worms fleeing en masse for the earth's core.

A quarter of a mile away, a wolf drinking from a gleaming pool of water collapsed, whining, and put its paws over its ears.

As one, four delicate purple sprays of Love-Lies-Weeping, nestled atop a sunlit log twenty feet away, wilted.

[Zombulian]

Ruk shifted a bit in place, looking at the carnage strewn about the glade.
"Well, I'd definitely prefer to not deal with whatever made this right this second. However, if we want to double back on their tracks I'm not opposed to the investigation. I have three flasks of acid and five flasks of oil if anyone wants one or tw-"
Dergosh's song interrupted him.

[bcool999]

Kuros goes about his task with four arms rumaging through the wreckage. The final two arms are firmly clamped over his ears.

After they collected what they could (and after the song finished), Kuros looks to the others and says, “Let’s see if we can find where they camped before nightfall. If not we can decide tomorrow.”

[BluesEclipse]

Korlann grimaces as Dergosh begins singing, regretting for a moment the fact that his training taught him be alert and focused at all times, rather than allowing him to tune out the cacophony his ally is causing. Finally, as the song ends, he shakes his head for a moment, clearing away the aftereffects of the unwarranted assault upon his eardrums.

When Kuros makes his suggestion, Korlann nods and says, "That sounds like a perfect plan. We'll get a bit more of a lay of the land this way anyway, and hopefully there'll be a more traveled path that we can find. I'm doubtful that they were planning on bringing a cart like that through woodlands, as opposed to following a road of some sort."

[Saintheart]

Somewhere northeast of Thorn River Camp, The Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Late afternoon, Third of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

The Company salvaged what it could from the blood-soaked clearing, and started down the backtrail of the trolls and their victims.

The path of the chase that had led hunter and hunted to this clearing was straightforward enough. It was a combination of the deep cartwheel tracks, the horse's long, galloping pace at the end, and the heavy, running prints of the trolls. And it was also apparent that the chase hadn't lasted long; about a mile northwest of the clearing, the two backtrails split. The trolls, it seemed, had picked up the scent of the cart at about this point. The monsters had been travelling due east by the look of it, while the cart had been travelling southeast. When the trolls had picked up the scent, the passengers of the cart had realised it fairly quickly and urged the cart on to a cantering speed, but obviously it ultimately hadn't been fast enough to outrun the troll gang.

That aside, this left the Wolftooth with another choice. While there was still enough light to follow both trails down for a while longer, it was a matter of which path they chose to follow - that of the cart, or that of the trolls? If indeed they chose to follow the paths at all. Of those, the cart's tracks were more obvious and would be faster to follow, but it would mean they would lose the troll tracks very quickly given the divergence of the paths.

[BluesEclipse]

Korlann considers for a moment as he looks at the tracks diverging, before saying, "We probably should follow the cart - I still want to get a better idea of where it came from, and why they were travelling this way rather than along the roads."

[Saintheart]

Somewhere northeast of Thorn River Camp, The Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Dusk, Third of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Turning from the troll tracks, the Company continued following the cartwheel ruts deeper into the Greenbelt. As they headed west, it became apparent that they'd entered a very old section of the forest - the underbrush thinned out considerably and became a vast, leaf-floored void beneath the heavy foliage and pillar trunks of white wanderwoods, the only trees that had outlasted their competition in the reach for the sky. The cover turned the late afternoon to overcast gloom.

The tracks led on. Kuros had a very rough feeling that the pace at which they were able to follow the tracks was faster than the pace the cart had taken in getting here - the horse had been at a simple walk through this section of the woods.

And as the sun's light was just disappearing from the day, they found it.

The cartwheel tracks led up a hill that climbed a good twenty feet in altitude and which had been stripped of vegetation at some point in the distant past. There were low bushes now on the hill, but none of the giant wanderwoods that they'd been travelling through all this time. At the crest of the hill lay a ruined, grey-black brick tower. Its floor plan had been square at some point. Now only two walls of the tower still stood, meeting at a corner in the northwest.

There were still the remains of an old, wooden, and very rickety-looking staircase leading off the ground and towards what was left of the second floor, a wooden platform about fifteen feet up. Not that the staircase was complete; about halfway along its incline it abruptly ended; shear marks and broken wall plugs indicated where rock or stone had smashed through the stairwell long ago, leaving the path to the second floor incomplete. It might have been possible to jump the distance if one were inclined and courageous enough to do so.

Also, piles of tumbled-down bricks lay in the corner formed by the two walls; the pile was large enough to almost rival the height of the second floor, and the remains of wooden beams sticking out from the remains of the second floor suggested a path to the second floor if one was agile enough to attempt a little of what was called parkour in Cormyr.

What remained of the second floor seemed to be a large, listing wooden outcrop of planks. Structurally, that outcrop looked sound from here. The reason for that being what appeared a very large bird nest of some kind resting on that outcrop. The nest was a good twenty feet across, a tangle of twigs, branches, and four-by-two planks knitted into place by some vast creature. The Company had listened carefully when they first spotted the nest, but for several minutes there was no sound at all, no screech of waiting chicks or oversized mother bird.

Kuros, peering at the nest from the ground, realised there was no imminent or even remote threat from this thing. It was, as he'd expected, the nest of a Golden Roc, but the roc in question - mother or hatchling - had long since abandoned it. Indeed the nest looked almost as old as the tower: normal-sized spiderwebs garlanded its sides and rim, there were yellow-sheened feathers jammed into the twigs, and the nest itself looked to be half-collapsed -- the last being something a roc would never permit to happen while the nest was still occupied. Golden Rocs did not return to their nests again once their hatchlings were big enough to fly - the one that made this had likely mothered its single hatchling, then had accompanied the wholly-grown fledgling as it headed for the nearest mountain range.

But perhaps the thing most vouching for the idea that the nest was abandoned was the remains of a fireplace in the lee of the ruin's walls. There were the faintest traces of warmth still dying in the ashes, but that, too, was consistent with the place being used as a campsite the night before, presumably by the man and woman. No sign of a water source here, at least not immediately present.

Kuros made a quick inspection of the site's perimeter, but it looked as though the cart had indeed stopped here for the night, with the tracks still heading back down the hill and continuing further westward into the Greenbelt. There didn't seem to be a settlement nearby, and despite the fact it was in a clearing, the hill's elevation only made visible the upper half of the giant wanderwoods around it. No other landmarks seemed to be in sight, at least from the ground level.

Spoiler

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Kuros pulled a 19 on his Knowledge (Nature) roll.

[almondsAndRain]

Three dropped off of her wagon, and tied her mules to the back end of it, to keep them from wandering off. She trusted them not to run away in the middle of the night, but in the middle of a fight? If the Company was attacked by another Shambling Mound or the Roc that used to make this wreck of a tower home, then her mules would be gone. Three can't blame them for trying to flee, but she wasn't about to allow it, either.
She slowly walked around the outside of the tower, before heading inside. The warforged wasn't searching for anything in particular, but she figured that the old building could use a good once-over, just to be sure it was safe for the Company to spend the night in. On the inside, she took a brief look at the stairs and tried her best to vocalize another sigh. No one was getting up to the next floor without more effort than was probably warranted.
The warforged dropped her bag in front of the fireplace, before finishing her inspection of the first floor. From there she walked a good ten outside of the tower. She turned back towards it before breaking into a sprint aimed at the staircase. It probably wasn't a good idea by any means, but the second floor is less likely to have been looted than the first, a better lookout spot for her to launch her bolts if the need arises, and a safer place for the party for rest if she could hang a rope to climb.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) roll, in hopes of learning things about the building: (1d20+6)[12]
+3 from her ranks, +3 from her Intelligence modifier
Jump roll, to try to reach the second floor: (1d20+8)[28]
+8 from having a fifty foot move speed. Probably worth noting that she has eight feet of Vertical Reach as a Medium creature and the staircase is halfway up to a fifteen-foot tall floor so is probably about seven-and-a-half feet tall.

[BluesEclipse]

As Three heads towards the tower itself to examine it, Korlann says, "Hmm... this is interesting. I wonder what this place was originally..."

[bcool999]

Kuros completes his inspection of the site and says with a grin, "The Roc nest above is long abandoned. Which is nice considering I don't want to be eaten by a giant bird any time soon. That couple definitely camped here, and I can see the trail they took to get here if we wish to continue this... what would we call what we are doing? Exploration? Scouting? Seeking the origins of two strangers we found dead? As neat as finding this tower was, I am starting to doubt the usefulness of this exercise. The couples trail could lead all the way back to Plaxi, and we haven't finished exploring the area around the Thorn River Camp, nor treated with the Kobolds, nor gotten Svetlana's ring back from gremlins, nor collected the bounty on bandits."

Having expressed his thoughts to the others, Kuros goes about the task of setting up camp for the night and asks, "So what's the plan for tomorrow, and who knows how to grill meat preferably without burning it?"

[Saintheart]

Somewhere northeast of Thorn River Camp, The Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Dusk, Third of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Three contemplated the ruin for a moment. The grey-black brickwork of the walls was somewhat unusual; most structures tended to be built out of fieldstone or clay brick. Indeed on peering closer, the ruins seemed to have been built from brick carved from volcanic rock -- denser material than most, but also expensive to bring this far from the places where such stone was mined. Whatever purpose the tower had once served, it had likely been expensive to build. The footprint of the building was square, though, thus, unlikely to be the archetypical wizard's tower or refuge. Perhaps some last redoubt, a small fortified keep, which would explain its presence at the top of a hill, but if this was some sort of motte-and-bailey structure, the owner had apparently preferred his mottes low - not that there was any sign of a bailey down below at the base of the hill where one would expect it either.

Turning to more immediate matters, walking the site over, Three didn't see anything obviously untoward about the stability of the ruins or indeed of the remains of the stairs and what was left of the second floor. If anything the fact the massive nest seemed fully intact was itself comforting: at twenty feet wide and composed of a large mass of material, it likely wouldn't have lasted this long if it wasn't at least sturdy.

She sprinted.

And cleared the six foot gap in the stairwell handily. On impact the timbers of the stair creaked in annoyance, but held, and after a few moments were entirely still, giving the warforged access onto what remained of the second floor.

The area was wide enough to accommodate maybe one person outside the nest - most of the outcrop was covered by the enormous bird's work, a roughly circular nest a good twenty feet across or so. The remains of the floor held several promising-looking butts of broken rafter that could likely hold a rope and the weight of something pretty substantial on it. In the nest itself, there were a few pale yellow feathers sitting at the bottom -- feathers the size of a longsword, that was -- and some forlorn-looking pieces of pale white eggshell off to one side, albeit they were roughly door-sized.

And something else.

It hung from the end of one plank of wood on the east side of the nest, small, gleaming, forgotten, swaying gently in perhaps the tiny vibration of Three's steps. When she approached it, it was clear to Three even without conducting any sort of detailed inspection that it was valuable. Necklaces, intricately decorated with swirling, eldritch patterns, tended to be. And this one, a ring of tiny cylindrical links meeting at a triangular pendant with stunningly beautiful inscriptions, had the unmistakeable shining grey tint of pure platinum.

Spoiler: EDITED OOC:

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There is enough room up here for all the party members to sleep in the nest overnight and keep watch from that level as well, if that's desired.

I also forgot to put the results of the Knowledge (Engineering & Architecture) check in, but they're at the front of the post.

[almondsAndRain]

Three grabbed the necklace off the wall and held it closer to her face, to get a clearer look. It was certainly a pretty little thing, and if it really was made of platinum, it may very well be worth more than anything else the Company owns, especially if it's magical. And a necklace as well-made as this? It would be a crime not to enchant it.
She walked to the edge of the second floor and spoke to her companions on the first floor, “Throw up my bag, please. I'll tie a rope for you lot to climb, it will be safer up here.” Then the warforged held the necklace up, so her companions could see it in the light that was left. “I found this, too. I'm going to inspect it, so I'll be a couple of minutes.”
The artificer took a couple of steps back from the edge and fell into a crouch, before running her hands across the necklace, searching for even the slightest hint of magic.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Artificer Knowledge roll to determine if the item has a magical aura: (1d20+5)[22]
+2 from her level, +3 from her Intelligence bonus. This has a flat 15 DC. It only tells us if it's magical- not even what school the item is.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that it takes one minute, on the off-chance that time is relevant.

[Saintheart]

Somewhere northeast of Thorn River Camp, The Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Dusk, Third of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Delicate sensors in Three's fingertips ran across the surface of the necklace, probing, seeking. Her eyes were zeroing in on every line, every swirl, every tiny leaf inscribed into the surface of the necklace's pendant. The workmanship was astonishing in its detail. Oddly enough, she had a passing sensation of something like kinship with this thing; she had been crafted by an elven master, and there were hints of an eldritch, ageless hand in this object ... but no. Not elven; she would have been surprised if any elven jeweller could have matched this workmanship. Something else.

But the handiwork was still, after careful probing, wholly mundane. The precious metal's resilience to the elements were what had doubtless kept it free of blemishes even exposed to the elements like this for who-knew how long, but the necklace carried no magical energies at all. Valuable, most likely; but not for any magic it contained.

[almondsAndRain]

Three snapped her beak-like jaw shut when she finished her inspection. It was a gorgeous item, and like it's creator it was untouched by time, but it certainly wasn't magical. She spoke her thoughts aloud, “Well, this was disappointing. Your design is so intricate. Why were you made so well, if not to be enchanted?”
She began looking over the little item again, hoping to get a sense of its material value. She would rather not sell it, but if it's worth as much as it looks, she couldn't justify keeping and eventually enchanting it. The idea forced a sharp, metallic sound out of her, almost something like a laugh- maybe whoever found it last wanted to sell it for the same reason.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Appraise roll, to determine how much the necklace is worth: (1d20+4)[22]
+3 from her Intelligence modifier, +1 from her ranks. Here's a link to the SRD, since this skill isn't used that often.

[Saintheart]

Spoiler: OOC

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Three appraises it as worth 660 gp. And Three is pretty certain that is an accurate estimation in her experience.

[Mercurion 2]

Dergosh had been staring up at the old nest in awe, an amazed smile on his face as the sheer size of the thing. He wanted to go up there, he definitely did. He wanted to see more, and see if there were any birds still up there. He stared at the broken stairs in disappointment, then traced the fallen stones to see if maybe he could climb up. It looked tricky.

He glanced around for Gakan, thinking the cat person would be able to scale the rock more easily, but he was nowhere to be found again. He was about to ask if they should maybe throw a rope up there when Three suddenly catapulted herself to the top, eliciting a bellowing laugh from the half-orc.

“Ho, Three! You like the Wolftooth Grasshopper!” He saw her toying with something close to her face and asked, “You find a bird up there? Maybe a war eagle?"

[almondsAndRain]

As Three inspected the necklace, any disappointment she felt from its lack of magic quickly evaporated. As did any sense of kinship, as this jewelry was worth far more than any magical item she could create. It was certainly more valuable than anything else the Company possessed, save, perhaps, the Sanguine Scabbard- though Gods only know how much that was really worth (and what it really does). Even if it doesn't do anything for her or her friends, it can be traded in for several things that would.
She stood up to walk to the edge and inform the other Wolftooths (Wolfteeth?) the value of the necklace, but something about the large nest caught her eye. The warforged stared for a moment before focusing on yellow feather that was larger than her leg. Dergosh asked you something, dingus. Three swatted herself on her ghulra after realizing she accidentally ignored the Cleric, before yanking one of the feathers out from between the nest's sticks.
Three laid partly over the edge of the second floor, and waved the feather at Dergsoh. She was sure to speak louder this time, remembering his injury. “No birds here, sorry! A few feathers though, and a part of an egg. And this necklace-” Three lifted the pretty little thing over the side too, “which I believe is worth enough to outfit a small army. Would you bring me pack, please?” The warforged pointed just in front of the fireplace with the long feather, at her brown bag.

[Mercurion 2]

Dergosh was disappointed by the lack of monstrous birds, albeit briefly. At Three’s request he scratched at his burned scalp. Bring it? He looked again at the treacherous rock slide leading up to Three’s perch and shrugged.

He stomped over and picked up Three’s pack, then returned to the base of the aging tower. “Here, catch!” he yelled, and tossed the backpack up to the warforged.

[almondsAndRain]

Three realized just a bit too late what Dergosh was planning to interrupt him, but with enough time left over to regret not just asking for her rope. She dropped the feather and placed the necklace hastily on the floor next to her, before lunging for her bag.

Spoiler: Mechanics

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Reflex save to catch her bag: (1d20+3)[8]

[Saintheart]

Somewhere northeast of Thorn River Camp, The Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Dusk, Third of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

It was right on nightfall, and Three hadn't exactly been given a lot of advance warning.

Her bag made a graceful and narrow arc in the dusky air, evaded her outstretched hand, and plunged back to earth to land at Dergosh's feet once more.

[BluesEclipse]

Korlann watches as Dergosh lobs the pack into the air, and frowns slightly as it falls to the ground. Taking the pack up, he heads towards the staircase, saying, "Here... get ready." He climbs up as high on the staircase as he can, and looks towards Three to make sure she's ready before lobbing the pack up to the warforged.

[Saintheart]

Spoiler: OOC

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(This one doesn't need a Reflex save. Assume it succeeds.)

[Saintheart]

Somewhere northeast of Thorn River Camp, The Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Dawn, Fourth of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

It had been a singularly pleasant evening towards bed. The elk carcass from the Thorn River bandits had cooked up exceedingly well, and all of those of the Company who wanted to eat had their fill. Although Three and Korlann had initially been concerned about whether the campfire on a hilltop might send invitations out to unwanted guests, but between the walls of the ruin and a quick firepit assembled from volcanic rock, the fear proved unfounded.

Similarly any concerns about the Wolftooth being cold in the Roc nest were unfounded, for two reasons. The first was that the nest itself, despite being twenty feet across, was surprisingly insulated against the wind; some sort of microclimate formed by the walls of the nest, perhaps, even with the nest half-collapsed. The second was that the night turned out to be unpleasantly still and warm; as the night passed and Three worked on her holy symbol, she occasionally glanced up to see thickening clouds drift slowly across Selune's face. Maybe not enough to bring on a summer storm, but enough to dilute the moon's light into a silvery haze.

It also gave the warforged and her watch companions a chance to look over the countryside from where they were. While the hilltop's surface didn't provide any sort of vantage point, the second floor of the ruin did at least give something of a view of the land around them, or at least allowed them to get up in the treetops rather than among the trunks. A good few miles around were visible from here. It still didn't supply a lot of detail beyond what they already knew - again the wanderwoods dominated - but it did supply one fairly significant detail: another hilltop, a great mound of green, several miles off to the northeast, with a thinning of trees like a balding head at the crown. If they could see this much of the land from here, the higher altitude of that hill promised to save them a great deal of time and labour in mapping this part of the Greenbelt.

The night passed in silence, without anything troubling their rest - albeit sticky and fairly warm.

The morning, though, brought the result of the previous night's humidity. Three had watched the progress of the fog over the predawn hours as Selune set, but it still took daylight to illustrate the change in weather. Fog had rolled over miles of the Greenbelt in all directions, turning a verdant green wilderness into a colour-drained cloudscape, where heads of trees peered bemused through the white-silver, soupy mists that now covered the entire area, suspending the Company on a platform of cloud. While the animals and the wagon were obviously still below and unmolested, it was difficult to see them even at this relatively short distance, as through an old shroud. Once they got down to ground level it'd be harder to see, and some members of the Company thought the odds even better that things would get even more difficult to see once they were off the hill.

The great mound miles off to the northeast, though, still appeared fairly clear of the fog, at least at its top. Given its size there were good odds that even in this fog they should be able to reach it nonetheless.

[Zombulian]

Ruk had been quiet for most of the day after the tracks were found. Even after approaching the tower and the nest, he remained mostly within the realm of his thoughts, aside from the light bit of chatter required in order to be lifted to the second floor with the others.
Once in the nest, Ruk was overcome with a surreal nostalgia. He remembered seeing Roc when he was just a whelp. The beings were huge and glorious. While terrifying, his tribe rarely worried about them, as they tended to prey on larger game.
He remembered his broodmates would climb to abandoned nests on days when they had more time for fun, but he was never one of them. Too afraid of reprisals from the giant birds, improbably as it was, and definitely too afraid of the punishment from the elders discovering he had put his noble blood in danger.
Now here he was, in a nest. Far away from his homeland, with a group of friends almost as surreal as his situation.
What a long, strange trip it's been. I have a feeling it will only get stranger from here.

[BluesEclipse]

Waking up, Korlann frowns as he notices the fog. "Well... if there was going to be any chance of following those tracks further, this probably kills it," he says, before directing his gaze to the northeast. "We can make for that hilltop, though, and try to get a better view of the area."

[Saintheart]

Heading northeast, the Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Afternoon, Fourth of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Setting out for the mound into the mist was a strange experience. For several hours it felt as though they weren’t actually moving at all: trees loomed up out of the fog and disappeared behind them. The going was slow. Several times they had to backtrack as the underbrush proved impassable or an outcrop of stone suddenly appeared out of nowhere to block the way of Three’s wagon. Clouds covered the sky, bringing no end to the fog as the day wore on. The horses – Baghtru and the other unnamed mounts – seemed not to be bothered by it all, though. They almost seemed to be drowsing as they plodded along.

The mound’s slow growth in their forward view was somewhat reassuring. Frowning on them above the fog line, it stayed visible as they came on, though the trees grew closer around the base of the hill and started to block the Company’s way.

They finally found a break in the treeline where a wide wash of a track struggled up out of the greenery and began to wind its way up the slope of the hill. The ground hadn’t been cleared, but a dirt-and-gravel track was now apparent where once there’d been only tangly undergrowth, so it was with relief that the Company, clustered around the wagon, began up the track and through a natural cut in the rock of the slope.

Spoiler: OOC

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Those who want to, make a Listen check.

[Mercurion 2]

“Ho, Wolftooth!” Dergosh shouted to the group with good cheer as they were about to set off from their temporarily accommodations. Sleeping in a giant nest had suited him just fine, and he awoke with more annoying vigor than usual. “Fog no matter – just listen for Dergosh and you not get lost!” The half-orc began to march away from the crumbling tower, making sure the various rattles, bones, and rustling fetishes attached to his drum shield were clattering extra loudly so as to help guide back any of the company that went astray in the murk.

He led his mount through the mists, pulling the horse’s lead as they navigated the tricky terrain. He was not a particular accomplished rider and tended to carry on a conversation with Baghtru anyway, admonishing him to watch his footing, be careful of ruts, and otherwise chiding him against falling into ditches. It was unclear if the horse was paying any attention to him.

As they came to the gravelly track he looked at Kuros and asked, “You think we here?” He looked around as best as he could in the fog and assessed their situation.

Spoiler: Listen check

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(1d20-1)[4]

[Saintheart]

A track on the side of the hill, the Greenbelt, the Border Kingdoms
Afternoon, Fourth of Kythorn, Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Just as the last of the Company reached the dirt and rock track, Dergosh heard it: a scrape of something against rocks, from above and behind them on the top of the stone walls that made up the road cut. Then, a sound of rapid footsteps, as of many feet moving, the sounds so close together it was difficult to tell them apart. It came from ahead, in the shroud of the fog.

High-pitched chittering noises cut through the air. From in front and behind.

The horses’ eyes rolled, looking up at the faint grey walls of the road cut. Mule One of Two honked and stopped in the harness. The noise of footsteps grew louder, faster, like a tide. There was a strange smell in the air, pungent, acid on the tongue. Fog swirled in mad patterns of silver.

Then there were shapes. Dark shadows, long, gleaming, appeared in the fog around the Company. Monstrous antennae waved in the grey mist. Red eye-pits gleamed. Insects of monstrous size, long like ancient snakes, hundreds of feet pounding the earth as they came boiling out of the fog.

Spoiler: Tactical Map

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Spoiler: Tactical Notes

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These appear to be Monstrous Centipedes out of the Monster Manual.

Initiative Order:

Three: 1d20+9 – 21
Monstrous Centipedes: – 18
Gakan: 1d20+4 - 17
Dergosh: 1d20+10 – 15
Korlann: 1d20+3 – 11
Kuros: 1d20+4 – 8
Ruk: 1d20+0 – 6



One or two things to bear in mind:
(1) Fog works essentially as invisibility or total darkness in combat more than 5 feet out, and in addition imposes a 20% concealment chance on attacks. That means that though you can currently see these two creatures, they may well not be the only opponents on the field – especially given you’re hearing movement of a similar variety from in front and behind you. The map still has terrain visible through the fog for reference purposes.

(2) Spot checks can be used to discern the presence of a creature that you previously failed to see – which in this case would be everything on the field that isn’t currently visible. However, it’s a move equivalent action to spot even one creature – that being at random if you’re trying to see something more than 5 feet away from you. The DC is somewhere around the same as pinpointing something invisible. Unless you can spot a creature or it appears on the tactical field, you can’t realistically target it for ranged attacks.

(3) I’ve assumed Gakan and Ruk are riding on the wagon along with Three. Korlann and Kuros are mounted, and Dergosh is leading his horse -- so that would have to be borne in mind when planning your movements as well. There’s no surprise round in part because the Listen check was passed, but you’re considered to be flatfooted until it’s your action.