WWW #37: Who Goes There

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

For a brief moment, illuminated in blinding light diffused through the red clouds,

the silhouette of a bird of prey with wings wide as castle walls appears and is suddenly gone as your party hides amongst the shadows at the edge of the gray pines here in the Shroud Mountains.

Moments after

the figure who has

made some great working of magic that you do not recognize as Lingua Arcana watching from miles away,

moments after they are are gone, streaking across the sky

as several airships momentarily descend from the clouds and quickly raise back up again.

Imperial airships that were hiding in the clouds, patrolling around Mount Korai.

You watch the interaction of this powerful sorcerer appearing long enough to do something to Firebringer and then quickly getting away.

But you see, yes, this perimeter is guarded.

The war is raging.

Your

sneaking through the forest is exactly what is keeping you alive, because don't let the early morning silence confuse you.

You are in war.

The ships are already gone.

But you can see the scores of rubble across where whatever strange arcane light was loosed from cannons aboard those vessels has marred the landscape here.

Did we all see it?

Or was that initial like you all saw it?

You all saw a streak of light.

This thing, this

disruption of essentially

the shapes and the violence and the strangeness and the magic of it all was so disruptive.

But moments after it happens, it's just very clear.

A

line of engagement that has rested for a moment to the east and west of Mount Korhai was suddenly disrupted as a powerful spirit was seen on the mountaintop, and action was taken as soon as the sun rose and the creature became visible.

Can I make an Arcana check to try to figure out what just happened?

Yeah, go for it.

30-20.

Uh, the creature was banished.

No!

No!

No!

Fire!

What?

Oh, oh, do you know what that was?

He was was our friend.

He helped us escape from the palace and then he brought us to you.

And we were supposed to take him home.

Okay, best I can tell

that

firebringer?

Is that what you said?

Was banished.

Not killed.

By whom?

The sorcerer of Gauthbai.

The head of a noble house.

The most powerful casters here.

Where did he get banished to?

Is he gonna...

Can he come back?

I don't know.

The magic here is of people with

connections to the spirits

on a sort of

blood level.

Like Yorin.

Like Yorin.

So,

my guess would be they wouldn't want to hurt a spirit unnecessarily if they are constantly in

community with them.

So maybe back where he came from.

I think on that modified 20,

what you would have seen...

I mean, it's too so far away to see, you couldn't see what the somatic or verbal components were.

But you saw a, like, what looked like an arm outstretched.

Banishment is an abjuration.

It looked like a lot of the way that sorcery works is not only about the bloodline, but the things that have been promised to the bloodline, things where people are representatives of their family and that their family has allegiances and ties to things like that.

So it looked like

just from this body language of this brilliant figure on the edge of the horizon, it looked like something was being abjured rather than condemned.

Like something was dismissed back.

Yeah.

It was giving, go on, get

if that makes you feel any better.

Oh, yes, I get very

much does.

It does.

Thank you.

There's like a very powerful

entity that did that.

Yeah.

You see that Sworn kind of smiles, looking at how, not in an evil way, but just the degree of rattled that Ahme is.

Sworn is like, okay, these are like our

he slotted you in.

He's like, these are our translators and guides.

They are not civilians, but they are not in the military.

You know, like where he sort of smiles and goes, like,

very,

very frightening.

To be clear, the thing that I'm the most concerned about, if we were to run into that person, was how they quickly left.

Everything before that is impressive.

That leaving is the thing that lets me know that they're not to be trifled with.

Yeah.

Sorcerers like that are not what you need to worry about here in this place.

Gauthmai is forever made strong by their noble houses, but

I'll be frank, those to the manor born are sometimes loath to lead from the front.

Yeah.

And so they are deployed carefully and infrequently in the manner you have seen just there.

Moments like that, where

something new and strange develops and represents an opportunity for a shift in the tide of battle, that is when you tend to see them deployed.

They are not keen to use their nobility, those high sorcerers of the noble houses of Gauthmai.

They do not like to use them as blunt force instruments.

Because there are often, and he gestures to the clouds, airships in waiting, and that's how bloodlines end.

So, the airships, they're they're here.

Could they

potentially if they dip below the cloud line, they'll be easy open targets

in my time running down

whatever's happened with Silver and his contingent.

I've not been given any news to think that it's gone well here.

I left with eight in hopes of finding whatever remnants remain to extract them or to figure out what happened to them if they're gone.

How much further

we'll be there by nightfall

the rest of the day

You look and see these wizards are haggard They've been there has been no rest this evening.

Um, you see, he says

Archmage Apprentice,

we can push through and get there as soon as possible.

On arriving there,

we may not be battle-ready.

We need to rest.

I dip closer to Suvi and I lower my voice.

Suvi,

are the contingent that you bring with you are they experienced in this area or in this kind of warfare?

One of them.

Yes.

Perhaps we should send the rest home?

Suvi will switch here to the message Cantrip.

I think you think of kindness.

The reason we are as injured as we are now

is because

we were met with forces immediately entering here.

And they're alive

because Sworn and myself were with them.

But if our mission is stealth and precision, then perhaps we keep those that are well-suited to that task with us, and the rest might prove a liability.

The ones I've brought

are, to the best of my understanding, not a liability.

And I don't know what we're walking into.

Very well.

Are you okay?

Yes, of course.

Are you okay?

And I look at Suvi as I say that, and you know I'm not really truly asking you

with any expectation.

And I think that's why Suvi just

in her head is looking down,

like she's trying not to look like they're having a conversation in their head.

No.

No, I'm not.

We buried

two

just a few hours ago.

I'm so sorry, Suvi.

Thank you for coming.

I'm also sorry about how things ended, but I do hope you know.

I always will.

I think our Salon is

disappointed.

Disappointed?

We were gonna go see his family.

Oh, God.

I'm so sorry.

It's okay, but

perhaps

you should

give Femme some sort of opportunity to

sit with this and assure him that

I don't know.

He also cares very much about you and is always going to be here.

You managed to get a sort of place of long rest.

Amen Ursula, you actually don't need to rest at this point in time, but is there anything that you do in terms of like taking watch or guard?

Like, basically, you see, Sworn even asks, like, should we post a guard or post post-watch?

I'll take watch, and then also, um, if there's it, do any of your retinue need assistance or healing?

Yes, please.

And he will not admit it.

Please start with Sworn.

Ame rounds on Sworn.

Like, what you just gotta let it happen.

Wounds.

I am trained in medicine, and also it feels like you could probably use some tea.

I won't say no to a tea.

You're not gonna say no to either.

I mean, immediately busies herself

patching and prodding and

bandaging and steeping.

Sworn

gets very.

He treats himself like a patient, so he's just neutral face letting you work on his body.

While this is happening, I'm gonna step over to Ursulan.

They need to rest, and we need someone to watch.

I can do that.

Would you like me to sit with you?

You're more than welcome to.

You see that also Corporal Lahoun, the Azure Battalion,

she has no spell slots to regain, so she is just going to keep guard, looking sort of off in the other direction.

Part way through the day, people are like coming up on, like, having been resting for about five hours.

Sworn is healed.

He says thank you, and he passes out.

He goes to sleep.

I'm a little saltwater, Taffy.

Yes.

Is this medicinal?

Oh, no.

It's just a nice thing because you did such a good job as a patient.

I'm being

patronized,

but I used to have this all the time when I was a kid, and I really appreciate it.

Cool.

Mmm, don't pull your teeth out.

If Subi hadn't sort of

dozed immediately, she would have enjoyed that moment.

But she's like, I'm gonna keep such a good

watch, watch, I'm watching.

So, Earthline, it's pretty much just you and this other woman, Lahoun, who's the Azure Battalion.

You can just look and watch someone who's part of the battalion that was the Imperial battalion that you snuck past in Port Talon to get out here.

But you see that

about like five hours in, as the day is getting a little bit later,

you

watch a flock of birds go off way over the forest, kind of flying in synchronized patterns, move over in another direction, take off somewhere else.

It just looks very coordinated.

They fly.

They don't appear to notice you.

About 45 minutes or so after that,

three large eagles fly and bank around a mountain in the direction the birds went.

Way downriver from here, you see shortly after the eagles land,

just some.

You can't hear anything so far away, but you just see some light from the tree, some unnatural, magical light.

Suvi.

Watching.

Watching.

It's all right.

It seems the birds have not discovered us here, but I d just

something.

I'd like to do my best to describe it to Sugi.

Yeah.

Give me a history check, Suvi.

25.

Further south from here, having nothing to do with you, an Imperial foray has likely just

failed to push the line further forward.

And those three eagles,

you're feeling

what Ursulan describes is that that first flock of birds were birds and the three eagles were not.

Do you want to know what I think happened?

If it is important to you, yes.

If it is to the citadel, no.

That that had nothing to do with us?

And Suvi, like, you just see something like fold in on her.

Because again, it doesn't have anything to do with us, but it is indicative of...

Like Suvi is starting to catastrophize in her own head about what she might be walking toward.

Like that's what you see.

Your guy's rest actually ends before the sky is fully dark.

So there's probably a few hours of ruddy daylight left, but it's like mid-afternoon and with the cloud cover, unless it's like high noon, it's still low visibility.

You get up.

The day is, there's still some day left.

You are within striking distance of Abyssin.

You will not have to to rest before you arrive there.

Sworn looks over and says, Might as well lead the horses.

It'll take longer, but these horses can't gallop in the forest anyway.

Might as well try to be as safe as possible.

That makes sense.

Okay.

All right.

We'll lead the steeds through the pines and just make as much headway as we can.

We'll probably arrive wee hours of the morning.

Um, can I ask, in case there is any interruption or disruption,

is it our intention

to defeat

the foes

guarding this fort or simply to extract

Silver and his friends and be on our way?

The speaking mirror broke when the Wizard Silver spoke to you, Archmage Apprentice.

Yes.

There is simply no telling there

what situation awaits us there.

In my

advisement to my commanding officer, I would suggest that we

make a decision when we know what the lay of the land is.

In an ideal world, we will be able to complete the Wizard Silver's request, and hopefully others did as well.

It was a bulletin to as many speaking mirrors as he could reach.

I do not imagine that the Wizard Sky is the only one who answered.

And here, Suvi, I don't know what Suvi believes.

Oh my, yeah, look at Suvi at this point.

Deception check

14.

Yeah, you know, it's like, I think, Suvi, there's a thing of like, well, the Wizard Silver is a name, he has a name clock.

He's a Wizard of the Citadel.

And then another of you is just thinking of someone on the ground screaming medic, and maybe a medic comes or maybe they don't.

That's a dirty 20.

I swing my head over to Suvi,

my face sort of looking

like:

does she really, truly think that there are other people coming?

Suvi doesn't think anyone else is coming.

Suvi doesn't think

they are alive anymore.

You all pick up and head out.

Moving through the forest,

I assume you are moving stealthily.

Let me get a group stealth check again.

18 for Ursulan.

5 for Subi.

5 for Sui.

And 9 for Ursula.

I have a bunch of like Samwise Gamgee style pots and pans in my back.

Wait, wait, wait.

Does Vandal give me the help action?

Yes, Vandal can give you the help action.

I think Vandal just writes on like

as Vandal slips because Vandal's eight inches tall and is like scurrying out and is kind of a little bit of a scout will occasionally write

just deeply ignorant things in languages over places where like heavier footfalls would be noticeable.

So he's like dumbass, like over a pile of sticks that Subi's will absolutely walk through.

Not here, you moron.

Yeah.

Moving through the space, you guys are heading through the ridge.

And

about halfway, now you can actually see.

You're like, oh, okay, we like, I think there's a moment, Suvi, where you're like, this is so fucking grim.

But after several hours of travel, you realize you actually are going to get close to Abbasin.

It's deep night now.

And

you see.

that there are

in a way it's like well i am doing it

I have crossed enemy lines.

I am moving unseen through territory they control.

I have my allies here.

And soon I will be there.

And then

that's the testing moment.

That is the moment of truth, as they say.

Part of the ways you're going with that high stealth roll, you avoid it largely, but you can see it in the night.

As you're moving, there is a source of light on the ridge.

As you're coming down through the Grey Pines, slowly descending from the heights of Mount Korhai to get to what will be the rim of a valley that you know Abbasin to be in.

Abyssin is a fortification, but it's also just a larger logging town in the forests here.

They build like

the airships, like the gondolas, the masts of these ships.

A lot of the timber for them is harvested in this part of the world.

You are moving down the ridge, and instead of sort of stumbling on it, you see in the distance there is a small stone crofter's cottage.

You're getting to the point where you're close enough to Abison that you're going to start seeing

little stone cottages and outlying people.

You're getting towards a population center.

You may even see little paths or things like that where you may be able to like mount up on horses again.

But of course, the closer you get to Abison, the higher the population center, the more likely you'll run across friend or foe or something like that.

In the distance, with a small candle in the window that is sputtering some dim light from this cottage, you see that there is a Crofter's cottage through the pines

that has three white horses stabled at it with Azure Battalion saddles on them, and that the door is partially open.

It's like a little crofter's cottage.

Door is partially open, candle in the window, and

it looks like some soldiers have either barracked in this place unclear if the people who were in this home are still here anymore or not

corporal how's it sky

a candle in the window makes it hard to see out but is a signal do you know what that is

it's not it it's not a signal of the azure battalion but it's certainly a

perhaps this area has been cleared.

I mean, those are Azure Battalion horses.

Uh, Well, if somebody,

you know, happened upon the battalion,

they'd

still keep the horses.

Yeah.

I'm gonna go check it out.

Alone?

I'm pretty sneaky when I need to be.

Unless you want to join me.

I will come with you.

Suvi's going to give a little nod to Sworn.

Swarn goes, Wizard, you're going to go investigate?

Just want to see what's inside the house.

Maybe give us a better sense of what's ahead of us.

He's like, you sure you don't want

us to go clear it before you enter?

That's noisy.

And

we don't have time to stop and rest more.

All right.

I'll be right back.

Fox, can you also maybe go around

and

ensure that nobody sneaks up on them and

see what we can see?

Sure, yeah, I can do that.

Yeah, you want me to go sneak around?

Yeah.

Okay.

And he begins to

sort of take the long way around and head over to the house.

While he's doing that, is there anything that you guys want to do from a distance as you're looking at the house?

One, gotta re-up mage armor, like you do.

I've learned from the last time.

You and your fellow wizards made your armor up.

Suvi grabs her arcane focus, her ring, and turns the gem in on itself.

And as it does so, the gem disappears, and then the ring disappears,

and then the hand disappears, and then she disappears as she casts invisibility on herself.

Sufi?

I'm here.

Sufi, are you approaching the house invisibly?

Yeah, I'm gonna try to go the opposite direction as the fox

and

try to get away around and away from that light so I can see in and figure out who's inside.

I'm gonna do a little quick survival check and just look at the grounds around the cottage.

You know, footprints or signs.

Like, has this been lived in recently?

I need everyone here to roll initiative.

Welcome to my part of this beautiful campaign.

There's no pancakes here.

This is not a place of breakfast.

That's a 23, natural 20, 23.

13 for Ursulon.

19 for Suvi.

Ame, you are first to act.

Go ahead and give me your survival check.

15.

On a 15,

there's something really strange.

The cottage has a little area in front of it with some flagstones, a little sort of water well,

and where the light of the candle kind of fades sort of past the well, past the horses,

where

the

gray pines start up again.

And there's gray pines all around the cottage, but it's these ones.

You kind of see some ones that look

a little bit

scragglier, like that the cottage is sort of facing ones that look a little bit less healthy, if that makes sense.

On the ground, in the roots of uh, like near the roots, there's like a little sort of rock, rocky promontory, and in the middle of that is a hawk's nest

on the ground,

and it has one or two eggs in it.

And you're just, you've never seen a hawk build its nest on the ground like that before.

I wordlessly hold up a hand, point to the hawk nest on the ground.

Suvi, it is your turn.

Do you...

What is your reaction to Amay pointing that out to you as you begin to walk around the cottage?

I mean, immediate reaction is eyes up

and like trying to cue in for

whatever that's about.

Oh, I don't know if I want to get closer to it.

I think there is like an immediate hold there.

Like, that's not Azure Battalion, anything.

I don't trust this building at all anymore.

So, you stop walking.

Yes.

Ursuline, your turn.

I'm just going to open my divine sense.

Give me a perception check.

Five.

Your divine sense registers everything past the hawk's nest as being of the world of spirits.

You are looking at the cottage, the horses, all of it, and suddenly this emanation of

what do you see when you close your eyes?

And you see that emblem of Bahavi for a moment floating in front of you.

And you see the fox

getting closer to the cottage.

Amay, stop the fox.

Fox, stop.

I say in his head.

Roll me a dexterity because of this divine sense.

You can roll this with advantage, but but you're going to roll me a dexterity saving throw for the fox.

19 plus his dexterity.

That's a dirty 20.

The fox pulls up and stops suddenly.

And as he does,

his back feet slip and kick for a second.

And he catches onto and hops back and looks around, unsure what he just slipped on.

The fox and the three of you give me a stealth check right now.

13.

Nine.

18 plus how much for fox and then

15 for me.

The fox stops, skirts back to you.

For a brief moment, that candle.

You know, like when you lose focus looking at something and it kind of shifts into two things for a second?

Almost like your eyes unfocused.

There's suddenly two candles side by side that flicker and look and then are gone.

There's something very wrong with this house.

Those two motes of light flicker and move, and as they move forward,

the house is suddenly gone.

And the two motes of light, twin candles, in the face of a spectral and translucent being.

Long arms, wearing rags of floating smoke, smoke.

A spirit of the dead.

Someone who has been called to atone for some ancient wrongdoing.

The symbol of a sorceress' house on her head.

And as she

hovers in space, you see

a house.

The horses.

The forest behind it are...

open

nighttime sky.

Suvi, you stand two inches from the edge of a cliff.

You look down and see, hundreds of feet below and all across, dozens of Imperial scouts that have fallen to their death coming to this house.

The hawk's nest, built on the edge of the cliff face, the trees along its edge exposed to the wind and storm.

The fox having almost fallen to his doom.

The spirit hangs in the air, searching.

Two little candles burning in her eyes.

She resumes her trap, and you see a cozy little cottage in the mountains.

You'll be back, sir.

I held out my arms for the fox.

The fox gets gets up in your arms and says, hey, boss,

let's go.

It's bad.

Let's go.

Oh, my God.

She looks so good to you.

Gotta go regroup with the group.

You skirt back.

And now that you've come,

the house is sort of well through the trees at this point.

Sworn says,

what did you see?

Nothing.

That's a cliff.

It's a spirit.

It's a cliff.

There's so many dead.

It's bad.

It was a trap.

Do you know what that was?

Do you know what?

I'm not trying to ask you, like, do you, either of you, know what the fu that was so fucked up?

There were so many bodies.

It seemed to be a spirit with a symbol.

Um, I do not recognize it, but what was that symbol?

I'm going to immediately make the symbol of the of the Bahadi.

Like, I already know that that is.

Yeah, this

give me an Arcana.

Check anyone who wants to.

25.

13.

11.

Suvi,

you're searching back through that symbol.

You recall in the learner, you may have spent your whole life learning about what your enemies can do.

It didn't occur to you until you saw that spectral form floating there.

The candles specifically make it come back to you.

You didn't know that this was a thing that House Bahadi specifically could do, but you make the connection in this moment.

There are

sub-houses of all the great houses, and when nobles of those houses break their bonds of fealty or loyalty to one of the great houses, they can be bound in servitude after their death.

So you think that is a traitor to the house of Bahadi, who now

who in her life was a sorcerer gifted with the power of illusion.

And now she sits here as an eternal trap and was probably put here.

There's something that is like a talisman or artifact or something that is like buried into the cliff somewhere.

and they just created a trap for imperial soldiers.

But this is just one of however many spirits over centuries that owes its eternal and undying loyalty to House Bahadi.

That's so fucked.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Do I know, is there any way to set spirits that have been bound to rest?

Yes, theoretically.

It may not be at your disposal,

but

this is a knot that you know Grandmother Wren would have had a way to untie, but this may be beyond you in the moment.

I'm not that advanced yet.

Advanced for what?

Oh,

for

helping to usher the spirit into beyond.

For once, in our friendship, I think we're in alignment here.

I would love nothing more than to aid this spirit into not killing people And being free and moving on.

All of those things.

If you don't have a way off the top of your head to free this, I have something and I pull out this vial.

It's got like a dispelling agent in it.

A dispelling or perhaps Wavebreaker, if it broke a

binding on me, could do that as well.

My best guess is there is something here physically tethering that guy to this place.

So if I give you something to swing at, would you like to try to swing?

Suvi, you have incredibly limited resources.

Yeah, it hurts when you say it, but you're not wrong.

I'm just worried what this could cost.

Sworn nods and looks at Ursulan and says,

we will make note.

When this land is liberated and returned to the stewardship of the Empire, we will be able to come and remove this and certainly the many other traps like it that dot this landscape.

Alright.

Hey, Vandal.

I need you to make sure that no wizards walk off the cliff they don't see right there.

Imperial soldiers.

It begins to just write now.

You hear the bottles in your

bag.

You see Cyril's like, I could put it in poem form.

Fucking fine.

Can I let out Cyril?

He starts to dart around.

You get four verses.

That's so many.

You gotta give him a thing to do, or they become quite unbearable.

You see, he starts flitting around, going, There once was a spirit from Galchmai who lived in a cottage quite so high.

It wasn't quite there, and you'll fall through the air.

And when you...

It's a limerick.

A limerick is a verse.

verse a single verse that's what i'm saying four verse

four limerick oh no your ink demons is this the levity you were looking for lou yes this is what i wanted

uh uh the ink demons mark this place as being dangerous and return uh and i'll have enzo

we're gonna test out enzo's uh sort of note-taking ability and i'm gonna have since everyone's getting out uh and enzo's gonna add this one to our map like gotcha so we're gonna going to try to keep track of any traps that we pass by.

Enzo is like,

I would be more than happy to act as cartographer for our journeys here.

And you see that he takes an arm and begins to,

but

I give him a little compass.

And he does make like a topographical map of the foothills you've been traveling through, marking the Watcher Stone, marking the cottage that you found and everything else like that.

And you see he's having a good.

He's doing a good job.

He's doing a good job.

You see that as he gets to the end of it, he's like, maybe some improvements.

And we're good.

Back to the model.

No!

You move from this space,

traveling further west,

you

arrive at...

an outcropping of cliff that is not traversable.

You can't come down from here, but it allows you to look at the valley below.

There is so little light with the cloud cover here.

It's a blessed thing because it means that you've been able to move largely unspotted, right?

You've been keeping your magic down, staying hidden.

But at around

what is either, you know, the witching hour or an hour or two after that,

you can

see Abbasin

in faint outline, like deep, dark night under cloud.

Straining your eyes, you see the little whites of buildings, of a logging town built around a waterway where the wheels can turn in the water and run the mills, a lumber yard up at the top.

You smell rank, acrid smoke.

There are

several suddenly like moving along the cliff, you see them come into view, one and then several and then perhaps more than a dozen.

Bright green witch fires burning in a devastated town.

Abison is all but destroyed.

You see that nestled at the top of the town, the highest altitude, there is a massive imperial lumber mill, and you can see in the sickly green glow of witch fire, an imperial banner, tattered, still flying.

Standing at the outside of that mill, that lumber mill,

are two 18-foot-tall constructs.

The constructs have had ad hoc dry-rigged repairs made to them.

So they are partially stone, but one has an enormous circular steel saw in one hand, like lumber equipment has been replaced with something that was lost or destroyed in combat and has been basically upgraded with this more fragile but also more deadly thing.

You see that another one no longer has an articulated arm on one side but instead just has a massive timber log like a like a ship's mast and you see that it comes at the elbow so that it juts partially out so that it can swing and hit something behind it and come back around.

You see the windows of the lumber mill in the Safely Green Fire have been smashed out and there is a pulsating beam of lights, purple and green, like you saw a long time ago.

But similarly artificial wizard lights of

staves and imperial cannon lining the windows, pointing out.

You can see from the raised buildings and destroyed wreckage and burnt tree matter in the plain of...

and i say plain it's like quite a slope this sort of like downhill rubble strewn mountainside

tons of scores burns and pock marks of constant fire from these cannons it is quiet right now but it looks like there have been many attempts up the mountainside from abbasson below towards this lumber mill the lumber mill

has

just to one side of it to the right there is a massive like you know 80 foot waterfall that begins the river coming down from up above and a rocky overhang above it so it looks like it's the last place they could back up into where they couldn't be surrounded because it's just rocky crag above them and everything else down below uh the roof of the lumber mill is covered in arcane sigils all of which are set to detonate explosively on contact, specifically specifically

meaning that things can't land on the roof because everyone they're fighting can fly if they want to.

In the town below, the river wends its way through it.

You know, so they're the buildings sort of hugging this alpine stream.

There are the destroyed buildings up closer to the mill.

Down below it, you see

there's a small little alpine town square, a statue of an imperial hero from this town.

That statue has been pulled down and destroyed, and there are massive shaggy beasts sort of ambling in the night, snoring and butting each other's heads,

bucking.

You recognize these as aurochs, these sort of prehistoric horned,

massive ungulate beasts.

Around Abyssin, you see that there is a lake at the base of the town where like logs would collect.

You can see that they can like send logs down these water chutes to go down to the lake below where they could get bundled.

There's a small like airship port there where airships could come and collect the massive logs and carry them off.

But that lake has been fully taken.

You see that there is a

there's like encampments and bivouacs around it, and you see there are probably

a couple dozen tents of Gauthmai.

So there's just a full Gauthmai military encampment by the lake.

In that encampment, you see the symbols of a house Bahavi flying over that encampment.

The lake sort of ripples.

You wonder if there are creatures within the lake as well, as something

ripples across the surface of it.

There may be townsvolts still in the town.

You don't know.

Like, even the, even though, like, a quarter of it is fully destroyed up by that, like, witch fire, sort of like barricade defense of the lumber mill.

There's still a lot of buildings left.

There's signs of skirmish and combat and destruction everywhere, but there are many buildings still standing.

You don't know if there's townsfolk here or not, but you know that there is a Gautamai military encampment at the base.

That you would need to like explore further to see what all was there, but that's by the lake at the base of the town.

Who knows what's in the town itself?

At the very top of the promontory, Over like the thing where the waterfall is actually coming from, incredibly high and craggy, sort of inaccessible.

You see that there are some, there's some rubble scattered over the lumber mill.

Like

maybe

some boulders were pushed off of the promontory onto the lumber mill and like destroyed by cannons on their way down or abjured or defended.

It seemed like someone was like, you know, that some shape changers got up.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, smashed them with rock.

You see it.

In other words, you see,

you see a situation stable in its instability.

You know, Silver reached out to you a little bit less than two days ago, but full stalemate, but not a stalemate like the battle lines you saw by Mount Korhai, where it's like, we're testing each other, we're pushing.

This is

ravenous, violent, clashing stalemate of like they keep coming up that fucking hill and keep getting pushed back and it's costing them more and more.

In fact, you can see area of like other buildings that maybe they were defending that they've had to retreat from and are now in one building.

Okay, okay.

Lessons Suvi has learned in the last two days.

We don't trust animals, we don't trust birds, we don't trust things we see that give us hope.

Suvi sees all of this, begins to put it together.

I think I would have remembered and would have spent a spell slot out of my ring to make sure Corporal LaHound was covered with mage armor.

Okay.

But I'm going to like give a little like nod over to Ahme.

Come here.

And I'm going to put my hand on her shoulder and cast mage armor on you.

Oh, thank you.

And that clears out my ring's slots.

CV gives a quick rundown, like

not in a way to be condescending, but she just gives you that download as what she thinks is happening.

Like, they're pinned in this one building.

They've thrown everything they have at, like, keeping this one spot.

They are functionally surrounded.

That's House Bahadi.

Like, that's the symbol down there.

My question is:

why couldn't they get out if they wanted to leave?

They can, I mean, right?

They can, most

of these wizards can fly.

Why haven't they?

Sworn leans in and goes

and just points down at the beasts down below and says,

it's a stamina question.

Yeah.

Silver could make it a long way, but getting torn apart by eagles as you fly away is not a death that any soldier wants.

Yeah.

Okay.

We need to try to make contact.

See what's going on in there.

Without throwing the heat of all of this

on them

or us.

Ideas?

Ursulan's going to look to Suvian Sworn.

Do we believe once there is light again, again, the fighting will continue?

Huh.

Can I make an investigation check to see like the recency of like churned earth or signs of battle?

Does it look like this has been a stalemate for a hot second or that like

this is a sort of evening lull and it like all the zaniness of them trying to get in or out kicks up anew every day.

Give me investigation.

Natural 20.

Whoo,

baby.

You're like a full day's ride behind enemy lines.

You're looking at this and saying, what is the nature of this?

Like, is this about to kick off again

tomorrow?

Like,

is this like a significant thing?

And then you think about that sorcerer that you saw kill the, or you saw that the sorcerer you saw Banish.

Watch it.

Watch it.

Watch it.

The sorcerer you saw Banish.

Firebringer.

That sorcerer that you saw could wrap this up.

You know what I mean?

But what you recognize, I think on that Nat 20 investigation, you look,

there's an area of, there's a logged area on the other side of the lake with tremendous

huge wagon ruts and a place and a road that leads off.

And you see that there was a much larger Gauthmai encampment.

These people are not getting reinforcements.

The Gauthmai forces that are here have been reduced since this started.

Like, you don't think there's like a high-ranking sorcerer here.

You think, and this is sad because Silver is someone that is very dear to you and you think very highly of him.

This is the mop-up crew.

There's a hold-up group of wizards in a lumber mill that are not a threat,

not a strategic operational threat.

If Silver were to get out, he would be a stranded wizard with his soldiers behind enemy lines with no supplies.

They're just waiting for them to starve.

It's just a group of people waiting for them to starve.

They're attacking every day to keep them harried, probably to keep them from being able to sleep.

Yeah.

And

this is literally a cleanup operation.

It's a foregone conclusion.

Silver can't win.

And it silver so cannot win that

the important people have already left to go to higher strategic objectives elsewhere in the region.

I think

for the first time in a couple days,

all of that like arrogance

and indignation,

like there's just a little like shiver of it as her hackles get raised at the implication as she puts it together.

And that's actually a like

safer emotion that is less scared and less defeated.

And CV stands a little straighter.

They'll attack again tomorrow, but they're not trying to win.

They're trying to wait him out.

Can we use that to our advantage?

Absolutely.

They don't think anything but a bunch of starving remnant wizards is in there.

We are already more competent than they expect and can probably handle.

Do we try to get them out by stealth?

Or do we try to

help them fight their way out?

When Ani says fight their way out, Suvi's going to actually look at Ursulan to like check for micro-expressions.

Because Ursulan's already thrown up just a little bit of dirt around like

the nature of what this is, and Subi's trying to like be careful about that.

I don't think you see

you don't see an aversion to fighting.

If you're fighting, Ursulan will be fighting.

Ursulan won't be sent on a mission.

Yeah.

But if

you are battle-ready or speaking about yourself fighting, I don't, Ursulan's not like wincing or kind of hemming and like there's none of that kind of oh is there another way it's oh yeah it's less of a like Ursulan's aversion to fighting writ large and more of a like would Ursulan see a like decision to fight our way out versus sneak and retrieve as a violation of like

you're making me fight in your war

that's what's like that's a very specific thing that Subi's like just sort of checking on

Come here, inside check.

Yeah!

God!

15.

I think Ursulan is.

I think

you heard it a little bit in discussing the trap.

I think

part of Ursulan has accepted that

to save someone you care about, he has to put things that he cares about and wants to the side.

And I think that there is

an acceptance

around

saving silver being something you are willing to put yourself in harm's way for.

That means that this, that violence will likely occur, and that that is

inevitable.

Okay.

We'll try for still.

Sworn

looks and says, so we're attempting extraction and extraction alone here.

The goal is not to retake Abison.

No, I think if we attempted to retake Abison,

more than a mop-up crew would be sent, and we would just put future forces into the same scenario.

You see, he nods, and you know, like you think about going over the supplies for the Meridian with him, and that's just what you're realizing is like, you guys showing up is six more or eight more mouths to feed, you know, like the problem's not even solved, even if you fight well, the problem's not solved.

Yeah, so looking at this, um, he looks and says, All right, getting them out.

They haven't been able to fly out, likely be, and Silver may be the only wizard there powerful enough to fly under his own power.

Uh, he may not, he may just want to not abandon his people, people.

They have the two constructs there.

And

these woods are deeply dangerous.

I don't see any horses stabled there.

So they would be escaping on foot in all likelihood.

There's the problem of how to get them out of the

how to get to them unseen.

And then the problem of how we get them out.

Yes.

We can get to them.

That I have confidence in.

I think we'd be able to get to them.

The issue is: is there some,

if we get physically to them, then we may be under whatever conditions are pinning them down there.

So the question is, is there some advantage we have to being outside of enemy lines right now that we could bring to them?

Is there something that we could do that would open up an eye?

Is there some way to talk to them before we're pinned down in their same location?

We can get a message there and back, I'm certain.

But I think that the advantage of us being on the outside is drawing away the forces pinning them down, yes?

Potentially.

Again, we don't have a strong sense of what their daily, like

the duress that they're under.

Ame.

The fox.

You're the sneakiest guy I know.

Do you think you can get inside that building and find my friend Silver?

Yeah.

Yeah, no problem.

Easy.

too easy.

Fair enough.

It's almost like we're putting too good of a.

Man, is there something?

Do you want to go?

Is that actually something we should be worried about?

That we're putting too good someone who will be too

that honestly might be our problem.

And you know what?

If you can handle that, if you don't mind us over-committing your talents to this,

we'll spend our time while you're doing that trying to figure out how to not disrespect you with such an easy ask in the future.

Great.

Done deal.

I got it.

I'm going to do it.

Okay, please be careful, okay?

I know how to make it a little harder.

Can you take this?

And I'm going to unpack Enzo, or at least Enzo's bottle.

Can you take this in too?

Because I want Enzo to communicate everything Enzo knows about what we've been doing and like updating maps and like just give a big download.

Yes, I actually would like also, in terms of an in, let me get an insight check from everybody here, too.

Eight!

14.

Okay, that's a real thing.

I know.

I've been rolling so long.

First of all, the plan that is forming right now is to send an animal towards the encampment of wizards who are defending against shape-changers.

Suvi,

I'm worried.

Yeah.

The wizards may not welcome.

an animal that they may believe that can talk yeah that they may believe in some way.

So unless there is a way to make the fox clearly

an ally.

Yeah.

Can you give him a little citadel kerchief or something?

Now, what is to make them not think that the agents of Gauthmite gave them a citadel?

You've got a.

I think you have a citadel.

Oh, yes, is there something of you, Suvi?

Um.

Yeah.

Suvi's going to cut a lock of her hair and form it into like, and just kind of braid it, form it into like a little

band that she puts around the fox and will seal it with her seal as the wizard's guy.

Incredible.

The fox takes the little bottle of you're doing Cyril or you're doing Enzo.

Enzo.

Grabs Enzo's bottle.

Wait, hold on.

Is that right?

Please, please, hold on.

With the map?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Looks up at you, Ahmed, and says, boss, I'm on it.

Okay, me safe, and

I'll be checking in with you through here for occasionally.

Great.

You got it.

The fox takes off.

As he does so,

Swarn looks and says, is there a position we should move into?

I mean, the fox may take a while.

Is there a position that we should move into?

Do we want to leave horses here?

Do we want to ride further down towards the lake?

Do we want to make it by foot higher up on the promontory to be closer to the lumber mill?

I think getting higher on the promontory feels like the call.

Let's keep the horse.

We are going to have to be on foot because I don't think they have horses regardless.

So let's leave the horses here.

You see that one of the horses looks over to you, Ursulan, and just goes, Is everything all right?

Oh, buddy.

I'm gonna cast heroism on the horse.

Have hope, friend.

Everything will be well.

You see, he puts his sort of nose in your chest and rubs your chest with his front of his face.

And

I pull out a bunch of little crab apples from my pack and I pass them around to everybody.

They nuzzle you.

And you see, sworn nods.

The imperial contingent, along with Ahmed and Ursulan, heads further up under cover of night on this rocky promontory.

The fox takes off.

Give me a group stealth check.

And because you're, you're only trying to like kill time while the fox moves, do it with advantage.

You're like take putting everything into being stealthy and movable.

It's 19 and one on the dice.

That's great.

Thank you for the advantage.

12.

22.

Only six.

You guys head off up in the sort of rock and rubble and get to another alpine copse.

You are.

At point after like an hour of moving you are

closing distance through forest

to the beginning of the witch fire area so you're almost like a short run to where the battle is gonna happen is gonna pick up again in the morning and it is about like three or four a.m.

still dark

Amay checking with the fox

uh someone told me a luck check in front of the board

I got it.

Eight.

Okay.

I would say maybe that's cocked.

Ame?

Erica.

Oh, yeah, that's way cocked.

All right, roll again.

Ten.

Ten's better than eight.

Ten is better than eight.

Also, nice shot.

The fox takes off.

He likes to scampers down a small cliff, jumping from rock to rock.

He's got your lock of hair and a little bottle of the ink demon Enzo.

goes through woods.

Ooh, a little like outhouse, small cottage.

Ooh, another house.

Okay, a little path, a gravel path between houses.

Still mostly woody, getting closer to the town.

Okay, stops, little way station.

Here's actually a small public house where they serve breakfast to the loggers that are coming out here for a day's work.

And suddenly, you

and the fox turns up to see the shape of a massive bear.

Snorting out from around another building is a giant boar.

Ahmet, you see this through the fox's eyes.

The fox speaking in your mind goes, boss, heads up.

The bear looks down and goes,

state the password.

You see

the fox?

Ahmit, do you say anything in the fox's mind?

Uh uh okay looking through his eyes and looking at the bear does it look like can I I guess uh uh insight yeah it can be

insights at the bear

wants that's a nat 20

uh nat 20 on a nat 20 you sense

a statement for a password, which is something that it seems that this the the fox is speaking to a shape changer

It's frightening, but the fact that the fox has been asked to give a a password already indicates what the assumption of these guardians is.

The fox isn't in, the fox isn't in danger as long as he plays along.

But though you feel the fox freeze up hearing you in his mind, what do you do?

It's okay, you're doing fine.

They don't, this is a shapeshifter, and they think that you're another shapeshifter.

You don't know the password, but just...

play along and

let them think that you're a shapeshifter.

With that help action, could you kindly roll for the Fox's deception check?

With advantage.

17 on the die.

Amazing!

You see, he says, they think I'm a shape-changer already.

It's hardly even a lie in your mind.

And you see, he spits the little ink bottle and says, password?

Password?

You want a password?

Like, I haven't seen four of our men die getting this to you.

You think I'd find myself dead stationed in this backwater heap?

Fuck you and fuck your password.

Get me to the man in charge.

He's so good.

I love you so much.

There's nothing worse than not being able to know that that happened.

Oh my god.

Oh my son's current

song.

How do you know it's good?

He's dead.

He met a shapeshifter who's a bear and they asked him for a password and he's like, fuck you and your passwords.

Don't tell him I said that, but he's my favorite my whole body unclenches

uh you see he goes

don't try that with me and you see he said he looks and goes bear boar

nice first tries get a real shape and you see he picks up the bottle and scurries past them and goes this way this way and they go oh we'll speak to the the leader he says he goes i don't have time and he just takes off and as he goes up off the path you just hear mentally in your mind, Ahme.

That sounded like the kind of stuff Suvi would say.

Did that work?

It was perfect.

You're so perfect.

Yeah, anytime you encounter any of these types, you just tell them what Suvi.

You think, what would Suvi do?

Okay.

And you see,

he goes through the town.

slinks into the shadows.

You see he stops for a second.

You see there's two crows sort of perched on a well.

You see that he stops for a second, puts the bottle down, looks up and says, Hey there, fellas,

which way do we head to?

I have something that needs to be deposited up near those fires to help us with the battle effort.

Do you know which way we're going?

See, one of the crows just goes,

and he goes,

Regular crows,

picks up the bottle, takes off through the town again.

He arrives in a sort of shadowy area, area, and you see that there is an owl perched on a barrel, looking off towards the fire.

As he approaches the owl, he turns around and looks.

You see the fox drops the stuff, nods to the owl, and just kind of slinks alongside, looking out towards it.

He says, Boss, can you give me just one thing somebody who's in this place might know?

Maybe if Subi knows anything about this place or something else, this owl won't stop looking at me.

The fox needs intel.

He needs to fool an owl of some sort.

What do we know about this place and about the location?

Does he need to weigh in?

What am I...

Yeah,

some sort of location.

Something that lets me buddy up with this guy.

Yeah, he just won't stop looking at me.

Ooh, what a fun question.

That's actually stumped me.

You see that the owl turns to the fox and goes,

Are you replacing me?

And you see the fox goes, not an owl, not an owl, a guy.

Oh, it's a guy.

I'm sorry.

Say, tell me yes.

Tell him yes.

You're the next shift.

What language did the owl speak in?

Wait, what language is the owl speaking in?

Gaut.

Yeah, then I'll give back, like, if we get the, like, the owl has asked for it.

Yeah, the replacement.

Actually, the fox only speaks imperial, right?

Yes.

So the fox says, I don't know how to say, I don't know what to say to this guy.

I'll give him back, yes, you're the replacement in Galth.

Noble, high,

like, noble addiction

uh, gauth.

And then the name, uh, Bahavi, if he needs to drop a name.

Yes.

And you see that he goes, uh, speaks in in gaut, says that, and you see that the owl turns, go ahead and give me a persuasion check for the fox.

That's an 18 on the die.

Go off, fox.

See, the fox looks up and just says what to him is pure gibberish.

And you see the owl goes to fly away and says something that the fox doesn't understand, but you understand Ame, and that you can sort of translate back.

Basically, says, like,

like, as the fox says, Bahadi says,

fuck the Bahadi,

and takes off.

And you see, the fox goes,

You're telling me.

And you see, the owl turns around as he hears Imperial, and the fox goes, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you see, he goes,

a lot of witch fire between here and there.

Boss, I made my way past all the

shape changers and everything.

Can I just let this little guy out?

Enzo can take it from here.

You did so good, Fox.

Enzo would have never made it this far.

Only you could do that.

Yeah, I'm great.

I will kill as many snitch birds as you want.

Bitch, I will give you spy chickens forever.

The fox

sort of pulls the, like, gets his paws on the ball, gets his mouth on the cork, and pulls it open.

You see, Enzo goes, hmm, ooh, a new location.

Fascinating.

Oh, and picks up a lock of the wizard's hair, intended for the wizard's silver.

Well, as in all things,

treasured artifacts must be stored correctly.

And you see, he

zips off through the witch fire.

There is

pause.

And suddenly,

through

whispering wind,

Suvi, you hear Silver's voice.

Sky,

you made it.

You called,

of course.

Are you okay?

You answered.

I love you.

I think we're in a lot of trouble.

That was Lou Wilson as Ursulan, Erika Ishii as Ahme, Abria Iyengar as Suvi, and Brennan Lee Mulligan as Everyone and Everything Else.

Worlds Beyond Number is edited, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse with additional sound design from Michael Gelfie Studios.

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