WWW #36: Sending

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

Within the confines of this story, it becomes necessary from time to time to take extra care in describing the physical environs

that our brave heroes find themselves in.

Suvarin Kedbarraket, Archmage Apprentice of the Citadel,

stands in a small clearing

only

several paces wide

a small divot dug into the earth, sometimes referred to as a foxhole, although the fox is nowhere in sight.

This divot has a few pieces of debris within it, a discarded packaging of some rations for Imperial soldiers that ate here, a broken haft of some kind of polearm, or perhaps the pole of a Imperial standard.

something within this place.

But at some point,

this

little divot in the earth was dug, big enough for two Imperial scouts to

watch this area of the forest.

You are at the base of Mount Korhai, the tallest peak within the Shroud Mountains.

This mountain serves as the delineation

west and east of where the lines of Imperial forces to the east and the lines of the forces of Gauthmai to the west have taken root in the Shroud Mountains.

You see Sworn looking downhill to see what looks like

at the base of this sort of through the trees and forest, there's just perceptible a stream at the base of this little ridge.

This divot sort of is at the beginning of a crest of one of the long roots of the mountain.

The mountain kind of has different ridges that descend slowly from it.

And at the crest of one of those, nestled in the pine trees, this little foxhole

has

just enough line of sight to watch a stream at the base of this mountain.

Perhaps the farthest flung point at which scouts could keep an eye on the comings and goings of this contested area.

Red clouds.

No bird song, no noise of insects yet at this time.

The only noise you can hear are the stamps and snuffles of horses, and your traveling group of

eight is large enough that the jingling of saddles and

tack and bridle and things of that nature, there's just enough noise that you're creating that that's sort of all you can hear until in your earliest moments of investigation of this place as you look for a passage through to the west to move forward to Avison, you hear

as things begin to charge through the brush.

I'm going to need you to roll initiative.

11.

Beings are charging in from the woodline as they announce their presence in this place.

They are so close to you.

You cannot imagine how you did not notice beings this large moving this fast until they were right on top of you.

Maimed,

broad-shouldered.

They're monkeys or they're cat-like as the sort of like skin peels back from their face, these elongated jaws.

We have seen these before in this story.

These are the beings that attacked Ursulan when he first arrived in Gauthmai.

I'm going to say that two of them descend on one of the two Azure Battalion scouts that was at the outside of the group, another one on one of the name-cloaked wizards who now travels with you.

Can you give me a name cloak for the wizard that is being attacked?

Sully.

As the first noise is heard and everyone turns to react, everyone looks in the direction of where the attack is coming from.

One of the beasts leaps into the clearing, grabs Sully's jaw, and pulls it off his head.

Sully steps back, already in shock, reeling as he tries to summon magic.

He is going to try to do something with his hands.

He is not dead.

I won't lie, he is at one hit point.

The Azure Battalion scout has two descend on him.

One of them catches him across the head with a rock in its hand, as the other sinks feline-type fangs deep into his throat, pulls it out of his body.

He is dead on contact.

That is their turn.

The other scout is going to do, in the absence of orders, is reflexively spends his turn casting mage armor by himself.

Suvi, that is your turn.

Delightful.

How far apart are these three nasty guys?

All within 10 feet of each other.

Okay, copy that.

Uh, shatter.

We're gonna throw a shatter under their feet.

I'm sorry to the guy whose jaw is gone.

Good luck.

If you want to catch all three, you will kill Sully.

If you want to just catch the two that have already killed one of your companions, you can isolate just them.

This sucks so much.

Ears ringing.

Hard choice.

I know what I would expect someone to do for me.

I catch Sully in it.

Go ahead.

What is the difficulty on the saving throw here?

DC16 Con save.

Two succeed, one fails.

That shatter badly injures the two other and kills one of the three.

Sully drops to the ground.

I'm going to reach to my belt and I know my vials by feel.

And I'm going to reach for Vandal

and release Vandal onto the battlefield.

Sworn reaches over, is going to cast mage armor on you.

I'm going to make a perception check for him.

Nat 20 for Sworn's perception check.

He's the ghoulest.

Sworn leaps to the front of the clearing, right where the shatter just happened.

The two injured apes next to him as he goes, incoming!

18 feet tall,

a

massive ape, spiked golden bands on its wrist, one around its collar.

with a symbol of house Bahavi carved in between the eyes on its head, roars into the clearing and is going to attempt to kill Sworn right now.

What, what, no, no, what, no, fuck!

As this creature rears up, pulls a fist bag, and goes to just gra it looks like what it wants to do is just grab the top half of Sworn's body and squeeze.

He leaps up, puts his hands together, and boom,

creates a helmet of glowing sigils as he casts the shield spell.

And boom, boom!

Both attacks of this massive ape are repelled by uh sworn's shield

that is now going to be the uh remaining citadel wizards who all cast mage

the two other apes are going to rush and attack you zoo

okay one of them is going to hit this is your first uh shield

okay what is your armor class with shield 21.

21 still hits fuck

you put up your shield and you watch as it just waits for two of the like lines of runes to intersect and leaps through them

and as it begins attacking you and biting

half of this ape is gone in smoke in the air uh as it falls off your body

You have wizards of the citadel here who are trained to fight.

The Azure Battalion soldier has been fighting, kills the ape on you.

As the fire,

you can just suddenly smell is the number one sense you have of just reeking burning flesh and unnatural flame.

It is your turn once again.

Suvi, in her panic, she just took more damage that would have killed her in Port Talon.

And she's still here and she's singed and all of a sudden all of the training goes away in that moment of realizing that you could die here and for what and why and what's the point.

And she reaches for a different kind of magic.

Something that she saw in the coven and the way that they call out with the lingua arcana.

It's not regimented.

It's primal.

And that's how Suvi feels right now.

That's what she's facing.

And for the first time, I'm going to cast Inflict Wounds.

A spell that does not exist for wizards, but Suvi has it.

And I'm going to deliver it via Vandal.

So I'm going to, like, Vandal as his reaction in this moment is going to run over and deliver the touch spell.

Slinky, sucking, scum, fuck, and

rushes forward.

Go ahead, make your touch attack with the spell.

Natural 20.

Woo!

39 on the bigger one, 23 on the smaller one.

Vandal surges forward and has this your interpretation through the lingua arcana of a thing that was not meant for wizards to know.

But hey, what does that even mean?

A thing that is not for wizards to know.

You

and Vandal's claws elongate, slide into the thing, and he explodes gleefully while maintaining his body within the explosion.

And a shard of red ink races out like boiling blood and lances through the head of the wounded lesser ape in front of you.

All three of them are defeated.

The

massive ape in front of you goes from uninjured to

you can see it contort and take one of its massive hands to cover an injury in its torso.

A thing that a wild animal you don't think would even necessarily do.

It's been badly hurt, but it is still up.

Okay.

Sworn is going to go next.

Give me an Arcana check.

26.

Sworn knows something you don't.

He's seen something on his Nat 20 perception.

He raises up to this

behemoth silverback and casts casts whole person on it.

Oh,

Sworn reaches up with three words of power in the lingua arcana meant to hold and bind fellow mortals, fellow humans of the world of Umora.

And you see that the words reach out.

turning from sound into wisps of rippling air that hit the behemoth in front of you as it snorts and rebuffs them with a primal

just pure willpower.

Nothing magical.

There is no spell casting.

There is no finesse.

Pure primal will echoes out from this ape as it denies the spell.

It is now going to act.

Sworn casts shield again.

and takes 28 points of damage as the behemoth grapples through his shield and picks him up in a hand as he...

you can see he is still alive the thing that is crushing him is his own spell energy coming down on him as he is trying to wrest it with his pure will back but you can see blood gushing down through his robes he is not dead but he is looking close to it

Emerald rings glowing, three name-cloaked wizards behind you.

No small achievement.

Here we go.

Unleash.

You have not been in the midst of a volley of Arulean bolts and the thing that you have cast many times before nine of them surge past you

the eight falls back and the massive claw that is killing sworn in its hand turns to leaves and twigs as the shape of the beast changes and a humanoid man backward somersaults away as the behemoth shape vanishes and you are looking at a man of Gautama in a leather jerkin, a belt of knives,

with bestial tattoos.

He has tattoos of fangs coming from his lips.

Changes shape in front of you completely unharmed.

Whatever shape he was wearing was destroyed, but his shape is completely fine.

Sufi, it is your turn.

Suvi

sees that it is a man and has all of the wizard arrogance of trying to target like their higher mind and reaches out and as she casts there's like a little green flash of her own uh

like ring that like glimmers behind his eye as she tries to like lance into it

hell yes how does this spell work uh in save of 16

he succeeds

you see that this shape changer, as you glance at his mind, just he has, even in his humanoid form, a flexibility to his hips and shoulders and hands.

He springs off of one hand, grabs onto a tree branch with his legs, and vanishes to one side.

As he, you see, it's pure luck.

He sees the spell coming.

It's a well-selected spell, and he just gets out of the way of it as fast as he can.

He's still going to take four points of psychic damage.

You hear a grunt as the spell hits him.

Sworn goes after him.

Oh, I'm in a full sprint after him, by the way.

Okay.

You go, oh, you're like out of the box.

Yeah, you see.

100%.

Your men look at what feels like, oh, maybe we're not going to all die and watch you sprint into the darkening woods and go, ah!

Sworn, as you go past him, is like, ah!

And one more time goes like,

and you watch this guy paralyze and stumble out of the trees.

That's Swarn's turn, and he is sprinting

and right by your side as you run towards him.

It is your turn first.

You arrive at him.

See, he's paralyzed and badly bleeding.

Badly injured.

Suvi wanted to interrogate him.

But I can't risk it.

One more inflict wounds.

Give me your attack roll.

21.

21 hits, roll damage.

22.

Describe for me the end of this man's life.

Suvi is

shaking and furious.

And there's something in her that...

She just wants him gone.

And there's a bit of her that thinks about

Yorin,

another shape changer, and Gauthmai and the thing, like, he's going to catch all of the fade for all of her bad feelings, and that's what she pushes into him, like a poison that moves from her hand into his neck as his veins go black,

and she will poison and kill him with all of her, like, misery and anxiety and fear.

You're looking at the dead body of a tattooed man on the side of a mountain.

I make a mental note of his tattoos.

Look up at Sworn.

Are you okay?

I'm okay.

You see one of the Citadel wizards behind you kneels down to

Sully's body.

They attempt to hold and are sort of like panicking, looking down at him.

And

he fades.

Sworn

looks around.

Night

fully falls in this moment.

Birds start chirping again.

Okay.

A forest is watching us.

He looks over to the Azure Battalion soldier and says,

take care of the enemy bodies.

And you see you go over the Citadel soldiers who begin to use Magehand to

scoop the earth in the foxhole.

The one Citadel wizard with Sully's body,

she is called Score.

She does not begin digging, but just stays with the body for a second.

The other two and Sworn begin to cleave furrows in the earth with concentrated magic.

And

as these graves are dug in this place, two of them, you see that the other battalion soldier makes sure that the horses have not fled too far and goes and gathers them before piling the apes' bodies on top of the shape changer, kneeling down, and the bottom of his hand turns to coal and ember as he just burns them away and reduces them to ash.

Sworn looks over and you see creates

a little unseen servant of wind and just whispers something to it and you see it goes and begins to swallow the smoke from the burning bodies

to not let the scent spread.

Sworn turns to you.

The coterie of beasts, this advanced scout.

He didn't make it away, so this is our path through.

This territory evil has been responsible for.

Okay.

We need a safe place to rest.

And then through.

Give me an insight check.

18.

You look up at Sworn, looking at you as you say that we need a safe place to rest, and he looks at you with a face that does not exist.

The birds were silent because the shape changer asked them to be silent, and when he died, they started singing again.

We

should expect that type of magic traveling through here.

We're going to be dealing with plants that don't want us to be here, beasts that will be working for the enemy.

That's the reality of moving through these mountains.

I think Sworn would see Suvi go away behind her eyes.

She thinks of Ame

and Grandmother Wren, and how often

how good they are at avoiding a fight.

Because this is Suvi's first real fight.

And she left with eight and she's already down to six.

And if there's anything

she can do,

no pride.

No

feeling

that she might have unsettled

with those people.

For the ones she's responsible for, she has to put that away.

And Suvi reaches into her bag and pulls out the scroll of sending.

God, I hope they're together.

And she's going to send ascending to Ame.

You take the scroll, and there is a space within the scroll that once you write the message, the scroll will vanish.

As you do so, you see

Sworn looking at the scroll in front of you and seeing that you are not

using this to ask for an extraction, but that you are requesting aids to complete the mission.

And you see that he lowers his head in deference.

There is a recognition here.

You won this fight,

but you lost two.

Gauthmai lost one and a handful of beasts.

The going will be harder than this.

And

as the graves are dug, the evidence of the fight that took place here gone,

you begin to inscribe your message to your friends to make sure that this mission will be a success.

Wings outstretched

high above the ocean, the rock that bears you now aloft has not flapped its wings in an hour.

Riding thermals, this happy, happy bird has very recently eaten a whale.

One of the more upsetting things you've ever had to physically experience was a bird the size of a castle descending to the ocean, grabbing a whale and eating it.

Um, and it uh happened also fast, and you are still in its neck.

Feathers,

the wind whips overhead, but if you duck your head down, you can actually get under the outer layer of feathers.

You're you're small enough in relation to this bird that you can kind of hide them over your head and be kind of in and amongst them.

And Ame,

these words appear

within you.

Ame.

The way we left things

was

bad.

I don't have time for apologies yet.

But for the love

you bear me or any sense of duty,

I need you both at the base of Mount Korhai.

The spell

transmits pure meaning along with the language of the spell, and you can respond in a like manner.

But how does Ahmed feel as this message first unfurls?

Ursulan?

Yes, Ahme.

I think Suvi's in trouble.

She reached out to me with a

sending.

And I don't think she'd have done that unless she really needed our help.

I relay the message to him.

That's near Fort Kieran.

Where um

steel

went.

Oh.

That night.

Suvi's name cloak.

Why would she be going to the front?

She needs us.

We.

we have to go.

Can

we go visit your family afterwards?

Ursulan is going to keep his face from Ahmed.

I think because he's feeling disappointment disappointment for one of the first times in his life.

But start to climb out of the space that they were speaking.

I'll tell the bird

climbing up handhold to hand hold on the base of these massive feathers, you get further up from the neck across the head of the massive rock.

I feel you crawling.

Are you safe?

I'm well.

And you are fed?

Yes, well fed.

Great seas are my hunting ground.

It is an honor to watch you hunt, brother.

I would ask,

we will no longer be returning

to my family's home in Gauthmai.

We need to be delivered elsewhere.

Mount Korhai.

Go ahead and give me animal handling or persuasion.

You can do so with advantage.

Only a 13.

Is there

a gate?

Dome

at Korhai?

I would not know.

Witch!

Yes.

I think at some point, at least in the first voyage, I would have asked if I could call him by any name.

He would have, I think, responded to that.

I would respond to any name that you would be kind enough to give me.

Oh, my goodness.

Ame pulls out the list of names that

she had been thinking about.

It seems that, like, from the way he says it, he knows that he has names, but he is a spirit.

And I think that he's interested in getting more names if he can.

Oh, bro, free name.

Free name?

If it pleased you, I would have- I would call you uh

firebringer, because you melted and

brought us to warmer climates and uh warmer temperaments.

Firebringer!

And can I also call you Fifi?

Sometimes, maybe

give me a persuasion check.

With advantage, because Fifi's very cute?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

3020.

I am called Firebringer,

and I am known to the Witch of the World's Heart as Fifi.

Witch!

Yes, Fifi!

Brother Ursulan tells that our port of call has changed.

Do you swear to me that if I bring you to this new place,

you will find me a way home?

Yes, of course.

Also, I don't know how close you can even get us to the port safely, so we shall find you a safe passage home as we go.

Brother Ursulan,

the mountain Korhai, in what range would I find her?

The Shroud Mountains,

Right back where we came from.

He wheels north, and as he does, the tip of a wing passes through a cloud and streaks it across a corner of the sky as

begins to sail north.

Suvi, we are flying to you.

Expect us in hours.

Love Ame.

Suvi

is

doing her best to bandage her wounds in this little break.

There was just enough time between the response

that Suvi, who's still like coming out of the bullet time of the fight, has

not given up hope,

but has just put that away as a,

well, that's another thing that was tried in the heat of battle that probably didn't work and has sort of like moved down the list into like what is next

and then hears it

and winces

not from the pain

in her shoulder

but in the like

effortless affection of her friend

Sworn walks up to you, who you see also

is, you see, he's sort of got like his robe has been taken off and his tunic is partially undone because his torso has been like bandaged up.

Although you see, the main thing is sort of like he has a quick splint made, like his leg or hip got badly hurt.

So he's got that in a splint as well.

It was like weird, crushing force from his own spell coming down on him.

So it looks like things got broken or hurt internally more than any like puncture wound.

There's like one exception, which is like a big laceration on his, on his like rib cage, but

he walks up to you and says,

Archmajor Princess, are you reaching out to your allies from.

Yes.

The Witch of the World's heart

and a spirit are on their way.

A spirit?

Yes.

He smiles and goes, all right.

He turns, and as you finish bandaging your wounds, the sort of soldiers here in the clearing gather around.

And

Sworn looks to you as the graves are completed and says, Is there anything that would you like to speak?

Yeah.

I've been trained to find comfort

in long, proud words,

to seek solace in the nobility

of a well-earned death.

I barely knew the ones that laid down their lives for us.

That does not mar

their sacrifice.

It adds nothing,

detracts nothing.

They lived

and fought

and died.

And it is on

us

that remain

to give

meaning, to find meaning

in their works.

We'll continue forward

in the hopes that our actions

save lives now or later.

Because all of us, we all put one foot in front of the other in the belief

that what we are fighting for, what we are protecting, what we are bringing forth to the future will flourish

because of our care and effort and blood.

Thank you

for what you have given.

And I look up at the group.

Thank you

for what you are giving.

And Sevi hesitates.

She wishes she had something

to say, to stir blood, to make it feel like this is noble or mighty.

And for all of her belief in her own mind,

She has nothing.

But she doesn't want to look to sworn or look

for help.

In this moment, she does not feel like enough.

And she's just going to sit with it for a second longer and nod

and shift a little bit of that turned earth under her foot

and do her best to believe what she said.

You see your three Citadel Wizards look at Sully's grave, and non-ye Sworn sort of mutters under his breath, Light of the Tower.

And

you see that the remaining Azure Battalion soldier, she leans down and takes a little something from her bag that seems to be like two small pewter charms and just buries them in the soft earth of her companion's grave.

Kind of

furrowed brow, like she doesn't even believe in what she's doing, but just does it to do it and then sort of stares at the grave.

Do I recognize?

It looks like a little something that probably Ahme would know what it was, a little folk tradition.

But when you look at it, you see that she took the charm from like a bag.

And I think maybe you have some understanding that it's a charm that

the now

gone Asher Battalion soldier gave to her and she is returning it to the earth with him

sworn looks to you

and gets back to business and goes

the enchantments of our armor we should take advantage of it

The spell will wear off by dawn and I think that we should make the most of it.

You're right.

Is there a way I can like

scan medicine check him i don't want to disrespect him by asking if he's okay give me a medicine check

21.

he's fucked up but it's a lot of bleeding and he hurt his hip but it look doesn't look like a bone broke

so

you think that he's taking care of it he's bandaged it he's taking care of his own mobility and not straining anything

So hopefully by dawn, he should be right as rain.

You see that the Azure Battalion soldier comes over.

She salutes to you and says, When I was disposing of the shape changer's body, I found this.

You see that it is two small stones with a runic script on them that you recognize as an indigenous language to Gathamai has its own alphabet.

It's some sort of like shape change, specific, like, it's not the language that the high houses of Gautama use but the

you recognize it as a little keyed magical talisman there's something to it that it's like this is part of a larger magical effect

but she hands it to you uh give me an arcana check

natural 20.

On a natural, you know exactly what this is.

Somewhere in the valley underneath here, this guy was an advanced scout.

You believe that your, the fact that you had a small group, he probably mistook you for a scouting party and saw all white horses and went, This is eight Azure Battalion soldiers, of which he would have very easily come through and killed with those apes.

But your like shatter and these higher-level spells and sworn casting hold person, all this other stuff was very quickly like, oh, you missed, like you saw eight white horses and called a big shot.

This was the wrong call.

Now, this territory is down its scout, but you think that there are a line of watcher stones and that this key allows him to pass through that line without disrupting it.

Somewhere in the valley underneath here is a stone that is magically policing a border or a front line.

This key is attached to it.

You can either try two things would work here, which would either be to destroy or unmake the stone in the basin of the valley if you did that

the line would potentially be disrupted for a moment and then reconnect between whatever the other stones and the line were so you'd have a period of time to pass through it that's if you wanted to just disconnect that stone or if you figure out how to key to or attune to this key that you have then you could pass through but you're not sure how that would work for everybody else that you're traveling with oh so it's literally like one person it's like one person.

Can we like do the like MTA thing of like, can I toss the person, like, the stones to the person behind?

On a nat 20, I think, actually, I would allow if you want to try to figure out some

funny way of doing that, then absolutely.

Like, uh, if you have any like suggestions of like what spells or magic you would try to do to think, like, how do I leave the turnstile open with this?

So I don't, I don't have to like disrupt the line of watcher stones, you can do that.

Then, yeah, uh, I'm gonna hold on to this

and cast

identify.

I think you feel also one of those, you have one of those vials of dispelling

like ointment that was basically given to you

from the lieutenant back at Fort Marlon.

I think if you use one of those,

massaging that dispelling thing into the key, you are able to break the key into six parts, each with a kind of fractal portion of the rune, and realize also that the key that the watcher stones are only alerting them to humanoids, so your horses will pass just fine.

Amazing.

So, you are able to get like six key fragments that you think everyone here can attune to and move through.

Okay,

everyone, please keep this on you, it will allow us to pass through

whatever magics they are setting up to keep perimeters here and only allow their people through.

You guide your horses down the step into the valley.

There's a small stream.

You see a moss-covered stone at the stream that has the runes carved into it facing out in this way, and see the line.

As you approach it, magic begins to visibly appear, which you understand to be a good thing.

You would trip this silently if it was working.

You approach, you see, sort of a suscerus of like water sounds, and as you cross the stream, you actually feel water flowing over your body like you are submerged, though you do not become wet.

It is just the sensation of water moving over you as you move past the stone and bypass this magical perimeter that you have successfully hacked and broken into, defeated the guardian of this small territory, and feel that you have broken through the perimeter of this place.

As you get to the other side, you see further along,

through the dead of night, you see Vandal is still here like.

Speaking of which,

I'm going to have Vandal at sort of arbitrary points.

He's going to blaze a trail of stupid cusses just in case we need

I need them to like follow where we landed because I gave a very vague I was like oh god I didn't say what side of the mountain.

Oh no.

You see Vandal looks at the rune on this like perimeter guardian stone and is like

yeah, of course.

And

just messes it up

you cross and encamp or you cross away from the waterstone away from the river leaving some clues here and there that Vandal can leave so that you can be found And get over a small ridge and arrive.

You see that

there is a

deer path in the woods that is steady enough to ride horses through, or you can keep to the woods and try to be as stealthy as possible.

You'll move more slowly, but you are wondering whether the paths this close to the perimeter are being watched or not.

I prefer stealth over speed, especially if it's like, yeah, there's not an advantage right now into getting a place quickly other than my own panic at whatever's happening at Addison.

Yeah.

Go ahead and give me a stealth check if you would be so cool.

16.

You guys,

obviously moving with a large amount of horses, you are not making noise.

It is more choosing a route effectively.

You are picking places that you can travel through with these steeps, but you're not going to paths.

You are traveling at night and you are basically staying away from

vantage points, if that makes sense.

Like where you're like, okay, where would someone pick to see as much land as possible up on a high mountain?

How do we stay away from there?

It slows you way, way down, but

pre-dawn light you are you all you have managed to do is take the most circuitous and snakey route through

the roots of Mount Korhai, which is where you needed to be anyway, in order for your companions to find you.

Ahme and Ursulan

high over thick storm clouds, you begin to descend towards a patch of clouds that are a strange, dull red.

As you descend,

you alight on the mountaintop of Mount Korhai

As Firebringer lands on this mountaintop, you are sort of encased in fog.

You can see some scrubby little pines, the things that would grow on the top of a mountain.

So, like, they're a little bit far down, but this is mostly just rock and granite.

This old, old, ancient mountain, worn down over time and still the highest of its range.

As you descend carefully from Firebringer,

Firebringer goes,

surrounded by clouds on all sides.

I'm not gonna fly in this.

I don't wanna fly into a mountain and hurt myself.

I'll wait here.

Okay,

thank you so much.

I wanted to go home, finish your business quickly, and come back.

I think we all wanted to go home.

And I look at Ursulan a little bit, sheepishly.

Avoids your gaze, slides off of the rock.

Descending from the mountain, slowly and carefully,

Amate, you discover a marking of red ink on a tree.

I squint at the red mark.

Buttass.

Vandal.

Suvi's ink demon.

I follow the trail.

You follow the trail

and

you see

white horses in a clearing as a group of citadel wizards who have not yet seen you look at the dark pre-dawn forest.

Staffs outstretched.

You can just see little glimmers of magic, like their eyes do that thing that cats' eyes do, where they like catch a little bit of light in a strange way.

Their enchantments trying to help them see in the dark.

And you can see white horses, you know, like a pure white thing in the dark sometimes has that little bit of luminescence that you can just sort of see the shape of them, but they are well-trained, silent, huddled together.

And I think, Ursulan,

Ahmed, you can smell or somehow sense, and you see two figures in the small glade looking at a series of maps as Sworn and Suvi speak to one another about where they're going to head from here.

You should announce yourself.

Wizard Sky.

CV like wheels

and begins to cast

an Aerulean bolt.

And then all of that like, oh, you've pushed through a night and you're tired.

Like her brain registers, you called.

She came.

This is hopefully not a trick.

Homie?

We're here.

And I'm going to like hand signal to the group, like, chill out.

The moment that you announced yourself, said the Wizard Sky, all of them move to get half covered behind trees, drop to one knee, Stave's pointed.

We're here to assist our friend, The Wizard Sky.

Everyone,

this is Ame, the Witch of the World's Heart.

And Sufi gives just a little look to Ursulan before, like, just for a little little signal on how she would want him introduced.

Bear.

Sworn nods and says,

These allies of our commander are expected.

Wizard Skye, without giving insult or disrespect to a witch and an ally of yours, may we scan our new companions to assure they are who they say they are.

Suvi nods immediately and then looks at and Ursulan to see if there's any consternation.

Like, she knows this has to happen, so the energy is: do I need to make you two comfortable with what needs to happen?

You may ascertain my identity.

Yes, my companion speaks for himself.

I think Ursulan is just very still

and kind of unsure of what is about to happen, based on previous experiences.

Suvi's going to like gesticulate lightly with her hand, and she's muttering under her breath, and is going to send a message, Cantrip, to Ursulon specifically.

We've seen a lot, and it's been bad.

But you can say no at any point.

No one here

will hurt you.

I swear.

Does Ursulan respond?

No.

Sworn moves in with the Citadel Wizards.

You can see Sworn, looking tired, starts to call on his ring of Aerith, his Emerald Ring of the Citadel.

He actually is going to call up a third-level arcane site.

He's going to do a deep scan.

Ame,

he dwells on all of your magical items.

He says the sword and shield are enchanted.

Yes.

Looks through, looks at your belongings, Ah.

Do you have any magic gear on?

Oh, I mean, I have,

you know, the knocker and the bulb and my little

ring, the

little jeweler.

I have.

You see, yeah, he starts looking through, just asking, he's asking for like small explanations of what everything is.

He says, Sword and children enchanted?

Yes, okay.

He moves through, says,

honored friend.

Thank you for aiding us.

I'm here for the wizard sky.

Understood.

You see that

you see that that entire interaction scans to Sworn and the other wizards here is perfectly normal.

They know that spirits don't usually swear themselves to causes of the mortal world.

And normally it is a relationship to a wizard.

You see that they scan you.

One of the, you see, he looks at the fox, you see, and gets a bead on him and goes, problem.

Who's this?

He certainly is a problem.

This is my familiar, the fox.

The fox?

Hey.

Hi.

How you doing?

Doing okay.

It's

new forest.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How are you doing?

Ooh, terrible.

I'll tell you about it.

You see that he walks up to you and jumps into your arms.

Yeah.

Like, this is the most like, and there is a very strong sense of like, this is a display to make the rest of the group comfortable.

Yeah.

But she genuinely is happy.

He licks the blood off of your neck.

Oh.

Thanks.

Sworn looks at you and says, We need to.

We're still much too close to the perimeter, and it's about to be morning.

There's going to be higher visibility, and the cloud's going to rise as the sun comes up.

We should move.

Yeah.

You see that he looks at the Citadel Wizards and says,

About that time, Wizards of the Citadel.

And you see, they all reach to their rings, recast mage armor.

Subi does this in.

And you see that the

Azure Battalion warrior cannot cast that spell again and just sort of looks nervous.

Then I'm going to take another of my like spell slots off of my ring to give it to you.

As you give mage armor to this other, you see that she looks at you and goes, ah, thank you, Wizard Sky.

Of course.

And I pause.

What the fuck is this person's name?

You sworn leans over to you and says, That's

Corporal Lahoun.

Lahoun?

Lahown.

Sworn looks and says,

the beasts and plants of this place, given no other indication, will likely work for our enemies.

We are looking for a way to travel through these lands towards Abbasin, which is probably another

10, 15 hours away.

We'll probably arrive by nightfall tomorrow.

But Abyssin, our understanding is there.

Our hope is that there is a citadel garrison still there, but we are behind enemy lines.

If we have allies in Abyssin, they are surrounded.

Can you convince the forest to not aid our enemies?

Silver's there.

So, those are our aims to rescue Silver.

Those are our orders.

Ursula's gonna step forward and try and find the oldest tree nearest to them.

Give me a nature check.

You can do it with advantage.

Modified 20.

You

go and find this deep,

moist, mossy, wrinkled, black bark old oak tree that is sinking its roots deep into the mountainside.

None have spoken to me in some time.

Would you have me call you?

What is it you wish?

I travel with humans,

opposed to those who have maybe spoken to you and your kin.

And I would ask

that you help me in avoiding bringing more harm to this forest.

My aim is not to aid these humans in defeating their opponents, but in finding their friends,

and to do that without bringing more conflict

to you

and those who reside here.

Conflict.

Conflict, yes.

You speak with the voice of respect,

young spirit.

There is darkness here.

There are beasts, many and strange, that are not of our mountains.

I have felt the touch of wild things that have traveled far to be here.

I wish them no ill, but they are strangers to many.

Had you asked the birds, they would have betrayed you.

I would not trust the beast folk of this place.

They are spoken for, but

I know you to be a spirit true and free.

Stick to the high places up amongst the grey pine.

The birds that now serve those strangers in this land,

They do not nest there.

It is possible that they will see you nonetheless, but they will not be there in great number.

If you travel by those high places and stay amongst the grey pine, you will have the highest chance of not being seen, brother.

Thank you, Wolt Wallowroot.

I hope one day that your leaves are able to touch fresher air.

The trees shake, and all of you watch Ursula touching the tree as moss kind of grows around the edges of your hand to leave a warm handprint there in honor of the wish you have made.

Thank you for your wish, brother.

Travel safe, drink deep, be strong.

Ursulan will rejoin the group.

The trees say that the beasts of this land aid your enemies.

The birds, especially

he suggests we stick to the high places grey pines

the birds are in lesser number there

understood

sworn looks and says all right high places gray pines

we should move quickly if we can i i don't think we're terribly safe here but There's a ridge up at the top.

If we can get up there fast, we can hopefully get to the Grey Pine, but there'll be a small period where we're exposed if there's anything airborne, like an airship or anything else.

I'll give our group our best chance then when we hit the perimeter of where we would be exposed.

The secret of the Twilight Crown just requires casting a spell while I'm in bright, light, or darkness.

So I'm going to step forward

and just cast a cantrip, press a digitation that would almost give like a little burst of light and use that to swallow the emergent daylight in this area to call like that like dim crepuscular darkness into this area around me to try to give a little cover for the group to like move through an exposed space.

Awesome.

In that case, we're going to do a group stealth check and I'm going to say that

any

ones can be re-rolled with that little extra.

How big is that shadow, by the way?

Oh, not very.

Yeah.

Oh, wait, hold on.

A radius of 60 feet

around me.

I think 60 feet of darkness, we don't even need to roll about stealth, but it's about how fast you can get up this dangerous hillside before people start to notice that there is like a clinging shadow to it.

So what I'm going to need is a

pure sort of mount check, like a riding check.

So this is just going to be your uh animal handling so this is animal handling to get up the

may i use speak with animals and when i when i mount my horse and i uh

uh pet their sides and i say hello i am ame the witch of toma what may i call you

i am rohoon

rohoon Thank you so much for allowing me to ride you.

Everyone, all the soldiers watch as you're like making these little sort of like sweet cooing and clicking horse noises.

And you see that Sworn looks over to you, Skye, with but honestly, not even as like a eye rolling.

It's like, oh God, boss got the exact people here that we needed.

There is a look that like Skye will give back to Sworn, like, yeah,

yeah, man.

Yeah, Rahoan looks at you, and the other horses turn to look at you as well.

We follow orders as best we can.

We do not know why we are not on a road.

My friend, the wizard Skye, and the rest of the party, they are

trying to rescue a friend, a group of soldiers.

We ride to Abbasin.

Do they want us to go up this steep place?

Yes, they want us to go up the steep place, and we must do it quietly and very carefully, but swiftly as we can.

Oh, it is not easy to do something swiftly and carefully.

I know.

All right.

We will ride straight up as fast as we can.

And you see, they look like they're going to go up the dumb way.

They look like they're about to charge straight up the thing rather than cutting at a diagonal.

Sue feels her horse realigning and is going to give Ame a look like.

Yes,

swiftly but carefully, and in a way that is sustainable for a hard day's journey.

So perhaps more this way.

As you gesture and are able to verbally communicate to the horses horses where they're trying to run to they get up side by side and uh 60 feet radius yeah oh you're fine they can go in single file and all move like swiftly um so you call the shadows to you you communicate to the horses like ursalan has gotten the information from the forest about which path is safest and you charge up the ridge gallop

Very noisy, but you can tell this is almost the point of the night where

guards watching through the night would be at their most exhausted and maybe have dozed off.

You get up the ridge as fast as you can

and get to the safety of the gray pine.

As the sky lightens and moves from pitch black to dull red, the sun beating down on the top of these storm clouds, giving you only diffuse and ruddy light below.

You look, you've reached safety.

A path now unfolds.

You are simply a day's ride along this ridge amongst the gray pines to Abyssin.

Knowing that before you can reach Silver, whatever forces beset Silver will still be there.

You look back at the peak of Mount Korai.

The sun illuminates the peak in fog and mist.

Ursulan,

you can see the shape of Firebringer on top of the the mountain.

He's enormous.

He's a beast of legend.

And as the mist begins to recede, this massive shape on this mountain that marks the delineation of the lines of battle now holds this massive bird of prey.

From the southwest, a point of light appears in the sky.

and streaks across it.

A figure that is now miles away, almost too small to see, but so radiant that it cannot be believed, appears before Firebringer.

You see hanging in the air,

distant to the point that you cannot see a face, a robed figure brighter than the sun.

Raise a hand.

And for the first time in your life,

you see a sorcerer of the high houses of Gauthmine.

Raise a hand.

Firebringer stretches his wings, shrieks, is illuminated in light.

And then gone.

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

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

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