Tag Archives: Plans

Frostbite Keep Seen

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The group has passed around the guard post a while back. Tonight they are going to camp before arriving at Frostbite keep tomorrow. The group is a couple hours from their camp for the night. Alexis addresses the group.

“Before we go in, Red and myself will get the blessings of greater insights of the college of Raiden. This will boost the two of us for half the day. And to keep more in reserve, I figure we won’t pass tracelessly or detect who might be scrying on us.”

“I’ve been thinking about what we’re going to do in the keep. As the holder of the Tear, I’m going to be the target for cunning opponent. For this reason we should shift who gets more protection. My bare thoughts: Gus shields myself and Red. And I stand right next to Gus so I can heal him if he gets too low.”

“I’m a little torn about who gets your Bothers in Arms, Carm. But as the holder of the Tear, I think I should have this extra protection.”

“Gus, I might call on you for talking to any animals in the keep to get more information.”

“Red, you’ve been keeping a ether-form spell for yourself. You might need to make a quick getaway with as many Tears as you can carry.”

Alexis keeps discussing with the group about who they might find in the keep. The possibility of Sheyeeni, Thraan, or anyone else they’ve encountered along the way. Alexis reminds the group of the other tools they have, including Old Sava stones and Gustav’s arrow with the lightning bolt.

Alexis asks what else they might have missed in the conversation up to this point.

Planning in the Mountains: 200 Miles to Go

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The group settles down to camp in the rib cage of the giant, Alexis looks at Gustav. He adjusts the whip at his hip.

“Gus. I want twenty arrows on you before we go into the pass. And we still need to refill myself and Rask who’ve donated you arrows.”

He shrugs slightly. “Shafts and fletching we can make anywhere. Good heads we can’t. Stone won’t punch through armor. Red and I talked about shaving down coins for arrowheads. Not ideal, but better than stone against chainmail.”

He looks north, then back at the group.

“Sixty-five miles behind us. Call it a hundred and eighty-five ahead, fifteen days if the weather lets us, and it won’t. We lost a day to one storm and there’ll be more.”

He looks at Gustav, then at Ca’armine.

“The two of you made us a powerful grove of Raiden outside Nodden-Torr. I’d like that again coming up. Twice if we can manage it. Food is already scarce and it’s only going to get worse up here. The extra time buys us arrows, keeps us safe from the storms, Red might get his shield finished, we make progress on cleaning the Tear and the crystal ball, and we learn a little more about what’s ahead before we walk into it.”

He looks expectantly between the two of them.

Here is a Big Deal

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Alexis falls into step beside Ethelred and Ca’armine as they leave the statue and pillar.

“The pillar.” He nods back the way they came.

“The Dragon could deal in chronomancy. The Spider was a master of the ring and could see possible futures. Between the two of them they knew the empire was ending.” He glances at the road ahead. “I have a theory they decided where to create a reliquary to best help humanity survive the trials back then and into the future.”

He looks at the landscape around them.

“They picked this corner of the empire. Gave the Tears to the dwarves, because a hundred and sixty years is nothing to a dwarf. They’d still be holding them when humanity found its way back.”

He shrugs once.

“I have a hunch this place didn’t survive by chance. It was chosen.”

They keep walking together.

Which Dark Power Is Trying to Rise?

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A few nights into the camp east of Nodden-Torr, as the group sits down to eat togehther.

“The Made feed on a wound. That is what makes the dead god weep. And the wound gets poisoned. Every day, with blood.”

“Drayek is the god of poison.”

Alexis’ hand grazes against the shield of Raiden that hangs at his neck..

“Drayek’s whose cult put its name to a pact with Shasharak, on that wall out in the Westlands. The terms can’t be read, but it’s clear someone was owed something.”

Alexis pauses, sitting with this. He’s been thinking about these things, but is still thinking.

“As I see it: three ways to read what Bandesingh is doing.”

“One. He raises Ath, and brings darkness on the world by bringing back the god of betrayal.”

“Two. He raises Shasharak and Ath was supposed to be the cost paid. When I gave Vorgoth the name Bandesingh, he answered that Shasharak has found another road. Perhaps this is a coincidence. But we know that Dauntless contained a piece of Ath, and Dauntless was created to battle blood magic. This is leading me to wonder if Ath is actually the god of treachery. Ath being the father of Drayek, feels like it plays into what’s going on, but I’m not sure how.”

“Three. Something else, but my gut says no.”

“Raiden and Avv want us to stop whatever darkness Bandesingh is trying to unleash on us all. We’ll be better prepared if we know what exactly Bandesingh is attempting.”

Alexis looks around the group to see if anyone else has anything to add.

Pre-Departure Checklist

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The last morning at the camp, before anything comes down. Alexis has his notebook open on one knee and waits until the four of them are close enough that he doesn’t have to raise his voice.

“I’ve made a list. Two halves. The first half is things I need from you.”

He turns the notebook around long enough for them to see there’s a full page of it, then turns it back.

“The three of you. I’ve watched Rask these last weeks and I know what I’m getting. Gus, Carm, Red, I want the same from each of you before we walk. What advancements in your specialties?”

“The shield. We start at the knight’s cairn. Rask’s old shield is the other way to solve this, although it went with the horses, which is its own problem and further down the page.”

“Red’s armor. Rebuilt, replace, or we just move on with a more free-moving Red?.” Alexis moves on, but with a clear expectation that Ethelred will let him know.

“Food. Gus. Going north. How many days around for us to get from here to a place where we can easily get more food? How long do you need to get us the food we need?”

“The nature of Frostpass is an unknown in this when. I’ll put the ring to it after this to assess this.”

Alexis turns the page over.

“That’s what I need. The rest is what I want to know, and it’s in the order we’ll walk past it.”

“The tree that put me to sleep. I want to know if it’s still there, and whether it still has the same nature it had in our other time.”

“The undead knight and his horse. This relates to Red’s need for a shield, but I’m also curious to know the reality of this knight in our new when.”

“The Monastery site. An hour on the ‘old’ site. Notes, not digging.”

“When we are. The garden is less than a day past it, and further from Frostpass. We can look at Red’s bomba tree and see how tall it’s got. Carm, if a prayer gets us the same answer faster, I’m open to that.”

“The horses. Everything we didn’t carry in was on them, and we left them in the ‘old’ place. Rask’s shield. The glaive. So: are they here at all? If they are, then the road we took to Nodden-Torr got walked in this world too, and most of what happened to us happened. If there were never any horses, we’re standing somewhere I understand a lot less than I thought this morning.”

“Felsby. We’ve never been, but there’s a lot there.” He counts it off on his fingers. “Ingvar founded it. Bandesingh raided the town to end Torr’s line, because the sword had been Torr’s grandfather’s. Torr-van mended Dauntless there after the place had already fallen. There were gnolls under it digging for that sword, and when Bandesingh learned it was out of his reach he spent them on his working.” Alexis gives a shrug and a nod off to the side. “That’s a great deal of Bandesingh in one town.”

Alexis closes the notebook on his finger and looks between them.

“Anything to add?”

A Dungeon With A Theme

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As the Crimson Calling crests the stairs and takes in the fire lake, Alexis pauses. He tilts his hat back and wipes his forehead.

“When we first got here, Red said the griffin ‘room’ had a sense of air about it.” He gestures back down the stairs. “Mist. Bare ground. We’d felt air magic before, so it tracked.” Another gesture downward. “Then the next level. All that vegetation. Earth.” He looks out over the fire lake. “And now this.”

The Making of the Fire Room Plan

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After the group has retreated from the eruption of the fire bats from the fire lake, Alexis sits with the Crimson Calling on the steps between the two levels. He adjusts his whip.

“Good. Now we know what’s in the fire.” He looks at Rask, Gustav, and Ca’armine. “First, the bats. Then we try talking to the giant again.” A slight pause. “He must be desperate for conversation by now. Desperate might work in our favor.”

He glances up toward where the giant would be.

“How long does he think he’s been here?”

He lets that sit for a moment, then continues.

“If talking doesn’t work, we have options. That unnatural forest below, we can harvest from it. We could build a ballista again.” He waves a hand slightly. “Long shot.” Alexis looks at Ethelred “But maybe you can find something in that idea worth working with.” He looks at Ca’armine. “Raiden can reach him too. The determined wall of the north, your bolts. That right?”

“If it comes to it, we hit him from range, keep him from throwing those boulders, rest, come back the next day. Repeat. Not my preference, but it works.” A beat. “We might need more food if we’re doing this over days. Gus, you have options. Rask, Carm, you two as well?”

He looks at Gustav, Ethelred, then Rask.

“Any of you have anything that reaches at this range?”

Alexis takes a moment and looks at all his comrades. “But that’s just where I’m starting. Any other ideas? Rushing to the stairs? Blinding the giant somehow if we need to? Something else?”

When the Plans Make Contact With the Enemy

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After the group has left the room where four of the group had to deal with their doubles. Ca’armine addresses Alexis. Alexis is clearly emotionally wrapped up with both watching himself die and losing the possibility of having two Alexis’ to plumb the secrets of the universe.

“Boss, in that room, remember that we had a plan.” Alexis nods, and Ca’armine continues. “And I would be such a disloyal team member if I didn’t keep reminding you that you had a plan and we needed to follow the plan and I’m going to keep doing that. Changing the plan in the middle is not—”

“We changed the plan in the middle, in the bead room, because there was an opportunity there. And Red followed through on that opportunity.” Red agrees with Alexis as he says this.

“There is no universe in which both of those Alexis’ could have survived.”

Alexis and Ethelred enthusiastically agree, with Ethelred adding, “but they might have been able to fold them back into one.”

“They did by walking through the door.”

Alexis and Red both disagree, and Alexis adds, with just enough self-awareness to take the edge off, “But five minutes could have gained so much for the world.”

“From studying that trap?!” Rask stares at him.

“Yes,” Alexis and Ethelred exclaim together, with Ethelred adding, “It was a working much like the other workings we’ve discovered.”

“Sleep on this, but think about how dangerous that could end up being.”

Alexis looks at Red, then back at Rask. “We’ve thought about it.”

After a second Alexis turns back to Ca’armine “A plan is where you start, Carm. But when something changes on the ground, that’s a conversation you bring to me. Not a reason to hold the line by yourself.”

Brewers, Light Your Burners

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A week into their time in the hills east of Nodden-Torr, the group gathers for a meal. Some look sharp, invigorated. Others are worn down. Alexis pulls his hat off, sets it beside him, and leans forward on his elbows looking at Gustav and Ethelred.

“Follow-up to what I said before. We should brew potions before heading back in.” He glances at Gustav. “Takes you more effort, Gus, but brewing’s still quick work.”

He shifts his boots under him, turning to address both Ethelred and Gustav jointly again.

“Let’s inventory what we’ve got for vessels. Flasks, vials, jars we can reuse. We’ve got Hadonis’ evil stuff, and I still have that resistance vial from the Emoi mage.” He pulls the vial out, turns it in his fingers and the Collegium ring catching firelight as he does. “These need thorough cleaning. Any trace of Hadonis’ god or the Emoi has to go. I can handle that. Just get me fresh moss.”

“The vessels for Hadonis’ oils and perfumes, the mundane stuff, we can be less careful with. But still clean.”

He looks between them. “Two questions. What other containers do we have? And what can you make that’ll actually help us down there?”

Rask and Alikimo Talk

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A night or two after leaving Gahnil for the second time, and after talking with Alexis: Rask starts tending to the horses as the group settles in at camp, he catches Alikimo’s attention, and starts to talk to him. Rask is earnest, if a bit awkward. After all, he is a soldier, not a diplomat..

“Alikimo, you have shown your trustworthiness and you have accepted my apology, I am deeply grateful and I will always regret not being able to keep your confidences.”

“I do feel the need to clarify that this is my horse,” Rask gestures to the steed he bargained for at the First Gate, “and that neither Alexis nor I intended to give it to you outright. More like as if you were our heirs. I apologize for the confusion and would like to do what I can to help you acquire your own horse soon.”

Rask pauses for a brief moment. Before the young Aatori can speak, he resumes:

“In any case, I find myself wondering what you are thinking about doing next. I know you said you had family to the North…We are on a very dangerous mission, but Alexis has said that you are welcome to travel with us for as long as you would like, and as I have said, I will do my utmost to protect you… I don’t think we can take you family with is on our mission thought…””What plans are you considering Alikimo? We are focused on our mission, but I will aid you as we can while we travel together. Perhaps we can help you sharpen a skill or two, trade rumors and stories of interest, if you would share what you know about horses with me for example, I would be happy to teach you… a skill you are interested in improving… but it be helpful to know what you thinking…”

Rask fades out a little and continues to brush the horses, waiting for the Aatori’s response.