Climbing a mountain can be tricky

General Summary

Now that his crazy wise man is dead, the tribune seems much more willing to listen to us. We headed back to his command tent and exchanged information. We told him all about what we’d seen recently, how the orcs we’d traveled with weren’t actively attacking the humans. How the orcs had recently gotten an item of power that was being used as a rallying point for all of the orcish tribes. How the undead were gathering and preparing to cause more problems “Some of that is different from what we’d learned,” the tribune said slowly, “The leader of the orcs is called Garthas, a minor religious figure until he got the Dark One’s Blade. Each day, he comes down from the peak with new orders for the day.” “Excuse me,” I said, “How common is it for ravens to gather here?” The tribune glanced up, “It’s a battlefield, there’s always crows.” “Good enough, we’ve had crows acting as spies recently, so I wanted to be sure.” “Hey Raven,” Lili said, “what’s up?” “Lots of food coming says the mother.” “Isn’t the Raven Queen associated with the Ghoulish Empire?” I asked Cap. “I’m not sure,” he answered. I looked back up at the crow, and it winked at me and then flew away. “I apologize,” I said, “You were saying he comes down with orders?” “Yes and he’s been turning their human captives into orcs with that accursed blade he’s gotten,” I glanced over at the others, that was new information. “As our men grow smaller, his armies swell with the newly turned orcs. I can’t tell if they kept any of their old loyalties, but they make great cannon fodder to throw at us.” A messenger hurried up to the tent, “Sir!” he said, saluting. “There’s been a raid on our fort and people were taken.” Tribune Giovanni acknowledged the man and turned to us. “The time for discussion is done. I need to deal with this mess.” He turned to his centurions, “Break it down, we leave as soon as possible.” The centurion hurried out and we saw the palisade disassembled within minutes and prepared for travel. “Sir,” Lili said, “If it would help, I can summon a large mist in the area to hide your movements, but it would also have the disadvantage of hiding the orcs movements from you.” “Do it,” he replied tersely. Lili set about shaking her stick and communing with it as we all headed out. Lili kept hte mist going for most of the day, we heard fighting up ahead, a minor skirmish, and after most of a day marching, we set up a new palisade and camped for the night. “Tribune,” the soldier said running up to us, “There is a large band of orcs in front and behind the legion, and they’ve set up a skirmish line on the other side to discourage our crossing the river.” Tribune Giovanni’s face paled as he took in that news. “We cannot reinforce as requested, but we will take out as many as we can.” “May I make a recommendation?” Cap said. “If you could get your soldiers to the other side of the river, would you stand a better chance?” “Of course, but there’s no way we could do that. It would be shooting fish in a barrel if I tried that with my men.” “If Lili will start a fog again, then I believe Addy and I can part the waters for you to cross on, and you could cross and attack that skirmish line.” His eyes lit up with hope, “Make it so,” and he turned to the centurions. “Order the palisades manned with a minimum of soldiers, and we’ll move out in the mist, leave as much as you can. We travel light.” I was surprised at how easily the plan worked. Cap and I worked together to control the water and allow the legion to cross the stream, and Lili renewed the dissipating mist, and we all crossed with relatively little trouble. “This is where we leave you, Tribune,” Lili said, “We need to go in and get that blade from Gorthas before he makes it much worse.” “Travel well,” he turned from us and relayed more orders quietly and they departed as quietly as a small army can do.

TRAVELING TO KAYLUM’S PEAK

“There are ravens watching us,” Milli pointed as we snuck away. “Can you guys sneak more quietly?” I roll my eyes and shift into coyote form. I walk for a bit, but behind me, Lili is stepping on EVERY SINGLE TWIG! “You’re noisy,” I said in coyote. That speaks to animals spell really is convenient. “No, I’m not,” she responded, “Why do you say that?” “You’re stepping on every twig we pass,” I answered. It took a while, but she finally figured out how to sneak. Cap, of course, was never good at that but did take off his armor, which helped immeasurably. We reached the next stream and after a hurried whispered conversation we decided for me to cast water breathing on everyone, but before I can, Cap just walks across the bottom of the stream. “What?” I sputtered, “How?” “I do be one with the sea,” Cap answered. “But, that’s not the sea,” I protested, “That’s a stream. There’s no salt in that water.” Cap just blinked at me and continued walking on the bottom of the stream. “I do have a plan,” Cap said. “I’ll cast disguise self on me to look like an orc, and then Addie can transform into a worg and I can ride her. We’ll tie up the others and they can be my prisoners.” That seems like the best plan we’re likely to get, so we “tie” up Milli, Lili, and Thor and go through the camp. As we travel, the camp is much less crowded than I would have expected. At the base of Kaylum’s Peak, we see a crude platform with four orcs in impressive armor guarding it. The armor looks old and has a black handprint on it. We pass by them and continue around the base of the mountain until we find an alcove and I shift out of worg and we try our best to plan. “I do not be seein another way up the mountain than that path by the platform, how abou’ ye?” Cap asked. We all murmured agreement. “We can’t go back to the path, because that will raise their suspicions, and fighting our way up the hill is a horrible plan,” Thor said. “How about climbing up?” I asked. “How? It’s not like we’re all that agile a group,” Lili said. “Well, you could float up with your floating spell, and I could climb up as a gecko, then pull you over to a ledge and you could tie off the rope for people to climb up to that ledge, and we could just repeat it until we get up to the top,” I answered. That is what we did. Part of the way up we encountered the path and decided that would be a much faster way to travel, and carefully climb up the path. “I think this was extruded out of the ground, it’s not a natural landing or building,” Lili said. “Mates,” Cap said with chagrin, “I do believe this be holy to somethin’ other than the Creator, and me spells do not work here.” I look up and silently point out the raven circling the building above us and not landing and another circling us. “That doesn’t bode well,” I whispered.

Report Date

21 Dec 2021