Frontier Pathfinding - Sunday, November 24th, 2019

Leve got the leeches all trussed together so he could drag them along while Izelda got the mules rounded up again. As they started moving, Izelda noticed how much Leve was struggling with the load of leaches, so she took the rope to drag them along. Leve looked around as they resumed moving and commented that he thought they were heading too far east and would pass too far from the ruins to know when to cut back. They discussed their route for a bit, but decided to err on the side of being too far east rather than come right on the ruins and be spotted or come between the ruins and the town.

Eventually, as they started to get onto more dry land, Izelda spotted the ruin of a tower silhouetted on the southwest horizon. After some discussion, they decided it was probably part of the ruin of the temple (Leve hadn't seen or heard about any other ruins in the area). They also decided that if there were anyone watching from the upper reaches of the tower ruins, the party's torches were probably already spotted. Rather than further risk observation and the complications that would come with that, they decided to make camp for the night here instead of heading further to the southeast past the ruins where they had agreed to meet with Deserea.

As they set up camp, Izelda found a ground squirrel and asked it how to find the local fey. "There's no good fey around here. You don't want any of these fey. They are all mean," the squirrel told her. "If you want to find nice fey, go that way for a day," the squirrel indicated back the way the party had come. "But then there's no nuts to eat."

Leve took the leeches off past the edge of camp and gutted them, but didn't find anything of value or interest.

---

Deserea felt uneasy the closer she got to the ruins of the wall around the temple. She was able to locate the plant that Leve had talked about. By walking up and down the road (or what was left of the road), she was able to find the furthest extent of the growth of this plant. Curious as to the abilities of the plant, she grabbed a hold of one of the branches and tugged. The plant definitely pulled back against her, but her hand was also immediately inflamed from some kind of toxin. At the same time, a tendril along the ground slithered out and tripped her. She crawled backwards away from it and it lashed at her but missed. As she backed off, she pulled an oil flask out of her pack and drew a taper and lit it. Once it was lit, she chucked the oil toward the bushes off the side of the road, but just broke it on a rock. The plant backed away from the fire, but the fire didn't last one without any additional fuel - and with everything being damp.

Deserea lit another flask and was able to toss this one into the bushes. There didn't seem to be any significant thrashing around or other reaction. After a few minutes, this fire also died out.

She headed around the south perimeter of the bushes, making her own way through the scrub oak that was growing fairly densely everywhere here. Once she got east of the ruins, she put on her gloves and found another branch of the thorny plant. The plant didn't seem to react to her immediately, indicating to her that it was not the same plant she had grabbed and then tried to burn on the other side of the complex. However, when she grabbed this one with her gloved hand, it did react and flailed against her repeatedly. It hit her a couple times, and the sting from the toxin was much worse than the minor cut it provided. She was able to get a solid blow against one of its root tendrils and kick that away from the plant as she moved off.

She gathered the root into a blanket and tied it up securely, then put it into her pack and headed off toward where she was expecting to meet the rest of the group. The plant did not appear to pursue.

---

The group left the mules at their camp site in the morning and headed south in the daylight when they could better see where they were going. They found Deserea standing in a clearing with her back to the ruin in the distance, staring at a stick on a blanket, with her sword drawn.

"So, how do we get in?" Locke asked.

Avoiding the question, Deserea explained what she had found about the bushes, from the fact that they moved, but apparently slowly, to the fact that they seemed to only be out about 100' from the perimeter of the ruin. She also let them know that the road did go into the ruin, and the main building in the ruin looked relatively intact and was maybe another hundred yards beyond the wall (or the remains of the wall).

Even though the bushes didn't do a lot of damage at any one time, the toxin they had was harmful and having to cover 400' or more through thick brush and on uneven ground, and possibly over unseen obstacles and holes, those bushes could do a lot of damage.

As time crept on past noon, they found a clearing just outside the reach of the attack vines and Izelda cast Eagle Eye and looked from above.

As soon as she looked through the eye, she saw several wild boars heading straight for the party. She called out to he colleagues and stepped back toward the potentially dangerous plants. The pigs were coming from the other direction.

Schmidt moved forward and drew his claymore, simultaneously sending Biff back with Izelda. Leve stepped up next to Locke and, drawing his crossbow, compelled hostility in the boars so if one were to attack someone adjacent to him, he would take the attack instead. Izelda braced her spear against an impending charge from a boar. The pigs moved up to the edge of the scrub. Deserea cast sleep on the two nearest her, dropping them. Locke held back waiting to see what the boars would do and where they were coming out of the brush.

Schmidt readied a shot for the first pig he saw. Leve cast virtue to give himself a slight advantage. Izelda continued to brace. The first of the pigs burst through the brush and Schmidt fired, hitting one. Deserea hit one with her sword, and Locke stepped forward and power attacked the boar nearest him.

Schmidt moved over and hit the boar he already shot again. Leve stepped up next to Locke and hit the boar Locke had hit, killing it. Izelda moved up to flank a boar with Schmidt, but missed her attack. Biff ran up with Izelda and missed his attack as well. The pig with foes on three sides attacked Biff, but missed. However, a boar running up behind Izelda hit her. Deserea stepped up and hit the boar that just tried to gore Izelda. Locke moved forward and hit the pig Deserea just attacked, killing it.

Schmidt killed the last of the active boars, then stepped into the brush with Locke and Leve to dispatch the two that Deserea had put to sleep.

Izelda switched back to here Eagle Eye as Deserea tried to heal her. Izelda could see that the central building was quite large, and did appear to be intact, and that there was some kind of orchard to the north of that which the scrub brush that was everywhere else didn't seem to penetrate. There were a few other ruined buildings in the complex, as well as the tower in the northeast corner. The road that came in through the middle of the south wall curved around back to the west after a path broke off that came to the front steps of the main building. But the road went over to the ruins of the west wall and just ended.

The top of the steps to the main building wrapped around the front of the building, at least 100' wide, and there was a large, clear, paved area between those stairs and the doors. There were also some birds that seemed to stay on top of the ruins of the tower in the northeast corner. After some observation, Izelda confirmed they were ravens.

As they butchered the pigs, they discussed what Izelda had seen and decided that they would fly in. Izelda could become a bird and take them in one at a time and drop them off in the upper part of the tower. The biggest issue with this was that she couldn't carry Leve and all his gear or Locke and all his gear in one trip, so they would have to be transported separately from their equipment. They decided that they should head in the next night at midnight, after giving Izelda time to recover spells and Deserea time to recover from the vine's poison. Deserea pointed out that this would give her time to smoke some of the meat so it wouldn't all go to waste.

As night came on, Izelda took to the sky again, this time as a bird herself. She made a couple passes over the ruin and wasn't attacked. If she got anywhere near the tower, the raven's cawed loudly at her, but didn't attack. She confirmed what she had seen through the spell, but from this vantage point was able to see two narrow windows in the tower on either side of a door that faced into the ruin, and only one facing outward. There were also windows down the east and west walls of the main building, and, in addition to the main doors facing south, there were also double doors from the level of the main landing to the east and west. It then occurred to her to detect magic, and that revealed that the top of the tower was ensorceled with an illusion, and that there was some kind of warding on the main doors to the building.

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