Bright Feather turns to Hana...Would you like to help me investigate for magic or something more? Come with me and shout out if I lose myself, I need to know if it's just the land or something Karni is blind to despite her Goddess, also small one, attend me now...if you see any...uncommon religious symbols yell out, but for now we wait until our friend is done with her ritual. Haste is dangerous in unknown situations.

"Yes!" Hanalee says gladly, eager to have a task. "Much like my crossbow bolts, I'm a pretty sharp implement, but I'm at my best when I'm aimed with purpose." She pays attention to Bright Feather's behavior, looks where she looks, and examines what she examines.

Quote from: Mr. Kent;786825"The quiet...makes me uneasy," she admits softly, and stands still as she watches the cleric's spell settle down.

"Me too." Karni says to Hanalee as she walks amongst the fresh graves.

"S'part of why I was drawn to that group chant back at the village," Hanalee confesses to Karni as she steps among tombstones. "I didn't mean to abandon you with the sick girl. Also, I was feelin' a little woozy myself..."

She gently rolls a smooth rock over and kicks it away. "Wonder where the boys went?"

Quote from: Mr. Kent;786848"S'part of why I was drawn to that group chant back at the village," Hanalee confesses to Karni as she steps among tombstones. "I didn't mean to abandon you with the sick girl. Also, I was feelin' a little woozy myself..."

She gently rolls a smooth rock over and kicks it away. "Wonder where the boys went?"

"That all made uneasy back there too." Looking around some more. "Weren't the guys over that way?" Pointing in a random direction she thought Caden went, then shrugs.

"I don't like the others being left behind. Let's head back. I watched the den for a while without any movement to speak of."

If Caden agrees we will head back to the Graveyard.

Caden nods his assent to Alric. "Yeah best to be heading back to the others."

OOC: Sorry, weekend. Hope you all had fun, too.

I suspect Karnath is taking 10 minutes to do a Detect Magic ritual to save a Spell Slot?

New Graveyard, by Downtown

11:45 AM

Hanalee & Bright Feather

Karnath prepares a circle of corn meal upon an empty intersection between the rows and columns of graves. Not feeling comfortable standing upon graves yourself either, both of you take a flank to make sure nothing physical immediately interrupts her. There's no one here, but at the very least you three can seem like mourners paying their respects if anyone came by.

Karnath repeatedly twists her prayer wheel so that its light drumming becomes a droning staccato. She stares off into space while simultaneously drawing serpentine glyphs of cornmeal lines. Midway through the ritual, after finishing the lines, she throws her head back, eyes rolled up behind her head, speaking in a forkéd tongue a flurry of fricatives, side-hisses, and alveolar explosions of the kind you'd imagine of a talking snake.

What an unnerving location to first witness this! Mercifully, Bright Feather, you recognize this is still all part of the Arcana process and soothes Hanalee before she becomes any more alarmed. How alien each of our esoteric traditions must be to the foreign, let alone the mere un-initiated.
(Bright Feather passively knows enough Arcana that this is still the ritual. She Helps Hanalee to automatically save v. being Frightened from this scene.)

Hanalee - {There she goes babying me again as if I cannot recognize anything myself... What process is this, all an effort in trying to scare me and make me look like the fool? Should mess with the corn meal lines just to show I'm no one's inside joke. Their friendship is such a mean girls clique...}

Bright Feather - {Crude brute force method to appeal to the Creator's intercessors. How... unrefined, and expected... for a human. At least Hanalee isn't screaming yet, though probably is inside like some ignorant child. Such little knowledge of the world beyond the physical, why should she be privy to this mysterious scene -- rudimentary as Karnath's ritual is -- with so little grasp? She's suffered nothing to warrant being a witness here...}
--------------

Karnath

Lost within ritual for 10 minutes you arrive just outside it and cast Detect Magic. Your eyes roll down to a reality suffused in auric refraction, like squinting through eyelashes the blinding midday light of the sun. By the radiance affecting the tint of your view of the sky, already you can tell you are all in immediate danger; the atmosphere about you is a violent, swirling rainbow, like on a bubble.

That still does not prepare you for the sheer, suspended snow of orbs around you. Mote auras surround you as you turn your head about in utter awe. Aghast, you note two alit upon Hanalee's & Bright Feathers' head, and for each a second passes by where you see a different person behind their eyes.

Unlike the monstrous aura filling your sky, whose qualities seem to comprise several schools of magic at least, these orbs are necromantic in nature. And worse, they seem to respond upon your visual focus, as if aware that you are now aware. Most take flight immediately into the earth, dipping out of your auric sight often between 1' to 3' feet below the surface. Some float towards or alight upon you three as if in an act of defiance.

{voice in your head} "Hey there, girlie! Lookie who can see what I see. Wanna help a pal out? Just need to borrow you for only a moment, whaddya say..."

Forgotten Mine/Den Terrace, a ways distant and below the Downtown New Graveyard

11:45 AM

Alric

You two get ready, packing up to do something that feels more productive. Mal is remarkably well behaved through this process. Such a warm day, putting away all this stuff, and a shame as it was such a quality blind.
-----------

Caden

Good, ready to go. There's too much going on to just focus on some slow mystery here. And a little more and you'd slip into that nice warm, sinking feeling. Thank goodness that blind is being torn down and abandoned, too; he'd have gotten himself killed for sure in that flimsy camouflage.
------------

Alric & Caden

Off you two go, up mountain towards the New Graveyard and eventually the Main Trail.

/Alric whistles for Mal to follow

...

/whistles again

"Mal?"

So still & obedient? "Mal! Here!"

"Mal!" running to his side.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! He's not moving! Nudging him, he's stiff. Nudge him hard and he tips over as if a statue. His eyes are all glassy and staring out in terror, there's frothy spittle upon the edge of his muzzle. Checking his breath and pulse he lives, but he's tense like stone! What the...?!

"MAL . . .MAL " Alric shakes him violently. " Caden get the Girls. NOW!" Alric shouts.

Start checking him over for snake bites, then looking around to see what caused this.

OOC - Investigation rolled in room 18 / Perception rolled 14
And attacking a man's dog "tsk .. Tsk <> bad GM"  

"On it" Caden shouts back, already sprinting to find the girls.

Caden will run full out (if he's able that is) until he reaches them and explains the situation.

Rolled a 20 in room in case any checks are needed.

"No!" Karni shouts as she resists the voice. "We are all in immediate danger! There are forces here necromantic in nature!"

"And what--you think the weak little girl is going to run back to town terrified?" Hanalee spits back at both of the other women. "Well guess again! I'm NOT scared, and you two can try all you like, but I'm not leaving this graveyard!"

Even as she says this, Hanalee momentarily suspects it is all wrong...like she's speaking someone else's words...

NO! Screw that! These girls are trying to edge her out! Let them have it!

Quote from: dragoner;787091"No!" Karni shouts as she resists the voice. "We are all in immediate danger! There are forces here necromantic in nature!"

Bright Feather asks..what did you see? Can you describe it?..looking around warily.

Quote from: Marleycat;787139Bright Feather asks..what did you see? Can you describe it?..looking around warily.

"A maelstrom of color, and a snowstorm of glowing orbs, like spirits immaterial. I have an evil feeling about this. Much magic. Several schools." She tells Bright Feather. Then turning to Hanalee, "You have to fight it off!"