Pheylan petitions his deity, Larani, for a Sanctuary prayer to protect Farlont and Caledon.
While Kendervon does the same for Shaizan and Shameron, "Hey! Watch those hands!" The ranger exclaims. "It is just that I am a foot shorter than you and my eyes are not what they should be," Kendervon smirks.
The sun is still low in the east as the four adventurers make their way to the edge of the tree's canopy. The warm sun can be felt upon the back of the waiting party member's necks. The view from the camp is very good and clear. The searchers on the other hand must look back into bright morning light, making it difficult to see anything.
Not trusting the heathen, Caledon pairs up with Farlont and Shameron with Shaizan. The ranger and Savoryan reach the first position identified with no aerial attacks. They quickly drop to their knees and begin pulling weeds with their hands. Two humanoid skeletons are uncovered. Both appear to be wearing worn leather armor, weathered but otherwise in useable condition. Shaizan points out the items radiating a magical aura, a book and a bone scroll tube. They grab up the items and rush on to the last location.
As the two opposed priests rush to the second furthest spot of lush green grass Farlont says, "Damned priest! I had one of your prayers laid upon me by your faith and you don't see me running under a shield to protect myself. It would appear that I have greater faith in your goddess than you, a so-called worshipper of hers. Don't you find that funny?"
Caledon growls and lowers his shield. "YOU do NOT have MORE faith than I!!" He says with a glowering look, "I simply felt that there was no reason to take chances. AND keep your voice down."
"The damned freak of nature ain't got ears. I refuse to believe that it adapted with hearing as well.""I doubt it also. I just don't want to listen to your uncivilized tongue anymore. I am trying to concentrate on the job at hand."
As if hearing their conversation, the tree begins to bombard the priestly duo. Before any wounds are sustained, both priests complete Sanctuary-ish prayers for protection and the assault ends as quickly as it started.
"I guess She didn't approve of an enemy priest benefiting from her protection," Farlont laughs as he kneels and begins weeding also. "But I can live with that. Can you live with the fact that your prayer failed because you lacked faith." Farlont continues laughing, indeed, he has not enjoyed anything in the last few days nearly so much as this.
Caledon prays to locate the sources of magick, since barbarian tricks probably won't do an adequate job. The radiations appear to be coming from the backpack beneath a badly decomposed (digesting?) skeleton. The Laranian reaches through the pile of bones and grabs the entire pack and both priests head back for safety.
Meanwhile, Shameron prays for both herself and Shaizan at the final site. The psionicist determines that the only item of interest amid the rotting clothes and uninterred bits of bone is a palm-sized, egg-shaped granite rock.
With everyone back at the campsite, the egg, the book, the bone scroll tube (containing 1 scroll), and a packpack (containing rotting food stuffs, 2 bright red potion vials, a vial of dried ink, and 4 iron spikes) are placed in a pile for examination.
Shaizan
"Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" I say.
I pick up my pack and kneel down before the pile. I examine everything especially the potions. [Do I see any labels on the potions or the ink? What do they say?]
I pick up the egg and look at it. I weigh it with my hands to see if it is as heavy as one would expect such a rock to be, and shake it and knock on it. [If nothing seems amiss] I say, "Looks like we have a rock here. With a spell on it. Anyone have any idea what sort of spell it is? Could be dangerous to carry around. I suggest we take it, though -- it's probably not bad magic. The last guy to be carrying it probably knew what he was doing, and we know already that it's not any kind of protection from acid! I'll carry it."
[Hope it's not some bad guy's homing beacon.]
Nothing has labels on them [wishful thinking].
Nothing immediately obvious happens with Shaizan holds the egg.
Shaizan
I'll take the vials, the scroll tube, the ink, the book,
and the iron spikes. I'll dump the food out of the pack and wrap up all of my
potions inside of it, then place it in my pack, with the book closest to my back
so the stuff doesn't poke me. Noting that the book was almost definetly owned
by a Zun, along our way I'll offer the book to Farlont and see if he can make
any sense of it.
As we prepare to get underway, I want to let everybody know one of my deductions, "We will probably not be seeing another tree like that. The Zun live out here, and would likely know about trees like that, and wouldn't camp by them. Kind of in the same way that no human would be ignorant enough to make a bed out of poison ivy."
"Let's hurry up and get going! The day is wasting!" I walk with darting and alert glances about myself, finally beginning to enjoy the wilderness (and all of its surprises).
Shameron
Shameron examines the items before her and casts Detect
Poison to see if any of the vials are poisonous. "ay I see the scroll?"
[Can I read it?]
Farlont
I go retrieve my blood-caked spike war club from the brave and
dangerous warrior Jenzig, Kiranyan. But before I can accept my club back, I must
wipe a laughter caused tear from my eye. I mumble something about "No faith!"
"Thanks Kiranyan! I felt much safer knowing you were lurking in the background just waiting to nuke something." Still chuckling, "It just warms my heart." [hehe]
Before Shaizan puts the items away, I glance at them. "eah, the book and the scroll are Zun items. The scroll seems to be some kind of shopping list." I shrug. "Maybe he got lost on his way to the bazaar." [chuckle]
"I'm not gonna have anything to do with that book. Zurlag-craft is not to be trifled with. There are tales of them trapping their tomes, to teach thieves a lesson they will never forget." I scratch my head. A bug drops to the ground and scurries away. "I seem to remember this one human got tagged with a nasty curse. He smelled extremely tasty to all creatures over 200 pounds. The smell was very subtle, but sneaky. That Zurlag did us proud, I love Zun-enginuity."