Taking the spy glass Thelia looked and frowned. "What the hells..... Ive been horny but not enough to risk freezing to death over." Shaking her head she put the glass away. "Come on we need to get closer if we want a chance to ambush them." Heading out Thelia kept them to the trees hiding their approach. It wouldn't take long to get into a rough position under the tall pines. At lest here the snow was not as deep having only gotten a light dusting thanks to the tall canopy. It was strange to see trees with only the tops covered in the green needles. Still as they waited for Aya to get into position to cause her distraction they had some time to either enhance their plan or talk a bit.
When the two reached their new position she elaborated while they waited for Aya's signal. "During my nightmare last night, I dreamed I was the ice witch, a malevolent spirit that I believe seeks energy from living, at least the ones with penises, and froze that man to death. She is certainly stalking these woods."
After consideration, Sara wasn't sure Thelia knew about her style of fighting so she added, "Once they get close enough, I will light as many of them up with my powers as I can. I will try to cause as much damage to the largest group of them I can reach. Here, let me give you a boon for the battle."
If Thelia permitted, Sara would touch her shoulder and bestow the astrologer's boon on her before giving herself a psychic shield.
Astrologer's Boon: The character may grant themselves or an ally that they are able to touch a +3X bonus to attack rolls, Dodge, Resistance to resist hostile effects, and Perception, as well as +X melee/weapon damage. X= 5, upkeep =3 EP
Psychic Shield: The character gets +3X bonus to Dodge, AV, Resistance to resist hostile effects and Grapple. Armor granted by this power cannot be ignored. x=5, upkeep =2 EP
Sara (Sturm) Status Sara Hp: 54, Pp: 54, Ep: 78/88, Status = Fine Psychic shield +15 dodge, av, resistance, and grapple upkeep 2
"Thats strange... so the ice witch story you think its true....." Watching Thelia just nodded in agreement to Sara's planned action. Jumping at her touch however Thelia threw Sara a dirty look a moment before relaxing and muttering an apology. Still the woman had little time to speak before a several flash bombs ignited just outside the fort. A moment later three of the remaining four bandits had charged out of the fort. Muttering to her self Thelia scanned the area. "He's not with them." Standing up Thelia drew her guns. "Sara can you clear me a path?" Not waiting for an answer the gun toting half elf began to run for the entrance to the ruined fort.
Stunned the men began to turn bring up their own weapons to shoot at the charging woman but they wouldn't get a shot off before Sara had her chance to light them up.
Sara frowned as Thelia told her that her target was not among the bandits that rushed out the gate. "So he's still inside? Do you see Aya?"
Before attacking, Sara first checked for Aya and the fourth bandit she had seen through the spyglass to see if she could find them. If she didn't see them she would attack with a blast of hellfire.
Focusing her energy, Sara tapped her deep energy reserves to call up the black fire, a very familiar exercise to her. However, as she tapped the familiar vein of power she felted her spirit get diverted down the unfamiliar path that had revealed itself to her the previous night. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt a torrent of energy flood through the pathway, illuminating the pathway to her mind's eye like a brilliant flare. The potential of her new powers was shown briefly to her before she shut off the flow of energy and released it at the bandits, hoping to hit one, before she involuntarily let a harmful amount of energy flow through the channel.
There was a massively powerful detonation near the bandits as soon as she released the energy, but the snow that was thrown into the air by the blast made it difficult to tell if she had hit any of them or not.
Spending X=12 EP
Spirit Explosion: The character pays X EP.
-One target creature within line of sight of the character takes (3d4 + 1) * X damage.
Aptitudes: Damage rolls set to half the value of the dice
Attack: d20+84
Sara (Sturm) Status Sara Hp: 54, Pp: 54, Ep: 74/88, Status = Fine Psychic shield +15 dodge, av, resistance, and grapple upkeep 2
Rolls
Sara attack: min roll hits all foes in 25 feet are hit and take 60 damage
Watching her powers unleashed Sara realized that despite what she had originally intended her power had gone slightly awry. Instead of a single target she ended up blasting the area. Thankfully as the snow and bodies went flying she didn't see Aya or Thelia get caught in the area. Thealia meanwhile just ran past the smoking bodies and into the keep.
Sara took a moment to make sure the mercenaries weren't moving before following after Thelia. Inside the keep she looked around to see if the other bandit was nearby or if she could see Aya.
Running for the keep Sara found Aya brushing snow out of her hair before throwing Sara an accusatory look. Not saying a word the two ran in following Thelia's foot steps for awhile until they got lost in the shuffle of the bandits. A door lead to a tower and another lead to the keep proper it was up to Sara to choose which to investigate.
"Sorry, there's something up with my powers! I'm going to have to be careful how I use them for a bit!" Sara apologized as she caught up with Aya and the two headed into the fort.
When they lost track of Aya's footprints, Sara looked between the tower and the Keep and decided to go for the one that looked smaller and easier to search through quickly. "Follow me!" Sara led Aya towards the smaller of the two. She considered trying to contact Thelia telepathically, but didn't want to risk another misfire over something like that.
The tower was easily the smallest of the two structures and quickly her and Aya made a break for it. Opening the main door the found old boxes with unknown contents and a few bedrolls and a makeshift fire place. A set of stone stairs went up to the next floor which ended at the wall. Heading up Sara found the victim of the ice witch just outside the door but no Thelia or bandit.
"Dammit, they must be in the keep!" Sara swore as their search turned up empty. She headed back down the stairs with Aya and made for the keep, hoping to find Thelia and the bandit leader there.
Turning about quickly Sara and Aya made it down the flight of stairs and into courtyard before a single shot echoed out. A few moments later Thelia came walking out of the keep wiping some blood off one of her guns. "Its done we can move on." Not looking back the half elf woman exited the keep not even bothering to search any of the bandits outside. Next to her Aya shivered but it wasn't due to the cold.
"You didn't have to rush in alone, we were here to help. But at any rate, I think we may need to hold here for some time. I'm sorry to slow us down, but I recently expanded my ability to use spirit powers and I'm afraid I'm having some trouble acclimating to my expanded powers." Sara's eyes were downcast for a moment before she could look back at her companions. "I'll probably need at least a couple of hours to figure out my newer abilities and get my power back under control. Until I get the chance to work out my new powers, I won't be able to help out in a fight or risk them misfiring like they did earlier."
Assuming she could convince Thelia to not go walking off into the woods by herself Sara would mention to Aya, "I'm sure there's a fair bit of stuff lying around an old fort like this, especially since bandits moved in, if they didn't already loot and sell it."
Thelia paused a moment before nodding. "Yes not sleeping in the snow would be great for a night besides the keep while run down is better shelter from the wind." Turning around Thelia moved inside while Aya ran back out to loot the bodies leaving Sara to her own thoughts.
Sara was pleasantly surprised at how easily Thelia was swayed. Sure she was a little iffy about spending the night in the Fort just after killing its prior inhabitants, but the protection from the elements would be worth it. Of course, if the ice witch came back the benefits would suddenly mean a lot less.
As Aya went off to search the dead bandits, Sara decided to start practicing her powers. She didn't actually know much of anything about this branch of spirit wielding, it wasn't actually a known style in her village. She was excited to be her villages pioneer of this school of power.
The first thing she decided the best place to start would be the power she accidentally used earlier. "It's about to get noisy guys, don't worry, I'm just practicing." After warning her fellow adventurers, she started practicing.
She focused her efforts on an out of the way corner of the courtyard, investing smaller amounts of power than her accidental discharge at the bandits. She made a number of small pockmarks in the ground. For a time she just focused on the spot she was trying to hit, however after a few tries she realized some general hand motions would help focus her energy, as they usually did with her powers. Her practice with the spirit blast culminated in a somewhat stronger blast she directed against the inside of the wall, blasting a small but respectable chunk out of the wall.
Next up was a weapon technique she had gotten a glimpse of before she was forced to cut off her earlier power surge. She went over to a stand of small saplings. Conjuring the blade was not overly difficult, as it was somewhat similar to a power in the holy magic branch she was familiar with. What she chose to form was somewhat deceptive, rather than blade-shaped, it was actually a softly glowing purple rod, several feet in length. There was a small hand-guard at the hilt, with a tubular pommel that extended a couple inches out each side of her grip. It was long enough that she could grip it with one or both hands if the situation called for it. It didn't look sharp, however she focused her energy so intensely at the surface of the tube-shaped 'blade' that it would be able to cleave through objects with the proficiency common to energy blades. Sara dialed back the power initially, such that her swings merely singed the saplings she was practicing on. After a few minutes, she felt comfortable handling the blade and sliced cleanly through the practice trees before releasing the blade and letting it fade from existence.
As much as she wanted to practice all of her new techniques, she didn't want to wear herself out too much so she resolved to pick one more power to practice on before taking a break for the afternoon. Sara took a knee in the snow and concentrated on the new spiritual pathway in her body, feeling it out until she relocated one of the nodes for a power she had felt earlier. At first it didn't make sense to her. Feeding only the barest bits of power into it, she felt it around amplify and swirl around her and she couldn't actually tell if it was supposed to be a protective cloak, or perhaps something to aid allies near her. She fed a little more into it and suddenly the pathway's activity sharply increased and she felt the power amplify within her dramatically before it abruptly released around her with a loud 'thud'. The purple-skinned wielder opened her eyes and saw the the snow around her had all been blasted back by about a foot, leaving only bare ground below her and she realized that it was actually some sort of blast or explosion that was centered on herself. Feeding a little more power into the spiritual pathway this time, she repeated her experiment, but kept her eyes open. The small but growing crater around her, seemed to confirm that this was an explosive attack that would emanate from her to hit pretty much anything around or above her. Perhaps even below her if she channeled the power into it and had a reason to do so. At last she moved to a clear area and channeled an amount of power that she would likely use in combat into the pathway and let loose the explosion. The snow and dirt around her flew outward as if a fairly powerful explosive charge had gone off, and snow drifts were blown off nearby sections of the fort. Sara surveyed the damage to the courtyard's landscape for a moment before deciding this was enough for now. She could practice the rest of her new skills later after she had time to recover.
Done with her practice for now, Sara went to rejoin Aya to see what she had found and to take a tour of Fort Droth. Who knew what sort of neat stuff they might find lying around? It seemed like an interesting enough way to spend the afternoon while she recovered some energy.
Checking on Aya after a invigorating test of her new powers found her still rifling threw the pockets of the dead bandits. The ones she had searched already lay in a neat row explaining why she had taken so long. Nearby sat a rather small pile of loot. "You sure are noisy Sara. All those booms and bangs." Getting closer Sara could see that Aya had gathered up a small pile of coin and a few thin knives and a sturdy looking short blade. The bandits guns lay discard in the snow clearly of no interest to Aya. "Well I got what I want from these losers. I figure we can split the coin three ways. Its a nice little payout should be about 15 denari each." Brushing her hands off Aya moved the last bandit to rest next to his compatriots. Picking up the loot Aya smiled. "I bet all the good stuff is in the fort proper!"
After looking over the bandits if she wanted Sara would walk side by side to the fort and enter the main building. Inside they found Thelia sitting on a chair propped up on two legs leaning against the wall. From what Sara could tell this seemed to be an open room the remains of several large oaken tables lay broken. A small fire burned in the fire pit casting a faint light about the room. To her left a long collapsed stair lead up. Thankfully the ruined stair didn't block a closed door that sat at its foot. To her right yet another stair lead to the same place with a matching door at its foot. Sadly the light didn't cast far enough to see where the stairs led. At the back of the room where Thelia sat was two doors set a quarter of the way from the right and left of the stairs.
Sara shrugged playfully at the fifteen coin payoff. "Not bad, I suppose, but yea I hope there's more stuff in the fort otherwise I may have to get another job!" She gave a quick laugh before heading inside with Aya.
Getting inside, Sara took a moment to look around the room she found herself in while saying hi to Thelia. "Hey Thelia, Aya and I are going to take a look around the Fort to see if there is anything of value. You're welcome to come with us. Here's your third of what we got from the ones outside." She put the fifteen coins for Thelia on the table before looking around and deciding to go check out the door next to the ruined staircase first. "Let's check that one first!" She pointed excitedly at the door she wanted before dragging Aya over to inspect it before opening it and adventuring deeper into the fort.
Thelia just nodded and sat in her chair enjoying the growing fire. Opening the room Aya and Sara found it to be full of the bandits loot. Though the rest of the room was pretty much a ruin they both got a feel that it was probably a command center or planning room at one point. Almost immediately Aya dove into the boxes looking for valuable stuff. "Ill check this out go on a head Sara. Unless you want to help."
Sara laughed as Aya suggested she could move on. "And leave you here with all the booty? I think not! Of course I'll stay to help!" It was clear by her tone that Sara meant more than just the bandits' plundered potential treasure trove.
The spirit wielder set about helping the succubus look through the boxes, looking for objects of value as well as anything that the bandits might have been planning.
Digging threw the boxes they found mostly trade goods. Stuff that while valuable was far to large to haul with just the three of them. Though it did make her wonder how the bandits where planning to sell this stuff. Maybe they had a contact with the means. Still it wasn't a complete loss. There was plenty of smaller valuables they could hawk but it would take time to evaluate them for price. A task which seemed to be running in Aya's head as they set aside the stuff they could carry easily.
After taking some time to go through the stuff the bandits had accumulated and figuring out what might be valuable, Sara was ready to check the other rooms. "Well, I think I'm going to check the other rooms, do you want to come with me or keep assessing what we have here?"
Going outside the door, Sara went to the door at the foot of the other staircase to check it out. If there wasn't anything there then she would take a look behind the other two doors on the ground floor before going up the stairs.
