Chapter 2: The Land of Sulan

[Woe]

Killer bees will hover above water waiting for their prey to reappear.

[MevlyTM]

Thinking that Kanya has hit on a good idea, Maju will pick up a small stone and cast Continual Darkness on it. He will then hold it up in an attempt to envelop himself and Saracen in a protective darkness.

OOC: I figure that the bees will naturally be attracted to light. So if they begin to enter the darkness, they'll turn right around. Only bad side is that, since Maju and Saracen are in the darkness, they won't be able to see if it worked.

[mTeasdale]

Jaali will ready his pistol. If any bee get on his side of the darkness area created by Maju, he will shoot it. Otherwise, he will wait a round to see what's going on.

[Longman]

I'm ready to call the round.

Yuan Cheng, who ran 120 yards in the last round, searches around for a nearby stream and cannot find one. He's still calling everyone fools for not running away.

Jaali, who ran 80 yards, now pulls out his pistol. All he can really see is the woman on the camel coming towards him. She vanishes into darkness for about a second, and then appears again. She moves another 50 yards, and is now between the halfling and the monk.

Maju sees the flickering darkness too, behind him, and realizes what the Cleric has done. He decides to try the same trick. Soon, himself and the sea-elf are hidden in a circle of impenetrable blackness.

They can't see a darned thing. But, the anticipated arrival of 10 angry giant bees does not occur. Instead, their noise seems to halt and hover around in confusion maybe 40 or more feet away from Maju and Saracen.

Seems like the trick worked!

Saracen is still carrying the smoke pole. It's really starting to catch fire now. The oil has done its job and you can both feel the heat coming off the thing.

We are out of rounds. I'm playing Maju. He walks slowly backwards, maintaining the darkness, trying to get away from the bees.

What do the rest of you do?

[Woe]

Kanya will ride Dungbreath another 20', so she's near the monk. She will then attempt to stay close to the monk. If the bees start to fly toward her, she'll darkify herself and possibly the monk as well.

[mTeasdale]

Jaali will walk silently towards the monk too.

[quozl]

Yuan-Cheng will quit calling them fools and silently observe as they walk toward him.

P.S. Can he see around the darkness to the bees?

[Longman]

You can see a few of the bees, Yuan-Cheng, but then you end up in darkness because Kanya is following you. You'd have to run away from her to get into the light.

End scene, as the monk vanishes into darkness along with everyone else.

You all end up regrouping with the villagers. The bees are not following you, but it does seem like they have started to build a hive close to the path. This is only a minor annoyance for those on foot, but you could lose a few hours detouring around in the jungle, on that foul-breathed camel the cleric rides.

It is about 5pm and you were making a camp so you could eat roast meat, when the bees showed up.

Do you retreat and make a camp back to the west further from the bees? Do you press east along the path, using darkness to cover the whole group? Or do you start to detour away from the path through the jungle, which will take you 2 or so more hours tonight?

PS - Kanya seems to already have a continual darkness stone, and that's fine. Maju now has one as well. You can both have similar stones with continual light cast on them. I'd argue there is no actual need to have that spell memorised any more for either of you. You can just keep the stones in pouches and pull them out as needed. The stones last 5 years, and the spell text pretty much invites you to do that.

[Woe]

"I'm good with west. Going off this path is likely unwise, especially at night. I'd prefer to continue east on this path though whilst the bees are not angered. If we need, I'll silence our passing for the critical passage as well. I do not think the bees will mind a quickly-moving cloud of darkness quietly moving past their hive. And, we should send the rogue ahead to ensure the right path is chosen."


Foul-breathed? How dare you insult Lord Humperdink!

[quozl]

Yes, let's retreat back and make camp.