"Phew... that's a bunch of nasties," Lilifo murmured, chewing idly on a little piece of jerky from one of the many pouches around her waist. Her eyes, bright orange and uncomfortably wide, flicked back and forth between the tiny chunk just visible in the distance and the enhanced view in the water of the seeing vase. "Wonder what they're doing allll the way out here... probably the same thing as us, huh?"
It's been fun.Kenneth sighed in satisfaction as he took in the great view they had there. Great blue color out today, nice and humid which felt great, and nice soft grass. Even through his armor he could tell this place was great. He flipped up the imposing faceplate to let his features, full of vitality and also green, to look out at the situation they'd found themselves in. They probably had the drop on these Gith, but they weren't for sure. He looked at the items on display and raised a hand.
"May I make a suggestion?" He intoned, voice coming out low and proper. "May I please take the cloak? I want to make first contact with the Gith there and keep things from escalating out of hand. We should figure out why they're here before we jump into a fight—if we even need to fight at all."
Natali let out her trademark growl of frustration, a lion's roar when she spotted the oncoming astral ship of scouting enemies. She didn't care for any of this, really. She was starting to get used to it, but it seemed like every single thing they were scavenging these days was in some ways magical, and magic was complicated and boring to her, like a child who favored art class over math or science. She could feel her tail flared in anticipation of her team's actions. She rolled her eyes in response to Kenneth's suggestion. She left out her low drowl of a voice, her accent coming out sounding like a mixture of Russian and African.
"Fool. No man has ever been spotted by Gith and left without fight. They aren't here to make friends." She stepped back on the far edge of the chunk they were on, away from the ship. She dropped down to all fours. "With running start, I can make jump."
Mago was appraising their ship. It looked to be of good quality, and they did need their own method of transport rather badly, but there was the issue of it being, y'know, already owned by a half dozen gith. "Negotiating first is likely for the best, but if things do go badly, I suggest commandeering their ship. It could be useful in the future." His voice carried a faint, rather ambiguous accent, making his words sound somewhat lyrical and singsong.
edited 11th Jan '16 7:47:06 PM by Tojin
“Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction or a curse. Inevitable." - Taylor Hebert"That's racist, Natali." Kenneth said with a cringe. "We're salvagers, not assassins. You've got a point though, we ought to be careful." Vines snaked out from gaps in his armor and wrapped around the staff on his back, bringing it in front of him. Kenneth also reached down and slipped his real hands onto his sword and shield.
"Could we maybe compromise, between Natali and Mago's plans?" Additional vines slipped out to gesture at the two of them as illustration. "We could approach them, clearly well-armed and ready to fight, and say we want to talk. Those of us not comfortable with frontline combat could hang back until things get too nasty."
Rowan scratched his head and yawned before replacing his hat on it's perch. "I could go up first and offer to read their fortunes! Maybe they'll be friendly! Ehh...what do they believe in again? Point, is they can almost certainly be reasoned with!" The magician declared brightly.
-dramatic music ensues-Guide quietly fluttered atop of Kenneth's head and peered over to the group of Gith shown within the vase. Gliding down into view of her fellow crew members, she nodded along with the nature knight's words, in agreement with trying the less violent approach.
Hearing Lilifo's concern about being attacked before landing, Guide thought for a moment... before suddenly bouncing up and raising and waving both her hands, smiling with an idea in her head. Tracing the camouflage runes onto her stomach, the fairy became transparent for a brief moment, then flickered back to clarity. Beaming, she examined the magical objects to see if such temporary enhancements could be made.
As the little fairy tries her camouflage spell, she'll find that using up enough magic to conceal a big object is a bit harder than her own body. With some difficulty she'll manage to make a rune that makes the staff or wings become transparent... with a bit more ease, she can settle on a single color, such as the blue of the skies and she'd be able to conceal even the magic carpet so long as she doesn't break concentration... however, if one of her magic casting allies provides some power, she'll be able to sustain and do camouflaging spells with more effectiveness.
Lilifo let out an impressed whistle, grinning at Guide. "Ooh, I love that," she said. "Can you make me invisible too, Guide? Please?" She stepped carefully around the staff lying in the grass to get a bit closer to the little fairy, unbuttoning the bottom of her shirt to bare her belly. "Come on, you can put the rune thingies right on my stomach."
edited 12th Jan '16 7:14:21 PM by RedSavant
It's been fun.Guide grinned back at Lilifo and began tracing the runic pattern onto Lilifo's belly... her smile slowly turning into a frown as her mana depleted. Sensing that she wouldn't have enough mana to supply one party member with the camouflage spell, much less all of them, the fairy turned around and fluttered towards Mago, waving before transforming into a book and (hopefully) landing into his hands. If the mage opted to open her pages, she would detail her plans for the camouflage runes and instructions on how to trace and provide power to them for him.
"Hrmm. I would assume that the fairy wants me to cast it rather than her. Must be out of... mana, or whatever it's called." Mago waved a hand vaguely and opened Guide's pages. "Hm. That's fairly simple. Hold still for a bit, Lilifo, I'll cast the camoflauge runes on you." He walked over and traced the runes on her stomach, valiantly concealing how creeped out he was. After he was done, he stepped back a bit, admiring his handiwork. "There. As long as I provide those with arcane power, you should be able to blend in."
“Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction or a curse. Inevitable." - Taylor Hebert"I volunteer for joining the "Armed, intimidation" group", Nova replied giving a quick glance down at herself, "Its a bit easier to fix me if I get hurt then it is most of the other people here, so if things go wrong...." however, her attention quickly turned to the fairy fluttering about, curious as to what she was doing.
As Mago tried to make the camouflage 'rune', despite Guide's careful instruction, it would result to be a whole new spell in magical notation which is not how the sorcerer usually would learn and channel his magic. In effect, as he traced the rune and tried to do the spell the effects would be... halfway there. Lilifo would turn the same shade of blue as the Astral Sky, but not the full chameleon effect that Guide could summon for herself. At least, with his magical power, so long as he kept concentration on it, he's confident he can keep it near indefinitely. He could do it again on another member of the group, but that would require more focus.
"Oh, maybe we have three groups then. Some of us should get to their ship first." Kenneth proposed. "While Nova, Natali, and I talk to the Gith, we maybe have Mago or Rowan on overwatch ready to engage in case things go sour. If that happens I'd also like to elect Natali to take the lead in the fight, because she's clearly the most knowledgeable about the Gith and about fighting them. The rest of you can check out the ship and see if they have prisoners or slaves, and if things go sour you can commandeer the ship to eliminate their escape route. That's sort of a combination of all our plans. What do you think?"
Guide transformed back to her fairy state, long enough to frown at the resultant spell cast on Lilifo and its deviance from her intended idea. She pondered and sighed before shrugging to herself, gesturing to Mago, then to Natali, to test if he could try and expand the spell to himself and the lioness as well.
Nodding along to Kenneth's plans, the book fairy detached a pair of wings from her back. Each wing flattened and widened into a sheet of paper, one which she handed to Rowan with the same instructions she gave to Mago, hoping to replicate his partial success, as well as suggesting he test it on Nova and Kenneth. The other, she laid out in the center of the group, ink appearing on the page writing down the details of Kenneth's plan in addition to some possibilities:
- The ideal situation would be Mago and Rowan being able to use the color change technique for everyone during the initial approach, dropping the spell for the negotiation/intimidation group upon their landing. Since having people land would give away the nature of the spell, the mages would need to keep their distance aerially while herself and Lilifo searched around the ship for a means in without being seen.
- If splitting the spell between multiple people proves to be too much, having the three spell users concentrating on camouflaging the magic carpet with which to carry everyone might be more sensible, in which case dropping off the negotiation group would immediately cause the spell to be removed from them, and the group remaining on the carpet would need to swiftly move location if the Gith suspected an invisible vehicle.
- If neither of these options are effective, there would need to be some forms of decoy to allow the rest of the group to approach in the first place. Since whoever serves to act as decoy would need to be stealthed or otherwise be attacked upon approach, at least one of the spellcasters would be needed in that case.
After a bit of experimentation, it shows that they won't be able to camouflage or even change the color of everyone in the party. This is a spell developed by Guide whose configuration was set to allow the tiny fairy to become camouflaged, thus it wasn't adapted to affect bigger individuals. Moreso, while Guide is a more scholarly caster, of the other two spellcasters of the group, one is a spontaneous, natural magic user and the other uses a specialized sort of spellcasting. Picking up and adapting the spell on the fly won't be possible. However, the blue color for those affected is rather good camouflage, though not a reactive one... if dropping onto the deck of the ship they will be one big blue person standing among browns and gold. With the three magic users working together, they can conceivably either make four targets (individuals or the magic carpet count as a target, the staff and wings are small enough that they can be made blue or chameleon with their user freely) blue or manage a perfect chameleon effect on a single target.
Additionally, the group or individuals in it can use the clouds all around as cover for their approach onto the enemy ship or to lie in wait for an ambush.
"Ugh." Kenneth plopped down onto his haunches, then slid onto his back to stare up at the beautiful sky they had today. He wasn't going to let his frustration get the better of him, and to start off he threw his all into just grounding it out. "I am frustrated this won't work like I thought, but it is nobody's fault. The... the problem we are going to run into soon, however, is that we can't stay here forever. I don't even think we'll need a ranged overwatch team, I think we just split: Nova, Natali, and I take the staff, the cape, and no camouflage, and approach the Gith head-on for negotiation and according to Natali probably frontline combat." He heaved himself back into a sitting position. "Meanwhile Rowan, Mago, Guide, and Lilifo head to the ship on the flying carpet, using cloud cover and light camouflage to reach it undetected. Are we—are we in agreement now?" He smiled, and clapped his hands together a few times. "We're running out of time to plan and I think we really should get going."
With the plans made and no objections raised, the group begins their daring assault upon the Gith... starting with a diplomatic party that approached in a non threatening manner. They were received with a well shot arrow from a longbow, that unless it was blocked wouldn't miss, aimed right at Nova who was wearing the wings.
Then, as the ship was prepared to set off in pursuit would come two hardly thrown harpoons at the people in the staff.
The Gith that shot the arrow was standing upon the ship's crow's nest, the two with harpoons upon the prow. There were still 3 more Gith, one who as moving upon the controls... one that took out a staff from a crate and another who looked for a big shield and blade.
edited 15th Jan '16 9:03:53 PM by daltar
Mago sucked in a breath. "They're being attacked! Rowan, start casting, quickly!" Without any further delay, he thrust out his hand. A trio of small, white, glowing pellets shot from his palm and towards the nearest gith, striking it repeatedly in the back.
Mago casts Magic Missile on the closest gith for a total of 12 damage (3+1, 2+1, 4+1).
“Not a promise, not an oath, or a malediction or a curse. Inevitable." - Taylor Hebert"Well, that's not very friendly," Lilifo sighed, gently helping Guide clamber into a pocket on her shirt. "Hold on tight, Guide, time to get exciting!" With that, she rolled sideways off the magic carpet with a whoop, throwing her arms up and forward; energy glowed in her eyes and around her wrists before the wires coiled there shot forward, up toward the chunk currently occupied by the Gish. The pitons sunk in with a satisfying thunk, and Lilifo whooped again as she swung underneath the chunk, her eyes safely covered by nictitating membranes.
It's been fun.Kenneth had worked to guard diplomats before. As the arrow sailed towards them, he acted just as he would have back then and moved himself into its path with a cry, "Nova, watch out!"
He moved a little too slow though—it slid past his back and thunked into his shoulder. Even empowered as he was, it got a wince and a hiss from Kenneth. He turned around and sighed in frustration as they got closer, weapons readied.
"That's a little disappointing, but hey, guess you were right." He clapped Natali on the back again. "Natali, what's the plan here? I said you'd get oversight if this went bad, so here I am, humbling myself before the Gith expert."

Well, there it was.
What the adventurers saw upon the magical vase was definitely what Zendra the Seer had spoken off back at Mirage.
The adventurers, who actually were more of a group of daring scavengers, were currently sitting upon a neighborhood size chunk floating in the vast wonder of the Astral Plane
◊, showing today quite a lovely blue colors and tone, a light azure that likely indicated their proximity to the Plane of Water and it's endless oceans... for many clouds full of humidity clung around the environment, as well as even drops of floating water whose size varied from tears to as big as a castle.
The chunk this group was in was a nice peculiar one, made of some sort of crystal looking though soft and smooth material, upon which rainbow colored vegetation, like blades of grass grew.
As for the vase and why they were here... Zendra the Seer, employed by the Council of Mirage, usually keeps a look around the city, casting her magical eyes far and wide in space and even looking for auguries in the future for menaces. Having sensed something moving into their area, a representative of the Council asked one of the Salvaging Crews, you, to go and investigate. From the Seer you had received a magical vase which you could use to fill with water and through it, via magical words and instructions, look at a locale far away.
Right now you were glancing upon another chunk, this one roughly the size of and shape of big tower on which a an astral vessel
◊ was parked. Upon it, you could glance at the moving forms of roughly six giths
.
Most of all, as residents of the Astral Plane should know that Gith are a yellow skinned race of warlike natural psions. Though they have latent mental powers, most of the warlike Gith actually prefer magical and martial might to it, their culture one of ruthless raiders and evil warlords. This group, lightly armored and small in number, seems to be a scouting party... set upon a sturdy, but fast vessel to look for suitable targets or do some recognizance for some faction and warlord or the other of the mean Giths.
Thus, is the situation... you all are outside of Mirage, thus bereft of gravity and the passage of time does affect you. You could try to float all the way to the chunk on which the scouting party lies but just floating without being able to fly is like to be quite slow and conspicuous. As for how you got here... in your possession there are a couple of borrowed or rented means of transportation. There is a borrowed flying magic carpet
◊ capable of moving a group of you, roughly twenty five feet by twenty five feet. There is one staff
◊ enchanted with a temporary flying spell. And one cloak that transforms into bat wings
◊ on command. Whenever you usually have another means of transportation that unfortunately were unavailable for this expedition (due to being crashed, destroyed, in repairs, a communal ship shared by salvagers that is being used by someone else) or you always have to deal with borrowing or renting such means of flight, the fact remains these magic items are what is available to you all.
Now, with the situation of Gith scouts on the horizon, what will this group do?