Day 111: Moonday the 7h, Abadius, 4708
I woke up after only four hours of sleep, feeling completely rested. Apparently this was a side effect of the tower, that it made your sleep more efficient. I'm going to beg Faunra to put this enchantment on every bedroom of my house. The ability to have some extra time with Savah would be worth every copper piece. Okay, maybe not every bedroom, but at least the master bedroom. With this much time, I don't know that I even want to spend another night in an Inn. Maybe I'll offer up the same fee to just use their back yard. This way they get paid but I get the benefit of this sleeping cycle.
I decided to spend the extra time that I got working on reviewing all of the gimmicks and tricks that I can try to pull out to try to enhance our chances. I decided that the best thing to have running would be an ability to keep up the detection of hidden creatures and objects. I looked over what else I could get up and running easily, and determined that I should just mentally prepare myself for the dangers that might come. Jonathan was kind enough to just go in and head to bed for a short nap after I left the tower. With this kind of turnover, we were likely to be safer than we had ever been in the wilds.
Dame Rebekah was the one who was up from the white tower and we talked for a bit about what we expected from the future raid that we were conducting. Dame Rebekah admitted for the first time that she was worried. She told me that she was never too worried about goblins, ghouls, and even the ogres were not the worst things. Sure the ogres were dangerous. But they were fairly stupid. Giants were walls of flesh that just needed to be hacked through like the neck muscles of an aurochs. But they were also fairly smart walls of flesh. They could plot strategies, and foresee the results of actions that they and others take.
I thought for a moment and asked her if she thought that the situation was so dire that I needed to be prepared to do anything to succeed. I didn't tell her what I was thinking of or what I might try to do. Dame Rebekah gave me a look over and told me that at this point, she didn't want to pay the kind of cost that would be associated with what I might do if completely let off the leash. I nodded and told her to tell me when she thinks that it is time, but to not wait too long, because the things I would need to do to set the things in motion would take a fair amount of time. Dame Rebekah nodded and I went back to studying some books, to try to get some ideas on what we were dealing with in the area.
Dame Rebekah spent her time praying and setting up her equipment to be in exactly the right setup. I could only admire her focus, as she was the spiritual rock around which our motley band was centered. That thought got me thinking. Dame Rebekah was the spiritual center and guide for the group, Faunra was the one who knew the most about the arcane matters, and Jonathan was the one who was most tied into the fabric of Sandpoint, and could easily dish out the most damage of any of us in short order. Where did that leave me? I decided to spend the rest of my time focusing on reading some chapters from the Chemistry books that I had on the tablet.
Jonathan and Faunra woke up and got us ready, with a quick breakfast and Faunra shrinking the towers and recalling the grove around us. For some reason, I felt much more observant about the area around me. Maybe it was a side effect of the artificial glade that we were in. We all got mounted up in our positions for the ride ahead of us. I could just see the tops of the cliffs off in the distance. It would be an hour and change drive ahead of us, so we knew that we should wait to start up any short duration effects. Our hour of driving didn't hold any surprises, just the foreboding of riding up towards the cliff face. So, we conducted a series of verbal drills about what we all knew with regards to the area and the things that we would be fighting against, trying to probe for hidden memories of anything that might help us.
About a mile out from the Storval Stairs, we started slowing down. From twenty miles an hour down to ten, then at half a mile out, we dropped to five miles an hour, until we reached a thousand or so feet out, where we stopped. We needed to know what we were up against, and what our best solution was for whatever was waiting for us at the top of the stairs. We quietly talked about it and determined that we would need to be very sneaky to make it up the hill and find out what was up there. Dame Rebekah noted a little louder than everyone else that it might be a little bit difficult. Niddler popped up out of the saddlebag that he was staying in and asked how he could be of service.
Jonathan, Faunra, and myself all looked at each other. Faunra told us that she had a spell that would turn the recipient invisible, but only for about half a minute. I asked Niddler if he could take my phone up with him, while I have it on record, and have him do a sweep of the area at the top to let us know of any dangers that we might be facing up there. Niddler confirmed that he could do this, and got up to get ready to fly. I set my phone to record and Faunra cast the spell on Niddler. He took off and I could give and receive some feedback from him telepathically, but the main gist of the information would be received when he got back.
I sent him thoughts about keeping a safe distance away from the threats that he found, but asked him to just keep getting all the information that he could. After scoping out the area at the top of the cliff for about fifteen seconds, I told him to rush back down. He got about two hundred feet away from there he claimed to see the giant before he reappeared. Luckily, it didn't notice him, and he flew back down to our hiding spot. Niddler did a decent enough job on the recording, and not only found the one at the top of the statue's shoulder, but another five in a big building, apparently sleeping.
We looked over our options and decided that if we rush up the side while invisible or hidden, we can try to get to the giant at the top of the cliff and silence him before he can alert the others. Then we can form up and take them out at our leisure. Faunra produced a potion of invisibility from inside her bag, and made a slight recommendation to Dame Rebekah that she take it before we headed up the steps. Jonathan backed it up and activated his own form of invisibility. Faunra and I noted that we could probably keep hidden for the most part as we climbed our way up the stairs.
We got our gear as muffled as we could and started climbing the stone steps. It was fairly smooth going for the first minute, without any feels of worry of being caught. We froze about ten seconds into the second minute, as I heard some rocks tumble from an area where I thought Dame Rebekah was hiding. Faunra and I immediately dropped behind the steps and we waited for a few seconds. There wasn't any response, so we continued up on our path. We had our second scare when we were barely eighty feet away from the hill giant.
We all stopped on the step that Faunra and I hid on, and we quietly discussed our preparations. Jonathan, while still invisible, poured some of his essence into the force field around him, until it was quadruple its normal strength. Then he enhanced his lifting capability, and went back to being invisible. Dame Rebekah remained invisible, but I could feel myself uplifted, and protected against evil. I noted that I could smell an additional source of burning in the air and I knew that Dame Rebekah had utilized a few more of her miracles.
Faunra was doing her own thing, summoning half a dozen mirror images, enchanting her bow a bit, generating a blur effect to all of her images, hitting Jonathan with a magical armoring effect, and then enchanting all of us with her blessing of haste. I chose to do much of the same as her, invoking a pack of eight additional images, focusing on heightening my awareness of the area, loading up my darkvision goggle modification and my kirlian photography app to allow me to notice any invisible creatures. The last thing I did was reach out with my ability to create grease and focus not on the giant but on his boulder next to him.
Feeling the energy coursing through my veins, I gave the signal and we SEAL Team Sixed our way up to the giant. We started out on our quick plan, with Jonathan flying up invisibly behind the giant and knocking him out of his perch towards us. Faunra peppering him with arrows, me hacking him with my machete, and Dame Rebekah getting the killing blow with her sword. Like most plans, it didn't first survive contact with the enemy. In this circumstance, the giant died from the fall. We heard a noise come out from the shack and we waited before going any further.
Jonathan made himself fade away again, and one of the giants came out from the big shack. They looked at the giant that had "fallen" and started laughing uproariously. I heard the giant yell back in their tongue that Jonk had fallen and cracked his melon. I heard another giant's voice yell back that maybe he got too drunk and it served him right. The giant inside yelled that Munk had to sit in the statue now. The giant outside responded back that he did not, that it was Nunque's turn. One of the giants inside, a different voice, declared that it was not her turn, and that Munk should just do it anyway, 'cause she was busy.
Munk, the giant that was outside, sighed and went over to the statue to climb up. He still had not seen us. Faunra waited until the giant was close to the top to shoot a small pebble with her telekinetic spell at the boulder that was precariously on the platform. The boulder slid and dropped right onto Munk, causing Munk to fall and get hit by the heavy rock. Munk got up and tried to grab the rock and it slipped out of his grasp. He yelled that Jonk got the rock all slimy and now Munk couldn't pick it up. There was more laughter from within the building. I took the opportunity to size Munk up for a strike, looking to see if I could finish him off with one hit.
I crept up behind him and got ready. When Munk tried to pick up the rock again, failing yet again, I took the opportunity to strike. My two slashes struck true, as my burning blade crossed itself against the small of Munk's back, dropping him to the ground. He yelled out in pain and told the giants that they were under attack before he collapsed into unconsciousness, from his still burning wounds. Shit. If only I was a little stronger or faster, I could have finished him off before he could speak. We heard a commotion from the inside of the building. Great, now we have to deal with the rest of them six.
I saw a female hill giant come out of the door and she got sliced down by an appearing Dame Rebekah, who dispatched her almost immediately. That left three more hill giants in their little shack, and they were getting up to come put us in a hurt locker. Faunra yelled out, "By the numbers." And let three arrows fly into a window of the shack. I heard the giantess roar out in pain, and Faunra responded to it by looking out me, saying, "Bring on the noise." That was all I needed. The machete dropped from my hand and the rifle appeared in it.
I adjusted my stance and let slip a few rounds at a different giant from the one that Faunra had shot. A tall giant who looked to be the most beauteous looking one. Three rounds ventilated the giant's chest, dropping it. Another Giantess came rushing out of the door with rage in her eyes directed at Faunra. She didn't' even hardly notice Dame Rebekah's wicked slash. She tried to bash Faunra with her giant club, but Faunra was too slick and dodged out of the way quickly. Jonathan flew in and struck that giantess in retaliation with a wicked blast, dropping her. With the singlemindedness of a stalking lioness, Dame Rebekah moved into the house and extinguished the remaining giantess. We now had a forward occupied base.
Jonathan pulled double duty, launching the giants into a ravine where they would not be easily spotted, and getting the bikes up to us. Dame Rebekah went about securing the area and checking for obvious signs of the military getting ready to march. Faunra went into a back room and found a horde of treasure, which she ran out asking for my help in identifying. I "turned on my eyes" and went with her. There was a fair amount of magic, included some magical arrows, a magical quiver (go Faunra!), even a magical scarf of some kind. But what interested me was a golden crown that I happened to recognize was part of a noble family of a Dwarven clan in the city of Janderhoff. I told Faunra that it might even be worth ten thousand or more gold.
Faunra's eyes lit up and noted that we needed to secure all of this. I agreed, and she shoveled it all into her magical backpack. I cast a suspicious eye, but never thought that she was especially avaricious before this, so I just put it to a one off. Once we were done, Faunra and I worked to clean up the whole interior of the building. We set up an area for the bikes to be put, with a section of the wall cut away and then carefully put back up, so that Jonathan could launch it out at a moment's notice and we could streak off. It looked like a normal section of the stone wall from the outside.
Jonathan and Niddler both volunteered to carefully keep an eye out together as they did some quick surveillance sweeps. As we made our plans. I had Niddler take the phone with him so he could get a good panorama shot of the ground around us. One day, I will knit these pictures together and find a way to develop a GPS, or at least a Varisian local version. Then I remembered that three cell towers can be used to triangulate a person's cell phone. Maybe I can get three cities in this country to put up a cell tower with enough reach each and have an ability to have triangulation. I'm only dealing with a certain set of radio wave lengths; it shouldn't be all that hard.
Faunra, Dame Rebekah, and I all put our time into planning the next stage for the assault. From what we could determine, it was less than forty miles to the Valley of the Black Tower. This left us in a little bit of a quandary. We could make it to the valley if we rushed, and we could get there in two hours, but we expended a lot of resources for the fight that we went through. We ultimately decided that we should do some sweeps through the area between here and the Valley.
We all got on the bikes and headed out to do some sweeps. Our short duration previous spell effects were already gone. I still have the darkvision modification running. I personally wanted to see what we would be getting into in a fight where everything wasn't placed in our favor. Before we headed out, we all agreed that if any giant tries to break and run, that we need to make sure that we take them out before they escape. We went in the straight line path towards the Valley of the Black Tower, as this was the way that the heavily worn trail looks to head.
About halfway to the Valley, Jonathan told us that he had spotted a patrol up ahead and that it would intersect us in a little under two hundred feet. We slowed the bikes down and hid them behind a large rock. I asked the others what our play was and they seemed confused. I asked them how we get the group to come to investigate something or someone. Jonathan noted that they might be lured by something valuable. Faunra's eyes lit up as she pulled out the Dwarven crown. Jonathan smiled and quietly levitated it to a good location for us to have an attack.
The pair of giants and the three dire bears came up to the area where the crown was located. As soon as the female stone giant bent down to pick up the crown, I popped up and took three shots at the one who was still standing upright. And they were still standing after the three. I guess the aiding enchantments really do help. Jonathan moved out from behind the rock to launch a hefty projectile at the one who was bending over to look at the crown, much to her dismay. Unfortunately, she didn't target him with her boulders, but me. Both of them glanced off of the armor that I was wearing, which did its job to keep me safe enough.
Faunra popped up from behind the rock while flying and it must have done some damage to her aim. She only hit with one of her arrows, dropping the female. She followed up with a ray of frost towards the guy that I had hit, apparently dropping him from the temperature shock. The three bears roared and rushed us. One of them, with a mottled white pattern, tried to rush me and got a mouth full of armor. Two of them charged Jonathan, and bite down on him. But there was no blood coming from the wounds.
Dame Rebekah came from around the rock to take down one of the dire bears that had attacked Jonathan, one with grey streaks in its fur. With two slashes of her black sword, the dire bear dropped. I stepped back carefully and took aim with my rifle, firing three times at the massive representation of Ursa Major. It didn't drop. I started to worry a lot about our chances when Jonathan became a blender of violence, dropping the dire bear with greyish fur and then throwing his dagger into the one I had shot.
Just like that, in under twelve seconds, the fight was over. Then the more important details began. Jonathan flexed some aetheric muscle and shotput the giants towards the crevice that he hid the hill giants in. He checked in on the Dire Bears and started butchering them immediately. I kept my eyes on the scope of my rifle and kept an eye towards the surrounding area to ensure that we were not surprised. Dame Rebekah helped, and I tossed them the tiny adamantine shuriken that I used as a fine detail knife. The pair of tools that the two wielded, both of them adamantine, made quick work for the two of them, especially with Jonathan rocketing off any unneeded materials that were removed and Faunra standing by to use prestidigitation to clean up anything that was needed to be cleaned.
When the trio had completed their task, they brought the hides to me for mending. I used my powers and the cuts in the hide from the swords or bullets closed. Then Jonathan piled all of the freshly butchered ursine meat. He used his telekinetic powers to keep the meat lifted off the ground, and we rushed back to the shack. When we got back, Jonathan prepared the bear meat with some of the brandy as a marinade, and set them up to smoke in the shack. Dame Rebekah spent some time preparing the hides for tanning. Faunra set up the three shelters while I took up a position on top of the shack, to keep a look out for any approaching enemies.
When it came time to relax for the night, we all got into the glade and spent a little bit of time relaxing and talking about our plans. We resolved that we would leave extremely early in the morning, with Faunra leading the way and me activating my goggles to allow us to ride through the last two hours of the night to arrive at the Valley shortly before sunrise. We didn't need the sun in our eyes when we were riding in, and we didn't want to fight them in a condition where they were more accustomed to. Faunra said that she could spend some time working with the items that we have recovered to try to see if we can get a better chance going in to this. Dame Rebekah noted that she was going to pray for a slightly different set of miracles tomorrow to assist us better.
As we quieted down, I approached Faunra to tell her that I was certain that I could manifest the enhanced time trick that she could, and she asked me to show her. I mimicked her movements and words and produced the time dilation effect. Faunra studied it intently and told me that this was a great benefit to us, as she can focus on other magic that might be more beneficial to us. I smiled and told her that I did in fact pay attention to her, and that I was trying to meld the magic and science together for the benefit of the group. Faunra looked at me oddly and told me that she had never told me that.
I told her that I was certain that it was her, and that I didn't think that doing this would be negative to us. Faunra noted that she wasn't unconvinced that it wasn't her, just that it wasn't her yet. Faunra told me that this might be a good sign, that she made it back to tell us this, or it might be bad, that she sent a message back when we didn't make it. She cautioned me to be more careful when anyone gave me information.
Shit, now I have to worry about future people coming back and unforeseen problems with time travel paradoxes. I decided to get some reading time in while Jonathan and Faunra took the first rest. Going through all of the titles of all of the technical manuals that I have access to. I found something interesting that I had downloaded back in 2016 where I had plans for a small repeater tower. I could set one up on the house to point to the Tower that we move to the top of the old flame, and then we can set up one in Magnimar. If I focus on the radios, it will be much easier, and I can just make it so that they can have instantaneous communication between Magnimar and Sandpoint, or Magnimar and another town. I made my nightly sending to Savah to update her on how things were going and she passed the same information back to me. Tomorrow will be the day. One way or another. Niddler will have his orders as well.