Day 141: Wealday the 6th, Calistril, 4708

I woke up to Jonathan nudging me with his foot while he had telekinetically carried coffee and a breakfast sandwich for me. Apparently, I had fallen asleep with a pen in my hand and a sheet of paper on which I had been recording various technical observations. I could see how far my consciousness dropped as the quality of the penmanship decreased with the words written on the page. Nothing quite like a little sleep writing to make you question your ability to write intelligent sentences as a whole. There were quite a few statements that I could easily make out about dragon blood on there, with colors associated with different "energies". I figured that I'd bring these scribblings up to Faunra tonight, after the trip, but the morning was much busier.

I got up quickly and realized that there was not a lot of time for me to get ready for the flight if we were to be leaving with the sunrise. I suited up in my armor with the spell that I have used so many times and immediately headed out to the plane, to make the necessary preparations. As I walked my way over to the rear ramp of the plane, I saw that the prospective passengers were in the "new" areas of the plane that I had not noticed before. A lot of religious people of different denominations, each group in a different passenger section. Finally, the group of people in the extra seats in the main cabin where the mercenaries and the rest of my group were to be seated as well. None of them seemed to have a lot of confusion about me walking in with my armor.

I got into the cockpit and started up the engines. I conjured a set of Unseen Crafters on standby to repair any issues that might come up. I waited for the authorization from one of the group to tell me that everyone was seated and ready to go. After a few minutes, Faunra came up in a pathetically skimpy stewardess outfit and told me that everyone was ready and seated. I sighed in a bit of annoyance and asker her where she had seen something like that. She told me the Ironman movie had these uniforms in it. I sighed again and thanked her for telling me that everyone was ready.

I keyed up my phone to act as a microphone and recorded my brief message. I plugged the earbud jack into the speakers for the plane and played my recording. I told everyone that they needed to be seated and buckle up as we would be departing soon. I added that today's flight would include a selection of recorded music from a faraway land. I loaded up the playlist that I had created and signaled to everyone that we would be talking off, and started up the radio and opened up the throttle to max. I was especially glad that the plane had previously included enough of a buoyant ballast to be able to float in mid-air.

The first song, of course, was the traditional first song for newly flying peoples. Steppenwolf represent. We got to a nice cruising speed and altitude, and headed towards Fort Rannick. As we flew, Faunra went around and passed out the packages to each one of the passengers. She dropped me off a set and it turned out to be a nice set of plain rations and a bag of honey-cinnamon roasted almonds. There was also a drink provided. Non-Alcoholic cider for me, an option of ale or mead for the passengers. Or clean, pure water. I cautioned Faunra that the dancing in the movie was very atypical in normal flights. She smiled and sashayed her way back from the cockpit to the cabins.

We flew over the path that we had taken by land so many weeks ago. We even passed over what looked like the same small herd of horses that we had seen previously. I announced this to the passengers and noted that they still seemed to have the pixie ribbons in their manes and tails. We continued to rush on towards our goal. As we continued on to our destination, the music that played continued on. I had kept it to softer rock and ballads to ease them in a bit. Pity that the mercenaries wouldn't get the chance to hear any of the other genre.

After about ninety minutes, we were touching down where the eagle roost used to be. It's a shame that they haven't been able to recover the population yet, but the Fort Rannick Rangers were decidedly less affluent than other areas, and animals still had to be bred and raised. Maybe we can tip a few coins their way to get them stocked back up. Maybe even a once a day Sending item would be enough to get them through to Magnimar to ask for assistance in times of aid. At least it would give them the chance to get some kind of assistance quicker than what happened before.

With the plane landing, everyone was ushered out. Faunra had taken the time to change into her actual armor and gear. Then again, doing so can be as quick as six seconds anymore, so it doesn't surprise that much. I tasked the Unseen Crafters to get on repairing anything that had failed and writing up a list of suspected weakening parts and what had to be repaired. It wasn't the same as having the same crew working on it as last time, but it would have to suffice.

We were all about to walk down the path when Jonathan rolled out a large rug. I caught his intention and watched as he telekinetically lifted it and bade everyone get on. This worked to get all three clergy delegations, the mercenary group, and us all down one group at a time, although Jonathan and Faunra both flew slightly above the crowd to give everyone else room, since I was in my armor and taking up extra space. On our first descent, we stopped a few hundred feet up, just outside of bowshot range, and loudly announced who we were and why we were here. We got a response back that this was fine, and that we can continue to lower.

We did so and we were greeted by Jakardros himself. He whispered something to Faunra, and she responded in kind. He looked a bit disheartened, but walked up to each of us in turn, shaking our hands and thanking us again for all that we have done. Dame Rebekah introduced the mercenaries who would be additions to their forces for the near future. They nodded and Vale took them to their newly recreated guard's quarters. Now 100% safer from fire. Guaranteed.

Jakardros brought us into the Main Hall and bade us all be seated. After introductions and formalities were out of the way, we discussed what all had been happening in the last few weeks. Jakardros was exceptionally happy to report to us that Ogre attacks have dropped down substantially since we had left, and that he was instituting welfare checks with his roaming squads. I thanked him specifically for that, and he told me that he was inspired by what he had gone through, and my little speech. He added that he had received a large amount of support from the community of Turtleback Ferry since that event, in the form of recruits.

I told him that I was glad that his position was being reinforced, and that it looked like they would be in good condition in the near future. Jakardros accepted this and noted that he will be asking for at least two of my style bikes and the training for it from Magnimar, to be able to get the word out faster to multiple areas. I asked if he thought that a magical communication device would be better. Jakardros shook his head, saying that those are usually point to point, whereas a messenger can go anywhere. I nodded and told him that I was certain that the Lord-Mayor would assign someone to get the arrangements made.

Dame Rebekah spoke up and offered to reinforce the walls of the Fort a bit more, and Jakardros readily agreed. Faunra, Dame Rebekah, and I all said that we'd do what we could. Jakardros pleasantly said that every little bit helps. That was when the Iomedean clergy contingent announced that they would be staying here where they were needed the most. Dame Rebekah looked at them and asked if they were sure. Their leader nodded and said that this was where they were most needed.

Jakardros offered to have them set up in the guest rooms and they refused, saying that they would reside in the barracks with the rest of the guards here. We all headed out to accomplish our own tasks. It did not take long at all generate another eight-inch solid cladding on the front of the exterior walls. Dame Rebekah alone was able to perform such with the use of the Metamagic Rod that we had. Faunra did the same to the interior of the wall with the other Metamagic Rod. I utilized my abilities to create a reinforcement for the walls of the "new guardhouse". Just to make sure that it is less flammable.

We all ended up getting back to Jakardros shortly after we were all done with our castings. Jakardros was a little impressed with how much was done, and thanked us for all of our assistance. Dame Rebekah told him that it wasn't anything major, that it was just something that we needed to do if we could. Jakardros looked to the rest of us and we all nodded in agreement. He thanked us all again and noted that with the help that we have provided today, both in material and in personnel, the Fort will be even more secure.

I asked if there were any more dangers that we should try to negotiate while we were here. Jakardros seemed hesitant, but admitted that there might be an… issue with one of the residents that we did not deal with before. They had not been causing any problems before, but apparently after the whole issue with the ogres ended, the Hill Giant who had fled the Storval Plateau was starting to be a bit of a bother. We nodded and got the bikes down from the plane and got geared up to head out.

Jonathan rode on the back of my bike and Dame Rebekah got on the back of Faunra's. We rode up to the area known as the Valley of Broken Trees. Jonathan went invisible and floated off to do some scouting. While he was out, we talked a bit about what we were looking at for the near future. Dame Rebekah spoke about helping Vachedi get rid of the Slavers in Kaer Maga, but noted that we would not be able to really do long term good. Faunra spoke about whatever we might be able to arrange for the Dwarves in Janderhoff, and whatever the Desnans who were heading there might want.

They looked to me and asked if I had any thoughts. I told them both that I would be glad to help out with anything that looked like it could utilize our aid, but added that no matter what, we had resources so far above and beyond what other areas were dealing with, that we did not need to upset the natural order and cause an arms race. They asked me what I was talking about, and I asked them what they thought would happen if we defeated a group of thugs with our stronger weapons and some of their allies witnessed it.

Faunra got it in one that the allies would seek to become stronger than us, and that they might use worse methods of doing so. I nodded, and noted that we were the reaction to an evil force right now, but that we didn't need to cause some other force to be the reaction to us. Dame Rebekah said that this was crap and if it was true, why were we thinking about dealing with this Hill Giant. I told her that it was related to our previous mission, so it would be best to get it dealt with before it can amass more power.

Jonathan came back and told us that the Hill Giant was apparently amassing an army of Ogres and Ogre-Kin. He added that they were gearing up to conduct some kind of raid. I asked him how big the group was. Jonathan told us that there was at least eighty of the things down there, from Ogre-Kin to Ogres, to the Hill Giant, who had apparently taken a deformed Ogre as a concubine. I looked at Jonathan in shock and asked him how he knew that. I shook his head sadly and said that his scouting was too thorough.

I looked to Dame Rebekah and she sighed. She asked what the plan was, and we figured out that if we went in while they were all asleep, we could do the most damage, and maybe liquidate the majority of the tribe. We knew that they would most likely be more active a night, owing to the Ogre's nocturnal proclivities, so if we struck soon, we could go through and get rid of them, bit by bit. Dame Rebekah asked if we were going to pull off a repeat of the events at Jorgenfist. Jonathan shook his head grimly, saying that no, we were going to liquidate them all.

We got as close as we could without causing too much of a disturbance. We got ready for the bloody business and Faunra specifically cast her quieting spell on five weapons: Jonathan's main cesti, Dame Rebekah's main Longsword, her own Black Bow, and she cast it on my Bolter and my Chainsword. I nodded and we rushed down to their encampment as quickly and quietly as we could. The guards apparently were asleep, having eaten their fill of what suspiciously looked like lumberjacks.

Within moments, we didn't have to worry about any kind of alarm being raised. We made our way tent to tent, without too much of an issue. We were dealing mainly with Ogre-Kin and some of the weaker Ogres in these exterior tents. There were certainly enough of them. I didn't know how they had gotten so many in the area to coalesce behind the Giant, but I guess that Might Makes Right especially in this world.

We were lucky that most of the camps were of fewer than two to three Ogre-Kin with maybe an Ogre peppered in amongst them, satiating their baser urges with what might be some very close relatives, given the propensity of Ogres and Ogre-Kin to consanguinity. It was a long slog, with each tent taking close to half a minute of movement, planning, and execution. The nice part is that after the first little tent, when we figured out the structure of the units, we split up. At this point, even the least among us, me, was able to "service" the customers of a single tent before there was much issue.

There were things in those tents that I wouldn't have ever wished a sane man to see. Not that I really thought of myself as a sane man, especially with all that I have seen in this place. We were precise, we were rapid, and we were methodical. We quickly went around the camp, executing these vile miscreants. It wasn't even a challenge for us to deal with these monsters. We ran through the tents and started just burning them down as we went. A little "alchemist's fire" is just the thing for that.

When we were done with the outlying tents, we were surprised to find the Hill Giant, his "wife", and a group of four well-armed and armored ogres. They were apparently waking up while we were dealing with the rabble that they had assembled. The ogres looked to be former members of the Kreeg clan who might have had escaped us. I didn't bring this up immediately but knew that it would be talked about later.

Dame Rebekah rushed forward and viciously attacked one of the ogres that had been in front of the couple. Faunra was quick on the draw and helped Dame Rebekah with the Ogre that she had attacked and the one next to it that was going to attack her next. The Hill Giant took a pair of swings at Dame Rebekah, but the swipes literally bounced off of her armor.

Jonathan followed up with his Sith Lightning again, and did a fair amount of damage. I finally reacted to all of this violence and opened up with my bolter in a wide arc, hitting each one of the offending members with a single round. Of the four, I exploded the head of the wife, likely a magic user of some kind with my track record, and solidly hit the two remaining ogres. They were still breathing when they fell. My shot on the Hill Giant wasn't as on target, as he was still swinging the massive hammer.

What it did do was distract him. It distracted him enough that Dame Rebekah stepped up under his guard and cleanly sliced off his head. With this new tribe dealt with, everyone started up with disposing the remains. A LOT of the gear from this group was confiscated and stolen from farmers, and as such, we were planning on leaving this with the Rangers of the Fort. Once all of the remains were in one location, Jonathan started flash burning the remains with the chain lightning blasts and oil that was stocked up in the camp.

With our work done, and Jonathan having done a good sweep around when we were done, we headed back to the Fort. Jakardros greeted us when we got back and asked us what we encountered. Dame Rebekah gave him the play by play while Jonathan spent his time transferring all of the recovered gear in masse from our stored areas to the storage centers of the Fort Rannick. Faunra and I took the bikes up the tunnel to the plane to get it ready to head out tomorrow morning. Dame Rebekah stayed back to discuss things further with Jakardros.

While we were up in the plane, Faunra asked me if I thought that we'd really have problems with this last spellcaster. I told her that I did not know what was coming up, but that I had seen a lot of magical effects that seemed to be beyond the magical capabilities of our small group. I added that if this last mission was a spellcaster that could perform those kinds of things, that I doubted that we could trample all over this future antagonist like we had previously. Faunra nodded and tapped the box that she had been given by the Desnans, saying that this was specifically designed to help us.

I thanked her for that as we parked the bikes in their hangars. I asked Faunra if she thought that we are ready. Faunra spoke up after thinking for a minute and said that she was wondering much the same. She continued with saying that after everything else we had defeated where we didn't expect to win, we have a lot of practice in scrambling to win. I nodded to the bizarre logic of this.

We headed back down to the rest of the fort and saw that the contingent of Calistrian priests were looking a bit sore. I apologized to them that we would be staying overnight here, and that the only really close towns were a place deep in the thrall of Erastil and an even sketchier place on the other side of the Lake. One of them perked up at the term sketchier. Faunra clarified that it was more backwoods and insular. I nodded and said that I didn't think that they would have much to do in either of the two, but that they could take a long trip out to the Gnome village in Santos Forrest if they liked.

They retired back to the guest chambers to do whatever they had intended to do. The Desnans, who had been a bit further off, apparently overhead and took a similar tact and went back to their guest chambers. We got back to Jakardros' chambers where Dame Rebekah and Jonathan were already waiting. Jakardros offered us seats and discussed where he had gotten the information of the tribe to tell us. Apparently an elf had started to make brief contact over the months and most recently had informed him of the danger.

Jakardros looked over us and we did our best to not give away what we knew. Jakardros apparently gave up and told us that he knew that it was the former Commander Lamatar. Jakardros told us that the former Commander had told him of how we had helped him, and how he didn't feel upset or off-put by us not telling him about the full fate of Commander Lamatar. Jakardros added that the Commander was working on keeping a stealthy eye on the various other threats for the area while he was working on getting his "lover" brought back somehow.

I knew what Dame Rebekah and the others were thinking, about the scroll in our gear. None of us said anything while Jakardros continued. He told us that the Commander was far afield right now, but he was expected to be back maybe in two to three weeks, if we had a message for him. Dame Rebekah told Jakardros that we would like to check in with him if possible when we get back, and that Jakardros should just let him know. Jakardros accepted that and said that he would.

He left us to our devices and we made our way to the rooms that we had been offered. Faunra indicated that she would be working on the gear that we had recovered from the monsters that we had fought that wasn't originally from human hands. Not a lot of it was very useful to us for the most part, but the enchanted Ogre Hooks had their enchantments transferred to the weapons that Faunra had for her "militia". She took my Bolter to transfer the enchantment from the massive hammer that the Hill Giant had been using. She also grabbed Jonathan and Dame Rebekah to work on some of their gear that they needed to keep on their person.

I retreated to the plane to work on making sure it was ready for the next flight. That was honestly the best use of my time. There wasn't any severe damage, just wear and tear, but keeping a log of what is wearing and what is needed for replacement early on will allow longer flights. We are still really in the break-in period for everything on the plane. The only reason why I'm even partially okay with all of this is that there is a magical back-up for just about everything here.

We are looking at a repeat of this duration of a trip tomorrow, so it would be another leisurely trip of two hours and then finding a place to land. From the little that I've heard or researched about Kaer Maga, there were no docks or real areas to land that were not taken up by farmland of some sort. And the tall walls likely presented no real place to land. Oh well, hopefully one of the more experienced members of the group might have a good idea. Failing that, one of the passengers might. Especially if we are dropping them off. Maybe Vachedi might know where to land?

I finished up checking on what the previous group of Unseen Crafters had written in the log book, and looked to see what modifications could be made to support that. It seemed like I would have to keep them working on this until I found a way to get actual proper bearings and such here. Moreover, it looks like about four hours might be the limit at the current set up. At least until I get to work on making some improvements. That might be able to wait until after we are done dealing with this.

I took the rest of my afternoon to go through whatever manuals I could find on my phone that could possibly be applicable. There was not as much in the manuals that was really all that applicable. If my working theory is right, the whole concept of higher speed aerodynamics was absolutely divergent from Earth level aerodynamics. I mean the baseline seems to work fine, that being that shape of the airfoils produce lift and all that, but the higher speeds generating an energetic reaction is completely out from what I am used to. I mean it's like the electrostatic buildup but non-specific and with no precipitation.

But honestly, what do I know. It's not like I really studied planes or anything. The real confusing thing is that the extra energy is everywhere, like some kind of Victorian aether. It doesn't interact with matter or most creatures, until it does. Unless those creatures have at least a touch of magic in them. I guess I was a sponge since I didn't have a way for me to have the prerequisite genetic or incidental history. Maybe all of the magic that has been used to keep me from dying latched on to my ephemeral self, or something similar to that.

After a few hours, what I considered a "decent" amount of time in the plane, which I spent going over what manuals I could, and texting back and forth with Savah (thank you Sending Enchantment), I left the plane and headed to the communal eating area and caught up with everyone. Jonathan had spent the rest of his day being the go-between for the Fort residents and the Calistrian clergy. Glad it was him and not me. Faunra had been spending some time writing up some suggestions for Lamatar, with his newish Elven existence. Dame Rebekah had spent some time getting any messages that the Iomedean clergy had for the people back in Magnimar, for when she got back to there.

We sat at a table together with Jakardros and Vale, and they got a full accounting of where we had been since dealing with the issues of this area. The four of us didn't speak about Lamatar, but Vale did once bring up that the elf outrider who was very useful for the Fort, but Jakardros just agreed and left it at that. We discussed how we were going up against the largest foe we had ever dealt with and what it was looking like. We didn't use Special K's actual name, but we did describe a lot of the details that we knew of, asking Jakardros for his thoughts and opinions.

Jakardros offered up a couple smaller suggestions and asked if there was anything that he could do to help us. Faunra shook her head and told him no, but that he should be ready to prepare to defend the town of Turtleback Ferry and the area if we fail. Dame Rebekah added that we would try to get him information before we entered into any truly dangerous situation, just to give him a heads up. He thanked us and told us that he'd see us off in the morning. I thanked him and we finished up our meal.

We split up and each person went their own way. Faunra recommended that I take one of the extra-dimensional spaces to study and rest and that she'd drop by a bit later to discuss something. I took her advice and took one of the passenger wings of the plane and shut the door. I texted Savah again and got updated on everything back at the school. Apparently the new students were each taking time with Tank, Veronica, Igor, Gemini and even Niddler.

I thanked her for the update and told her about the drop off at Fort Rannick, and the updates about Lamatar. She listened and offered up that we might be able to look into helping Lamatar after we are done. I thanked her for the insight and we went back and forth for a bit before she noted that she had to head to bed. After the text conversation was over, there was a knock at the chamber's door.

I opened it up and Faunra asked to come in. I let her in and she asked if there was anything I might be able to do make sure that we are not scried upon. I looked at her oddly but she just shook her head and continued warily. Faunra admitted that "Special K" had been taking the opportunity to attempt to scry on Jonathan, Dame Rebekah and herself at different times since the encounters at the Runeforge. She asked me if I had noticed this happening.

I thought about if for a minute and told her that I had not. Faunra nodded and noted that it seemed that I had been REALLY lucky so far. She continued with saying that if she was guessing right, I had been outside of the visual sensor's range when the scrying had occurred at both the dealing with Mokmurian, by me being around the corner of the wall when it happened, and being actually behind the statue when it animated. I asked her how this might be that I am so lucky.

Faunra said that these two instances did seem to just be very lucky, but she had noticed that it was getting harder to get a read on me via any divinations at all. She said that she had figured that it might be related to me being from the different world and the… unique circumstances of my arriving. I told her that it did make sense that I would be getting some help in that regard. Faunra said that we might be able to utilize this to our benefit, but that I'll have to maintain a disguise and minimize the usage of my technology. I asked her if she thought that there was a way to get this done. Faunra said that she'd look into it, but that there was definitely something that can be done.

I thanked her and she left to go her quarters in the Fort. I went back to texting Savah about the new information and getting her feedback. She offered up that there were spells and effects that could do this but that it might be beyond our abilities. I thanked her for her thoughts and she suggested that I would best be served by getting in contact with the Pathfinders in the next city to see if they had a good option. I thanked her and noted that I would be trying to figure out other measures on my end as well. I rolled out the sleeping bag and set myself to get some rest.