@Lucius Cypher, Orchid from his previous adventure of dragon fighting, strikes me as the sort who would leap on the man and try to grapple him, given we said not to kill him and the efforts made to take him alive thus far. If that means Orchid would rather use the flat of his sword based on his reasoning, go with that.
By the sound of the "timely donor," it seems you were on a UNOS waiting list for a transplant, bone marrow or otherwise, requiring, in the prior interim, transfusions, dialysis, or other intensive therapeutics, to foster and promote your health and well being. It is not my place or role to inquire. However, I pray, that you continue to garner strength through this recovery process, which in of itself is as painstaking as your previous medical journey. If anything, you're the hero who has faced and overcame the odds. For that, I am grateful; if you possess a need or desire advice, please do not hesitate to reach out, for I have a few connections I can lean on.
In regards to our pace, I feel cutting corners, via meta OOC, may be an adequate compromise, especially if there is stagnancy or an impasse after 1 round of posts from all participating PCs. This method would mandate potentially a post from each person, minimally once a week or so, at the earliest, if everyone posts day after day. In combat, a faster pace may be more necessary, to which I defer to those with more experience. Does that sound fair to everyone?
Inky sinews of Sylvan detail betrothed ancient papyrus, hopeful to preserve the geography wrought by Wick's illusion. Whilst scribing and etching compass and panorama into the last pages of her master’s repossessed journal, she concordantly nodded with the monk’s suggestion, but did not affirm with the feline's following smegmatic embrace, the norm of Katia's deviations.
"Agreed, beloved." The cleric frowned and quickly shrugged the hug off. "It’s too calm. The virgin sky is either a mistress of charms or an adulterer of tribulation. Our feet must tred, with haste, ‘ere we look upon the seductive corner of the moon, and spectate the affairs with which this world beguiles us. It seems our pirate is already weathered. Once you've finished flirting with the sun, collect the others. We must embark. Soon.”
Disgusted with the resultant sticky situation, but nonetheless gratified that the Tabaxi and the tome owned enough intel on their serene environment, she clumsily loaded her waterskin from a fresh outlet of a nearby fjord, simultaneously promoting a separating distance between her and the unclothed Cesar. However, the warlock herself did not chance bathing, as her fellow prankster menaced around. She silently lusted after cleanliness from the sap that now slowly slithered and caked into crevices unknown, as her magical arsenal was without prestidigitation, the cantrip needed to unsoil the now congealed layers upon her garb and breastplate.
Maybe Haemer could provide assistance?
Sighing exhaustively and averting avian eyes from the exposed bard, the cleric then hiked gingerly towards the inlet of the naked Vale, filthily awaiting their troupe’s recuperation, while bating the provoked temptations which oddly kindled within her celibate Aasimar frame.
The familiar flashed upon Torus’s shield-arm once more. Its prior descent, however, vexed the troupe’s expectant ambush, as the horde, now alerted, bellowed verbal alarms.
“Defenders! Many of! Run!”
His fang suddenly gleamed with a furnace’s heat, the staff whispering dim light into the fracas before them. He witnessed the paladin quickly circumscribe the hesitating man, as the other arsonists fled. The druid drew out his axillary net. He beckoned his avian help-meet to lend wing to aid his ropy trap, hoping to not only fish, but web the man. The familiar hovered along the elder’s outstretched hand; talon soon clasped one end of the mesh, mimicking and gripping the frays with its master, issuing a taut lattice of hemp, jute and sisal.
Then, the duo raced.
Yoked, together, by the uncoiled strands of briny fiber, between parrot and pirate, the saline squad convened upon the scoundrel, with Brannor flanking, readying for the next twinkling opportunity. The net was cast upon the quivering gent. The released twined weave dangled through the air, hoping, to land upon the bloke, end this scuffle and subsequently learn quickly the machinations of their dastardly enterprise.
Since Torus and his familiar are next to each other in the initiative order, they will coordinate their efforts to preserve their action economy.
Torus will cast Shillelagh, as a bonus action.
The familiar will uses its free interact object action to freely grasp the net, making it taut between Torus and itself. They will then move 30 feet in front of the hesitating man, who is within 35 feet, per my calculations. The familiar will then use the HELP action as its main action to provide Advantage to Brannor, before Torus' next turn, alongside Brannor’s position who is also providing Flanking Advantage to Torus this turn, with a non-proficient Net throw at a natural 1 and an 8, to hopefully encapsulate the enemy within 5 feet. If successful, the gent becomes restrained.
Both the familiar and Torus, provide Flanking Advantage to Torus' and Brannor’s likely Attack of Opportunity.
Our collective indecisiveness is immense even in the IC. Not to meta too heavily, maybe we can agree on optimal tactics in the OOC, while promoting plot progression in our submissions? In essence, we roll our rolls and plan our course of action outside the OOC but we incorporate said actions with simultaneous DM approved and revealed repercussions, so we can expedite the story faster with each post, without waiting to discern if something is even possible. This implementation requires a very active OOC or Discord, to keep interactions lively.
Sampling and circling the sky, the cleric took mental notes of the terrain’s routes and animals. No sign of man or monster was apparent. Then a garbled voice, that startled the hawk’s flight momentarily, became ever clearer.
“… That creature was no joke.”
The fleshy gates, previously closed to the duo of her dilated voids, swayed upward, unveiling a pair of choleric garlands around now constricting dull black cavities, in the presence of abundant light, streaming into her adopted Celestial gaze. The paladin’s tone of compassion invited a release of rigidity from the diviner. Shoulders relaxed. Eyebrows flattened as cheeks arced, divulging a smile of appreciation and a sigh of relief, as invigorating winds rustled their robes.
“I had almost forgotten the savor of fright. Thanks be to your bravery, Thea. I remembered our united strength laughed those shadows to scorn.” Gripping the fleece necklace, she fancied, with a vain wave of her shield arm, a conjured visual map, feint to the touch, but a depiction of their surroundings, just above the ground’s humus. “Behold our paradise, judged from the heavens. Gather round. ‘Ere we march on, let us salve our sores, and briefly rest from the prior fitful fever. Cesar, after all satiate to the content of their hearts, give us all a song or signal, before we venture off, further into the Vale.”
She plopped her armored body next to the illusory cartography, concentrating and altering the facade, ever so slight and often, exacting the minutiae, as she repetitively exchanged sights between fowl and angel. Stealing a glance vis-à-vis with the high-elf, Wick licked her vermilion borders, apropos in emitted Elvish speech, while patting the diary of the Seeker of Knowledge.
Wick waits, foraging the horizons with her familiar’s eyes, unknowing that many have assembled around her. She becomes slightly alarmed from Thea’s voice but is rest assured once she sees her.
Wick then casts Minor Illusion to depict an overhead diagram of their whereabouts, constantly correcting inaccuracies by switching between her avian sight and her own. She is proficient in Nature at 1d20+4, and initially rolls an 18, in hopes of preserving a precise map of their surroundings.
Wick (on ground, cross-legged, practically similar to prone position) HP: 17/17 AC: 17 (Breast Plate (14) + DEX Mod (1) + Shield (2)
I imagine Brannor and or Orchid leading, with Kyra, Parum and Torus making up the second rank, given all of them have ranged tendencies. I too imagine it as less a column and more a "line" so that the enemy has less options of where to move; either they flee, or they have to confront us.
I believe this formation would be optimal. Let's do this!
Thea’s sacrificial interception and intercession placed the guardian's frame between that of the warlock and the incoming, bilious force evoked by the sinister titan. The roar boomed against her paladin armor. Her stance absorbed the nefarious impact which reverberated into the polluted air, like an ersatz lightning rod monopolizing the depolarized darkness, in efforts to deflect downstream destruction to her allies. Upon the Aasimar’s full-plate, each ebon vibration resonated into circumventing strands of taupe licorice, racing to embrace the feline monk and the diviner with charcoal tentacles, as if a broken dinner bell chimed for the Shadows to aggregate and consume any fallen prey. Dusk was near; hunger loomed, lest a miraculous rally emerged.
“Take this!”
And it did. The Tabaxi would not be overcome by gloom, suddenly jetting through the ashen haze with a blinding aura, golden eyes meeting violet. Her light flashed, hostile and piercing the thawing ether. Involution second to blindness trickled into absence, lacking manifestation, tolling with the beast’s final dirge, a desperation unlocked. Consequently, a contagion effect rippled through the bridge of Turyn, as the fettered anchors of verisimilitude individuated from their structural proletariat, vanishing into melting hemlock. The last coagulated stones gave way, with Wick and her fellow flock precipitating into the oblivion underneath.
Beckoning a nirvana of novelty, each constellating meteor of the party shrilled into the seemingly unspoiled Eden. All embellished upon the landscape, bodies of wingless angels and clumsy elves. Luckily, their cataclysmic plummet left no one harmed and nothing extinct. Thanking the Gods and the abjurer for sheltering her descent, the scholar rose, dusting pollen off her robes and hood. The delicious dander pirouetted, smitten with scents of eclectic candles. Full of parks and ponds, the scenery provided the revived Celestial a wistful glimpse of a lively domain, peppered with vibrant imagination and natural beauty.
How reminiscent of her previous life's vestige!
A panting panther hurriedly interjected from the boughs of wisdom, echoing Wick’s own surplanting contemplation. “… where are we?
Shuffling towards the sickle knifed into the gored grass near the staff, the oracle spoke, “I know not, Katia. This braid of cursed sorcery seeks tawdry purchases within the soft fontanel of dreams." Words continued as blade met scabbard again; her jeweled staff erect once more, in hand. "Gird with budgeted defenses and remain on guard, as this defies my grounded understanding. Its cost is curious. Will you watch over me for a moment, beloved, as I pursue this quandary?”
Molding the earth below her feet, incense assembled under meditative diction, fastened pupils and paged tracings of Shujaat’s diary. White fire slowly erupted from friction between flint and steel, with the silhouette of a bleached phoenix gingerly sprouting limbs and feathers; a fey readied for command and instruction, then shot skyward.
Eyes still shut, the former half-elf sage, half-smiling, preached to those within ear shot, scavenging the fields with avian retinas, at a pinnacle height.
“Let us now ask the clouds, of what they envision.”
Wick roams away from the nearby Haemar, in search of sickle and quarterstaff, on the ground near her feet, while speaking to Katia, with her back to her.
After sheathing the scythe and limping along with the staff, Wick then stops, and utilizes Mold Earth to conjure a pit, to mimic the function of a brazier. Afterwards, she then meditates upon Shujaat's diary, which houses some notation for spells, for 10 minutes, and casts Find Familiar, as a ritual, summoning a pure white hawk, using the corresponding 5e statistics. It then flies upwards to 100 feet and with sight, scours the surrounding topography. Perception rolls at advantage (1d20+4), for 19 and 16.
icmasticc