A Walk in the Neighborhood

[Brian]

He leads you to a stone room, where you can see everyone you would expect to be at a strategy meeting -- except for Eske and Mattias.  Come to think of it, Ekim isn't around, either.

Parthipan now goes to No Spill Blood.

[Brian]

After leaving the strategy room at Phil's command, you look around, realizing that there's no access to wind in any of the dungeons.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai sighs and heads up, hoping to find someone who will help look after his body while he's checking out the dreadmarch.

[Brian]

It doesn't take too long to grab some guards, find a tower, and set up your spell to see across the wind.  Setting up the spell may take longer, however.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai sets up the spell with the usual set of limitations.

[Brian]

It takes a short time, on your towertop, to feel like you're floating away from your body.  This time, as you rise, you look down at yourself, momentarily disconcerted by how different you look from the way you remember.  You're quickly swept over the wall, and across the field, spinning around in time to see it before you reach it.

Your flight very quickly slows over the army, looking for hints of the plan that's going to be set against you when the moon sets.  For the first time, while doing this, you see the Jotun that were spoken of before.  The giants across the ice ... they tower, at a good twenty meters tall, skulking around and slouched. There's nearly two hundred of them, in the back of the Dreadmarch's army.

Looking down, you can see that the camp is arrayed suspiciously neatly.  It's harder to see from atop the wall, but the camp is reasonably well organized.  Not in neat grids, but in rather well managed circles and groups, with supply wagons and weapon racks filling their gaps.  Each cluster of tents circles around a campfire, each with its own cookpot.

There is one tent that looks suspiciously larger, though no more ornate than the plain hide and cloth tents below.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai heads towards the larger tent, bracing himself in case someone should notice him.

[Brian]

You see the man you recognize from that meeting with the Storm-rider the first time you tried to ride the winds.  He glances at you sharply as soon as you see him.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai freezes upon seeing Elric.  'Crap!'

[Brian]

Elric makes a gesture, and you find yourself rudely shoved back to your body, now dizzy and confused.  It takes a minute before your head clears enough for you to sit up.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai shakes his head and, once he feels good enough to stand up, rushes back to where the meeting's being held.

[Brian]

The guards follow you, not knowing what else to do.

Parthipan now returns to No Spill Blood.

[Brian]

Upon returning to the tower, both Devin and Astryd mutter about needing to prepare, and start gathering pouches of chalk, and other little symbols you'd guess help them focus their power.

[Ginrai]

Ginrai heads to the top to prepare his circle.

[Brian]

Astryd joins you on your tower.  From here, you can see one more tower to your left (the west), and two more to your right (the east), all directly atop the wall.  Someone has gone out and removed the cairn of rocks from the center of the field, but Devin's earthenworks -- a maze of dead-ends and pit-traps, from up here -- will stand between any charging army and the keep.  The walls are now bristling with archers, hundreds of storm-rider archers swelling the keep's archers' ranks.

Astryd's circle is behind yours, and there's enough room for both, as well as two more.  Serril joins you on the tower, but Devin moves to the next tower east.  You think you spot Dorian on the tower west of you....