Always Ascending

[Roselli]

Gwyn takes a seat on a nearby stump and looks to the Gnoll, "it's ok. I suspected my magic couldn't pull it off either. What's your name? Maybe you can come with us? Help us. They didn't seem to care about you, but to us, you're important. You can be a part of the team. Enchanting an object is really cool."

"Say, do you know if there are any outposts outside the main queens lair/castle?"

[Alice]

She smiles, "My name is Eve."  She touches Retria's face as small sparks of magic start to fly.. "I'll try.. I promise not to put it on your ass anyway.."

as Red permits the magic her lips start to tingle and soften.. the stiffness in them relaxes.. "I.. just did the minimum I could.." Reds lips still feel artificial, sensitive, and soft, but now have the mobility to speak mostly naturally.. her teeth however feel.. oddly hinged.. from the rear they feel fine smooth against her tongue.. but from the front.. they fold away without any resistance.

"There you go.." She gives a little faint giggle, "If I thought I was smart enough I might have tried to trick you all into accepting my magic and gone back with a whole pocket full of adventurers."

[Nihtgenga]

Retiaria nodded, nervously holding still as Eve cast her magic. It felt strange, though nowhere near as weird as the original transformation. Then it was done. She could close her mouth once more. "Oh thank fuck for that! Not being able to speak right was driving me crazy, thank you!" She impulsively gave Eve a quick hug.
Running her tongue across her lips, she noticed they still didn't feel right- but at least she had a working mouth now. It did come as a surprise when she folded one of her teeth over, though.

"There you go.. If I thought I was smart enough I might have tried to trick you all into accepting my magic and gone back with a whole pocket full of adventurers."

"Well, I was the only one who actually wanted something changed so good luck with that either way." Retiaria sighed, looking over at her companions. "man, that was dumb of me wasn't it?"

[Alice]

She shakes her head, "What would I do with five people right next to me.." She blushes as she is hugged relaxing against the Tiefling a bit. 

"As for outposts.. nothing really.. She mostly relies on the towns people, and shakes them down.." She pauses.. "huh.. you know what.. I've never thought about it, but we don't have any kind of useful economy or ecology out here.."

[Nihtgenga]

"What's a one of those?" Retiaria asked. Maybe it was something they could use to their advantage?

[darlingng01]

Oric:

My mind suddenly flashes back to stories my father would tell me. Stories about how great castles and superior forces would fall to inferior armies or bandits. He told me them to keep me afraid, to separate me from those outside our home, but now I find myself on the other side and the information takes on a whole new meaning.

"What if we don't have to go in? We can prepare heavy weaponry and noisemakers outside the walls, set up traps and fake traps, spoil their food with contamination and force them out of the castle. Once they're outside their numbers becomes less valuable as we can force them through the forest and into traps. They can either come out all at once, in which case we have to whittle them down with hit and run tactics, or they send out squads in search of food and stopping our antics, in which case we hunt those squads."

I make a quiet prayer to the person in charge of this place as I wait for everyone to respond "If you have complaints, do you mind giving me an alternative rather than immediately punishing us?"

[Nihtgenga]

"So, where are we gonna get heavy weapons and noisemakers, then?" Retiaria asked. "And how do we spoil their food if we can't get in? I mean, it's a nice plan, but... we ain't exactly got much gear to pull it off with."

Opening the box, she divided the gold up into six piles, adding one to her own stash and leaving the others for everyone else. Turning her attention to the bag, she tried opening it to see what was inside.

[D6 for the gold and gems. I got number 4: 82GP.]

[darlingng01]

Oric:

"We can make heavy artillery pretty easily. I've seen plenty of it. It won't be well calibrated but it should be good enough for this. Noise makers can be anything that makes noise when hit together, attached to a string so that it makes noise when the wind blows. Pieces of metal work well. Spoiling their food is where our new friend comes in. if we know where they keep most of their food we can get some contaminate and toss it over the wall.

[I roll a 2 for loot]

[Ryuforce]

[Duran rolled 6 for loot; 79 GP]

Duran listened quietly as she let them talk to the gnoll, glad that there's no more conflict here but even more so happy to see the gnoll willing to help Red and not attack them.  Still she remained silent as they gathered info from the gnoll on what they can possibly do. Whoever their leader is, shaking down all the towns for greedful amounts of money was pathetic and something she even before knew she had to stop no matter how fortified this castle the gnoll hides in is.

With Red back to normal, the dragonborn sighed in relief while she listened to Oric's plan on attacking with a strange method of trying to make the creatures come out. "Hmmn but wouldn't that take a long time? Can we really afford to wait about for them to get annoyed enough to come out for us? And still.. traps.. heavy artillery... sounds like a ton. We're gonna need help for sure if we want to make this all in a timely manner...." She taps her own chin. "Hey! Maybe next time we find one of those large giant woman things we recenlty fought, we might convince them to help us... if.. we... um.. ask nicely?" Surely not all of them are bad with Eve being proof of that.

[Roselli]

(4 for loot
4 was taken so you get 5- 81 GP. -Niht)

"Red are you ok? Mouth functional?" I hug her, my tail swishing behind me when I move.

"Ok, if there are no outposts, I say we head for the heart of the beast. The traps sound effective, but....ugh just so slow and boring. My patience wasn't great before. I fear being here has only made me more impulsive. But I think it's the right this. Us a select fighting force, head in and succeed where others have failed. It's a great story, isn't it Red? Best kind of heroes."

[Nihtgenga]

Retiaria happily returned the hug. "Yep! Uh, not entirely back to normal, but at least I can talk again. And do this!"
She leaned in to give Gwen a kiss to demonstrate just how well her mouth worked now. Gwen would probably feel Retiaria's teeth fold back if she returned the kiss.

Releasing her, she went back to untying the bag. Its fastening was proving quite tough.

"Ok, if there are no outposts, I say we head for the heart of the beast. The traps sound effective, but....ugh just so slow and boring. My patience wasn't great before. I fear being here has only made me more impulsive. But I think it's the right this. Us a select fighting force, head in and succeed where others have failed. It's a great story, isn't it Red? Best kind of heroes."

"A team of badasses punching in like a spear thrust to kick the shit out of the evil tyrant? Fuck yeah, that sounds great." She grinned over at Gwen before continuing, "Oric, your siege plan sounds like it could be effective. But we were told to be entertaining, and no offence but that sounds dull as shit. The queen might be a big problem, but pissing off the Lady seems worse. That said..." She glanced back at Gwen, "I'm not sure we can pull that off either. It'll be entertaining, yeah, but can we actually... survive doing that?"

[Ordos]

"Hmm... from what I've read, you generally need superior numbers to pull of a siege.  The defenders have a strong defensive advantage, so a sieging army will have to surround them, make sure they can't resupply, and either try to star e them out, apply pressure until they surrender, or build up towers and magical advantages for when they try to take the place by force."  Naethra was fond of her heroic, military histories.  Particularly the ones about the glorious conquests of Seinheim.

"We can't pull off a siege.  But Oric's other idea could work.  We lay traps and ambushes around the castle and take the smaller parties by surprise.  Even if we only get a group or two, it would increase our odds for the big fight.  Better yet, it might lure the big gnoll away from her defenses... we might be able to fight her on reasonably equal ground.  That sounds much more sensible than just running in."

She looked at Gwynn, "and if we're worried about boring the Lady of this place, we could just bait our ambushes with you, Red, and Eve playing out the most depraved debauchery that comes to your minds." 

Naethra didn't trust the gnoll, but she seemed manageable, at least for the moment.  "What can you tell us about this castle?  How many warriors does the gnoll queen have?  Are there any ogres or monsters with her?  Any lieutenants that might challenge her for control of the group?  Any weapons or magic she keeps on reserve?  Where... where does she get her goblins and gnoll from?  Was there a tribe, or is she recruiting new ones from somewhere?"

Naethra cast Lou a quick look, hoping he could get the wand working, just in case.  She approached Eve, gently out her hands around one of the gnoll's I'm the most reassuring way she could.  "I know this is strange, but right now we're the best hope you have.  We've seen what you queen can do, and we can keep it from happening to you.  But we'll need to win this to keep you safe.  Anything you can tell us would be invaluable.  Especially... if that's anyone you care for in there, we can keep them safe too.  Bound or indisposed until the fighting's over.  But we'll need your help to do that.  We think one of our own might be inside.  Tell me, have you seen an woven princess I'm the last two or three days?"

[Ordos]

(Should I make a persuasion roll?  And I guess I should just take the lowest loot roll not claimed already, since I think most are taken already and I'm not sure what to roll.)

[Alice]

In response to her prayers Oric gets the impression of a yawn. Nothing specific comes down the pipe as to what she should do however..

The bag turns out to be full of.. garbage.. single dried peas and corn, bits of fluff and scrap cloth..

((upon takeing a short rest... that I am declaring now.. the players have discovered an unreliable wand of web, and a bag of curses. See OOC))

She looks at Naethra, "The goblin supply.. fluctuates.. And I can't be certain because I haven't been back to the fort in a while, She likes to keep us rotating in and out. Your princess would probably be a novelty she's keep in the top room of her tower. She doesn't keep any big monsters, the ogres and dryads are more.. general hazards and will go after us as soon as anyone else. Her body guards are fanatically loyal.. I kind of hate her but I'll also do anything she says.. You would never believe the power and beauty she has."

Oric can tell through her superior insight.. Something isn't right.. This gnoll, she's been manipulated into thinking of her queen as this near goddess figure, some sort of hypnosis or mind control maybe.. You don't know how to break it, but you can tell her feelings on her queen are not totally natural.

"I'm sorry I'm just the runt.. I'd love to just wave my hand and have all the goblins vanish... or to be able to just.. go live someplace.." She sighs, "Best I can do is turn people into stuff and back again.. And I can't even use it to punish my queens enemies since outside of that one pervy guy who wanted to be her seat cushion.. No one is going to agree to that.. Right?"

She drinks some of the water from the bucket, "I could get them to open the gate at least if you wanted to go that way."

[darlingng01]

Oric:

I think about the options presented to us. We can't all be inanimate or we risk not getting turned back, and we can't impersonate the gnolls... "What if we have two of us impersonate goblins and the rest turned into objects? The two who remain can make sure she doesn't try and keep the inanimate objects. A couple new goblins probably won't raise suspicion." I look at the gnoll "I think you may be under the influence of some kind of mind control. If you'd like, I can try something to free you from it. There's no guaranty it will work though, and like with your own magic I need you to not resist."