Quote Originally Posted by WindStruck View Post
"... but we need to go before demons ambush us, too."
Some time after this awful escapade, the ears that heard this comment may reflect on it as eerily prophetic; or perhaps just painfully ironic.

The party make their way back down the bluff. The infernal stone is secure in Marion's pack; the ogre idol hewn from elven runestone is denuded of its remnant of magical power; the bodies of Gawin and Xander are bundled in sheets to preserve them for the journey, with Jakk'ari's assurance he can offer them a herb-based respite from the rush of decay once they stop to camp for the night. Zachary gives his bland report - the ogres seem to be having some kind of celebration to blow off the steam generated by taxing marriage negotiations, and the festivities have been going since before he arrived. And Mor'Lag's physical power makes the whole operation swifter and less painful than it has any right to be. Halfway down the bluffs, well enough hidden for the bodies to receive their wrapping before they carry on, Felix catches his breath and nods in wet-eyed delirium at the warlock and mage's quiet reassurances. Between Jakk'ari's quiet, solid support in his most hysterical moment, and the words of the Marion and Isaera with hands settled on his shoulder and hand, the youth is able to shove his grief back into its casing; into the well of feeling where all soldiers must place their gentler selves, at the risk of one day being pulled in and lost entirely. "Thank you. Yes... Yes, I'm okay. Let's just go. I want to just-... Let's go."

And you're all ready to go. You're just about to go. And retrospect makes you wonder if timing had been a little different, how easilly it would have been to just go, or to arrive well after the fact. But as history in Azeroth prefers to gravitate towards such moments, you are there when the music stops, and the cheering and singing of the ogres turns to shock, and alarm. This, inevitably, draws your attention to the scene at hand.

Well - that's not quite right. Your first clue is a sudden movement from Marion's backpack; a quiver of its content and an ear-aching, keening hiss of noise just at the edge of mortal detection that suddenly fades and stops, just before the change in sound in the village nearby.

Spoiler: Perception DC 10
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Something magical almost happened, but then didn't. Whatever Marion put in her bag has just missed some trigger it was intended for; like a stick of goblin dynamite whose fuse has been pinched out just before vanishing into the powder.
Spoiler: Expertise: Magic DC 10
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It seems like the physical separation from the idol - or more specifically, the magic trickle from within it - has robbed this fel happening of some final, critical drop of fuel.


Then, glancing over the low edge of the cliff toward the celebration, you bear witness; just as so many others did, four years ago.
Spoiler: Witness me.
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https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxJiG...415snm-KCeYL-b


The sky does not rain green fire, today; but the earth blooms with it. Dozens of blazing beryl craters burst open around the village, amidst their celebrations; some within the primitive structures, some from hard packed earn in the streets, some from the face of the cliff on whose two you previously stood. The largest are upwards of thirty feet tall, looming over the tallest ogres in the settlement; and no sooner have they birthed from the memory of the last war do they fall upon those creatures nearest to them. Ogres are tough creatures by nature; a warrior culture stacked on top of a wrecking machine physiology; but these ogres are drunk, and confused, and well and truly off guard. The bloodshed commences immediately, and with frightful intensity. Nearest to where you are, two hundred feet beyond the foot of the bluffs and past the crude wooden palisades, you see one reveller blinking in shock at the emergence of three such beings - small ones, no more than twenty feet tall. One falls upon him with a battering ram blow from a green-blazing fist that breaks his mighty neck and catches flame to the body even as it topples.

There are not so many of the wicked constructs that it seems like the settlement is in danger of being overrun, even under these conditions - but they will pay a price in the blood of the jubilant, intoxicated adults and the dumbfounded children.

Spoiler: OOC Rolls!
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You're not technically in combat time yet; but I will ask you to make a Will Resistance Check against a DC of 14. Failure means you are dazed by the demonic shock of the scene.