Subject: Re: Back to the temple; magic horses

Exhausted, Farron has nothing to offer. He can barely think of anything beyond setting camp and just not marching through the woods anymore. He will see to the Sunmaster, helping to make him as comfortable as possible. He will consult with the others as to the best location to bed down and will cast Tiny Hut there, once he has determine that he will be able to remain in one spot for the night (i.e. he can't exit the hut once it is cast or he breaks the spell).

Once he is able to bed down, he will test the new Arcane Eye spell he recently added to his spellbook. He will cast the spell to create the eye within the tiny hut. He will take a few seconds, testing the eye, looking around the hut, then he will send the eye off in the direction they will be headed in the morning (having ascertained this from Rennik, et. al earlier). He will move the eye with increasing speed, testing it by moving it through the trees, above the treeline (stopping once to get a 360 degree look) then continue on until the spell ends. (1 min/level) He doesn't really expect to find anything, but anything of interest (spot check?) he will either report immediately if it seems important, or take note of and report in the morning if it isn't urgent.)

Subject: Re: Back to the temple; magic horses

[OOC: This is taking place at the break of dawn the day after the Sunmaster's blessing. Sorry for the delay in getting the turn out.]

Osred wakes, feeling easier than he has in weeks. The Sunmaster's blessing, the sharing that all of them had participated in, had lifted the acid fog of darkness from all of their hearts. The physical darkness shrouding the isle didn't feel so oppressive as it had the day before; the old man had channeled Pelor's light. The demon-summoned gloom still obscured the sun's light, but was powerless to block that light's essence, now that Fellus had opened their eyes to it.

Rousing himself as quietly as possible, Osred takes up his longsword, and steps gingerly between his sleeping companions. He nods silently to Robert, who is on watch, and steps out into the dim morning air. As he walks, his mind is on the events of the night before, of the feel of Pelor's light. It was different than that of Heironeus, somehow gentler without being any less powerful. Less harsh. It was the first time he'd felt the touch of another god of Good, and it bore thinking on.

In the grey half-light he kneels, facing east, the flat of his naked blade cool against his forehead as he utters the invocation. He rises and holds the sword before him, its point level with the eastern horizon, holds it until the muscles of his forearms and shoulders cry out in agony. Finally, in a blur of motion too quick to see, he whirls, the sword flashing up as though to parry some unseen blow, then lancing out again even as he spins to a northward-facing position. The sword rises and falls as the cleric whirls, moving so quickly as to seem to form a cage of steel around him. As he spins, lost in the intricate movement of his prayer, the air around him seems to brighten with the familiar light of Heironeus and he feels his awareness lift up and out of his body.

Although entirely detached, he is aware of the singing ache of his muscles as his body continues its dance, of the sting of sweat in his eyes, the runnels of it that pour down his body, soaking his tunic. He savors the hum of the grass growing underfoot, the rightness of the divot his boot gouges in the turf as he lunges forward. The snoring of Robert, now asleep at his post, the rustle of a skink dashing from the shelter of a fallen tree to a nearby rock, the slow churning of the clouds, the heat and light of the sun above them, the fear of the men and Halflings of the island, the joys and agonies of life across all lands, the light and darkness chasing each other eternally across the face of the world, the dark hate emanating from the mountain and its resonance with other darknesses lesser and greater, the cleansing light of the gods of Good, at once unique in all of its flavors and simultaneously an undifferentiated whole--all of it floods into him, through him, from him, and it is perfect, a rightness beyond imagining.

Whether this perfect peace lasts for a moment or an hour he has no idea, but eventually he feels it begin to recede. He grasps at it, and becomes aware in his reaching of himself as an individual again. He finds himself sprawled across turf torn to mud by his dancing, his sword held firmly in his left hand. He rolls effortlessly to his feet, invigorated rather than exhausted by what he has experienced. Even now the memory of his vision is fading, but his understanding has expanded, and his body seems to thrum with the power of the gifts his god has given him to aid in the coming battle [ooc: ie Hello level 7]

He walks back to Gully's and steps across the common room to the kettle of porridge the innkeep has hung above the hearth fire. As he passes Robert he claps him on the back, hard enough to send the Falcon's porridge sloshing over his bowl's rim. "Have a nice nap, soldier?" he whispers as he passes, not stopping to give Robert an opportunity to reply.