#odyssey

Symon whispers up to Dagmar, "Maybe I should have listened closer when Olgar gave his lectures. Is there ever really a good excuse for letting Random Encounters onto the safe path?"

"Olgar was pretty firm on the "not ever"

"Which probably sucks if you yourself got knocked off, right?"

"We polish windows!"

"Clean floors!"

"Put your enemies heads on pikes!" The kobolds list their many services

Still, he murmurs up to her, "Feel kinda bad for them, though." Not bad enough to stop walking.

And they keep walking

"Please.." One says "Eventually 'adventuerer dreams' come... they gonna slaughter us!"

but they can follow no further.. so Dagmar and Symon can keep walking

"Go talk to the Bonelord back in the last cavern, he whispers back before they proceed past them. "He might need minions, and could protect you in return."

To Dagmar, "You gotta have monsters to slay if you're an adventurer, I guess. But it sucks for them, to be like, a cardboard cut out in someone else's adventure and to know it." And they proceed.

"To the bonelord" voice says

Dag smiles a little.

Anothers chant "Bone Lord! Bone Lord!" And off the crowd flies

Someone's encounter just jumped in Difficulty Levels. Symon knows this.

And he grins. Not his problem...

And the two of them find the caverns finally leading up into the light

A little reluctance, but alas, the lovely underdank couldn't last forever.

"We should be careful so we don't get spotted, yeah?"

Deeper into the Dreaming even as they rise to great plains

He nods, silent and sticking close in her shadow as they dim their torch in response to the growing light.

"It's funny, you know? This seems so long, but we'll come out and it'll feel like nothin'."

"Or everyone will have grown old while we're away." He responds agreeably.

And a group is approaching

on the trod!

Surely enough room for both to pass by...?

Oh yes.. the five balor are bedraggled, beat up, but they can walk by

A scowl. He's pretty sure that pushing them OFF the path counts as violating the rules of the silver road.... but it's tempting anyways.

And his keen ears can already hear "By the black blood of balor, to lose such a breadbasket as Dry tears... it's a disgrace"

Shit. He sinks further into Dagmar's shadow.

"No, the disgrace is we must run from it... Let's hope the Countess takes us in..."

"The Sharpshine does not like losers" another says "We didn't just lose the holding, that's on the baron, we lost the outpost.. that's on us"

Pulling up a bit of glamour, he coaxes the shadows to hide him. Does it seem like there's a chance to hide both he and Dagmar, or is it growing too bright to hope for that?

Fortunately for him.. while a bright moon, its moonlight and not sunlight greeting them"

A light touch on Dagmar's arm, and he starts to pull shadows to hide them.... it seems like he could fade nearly entirely from view, and perhaps darken and obscure her features at least, from casual glance. (holding for Dagmar response...)

Dagmar responds - hard for her to be TOO small, but she tries to be subtle!

He pulls on the shadows, and for himself, he actually steps INTO her shadow. Stretching to step as she steps, walking in the darkness she casts, and coaxing, cajoling the dim and dark to hide them both as best it may so that they can slink past the Balor, hearing perhaps, but not drawing attention?

The balor vary, oh true, 3 of the 5 are sidhe. But ons is a troll. Another a redcap...

and with the shadows about her visage, they do not recognize her.

And Dagamr can hear them too "The problem is the damn rovers.. maybe it's time for someone to..."

"Shhh" Another says

and they just keep walking

moving right past our gwydion and Pillar of the mountain

Once they move past, he repeats to himself, and to Dagmar. "Sharpshine. Outpost. Warn the rovers. If we forget the rest... try to remember that."

"A Countess..."

Maybe he could make notes, but mayhaps the dreaming doesn't like when people try to be too clever about remembering what it wants to fade. So instead, he does his best to lock it in mentally, and hopes.

A quiet nod.

And soon, that 'I need a shower feeling' one gets from interacting with some balor is gone, along with the little goosteppers that cause it

When clear. "Uhg."