The flight of hippogriffs work to gain altitude as they turn more or less eastward. The cold, dark air is rushing loudly all around you--your fellows bobbing up and down on their own beasts 20 or so yards to either side.
Before long the sky is greying in the east, and then blurring toward orange and then blue as the sunlight begins to peek over the jagged black silhouette of the roughland horizon. It is a most magnificent sight to behold!
By the sun's position--slightly to your left of straight ahead--you deem the hippogriffs are veering toward a south-easterly coarse. They are flying in a V-shaped formation with one of the guides at the apex, and the other trailing somewhat behind and above the rest...
As first light begins to wash over the misty landscape below you are already many miles from Southwatch. Travel on the wing is speedy indeed!
| Ref rolls for the possibility of an aerial encounter; d6=4 |
All the sky seems to be yours and you tear through light patches of misty air toward your destination. The ground below appears ridiculously tame--an fawn-ochre menagerie of heath and grasslands rolling for miles and miles toward the ecru slabs of jagged rock that must be wretched hinterlands themselves. It all looks so small!
By mid-morning you have spotted the abbey--a tiny speck on the side of a vast slab of terrain--and begun a long, spiraling descent. The terrain grows ever more rugged and daunting as you get nearer, until ultimately you land--one by one--a shuddering impact compared to flight, and hastily dismount so that the beasts can get airborne once more. Eventually, everyone has their feet on the earth.
"Fare well!" wave the elves, and launch themselves into the air once more and head westward.
And then you are all alone on the side of a rocky plateau. It is somewhat before noon on a mild, still day. Your surrounds seem eerily quiet after having air rushing past you all morning. Now, you don't even hear a breath of air.
The forlorn abbey lies about a mile or so to your south.
What do you plan to do?
[f=32]
Golgildir the Elf Medium (MV 12", AC 9, HD 1, hp 1/1, AL N) great cloak,
lantern; spells: color spray; scrolls: sleep, sleep, charm person
Hirelings: Georges;
torch[/f]