South

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Cassandra remained silent for a few moments as she considered their options, Margaret and Silvia watching her quietly. Finally she made a decision.

“Well, since there's no hint which way we should go I'll just pick one at random: South.”

“Alright, south it is.” The other two women agreed, and the trio headed in the chosen direction.

Once they left the village and started walking through the woods Cassandra noticed that the trees here were a bit different from the ones she had seen on the other side of the road. While the trees there had been rather large and old-looking the ones here were thinner and younger-looking. They offered a lot less cover, but at the same time left a lot more open space between the tree trunks, making movement easier.

“So, could either of you tell me a bit more about undead?” Cassandra decided to ask while they walked.

“Do you mean the illusionary undead here, or in general?” Margaret inquired as she looked around for anything unusual.

“Both, if you don't mind, sis.”

“Well, remember what the teacher said earlier? That since this is combat training some of the more creative solutions to problems won't work? It goes both ways. Any enemy we encounter, undead or not, will simply try to kill us. No prisoners.”

“Unless some idiot decided to ignore the rules and made some of the illusions capable of capturing or **** us – but anyone stupid enough to do such a thing will have A LOT of explaining to do.” Silvia added.

“I see. And what about regular undead?”

“Well...” Margaret began, but then paused. “Wait, I think I see something up ahead.” She sped up, walking towards what she had noticed. Cassandra and Silvia sped up as well, in order to not fall behind.

After just a couple of minutes the trio reached a small empty clearing. The only thing of interest – the thing Margaret had noticed – was a large scroll floating in the air right in the middle of the clearing. Upon examining it they found a single line of text written on it.

Sorry, this encounter is not available during combat training.

“What the...” Cassandra blinked in confusion, while both Margaret and Silvia face palmed.

“Idiots.” The eldest Taerin sister sighed, then explained. “They are not supposed to do this. If any students get an idea that does not fit the current training scenario they are supposed to leave it for later. They are not supposed to put a message telling us that 'something would be here, but it doesn't fit your chosen type of training, so it's not here, sorry'. This sort of thing is forbidden and the ones responsible will have some explaining to do after our training is over.”

“This is very likely to be the only thing in this part of the forest, so we can stop looking and go another way. Any suggestions?”

Random Roll: 94

Cassandra sighed and took a quick look around, just in case Silvia was wrong and something else was there after all. “Wait, what's that?” She paused in the middle of turning around as she spotted something in the distance, among the trees.

“What is it, sis? Did you see something?”

“Yes, I saw something yellow in that direction.” Cassandra pointed with her hand.

“Something yellow?” Margaret looked in the direction her sister was pointing, and did not need long to notice the thing in question. “Yes, I see it too. It's mostly hidden by all the trees, so it is hard to tell what it is, but a bright yellow object like that does not seem to be a natural part of the forest.”

“Judging by the distance I believe it is roughly in the area we would have visited if we had gone south-east. Definitely worth checking out.” Silvia added her own opinion.

“Well spotted, sis. Let's go see what it is.”

Seeing no better option the trio resumed walking, heading east away from the empty forest clearing and towards the yellow object.

“So, you were telling me about the undead...”

“Let me see, where was I... ah, yes.” Margaret paused briefly before she resumed her earlier explanation. “Well, the most common undead, such as skeletons and zombies, tend to also be the weakest and least intelligent ones, so they just follow any orders they are given. If they get no orders they tend to just stand around until someone attacks them, in which case they do everything they can to kill the attacker.” She made another brief pause to take a breath. “Any undead that prove a bit stronger and more intelligent usually take control of all weaker undead in the area, making them a bit more of a real threat. But the most dangerous undead are the ones that have both power and intelligence – like liches, for example. Thankfully they are the most rare.”

“In short, they are no different from any other civilized race.” Silvia summarized.

“Indeed. And just like people from any other race the undead can heal you or kill you; save you or kidnap you; **** you or protect you... you get the idea.” Margaret finished her explanation.

“In other words, they are like humans, only with a different set of strengths and weaknesses.” Cassandra summarized in a single sentence everything she had just heard.

“Yep.” Silvia confirmed before switching topics. “Okay, I see it. The object seems to be some sort of four-sided yellow monument. Definitely not a natural part of the forest, so it is very likely to be what we are looking for.”

“That's great and all, but keep an eye out for anything hostile.” Margaret reminded her friend.

Several minutes and some idle chatter later the trio reached their target. It turned out to be some sort of monument in the middle of another forest clearing. It looked like a four-sided column made from some sort of yellow stone, with a four-sided pyramid made from the same material on top of it. Looking down at the forest floor Cassandra noticed that part of the yellow monument was buried in the ground. When the three young women approached it numerous glowing blue runes appeared on each side of the stone column.

“Okay, this is definitely something that needs to be carefully investigated...” Margaret commented as she approached the clearly man-made stone column and started examining it.

Margaret's Arcana Roll: 73 (partial success)

“Okay, this is definitely a teleportation monument that will allow us to teleport from here to any of the other monuments. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to teleport us to a specific monument, only to a random one. Should have paid more attention in my Arcana classes...”

“Let me see...” Silvia was next to examine the monument.

Silvia's Arcana Roll: 19 (failure)

“...I too should have paid more attention in my Arcana classes...” She sighed in disappointment.

“I doubt this is something I can figure out just by getting lucky, so I'm not going to even try.” Cassandra commented as she watched from the side.

Cassandra's Arcana Roll: 6 (automatic failure due to lack of Arcana skill, but even with it she would have failed)

“Well, it doesn't look like we'll be able to learn anything more by examining this thing and I have no desire to just stay here until something hostile finds us, so let's give it a try.” Not waiting for her companion's agreement Margaret approached the monument and started touching the glowing runes one at a time. At first nothing happened, but after touching a dozen or so there was a flash of dark blue light and suddenly the trio was some place else...

...and that place was another forest clearing, this one a bit smaller but with a seemingly-identical monument in the center. Two skeletons were also there, but thankfully they were facing away from the three girls, likely placed there to keep people from approaching the monument.

Before any of the three young women could do anything about the skeletons, however, the silence of the forest was broken by a horrible shriek that made them instinctively cover their ears.

Cassandra, Margaret and Silvia: -1 HP each

Looking up they saw a ghostly woman floating in the air above them. Her continuous high-pitched shriek was starting to hurt Cassandra despite covering her ears with her hands. Fortunately Silvia was able to focus enough to cast a spell. She held out her right hand and a small ball of fire appeared in her palm. The fireball was promptly thrown up and hit the ghostly woman, turning her shriek into a wail of despair as she dissolved into nothingness.

Cassandra: -1 HP
Margaret: -1 HP
Silvia: -2 HP

Silvia's Fireball: 1d6+2d8 = 4+7=11 total Fire damage to ghost

“Look out!” Cassandra shouted a warning as she looked towards the skeletons and discovered that the two undead warriors, each holding a rusty scimitar in one hand and a small rusty round shield in the other, had almost reached the three girls.

This time it was Margaret who was able to act first. She took two steps back, away from the enemies, and closed her right hand into a fist. A moment later it started glowing with white light and when she opened her fist a dozen small arrows shot at the undead. The first skeleton was hit by half of them and fell down, turning into a pile of old bones. The second one, however, proved to be a bit sturdier, as it kept going despite getting hit by the other half of the light arrows... only to get a fire bolt to the skull courtesy of Silvia.

Margaret's unknown spell: Unknown damage
Silvia's Fire Bolt: 2d8 fire damage = 3 fire damage total

“Well, that could have gone better.” Margaret commented. “All nearby enemies must have heard that shriek.”

“Was that a banshee?” Asked Cassandra as she looked around for more enemies.

“Thankfully no. That was just a regular wailing ghost, sis. A banshee would have been much worse.”

“Let's see what the skellies were looking at.” Silvia suggested and moved to leave the clearing.

As it turned out, the skeletons had been facing towards the nearby dirt road. It was similar to the one passing through the abandoned village, just a bit narrower. Looking to their left along the road the three girls saw the tower they were supposed to reach, now much closer than before.

“Well, there's the tower, so I guess that way is north.” Commented Silvia before looking in the opposite direction. “And in the south we have... more undead. And at least some of them seem to be heading this way. I guess they heard the shrieking.” Indeed Cassandra could see multiple undead headed towards their location. And at least a few of them were riding undead horses.

“Okay, we need to make a choice, and fast.” Margaret began. “We can go back to the monument and try teleporting to another one, but there's no guarantee that we won't end up in an even worse predicament. We can just go back into the forest and try to hide, but that's too risky – there's no telling when the undead will give up looking for us, especially if they send ghosts to search among the trees, and in addition there's no telling what else might be in the forest. We could make a run towards the tower and hope we will reach it before the undead horsemen catch up with us. Or we can pick the suicidal option and attack the undead – but I'm really not a fan of that idea...”

“I say we run for it. The tower does not seem that far away, so we should be able to reach it on time. In the worst case we will have to deal with the undead horsemen first, but that's still better than dealing with them and all of the other undead currently accompanying them.” Silvia made her opinion known.

“What do you think, Cass? Any suggestions what we should do?” Margaret looked at her sister.

Vote: What should the three do now?
A. Run towards the tower
B. Hide in the forest
C. Try the teleportation monument
D. Attack the undead
E. Something else (explain what)

X. Minor Action

Result: A (3 votes)

Status:
Cassandra: 15/20 HP
Margaret: 2 damage taken so far
Silvia: 3 damage taken so far

[Clearly putting one of the worst options (going south) at the top of the list of choices was a mistake. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

Thanks to Cassandra getting lucky and spotting the far away monument things went differently than I initially imagined, but in a good way.

And wow. While writing it I did not realize how long this chapter has become.]

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