Standing alone atop a rocky crag overlooking the Sea of Swords, Candlekeep makes for an eye-catching silhouette. With towers of varying heights surrounded by high walls, the edifice looks from a distance like a cake decorated with an overabundance of candles. The only road to Candlekeep is the Way of the Lion, a lonely road stretching across the peninsula on which Candlekeep stands and its only access to the outside world. It is on this road that Kara Lyonsbane travels now.
Candlekeep has the largest repository of written lore in Faerûn, including the collected prophesies of an an ancient sage named Alaundo the Seer, but also thousands upon thousands of lost recipes, songs, collections of folklore, and journals written by authors long dead. Each year, Candlekeep releases a small book stamped with the sigil of the library and credited to "The Avowed of Candlekeep", containing short essays, excerpts, and other writings relevant to a particular theme or subject. The theme of last year's release was the relationship between location and magic, and included an essay on the effects of planar convergence on an area and the life born there. Kara, coming across a copy of the book, recognized in herself many aspects of "the infusion of chaos magic". This led to a long-distance correspondence between herself and the author - Reader Matreous - culminating an invitation to Candlekeep for one-on-one study, research, and if she's lucky, the discovery of a means to control her magic.
The day is giving way to dusk and the Kara has been traveling for hours, but the end is in sight. Candlekeep, previously a seemingly immovable shape on the horizon, now grows visibly closer with every step. The yellow-orange of the western sky behind its towers makes their similarity to candles even more apparent. As she approaches, however, two figures step out of the trees lining the road, both human males in cheap leather armour. One, clearly leading the show, is a lean, gray-haired man with a long nose, days of stubble, and noticeable scars running from his left cheekbone to his jaw. His companion is taller, heavier, and older, with a shaved head and a maul gripped in both hands.
"Hail, stranger!" shouts the scarred man, raising a hand to wave. "Welcome to Candlekeep, yeah?"
Kara strolls down the Way of the Lion with a bright smile on her face, the expression turning to a positively jubilant grin as she spots Candlekeep in the distance. It has been a long road for the young sorceress, both figuratively and quite literally, as she has spent some time traveling the land in search of answers about her particularly chaotic form of magic. It had been sheer chance that a recent copy of the 'Book of the Avowed' had come into her possession with an essay that had been eerily familiar to Kara's condition. After reading it, though not fully grasping all the intricacies of the arcane theory, she eagerly sent a letter to the author which had led to the invitation.
She is so lost in her thoughts that she almost doesn't take notice of the two men emerging from the treeline until they speak. Kara offers the pair a smile, at first, but when she gets a better look at them, it becomes clear to the sorceress that these supposedly friendly strangers are not guards. She regards them warily, one hand hanging near where her knife is sheathed at her belt while she prepares to open herself to the wild magic within her. Still, the girl answers them in kind with a wave of her own. "Greetings, friends, and thank you for the warm welcome. Are you heading to Candlekeep as well? Perhaps we can travel the rest of the way together?"
The men step closer. At Kara's greeting and offer, they glance at each other, the scarred man smirking.
"No, no, we're not travelers," the scarred man says. "We're watching the road, you see. Keep it nice and maintained and clear. After all, you don't want to get hurt tripping on a rock or something, right?"
"Yeah," adds the other man. "Rock." His eyes move past Kara, glancing at something past her shoulder. While Kara is not terribly perceptive of her surroundings, she is better at reading people, and she realizes without looking that he's coordinating his movements with someone - perhaps multiple someones - behind her. She is surrounded.
"Not to mention dangerous creatures. Animals get pretty big around here. Don't want them carrying you off, right?"
"Yeah. Rock."
The scarred man shoots the other an annoyed glance, but smiles at Kara again. "You could say we're people of the road. Maybe...highwaymen would be the right word. Anyway, I'm sure you'll agree a modest toll is fair for all that work. How about...five gold for each of us, twenty in all? That's more than fair, wouldn't you say?"
Kara sighs as her worst fears are confirmed and she realizes that she is being robbed. Candlekeep is so close and yet so far away in this moment. The sorceress trembles with frustration, feeling tempted to unleash her magic upon these highwaymen and punish them for attempting to target the wrong person. Undoubtedly, these thugs see a mere girl, poorly armed and foolishly traveling alone, utterly unaware of the power within her. While the idea is appealing, Kara reminds herself that she is surrounded and these bandits may not be fearful enough to simply run if she begins slinging spells. If they choose to stand their ground and fight, she can't hope to dispatch all of them.
Having come to that reasonable conclusion, Kara then decides her best bet is to talk her way out of this unpleasant situation. She puts on her most disarming smile and answers, "I am glad that such kind and thoughtful individuals are keeping the roads safe from cutthroats, beasts, and other villains. While I would be more than happy to pay a toll for your services, I'm afraid I only have ten gold pieces."
She holds up her coinpurse, giving it a shake and letting the coins within clink together as she looks to the scarred man with those big, hopeful, blue eyes. "Could you see your way to forgiving my lack of funds this time and accepting a smaller donation?"
The scarred man glances and smirks at the other thugs, including ones behind Kara. From this, she can confidently infer there are two thugs behind her and that the scarred one is definitely in charge.
"Ten doesn't go very far between the lot of us," he says, shaking his head with exaggerated regret. "That's alright, though. I'm sure we can negotiate."
His eyes go hard, as does his voice. "Take everything you've got off your person and put it on the ground." He has no obvious weapon on him, but he raises his hands and cracks his knuckles. "Everything."
"Yeah," growls the larger man, but he looks agitated. While the scarred man is confident, the large man is so anxious he can't stand still. "Rock!"
"Yeah, rock!" The scarred man whirls on the larger man, snarling. "I get it! Can you shut - "
"ROOOOOOC!"
The large man dives for the ground as a truly enormous bird, its body dozens of feet from end to end and its wings hundreds, swoops past in a roar of wind and a blur of red, blue, and white plumage. In the blink of an eye, it passes, its gargantuan form ascending into the sky, the leather-clad scar man clutched in one claw and his scream swiftly fading into the distance.
Everyone else remains. The bald man looks up from the ground cautiously, blinking away the shock. The course of the next few seconds will depend on who regains their senses first.
Please roll initiative! Because Kara is used to bizarre and dramatic surprises, she rolls this with advantage.
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