Not far from the base of Morgana's castle, four adventurers had made a small camp so they could eat, as well as plan how to get into the witch's tower.
The woman who was, in theory, supposed to be leading the band was the high elf paladin Sehtaetria. She looked like the typical noble do-gooder, tall and dashing with a svelte frame that had just enough curve to it, though her long auburn hair had an unfortunate habit of getting tangled inside here helmet. At the moment, she was staring up at the tower and silently praying for strength. Not to fight the witch, mind you, but to keep her allies from killing each other.
Yaeger Charflesh, the orc fighter, busied himself making dinner and ignoring his companions. He was short, by orc standards, which meant he was only barely over six feet tall, and was far leaner than most orcs in his profession. He didn't mind though, when his mates would call him the runt, because he knew that he was the only male in the village who could cook, and they knew he was perfectly capable of poisoning all of them, so they kept it in moderation. Yaeger's fellow adventurers, however, hadn't seemed to pick up on that bit yet. Unfortunately, he still needed them to fight the witch, so he'd have to wait until afterwards to start screwing with them and their food.
The little halfling woman next to him, Gelvira Roughroad, was specifically not prepping for an assault, and instead was making use of her time by arguing with their ranger about schools of magic. Granted, as a bard, she was far from a master of the arcane arts, but she had no intention of letting that stop her. She huffed and pulled her dark hood even further over her head. Her face, and the whole rest of her really, was already obscured by the long hooded cloak, so there wasn't much to accomplish by doing this, but she was trying to make a point.
The ranger, for his part, wasn't being particularly helpful either. In all his days, Faruq Saad had never met someone he couldn't pull into an argument, and he seemed to have no intention of breaking that record. He had particularly little patience for upstart youngsters who thought they knew more than him, usually just because he was a human, which meant he had to actually work to attune himself to some magical power. Not that his abilities were particularly impressive, but he would never admit as much. After all, what kind of mercenary talks down his own skills?
"Did you see that?" Sehtaetria asked as she suddenly stood up, her eyes still locked on the upper reaches of the black tower.
After a few moments of silence, Gelvira piped in with, "Well, obviously not."
"Something's going on inside." Sehtaetria said, "I think she knows we're here."
"Wonderful," Faruq groaned.
Sehtaetria strapped on her helmet and started toward the tower. Her allies followed suit, though they were clearly less enthusiastic.
"Shouldn't we put together a plan first? If she knows we're here, we're definitely walking into a trap," Gelvira pointed out as she almost tripped over her own robe.
"No time. If we wait, she'll have more time to prepare that trap. Better to catch her midway through setting it up," Sehtaetria said. The others could hardly argue with that, especially since they were already at the base of the tower.
"Well, let's get to work," Yaeger said, one hand already on his blade.