Once on the harder, less even surface of the mountainside, they found it prudent to walk and lead rather than ride upon the camels, but otherwise the trail was by no means treacherous. Each of the two spurs had its own watchtower-capped crest, lower than that of the central peak. Their trail, which the treeless mountainside gave them a clear view of well ahead, seemed to be leading up over the western spur's crest and past that tower before it would snake up to the peak tower. The compass seemed to point, not quite to the mountain peak, but near it. Fortunately the summit was a modest one, only maybe a third of a mile above the desert floor; Aria's own vertical ascent above the temple had taken her five or six times higher.<br/><br/>The sun had reached its zenith, casting the landscape in a shadowless blinding white. The peak ahead obscured a slice of their vision of the desert to the east beyond and the Dragonsword range, but from the visible range to the right came a flicker of - no, not a shadow per se: for but a split second, a vertical line of smoky yet fiery-bright, some some of plume or trail. It was so fast the eye could barely discern that it seemed to slice from the zenith of the sky above to reach the mountain peaks, like the path of a lightning bolt but far straighter.<br/><br/>It ended at one of the highest of the many Dragonsword peaks. Then something else began.<br/><br/>Cracks appeared in the stone slopes of those far mountains; boulders burst, and rolled down in avalanches. A split-second later the vast tracks of sand before the mountains kicked up in ripples - almost like ocean waves. Aria had noticed one palm-ringed oasis pond in that desert to their east, much like the one they'd crossed on the way to Goldflail, with some camels and presumably-nomad-occupied white tents encamped about it: the oasis palms' heads burst and their trunks fell, the camels were knocked off their hooves and fell misshapen and dead as if smacked by invisible giants' greatclubs, and the tents were plowed flat (along with whomever and whatever had been within, presumably).<br/><br/>The spreading sand wave made spread in in successively wider rings from its origin, running north and south as well as west (and perhaps, out of sight east over the Dragonswords, across the unseen Plains of Purple Dust.)<br/><br/>The east spur tower of Goldflail shattered and fell, tumbling down the spur slopes along with loosened rocks. Goldflail's central tower fell, and then that of the west spur.<br/><br/>All this had been a fraction of a second; the speed of sound or faster. Aria's shriek was lost in the thundering shockwave which rippled through the air, sending her flying and skidding several feet across the stone slope with sudden bruising all across her fair skin. Nostrils and ears bleeding, she watched in horror as the camels went off their hooves and slammed back into the ground, bodies crunching until they were misshapen hairy sacks like those in the oasis miles before. The shockwave reminded Aria of the spell she'd seen Kass blast the demons with, and at the moment it'd passed over her, she could swear the sonic wave had been a sound like a distant, masculine, and totally dispassionate voice uttering,<strong>"LO"</strong>.<br/><br/>Her ears and mind rung terribly, but Kass would still notice first, by hearing, a different sort of thundering sound from above on the slope: the shattered stones of the nearest watchtower, and other unworked stone now loosened and tumbling down the mountainside. The entire mountain was like some object which had been shaken vigorously to clear away loose debris, and that which rolled down the slopes struck and loosened other stones which the initial soundwave had not budged.<br/><br/>Within seconds an avalanche was sheeting down a slice of the western spur, a rocky tide which at its current pace would reach Kass and Aria in perhaps a minute and a half, and the slice of mountainside to may two score paces to either side of them.<br/><br/><br/><br/>Sounds good. Aria will keep the headband of intellect (mostly b/c of Insightful Strike, a class feature for adding Int to damage with finesseable weapons.) Kass can don it for any important Int-based skill checks she makes in the future, hee.<br/><br/>Yep, we will be epic soon! There are a number of bard-specific epic feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/feats.htm) , and some of the manuals have more: Complete Adventurer might).<br/><br/>Kass and Aria and camels take 33 sonic damage (no save); both camels dying (-14 hp).<br/><br/>Avalanche is 3000' uphill from them, moving down at 250'/round, covering a 400' wide area which extends 185' to the left and 215' to the right of their position.<br/><br/>Footspeed is 3/4ths on mountainous terrain (and like with most terrain that slows movement, you can't use the run action).