01/04/745 A.E. Continued . . .
Liska stalks off, away from the party. She is upset by the rough treatment given to the kobold prisoners, but she doesn't want to make any trouble. Besides, she didn't really finish her bath, so she heads back to the stone pond for a good soak and a good sulk, not wanting to see what else her traveling companions might do to a pair of tied up, helpless kobolds.
Drael watches Liska's retreat, and then turns to Gillmesh. "Any idea what they were doing out here?" Gill thinks for a moment and shrugs, "Tryin' ta kill us?" Thinking others might come looking for them, they decide to keep closer watch than normal on the camp tonight. But in the meantime, they attempt to garner any information from the prisoners by showing them the gold coin and making gestures. It is hoped they can find some way to communicate. Eventually, after trying nearly everything, Gill thinks he can recognize a glimmer of Orcish. One of them speaks Orcish very badly, and Gill's understanding of Orcish is not the best, but at least a small trickle of information makes its way into the picture.
Liska returns to the camp 30 minutes later to find Drael and Gillmesh still grilling the prisoners, trying desperately to find out all they can. Liska sees they are not making any great progress. "Maybe we should all go after, and rejoin with, the other group and see what they think?" she suggests. "I don't know if they will understand we want them to take us to the treasure . . . or, even if there is a treasure." Drael looks at Liska, pondering the treasure, "Or even what the treasure is."
The kobold prisoner, in rather bad Orcish, which is very hard to understand, says, "Warrr of orcs yoo pirrrggs." Gillmesh first thought he was being called a pig, but he let that slide as he also heard something about a war with orcs. "Where di ya get tha coin, fella?" he asked in Orcish. The kobold looked puzzled, but answered, "Rrrat berlng to Growal, yoo pirrrgg.")
Elsewhere, Tuall, not wanting to build a campfire or do his own cooking, and knowing the others were probably only an hour or so away, looked at Maarik. "Maybe we should just walk back to the others now. It would be better if we stayed together at night just in case, and we can renew our search in the morning. How about that, Maarik?" Maarik really didn't think he needed the extra protection, but as he saw Jarmain starting to pick up his gear, he knew the decision had already been made by two of them. Well, no sense fighting the will of the majority. "Sure, let's be off then. If we put a good foot under us we can be there in a hour, and since we can rest when we get there, the run will do us good." Maarik runs off into the dusk, the silhouettes growing ever deeper. "Run?" Tuall asked of no one in particular. He now wished he were a better cook, but both he and Jarmain start to trot after the rapidly disappearing ranger.
An hour or so later, Maarik, Tuall, and eventually Jarmain enter the camp. Maarik isn't pleased he was able to run up to their camp without being challenged, but they seemed intent on talking to two kobolds who were both tied up, so he was much more interested in what had been happening.
A slew of rapid questions and explanations from all party members soon bring everyone up to speed. Unfortunately, the three new additions to the group also had no special knowledge of Imperial history, so who that woman on the coin was still a mystery to them.
An idea strikes Drael. "Maybe they can tell us where a sandy area is." She looks around for some sand and eventually finds some, showing it to the kobolds. "Sand, see, where is sand?" she asks, shifting the sand back and forth in her hands, letting it gently fall from one to the other so they can see the sand in the campfire's light. Gillmesh adds in his bad Orcish, "You know place of tha big sand?" he asks, while pawing the dirt and earth before him. Drael moves closer to the kobolds and lets the sand fall slowly from one hand down to the ground into a pile, then spreads her hands wide and makes a sweeping gesture to indicate a big place with the sand in the middle and asks it, "Sand?" while pointing north, east, south and finally west before asking again, "Sand?"
Maarik and Tuall go off to perform guard duty, Jarmain gets some sleep, and the interrogation continues into the night.
01/05/745 A.E.
Morning soon dawns upon our group; Jarmain wakes the others up as he was on last watch, the others finally having gone to bed after they felt they learned all they could from their prisoners, given the nigh insurmountable communications problems between them. Liska was already up and feeding the prisoners and everyone else started to move about, performing their normal morning routines.
Drael gets up and starts on a breakfast of dry rations, grimacing at it but eating none-the-less. "Mmmmmm, dry rations," she said sarcastically. The sun continued to rise in the morning sky, peaking through the thick canopy, casting shadows here and there. They had finally gotten an idea of where the sand might be found. The kobolds thought nothing of letting them know where the gravel pits were located. Even if they were close to home, they had nothing to do with home, so they indicated they should go to the northwest.
The adventurers break camp and head NW, looking for sand, with Maarik taking the prisoners in tow. 70 minutes later they came upon a huge area of many gravel and sand pits, with lots of rocks, like an open wound in the surrounding forest. There were perhaps a dozen or so interconnected pits, all of them overlooked by a high bluff, perhaps 80 feet above. Drael and Tuall do a little climbing, since they seem to be rather good at it, and find the forest extends beyond the bluff, so they climb back down. Next they make their way into one of the pits, finding a gentler slope they can slide down. Thinking ahead, they trail one of the party ropes down along the slope to help them get back up later.
Liska looks down on the searching pair as they travel from one area to the next, never seeming to find anything, but always looking, looking, looking. She decides to eat a bit of lunch, even if it is early, and shares some more food with the kobolds and with Jarmain and Maarik while they all wait for the report from below. This may take awhile, and as she sees little evidence of wind here, she begins to think they are on the wrong trail.
Searching her forth pit, Drael spies something peculiar about one of the rock faces. An odd seam, it's almost artificial looking. She wouldn't have given it a second look normally, but since she was specifically looking for anything out of the ordinary, she goes over to it and begins to pick at it with her dagger, testing it to see if it is something worth looking at further. Tuall joins her, and after giving it a once over himself, and not being as subtle as Drael (for fighters can afford to be less than stealthy sometimes) Tuall grasps the seam and pulls with exceptional strength, ripping the concealed door open.
Tuall and Drael are hit with a sudden burst of merciless wind that quickly sweeps up pounds and pounds of dirt, sand, and small bits of gravel in the area, creating a choking whirlwind of debris and making it difficult to see anything, or even breathe. A cloud arises from below and the waiting adventurers stand up to see the excitement down in the pits, but all they can manage to see is a miniature sandstorm in one of the smaller depressions. They quickly hurry down the pit, following the rope left there.
Staggering out of the sandstorm, Drael and Tuall, now with makeshift masks covering their faces, run headlong into the advancing troop of their companions.
Quick explanations of what they discovered follow, and they decide to wait until the wind dies down, but it never abates. Eventually, tying themselves together with rope, they decide to venture into the sandstorm and see if they can't get inside.
Chocking and gaging, and hardly able to see anything, Tuall fights his way against the wind, leading the party back to the concealed door. One-by-one, they fight their way in against the wind issuing from the opening while using Tuall as a partial shield against the wind. Farther inside, the wind is still terrific, but there is less sand in the air so they can see more clearly, and Liska's sheltered bullseye lantern cast a dim and flickering light on a stonewall with hundreds of small holes and openings in it, sort of resembling Swiss cheese. All this wind seems to be issuing from these holes. Maarik, last one inside and still with the two helpless kobolds in tow, wrestles the slightly damaged door shut, barely closing it against the power of the wind.
Blocking most of the wind now, though the slight damage allowed for some wind to continue outwards, the pressure builds up in the hall, popping many ears, but they swallow and soon clear their ears and eyes and can hear and see again. The wind virtually stops, only a little leaking out past the door now, perhaps no longer having a wide gaping hole to go through, and the sand settles in the hall, 10-feet wide and farther than the lamp's light can reach, stretching 30 or more feet to the north.
They rest a little, though it is only noonish, after nothing bad seems to be happening, looking the place over from their current vantage point, not wanting to venture out of Liska's lamplight. A hallway, no doubt, but to where? Drael remembers the warning about the wizard Mireus and how he was a master of traps, so she decides to force the kobold prisoners up into the front ranks to set off any possible traps there. There is a lively little objection and debate about the ethical treatment of prisoners between Jarmain and Drael, and though she believes and knows in her heart she is right, Drael relents and goes off in a huff, letting Jarmain take the prisoners back to the rear. Eventually, Jarmain releases the prisoners and they cower near the door, not wanting to be too near the group of deadly man-creatures, nor wanting to go outside in the awful wind. He decides he will guard the rear of the party so the kobolds do not get up to anything mischievous, as it was his idea to let them go, so he feels responsible for them and their subsequent actions.
The party moves forward into the dungeon complex, perhaps 50 feet to the north until they find a Y junction, slanting off both to the NW and to the NE. Drael flips the gold coin they found (funny how she happens to have it) and decides to go to the NW. The party follows Drael and Tuall as they scout ahead, slowly looking for danger.
They soon come an open area, a room measuring 20-by-20 feet with a door in the southwest corner leading west. Tuall examines the door, finding it to be sturdy and relatively disused and now swollen with moisture. It will be hard to open, but he'll check it first for traps. Seeing none, he again characteristically rips it open (that sucker's strong) with a loud lurch.
S1: Tuall looks in and is surprised when a giant fury beast tries to glom onto his neck. He brushes it back with his strong arm, but it spins around and prepares to make another lunge.
COMBAT BEGINS:
R1: A giant looking fury beast is snarling at all of the party members, but Tuall is blocking the door, protecting the rest of the party (probably not by choice). Drael shouts at Tuall, "Tuall, get out of there!" but he stands his ground and swings at the beast, bottlenecking the melee and preventing the others from having a clear shot at the thing. Tuall hits it, but it just seems annoyed. The beast again misses Tuall.
R2: Gillmesh screams at Tuall, "Fall back, ye bonehead!" Tuall instead slashes at it again, hitting it harder, but the thing just seems even more vicious. Drael briefly had a shot at it, but her dagger went wide.
R3: The beast again lunges at Tuall, and again misses, but this time it jumps past him and into the room of the other waiting party members. Liska fires an arrow but misses, and Gillmesh takes a nasty swing, but also misses. Maarik and Jarmain are not in position to take advantage of the creature's surprise jump.
R4: Presenting himself as a new target, Jarmain closes on the beast and it attacks, but it fails to penetrate the cleric's armor. Jarmain misses his return attack and sees an arrow shaft sink into the creature, Liska finally connecting. All others miss.
R5: Anne and Jarmain both hit the creature as it lunges away, back at Tuall. It again misses the thief, jumping over him and into the room beyond from whence it came. Gillmesh takes a wild cut at it and nearly falls over as he loses his balance. Drael swings wide with her daggers - cleanly missing the beast.
R6: Another of Liska's arrows fires wide of the mark, but hits none of her friends either. Tuall continues to block the door, slashing at the weasel-like creature, both the creature and the thief missing each other yet again.
R7: Tuall continues to block the door, but manages to connect again, badly hurting the creature, its razor-like teeth scraping against the thief's leather armor, scoring it deeply, but again failing to penetrate.
R8: Tuall finally moves into the room, giving the others a better view. Before anything else can happen, Liska fires and sinks another arrow shaft into the Giant Weasel, finally killing it, its blood pooling nicely in the room beyond.
COMBAT ENDS:
The silence falls upon a battle-weary group, hard breathing slowly diminishing to quiet, shallow breaths with the stillness of death eventually filling the room. Luckily, no one was hurt (unless you count the giant weasel).
The party members soon look around and find they are in another 20-by-20 foot room, with a gap or opening in the north wall leading beyond the light. Two small doors lead south, both of them in the south wall. The east most one is ajar, and the faint sound of little squeaks can be heard from inside. Gillmesh looks inside, holding the lamp higher, and he sees the giant weasel's nest; inside he finds two little baby weasels.
SESSION ENDS.
© September of 1999
by
James L.R. Beach
Waterville, MN 56096