First Session - The Taste of Freedom

Cast
Julius: Human male psychokinetic. Played by Dave.
Alaxander: Human male psychokinetic. Played by Ben.
Kalino: Human male fighter/preserver. Played by DM.
Vashti: Human female clairsentient/water cleric. Played by my wife.
Guacamole: Pterran male ranger. Played by Clyde.

Note: Clyde's wife made plans for him on our game day, so my 7 year old son played his character instead. Clyde had failed to name his character, so my son did that for him too.

Day 1, Week 1, Dominary, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, High Sun

It was high sun. Alexander, Julius, Agathon, and Cletus were sharing a slave wagon as it travelled toward Tyr. The wagon had bone bars and a wood floor. The top was bone and canvas, but the angle of the sun prevented the men inside from benefiting from the shade it provided. Guacamole, Vashti, Demetrius, and Salvador were in the same scenario. Although they had benefited from Vashti's extra water ration per day.
The caravan was eleven wagons, pulled by kanks. The slavers were keeping a close watch on the slaves, but when a sand storm threatened them on the horizon, they had no choice but to roll protective canvas flaps down in front if the slave cages. They sandstorm could scour the skin off their slaves and they would not sell for very much then. They slavers then hid themselves away to wait out the storm.

A sandstorm? Now's our chance.

When the storm slammed into the side of wagons, they began fiercely rocking. The canvas flaps were not perfect protection, as they contained a few tears that let sand through, but it was better than the alternative. Julius had been waiting days for his moment to escape and he finally saw his opportunity.
"Alaxander, Agathon, Cletus, we need to rock the wagon. The wind will push the wagon over and we can try to escape." Julius suggested.
The men agreed and they began running back and forth in the wagon, slamming their bodies against the wall. With their momentum and the gusting wind pushing the same direction, the wagon tumbled onto it's side. The bone bars on that side broke as the weight of the wagon pushed them into the stone paved road. Julius was ecstatic to see that some of the bone bars on the roof had been cracked in the fall.
Meanwhile, Guacamole saw his opportunity and tried in vain to break the bone bars. Vashti saw her opportunity as well. She used her psionic ability of cause decay to destroy most of the floor of her wagon. Unfortunately, the wagon could not take the instability and collapsed on top of the slaves inside. No one was harmed, but they were having a difficult time escaping the wreckage.
Julius, Alaxander, Agathon, and Cletus began kicking and pulling at the weakened bone bars. After a few minutes they snapped off, A hole to freedom, and a sand storm, was in front of them. Being a former tailor, Alaxander had an idea. Using a sharp piece of bone, he sliced away at the canvas to make the group crude, but protective cloaks. They all moved outside and saw the collapsed wagon. They moved to help Vashti, Guacamole, Demetrius, and Salvador.
Once freed, Alaxander crafted crude cloaks for them as well, except Guacamole whose tough hide protected him from the sand. Another slave approached and he was without protection. The sand had torn at his skin and he was bleeding. Alaxander made a cloak for him as well. They argued for a moment about which way to go. Julius finally decided to go right and the former slaves fled toward freedom and the unknown.

Braving a sandstorm is better than living in bondage.

After a couple of hours, the group came upon some ruins and took refuge behind a large intact section of wall. They rested for a short while and looked around. The ruins had once been a small town, that much was obvious. Most of the buildings had been reduced to nothing, but their foundation. In the center of the town was a small keep and it looked to be in better shape than the surrounding buildings, most likely due to it being constructed to withstand attack. The group decided to move inside.
 The doors of the keep were missing, so the group moved inside to escape the blowing sand. Sand was piled up in the corners of the room. Vashti went to look for a container that she could create water in, what she found instead was a two foot long centipede that attempted to bite her. She stomped on the chilopod and killed it. She picked it up and began eating it. Although it didn't have much flavor, she thought it was better than the hard farro bread the slavers had been feeding them.
When her companions saw her eating, they began probing the sand piles and rooting out the hiding centipedes for their own meals. Vashti was looking for a second helping, but got bit and was paralyzed.
When Vashti recovered, the group decided to investigate the ruins. The first room they searched contained four hard angled slate statues. Julius was weary of the statues and watched them closely. Perhaps too closely, because he was surprised by a group of giants rats that saw him as their next meal. They bit his leg and he cried out. The rest of the group rushed to his aid, using rocks to kill a couple of the rodents. Upon seeing a much larger force than they were expecting, the rats fled between some cracks in the wall. With two dead giant rats, it looked like food was in good supply, but water was still a problem. Vashti could create it, but without a container to hold it, it would be wasted.
There was a stairwell in this room and they found a human skeleton at the bottom of it. The human's bones had been picked clean, most likely by the rats the group decided, and near him was an obsidian dagger. Alaxander picked up the dagger and no one protested. The ground level of the keep was infested with rats and giant centipedes. The group didn't have much trouble dispatching the vermin. A few other human skeletons were found, one with an obsidian tipped spear, and another with an obsidian short sword. Julius took the sword and Alaxander took the spear. The rest of the group, except Guacamole, took the human's femur bones as clubs. Demetrius, Salvador, Agathon, and Cletus proved to be mostly useless in combat, but they felt better holding weapons.

Obsidian never needs sharpening.

The group was pleased when they discovered an old well in the keep. The water was far from fresh and they did not have a bucket, but the group was able to dampen their canvas cloaks and suck the muddy moisture out of the cloth. It took a long time and was far from perfect, but at least they were hydrated.
In their exploration, they had found stairs going up and stairs going down. Because they did not have a light source to speak of, they decided to go up. The sandstorm was still raging and holes in the roof and walls let in a large amount of dust and sand, but it wasn't dangerous, unlike being outside. The roof had collapsed in many places and the wood was very dry. Julius took a piece and encouraged everyone to do the same. He encouraged them to make torches, for when they had to explore the basement. Vashti was excited, because now they could cook the rats for dinner.

Come back in two weeks for another exciting episode of Adventures under the Dark Sun.