Session Sixity-Nine: The Village of Kuresh

Note: For those unfamiliar with Dark Sun, psionics are called the Will for wild talents and the Way for trained psionicists.

Vashti's appearance had drastically changed in her time away and the people from her village did not recognize her. After a long discussion, Vashti was able to convince the villagers that she was who she said she was. She told them the names of every villager and personal details about them. The village opened their doors and allowed the group inside.
Vashti met her mentor, a dwarf water cleric named Sharra, and explained what had happened in the time she had been away. She also told her about their current mission, to find the gems needed to destroy Kalak. Sharra thought Vashti's plan was noble, but idealistic. She tried to convince Vashti to stay, but Vashti refused.
Kiara lied, when out of ear shot of Julius, and said she was an air cleric. She and Vashti healed some of the guards who were badly injured in the fight with the gith. One of guards was beyond help and died.
Vashti met with the village elder, a preserver named Kazim. She turned over all the supplies the group had purchased in Altaruk and Nibenay. She also introduced Kazim to Kalino and those two retired to have a long discussion
Sharra explained to Vashti that the gith of the Black Spear Tribe had refused their tribute and had been attacking the village. The gith had attacked three times and each time their force grew larger. They refused to talk and would not explain why they were attacking.
The group was invited to sleep in one of the communal sleeping areas and they accepted. Julius insisted on keeping watch and the group obliged.

Day 9, Week 1, Macro, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, Sun Descending

In the morning, Vashti preached her sermon and everyone ate and drank at a large communal breakfast. Vashti, Kiara, and Sharra healed the group and some of the villagers. Some of the villagers tried to convince Alaxander or Julius to stay in Kuresh, because the village did not have a powerful user of the way to protect them. They both politely declined.
Vashti returned to the group and explained that the village paid a monthly tribute to the gith, to be left alone. However, the last tribute was rejected and the village didn't know why. The gith had been attacking the village ever since. Vashti further explained that she could not continue on their quest, until her village was safe. The group agreed to assist her.

Vashti began scouting the Black Spine Mountain range with the way. She was using her ability to see distant locations. After awhile of searching and resting, to recover her mental strength, and searching again, she found a large gith tribe hiking through the mountains.
She began scouting ahead of gith's apparent direction, east. She saw a mountain with a crater on the top and, eventually another large group of gith moving toward the other. With a little bit of guessing work, she supposed they were headed toward the mountainous crater.
Vashti told the group what she had found and Julius used the way to join the minds of Vashti and Alaxander. Alaxander then used the way to open a dimensional gateway to the crater. The group moved through.
The crater appeared natural, with a plethora of natural caves in the crater walls. Near the center of the crater was a small oasis. The oasis had some hardy thorny bushes growing around it, as well as some small ironwood trees.
Vashti called out a greeting in the gith language. Suddenly, her mind was attacked and she saw a giant snake on the mindscape. The snake quickly broke through her meager mental defenses and began reading her mind. She called out that her mind was broken.
Thinking quickly, Alaxander used the way to open a dimensional door and grabbed Vashti. He rushed through, dragging her behind him. The distance he carried her was out of the mental range of the mental attacker and the attacker was no longer able to read her mind. Everyone else rushed through as well.
Vashti, thinking the best of others, believed that the snake was just reading her mind to find out why the group was there and not because it had nefarious plans. Julius argued that her hypothesis was very unlikely, but Vashti refused to listen to him. Vashti convinced herself that the snake was likely a druid guarding their guarded lands, despite the lack of evidence.
Reluctantly, Alaxander used the way to open a dimensional door and allow the group to return to the oasis. Just as Vashti arrived back at the oasis, her mind was taken over by the malevolent force. Alaxander used his psionic sense to try and discover where the enemy user of the way was located. He could tell the user was within fifty feet of them and, probably, in one of three caves. The group ran to the middle cave, while Julius broke from the group and went into the cave on the right.
Vashti followed the majority of the group and said she needed to talk to Alaxander. She then lightly brushed Alaxander's breastplate and it crumbled to pieces. Alaxander cried out and Vashti gave him an evil smirk.

Upon entering the cave, Julius saw a tall, regal looking gith. Instead of being hunched over and uncivilized, this gith was dressed well and had an intelligent look on his face. The gith also had a brass hilted sword on his hip. The gith looked at Julius with disdain.
Kalino, Alaxander, Shade, and Kiara all tried to grab Vashti, but she avoided their clumsy attacks. She then used the way and grew a wyvern's tail. Everyone knew that the from that the danger from that tail was real. They backed off and tried to talk to get through to her.
Julius drew his iron bastard sword and lunged at the gith, but the gith deftly side stepped his attack. While attacking, Julius let out a battle cry, which got the attention of the rest of the group. The gith did not retaliate.
Shade, Kiara, and Kalino ran to the right cave, while Alaxander used the way to manipulate time and disappeared. While running out of the cave, Kiara punched Vashti, but was unable to knock her unconscious. With no target readily available, Vashti stung herself. Luckily, she resisted her myvern poison.
The group was cramped in the cave and fighting the gith was difficult. They managed to land a few superficial blows. Suddenly, Alaxander appeared next to the gith and placed an obsidian circlet on the gith's head. The gith's connection to Vashti was immediately severed and she regained control of her own mind.
The gith and Alaxander had a brief tug of war over the circlet and the gith succeeded in removing the circlet from his head. Julius used the way to magnetize his bastard sword and the gith's iron dagger, with a brass hilt, slipped from its sheath and stuck to Julius' sword. With the circlet in hand, the gith used the way and teleported away. Julius picked up the valuable dagger and put it in his pouch.
The group saw that the cave continued and they followed it. The natural cave system gave way to roughly hewn stone. Shade was leading the group and he stepped on a trap. A spear shot forth from the wall and stabbed him. The spear did not do much damage and the group continued.

Shade decided to search for traps and after a few dozen feet, he found one. He could tell it was a pit trap and he decided to disable it. However, while attempting to disable the trap, the poison, that was on the spear that stabbed him, took effect. He was paralyzed. His motionless form fell onto the pit trap's activation mechanism and then he fell into the pit. At the bottom of the pit were bone spikes, which impaled Shade.
Kiara screamed, as it appeared Shade was dead. Alaxander lowed a rope and then used the way to bond it to Shade's clothing. They hauled him out of the pit. Kiara checked Shade and was relieved that he was not dead.
The group talked about what do do next, they obviously couldn't drag Shade through the cave, but they were unsure how long he would be paralyzed. They heard voices coming from the dark ahead of them and Alaxander quickly opened a dimensional portal. They ran through, taking Shade with them, and appeared near the oasis.
The mountain to the south could be seen from the group's vantage point and they could see a large group of gith climbing over the crest of the mountain. They were headed toward the oasis.

Join us in two weeks for another exciting session of Adventures Under the Dark Sun. 
2nd edition AD&D Dark Sun Cast of Player Characters 
Julius: Human male psychokinetic. 22 years old. Played by Dave. Speaks Balican, Tyrian, and Giant. 
Alaxander: Human male psychokinetic. 18 years old. Played by Ben. Speaks Balican, Tyrian, and Elf. 
Vashti: Human female clairsentient/water cleric. 20 years old. Played by my wife. Speaks Nibnese, Gith, Tyrian, Balican, and Urikite. 
Shade: Half-Elf male ranger/thief, 18 years old. Played by Chad. Speaks Balican, Elf and Tyrian. 
Kalino: Human male fighter/preserver. 20 years old. Party NPC. Speaks Rammin, Tyrian, and Balican.
Kiara: Human female fighter/templar, 22 years old. NPC. Speaks Urikite, Raamin, and Tyrian.