Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Session One Hundred: Lost in the Ringing Mountains

Day 5, Week 1, Fifthover, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, Sun Descending

The group got up and began their morning rituals. Samsun and Kraah preached sermons about how great their respective elements were. Dimitria implored the land to give her spells and Cheet memorized her spells. Raco practiced standing, with mixed success, and Yusef slept in.
Afterward, they passed out food and water rations. No one knew how to cook, so they ate dried meat and raw tubers. After eating, the group got up and began their hike.
The group climbed up steep cliffs, avoided ravines, and dodged rockslides. Yusef complained about all the walking, but the group ignored him.
In the late afternoon, when they saw the sun was descending in a direction they did not anticipate, they realized that they had gotten lost. They attempted to orient themselves in the correct direction, and continue west, but the passage west was blocked by the sheer mountain cliff and they were forced to go around.
When night fell, they did not know if they were on the right track, or not. They began looking for a cave and found one. However, as soon as Dimitria tried to enter the cavern, a human apparition appeared and warned her away from the "Forbidden caverns."


The group was insanely curious, especially Raco, but time was not on their side, so they did not investigate further. When Dimitria left the mouth of the cave, the apparition disappeared. They decided to camp a few hundred yards from the forbidden cave.

Day 6, Week 1, Fifthover, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, Sun Descending

After walking and climbing most of the day, the group realized that they were lost again. They tried to retrace their footsteps, during high sun, but got more turned around. They were very lost.
The group decided to wait until the sun began to descend, so they could orient themselves. It felt wrong, just sitting there, while the eggs were in need to help. However, the group had no choice, as they couldn't risk moving in the wrong direction and further away from the forest they sought.
Once the sun began its descent, the group began hiking west again.

Day 7, Week 1, Fifthover, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, Sun Descending

After waking, the group tried to figure out where they were. They had wasted two days and were anxious to not get lost again. They tried to orient themselves and were able to do so, based upon the rising sun, but they did not know where in the Ringing Mountains they were.
With frustration, they began hiking west again. After climbing and hiking all day, they were relived to see that they were still traveling westward by the afternoon. When they began looking for a place to camp, their hope of finding their way to the forest beyond the mountains was revived.
Samsun found a cave and it was large. There was a small fissure in the ground of the cave, but it was not large enough for anyone to fall into, so the group set up their camp inside the cave.

Day 8, Week 1, Fifthover, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, Sun Descending

Raco was keeping watch and it was nearing morning. He suddenly saw some movement near Samsun's pack. He hobbled, due to his knee injury, over to investigate and saw a rat trying to gnaw its way through his backpack. Raco called out an alarm.
Everyone woke, with Samsun and Cheet waking more slowly, and Raco told them what was going on. The group looked through their packs and they were all infested with rats. They spilled out their packs and chased off the rats. Many of the rats disappeared down the fissure.
The group had lost several pounds of food, from rat's eating it, or rat contamination. They group was, overall, relived that the rain drake eggs had not been attacked. They moved outside of the cave and went back to sleep.

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

This morning was much like their previous ones. They rose, did their morning rituals, and began hiking west. Like the previous days. they climbed cliffs and avoided ravines. Miraculously, they managed not to get lost again.
As the sun neared the horizon, they began looking for a place to camp. Kraah found one, with moderate protection from the chilly mountain winds. They set up bed rolls and Raco agreed to keep watch.

Day 10, Week 1, Fifthover, Friend's Vengeance, 190th King's Age, Sun Descending

Hours after everyone, except Raco, were asleep, the sygra headed, worm-bodied, creature, with giant bat-like wings, returned. It has two more of its kind with him. Before Raco could raise an alarm, one of the creatures grabbed Samsun's backpack, the one with the rain drake eggs, and began to flee.
The two other creatures slithered toward Raco and attacked. Raco fought back and yelled out to his companions. Everyone began waking, Cheet and Samsun slower than the others.
The creature, with the backpack, flew away and Kraah immediately gave chase. Yusef grabbed his bow and got a couple of shots off, but his arrows did not do significate damage to the creature. The rest of the group attacked the two monsters on the ground.
Raco, with his one good leg, was not doing very well. He kept falling to the ground and his attacks were less effective. However, with the rest of the group backing him up, the two creatures were eventually felled.
Kraah caught up to the fleeing monster and stabbed at it with his javelin. Luckily, Kraah flew faster and was much more maneuverable. The battle was fierce, as the monster batted at Kraah with its tail. Kraah had to pause a few times to magically heal himself.
Luckily, Kraah was able to catch back up the creature and attack it again and again. Eventually, the creature succumbed to its wounds and it fell from the sky. The backpack feel with him. Kraah dove and tried to grab the backpack, but it was tangled with the body of the dead creature.
After falling a hundred feet, or more, Kraah untangled the bag, but was unable to get grip on it. Finally, Kraah dove and snatched the bag, a scant ten feet from the bottom of a canyon.
Kraah brought the bag back to the group and everyone was relieved. While Kraah was battling the creature, the group had been busy killing and butchering another one of the creatures. They had managed to start a small fire and were just starting to cook it, even though they had no idea how to properly cook such a creature.
Suddenly, the other creature came to. It saw what the group had done and cried out accusingly, in Tyrian, "Monsters!"

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 
Dimitria: Human female druid. 20 years old. Played by Mary. Speaks Urikite, Raamin, and Tyrian.
Raco: Mul male psychometbolist. 20 years old. Played by Dave. Speaks Dwarf and Tyrian.
Samsun: Half-Giant water cleric/fighter. 37 years old. Played by Ben. Speaks Giant and Tyrian.
Kraah: Aarakocra air cleric.17 years old. Played by Chad. Speaks Aarakocra, Tyrian, Balician, and Gulgish.
Cheet: Human female preserver. 24 years old. Played by my wife. Speaks Drajish and Tyrian.
Yusef: Human male thief. 24 years old. NPC party member. Speaks Tyrian, Nibnese, and Urikite.

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