Community

The party held their ground beside the slave pit as Ungarth stabbed Oathem Tsalaxa with his rapier.  The slavemaster ran away, shouting for his half-giant guards to"kill them!"

The group held out hope that the woman there to buy slaves would stay out of the fight, but as she urged her inix mount forward and her mul bodyguards started swinging their clubs, that hope was crushed.

Pik and Shallahai called upon their vast reserves of druidic power, calling plants and animals to shelter and aid them; vines rose up to entangle the muls, thorns strangled one of the ballistae, and hawks and toads generally got in the way.

Ballistae bolts took a heavy toll on the party, but Shallahai raised more plants around them to shield them from sight.  Still, they were pinned in place, with more half-giants...

With the villagers freed and the slavers captured, Ungarth set about interrogating the tieflings.  They did recall something about capturing a barbaric tribe a few weeks back, and selling them on to the slaving fortress the team had slaughtered the last slavers at.  This was enough justification for the barbarian to start stringing them up to be hanged.

Crwydrath intervened, hinting at - and eventually outright explaining - his need to sacrifice someone to see the oracle and find his love.

Thus, the tieflings were saved; the party decided that they'd need severalwarm bodies to get an answer each from the oracle, and decided to set out in the morning.

During the night, Pik had a dream where the greenery of Athas was choked by snakes, and a hand, green and prickly, reached down to ...

Yeah, there was no game yesterday, but it'll return next week for sure!

There was no DS session last Wednesday,since we lacked two players.  Missing only one this coming Wednesday, it should go ahead as planned.

However, since this missing player is the player of Raina, whose last absence (back in the first session) led to a 125% fatality rate, perhaps this does not bode well for the party...

Star-jammer: Flying Sailing Ship

By Fredrick Wheeler

A few of you might have heard of Spelljammer and flying ships that travel between worlds. My current group requested a change from Dark Sun, so now they have access to a flying ship, here are the details. I have borrowed heavily from 'The Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy', 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'The Planes Above' book.



The Star-jammer is a flying sailing ship powered by wind, magic and three massive hot gas balloons that give it lift. At the heart of the ship is a magical chamber that requires diamonds too power the magic that feeds into the ship’s hull and sails. The Star-jammer has a spirit of its own due to the magical nature of it and often a mind of its own. In all respects the ship is a magical living being.

...

Loose ends were sorted out.  Zilae would remain with the eladrin delegation to negotiate on behalf of House Wavir, and Vara would attempt to slow the shrinking of the new oasis.  Runs With Erdlu declared this his calling as well, and stayed with her after one last bout of whippersnapper/old fogey with Pik.

The caravan resumed its journey, and arrived at Altaruk two days later with no further untowardness.  Galinus went to meet up with a Balican acquaintance of his, while the party decided that it was time to recruit new blood to bolster their depleted ranks.

Pik gave an inspired speech before an otherwise disinterested group of drunken wretches in the inn, and only one young genasi stepped forward to take him up on the offer of adventure and heroism.  Initially mistusting...

King Quirinileth attacked viciously, and as the party still hadn't recovered from their fight with Quirelian, he smashed several of them to the ground with his graceful attacks before they finally managed to rally and put him down for good.  

The crowd didn't know what to make of the event, but once Raina began taking advantage of the quiet to begin her traditional speech on the benefits of Balican democracy they left the stands as one.

Psion Lapidoth remained, recovering from being pitched into the arena by his former ruler.  He congratulated the team on their victory, and confirmed that they were free to go, but repeated his request for them to look into whatever being or group on Athas was responsible for the ongoing damage to the Lands Within the Wind with their careless probing...

Pik awoke the next morning to find that all his hair had fallen out, his eyes had stopped blinking and that he could taste smells with his tongue.  Lorath pointed out that perhaps this was more evidence that the party should be rushing to destroy the crystal skull, but the druid was not put off by this development.  Besides the skull's whispers inside his head, he was most impressed by Vara Kesh's ability to create an oasis, and was considering staying to study her techniques.

As an employee of House Wavir, caravan master Zilae sent word on ahead to Altaruk to send on some men to help staff the now-abandoned rest-stop.  It was only two days away as the mekillot shambles, so some crodlu riders should get there and back fairly quickly.

Why was the rest-stop abandoned?  Even...

The two groups reunited and set off to catch up with the wagon.  Their crodlu steeds were faster than the mekillots, not to mention the fact that on this day of the journey the lizards would be stopping to be watered.

Alongside the road they happened across a lone halfling, traveling in the same direction as they.  Out of the goodness of their hearts they offered to take this stranger - named Ilmani - with them to the caravan.

The mekillot wagon - as the heroes rode back to it, rescued mercenaries in tow - was abandoned.  The mercs could confirm that the selection of ancient ruins to one side of the road, dominated by a mostly intact (if reduced to a single story) stone tower, were where the staff who guarded the local well lived.

A search of the caravan turned up no sign of...