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Of the freed Veyne slaves/sacrifices, only the three elves and solitary dray elected to stay behind on the minotaurs' island.  The party left them with instructions to wean the villagers off the lotus blossom that they found so tasty, and left aboard Kotnalishmaelantok's silt skimmer.

On the way back, in the lovely, non-stormy weather, Unbreth noticed a small creature flittering about in the sky, watching the vessel.  Karas quickly identified the winged, reptilian beast as a psionocus, a psychic familiar created by powerful psionicists.  Unbreth popped out his hand crossbow and shot the thing down,and the voyage continued.

When four much larger versions of the same creature attacked a few hours later, things weren't so calm.  The party were glad that they had tethered ...

The fight with Venticles Veyne was quick and brutal.  Even as the sorcerer strode down from his position atop the pyramid to attack, the skeletal corpses around him rose in seeming unending number and what little flesh they'd had left between them flowed together into a rather hungry sounding blob.

Shallahai kept the skeletons' numbers under control by pelting them with magic stones, while Ungarth unleashed his specialised form of brutality on the flesh-lump.  

Venticles fought on using telekinetic powers and defiling magic to leech the life of his opponents, but couldn't manage to shake Raina's dogged pursuit as he tried to keep from her punishing hammer.  Eventually, when he thought himself safe to feast on Pik and his menagerie of summoned beasts, the mul utilised her psionic...

With an interest in finding a silt skimmer captain brave enough to take them, Pik, Karas and Raina went to enquire at the harbourfront tavern, The Furled Sail.  Karas' clearly patrician manners set him at odds with a group of surly muls, with Pik's lightning-quick intervention sent them on their way, and attracted the attention of someone who would be willing to help.

The dwarf captain Kotnalishmaelantok and the crew of the Dusty Breeze - tiefling Furtive, gnoll Muttley and thri-kreen Kr'k't'a - would be willing to sail off to Asterius, so that the party could wait in ambush for the Veyne team.  They would leave at first light, and would not linger too long at the island for fear of the giants that patrolled it. They would return at midnight the next day, and if the party ...

The party defended themselves as best they could from the attacks of the four hooded figures, as well as fending off the accusations of being defilers.  Karas gave one particularly well-worded speech, but it wasn't until Pik was forced to bestow healing magic on an injured Ungarth that the attackers backed off and admitted that perhaps the team were trustworthy.

The four admitted to being members of the Veiled Alliance, and also only present in the psychic sense, as to turn up in person would be a terrible risk.  When the hoods were taken down, the party recognised Baristophocles; his comrades were the patrician Zaethus, young man Atticus and old be-bearded loon Melanthius.

The four admitted to knowledge of the crystal skull that Pik carried, and how it was an evil tool of defiler...

There were a few details to be sorted out in Altaruk.  Vidkun and her people, while incredulous of the party's description of the new oasis, headed there anyway for a new chance at life, what with their village being destroyed.  More of their number had been taken by gnolls, Crwydrath one of the victims.  The gnolls had been led by a very irate tiefling, declaring that she'd sworn vengeance on the party - presumably for variably gutting, hanging or sacrificing her entire family.  Some people are awfully touchy about that sort of thing.

Tropus went with Vidkun to the oasis, maybe to find a new life.  Mister Bzanavar waited for transport back to Nibenay.  Xelani agreed to be escorted by the party to Balic,to reunite with her husband, while Rhona insisted on accompanying...

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...