Session 16 into session 17
Welcome back everyone! – Here’s what happened in our previous session.
We caught up with Ophi’s Bodyguards only just returning to Lut Gholein from their most recent outing into the Far Oasis.
Whilst inside of the city, they spent a few hours of the very early morning resting, recuperating, and reforming the group with their fallen summoned party members…. who are all known as Nix and Cerau.
Rhyker found Krell inside of Atma’s Tavern, having a drink (or two) whilst the party were out of the city looking for the Horadric Staff, without him… This never sat too well with Rhyker at all, and he began to question Krell as to his whereabouts whilst the others had been busy searching.
Luckily, it was a discussion which was had in a civil manner… lest they both have the city guards to deal with, and after the recent situation with Scarlett, the citizens of the city are already whispering things behind the adventurers backs in their homes, as they discuss them within their own private circle of friends and relatives.
There was some time spent within the Tavern for most, if not all of the party, as they awaited the daylight to return so they could safely head out, and also gather a few items before departing.
During the time spent in the Tavern, they all had a meal and some drinks to wash it down with, they told jokes and had a bit of banter, whilst putting their minds at ease.
They were feeling the stress of the world slip away… if only for a couple of hours of respite.
As soon as Dawn had broken though, they were off saving the world once more, and so moved towards the way-point – However, on the way there, they discovered a strange new structure had been revealed overnight – and upon getting closer, they could see it was a makeshift noticeboard, which was quite obviously made with haste… Seeing this though, they opted to take a look to see if there were any flyers attached, and to their surprise, there were a few already up there.
Most of the flyers were generic odd jobs, but one caught the attention of Rhyker, it was posted by Elzix, and he was asking for adventurers to aid him in slaying demonic imp like creatures, who liked to pilfer shiny objects.
This was a dire matter indeed, as the traders need these items, as do adventurers, and without them both would suffer massively.
The party soon moved as requested, to see Elzix.
Once there, he explained to them the dire situation, to which they all accepted, as this menace could not be ignored… The creatures they sought were aptly named Loot Goblins – and they would steal anything in sight that shined or had value to it.
They just had to be stopped!
Elzix told the party of the odd shaped boxes that the creatures were also interested in them, and if they should find any and claim the boxes, he would pay them for their findings and share the spoils too.
Cain would help with the endeavor too, as he was already enlisted to identify as best he could the odd new brightly decorated boxes that were appearing around Sanctuary.
Eventually, after enough information is gathered, the party leave Elzix alone, and head to the Way-point, to travel back out to the Far Oasis.
Something wasn’t quite right though, the land was beset by evil which was obvious, but something felt off…
As soon as the party reached the Far Oasis, they quickly set about looking for signs of where the staff could be, and managed to run into a small group of the pesky Loot Goblins – However, the party cut them down in mere moments, as the cowardly demons put up no fight at all, opting to try to run for their lives, instead of standing their ground.
The spoils of the battle were collected, several of the small boxes were found, which was great news… Once the party collected them all up, it was time to move on, and in the distance they could see their next location, a small valley off to the north-west side of the area, but to get through it, they would have to get past the group of undead scavengers that were currently feasting on their latest kill.
Krell was first to go and try, and sadly he stepped onto a pile of bones as he tried to sneak around the edge of a high up cliff face, instantly gaining the attention of half of the group of close by enemies… The brittle bones underfoot snapped loudly as he applied pressure, the birds took to flight, squawking and screeching as they came closer to him.
Battle was inevitable at this point, however, this was NOT the first group of undead birds the party had fought recently, and they knew how to defeat them using a few tricks they had learned from their previous encounters.
Soon without too much of a delay, Ophi’s Bodyguards threw down their attackers, even with some of the weaker members being targeted, there was no real threat as such, and soon the bird’s remains lay scattered across the desert’s rocky ground.
A quick search of the area revealed a few useful items, scooping these up the party headed for the valley.
Once again, Krell took point – As he headed into the high sandy dunes, following the blood trail which led through the thickest parts of the sand, he didn’t notice the sand around him starting to shift, and was ambushed by a group of Sand Maggots.
These insect type creatures like to spit poison at their enemies, and soon Krell was hit by this and poisoned.
As Krell pushed towards the distant Maggots, he noticed they were seemingly guarding a large nest, with a large hole in the middle of it… Also, the blood trail he was following led straight into the hole in the middle.
Nikolaj caused the area to become ravaged by a deadly storm, which caused bolts of energy to strike the maggots several times, and burnt them in the process.
Scarlett however was struggling with her aim that day, sending several arrows into the sand around her target.
Fighting the new enemy types did prove to be a little difficult, with their ability to lay eggs and deal big amounts of poison damage to the party, but in the end, even they were not strong enough a foe when facing this group of adventurers, and soon fell to the might and magic of Ophi’s Bodyguards.
After the tense battle, Zrin led an area wide search, which revealed a good amount of useful hidden loot, which must have been dropped and forgotten within the sandy dunes and dry bush sections, waiting to be unearthed.
Then, the party decided to head back to the city, rather than dive head first into the dark and enclosed space within the middle of the bug nest.
They each took the way point, and once back inside Lut Gholein – Rhyker and Ophi paid a visit to Elzix, to conclude their quest and gather their rewards, whilst the rest of the party mingled around the market area for a short while.
Rhykers actions during the meeting helped to secure good trading relations between Elzix and all of the party.
After their brief visit, both Rhyker and Ophi took their looted items and anything that Elzix had passed onto them as rewards, over to Cain, to leave them with him to identify their haul of goods whilst they went off to plan their next steps.
It’s here where we will pick up today’s session…