Session 5 into session 6
We began our last session in the desert city of Lut Gholein, just inside of Atma’s Tavern, where the party had just finished a long rest… As we know, their previous visit to the sandy wastes had left most of them bleeding and badly wounded.
However, the party had a chance to heal themselves, and rest up, and now were gathering on the lower floor of the tavern, sat just off to one side of the room, in a quaint little corner.
Whilst they all were waking up still, and dealing with some parts of their bodies which remained sore still, Atma approaches them all at their table, and brings with her some saddening news of Bosa’s untimely demise.
A quick discussion between them all, lead to Rhyker following after Atma to a storage room, to reclaim the items she had taken from Bosa’s lifeless form… and there were a few items he was all too eager to retrieve.
Meanwhile, as Rhyker returns with loot in hand… Krell, the “at the time – unknown Barbarian” – walks into the tavern, in the early hours of the morning. Having just traveled a long distance from the northern tribe-lands over the past few days, he was in dire need of a refreshment or two…. but instead of joining the party at their table, he got himself a drink from the bar, and chose to sit across the way from them, and listen in on their discussion from across the room.
Ophi decided to commemorate Bosa, with a last farewell drink, and bought a round of drinks for everyone, but, an overly eager to help Morie, gets out from her seat, moves over to Ophi to help her, and clumsily stumbles into her, knocking the tray of drinks flying into the air, in the direction of Krell… He only wanted to enjoy a nice quiet drink before turning in for the night.
Not only this though, but as she fell, Morie landed head first into Krell’s lap… and all of a sudden an extremely awkward situation had now taken hold.
Morie apologised repeatedly however, and Ophi managed to clean Krell with her inate magic… A fight was to be expected before then, but none was had… a very calm and level headed Barbarian it seems… The likes of which are seldom seen around Sanctuary.
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Krell was introduced to the rest of the party, and sat with them, who over a period of time managed to tell him of their quest, and managed to actually convince him to join them of his own will…. and of course, who can resist the lure of powerful equipment… Yes, you guessed it – Rhyker offered to Krell all of the equipment Bosa had left behind in his recent passing, and as expected, he jumped at the chance.
So, with the gap now filled that was created upon Bosa’s death, the party felt good about what was to come next.
Whilst the others chatted among themselves, Ophi decided now was a good time to re-call her best friend and confidante – Nix, and so, stepping outside for a moment, and with a flourish of flame, Nix came to be once more.
They both re-entered the tavern, and Nix promptly sat nearby to Ophi.
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After a few more minutes of last minute preparations between Ophi’s Bodyguards…. the time was now!!
This was it, it was finally time to confront the thing they didn’t want to confront… And so they bid farewell for now to Atma, and left her establishment, heading towards the blue glow of their town portal that remained active… which I might add, always looks eerie at night.
One by one, they took in a deep breath, and stepped through the swirling portal before them, and one by one, they returned to the deadly crater where there giant worm-like creature, makes its nest.
No sooner had the portal closed behind them as Rhyker stepped through it, the ground once more began to tremble, rocks began to tumble, and jets of green vapors burst forth from the cracks in the stone in the ground around them.
At this point, Krell led the party bravely forward, to face the fearsome creature head on, though the darkness now hindered their vision, but the sand beast didn’t need vision, it knew where they all stood, every footstep being picked up by its many acute senses.
Battle was now upon them – as the party were bombarded by large globs of poison spheres, which splashed outwards from the point of impact.
Ophi and Nix took to action first out of everyone, delivering a Warmth spell as per Ophi’s signature move, in an effort to keep the party healthy.
Next up was Scarlett, who went into a sort of over-watch mode, using her keen eyes and senses to shoot an arrow into the first dangerous creature she saw move within her sights.
Rhyker and Krell both pushed forwards towards the beast, prepared for anything… but what they didn’t see before now, was the sheer scale of their enemy, and how it blocked most of the path before them.
Morie summoned her poison creeper “Frank” – then, true to form for her, misfires her bow, and bounced the arrow right into the flank of the mercenary who stood by her… Needless to say at this point, she had lost all favor with him, and her careless words to follow only helped to seal in the hatred.
As a result – She would see no help from “Gulzar” in times of need from that moment – but how important this may be for her, remains to be seen as of yet.
Zrin tossed spell after spell at the looming tower of carapace armour, and played his part in dealing damage to the beast wherever he could.
Combat rounds passed by quickly, and the party were able to whittle down the giant beasts health, with most of their attacks striking its weakness – However, Krell was taken by surprise and was bitten and engulfed by the beast, swallowing him and all of Krells equipment whole.
He did manage to free himself from the belly of the beast, in the end, and had to deal with another little surprise, his weapons were sucked into the mouth of the creature all of a sudden, where it instantly started to grind on them with it’s strong maw of razor like teeth… mangling the metal items to a point of them almost breaking… their effectiveness in battle was literally halved.
That wasn’t all either, as once the sand beast was done with chomping on the weapons, they were turned onto their owners, and spat back out onto the floor like flying daggers, the weapons potentially causing harm to their owners.
In spite of all this though, Krell managed to retrieve them, and continue on with the fight.
Morie in response summoned her faithful spirit wolves, Snow and White, but at some point she was also engulfed into the beasts belly, and managed to free herself from the pit of encroaching painful dissolving stomach acid.
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At this point in the battle, it wasn’t long before the party realised the creature was weaker to fire attacks, than anything else, and they managed to slay it soon after gaining this knowledge.
Upon the final blow by Nix however, and as they all watched the life slipped away from the sand beast’s eyes, it came crashing down on top of Krell, Rhyker, and Gulzar, with tremendous force, sending dust columns several feet into the air.
Rhyker barely managed to get away unscathed, but a slower reaction time from Krell and Gulzar, left them to be flattened partially by the large falling mass, however, they both managed to free themselves from under the weight of the giant corpse.
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For a moment, there was total silence from everyone, save for the howling of the wind from the storm around the crater, and the gentle sizzling of the acid from within the creature, burning its way out through the open wounds in its flesh, eventually seeping onto the stone floor, where it collected into small pools of acid.
The party spent a few minutes just recovering from the ordeal.
They had survived yes, but their power was diminished greatly, and so they all decided to make camp right here and now.
Before they did this though, Rhyker being his usual self, went on the hunt for loot, and sure enough, towards the back of the cave mouth that the body of the worm now only partially blocked with its body, he managed to get into it, and find what he was looking for… A large chest, almost covered fully in dirt and grime, situated off to one side of the tunnel in a large recessing area.
Inside of which, when opened, he found a very ornately designed piece of armour, among other items of great value.
Feeling that he didn’t want to risk going any further alone, Rhyker returned to the camp now being set up by the others, and showed them all he had found and collected.
The poison vapours in the area were still strong, so going into the cave as a full party would have been a very bad idea indeed, luckily though, poison doesn’t affect our fiery Paladin at all.
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Back at the party camp, the party got ready to rest up – there’s no chance of being attacked here by roving bandits, or other desert dwelling creatures…. Right??
Lets find out shall we? — this is where we continue our story.
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