555/3/08.
Another week of travel took us deeper and deeper into the Northern
Mountains. Food was starting to get low, so we tried to forage. Didn't
do much good, though it could have been worse. Now we'll run out of
food in three weeks instead of two. In any case, we were travelling
along the bottom of a ravine when we saw the first warning. A vikul
body crucified on a wooden X. Confident we were and we didn't want to
backtrack, so we pushed onwards. The second warning was a line of
skulls stuck on poles. Still, we thought we could take anything and so
we continued.
Tev was scouting ahead when the attack commenced. Arrow fire drove him
back to the main party. Three shooters. I put up a Darkwall just as Tev
was hit in the leg. Nakaro and Krelga charged, Krelga with a
Protection/4 that Tok had learned back in Lord Iitee's town. The
shooters were making strange noises, probably warning others. Timroth
and I nervously looked around for another ambush. Reg fired his sling,
covering Nakaro and Krelga. Nakaro went down and Tok had to Heal Wound
him, though that left them both unconscious.
Then Krelga was shot dead and Timroth had to Heal Wound her, leaving
him unconscious and she badly wounded in the head. I was getting really
worried, since we had only managed to down one of the them, Rezla they
were and damn fine marksmen. Fortunately, the other two took their
wounded comrade and retreated. We gathered up our fallen and rushed
back down the trail. Good grief! Three shrubs best our party. Oh how
the mighty have fallen!
555/3/11. A couple more days of travel and we reached a small lake.
Really a large pool. There was a boat on this side and only other way
around was to swim. We used the boat to get the cart and non-swimmers
across, then left a silver and a thank you note on the boat. That Rezla
encounter left us quite wary.
Next we came up on a stream. No a brook. No, not even that big. You
could step across it. Two ornate bridges spanned it. On one bridge was
a man in plate and wielding a two-handed sword. "None shall pass" he
warned. Nakaro immediately ran over the other bridge. Aparently the
guardian meant his bridge only. Tok took this as an opportunity to
practice fighting and stepped on his bridge. Immediately the guardian
struck him down.
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This was
shaping up to be interesting. Krelga stepped up and the two
fought for a few rounds. Then they hit each other simultaneously. He
went down. Krelga managed to stay standing by sheer force of will, but
slumped down after a few seconds. We took the guy's armor and continued
onwards. Now Tok had a crippled limb. Don't any of these people ever
learn? Gratuitous violence is not the answer.
A wall barred us next. A half gate with a lock was the only way
through. Sure, we could have just climbed over the gate, but we tried
our hands at opening the lock until I did it. Then Nakaro refused to
let me through and wrestled me to the ground when I tried to push past
him. After that we found four poles, each with a different coin on
them. We threw some of the coins away and replaced the others.
Seemingly randomly as far as I could tell.
This was a strange land. Next the path was divided down the center with
a hot zone on the left and a cold zone on the right. Parkas and buckets
of water were available. We went down the cold zone, except for Krelga
who twirled down the center. Tev found a Higvul nest which we bypassed.
Then we saw a Tarkus leashed to a pole. Timroth and Nakaro released it
and tried to ride it, but it bucked them off. Later on our path crossed
a sandy stretch which we went through.
A vertang attacked us after that. Nakaro shot it with an arrow. We ran
across a wounded bootmere which we healed. Then we found a rare healing
plant and picked it. After that we were back to the lake. Good grief!
We had gone in a circle. No, we hadn't. It was some kind of powerful
magic. As we went through the little encounters again we noted some
were missing, apparently solved on our first try.
It tooks us a couple more circuits to finish all the puzzles. That
night we conferred and came to the conclusion that it had been some
kind of Stasis enclave. The solution was to leave each encounter the
way it had been before we had arrived. Or do something completely
random as we did for the coins. Oh, it makes my head hurt thinking
about it. Now I have to go do aerobics to get the stench of Stasis out
of me. |