Desert Voyage

File:Desert Voyage.jpg

Date: 4th Wir of Barrakas 1074
Gamemaster: DriftingNitro
Type: One-Shot
Session Date: October 21st, 2017
Playtime: 7.5 hours
Number of Players: 7

Background

In the middle of Ignir, a large nation with vast deserts, a player acting as a chef walks into an inn. He offers pay for protection of him and his goods. He wants to cross the desert. Everyone else, takes the offer and travels to the town of Tabak on the other side. However, not all is as it seems with the delivery. The carriage drivers notice somebody following them from a distance, and the chef seems especially uneasy about anything that slows their travel down. The players can uncover the truth about the caravan, or take their pay and be on their way.

Cast

Results for status recorded at the end of the session.

Name	Player	Class	Race	Status
Raja Rif'a	Beans	Barbarian	Human	Alive
Jabbi Rif'a	Mattloaf	Sorcerer	Human	Alive
Hemlok Benrato	Sooperphilly	Bard	Catfolk	Alive
Eyremoth	Feldspar	Monk	Half-Elf	Alive
Bacchus Bertholdt	Trevor	Rogue	Wolfkind	Alive
Rosalynd Rosenthal	EldonTG	Orator	Elf	Alive
Tymen	FakeSnake	Ranger	Elf	Alive

Summary

The Galen of Ale

The scene opens at the bar, Eyremoth sitting and pondering to himself. The barkeep asks what he'd like and he asks for water. On his right are two people he hasn't seen around here before, an elf (Tymen) and catfolk (Hemlok). They order their drinks as well and make small talk with the barkeep.

Two more characters enter the scene, Jabbi and Raja, and rough talk a group of shady looking fellas outside the door before entering. They go inside, Jabbi deliberately bumping somebody's chair on her way towards the bar. As they order their drinks, Jabbi tryies to seduce the married barkeep in front of his wife. He denies her offer several times.

The man Jabbi bumped into approaches her. He's pissed because he spilled his drink but she predictably doesn't care. Eyremoth signals to the barkeep who reaches for the crossbow he keeps under the table. The fighter goes to punch Jabbi who skillfully dodges, and Raja jumps to save her sister. The perpetrator of the fight has a friend join in and he exchanges punches with Raja for a little bit both trying to get the upper hand.

The fight starts to get progressively more violent. Raja is close to raging, Jabbi casts Acid point blank at her assailant's face, Eyremoth is about to swing his staff to knock out one of the fighters, and the barkeep nearly shoots Jabbi for murdering someone in his bar. Serendipitously, the door bursts open, everyone freezes, and in walks Rosalynd Rosenthal, the famous elven chef. Bacchus the wolfkind is at his side, looked rather apathetic about finding other people. Rosalynd announced potential work for the patrons of the tavern, speaking over the muffled screaming of a man with acid on his face.

Rosalynd needs safe passage to Tabak through the Bal-Karash Desert. The players gather around him and offer their services. Eyremoth approaches first, bartering for extra pay by boasting his unique expertise of the region. Rosalynd agrees. After discussing the specifics of payment, they head outside to meet in the courtyard with the carriages.

Departure

They enter the courtyard to find a couple of orcs standing near one of the carriages. They shoo them off and get on their way. Jabbi and Raja try to find some red silk to cover their heads with for the journey. However, the merchant only has orange which upsets Jabbi greatly. She storms off. Rosalynd emphasizes that they should leave swiftly and beckons Jabbi and Raja into the back of one of the carriages where they can ride. He locks them inside. After a short panic attack by Raja from being trapped in a confined space, the carriages take off.

As they're riding Hemlok intermittently notices figures in the distance trailing them. Over a span of 6 hours, he notices at least 3 times a figure on the horizon. He attempts to mask their movement with illusion spells.

Eyremoth, who's leading by foot, points out an incoming sandstorm. He knows of a nearby cave they can use for shelter. Rosalynd insists time is of the essence but defers to Eyremoth's advice.

Weathering the Storm

After deciding to take refuge in the cave that Eyremoth led them to, they parked the carriages and rested up for the night. Eyremoth and Hemlok took shifts watching the entrance. Tymen went to explore the cave when he came across a giant scorpion, which he promptly left alone and returned to the others to tell them.

Meanwhile, a couple of smaller scorpions harassed the rest of the players. Everyone failed miserably to kill them. Raja managed to tame one after a strenuous effort. Raja promptly fed it water and beetles and named it Chip, eventually getting a little barrel for it as a home.

Tymen went back into the cave to kill one of the larger scorpions for Rosalynd to cook with. Tymen skillfully sneaked his way back down the cave and placed skillful shots right into the scorpion's head. After struggling to pull the scorpion back over to everyone else, he asked the group for help. Bacchus helped him pull it back towards the encampment. As they started to butcher the scorpion, more scorpions emerged from the cave and a fight ensued. Bacchus was cut by the stinger across the chest, and Raja was pinched around the ankle. Bacchus' wound was treated by Jabbi who used a flame spell on a sword to make it hot enough to cauterize the wound.

A Strange Guest

As they crested a hill, they came across a man donned in white, injured and exhausted. Rosalynd decided to stop only for a moment so they could bring him inside. The guest, as they discovered, was from Pomfae, an isolated city state shrouded in mystery. They put him in the cart, gave him water, and warned him that others might not be so kind. He expressed some frustration with the inability to cast spells. They noticed him holding an exotic weapon, that would later turn out to be a rifle. For the moment, the stranger convinced them it was some kind of club.

Ambush at Tabak Pass

As the group moved through the valley, something was uneasy about the surrounding ridges. Eyremoth noticed movement in his peripheral and ordered the caravan to stop. An orc on horseback approached the group and asked for "him". Some misinterpreted his request to be the stranger from Pomfae. The orc clarified that he was looking for their "employer". Tymen started sneaking around the side of the ridge for elevation. As he did, Tymen got ambushed by a group of three orcs ordering him to stay where he was. Hemlok took the initiative and knocked the man off his horse with a Thunderwave spell. Jabbi made an illusion of the stranger running away. The orc fell for it and chased after the figure on foot.

The group swiftly got back on the wagon and whipped the horses into high speed. As they fled, however, the first cart driven by Eyremoth with Bacchus and Hemlok hanging on the sides, got surprised by a concussive blast rune, knocking the cart over. Rosalynd, driving the second cart, expertly weaved between everyone and continued toward Tabak at full pace.

The party was forced to engage in combat. They exchanged a volley of bolts and arrows. Hemlok, suffering from a broken leg, found a crevice in the cliff face and remained out of combat for the majority of the fight. Eyremoth began fleeing the battle, seeing it as a losing fight. Hemlok used a message spell to Eyremoth pleading, "I'm hiding. Please come back for me, I beg of you." Eyremoth took it as a divination from Elenora, returned to combat, and would later change his patron deity.

Jabbi casted shatter on a group of archers on one of the cliffs. One of the archers rolled a Nat 1, causing him writhing pain for the entire fight. Raja used her chain to pull one of the orcs right into her sword, and split them from the center up. Tymen took skillful shots from the cover of the overturned cart, striking one of the orcs as he rushed down the hill. The stranger from Pomfae shot one of the orcs in the back from his hiding spot inside the overturned cart. Eyremoth climbed a cliff face undetected and began knocking the remaining archers off the edge. One of the archers managed to pull him down with her. Eyremoth used Slow Fall and deflected an arrow on his descent. One of the orcs archers attempted to kick him away when he tried to engage in melee. Eyremoth grabbed the attackers leg, and with a swift motion smashed their head into the adjacent cliff face, cracking their skull, before using that same body as a shield against an arrow loosed from the opposite ridge. Bacchus sneaked around to ambush the combatants on the northern cliff. After taking much care to sneak successfully, he ran up on them as they were beginning to retreat. He impaled his sword into one of their backs, allowing the other to get a successful swipe across Bacchus' torso. Badly injured, he attempted to tumble down the steep cliff, rolling a Nat 20 acrobatics check and deftly landed at the bottom. As the last orc peered over the edge to find Bacchus they were met with a barrage of arrows and bolts, and fell down the cliff dead.

As the fight ended, Rosalynd returned, driving his carriage full speed past the group of dead orcs and injured acquaintances. He halted the cart after passing them, and the stranger from Pomfae shot the horse of his pursuer. Rosalynd congratulated them on their success, but the group was unamused. Rosalynd went to the overturned cart and opened one of the heavily locked chests. Gold and riches spilled out, clearly unable to take it all as the cart was immobilized. Rosalynd told them that they can take as much as they could carry, since he'd have to abandon it anyway. Tymen, incensed by Rosalynd's abandonment, loosed an arrow into the chef's shoulder. Jabbi and Raja started to escape with one of the horses, before Raja's guilt got the best of her. Jabbi was unable to convince Raja to keep going. Everyone ended up riding in the back of Rosalynd's remaining cart. They pressed on to Tabak where they would discover a dark secret.

Arrival

After passing through the gates into the city, the party noticed a noise coming from one of the crates in the back of the carriage. Jabbi disintegrated the lock with an acid spell, opened the container, and discovered a young orcish child bound and gagged among the pigs. They immediately went to freeing him. Rosalynd came to the back of the carriage to confront the group, threatening them to stay out of his affairs. Eyremoth left, dissociating himself with what the group was about to do next.

Rosalynd was clear that they were within city walls and had no grounds to stand on legally. In retaliation, Hemlok cast a sleep spell on him. Jabbi used disguise self to appear as Rosalynd and tricked a nearby guard patrol into believing she was the real Rosalynd, and the other was an impostor. Raja used Chip (her newly acquired pet scorpion) to skitter over and sting Rosalynd in the leg before they left, stealing both the child, his cart, and everything in it. They fled the city and left Rosalynd to his fate.

Aftermath

Chip's venom would have been enough to kill any man untreated. However unbeknownst to Raja and the rest, Rosalynd practiced Mithridatism. Rosalynd had made passing mention of it in the cave when talking about using large scorpions for cooking, and using non-lethal amounts of venom in his cooking. This would result in him ultimately surviving the sting, but not before struggling through a fever and ultimately ended up with paralysis in his right leg. Rosalynd now walks with a cane, and seeks retribution against the workers he hired and payed well over the agreed amount only to be betrayed by all except Eyremoth.

Weeks later Tymen, Hemlok, Bacchus, Jabbi, and Raja would receive handwritten letters from Rosalynd:

"As you read this I am sending messages to nobles and bounty hunters across the world. I can have eyes anywhere, anytime. I have contacts with Royal Courts everywhere and I will use it to its full extent to make sure you don't step inside city walls again. If only you could have known what retribution your little "plan" was about to bring you. Maybe you would have stayed your hand, taken the money, and left. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’ll pay the price."

—Rosalynd Rosenthal

The last couple of sentences noticeably heavier in their pen stroke as if he was pressing harder on the parchment. What happens after that, is yet to be known.