This week, Hookeri is back and talking to rocks, and some of the others are checking out coin purses. It’s sure to be another excellent chapter in the series that just keeps on keeping on. Since this is Chapter Eleven, I decided to celebrate Stranger Things season 2 with this video of a fan favorite, Miss Eleven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn6Cl7YZQP0
Tales from the Plunderbund Consortium
Dark Sun Campaign – Chapter 10
Having driven off the Roc, the adventurers entered the ruined city outpost of Celik. The road led directly into a bazaar frequented by a number of shop owners and adventurers with licenses to sell goods and/or raid the ruins of Celik from House Maraneth.
Hookeri broke off from the group in order to find Dorlar, owner of the talking rock, while Alexa and Pane-Pan went drinking at one of the nearby tents. Illana, ever the opportunist, scanned the bazaar for any celebrating adventurers who looked both drunk and weighed down with coin from their recent tomb raidings.
Illana soon spied a drunk young man stumbling away from a drinking tent. Not trusting her own abilities, for some reason she thought it would be a good idea to bring Dimebag and Coraanu in on the action. As part of the plan, Dimebag sold the young man some drugs so that he would pull out his coin purse, Coraanu then distracted him, and Illana then went to swipe the coin purse during the distraction. Unfortunately for Illana she fumbled the attempt and the drunk young man called out to his friends.
Having no respect for humanoid life, Illana cast Disguise Self and made herself look like the mark. Then, when the friends arrived, she took advantage of their confusion to cast Thunderwave, destroying a number of shop tents and injuring numerous bystanders (luckily in Athas all demihumans are strong enough to eat a Thunderwave without dying). Illana and Dimebag then ran from town (after Dimebag swiped the original mark’s coinpurse).
For some reason, Coraanu stayed in the center of town to greet the advancing House Maraneth Half-Giant platoon that had been called out to stop the violence. After Coraanu was identified as one of the perpetrators, a representative of House Maraneth told Coraanu that the punishment for this transgression was to pay back double what was stolen or exile. As the mark’s friends claimed that mark had at least 2 gold on him, Coraanu would have had to pay 4 gold in restitution. Coraanu chose exile instead.
As he was not yet banished from town, Hookeri began asking around for the talking rock’s owner, Darlar. Unfortunately, Hookeri soon learned that a few months ago Darlar went on a ruins delve and never returned. He is presumed dead by the populace of Celik.
It was at this point that Hookeri decided to sit down with and have a one-on-one conversation with the talking rock. The rock revealed that his name was, “The Rock of Getting Eaten by a Roc”. Darlar was apparently a powerful psion who had used his powers to train a Roc to serve as a flying mount. He and his wife lived in Tyr. After learning of Darlar’s “pet,” a Templar demanded that the giant bird be turned over to the state. Refusing, a battle ensued and Darlar’s wife died in the conflict.
Grief stricken, Darlar fled to Celik and began constructing the psionic rock. It was Darlar’s intention that the rock fall into the hands of the Templar, at which point the Templar would be eaten by the Roc. The plan was a success. Unfortunately, being a sentient rock with no other directive, the rock began seeking out individuals to bring him back to his master in Celik. Travel was slow as the new owners kept getting eaten by the Roc. With his master presumably gone, the rock and Hookeri agreed to travel together in the hopes of breaking the getting eaten curse and possibly finding the rock a new purpose in life. The rock suggested starting their search in Darlar’s old home in Tyr.
As half the party was no longer welcome in Celik, the party stocked up on supplies at the local elven district of Celik and continued on toe Kalidnay. During the eight day journey they were not attacked by any foes, however, they did have a few unnerving experiences. First, they came across a dead litter of newborn Bazraags, which is considered to be a particularly bad omen. While nobody noticed it at the time, their leathery skin was the same color as Dimebag’s prized jacket.
A few days later, the group entered a dark and blighted section of the desert. As Dimebag went to comment on the grim-dark world around them, he found that his words were coming out of Illana’s body. Illana went to investigate, and found that her mind was now in Dimebag’s body. She opined that they were in a cursed section of the desert and that they need to leave the area in order to get back into their own bodies.
While traveling out of the area Dimebag (as Illana) decided he (she?) wanted to try casting magic. Despite Illana’s (as Dimebag) warnings, Dimebag-llana cast a firebolt that promptly went out of control and resulted in Illana’s body taking some significant burns. Angry, Illana injected Dimebag’s body with a variety of his high grade drugs.
After leaving the cursed land the adventurers traveled a bit farther and arrived at Kaliday just before sunrise. At that time they saw the city ruins covered in a fine white mist that retreated and disappeared as the sun rose behind them. Knowing they were on a time limit, they headed to the city and, using their map provided by Maraquen along with Illana’s knowledge of the location of the Vault of Kalidnay, quickly found the location of the Vault in the palace district.
Unfortunately, this had now become the hunting grounds of an Alpha Tembo. Luckily, it has no ranged attacks and bad saves so Illana was able to levitate it and the other adventurers just range attacked it to death.
Entering the Vault, the party found it to be pitch black. While many in the group stayed back with Alexa and her torch, others chose to scout ahead relying solely on their darkvision. After unlocking and de-trapping the door to a nearby room, the party found themselves engaged in a fierce battle with two air elemental Vault guardians. The party was battered and blown about but eventually came out victorious.
The room, however, did not reward the group for their efforts. The only notable things in the room were an empty pit and several wax blobs scattered throughout the room. Frustrated by this lack of loot, Dimebag had Coraanu unlock the other door in this room and then he went off scouting ahead, followed closely by Illana.
As Dimebag was relying solely on his darkvision to investigage, he missed the pressure plate to the trap set above. Immediately, a two-ton block of stone fell from the ceiling. Still greatly inhibited by the large quantity of drugs injected into his system when Illana was in control of his body, Dimebag was unable to react in time. The stone crushed Dimebag’s body into a fine paste much the way Dimebag would use mortar and pestle to create his drugs.
Reacting to this tragedy the only way she knew how, Illana cast levitate on the rock and looted Dimebag’s body.
At the same time, another dwarf familiar to the party also entered the Vault. As the life was crushed out of Dimebag’s body, a cold chill passed through the dwarf’s body. Was he too late, or had the Earth drawn him to this place at exactly the right time?
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For the rest of 2017, if you see this logo, click on it to go see the updated list of my 100 Horror Movies In October Marathon that got extended for reasons beyond my control.
