Arcanis: Gonnes, Sons, and Treasure Runs (COMPLETED)

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Part 5 – A Feast Unknown

Marching in the sweltering heat for most of the day, they finally reached the end of the mountain range and moved into the grassland proper. At the end of the first day of tracking, Sebastian came across a scene illustrating the inherent dangers of Nyambe.

The dark-kin landed with a flap of his mighty wings. “There’s a pair of reptilian bodies laying in the empty expanse of the savannah.”

Kham walked over to the corpses.

“No, wait…” warned Mashudu.

“Ow!” Kham slapped at his neck. “Something bit me!”

Kham fell over, face first.

The shrill whistle of a projectile flying at high speed caused Sebastian to slap his own neck.

“What…?” Sebastian staggered to the ground.

“Tcho-tcho poison!” shouted Mashudu. “Beware!”

Beldin picked a long, thin blowgun needle out of his bulbous nose. “Try to poison a dwarf, will you?” He drew his axe. “I’ll teach you!”

Two short, bowl-cut, dark-skinned men hopped out of the grasses, wielding obsidian chip-studded terbutjes.

Mashudu blocked a swipe of the first tcho-tcho with his spear, but the terbutje snapped it in half.

“Don’t let them touch you!” shouted Mashudu. “Even their clubs are poisoned!”

Beldin roared as the second tcho-tcho’s club bounced off of his shield. “Let’s see you deal with dwarven steel!” He hacked back at the tcho-tcho, but the small man hopped out of the way.

Vlad swung his blade in a wide arc, holding the tcho-tcho at bay. With a wicked grin of filed teeth, the tcho-tcho slashed downwards with its terbutje.

“Missed!” snarled Vlad. He looked down. There was a slight gash at the tip of his boot.

“Ah damn it,” muttered Vlad. Then he too fell face down in the long grass. The tcho-tcho disappeared into the foliage.

Beldin smashed the first tcho-tcho’s terbutje aside and hacked its arm off with one blow. The tcho-tcho was still cursing in some foreign language when Beldin put it down.

The dwarf turned to address Mashudu just as the other tcho-tcho reared up out of the grass. “Look out!”

Before Mashudu could react, the tcho-tcho fell over. An arrow shaft protruded from the back of its skull.

Behind the corpse of the tcho-tcho stood a tall, handsome man with regal bearing in studded leather armor, wielding a large ivory bow.

“Hello Beldin,” he said in Low Coryani.

“Do I know you?” asked the dwarf.

“It’s me. Emric.”

 

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Part 6 – The Enemy of My Enemy

“So you’re trying to tell me that YOU’RE Emric?”

Emric nodded.

“We’re not talking about the human Emric.” Kham described Emric’s original stature with his hands. “We’re talking about the little squeaky Emric that I rescued from the Temple of Yig awhile back. About this high?”

“That’s me.”

“The same Emric who was turned into a giant avatar of Yig and fought the King in Yellow to a standstill?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you die in the collapse of the cavern?”

Emric tilted his head. “It was a death of sorts, yes. Yig gave me one last chance to be reborn again, not as a tool of Her will but as my own person. I chose to combine the traits of both of my parents.” There was a hint of a smile on his lips.

Kham looked closer at Emric. Emric’s irises were clear. His pupils were shaped more like a slit than a dot. “About that…Calactyte’s dead.”

Emric’s shoulders sagged. “Somehow, I knew that. I am sure that Mother died valiantly.”

“She…I mean he did.” Kham shook it off. “This is too weird for me.” He walked away into the grasses to confer with Mashudu.

“So Emric, what are you doing here?” asked Sebastian, still a little woozy after being poisoned.

Emric sat down cross-legged. “Despite what you may believe, I am a loyal servant of the Ssethregoran Empire. Ffashethh started the attack in collusion with a human conspirator.”

“Quablo?” suggested Vlad.

“I don’t know. But I do know that I was considered the best hope to bring a stop to the fighting. Since I am a half-breed…” he looked at Sebastian with a grin, “I was hoping I could bring both sides together.”

“I find it’s not that simple.” Sebastian’s tail twitched in agitation.

“I didn’t think it would be. That is why I have been sent here, to assist you to stop Ffashethh. He belongs to a heretical group known as the Sskethvai.”

“We know all about it,” Beldin said gruffly. “They worship the Unspeakable One.”

Emric nodded. “Worship of the Unspeakable One has been proscribed within the Empire for centuries. That God is dead and gone. The Sskethvai sect controlled Semar after their purge from the Empire. There they enacted their obscene rites until the Altherians arrived and drove them out. Unfortunately, a handful of subjects, most notably the troglodytes, still follow the Unspeakable One’s edicts.”

“And that’s the mob Ffashethh led on the attack against Semar?” asked Vlad.

“I’m afraid so.” Emric sighed. “Ffashethh used the attack as cover to reach the Ssethregoran gate. He hopes to entreat this Unspeakable One to return to Onara and conquer all its people, Ssethreogran and human alike.”

“So you’re working with us?” Sebastian asked dubiously.

“My superiors do not want such a thing to happen any more than yours do.” He looked over at Kham, who was standing by himself in the grasslands. “Why is Father upset?”

“Kham’s the reason Ffashethh is alive today,” said Vlad.

 

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Part 7 – Prey

Days had passed since their journey began. Wildlife and flora unseen and undreamed of stalked the grasslands. Beasts of normal and huge proportions made the crossing hazardous and nerve-wracking.

Finally, they reached the edge of the Bida Rainforest. A green wall of foliage heralded the beginning of the end of the trek.

The going was even more arduous than the crossing of the grasslands, as if the very jungle conspired to slow passage. Feet snagged on stumbled over every root, vine and limb. Insects of varying sizes harried like miniature crows pecking on rotting carriages.

Emric put a finger to his lips and then cupped one ear.

They heard the guttural sounds of someone speaking in Ssethren, the ancient language of the Ssethregoran Empire.

Emric pointed. The Ssethregorans were standing in a clearing. The entirety of the clearing was made up of a large rocky mound, looking much like a huge burial cairn.

In the center was Ffashethh. A huge Agamis clutch ss’ressen lowered him into a recently excavated opening by rope. The rest of the Ssethregorans were arranged in a circle around the opening, more intent on what was happening below than their own surroundings.

An explosion ripped through the air, blasting through the remaining Ssethregorans.

Beldin looked up as a bat-winged shadow crossed where he stood. “I guess Sebastian wasn’t interested in waiting.”

Emric released four arrows in rapid succession. The Agaims ss’ressen fell wordlessly into the pit.

“So much for the element of surprise.” Kham swigged a potion and jumped down into the pit.

 

[GrolloStoutfoam]

GREAT story hour!! I've spent the last few weeks reading from the beginning. You've quite a group and Arcanis is an incredible setting. I wish I had been exposed earlier.

Thanks again for posting.

 

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Part 8a – Ancient Secrets

GrolloStoutFoam - Thank you for reading! We've got many chapters to go before this all wraps up, and the losses will keep rising...

The potion allowed Kham to climb down the sheer forty-foot drop that ended in a large cavern. The mustiness of ages wafted upward and the stench of things that even death had forgotten offended him in ways even the recent battle of Semar did not.

Sebastian flew in above Kham. Emric slid down the rope behind him.

The natural cavern was actually a large chamber, hewn from the living rock of the land. The walls were decorated with serpent motif bas-relief artwork and decorations. Further in the back, pillars designed to appear like large snakes glistened in the meager light afforded by the opening above.

A hulking Agamis ss’ressen pounded forward to meet them. Vlad and Beldin arrived a few seconds later.

Off to the south were a dozen organic-looking bags, lifted off the floor and interconnected to each other by mucous covered tubes that resembled intestines more than anything else. Arranged upon a low dais, surrounding a seatless throne crafted for the coils of a serpent, were a dozen of the same glyph-etched stone urns.

Behind Ffasheth was a stone relief of a bloated, jellyfish-like monstrosity that encompassed the entire cavern. Kham recognized it.

“Spawn of the Unspeakable One,” whispered Kham.

The two columns shuddered to life, their stone forms grinding across the floor as they advanced.

Beldin and Vlad charged towards the Agamis ss’ressen, even as the two animated statues slithered their way from either side.

“Sebastian!” Kham broke into a run. “You take out the weird-looking bags, I’ll keep snake boy busy!”

Ffashethh turned. “Ssso you pursssue me, even here? I will ssshow you the error of your waysss.”

Then everything went black.

 

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Part 8b – Ancient Secrets

Kham’s pupils adjusted to the dark. It wasn’t the darkness he was accustomed to. The darkness was literally a vacuum of light, so dark that staring with his eyes open almost hurt. If he couldn’t see, Kham would have closed his eyes.

But he COULD see. His mind tore through the possibilities as his body continued to move. Ffashethh was already pressing the advantage. Emric seemed completely unhindered. Vlad held his own, taking slow, methodical swings to defend himself. Beldin flailed, swinging blindly in front of him. From the looks of how the Agamis was reacting, it wasn’t much better off.

The animated statues, however, were not so encumbered.

It was Daemonscar! The breastplate Kham picked up in Canceri gave Kham the ability to see in magical darkness, like a dark-kin…

Kham looked up. Sebastian, unhindered by the magical darkness, flapped like a giant bat, unleashing a blast of flames that somehow didn’t manage to illuminate anything despite the conflagration. It was all heat, no light. The fireball looked like a smudge with gradations of black and white.

The blast struck the bags, tearing them open. A torrent of stagnant liquid rushed out. A naked, dark-skinned human spilled to a halt in front of Kham.

Kahm hesitated. The smell of ammonia nearly overwhelmed him. But it wasn’t the stench that stopped him.

He stared down in horror. “Althares!”

The corpse’s eyes were wide open. Even in the pitch darkness, Kham could make the man’s features out as a val’Abebi. But the pupils were serpent slits.

Ffashethh pointed. Tree roots exploded out of the ground, encircling Vlad, Beldin, and the Agamis’ legs even as the two stone constructs slithered closer. It was apparent Ffashethh had no use for his minions.

“Kham, the snakes!” Sebastian pointed and shouted another word of power, but Kham was stunned by what he had found. Was Emric truly the first of his kind? Did Yig really give him a choice? Or was he a pawn of Ffashethh all along, some kind of failed experiment that had turned against him? Or would he yet betray them?

One of the serpents exploded from a blast of magical force.

“That’sss enough out of you!” Ffashethh pointed at Sebastian and suddenly he went silent.

Emric fired two arrows into the other snake, but they bounced off its stony carapace.

The samat returned to his chant. Around him, the glyph-etched stone urns pulsed in a blasphemous rhythm.

Kham took careful aim with both of his pistols. “Ladies, don’t fail me now!”

The weapons jerked in his hands. The familiar sulfurous smell reached his nostrils, although the smoke was invisible in the darkness.

Ffashethh’s head snapped to face him as a crack appeared in one of the urns. He uncoiled from the throne, lurching to shelter the urn from further harm, but it was too late.

The urn was brilliantly illuminated from a thousand cracks where Kham’s shots struck home. The ensuing magical blast penetrated even the magical darkness.

“The urns!” shouted Kham. “Break the urns!”

Emric fired another volley of arrows. One of them skewered an urn and it cracked as it rolled, spinning rays of light in the darkness. Then it exploded.

Ffashethh roared with rage. The samat reached behind his back and drew two wicked-looking sickles. The handles were sculpted in snake bodies swallowing curved blades.

“That wasss my sssissster! I will make you pay for that.”

Kham fell backwards as the samat loomed over him. He drew another pair of pistols from his haversack. It was so fast—

His fingers went number as one pistol and then the other was batted aside. Ffashethh was playing with him.

The samat’s huge snake head darted forward to lick his chin with a forked tongue. “I’m going to make you sssuffer.”

“Not if he has anything to say about it.” Kham pointed over Ffashethh’s shoulder.

Sebastian came in a silent dive-bomb, but the samat forced him to veer off with a shrug of its thick tail.

Kham used the distraction to draw Talon and Coomb’s dagger, but the samat was watching him the whole time. The two sickles pierced his shoulders, pinning him to the stone. He screamed.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” sneered Ffashethh.

The samat let out a horrible hiss, spraying poisonous spittle over Kham’s face. The wicked fangs slowly unhinged, the jaw unlocking as it grew larger.

Suddenly the mouth snapped back as an explosion engulfed Ffashethh’s torso. The sickles were yanked out of Kham’s shoulders.

Sebastian had picked up one of the urns on his first pass and dropped it on top of the samat. They were using the samat’s own tools against him.

Emric rolled an urn towards Ffashethh. The samat seemed torn between trying to defend himself and protect the urns. The hesitation cost him as an arrow followed soon thereafter, smashing the top of the urn. The explosion blew one of Ffashethh’s arms clean off.

The samat flailed, his tail crashing through another urn and setting off another explosion.

“Skiz! Reload!”

“But—“

“NOW!”

Two more pistols nudged their way out of his haversack. It hurt, but Kham drew the two pistols and took careful aim. Urn after urn exploded, consuming Ffashethh. The darkness suddenly receded.

Sebastian landed near Kham, capable of speech once more. “His spells have ended—he’s dead.”

The Agamis was dead too. The remaining snake statue was rubble. Although Beldin and Vlad were hurt, they were alive.

Kham searched for Emric. He was staring down at one of the corpses.

“I don’t understand.” The half-breed’s lip quivered. “I thought I was unique…was it a lie?”

On closer inspection, there was a sac that had already been opened long before they arrived.

Sebastian studied the empty sac. “Kham did animate Ffashethh with his own flesh,” the dark-kin said with a frown. “It stands to reason Ffashethh could have used Kham’s life force to create these ss’ressen/val’Abebi hybrids.”

Kham struggled to his feet. “Look, it doesn’t matter if you’re really Emric or not. You stood by us when it counted. I don’t care how you came to be…hell, I was originally planning to eat the serpent egg I picked up. Sometimes, things work out differently than you planned.”

Kham clapped Emric on the shoulder and winced. The sickle wounds hurt, but he would live.

Emric’s brow was furrowed. “Thanks, Father. That means a lot coming from you.”

“And stop calling me Father.”

Vlad stared up at the far wall. “I don’t mean to interrupt the family reunion, but if Ffashethh is dead, why is that wall still glowing?”

Emric followed Vlad’s gaze.

“Yig have mercy,” he whispered.

 

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Part 8c – Ancient Secrets

The massive fresco of one of the Unspeakable One’s spawn glowed a sickly green color and slowly detached itself from the wall with a horrible sucking sound.

“Run!” shouted Emric.

Vlad drew a glowing gladius, the blade made of pure energy. “This weapon can take Carcosan beings down—“

Emric turned. “You can’t fight this! RUN!”

Kham was backpedaling. “But Emric, you can’t stop it either…”

Emric shook his head. “If it’s true, that I was manufactured by the Unspeakable One to betray you, then I won’t be able to fight this thing. And if I don’t have free will, I don’t want to live anyway.” He drew a thin longsword. “Sliver, don’t fail me now!”

Tentacles stretched and twisted towards Emric.

“Come on!” shouted Emric. He hacked at one of the tentacles. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

There was a grin on Emric’s face, wild with the confirmation of his new-found independence, however brief. Snapping like whips, the spawn’s tentacles pinned his arms to his body. Another tentacle strained for his face…

Kham didn’t look back. He hit the wall running and climbed straight up it. Sebastian flew up the length of the rope and tied it around his waist. “Hang on!”

Beldin tied a length of rope around his wrist as Sebastian lifted into the air.

Vlad hacked his way out of a forest of tendrils. He was quickly overmatched and he knew it.

“If that thing gets out this whole continent is doomed!” shouted Sebastian.

Beldin slowly lifted up. Kham jumped through the air and snatched the rope.

“We can’t let it get out of here,” said Kham desperately. Then he remembered the extra blastpowder. “Vlad, Beldin, throw the blast powder at it. Sebastian, when I say go, you hit it with everything you’ve got!”

Sebastian struggled. The power of his new wings was impressive, but it was all he could do to keep them aloft.

The mass that was once Emric sunk into the gelatinous form of the spawn. Kham concentrated, and suddenly he and Vlad switched places—Vlad was wrapped around the rope and Kham was in the forest of tentacles.

Thanks to Kham’s ring, the spawn couldn’t get a handle on him. He threw the powder horn and the feeling tentacles caught it, slurping it upwards into the body cavity.

Kham twisted and tumbled out of its path. He snatched the tail end of the rope. “Throw it!”

Beldin reached into his pouch and tossed a powder horn into the scintillating cap of the jelly-like spawn. Vlad did the same. The powder horns stuck to its flesh before slowly sinking beneath the surface.

Sebastian elevated them up so that they were level with the opening into the cavern.

Kham whistled the last powder horn over his head by its strap. Once, twice. The tentacles lunged for him.

On the third swing he let the powder horn fly. “NOW!”

Sebastian pointed both palms downwards into the hole, “INCENDIARES GLOBUS!”

A blast of flames whooshed past Kham’s nose into the hole.

One of the powder horns, attached to the surface of the spawn, exploded. The abomination jerked this way and that, a balloon caught in a typhoon. Its tentacles flailed, smashing a massive stalactite. The cavern shuddered.

“Fly faster!” Kham twined his legs around the rope.

Sebastian was drenched in sweat as he concentrated wholly on lifting three men up on a single rope. Tentacles probed out of the hole.

Then the explosion reached the other two powder horns stuck in the thing’s hide. Bright red mushrooms of energy exploded in the flesh of the spawn, bursting outwards a second later and spewing viscous fluid in great gouts everywhere. The entire cavern blasted upwards as the gas that propelled the beast caught fire.

Suddenly Sebastian’s load got lighter. Beldin, Vlad, and Kham sailed up past him as the rope went slack. The superheated air of the explosion tossed them like feathers.

Sebastian flapped his wings furiously. He caught sight of Beldin at the apex of the blast. Then all three hurdled back to earth as gravity took over.

The cavern was slowly imploding, rocks dropping away from where the spawn continued to flail in a spray of fire, rock, and unnatural fluid. It seemed as if would envelope the entire landscape.

Kham snapped downwards, his leg trapped in the rope. Beldin and Vlad weren’t so lucky. The force of gravity ripped the rope from their hands.

Kham hung upside down, arms outstretched. He was holding on to both of them by their hands, the world a churning mass below them.

“Hold on, Vlad! Hang on to me!”

“Don't let go!” shouted Beldin.

Kham strained. His grip was slipping.

“Hold on, Beldin! Hang on!”

Though they were further away from the lip of the rapidly expanding crater, they were slowly falling back into it. Sebastian’s wings were finally giving out.

“Come on! Get up!” Kham tried to tighten his grip but his shoulders were already numb from Ffasheth’s attack. “Pull up! Come on!”

“Kham!” shouted Vlad.

“I can’t…” There were tears in Kham’s eyes. “Guys…I can’t…I can’t hold on to both of you.”

 

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Part 8d – Ancient Secrets

Beldin closed his eyes. “Let me go.”

“What?” shouted Vlad. “No!”

“It’s okay,” the dwarf said calmly. “Find my body later.”

“No, Beldin, wait!” But the dwarf had already made his decision.

Beldin released Kham’s hand. He was distinguishable only by his flapping beard as he plummeted to certain death on the unstable ground below.

Kham caught a glimpse of Mashudu running towards Beldin’s body. He picked the corpse up and ran, the collapsing rock nipping at his heels.

Vlad looked down. “We’re still falling!” The earth had given way to bright red and yellow streaks, like bloody veins in the earth. Lava.

The spawn slowly sank beneath the crush of rock and earth, sputtering and hissing as it was forced downwards into the lava pool, until even the glittering green cap was no longer visible.

“I can’t fly anymore,” Sebastian’s body shuddered with every beat of his wings. The exertion and the Nyambe heat had taken its toll. They continued in a barely controlled descent.

“We’ll never survive the lava,” Kham said morosely. He could do nothing but hold on to Vlad.

“Wait!” Sebastian remembered Calactyte. He pulled a wand from his robes. “Let go of the rope.”

“What?” Kham looked up at him. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Trust me! Let go of the rope!”

Kham shrugged and released his leg from the rope. It twirled, unraveling him and suddenly they were free falling. Vlad and Kham tumbled through the air.

Sebastian aimed the wand. This time, he swore, he wouldn’t miss.

The wand of resilience sparked and a bubble of magical force enveloped them as they fell. It landed in the lava flow like a bit of foam on a calm surf. Vlad held Grungronazharr in both hands; though the force bubble would protect them, he wasn’t taking any chances.

Finally relieved of his burden, Sebastian was able to flap enough to keep himself afloat. He stretched, taking in great a lungful of air. Then his smile faded.

Down below, something stirred beneath the lava. Tentacles curled upwards, melting in the awesome heat but undeterred.

“No!” Sebastian went into a nosedive. “I will not let you take any more lives!”

Vlad and Kham looked up, helpless to do anything but watch as the spawn threatened to drag them down into the lava with it.

Sebastian lifted a palm. A glowing sphere of pale blue light appeared in it. “Frigus sphaera!”

Sebastian hurled the blue sphere straight at the crown of the spawn. His aim was true.

Still dripping with lava, the sphere passed through its flesh and burrowed to the center of its being. Cracks of ice appeared throughout its form. For a split-second the spawn shuddered as heat and cold struggled for dominance.

Then it exploded in a million pieces of frozen chunks, pelting Sebastian in the air, bouncing off the sphere of force, and even threatening Mashudu who stood protectively over Beldin’s smashed corpse.

 

[talien]

Secret of Semar: Conclusion

“Your friend is remarkable,” said Atum. It had taken all of their healing potions to restore the crushed and battered body of Beldin to life before dawn. “The orisha within him is very strong. He will be reborn at daylight, as you said he would.”

Around the Hutili’s fire, Sebastian also slept. The struggle to keep them alive and his newfound flight had taken much out of him.

“That’s great, Atum. Any news on Ilmarė?” asked Kham.

“I will check on her.” Atum tottered off.

Kham and Vlad passed a gourd filled with a Nyambean concoction back and forth in front of the fire.

“Do you think he really was Emric?”

Kham sighed and took a swig. “I think that he thought he was. Who’s to say that he didn’t wake up to see Ffashethh standing over him and thought it was Yig?” He handed the gourd to Vlad.

Vlad nodded and slurped from the gourd. “Still, it didn’t work the way Ffashethh wanted it. Emric had free will.” He handed it back to Kham.

Kham gulped some more down. “The curse of being human.” He winked at Vlad.

“I just realized something.” Vlad hesitated in returning the gourd to Kham. “If it’s true that Ffashethh used your flesh to make his own val/ss’ressen half-breeds, that made Emric your son.”

Kham snatched the gourd back from Vlad. He didn’t say anything else. He just finished off the contents of the gourd.

Atum returned, ashen-faced. “I thought you should see these. We received it as a gift from the village you saved from the Amazons.”

He handed Vlad a small book and a battered, wooden box. The book had a black cover on which “diario” was spelled out in gold leaf. The box contained six bullets for an Altherian rifle.

“Four white men, like you, passed through here,” said Atum, anticipating Vlad’s question. “They headed to Isle of Chaugnar Faugn.”

Vlad punched an open palm with his fist. “Livius Carbo!”

“There’s more. Another ship came through; I believe they were in pursuit of this Livius you speak of. Only they were captured by cannibals, the tcho-tcho. They plan to sacrifice them to their orisha, Chaugnar Faugn, tomorrow.”

“Oooooh no.” Kham waved off Atum, swaying drunkenly. “We’re not staying here another day.” He pointed at Atum with the empty gourd. “As soon as Ilmarė is back on her feet we’re going through that portal and getting the hell out of here.”

“I do not think your new mother should be traveling through such portals,” said Atum matter-of-factly. “It may do irreparable harm to her baby. I suspect the strain is what weakened her the first time.”

“New mother?” Vlad blinked. “What are you talking about?”

Atum was taken aback. “Didn’t you know? Ilmarė is pregnant.”

Kham dropped the gourd.

 

[talien]

Chapter 51: The Isle of Chaugnar Faugn - Introduction

This scenario is adapted from a Necromancer Games adventure, “The Isle of Bonjo Tombo” from the Dead Man’s Chest supplement, set in the Arcanis setting. You can read more about Arcanis at Onara Online. Please note: This adventure contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Dungeon Master: Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)
• Beldin Soulforge (dwarf fighter/dwarven defender) played by Joe Lalumia
• Kham Val’Abebi (val rogue/psychic warrior) played by Jeremy Ortiz (http://www.ninjarobotstudios.com)
• Sebastian Arnyal (dark-kin sorcerer) played by George Webster
• Vlad Martell (human fighter) played by Matt Hammer

George (Sebastian) was pretty sick during this session. Although he held up well for the first two adventures, by the third he was really suffering. And, as it turned out, we all got sick afterwards. Everyone, that is, except Matt who is impervious to all harm and my wife, who was juiced with pregnancy hormones and didn’t play most of the time anyway.

I had a much longer setup that involved the exploration of the island, but combat started to become tedious. Also, Sebastian’s newfound flight meant he was far more capable of avoiding overland hazards, as you’ll soon see. So, gaming by the seat of my pants as usual, I threw out a bunch of the stuff I had planned and went with the more cinematic solution. I also gutted the original cavern and instead moved to the next adventure, which takes place in Chaugnar Faugn’s cave.

All in all, it worked out well, but it was a lot briefer than I would have liked. I’m still itching to use all the wonderful things that lurked in the more expanded version of the cave. Oh well…there’ll always be other islands!