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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1618694" data-attributes="member: 1210">On the LamIt was a reasonable spring day near the end of Newmonth as our heroes began their climb into the Stern Mountains, heading south towards the Asylum of Advanced Mental Treatment.  Ed was downcast, crying off and on throughout the day; it was her fault they were on the lam, after all.The Peachtrees, as Leanne Bakeswell had pointed out, are a powerful and wealthy clan.  Shooting one of their scions in the eye was sure to elicit an unfavorable response of some kind.  Best to head elsewhere for a while.  So our heroes had perked right up when Sandy had said, “Hey, I know what we can do!”The vegetation, as they climb up the skirts of the Stern Mountains, consists of tough, stringy scrubs able to survive harsh seasons without much water.  After all, the Stern Mountains tended to be steep enough, in many cases, that what rain fell just sluiced right down to the inevitable valleys and chasms at their roots, spending hardly any time at all with the native plants.  And then there were always droughts- with the Grey Waste encircled in the center of the mountains, it was said that half the moisture that fell was sucked away by the ashen desert.  Still, crossing the mountains is a must if the group is going to reach the asylum where, apparently, Sandy’s friend Norman, who is (again, according to Sandy) imprisoned against his will, awaits rescue.To this end, the group has hired a guide, a human named Nyrin who spoke brusquely and is clearly not too educated.  However, he knows a bit about the local area, and he constantly points out examples of what he calls “catastrophic” geography- shaped by powerful forces of magic or divine power in the past. Nyrin is also a bigot of a surprising stripe.  During the journey he reveals his opinions of elves as liars and thieves.  Worse, he tells the halflings, the elves are holding out on the other races.“Holding out on what?” asks Federico.“The secret of immortality!  You ever wonder why elves live so long?  They know something!  And they ain’t sharing!”  Nyrin shakes his head.  “Some day, somebody else is gonna get wise to them and start burning forests until they tell!”Several members of the group are appalled at the man’s attitude; others are more intrigued by his assertions. Two days into the mountain, as the group traverses a fairly narrow ledge, a group of seven goblins comes into view around a bend.  There are a few rounds of exploratory missile fire back and forth to no real effect; then Federico charges forward on his dog, and streams into a goblin and first knocks it down and then savagely tears out its eyes!  The shrieking goblin demoralizes his friends, who waver and break as the dogs and wolf rush forward and a steady stream of thrown weapons and slung stones rains down around them.  The engagement is over in only a few moments, with a total victory on the part of the halflings, who even manage to find and rescue a captive (calling himself Lovejuice), who shows an interest in Federico, following him around and muttering about Saint Yurnam.After a night of exhausted sleep spent on a ledge, the party continues along.  They are now three days in.  Their guide seems competent, though he showed no aptitude for combat with the goblins.  (He had climbed to an overlook to try rolling a big boulder down on the goblins, but by then the fight was over.)  Continuing through the mountains, trying to stay on whatever paths they can find, the party finds themselves nearly trapped by a sucking mud pit.  Sandy loses a shoe, but manages to retrieve it with his longspear.  Still, they vow to be more careful.The group comes into an area where it appears they’ll have to climb a rather steep ledge.  Federico groans in resignation.  And then-Charging out from atop the ledge, clinging to the walls like spiders, but looking like some bizarre scorpion/spider cross, two weird things come towards the party!*  Before anyone can react, one of them snatches Nylin in one of its pincers!  The guide screams in pain, then jerks and goes limp and it squeezes him.“Oh no, our guide!” cries Mama.  “We have to save him, or we’ll be lost in the mountains!”The party surges forward, but the monstrous creatures retreat back up the cliff to feast.  With cries of dismay, the group pursues, clambering after them- and finds themselves facing not two, but four of the monsters!Brother He leaps in to the attack, Mama quick on his heels.  The others rush forward or lend the support of missile fire; but they all can see the body of their guide, a huge hole chewed in his stomach already.The battle is long, but the clan claims its revenge.  “Now what?” wails Ed.  “Where do we go?”“Well,” says Sandy, and pauses.“Let’s at least bury Nylin first,” whimpers Federico.  Mama nods.  The group checks him for maps- he has nothing on the scale required to guide them now- and then Mama gives a small sermon about the value of life, and of giving oneself for the clan.  It’s a morose little ceremony.  The others build a cairn for the guide while she speaks.  By the time they’re done it is staring to get dark.“Well, at least it’s flat here,” Sandy sighs.  “We can rest.”“What if there are more of those things?” the kobold whines, shivering.  “We’ll kill them,” Mama snaps.  And, as traveling through the dark across rocky broken terrain seems like a worse path than resting somewhere potentially dangerous, the group sets camp.Their night is uneventful.  The sounds of night animals, owls and wolves, reach them; but the wolves sounds like they are mostly down below and behind, and owls are no threat to a well-armed group of halflings.  Though they have on rare occasions been known to steal babies.In the morning, Sandy climbs up a large rock and looks for any sign of, well, which way to go or something.  He scans the surrounding shafts of rock and sharp clefts in the ground.  Strange angles of stone, some areas smooth as if once liquid...Something is shining.  Something big and several mountains away.  Sandy waits a few moments to make sure he isn’t imagining it, then descends to tell the others.“We make for the shiny,” Mama says decisively.Next Time: Our heroes begin journeying to the shiny object!*Remember the thread about camel spiders a few months ago?  Just think if all the nasty stories were true, and they were medium-sized!</blockquote>

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