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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1642208" data-attributes="member: 1210">Harried by a Hippogriff!Our small heroes clamber over rocks, follow narrow trails and scramble over scree that forms a shifting landscape beneath their feet.  The sun is pleasantly warm but the temperature varies widely as their elevation rises and falls as they climb up and down the skirts of the mountains.When the first night of the halflings’ journey towards the shiny place falls, they are at the top of a cliff that drops a sheer hundred feet.  As they set up their camp, they regard the descent dubiously, glancing nervously at the lengths of rope they have stowed on their beetle.In the morning, they descend the cliff and follow a cleft between two of the mountains.  Hardy grasses and wild flowers grow all along their path; to one side a small creek trickles rapidly towards the bottom of the mountains.  The group stops for lunch in a widening of the cleft, almost a valley.It is while they are eating lunch that Brother He hisses a warning at the group.They flatten down against the ground, the high grasses and stringy brush serving to give them concealment, and they watch apprehensively as a strange figure, humanoid but with the head of a yak, moves through their general area.  It doesn’t seem to notice them, and in any event causes them no trouble (save perhaps that caused by their own nervousness), and soon our heroes pick themselves up, finish their meal and continue along their way.Soon they find themselves struggling up a frustrating mountainside whose face seems covered in loose fragments of shale and a thin coat of pebbles.  The footing is terrible; even barefoot, the halflings spend almost as much time sliding back down as they do clambering upwards, but slowly they manage to make progress.  “There!” Sandy points out excitedly at one point, when the group clambers past a recess in the mountain that allows them a view of the far side.  There is a glinting something not more than another mountain away.  Mama Flapjacks smiles, and the others grin, taking heart. Then there’s a loud eagle cry from the sky, and the halflings have only an instant to look up before one of the many hippogriffs that live in the Stern Mountains is diving for them.  “Look out!” cries Brother He, shifting his body into a fighting stance; and Federico starts singing and japing humorously, trying to incite his companions into a courageous stand on the awkward footing.  Meanwhile the kobold himself laboriously cranks back the winch on his crossbow, his tiny muscles straining to the ultimate, and then slips a bolt into the slot.Mama has scooped up a handful of rocks from the ground and is whispering a prayer over them when the hippogriff comes for her.  It swoops in, its eyes glinting, and makes a vicious grab for Mama with its talons; but the halfling matron throws herself flat against the slope with a yelp!  The creature’s wings beat furiously as it pulls up short, giving a screech of hungry frustration, and then suddenly its cry changes to one of pain as Federico’s crossbow bolt zings into its wing!  “Get it, Ethel!” Federico urges his dog, and she’s off like an arrow, barking and growling as if her volume reflected the intensity of her dislike of this big bird-garen thing.  But Ethel has trouble clambering up the shifting slope, just like everyone else, and can’t get close enough to attack.  The hippogriff’s wings beat again, and it spares a talon for Mama before it tries to pass over our heroes.  There’s a splash of red as the claw rips across Mama Flapjacks’ arm and she spins out of control with a cry, sliding down the scree.  “EEEEEK!!!” she shouts.  The great beast’s wings, meanwhile, begin to raise it away from our heroes’ reach.But Sandy is having none of that.  His spear, though sized for a halfling, is enough to prevent an easy escape for the monster.  A strong thrust hits it directly in the belly, and the hippogriff gives a terrible scream, almost a whinny, and loops of guts explode outward.  The griff falls onto the cliff side and starts doing an odd combined slide and roll down the scree.  Mama manages to halt her own descent just as the hippogriff’s corpse comes down towards her, and is sadly shoved further down slope before she can arrest her passage.Panting, the group tosses a rope down to Mama and helps her return to the rest of them.  Grumbling, she brushes the dirt off and the group continues their climb, soon reaching a ledge where they determine to spend their evening.”Climbing sucks,” complains Federico, then passes into an exhausted sleep.Early the next day the group reaches the shoulder of the mountain and with a ragged cheer they cross over.  The descent is easier than the ascent was; but crossing the grassy valley they find themselves in is, unfortunately, not nearly so easy.”Why, look at that,” Mama comments.The valley is split by a deep chasm.  It looks to split the entire length of the valley; and it looks to be somewhere around a half mile to the bottom.Frowning, our heroes examine it.  “I doubt whether we have enough rope to make it to the bottom,” Sandy comments thoughtfully.“Not more climbing,” groans Federico in despair.“Look at that,” says Brother He.  “There’s a bridge across.”Crowding around, the others look at where he’s pointing.  “That’s a bridge, all right,” Mama says.  “But it’s about a third of the way down there.  How do we reach it?”“Was that something moving at the bottom?” asks Sandy nervously.  “I can’t tell, it’s too far down...”“Well, whatever it was, we’re about out of time for today,” announces Mama.  “It’s almost time for the sun to go down.”  She puts her hands on her hips.  “All right, boys and girls; let’s set up camp.”The others nod.Next Time: Undead in the night!</blockquote>

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