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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 9858884" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 14: DESERT ESCORTPC Roster:  Amris Goodwitch, celestial elf witch (wizard) 5                     Avoroth Bleakborn, fiendish human cleric 5                     Gonkle Bu'Onk, fiendish orc fighter 5                     Wilbur Von Schattenwalde, shadow human druid 5NPC Roster:  Aria Hellborne, tiefling wizard 9                      Esmara Swiftbrook, half-water elemental elf wizard 9                      Umbrios Darkmantle, shadow human wizard 9Game Session Date: 4 February 2026 - - -The three Elsewhere wizards the group of planar scouts had rescued were glad to have been freed from the formian nest, and were more than happy to talk about their experiences, a trait Avoroth found to be somewhat irritating.  Yes, they had rescued the three wizards; yes, they owed the scouts their lives; yes, they were grateful for letting them ride doubled up on three of the horses...after a while, the grumpy human cleric started envying the mayor: at least he, having been slain by the formians before the group even got there, was enjoying some peace and quiet in the extradimensional space of the Heward's even handier haversack Avoroth wore on his back.  But the haversack gave the tiefling wizard he was allowing - begrudgingly - to share his mount, a red-skinned woman named Aria Hellborne who specialized in crafting rods and wands, something to hold on to; Avoroth, as a rule, did not like being touched by others."The first thing the formians did," said Esmara Swiftbrook, a female water genasi who rode behind Wilbur, "was force us to cast all of the spells we had prepared for the day."  She had light blue skin and wavy hair the color of sea-foam, and crafted potions and wondrous items, often elixirs, for the denizens of Elsewhere."And with our spellbooks back at the city," added Umbrios Darkmantle, a human male who shared Wilbur's shadow heritage (not surprising, as they had both been born in the same year, when Elsewhere had been parked on the Plane of Shadow) from behind Amris, "we were unable to prepare new spells once those we had readied were no more."  Umbrios crafted wands and wondrous items for the city's spellcasters."It was a devilishly clever way to depower us," added Aria.  If she expected Avoroth to comment on her wordplay, she was out of luck; the cleric was wondering how Gonkle had gotten lucky enough not to share his fiendish horse with another rider.  But that had been a simple matter of acknowledging the fiendish orc fighter was the one most often spurring his horse straight into combat, and these wizards, helpless as they were without any spells to back them up, would fare better not being subjected to such dangers.  (Of course, the fact that neither wizard leapt at the chance to ride behind a sweaty orc might have been another factor....)After about an hour's trek through the night desert, a low rumbling could be heard - despite Mechanus's complete lack of cloud cover in its "sky".  Flying above and slightly ahead of the rest of the group (who had aligned their mounts in a two-by-two configuration), Pivot saw churning sands ahead and to the side of the group, and gave an immediate warning to his mistress over the empathic link they shared.  "There's something approaching, under the sand!" Amris warned the others.Gonkle pulled up on Runtlemeat's reins and slipped from the saddle.  The other three halted their horses as well, as the orc readied his falchion in an attack stance and advanced upon the billowing sands fast approaching the group.  Any beast foolish enough to try to eat him was going to get a taste of his blade instead!  Avoroth took the rare opportunity to cast a bless spell upon the assembled group before they found themselves in the midst of combat.Amris slipped from the saddle and called for Umbrios to lead her horse Flick away from the advancing underground menace, casting a mage armor spell upon herself as she did so.  Umbrios slid forward on the saddle, grabbed up the reins, and sent Flick trotting off to the back of the formation, out of the way.  "Stay within sight, but well out of combat range!" she cautioned the shadow wizard.At that time, the five ashworms breached the sand and attacked.  Three of them advanced upon Gonkle, while one waited until it was directly beneath Runtlemeat before surfacing and biting at the fiendish mount's tender underbelly.  The fifth headed for Wilbur, and then ducked below the sands again to avoid a blast of electricity the shadow druid called down from the skies above with a call lightning spell.  Gonkle took quite a bit of damage from three separate worm bites, but refused to drop - and got in a decent strike with his falchion, which sliced into the side of one of the ashworms with a wet splurch!  He struck at it again, and his blade slew the first worm and then continued its arc into a second one, carving a gash across its torso as well.  Runtlemeat took the opportunity to flee, blood dripping from the bite marks on his belly.Avoroth took a different approach as to keeping the useless wizards alive: he pushed Aria from the saddle and told her to go run after Umbrios and stay out of the way.  (Why should he dismount and be deprived of his horse's greater speed?)  Then, urging his fiendish steed Victor forward, he cast a summoning spell and called out, "Skitterfiend!  I summon thee!"  Immediately, a monstrously huge centipede took form behind the two ashworms in combat with Gonkle, red spikes along its dorsal body segments giving an indication of its own fiendish nature.  It bit down at one of the worms, nearly slicing it in half.Amris ran forward and lined herself up such that a lightning bolt spell could blast its way through three of the four remaining ashworms.  They tensed at the electrical attack and then continued on with their own attacks, two biting at Gonkle, one going for Wilbur, and the other snapping at Tamaskan, who had run up to slap her burning tail at the one biting the shadow druid.  Wilbur took a step back away from the ashworm's snapping maw and cast a summoning spell of his own, and within mere seconds a shadow dire lion manifested behind the worms, standing beside Skitterfiend.  It bit at a worm with a mouth full of sharp fangs.Laughing like a maniac, Gonkle swung his blade into an ashworm and cut it to ribbons, its ichor staining the sands below its dead body.  But then a startled equine cry of terror pierced the desert air, and the group spun in the direction of the sound.  It was Runtlemeat, whose panicked flight had brought it directly to the pit trap of a giant ant lion, whose massive mandibles closed around the horse's torso, piercing it on either side."Oh, Hell no!" snarled Avoroth, kicking Victor forward towards the orc's idiot steed.  As the group's primary healer, he knew it was his job to keep these idiots he allowed to travel with him alive, but now he knew he'd have to waste his precious healing spells on a mere riding mount!  But what other choice did he have?  If Runtlemeat were to be slain - not that it wouldn't serve the fool thing right; he was about as stupid as the drooling orc who rode him - there would be seven people trying to ride three horses, and that math didn't add up.  It either meant one horse carrying three riders and slowing everybody down, or the group taking turns walking without a mount - which would also slow everybody down.  No way, Avoroth wasn't having any of that nonsense!  He'd just have to go save Runtlemeat's worthless hide, while the others took care of the other threats.  Surely they could handle a few oversize worms on their own?Once Victor got within range, Avoroth leaned over in the saddle and brushed his hand against Runtlemeat's flank, channeling a spell through his Boccob's book of knowledge and transforming it into a cure serious wounds spell, his most powerful healing magic.  The positive energy flowed through his fingers and into the fiendish horse, knitting together the wounds he'd sustained from the ashworm's bite and now from the mandibles of this new threat.  Skitterfiend did his part, chomping into an ashworm with a venomous bite, and Amris took out another one - already on fire from a hit by Tamaskan's blazing tail - with a well-placed scorching ray spell.The remaining ashworms - there were only two of them now, one heavily bleeding from Skitterfiend's bite and a good raking from the shadow lion's claws - both converged on Gonkle, who was bleeding from several wounds but seemed to be having the time of his life.  One stabbed at the orc with a stinger-tipped tail, and the fighter felt most of the strength drain out of him, such that his trusty falchion suddenly seemed to weigh three times its normal weight.  But Gonkle wasn't about to let a little thing like that stop him!  He swung his falchion with what was left of his strength, and if the blade didn't dig as deeply into the worm's flesh as it might have done a moment ago, the orc was still glad to be dealing damage to his foes regardless.Wilbur slew another ashworm with a second strike from his already-cast call lightning spell, then turned to go see about helping Avoroth rescue Runtlemeat.  The panicked horse had been trying to climb his way out of the pit he was it, but the sides kept collapsing, sliding him deeper into the pit's center - where the giant ant lion was waiting, its fearsome mandible spread wide in anticipation.Gonkle realized this last ashworm seemed tougher than the others - and not just because in his weakened condition he wasn't dealing as much damage as he usually did.  No, this one was a little bit bigger than the others.  Did worms have leaders?  The orc wasn't sure.  If they did, though, it seemed like he was fighting the King Worm.Avoroth, in desperation, cast a spiritual weapon spell and sent the glowing quarterstaff that manifested in the air before him to go conk the giant ant lion on the noggin.  It swung, and it missed, but it brought the insect's attention away from Runtlemeat for the horse to make his way partway up the sliding slope of shifting sands.All out of attack spells of her own, Amris cast a magic missile at the "alpha worm" with her wand.  Gonkle managed to finish it off, and the two summoned creatures, all out of worms to fight, were hastily directed at the giant ant lion by calls from their frantic summoners.  Racing across the sands, each one leapt into the sand pit, one after the other, and gave a single attack against the giant insect before vanishing back across the planes, their time on Mechanus having expired.  Gonkle raced over to the others, who were all converging on the giant ant lion, and used what strength he still possessed to grab at Runtlemeat's reins and help pull him up out of the pit.  Then the giant ant lion found itself surrounded on all sides by eager combatants, and before it could burrow itself back underneath the protecting sands, Amris took it out with a fireball spell cast down into the pit.  The rancid smell of burning insect flesh told of the creature's final destruction.Avoroth used his second and final charge of the night through his Boccob's book of knowledge to convert an unneeded spell into pure healing energy to help seal up Gonkle's numerous wounds, and then used his wand of cure light wounds - sparingly, for those things were expensive and there were only so many charges to go around - to get Runtlemeat and his rider both into fighting trim.  Then, declaring each of the two fit enough to continue their journey (there wasn't anything the cleric could do about the ashworm venom coursing through the orc's system; he'd have to ride out the weakness and let his strength return to him over time), the group headed back to where Umbrios, Aria, and Esmara were waiting together with the horses Flick and Blackie.  Amris and Wilbur climbed back onto their saddles, the wizards Umbrios and Esmara scooting back to make room for them."If it's all the same to everyone, I think I'll ride with the orc," announced Aria, apparently not liking having been pushed out of the saddle when Avoroth found her to be inconvenient.  That was perfectly fine with Gonkle, who didn't mind having a tiefling woman clinging to him with her arms around his chest as he rode through the desert.  And it was equally fine with Avoroth, who now had his horse all to himself again, as it should be - why should he have to ride double when he had underlings to tend to those details?The rest of the journey through the desert gear of Mechanus was uneventful, and several days later the group found themselves at the conjunction of the two perpendicular gears, the second of which was the one upon which Elsewhere was presently perched.  Fortunately, Amris had prepared for that, and a repeat of her fly spell cast upon Flick to carry the others over with her, one at a time, followed by the other horses tied by their reins to her own mount's reins, soon had them all back upon the gear upon which Elsewhere sat.  Of course, the gears had continued their inexorable turning for the last several days, so the city was now further away from the desert gear than it had been when the planar scouts set off to rescue the kidnapped craftsmen days ago.  But at least this gear wasn't covered in desert terrain."This way!" commanded Avoroth, riding Victor down the path that led to their odd little home among the planes. - - - We all advanced our PCs to 6th level at the end of this session, but once again Joe was absent (he had to work), so his dad ran both Wilbur and Gonkle.  Joe leveled up Gonkle on his own later on that week.</blockquote>

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