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Message: <blockquote data-quote="megamania" data-source="post: 7622461" data-attributes="member: 9255">DARKSUN: THE ELEMENTS OF EVILSEGMENT 018“KET NO MORE”05/30/19SEASON: FRIEND’S VENGEANCE  YEAR 24MONTH: THE ELEMENTSDAY: 14KA: 190“Land?” asks the thri-kreen.“Yes.” Answers the Mul as he spies the dark grey land mass partially hidden by the air-born silt.As they reach the island Koe notes the change of environment.   The silt is crumbly as it has absorbed moisture from below and the mud of the island.   Tall stands of grass rise out of the silt at the edge of the mud.   A packed mud path leads from the bridge to a series of old wooden shacks.The path has a knocked over wheel barrel.  Several doors are ajar.  Koe gently pushes one open.  It creaks louder than he had hoped.  Inside…horror.   There are no windows on this large 20X30 foot structure.  Inside are shredded blankets.   Bits of chewed leather and afgari manticles.   A few small metal locks.   Blood stains.  Koe breaks down the scene quickly.   Slaves were kept here.  Something slaughtered them as they slept.   Something that shredded their bodies, restraints and blankets.Koe breaks through the doorway and goes to another building.  Again…. Slain slaves.  Koe is becoming irate.  His mul aggression is building and looking for an escape.  Drak finds a better built building.  Koe snarls and goes in.  A storage area.   It has been gone through.   Boxes and crates are tumbled over and some opened with their contents spilled on the floor.  All food and water has been taken.  Curtains are set up as barriers and walls.  He pulls one aside and finds….. beds.Outside Drak is checking out another building.   Shredded cloth… the smell of blood.   Tiny tracks made in the pools of blood that once were people.  Drak is hungry.Clean, soft beds.  Quality sheets and blankets.   Locked chests that he ignores.   In small dressers are quality clothing.  Travel and work clothes.  All clean and well kept.  One set belongs to a female and the other to a male.   Non-slaves…..Outside, the thri-kreen steps out of a building and hears something.  People.  He looking up the path and sees two shuffling humans.  Their hands and feet are chained.  “Help us!” they cry out sobbing.The thri-kreen watches.  And waits.Silt begins to ripple and puff into the air from the side of the two surviving slaves.  Suddenly two centipedes burst from the silt and attack the slaves.  One screams out “Save us!” then dies.  The other tries to fend off the centipede but goes down.  Drak watches until he is sure there is no immediate danger to him or the mul.  The Clutch leader.Koe searches the rest of the building.  The people in this building had it much better than the…. Others.  Furniture, clothes, possessions….. even a card table with a game set up but never finished.  Koe storms out of the buildings furious at these events.  He sees the thri-kreen barbarian scout looking with interest ahead of them.  Koe sees a bloody leg rising from the silt ahead of him.  He rushes to it.  “They just died.  Just now.   They look… chewed…..”“Yes.  They called.  Centipedes attacked.  They leave after dropping them.”“YOU. WATCHED. THIS?”   Says Koe as he slowly turns to face the thri-kreen.“YOU COULD HAVE…. STOPPED IT?”“klik…. No.”“DID. YOU. EVEN…TRY?”Before Drak can answer the monk attacks him with a trip.The thri-kreen easily leaps over the attempt.   “No.   klik…. No try.  They die.”“WHY?!?  Because they were slaves?!?”A second attempt that strikes the kreen but he holds his ground.  “No.  Dead.”The barbarian pushes back and the mul, very emotional and unbalanced, falls over as he stumbles into the gooey mud.  The thri-kreen tries to pin him and finds himself pulled into the mud.  They grapple and roll in the mud.  Dry silt sticks to the wet mud making both look like diseased earth elementals.Someone begins to clap and laugh at the sight of the two of them fighting.Back at the bridge, the half-giant Choro and the Tiefling Olan are talking about life in general.  Then Choro spots movement in the silt.  Several white shells ride to the surface of the silt traveling along the edge of the land about fifty feet out.Choro calls up power to psionically defend them while Olan pulls out two daggers.  The ripple in the silt disappears as it dives under the silt and under the bridge.  They resurface after the bridge- dozens of them.“Uh…. What are those?” asks Choro as his imagination races.Spitting out mud, Koe looks up, his anger spent and his awareness of being watched takes hold.  Two people dressed in light grey tattered robes stands about forty feet away.   Near them stands a 20 foot tall skeleton.  On its shoulder sits another grey cloaked man.  Even from here, they can tell his skin is dark grey in color.“Who are you?” The mul demands.“Magic users.” Answers the thri-kreen.“Take care of them.  I need to check on the patrol.”  Calls out the humanoid on the shoulder of the giant.The giant skeleton turns away even as Koe charges.  He knows these are magic users.  The best way to deal with them is up close and personal.Drak takes a step forward then thinks about the damaged chitin.  The monk attacked with the intention of taking him down.  Take down a clutch mate.The two opponents are startled at how quickly the mul has charged even in the hardened mud.  One is stunned and stumbles back unable to breath.  The other calls up a spiritual weapon in the shape of a large club.   Koe keeps them busy so that the spells do not work.   One cleric, the non-stunned one, decides this mul is too dangerous for him.  He castes a spell on himself and he turns into air-bourn silt and drifts away with the gentle breeze in the direction of the huge skeleton.Unable to caste a spell still, the remaining Silt Cleric is easily tripped into the mud and grappled to the mud face first.  “Tell me what is happening?  Where is Massa?  Where is the Drajah?  What did you do with…. The people?”  Koe can not bring himself to say the word- slaves.“I say nothing!   May the Silt rise and swallow you whoooooole-ahghgh!”  The cleric curses at the mul as his face is pushed deep into the mud.  Koe lifts his head up to allow him to breath.“It will enter your eyes and lungs.  It will-“    SNAPKoe has broken his neck.“There is great evil here.”   Then he pauses.  Drak is not there.Several buildings up, Drak is being watched from within a building.</blockquote>

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