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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kinem" data-source="post: 4473045" data-attributes="member: 24234">The party, having reached a decision - though it is not unanimous - to try to stay hidden, huddles in the cave throughout the night.In the morning, you hear a lot of voices as the army pulls up camp and continues on its march.  As this wears on you note the gruff voices of ogres, and some languages you don't recognize, among the others.The position of the cave in the gully seems well suited to protect you from discovery until a large lizardlike beast pokes its snout into the gully, staring hungrily at the corpses.The beast's rider, not wanting to waste time, commands it to move along around the gully.  Fortunately for the party, the beast complies.The army's march above seems to go on for an eternity, but eventually the voices die away.  Still the party remains hidden, just in case.Finally, in the afternoon, you get out and prepare to resume your travel towards the land of the Master beyond the mountains.You notice many types of tracks.  Perhaps most distubing is the wide, flat trail that must have been left by the 'rolling fort'.Travelling along you see the debris the army has left behind - dead bodies, broken equipment, and the ashes of fires.As a matter of fact, this trail of debris is the salvation of the party.  By following it, you figure, you are able to trace back the route towards the Great Pass, which is the only way to cross the great Black Mountains which loom along the western edge of the Sind Desert.  You notice that the trail does decrease as you go along, both due to blowing sand but also no doubt because the army had grown as forces joined it in the desert, but nonetheless it seems certain that a sizable force did come all way from the Master's lands through the Pass.After a few more days the landscape changes noticably.  The mountain foothills are different from the desert hills: bent and twisted pine grows on the land, and streams flow through the area, carrying water from the Black Mountains beyond. The hills are very rugged, cut with ravines and bluffs. The ground, though covered with trees and grass, is dusty and rocky. Girgal discerns the presence of antelope and other small game. The air is somewhat cooler than the desert below, although the temperatures are still uncomfortably hot. To the west, the tops of the Black Mountains rise above the horizon, their peaks often disappearing into banks of icy clouds. Even from this distance, you can tell the peaks are tall, jagged, and icy.The massive mountain range is one of the highest and most dangerous mountain chains in the known lands. Its peaks are permanently ice covered, and large glaciers fill many of the high valleys. From a distance the mountains appear white and dull blue.  Most of the mountain land is well above the treeline, even above the highest of the meadows that cover the lower slopes.Travel through the mountains is nearly impossible: as Girgal know, any traveller who tries to climb through the mountains will confront a lack of food, snow-covered crevasses, avalanches, cliffs, cunning monsters, freezing cold, and air so thin he cannot breathe. If you attempt to cross at some place other than a pass, you will most likely die.The party marches on, encouraged only by the trail of debris as you approach the forbidding mountains, with food suplemented by hunting as your supplies have run out.Your party is travelling through a light stand of trees that grow near the base of a rocky bluff. Travel is difficult: the trees and loose shale force you to detour often. As you finally reach the top of a low ridge, you discover a large, bowl-shaped clearing on the other side. At the lower, far end are four giant-sized statues.Their features are nearly worn away, and it is difficult to tell that but you think they are carved to represent old men. Each stands with his hands folded in front of him.Shortly after you enter the clearing, the leftmost statue says, in a whispering voice, “Look! Someone enters our valley. Who is it?”Soon another statue speaks up in a low voice.  “Some travellers. What do they want?”“They want to hurt us,” the third replies.The last one says, “Quiet. Then they will not see us.”</blockquote>

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