- Antonio, Portuguese Fighter 1 (played by Rick)
- Akenzae, Nigerian Cleric 1 (played by Johnathan)
- Abdallah, Moroccan Specialist 1 (NPC'd for this session)
- Raal Mogaz, Elf 1 (played by Kai)
We last left our heroes climbing a ladder into the stilt-house of "The Speaker of the Moon," the leader of the Green Men of Womar. They had accepted a deal to assassinate the Speaker in exchange for being released from the slave-caravan of Boshek. While they climbed into the house, their employer, Dara, one of the Speaker's slave-wives, retrieved mounts for them to ride to freedom on.
Inside the house, they found the Speaker and Boshek seemingly passed out drunk; Raal positioned himself over Boshek, knife in hand, and Abdallah, carrying a poisoned blade from Dara, raised it high over the Speaker.
They both missed. Boshek snapped awake, having been feigning drunkenness. He made a grab for his scimitar, but Antonio dove across the room, seizing both the scimitar and the Speaker's heavy mace. The Speaker, actually drunk, started to stagger towards a standing position. Boshek, seeing himself outnumbered and unarmed, dashed to the veranda and the ladder, announcing that they hadn't seen the last of him. Antonio tried to tackle him and throw him off the veranda, while the Speaker threw a drunken (but armored) punch at Raal. A good stab with Abdallah's poison dagger finished off the Speaker. Akenzae made a dive for the ladder, trying to untie it and deny Boshek an exit, but only got his hands stomped on for his trouble. Taking a breather, Raal found the Speaker's secret cache of money, two flasks of some sort of potion (a taste-test revealed it to be some sort of healing potion), and two vials of jale-colored powder, along with a spell-book.
Meanwhile, Yilana, the White witch that had been in the slave caravan with them, summoned a demon to cover her own escape; a 40-foot "squid" made of coiled entrails with scorpion tails for arms. Soon the entire village of Womar is in an uproar.
Antonio threw Boshek off the veranda and then tried to jump down on top of him but missed; the rest of the party took the elevator down, just as Dara was arriving with eight-legged, horse-like steeds for them.
Desperate for his holy symbol, and recognizing that it was likely in Boshek's saddlebags, Akenzae mounted one of the riding-animals and took off in the direction of the caravan-camp, despite riding straight for the squid. Two stingers struck the old priest, killing him instantly even as the venom locked his muscles rock-solid.
"We are not waiting around!" Dara screamed, circling her steed and heading for the south. Abdallah rode with her, though Antonio and Raal decided to stick around a few minutes longer; about ten minutes after it was summoned, the squid blinked out of existence, though Womar was now on fire and in ruins. Antonio went back in looking for Boshek, but found both the slaver and his mount missing. Raal, having claimed the Speaker's mace for himself, also looted himself a pair of silk pantaloons, some riding boots and a cloak.
Shortly before dawn, Antonio and Raal arrived at the ruined city of Korok, a hard ride south of Womar, where Dara had directed them to meet them. The Womarians held some superstitious dread of the ruins, and Dara anticipated being safe there.
As the green sun rose, a forest of fungal growths bloomed around the ruins, 4-12' tall tubes of gray-green tissue that stank of ammonia and dripped clear fluid. They realized these growths bloomed during the day and withered and died when the sun set, so unless they wanted to cut their way free, they were stuck until nightfall. Raal worked over the spellbook he'd stolen, trying to decipher it, when they heard a skittering noise of dislodged pebbles.
Looking up, the party realized a monstrous insect, like a giant mantis with muscular hind-limbs and club-tipped arms, had been trying to sneak up on them. With glowing orange eyes and a grin like a rotten jack-o-lantern, it swung one bony club at Abdallah, missing and impacting the wall hard enough to shatter stone. "Oh fuck this," Raal thought, and swung his newly-acquired mace full force into the creature's back, shattering its exoskeleton in a spray of pus-like viscera and killing the creature instantly.
Applause echoed through the ruins. Standing atop a nearby building was a man in blue-tinted armor with some sort of incorporated backpack, his face seemingly a bare skull. He jumped down, floating softly to a delicate landing. Introducing himself as "the Wielder of the Mighty Scepter," he inquired as to whether the PCs were going to use the creature they'd just killed, offering to trade them a slave for its carcass. When the party agreed, the strange skull-faced man was delighted, calling forth "The Keeper of the Frozen Lightning," a purple-skinned man wearing a furry jock and boots with a metallic harness strapped over his chest, and transferring ownership of him to Raal, who immediately freed the purple-skinned man.
Staring intently at the PCs after having removed and pocketed the mantis-creature's brain, the Wielder deduced that they were not native to "the World of the Green Sun." After further questioning, he determined to his satisfaction that they'd been swept up in a dimensional storm and deposited here; explaining that waiting for another dimensional storm would not likely return them to their homeworld, he offered another trade; if they would perform a task for him, he would provide them with information on where they might find a way home.
Six days south-east of their current position, he explained, is the village of Ix Nur. In the temple there was a statue, depicting a god whose name was long forgotten, worshiped by a people that the Ix Nurians had exterminated centuries ago. Temples of this god still existed in isolated regions of the world, and the Wielder of the Mighty Scepter wished to take this statue to one of them, in the hopes of being granted access to ancient sorcerous secrets.
The party agreed, though Dara, disgusted at the thought of working for a "Bone Man," as she called him, decided to separate from the party, returning to her home village of Arnur. The Wielder of the Mighty Scepter answered a few more questions about the world for the PCs - including explaining that, as a Bone Man, he wasn't an animated skeleton, but of a race of men whose soft tissue was invisible.
He showed the party a holographic map of the region, outlining their route to Ix Nur. Asked about three ruins on the map, the Wielder identified them as the Dead Keep (formerly a bandit palace, now haunted), the Bones of the World-Crab (a giant petrified crustacean that was at one point hollowed out and fortified as a village) and the Shrine of the Star-Brothers (a crashed flying saucer that was discovered by a primitive tribe, its mummified crew worshiped as gods). The party's route to Ix Nur would take them right past the Dead Keep, and directly between the Bones of the World-Crab and the Shrine of the Star-Brothers.
The Wielder of the Mighty Scepter, satisfied that a deal had been struck, fired up his antigravity belt and floated up and away to parts unknown; the party agreed to strike out on this new adventure just before dawn tomorrow, and that they would stop at the Shrine of the Star-Brothers on their way to Ix Nur.
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