Saturday, March 31, 2012

Escape to the South

Following on from our last previous episode, our heroes escaped with the 800 odd freed slaves of Pax Tharkas in the middle of the night as a snow storm brewed up. Chased by Draconians, which they periodically had to chop in half with Wyrmslayer, they trudged on through the night up through the high mountain pass in nearly zero visability. By dawn the refugees were dead tired (and a dozen of them were genuinely dead from exposure) and so they rested until noon.

Just before noon the heroes were summoned to a council that had been formed to direct the refugees. For all their efforts they were offered a non-voting advisory role on the council… nice…

Through the afternoon the group pushed on, ever southward through the snow and wind. They camped in the evening and tried to sleep through the night. Exposed as they were they lost another dozen or so through the night.

The morning broke clear but cold. They marched further south coming out of the mountain pass into a plain. Around noon they came a tower with some strange instruments and a big stone slab. Finding nothing much of interest they pressed on into the hills where they spent another chilly night.

In the morning they tightened their belts – finding they had pretty much ran out of food – and marched on further to the south – hoping to get to the wooded vales of the mountains beyond the plains, or perhaps find Skullcap, the fabled tomb of the great wizard Fistandantilus….

By the afternoon they left the hills and were on a plain again. Occasionally they came across evidence of a great battle long ago. After another hours march they came to a marsh. Skirting around the march to the right they wandered ever southward…

Late in the afternoon they a great skull-shaped mound of stone loomed out of the fog of the marshes – Skullcap!

By that point it was getting late and we decided to call it a night rather than delve into the ruins. Not a lot of action this evening… but they made it to skull cap with ~760 (starving) refugees…. And no immediate sight of a Dragon Army in hot pursuit…

2 comments:

Christian Knudsen said...

Henry FitzArnulf to the Abanasian refugees camping by the bog outside Skullcap:
"Some of you will eat alligators. Some of you will be eaten by alligators. We are going into the ruin. Save us some alligator."

Heroic, truly heroic. And inspiring, too.

tim said...

Yes. Almost as inspiring as Norfindel's speech that started with "We must save my kinsmen the Elves by providing bait for the Dragon Armies - quick let us flee to the south!"

Are you still wondering why you don't have a voting seat on the Council of Freedom...?