Tenagro: Sable Rider Foundchild guy & exile
Harridan: distant cousin of Raus, herbalist and ex-assistant
shaman
Marillia: C.A. healer from the Redlands
Atticus Vogni: Lunar cavalry officer
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The party moseyed down to the Bilos Gap, encountering
another group of Morokanth. This one was led by Velakol
Surestrike, a one-thumbed, friendly, whistling Morokanth. He
offered to provide protection from the next group of Morokanth,
the Black Wind or something like that, and the party took him up
on the offer. Coincidentally, the group made him a gift in the
amount of 100 L worth of trade goods.
You camped well down Bilos Gap in an area good for cavalry maneuvers. In the night, the PCs belonging to the players who were present woke up and found themselves surrounded by a city square without an exit. The walls were of stone, and somewhat reminiscent in architectural style of Horn Gate. The doors were of wood, exquisitely carved, and fire light came from underneath them. To the south, past the buildings, was a ziggurat. The stars were unchanged. The four went through a door into a lavishly-furnished room with work left unfinished and food uneaten. Up a ladder to the roof, and across the roofs toward the ziggurat. The ziggurat was of stone, decorated similarly to the house doors (images of fantastic creatures, part human and part animal, especially snake, or mixed snake and some other animal). Torches provided light.
At the top, a cubic house inhabited by a beautiful old woman. She greeted them, listened as they introduced themselves (though pointedly ignoring Tenagro), and then introduced herself as Neshth. At some point, someone asked where they were, and she replied "Neshthone." She asked them, "Where is the earth?"
The party replied something like "Down there," pointing.
She said, "So, you beat her down with your feet?"
Then she asked, "Where is the wind?"
"Oh, all around us."
"Where is water to you?"
"Well, water is everywhere, and within us."
"Where is darkness within you?"
"I guess there's some darkness within all of us."
"Then you're not friends of my city."
She then demanded "Give me your slave there" while pointing
at Tenagro. The group denied he was a slave, and refused to turn
him over to her. They also ignored her hints that she wanted a
sacrifice of some sort.
The ziggurat started to dissolve. I was nice, and warned the characters a couple times before it went away, and let them roll DEX x5 to run down. Two missed (Atticus and Haridan), and were injured in the fall. When the ziggurat and city dissolved, only the cubic building was left, floating in the air.
Then the earth decided to open up under Atticus and he fell in. Before the earth could close up, Tenagro tried to pull him out. He got Atticus most of the way out.
The group heard a rushing of wings, and a huge (horse-sized) black bird with a naked head swooped down. Marillia tried to Sleep it without success. It picked up Haridan's unconscious form and invited the others to cling to its limbs. It plucked Atticus out of the hole just as it was closing, and carried all four of them to the top of the nearby cliff. It deposited them there, and they thanked him. He introduced himself as King Condor.
They had some difficulty getting down the cliff, but survived.
The next evening, as they crossed the Easy Ford of the Zola Fel, they encountered some Tusk Riders, who approached under cover of their "Whoa, piggy, whoa, whoa! When I says whoa, I means whoa!" bit. Although the party was divided by the river, they managed to drive off the Tusk Riders, taking one captive.
Because Marillia had slept the (already injured) Tusk Rider, it was under her protection. They decided to leave it tied up by the river bank. After they were out of sight, Marillia told them she had accidentally dropped a scarf by the ford, and asked Tenagro to go get it. He did.
The party scouted the Stone Tower (Tusk Rider-infested), visited the Condor Crags (unscalable, not that they tried), and swung north to the north end of the North Bog. There they met the Duke and some newtlings who ferried them across. Two bad newtling spies were executed by Atticus' scimitar. As this occurred, someone spotted a newtling on the back of a giant frog jump into the river.
The Duke pointed out the trails leading into the Bog toward the Duck hideout.
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