Secrets Beneath the Sand

After much discussion, Caleb the Finder agreed to lead us to a city for two shares of the treasure that we split amongst ourselves.

As we started out across the desert, the sky was as gray as ever. There was no hint of the sun, and without the sun to guide our way, we could only put our faith in Caleb's abilities as a Finder.

After we trekked for what seemed like miles, Caleb stopped and stared into the distance. We could barely make out a brown smear far ahead of us.

"We should all tie in," Caleb ordered. Tie in? "Tie yourselves to each other. There is a dust storm coming."

We all tied ourselves together. Bran, the Halfling Rogue, did not weigh much, and he realized that he needed a strong anchor to keep him from being blown away. He decided to tie himself to the back of Carlagnios, our Dragonborn Fighter. Bran had not been so close to Carlagnios' back side before, and his face shriveled into a squint when he smelled the odor from under the Dragonborn's tail. "Ugh..."

Caleb led us ahead into the dust storm. We could barely see before us, and the air was getting harder to breathe. We felt ourselves weakening, but Caleb insisted that we continue on. We marched through the evening and into the next morning before the dust storm passed us by.

Although it was the middle of the day, we felt too exhausted to continue on. Caleb suggested that we make camp and take an extended rest.

But the terrain around us was rocky. Ambushers could easily hide behind the rocks and decimate us with ease. This was not a safe place to stop. Could this be a trap?

We asked Tiny, our perceptive and insightful Dwarven Cleric, if he could determine if there was anything unusual about Caleb -- perhaps a subtle clue that Caleb might intend to have us killed here.

Tiny eyed Caleb carefully and replied, "Well, he has some food stuck to the corner of his mouth. But that's the only unusual thing that I see."

Well, at least he was not hungry enough to kill us and eat us.

Up ahead of us, we saw a ridge. Perhaps on the other side, we might be able to find a campsite that was less visible to any attackers.

Caleb walked ahead and peeked over the ridge. After some time observing the other side, Caleb returned. "There's a stutter of morons just past the ridge -- maybe 30 or so. Usually, they won't attack you, unless you poke them."

"Are they squatters?"

"No," Caleb replied, "squatters don't usually mill around like these ones do. They're out there for a reason -- they just don't know what that reason is yet."

Caleb sighed. "It's too bad we don't have a Feeder with us. A Feeder would carry a harvesting blade and could use that to harvest residue from the morons. Feeders use that residue for casting rituals to make food."

"So what do we do?

"Who is the fastest runner here?" Caleb asked. All fingers pointed at me. "You should just go to the middle of that stutter and see if they try to attack you. If they do, run out of there as quickly as you can."

"This is a bad idea," Ryn noted. "We don't know what their intentions are. Once you're down there among them, they can surround you and attack."

We didn't have other options (or perhaps we did, but I was not the brightest member of the party and could not think of any good ideas), so I proceeded over the ridge.

On the other side of the ridge was a mild depression, the animata were wandering around the depression, seemingly without any aim. I walked among them unhindered. They did not seem to notice me (or if they did, I was not important to them). They almost seemed to be hunting for something, but I could not say what.

I reported this back to the party, and Ryn came down to the stutter of animata. He checked for any sort of arcane aura -- something that might be drawing the animata here -- but he could not detect any.

"Maybe we should scare the morons," Caleb suggested. "That'll send them running back home to Ma, and maybe we'll find a poke-out there."

But we were still exhausted from the long trek through the dust storm, and we decided to make camp back where we had originally stopped. Fortunately, the afternoon passed uneventfully, and we were able to take in a long, extended rest.

After we awoke, we watched the animata for a while. They still seemed to be hunting. Something was there -- something that we could not see or detect.

"Maybe it's underground," Bran said. He pulled out his shovel from his pack, headed to the depression, and began to dig. We followed but were skeptical. "I'm telling you," Bran said, "there's something here."

"Bran, you've already dug 12 feet into the ground. How much farther are you going to dig?"

Only an eerie silence answered from the hole that Bran had been digging.

"Bran...? Bran...?"

From far beneath the ground, we heard Bran's voice echoing. "I fell through, but I'm alright. I'm in a narrow fissure of sorts. It looks like it might go deeper!"

Kale, our Human Mage, cast a spell on Bran's sword to make it glow. "The fissure is leading to a room," Bran called out, as we watched Kale's light grow dimmer.

We followed Bran's voice down through the fissure until the fissure broke through to a room. It looked as though the wall of the room had collapsed and dirt had flooded in. Bran was exploring the room with this glowing sword.

There were a number of pieces of rotted furniture, scattered throughout the room. They looked like beds or bunks. Ruined weapons and armor were strewn about, along with humanoid skeletons. Perhaps this was some sort of barracks in its time.

Bran found a trap door in the floor near the end of the room, and we opened it up. A tunnel led downward. As we followed the tunnel, we noticed that it was oddly shaped with square edges -- almost as though it had be constructed by someone.

The tunnel tooks sharp turns at various points. We felt as though we were following a winding maze. At one point, we found some writing in Old War language on the wall. "Gladiators Quarters". After that point in the tunnel, we continued to find more messages written on the walls. Most of the messages were mottos to encourage warriors to fight.

The tunnel finally ended in a large room. On the sides of the room were ladders leading upward.

As we made our way into the room, we were attacked by monstrous creatures. One was a demonic bull that Kale called a Minotaur. Three were half-breeds of bulls and men (identified by Kale as Minotaur Warriors). And two were great lizards with wings (recognized by Kale as Vrocks).

The Vrocks swooped upon us and shrieked in horrifying voices. We were stunned by the sound and could not move or take any actions.

Then, the Minotaur Warriors began their attack. One of them charged Firinne, the Half-Elven Palading, but ended up bouncing off her powerful armor. "Hah!"

Some of them surrounded Bran but failed to realize how flanking him would make him incredibly difficult to hit.

Carlagnios rushed to attack one of the Vrocks.

A long and torturous battle ensued, but we were finally able to turn the tide. Bran struck and killed one of the Minotaur Warriors with a deep cut. Firinne badly damaged another with a critical blow. Ryn wounded yet another one, and Firinne struck the final blow to finish that Minotaur Warrior. Tiny sacrificed his health to heal us when we were getting close to death. Garg healed us as well and commanded us to strike strategic blows against the enemy. Kale burned the Minotaur Warriors with bursts of flame.

At some point, an animata appeared (perhaps having wandered down from the surface) and milled around the room.

Finally, with his Vrocks and Minotaur Warriors dying, the Minotaur demon decided to flee, and the battle was over.

In the room, we found a lockbox, which Bran picked open to reveal a stash of gold coins. Caleb took his cut of the gold (the 2 shares).

At the end of the room, we found a stairway leading up and a stairway leading down. Tiny noticed an odor of garbage coming from the stairway down. We looked closer but could only see inky blackness.