20211012 - Run 16

Off in the distance, there are a pair of legs, severed at mid-thigh, that look to be roughly 1000 feet tall. Weathered and melted by something from this side. We’re off to investigate and deal with removing the threat to the trade caravan that runs past the Legs on this glassy post-cataclysmic plain.

Seems pretty straightforward. Protect ourselves from jagged glass sand, cover from the damaging rays of the sun, and walk low - even though the sand looks like it will cushion, it’s sharp. walk on the hard glass, and use the dunes as protection from the wind. So we head to the legs, weaving between the dunes. As we close towards the legs, we slide through a section of dunes and we see movement. Off in the distance we see a band of desert raiders, covered in tight-fitting leather suits made of leather that looks very much like they are made from humanoid skin. They’re lying down, seven of them, sliding toward the caravan, and they do not look like they know we are here.

Anyway, we kind of came out from behind a dune and saw them back over our shoulder and they were quite close, so D.va started shooting and we ran in and started fucking things up. D.va hit the side of a dune, but I pegged one with a javelin while Chad and Caleb moved up with “violence of action” and Nyla complained about how nobody told her it was time to fight. I put a second javelin next to the first in my target and Chad and Caleb ran forward to take the fight to the enemy. That might not be the greatest plan but fine, we’ll do it anyway. Chad called forth his conquering presence to try to get them to surrender.

Three of the six non-perforated raiders sprang up and sprinted to Caleb and attacked him. D.va hit one with a lightning bolt, and Nyla detonated a shatter amongst the three who remained in their ‘ambush’ position. Her spell was exceptionally effective and magnified by the glass and sand, and she may have actually cracked the glass ground. 

Two of the three that just sucked Nyla’s spell are clearly afraid and flee, but the last sprints towards Caleb and stabs him with a sword. I go in and polish off one of the 4 dudes on Caleb, but it was the guy who was mostly already toast and then I fail to do much else. Caleb hits the raider who stabbed him with his greataxe twice, and stabs him with the power of his mind as well, finally making him fall. Somehow, he gave off this psionic … detonation. Not physical, but it might as well have been given how much it hit me.

The detonation really took it out of me and Caleb. While we sat there reeling, Chad came up and stabilated the shit out of one of them with a macahuatl, dropping him. The fourth one attacked Caleb ineffectually and then sucked a lightning bolt from D.va.

We pursue the two of them that tried to flee, and I manage to catch their track and spot a pair of breathing tubes sticking out of the sand. Everyone else uses various tricks to get there quick, intending to finish the job. 

We surround them and they burst out of the sand, coughing from the sand that Nyla crammed down their breathing tubes with mage hand. One of them attacks me with a sword, but doesn’t manage to hit me. I stab the one that D.va hit with faerie fire with my spear, and they psychically detonate, which almost takes me out of the fight. I have to step of the wind back away from the one remaining raider and trust that the rest of my party can take down the last one.

There’s a period where I have no idea if we’re going to finish off this guy, because he looks at Nyla’s tentacle and says “Kraal?” and so Caleb and Chad both sort of pause. Then I curse at them and yell “could you please fucking kill it, I’m bleeding my ass off over here” and Chad and D.va finish him off.

We loot the dead. Several of the swords are standard Church of the Invisible Hand Mk VII Longswords, issued to line troops. They have rations of pressed insects and some very skimpy waterskins, and one looks like it has some jerky along with that. We all look at the jerky and say that that’s probably people. The armor that they’re wearing is multiple layers of leather, entirely made of humanoid skins. They’re carrying some flensing and butchering knives. Yeah, uh, these are not people I want to do much with other than murder the entire filthy cannibal hive.

[Level to 5!]