After recuperating from their harrowing experience in a
secluded human village, the group decides to travel to a nearby Gnoll village
to resupply, buy some materials, and figure out how to get home.
Upon entering the village – or at least the scattering of
huts outside of the mine – the group learns that the mine is under a heavy tax
and cannot meet its targets – undead, which have been trapped in the stone far
beneath the surface, have been attacking unwary miners and dramatically
diminishing output.
In order to pay for their stay, the group decides to aid the
village chief and its foreman in investigating the cause of the incursion in
addition to other odd jobs around the village.
Pkuma spends his time aiding the late blacksmith’s wife
constructing tools in trade for some equipment, and the group works to heal a
miner who was attacked by the undead and is suffering from a seriously infected
wound. With a little magic and some steady hands, the group manages to amputate
the near-ruined arm and return the young gnoll to health if not wholeness.
Soon, the group traverse into the deepest part of the mine
following a seam of iron deep into the earth. The foreman shows the group the
pocket the zombies crawled from. With some trepidation, the group enters and
discovers the pocket to be part natural cavern and part man-made room with
brilliant paints covering ancient brick. With some effort, the group breaks
through the brick into a separate room, laid out with some near crumbling
wooden furniture. Along the wall are several bookshelves some of which still
contain their charges – ancient tomes in Anasazi script.
With some effort, Broken Clay manages to use his
professional scribe skills and preserves a book from the shelf. Jenga, sensing
an opportunity also attempts to procure a codex, but fails and the ancient
leather and paper crumbles to dust in her hands.
With some more investigation, Gray Bear breaks through
another couple of walls and discovers two new rooms – one with a strange living
statue constantly repeating the same set of movements and a great hall with an
ornate door.
In investigating the room with the statue, the group finds
the skeletal remains of a body still in its finery collapsed in a corner a
large metal rod in its hands.
Moving on to the great hall, the group discovers the door
covered in a relief depicting animals moving toward a large golden sun set high
in the door.
Upon trying the door, they find it locked – no problem for
Pkuma – who unlocks the door deftly.
As the door opens however, the relief changes – the animals
change into humans and the golden sun turns silver.
With the door fully open, the group climbs a large stone
staircase bringing them outside. Jenga knows this place well, it is the land of
the dead.
Moving forward in search of answers, the group heads down
the dirt path surrounded by dense, thick jungle. Coming upon a village, the groups
is initially shunned by its inhabitants. With some cajoling, the group manages
to meet the man whose corpse was in the chamber. He has no idea what had
happened to trap him in the dark, but he explained that he worked in an armory
and that the door they came through was used to send people to the other
realms - either the land of spirits, or
the land of dead.
As they pick the dead man’s brain, a disturbance from
outside draws the attention of the group. Deep within the well, a strange
almost purple light shines. The residents of the dead village cannot perceive
it, and those of the group that stare into the abyss see a fractal nightmare of
nauseating incomprehension.
Raised by the bad omen of living in the land of the dead,
soldiers appear to determine the group’s intentions. Upon noticing the well,
however, the head of the soldiers begins to cast spells into the well and
screams for the soldiers to get aid.
With every spell cast into the well, the light intensifies,
and soon it crystallizes, giving form to the formless writing energy. The light
grows and the earth shakes. The group, ready to quit the village, makes ready
to flee, but finds that half are interested in moving to the city of the dead,
Mictlan, half for returning the way they came.
The power emanating from the well now reaching out into the
surrounding ground the majority flee for the door they came through passing a
man in strange garb. Those that stay see the god for what he is – Xipe Totec –
the flayed god. Wearing the skin of a man over himself, the god walks to the warrior
by the well and places a palm on his shoulder. A strange energy courses over
the man and into the well. The earth begins to violently shake and Jenga,
lingering to see what unfolds, is beckoned over by the god.
“Aid me.”
She reaches out her hand and a similar energy courses out of
her body and into the god. Weakened, she struggles to break free of the bond,
and flees with the rest of the group.
A strange whispering over takes the air around the group as
they strain themselves to close and bar the ornate door through which they
came. With some effort the door is closed, but the whispering grows stronger.
Fleeing the mine, the group finds that the dead, broken pieces of zombies from
an earlier battle are quivering and straining. The group emphatically beats and
pulverizes the bodies again and makes haste out of the mine.
Warning the village chief of what lies below, the group stay
one more night in the village and leave at dawn walking into the rising sun.
As a detour, the group stops by the shrine of Thunderbird
high on the summit of a mountain. Upon reaching the cairn they meet a man in
buckskins and facepaint. He shares a meal with them and they trade stories. As
the firewater is passed about, the clouds around the summit part, and tall,
dense forest is laid out before them. Not long after, two gargantuan birds –
wingspans more than 100 feet - deliver a
dead bison then settle and roost at the top of the trees – they had uprooted an
entire stand of trees to build their nest.
The group eats their fill, and when asked how to get East,
the stranger offers to take them, but they must do him a favor – help his
friends fend off some Neanderthals.
When asked by Broken Clay to point on the map where they
are, and where the group is currently standing, the man looks it over and folds
the map many times in an intricate pattern, “We’re here. You’ll go here.” The
points are immediately next to each other.
As the sun rises, the group is scooped up in the man sized
talons of the great thunderbirds and plummet off the mountain tops. Within a
few flaps, the birds right themselves and the expanse of the steppe reaches out
before them. Mastadons, bison, elk, saber-toothed lions, all scatter and storm
away at the sight of the great bird soaring overhead.
The group is dropped, relatively gently, in some tall grass.
A campfire is quickly scouted out and the group heads in that direction. Upon
arrival, they meet a man in black face paint – the leader of this tribe – and he
explains that the Neanderthal have been raiding from the north – across the
river.
As you all discuss the situation, the local warrior pack of
Gnolls appears in the village – to some alarm.
An uneasy truce is brokered, and the humans, gnolls, and our
ragtag group of god-sent vagabonds make a plan. Find the raiders, follow them
back to their camp, and destroy them.
The human offers up his scouts and Tanka.
“What’s a Tanka?” Melvi asks.
A thundering trumpet is the reply…
