Chapter Eleven: Pit

When we wake up in the morning Xa'oc is gone. We leave Risi with the villagers. We follow his tracks for an hour before we lose them in a pond 20' across.  Aruna notices that the base of the pond slopes downward.  Kriv wades into the pond and is attacked by something that spears him and drags him down.

                  Vex dives in to try to help Kriv.  Kriv tries to blast it with his lightning breath and zaps all of us.  Aruna and Tenneth try to pull Kriv out of the water. Kriv breaks the spear and swims free, and Vex swims out of the water.  The boney creature bursts out of the water and tries to attack Kriv again

- we hurt it and it flees back into the water. Aruna falls into an unexpected drop off under the water trying to search for a body or treasure chest.  Tenneth and Kriv grab Aruna to try to get her back out of the water.  Kriv tries to fish the creature out and nearly gets pulled back into the water, but Tenneth grabs him.  The creature bursts out of the water and attacks Tenneth.  Aruna destroys it.

... meanwhile ...

Xa'oc emerges in a dark, dank cave full of pits. He descends into a pit and he falls for so long it feels bottomless.  He arrives in a dark place that feels different than the rest of the cave.  Everything seems hazy and foggy, there's something in the distance he can't quite make out.  The mists encompass Mistsong and his body.  Xa'oc can't feel himself moving but he arrives at the temple

                  When he tries to open the doors to the temple he just finds himself inside.  He's in a long hall that is empty except for a pedastal with a book on it.  The book is the only thing that looks real, everything else is hazy and faded.  Xa'oc investigates the book and it's a really nice gilded tome but he can't read it.  He's unable to pick the book up or take it with him. The book contains a lot of art of the sun, but bright and yellow instead of dark and dying, also beautiful landscapes with grass and trees and friendly animals.  The sword wants to lead him out of the temple, but Xa'oc can choose to decide how to act.  The temple has tapestries on the walls that he can't really see.  He leaves the temple and loses time

                  Xa'oc eventually reaches a whirlwind in the distance.  Xa'oc sees ghostly faces in the whirlwind and realizes that it's made up of spirits and he feels like it's a good thing that will protect him, so he basks in it.  One of the spirits reaches out to touch the sword and Xa'oc extends Mistsong toward the whirlwind.

                  A voice in Xa'oc's head says "Bug?"

... back at the pond ...

We discover that the hole at the bottom of the pond leads to a cavern with large pits, with Xa'oc tracks leading up to them. Several halflings emerge from the cave and say:

                  "The pit"

                  "We didn't push him in"

                  "Things have come back", including the catatonic halfling at the village

                  Aruna gets psionically pushed into the pit.  Kriv grabs Aruna with his psychic hammer.  Aruna felt that she was starting to lose a sense of herself.  Vex starts blasting the halflings.  Kriv knocks one of the halflings into the pit. The halflings really want us to go into the pit.  Kriv knocks another one into the pit.  Kriv convinces the last halfling to run away.

... meanwhile ...

                  Xa'oc hears the voice say, "bug, back up, get away from it.”  He recognizes the voice and is in the habit of obeying it.  Xa'oc breaks free of the charm and the voice tells him to run.  The whirlwind starts following him but Xa'oc can outrun it.  Xa'oc tries to look for a way out but remains stuck in the gray.

... back in the cave ...

The halfling returns and offers us a deal.  She holds up some kind of coin on a chain and says she'll give it to us and it came from the pit as a gift, if we all go into the pit together.  She can't explain why the gray needs us, but she hasn't gone into the gray yet.  We decide to kill the halfling and take the thing.

... Xa'oc ...

Two halflings approach him, they appear both drunk and hungover at the same time.  They try to grab the sword.  They appear disoriented.  Xa'oc tries talking to them and tries to figure out how to leave.  The voice says, "Maybe we can use their energy, their life force to get out. You need to give their life energy to the sword"

                  Xa'oc attacks the halflings with Mistsong.  He sees their spirits swirld around the sword and enter the sword. A pit opens up before him.  Xa'oc descends into the pit, he feels like he's falling forever, but he ends up crawling out of the pit into the cave

... united! ...

We keep trying to kill the halfling.  Kriv tosses the halfling into the pit.  Xa'oc has changed colors and is more gray.  Xa'oc apologizes and offers the sword to Kriv.

                  Kriv grabs the sword with his sword and places it on the ground.

                  Xa'oc says that in the gray he met Navarro, his old master, who trained Xa'oc when he was a gladiator, who Xa'oc was defending in the caravan.  Xa'oc mentions the strange book with a yellow sun and green fields.  Xa'oc mentions the whirlwind of souls.  Kriv rolls up Mistsong in a hide without touching it.  We return to the village.