Thirty-first Session - Just Deserts

We continue mid-battle, having just defeated the efreeti and air elemental #3! There are three air elementals remaining.

Round 1: (mid order)

- Max attacks #1 and misses on both, his hits passing through the air and wind around the elemental. He uses shield master to batter it and succeeds at knocking it back five feet.

- Fishboy takes an attack of opportunity on #1 and tries to stab it with his trident, but also misses.

- Max chases it and moves into melee range with #1 and #2.

- Alice casts divine favor on herself and uses lay on hands on Kiwi for 10HP. Kiwi wakes up!

- Fishboy tries to stab #1 with his trident again, using reckless attack. Both attacks hit and he does 8 damage.

- Alana casts call lightning behind elementals #1 and #2 and does 4 damage to both.

- Raul fires his short bow at #1 and misses.

- Elemental #1 is pissed off at Max for shoving it and attempts to slam him twice but doesn’t hit him, only hitting his shield with sand.

- Elemental #2 moves behind Max to try to attack him from behind and uses his whirlwind but Max saves by pulling the shield up over his head.

- Elemental #4 flings Alice into Markoris with its whirlwind. He’s knocked prone and she is knocked back 20 feet. Both take 13HP damage.

- Kiwi stands up and rushes to Alice to cast cure wounds, restoring 10 points of healing. She then uses wild shape to turn into a dire wolf.

- Celia moves beneath the air elementals and casts bane on all three of them. They all fail and are bane’d.

Round 2:

- Markoris gets up and fires at #4, hitting for 4 damage.

- Ishaq (using finger guns) casts magic missile at #4 for 16 damage, uses metamagic to quicken and fire again and does another at #4 for 15 damage. It is now barely holding itself together.

- Max attacks #1 and hits twice (with sneak attack on the first hit) for 8 damage and then tries to shove it, knocking it back another five feet.

- Alice moves in besides Markoris and heals herself for 14 points.

- Fishboy recklessly smacks a bitch (elemental #1) and hits both times for 9 damage.

- Alana dispels her storm and casts blight on #2, who takes 13 damage.

- Raul fires an arrow at #1 and gets sneak attack, for 7 damage.

- Elemental #1 attempts to use its whirlwind on Fishboy, who saves and bounces off Fishboy’s broad muscular oiled chest. (Direct quote.) #1 looks super annoyed.

- Elemental #2 moves around Max and tries to fling him but fails again.

- Elemental #4 comes up to Markoris and tries to slam into him twice but fails — he ducks and weaves so it hits the sand instead.

- Kiwi (as a dire wolf) runs up to #4 and makes a bite attack, doing 4 damage and killing it.

- Celia casts toll the dead on #1 and does 12 damage.

Round 3:

- Markoris fires an arrow at #2, doing 10 damage with sneak attack.

- Ishaq moves into range of #1 and casts scorcher to do 10 damage. It’s starting to look worn down.

- Max attacks #2 and hits twice for 9 damage and then tries to shove it, knocking it back 5 feet. He follows to stay in melee range.

- Alice closes the distance with #2 and attacks twice, missing both hits.

- Fishboy recklessly smacks a bitch (elemental #1) and hits both times for 8 damage.

- Alana moves next to Fishboy and casts flame blade to slash at #1, but misses. Her fire sword looks super cool though.

- Raul fires an arrow at #1 and misses, it whizzes past Fishboy’s head.

- Elemental #1 slam attacks Alana for a critical hit but Celia glares at it and the Lady of the Lasting Embrace exerts her force to keep it from critting. It winds up being 14 damage.

- Elemental #2 is sooooo annoyed with Max and slams into him twice for 22 damage.

- Kiwi (still a dire wolf) runs up to #2 and does a bite attack for 2 damage.

- Celia casts toll the dead on #1 and does 14 damage

Round 4:

- Markoris fires an arrow at #1 and misses. :(

- Ishaq magic missiles twice, one dart at #1 and all the others at #2, killing #1 and doing 17 damage to #2.

- Max makes two attacks against #2, getting a critical hit and sneak attack, doing 6 damage. Then he uses second wind and gets back 12HP of healing.

- Alice attacks #2 twice, missing once but doing radiant damage on a critical hit, doing 6 damage.

- Fishboy rushes up to #2 and recklessly smacks a bitch twice, for 10 damage.

- Alana casts flame blade again and attacks #2 for 4 damage.

- Raul moves so he has line of sight on #2 and fires an arrow, which misses completely.

- Elemental #2 throws Alice into Markoris again, who dodges but fails to catch her. She lands and takes 17 damage.

- Kiwi (stiiiiiill a dire wolf) tries to bite it again!!! She chomps it for 3 damage, just managing to kill it.

Note: Britt says “the wolf bites the fart and kills it.”

Ishaq goes back to the caravan to check with Donna if we should move right now, she says yes because movement carries through the ground now. We need to keep going. Some of the party takes a short rest as they move, on the backs of the camels.

Markoris rolls perception as they travel. Half an hour into the walk he can hear something like thunder, and looking back to where they were there’s a dust cloud being kicked up — it’s a good thing they kept moving. It doesn’t seem to be coming after us, there’s just something happening back there.

The rest of the night’s walk is uneventful, as dawn rises Ishaq and Fishboy look for somewhere to set up camp. They find a patch of sand that looks/feels like it has a rock under it to hopefully keep something from burrowing up under us. We set up camp and Alana checks on Kiwi, who does not respond well to the fussing. Alice thanks them for the healing and compliments them for the dire wolf attacks. Their feathers ruffle in a flustered manner. She declares she’s a badass and wanders off. Apparently she’s always like this, Alice thinks it’s adorable.

Everyone takes a long rest — Fishboy and Ishaq take first watch. They’re very hot. :( But they see absolutely nothing. Markoris and Celia take second watch. They are also very very hot, Celia especially feels like a roasted mushroom. They also see nothing!

As the sun sets Ishaq calls for a little audience (Alana, Celia, Markoris, Raul, Kiwi, and Ishaq himself) to give everyone present 13 temporary HP. They then set off with Markoris and Alana at the front. They are not particularly stealthy because Celia is stomping, and hear that slow thunderous roll coming from behind them — something is following, they can all see the dust cloud as the giant worm moves, but it inexplicably decides to go away. Ishaq makes a judgment call and persuades a camel-rider to give Celia her camel. At Ishaq’s speech “we are all going to die if she doesn’t ride a camel” the guy pisses himself a little and hands the camel over. Celia is quite pleased by this turn of events, and rolls high enough on animal handling that the camel spits and harrumphs but mostly behaves.

They continue in this manner for several days. Markoris teaches everyone how to be quieter and the group does much better, but Alana can tell that the worm is still following them. By the end of day one the worm is farther back. Day two, people are doing even better with Markoris’ stealth lessons and are shuffling their feet out of rhythm. Raul keeps watch and by the end of the second day they are pretty sure they’ve lost the worm. They’re also starting to come across more rocky ground rather than just sand dunes. Day three (which is actually our fifth day and we are getting really sick of the desert and feeling jet lagged from walking overnights), we are still super stealthy and notice towards the end of the walk as the sun comes up that it’s hitting weird shapes jutting out of the sand. We’re hitting a higher, rockier area of the desert.

Along the walk:

Fishboy asks the caravan about the Efreeti, and the traveling member tells them that he’s heard there’s an oasis here somewhere with a guardian but the one that the party fought was one who doesn’t care for the mortal denizens of this plane. We must have trespassed on its territory. Fishboy asks what happens when they die, if it’s going to come back and kill them. The man says it’s hard to tell (none of the caravan are actually from the desert) but he doesn’t think they come back, and it’s at least banished back to its own plane.

Overhearing the stories told, Ishaq remembers a story told to him long ago about the oasis that has a guardian djinni: one that asks riddles of its visitors and the oasis has special healing properties, a blue skinned entity known to be kinder than what they have thus encountered.