Bounty Hunters - Session 19

The Obelisk

• Continuing forth from the mummy-infested chateau, the party begins trudging through an endless sea of sand.
• The weather is very comparatively agreeable, with the winter ameliorating the valley's famous heat. Although it is still quite uncomfortable, it is still bearable, and with the use of magic they can supply ample rations to remain hydrated and fed. The bone chill of the night is warded off by the magic of the famous and long-dead Leomund.
  • The monotony is briefly broken when they disturb a pack of hyenas feasting on the remains of a massive lizard. They flee as soon as the fight goes poorly, which is to say, roughly 0.5 seconds after they are rushed by a giant mother-fuckin' elk.
  • Similarly, they run into a gang of dust mephits using a dust storm as cover. The mephits manage to kick up some dust ineffectually before being eradicated mercilessly.
  • The group welcomes the brief respite from tedium, however briefly, and even gets a chance to try out some new abilities.
    • Joana, notably, seems to have learned which end of a longsword is the pointy one.

• A few days later, they discover a glassy crater. At the bottom rests a meteorite.
  • It is about twenty-five pounds, and Bern estimates that it fell at the same time as the shower they saw some days ago.
  • They pick it up for later study, with at least some inkling that star iron has a storied history on the Mainland.
• Not much longer, they stumble onto the most important discovery of Madrin's life: A twelve-ton chunk of |black obelaster, flung here over thousands of miles. The party indulges her investigation, aided by Whip's mold earth cantrip for excavation, and she exhaustively notes its dimensions and the writing (which is almost certainly Prime, the legendary first language).
  • Unknown through these investigations, guardians lie in wait for the sun's glare to pass. As evening bleeds into night, they attack!
    • A revenant who has sworn vengeance on those who disturb the monolith has accumulated a pack of wights born of previous visitors. They spend a round emerging from the sand as the party reacts to this development.
  • Whip immediately rushes the revenant. It glares at him, and he spends a turn frozen and weeping in terror.
  • Elian elks up and moves in to take off some pressure. Joana lets herself get surrounded, then thunder steps away, to great effect. Bern kites a small group and takes a couple of blows, but manages to stay mostly unscathed. Madrin uses blink to keep the focus off herself and provides artillery cover.
  • The revenant tries to use its same glare trick on the elk, but the beast is unfazed. Whip recovers enough of his wits to engage the "fight" part of his fight-or-flight reflex. Through the smell of urine, he and Elian ravage the undead beast.
  • Bern has picked a few wights off by the time she reaches Joana, and they are immediately surrounded. The revenant finished, Whip rushes to aid, but stops when Joana gives him the look--she thunder steps away once more, followed by a shatter from Madrin that leaves one lonely wight to impale itself on Whip's dagger.
  • The dust settles, and the party takes stock. One of the undead carried a backpack with some minor treasure, including even a bit of magic in the from of four +1 bolts, two potions (one of water breathing, which raises some eyebrows), and a seashell that, when listened to, carries the faint sound of screams.
  • The party knows that the revenant will return the next night, and had reached the limit of their indulgence of Madrin anyway. Wistfully, she formats a sending to her colleagues, and they leave.

• [ed note: the image above is of a hand, but this represents artists' interpretation rather than the actual obelisk form]
• More days pass, and Bern perks up at a bird in the sky that catches her attention for some reason. The party stops and, as they watch, it becomes steadily larger and larger... and larger. And larger. And, it appears to be heading straight for them.
  • It is a roc, the massive, majestic apex predator holding reign over thousands of square miles. With a two-hundred-foot wingspan, it is easily the most terrifying thing the party has run into in a long career of running into terrifying things.
  • Arrows and spells begin to fly as it descends upon Elian and takes him out of elk form in a single round of tearing attacks from beak and talons. Luckily, though Elian is grabbed, his reversion to elf-form causes him to slip from the roc's grasp.
  • The party bears down as hard as it can, and with a series of lucky shots, cause the roc to rethink its actions. It takes flight and, in a rush of red-blooded fervor, Bern takes aim and plucks it from the sky with a phenomenal shot at incredible range. Her and Whip end the session immensely stoked, but Madrin and Elian feel some misgivings about so dramatically altering the ecology of the region.