FOXTROT
Armin finishes up his project atop the second tanker wagon despite Wall’s critically placed handaxe protruding from whatever the Quori regard as a vital organ. Armin teleports to his lifeless brother and spits some vitriolic screams. Running bear Briar arrives at the tanker in time to personally experience the exploding device Armin installed on the tanker which sends flying bear Briar and spinning Toffee across the desert without the benefit of teleportation or a soft landing. Not to downplay the force of the explosion, but it was not the level of catastrophe that would ensue from igniting a tanker of vis.
In dramatic timing that no one could write, Gghrondeneuxs the dracolich and Gghuarrlongh The Undying pop out of a sunburst portal and Gghrondeneuxs uses his line-shaped lightning breath to slice the top off the third tanker finding it equally devoid of vis. With no time to even check the first tanker, cheesed Gghuarrlongh The Undying and Gghrondeneuxs pop back out and take their portal hole with them.
ALPHA
Tango parkours his way up to the howler and gives it the double shortsword treatment. The howler seems unresponsive and makes no attempt to evade Scram’s crafted fireball. Nala fatally cuts through the equally stunned lamia and continues her swing into the howler. The howler and ogre begin to emerge from their disadvantageous condition as Tango, his blade divinely guided by Ssatschia, and Moth beat on the ogre. Ssatschia fatally bites into the ogre and feels pretty good about that. The Howler in turn bites into Ssatschia but finds itself ultimately claimed by Tango’s shortsword.
DELTA
The desert army of gnolls, jackelweres, scorpions, and cyclopes seem inexplicably stunned. Andrakis cautiously pops in only long enough to shadow blade his gnoll antagonist. Ivor throws a high level infliction of wounds on his cyclops antagonist. Individual retribution continues with Tanagra bloodying her gnoll and Tambourine bloodying her jackelweres. The area stun wears away as Gamble incapacitates one of the cyclopes with hideous laughter and urges the group to overcome individual enmity and focus their efforts for efficient kills. Max focuses on slaying Tambourine’s jackelwere. Andrakis focuses on critically injuring a scorpion. Tanagra focuses on her own gnoll and slays it. One of the gnolls loses focus and attacks one of the scorpions who retaliates on the gnoll and stings itself dead. A jackelwere focuses on fleeing a cyclops who take the opportunity to kill it and charges a gnoll. A scorpion grapples the berserk cyclops. Although probably not how he intended it, Gamble’s pep talk certainly proves effective as the party destroys what few desert critters do not mutually annihilate each other.
Tanagra and Tambourine co-critically snap the last, laughing cyclops out of his laughter. The serious cyclops pounds irritant Ivor into the ground for old time’s sake. Gamble puts Ivor upright again and Ivor thwacks the cyclops out of his misery with his spear butt.
It was not pretty, but any giant desert melee one can hobble away from is a win.
CHARLIE ET AL
All companies eventually return to the caravan for debriefing with Portent and Xalver. Portent invites questions and Ten certainly has a couple: Who knew Armin was a traitor, and when did they know it? Well, The Opeth sensed the nefarious presence of Pohet through the book mobile at an early stop but only had resolution down to 144 feet square. This necessitated the contrived leak for those suspects which ultimately revealed the Quorish duplicity of Armin and, eventually, Hansel. Oh, and surprise! Orange crystalline god/goddess The Opeth has been along with the caravan the whole time! Ander is just relieved he is not the traitor since he accepted a blue shard from Tharizdun’s prison buddy Pohet a.k.a. The Dreaming Madness, for whatever good it does.
Ssatschia has a question: What is a The Opeth? Portent winds anecdotally back to the epochally ancient history of Tharizdun infamously opening the living gate. Ssatschia hits the fast forward. The Opeth is a crystalline god of goodness who sought its material plane counterparts and more recently identified Quastarte as an ally against the nefariously evil designs of evil crystalline god Pohet.
Ander has a follow-up question: How many days does it take to revive a shield guardian? Portent defers on that for now.
Ash ponders: How can we trust The Opeth? Grateful Portent enjoys the surge of endorphins from Ash stepping firmly into his expositional amusement park. It is time for slightly greater transparency. Ash begs to not know the location of the vis. Portent explains that the caravan has been the subject of a The Opeth prophecy:
So in a tangle of temporal paradoxes and dependent variables, the caravan was created and dispatched to fulfill the The Opeth prophecy and finds itself now at a new beginning expressed only as a prophetic ellipsis. That new adventure begins with the revelation that the tankers are not empty at all but contain the sixteen segments of a large elf gate to be delivered, assembled, activated, and entered by Charlie, sans manufacturer’s instructions, deep within a temple located to the south through the Scimitar Spires and along the Sea of Shadows. The temple might be known to some as the ground track beneath the floating City of Shade from which one could be transported to or from said city. The city is long missing or lost, but the temple remains as a sealed tomb to protect a secret imminently discoverable.
The non-Charlie balance of the caravan’s enduring membership files into Xalver’s book mobile and transports to an undisclosed location as Charlie sets off with the wagons, newly upgraded with panoramic sunroofs.
After a couple of unremarkable days of travel, Charlie arrives at a door into the temple carved into the rock edifice right at the edge of the Sea of Shadows. The door is locked by an obscure, nearly unsolvable puzzle. Or it would be if Ten had not immediately worked out the riddle posted above the door which clicks right open at this solution.
The party elects to leave the elf gate bits with the parked wagons and hobbled beasts long enough to take a little reconnoiter inside the door. Ash still seems a little out of it since the recent battle and remains behind to guard the caravan and convalesce.
Inside the long entry hall of alcoves, the temple appears clean and kept aside from one obvious corpse decomposing on the floor. The ceiling and doors are pale marble, the walls are brown granite, the floors are a lovely terracotta, and the fancy entry doors lock irrevocably behind the party, trapping them for the indefinite future. Ander examines a dedication on the north wall to Brenin Analun, leader of the sacrificial keepers of this tomb. Speaking of tombs, one of the alcove statues is actually a pygmy giant skeleton activated by the use of the front door. Despite its long hibernation, it competently and unhesitatingly scimitars Sqyylarr and Barika. Ten highlights the skelly with a radiant moonbeam and the party kills it in the usual manner. Watc repeats the experience by approaching the north statue and the fighting starts over again. To Ander, a pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure so he attempts to preempt the next two statues. One is just a statue, the other is a skeleton who is beaten by enraged Barika. Ten channels a massive proselytizing cure from his deity Ilmater, the Broken God, Incarnation of Passion, informally Steievv Teh Deity to his friends.
The party figures out that one might simply avoid a fight by avoiding the statues. Either that or the skeletons grow weary of the fighting. Attention turns to the long-deceased desert adventurer on the floor, presumably unable to avoid the skeletons and their scimitars. Whoever he was, he brought along gold [70 gp] and a hidden sapphire of which Watc relieves him.
Sqyylarr and Ander detect that a rune engraved on the floor and emanating strange energy portends a trap. A great and ornate but homely statue beyond the rune portends nothing notable at all.
The party examines a door south and, finding it benign, moves on through. Sqyylarr calls attention to a low, horizontal, oily seam along the south wall of the corridor. Ander produces an ironically-named pole of collapsing, extends it from one foot to ten, and probes the floor ahead of Sqyylarr. Barika does the same with a javelin. It seems perfectly safe for the poles, but a spinning saw swings out and down the south wall when Barika gets too close. Reductionist Sqyylarr dashes along the north wall in total safety until she misses noticing the oily seam on the north wall from which a saw swings into her legs. Who would even contrive such a cruel arrangement?
Watc carefully surveys the room ahead and relates these features to probing Sqyylarr and Barika: there are five open sarcophagi, a couple of treasure chests, a door to the west that has the same orange appearance as the one-way entry had, and a section of dodgy looking floor in the center of the room. Barika cautiously edges into the room and is promptly murdered by five waiting mummies and their ten rotting fists. Barika is dust.
Ten encircles the remaining party members with his twilight sanctuary and refreshes his magical shillelagh. Sqyylarr smashes the nearest mummy. Watc fireballs the room.