Stephan’s inner drive persuades the rest of us that we should try these tunnels again, but this time, we’ll turn left at the first junction.
Amazingly it works, and after a few hours we emerge into a different valley. Several of us notice that the grass is very neatly cropped. I estimate it to be 2 inches, Elune reckons 1 and 7/8ths.
There’s really only one way to go as the tunnel emerges near the head of a valley. As we descend, and note the lack of cover, and ponder on the neatly cropped grass, Vivec spots riders approaching. As they near we realise they are centaurs. They stop about a mile away, and then trot off. A short while later they reappear carrying lances. The approach to hailing distance and ask what we are doing in their lands.
Stephan leads the negotiation and manages not to go on about bloody Hellim for once. They agree to escort us through their lands and we start to trot down the hill.
The valley widens as the stream we follow meets another. It suddenly dawns on us that the centaurs have us surrounded and are pointing their lances in a threatening way. No one is seriously worried as their leader accuses us of being spies for some odd creatures that they claim live in the tunnels.
Stephen’s charismatic approach to negotiation, tied with some cold hard logic actually wins the day and they let us continue un-molested. As a parting shot they advise us to avoid the valley to the left.
This is like a red rag to a bull – Vivec and I fancy a little sneak up there. We dismount and leave the rest in the main valley.
This side valley is hard going – no neatly cropped grass here. It takes us an hour to get a mile through the rocks and suddenly we are halted as a boulder thumps into the ground just in front of us.
I scan the horizon and spot two giant figures above, picking up another boulder. A third figure starts to chant and the air around Vivec’s head goes a bit wavy, but he seems unaffected.
Three cyclops seems like bad odds, so we turn and rush back at TOP SPEED. Several boulders crash behind us, but having terrible depth perception makes their aim awful.
On reaching the others we all decide just to continue down the main valley.
A few hours later we come to an area with many yellow flowers, and a lot of stone statues….
Two caves entrances suggest the lair of some horrible beast.