Following that excitement, the next couple of days are pretty lame as we put as much stuff on the raft as possible until it starts sinking, and then take some off and start poling up river. They pretty soon realise that with me poling, they aren’t going anywhere, so I’m on lookout duty most of the time. Faustus does the heavy lifting on this obvs. Or rather the high flying.

After this the days all seem to merge into one, and it feels like weeks until something happens. When it does though, it’s a bloody great hydra coming stomping out of the river straight for us. The two muscle-men show how heroic they are by jumping off the raft and onto the darn thing, cutting off heads left and right. Obviously that means that it pretty soon has twice as many heads as it started with. Saner minds prevail, and flame-girl and me pound it with some spells, including some tasty fire based damage. Turns out that barbecued hydra doesn’t taste so nice though.

Our next stop after that is the swamp. It starts getting pretty fetid and soon we find a small hut on stilts in a pond in the middle of the swamp. The water is foul and all the fish look diseased. We try to pole off but we are stuck – every time we pole out of the pond, we find ourselves poling back in again. We try everything we can think of – burning the hut, all the spells we have in my grimoire, but nothing can get us out of here. Finally, when we are almost on the verge of losing our minds completely (and I think the hippie-chick does go a bit nuts – she’s certainly pretty catatonic), we see a mysterious figure in the reeds at the edge of the pond. By the time we pole over, she has vanished, but we find a scroll tube with a powerful dispel magic spell in it. We cast it, and the curse vanishes; the water is clear and the fish are healthy. We scarper pronto at that point.

After a while we reach our destination – just in time I think because the raft is starting to look a bit ropey. We proceed into the desert proper, and pretty rapidly make contact with a caravan that is going in the right direction, and it seems could use a few more hired hands to protect itself. We spend a couple of days getting used to how they do things – travelling twice a day at dawn and dusk to avoid the worst of the heat. After a couple of days, we get put on point duty, so we are the first people to see the horde of bandits that suddenly appear from behind a dune and start charging towards the caravan. We send the bargeman back to warn the caravan at top speed, and by the time we get back, they are laagered up and pretty much surrounded. We join the north rampart and prepare to do battle. Their initial charge is pretty devastating, and several of them break right through our line of guards and into the merchants and camels beyond before we have a chance to use the heavy artillery spells (and we had some real dozies lined up, flame-girl and me). The barbarian goes rampaging off, and the dwarf sticks to just defending the hippie chick, who summons a bunch of wolves again, so I decide to mess things up a bit. I have a wand I boosted from a place a little while ago that can change people, and decide to use it on the nob guy, just to give him a bit of a shock. I’m nice though, I turn him into a silver dragon rather than a worm or a beetle or something gross. He seems happy as larry though, tromping on bandits, freezing them with his cold breath and when they turn and run to takes to the sky to chase them down as well. I don’t think any of them got away. Unfortunately he’s back before his hour is up, otherwise he would have turned back into a non-flying person at five hundred feet altitude. Uncontrolled flight into terrain 🙂

We may have knocked out all the bandits, but they have ripped a second one in the caravan as well – quite a few dead and wounded. We do what we can for the wounded, and bury the dead, which takes a day. Then onwards through the endless desert. In a couple of days we find the hidden oasis though, which I guess just makes it the oasis. We replenish our water, and the hippie chick starts on some spell to make it produce more food. We are woken up in the night by a foul stench, which apparently often preceeds attacks from the evil ones, but nothing happens.

The next day we are sent out, minus hippie chick, on a deep desert patrol. We are right at the end of our patrol range, when we discover a strange half buried temple in the sand. Normal people would ignore it or run screaming, but we ain’t normal we ain’t. We proceed down the avenue of half-buried columns, ignoring the two human skeletons chained to the last pair. Beyond is a courtyard with a sand-filled pool, and a dark doorway beyond.

The Book of Light says ‘where the darkness is deepest, there the light can shine strongest’. Following my success in Hutarkka where I brought the light of Helim to that benighted backwater and brought peace to their warring factions with the light of my mace, I am not content to rest on my laurels or take pride in my achievements, because I am merely a servant of the eternal light.

Thus I am now here, in the western deserts of the Republic of Darokin, because the light of Helim knows no earthly boundaries, and nor do its servants. Here I am unknown at present, but soon my renown will shine across the land in the service of the Lord of Light. The distance from Karameikos can be the only explanation for why my aid has not been received with more gladness, for I have been treated in many respects as if I was a common soldier. But we are also taught that sometimes it is necessary for the light to be hidden for a while so that it may shine forth suddenly in the midst of its enemies.

I find myself commanding a rag-tag of drop-outs and misfits that are too rebellious or unbiddable to be included in the main army that moved out against the desert nomads a few days ago. My desire to smite the forces of darkness burns within me unquenched though. I command and am commanded, as is proper, so I shall excel at my duty, whatever my duty may be, even if it is unworthy of me. Do everything as if you do it for Helim.

Last night I was given an opportunity to show my valour indeed. It was the third watch and there was a cry from the wilderness beyond the palisade. Hearing in that cry the voice of a man sorely oppressed, I vaulted heroically from the palisade and ran towards the noise. When I arrived, I beheld a man being attacked by a foul creature which the sight of Helim (all blessings to him) showed to be a fiend from the deepest hells. The man was sorely hurt, but two great blows from my mace, backed with the radiant power of Helim, was enough to dispatch the foul creature back to its infernal lair.

The man could barely speak, but thrust a scroll tube into my hand and whispered something about crossing the great desert, journeying through the great pass, and defeating the Dark Master in his temple of Death. Or something like that – the details are a little hazy. But it matters not – Helim himself, in this stranger, has revealed to me my purpose in this land, and I will fulfill his will.

Fortunately my superiors concur that I am destined to bring doom to this dark master, and have concurred with Helim’s will, as they obviously must, but without struggle, which is always the best route. I shall lead my squad upriver and then into the desert, to find the great pass and the temple of death.

The next day, as my troops are preparing our rafts and supplies, we are attacked by a wizard on a wyvern and several trolls. The wizard uses cowardly tactics, casting spells from a distance, but I am able to catch him on the ground and show him the justice and righteousness of Helim until he submits and acknowledges his majesty in a most final manner.

The trolls are beneath contempt and are slaughtered repeatedly and then burnt until they stop moving.

Well, this seems as good a place to lie low as any, or so I first thought. Volunteer for the army being sent out to the desert border, and then scarper when things look like getting hot. Not that I can’t look after myself these days, since the deal was done, but no sense making trouble for myself. Trouble is this place is buttoned up like a snake’s arse, and there is no where to go anyway, except downstream. And I saw what they did to some guys who tried to run away that way. So kept my head low, and made sure that I was useless enough not to get picked, but not so useless that I get nailed for anything. And I mean nailed up. It was all OK until a few days ago, and then the main force moved out, and we were left to garrison this dump. Opportunity at last I thought, but this complete stick-up-the-arse aristocrat has put himself in charge of our squad. We seem to be all the awkward bastards and misfits and I think a bunch of them are playing the same card as me and appearing a lot more useless than they are. There is one girl who is nice enough, except she keeps playing with fire the whole time, like literally. I think she is a few loaves short of a bakery shop, if you ask me. And this dwarf who is the grumpiest sod I ever met. And a complete meatheat who is so up himself its not true, and his slimy sidekick. Plus the aforementioned nob. And some kind of hippie chick.

Anyway, night before last we were doing duty on the rampart, and suddenly heard a kerfuffle out in the desert. Black as pitch out there, but of course that doesn’t cause me no problems, not with my witchsight. I could see what was going on – some bloke in desert robes fighting with some kind of creature. Unnatural looking thing. Anyway Stephen, the nob, Stephen de Hautville he insists on being called, he shouts a warcry of somekind, and jumps over the frigging rampart. Must be a twelve foot drop to the bottom. Brains of a tadpole that one. Brave, I’ll grant you, but I’m amazed he has lived thsi long. Anyway, he goes pegging off towards the fight. The flight is getting closer, and I think the others can see what is going on now, including Stephen. The thing is definitely unearthly now, but Stephen doesn’t slow down. I think there really is quite a lot of brain missing there. Anyway, he gets in close and starts slugging it with his mace, which is quite impressive – blasts of light as he hits it. He looks like he is having far too much fun though, so I banish it back to wherever it came from. Works like a charm as well. Kill-steal! The nob looks a bit disconsolate but pulls himself back together and tends to the wounded bloke, then carries him back in. They vanish off with the rest of the boss types, so I go back to staring at the desert.

Next morning, its all go. Seems we now have a top secret mission to go on. Must be related to the bloke we rescued I guess. Anyway, far to top secret for me to know about, except that I am quite good at knowing about stuff that I’m not supposed to know about. Apparently we need to go into the desert, through some sort of great pass, and find the temple of Death. Not sure what we are supposed to do there, but I guess a bit of mindless violence will be called for. Anyway, first step is to travel up the river for a couple of days and through a marsh, then strike out across the desert until we hit the caravan route, and pick up a caravan. They try to but be on raft loading duty, and then realise that its really not what I do, lugging stuff around. So I get to round up the camels instead. Evil bloody creatures, but smart. They rapidly realise who is boss, once you give them a quick mental picture of what true suffering really is. The Stephen nob gives us a speech about how we should be proud to be doing the will of Helim. Utter claptrap. We spend most of the day doing this, and then someone spots something in the sky flying towards us. We take cover and the dragon flies pass with a bloke on it. I send Faustus up to have a look, but he can’t keep up with it and the sunlight hurts his likkle eyes. Couple of hours later, its back again, and this time its heading straight for us. We go to take up a defensive position, but suddenly the bloke on the back gestures and a mote of flame flies over and explodes in the centre of us. We’re not too badly damaged (or at least I’m not), so I blast him back with a fireball of my own – not just him, but the three trolls who have just hopped over the palisade to support him. Stephen goes charging off at him again – the guy seriously only seems to have one tactic. The flight is relatively short – I blast off a few more eldricht blasts, but make sure to keep myself well out of harms way. The hippie-chick summons a pack of wolves, which is quite impressive. They don’t last long against the trolls, but it makes it just too complex to be bothered woring out who I should be blasting. Starts getting pretty boring towards the end – the wizard on the wyvern dies quite quickly and the wyvern buggers off fortunately. It quite funny watching them chop up the trolls, which keep pulling themselves back together. Finally they start hitting them with fire spells – the nutjob with the fire fixation is obviously fairly good at that, and the nob has a neat trick where he gets his mace to burst into flames when it hits, so they all stay down in the end.

The slimeball has had a root through the pockets of the wizard by the time I get there, but my arcane sight shows me that he has a magic ring on, so I get the Brazen Tome out (a sign of especial favour from my infernal lord) and start preparing a spell of identification.