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Vargo nods to Mahmoud Indeed I have - some terrible business with guarding some busybodies on a boat where I got a chance to prove my mettle. Here I am again guarding businessmen. I guess that's something pathfinders do a lot. I wish I had brought my own infernal horse. These camels feel weird.
Vargo stubbornly sticks with his armor the next day, regardless of consequences.
Jamila watches Ma'Huuk check the wadi, and later on, her chosen campsite, with an amused smile. "Your caution is commendable, warrior, but I have been traveling this route many years now," she informs him. "I would not lead us into danger."
Atmar, the slave boy, is visibly thrilled to be addressed by Erevan, and permitted to handle the blade. "Yes sir!" he exclaims in agreement to basically everything Erevan just said, and he tries to strike a pose with the long blade, air-striking at invisible foes (and coming close to slicing off the tip of a camel's tail. Pashket looks over, his serene, round face crinkling into a frown. "What are you doing, boy? Give that back at once. Gentlemen, it is poor form to give a child like that such a moment; why give him ideas that can only make him miserable in the long run?"
Atmar regretfully hands the curveblade back to Erevan and bobs a short bow to him and Kaye. Pashket orders him off to check on the camels.
In the night, the heat of the desert drops to a chill, the sand packed and cold beneath your bedrolls. Far off in the distance, jackals howl. A half-moon floods the stark landscape . Night-owls hoot, and the camels make little snuffling noises in their sleep. Gaspar shares first watch with Erevan, and offers him a share of a water-pipe filled with strong tobacco, remarking it's one of the few good things about Qadira.
But Erevan's watch passes uneventfully, and Hush's is shared with Mahmoud, who makes two feeble, nervous attempts to talk to the silent shrouded man before realizing the futility, and this watch and all the others pass uninterrupted by any threat more serious than needing to toss another piece of dry, twisted desert wood onto the campfire's flames.
Morning finds the caravaneers stamping their feet in the cold pre-dawn, chafing their hands together and urging the reluctant camels up again. Qadiran coffee-- flavored with cardamom and cloves rather than milk- is poured from a battered tin pot by Jamila. The nomad woman counts heads to make sure nobody vanished in the night, and then you are back on the road again...
For several hours there are no interruptions to your journey. Again the sun rises, baking the dusty earth beneath you and beading sweat on your brows as it marches towards zenith. The foothills draw closer as you plod on, the camels moving at a steady pace that inexorably eats up the miles.
It is a little before noon, and the heat is starting to get to all the Pathfinders, as the day before.
Despite his armor, Vargo manages through sheer grit to remain unbothered by the heat; everyone else (save for Moto) of the Pathfinder is sweating like the proverbial pig. Gaspar is red-faced and glugging water from his waterskin like he was a camel himself. "Damnation, Jamila! Can we not find some shelter already, as you did yesterday?"
"We will be in the foothills within the hour," she responds, unbothered. "There will be shade there."
It is Erevan who first notices a drop in air pressure after Jamila's words. He looks around, and realizes that the pale blotch on the near horizon that he had taken for a hill at first is actually moving sand, driven by a fierce wind. When he brings it up, Jamila and the other caravaneers look that way in alarm.
"An unseasonable sandstorm!" Jamila yells, and adds on a foul curse in Kelish. "Spur your camels! We must hurry for the hills, where the earth will break the wind's charge! On the open ground of the plains, the driven sand can scour flesh from your bones!"
The next quarter-hour is hot, miserable, and frenetic. You spur your camels from their steady plod into a race over the dry, dusty earth, against the wind itself. Dust and grit born by the leading edge of the sandstorm flies in your faces; you catch sight of the drovers and caravaneers pulling scarves around their faces.
Despite your haste and prodding, your camels (...perhaps Adril Hestram did not give you enough money to buy the very best camels...?) begin to fall somewhat behind the rest of the caravan. The winds grow stronger, and the dust swirling in the air begins to obscure your vision of the rest of the caravan... and the rough road itself.
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Jararaca is miserable when the sand starts to fly. The heat is something he's used to. Sand scouring his flesh is something else altogether. He spurs his camel on and tries to bend himself over to find shelter in its furry neck. It matters little. He loses sight of some of the others in the caravan, but manages to keep close to his fellow Pathfinders in spite of his lack of skill with the camel.
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Atmar, the slave boy, is visibly thrilled to be addressed by Erevan, and permitted to handle the blade. "Yes sir!" he exclaims in agreement to basically everything Erevan just said, and he tries to strike a pose with the long blade, air-striking at invisible foes (and coming close to slicing off the tip of a camel's tail. Pashket looks over, his serene, round face crinkling into a frown. "What are you doing, boy? Give that back at once. Gentlemen, it is poor form to give a child like that such a moment; why give him ideas that can only make him miserable in the long run?"
Atmar regretfully hands the curveblade back to Erevan and bobs a short bow to him and Kaye. Pashket orders him off to check on the camels.
Kaye smiles as the boy has a brief taste of power, and nods at Erevan as Pashket calls him away. "He will remember this moment. A brief taste of freedom, and the power to choose his own path. You are quite kind."
Another day begins, and Kaye briefly feels the chill as he prepares his morning concoctions. He quickly drinks his extract of endure elements and laughs at the sun. "Not today, sunshine."
Kaye doesn't need a lot of explanation to realize the sandstorm is bad, bad bad.
But Kaye doesn't know the first thing about life outside the city and panics. "Do we go under the...wait, where did you go? Come back! Don't leave me here!"
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Vargo trudges along, realizing he is amazingly less affected by the heat than anyone else despite taking no precautions and wearing armor.
He politely pretends to enjoy the coffee before inconspicuously dumping it out. Cloves in coffee? Disgusting.
Now he began riding hard in the sandstorm Damnable camels, wish I had my steed, Scourge
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Jamila watches Ma'Huuk check the wadi, and later on, her chosen campsite, with an amused smile. “Your caution is commendable, warrior, but I have been traveling this route many years now,” she informs him. “I would not lead us into danger.”
Ma’Huuk gives her a grin, his teeth a startling bright white against his dark skin. ”It only takes a viper a few seconds to slip into a man’s satchel. And it only takes one viper’s bite to kill that man.” He shrugs, ”Anyway, you have traveled these ways much. I have not.”
_______
Ma’Huuk squints against the blasting of the sands, straining to track all of his fellow pathfinders as well as the vanishing forms of the rest of the caravan. It quickly becomes apparent that he is unable to do both, so he remain with his team and Targos’s body.
”WE MUST FIND SHELTER!” he big man roars, ”OR WE WILL BE SEVEN CORPSES INSTEAD OF ONE!”
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As dusk falls and darkness and chill shrouds the day's heat, Hush finds time alone to pray, asking for his god's magical blessing for the coming day. This time, however, he alters his prayer somewhat, asking for protection from the sun and heat. The next morning he invokes this protection, and is blissfully shielded from the scorching heat as they ride.
-Posted with Wayfinder
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Erevan silently listens to Pashket's rebuke as he shows the boy his swordsmanship. As the sullen boy hands the exquisite blade back to Erevan, he says quietly to the boy "Do not listen to him." The half-elf reveals a brand on his left hand.
"You see...I was once a slave, too. A gladiator, forced to fight for my own life and spill the blood of fellow gladiators so that others could profit. But by my own wit and skill of arms, I won my freedom. Perhaps you could do the same," he says as he turns from the boy. The half-elf does not reply to Pashket.
Erevan's sharp eyes catch a glimpse of the end of their caravan ahead.
"This way!" he shouts, though whether the others hear above the cacophony of the sandstorm, he does not know.
Erevan shouts out his direction, and Kaye and Ma'Huuk back him up, seeing something ahead in the swirling sand. They guide the others forward. The ground beneath you slopes down slightly, into a hollow between two dunes and a number of large rocks; the wind is still whipping sand around you and preventing you from seeing very far, but it's lessened enough that you can see three camels here, as well as Pashket, Atmar, and two of the drovers.
Atmar catches sight of you and points. "See, master? I told you they would catch up! They are great warriors!"
Pashket squints back towards the driving sand towards you; he is struggling down off his camel with the assistance of the drovers. "Good!" he shouts over the howling wind. "I lost track of the others! I say we hunker down here and ride it out. It's not much of a shelter, but it's better than nothing!"
You spur your camels forward to join the others. Pashket and the others are trying to huddle as close to the base of one of the dune hills as possible, using it as a windbreak of sorts. One of the drovers suggests coaxing the camels together to serve as a furry wall, but before you can try this or other bright ideas on weathering the storm...
"I see someone else!" yells Atmar, pointing. "Perhaps it is Sir Gaspar!"
However, as you turn to look, you realize it is certainly not Gaspar, nor the rest of the the caravan; the figures appearing out of the writhing dust are much too small to be camels or humans. Thick robes and big helmets obscure their race, but they are half the height of a man, and advancing towards you with weapons drawn. Behind them, you can make out larger figures cresting the two dunes....
Now that they've been spotted, the diminutive raiders let out high-pitched shrieks and charge forward, running forward through the howling winds, waving small scimitars as they circle the dunes to get to you. Half of them burst out from behind the northern dune, attacking Pashket and the others; the rest converge on you.
Two of them swarm Jararaca, who may regret his decision to have taken off his armor as the small raiders hack at his ankles, fairly forcefully. Erevan dodges one attacker, but a second small blade slashes at his thigh. Ma'huuk's hide armor takes the brunt of one blow, but Moto, on the ground, takes a slice across the scales. Elsewhere, one of the drovers is sliced across the belly, and a camel feels the bite of steel as well. The struck camel shrieks in terror; it's answered by a low, stressed groan from the other camels.
Vargo, Erevan, Hush, and Kaye, you're up!
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Vargo will shift in his camel's seat and use his Glaive from atop the Camel using his skill at riding to guide it with his knees
He produces his weapon and allows his voice to boom authoritatively, in a tone that his companions have not heard from the usually taciturn knight. "Attention Raiders, you are all under arrest by order of the hellknights...If you drop your weapons now no harm will come to you but if you resist arrest, I will not stop until you are all disabled...this is your only warning"
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and for convenience here is the rule for demoralize:
The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier.
Success: If you are successful, the target is shaken for one round. This duration increases by 1 round for every 5 by which you beat the DC. You can only threaten an opponent this way if it is within 30 feet and can clearly see and hear you. Using demoralize on the same creature only extends the duration; it does not create a stronger fear condition.
Vargo will shift in his camel's seat and use his Glaive from atop the Camel using his skill at riding to guide it with his knees
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"Gah! Dishonorable scum taking advantage of the visibility!" Erevan shouts as one of the enemy's blades bites his thigh.
Regaining his cool, Erevan assumes a defensive stance, and says "En garde!" He then tries to return the favor to the enemy that cut him.
The drover who had been hit by the goblin draws a dagger of his own and takes a panicked swing... ...to no avail. "Help!" the man shouts in a panic. The other drover merely hunkers down behind his camel. Pashket calls, "My heavily armed friends! Those of us over here are not warriors, perhaps you might--"
"Do not worry, master!" Atmar cries, similarly hunkered down behind his camel. "Erevan will save us!" Ah, faith.
The camels, meanwhile...
The camels snort and whuff, heads tossing from side to side. The beasts are torn between the instincts of fight and flight, and for now, they stand in place, jostling and pushing at each other as they try to figure out which way to flee.
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Ma’Huuk growls at the situation playing out, giving the uneasy camel carrying Targos’s body an especially suspicious glare with his one uncovered eye. He barks out a TUK TUK sound—a command for his companion—as he points at the goblins on his southern flank. Moto responds instantly, lashing out with toothed claw.
; success
... though he can't seem to get ahold of the wily little attacker.
Ma'huuk reaches over and grabs the corpse-carryng camel's reigns with one hand as he drops to the ground.
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Knowing that fighting a pitched battle from a precarious perch atop the camel is doomed to fail, Jararaca hops off the camel toward the northeast landing between the head of Erevan's camel and Vargo. He hits the ground and rolls his way around Vargo and his camel, drawing his flying blade and hoping to avoid an attack from one of the bandits attacking Erevan and to find a better position to defend.
Frustrated at the storm and the ambush, Jararaca allows the familiar heat of the bloodrage to fill his veins and limbs with power.
Ma'Huuk's scaled companion tries to viciously attack the goblin that hurt it, but has difficulty targeting the nimble creature. Ma'Huuk himself wisely grabs the reins of the most important camel for the Pathfinders' mission, and jumps down onto the sands.
Jararaca scrambles off his camel and moves into position, but unfortunately the two goblins nearest him take swings as he goes.
Fortunately for Jararaca, the two creatures miss.
Standing on the tops of the dunes, their forms half-obscured by the shifting sands, the larger raiders fire their bows, despite the wind that makes such attacks difficult. They shout orders over the sound of the wind.
The arrows of the bigger raiders all miss, blown wildly astray by the winds.
Four of the small raiders leap onto the now-riderless camels, scrambling with inhuman swiftness up into the saddles and seizing the reins. They shout to each other gleefully, three of them spurring their camels to start to flee the battle. Pashket looks frantic as two of his camels are ridden away from the battle. "No! No! The camels!"
Erevan is able to take a slash at one of the fleeing riders, but though his blade connects, it's not enough to down the camel-thief who has appropriated Jararaca's camel for himself.
Meanwhile, the other goblins surge forward, attacking with their blades again. The injured drover takes another slice across his arm, and shouts in fear. Another runs forward screaming at Jararaca-- but Jararaca's blade whips out and through the air, slicing him down before the little figure can even reach him. Two more swing at Erevan and Ma'Huuk, but can't strike successfully. Another slices Moto again.
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Kaye throws caution into the wind, almost literally, and tries to blow up the goblin north of him. He takes a couple of vials from his coat, shakes them violently and throws it north.
Kaye laughs. "Alchemy at its finest. Well, almost finest. Thunder is a much better element, if you ask me." He moves north 30 feet and tries to climb up the dune.
Kaye frowns as the bomb goes astray. "Unfortunate."
Kaye will move up to the goblin, threatening him with his shortspear.
Vargo strides forward over the sands, his voice an even monotone as his glaive strikes, dispensing bloody justice. The small raider is all but impaled by the strike.
Kaye tosses a vial of combustible chemicals at one of the raiders, but the small figure is unfortunately fast! The vial flies past him to impact into the dune itself, bursting in small but distinct explosion, flame washing over the raider and the drover next to him.
Both the raider and the drover are caught in the blast. Each look to be grievously injured by the explosion; the drover screams in pain while the short raider shouts presumed curses in a shrill tongue. Kaye runs up, brandishing his spear in the face of the burnt raider.
Erevan slashes another grazing cut against his raider, drawing more blood, but still not felling the small creature. He is able to see that the bundled body of Targos is, indeed, still lashed to a camel-- the one whose reins are held in Ma'Huuk's big fist.
Hush wordlessly spreads the grim gospel of Norgorber: he slashes once with his right blade, and when the raider twists in the saddle to avoid the blow, the left blade buries itself deeply into the small body, piercing flesh and organs alike. The heavily-robed raider slides limply off the camel.
The western drover and Pashket are desperately relieved by Vargo's appearance near them and the skewering of one goblin. Pashket cries out, "Here is a man who understands society! A skin of my best wine for you, dear friend, after this battle! Wonderful man, wonderful!"
The drover whose skin has just been third-degree burned doesn't say anything, half-crouched in pain, frozen with fear. Atmar punches the air with a cheer to see some of the goblins felled, and scrambles towards the corpse of the one that Vargo just skewered, snatching up the small scimitar the goblin had wielded. Pashket sounds alarmed. "Boy, what are you doing!?!?"
Meanwhile, the camels...
All of the blood and screaming is too much for the camels, whose biological instincts hung between fight-and-flight for a second, but who now turn, bleating and spitting, for the deep desert. The camel that is held by Ma'Huuk tosses its head, the instinct to follow its fellow herd animals at odds with the training that says someone has hold of its reins, and that it should stay put. Fortunately, the training seems to be winning out for right now-- though the camel tugs a bit against the ropes, it does not try in earnest to wrench free of Ma'huuk's lead.
"We're going to die in the desert!" Pashket wails despairingly.
Jararaca refuses to let his camel be taken from him! Displaying almost preternatural speed, the half-elf races swiftly over the sands and grabs the reins of his scared camel. The raider atop it chatters furiously at him.
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”WE WILL NOT!” Ma’Huuk roars in response to Pashket’s desperate cry. He yanks a shortspear from its sling and jams it downwards, trying to drive it through the bulbous head of his tiny attacker.
”HELP ME SECURE THIS BEAST!” the big man yells to his team, still trying to control the panicking camel.
Moto continues his ineffectual, frenzied attack on his opponent.
Ma'Huuk effectively skewers one helmed raider, the little creature letting out a hoarse squeak as the spear pierces his chest. Moto, sadly, has less luck with his persistent opponent.
The larger raiders fire more arrows, two of them aiming for targets who are isolated and open in the sands. One arrow widely misses Vargo; but the other, loosed at Ma'huuk, finds its mark with deadly accuracy, striking an unarmored section of skin and biting deep.
The last large raider notes Jararaca's closeness, and the fact that he's already injured. He drops his bow and strides forward over the sand, drawing his scimitar and swinging at the half-elf's unarmored back.
One of the raiders slaps his camel on the flank and spurs it far from the battle, laughing maniacally in a high-pitched voice. The other two riders seem to be having trouble making their mounts move, and kick and slap the furry flanks to no avail; the panicked camels toss their heads and shriek, side-stepping in the sand.
The badly burned raider hisses like a feral cat at Kaye's advance, and turns his attentions from the nearly-dead drover to the fire-thrower. His scimitar lashes out and catches Kaye across the forearm.
Erevan's raider strikes at him but has no luck, and the one that Moto has failed to chew abandons the dinosaur (clearly not a threat) to close with Ma'huuk instead, but misses.
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With one goblin dispatched, Hush heads for the next. He slashes with one of his twin swords at the creature Erevan has already engaged, enjoying the thrill of the moment. Harvesting souls was his favorite part of Society missions, and he had worried at first that this one wasn't going to afford him the opportunity. Fortunately, he was wrong-- this made three, and he hopes for a fourth.
Vargo strides across the sands and impales the already-badly-burnt raider with his glaive before he can strike again at either the drover or Kaye.
Kaye, for his part, looks at the closest threats, and dashes closer to the large raider on the dune, hurling fire with deadly accuracy right at his face. The raider lets out a guttural scream as the fire hits him solidly.
Hush teams up with Erevan, surrounding one of the raiders to slash along the creature's back.
Erevan's slash finally completes the grisly job-- separating helmed head from shoulders, to roll in the sands.
Pashket looks frantically around, realizes there are not quite so many goblins ringing him in as a few seconds ago, and backs hurriedly away from the only raider still near him. The drovers, both wounded, stagger after him, clutching at their injuries. Atmar picks up a rock from the bloody sand at his feet and hurls it at the raider on the dune. "Hai! Run off, jackal!"
Ma'Huuk's firm hand on the reins continues to keep the camel carrying Targos's body from utterly giving into instinct. The beast snorts and chuffs fearfully, tugging on the rope with restless jerks of its head but still more or less keeping its ground.
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Ma’Huuk yanks his shortspear free of his previous victim and raises it to skewer the next.
… and the world explodes in pain. His attack suddenly wild and weak. Ma’Huuk looks down at his chest, where the bloody quarrel of a crossbow has ripped through his torso and now sticks out of the ruined skin and armor of his upper chest.
Instincts kick in, and he staggers to his left, taking shelter from the crossbowman behind the camel. His shortspear hits the sand, abandoned. And Ma’Huuk—barely keeping his feet—flings his shield into place as he growls a command to Moto.
"SOMEONE!" he barely has the air to gasp out, "GET THESE REINS!"
Moto is far too focused on his quarry to heed Moto’s command, and he continues his frenzied assault.