"First time meeting their kind. I don't think it will be the last."
Zukhan nods. "and I bet we'll find worse the farther we get into Devils March." The Asaatthi shrugs. "Well, let's see what new horrors await us!" He says cheerily as he loads up his gear to head back on the road.
"Hahahaha that's a pun, right?"
Wounds bandaged and spells memorized, you set out once more with your pack animals in tow. After another few miles in the Bronze Hills, you cross into Devil's March.
While the March first looks like rocky plains with stretches of verdant, healthy grass, the rank smell of decayed flesh calls for immediate reconsideration. The grass is patchy, with large swaths of blighted and unnatural growth, which does indeed belie your initial impression.
You hear the baying of hounds in the distance.
Lhienne draws her sling and takes cover behind larger folk.
"Do those sounds signal some other horror or herald to threats within that we approach this dangerous place I wonder. I suppose we will need to continue forward to find out".
Iliberos pulls out his blow and an arrow as it is clearly time to move forward armed.
Xar goes about, gathering up the steel daggers, and burying the dust that made up the remains of the creatures. "Many unfortunate creatures were created during the wars. Probably best that these were put away, as their purpose is no longer valid. Still they served the Mistress of moonlight, so I'll put away their remains out of respect".
The party continues into Devil's March, on alert and ready for danger. The charnel reek continues to assault your nostrils and seems less a product of recent corpses than a curse arising inherently from the ancient mounds of the dead. Half-buried in the straggling grasses and scrub bushes are the glint of rusted metals too deteriorated to still be called weapons or armor, along with the occasional ivory flash of bleached bone.
You still hear the baying of hounds. Sometimes you think they grow fainter, but on the whole, they have definitely moved closer to you.
The terrain grows more rocky and broken as you continue toward the Chasm of Flies. Ravines and gullies spread throughout the landscape in every direction and huge, tilted rock slabs periodically rise out of the ground. Eventually, you can't avoid entering a ravine without adding days or more to the trek. The sheer cliff edges rise on either side of you but open wider and grow flatter as you progress.
The tiniest sound echoes off the walls of the ravine. Your unsettled imaginations fill your heads with all sorts of sinister possibilities regarding the possible source of the sounds.
You round a twist in the ravine and see before you, about 100 feet away, a battered and bleeding person lurching through the gaps between some shattered boulders, scrambling in your direction. A noise somewhere between a call for help and the raving of a lunatic bleats from their throat. As they flail desperately up the sloped ravine wall in your direction, you realize it's a human man in desperate straits- torn, bloody and staggering. One hand desperately steadies his lurching form against the ravine wall while they other clutches a deflated waterskin against his chest. Dry bones crunch and scatter across his path. You realize that the gravel littering the floor of the ravine is actually pulverized bone and animal detritus.
The baying of the hounds echoes off the walls, louder and closer than you've heard them before.
The Unchained draws his sword.
"Weapons at the ready. Watch our flanks too."
Djal heeds the warning and draws his sword as well: "This person needs help!"
"Or is it a ruse to lure us in? Who is this man, why and how did he get here". Iliberos is clearly skeptical but moves forward with his companions nontheless.
"Let's help him. But be wary. I will go ahead and you cover me."
The Unchained cautiously approaches the wounded man, old and cracked bones scattering from his footsteps. As the half-orc gets closer he sees that the man's tattered clothes couldn't have been more than rags to begin with, though now they are even more ripped and blood-stained.
As he scrambles up the incline, reaching out a hand toward you and the party, you can see the telltale scar left by a manacle on his wrist. The barking of hounds grows louder, echoing off the ravine walls and he scrambles faster to try and reach you. From further back in the ravine, a trio of hounds dart toward him- the dogs are blood-spattered, sinew and bone popping from their legs and patches of fur pulled back to reveal their ribcages.
Initiative
Zukhan 18
The Unchained 17
Undead Hounds (3) 12
Xar-Nixx + Djal +Lhienne 10
Escaped slave 10
Iliberos 8
"Damn it! I hate undead house pets"!
Knowledge: religion
The Unchained moves to interpose himself between the wounded man and the undead hounds, roaring as he does so.
Zukhan moves forward to get a clear shot ans lets and arrow fly at one of the undead hounds
Zukhan's arrow pierces the zombie hound's neck, though it seems to do little to slow it's progress.
Two hounds leap upon The Unchained, fetid jaws snapping!
With his shield and a strong arm, The Unchained blocks the hounds' assault! The third hound runs around the half-orc to snap at the wounded man!
With a roar, the half-orc neatly re-slaughters the hound!
In terror, the wounded man continues running away from the hounds.
Lhienne scurries forwards firing off a sling bullet at one of the hounds, as she does so.
Lhienne's bullet pierces the hound's putrescent gray matter, Djal's rapier neatly putting it down with a strike to the neck.
Zukhan side steps to keep a line of sight with the remain dog and lets another arrow fly.
"Away with you!"
Noticing that the others seem to have the combat well in hand Xar chases down the wounded man, trying to calm him.
Persuasion
Iliberos casts Chromatic Orb at one of the Hounds.
Ranged Attack
Fire Orb
But his throw is errant.
An orb of many colors hurtles past the remaining hounds, exploding in a flash against the canyon walls. Distracted, Zukhan's arrow flies wide and breaks against the rocks. The Unchained slashes into the hound's putrid flank, eliciting no reaction from the undead mockery of man's best friend.
Xar approaches the bleeding man, quickly trying to calm him. He collapses to his knees, shaking with exhaustion and blood loss before lapsing into unconsciousness.
The hound snaps its jaws at The Unchained, trying to drag him down by the ankle!
But the half-orc kicks it aside, taking not a scratch for his efforts!
Iliberos curses and draws his bow once more.
He fires an arrow at the Hound.
Longbow Attack
Longbow Damage
Djal's rapier silences the baying hound for good, leaving it to collapse in a mound of festering meat. The ravine is silent but for the ragged breathing of the hounds' quarry laying collapsed on the ground.
Xar gently lowers the man to the ground. "Are any of you wounded? If not then I'll use some of Belsameths blessing to heal this poor man. Stand ready however... we don't know anything about him, and he could be a madman".
Cure Wounds.
"You're safe now. Who are you? What are you doing here? and what did you do to piss off those undead puppies"?
His wounds nit before your eyes, but he still shakes and tremors.
"Nuuh guhhn buhhg...", he repeatedly mutters. Xar can see when he opens his mouth that his tongue is missing. He clutches the deflated waterskin for dear life.
Taking a clinical look at the ragged and delirious man, Djal can tell that he's exhausted, dehydrated and nearly starved. His wrists bear the scars of shackles and there is a slave brand between his shoulder blades. Seeing past the blood and dirt, he must be about 17 years old.
Seeing the man clutching the empty water skin; "The human seems dehydrated. Here, have a drink human. Zukhan passes the poor guy his water skin.
"How strange that he would be all of the way out here. I do not believe we should bring him back from whence he came, perhaps back to the wagon that he may rest and then return here?" Iliberos seems genuinely concerned about the man's well being now that it is clear his presence is not some sort of trick.
Seeing the man clutching the empty water skin; "The human seems dehydrated. Here, have a drink human. Zukhan passes the poor guy his water skin.
Renewed fear passes over his face when he sees Zukhan, quickly replaced by relief when the ranger speaks Ledean sympathetically. He gratefully takes the water skin and starts drinking.
He takes the offered food and almost immediately devours it, shoving it all in his mouth. He does slow his chewing down after Djal admonishes him.
"Nuhhztuh.", he says, pointing to himself. "Muh nuhm."
"Fuhm Duhnuhnuh. Buhduhn duh buhn wuhll buhfuh uh uhzkuhpt... uhnluh wuh duht muhd uht.", he says, trying to rise to his feet again.
"Oh for godsake man. If you can read and write... or even draw sketch it out in the sand here".
Xar clears off a section of sand for the man to sketch on.
"Hmm, they may well have removed his tongue..."
With a shard of bone he scratches in the dust-
'Nestor' 'Dunahnae'
'Never going back'
Nestor writes in the dust: 'Slave-taker' 'Necromancer' 'Got everybody else' 'Somewhere out there'
"I fight for freedom. No chains. No slaves. Of that you can be assured." The Uhchained tells Nestor.
"Well, we should rest, let him recover in the relative safety of our protection. Whether he wants to stick with us or find a way out of here on his own is up to him then."
Nestor scrawls Where you going? in the dirt.