Truther cuts in, less enthusiastic, and more business-like. "Whatever you choose to do, just be back here ready to leave at dawn. I want to be on the way as soon as possible."
"No need ta worry about that, lad. We'll be ready to go at dawn, I can guarantee ya that." He gives an emphatic nod.
Looking curiously at John Billings Bryant, "Well, a lot like the lass here," he nods toward Yasmin, "I fight but I do it with me hammer. But I also can heal the lot of ya if yer hurt. To sum it up, I'm a warrior with a bit o' healing magic."
"Like I mentioned, we do have spare rooms here. They're not the most furnished, so if you want to have more than the neccessities, I'd reccomend the Breakstride, Solku's largest and most comfortable inns. They are quite well known for their luxuries and amenities."
They nod politely when you make your leave, and turn to handle the preparations.
"Good," John answers. "It doesn't sound like there are any glaring deficiencies in our abilities... still, I brought coin to invest in magical sundries, so I shall go and investigate their availability. Would anyone care to join me?"
"I mean, as long as we grab a snack along the way," says Yasmin. She decides to stick with John--maybe they could haggle their way to getting something useful for the journey ahead.
As part of her shopping trip with John, Yasmin ends up going to the stall in New Market to try some fried scorpion.
She takes one of them and holds it up for inspection. The stinger was gone, but the rest was there. Was she just supposed to eat it?
She closes her eyes, scrunches her face, and takes a bite. Her expression lightens. "Crunchy! Tastes a bit like crab?"
Crag seems to enjoy it even more.
The sun rises the next morning, just as hot as the previous day. Sarenrae's temple reflected the rising sun into glorious patterns on various prepared glass shrines across the city, lighting up the streets of the waking city.
Truther and Travis met you in the same meeting room as yesterday, and had a surprise prepared: a full course breakfast! Eggs, toast, bacon, and a wide variety of stranger breakfast foods spread out on the long table.
"You better enjoy, this will be the last meal we all have like this for quite a while!" Truther had said, laughing.
The group departed within the hour, the supplies you needed prepared by porters and other laborers. Camels await outside, and the caravan leaves through the main western gate shortly after you gather. No huge speeches, no massive morale boosting rants, just a quiet sleepy mustering of forces for a long trip to the mountains. The guards at the gate only take a cursory glance at you before letting you through and the seemingly endless sands of the desert stretch out before you.
"And so the journey begins, eh? Should be about a two day's journey to the bottom of the mountain, and then another half day up to the edge of the fortress." Travis says, looking out over the desert sands.
"This is your last chance, anything else you need to do before we head out?"
Rising and ready for the day, Emercy gathers his things and heads down to breakfast. Taking in the sight of the table full of morning goodness, he grabs a seat and eats all the eggs and bacon he can possibly eat, along with pretty much everything else.
Full and satisfied, he rises and heads outside, raring to go. "Nope! Nothin' for me. Ready to go whenever." He nods, grinning with excitement.
"Bought myself a nice healing wand, ready to go!" The halfling shows off a slightly used wand engraved with the holy symbol of Sarenrae.
"I am ready."
Anovat is pleased to see the camels. He was worried about his slow gait holding the others up. But now he sees that there are enough mounts for all of them.
The caravan leaves as soon as everyone is sure they are ready. The sun rising only leads to a hotter and hotter desert as the day passes and the sun climbs to its apex. The first half of the day doesn't seem to have much in store for you, as the most interesting non-traveler thing you see in the first few hours after you leave Solku is a pair of jackals fighting over the carcass of some great packbeast. Scorpions, sand, and the heat of the sky fills the rest of the morning.
Around noon, that seems to change, as Truther falls back on his camel from where he was at the head of the group to talk to you.
"Don't react when I say this, but it seems as if we've picked up a tail. Around an hour ago our scouts noticed some dots on the horizon directly southwest of us. Seems as if they're following us, and whoever they are, they are faster than us." his tone is serious and clipped, but no hint of fear appears there.
"There's a natural rock formation that we use as a landmark on the way to the mine about two hours ahead, if we're fast enough. We're trying to push the caravan harder to get there in time before whoever it is catches up to us. The rocks there will help us defend if they're hostile."
"Just thought you'd appreciate a heads-up, so you could prepare yourselves.”
With that, he begins to head back towards the front of the caravan.
Yasmin immediately looks southwest, trying to see the foes for herself. "Well that's something, you ever been tailed like this before? Where could they have come from? Solku itself or somewhere else?"
Anovat sits up straighter on his camel, keep his eyes trained on the trail ahead.
"Yasmin, what if they can see you looking at them? Then they might know that we see them, and they might decide to leav--Hm. I see."
Anovat also turns to look in the direction Truther pointed out.
With that bit of info, Emercy straps on his shield and readies for combat. "Let them come. It's been a while since I've smashed me some heads." He states matter-of-factly.
"Not tailed specifically like this, but we have encountered gnoll raiding parties before. That or slavers." he replies, his face darkening as he seemingly remembers past meetings with the bandits of the desert.
"I am not afraid of whatever they might be, but I certainly hope we can make the marker before they catch up, it'll help our position."
The rock formation appears right before the two hour mark, and you can see the group getting closer and closer. The two dwarves and their company employees quickly pull the supply wagons and camels into the center of the rock formation. Alidelia approaches you to coordinate the defense, should it be neccessary.
"Whoever they are, they're approaching quickly from most directions. It doesn't seem as if they're friendly, most likely a gnoll warband looking for plunder. We have the rest of the circle covered, we need you to hold this direction. Do you think you can do that?"
With an emphatic nod, "Aye. We'll hold. I can guarantee ya that."
"We're not just gonna hold--we're gonna break these gnolls!".
Yasmin has her small scimitar out and ready, while Crag scuffles impatiently, preferring hunting over waiting.
As you sit on the higher ledge and prepare yourselves for the inevitable attack, the foes you are waiting on come into clearer focus. Running across the sand towards you are four gnolls wielding large pointed spears, and one gnoll that seems to be more elegantly equipped holding a longbow.
The gnolls cry out in ecstatic glee when they lay eyes on you, and start running even faster towards the small outcropping you have been assigned to hold.
Yasmin drops prone and starts casting a spell to summon a feathered friend!
Crag waits protectively.
John seems lost deep in thought while the others make preparations for the oncoming attack. As the gnolls draw near, however, he draws one of the many flasks he has stowed in various pockets and pouches and gulps down the earthy smelling fluid within.
The gnoll with the bow aims at emercy, his face a snarl of hatred and rage as the rocks clash around him wihtout stopping his arrow.
It strikes true, hitting the dwarf hard, and the obvious leader of the pack howls out in triumph as he seemingly commands his pack forward. THe four gnolls move, albeit slowly, towards the hill the party is defending.
John moves in between Emercy and Anovat and draws a small glass vial. As the gnolls draw near, he throws it at the nearest one where it bursts into a ball of flame.
John's bomb just barely misses the gnolls, and lands next to it. Luckily, it is still enough to take that one out, and it falls to the ground dead.
Getting struck solidly by the arrow, "Blast it all! Alright! If that's the way ya want it!" Emercy points a finger at the closest gnoll and a small dart of acid heads straight for it.
Emercy's acid dart manages to finish off a second gnoll, and it collapses into the sand.
Anovat descends the hill the party is on and makes his way to the edge of his stone call effect, his fingertips growing rocky claws as he moves. There he waits for a target to get in range.
An eagle appears right beside Anovat! Crag and Yasmin also fly into action beside Anovat. They all prepare to attack when the enemy approaches.
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;
;
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Yasmin’s combined bird attacks, added to the swift strikes of her scimitar are enough to finish off the other two gnolls. The bow gnoll, the apparent leader of the group, sees his troops dead and decides better of taking any more action against these troublesome foes.
With a quick phrase in a language you cannot understand, he makes his way out into the desert, sprinting along on all fours until he disappears into the sand dunes behind the rock formation.
"Hah! Those gnolls don't stand a chance!"
Yasmin and Crag intend to go after the last gnoll--Crag has an 80' fly speed.
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;
"That's right you fiend, run!" Realizing that the fleeing gnoll was remarkably fast, Yasmin gives chase for a short time as a show of strength, waving her scimitar menacingly.
But unless someone else is able to keep up with her, she soon turns around, losing some of her bloodthirst and not wanting to be too far separated from her companions.
Anovat sighs as his claws revert back to normal (yet rocky) fingers. He stares longingly after Yasmin and Crag for a moment before returning to the rest of the group.
I was too slow. I didn't even touch the bandits.
A quick search of the dead gnolls left behind turns up a few nonmagical spears and some leather armor, but the most interesting part is that each of the gnolls carry a small piece of parchment with a symbol on it: a trio of T's overlined with each other: the symbol of the mining company you work for.
Yasmin looks more carefully at the parchments they find. Are they a sign that the mining company was a target? Or a sign that these folks somehow were affiliated with the mining company?
Sporting an incredulous look at the sighting of the parchments, "What in the blazes does that mean? Why do ya think these blasted gnolls would have somethin' like that? I'm thinkin' we need ta ask Truther about it. Somethin' just doesn't smell right about all of this. Unless any of you can think of a valid reason for this, I say we just go ask."
"Yeah, that's somethin'. Though not sure what a parchment with nothin' else on it is good for. We oughta ask anyway."
Yasmin considers whether the parchments look like rubbings. Or currency.
They don't look very official, and certainly aren't currency. More like target designations, if you were to guess.
When you make your way back to the rest of the caravan that has gathered together at the center of the rock formation, you are relieved to see that Truther, Travis, and Alidelia are all in mostly good condition; a few scrapes and cuts here and there but nothing major.
Travis calls out in excitement when he sees you approaching, and claps his hands together as he moves to meet you.
"What a wonderful fight that was! I hope everyone is safe and sound?"
"Easy peasy, nothin' we can't handle!" says the triumphant halfling. "But what's the deal? These gnolls are targeting us!" She shows off the bits of parchment crudely showing the trio of Ts. "Thought the company wasn't around these parts lately--did you do something to piss 'em off?"
"Who said we hadn't been in these parts?" Truther says, laughing. "We have multiple operations going on in not only these parts, but all across Katapesh! It is a bit of a concern that they are targeting us specifically, how do you figure that?"
Yasmin holds out the parchment they found off the gnolls. "These parchments with your logo on it--why do all the gnolls have it? Pretty weird thing for a gnoll to just carry around, don'cha think?"
"Gnolls aren't particularly clever, generally speaking," John offers in response to Yasmin's question, "if--or perhaps since--there is an ongoing clash between them and our employers, their leaders, who are presumably less dull than the others, may have passed out the images so that illiterate and forgetful foot-soldiers would be able to recognize the company."
"Misters Truther and Travis, you may want to consider striking the company name from future shipments until our victory is complete," he advises as he falls back into formation to continue the journey.
"As our friend here says, I think the most likely explanation is they were given it to mark their targets. Like I said, we have a few operations in this area, it could've been any number of gnoll tribes in the area. I'd put my bets on the Cracked Hammers, but I imagine we might find more when we get to the mine."
The dwarf nods and laughs at John's suggestion.
"That's a wonderful idea, actually. I'll get a sending sent back to Katapesh immediately."
"I don't know, not sure it adds up," says Yasmin skeptically. She shrugs, not really sure what to make of any of it. "Keep moving a while longer before we make camp? We're definitely keeping watch tonight."
"Yes, onward," John concurs loudly enough that those at the front of the line can hear.
"I'm for keepin' movin' as well," Emercy agrees.