Secrets revealed...

Having sold their herd beasts the herders should have been making good time back to their home, but they were moving slower than normal due to the old ashik. He didn’t move very quickly and would constantly stop to rest his old bones. It was almost like he was trying to delay them. That was because he was, he wanted to make sure that his story was told before they returned home. His story had to be told.

The freed slaves, and now scouts for The Free, were deep within the the Howling Tombs fighting for their lives against dwarven skeletons and a spectral horror in the form of the priest who had carried out human sacrifices over the bottomless pit hundreds of years in the past. All of them, with the exception of Balboa, wore the signs of the battle and only had a single functioning arm each. Balboa had not escape the damage either, he had taken significant injuries falling whilst climbing to the tomb.

Scar strikes with the Sword of Kemalok, hitting the spectral horror in one of its ghostly legs and then she dodges rapidly to avoid its counterattack. Arthur, swinging his left, cestus covered fist, connects with a powerful blow and knocks the dwarf skeletons head clean off. The rest of the skeletons bones drop inanimate to the floor and Arthur looks about for another one to smash. Balboa backhands the dwarf skeleton that he is fighting with his stone mace, and caves in its grinning skull. It drops to the floor dead, once again. Scar manages to dodge the spectral horrors swiping claw and counters with a slash to its chest with the Sword of Kemalok.

Miloch finally manages to staunch the flow of blood from his left arm and looks up to take in what is happening. He sees all three of his companions facing off against the ghostly apparition of the dwarven priest and sees Scar swing wildly and her foot slip, but the horror fails to take advantage of the opening and misses with its clawed hand. Both Arthur and Balboa score hits on the apparition, Arthur with a flaming brand and Balboa with his mace, but both hits pass harmlessly through the spectre. The spectral horror strikes Scar in her leg and again Miloch can see the life draining out of her. He decides that it is time for desperate measures.

Arthur steps out of the battle knowing that he cannot harm the ghost and Miloch steps into his place. Scar swings once again, but once again the spectral horror dodges her blow, and then something happens that makes the group of friends stand and stare at Miloch. Miloch, who is weaponless, stares intently at the spectral horror and a gout of magical fire leaps from Miloch to engulf the ghost. There is a keening howl and the spectral horror dissipates into nothingness. There is an almost audible sigh of relief from the four friends.

Arthur looks back over his shoulder towards the bridge, fully expecting the horde of skeletons to be shambling forwards, but is very pleased to see them all shuffling back towards their niches. They take a short while to bind each other’s wounds, and by the end they manage to heal each other just enough for them all to have both arms operational. They thoroughly search the throne room and Scar discovers two silver pieces in each of the dwarf skeleton guards niches and then she sifts through the dust and bones of the skeletons themselves and finds a smooth black stone amid each one. She hands them to Balboa, but he cannot identify them.

Arthur searches the skeleton of the priest sat upon his throne and finds a ring on one of his bones fingers. The ring is made of some sort of yellow metal, but it is not something that he has seen before. He slides it off of the priests finger with the blade of his dagger and drops it into a piece of cloth, he shows it to the others but they are not sure what the metal is either. They decide that it is time to leave and cautiously cross the bridge and pass the niches, where they see some of the skeletons still getting comfortable before slipping back into their eternal sleep, and head back up the stairs to the main tombs.

Once they have made it back to the tomb entrance they, with a little bit of difficulty, manage to scale back up to the midway ledge. They then shout up to Kank, who hauls them up to the top of the cleft with brute strength. As soon as Kank sees the first one of his friends climb over the lip of the cleft he shouts for Ka-Reen, he cannot believe that they are all as injured as they are. And more acutely, he cannot believe that he has missed a good fight. Ka-Reen checks all four of her friends and decides that Arthur is the most injured and so she uses her power on him, and then both of them have to rest and recoup so Kank stands guard while the others sleep in the shade of the tarpaulin.

By the middle of the day Arthur and Ka-Reen are starting to feel much better, and Scar has regained a lot of her strength. Arthur produces the ring that he took from the priests hand and shows the others. Balboa notices that the ring has runes carved on its inner side and is surprised to find that they are written in earth runes. After a moment of study he tells everyone that he thinks that the incantation will make the ring grow or shrink in size so that it can fit anyone’s finger. He speaks the incantation aloud and demonstrates the power of the ring, in doing so he becomes aware that the ring has another spell stored within. He slips the ring on his finger and concentrates hard on attuning his consciousness with that of the ring. Once done he is able to identify that the ring has the power to increase the wearers strength, another power of the earth.

After a short discussion the group agree that Kank should wear the ring initially, and so with Balboa’s guidance he puts the ring on and focuses on attuning to it. After a much longer time than Balboa, he manages to do it and thanks his friends greatly. Kank sits quietly for a while contemplating what has happened during the last few days. He fell while climbing and almost died while hitting the earth, that lead to him not climbing down into the tomb but his friends found an earth artifact in there and have allowed him to wear it. A sure sign in his mind that the earth is providing balance. In a sudden rush Kank turns to Balboa and asks him to carve the earth rune into the head of his maul. A maul that he has named Bone Crusher.

During the afternoon Scar, with her incredible sharp eyes, spots a small pack of dog like creatures hunting through the dunes far off to the south. She eventually loses sight of them within the dunes but she is glad that they did not head in her direction. As the sun sets behind the rolling dunes and the twin moon s slowly climb into the dark sky, the group set off heading for the way station to investigate the second location. Their journey is quiet and just before dawn Balboa finds a sheltered spot for them to rest through the day. During his watch Arthur spots in the far east a caravan travelling from north to south, but it is not close enough to worry him.

As the moons rise Scar White of the wastes leads the group closer to their goal. Arthur catches up with Scar and asks her about her ability to enchant her blades, he was still smarting from not being able to harm the spectral horror, and she tells him that she cannot only enchant blades but can also enchant bludgeoning weapons. Arthur smiles a broad smile and suggests that next time they know that they are heading into battle that Scar should enchant everyone’s weapons. A couple of hours before sunrise the group call a halt and settle down to wait for the sun before scouting out the way station. Ka-Reen takes the opportunity to make sure that the rest of the group are healed, but only has enough energy to heal Scar and Balboa. Meaning that Miloch is still not fully healed.

Once the sun is up the group slowly move forwards scanning the horizon for the way station, and after a short while they see the silhouette of a ruined tower appear out of the desert in front of them. They watch for a short while but can see no obvious movement and so Kank agrees to head in and scout out the place. Arthur, Balboa, and Scar follow him at a distance, leaving Ka-Reen and Miloch to look after Stanley the kank.

As Kank draws closer to the tower and it’s compound he spots the tracks of several small lizards but nothing to indicate a group of caravan raiders. Kank moves closer to the gap in the compounds east wall and can see a well within the courtyard and can make out pieces of smashed furniture within the southeast building. Kank slips through the gap and sneaks up to the edge of the well, he can’t see the bottom of the well it just drops into darkness. He picks up a small stone and drops it in, and is disappointed to hear it hit solid ground and not the sound of splashing water.

Kank retreats to the southeast building and finds that it is empty, he waves the others in and they join him in the shadow of the doorway. Leaving them there, Kank slips along the crumbling south wall past what was once the compounds gateway towards the small building in the south west corner. The building is made out of baked mud bricks, which Kank thinks Balboa would be interested in, and finds that the building is empty except for some desert dried desiccated timber. Kank moves as quietly as his large frame will allow towards the building at the northeast of the compound, which he finds is just the fire blackened skeleton of a wooden hut.

Watched by the others, Kank crosses from the blackened shell of the northeast building to the base of the ruined tower and takes a quick look through one of the ground floor arrow slits, but it is too dark within for him to see anything in any detail. He crosses back to the others and grabs a torch and heads back, moving from arrow slit to arrow slit looking in. There is very little to see except from when he looks into the last of the arrow slits and can see some steps leading down from the first floor and what looks like a bedroll on the floor. He waves the others over to him and passes the torch to Balboa before heading up the external steps to the main entrance on the first floor.

They find themselves in a room that takes up half the area of the tower, the wall running across the center of the room has two doors in it. There is also a trapdoor, that the group believe must open up on the stairs that Kank spotted through the arrow slits. Leaving the others to guard the first floor, Arthur heads up the stone lintel steps to the second floor. Half of the floor is missing and the remaining floor looks dangerous to cross, and as Arthur can’t see anything large enough to hide a lot of caravan raiders he heads back down. As Arthur gets to the first floor Balboa approaches the left hand door, and he can hear something moving inside.