The wind continued to howl outside of the headsman's hut, and the sand in that wind was scouring everything that it came in contact with. It was powerful enough to strip the meat from a dead body and it was only the hard exoskeleton of the domesticated kank that allowed them to survive the harshness of the sandstorm. Sheltered inside the headsman’s hut was the entire population of the small village beside the muddy oasis, and everyone of them were tuning out the sound of the sandstorm and focusing on the words flowing from the old ashik.

Having clashed with more cyclops during the night the group of friends awoke in the morning and agreed to continue their search. Arthur and Miloch once again forage while the others search for the Face in the Stone. Midway through the day Scar spots what she believes to be the group of Templar’s who are also searching for the temple, they are a long way in the distance and Scar is hidden by the deep shadows of the canyon that they are currently searching, but there is no doubt that the two groups are moving towards each other.

That night the freed slaves settle down in a cold camp and during his watch Balboa sees another herd of wild kank move near to their campsite, but as they seem to just be grazing Balboa does not disturb the others. The following morning the settle into what has become their standard routine with three searching and two foraging. In the late afternoon sun Kank can see what he believes to be a large dust devil spinning ahead of them beyond a low rise. He gets the attention of his colleagues and then starts to climb up the rise to get a view of what lies beyond. As he is climbing his foot slips and he slides all of the way to the bottom of the rise grazing himself badly on the way down.

As he lays there looking up at his friends, and watching Balboa barely contain a laugh, they all hear a piercing scream from beyond the rise. They belly up to the lip of the rise together and look over at a most unusual sight. From their vantage point they can see a low valley before them, across the valley is another low rise and beyond that the friends can see a merchant wagon half buried in drifting sand. But the feature that really captures everyone’s attention is the fifty foot dust devil that appears to be spinning halfway into the rock face of one of the valley walls.

Moving around in the valley there are several humanoids, as the group watch it becomes obvious that some of the humanoids are raiders and some are captives. The captives all appear to be humans and one of them is grabbed by a couple of the raiders and dragged to the edge of the dust devil. There is then another piercing scream as the raiders throw their captive into the spinning dust devil, the captive disappears from sight. There are eight captives remaining, and as the raiders move back in their direction one of the larger raiders shouts something in a language that the freed slaves do not understand and the raiders stop moving towards the captives and start to set up camp.

Now that all of the raiders are out in the open and working together to set up their camp, Arthur counts that there are fifteen of them in total. Two of the raiders are human, three of them are large humanoids that Balboa identifies as Tarek, and the remainder are similar to the muscled bound tarek but are smaller in stature. The Tarek have square, big-boned heads with sloping foreheads and massive brow ridges and their powerful arms are so long that their knuckles drag along the ground. The smaller raiders, Balboa names them as Peons, drag out two large awnings and rig them up between two of the rocky outcroppings in the valley.

Just before the sun sets below the horizon the human raiders, being directed by one of the Tarek, grab another of the captives and throw him into the spinning vortex. Another scream. Arthur looks sideway at his friends and says;

I think that they are experimenting!

As darkness settles across Athas the freed slaves make a plan to attack the raiders. There are five Peons, a human and a Tarek left on watch for the raiders, with one of the Peons placed beside the half buried wagon. Arthur agrees to attempt to teleport to beside the wagon and kill that Peon. Balboa, Miloch, and Scar will use their ranged weapons to attack the other Peons on the rise between the camp and the wagon. Hoping that this will cause. Diversion and draw the raiders away from the captives. Kank will then rush in and free the captives.

With the plan agreed Arthur concentrates and as the strain shows on his face he disappears. He reappears next to the half buried wagon, and stood above a snoozing Peon. Arthur raises his iron maul and swings at the Peon’s back. His blow is so powerful that the only sound made by the Peon as it dies is the wheeze of air escaping from rib punctured lungs. As Arthur disappears from beside them, the three armed with ranged weapons let loose their missiles. Miloch’s arrow overshoots and Balboa’s slingstone flies wide, but Scar’s arrow finds its mark and lodges deep into one of the Peon raiders chests.

That Peon squeals like a stuck baazrag and runs around in circles of panic before sprinting away from the camp and into the darkness. Arthur slips into the darkness behind the wagon and watches as one of the other Peon raiders rushes past on the ridge above towards the squealing Peon. Miloch and Scar loose their second arrows and while Scar misses this time Miloch hits, causing a loud shout of alarm to be issued by the Peons on the ridge. Balboa, Miloch and Scar fire again. Scar’s arrow buries itself to its flights in the gut of one of the Peon raiders and it drops to the floor with blood pumping out through its fingers.

Miloch and Scar fire again, Scar dropping another one with a lean shot in the head. Miloch also catches his a glancing blow in the head, and with blood running down its face the Peon runs off into the darkness and away from the fight. Within the main camp the rest of the raiders are up and shouting, with one of the large Tarek pointing in the direction of the archers and urging the raiders up the rise to attack. Hoping to get in another volley of missile fire, Balboa spins his sling and releases the sling stone to early catching Scar in the back of her leg at close range. Scar yelps in pain and drops her bow as she clutches at her leg, and then the Peon’s javelins start to pepper their vantage point.

Miloch takes a glancing blow in his leg and then another one catches him in the gut, but his armour deflects most of the blow. Miloch drops his bow and grabs his iron battle axe as Scar regains her composure and draws the Sword of Kemalok. At that moment Kank rises up from behind the brow of the rise and screaming his battle cry his charges down the slope to engage the raiders. The sudden appearance of the large manic Mul, gives the raiders a momentary pause, and their second volley of javelins mostly miss their targets. One of the javelins hits Kank in the chest but it glances off and does not slow the Mul’s headlong charge.

Arthur hears the Mul’s battle cry and scales the wagon to get a view of what is happening. He sees Kank slam into a group of Peons as the Tarek’s and Human raiders close with Miloch and Scar. Balboa lets fly with another slingstone and this time manages not to hit one of his companions, but does succeed in striking one of the human raiders crippling one of his arms. Miloch sinks his iron battle axe into the chest of the other human raider and the man drops dead to the floor. One of the Tarek swings at Miloch but misses, as does the one that is closing in on Balboa. From his vantage point, Arthur sees the Peons remaining on the ridge begin to slip away from the fight into the darkness.

Kank crashes into the Peons and catches one of them in the gut with a wild swing of his one good arm, but the power of the Earth ring means that the blow has enough power to lay out the Peon. One of the other Peons swings at Kank but Kank manages to dodge the blow. Kank counters the swing with a powerful punch to the Peons leg, there is a snapping noise as the Peons leg breaks and it collapses to the floor. On the rise, Scar cuts down one of the Peons with a slash of the Sword of Kemalok. She then steps over the prone Peon and strikes at the Tarek attacking Balboa. Scar hacks into the Tarek’s right arm and it is forced to drop its main weapon.

Miloch hits the other human raider in the arm with his iron battle axe and the man drops to the earth. The Peon that Scar had stepped over lashes out with its sword from the floor and stabs Scar in her injured leg. Scar staggers in pain and then her leg buckles beneath her and she falls to the floor. Balboa fumbles with his stone mace, but manages to hit the Tarek in front of him square between its legs. The Tarek wobbles but stays on its feet. Miloch swings at the Tarek facing him but is parried, the tarek strikes back but Miloch steps out of the way of the swipe.

Kank spins on his heels and finds himself facing the last of the Tarek raiders. He punches with his one good arm and hits the Tarek in the leg, there is a cracking sound as the Tarek’s leg breaks and it staggers, Kank follows up with a second massive blow in the gut and the Tarek flies backwards through the air to land unmoving in the sand. Kank leaps at the final Peon in the group that he is fighting and bundles it to the ground, he then smashes down on it’s chest and kills it.

The Tarek facing Balboa slashes at him with a dagger held in it’s one good hand. It punches the dagger up to the hilt in Balboa’s stomach and Balboa collapses backwards onto the blood soaked sand. Miloch slams his axe into the Tarek that he is fighting and the beast staggers backwards from the blow and finally falls down as he succumbs to his wounds. Stood on top of the wagon on the other side of the valley, Arthur’s face screws up in concentration and he disappears.

Arthur reappears standing over the Peon who stabbed Scr in the back of the leg. He raises his iron maul bone his head and slams it down onto the Peon’s chest killing it stone dead. Scar stabs up at the Tarek stood over Balboa and slices through it’s hamstring. The Tarek gasps in pain and clutches the back of it leg as it falls over. Scar then reverses her grip and puts the creature out of its misery with another slash of the Sword of Kemalok. Arthur shouts at the final Peon to surrender but the beast is frenzied and refuses, Arthur quickly dispatches it with a slam of his maul.

Balboa calls upon the power of the Earth Gnomes and heals his wounds, he then moves quickly to Scar’s side and heals her. Miloch and Kank move through the bodies of the raiders and make sure that they are all dispatched. Arthur heads down the hill to check on the captives and finds that there are only two of them remaining as the others have run away into the dark. Arthur shares some food and water with the freed captives and finds out that they were hired by Merchant House Shomp to find the missing caravan. Arthur also finds out that they have been here for the last three days, since the sandstorm in the night.

As Kank and Miloch search the raiders they find that each of them has a tattoo on the inside flesh of their right forearms of a skull and snake. Clearly marking them as members of the same raiders. Arthur searches the awnings of the raiders and as the others arrive they find him dragging out a small chest. He opens the lid of the chest and they are all surprised to see that it is full of gold coins.