Campaign Summary: The Great Desert and the Savanah

The next morning, the brothers sought out the merchant with the lotions and potions and travelled with him out of the southern gate of the city. For two weeks, they travelled through the Great Desert‌ - they were journeying to meet with traders on the shores of the Pearl Sea‌ to obtain medicinal herbs and other items that the merchant could sell in Tunis.
Gradually, the rock gave way to sand - and there the brothers spotted something moving under the dunes! It was moving quickly towards a tent settlement near an oasis, and they chased after it. As they did so, they saw a group of figures also chasing the disturbance - they flew down to speak with the figures, who were revealed to be Mahauta‌ riding Notstriches.
The Mahauta chased after the disturbance, shooting arrows and throwing harpoons into it - at which point, the thing reared out of the sand and revealed itself to be a gigantic sandworm! The Mahauta and brothers fought the worm, fearing it would attack the settlement, and - despite Meade and Prism getting swallowed whole by it - destroyed it by tearing holes in its skin and eventually blasting its head off with a magma-bomb from Magma.
The Mahauta and the brothers went to the settlement, where they were nobly greeted by the female leader of the nomads and given food to eat in a hospitality ceremony. The rest of the merchant caravan arrived and made camp, with the merchant's guards enjoying a display of dancing by the nomad-girls ... but nothing more, and so they went to sleep disappointed. The brothers and the Mahauta stayed up late speaking with the nomad leader, and Gin told the full story of their adventures and history (a story which the Mahauta learned and added to their legends). The Mahauta, impressed with the brothers' connection to the goddess of the Harvest, swore to accompany them to the Pearl Sea and there hunt the evil of the Caarth.
Travel further south. Come to a settlement around an oasis, right at the edge of the Pearl Sea. Caarth and slaves were erecting obilisks of white moonstone in a circle around it. The obilisk was raised and the sand it encircled turned into the moonwhite sand of the Pearl Sea! Fought the Caarth and freed the slaves (which the Shrike immediately started impaling . . .)
Snuck in to the village and fought the Caarth, but the Dragonriders were defeated and captured. The Shrike attacked some Caarth priests performing a ritual around the oasis, killing six of them ... but then the seventh killed himself and the Goddess of the Moon herself appeared, gathering them up in a net of moonbeams!
When the Dragonriders and the Shrike came too, they found themselves imprisoned inside a vast globe of white moonstone. The brothers and their dragons were chained to platforms in the center of the globe, while the Shrike were hung in cages high up against the roof. There were holes in the ceiling which would let in the moonlight and passageways around the equator which led somewhere. There were chanting Caarth priests ringing the globe.
There was some kind of magical effect - a mist which rose from the base of the globe and filled it with bright moonlight. It consumed five of the Shrike, leaving only their leader alive (he was hung higher up) and washed over the brothers and their dragons. They felt disoriented and strange - when the fog cleared, they found themselves transformed. They had been merged with their dragons, forming a kind of dragon-centaur!
The leader of the Shrike ticked out the bottom of his cage, which had been damaged by the fog, and leaped down to free the Dragonriders. He smashed the chains and they attacked the Caarth - the priests fled, but soldiers fought them. Defeating the snake people, the Dragonriders flew out of the holes in the roof, carrying the Shrike with them.
They found themselves above a large city of weird, spiky architecture built into a large mesa in the middle of the desert. Caarth were climbing up the sides of the dome to attack them and so they flew off, but not before the Shrike prayed to the goddess of wisdom - and received a vision in return. The vision was of the Dragonriders adding poison to a well deep under the city and the Caarth dying. They then flew off.
After they had gone a sufficiently far distance, they landed and considered what to do. Poisoning the water was a good idea, but they needed to get into the city. They snuck back carefully, and found various tunnels leading into the mesa. Searching through the tunnels, they found a group of escaped slaves - led by Demeter, Core's mother! She told them she knew the tunnels beneath the mesa, and the well which supplied the water. She agreed to lead them to a laboratory where they might find a poison to use.
Travelling through the tunnels they found themselves in a jail of sorts with many tormented and vivisected prisoners inside. Mercy killing them, they opened a door up a flight of stairs and found themselves in a laboratory, where they fought a Lamia priestess-scientist and her minions. In the lab, they found Hellebore root which Demeter prepared into a poison while they investigated the rooms attached to the lab.
Most were store rooms, but there was a treasure room - alas it did not include the Hammer of the Smith God which had been taken from them; it was just valuable gold and jewels. There was also a temple to the goddess of the Moon in a snake-person aspect - a Medusa-like creature with a female body and snakes for hair. Meade had a vision in this room, seeing himself killing a creature much like this and then defeating a huge sea monster to rescue a beautiful black-skinned princess and having children with her, one of whom grew up to be the mother of a great dynasty.
The brothers and the Shrike snuck through the tunnels under the city, eventually coming to the main well which supplied the water. There were slaves there, which the Shrike visciously attacked and offered to the goddess of the Harvest, but the brothers also managed to poison the well with the Hellebore root (and take some poisoned arrows). They then left the city and flew over the desert to a small oasis where they waited. There the Shrike and Demeter assembled an effigy of the goddess of the Harvest from stakes and the bodies of victims.
They did not have to wait long - the poison was drunk and the Caarth started dying! But so many creatures dying from Hellebore root, so many being pulled through portals into the Underworld that the very air began to swirl with the five colors of the Underworld and a vast portal was opened, and the goddess of the Harvest herself appeared - inhabiting the effigy and advancing on the city where she swept the souls of the Caarth into the Underworld.
The Shrike venerated her, and the brothers paid her homage as they followed her. A Lamia was weeping to see what had been done to her people, and Gin collected the precious tears that would save Penelope. Meade found the Hammer of the Smith god in the temple and the brothers begged the goddess of the Harvest for a boon - to separate them from their dragons. She swept her scythe and split them apart, and then smashed the Hammer with the butt of her scythe, flattening it into a round, mirror shield which Meade took.
Having defeated the Caarth, got the tears, and freed themselves from their strange form, the brothers returned to the oasis and tried to decide what to do - the desert was very large, and they were not sure where they were. Resolving to at least try, they marched north, conserving their water. They crossed from the white sands of the Pearl Sea to the rocky scrub of the wider great desert, and eventually came across a caravan.
As fortune would have it, the caravan was managed by the cousin of the merchant who had taken them south (the brother of the wine-merchant, and the one with many potions for virility). The merchant was overjoyed to hear his cousin was dead, because he was "an asshole" and kept praising the brothers for it, even though they had nothing to do with it. The merchant said he was travelling south-east to trade with the settlement around Lake T'Chad. The brothers and the Shrike went with him. As they travelled the desert gave way to grassland.
After several days of travel they arrived at a city (N'Djamena) at the edge of a vast lake (Lake T'Chad‌) where they were warmly greeted. The ruler of the village spoke Sabir to some degree, and he greeted them and made the sign of the goddess of Love. He welcomed the brothers to stay for a feast, which they did. At the feast, the Shrike told his stories and so did the brothers, with their words being translated for the villagers. When they got to the part about the mirror shield, the villagers were much excited - THE SHINY SHIELD‌ was an icon in their mythology and it was foretold that the bearer of the shiny shield would marry a princess and defeat great monsters, being the father of a great dynasty. Meade was shocked by this, but the ruler of the city insisted that they accompany him to the east, to the great city where his father ruled. He (the prince) had become the ruler of this city (and all of the Savanna People‌) when a young man - but his father the great king must know of the SHINY SHIELD!
During the feast, Demeter and the prince became very friendly and it was clear a romance was blossoming between them.
The next morning, preparations were made to travel to the west and the prince and his court gathered and everyone set off west, towards his father's city. They travelled through the prince's kingdom, along the great road (unlike the engineered roads of Etruscia this was a packed dirt highway, but still very clear and serviceable). They passed through fields and farms, and a few villages. As they travelled, the legend of the SHINY SHIELD was presented to the people and they were much impressed with Meade.
They eventually came to a village which was very still and quiet; the brothers went forward cautiously and saw there were no living people there but instead many statues ... statues that looked like people who had been turned to stone! Gin tried using the tears of the Lamia on them, but it did not cure them.
Meade studied the ground and tracked some kind of huge snake coming into the village and then going into the central hut (the great meeting or council building). They went inside and saw statues there that seemed to suggest people had been running to hide and to get the defense of the headman of the village, but his protection was not enough - they had all been turned to stone! Meade used great concentration and followed the tracks more. The tracks led outside the village and then into the grasslands of the north.
Eager to seek divine assistance, Gin prayed to the goddess of Wisdom and he was blessed with a vision. The lioness-skin rug on the floor lifted up and filled with solid light, making the shape of a Basti filled with impossibly bright light - the goddess of Wisdom! She went outside and Gin followed. She made a reflection in the SHINY SHIELD! held by Meade and Gin saw a darkness spreading over the land, enfolding villages one by one. By great concentration, Gin was able to identify the precise locations of the villages and know which ones would be consumed in which order. The vision then faded.
The brothers told each other what they had learned through great concentration and they spoke with the prince. He was much concerned about what was happening to his people, and the brothers promised him they would destroy the evil creature - this snake thing that was turning people to stone - that was preying on his people. They set off for the next village, flying in a straight line directly towards it. They saw from tracks on the ground the snake-beast was following the less-direct route of the road. They arrived at the village and warned the people, who hid inside the buildings with the guards wearing blindfolds to try to fight the beast without danger. They also blindfolded the dragons and hid them in the buildings, lest they get petrified.
Gin also blindfolded himself, but Meade relied on the SHINY SHIELD! to use as a mirror to fight the beast. They made ready and the beast arrived. Gin heard its hissing and slithering and dived for it while his brother snuck around. Alas! He missed and fell to the ground. Meade attacked and fought the beast, but it was quick and dangerous. After a great struggle, the Dragonriders were triumphant and decapitated the beast, putting its head in a bag in case it was useful later.
The villagers were overjoyed, and invited the Dragonriders to a feast which they were happy to accept. There they heard more legends; a princess from the "darkest people" would be the one who married the bearer of the SHINY SHIELD! and their dynasty would be responsible for a great resurgence and revitalization. Armed with this knowledge, they left the village and returned to the prince and Demeter.
The prince was overjoyed the beast was defeated, and listened to the legend. He said he was considerably darker than the Savanah People - he was from Lake Nalubaale‌, and the people there are much darker skinned (he had travelled west to seek his fortune, becoming the ruler of the Savanah People). Perhaps things would be revealed when they got to the great city of Jinja where his father ruled by the shores of Lake Nalubaale‌!