Session 22: The Grave of Ships
General Summary
Have you ever stared too long into the sun? Begun to see things? Hear things? Become unsure of even who you were? Or who your friends were? Or if you even had friends?
This is this Ten Thousands Trackless Sands, where nomads roam, setting up their impermanent pavilion cities next to oases. Where the wind elementals and the djinn and the efreeti rise up from hidden ruins to tempt and torment passersby. Where sand dancing dervishes leap howling out of the dark, hot nights to slaughter in the names of their forgotten gods.
Our adventurers are here to retrieve the keel of a ship. They haven't quite figured out HOW they're going to get back to Etherian Elps with the keel of a ship, but they have decided that the first thing they need to do is find it. Well, the first thing after surviving the armies of the Sultana, sent out from the glittering City of Magic, Masashanda, to secure the Eye of the Sun -- the portal linking Blue Gull Oasis to Etherian Elps -- and to destroy those who have invaded the Sacred Land.
Of course, as we have seen, our Thieves are more than just thieves, and the Blue Gull Oasis is now stained red with the blood of the slain.
But the adventurers are less confident about their ability to take on the larger force that appears to be mustering outside of Masashanda. There is some talk of fortifying the canyon and making a stand, slaughtering all who come until the city lies empty and defenseless before them, ripe for the plucking of whatever jeweled fruits it might have to offer. But this is a pipe dream, given that they don't know what sort of forces could be leveled against them once the Sultana has had enough time to organize.
Plus, they could use a good long rest to rebuild strength and magic. And they also still need to get rid of the Efreeti, Burning Sands, before Kelpip's polymorphing magic ends.
So instead of building a castle, the adventurers decide on a two-pronged response. The bulk of the party will travel north and then east, hoping to evade their pursuers, who might be expecting them to head south, instead. Meanwhile, Ruhst will fly Nohtaroc to the gates of the city and drop the efreeti on the very heads of the guards (Ruhst, in developing this plan, it should be noted, also drank copiously from the flasks of alcohol looted from the bodies of the slain Masashandan warriors).
But in his flight toward the city, Ruhst is intercepted by a winged patrol composed of griffon riders and a true roc outfitted with a howdah carrying a dozen warriors. He convinces them that he is a merchant bringing a particularly rare crab to trade in the city, and so these escort Ruhst to Masashanda and tell him where to land, but as he feigns scouting out the landing zone, he drops the colorful crab -- the polymorphed Burning Sands, of course -- right down on top of the soldier barracks located outside the city walls. Cracking open on a spire atop the barracks, the crab reverts to its true form: a very, very, very, very, very, very angry efreeti. Ruhst flees, pushing Nohtaroc to its flying limits.
Meanwhile, in the desert north of the Blue Gull Oasis, the other Temple Thieves discover a strange grotto filled with the bones of ancient and terrible winged beasts. Kelpip and Dolan are able to identify these as the remnants of the mythological creatures called dragons. Lore says that some shadowmancers rode into battle on the backs of dragons. Other legends tell of an empire in the mountainous interior range of the Silvermonts where dragons rule over mortals as gods. But there is little existing evidence speaking to the truth of either of these inn-fire tales.
Except here there is: massive bones that prove that the great creatures did exist. Perhaps still do.
More importantly in the moment, though, the grotto provides a shelter for the adventurers to hole up in while they wait for the armies of the Sultana to stop looking for them. They set up camp, collect some dragon bone trinkets as souvenirs, and are soon rejoined by Ruhst, who has flown the long way 'round in order to thwart his own pursuers, if such exist.
That night, the Thieves set watch, but when a scouting party passes close by, it is Little Sister's goddess-magic, enhanced by the natural enchantment of the dragon grotto -- a magic that keeps the place from being found on purpose -- that turns the eyes of the searchers away and to the north.
The next day, the party decides that with the Sultana's people off to the north, they are safe enough in choosing to work their way south again, and hopefully toward the location of the keel of Little Sister's plane-crossing ship.
They make good progress and find another oasis later that day, where they are able to make camp and refill their water skins. The next day, with the sun beating down on them and heat mirages making imaginary things real and distant things close, they see a strange sight on the horizon: a ship seemingly sailing upon the sands.
A mirage, in part, it turns out, but what they eventually stumble upon is even stranger: not just one ship, but many -- a graveyard of ships of all sorts, from galleons and coasters to ones with alien shapes made of alien materials.
Before the Thieves can examine these further, though, they are beset upon by the inhabitants of this graveyard. Small cloaked figures with glowing eyes and scavenged, makeshift weapons leap from their hiding places, blowing horns and whistles that make a cacaphonous riot of noise in the echoing spaces between sand-capsized ships.
Dolan is able to identify them as dust goblins -- goblins who have turned (even more) feral during their time of isolation and depravation in the wastelands. They are fearless, these goblins, and chant something that sounds like, "Yeeeessssss! Marrow! More marrow!"
Though the goblins have the high ground and ranged weapons, several of them fall quickly to the arrows and magic of the Thieves. However, it becomes quickly apparent that this First Death is not the end of the dust goblins' existences. The corpses twitch and convulse, the already tight-skin of the goblins turns gray and sinks in even further, all the moisture sucked out of it by whatever magic it is that reanimates the creatures. They claw and crawl their way out of their binding cloaks of human skin and begin spider walking toward Trajinous and others on the ground.
Even as this horror presents itself, the still-living goblins continue firing at our heroes, dealing damage by their sheer numbers, if not their skill. Little Sister takes to the air to attack a cluster of them on the edge of a bluff, while Ruhst leaps, scrambles, and swashbuckles his way up the ruins of an ancient man-o'-war to join her. Dolan picks off revenants and dust goblins alike with his arrows, and Kelpip and Trajinous flare with magical power as they launch icy blades and divine strikes. Percy, meanwhile, swarms up the side of a different bluff and dispatches three of the goblins with one swipe of Gnoll Slayer before returning to the ground, killing a couple more, and then following Ruhst's swashbuckling route to the top of the other rise.
Soon enough, all of the dust goblins and whatever it is that they turn into after their First Death are dispatched.
But eerie whistles and howls begin to rise up from elsewhere in the graveyard of ships.
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