Surviving the Wandering
The Fortune and Favor Society has unearthed a lost sacred site in the desert and is offering a chance to those who prove themselves during The Wandering to be the first to delve into it. They will, of course, take their customary 40% of any valuables discovered. Nebet stumbles upon a nest of sand vipers on the first day while heading deep into the desert and barely escapes death thanks to the intervention of Khepri. They decide to band together.
On the second day, Aneksi comes upon three gnolls feasting on the remains of a young boy. Patxi rolls into the fight and buries their macuahuitl in the side of one of the gnolls. Nebet and Khepri hear the fight and join in. Aneksi speaks words of power and instantly slays a gnoll. Nebet tries to make a gnoll erupt into hideous laughter, which accidentally causes her voice to boom like thunder. Patxi skewers the second gnoll as it turns to run and then snaps the neck of the third.
The gnolls have a sealed letter and a dagger that isn't gnoll-made. Khepri takes them, and Nebet reads it that night. It's a letter of encouragement to the dead boy. Fihr finds a pair of adolescent dwarves beset by sand-bound elemental guardians who guard tombs but may be freed if the tomb is robbed or desecrated.
Anubians--Sand spirits, also called sand-bound. They are attacking a pair of dwarven adolescent twins (brother and sister). Reklah, the brother, snaps his sling just as the rest of the party arrives. Breklah, the sister, cleaves through the neck of the first Anubian, dissolving it into the sand, and two of the other ones tear her apart. Patxi soon avenges her on one of them, striking it with their acid-etched sword. Nebet strikes down the other with a perfectly placed mote of light. Fihr whispers, "Slay the kith-killer," and dispatches a fleeing Anubian with an arrow. After the combat and a prayer to Dumathoin, he finds it has been turned into an elemental bane arrow.
A flurry of ranged attacks slays the final Anubian as it surfaces from beneath the sand. At camp, Rekla reveals that his uncle, Elgar, is trying to take over the family's bookbinding business and kick Reklah and Brecklah out. The next day, Khepri and Fihr consider stealing camels from a family of sand giants but decide against it. With Recklah in tow, the Party has decided to hunt a Sand Wyrm that is rumored to be in the area. Patxi finds some faint tracks and begins leading the party towards the creature. On the fifth night, as they close on the lair of the Sandwyrm, they are awakened by the sound of a running battle between a pack of jackals and a Giant Scorpion.
The party faces the giant scorpion. It strikes Fihr with its tail before they finish it off. Patxi and others take a few souvenirs. Specifically a pair of claws and the tail stinger.
The party finds the sandworm's lair; it is nestled into a set of small sandstone cliffs. Fihr heads inside and finds a paralyzed woman just as the sandworm attacks the rest of the party. The initial strike and retreat nearly kill Aneksi and Nebet as Patxi harpoons the worm. Fihr puts an arrow through the worm's eye, and it stabs him through the chest in retaliation. The worm spears Khepri with its tail, killing her. Her spirit is led off into the desert by the vestiges, possibly to become one. Fihr takes down the worm with a final shot from his bow, and Aneksi runs into the worm's lair to help the paralyzed woman. Aneksi restores the paralyzed woman, who is instantly covered from head to foot in armor. The now armored woman finds her large spark rifle and looks to fight the worm, but it's already slain.
Nebet searches Khepri's body for items of personal significance but doesn't find anything. Patxi begins dismantling the sandworm and ends up covered in sandworm poison, poisoning them. 300 gp worth of raw loot (gold, silver, copper, about 11 gems) Several broken trade goods/caravans (rugs made into nesting material, etc.) Large rib bone of a huge creature (dunewinder, sandworm?) covered in small runes carved into a javelin. (Evocation, Javelin of Lightning) Quiver made of dunewineder leather covered in symbols that look like a godlike thing. (Conjuration, Quiver of Haku) Segmented armored gloves with pictures of a sand ogre. (Transmutation, Gauntlets of Ogre Power) Slightly cracked large clay pot with a rune in the bottom. (Transmutation, Pot of Awakening) Aneksi focuses her inner reserves of magic to restore Patxi. The woman's name is Ipwet. She can conjure fire. She was one of six companions who were eaten by the sandworm. The party settles in for the night in the sandworm's lair. Nebet tells the story but tells it a little too long. The party gives the sandworm eggs as one of the trophies to compensate. The party waits in the rain as the Fortune and Favor society decides who to give the contract to.
The Lost Temple of Vergedain
The party is led to a door with a coin and a pair of scales engraved on it. Inside is an office with two people: a brawny, broad-chested half-orc covered in scars (some ritualistic, some fighting). Guildmaster Thagbush Ushbar. The other is a hooded figure in red robes. The party is presented with a contract that they all sign. The hooded figure also signs, and the party sees that their hands are covered with burn scars. They are introduced as Ranul Unuhari, a representative of the guild. She is a true wood elf.
The guild has uncovered a temple complex dedicated to Vergetain, the Dwarven god of wealth. The Infinite Prison is likely to be somewhere within the temple and is the only specific item the guild requests, although they also want their customary 40% cut. The guild is hiring a navigator from the Order of the Far Horizons. The expedition leaves on the 8th day of Whisperbreeze. Aneksi flirts with Mark, the grey elf.
Afterward, the party goes carousing for a week. Nebet goes to kill Reklah's uncle. She accidentally casts a spell that erupts into lightning, killing the uncle and Recklah and setting the building on fire. She flees with a handful of books. Fihr accidentally tries to pickpocket a member of the Blacktongue guild while drunk. The guild member catches him and may bear a grudge. Aneksi accidentally switches her bag with someone. It contains a black figurine of a horse. Haprah accidentally adopts a baby orc. The orc's mother takes the baby back, leaving Haprah speechless. Patxi gets a new tattoo! They don't recognize the language, although it does use the elven alphabet.
Patxi bonds with Aneksi in the temple to Solanil and snubs the high priestess. Patxi knows pinky promises! and makes one with Aneksi. (Pinky promises are an Anande tradition) Fihr and Aneksi go partying during the second half of the week. Fihr spends all his money. Aneksi and Patxi visit Aneksi's friend, a lovelorn inkmaker. Aneksi breaks her pinky.
Thagbush meets the party with Ranul and a withered tabaxi (Knot, the navigator). He worships Fharlaingan, who, according to Aneksi, is an obscure god of fate and chance who brings ill luck.
Thregrah--: Raider-Clan that claims the desert north of Manitrah and has a reputation for skinning victims alive. Aneksi chats with Knot as they travel. The camels' names are Bastard 1 and Bastard 2, and occasionally Lunch and New Boots. Knot leads the party to a glass "sundial" to rest. Ranul casts Heroism on Aneksi. The party decides the sundial is a larger submerged device and leaves it for later. The party makes it to the village of Hep the next day and finds a bunch of white pillars outside it and no one inside.
The people of the village have been turned into salt statues, and are all facing a central point. Those further away have turned and tried to run. The party tracks the source of the incident and finds a terrified young woman. She is curled up, seemingly in pain, and is in a growing radius of salt. She wears a gold amulet in the form of a scarab with its wings open. As the party tries to relieve the girl's pain, there is a scream from across the desert. The girl screams to match it and turns into a Sand Hag. Haprah puts a bullet into the hag's head, nearly killing her. The hag screams and turns to run, but Patxi and Fihr impale her and lop off her leg. Patxi sees a malevolent figure in the distance and displays his own malevolence.
The party makes camp. In the morning, they see a giant spider beating a group of three, two tieflings, and a fire genasi. The spider begins to draw one of the tieflings into its lair, and Nebet causes it to fall asleep. The party slays the spider, only for Nebet to disappear below the earth, pierced by a second spider.
The party follows Nebet, and the spider rips her apart before their eyes. Her body turns to salt, except for her cloak and the hag's amulet. Patxi wrestles the spider while Fihr and Haprah slay it. The Grateful Genasi gives Aneksi a token with a symbol of a beautiful woman's face and a perforated line on it. It is clearly meant to be broken in half. Much of the party loots the Sand Spider's lair while Fihr prays to Dumathoin over Nebet's corpse and a small cairn forms over the salty body. Aneksi has a crisis of faith and resolves it by attempting to resurrect Nebet. It does not work.
The next two days are quiet for most of the day. On the final day, Fihr is nearly trampled to death when he and Haprah try to wrangle some feral camels. The party finishes their long trek through the sands to the recently unveiled Gully, where the door to the temple is placed. The party reaches camp and is greeted by a round halfling cook.
A door leads into the earth. Well made but otherwise unadorned except for a prominent symbol of Vergadain. Fihr goes over to the temple to offer communion with Vergadain. The Cook brings a cauldron of stew for the party to eat. The rest of the camp is run by a pair of Earth Genasi twins, a dwarven hunter, and a Windswept woman who are part of the Fortune and Favor Society. The door is trapped with a force blast that hits anyone who touches it.
The party searches and finds the door has 5 keyholes, words written over each keyhole: leftmost is dwarven, the middle is thieves cant Safe,? safe, dangerous,. Patxi wiggles metal in the leftmost unknown keyhole and a Chained Angel emerges from a dimensional rift. The keyhole vanishes. Fihr takes his time with one of the "safe" keyholes, but it resists his best efforts. Something in the keyhole is making it more difficult to pick.
Seeing that it's close to the upcoming full moon, the party attempts an impromptu Coin Festival. Patxi and Haprah get into a competition. Aneksi dumps ten gold into the coin festival and one of the dangerous keyholes sparkles. The party decides to help Fhir pick one of the unsafe keyholes, which works! They eventually get the door open, and a spectral image appears, playing out something from far in the past.
Spectral image: Large cube covered in strange runes on a hovering disk, surrounded by four priests of Vergedain and two priests of Clangedden Silverbeard. They are all wounded and looking backward, clearly fleeing from something.
Fihr and Patxi go probing for traps. They find a pit trap and a way to bypass it by walking in the tracks from the old treasure carts. The party gathers in the cavern holding the Temple to Vergedain. They enter the courtyard, and Aneksi is distracted by the magical mosaic on the floor. Three buildings in the front--the Main Temple in the middle, the Treasure Vault to the left, and the Dormitory to the right. The dormitory is mostly empty of personal effects, although the high priest's chamber has an expensive carpet. Patxi is excited about the oak table. Fihr and Haprah explore while Patxi sees if Thrunkle wants to use the kitchen. Thrunkle is asleep.
In the back of the temple is a shrine to Vergedain, the Thief wearing the Vest of Vergedain. Thieves' tools are resting on the shrine. Fihr leaves his thief's tools as an offering and steals the tools at the shrine. A ball-bearing golem rises from the shrine. The golem explodes, and Fihr dives down to strike it from the rooftops. Haprah climbs to her feet and dispatches it with Sham-shir and dagger. A second shrine is dedicated to Vergedain the Merchant, who is wearing a golden vest. Fihr notes it as potentially sacred.
Fihr and Haprah open the doors to the temple of Vergedain and go inside. Inside, they find the main temple and awaken two stone guardians! Haprah clambers onto the one stone guardian and unloads her gun into it, shattering the stone. Patxi hears the fight, and runs over while calling Aneksi. They get there in time to drop the statue with a heavy blow. There is an acid trap in the vault lock. It drenches Fihr and Aneksi before they disarm it. Fihr goes into the vault to check for traps. He starts unloading the treasure when the treasure grabs him. Patxi smashes the first horde golem to bits while Fihr finishes the second. The third is dispatched in a flurry of blows by Haprah. Patxi and Fihr open the secret door in Vergedain's mosaic, and a spectral image appears.
The spectral image shows the people living in the temple all being led down into the lower levels by the same clerics from before. They head down, hurried but not panicked, taking their belongings with them.
Fihr and Patxi head down the stairs to find a horde Drake, waiting for them and tasting the air, eager for their valuable. Nebet returns from death, resurrected by forces unknown. She knows she has made a deal, but remembers not with whom or what. Awkwardness ensues.
Thrashral, the horde drake at the bottom of the stairs below the temple of Vergedain, speaks to Fihr and Kei. They learn she is a servant of the Sovereign of the Wild Winds Desert and has been tasked with guarding an ancient tunnel. They speak with her and are given permission to wander the complex in exchange for their gold when they leave.
While exploring the southern hallway, Patxi finds a mural of Vergedain that looks odd. He sticks Fihr's fingers up the mural's nose, and a secret door opens. Inside the secret room is a magic mirror. Fihr drags Nebet into the room and tells her of his intentions to slay Thrashral. The mirror activates, and Fihr and Nebet speak with a dwarf from the High Temple of Vergedain in Vogeldur, a chain of islands hundreds of miles away.
The rest of the party speaks with The Mutterer, a being behind a sealed door. She suspects the party of being servants of the Blue Dragon. Eventually, the party convinces her of their good intentions, and she passes them a pair of magical amulets. The party finds a pair of shield guardians down the opposite hallway guarding a large heavily locked door. They use the amulets to take control of the Shield Guardians and enter the vault. Inside the vault is a portal.
The party activates the portal and enters the Chamber of the Infinite Prison! They are met with two powerful guardians, a Sphynx of Secrets and a Guardian Nage. The pair have become wives in their long sentence together guarding the infinite prison, and are more than eager for the task to be done. The party convinces them of the quality of their hearts and the truth of their purpose. The whole party agrees to take an oath to: "Right the ancient wrong and free she who is caught in the Infinite Prison". The guardians leave, returning to the celestial realms and the party returns through the portal to find three days have passed, and the temple is collapsing. The Mutterer has emerged, she is a powerful undead. She asks the party to do better with the Infinite Prison than they did. Thrashrawl is nowhere to be found. Ranul has come to find them and takes them back to the surface. They return to the surface to find the camp slaughtered and a blue half-dragon waiting for them.
