Fire and Water

The last few days travel pass uneventfully and the Party finally get to within sight of the doubly-dead; Zephir’s oasis. It’s withered and browned a fair bit since they were first here but, considering it contains their way back home to Fissa, it’s still a very welcome sight.

Scattered prone around the outer periphery are several tall, multi-limbed bodies though. Several dead, tall, multi-limbed bodies. The corpses of about a score of the nomadic, insectoid Tri-Kreen. The skilled Liga Bur initially suspects another zombie trap but, after ‘careful’ inspection with a ten foot pole, he’s relieved to find them merely mundanely dead. Probably innocent desert travellers exploiting the free water supply here and killed needlessly and mercilessly by Sir Briefadel, his Mother and the dark horse they rode in on.

Scouting ahead and grateful to find no opposition guarding the inner oasis, Liga Bur cautiously approaches the top of the central stone well. Once there though, the fiery Dijonn on realising what’s happening, suddenly flares wildly atop his torch perch.

“Oh No, Oh No, Oh No! Please Master, don’t put me down the well! Leave me here; I can guard the oasis for you. I can easily survive on just the dead, dried out bushes and trees. I promise I won’t burn the living green stuff!”

Rifkin’s slightly-almond eyes also flair, but far more subtly as he hears Dijonn’s terrified hisses and crackles. Why hadn’t he thought about this before now? There’s no way that the flame-bodied Dijonn could survive for even a second underwater and there’s no way to protect him from it for anything more than a few moments.

Arowe immediately comes to the little elementals defence and Liga Bur has no interest in extinguishing his spluttering servant. The canny Halfling had noticed that Dijonn always shrank to his smallest, unnoticeable flame whenever Ghostly Pardrik was on guard or when the Hag had visited. The fire elemental was definitely hiding something, but what?

Still, whatever that ‘what’ is, it’s no reason to kill him. The rough Halfling had begun to question his own cynicism of late. He hadn’t trusted Fortu, Arowe or Rifkin when he’d first met them on the road to Scar Borough, and now he’d trust them with his life. He had been trusting them to protect him from the protracted attacks from the Hag and they’d not let him down. Considering his past losses, it’s hard to have faith in people but perhaps it’s time to change that mindset. Perhaps he could have faith in something bigger than himself. Something deeper. Perhaps he should choose to believe that Henshaw and Doberman weren’t secretly plotting against him… Barbella would be more of a stretch though.

After making Dijonn swear on his favourite fire gods not to burn down the entire oasis, Liga Bur frees the tiny elemental by gently transferring it from his torch to a dried out bush on the dead outskirts of deader Zephir’s oasis garden.

Immediately growing larger, as he consumes the dry and brittle bush, Dijonn smirks as he wavers the Party goodbye.

“Good luck skin-wearers!.”

In-Sects Appeal

 

Three Mantis and a Beetle

With their (surprisingly freshly cleaned and polished) clothes and armour donned, weapons ready and equipment accounted for, the three reluctant combatants enter the arena. The fair-haired, willowy Arowe and the darkly armoured Fortu on foot, while the smaller, glowering Liga Burr rides in atop his heavy hound. 

The circular combat area is approximately a hundred feet in diameter, with high stone walls all around guarded from above by multiple archers and spear-men. There are four large iron barred exits/entrances, equally spaced in the continuous, curved and smooth sandstone wall but one of the gates is far larger than the other three. Perhaps as much as twenty-feet tall!

Above the largest gate is the seating section for the richer, more powerful members of society and at its centre is a stone throne. The ostentatiously dressed, pot-bellied man, sitting there, adorned in gold and silk, radiates arrogance and power. Those in the seats surrounding him, seem lesser but similar and all of them obviously crave his attention and largesse. The multiple guards here, seem as much about protecting them from the crowd than the gladiators.

The Party's main priority though, are their three opponents, who already occupy the space about 80', directly opposite them. Three four-armed bipedal creatures, unarmoured in the normal sense, they're large, insect-like creatures with obvious, hard outer carapaces and bulging eyes. They're all standing in front of a massive armoured creature that resembles a gigantic, dun-brown Pill-bug. An armoured bug bigger than four horses combined!

Liga Burr realises that these creatures were the same kind that he'd spotted a day after leaving Zephyr's oasis. Desert creatures... Probably tough desert creatures. 

Each of the three, though obviously of the same green 'skinned' race, are markedly different in size. The tallest of them must stand at almost 7'. The next one, slightly over 6' and the smallest, barely 3'.

The smallest one, standing next to the giant, brown bug, quickly squats down, before springing onto the back of his medium sized teammate and launching itself upwards and back. The short, green, multilimbed creature then grabs onto the lowest of the many ironwork handholds bolted directly into the massive bug's armoured plates and scampers up to its flatter back. 

The remaining, ground-bound, taller two, start to flex and twist their multiple, elongated limbs in preparation for the coming bout. The medium sized one, tosses several of its green-glass throwing triangles high into the air, before deftly snatching each of them up again before they hit the sand. The tallest one though, uses all four arms to twirl its twin, double crescent bladed spears, faster and faster until they become a flashing blur of intermeshed steel.  

At the sight of this skillful display, the morning crowd starts to roar and jeer in anticipation...

"Twenty gold on the Thri-Kreen!"

Aaaaaand in the Red Corner!