Reflections in the Dark: Liga Bur

Clinging tightly to the much heavier Mir Hundur in the ferocious updraft, Liga Bur tumbles after his Elven and Human compatriots. The semi-plummeting Fortu was quickly swallowed up by the swirling darkness below but he actually starts to gain on the slenderer, lightly armoured Arowe. Still, he and his faithful hound are the last to enter the absolute and unnatural shadows beneath the rotating tower.

Unable to judge the remaining distance in the black mist, they land with a bump and Liga Bur immediately rolls off his loyal companion to prevent further injury. The fire elemental; Dijonn, despite flaring wildly, is only able to pierce about ten feet of the, almost tangible, blackness that surrounds them. After picking himself up and soothing his wide-eyed dog, Liga Bur starts to search for his friends. He calls their names but his voice is worryingly muffled in the fog-like darkness.

Ever the pragmatist though, he considers what their next move should be. He's a great tracker, ironically better than the skillful Orc who'd trained him, and he's only gotten better since. His old mentor; Gajutar Auga had often joked that it was just because he was closer to the ground. Despite that though, tracking a flying horse for several days across a desert on a unfamiliar world? Impossible. The life-toughened Halfling is confident however, that once they find their way out of this black hole, he could easily guide his charges back to bustling Valdez city or dead Zephir's oasis and the portal back home to Fissa.

While leading Mir Hundur slowly forward and calling out every few steps, the sharp-minded Halfling wonders about Sir Briefadel's last few words.

"Tell my Father that, after I’ve raised my army, I'm coming for him. And then, once he's dead, I'm going to finish what he started!"

Liga Bur, perhaps due to his cautious Halfling nature or his outsider Orcish upbringing, held an instinctive distrust of large Human settlements and had avoided the main cities of Stowan. He'd travelled there only because of the stories he'd heard of old Halfling settlements along its Feyland boarders. 

Now though, perhaps it would be prudent to travel to Stowan's capital city; Cottis and warn old Lord Urdurel that his son is coming to get him?

Going Underground!

Just a short reminder (after our loooong recess) of the Party's current situation.

With the timely assistance of Rifkin, the Party managed to evade the (certain death by Tyrannosaurus Rex) third and final bout in the gladiatorial arena of Valdez and (with seven camels, tents and supplies) escape into the desert.

The Party had also (conveniently) encountered the blue-clad Moody. The self-same Wizard who had previously captured them and bribed the Odds-master to ensure Arowe's death. He is now a bound and gagged prisoner, without hawk familiar, hope or his spell book.

After several night's successful navigation though, Liga Bur was psychically attacked by a withered, hunchbacked old woman during his dreams. His fevered rants though were proven real  by the sudden reawakening of the magical mummified hand, still carried deep within Rifkin's knapsack. Coming back to ‘life’, it literally crawled out and pointed out the vile, ethereal creature before conferring 'sight-beyond-sight' to Arowe. 

Weakened and struggling to stay awake, Liga Bur still managed to lead the Party toward the mythical tower. On day six the Party came across an unlikely but tall rocky crag, offering fresh water, shade and potentially edible vegetation. In the darkest of the multiple shadows cast by the three suns in the sky, three bodies lay sprawled in the sand. They looked decades old; skeletal, but some items, glinting in the light, seemed to have survived.

Guessing them to be either valuable or magical, Barbella licked his parched lips and offered to 'check ‘em awt'. 

Unfortunately, after sifting through some of the items, the swarthy soldier looked momentarily confused but before he could convey his findings, the sand erupted beneath him! A huge insectoid creature burst from below the corpse and snatched the screaming Barbella up in its mandibles. With clever forethought by the pragmatic Fortu though, Barbella had been tethered by rope to the stout Doberman.

Something's wrong though. Barbella's thrashing and screaming like he's burning and the should-be-sturdy rope looks like it's already shredding. The rest of the party stare in horror from about thirty feet back.

Except the ever-ready archer elf; Arowe, who releases a readied feathered shaft, despite the exploding sand and the flailing Barbella, direct into the insectoid creatures face from thirty feet away…

INITIATIVE!

Supplies, Supplies!

Rifkin gives a brief black look as he takes a stock-check and sees, with a sinking feeling, that he’d indeed under-estimated their food and water supply requirements. He’d purchased enough for exactly sixteen days (Including what he could provide with his magic porridge spoon). That should’ve been enough to last them from Valdez city to the mythical tower and then either to the dimensional portal/well oasis or, worst case scenario, back to the recently fled Valdez.

It wasn’t due to poor mathematics though. He just hadn’t accounted for his Elven companion Arowe finding, beating and taking the Wizard Moody captive. Even accounting for Fortu’s surprising abusive treatment of him, Rifkin couldn’t bring himself to starve the man. 

Unless they find water along the way or at the tower, they are going to run out about two days before they should have. Two days before they can get back to either the oasis or the city.

Realisation hits him right between the eyes. For all his efforts in saving them, he might have accidentally done to his friends what’d almost happened to him. After everything they’d seen, all they’d been through, all the monsters they’d faced, they might all just die of basic thirst!

Glancing over to the sagging, barely awake and bloodshot eyed Liga Bur, the Bard wonders to himself, if the Halfling tracker, in his current state, is capable of finding any food or water in this inhospitable desert?

All seven of their lives may depend upon it… 

Eight including Mir Hundur! 

Nine including the bound Wizard Moody!!

Plutocracy: The Lords of Wealth and Death

Considering Rifkin's natural charm and skill set, it doesn't take him long to discover that Valdez, magnificent city as it is, has recently experienced a failed coup. The city's leadership are the wealthiest members of society but also the most decadent and the most hated. It's only their iron-fisted control of the city guard that maintains their elevated position.

Less than a month ago though, a popular and virtuous Captain of the city guard; Najam, tried to incite a rebellion against the corrupt council. Over a period of months, he'd covertly recruited a large portion of the city's soldiers to his cause but was ultimately betrayed by one of the very men he'd trusted the most. He was arrested in the dead of night, while lying unarmed and naked with his young, pregnant wife.  

The head of the leading family; High Lord Thariun, ordered that all of the surviving rebels be interred into the pits of the gladiatorial arena. To fight and die for his personal entertainment. Most were killed quickly but some of them have not just survived, but thrived, actively winning over swarths of the population in the process.

Enraged, Thariun has ordered the arena Odds-master to weight each progressive battle further and further against the surviving soldiers by supplying rare and dangerous creatures. Huge, ferocious beasts that no amount of human skill or daring could possibly overcome.

From his room in one of the cheaper boarding houses, Rifkin considers the situation. Using this information, won't be easy but perhaps it could be useful...