To the Isle of the Ass-Men, aka the Donestrae
Harald and Maidens cross the normal desert, eventually arriving at civilization by following our most excellent Clairvoyance map. After a brief rest in a town they proceed to the coast, hoping to catch a boat to Ethiopia. One of the princesses is recoginized by a boat captain, and we get passage with him to Ethiopia. Harald also meets Saiiq and hires him as an additional maiden-protector.
The boat is boarded and it takes off, eventually ending up near a small island off the coast of Yemen. The boat pulls up there and a splash is heard off the bow. Immediately afterwards the boat falls to pieces as all metal objects are pulled with incredible speed and force towards the center of the island. Harald keeps some weapons, but Saiiq loses quite a bit of stuff. Everyone swims to shore and tries to dry off when an Ass-man appears. He is man above and donkey below, and he calls us by name and claims to know our future, saying that it is written in the Book of Life. Then he says he will eat us, or rather, our lower halves, as the Donestrae are not cannibals, and we fight, eventually defeating him. We meet some other survivors of a shipwreck from a few days before: Agav, Mamum, and the paladin Basil. We all try to follow the path of flying nails, chainmail, etc through the forest, and end up at a large circular structure in the center of a clearing. There are four doors, one for each cardinal direction, and an Ass-man at each door. We defeat them, and enter the building. Inside is an Ouannis, or giant fish with little human legs and a face on its belly. We kill it and investigae a smaller round building inside the big round building. It too has four doors, and they line up with the outer doors. Inside is a big rock covered with lots of metal stuff, and a lever. When the lever is put in nuetral the metal falls off the rock. If the lever is in forward or reverse the metal flies with great speed either towards or away from the rock. The doors of the interior hut block the magnetic effect, so that one can choose the direction of the power by opening and closing the doors.
After we have taken back our stuff and experimented a little the Donestrae begin to arrive in force. Harald casts fly on Basil who goes out to scout around. We learn that high-level Donestrae can likewise fly, but Basil avoids combat by bluffing that we are employed by the Ouannis. The Donestrae and Ouannis apparently have a long-standing fued, and the Donestrae fear a full-out Ouannis attack. While Basil is scouting the Donestrae try to storm the compound, but we hold them off by firing several loads of nails and shot using the "repel" setting.
When Basil returns we hatch a plan whereby Agav does a little surgery on the Ouannis and inserts himself inside, acting as its legs. He leads all of us but Basil to the shore, where Harald casts a Wall of Ice hemisphere to use as our boat. We all pile in, and deposit all of our metal in the bow. Just in time Basil throws the repel switch, hurtling us across the sea back towards Yemen. Basil follows, flying, and we are reunited in the sea. We make it back to Yemen, where a wide-eyed woman with long black hair runs up to our ice-boat and exclaims that she desires to learn our crazy magic. Harald hires on Agav, Mamun, and the newcomer Adel, and Basil decides to go back to his Arabian home.
