Out of the Jungle, for real this time
[Dates to come later, filled in by Melanie]
We continue our travel through Abyssinia, changing to Phantom Steeds in order to make better time now that we have roads to ride on. After a bit of smooth going we find another burned out village. There is dark black ash everywhere, and no people or standing buildings. Agav tells us that a lot fo people ran, and than a large very heavy stone construct has been though here. He's going the same way we are going, and is about three days ahead of us. We resign ourselves to a tough combat in a few days and push onward.
We meet a very old elf in the road. He says his name is ????, and that he is a druid from the lost city of Ys. He has traveled very far and very long, and now he craves death. He challenges Ailyll to a duel, with the request that it be to the death. She agrees on the condition that she can also opt to give up. He gives her 24 hours to rest up. In that time Harald interrogates him about Ys and its history and fall.
The duel itself is great, and full of tense moments. It turns out that if you are a druid whose homeland has been destroyed you turn into skeleton versions of the animals you have seen. Ailyll starts out in velociraptor form, and promptly beats down her opponent in human form. He flubs his Poison spell (jerk) and then turns into a skeletal ostrich. Not surprisingly ostrich loses to velociraptor rather quickly. He turns into a little skeleton lizard to try and get some distance, but she chases him. Before she can attack he turns into a skeletal Javanese dwarf rhino (the jerk) and attacks. He puts on a big hurt, and Ailyll goes through ostrich and human, finaly turning into a lion for the big finish. She fulfills the elf's wish by allowing him to bleed out after he goes unconsious, and we bury him.
We travel at night, and after a day or so we find a 12 foot tall Obsidian Golem in a clearing filled with newly dead people. Most have been crushed or rendered limb from limb. We attack the figure to no avail, but it doesn;t come to life as we expected. It registers magic as Alteration, but very faintly. We put two and two together and realize that we need to wait for dawn. We do so, prepping such spells as we have ready, and sure enough the darn thing rumbles to life. We fight, and it kicks our butt, taking down Mamun with one blow and shooting Harald with a fiery eye-beam. We run for it, some on the ground and some in the air. The blasted thing sits for a second, then takes flight after us. Luckily we are the faster, and we get away.
After a day's rest we take better spells and search out the slumbering monster before dawn. Ailyll summons and Super-sizes some Rhinos, and we all get ready. At dawn the monster roars to life, but we take it down in a few minutes. However, Allah seems to think that we haven't beat the beast for good, so we decide to huck the rock pieces into a volcano. We summon some new rhinos, load up the rubble, and head to the nearest volcano, a mere 100 miles away. The next dawn the golem reassembles and we take it down again, this time without rhino help and with more peril. We make it to the volcano before the next dawn, and throw in the bits. They sink, but do not melt, heralding a future confrontation. Still, Allah says that we need not worry for the next 30 minutes, so we head off to Axum.
We reach Axum in a day, and skulk around fro a bit before determining that the Maidens are OK and we're not wanted or anything. The next day Yodat summons us, and we talk about our adventures. She seems a little too balse about the revolution we have heard is going on in the South. Jan Seom, bastard half-brother to Miriam, has crowned himself King. Yodat doesn't really care so much, but she promises to give us the keys to the Source of the Nile Dungeon if we take him out. We say we'll think about that after we finish Raiding the Lost Ark. Aderaz says he had a prophetic dream that we took out the Fiery Angels and then everything went black. We get Yodat to pledge Aderaz, Hadneya, and maybe Nelanteyos to help cast spells to buff us up pre-Angel fighting. The deal is that we take out the Angels, then Aderaz has to use the Ark. He will raise El-Agalay from the dead, and copy any texts inside the Ark for us. Hadneya comes to see us that night and identifies some of our mysterious items. It seems that a mysterious bracer Harald got from a Hittite dungeon can cast fireballs on any plane of existence but this one. Also, our healing staff now casts Cause Wounds spells. Finally, the Rhino headress we got in the City of Silence is a cloak of protection kind of item, only usable by midgets.
