Chapter 2.1 - "Treasure Of The Bloated, Obscene Toad-Sphinx"

 May 10, 2010. The Adventurers:

Ferlix - Lhoyg Man Amnesiac Fighting-Man with Tales of Treasure

Kalervo - Folksy, Sand-Wise Cactoid

Baron Rodan the Scrounger - Zermish Man Vassal of Darath Ymph

Sleestakarus - Semi-Famous Lizardoid Pit Fighter and Former Gladiatoral Slave

Part II Here, Part III Here.

A Piebald Man stumbles through the red dunes, caked with fine scarlet grit and bearing a bloody, ragged bandage about his hairless head. Clad in brigantine and with a crossbow and axe hanging from his harness, he clutches his reeling head as he stumbles through the clouds of ruddy dust.

The party returns to their blue tower and order their slave and skeletroopers to unload their baggage from the expedition to the Deodand-haunted ruined city. Rodan the scrounger has a bloody wad of rags pressed against a bleeding eyesocket...one of his eyeballs was slit and ruined in their recent confrontation with Deodands, the near-featureless faceplate of the helmet of his new suit of ulfire-alloy adavanced ancient articulated plate armor bears a vertical rend from the Deodand's eye-removing talon-slash.

The skeletrooper sentries shout and point bony fingers at the stumbling Lhoyg fighting-man that emerges from the dust flurries. Baron Rodan shouts an order to hold fire, and with two of his companions, Kalervo and Sleestakarus, he walks towards the stranger while the rest of the party disperses to recover from their adventures.

The Lhoyg Man bears an almost healed head injury and is suffering from amnesia, remembering his name, Ferlix, his trade, Fighter, and the location of a looming, obscene, black basalt toad-sphinx along with rumors of great wealth within.

The three greedy adventurers ear's are intrigued by this tale and they resolve to join Ferlix in an expedition to the black toad-sphinx, located on the edge of the Iridium Plateau escarpment miles above and even more mile to the northwest.

After resting and preparing the party strikes out south and than west on Ornith-back in order to avoid confrontation to the hammer-staff bearing Shark Men troopers of the slaver The Shark Who Devours Human Lives. Arriving at the base of the towering, steely-gray escarpment, the travel northwards along it's toes until they arrive at the five-mile wide mouth of a titanic box canyon extending fifteen miles into the plateau. Northwards they can see the hunched black form of their destination, perched on the edge of the cliff-top on the northeastern edge of the canyon miles away.

The party casts their keen and seasoned eyes across the surrounding terrain, looking for some trail or path ascending the gargantuan cliffs looming above. Kalervo, with his highly honed desert-craft, finds a small tunnel hidden behind some red boulders. A narrow, cramped tunnel with a low ceiling ascending through the grey stone of the cliff at a steep angle with crude, irregular steps.

They begin ascending, with Baron Rodan at the lead, Kalvervo behind using a beam lamp to illuminate the steps through Rodan's legs. The newcomer, Ferlix, takes up the rear with a sputtering green chemical torch-flare.

After what seems like hours of laborious toil up the tortuous cramped stair Ferlix hear the sound of muffled voices from the tunnel ahead. The party halts and Sleestakarus slithers up the stairs sans light source or companions.

The Lizardoid Gladiator crawls up a small distance before hhe sees dim gray illumination ahead; he cautiously proceeds and sees the liht intensify where the small tunnel appears to emerge into a large chamber. He listens but hears no sound and returns to the party with his intelligence.

The party cautiously continues and when Rodan sticks his head into the chamber he sees a crowd of two or three score diversely malformed mutants clutching spears and clubs. The largest, holding a large stone-headed cudgel, orders him to put away his daggers soon the entire party is standing, surrounded by armed, vigilant mutants in a titanic oblong cavern, lit by cracks in one side admitting sunslight, filled with scattered crude stacked-stone huts.

Although the humans are treated with disdain and hostility, the mutant leader takes a liking to the Lizardoid and Cactoid and parleys with them. An arrangement is made for the party to swear a blood oath to not reveal the existence of or location of the mutant tribe, and a small tribute is made for allowing the humans to pass through the tribe's cavern to the surface above.

Sleestakarus and Kalervo question the mutant leader regarding the toad-sphinx and are informed that it is "A desolate place haunted by unclean spirits! A gate to a terrible hell-world lurks in it's depths! Our people have nothing to do with it, it is taboo!"

The party again ascends through a cramped, steep tunnel and after hours of leg-torment they arrive at the exit, leading to a narrow ledge on the face of the Iridium Escarpment with a steep knife-edge trail leading up to the Rust Desert above.

Staggering over the cliff-edge into the caked rust flakes of the Rust Desert, the party is exhausted as they make a rough camp while occasionally peering at the bloated basalt eidolon waiting for them across the canyon.