Nomen Infernale IV: Coming Up for Air

Battered, but triumphant La Compagnia dragged their paralyzed and hobbled companions out of the mine where Zahur Nahi had made camp relatively close to the entrance. He grumbled bitterly that they had not brought a mess kit or fresh foodstuffs. Kegho felt strangely invigorated by the excursion despite the expansion of the withering rot across his face and neck. Teleptyon's mind was his own again, but he remained wild-eyed and skittish. Abet and Alexandru remained paralyzed, but their fingers had begun to twitch slightly as the magic that bound them lost it's potency. Brother Theophilus teetered past the brink of exhaustion but tended to minor wounds with plasters and unguents before collapsing onto his bedroll. Theon hung in a cloudy sky while a light, cool breeze rippled through the camp reappropriated from the Beastmen vanguard. Kegho took the first watch, during which time Abet and Alex finally shook loose from the shamaness's spell. Abet sat with him and asked whether that was normal behavior for the mage, and opined that it may be a sign that the mines were affecting him as well. Riven took the next watch. She was alerted by something large moving through the desert, but it drew no closer and her watch passed in peace. Asbjørn took the third watch. The camels began struggling against their tethers and lowing. Asbjørn skulked as quietly as he was able toward the camels to investigate and heard something moving in the darkness. He stopped to listen and thought he heard something but could not tell where it came from. He threw a stone in its general direction and something large ran off into the night.

The following day, Theo, now rested, blessed the meal and healed Riven, Asbjørn, Abet and Alex. Alex asked Zahur about whether his grandfather had had stories of Tel Jumrah. He only knew that the obelisks somehow drew down the lightning even from clear skies. Abet, overhearing them interjected that Jumrah was the name of the Oubasti rogue who had captured lightning in a bottle.

Rested and fed, they returned to the mines, searching more thoroughly for drystone. Abet complained again that they had not brought a Keb with them and gave them a rough understanding of what drystone looks like. They searched through the storeroom near the entrance and found veins of a black, semi-gloss stone, but did not know what it was. Abet suggested that perhaps deeper in the mines they would find drystone.

They continue back to the intersection where they had fought their battle with the bearmen tribe earlier and found that the bodies had been removed. They wondered how concerned they should be that the bearmen still had enough bearmanpower to remove all of the corpses. Alex mused whether having slain the creatures which may have been sacrificed to the dark bearman gods made them a culpable participant in the eyes of the Ouranic gods. Theo, still tender in some of his more sensitive areas from his recent trial by fire, hissed his disagreement with the sentiment.

Asbjørn led the party into the passage where they assumed the bearmen's lair was, the air heavy with the smell of death and the ceiling crowded with stalactites, and was immediately shot at by an archer hidden in the shadows. Alex slipped in behind a rocky outcropping with his eyes on a bearman who was partially behind an outcropping of his own. He settled in with his sling at the ready. The bearman stepped from behind its cover to throw a spear at Asbjørn and as it did Alex whipped a bullet at its head. It did not have time to react to the accuracy and force of the shot as blood and brain matter seeped from the hole in its skull and it dropped to the floor. The spear it had thrown grazed Asbjørn on the arm. A bugbear archer and Abet fired at each other and struck. Riven also entered battle and struck true with an arrow. Alex, overconfident from his last shot, missed. Asbjørn and Abet each sliced a bugbear in half; Asbjørn chose to slice horizontally and Abet vertically. Asbjørn would stew for days over being shown up in a feat of strength this way.

With the last of the bearmen dead, the group spread out and began searching the chambers of their lair. Alex found a barrel filled with silver coin, Asbjorn found sacks containing a blue stone, a silver necklace, a chunk of white jade and a tiara. Riven checked the throne for traps and found it safe.