Previous installments: Session #1, Session #2, Session #3, Session #4, Session #5, Session #6, Session #7
Meteora the Amazon
Ellipsis the Hunter
Porphyra the Lyrist
Buff the Warrior henchman (level 1)
Chuff the second Warrior henchman (level 0)
Romulus the semi-domesticated (at best) wolf of Porphyra
The session started with a track to the south along the river. A mild rain started. The group circled around the frog-people's swamp, but found a couple of discarded miniature mice-weapons along the edge. These they gathered, to have more tangible proof about the great Batrachomyomachia they had observed the day before.
During the trip, Ellipsis eyed the sky cautiously, afraid of vulture attacks. However, peril came from another direction: the river! Two giant snakes slithered out from the water, and attacked the group. The monsters were strong, with coiling bodies and green-yellow-brown scales. Porphyra tried her signature move - WRESTLING! But she got constricted by one of the snakes instead, and was almost crushed. Ellipsis and the two warriors peppered the snakes with arrows and sling bullets. Meteora and Romulus took the serpents in melee. Meteora was constricted too, but she was able to break away. Finally Porphyra broke out of the deadly situation as well, and tried to fight fire with fire: she wrestled with the snake again! But the snake simply shed its skin! So Porphyra wrestled a fine snake-skin instead of a snake...
But in the end, the group was able to defeat both monsters.
As this happened about an hour away from the village, they decided to transport the snake-meat home. Ellipsis started gutting the monsters. He found a big bulging area in the snake's belly, so he opened it up, and found the remains of what seemed to be parts of a pony, and parts of a teenager. The group thought that this might actually be a young centaur (as they've learned a couple of sessions back that the west bank of the river is "centaur country").
They opted to spend some extra time here, risking travel at night, to give the remains of the centaur a proper cremation and burial.
Luckily, this delay didn't lead to any extra encounters. And around midnight they reached their home village.
There two of them noticed a person sneaking out of one of the houses, and running off into the night!
They deposited the snake meat, and followed the person. The person headed south. Then, after a couple of bends, met up with two more people on the path. The mysterious trio lit a little oil lamp. The light revealed them to be three women from the colony: Hyppolita, Cydippe and Penelope. The adventurers followed them, and soon they learned the women's destination: the Phoenician temple on the promontory (the temple was visited by the adventurers during the first session of the game)!
The women set their lamp and three basket with small offerings on the altar in the courtyard, then went inside. To the adventurers' surprise, the guardian statue did not animate and attack the intruders!
After some discussion with her peers, Penelope started praying. From their conversation, the eavesdropping adventurers learned that Penelope and her husband weren't able to beget a child yet, so Penelope decided to turn to the god or gods of this temple. Her reasoning was that this temple had been here for a longer time then the own new-found chapel of the colony. After the prayer, the women left the temple.
The adventurers made their presence known, and offered to escort back everybody to the village, because the nightly forest is dangerous. Penelope asked them to keep this visit to the temple a secret. The adventurers agreed, but Chuff, one of the henchmen (a friend of Penelope's husband), grumbled and argued all the way back to the village.
The next morning the adventurers told about their recent exploits, and Porphyra sang a six-hour long epic about wrestling snakes.
Their initial plan was to get tools from the village, then track back north-northeast, build a raft, and cross the river there to reach the volcano.
Instead, they gathered rations, tools, put them on a donkey, and decided to cross the river using their sailing ship right next to the village. Instead of tackling the volcano, they decided to explore the west bank of this river, perhaps circle around the northern swamps, and reach the volcano from there. Their fear of what might live in the waters next to the volcano remained strong.
So this is what they did.
On the west bank of the river, they tracked north. In the fields they saw signs of a herd of animals graying. Then further to the north the group reached a rugged, mountainous area. Their ascent was uneventful. But on the upper ridge, a small pack of wolves appeared. The animals didn't attack, just observed and followed the group for some time.
They camped for the night. The wolf-pack returned, in greater numbers, but still didn't attack. In the morning, the group traveled north along the mountain's crest, and found an ominous cave entrance - which they plan to explore next session!
To be continued...
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