18th of Davor, 1329 Avard

Droog sat up abrubtly.

The bald-headed dwarf cast his eyes about cautiously, and searched for trouble. The stars were out, and the red light of Maroth was nowhere to be seen, so the dwarf guessed the time at seven or eight marks after noon. Not too far away, the desert elf was sitting in a meditative position, his back leaning up against his camel. The camel merely turned its head to look at the dwarf, and then went back to staring off at nothing.

Chills swept over the dwarf, and he realized what had awoken him. The desert heat was turning into a desert chill, and there was no wind at all.

It took Droog a bit to rouse the desert elf from his light trance, but once they were both up, they began to prepare to move out together.

Barome had scouted to the north of their position during that afternoon, and found little. There had been some week-old minotaur-lizard tracks, and other than that, not even a scorpion. It was as though some scourge had wiped the canyon to the north completely clean of life.

That news made Droog wary of the undead.

To the south at an indeterminate distance lay a dim glow, indicating a fire of some sort. Whether it was a huge camp fire, or a small torch, they couldn't tell; it could be just a few hundred yards away, or many miles away, in the dark of the desert night.

Barome took the lead, one hand on his camel's reins. Droog followed with his two-wheeled carriage, going as quickly as he could while still remaining relatively silent.

The canyon became steeper the further south they went. Flash floods were all that carved the canyon's walls, and no river ran through it, but the middle of the canyon had soft sand and silt, which made for fast and quiet travelling – even as the absence of trees made them cautious about the undead, or something else that could kill all life for enough years, for ther enot to be any trace of trees.

Barome jogged far enough ahead to keep about a half mile ahead of the dwarf. The canyon slowly became more rugged, with steeper walls and more rock and debris at its bottom. The desert elf even began to see the bones of kobolds and orcs. His hatred of the undead was rivaled only by his hatred of the ogran bones he saw.

The wind had finally begun to shift, such that a northern wind began to funnel down the canyon. The desert elf easily smelled the dwarf and his mule, and began scouting for a defensible position. He figured that it would not take long for their scent to find its way to whomever had set the fire that seemed not too far away on the horizon.

Two huge boulders bottle-necked the middle of a narrow point in the canyon, and both the desert elf and the dwarf figured it for an ideal defensive position. Droog left his draft-mule hooked up to his carriage, and put them on the north side of the eastern rock, and took up a position there. Barome lay atop the western boulder, and left Poncor to the north of his rock. Together, they lay in wait.

Maroth had begun to rise during their journey south, and had by then illuminated a good bit of the eastern face of the canyon wall, bathing it in blood. Despite the red light, the stars above were crystal clear.

After several marks, Barome grew bored, and tied a small vial of alchemist's fire to one of his arrows. He drew his huge bow back, and let fly an arrow off into the distance. When Droog asked what he was doing, Barome said that it was bait.

Another half mark went by, and still nothing happened.

Barome fired off two more arrows with alchemist's fire attached to them, one onto each side of the canyon wall, some distance away.

As another half mark went by, Barome's attention shifted to Poncor. The female camel smelled something, and it had her complete, undivided attention. Her eyes grew wide, and she let out a low, frightened sound. Whatever was scaring her, was north of their position.

Droog, whose dwarven eyes were made for working in the dark caves beneath mountains, saw something to the south. He saw several somethings, and it took him awhile to figure out what they were, in the rocky, uneven terrain.

He hissed over at Barome, “Kobolds!”

Barome saw a rock knocked off of the western side of the canyon wall, by something up on top of the canyon – something unseen.

The kobolds were using cover, and skirting closer.

The desert elf heard a 'whuffing' sound, and looked straight up the canyon wall, thirty feet over his head. There, outlined against the stars and backlit with red, were the horns of a minotaur lizard that was sniffing out its prey.

Barome leapt aside at the last moment, as the minotaur lizard almost landed on him – apparently not seeing him. Poncor bolted, running for her life, even as the minotaur lizard gave chase.

Kobolds leapt up from behind cover, one taking a shot at Droog, as others began racing towards the gap behind the boulders.

The kobolds did not see Barome, lying in the sand at the bottom of the canyon, as they tried to rush past Droog.

A blood battle ensued, with the huge desert elf taking the kobolds completely by surprise, even as the dwarf confused them with prayers that were answered by Galgiran, sling bullets, and his battle axe. The battle hit a slight lul with both sides on different sides of a big rock, each heaving deep breaths, as one of the kobolds called out in the ogran tongue that they were rebels, and not part of the Ogre Nations.

Barome, knowing the language of his enemies, learned that only the leader of the kobolds spoke the brutish ogran tongue. The kobolds were actually after the minotaur lizard, to eat, as they had little else to eat. Barome and Droog both (after Barome translated) realized that for them to chase a minotaur lizard for food meant they were, indeed, desperate.

A sort of truce was realized, in that they would both hunt the minotaur lizard, in exchange for all the information they had on the nearby ograns. As part of that agreement, the kobolds went ahead and let them know that other kobolds, and even orcs, were in 'the place where none live', which was about as close to 'ruins' as the ogran tongue got.

While keeping a wary eye on the remaining seven kobolds, Droog and Barome set back north, gathering what information they could from the kobolds as they went.

Barome learned of some desert elven 'ruins' about three days' travel to the east, for the kobolds. They also learned that the bones of the ograns were common in the canyon – many were caught by the flash floods that came every spring and fall.

Eventually, they found the place where the minotaur lizard had given up on chasing the faster Poncor, and set about laying a decent trap for the lizard, even going so far as to use kobold blood as bait.

Droog had the perfect prayer ready.

When the minotaur lizard bore down on them, Droog offered up to Galgiran a special prayer, and the Forge God answered.

The lizard was bespelled by Droog's soft words, spoken much as one would to a spooked puppy. The lizard listened, even when Barome leapt out onto its head, trusting to the dwarf's kind, gentle words, promises of something more…

Barome's longspear drove through the lizard's head and into its brain, killing it instantly.

The kobold's, who had been holding their breath, erupted in yips and barks – their language – and rushed forward to begin tearing off chunks of the beast with their short swords and small knives.

Still keeping a wary eye on the kobolds, Droog and Barome cut off large portions of the lizard's meat, themselves, to help supplement their larder.

After their first battle, Droog had healed one of the kobolds' wounds, undoing the damage he had done with his axe. The kobold had sort of fixated on the dwarf, after that, and was rarely found far from him. The kobold was still near Droog, even as it filled its belly with lizard meat.

The draft-mule did not like the smell of blood or the minotaur lizard, but resolutely dealt with it, even as plenty of meat was piled onto the small carriage.

Hoping to call Poncor back, Barome whistled shrilly with all his lungs, the sound echoing off of the canyon walls.

They began to hear coyote howls in the distance, and all the kobolds sat up, despite their big bellies. The rebels did not have any coyotes of their own, but many of the kobolts of the Ogre Nations still had them. The party was being hunted.

All of them begn to head further north through the canyon, even as it became less broken and more sandy. Barome just followed Poncor's tracks, and when the tracks became very fresh, he whistled again. That time, he was answered by a camel's unique bawl.

With Poncor recoverd, Barome set about leading them all towards the west, through one of the other cuts in the canyon's walls. He figured to make the desert elven ruins the kobold rebels had spoken of. One of the kobolds had peeled off, though, to 'get the rest of the clan'.

That bit of news worried both Droog and Barome, even as they all headed west, into the sand-and-rock-filled desert.

By noon, with the blazing heat of the hot sun cooking even Barome, they decided to hunker down and shelter near a large, sand-blasted chunk of sandstone rising some forty feet into the desert sky.

So is the 19th of Davor, 1329.

James and Erin seemed to really enjoy the descriptive elements of their battle with the kobolds. At one point, Erin's character speared a kobold just as Jame's cut it with his battle-axe. They did enough damage that Droog cut the thing in half, but the top was still in the air, held aloft by Erin's spear through it's rib cage. The bottom of the kobold just fell to the ground, steaming guts and loops of intestine spilling out, as the walls of the canyon were painted with a rain of blood.

We were all surprised that Droog's prayer to Galgiran worked as well as it did. Barome's coup d'grace was surprising, as well. I'm not sure if I like or dislike the new 3.5 rules for coup d'grace, and I'll double-check on those before we play again – but in this instance, everything went very well.

It seems the only time the guys can play is Friday nights, which means I miss the only shows I really watch TV for. (chuckle) S'all good, though, as I know there'll be reruns, but I'm irked I'm missing my Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG1 shows. Ah, well. S'life.

Addendum (17MAR2006): I'd forgotten both of the guys were wearing red shirts, that day. In all the original Star Trek episodes, the 'unnamed guy with the red shirt' dies. We laughed and joked about it a bit, and then played on. No one died, and we thought it was a fine joke on the old Star Trek tradition.

1,000. (total character XP to date is 5,500)