It is the evening before departing with Haram Baal through the
desert and we are walking through the town centre. All of the sudden a slave girl runs to us and throws herself
down at our feet. We see two men approaching with scimitars drawn. Jir-El draws
her bow and tells the girl to get behind her. One of the men yells “Thank you for apprehending the
prisoner!” Jir-El decides it is a good time to insult the men. They
become very angry. “You will regret crossing the toe cutter.” Several more Zarabi men approach. Lothar tries to negotiate but fails, so he rushes over to
attack but misses. Jir-El also lets loose her arrow but it is dodged. The Zarabi attack Lothar and he is hit hard. Second attack
Jir-El and nearly loses his weapon. Severos sees “the boss” and runs over to attack before
realising they are innocent bystanders. He rushes back. Roshana and Narfu run over to the bystanders. “Hey boys, can
you help us out?” Jir-El continues her arrow attacks with a double shot. One
hits hard. The other misses. The bystanders are not about to stick around and they flee.
Roshana decides it is best to do the same and she gets far out of sight. Jir-El is now hit by a Zarabi and is barely standing. Two
more join in on the attack and bring her down. Left defenceless, Narfu is captured by one of the Zarabi and
is frozen in terror. Three Zarabi attack Lothar to no avail. Another tries to hit
Severos but is parried. The tide seems to be turning in this battle. Severos and Lothar are unable to hit anyone while Jir-El is
now bleeding out. Just in time Roshan rallies Jir-El who shoots and misses.
Maybe the tide is not turning after all. Jir-El drinks a healing potion while the Zarabi tries to
flee with the girl. Severos runs after them and is stopped and attacked but
parries. Lothar is also attacked but parries. Servos nearly kills
another then runs over to the girl and grabs her wrist. Lothar manages to kill the one he has been battling. Roshana
also shoots and gets her first hit in battle which kills the Zarabi. The tide
is turning after all. Jir-El double shoots, badly wounding another Zarabi. Lotahr
manages an amazing blow killing two at one time. Severos misses and the Zarabi
tries again to flee with the girl. Lothar catches him and in a fit of rage strikes a ferocious blow
killing the last Zarabi. We look around at the town “nothing to see here folks”. We
loot the bodies. Lothar gets 7SP, Severos gets a mastercraft scimitar made of
Kajite steel and 4SP, Jir-El gets 10SP. The girl says “Please take me back to the palace. I am the
maid servant to the princess and we were both kidnapped by slavers. Lady Ekrimala
will reward you.” Lothar immediately agrees. Back at the castle, Narfu recounts how she was kidnapped,
knocked out by a sweet smelling rag. Princess Situhamma was taken out of the city. Lady Ekrimala is now talking, “Thank you very much. Lothar,
uou once again have proven your value. Please take this pouch of coins (20GP) for
you and your party. Narfu, let’s talk in private.” Severos catches Narfu’s eye and she blushes on the way out. An elderly manservant takes us to the bath where there are naked
slave girls, including Luna. Luna is
clearly unhappy and goes to Jir-El to avoid the men. The salves bathe and heal
us all. The next morning… “Can you try to rescue the princess from the desert while
you are there?” We are then off tjo meet Haram Baall for our trip at the
desert gate. We are promised 20GP each when we arrive and 20GP each when we
reurn safely. Haram introduces us to the caravan team. Jir-El and Lothar
have their own horses, but Severos has opted to act like a local and borrow a
camel. Lothar is in charge of navigation as we head west out of the city. On the 8 th day we arrive at fort Yirlat. We enter
the fort. The camels are taken to the south next to the Women’s House. The whole fort is packed as there are several caravans here
awaiting the guard. We go to find a drink and notice a bit of a “princling”
being waited on by the owner’s wife. He is accompanied by a beautiful scantily
clad woman. Two more scantily clad women are being guarded by a group of
men. Roshana clenches Lothar upon seeing the nearly naked women. Severos offers
to buy the girls and he is refused s “they are needed as bait for the dark
skinned cannibals”. Severos jokingly offers up Jir-El who is not at all amused. The prince address us, “Welcome my friends, where are you
traveling to.” Severos goes to chat. He discovers that the prince is heading to
the same place that they are. He decides to barter with the prince and offers to
go out of the way to get the prince where he needs to go for a fee. They agree
on 10GP. “I will go speak to our caravan master to make sure it is
all agreed.” Haram invites the part to the canteen at his expense. The
room is packed. Severos pulls Haram aside to let him know the two will be
joining. “No problem at all.” Severos goes to the prince to let him know it is all agreed
and buys the two of them some fine wine. It turns out that the prince is Azam. “Prince
or rougue, you decide. My means may be dubious, but my heart is pure.” It
appears that the prince tried to court the girl, who is mute, but her father said
“no”. It is now sunset and time for the evening meal. Roshana has spent the day training in order to be much better
with her bow. One shot one kill not being good enough for her… Nagoma, lovingly known as camel butt face by his ife, shares
the room with his cats. He lets us know that we will be here at least 2 or 3
days waiting for the desert patrol. We try to find a way to negotiate with the slavers trying to
trap the cannibals but decide it is going nowhere. After dinner we decide to go to the oasis at the south of
the fort. Lothar and Jir-El find the lovely Aygala swimming alone. “Why
are you out so late? “, asks Lothar. “You are right, I should go back to father…”
Lothar is entranced, he decides to try to talk her into staying with him for
the night…. “could be dangerous…” Lothar manages a manage a trois… Away from the oasis… Severos decided instead to check out the Women’s house. He’s is looking to flirt and exchange a bit of
gossip. He offers 1 GP for something interesting. “One of your type
runs the place, good man with lots of worries…” He hears more of the history of the locals (Al-Jifari?) who
were driven off and the fort was put up and the locals then charged for it.
This has created some bad blood. Later, Jir-El and Sevros independently notice 2 riders enter
the fort. Severos asks who they are. “Scouts
for the General. Bad news I fear.” “Let’s go inside and avoid the gaze…” Severos decides he’d like to have a bit of fun for the night
and hires the two youngest women, offering to let them see him “swing his two
handed axe”… An hour later…Jir-El is still at the oasis, staring at the
stars. Lothar has “performed well…” Yadida, the old woman, let’s Severos know that Lothar may
have crossed the line by wooing the daughter…Sevros goes to let him know. Now they notice lots of guys at the gate including Haram
Baal. No one looks happy. Haram lets everyone know. “We have been thrown out of the
fort, without any explanation.” Jir-El and Haram talk. They discuss that this is quite
unexpected and has never happened before. “Two guys cam in and we were all told
very forcefully that we must leave at once.” Jir-El rounds up the gang. Lothar fearing the ned gives the pouch of 20GP (that
belonged to the party!) to the daughter and swears he will be back. She has
never seen so much money and runs away… The captain says that the caravan masters must gather round. Kalij – “I apologise for the inconvenience but this comes
from the General. You must leave tomorrow but you will have an escort. We
cannot say why.” Jir-El is getting a bit rude and Haram manages to shut her
up. “I will show you my gratitude when we get there”, he says. “We should set
up the tent for the night.” We notice that the slavers with the two girls are going as
well. We decide to get some rest for the night. It is very cold. Lothar is being warmed by Rosana. Shamale
offers to keep Serveros warm for the night “free of charge.” The next moring the slavers head off and we head south into
the desert.
