You see the others have made good their retreat
from the temple and turn to follow. But a sudden blow comes from behind
and everything goes black…
A bucket of water to the face rudely awakens you. Coughing and
spluttering, you sit up, but quickly realize that chains on your hands
and feet prevent further movement, and your gear is gone. You are in a small wooden hut, not
particularly well-made but sturdy enough. About a dozen other prisoners
are present, also chained, but a small group of guards is manipulating
the chains to free their legs and line them up. The guard nearest you
drops the bucket, resets your chains, and shoves you into line.
Outside the hut, you first notice that it is mid-afternoon, and
second that there is a terrible smell coming from a cart nearby. It is
piled high with camp offal and garbage. Several prisoners are put to
work pulling it, and the rest of you follow behind. The pace is slow,
both because of the cart and the poor physical condition of the
prisoners. A half-dozen guards accompany you, plus two men with a
hard-bitten military bearing who are clearly in charge. All wear armor
and black leather tunics with flared collars, and you see many dozens of
others similarly garbed as you are led through the camp.
You see many other huts, though none appear to have guards and so are
unlikely to house prisoners. One much larger tent is in one corner of
the camp, but you are led away from it. At one point, a small group with
a military bearing pass by you, led by a humanoid blue dragon creature.
He snarls something about “honor-less captives” as he passes, heading
toward the large tent.
The camp appears to be in a canyon, surrounded by cliff walls. It
takes you about 15 minutes at the slow pace of the cart to move from
your hut to the camp entrance. The walls were a good hundred feet tall
near your hut, but slope down to almost nothing near the entrance. There
are many more huts near the entrance, but these are much more poorly
made, and you see dozens of kobolds milling around near them.
As you exit, your guards exchange greetings with more cult soldiers
positioned in a guard tower overlooking the approach. Then you are out
of the camp and walking through hilly, rocky terrain with occasional
small thickets. After about another half hour, a halt is called and one
of the leaders produces shovels from the cart. “Mondath has ordered that
waste be buried outside the camp, but she never said who had to do the
grunt work!” Laughing, he and the other guards kick and push you into a
rough line and set you to work digging a large trench.
The day is mild, but even so you are soon sweating as you and your
fellow prisoners attempt to break the hard and rocky ground. Progress is
slow. One of the guards disappears, and returns a short while later
with a small deer. A few of his fellows move a short way off and start a
small cooking fire, and the smell of roasting meat soon torments you
nearly as much as the blisters forming on your hands.
Game notes: You have not been able to rest normally, so you have no
spells available. Any skill check or attack rolls you may try are at
disadvantage due to your weakened state. Escape seems impossible, but
you know your friends will be coming after the cult, so there is hope…