Into the Shattered Mountains: Myria and Karth
Six days out of Boris, the caravan set up camp in the Iron Hills. A brief encounter with a krallinar led to the deaths of two caravan guards, but the party, with the help of other guards, managed to scare it away with a few well placed arrows.
As the journey continued, the tight lipped Kalimurans slowly revealed clues about their mission. The party learned that the University was operating a small camp deep in Myrian territory and that this caravan was a supply run.
The following night, Kramtha's sharp eyes noticed a lone horseman on a distant hill - a Myrian in warpaint on a horse. The next day, a large group of Rotha warriors swept down from the hills and attacked with bows on horseback. The wagons, close to the Amaputu River, make for the river at a gallop. It becomes a running battle with guards firing bows from the backs of wagons at the Myrian horsemen.
Just as the wagons reach the river, several dozen Amaputu warriors on river rafts leap to the shores and drive the Rotha away. Before they can regroup and return, the wagons are disassembled and all the cargo is quickly transferred to the river rafts.
Stryfal enjoyed the journey. Huge snakes, chattering monkeys and colorful birds watched as the river rafts drifted by. On occasion, the party would see a large stone shrine, mostly overgrown by vines and weeds. The peaceful journey was interrupted briefly as something huge flew overhead. The party couldn't make out exactly what it was because of the thick foliage above them. Whatever the shape was, it had wings.
The river part of the journey was long and required the large group pull their rafts to the river banks and camp twice. During the second night, Callister decided to take advantage of the free time and investigate the Avisarr jewel. He walked several hundred feet from camp into the thick jungle, plucked the Avisarr from it's protective box, put it around his neck and began meditating. He was trying to commune with the great demon spirit held within and see what he could learn. The spirit within responded. Callister began to taunt the being within. The spirit turned angry and the green glow from the gem intensified. Callister awoke from his meditative trance with a start. He looked about and found the grass around him scorched black. A strange feeling of doom came over him and he quickly tossed the gem back to into the box and started back for camp. He suddenly came across a small path in the jungle, perfectly straight, where the vegetation had also been burned black. He followed the path until it intersected several other paths at odd angles. Confused, he climbed up a tall tree and looked down… and caught his breath. Eighty feet up in the tree, he had a good view of the jungle below. Burned into the jungle, over 200 feet wide and still smoking, was the symbol of the Avisarr. Unnerved, he climbed down and hurried back to camp.
The next day, the river troupe reached the main Kalimuran camp and introductions were made. The Kalimuran camp was a large affair with some forty Kalimuran men, three dozen Amaputu myrians (including a chieftain) and a karthasian. The party managed to blend in and join in on the festivities. Krodose won a wrestling contest. Stryfal entered a dagger throwing contest and lost several of her prized daggers in a bet. Willum healed the chieftain's daughter.
Beyond the tents and collapsible building, beyond the festivities and dancing myrians, Callister saw what looked like a large ship sitting on the grass. Strange billowing white sails protruded from the sides, both front and back. It was a ship of some kind, but unlike any ship Callister had ever seen. He questioned several of the less sober Kalimurans and soon the party was privy to the secretive goings-on at the Kalimuran jungle camp.
It turned out that a year earlier, the Kalimurans had followed certain Myrian legends to discover a mineral found throughout the Shattered Mountains which repeled itself from other pieces of the same mineral whenever it was exposed to the light of the yellow sun. A sort of solar-powered anti-gravity mineral. Myrian legends mentioned whole valleys filled with floating boulders. The Kalimurans, who despise magic, had studied this mineral and discovered that it was a naturally occurring phenomenon and completely non-magical. And hence, suitable for Kalimuran exploitation. The University funded a team to go to the Shattered Mountains and build a prototype of a flying craft which utilized this odd mineral to achieve weightlessness. This prototype, when finished, looked like some sort of strange sailing ship. It was made of wood, had a deck and portholes, but no masts. Instead, large sails protruded from the sides like giant wings and these could be deployed and reeled in to take advantage of the various air currents. The ship was made weightless with six large chunks of the mineral which were distributed at key points on the ship and held in place by iron brackets. These mineral "ballasts" had iron sheaths over them which could be drawn back to expose the mineral to sunlight and thus propel the ship upward. The ship was named "Dragonfly One" and several successful test flights had already been made.
Kramtha checked the map and the coordinates of the map were deep in the Shattered Mountains... and they were moving, slowly, imperceptibly, toward Karth. Kramtha spoke with the Karthasian, whose name was Ithok, and learned that another karthasian, named Sosk, had a human skull atop a staff and he was travelling back to Karth. Kramtha knew, beyond a doubt, that that skull was the very skull they sought.
The Kalimurans were planning a test flight to Karth to determine the extent of the mineral deposits and also ask the Karthasians for permission to mine the mineral from the jungles there. Of course, this was too good to pass up. The party begged/bribed/threatened their way onto the ship and were soon welcomed as crew members (Callister and the rest had good ship skills).
The next morning, the Kalimurans prepared the ship for flight and by noon all was ready. The officers barked out orders and shipmates jumped to comply. The sheaths that covered the large mineral ballasts were opened and, with a groan of protest, the great wooden behemoth rose slowly into the air. The sails were deployed and the wind caught them, pushing the great ship forward.
During their journey, the party encountered a group of skypods: strange ballon like creatures with fins and tentacles that live their whole life in the air, never landing. On another day, in the jungle below, the party saw Gethyan myrians, scuttling aboutt the shadows of the great trees. It was a beautiful day and it seemed that Fate smiled on the party, for the Fates had provided them with not only the means to find the next skull but a flying chariot to take them.
The next morning, however, it seemed the Fate had grown weary of kindness. Four huge bats, each with a half dozen Gethyan myrian warriors on their backs, flew up rapidly from the thick jungle below and attacked the ship. Many of the warriors leapt from the bats onto the deck of the ship and attacked with large spiked clubs. Other myrians fired bows from the bats. The myrian warriors on deck fought past the intrepid adventurers and the Kalimuran guards and concentrated their attacks on the mineral ballasts of the ships.
A fierce battle was waged on the deck of the ship and the Gethyan myrians were eventually defeated (many of them simply flung from the ship by Krodose). However, the damage had been done. By the time the battle was over, four of six mineral ballasts had been badly damaged. The mineral chunks, shattered and no longer held in place by the iron brackets, broke apart and flew up into the sky, propelled by their own bouyancy and powered by the sun. Without the ballasts, the ship could not maintain its altitude and began to slowly descend.
The shipwrights scrambled to repair the damage, but it was too late. Despite a mad scramble to replace the now empty iron brackets with backup minerals that the ship was carrying, the ship soon lost all power and plunged toward the jungle trees. The group braced for impact a split second before the great ship hit the side of a hill. The hull buckled with a thundering crash and exploded. Bodies, cargo and pieces of ship were thrown far and wide to the ground. Some were luckier than others landing in soft mud. Others hit hard rock and were further buried in debris and heavy crates. Callister was flung into a cliff, impaled by a tree, hit by exploding barrels of oil, and set ablaze before falling unconscious into knee-deep water. When the last echoes of the crash faded and the dust settled, the survivors picked themselves up and took stock of their situation.
The party members, though wounded, fared well and survived... with the exception of Krodose, the ogre and Angus, the dwarf, who both died instantly upon impact. In addition, six Kalimurans had survived: a professor (the expert in the mineral), the co-pilot, one structural engineer, Lord Hadrek (a pompous ass in charge of the project), one lieutenant and one security guard. All other crew members were killed. Lord Hadrek immediately took charge. He ordered the professor, the co-pilot and the engineer to return to base camp. Meanwhile, he, the party, the lietuenant and the guard would continue on to Karth to meet with the karthasians and seek assistance and complete the mission of diplomacy.
The mission continued on foot through the thick jungle. That evening, they made camp in what little shelter that could create from the plant life about them. The next morning, they ran into a horrax nest and Kramtha quickly gathered his party about him and activated his shield (erecting a force field) which protected them. The three kalimurans were caught outside the shield and were quickly killed and dragged off by the horrax swarm. During that encounter, Willum, Rothgar and Stryfal were stung quite badly, but still survived.
Other problems occurred and were overcome: more snakes, a giant jungle spider, monkeys, birds and more. Through it all, the party continued their difficult trek on foot through one of the Ithria's harshest climates, toward the land of the insect men.
During the evenings, the party gathered around the campfire to discuss their future and their goals. The party planned to continue to Karth and try to negotiate with Sosk to get the skull staff. After obtaining the staff, the party would then go to Kramtha and Rothgar's homeland of Talis, to see what had become of their family. But for now, they had to concentrate on surviving some of the most hostile and dangerous lands in the world.