The Vault of Darom Madar

The remainder of our first day in the Canyon of Gothay was spent investigating the hundreds of caves and caverns and attempting to identify the most likely home of the treasure of House Madar. We hiked and climbed around the canyon until my feet hurt terribly, eliminating this cave for being too small for a treasure vault and that one for being home to all manner of nasty creatures. Brandis proved valuable for his abilities in spotting and identifying all manner of tracks and droppings and preventing us from investigating caves that would have inhabitants unhappy for our company.

Eventually we decided upon the most likely cave and camped below it for the night as it was growing dark, deciding to venture into it first thing in the morning. We entered the cavern and slowly travelled deeper into it, looking about us for signs of anything amiss or signs of treasure. Soon, we came to a large number of skeletons littering the ground, and a small number of freshly dead giths. They appeared to be only a few days dead.

"I'll try to determine what killed them so we know what to watch for," Brandis offered, as he and Raina stepped closer to their bodies. As soon as Brandis moved close to them, all of the skeletons and rotted corpses in the area rose to life and turned to attack us!

"Well, I guess now we know what to watch out for." Khadar commented, as darkness suddenly descended on me. I cried out in alarm and heard Khadar's yelp of pain as one creature, presumably that responsible for the darkness, injured him. The sorcerer, reacting without thinking, attacked the area blindly, failing to consider that I was right next to him and aim away from me. I screamed at him in rage as the flame seared my skin.

"I swear on my mother's grave, if I end up burn-scarred because of you I will kill you slowly and painfully, Khadar!" I yelled at him as I moved away from him and managed to leave the cloud of darkness before attacking a horde of skeletons. We steadily whittled down the number of skeletons and zombies in front of us, myself laying waste to groups of the weaker ones while the others took on the stronger enemies one or two at a time, working together to eliminate foe after foe.

Once the last foe dropped and remained down, we sat down to rest and poke over their bodies. The zombies, we noted, wore signets of House Tsalaxa, while the far-weaker skeletons wore signets of House Madar. We appeared to have stumbled upon the undead of the old feuding houses, who had most likely killed each other in the first place and now united in their quest to kill anything that crossed their path.

Once we were ready to move on, we continued down the cave. After 50 feet or so, we came upon a set of massive double doors.

Completely covered in copper.

Even if it were hair-thin, as it most likely was, it was more metal than any of us had ever seen. If this was how they adorned the door to their tomb/vault, what kind of treasures would we find inside? The thought of the kind of wealth found inside a vault with a door this absurdly valuable was tantalizing. I could buy a grand manor in Tyr of my own for the wealth in just this door! We tried the door and found it to be heavy but unlocked, and together we opened it and moved through the doors.

The room we entered was dominated by a trio of sarcophagi and a large ten-foot obelisk with writing that we could not identify from a distance. In some spots, rubble had fallen from the roof of the cavern and littered the floor. Immediately, Khadar was intrigued by the obelisk and started carefully to move toward it to try and read what was written on it.

Before he could move far, we heard the eerie sound of a woman weeping as ghosts emerge from the sarcophagi before us, faces twisted with such rage and grief as to seem mad. The wraiths attacked us and we fought for our lives, Marok breaking his urgrosh in his first desperate attack. Thankfully he carries a back-up mordenkrad, as he cannot afford an unbrittle metal weapon and is used to inferior weapons breaking.

As Raina moved into the room to engage the wraiths, she stepped near to the obelisk to get near to our enemies. All of the sudden, some kind of enchantment on the obelisk managed to harm Raina and make another wraith come out of her, filled with the fury and pain of whatever it is in her past that makes Raina a little battle-mad. As we dealt with the additional foe, the wailing wraith of a woman unleashed a painful attack on the group of us, attacking us psychically and making us feel some of her rage and grief. I was staggered by the force of it and nearly fell to my knees, but Brandis came to my rescue and helped me stay on my feet. He's very useful, this shaman!

Eventually our foes were defeated, one by one, by Raina's fierce attacks or Khadar's sorcery. We caught our breath and looked around, searching for the way out of this room and further into the cave. One wall seemed different than the others, darker colored, and it seemed unusual. I suspected it to be some kind of doorway, potentially trapped, and tried to consider what I had read and learned about any similar situations. While I tried to use knowledge, Raina did what she knows best--poked it with her gouge. Underneath the surface was a shiny white metal, likely silver? It's most likely hair-thin like the copper door, but still it astounded us to think of how much wealth was on this door.

Brandis looked around and noticed the ash at the foot of the wall/door. "There may be a trap here." He warned us. "This is some kind of creature, burned up to ash. Be careful!"

"Investigating this thing is boring. Let me blast through it!" Khadar said as he readied a chaos bolt. Raina, the smart one, moved as far away from him as possible. Khadar's chaos bolt hit the door, which responded by spraying acid all over us. Brandis, Khadar and I managed to duck but Marok got caught in the cross-fire and injured. "Uhh... sorry?"

Once Khadar stopped screwing around and getting other people injured, we managed to unravel the trap and wall slid down, disappearing into the ground. In front of us, massive piles of treasure were heaped around the room randomly. Before us, a withered figure in rotting finery roared at us in rage.

We had found the treasure of House Madar. And, apparently, the undead head of House Madar.

Khadar managed to get a single hit in before he unleashed his fury against his, hitting Marok, Brandis and I and managing minor damage to Khadar and Raina. As I reeled with pain, I felt myself, to my horror, turn to Brandis and try to attack him against my will, as he also attacked Kahdar and Marok attacked Raina. The head of House Madar was skilled in mind control, and spent all of his time messing with us, mind-controlling one person or another to make us attack whomever he wanted. I attacked Brandis and knocked him unconscious, but shortly bent to tend to him and get him back on his feet before retaliating against our foe with the most powerful psychic attack I could muster, using every resource I could manage to ensure it hit, and I pushed him further into his madness.

It was a brutal fight, and I did terribly--while I managed not to hit Khadar when Madar made me attack him (although I almost wish I had, to repay him for his earlier acid attack) neither did I manage to be very effective against Madar himself. However ineffective I was, Marok more than made up for it as he brutally attacked with his mordenkrad and Raina lit into him with her gouge. Eventually, we managed to defeat him just as we ran out of resources--too tired to heal ourselves, Brandis having exhausted everything he could try, most of us grievously wounded.

Once we triumphed over Madar, we took some time to look through the treasure heaped around the room. Rhotan Vor had promised us each one item from the treasure as well as 10% of the total wealth, and we were excited to pick something out. Khadar chose a worn magical die; he does love to gamble, though it often goes wrong for him, as chaos can work for you or against you. Brandis, always in charge of making sure we don't get lost or walk off a cliff unaware, chose an enchanted map that will drawn an accurate map of the land around us. Marok chose an enchanted bag to ease the weight he carries around for us. I chose a magical veil that lets me disguise my appearance however I please.

Raina chose an item worth far more than the rest of our items combined--a metal sword made of adamantite. Though worth a great deal of money, I doubted that anyone would want to buy a sword so steeped in menace. The sword emanated the kind of madness that we had seen from the head of House Madar, a kind of simmering rage born of seeing your life systematically destroyed around you. This was not a mere a sword, anyone could tell. But would she really be able to control this menacing weapon?

"I will wield this sword," Raina informed us as she tested its weight in her hand, "no matter the price it asks of me."

Oases & Canyons

It seems that Rhotan Vor likes us, as he has asked for our assistance once again. This time, it is a somewhat larger task—not finding a missing wagon but instead a missing treasure, lost during the systematic destruction of a great merchant house many years ago. Though he promises us great wealth, something tells me there is more danger to this than he would have us believe—why else would he need to hire us to do this, instead of doing it himself? We have heard whispers that the elders of the extinguished house Madar had sealed themselves in with their treasure in a tomb, and their ghosts guard the treasure for eternity. I do not believe in ghosts or gods, but still I am unsure if I feel comfortable disturbing the rest of the dead.

We spent another day in Altaruk, preparing for our journey, and were approached by an elf named Isiel to deliver a letter during our stop in Silverspring Oasis, home to many elves. Raina seemed somewhat optimistic about our visit with the Silverspring elves; I did not realize why until we got there and she asked them about her mother, whom she was separated from at a young age and wishes to find again. Unfortunately, the Silverspring Oasis elves were not able to provide any help, but she seems stubborn enough to keep trying and ask every elf we ever meet until she finds her mother.

The travel to Silverspring Oasis was normal for Athasian travel—hot and unpleasant. The boredom of trekking down a sandy road under the sun’s heat was broken up by an incident with raiders at the small muddy so-called Crimson Oasis. As we approached the ‘oasis’ ready to sit and rest and eat a midday meal, bandits burst suddenly from the water and attacked us. Once again, Raina burst into action to keep them away from those of us who don’t wear much in the way of armor (Khadar, Brandis and myself) and Marok also took quite a beating so that we would not. I have come to value having companions such as these; I don’t know that I could handle the dangers of travel without a group watching my back. Even Khadar, annoying as he is, has proved useful. Especially when telling boastful stories to impress our elven hosts in Silverspring Oasis—it makes one wonder how much of what he says is true, considering how natural he found it to bluff and lie to the elven chief.

Convincing the elves to help us was hard going all around, and we all tried our best to sweet talk their chief, Toramun. Khadar told extravagant stories of our travels while Raina and I tried to reason and negotiate with him as much as possible. Even quiet Brandis was able to surprise Toramun by discussing with him an in-depth knowledge of the flora and fauna of Silverspring Oasis and the surrounding region. I am finding that Brandis does not speak much but when he does it is often worth listening to. Marok was silent, as usual, but Toramun seemed impressed by his imposing stature and the multitude of weapons he carries and wields. Eventually, we managed to negotiate a price with Toramun--they would tell us all they knew of the canyon of Gothay in exchange for two days worth of supplies. We judged it worth the price, especially considering that Rhotan Vor had agreed to pay our expenses for this journey.

After our audience with Toramun, we wandered around the oasis looking for information on Raina's mother and conversing with people before we retired for the night. In the morning, we set out with a fresh start towards the canyon. It was going fairly well, the usual trekking through sand and heat, until we were ambushed by archers and... a defiler. I hadn't seen a defiler since I left Tyr and its templars behind, and I didn't miss them at all! Raina rashly ran in, as is her nature, and drew fire from the archers and the defiler both. I watched in horror as she was filled with arrows like a pin cushion--I truly feared for her life. She quickly went down, but Brandis was able to patch her back up and get her on her feet again. Though Raina, Marok and Khadar were all at times grievously injured throughout the fight (and one of the archers attacked me and I fear it might actually scar) we did manage to prevail, slaying the defiler and his friends before they could kill us all. Much as I hate to admit it, Khadar managed some impressive sorcery--it was almost amusing to watch him knock the defiler off his mount, the arcanist landing in an undignified heap on the sandy ground, as Khadar browbeat him and his allies with sorcery.

Once the battle was over, we all tended to our wounds and I did my best to tend mine so there would be minimal scarring. The leg wound would not be immediately obvious to your average person, but in my line of work people tend to notice scars no matter how well hidden they might normally be. I grumbled over my wound (much to Raina's chagrin, as she snapped at me to "quit whining", Khadar laughed that I had finally been injured as well, and even Brandis mocked me to some degree, using his favorite mocking nickname of "princess," which I happen to think is quite a compliment really) as I limped the rest of the way to the Canyon of Gothay.

The canyon was an impressive sight, much deeper and taller up close than it appeared from a distance. Though the walls of the canyon rose only one hundred feet or so above our heads. the floor of the canyon was a full 100 feet below us. I dreaded trying to climb down or up or around the canyon to find the cave that we sought. And truly, although we knew it was meant to be a cavern of some kind that held the treasure of House Madar, Rhotan Vor had failed to mention one little detail.

There are hundreds of caves and caverns of all shapes and sizes in the Canyon of Gothay.

The Missing Wagon

Shortly after I arrived in Altaruk and was considering where to go next,I heard rumor that a man named Rhotan Vor was offering gold to anyone who would help recover a missing wagon. My travels to Altaruk with the textiles caravan were uneventful and really rather boring, days spent on the road with nothing to distinguish one day from the last. The only reason I'm going without the comforts of home is for some adventure, and so far I have found none. Perhaps finding this missing wagon will provide me something to do and allow me to use my psionic abilities in new ways.

I answered Rhotan Vor's call and met the handful of others that were interested as well; most were more used to the adventuring lifestyle and battle than I, but I think I can prove myself more than a pretty face. Marok, a deaf mul, was the first I met; he seems nice enough when I communicate with him telepathically, and has a fearsome look about him, like he is confident in his skills in battle. Raina, a woman nearly as beautiful as me if not for her scars and sun-darkened skin, has a wicked-looking gouge that I feel she probably knows how to use to brutal effect. Brandis, the friendly shaman, looks kind enough, but he is a tad awkward and not the most charismatic sort. Perhaps he is a little shy, but shy is always better than arrogant like the fool Khadar. I suspect Khadar may be a sorcerer wielding forbidden arcane magics, and I hope he doesn't defile our already tormented land any further.

We introduced ourselves briefly and quickly got to work, travelling until we found the wagon tracks indicating where the wagon had gone astray. Following the obvious tracks of a heavily laden wagon, we were suddenly set upon by vicious creatures I'm told are silt runners when caught between two large rocks. I watched as they brutally attacked Raina and Murok--and I'm glad they attacked them instead of me! I see now why their skin is so scarred, if they're used to surviving such violence. Once we got over our surprise we made them pay for their vicious attacks; while the creatures were capable of astounding brutality, they were fairly delicate creatures and we were able to not only survive their onslaught but defeat them. I myself killed a few of them, using my psionic powers for violence for the first time. While I admit the feeling of power was somewhat heady, it was also frightening. Instead of controlling my powers to precisely manipulate someone (willingly or unwillingly) without harming them, it is something quite different to destroy someone mentally. The ugly battle left me somewhat shaken and unsettled; I am not used to seeing bloodshed, and needed to sit down and get my wits about me before I could continue on. Perhaps they judged me for it, but can I be blamed for needing a moment to recover after the first time I extinguished the life of something other than an insect or a scorpion scuttling under my feet?

Once I had recovered from proving myself a pampered spoiled noble, we continued to follow the wagon's tracks, cautiously watching for further attacks, until at last we saw the rogue wagon. It appeared at a glance to be in working condition, but I am no expert on wagons. The only worrying factor was the presence of reptilian creatures poking through the supplies in and around the wagon. Khadar immediately suggested we attack them outright, but I hesitated. What if they were innocent creatures, or potentially friendly ones who had stumbled upon the wagon? The silt runners before had attacked *us* outright and I had no lasting qualms about killing them; but what if these creatures were just innocent scavengers and we killed them for being in our way? Athas is a harsh place, and it's not surprising that any creature would scavenge through an abandoned wagon for food--is that a crime worth killing for? I tried to communicate with them, unsure if they would be able to understand me or not, much to Khadar's derision and mockery. They were not intelligent or kind, innocent creatures--instead they turned to me and made to attack us, and so we fought once more. Everyone laughed at me for trying to make friends with them, and Khadar made especially rude comments, but I will not be ashamed for taking caution not to kill undeserving creatures. I would think that as a shaman Brandis would also seek to avoid unnecessary killing, but he is most likely more wise than I on what creatures need to be killed and now thinks me an idiot for not recognizing the bloodthirsty kruthik. What does a courtesan raised in the bosom of Tyr know of kruthik?

Though we did manage to kill them, Khadar struggled mightily for control over his wild arcane magic. What is wrong with this sorceror? Did he never receive proper training? I get the impression he may have been a templar previously (he's definitely arrogant and rude enough to be a templar!), though I'm not quite sure. Perhaps he was removed from his position for being unable to control his magic properly? Being randomly buffeted about by explosions of wild arcane power quickly becomes quite aggravating and mightily distracting, and I was tempted to hit him over the head with his own staff. Once he got himself under control we were able to defeat the kruthiks.

We had recovered the wagon and all of the supplies inside, and I opened a jug of wine to enjoy while we rested after our fight and pondered where to go next. The tracks leading away from the wagon indicated webbed feet according to our resident shaman, which may mean more silt runners were in our future. They seemed to head towards a nearby ruined tower, so we decided to investigate their likely source of shelter.

As soon as we opened the door and all entered the tower, we were set upon by another reptilian creature and more silt runners, one of whom immediately assaulted the lot of us with some kind of vicious magical or psionic attack. As much as I dislike him, I will admit to being worried at how much it hurt Khadar; he was nearly knocked off his feet by the brutal attack, and it was clear he was grievously wounded. By some dumb luck, I was the only one of our party not hit. We managed to overpower the creatures and free the caravan drivers who were tied up in the corner, though it took us longer than it should have as we all attacked different creatures and didn't bother with much proper teamwork. I was astounded to see Raina brutally cut down one of the reptilian creatures when it tried to turn and run from her wrath--I will definitely not be getting into any fights with her, over anything. Ever! I value my life too much to try my luck on the other side of that wicked gouge.

In the end, we were able to recover the wagon, most of the goods, the driver and even some extra gold and a fire opal for us to keep, though we had to push and pull the wagon back to Altaruk by hand. Doing manual labor is not my strong suit and I nearly refused, but there was no way they were going to let me sit in the wagon while they pushed it (even kind Brandis looked liable to send his spirit companion after me if I tried!) and so I reluctantly helped. Rhotan Vor was grateful that we had recovered his goods, though the pack animals were nowhere to be found, and rewarded us as promised, and we retired to rejoice and spend our hard-won gold on drink & food at the nearest inn.

Though Khadar is insufferable, Raina scares me, Murok is a silent menace and Brandis clearly wishes he could afford my asking price, the shared experience has forged some kind of odd brothers-in-arms bond. Though our motley group spends more time arguing and bickering over small decisions than anything else, perhaps it would not be so bad to find further work with them. My brief life as a caravan guard did not provide the kind of excitement that I left Tyr to find, but today's events did. Athas is too dangerous a place for me to run about killing silt runners alone; perhaps I will see if there's more work for us to do around Altaruk, or who else might need to hire some help. We will see what the future brings; for now, my tired self is going to enjoy what little comfort can be found in this very provincial inn.

Meet Amarisa

My new character for a Dark Sun campaign is Amarisa. Our DM had ruled that courtesans somewhat styled after Firefly's companions (respectable, noble-like prostitutes, more or less) could exist in Athas.

Amarisa was born amongst a noble family in Tyr and singled out from an early age as a remarkable beauty as well as a remarkable psionic talent. Tutored in the psionic arts and the arts of love for years, she became a master of both and an expert at using her psionic powers in unconventional ways. Amarisa excels at providing her clients a chance to say goodbye to their recently lost wife or pretend they had seduced the neighbor's sultry and beautiful wife. She became relatively well-known amongst the wealthy of Tyr as one of the foremost courtesans in the region.

After a few years of being a courtesan, Amarisa found herself growing bored. She had reached the limit of her psionic studies in Tyr and her life as a courtesan failed to mentally stimulate her; she socialized with the rich and powerful who also happened to be petty and scheming. She grew tired of politics, backstabbing, and rumors, bored of a life of empty and fake people. She wanted to see what else she could do with her psionic powers, how she could put them to practical use out in the 'real world'. To this end, she signed up to travel with a merchant's caravan among the guard and use her psionic abilities to guard the caravan. The caravan takes her to Altaruk, where our story begins, as she looks for something more interesting to do than caravaning.