OOC:
Game thread continues here.

Elboc looks out over the sands, shielding his eyes with his hand.

"It feels good to have sky above my head once more. Does anyone know which way our destination lay, before we lost the caravan?"

The Cynidicean squinted at the brightness as the light poured into the chamber when the final door was opened. Beyond was what these strange newcomers called 'The World Above' or something like that. It was with no small amount of trepidation that he edged closer to peer forth into this wondrous new realm which he really hadn't believed to exist. He held up a hand to shield the lenses of his odd mask in order to behold the amazing beauty of...

The journey to this point had been rather uneventful save for the various triflings of goatsmanship. He'd listened to stories of this room and that where such and so forth happened. His favorites of these fantastical tales were the ones which included a colorful water-finding dwarf character. Hamburg wished he'd have had the chance to meet such a fellow, if indeed the odd chap really existed, but the others claimed he'd been lost in the maze-like catacombs below the city. The wizard found himself thoroughly enjoying the expedition upward...

Hamburg reached absently into a pocket, expecting to withdraw a handful of dried mushrooms, but was dismayed to find his supply nearly exhausted. He stuffed a few crumbs and broken stems beneath his mask, but the euphoric and hallucinogenic effect wasn't quite strong enough to help him deal with the shock of what he beheld beyond the door...

Finally screwing up enough courage to step through the portal, Hamburg felt the instant heat hit him, the dry air choke him, and the burning sand beneath his worn boots, not to mention the excruciating brightness coming from some awesome orb above! He took a few more steps, feeling a sense of... whatever the opposite of vertigo would be... as, for the first time in his life, he had sky above him instead of infinite tons of stone.

"Wh-what? By the Three, I don't believe it!" He stood for many long moments, staring around him in awe at the endless sea of sand, burning hot and empty. He made several more attempts to behold the glowing orb, but its intensity was such that the wizard finally gave up any hope of ever seeing it without blinding himself in the process. Beneath his strange mask and cheaply fashioned costume, his body was having a strange reaction. Hamburg was alarmed to feel suddenly wet as he seemed to be excreting water from his skin!

But even the new sensation of sweating could not distract him long from the wonder of the vista around him, and regardless of the discomfort, Hamburg was thrilled to experience his emergence!

He took a deep breath of air that was not stale nor stagnant. It was moving and clean and smelled so very, very good.

Giddily he scampered across the top of a dune, losing his balance and falling upon the baking sand, but quickly jumping right back up laughing. Even the very dead raven wired to his should seemed to be enjoying itself, and the disembodied hand stepped gingerly sideways not unlike a cat crossing mud. It did not look nearly as enthused as its master...

"Look how far it goes! Almost forever! Wonderful!"

Lanliss feels the warm sand sift through their hands as they taste the dry wind, stumbling about in the daylight almost like one of the mushroom addled townsfolk below. In the first time that anyone can remember he smiles and laughs.

"Be the first to praise the sun, first to praise the moon..."

Lanliss sings a song of thanks he learned from two desert elves that played around the campfire as they journeyed with the caravan.

"First to hold a lone coyote, and last to set it free..."

He pets one of the goats.

"If only this was a herd of deer...and the dunes a thicket of trees....but now at least, closer to home...."

The journey to the west takes almost three days, traveling as much in the morning and evening as possible, and trying to keep out of the punishing sun during the day.  The last of the water is running out just as you top one more dune to find a glimmering river a handful of miles before you, bordered by lush vegetation for a mile or so on either side.  Farms are interspersed with squat, square structures here and there, and you can see people and livestock moving about in the distance.

There is no sign of major habitation anywhere, but there does look to be a strange boat with greatly curved bow and stern docked at the limit of your vision to the north, on this north-south running river.

Voran took to his new role as goatherd pretty calmly, guiding his charges patiently up the winding path. When the party breaks out into the open, he beams openly, singing a short song to the sun.



Voran smiles and wanders over to Hamburg. "Welcome to the rest of the world, my good man. Welcome to the rest of the world."

He then drives his goats forward!

Roak is first one out of the door and whoops when he sees the desert. He does a handstand and a little shimmying dance. He even hugs a goat. "Let's go, guys! Back to civilization!"



By this point, Roak's enthusiasm has worn off and he's back to his normal gruff self. At the sight of the river, he perks up. He points to the closest part of the river. "Let's go there, well away from the boat, to water the goats. We can see how the locals react to us from there."

Elboc helps to herd the goats, keeping a close eye on the villagers and not wanting any goat to run away with a king's fortune strapped to it.

"Perhaps we should send someone to talk to the villagers. And find out who's on that boat. I don't want them stealing our ill-gotten goods."

Some half an hour later the party have made their way down to the river.  The bank is steep here, but the drop to the water is only about five feet, and several paths can be found to have been cut, allowing easy access for livestock to the water.  It is notable just how wide the river actually is here.  It is even wider than a long bow shot.  This is a huge river.

Obvious notice of our heroes is taken, with people running and pointing, but none approach immediately.

The elf waves at them, indicating we mean no harm.

Roak doesn't reply much to these, mostly focusing on keeping the goats from bolting. He's begun getting attached to the goats; he's even named them all. He seems particularly fond of the goat he's named "Dopey."

Voran, meanwhile, smiles without showing his teeth and waves at the natives. He doesn't lose track of the goats and the others, but he does pay more attention to these local people and will move slowly to meet them if some begin to engage.

Elboc keeps a wary eye on the boat, but he'll join Voran in moving to meet the locals.

Hamburg's steps had been faltering and his shoddy robes were soaked through with sweat. The thrill of this new world had nearly worn off with the strenuous trek. But all of that was about to change when he beheld the river and the village! His voice cracked terribly as he tried to rasp out something intelligible. Finally, he strode directly into the water, scooping it with one hand and lifting his mask slightly with the other in order to drink greedily. Finally, satisfied, he looked around and took in the new scenery once more.

"We've made it to your city? Is this from whence you all hail?" These seemed to be the questions he was most able to form amongst quite a lot of gibberish. It could be that the odd wizard was simply dehydrated, but in fact, that was only part of his ills...

...he'd consumed the last crumbs of his mushrooms a day ago, and the combination of chemical withdrawal and clear-headedness was a situation he was not handling very well.

"D-do any of you have anything to eat?" he asked desperately, meaning of course the psychedelic fungi he'd eaten daily since a child.

"Maybe those people have some..." he surmised, lunging from the water and heading toward the village.

"This? No. My homeland is far far away. Much more shade and not nearly as hot."

"Who are you?" comes the cautious call as a small group of the locals some within shouting distance.  They are dressed in heavily-worn and fairly minimal clothing, none of it very clean, and they look nervous.  Only men have approached you, all of them with skin of a deep brown shade, likely as much due to much hard work outside as their own natural coloring.  Two of the four look to be carrying wooden hoes, and the other two have short wooden spears in their hands, without metal heads.

"We were with a caravan but got lost," says Elboc. "What is this place. Is there a city nearby?"