By Caravan.
Fiamma gives Orlando the magic feather which he promptly uses to tickle her.
As the caravan moves up into steep hill country, Fiamma and the jackals tend to scout ahead. This trail is rarely traveled, being bare and volcanic rock and extremely hard on mounts. At one point the jackals refuse to advance further. Fiamma climbs the rocks to the side of the trail to get some height on the passage ahead and glimpses something - largely transparent - moving off the path and into the rocks. She casts "light" and manages to mark the creature. She descends and informs the Party. We backtrack to put some distance between the main caravan and the creature which Fiamma thinks resembles a dangerous - possibly acidic - monster that tales tell is found underground. The light marker makes it relatively easy to track the creature and - when enough distance is achieved by the main caravan - the monster turns towards the warriors who have chosen to make a stand nearer.
With Fiamma's knowledge the group chooses to use flaming arrows, and Fiamma spills 3 vials of oil on the path before the creature. These preparations seems effective for, once attacked, the creature retreats back into the rocks. The Party pursues and the creature takes refuge in a tight crevice. Fiamma pours another vial of oil down the crevice and follows it with fire. The creature is blackened and still and does not respond to Shadya's sword poke. We decide that it is dead.
Shadya cleans her sword and verifies the damaging nature of the creature's surface.
Progress continues; careful watch being kept for more of the creatures as they are extremely hard to see without a marker. We do come upon a human skeleton that appears to have died fallen on its back on a flat-surfaced rock. It is clean and bear though lacking any sign of weathering. Shadya does find a metal arrowhead that had slipped into a crack in the rock. Fiamma hypothesizes this as a victim of the creature we killed.
Camp is made for the night. We attempt to keep active watches, with the watchers periodically checking on each other around a tightly grouped camp. An earthquake rocks the area near the end of 2nd watch. Shadya hears the sound of a rockslide ahead on the trail and, when 3rd watch takes over, wakes Orlando to accompany her in investigating the rock fall. [She worries to herself about possible human interference in the caravan's progress.] Unfortunately, in the midst of the debris she finds herself paralyzed. Additionally she feels pain in one leg, as though something was eating it.
Orlando rescues Shadya (though he says little about the effort it took) [Shadya takes 8 pts. damage in 2 rounds.] He brings her back to camp. It seems she had blundered into a junior version of the creature: completely invisible in the dark. Nasir manages a [7-pt.] cure for the desert woman. Fiamma shakes her head over the tall woman's foolhardiness and comments that it was a good thing that she took Orlando - which Shadya acknowledges, commenting on the increasing debt she's accumulating against the nobleman.
The following morning, some time is expended in exploring the area from which the young ooze presumably came. A branching network of lava tubes is discovered; too great to effectively explore. Fiamma believes this is the "door" the creatures used to leave their natural subterranean habitat and Shadya starts to speculate on the why -- stopping abruptly as the answer occurs to her.
Travel resumes and, later in the day, small humanoid figures are spotted scurrying to hiding in the rocks. Orlando comments that they look like "gnomes". Nasir and Shadya are baffled but, as nothing in his or the half-elf's commentary indicate a militant attitude amongst "gnomes", they don't worry further.
That night during 3rd watch, Fiamma sees a group of "gnomes" clustered in the dark. She offers their spokesman some dates and he indicates an empty skin with a spigot. Fiamma wakes Shadya and asks for water for the gnomes. The desert warrior immediately offers hospitality and fetches a barrel of water.
Via gesture and some common words, it is determined that the gnomes have been driven out of their underground homes by such creatures as the oozes coming up from even lower depths. They have had at least one experience with humans who have not been hospitable. The Party consults and decides they can risk the time it will take to lead the gnomes to the nearest, mountain-locked, spring. It puts our time-table at risk as we have used 7 of our expected 16 days ... but Shadya thinks that, if the caravan proceeds, we can ride hard and catch up without losing too much time.
[Note: Shadya is down 14 pts.]
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