Echoes – Session 1

Cast


Sitid

Toben

Synopsis

The rogues leave the city towards the Badlands in the east.  They are led by a guide named Kessa who assures them that she will take them as far as the the Badlands but no further. In the distance, tribal drums beat as two ruined towers loom over the path.  Sitid berates Kessa about fearing the Badlands and intimidates her into staying with the group.  Toben deduces that the party much walk in the same rhythm as the drums in order to pass the towers safely.  The rogues feel energy pulsating energy of the towers as they dance through.

As they reach the edge of Badlands, posts decorated with skulls and mirrors mark the border. Toben believes the markers are nothing but scare tactics and if the markers are destroyed in a rage-like fashion, the way into Badlands will be revealed.  The illusion is shattered as blue sky is ripped away revealing red sky and red lands beyond.  As they begin to traverse the red sands, Kessa steps in the wrong space, sinking into liquid red quicksand, and dragging Sitid down with her.  The wet sands are full of parasitic worms that drive people mad.  The worms begin to crawl on the skin of Kessa and Sitid.

Sitid feels the crawling, then the bite, then the realization that things are crawling under her skin. Toben tosses a chain of skull and mirrors out to Sitid.  Sitid places her boot on Kessa’s head and uses her as leverage to reach the chain and pull herself out of the muck as Kessa, screaming, sinks below the sands.  Sitid uses a blade to cut the worms from her skin.

The rogues come across a wooden vessel, listed on its side in the sands, littered with the desiccated corpses of its former crew.  The boat, when feed blood, will take the giver to the place of its hearts desire.  Toben once again discovers walking in the same rhythmic fashion as before, one can cross the soft quicksand, but yet the tactic doesn’t work near the vessel due a charm protecting it from the dark magic of the Badlands.  Toben sinks into the sand as he approaches the vessel.

The worms swarm into Toben’s body.  Toben is able to pull himself onto the boat, but then his inner fire erupts. Flames erupt from the holes created by the worms, burning them out of his skin but setting the boat on fire.  Sitid attaches the chain of skull and mirror to one of her arrows and fires it into the side of the boat.  Sitid uses the chain to pull the boat towards more solid land but the boat begins to capsize and sink  As the red sand flows into the boat, the corpses begin to animate.  Toben comes across a blood altar within the center of the ship and destroys the altar before escaping the ship back to dry land.  As the rogues were dealing with the vessel, they miss a floating platform that has since moved well past their reach.

Toben performs a ritual that allows them to bend space and time and bound upon the platforms.  The mirror rimmed platforms reflect light that is mirrored by a beacon far on the horizon.  Realizing the need to correct the course of the platform towards the beacon, Sitid suddenly shoves Toben into the gloopy, red sand.  Toben grasps the sides of platform and once again the flames erupt from the worm holes in his body.  The propulsion of the flames pushes the platform towards the beacon.  Upon arrival, Toben uses the skull and mirror chain as a distraction to the beings guarding the beacon.  Toben and Sitid then set upon the guards, kicking them from the beacon tower into the red sands.

Upon entering the beacon, the mirrors begin to spin.  A bright flash of light, then the rogues find themselves on top of the tilting, ruined towers they had passed previously.

 

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