"Dark Sun PF catch-up (3 sessions)" Topic

Been a while. We (Rogue, Monk, Druid and Barbarian) were last sent out to recover an ambushed supply wagon that we assumed was set upon by gith, who widely populate the foothills of the area. After the encounter with that tunnel-worm thing, we continued on until ambushed by gith (for a visual of the setting, think Tatooine Jawa ambush of R2D2… trail with rocky crags & mucho area for hiding and taking pot-shots)

We have our own kank-pulled cart and are getting struck by arrows from all directions, getting sapped until the Barbarian uses his psionics to teleport behind one of the hiding gith, smushes him and in the same combat round, the Monk and Rogue both confirm crits on others with bow & shurikens. Tables turn, but while we chase down a remaining wounded gith, a second group of fifteen gith steal our kank-drawn cart.

So now we are out OUR cart and mounts as well as the one we are SUPPOSED to find. We take out our frustration by beating the gith camp location out of our prisoner.

We heal up and locate the gith camp. 4-way open intersection with two guards at each entry, a large tent in the middle, big enough to cover a few carts… and a sort of open-front "leaders tent" at one end. About seventeen gith total milling about.

We develop a plan… Barbarian charges one side to take out the two guard giths while the Monk and Rogue (rogue under invisibility potion) rush in behind him and bypass those two gith to sneak attack and engage others. Druid uses the fly potion to come overhead around the same time, using her psionic Invisible Barrier to cut the gith forces in half so we are not overwhelmed and can take them on without fear of too much "flanking."

We fell seven gith and then the Druid fails her roll to maintain the barrier. Still, we are able to come out ahead until the leader and his two bodyguards pop out of the large central tent, the leader wielding "Tortoise Blades."

Monk is able to take down one bodyguard until he falls into negatives, the rogue falls into negatives, the druid is at 2HP and hiding. The Barbarian takes out the last bodyguard, trades hits twice with the leader until he is staggering in single digits, then crits the leader for 54pt of damage in one hit, slaying him.

Open the big tent… not our cart. Not the cart we are looking for either. A different cart, with bunches of stolen loot and supplies. So while the adventure of the fight was cool and all, we are right back where we were before, with no "our" cart, and no "cart we are looking for."

(and the next 2 sessions – Monk player could not make it) We rock/paper/scissors to take one of the trails, this time with no cart at all, just riding the kanks. And this time we are ambushed by a few Barbarians, in fact, of the same tribe as our OWN Barbarian. It starts with the Barbarian getting knocked off his kank by a thrown rock from behind. We dismount to do battle… and the spooked kanks (whom are draft animals not trained for any combat) scuttle off on us, escaping (sigh…)

One of the enemy charges our Barbarian for a one-on-one… The enemy is a pugilist and grappler so is taking our guy to school in that regard, but the Barbarian is still getting some licks in. Another is a rock-throwing specialist (?) that my rogue eventually just gets sick of and he bum-rushes the guy taking him out with a couple decent hits. The druid is set upon by the "shaman" of the group, who also attacks her with his two pet boars… she cannot get through to them via her animal connection, they are being controlled/compelled via psionics or a more powerful means she cannot counter. When the Barbarian is eventually knocked out, the two remaining tribesmen claim, "We've got the traitor – let's take him back." And drag him away using the boars as rear guard to prevent us bedraggled allies from following.

We do a little dialog, yelling out "WHAT? He's been seeking his tribe for months now – he's no traitor," and all we get back is that "He sold his tribe into slavery and will stand before the elders for his crimes."

A couple of blows later the boars are dead and we go after them to recover our party member. Rogue and druid follow the grappler and shaman, keeping them in sight, trying to reason with them, to get them to stop and discuss and give us a chance to intercede, but they are ignoring us. So we figure we have to settle this now before they get to reinforcements beyond our capabilities.

The druid puts up the Invisible Barrier ahead to stop them while the rogue advances along one side of the trail (not the middle.) The shaman puts up Obscuring Mist between us and them, so I figure to just get in and get it over with…

And we prevailed! Both the grappler and the shaman were already down to a few HP remaining from the previous fight with us. Druid heals up the Barbarian into positive numbers. At this point, I asked the DM how much blood was spilt here and was told not much actually. The Rogue and Barbarian take both the Shaman and grappler and move them up the trail another 180ft, make a bunch of footprints, spill and spatter more blood to make it look like the fight happened there and not "here." We then obscured our tracks back and took a side trail another 200ft, all the while covering our tracks with the aid of the druids +14 Knowledge (Nature.)

Then we rested. And went back to the gith compound, rested more, discussing our options.

The supplies the noble is missing were weapons, armor and ammo. We know he outfits 40 guards. We decided, "Screw finding the nobles cart, let's go back to town with this loot, BUY the supplies he is missing, deliver that, and pocket the rest."

So we do that, using the medium-to-higher-quality level (mainly bone) materials. We come back into our camp, and the a-hole Half-Giant Guard Captain launches into us saying, "this is NOT what I bought, you cannot pass this off, who do you think you are fooling, etc." The noble pops out, looks at the stuff and tells the Captain to shut up… this is BETTER quality, and all things considered, everyone comes out ahead here.

Except the Half-Giant Guard Captain of course… whom we apparently just embarrassed… AGAIN.