TSOY!

We gathered earlier today, Jason, Krissi, Michael, Maddie and myself.

Maddie actually was not in much condition to play, as the previous evening had been an exciting night for her, so she was not very involved with the game.

We opened the game with the character's having been captured by a large litter of ratkin in the Ruined City of Thet. The party was disarmed and taken before Lucas, the Litter Boss. He was both the biggest, and apparently the smartest of the litter. The group was told that they would be provided to the large pack of cannibals in the ruins, which the ratkin offered to try to keep the cannibal menace at bay. The party talked Lucas into considering an offer that they would go solve the cannibal problem. Lucas let them enjoy the "guest quarters" overnight, and in the morning he decided to release them to remove the cannibals.

The ratkin told them that the cannibals seemed to gather around a large ruined temple in the center of the city. They set off for the structure, and surveyed it from a distance. They saw a few dozen cannibals moving around in the ruined temple, and its surroundings. Also they saw Valadon, the wizard they'd run into last session, enter the area and ride right into the temple, keeping the cannibals at bay with some kind of magic. Valadon left, and the party decided to go in. Violet, Krissi's character, hopped out of their hiding hole, into a shallow stream that ran from the temple ruins, and ran right into a small group of cannibals. Violet made fairly short work of them, and the group moved up along the filthy stream toward the temple. Reaching the edges of the ruined structure, they formulated a plan of attack. Reek kept watch downstream (with Maddie mostly out of the game) and Violet kept point. Their goal, on reaching the temple proper was to have Violet provide a distraction and run interference while Kragar and Sedu infiltrated the temple itself. Right away they ran into a group of eight of the cannibals, whom Violet ran into the midst of, in order to allow Sedu and Kragar to pass into the temple. While Violet kept the group of cannibals busy, Sedu and Kragar crept into the temple. They skirted the main hall, keeping to the ruins of the antechambers and such in order to move around closer to the apparent source of the filthy stream which appeared to bubble up from a fissure in the stone floor. Meanwhile, Violet was having a tough time keeping the cannibals busy, and in fact had to Bring Down the Pain, thanks to a failed roll while fighting the cannibals. The fight was still tough, and she was quite bloodied, but managed to defeat the cannibals with her martial mastery. In fact shortly after this, she upped her Spearfighting to Master. While Violet fought cannibals outside of the temple, Sedu and Kragar snuck through the ruined structure. It was tough going, at one point, Kragar getting wedged into a collapsed doorway. Still, the two of them made it around to the outlet of the stream, and quickly took out the two cannibals who were there at the source. The crept out toward the fissure, but Sedu was less than quiet, and managed to attract the notice of a few of the cannibals in the temple. They rushed toward him, but Kragar, from hiding, managed to take out two of them, leaving only one to attack Sedu. They managed to down him as well, then checked out the fissure. Inside, beneath the water, they saw something glinting. Deciding to try to grab whatever it was, they had Sedu reach in, but the water pressure was too strong, and swept him nearly out of their grasp. Meanwhile, Violet had managed to rejoin them. They tried again to retrieve the glinting object, and again the pressure of the water provded a challenge, sweeping Violet downstream. Sedu tried to pull her out, but she rushed past him, and right amist a group of cannibals gathered down the stream from the source. The cannibals went to pull her from the water, but Violet pulled herself away from them, and after a back and forth battle, she defeated them, and headed back up the stream to her companions. Finally, the managed to extract from the fissure a large Garnet, after which the rust colored water ran clear.

They took the stone and headed out of the temple, running into Reek, coming up toward the temple, with a few hungry cannibals in tow. The group made quick work of the cannibals, and went back to the Litter Boss. He was grateful for their having destroyed what turned out to be the source of the cannibals, and told them that he had captured some other bandits, which he intended to use for a great feast to celebrate the demise of the cannibals. The party realized that these bandits were in fact Lord Philips men. The group parleyed with them, and Sedu convinced the Litter Boss not to use them for the feast, and instead to send them out to wipe out the last of the cannibals. The Litter Boss agreed, and Sedu gathered some horses to be used for the feast instead. Also in return for the group's help, the Litter Boss gave them many pieces of the Crown, which had been scattered in the city.

Soon they headed back toward Lucen. Upon arriving, they found the city to be a tense place. They made stright for the Green Drake, and upon their arrival, were told by a group of armsmen that they were under arrest. They soon discovered that Lord Duval finally realized that the Green Drake was a headquarters of sorts for the Zaru underground. He took this information to Lord Marcus Renald, the head of the Renald family in Lucen, and primary adversary to Lord Philip. In exchange for his information, Lord Duval was granted status by Lord Marcus. The party discovered, to its horror, that much of the Zaru underground had been rounded up and imprisioned, with many of them having already been crucified or hung. In fact, they learned that the city's gallows were not able to meet the new demand, and so were importing a load of lumber from Khale with which they planned to build a whole new gallows system. Lord Marcus asked them to deliver a receipt to the Docks Master, so that when the shipment arrived it would be properly moved. The group left the Renald compound, arguing amongsth themselves about the resistance and Ammeni in general. The saw the red-haired sorcereress in Philips employ that they've run into frequently before, and Kragar set off following her. She went to the docks, and had a quiet meeting with a shady character. Meanwhile, Sedu and Violet plotted on how to free resistance members from the Renald dungeons.