Delver/CiCi was a no-show, with no phone service.
LGS owner made a 3rd-Level Yaesh Archer (Mutant).
Ashta and Mela Mela were the early focus and as they and the rest of the party made their way across the Ocean of Storms, the galleon-style craft encountered 30' swells.
--The seas of the eastern-most Windswept Straits required shallow-draught vessels particular to these waters to transport the party one one vessel, and their new furnishings and other bulky cargo (food stores) on a second. The party had three weeks to acclimatise to the humid (sub-)tropics.
Ashta, still possessing the Ring of Scorpion Control from the Lost Island adventure, took the opportunity to call five of the largest scorps she could, and received lobster-sized buggers. With them in tow, and one on her shoulder, she and Mela left the jungles and encountered an old woman, her pupil, and three young boys along the trail back into the town proper.
--The women bowed, facing the ground, and the boys couldn't help but stare at the tall and muscular, pale, platinum-blonde warrior woman who had arrived on a floating island blown there by clouds --clearly a goddess of Life and Death, with her sizeable scorpion retinue and Mela cohort. The older woman reached out and lightly grasped the hem of Ashta's cloak, which the other noticed.
---Fast Forward: Mela the alchemist/apothecary/healer diagnosed her condition as parasitic-induced liver-distress exacerbated by malnourishment. Sixteen other kinfolk of the woman came to understand that the goddess would heal them all.
Ashta served as the rally for Mela's regimen which included purchasing them several goats and the receiving chickens (or, more precisely Urutsken analogues) in reverence, and the hope that his family, too, would received the goddess' blessing.
--After four days of concoction, using scorp venom to aid in the anti-parasite meds, Mela began the treatment of 24 individuals. Three days later, she emerged from the large hovel, to find the entire village outside awaiting her. The crowd garnered the attention of a civil servant of the Imperial (WICE) Governor, who chastened her and Ashta for wasting their time on primitive lessers too foolish to learn from their superiors, and that if word spread of these 'miracles' riots would surely ensue, and the bloodshed would be upon Ashta's head (the uncouth Highlands barbarian that she is). His revulsion as a scorp crawled up onto her shoulder and began aggression-posturing was not well hidden, but he maintained his composure as he skidaddled out of the village.
---The two built a rain-collector and filtration system, and instructed the folk to use better hygiene (not letting the children drink from the animals' troughs, etc.) but the instructions were not entirely understood, and instead became a ritual procedure. The girls left after telling the villagers to spread the good news, just to spite the civserve, not really grasping the far-reaching repercussions of their decision.
Off on the two large Dhows, one day into the trip, the winds bestilled for three additional days, then a tropical storm (00 on the wind-strength table) rolled through, sinking the cargo ship, although the crew made it over to the passenger craft. The next five days were little to no wind, and the three-day food stores, now strained, failed.
--I concocted an on the spot 4d6 test where each character had to roll higher on their 4d6 to not succumb to faintness and lethargy. At first, it was Mela who was not doing well, but as Ashta began sharing her meal with the other, Ashta finally fell unconscious. Mela used her skills to cultivate quick algae and distil fresh water for the crew. Finally, a Norwester wind blew them close enough to an island for the crew and passengers to disembark. One crewman had died.
I then brought the Hun-like Yaesh Archer to the island via a fae-curse after he tried to rope a horse-woman in a placid mossy hollow in the granite hills of the pasture lands. In a flash of lightning, he was transported to a similar spot on, yes, you guessed it, that island, a world away.
--Great accented speech and acting on his part brought the ridiculous fiat back in line with the rest of the game, and his character (as yet, unnamed) began to observe the group on the beach. He observed them netting hares and began to hunt them himself. His Chameleon Powers and high Secret and Silence percentages aided him in securing three hares, the island literally coursing with them.
---He discovered a strange clearing with a cluster of odd fungus around which several large hares were circling, all in the same direction. He also found three trails made, apparently, by a crippled human. He followed one and found a shack composed of shipwreck and island materials. Eventually, the Yaesh joined the group on the beach, communicated the shack's location. They investigated.
Combat ensued when a Qetswn => KetSoon <= dashed up to Ashta and barely bit her for 1 DP through her Amazonian armour. Furious series of really good rolls failed to hit the creature's ridiculously high Defence, and then, when Ashta landed a blow, it had no effect due to needing a magic or high-energy source. The archer's mutation, however, allowed him to damage it and the relatively frail thing went down with an arrow through the soft pallet driven under its chin. It was quickly determined that the humanoid Monstrous Being was a male of the species, and its human-hair belt with golden buckle, and its bone dagger were absconded with as Ashta retreated.
--Cries of, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" from the kits in the shack led the archer to foolishly think it safe enough to retrieve a few arrows, when he saw a humanoid shadow fall across his. "I don't turn, I just run." Jumping onto a palm frond reduced his falling rate and he only sustained 9 DP upon rolling down the sloped incline of the hill before landing in a sea-grape leaf tree which snared several of his minor bits of equipment.
---The entire group grabbed what food and supplies they could and DD's back to the ship whereupon they caught that last few hours of wind --enough to carry them from the island. Two additional days of becallmed winds, and then finally enough to make it to the next inhabited and well-visited island.
We held it there.
