Mandraiv's Diary 23

A relatively uneventful journey led us, after a few days, to the feeding area of the cindermaw.  We figured out that it was some kind of giant work, although we weren’t entirely sure what sort, although we figured based mainly on its name that it would likely be something like a flightless, burrowing fire dragon.

We found a likely spot, a nice large, flat rock and set about trying to attract the beast, with some of the more martial party members wandering over the sands, along with a few small herds of aurochs, summoned by me.  Within a few hours, we saw signs of the beast approaching, and prepared, magically protecting ourselves from fire and using a few other magical enhancements.  Only to have them run out, as the beast apparently liked to make a show of itself, presumably trying to terrify us with its slow, threatening approach.

Eventually, it came in and attacked, viciously reaming four-arms, before swallowing him and suffering through the rebirth ritual, as four-arms immediately sliced his way free.  Having successfully recreated the legend of the rebirth, I asked the truth speaker if there would be a problem if we were to kill the beast.  He seemed unable to comprehend that this was possible, and so we duly finished off the beast.  This left the truth speaker shocked at our power, but we thought nothing more of it.

The warrior took a trophy of the worm (it turned out to be a giant worm with little resemblance to a wingless dragon beyond the ability to belch forth flames) and we headed for the sun clan.  The truth speaker was more than enough to have us escorted to the chiefs of the local sun clan encampment by the scouts we encountered en-route, and soon we were standing in amongst the entire clan.

The truth speaker told the tale of our recreation of the rebirth legend, and all was going well until he continued to talk about us killing the beast.  This enraged the sun savages, and they attacked.  Given that we were completely unprepared for a fight, and utterly surrounded by savage warriors, we felt that the best option was to withdraw from the fight, which we did planning to return momentarily, ready to strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger.  The warrior’s chick was down and out, and we were forced to leave her behind, uncertain as to whether or not she was alive.   This, I’m sure, will help me to lead the others around to the idea that we now need to wipe out this little group of savages.

I figure that the only way we’ll be able to get the information we need from this sun clan of savages will be to wipe out this encampment, preventing any word of our actions spreading to other groups and then finding another group to present with our wonderful tale of rebirth.  Of course, we’ll need to convince the truth speaker to tell the tale and omit the ending next time.  Unless he died in the action, I don’t recall seeing him escape although given my unconsciousness at the time, I think that this lack of recall is completely understandable.