Mercenaries of Talathese

Setting

Talathese, 150 point characters.

Characters

• Kokoro ("the Green Dragon")
• Erik
• Kia
• Ephialtes
• Academis

Chiogi

Worshippers of Chiogi, a once-popular strength and justice god, believe they have unraveled the mystery of the location of their god's original temple. They sent out some clerics two weeks ago, and they have not returned, so it's become time to hire professional adventurers.

Arrangements are made and the party boards a fisherman's modest vessel to be transported some 40 miles west along the coast. There, they ascend Blackeagle Crag and discover evidence the clerics made it at least this far. Following instructions given to them by their employer, they wait around for sunset and - behold - the evening's mountain shadows briefly create a shape of a cat that they can use to navigate to their destination.

Marching through the rocky hills the following day, they follow the clerics' tracks down into a sandy canyon where Academis summons pure water to drink and Ephialtes snags a suckling fawn for lunch.

After climbing out of the canyon, late in the afternoon they descend into a green valley with lush broad-leaf plants and hanging vines. They soon smell -- and then hear -- an offal pile covered in insects. Two human corpses are evident-- stripped of all four limbs. Later, they encounter a deer, tied to a tree with vines, one leg removed, barely alive. Ephialtes puts it down with an arrow.

Then, enormous baboons attack.