"You've successfully led the children away from the lamasery," I explain, "but you don't know if you're being pursued. The oldest children are leading you to Qitai. There are 57 children altogether, aged 4 to 14. Five of the children are unconscious. By now, you've had time to try to learn why they're unconscious, but you have no idea."
"Five?" asks Olivia. "I thought you said three."
"Two have lapsed into unconsciousness since you left the temple, but they did so in the first few hours. It's been 15 hours now, and no others have lost consciousness." The party has to carry the eldest two girls and the boy; the older children can help with the unconscious others. The remaining children are walking, but the party has to stop regularly because it's brutally hot and the children aren’t made for the difficult terrain. It's late in the afternoon now.
I describe their surroundings, using my notes. "The dusty desert floor is covered with patches of three-foot scrub. You can see two miles to the south there are some rocky hills; and in the far distance, you can see mountains so high that snow rests on their peaks. The children tell you that you have to go through a gap in those peaks to get to Qitai, the day after tomorrow.”
"We hurry the children along as best we can," says John.
"I send my owl out to view the country ahead," adds Olivia, speaking for her mage Lisandro. This is Pacheco, a familiar, who can venture outwards as far as a mile away and still allow Lisandro to see through its eyes.
"The way ahead is clear," I say. "The sun moves closer and closer to the horizon as you make the best time that you can."
The day wanes. Finally, the group stops, and I explain that because of the latitude, it will be an hour before full darkness settles in. We talk about the difficulties of managing so many children, nearly all of whom need some kind of help. I give out some of their names for the party to refer to, as they've had to rely upon the older ones in most cases.
John says, "While we're stopped, we try everything we can to wake up the unconscious children. We try dousing them with water, we use spells to lower or raise their body temperature, or see if they react to cantrips." The party starts comparing their magic, trying various means to affect the sleepers to see if anything works. It doesn't.
I explain, "Chen, the oldest boy, tells you that each of the sleeping children were taken away from the group for a while, then brought back. All of them fell asleep soon after being returned. Naran, one of the girls, adds that some of the children that were taken never came back." The party considers this.
"So two of these children were returned just before we rescued them?" asks Susan.
"Apparently," I answer.
After more discussion, the party sorts out how they'll spend the night. Lisandro plans to stay up as long as he can, concentrating the owl's forays in the direction of the lamasery. John suggests that if the haruchai aren't seen before midnight, it probably means they've stopped for the night too. Galatea and Einrugg bed the children between the boulders and the crevices of the outcropping, which the party has chosen for its defensive nature. Then, following Olivia's advice, Rick's Einrugg walks out a few hundred yards from the camp and casts a light spell on a bush. After this, Lisandro's owl concentrates on watching the bush, sure that any following haruchai would head there first. But no haruchai are seen all night.
Susan wants names for the children and I start churning out random names generated from the internet, not giving years for how old they are but rating them as pubescent, pre-pubescent, young and very young, so there are four groups. I use a 4-sided die for this. Painstakingly, but without wasting much game time, Susan starts assigning older children to younger children for the next day's march. I bring up food and this is distributed in full rations for their charges and half-rations for the party. I'm asked, and I estimate that the pass is about 3,500 ft. above them.
"Are the children going to be able to cross it?" asks Olivia.
"It's going to be dangerous," I say.
I roll a die and tell the party that come the morning, there are three children missing. The others don't know where they are. This creates a stir among the players. Voices rising, they assign Einrugg to look after the children. Lisandro's owl is sent off to search in a wide circle. Galatea heads down through the rocks towards a dry wash they passed the day before, while Piotr searches among the higher rocks.
Within minutes, Pacheco the owl finds Altan and Mei in a little crevice, invisible from the ground; they’re quite safe, doing naught but picking flowers. Unfortunately, the girl Mnkeh, who's just five, is nowhere to be seen. I roll a six-sided die to see how long it takes to find her, doing it until I roll a '1.' I mentally tell myself that if I get a ‘1’ within four rolls, Mnkeh is safe. It takes six rolls for me to roll a ‘1.’
As the die hits the table each time, in full view—I don't play with a gaming screen—the players look on with confusion and concern. When I stop, with a ‘1’ showing, the room is silent. "Galatea hears a scream to her left," I say. Galatea launches herself in that direction, and as she reaches the top of the dry wash bank, she sees that Mnkeh is being threatened by a wolf. The little girl is trying to wedge herself into a crack along the far bank. It's not big enough for her.
"I scream, trying to get the wolf's attention," yelps Susan, who then has Galatea leap down the bank. It's ten feet, onto soft loam, and she makes her dexterity check and ends on her feet. The wolf and Mnkeh, I say, are 40 feet away.
Galatea throws her hammer, Susan snatching her d20 from the table. She misses.
I roll a twenty-sided die in full view of the party. It comes up a '17.' A clear hit. The wolf attacks Mnkeh and kills the girl. The shock rolls through the party. Galatea rights herself, drawing her scimitar. Facing off against the wolf, she wins initiative. She swings, hits, and causes 2 damage. The wolf emits a howl and flees. Pacheco sees it and flies along after it. John asks if Piotr can see the owl or the wolf; if it's anywhere near him. I shake my head. I say, "no." The despondency in the party is palpable. The wolf runs and runs, eventually going beyond where Pacheco can watch it.
Galatea lifts the child and takes her back to camp. The party's mood is gloomy, but they try to shake it off. There's some discussion, and they agree there's no way to carry the body back with them. They sacrifice a blanket for a shroud, wrapping Mnkeh in it; Einrugg and Galatea find a place where there's soft loam and bury the body together. The cleric performs a small ceremony. They build a cairn of a dozen rocks, sure they can find this place again with Pancheco's help.
Continued on The Higher Path
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