Chapter Two: Sandstorm

We are following the path to Urik by following the tracks of the slave wagon. After following for a couple of hours the wind starts picking up, which makes us worry about getting caught in sandstorm. However we see some ruins in the distance that we're able to dash for, and we all manage to find varying degrees of cover. Kriv helps Vex by throwing the lirr skin around her, and guiding her to the trench he psionically dug. Vex starts telepathically calling the others over. We hunker down for a while and the sand gets everywhere. The storm lasts for 70 minutes and we cower. We emerge from our shelter exhausted to varying degrees. We search around and find some supplies.

Kriv attempts to excavate the well and finds 1/2 a gallon of water. Tenneth searches the cellar and finds roots. Hidden under the sand, we find a door that leads to another cellar. Inside we find two scared little dwarf children, and they are afraid of us. In dwarven they say that they hid here from the sandstorm, that they don't have any water of food (and they definitely do), and that they are just trying to take the water back to Kled. They were "trying to help carry the water" and they lost their erdlu mounts. Kriv estimates we're about four days from Kled. They say that they know where to find water, and Kriv offers them a finder's fee. Vex proposes that we all go to Kled with the water we find. The kids explain that the water in Kled has been corrupted. Kriv makes a deal: we all go get fresh water, and we will take the kids back to Kled, and then we can talk to them about helping with their oasis. The kids are named Claodis (talky) and Khelmak (quiet). They say the water is underground in a wezer colony, and the water is stored in wax containers. The kids claim to have been the ones to find the wezer hive in order to save their village.

We rest for one day. Kriv trades some lirr-tooth spears for a bit of water from the kids. Kriv sets up a snare to catch something to eat for the next day and finds a day’s worth of food each (lizards). The next evening the kids lead us to a large red wasp being attacked by two aarakocra. Aruna asks the kids if we need to get involved, and they can take us to the hive, so we bypass the fight.

We arrive at five mounds in the earth about 8 feet tall with openings, and the kids tell us we can go in them to go underground to get the water. Tenneth knows that wezers live in a hive, and they tend to capture people who get injected by eggs from the queen to feed the larvae, and they dig about 20 feet deep. Kriv molds earth to create a tunnel into the hive, and he finds a wezer with a body with a larva in it. We kill the wezer and set fire to the body. We emerge into a chamber with a bunch of wezers in it.