A summary of what happened during the game sessions:

March 1, 2002 - Session 26

The group moved on before resting for the day, after the lamia battle. They continued traveling at night, resting during the hot day, for another week.

Still following the compass, which was leading them north and east still, they managed to hit oases as often as they could. At the dawn of the x day, they had reached a very small oasis. There were signs of a caravan having been through the oasis recently, with about thirty wagons. Tallis thought they might be a gypsy or trader caravan.

As they began setting up tents and preparing to rest, they caught sight of a young boy, stumbling through the desert, toward them.

They went to him, and he looked seriously dehydrated, like he'd been wandering for weeks, with cracked lips and sunburned skin. Moving him into their camp, they gave him water and healed him as best they could, but it would take time before he was back to normal.

He looked to be a gypsy boy, perhaps part of the caravan that Ezhno had detected. When he was able to speak, he told them that his people were under attack, about 3 miles in the direction he came from. The group quickly put a plan together - Sana would carry Jon and fly out using the celestial armor that she had, instead of her wings. It would get them there quicker. Rylan would cast fly on himself and carry Margaret. Tallis and Jack would ride their horses as fast as they could, and Ezhno would come with them. They would leave the boy under their tents, to rest and sleep. But beyond the "getting there," they didn't have other plans.

The trip was swift for four of them, who found the caravan being encircled by eight desert men on horseback, who were whooping up warcries and stirring up dust, which the group had seen from a distance. No one in the caravans were defending themselves; they remained hiding in their wagons. There were some other people going through the wagons and tossing out various items.

The minute Sana dropped Jon down, the battle was engaged. The bandits were using short spears and bows, and to quite good effect. Rylan, afraid to cast his usual "fireball" spell for fear of catching the wagons on fire, used other spells to attack, but found himself a target and was quite wounded. Jon also fell in combat, but Margaret revived him before he died.

Tallis, in a surprise move, jumped from his horse and grabbed Jack, surprising him. But it turned out he had some ability to fly, for Jack found himself floating above the ground, moving faster than the horses did. Ezhno used his bow to some effect at a distance, but did not make it to the battle scene before it was over.

Sana, in the strangest and most disturbing event of the fight, felled one of the bandits and the immediately swooped down from her usual perch of fighting while flying and began eating her fallen foe. Fortunately, the rest of the bandits were dead or nearly so. Unfortunately, only Rylan noticed her strange behavior at first. He tried to call out to her to stop, but she didn't listen. It took the combined strength of Jon and Tallis to immobilize her, and then they tied her up. Jon knocked her out to keep her quiet.

During the fight, the men, three of them, who had been searching the wagons stopped and watched the fight. They did not take part, though Rylan was expecting them to cast spells at any moment. If they did, they did it very subtly. And as it appeared the fight was ending, the three men disappeared between the wagons and headed off into the desert behind them. Margaret, when the last bandit had fallen, went through the wagons looking for them, but the tracks stopped after 20 or so paces. They were just gone.

Tallis volunteered to return and fetch the horses Jack and he had left, then return to the oasis to check on the boy. He took no healing for his wounds from Margaret, but as she was busy, it went unnoticed.

No quote of the evening was recorded.