When last we left our merry band, Torvu and the warband had arrived at the ruins where the player characters had arranged to ambush them. The characters were successful, and had the warband on the defensive when they were attacked by a serlash (a half-snake, half- (supposedly) demonic creature from the depths of the earth. The warband survivors joined up with the player characters to combat the creature, and were eventually successful, with several casualties on the part of the warband. Teela Goran (Joanne) was rendered unconscious due to her spellcasting, and both Barm Vaks (Nick) and Devron Sharpis (SteveB) were wounded by creature. Chavis Greeg, the leader of the warband, gave permission to the sham, Grezzik, to heal the two seriously wounded characters, but in exchange, the players agreed to allow the warband survivors to leave. Torvu Peng (Tom) and Kiarra Foxten (Kathy) were aghast at this, but bowed to the wishes of the rest of the party, and felt they owed the warband survivors for their own survival.
As the player characters left the ruins, they walked straight into an ambush that Greeg and the surviving warband members laid for them. Not wanting to actually kill the party (as he had come to respect them during the battle against the serlash, Greeg demanded their good and valuables, but agreed to let them keep their weapons as long as they swore on the Two Above not to attack them. The party gave up everything they had, although Kiarra managed to secrete away a couple of items and some money in the nearby scrub before they got to her. ("See? I told you my thieving ways would come in handy," Kathy said to the other players.) When Greeg and his allies left, the player characters debated what to do. Since Barm could easily follow their tracks, the group convinced the mongrel hunter to follow the warband party's tracks, and see "what fate would see fit to deliver to them".
The characters pursued the warband, and followed them to what appeared to be a secret cache that the warband used on this side of the (former) Primea Mountains, They found the warband had encountered several other members of their warband, as well as two large bears that seemed to be used as mounts or load bearers, under the control of the shaman, Grezzik. Without waiting for the others' permission, Kiarra headed into the warband camp to scout around and see what she could find. What she found was a small patrol of Blood Bear scouts that captured her!
When the rest of the player characters realized that Kiarra had gone off on her own they were furious, but didn't really know what to do. Against the better judgement of Torvu, who had seen the lay of the warband camp previously, the party set off to find Kiarra and get her back. The attack started well as they ambushed several guards on patrol, and learned that they had captured Kiarra earlier. Learning where she was being kept, the group headed into the heart of the camp taking out the Blood Bears they encountered as quietly as the could, the camp being relatively large but not well patrolled. As they entered the main cave of the cache complex, the group heard a voice call out, "Attack!" as a large, brown bear bore down on them!
That was where I ended up the game session for the night, and needless to say the players were left a bit frustrated. Anyway, that's the Desolation session from last week. Now, I'm off to the Diabetes Clinic for my check-up. Wish me luck. :)