There's a Desert in My Blood

The 52nd session.

Lyrics: "One Foot" by WALK THE MOON

Highlights
The party departs Tormani and heads into the desert with Pinjin and his caravan. A sandstorm waylays them. While waiting it out, the caravan crew shares stories of two dragons: Atarka, the Glutton of the Desert, and Ojutai, the Mage of the Sands. Atarka was known to frequent oases and Ojutai dabbed in magic. They had slain their own mother to gain control of the wastes. Zeno runs into some trouble with water brewing beer, Set tries to create more and fails, and the party learns of the Tithe of the Desert, a magical condition where water evaporates or is "tithed" away as soon as it meets the desert air.

The next day, the party faces off with their first troop of the wandering undead in the desert and is overall fairly successful-- until their efforts tempt a sandwurm to scope out the area for prey. Thanks to Pinjin's knowledge of wurm evasion and Awk's quick thinking distracting the wurm with his dust devil spell, the party and caravan crew are able to escape the wurm unharmed. During the battle, Helli attempts to loot a plague weapon used by one of the undead and finds that she cannot let go of it, even as a dark disease creeps up her arm. Luckily, Felegum is able to dispel it. This seems central to how the dead keep rising; anything cut by the weapons risks infection.