(073) Wind and Sand

[waysoftheearth]

From what direction are the sand megalodons coming, in relation to the skiff and the direction the party needs to head (the fortress that is second from the right of the current fortress)?

You have no idea which direction is "north" here, or whether there even is a "north" here at all. Let us say the crater is a circle with the ancient Ring at its center (more or less true).

Let us say that the nearest fortress is at 12 o'clock.
The wind then comes from 3 o'clock, and Gustave's Bastille lies in the same direction.
The crashed skiff (and the party's current position) then lies at 2 o'clock, about half way toward the crater center.
The "event" is then incoming from about 1 o'clock...

[mushgnome]

When Highbough reaches the deck of the skiff, he gazes out toward the approaching disturbance, then rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, as if adapting to this world's weakened gravity...

[ehiker133]

Desmond spies the mound(s) of moving sand and thinks to how much trouble the party had with the elemental and how taxing this heat is to them. He points at Gustave's bastille and shouts the question, "FIGHT ANOTHER DAY? LEAP TO THE GUSTAVE?"

Yeah, I wasn't looking for cardinal directions; just general relational ones. That explains it just fine. Thanks! So does that mean the "battlefield" is all around us? We're basically in the center, with fortresses all around us?

[waysoftheearth]

The 60ft high flurry of sand rapidly broadens into a 40ft wide front as it rushes toward the crater.

All sound deadens. Time seems to slow...

Against a backdrop of an avalanche of wind-whipped, red sand, a lone wolf-man leaps dramatically over the lip of crater, clearing 30ft of air and flying toward you with all four limbs flailing wildly. He seems so small.

...normal time and noise seems to resume.

The lip of the crater explodes behind him! A tsunami of sand rushes outward as a tangle of impossibly huge worms burst out of the torrent. A central worm dives ahead to snatch the wolfman out of the air before he even lands, swallowing him entire in its 10ft wide maw!

The worm-swam hits, rocking the earth! The cater surface is torn asunder in a wild tornado of sand. It's impossible to tell whether there are merely half a dozen or two-score worms. It hardly matters! 50 yards, 40, 30 yards! The wall of giant worms and sand rush to engulf the company and the stranded skiff entire!

[waysoftheearth]

Your orders for the imminent turn of action?

[mgtremaine]

Wen would fire his readied arrow directly into the first Worm he sees exposed. He would then quickly step towards the nearest, largest solid object. As in the ship or a stone outcropping, something the sand worms are not likely to swim through.

Is this where i start whining about GAME OVER man, GAME OVER!

[ehiker133]

At his fastest pace, Desmond leaps and bounds out of the path of the worms, knowing there is no way to fight such monstrosities. He heads towards the fortress just right of The Gustave's fortress, trying to move at a direction 90 degrees from the path of the worms.

[Condorcet]

"Baal's breath!" hisses Helmut, squinting through the stinging sand at the writhing leviathans bearing down upon the hapless group.

"MY LADY!" he yells, turning to Josiane, though it is barely a whisper over the roar of the wind and sand, "YOU ARE WOUNDED. I WOULD HAVE YOU GO BELOW", and gestures to the open hull.

"Thuul preserve us," he mutters, as he draws the great Blade of Seyal from its sheath on his back, and sets himself upon to deck to face whatever comes next.

[coffee]

Dieter looks with dismay at the host of giant carnivorous worms bursting from the ground.

"I DO NOT LIKE THIS PLACE!" he roars, as he leaps back toward the skiff. Maybe if we're all together, we can kill the one that swallows us from within, cutting our way out...

He is leaping with his normal muscles, enhanced by the weaker local gravity. He has daily uses left on his ring that he is keeping in reserve.

[flightcommander]

Armando stops fidgeting with the tubes and valves in the vessel's hold as a deep thrumming noise reaches his ears. He scrambles to the breach in the hull and squints into the bright sun and stinging sand. "Oh dear ... !"