NDT 18 Play Report: We find the lost valley

Every boy’s been warned by his loving father against reaching into dark holes: “You leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone!” Poor Martin grew up an orphan. Olimarrus is a son of the Earth, and the Earth doesn’t teach its lessons plainly. And Roger, I don’t know about Roger. So not only did the three of them climb down the cliffside to peer into dark (and large!) cave, but when something popped out, they stayed to fight it. Because it had insulted them. Or because it had offended their sense of justice. Or because they thought it might have cursed itself with a treasure that they hoped to convey upon their own person. With magical fire and trickery, they slew the beast in its home and then ransacked its middens. That lady-priest Knightley is a smart girl and the guide from Threshhold isn’t stupid. They stayed on top of the cliff with Pavel and enjoyed a hot meal of boiled beef jerky with moss.

fortress, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

We followed the road and the road led us deeper into the ravine and then, as roads do, it ended, and left us to find our own way across the ravine to the door on the other side. To the bottom of the ravine they lowered Pavel on a rope and then they lowered Knightley but the rope broke, and so Martin struck a deal with the spirits of the air and on an invisible throne, lowered the rest of them one by one. We made our camp on the floor of the ravine, on the grassy banks of a bright and gurgling stream where Pavel asked himself if this was the lost holy place that he’d long sought, the secret treasure of Traldar. But in the gray hour before dawn, a pair of metal-eating monsters assaulted him and disabused of his naïve dream—the world was not right, even in this secret pocket. He awakened his companions who drove the monsters away. And then, after a quick breakfast, they began their ascent to the other side of the ravine. And again, Pavel marveled at what his ancestors had accomplished, having crafted a pair of stone doors set between two mountain peaks as a portal to the hidden valley belong. Martin once again called upon his magic to lift the party members first up to the narrow ledge before the doors and then over the doors to the other side where a small valley contained a well-crafted, but seemingly deserted city.