All those years ago, West Karana was often so foggy that you could barely see ten feet ahead of you. Not the best situation when there might be a giant or bandits wandering around. Today it was clear and sunny, a good sign for my trip, or at least a convenient one.
I didn’t want to press my luck, so I headed south to the water’s edge. Easier to follow the water than the poorly-maintained West Karana roads if things get murky.
Many creatures call the Karanas home, but I had forgotten how large the spiders could be. I was itching for a fight I guess, so I laid into this giant, twice the size of me. I was feeling good after Blackburrow, figured I was fast enough to avoid his strikes and keep him from pinning me down.
I was right, but after I got warmed up, it started running away. The sport of the moment was gone, so I just let it go.
I came across a bandit camp, but there were too many of them for me to do much about. They didn’t seem to notice me, maybe figured I wasn’t worth the bother. I suppose if I looked at me nowadays I wouldn’t think I was either.
Still, I tried to pick this guy’s pocket as I left their camp. Didn’t wait to see if he noticed.
There’s been a lot of battles out on these plains. I don’t recognize the banner, but I do recognize zombies, skeletons, and ghouls when I see them. I’ll take a pass, today.
Finally I see my halfway mark, as far as the Karanas at least. The old spires.. I heard tell once they were tied into some teleportation network.. I wonder if they ever got it working?
I bet if they ever did, the League of Antonican bards would get it shut down because it encroached on their mail service. That’d be just like politicians.
I had planned on swinging down through South Karana to make a stop at Split Paw, the other Gnoll stronghold.. but I got a tip that it got overrun some years back by undead gnolls, and then after that, elementals. Poor bastards.
In all the fog, I had never really noticed how many settlements there are out here in the Karanas. I suppose maybe they weren’t all there before, but either way I had imagined this place as a few isolated farmers and bandits, and then a whole lot of emptiness besides. I don’t mind being wrong.
I suppose it’s not very surprising that this bridge is still here as I remember it. I don’t know how, or I guess who, got those giant chains up there like that, but it seemed to me at the time that it was holding the whole continent together. In the shadow of this bridge seems as good a place as any for a camp.
-Denc Wormington, ex-rogue
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