Heading toward the next and hopefully final portal, our outcasts seem to have more resolve than ever. Bloated with freshly cooked elfheart with the magical properties of intertwining their fates, they set out for their next destination, Though virtually colorless and devoid of civility, the blighted desert has had more surprises in it then our outcasts ever realized. Gnoll ambushes and earthquake inducing sandworms, a strange property that turns metal into rust within hours, along with the suffocating rarity of bodily sustainance has our outcasts scraping the sides of the barrel for a reprieve. But soon they will realize that the desert can be unforgiving to more than just their physical well being...
As they cross the desert back to Grak's Pool in search of a more favorable method of transportation, they set up camp for the night in the vast wastes. Minron and Talon gladly volunteer for the upcoming night guard just for something to take their mind off of the constant tearing and ripping caused by the beetles latched to their chests. The first few hours of night pass without event, all of the sudden, as if to make up for the past day of no event in this cursed blight, Minron falls to the ground convulsing and blurting out foreign sounds from his mouth. Sounds that seem to not belong to this realm of existence at all. As Talon draws closer to investigate, the convulsing stopped. Minron hops up onto his legs and stares lifeless out into the wastes as Talon asks if he's okay. Then without warning Minron leans into a full sprint to the east. Talon in hot pursuit, quickly realizes that it is a futile effort to catch up to such a brute of athletic prowess in an unnaturally fast sprint. He does notice that no matter how fast or far Minron ran, the aura their new sense is attuned to never faded. Talon headed back to camp and woke the others with his strange happenings in the night. The others seemed to just brush it off and convinced themselves that he would return by dawn, and with that conclusion they went ahead and rested for the night, Talon continued his guard duty and hoped that Minron would return before the others woke again.
Dawn approached with no further event. As the outcasts began to pack up the night's camping ground they realized that they would have to track down Minron before moving forward, for Minron had sprinted in the complete wrong direction of their next destination. Confident with their new sixth sense though, they did not think it such a feat to follow the Minotaur's aura to the end of his personal breakdown. As they set off down the path of Minron's aura they quickly realized that they had no easy task in front of them. The aura's path seemed to be going on forever in an unnaturally linear path to the east, as if almost cutting through the sand dunes. They followed this path for almost two days before they finally came upon a most interesting temple ruin. The outer wall along the ruin's perimeter was all but decimated by the blights unnatural deterioration. Eerily, the gate entrance to this ruined temple stood triumphant in it's conquest of the blight's corrosion. Minron's aura stopped at the gate so the heroes investigated inside the shin-high walls of the temple. No trace of Minron appeared inside the temple, as if he stopped at the gate and disappeared from existence. Our outcasts new that something was very wrong with the gate's unnatural resiliency to the blight. Minron had walked through the gate and now they must, to save him from whatever lay beyond it...
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