Session 11

Dawn broke over the dusty sands of the Wildlands as the party packed up their camp. The night had been spent among a band of desert nomads — weathered travelers who had long evaded both Imperial patrols and the shifting perils of the dunes. Though wary at first, the nomads shared their fire and their stories, whispering of Mastodon Ridge, a place of ancient bones and older spirits. They spoke of a guardian there - Mammon, the “beast on two legs,” said to commune with the fey and guard the ridge from intruders.

By midday, the party’s route carried them north toward the ridge’s dark outline against the horizon. Crossing the crimson flats, they reached the Cantha Rail Line, a scar of steel and rust dividing the land. Beyond it, the ridge loomed tall and jagged. From the west, a column of black smoke rose above the haze - its source hidden beyond the looming ridge.

As the party began their climb, the tranquil silence of the desert was shattered by a thunderous voice echoing across the escarpment:   “Imperials! You dare climb the graves of the old ones? Turn back, or be broken like the rest!”   Moments later, the ridge itself seemed to awaken — stones and shattered bones tumbling down the slopes as the booming voice hurled both words and boulders in defiance. The ascent became a gauntlet of flying shale, dust, and splintered ivory. Through grit and determination, the party scaled the perilous climb, their resolve tested with each rockslide.

At the crest, they found him.   A towering loxodon figure, eight feet tall and built like a living monument, stood amid a field of fossilized mastodon bones. Mammon — his tusks painted in ash, his hide adorned with ochre spirals — stood beneath the blistering sun, the skull of a great beast strapped to his back. When he struck his staff upon the stone, the desert itself seemed to answer with thunder.   “You survived the climb. Impressive… for Imperials. But your kind is not welcome here. Speak your lies quickly before the ridge swallows you whole.”   The party spoke in their defense — showing their shackles, the sigils of servitude burned into their flesh, proof that they were no servants of the Empire. Kell spoke to him in the ancient tongue of druids, invoking the natural spirits that still haunted the ridge.   Mammon studied them in silence before lowering his weapon.   “Those lights upon your wrists… curses of bondage, not the mark of soldiers. You bear chains of the Empire’s making — not its weapons. Perhaps you are not the carrion I thought. Slaves, then. Fugitives. Broken things searching for freedom.”   His gaze drifted to the ossified plain below, where the wind whispered through hollow bones.   “Do you see them? My kin — stripped for ivory and blood, burned in the furnaces of your masters. The Empire leaves nothing untouched. Why should I trust that your path is any different?”   After a long silence, the desert shaman finally spoke again, voice low and measured.   “You carry the stink of sorrow more than the stench of conquest. Perhaps the land itself will forgive your trespass, if you prove your worth. There is still poison near my lands — an Imperial machine, broken but not dead. Its smoke chokes the breath of the ridge. Go there. End it. Do this for me, and perhaps the Fey will look upon you with kinder eyes than they did my kin.”   Following Mammon’s gaze, Alucard lifted his spyglass. Through the heat shimmer, he spotted a wrecked Imperial transport convoy at the base of the western slope — its treads half-buried in sand, a column of oily smoke spiraling skyward. Legionnaires clustered around the vehicle, struggling to repair it. The Empire’s mark was clear.

The party accepted the task. Descending the western face of the ridge carefully, they crept through the dust and bone toward the wounded machine. Boost wove an invisibility spell over Frostwarden, who slipped down the slope of the ridge unseen. In a silently coordinated strike, the Imperial knight leading the repair crew was disarmed by Frostwarden — and chaos erupted.   Steel clashed beneath the shadow of Mastodon Ridge, as the smoke of the dying machine coiled higher into the crimson sky.