The world blurs into focus as you slowly open your eyes. Your head hurts and your muscles ache from spending several hours in a contorted position. The ropes at your wrists and ankles are rough and chafe at your skin with even the slightest movement. The noon sun beats down from overhead, threatening your fair skin with the mother of all sun burns.
How had things gone so wrong so fast? You had just graduated from the academy and had received your first assignment, a courier contract to deliver a parcel to a merchant in the Scorched Valley. You had made good time during your week of travel, easily passing through the heartland of the empire and reaching the edge of the Southern Desert. Were it not for a vicious sandstorm, you would have reached the oasis town and fulfilled your mission.
Instead, you became hopelessly lost during the desperate search for shelter. Though a craggy outcropping of rock formations had spared you from the fiery sands, it was mazelike and easy to get turned around in. It was here where the gnolls ambushed you.
You fought valiantly against the dog-men, but in the end, their numbers overwhelmed you. A drug-laden dart pierced your upper thigh and all feeling left your limbs. You tumbled to the ground, vision slowly fading with the gnolls' strange barking laughter in your ears...
You look around and quickly realize that your surrounding have changed. The gnolls must have carried you to their lair. You kneel in the center of a ruined temple courtyard, bound to a sandstone pillar. The multistory structure of the temple proper lies in front of you. Its original occupants clearly long since gone, the building is riddled with cracks crumbling masonry, its once impressive domed ceiling caved in like an worn cook pot.
A faint series of canine cackling and the flicker of cook fires reveal that your captors have occupied the temple, taking advantage of its shade. From what you know of gnolls, you guess that they intend to keep you as a slave. Your gear is nowhere in sight, and you have been stripped of your leather armor. Your wrack your brain for some means of escape when a noise draws your attention.
Your gnoll guard has just become aware of you gaining consciousness. He is small for his species which makes you think he's either a runt or a juvenile. Despite the circumstances, the dogman sentry seems more scared of you than the other way around. He quakes in his loin clothe and keeps his spear pointed at you. You shift a bit and he yelps in surprise, quickly glancing around afterward to make sure no one saw his cowardice.
How had things gone so wrong so fast? You had just graduated from the academy and had received your first assignment, a courier contract to deliver a parcel to a merchant in the Scorched Valley. You had made good time during your week of travel, easily passing through the heartland of the empire and reaching the edge of the Southern Desert. Were it not for a vicious sandstorm, you would have reached the oasis town and fulfilled your mission.
Instead, you became hopelessly lost during the desperate search for shelter. Though a craggy outcropping of rock formations had spared you from the fiery sands, it was mazelike and easy to get turned around in. It was here where the gnolls ambushed you.
You fought valiantly against the dog-men, but in the end, their numbers overwhelmed you. A drug-laden dart pierced your upper thigh and all feeling left your limbs. You tumbled to the ground, vision slowly fading with the gnolls' strange barking laughter in your ears...
You look around and quickly realize that your surrounding have changed. The gnolls must have carried you to their lair. You kneel in the center of a ruined temple courtyard, bound to a sandstone pillar. The multistory structure of the temple proper lies in front of you. Its original occupants clearly long since gone, the building is riddled with cracks crumbling masonry, its once impressive domed ceiling caved in like an worn cook pot.
A faint series of canine cackling and the flicker of cook fires reveal that your captors have occupied the temple, taking advantage of its shade. From what you know of gnolls, you guess that they intend to keep you as a slave. Your gear is nowhere in sight, and you have been stripped of your leather armor. Your wrack your brain for some means of escape when a noise draws your attention.
Your gnoll guard has just become aware of you gaining consciousness. He is small for his species which makes you think he's either a runt or a juvenile. Despite the circumstances, the dogman sentry seems more scared of you than the other way around. He quakes in his loin clothe and keeps his spear pointed at you. You shift a bit and he yelps in surprise, quickly glancing around afterward to make sure no one saw his cowardice.