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Carthago! is a game by G.M., louisxiv just made a site for it.
This is the Carthago! home page.
Carthago! is a game by G.M., louisxiv just made a site for it.
Thursday, 16th May ’24
From Sammus’s Boast:
We were ready to leave at dusk on 29th December. We travelled through the night and there were a few drops of rain as we marched. The next day was cooler as the sun was blocked by clouds. On the second night we travelled on through slightly damp sand and saw a few green things had surprisingly poked through. During the night Amphius reported seeing an animal of some kind and he found tracks of a golden wolf which was thought to have a very valuable hide, but Agripinus thought we should continue while we were making good progress and Baal-Shaq agreed.
That day the clouds cleared, and it warmed up. We set off again at dusk and about 2 in the morning there was a cry of alarm from the front of the party. Amphius called for help and guides were shouting “Jabba!”, or something like that, to each other.
There was a depression in the ground ahead and Amphius threw the end of a rope down into it. A guide, Ijju, was down there, calling out in pain, and I thought he might be in quicksand. He didn’t notice the rope. A second guide, Ghanim, was trying to pull him out, while Amphius tried to flick the rope towards the guides. Si'aspiqo rode closer and tried to dismount, but the pony was skittish. Ghanim grabbed the rope and tied it round himself, but Ijju started sinking into the sand. Agripinus tried to throw a second rope, which was attached to a pony. Ijju had now almost disappeared as though he was being forcefully swallowed, but the Ghanim managed to grab a hand.
Agripinus drew a weapon and scrambled and slid down the slope. Amphius started to walk back pulling the rope. Si'aspiqo held out a lit torch to illuminate the pit. Amphius was pulled back a step or two as Ijju disappeared up to his hands and Ghanim started to disappear. Agripinus felt soft sand, getting softer beneath him. He muttered a prayer and cast protection from evil after grabbing Ijju’s arm. Toxoanassa, Baal-Shaq and I all arrived. Toxoanassa made a lasso and I grabbed Amphius’s rope, while Baal-Shaq went straight into the pit.
Amphius and I pulled on the rope and Badis arrived. Si'aspiqo had dismounted and started to prepare magic. Between two of us pulling on the rope, Agripinus and Ghanim, we managed to pull Ijju’s head out. Bardis joined in pulling the rope. Agripinus cast remove fear on the guide. He seemed to be weakening and his movements were slowing. I felt I was making progress, although Amphius slipped. Toxoanassa tried to lasso Ghanim, and the rope landed on him around the shoulders. She waited to see if it would drop down around his waist.
Si'aspiqo cast a cantrip to try to determine if this was natural or there was something behind it. Meanwhile, Agripinus grabbed Ijju’s other arm, Amphius dropped the rope, but I pulled very strongly, and with help from Bardis, we pulled so hard that Ijju lost his grip. Agripinus managed to get more of the sunken guide out of the sand, but he was weakening further.
Baal-Shaq gave a shout and seemed to be digging or poking at something in the sand. I tried to wrap the rope around me and reach down for Ijju. Whatever had hold of him seemed to give a fierce tug, but Agripinus still had hold of him. I went down into the pit to grab hold of Agripinus, and Ghanim helped. Agripinus and I made progress, but Ijju had now gone limp and was semi-conscious. Baal-Shaq was stabbing into the sand. Almost his whole shoulder was in the sand.
As we pulled, Ijju flew out of the pit, while Baal-Shaq continued poking with his sword. I joined Baal-Shaq and felt I had stabbed something moving under the sand. Badis and Toxoanassa pulled Ijju out and Agripinus and Amphius looked to help him. There seemed to be lacerations on his calf. I stabbed again and my sword bit deeply into something I felt wriggling. The other guides arrived as Agripinus gave first aid. Baal-Shaq was standing poised with his sword, listening. I stabbed sand but felt a rattle beside me.
The wounded man looked exhausted or drugged in the torchlight. He had two large puncture wounds, on either side of his calf, from which blood and something very dark oozed. Agripinus cleaned the wound with holy water and bandaged it and then muttered a healing prayer. Baal-Shaq told me that either we had got it, or it was waiting for us to move. He indicated that I should stand ready with my sword and then he wiggled his feet a couple of times, but nothing reacted. We then retreated in turn from the pit.
The guides discussed with Baal-Shaq, and he explained that this had been a Jabba worm, maybe encouraged by the rain, which had dug this pit as a trap. Baal-Shaq asked Si'aspiqo if he could tell if it was still alive. Using the black stain from my sword, he cast a cantrip to feel the creature. He thought it was probably dead. Baal-Shaq stuck a torch in the sand and then moved a little away and muttered. On his return he told us that the spirits told him that it might be worth digging a little as the worm might be close. Bardis said the hide of the worm could be valuable, the meat could be eaten if prepared correctly, and the poison could be used in healing. I set to digging out the body, while Baal-Shaq stood poised with his sword and Toxoanassa with a rope, and Amphius watched for movement.
Si'aspiqo tried to cast a spell, but he found he had a cut and some of the dark ichor had got to it. His fingers went numb and felt cool. I dug up the head and then found the body of the worm, which was like a thick and heavy eel. There were no eyes, just a barbed pincer and two antennae protruding from the head. I tied a rope around it and with more digging we got the body out – it was 20 feet long, and 8 inches in diameter at the widest point. The head had been severed.
The guides suggested we camp there. They seemed very happy to have all survived and impressed by how we had killed the Jabba worm. Amphius looked to see if there was anything else in the pit, but Badis, helped by Baal-Shaq, explained its lair might have been far away and it had just dug here after the rain. He added that this had been a great service to travelers. Smaller ones were more common, but this one had been fully grown.
It was a day and a half’s travel to the next oasis. Ijju was very weak, but Toxoanassa was confident she could keep him upright in the saddle, so Si'aspiqo would have to give up his ride. Ijju said his lips were numb, but he could move his limbs, even though they were very weak. He could be fed and given water to drink. Agripinus muttered another healing prayer before dawn.
We skinned the worm in three cylindrical sections, each of which opened into a rectangle. Bardis asked if we had oil, so that when the sun came up the outer part could be oiled, and the sun would dry the inner part. He told me where the poison glands were; I dissected the head and found two hollow needle-like mandibles and followed them back to find glands. I extracted one, but the other leaked. Badis explained that this could be used to eliminate pain. Si'aspiqo took some ground charcoal from a pot and put it in a twist of cloth. He used the pot to collect the venom from the gland and sealed it with an alchemical seal. Most of the venom was collected. We also took the hide and the mandibles.
We rested until dusk, and the guides spread the hide in the sun. Badis asked if it was possible to summon more water to boil some of the meat and Agripinus did so, while the guides gathered some brush and built a fire, which was lit by Badis. Si'aspiqo lowered the flames so that it used less fuel and some of the worm meat was boiled, cut into thin strips, and then dried in sun. Agripinus muttered another prayer for the injured guide to cure disease, and we set off for the night.
That night passed quietly, and our guides thought we were half a night’s travel to the oasis at Adrar. We rested for the day and then reached Adrar around midnight. There was much talk about Jabba worms and an inspection by the council of Elders of the worm parts. A delegation of Elders came to speak during the day and there was a lot of talk with Baal-Shaq, who looked resigned. He told us that word of the holy man had reached them, and they asked him to make it rain like he had in Timoudi. Agripinus asked Baal-Shaq to try to tell them that he couldn’t make it rain, but he might be able to ask Tanit when it might rain. Baal-Shaq didn’t think he could convince them, but it was important to maintain good relations. He convinced Agripinus to perform a religious ceremony where he could commune with the Goddess.
He was shown into the largest building in the village and all the villagers gathered outside to watch. After the Ceremony, Agripinus told them it would rain in two days’ time. We had to wait two days to see if his prophecy was correct and the locals sacrificed a sheep.
By now the hide was quite hard – the leather was marbled and rippled; it might be quite valuable when finished. Our guides also prepared more meat, although some would have to be left behind when we departed. Si'aspiqo kept some offcuts to use as a fetish. Amphius prepared for another bath.
The next day was brilliantly sunny but overnight a cool wind began from the North and Northwest and tendrils of cloud arrived. Most of the inhabitants were out looking at the sky. Si'aspiqo sniffed at the wind, and thought rain was on its way. Later in the day the rain started. It still looked insignificant to me, but the locals were very happy, even more so than in Timoudi. Baal-Shaq looked unhappy. He held a briefing and warned the guides to say no more about the rain, as it was obviously them that had told the Elders. We set off for Regane at dusk.
From Si'aspiqo’s Wheeze:
Rain fell during the 29th day of the 12th month and was spitting on into the night, and so we left Timoudi walking across damp sand. Some of the porters found this quite unusual, commenting about the ‘muddy’ sensation underfoot, if my beginning pidgin Berber served. The fitful rain and the relative coolth continued into the next day with the sun obscured by clouds.
The second night on the trail, that of the 30th day, we were still travelling over slightly damped sand though there was no more rain. Here and there were fuzzes of green shoots. Eventually we were distracted from contemplating the unfortunate necessity of crushing eager, hopeful young greenery under our boots and sandals and pony hooves, by Amphius reporting a contact, which our companion guides identified from tracks as a golden wolf, a rare beast with a valuable pelt.
There was a brief discussion whether a pelt might be worth a delay, but Agripinus felt the faster progress we were making on the firmer damp sand should not be wasted, given the delays at Timoudi, with which Baal-Shak agreed and so ended the discussion in short order. We pressed on for the rest of the second night.
In the day the clouds cleared, so warmth returned as we took our rest. We set off on our third night’s travel, 31st day, under a clear starlit sky, proceeding as expected until in the early morning well before any sign of the dawn, came a Berber cry from our forward scouts: “Jabba! Jabba!”, which sounded full of alarm, and was accompnied by calls for assistance from Amphius.
Various of us hurried forward from the middle part of the party to find Amphius and some of our guides at the edge of a sandy pit, one part of which had given way as guide Ijju walked by unheeding, trapping him in a sand-slide down at the bottom of the pit. His comrade Ghanim was making his way down the slide-prone pit side, trying to reach Ijju without burying him completely in further sand falls, while Amphius was trying to throw a rope end to the trapped man.
My observation was of a depression some 20 feet across and perhaps a third to a half that deep. Unsurprising that the sides slide easily and I was in mind of the the pits of the ant-lion, writ large. Certainly the trapped guide seemed to be calling out in pain as if stung perhaps, more than just fallen or trapped in a quicksand.
Having little to offer in that matter of climbing nimbly into carefully unstable sand and performing rescue by main force, I contented myself by falling off the pony as a rapid way to dismount – planned I assure you – lighting a torch and standing none-too-close to the pit’s rim to make the location clearer for all following and perhaps assisting those in and around the pit. Any but Amphius of course, who was saved some of the, for him, searing glare as he had his back to me.
There was a lot of throwing and hauling of ropes as Ijju in the centre slowly sank deeper through his struggles. His friend Ghanim, alongside, had to chose one of several ropes to secure himself, but then the sinking man screamed and convulsed, disappearing almost entirely as sand puffed up, sparkling in the torchfirelight. His roped companion caught Ijju by a spasming hand just in time to prevent it and him disappearing forever.
Agripinus, his rope lying ignored, jumped down into the pit, but controlled his slide to the bottom. Amphius took up the slack on his rope, attached to Ghanim, by walking backwards from the lip, but found himself pulled back as the sand quaked and Ghanim moved to catch his disappearing friend. Agripinus prayed to Tanit to protect the the soul of the trapped, nigh-disappeared, Ijju.
A third wave of assistance arrived in the forms of Toxoanassa, Sammus and Baal-Shaq. Toxoanassa had another rope noosed ready to throw, Sammus helped anchor Amphius, but Baal-Shaq kept running, not breaking pace until he was running on air, and landed in the pit.
The action in the pit became a mass of writing bodies and snaking or twanging ropes in a haze of dust, with cacophony of screams, thuds, shouted instructions and prayers to accompany it. When the dust cleared the be-roped Ghanim had been dragged out of the pit without his close comrade, Ijju, who was now sustained only by Agripinus’s prayers. Baal-Shak seemed to be venting some rage at the shambles by forcefully thrusting his sword into the sand at the bottom of the pit. The victim, Ijju, though somewhat extracted by the disparate balance of various tugging forces moments earlier, started to sink once more, until Agripinus brought to mind the aphorism that gods help them that help themselves and took a firm hold on the him rather than spending breath on calling Tanit, thus arresting a second, or maybe third, disappearance.
Anchoring Amphius being no sort of challenge as the rope was freed down in the pit, Sammus looped the rope around himself and scrambled down, anchored by Amphius and guide Bardis, while Toxoanassa braced her rope for the recently extracted Ghanim to climb back down to his comrade...
More coordinated pulling, perhaps less hampered by any panic actions by the Ijju, or indeed any actions at all by him, allowed the various tuggers to extract him from the sand and drag him back to the lip, while Baal-Shaq conducted some sort of slow, deep-stabbing fight with the sand of the pit itself. Sammus jumped back into the pit, for fear of missing out of a fight, stabbing the sand with his short sword up to the elbow of his long arm. Something beneath the sand seemed to wriggle, he he said later, so he stabbed again and again...
Baal-shaq paused, poised with his sword high, as sand danced out of rhythm with Sammus’s blows. Seeing Baal-Shaq, Sammus too ceased. The sand grew still. They carefully left the pit for Baal-shaq to talk with the gathering guides at some length. This is the trap of a Jabba Worm, they said. A very big one.
Ijju, on examination by Agripinus, was found with puncture wounds to his legs, ripped into tears by his forceful extraction from the sand and whatever the worm gripped him with, which wounds oozed a miz of dark venom and sluggish blood until Agripinus laved them with Holy Water of Tanit and prayed mightily for that such serious wounds be cured. And Tanit had mercy. Though the subject was not a follower, he would be a believer...
While Agripinus persuaded his god of the value of that investment in future reputation I listened to Baal-Shaq’s summary of the guides’ knowledge of the Jabbar worm. This could be summarised ‘possibly profitable — if it be dead not just hiding, nursing its wounds and its wrath, in the depths’.
As no one seemed inclined to get into the pit for speculative digging in the first faint lightening for the pre-predawn hour, I put out the torch and focussed on the poison-stained rags cut away from the Ijju's legs. If I could feel through the Unseen for the creature that was the source of that poison...? No, the poison was too contaminated by human blood and there were too many containers of human blood standing gawping all around me. Hmph.
So, would digging up the Jabbar Worm’s pit bring us fortunate times or disaster in its larder? A scatter of bones and minor idols from my pouch — I shaln’t go into the detail of why this 11th hour of the night became a propitious time to ask — but, well, well — “more likely than not…” would be a summary reading of the signs.
So there was a better than even chance of profit and as we were not likely to go much further before sunrise anyway… The decision was easy.
Baal-Shaq assigned Sammus to digging with Amphius keeping lookout until the sun rose, himself and Agrippinus stood with weapons ready should the sand start to move on its own again. It did not, for a fanged, barbed head was dug out, then its separated body, a wormlike tube some 20ft long.
There was no loot from the misfortunes of other less unlucky travellers, disappointing the expectations of some. Badis said this thing would have come from the deep desert, called by the recent rain and the chance of damp sand suitable for making its pit. Likely we were the first passers-by and left the way safer by our passing. However, its hide would be of worth in trade and the meat might be prepared to make it edible – though perhaps not this amount he said, looking at the 20ft length of the body, a span thick. More interestingly the head yielded intact one of two poison glands to Sammus’s meat carvings and the hollow fangs used to deliver it seemed intacte despite being wrenched from Ijju's leg. This venom is tricky stuff; I had already had a small accident by contaminating a scratched finger, which was by then numbed to all sensation. But this was known in the lore of Badis’s people. It would pass, which made a complete gland a useful tool for physic “Make heal, no pain good” says Badis. So I preserve the gland in small pot with a rite of sealing. Some spillage reconfirms the numbing properties… We also retained the sharp hollow fangs, rasping manibles, and roughly skinned hide to be made leather.
There remained one night and perhaps a further half of travel to Adraa oasis; the victim was weak and woozy from the venom, but more importantly unable to walk until the deep damage to his leg healed. Toxoanassa reckoned once he could sit on a pony she could steady him. But by the morning of the first day of the new year – in some calendars – and despite Agrippinus’s continuing attentions, Ijju was still too affected by the venom to sit up, never mind consider riding.
So we kept camp and those with the skills processed the worm meat and hide. The limiting factor for the meat was firewood to boil water for seething the meat before carving, then wind- and sun-drying it. I spent a lot of time and spell-mutterings that day tending the fire, keeping the burn just so to best use the fuel we had.
By the night of the first day of the new year the numbness and weakness of our friend Ijju had abated somewhat so we set off, slowed by me walking and having to take more breaks than anyone else. Though I may have had sore feet, trembling legs and the wheezing returning from gasping for breath in dusty air, at least my tail bone did not ache from sitting on a pony all night.
The second day of the new year passed in as undisturbed rest as is practical in bright sun in the desert. It was then a leisurely stroll that should perhaps have been a half night under our normal arrangements, but again I was forced to walk, slowing our passage to the oasis of Adraa.
We arrived at Adraa in the early morning of the third day of the year, without incident. Until, that is, our daytime rest was broken by the Elders of the oasis arrival, clamouring for our miracle worker to make it rain here, too. Amphius was puzzled how word of the miracles could have preceded us, but Baal-Shaq’s brow was thunderous as he caught sight of some of the guides and bearers telling tales of the wonders they have seen in trade for water, date wine and fresh food...
Agripinus was very reluctant to call on Tanit again for a weather forecast, let alone to make water fall from the sky. At least not without proselytising a little, to placate Tanit. Baal-Shaq, dedicated to Baal as a child, he told us once, pointed out these villagers and their elders are all followers of Baal and that he really couldn’t advise such a move. This goes and fro for a while, but with the Elders insistent eventually Agripinus agreed to seek the his god’s guidance as to when there would next be rain hereabouts and requested a small, quiet, private place he might use to commune with Tanit.
So he wass awarded the use of largest building of the oasis, with the Elders seated outside peering through the doorway (and occasionally shooing away the close to the half of the village peering in over their heads). Perhaps much encouraged by the moral support of Amphius, who stood by ready with sponge, backbrush, bathrobe (and veil against the bright, warm sun), Agripinus communed. When he emerged to say there would be rain in two days time, were a sheep to be sacrificed, it was quickly done lest a fickle foreign god’s favour failed. Which meant, of course, we must we must wait here two days. More time for the tanning of jabba-leather. And reading scrolls.
Baal-Shaq said that the next stage of the journey – if we got away damp enough to depart without trouble – would be the three and a half nights to Regane oasis and the end of the Ajjer lands. There we should wait for the Kel Ere to take us south.
The next day, fourth of the year, was sunny, but I sniffed a change coming, as Tanit promised, and that night turned cool as the wind shifted to west and then north of west. Later on in the fifth day of the year it rained, for whole minutes at at a time! The locals people were ecstatic. Amphius’s bath robe was dampened, doubtless to his joy too. Agripinus was hailed a true miracle worker and doubtless many tales will be told of his works before we pass this way again.
Baal-Shaq sighed his relief and ordered all to rest, make ready for departure for Regane at the setting of the sun.
From Sammus’s Boast:
We set out the evening after arriving at Beni oasis, 22nd December. As we started to make camp at the end of the first day’s march Amphius disturbed a large cobra, but with good fortune he avoided it and let it slither away. After another night’s travel, we arrived at the small oasis of Ouata. We rested on the outskirts as our guides discussed passage with the inhabitants. We had seen bats flying at night and heard the scurrying of mice during the day in the grasses on the approach to the oasis, but otherwise we saw no sign of life until we reached the oasis.
We continued on the next night under a clear sky. During the night the party blundered across a carpet of grasshoppers or locusts, which hopped or flew in all directions into the darkness. Amongst them was a scorpion that I failed to notice in the dark, fortunately it scuttled around my feet and disappeared. Baal-Shaq told us that our guides call them the man-killers – or androkteinein according to Amphius – and that it was best not to be stung by one. Our guides caught many of the fat grasshoppers and put them in a bag and cooked them in a frying pan when we made camp. They were surprisingly tasty.
At dusk as we prepared to set out again, Si'aspiqo heard a snake as he relieved himself. He moved away and once he had finished, called the rest of us over. The snake was a hissing viper, with a white belly and beautiful brown and white mottled skin. The guides told us it was venomous and aggressive, so we left it undisturbed and set out. Later that night Amphius heard some rustling and then the sound of galloping; It was a small family of slender deer with stubby horns, which the guides called Endi. After a short discussion, we took a break and Amphius, Mago and Toxoanassa went hunting for deer. Toxoanassa managed to shoot one and the hunters returned in triumph. The deer weighed around 25 kilos, with dark fur and two stumpy horns. The deer was skinned, and butchered and Si'aspiqo was given one horn and Mago the other.
It took us two nights’ travel in all to go from Ouata to Timoudi, which is a much larger oasis. The trail went through communal farmland around the oasis and shortly before dawn as we passed through plantations less than a mile from our destination, we saw a native woman crying over a sick child at the side of the road. There were discussions between our guides, Baal-Shaq, Agripinus and the woman. The child was completely limp and did not look well at all. Baal-Shaq told us that this was a tricky situation; the child had a virulent fever, and the woman had been told to abandon it, but she had been unwilling. Agripinus tried to help the child and then broke off to welcome the dawn. Baal-Shaq decided we should make camp here.
Once his ceremony was complete Agripinus muttered and muttered again, and water appeared from a spring into a depression he had made, and the ponies drank while we set up camp. Agripinus made more water appear and said more words over the child. He told us that the child had scarlet fever and was on the brink of death and he had done what he could. Later that morning Agripinus reported that the child had not died and maybe the fever was less intense. Workers had arrived at the location and the guides chatted to them and then someone more important turned up and talked to Axil and Baal-Shaq and I saw them pointing at the woman and child. Baal-Shaq said we would continue to camp here. He told us that the woman had been told to abandon the child and did not want to go back to settlement. There was evidently concern over the spread of fever.
By noon Agripinus felt the child had rallied. A compromise was reached with the man from the settlement where the woman could take her child to her home and Agripinus could go with them and the rest of us could continue to the oasis. Ebeggi and Toxoanassa followed Agripinus who went with the mother and child, while the rest of us went on to the oasis. There was a large pond of open water, some scattered buildings, and more greenery than anywhere since we left Abadla. We were shown to a livestock kraal and set up camp within. There were a lot of people staring at us and jabbering in Numidian and I could see that a crowd of small boys were following Toxoanassa.
At dusk Baal-Shaq spoke to the elders of the settlement. They went to talk to Agripinus and Amphius, Si'aspiqo and I accompanied them. There was still a crowd of boys hanging about and watching the Scythian. Agripinus emerged from the woman’s hut and a conversation between him and the elders was facilitated By Baal-Shaq. He was trying to calm things down and be diplomatic, but it was clear that the locals were unhappy. Eventually the elders marched off and Agripinus said he would speak to the goddess. Baal-Shaq explained that the local wise men were unhappy that a foreign mystic was robbing their oasis of water. If he really wanted to help, they said, he should make it rain. Agripinus had explained that he would ask Tanit to make it rain, but it was not something he normally did.
We ate the gazelle at dusk, and I spent the night between watching Agripinus and back in our camp. I noticed a cat in amongst the buildings rustling around, but the night passed without attack. Part way through Ebeggi was relieved by Ghanim on watch at the hut and neither of them seemed happy with their role.
In the morning the Elders arrived and Agripinus told Baal-Shaq to tell them that he had spoken to Tanit, and she had told him it would rain in four days’ time. Baal-Shaq asked him if he was sure and once the priest had repeated this, Baal-Shaq announced it in Numidian. The Elders muttered amongst themselves and agreed that this would be big news if true, but they would wait and see. Baal-Shaq told us that we were going to be here for four days, and that we had better hope Agripinus was right.
Badis and Ittu told us of the Mound of the Jabbarin nearby, where there were large stones supposedly erected by ancient giants; this seemed worth a look. Leaving Agripinus and Mago behind, Badis, Ittu, Amphius, Toxoanassa, Si'aspiqo and I set out a couple of hours before dawn with some extra waterskins.
It took a few hours walking across the sand but when we arrived, I saw two very large rectangular stones with a third laid across the top, in the form of a trilithon, which are quite common in my homeland – how far away that now seemed. They were on top of a mound of very weathered sand and stone. Si'aspiqo investigated but found no magic, just hints of metal or iron. He pried away some sand and found some rust, maybe a broken piece of a knife and then a fragment of a fitting or buckle from a belt or a harness.
Meanwhile Amphius investigated the sizeable mound looking for some way in but found nothing. The stones were very weathered and had obviously been here a very long time indeed. The colour of the stones suggested they had been brought here from elsewhere, but we couldn’t imagine how this could have been done, unless by giants. It was sunny and hot under a cloudless blue sky, so it didn’t look as though there would be rain anytime soon.
We arrived back at the oasis safely around dusk and rested in camp. Dawn arrived with a brilliant clear sky, with not a breath of wind or sign of a cloud. The child had recovered, and the woman was very grateful. She and Agripinus both seemed healthy, with no sign of fever. Amphius bought some pottery bowls to catch water to take a bath to show his confidence in Agripinus. We rested during the warmth of the day, while Baal-Shaq prayed earnestly to the King of the Heavens and the bearers loafed, enjoying the break. There was a brilliant purple twilight at dusk.
Before dawn Si'aspiqo felt a wind rising and was sure rain was coming from the West as clouds began to cover the sky. By the morning it was cloudy, as the wind brought more in from the West and the sky darkened; later in the day, it rained. I wasn’t impressed by the amount of water that hit the ground, but the locals seemed grateful and joyful. Amphius even had enough for his wash. Agripinus pointed to the rain falling from the sky and the Elders agreed he was not a charlatan. Baal-Shaq was very relieved, and our guides were cheerful, as we could now continue our journey and they could return here in good standing.