- After treating their wounded aneen as best they could, the group gathered the remainder of thier possessions and set out again.  The animal slowed their progress significantly, however, and it was after dark before they reached their destination: the on oasis on their route through the desert.

- As they approached, they noticed two things.  The first was a brilliantly-glowing, blue-purple, diamond-shaped object floating above the oasis.  The second was the fact that the oasis was occupied by several different groups of people.

- As they refreshed their animals and made their camp for the evening, the group spoke with several of the others there and learned that each of them had a wildly disparate understanding of the surrounding world - to the extent that Naran and Ronin suspected that perhaps the area occupied some confluence of time and/or reality.

- Just before dawn, the diamond-shaped object began to pulse and vibrate.  After a few minutes, the object collapsed in on itself - seeming to draw everyone and everything else occupying the oasis into itself before vanishing.

- Observing how much their wounded aneen had slowed their progress and believing speed to be essential, the group voted to use Helious' healing artifact on their injured animal.

- Packed up again, the group continued their westward journey for the next couple of days - approaching the gathering clouds near the looming black mountain range and fighting the oppressive heat.

- As they neared the foothills in the shadow of the jagged mountains of the Black Riage, they happened upon a sizable herd of wild aneen making its way north along the edge of the hills.  The clouds above were beginning to arc with purple lightening.  The group was still approaching, intending to pass the herd to the south, when an enourmous cragworm erupted from the earth ahead of them, bellowing its hunger...

- +3xp