Exploration of the nearby areas is progressing nicely, it's quite relieving when distances actually make sense. Back in Eberron sometimes the same road would take one day to walk there and a week back with no accounting for the change. You can imagine how difficult mapping was. The darkness does make it difficult to see beyond just the nearby areas, find landmarks and such but I'd say we're doing well.
A few of us set off towards the Roc nest recently, and I'm relieved to say that area was exactly where we left it, the land still in the exact same spot we last saw! I know, I'm as surprised as you. Deserts that don't move, need to make a note to investigate how such a thing is possible. We were looking for some sort of giant worm creature to offer to the Roc as tribute. The Sabre-tooth had told Wax that if we offered the Giant-Eagle creature it's favourite feast it might look favourably on us and forgive any transgressions upon its territory and similar- at least that was the idea. It's worth noting that we had very little resembled a plan; just that the worm lived 'somewhere in this desert' and was attracted to vibrations, although we didn't have any source of those better than me jumping up and down.
As one might expect, the keen-eyed Roc flying overhead noticed us long, long before we attracted any sort of giant worm or anything. I did my best to try to speak to it but the Eagles here speak mostly in 'Kaws' and the Eagles back home use mostly 'Caws', which makes it all but impossible to understand properly. Luckily, Yennifer and Etari had magics capable of making themselves understood slightly better. I didn't really catch too much of the general conversation, but it seemed the Roc was either annoyed by our presence and said it was more than capable of catching its own food or annoyed at its bubble bath being interrupted. Given the lack of bubble residue, I'm going with the former. I started to ask more about where it gets all the bubbles (worth a shot just in case) but instead, it picked up & dropped Wax, who caught himself with a flight spell, looking completely calm. Have to say I was impressed at his seeming lack of concern while getting dropped out of the sky.
I do have to admit I spent most of the next hour looking around for what a Roc might be using as a bathtub and failed to notice until a Kobold attack was right upon us, 3 riders on large worm creatures, one with a large musket and one spellcaster. The resulting fight was quite difficult, the single first musket shot almost dropping Yennifer right where she stood and Wax barely deflecting several more attacks. Etari was able to catch the Musket-kobold with a laughter spell and while it was occupied I was able to catch it between a Moonbeam, Spiritual Weapon and blasts of divine flame with a few key Firebolts from Wax. In the meantime, Kerberos, Book, Yennifer and Yennifer's summoned creatures were able to deal with the others, although Yennifer and Etari were barely holding on.
As the Kobold finally collapsed within the burn of the Moonbeam he had one last trick to play, and I spotted a small bomb on his corpse, ticking loudly as it counted down. I ran over to it to try to get it away but, well it only rolled a few feet. As I ran over to try again the timer hit zero and everything exploded. Looking back, luckily Wax and I dodged the worst of it and the others who were quite injured were just out of range of the explosion. Knowing how weak we were at that point we rested best we could and ran straight back to the dome and safety, leaving our business with the Roc for a later date.