The split (again) party reunites (again) in the fetid jungles of Chult (again). 🌱, Zanzibar, and Dur-Dur catch sight of Valour, Dur-Dur-Dur, Ezekiel, Artus, and Dragonbait in their canoes.
Dur-Dur-Dur squints his eyes at his daddy, Dur-Dur. "Are you sure that's my daddy? He looks a lot shorter than the last time I met him! What's your name?" he shouts to the half-orc/half-dwarf.
"Dur-Dur!" Dur-Dur says.
"What's my name?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Dur-Dur-Dur!" Dur-Dur says.
With Dur-Dur-Dur’s airtight interrogation finished, he throws his arms open and pulls Dur-Dur in for a hug. “Daddy I missed you!”
“Well I missed you too a whole lot, Dur-Dur-Dur!” Dur-Dur says.
"I missed you!” Dur-Dur-Dur says again. “I put your posters everywhere! You look like you haven’t been in the sun very much."
Dur-Dur-Dur takes his axe and chops all the nearby trees down to let the sun in.
"We have so much to show you, Daddy! I have a bar, we have Shenice, and dinosaur races." Dur-Dur-Dur shouts over the piles of fallen trees.
🌱 can’t take it anymore. "We NEED to go to Omu because all of this stuff is happening! Your daddy’s losing hit points every day due to the Death Curse. Look how small he is! Do you want him to get any smaller?"
Onward to Omu they gomu! Eventually, night comes along, and the party gets ready to sleep under Leomund’s tiny hut.
"Daddy, let's reunite under this dome!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
They all eat and drink, using beer from the Alchemy Jug. Dur-Dur is barely getting drunk, and when he’s finished drowning away his worries in booze, he crawls into a hole to sleep. Just like daddies all over the world!
Valour finds the whole situation very… dwarvish… "Short of stature, sleeps a lot, lives in a hole? Hrm..." he hrms.
Dur-Dur-Dur is ready to sleep as well, so he picks up Zanzibar like a doll and snuggles with his dad in the recently dug hole.
"Does it feel like fifteen years to you?" Zanzibar says, accepting his fate as a teddy bear after asking Dur-Dur about his time being trapped inside the King of Feathers.
"Sssh, he's sleeping," Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Yes, sleeping! Shush! Hrmmmm!" a cackling voice calls out from within Zanzibar’s beard.
Zanzibar almost smiles. Almost. "Oh yeah, I got a new familiar! I forgot about that!"
"What kind of familiar?" Valour asks.
Sikkukurut pokes his head out, revealing that he is a smokey kingfisher creature that definitely has some shenanigans going on in his life.
Valour leaps at Sikkukurut with a jar, “Justice is burying birds in the marsh!” he shouts.
🌱 blocks Valour. "No! He is our friend!"
"What's your name again?" Zanzibar asks the bird, his addled, 64-year-old 24-year-old mind already forgetting the creature’s strange, possibly Malaysian, possibly third-party content from a non D&D 5th edition product name.
"Sikkukurut! Yes!" Sikkukurut says.
"So... you're not really a kingfisher, are you?” Zanzibar says. “I don't know many birds that can talk. I can literally summon a bird, and it can't talk."
"Sikkukurut bird now! Sikkukurut GODLING!" Sikkukurut says.
Valour divine senses the bird. "If you're a god, then you have to tell us!"
And those are the rules!
Valour sees that Sikkukurut is glowing like a celestial. Celestial? Grandfather Zitembe told them earlier that a celestial is needed to help Eku’s egg hatch.
Egg?
Bird?
"You ever sat on any eggs, Sikkukurut?" Valour says.
"Ooooh yes. Bird!" Sikkukurut points out.
Valour leans in to Sikkukurut.
"I'm going to level with you buddy. We have an odd tendency of partnering with celestial beings and not knowing who they are. Eku was a celestial, a dinosaur, a coatl, and now she's an egg.”
"Mmm yes! Mmm yes! Mmm yes!" Sikkukurut says.
"We still don't know if you can hatch this egg!" 🌱 says. "Then we can go back to Mauratal! How did you, Mr. Celestial, end up in the t-rex celestial plane?"
"Too many questions, too many questions, not enough answers!" Sikkukurut shouts.
"We agree!” Valour says, growing agitated. “You're responsible for the answers. So get to it!”
Sikkukurut explains that the King of Feathers ate him many decades ago and absorbed his power. That’s how the monster works: it cages those whose powers it desires, then manifests those powers in the real world. Sikkukurut was a kingfisher godling who could see through the eyes of other kingfishers until the King of Feathers got him and stole the power.
Of course, this information is explained MUCH LOUDER.
Valour reaches into his pouch and produces Eku’s egg, showing it to Sikkukurut.
"Ooooh rainbow egg! Scales like King of Feathers!" Sikkukurut says, stepping up to Eku’s egg and pecking at it.
Valour pulls the egg away. “Can you hatch it?”
"Nine Gods can! Sikkukurut know Nine Gods!" the wispy bird says, referring to the pretender deities that Tyr ordered Valour to slay.
"We need to be their friends, and you need to kill them!?" Zanzibar says to Valour.
"We don't need to be friends with them," Valour says. "We can cast command... and dominate... you know! Sikkukurut, do you really know these gods?"
The bird thinks for a bit. "Sikkukurut... on 'terms' with gods!"
Valour checks his documents and realizes that there are no kingfishers among the Nine Trickster Gods of Omu. They’re all a bunch of other weird shit from a guide to monsters that definitely isn't written by Volo.
"You must know the flail snail then!" 🌱 says.
"Oh, Unkh?” Sikkukurut spits. “She is self-absorbed and indecisive. Incapable of making decisions! Stick with Unkh, and nothing happens! Which god do you want to hatch your egg?"
"Nang-Nang!" Dur-Dur-Dur announces.
"NO!" Valour shouts, instantly vetoing the idea. "Nangnang is selfish and cruel... What about Shagambi, wise and virtuous?"
"Shagambi? Never shows mercy to evil doers. HATES Nang-Nang,” Sikkukurut explains.
"Nope!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Pretzelcoatl gave us this egg," Valour tells Sikkukurut.
"Pretzelcoatl!? Mmmmm..." Sikkukurut shivers at the name, then disappears back into Zanzibar’s beard.
Dragonbait steps up, agitated with the indecisive bird who is sounding a lot like a flail snail deity at the moment. He uses his sense alignment to get a better look at Sikkukurut’s character sheet, detecting that Sikkurut is definitely chaotic evil. Since chaotic evil doesn’t really have a smell (though if it did, it would smell like a hobby shop), Dragonbait scrawls “CE” in the dirt.
Valour draws his sword and casts protection from evil and good on Zanzibar, which magically evicts Sikkukurut from his beard. Dur-Dur-Dur picks up Sikkukurut and lets him nest in his mullet.
"Mmmm! Soft!" Sikkukurut says.
"Yeah I pay special attention to it!" Dur-Dur-Dur says
"He bathes in the rain," 🌱 says.
The party debates whether or not to keep loud spirit bird, eventually agreeing that Sikkukurut is fine to stay. BUT! Everyone decides to keep a good eye on the egg. Dragonbait and Artus, however, express not being a fan of the Trickster Gods.
"Well I'm a fan!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Yeah, you’re a fan of Nang-Nang, selfish and cruel!" Valour says.
Dur-Dur-Dur brings Sikkukurut to Dur-Dur and shoves him into his dad’s beard. "Daddy, this is Sergeant Squakwers! He's going to eat the bugs in your beard!"
"But I was eating the bugs in my beard," Dur-Dur says.
Dur-Dur-Dur laughs.
Dur-Dur laughs.
Dur-Dur’s beard laughs.
Everyone sleeps.
The next day, the Death Curse intensifies as Zanzibar, 🌱, and Dur-Dur’s maximum HP totals drop by one. The rain arrives, and the party reaches the southern end of the Aldani Basin, finally out of the swamp. Valour tosses some Ritz Bitz into the water for the Aldani lobsterfolk in case they’re still around.
Rule one of Tyr Paladin School: Always feed your lobsters!
The party heads into the jungle, and Dur-Dur-Dur’s lycanthropy starts acting up. A full moon is coming soon! "Guys I'm feeling a little froggy right now!"
"I thought you said nothing happened with Nang-Nang. I knew it!" Valour says.
"Do you want me to remove the curse?" 🌱 says, pointing at his large flower with the restoration charm he received from the little swamp Princess Mononoke bastard.
"What curse?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Lycanthropy!" 🌱 says.
"That's just a phase I was going through!" Dur-Dur-Dur says, obviously making a clever pun on phases of the moon. Right? He's wearing the smart hat, correct?
"Do you want me to remove it or do you want to go through it again?" 🌱 says.
"... That's a good question." Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"I feel like you would hurt us." 🌱 says.
"I feel like I would hurt you too,” Dur-Dur-Dur says.
🌱 takes the flower off his hat, and he spends 4 of the 6 charges to use the greater restoration. He plucks 4 petals off and throws them on Dur-Dur-Dur, casting greater restoration on him to remove his weretiger curse.
No more kitty curse!
Zanzibar knows that Azaka may be out here hunting during the night since she’s not too far away. He suggests that 🌱 should skywrite to Azaka in case she needs to find them.
The next morning is bright and sunny, so Artus Cimber leads the way as they continue south. 🌱 finds some menga leaves, and then he casts skywrite in the sky, “AZAKA! IT’S TIME! REMEMBER THE GREEN WEDDING!”
The party debates traveling faster, since it won't unlock portions of the map. But screw it, they’re losing hit points! While traveling, they find a canoe with six paddles in the trees. "Guys lets go get that canoe and bring it with us!" 🌱 says.
"Wait, Dur-Dur-Dur, you're a full orc, right?" Valour says.
"What's that mean?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"You don't talk about your mom," Valour says.
Dur-Dur-Dur cries. "Orcs are raised by their daddies,” he says. “Well… most of them!" He cries some more.
"What happened to... Mama Dur-Dur?" Valour says.
"WE DON'T TALK ABOUT HER-HER-HER!" Dur-Dur-Dur shouts. "Who leaves a little boy alone like that?"
"Yeah what's the story about that?" Valour says to Dur-Dur.
"Weeeell, you see. I was one of them guides for Chult at Port Nyanzaru," Dur-Dur says.
"The BEST guide!" Dur-Dur-Dur says. "What was your slogan? 'If You're Gonna Go To Chult: Go Green!'"
"That's right! I was out there in Chult and then heard the ground stomp and then I got eaten! Any other questions?" Dur-Dur says.
"Yeah who was Dur-Dur-Dur's mom?" Valour insists.
Dur-Dur-Dur slaps him. "We don't talk about my mom!"
At this point, Valour is baffled as hell since Dur-Dur-Dur wouldn’t shut up about his dad for months on end, but the moment his mom is mentioned, he locks up.
"Why do you think Dur-Dur-Dur is so racist against dwarves?" Valour says. Way to steer the conversation into a stress free topic, buddy!
"This is the first I've heard of this!" Dur-Dur says.
"Dur-Dur-Dur?" Valour says.
Dur-Dur-Dur clears his throat, and the camera slowly zooms in on him. "Some things, Valour, aren't meant to be told to your daddy right away. Hey, daddy, did you know that Valour likes Tyr, but he also doesn't like to follow the rules of a paladin? For example, he told me to dress up like a frog and marry another frog, and then he interrupted the wedding! Then we had a nice friend who was out to find her daddy like we were. You know what he did? He burned her and tried to kill her and make her step in the zone of truth all thanks to this ‘noble paladin.’ I've had to smack some sense into him for a couple of situations. I'm starting to think he has brain damage. He doesn't take after us, daddy. We are strong people!"
"Can't damage that brain!" 🌱 agrees.
"I still got the football that you got me!” Dur-Dur-Dur says. “We can get home and we can kick it around!"
"You still got that foot!?" Dur-Dur says, smiling.
The father and son run off to gossip under the canoe.
The next day, another tropical storm hits the PC’s while they’re under the hut.
"Well daddy, looks like we're not going anywhere today!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Wait, so all I get to do today is just die! This is bullshit!" Zanzibar says, his Hit Point maximum dropping by 1.
"Well if we're just sleeping here wasting a day, we could make it interesting?" Valour says, holding a bottle of Soren juice.
"Make Dragonbait take it!" 🌱 says.
"No, don't make him have emotions or else his vapors are going to get trapped in this dome," Valour says.
🌱 uses druidcraft to make the tiny hut smell like ham. "Hey Dragonbait, it's ham! You like ham!"
"Ham is anxiety!" Valour says.
Everyone waits for someone to drink the potion. Nobody touches it. As Valour gets ready to put it away, Sikkukurut flies out of who-ever-the-hell’s-hair-he’s-hiding-in-right-now and tries to snatch the potion, but Valour pulls it out of the way.
"You should let him drink it!" 🌱 says.
"No! There's a hurricane outside!" Valour says.
"Sikkukurut curious about magic juice!" Sikkukurut begs.
"I'm keeping an eye on you, bird!" Valour says, then takes the t-rex dagger out and "stabs his throat” to show just how tough he is.
Sikkukurut returns to Dur-Dur’s beard and hides from the man with the neck of steel.
The rest of the day continues with no more regular nonsense or storm-related nonsense.
After the hurricane, a couple of sunny days allow the party to proceed through the Chultan jungle without much difficulty. After traveling a bit, the party realizes that they are practically one day away from finally reaching Omu.
As they’re trekking through the forest, they hear a skirmish. Dur-Dur-Dur steps up, and Valour hops on Quest to guard the spellcasters from teleporting tyrannosaurus revenants.
Dur-Dur-Dur peers through the bushes and sees some little fungus people riding around on fungus mounts. The pair of fungoid creatures are stabbing at a ghostly shade! The party doesn't care for ghosts that much anymore, so they doubt they should interfere.
"Well those little plant people look wicked as shit, but they also look like my friend 🌱. We should fight the ghost!" Valour shouts.
"Well you've got the fighting ghost powers!" 🌱 says, pushing Valour forward.
Valour charges forth and casts turn the unholy, which causes him to shine like a beacon against undead forces. The ghostly shade flees into the jungle, screeching, no longer bothering the plant creatures.
🌱 runs over to the fungus creatures and pours out water for them using the Alchemy Jug, then he shouts at them like they’re little Hellen Kellers, "WATER! FRIENDS!" and casts healing word.
The plant people are quick to drink up the water that 🌱 gives them, showing no signs of hostility.
"Who are you guys?" 🌱 says.
They chitter back and forth between themselves, nobody quite knowing what they’re saying.
"Why was that specter attacking you?" 🌱 asks.
Valour takes his copy of Volo's Guide to Monsters and flips through, looking for any information about the creatures. "They're in here!” he shouts. “They’re called vegepygmies! They instinctively feel kinship with other plant and fungus creatures! They eat flesh and blood! 🌱 they're your friends!"
🌱 enjoys every single word the paladin says, then shapeshifts into his symbiote form to better represent himself to his moldy friends. While he’s doing this, Valour keeps being the dork of the group by shouting out random vegepygmy facts, including that they’re born from “russet mold,” which probably came from a meteorite crater in a jungle somewhere. Strange, huh?
Fuck it, nothing’s weird anymore.
"Why was the specter attacking you?" 🌱 says, now in his symbiote form.
"Restless dead! Restless dead of the snake man!" the vegepygmies say.
"Snake man? Is he like a god?" 🌱 says, slowly losing track of all the gods and goddesses and Trickster Gods and godlings and demigods and hemigods and god-fluid and god-spectrums and Lady Akunais and such that exist in a jungle ruled by a flamboyant rainbow snake who just abandoned everyone. Just join whatever pantheon you identify with!
"Dendar is the god. The snake man worships him!" the vegepygmies say.
"Are they like this!?" Valour points at the picture of the yuan-ti snake people from the guide.
"Yes!" the vegepygmies say.
"Can you bring us to Omu? We'll kill the snake people and let you have it!" 🌱 promises them.
"We welcome you, Big Fungus!" the vegepygmies shout. "We take you back! We welcome you with sacrifice!"
"Sacrifice? Who?" 🌱 says.
"Yes! Sacrifice with noble!" the vegepygmies say.
"Noble... Ezekiel?" Valour turns to him.
"Well, yes... I'm a noble!" Ezekiel says.
"Wait, aren’t you a dishwasher?" Valour says.
After much debate about what kind of sacrifices await them, the party decides the vegepygmies are just oh-so-cute! And they know about Omu’s layout, so onward!
As the party has their last naptime before being in Omu, Valour declares that everyone needs to prepare the GOOD spells this time, because who knows what sort of shenanigans await them! No nonsense!
The next morning, the party sets off to the forgotten city. The vegepygmies guide the way, and the PC’s catch glimpses of a sunken basin through the trees. After hiking around Omu, the vegepygmies take the party towards the south end of Omu.
Omu? More like, oh my!
The party bears witness to the dead city! Enclosed by cascading cliffs in a sunken basin, stone roadways and crumbling, overgrown buildings litter a crater laden with mist. The jungle has reclaimed this ruin, and a massive waterfall in the northeast floods much of the city before draining into a cracked open rift bubbling with lava. To the east, a circular palace lies nestled against the edge of the lava abyss. So yeah, it's basically death and terror and bullshit.
The adventurers stand atop a stairway leading down to a guardhouse that's lopsided with limestone walls. Dur-Dur-Dur steps forward. "Hello? Anyone home?" he shouts. Hearing no answer, he shatters the wall and steps in. The walls inside this overgrown place are scribbled with graffiti:
"FEAR THE FANGS OF RAS NSI!"
"ERIK, I'VE GONE IN SEARCH OF THE NINE SHRINES —V"
"THE PUZZLE CUBES ARE THE KEY."
"BEWARE THE FROG MONSTER!"
"WHO IS UNKH?"
"ALL HAIL THE KING OF FEATHERS!"
"THE SNAKES ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM."
"KUBAZAN = BRAVERY. SHAGAMBI = WISDOM. MOA = ?"
The party debates shacking up in this creepy house with gang signs and shit scrawled all over it for the night since they spent the majority of their day traveling to Omu. Dur-Dur-Dur loses interest in all the talking stuff and finds some Zabou mushrooms growing out of the ground.
They decide to camp out in the guardhouse for the night since it’s outside of Omu city proper. Zanzibar copies the notes of the graffiti into his notepad, trying his best to mimic the handwriting, because if he’s going to be a nerd, he’s going to do it right!
At this point, the party suddenly remembers that they know who Ras Nsi is! He’s the heretic that Valour is supposed to kill as per request of super mega god, Tyr.
"Hey um, vegies,” 🌱 asks the vegepygmies. “Is Ras Nsi the snake man you mentioned earlier?"
They nod their head.
"Does he look like these?" Valour runs up and shoves Volo’s Guide to Monsters in their face, which has sketch drawings of yuan-ti mailsons, purebloods, abominations, etc. Real bastards, if you ask me!
The vegepygmies turn away and secrete pigments from their fingers, then scribble out a picture of Ras Nsi on the wall, which OH GOD IT’S TERRIFYING VALOUR HAS TO KILL THAT!? TYR YOU SUCK!
"Hey you guys, make sure Dur-Dur here doesn't get into any trouble,” 🌱 tells the vegepygmies. “If someone comes in, the signal is for you to run in and tell us! Also lets take the bird with us and not leave him."
Zanzibar scoops Sikkukurut out of Dur-Dur’s beard and puts him in his own beard.
"How many friends does Ras Nsi have?" Zanzibar asks. "How many other enemies should we be looking for?"
"We can't count that high." The vegepygmies say.
"What do you know about puzzle cubes?" Zanzibar asks.
"What's a puzzle?" the vegepygmies say.
"Wait... where are these ‘nobles’ you sacrifice?" 🌱 says.
"We find them..." the vegepygmies say. “And we throw them into the fires near the lava!”
There’s a palpable pause as the team of super-powered, mid-tier adventurers consider what to ask their vegetable buddies next…
"Are we the nobles?" 🌱 says.
"Do you want to be?" the vegepygmies say, eyeballing Ezekiel—I mean, nobody in particular. "Most nobles tend to be frog."
The party is perfectly fine with these answers, so they activate the hut and go to sleep for the night, ready to go on a brisk adventure in the morning for—
Oh look it’s morning!
The party keeps Dur-Dur and the vegepygmies back at the gatehouse because they don’t know how much HP any of them have and don’t want to risk them dying. Leaving them completely alone should be all right, right?
The party then investigates some buildings, but they decide that using Zanzibar’s familiar and having Sikkukurut scout ahead would be smart. They send the birds on their way, but a pair of stone gargoyles detach from the cliffsides and swoop down to the flyers. Zanzibar tells his owl to fly lower, and the gargoyle abandons the chase. Sikkukurut does the same, returning and nesting in Dur-Dur-Dur’s mullet.
Apparently, these damned gargoyles don’t like anything else flying around!
Dur-Dur-Dur wants to break the gargoyles. He tries to climb up the cliffs, but he's too fat. He slides down the side of the cliff with no gargoyle XP to show for it. They then decide to investigate more of the houses. Dur-Dur-Dur forgets how doorknobs work, so he kicks a door open to one of the ruined domiciles, and some vegepygmies skitter away.
🌱 walks in as symbiote "Hello friends, I am 🌱 and I would like to help you find a noble... if you know what I mean?"
"Big Fungus!" the vegepygmies say.
"I have met more of your kind!” 🌱 says. “We are friends, and I would like all of you to take me to the Temple of the Nine Gods! Do you know where that is?"
"Mmm... don't know Temple Nine Gods!" the vegepygmies say.
🌱 thinks for a minute. "…Snake people?"
“Yes, their temple is that circular one way over there, past the rapid rivers and right next to the boiling pile of magma!” the vegepygmies say. "You know... on your map!"
Dur-Dur-Dur then goes house to house, kicking more doors open. "Dur-Dur-Dur is home!" He loots the houses and, in one, finds a wooden effigy carving of Papazotl, the eblis trickster god, which is fine for him because he’s been tearing down and stealing these bastards’ shit damn near every time he sees them.
Dur-Dur-Dur and Valour then investigate another house, but the floor caves in and releases a terrible mist of mad monkey fever! Valour inhales the mist, which hits him with a terrible dose of amnesia. He can't remember who he is, and he doesn't recognize anything that happened before the madness hit him.
"Uuuuh..." Valour says, casting casts divine sense. "What happened? Where am I? Who are you people?"
"Valouri, are you okay?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"I don't know. I don't know how I got here," Valour says.
"You walked here and rode in a boat." Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"Do I know you?" Valour says.
"Yes, you're my best friend. I'm Dur-Dur-Dur!"
"Dur-Dur-Dur… and Valouri?" Valour says, still confused.
"I gave you your sword!" Dur-Dur-Dur lies for some reason.
"Sir,” Valour says, concentrating on his divine sense. “Your mullet is glowing with celestial energy!"
"That's just Sergeant Squawkers over here," Dur-Dur-Dur says, patting Sikkukurut.
"We're still workshopping that," 🌱 says. "I say we book it to the Soulmonger house. Let's get the noble these vegepygmies want, throw it into the fire—"
"WAIT WHAT ARE WE DOING?" Valour shouts.
"Valouri are you okay?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"I don't know!" Valour says.
"This was your idea!" 🌱 says.
"I don't remember!" Valour says.
"You don't remember anything at all?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"I remember my name is Valouri!" Valour says.
"You don't remember the bet you made me for 300 gold?" McSneakle—I mean, Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Valour gives Dur-Dur-Dur all of his money, which is 18 gold pieces.
"Why do I have 430 bottles of bug spray?" Valour says, digging through his supplies.
"You need it!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"WHERE ARE WE!?" Valour shouts at his wits’ end.
Zanzibar casts summon team meeting since there is obviously something terribly wrong with Valour, which is probably the mad monkey fever, which is a madness that 🌱 could cure outright by sacrificing a beetle he’s had stashed in his pockets for months, but he won’t do it because this is funny.
"We are in the forgotten city," Zanzibar tells Valour.
"Forgotten!?" Valour says.
Zanzibar condenses his speech, “We've spent four hours clearing houses one at a time. Also, I'm cursed, so I would really like it if we could speed up this exploring-the-city thing. We can come back for loot after we destroy the death curse. I think if anything has been in these buildings for 100 years, it will still be here when we’re done!"
"One more building!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
"No!" Zanzibar says.
"This little one right here." Dur-Dur-Dur says, pointing to a building on the border of the magma pool.
"No that's close to the sacrifice pit!" Zanzibar shouts.
"Sacrifice pit!?" Valour shouts also.
"Okay, one more!" Zanzibar gives up.
Valour goes to investigate a house, but when he opens the door, more mad monkey fever hits him in the face, but he steps out of the way and doesn’t inhale any.
"So half the buildings you searched have had mad monkey fever in them!" Zanzibar shouts.
"No, I found statues in mine." Dur-Dur-Dur says. "We don't know what's in the other half!"
"It's mad monkey fever!" Zanzibar argues.
"I hope I don't get that!" Valour says.
The party agrees to head towards the circular temple thing that may or may not have people with snake extremities inside, but its on the other side of a raging river caused by the waterfall. On the way, they see a smoldering ruin, but they pass by it instead. Eventually, they find a giant tree that has fallen over the river, allowing them to cross it.
"What are these?" Valour says, holding up some Soren juice potions.
"It helps cross logs!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Valour downs one and it tastes nasty. "I think I got some tailbone in my mouth!"
🌱 becomes jealous since he never got tailbone when he drank Soren juice potions in the past.
“Can you cast water walk on us?” Zanzibar says to 🌱.
“No, I only prepped the good spells, remember?” 🌱 huffs.
The party sends Valour over the log bridge first because they’re terrible people. As he carefully saunters over, a tabaxi leaps up from atop a ruined building across the river. He aims his longbow at Valour, lets loose an arrow, and shoots the paladin with a poisoned arrow. Ouch! Also, there’s a lot of sneak attack damage! Ouch! Oh, and also the hit counts as a critical hit because the tabaxi is an assassin! Ouch!
Valour falls unconsciously off the log, splashes in the water, and starts to tumble downriver towards the pit of magma.
Ezekiel freaks out and gives a rope to Dragonbait, then dives in after Valour while holding the other end of the rope. Zanzibar takes up the offensive and casts fireball on the building that the tabaxi is standing on, but the tabaxi dodges all the damage and somersaults into the air, taking refuge behind another structure. Ezekiel grabs Valour, but Dragonbait loses his grip on the rope and it slides out of his hand.
🌱 casts healing word on Valour, bringing him back up with 7 Hit Points.
Valour wakes up and panics, casting cure wounds on himself. The wild magic from the Soren juice triggers, making him suspect that someone nearby has taken over his mind!
"Oooooh there's a dinosaur man holding a rope connected to a devil that's holding me in the river! I don't remember anything this morning!" Valour thinks, holding his potion of water breathing tightly.
Dur-Dur-Dur runs across the log and hides near the burning building, searching for the tabaxi. Artus Cimber holds out the Ring of Winter and casts wall of ice, which creates a 100 ft. long and 10 ft. high dam across the top of the river.
Ezekiel tries to swim back to the shore, but he fails and smacks against the ice—which is a hell of a lot better than being washed further downriver towards the fire pit!
With Ezekiel splayed against the ice wall, the Tabaxi knows his next target! He leaps onto a rooftop and fires an arrow at Ezekiel, downing him in one shot.
🌱 shouts at Ezekiel with healing word to get up again, then hides in the woods from the deadly arrows.
Valour grabs Ezekiel's rope and smacks into the ice wall with him as he nat 1's his athletics check. Dur-Dur-Dur eyes the tabaxi, then uses his ring of jumping to leap up to the roof. He rages, then engages the tabaxi, swinging Durminator and carving out swathes of damage.
Artus Cimber goes to the edge of the river and lays down longbow shots on the tabaxi.
The tabaxi takes several arrows from Artus Cimber, then locks his elderly eyes with Dur-Dur-Dur. "It is settled then. You are a worthy opponent!” he then drops to one knee in surrender.
Dur-Dur-Dur isn't sure what to do.
Ezekiel can't get out of the river because the ice is too slippery. Dragonbait runs over the log towards Dur-Dur-Dur and the tabaxi.
The tabaxi offers a length of rope to Dur-Dur-Dur. "Your friends need help," he purrs.
"... Well go help them!" Dur-Dur-Dur shouts, annoyed as hell.
Dur-Dur-Dur then takes the rope and ties up the tabaxi, who allows the orc to do so.
With the attacker subdued, everyone climbs out of the river and reorients themselves. Dur-Dur-Dur and Dragonbait are with the tabaxi on the roof, unsure of what to do with him.
Omu is weird…