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The two energy missiles strike the shaman in the back just as he was about to dive off the cliff and he crumples dead to the ground.
The burned lizardman surrenders immediately and begs for mercy. The shaman gets hit by one of Baolo's arrows and he flees on his round, heading toward the water. You can chase if you wish.
One lizardman warrior's face is burned off by Bel's acid, while the other suffers acidic burns down 60% of his body but is still alive. Ialda moves up, rages, and drop the third lizardman warrior, ripping out his chest!
As you carry your unconscious friend back to the ship, you hear screams and sounds of combat. You hurry there and find it under attack by lizardmen. You gently put Gruug down, as 3 lizardmen warriors and a shaman engage you! "Defilers! You have killed our plant god!"
Round 1:
With the Shambling Mound destroyed, the party collects the arcophage you came looking for. In the back of the cave, you find a little hoard that consists of a masterwork longbow, three small gold nuggets worth 20 gp each, and a jade lip disk worth 50 gp.
Her confidence shaken, the barbarian is about to give up and possibly switch tactics....when she decides to try one more swing and promptly caves in the creature's "brain" killing it!
Round 2:
Rhade's acid hits again. Round 3: Giant
The creature sees the gnome's fire and does not try to avoid the blast. Instead, its slime covered vines seem to absorb the fire and dissipate it harmlessly. Round 1: Shambling Mound
The blow bounces off the creature's vines and it does not look hurt at all. Gruug follows his mistress into battle and slices a significant chunk off the creature!
The tunnel is damp with water constantly dripping through the crumbling ceiling, and numerous root tendrils and vines have grown down into it from above. Oddly, you see lit torches on the walls of the cavern as well as religious iconography and writings, which Ialda recognizes as prayers in Draconic to the "Lord of the Marsh". As you exit the tunnel, you see the creature: A mass of tangled vines and dripping slime rises on two trunk-like legs, reeking of rot and freshly turned earth. It speaks, "Elf flesh!"!
A low shelf of rock just above water level provides easy access to the trails. A loa statue that is still in relatively good shape stands here. Its head is clearly that of a hippopotamus. You start following the trail, when before long, you reach another loa idol with barely discernable features resembling a monkey or ape. You continue your ascent, with the falls cascading over you. Eventually, you reach a tunnel leading into a cave. At its entrance is another loa statue—this one’s features clearly depict a crocodilian head.
"Alright, but if the hungry gnome does anything to harm my ship, I'm holding you three responsible!" The night passes peacefully and the next morning, you continue on your journey with the gnome as a new passenger. 3 hours later, ahead lies the goal of your side jaunt: Brimstone Falls, a cataract that falls over a 60-foot cliff into a wide lagoon at the edge of Kurka Swamp. The falls are magnificent, composed of dozens of tiny streams and rivulets painting a mosaic of water over the jungle-grown slope. The spray from these myriad cascades keeps a constant rainbow hanging above the waters within the bowl of the cliff basin. The slope of the cliff is not overly steep, and you can see that a few trails run in switchbacks up its face among the falls. Captain Esteban brings the riverboat to a stop and looks rather exasperated. "My engineer Hurq tells me the ship is almost out of power. As I told you before, the engine is in need of mobile plant creatures that serve as hosts for the badly needed arcophages to power the ship. I know of one more place where we could find them. Brimstone Falls. Unfortunately, we're going to have to go the source of the arcophages - a shambling mound! It's an intelligent carnivorous plant-like creature that seems to have preference for elf flesh. I know there is a cave here in the falls where one is rumored to dwell." He looks at the party, "I'm going to need you four to wander up the trail, find the cave, and collect an arcophage if we're going to have any chance of ever reaching Nightfall Station. What say ye?"
The party heads back to the campfire triumphantly but wounded. The crew praise the party for its courage and Captain Esteban speaks, as he watches the sorcerer dig into his plate of food, [b]"Who in the Nine Hells is the gnome and where did he come from? And do you vouch for him? He looks a little...ravenous."[/n]
The wisp's confidence backfires, as Ialda's mighty blow ends its life and it collapses dead, its light burning out.
One of Baolo's arrows hits, injuring the glowing skull of energy! It flies toward the archer, confident its natural dexterity will protect it from any AoOs, and shocks him but only mildly, much to its chagrin. Round 5:
Futilely is right. The skull touches Ialda again and shocks her again, burning her skin with its electricity! The skull seems to feed off others' pain and fear and it is enjoying itself.
The skull dodges the barbarian's blow.
Baolo's arrows miss the agile wisp. Round 3:
The acid strikes the ball of electrical energy, as it does not attempt to dodge the spell, but it passes through it unharmed. A look of great worry crosses the gnome's face!
Round 2:
It flies next to the gnome and shocks him! How the gnome survived you have no idea, though he is badly hurt.
The barbarian's swing misses by a mile, as you notice the ball of energy is quite fast.
Round 1:
As you watch the will-o-wisp floating over the water and coming closer, you suddenly hear a commotion from behind you and you turn to see a grime-covered gnome come out of the bush, a raving bugged out look on his face.
The Mwangi inquisitor holds the reckless barbarian's shoulder and whispers to her. "Hold there, lassie. Floating lights in a swamp? Have ya never heard of the tales of the will-o-wisps, who lure travelers to their deaths into quicksand or worse?! Be ready for battle and don't let it touch you! Its shock can kill da strongest man or woman! Also, they are immune to most spells, except magic missile." Baolo casts See Invisibility.
Gruug and Ialda take the first shift and following Baolo's survival skills and the party's combined knowledge of nature, you avoid leeches, malaria from mosquito bites, and the other dangers in the swamp. After a couple of hours and traveling a total of 2 miles, Faruq and one of the dock workers jumps in, begrudging, cursing the elves who ruined the ship. On and on, the crew alternate pulling the boat. Thankfully, Baolo's arrows scare away any danger on this day. At dusk, Esteban calls a halt to the day’s pulling and has the River Queen pulled up onto a fairly dry nearby beach. Baolo's arrows bring down a nearby boar shortly afterward. There is a minor celebration, and a cooking pit is dug on the beach and the boar roasted on a spit while Esteban breaks out a cask of grog from the hold to celebrate the hellish day in the swamp and keep up morale. It is pretty dark now, with the light of the fire illuminating the area. Ialda and Baolo's keen ears pick up what sounds like a hacking, choking cough coming from the swamp and when you look passively in that general direction, you see a dim light bobbing in the distance out over the swamp, sort of like a lantern being carried.
The swamp stretches out as far as the eye can see. Hummocks of tangled trees and plant life grow among hundreds of water channels overgrown with reeds and showing only the slightest trace of a current in their stagnant surfaces. The ever-present rumbling of the River Queen’s engine suddenly ceases, leaving an unnatural silence over the scene, with only the sounds of the creaking vessel, the faint whisper of a breeze through the tree tops, and the occasional cry of some strange marsh animal. The boat slowly drifts to a halt at the very edge of this marshy labyrinth. Captain Esteban gathers the party and his crew. "The good news is we're not out of power...yet. The bad news is that due to tangled plants and drifting debris of the swamp, it is not safe to use the sternwheeler, lest it becomes snarled and damaged. Therefore, the only way for the River Queen to traverse the swamp is to be pulled with ropes by crewmen walking ahead of the boat. Fortunately, the water looks to be only about 4 feet deep in the swamp. Two heavy ropes, each 20 feet long, will be attached to the boat’s bow and then two pullers walk ahead in the swamp to pull the craft. We'll alternate shifts. Any volunteers to go in first?"
Satisfied that there's nothing more to do here, the Captain continues the River Queen's trek. "I elect to forge on upriver to try and recover
The River Queen enters the jungle proper, rising a like the wall of a green fortress, the Vanji River issuing from its dark gatehouse. A little more than 10 miles into the jungle, Captain Esteban steers the wheelboat into a tributary he calls the Kurka River rather than following the main artery of the Vanji. He explains that this stagnant rill flows from Kurka Swamp, in turn fed by the Brimstone Falls on the opposite side. "The Kurka Swamp is rife with plantlife of all kinds, including the mobile plant creatures that serve as hosts for the badly needed arcophages. It should only take the boat a few days off of its schedule, and the only alternatives are to swim or walk once the current arcophage gives out."
The party makes its way back to the River Queen only to find that the ship itself has been attacked. You see signs of battle and the body of one of the crew. Captain Esteban and Faruq are outside cursing when you appear. "Damn elves! They tried to ambush us and we killed the lot but not before one of them did damage to the protean engine that propels the ship. Hurg says he can try and fix it but we have to find some special algae or something like that. We have some power right now but if we don't find it soon, we might be stranded out here. Anyway, you guys look like hell. What did you find at the Whitebridge station?"
Despit the the inquisitor's skill, even he cannot find the elves' tracks. Now what?
Gruug does not find any tracks even with the barbarian's help. It looks like the elves covered them.
Otherwise, what else do you do? You can always go back to boat.
The party finds the following on the elves: MW Composite Longbow (+2 Strength) on leader
You search the rest of the station but find no other bodies. You find a battered door to the armory, which manages to have held up. You also find elven tracks, which Ialda tells you lead into the jungle and they seem weighted down.
One of Ialda's claws rips through the Girallon's hide but the hideous gorilla still lives. Two arrows strike it, then another, blood spurting over the barbarian, until the four armed gorilla collapses to the ground, dead! You all see Ialda covered head to toe in blood! As you move to close in on the other 2 elves, they decide to jump off the roof into the water below! One miscalculates and kills himself on impact, his limp body floating on the surface of the river. The other elf disappears under the surface.
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