An ancient power rests beneath the Terwa Uplands in western Garund—a power laid to rest by the Azlanti 6 millennia ago and coveted today by human and beast alike. The former include the Pathfinder Society, who pry into the earth uncovering such treasures (though they are not alone in their desires), and the latter, the gorilla king Ruthazek and his ape empire, who lay siege to the Pathfinder expedition even now, hoping to snatch the Azlanti’s power from their cold, dead hands. The Pathfinders of Azlant Ridge grow increasingly desperate. Starvation weakens the camp daily. Pestilence runs rampant as malaria spreads through their numbers. And just beyond the wooden barricade, the half-mad ape soldiers of the Silverback King throw themselves against the human defenses, taking a few more lives in every attack. To protect themselves from simian magic, the archaeologists erected a dimensional anchor, but the same force locks them inside the barricade, with no hope of teleporting in fresh food and assistance. The powerful magic even blocks basic magical communication, isolating them completely. Without supplies and strong backs, every man and woman in the camp will be dead within a fortnight. Between the Society and the Azlant Ridge expedition lies Bloodcove, the lawless crown jewel in the Aspis Consortium’s network of ports. Founded by pirates and populated by every sort of criminal, sociopath, and opportunist, Bloodcove presents more danger to Pathfinders than the rankest dungeon. Like the tentacles of a diabolical kraken, the Consortium’s arms entwine the city, controlling everything from its economy and politics to the local criminal enterprises. And like a kraken, the Consortium can press in on any Pathfinder foolish enough to enter its den, squeezing the life from them and devouring whatever husks are left. But the inalterable fact remains: Bloodcove is the only supply port close enough to the Terwa Uplands, and the Azlant Ridge expedition’s only chance for survival.
Part 2
One year ago, the Pathfinder Society made an impossible discovery in the Terwa Uplands of the Mwangi Expanse. There, protruding from the earth, was an enormous half-sphere seemingly made of ivory. The expedition requested assistance, and in a matter of months the Azlant Ridge excavation site was born. The ivory sphere was not the last of the discoveries, either. Juliet Dias, the expedition leader, found a door beneath millennia-worth of earth and rock in the side of a nearby cliff face. Once she and her team cleared the door, they found an impressive structure, 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide, constructed of an unknown metal and carved with an intricate series of glyphs, pictures, and ornamentation. None of the Azlant scholars present had seen anything like it—but they knew for certain: the Society had discovered the first Azlanti site ever in the Mwangi Expanse.
Just after Dias discovered the door, the attacks began. Screeching, vile ape-men, known as the charau-ka, erupted from the jungle and flooded the camp, killing dozens of Pathfinders and their workers. The camp fought off the assault, but they continued day after day. Dias ordered the construction of a palisade wall, desperately attempting to keep the charau-ka at bay. After weeks of alternating assaults and construction, the Azlant Ridge excavation found itself behind defensible walls, but cut off. Worse, every time the charau-ka drew near, the ivory sphere in the ground glowed uncomfortably bright, surrounding the entire camp in a nimbus of magical energy that prevented the use of any magical travel spells. And since the charauka attacked every day and were rarely far away, even between raids, the sphere glowed constantly, effectively trapping the Pathfinders in their camp.
After months of siege, Dias grew desperate. Even though work continued on the site, she needed to both re-supply her camp and solve the mystery of the door. Her camp workers were getting sick with various jungle maladies, her Pathfinders were hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, and the mercenaries they had brought with them for protection were nearly all dead—those who weren’t spent most days planning their escape from the Pathfinder excavation site. Those plans gave Dias an idea. She gathered the two healthiest remaining Pathfinders and the mercenaries, and told them to take a rubbing of the door along with a message for Venture-Captain Drandle Dreng in Absalom and make a break for Bloodcove under cover of darkness.
That night, they rushed out of the excavation’s palisade gates and ran all night through the jungle with shrieking ape-men picking them off one by one. Several days later, one of the Pathfinders made it to Bloodcove and stumbled into the Society’s tiny lodge there, run by Malika Fenn.
He relayed Dias’s information and then collapsed from exhaustion. Fenn in turn hired a local wizard and magically contacted Dreng, explaining the desperate situation at Azlant Ridge.
Dreng took his council on the matter from the Pathfinder Society’s Master of Spells, Aram Zey. Aram recognized the rubbing of the door at once, explaining that he’d recently catalogued a mysterious golden key in the vaults with similar markings. It was possible, Zey surmised, that the Azlant Ridge expedition had found the door that the key opened. Zey gathered Pathfinders and teleported them to Bloodcove to gather supplies for Azlant Ridge (see Part I, The Bloodcove Disguise). From there, the Pathfinders were to run their supplies to Azlant Ridge, resupply the camp, and deliver the golden key to Dias.
Little did the Pathfinder Society know that the charauka, in their failed assaults on the camp, had aroused the ire of their champion, a four-armed ape monstrosity known as an angazhani. As the Pathfinders draw closer to Azlant Ridge, hotly pursued by the Aspis Consortium, the next wave of charau-ka are headed right for the camp, with their 2,000 pound champion leading the way.
