Esh and Xin are unable to help navigate the cloud, but Yoh plunges ahead anyways. Behind you, the fiery crows fly through the thunderclouds, though the lightning drives off one of them!
Luckily, Yog’Moi’s incredible knowledge allows you to neutralize the toxic gas, and soon you are on your way forward!
MAGNETIC FLUX
Powerful magnetic distortions ripple through the sky, arresting the Solar Jian II and preventing its wings from articulating, holding the ship in place.
Hotcha’s little fairy arms are as effective as one might expect.
She has a flashback to the beginning of the tournament. Armbands of Athleticism? I don’t need those!
Xin leaps up beside Esh and uses leverage to help him unfurl the sails.
As Esh and Xin force the wings down, Yoh pushes the ship for all its worth. You start to make progress, but are still held by the magnetic distortions. Behind you, another bird breaks away to avoid the toxic gas, but the other plunge forward, drawing near!
Hotcha watches the men easily move the lever. ”Yeah… good thing I loosened that for you.”
Aaaand she stays out of the way because Esh’s final push seems to do the trick!
It does do the trick, and the airship speeds onward!
INFINITELY FALLING STARS
The sky lights up with fist-sized meteorites that burn through the sky, only to disappear into portals and reappear back in the sky to fall again in an infinite shower.
”DIE, STARS!”
Hotcha is so excited to finally be useful, she smashes a star to bits!
Yog'Moi conjures forth a spiritual weapon and joins Hotcha in smashing the falling stars to bits.
Xin uses Tactical Cadence to give everyone an extra attack!
You are in your element here among the falling stars, quickly knocking them out of the way and allowing the Solar Jian II to move on without delay!
After clearing the web of stars, the Solar Jian II finally reaches a layer in the sky where gravity reasserts itself, with the sky once more becoming up and the ground once more becoming down—though the sudden change is enough to cause the ship to go into freefall!
"Hang on!" Yoh shouts as he grips the helm, struggling to steer the ship out of its nosedive! Behind you, the fiery birds break off their pursuit.
As the Solar Jian II clears the last of the strange dimensional barriers, a small, low island looms in the distance, surrounded by a black sea. Where a horizon would normally be, the ocean water simply curves up to form a starless, moonless sky. The island appears patchwork: dark jungles abruptly transition to flat rocks along unnatural demarcations, as if the landscape were carved with a great knife. At the farthest end of the island stands a tall, thin tower constructed from what appears to be cubes of spiraling glass. The tower shines twin, rotating beams of pale blue light outward. One beam fixes upon the Solar Jian II and, with a low sound more palpable than audible, gravity increases manyfold, driving the airship to the ground! It smashes down hard, wood and metal tearing and snapping off! At last, it comes to a rest. While you are shaken up from the crash landing, you are not harmed.
You have a few minutes to gather yourselves and assess the damage to the airship. It is clear that she will not be flying again anytime soon. Then, a portal dozens of feet across tears open in the air above, its edges bounded by glowing mathematical equations. Within, a golden-skinned axiomite sits upon a glass throne, peering disdainfully down through the portal with stormy blue eyes. Behind him, a whorl of stars and spheres glow from a clear firmament.
“Welcome, contestants, to my island demiplane, and to the final round of your tournament. We haven’t met, but I’ve heard a lot about you. My name is Syndara, and I have taken it upon myself to slay the sorcerer Hao Jin and expose her Ruby Phoenix Tournament for the sham that it is. To that end, I invite you to take part in my ‘Hungry Ghost Tournament.’ The format should be familiar to you, though I trust you’ll find the setting a bit more exciting than Hao Jin’s pitiful ‘Danger Island.’
“I am your new grand judge. Defeat my enforcers. I’ve left them around the island. Each carries a piece of the key you’ll need to make it to my lighthouse and challenge my champions. It should be simple enough for Hao Jin’s best! I recommend you hurry, though. Every moment wasted is a moment for my own champions to train. And a moment for me to recover from my little tiff with the Ruby Phoenix.” At this, Syndara holds up a charred arm, which slowly but visibly begins to heal in a swirl of axiomite dust.
“So, no more of this Ruby Phoenix Tournament! Now begins the Tournament of Hungry Ghosts! May the strongest team win. And if you do, I’ll even give you a prize.” With a bemused smirk, the villainous grandmaster holds up an hourglass filled with a gray powder: “The ashes of your beloved Hao Jin.”
Yog'Moi raises a fist with the intent of zapping the arrogant bastard right off his damned throne. It's that he realizes that perhaps the arrogance is deserved, and he lowers it. Instead, he finds himself a drink to help him cope with their new reality.
For a brief moment, he considers tossing the bastard a drink as well. "Care for a drink to drown that smirk in? No? Fine, you do you, mate."
Hao Jin was true to us then… and now she’s…
”You’re a monster and a mass murderer. Many lives were lost from your kaiju attack—so how can you call anything Hao Jin pathetic when you crushed and burned innocents in their homes?”
She glares past the hourglass and at the enemy.
”Defeating her doesn’t make you better, but if winning fights is the only way to get through to you, we’ll take out your enforcers and be back for our prize.” We’ll pry it from your cold, dead, rigor-mortissy fingers.
The barest flicker of rage passes over Syndara's face, “Your so-called ‘grand judge’ trapped me here a long time ago while she traipsed about the planes proclaiming herself a savior. She knew this day was coming, and she and all who associate her deserve everything I did to them.”
He smirks again. "Who do you think it was that taught Hao Jin the martial arts? She was once my collaborator… no, my friend. We used to dream of this: gathering the planes’ most powerful warriors together in a show of strength and technique. We promised we would make it a reality someday. I am as much the rightful adjudicator of this tournament as she is! And if you are strong enough to survive, you will face my champions.”
Syndara gestures, and the view through the portal expands to show the Lightkeepers—Syu Tak-nwa, Shino Hakusa, Ran-to, and Blue Viper—who brandish their weapons with a hint of excitement. “I think you’ve met some of them already.”
”What?!” Hotcha blurts at the vision of the Lightkeepers. She may seem surprised by the reveal, until she adds, ”We gotta beat them a FOURTH time?!
“Handing them their butts became so routine, I can’t even remember our third fight.”
I feel elation and relief as Syndara confirms that Hao Jin was not the culprit.
“So, no more of this Ruby Phoenix Tournament! Now begins the Tournament of Hungry Ghosts! May the strongest team win. And if you do, I’ll even give you a prize.” With a bemused smirk, the villainous grandmaster holds up an hourglass filled with a gray powder: “The ashes of your beloved Hao Jin.”
Fire.
Rage.
KILL
KILL
Esh suddenly teleports to the portal and swings at it, but he misses by a wide margin. It's unclear whether his attack would have even had an effect if he had hit, though.
"You know what you have to do," Syndara sneers, and with that, the portal implodes in a shower of runes. From those runes cascades a single crystalline fragment that lands at your feet. It looks like a piece of a conch shell. Judging by its shape, you will need to find six more fragments to complete the shell.
”Wait—Esh—uhhh…”
As Esh picks himself up, Hotcha flutters over to him.
”Phoenixes rise from ashes… we’ll avenge Hao Jin. But this jerk knows we got know choice but to play his game.”
She adds, ”I’m glad I was wrong about Hao Jin.”
I scream in frustrated rage as I fall back to the ground, tossed by gravity and my own ineffectual magic. The axiomite's sneering face burns itself into my blurry vision and I feel the heat from invisible flames rolling off my body, causing the air to ripple around me. I drop to my knees, still screaming, and punch the ground, hard enough to drive my fist into the stony earth beneath me. The pain in my hand is just enough to allow me to clench my jaw shut against further screams and I press my forehead into the ground, breathing deeply through my nose.
”Phoenixes rise from ashes… we’ll avenge Hao Jin. But this jerk knows we got know choice but to play his game.”
She adds, ”I’m glad I was wrong about Hao Jin.”
"Yeah," I finally reply, standing up and retrieving my sword. With shaking hands I fill my pipe with flayleaf, the bowl catching light with just a touch from my finger I'm so hot.
"Yeah," I agree again after a few puffs. I barely feel the drug, no tingling in my face or dizziness, but my rage does cool somewhat, my hands steady again.
"Let's go," I grunt.
Wu Xin sighs. Revenge seemed to be such a common motive, but he never could get himself to understand it. He had been honestly beaten by Shokuro Toriaka, but had never considered revenge against the honorable paladin. Xin took it for the lesson it was, a sorrowful step on his path through life.
How much foolishness and pain could be avoided if people simply thought slightly less of themselves?
Yet he knew that Hotcha was likely right. Syndara's game would likely have to be played before one more egomania was put down.
"I wonder if we'll ever get a chance to understand what he was raving about? What did Hao Jin do to this Syndara, and why?"
"Well, at least we will be able to beat the Lightkeepers again. Unlike Hotcha, I haven't grown bored of teaching those smug, lazy bastards."
He grins. "Yep. Let's go."
Yoh remains behind to try to repair the ship as you begin to venture across the strange island. You walk for about twenty minutes before the ground transitions abruptly to rocky substrate near a massive pit that ends in a lava-filled pool. Two bridges cross from either side of the pit, which is dotted with abandoned mining helmets and pickaxes. Gravel and pebbles jump as a low rumble courses through the earth.
What appears to be gargantuan sphere of stone and metal emerges from a tunnel and onto the bridge you are standing on, heading right for you!
The giant ball is far enough away that I have time to try and figure out what it might be, so I try my best to do so.
Esh has no idea what this strange construct might be. He gets angry, though, as the thing rolls right over the entire party and keeps going, zipping along as truly impressive speeds! It disappears into a tunnel, only to reappear at the other end of the bridge, seemingly ready to try to crush you all again!
Hotcha dives but not quickly enough.
She flies 50ft and kicks the creature off the bridge—
Xin leaps as the sphere arrives, running up its flank and landing lightly on the tracks behind.
Using his boots, Xin launches into the air to avoid another trampling. He yells encouragement to his allies and fires off a lightning bolt!
electricity damage.
Yog'Moi can't quite believe a boulder can be that fast and it isn't until the thing runs over his feet, crushing a toe in the process, that he starts believing it might just be that fast. He hastily embraces the call of the sky and darts upwards, hoping to avoid the worst further embarrassment.
Well, this is going to be frustrating. The rest of my party takes to the air, and I charge.
The construct barely manages to dodge some of Xin’s lightning bolt. Both Hotcha and Esh land powerful blows on the creature, though it seems resilient to physical damage. Hotcha manages to push it back a few feet.
The construct unrolls from its spherical shape, rising up in the form of an enormous stone and metal lion! It lunges at Esh, snatching him up in its jaws!
The sphere turns into a lion and that's distracting enough that it snaps me up in it's jaws. I grumble and wedge a forearm against the roof of its mouth and a foot against it's lower jaw, stretching it open far enough that I can hop out before it can snap shut again, striking it on my way down.
Yog'Moi throws a flask of brandy at Esh, but misses. Luckily for the elf, the flask cracks and Hei Feng accepts the sacrifice - in return, He heals the elf and protects him from further harm.
Having failed to kick the guy off the cliff, Hotcha just attacks a lot!
Hotcha’s body glows—aura cycling through Shelyn’s seven colors—and her wings become angelic and rainbow colored!
Xin misses with his initial strike, but lands a solid backstab when Esh break out and slices the construct. Hotcha's furious flurry pummels the creature before finally causing it to crumble into huge chunks of stone!
Embedded within the the stone lion's crown is a fragment of the magical conch, which you can easily pry free from its remains.
Yog'Moi walks on down to join the others in inspecting the rocky lion's remains. Victoriously, they pull a fragment of the magical conch from its crown. "Ha! It rocks no more! Are you all okay? Can we move on?"
"That looked like a guardian stone lion," says Xin. "What was it guarding?
Hotcha says to Yog’Moi, ”I can heal myself while you heal others.”
She will gladly bathe in a cup of booze or slow-dance for Shelyn.
"That looked like a guardian stone lion," says Xin. "What was it guarding?
An ominous pit and pools of lava. Abandoned mining equipment. Reminds me of a story I read once about a balor's lair.
"It looks to be a mine of some sort. Knowing our luck it's probably a dragon's lair," I grumble.
"However, we have retrieved the fragment we need, I don't feel like going down would be overly beneficial."
"Then lead on, oh ancient elf!"
You continue on past the mine. The island terrain becomes forest again, at least for a couple of miles. Soon, though, the smell of rot and methane burns the nose well before a fetid pond comes into view. Lily pads float on the surface and carnivorous plants line the water’s edge, feasting on the many insects drawn to the stagnant pools and cloying mud.
As you draw near the pond, a pair of draconic heads on long, sinuous necks emerge from the water. They hiss at you, then suddenly fourteen more heads rise up in unison! Two eight-headed draconic beasts surge forward to attack!
One beast is taken aback by your battle cries!
The whirling mass (and mess!) of menacing eyes and mouthfuls of teeth make Yog'Moi's head spin. "There's so many of 'em! Which one do we hit first?!?!?!"
"There's so many of 'em! Which one do we hit first?!?!?!"
"One at a time, my friend, one at a time. But let's let them come to us. I have no desire to fight in that... fetid water."
Yog's fear spell leaves both monsters shaken. Esh gets mad and moves away from the water.
The many-headed dragons use their long, sinuous necks to snap at Yog, who is thirty feet away from them!
_________________________________________________________________
The hobgoblin's divine shield shatters under the draconic onslaughter. Countless teeth slip past his defenses and leave behind bloody reminders of who they're messing with. "I got their attention! Yog's doing the thing!", he shouts with a voice bolstered by alcoholic-instilled courage.
The priest then weaves magics to both protect and heal, and hopes the draconic beasts will continue to focus their attention on him.
Hotcha assumes her Ki form and moves to flank with Xin!
Xin drives his blade into one of the creatures' necks, leaving it badly wounded. The jaws of a head snap at Hotcha as she flies around to flank, but she retaliates with a ki-powered flurry that leaves the monster reeling. Esh dodges snapping jaws as he dashes in and slices the monster, badly wounding it, but Xin fails to hit with his opportune backstab. Yog heals himself.
The creatures lash out with their many heads, both biting at all of you, then striking with their tails at Xin and Esh!