Violant yells loud profanities in Utopian, preparing a non-elemental spell next.
Whistling at Wilbur Lyra calls him into the fight Attack boy!”
Moving up the the frog (2) Lyra attacks with her tusks.
Lyra, unburdened by thoughts of betrayal, shakes off the dominating beam from the Dragon Pillar before whistling for her pig and then lightly goring a nearby Grippli.
Grippli 3 moves back, drawing its shortbow and fires an arrow at Samael.
But its terrible aim causes the shot to go wild and into the trees.
The Remaining Grippli that looks a little different remains on the ground, prone focusing their energy on casting a spell causing a hideous creature that looks like a freshly pulled tuber that has grown into the malformed shape of a child with a grotesque face and hideously bloated body to climb out of the ground. Seems as though the Grippli has little regard for their life or defending themselves.
the Indigo Dragon Pillar again, eyes glowing fires off an indigo beam at Lyra again, intent on dominating the Saranaite Priest it seems.
Round 2 - Is Dahak the Rainbow Dragon?
Indigo Dragon Pillar - Charged,
Samael ☘️ -
Violant ☘️ -
Stom ☘️ -
Oppa / Doxie ☘️ -
Grippli Archer 1 - 27 damage
Grippli Archer 2 - 4 damage
Lyra / Wilbur ☘️ -
Grippli Archer 3 - 13 damage
Grippli Greanspeaker - 26 damage, prone
Unknown hideous Plant creature
Then he will begin juggling a couple of cards.
Samael quickly gets to work disabling the magical runes that are carved into the pillar, after his experience with the first pillar he had already devised a plan and was able to quickly and efficiently disable the runes. The pillar makes a sound going deeper until it trails off into silence, the smoke drifting away and the glowing eyes grow dark.
The glowing purple eyes of the Grippli's fade away and they immediately clutch their wounds, looking around confused, speaking in Mwangi, "Ohhh what happened, we were trying to investigate the pillar,"
Slowly and carefully raising her holy symbol she speaks loudly in Orcish as the symbol begins to glow. Everyone within 30 feet notice their wounds begin to heal.
"Klllarkisha Sarenrae brisshhraka liikk"
Violant tries all the language she knows (Varisian, Common, Empyrean, Draconic, Elven, and Utopian). Failing that, she pulls out her staff with translate stored, and points at it and her mouth, as if to say. Translate prepared.
The grippli's seem confused, though even they are aware of Saranrae and surprised when healing magic washes over them, knitting closed the majority of their wounds.
As Violant switches between different languages, the Grippli's try as well though they know only two, Mwangi and a croaking chirping language that must be their native tongue.
Communication difficulties are left moot when Violant casts a spell enabling her to understand them.
One of the Grippli's, his mottled green skin still pale from the strain, clasped his webbed hands together and croaked, “We… we are free.” His wide eyes turned to the party, shimmering with relief. “The whispering in our minds… gone. You have done what we could not.”
Another stepped forward, the eldest, and the spellcaster, by the look of the silvering frills along his jaw. “We tried,” he said, his voice carrying the rasp of exhaustion. “We knew that pillar was an abomination to Dahak’s name, an insult to all that lives. We crept close but it twisted our thoughts before we could strike," He trailed off, glancing at the other freed gripplis, shame flickering in his gaze.
Upon seeing the grippli's stop fighting and hearing Violant translate, Stom apologizes for hurting. "Yeah, uh, sorry about hitting you with my axe. I hope it wasn't too bad. Luckily, Lyra here is real good with bandages and such. She patched me up plenty!"
"I apologize about my... rashness. My education was in mathematics primarily, though I'm a wizard for the sake of self-defense. My typical solution is to... admittedly, throw fire at anything that isn't clearly immune," Violant says with a somber chuckle.
"The Mwangi elves were the one that bestowed this staff upon me, I don't usually have Translate prepared but it would be a good decision in the future. It was no problem, and we hold no grudge against you. You're not yourself under another's control aside from a few things like expertise."
Another grippli, still rubbing the base of his skull, croaked, “It is no trouble. You were not yourselves either, not in the way you acted, perhaps, but in your urgency to destroy that thing.” His eyes darted toward the shattered remains of the pillar. “That. . . pillar, you came here to destroy it yes? Why do they exist? Who made them?”
Aye, we destroyed another one that was dedicated to Dahak" She spits on the ground at the evil gods name. "A friend of ours saw this one from the tree line and let us know that this one was here. Are you from around here?"
Continuing to borrow Violant as a translator, the spellcasting Grippli speaks up, "We are, our village is not far from here, a few days north, we have good relations with the Ekujae but otherwise avoid this part of the jungle due to the Cinderclaw's growing influence. We were investigating though because the Ekujae asked us for help,"
Stom sheepishly stows his large axe and helps Lyra bandages any further injuries. He tells the Gripplis of how they toppled a different pillar not too far from here. "We pushed the damned thing over and burnt it. Now that this was one isn't confusing everyone, I say we do the same thing to this one. Soon enough, we'll have all of them burnt to cinders."
Assuming no one thinks wiser of this idea, Stom encourages some of the stronger Gripplis to help him push the pillar over and makes preparations for a fire.
Once Doxie gets over the disappointment that "Frog-legs" weren't on the dinner menu for the evening she takes out her frustration by helpin Stom push the pillar over.
Oppa sits in the shadiest spot he can find and relaxes after the scare of the encounter a bit distraught that he had damaged these friendly grippli so.
The Ekujae asked for our help as well. We’ve fought some cinderclaws before we got here in the jungle. You are welcome to stay with us as we camp tonight, there is plenty of room.”
Watching the flames she wonders out loud ”how many more of these pillars do you think we will find?”
"Please, do stay with us if you need shelter for the night," Viiolant says. "Least we can do for my dumb mistake. Firebomb the Dahak statue."
Working together you guys topple over the dragon pillar, it breaks into several pieces, surely slowing down any attempts to repair it immensely.
The Grippli's accept you're offer to camp for the night, and after moving a suitable distance away you guys camp, swapping stories of past adventures.
In the morning the Grippli's mark their village on your map, though its and let you know they will speak with the Elder Toads about securing additional help.
Renali returned from scouting to the North and gave it the all clear, packing your camp you guys continue skirting the Blindness Line, the next day passes rather uneventfully, without much to see. There start to be signs to the South east of traffic but also some lesser foot traffic possible to the South west. Opting for the more traffic'd route, you guys are rewarded quickly with the discovery of an actual path through the jungle as you draw closer, you guys quickly smell an acrid odor of something burnt or burning and every now and then catch glimpses of smoke in the distance.
A large pit has been dug into the ground at the center of this clearing, coating everything nearby with yellowish mud. A rough camp has been assembled around the mine.
Let me know what you guys want to do.
"Should I sneak ahead and see what's there and report back?"
"Aye, it'd be good to get a better idea of who is using this camp and for what purpose. Was that pit dug recently?" Stom points a hand towards the large open pit in front of them. "Tell me if you see stone down in there. I might be able to identify it."
"If you want to sneak ahead that would be good, or I do have a spell that I have been wanting to try out. Its called speak with plants and maybe if it works I can see if the plant life in the area can tell us anything about this clearing. Here let me give it a try"
"whhilllish ffunguali squalith"
As your group huddles in the brush, looking at the camp, you can see to the southeast a large charcoal pit is filled with smoking coals and smells of roasted flesh and a number of what look Charau-Ka's roasting meat there.
To the side, a bamboo trapdoor covers another large pit dug into the ground. Beyond that you see what looks like a number of beds on the ground outside and possible bodies laying in the beds and a large bunkhouse looking structure.
On the far side of the pit you can see another small wooden hut structure with smoke rising from a single chimney.
And finally to the north of the pit, you see a large solid looking pen made from thick logs lashed together. Its hard to well what is in the pen, from this distance its a large lump of a creature
"Perhaps we can check with the Grippli's and see what they know about this... then go in under the cover of darkness"?
"It'll be hard to sneak around with the mid-day sun beaming down. Let's find a place to hide for now and Samael can scout around when darkness comes."
Lyra when you cast your speak with plants spell, the loud jungle is suddenly almost deafening as you can understand the trees, shrubs, vines, bushes and grass, focusing in on the nearby trees you ask if there are any creatures nearby, the trees shudder, answering slowly, "Ahh it's been a long while since a 2 legged has spoken to us trees, creatures aye, big furry ones, small scaley ones. The small scaley ones recently left, a whole lot of them left the clearing, this made the big hairy ones mad," The tree thinks for a while, communing with its neighbors, "There is more yes, up north my neighbors say a foul sulfur smelling creature is butchering the wildlife, poor squirrels, and hogs and antelopes, all killed and eaten," the tree rustles, its leaves and vines shuddering, "south, is bad too, blood drinkers, jungle terrors have been killing and eating with abandon too, its a bad time to be a warm blood right now,"
Lyra relays the message of the trees to her group.
Speaking to the trees again "Thank you for help we will do what we can to help the jungle and all its creatures."
"Do you know what is going in the hole? Or around there? Blood drinkers..." She lets her companions know that she is going to try and get more information about the hole and the surrounding area, while we wait for the sun to set to be able to sneak in.
Lyra tries to think about what she knows about jungle blood drinkers but it doesn't ring a bell for any natural creature. Following up her questions, the trees shudder and shake, straining the limits of their awareness, "Evil dark things, sick things, metal and rock and blood, the small scaley ones dig and tear but now they gone and the big furry ones rage and gnash and remain,"
Staying hidden, watching the camp move about, seems there is very little work actually happening right now on what appears to be some sort of Mine or excavation.
Once night sets in, the bonfire cook fire really gets roaring, providing decent illumination of the area, though outside of the light is pitch black.
Samael steps out into the field to begin his scouting.
Samael tries to overhear some of the creatures, mostly Charau-Ka's and Boggards, though in his scouting he sees that the two groups keep to themselves, rather than mingling. Sneaking by the cookpit, he sees that there is a bamboo trapdoor that leads to a shallow pit containing the camps stores of Smoke Meat, Mashed vegetables and clay pots of water.
Moving toward the bunk hours, he sees A half dozen filthy reed mats, encrusted with slime and sweat, line the ground outside of a slumped
wooden building. In these mats there are 4 Charua-Ka's and 2 Boggards, all of them look like they are dying of some sort of sickness or poisoning and it looks another 6 Boggards are tending to them, though Samael notices they aren't so providing much relief appearing to simply be studying the effects as they die slowly.
If Samael spoke draconic or mwangi, he'd better understand what the Boggards tending to the dying are saying but its just gibberish to him.
Moving past the sick and dying to the bunk house proper, This rough wooden lodge appears run-down at first glance, but a closer look reveals the sturdy and watertight construction. Thick, gnarled trees packed with reeds and mud form the walls, while piles of rattan create an insulating roof. Inside Samael sees 6 or 7 charau-ka though they are unarmored and their weapons and armor are stacked neatly against one of the walls and well out of reach.
Moving from the bunk house, Samael creeps to the edge of the massive pit, looking down into it he sees The walls of this strip mine sink deep into the earth. The exposed earth is yellowish and heavy, soaked through with water from the sluices and the jungle rain. To the north of the sunken area is a large pond of muddy water, while fifteen feet south of the pond looms an Violet(different from the indigo pillar) colored dragon-headed pillar.
On the far side of the mine, A wooden hut stands at the eastern edge of the mining pit, wafts of smoke rising from a single chimney in its north wall. West of the hut is a wooden table, on which several objects lie obscured under a leather covering. A bin of rocky refuse sits beside the table. South of the hut, a fifteen-foot-diameter magical circle has been dug into the ground, the grooves filled with dull gray metal and adorned at each point with stubs of burnt-out black candles.
Unfortunately this hut has no windows, and only one door, though placing an ear to the wall, Samael can hear what sounds like a creature moving about inside as well as the subtle clink of glass.
Lastly north of the hut is a A giant pile of yellowish clay and mud has been dumped here: an immense spoil pile from the nearby mine.
Samael sneaks back, and relates what he saw and heard. He tries to imitate some of the language he doesn't speak, in case any of the words are worthwhile to understand.
Samael attempts to relay one of the rumors he heard though is Draconic is not great.
“Those kobolds abandoned the mine because they wanted special treatment and didn’t get it. No matter. Once they found out what Belmazog did to their beloved dragon, they would have either run off or turned on us anyway.”
Stom listens to Samael's report of the encampment. At the end, he tries to make sense of the phrases that Samael repeats. "Sounds like Draconic, but hard to tell. Repeat it again, will ya?"
"Sounds like they are saying that kobolds abandoned the mine because they got greedy and didn't get the treatment they wanted. And, this Belmazog person did something to a dragon that the kobolds wouldn't like. In-fighting in the camp perhaps, if the kobolds are still around."
At the mention of yet another Dragon pillar and the magical circle with candles Lyra pipes up. "I think this makes the 4th pillar we've come across, by her Sword, I wonder how many there are out here. She looks out into the dark jungle still thinking on what the trees said." Maybe if we can interrogate this Belmazog person or the leader of this camp we can find out what their goal is. All I know is that it cant be good.This is the second time weve heard that name."
"The trees said there are many evil things in the jungle these days"
Lyra listens to the description of the arcane circle and is able to deduce it was likely used to summon a Demon, though which kind is harder to know, but whatever is nesting to the North of this clearing, is likely that Demon based on the trees descriptions as well.
Still leaves the mystery of whatever blood sucking bat like creatures are nesting in the southern end of the clearing.
”Demons.” she spits the word out full of disdain. ”we need to shed her holy light upon this jungle and spare all its flora and fauna of the demons evil and dark influence. Let’s knock this pillar down and clear this clearing then head north to the demon nest. As my Lady teaches , we can offer redemption first but if they don’t want it…” she trails off with a shake of her head and pulling her shield into place on her arm.
Professor Turra relays the translation of the Draconic, slurring and all. She also tries to identify the blood-sucking bat creatures. They could just be oversized vampire bats, named for their habbits, but you can never be too sure.
Some believe that sabosans are distant descendants of humans who were afflicted with vampirism but managed to avoid succumbing to undeath. Others posit they were once a tribe of demon worshippers whose dark rites transformed them into their current forms. No matter their true origins, sabosans have infamous reputations among residents of towns and cities south of the equator. Even mere rumors of sabosans in an area are enough to set off city-wide hunts, and the truly superstitious arenft above setting fires near every grotto, nook, and foxhole they come across in order to smoke out the nocturnal creatures.
Sabosans hunt during the twilight hours or just after dark, when their echolocation gives them a predatory edge over their sleeping prey. They are capable hunters but indiscriminating when it comes to food sources; their rapid metabolisms means sabosans must eat nearly 20 pounds of meat and fruit per day (supplemented, naturally, with copious amounts of blood).
You don't remember any known weaknesses, other than their minds and willpower is usually their weakest compared to their agility and reflexes being incredibly high
"Well we've got to address both seems. Me and Doxie don't care where to head first. We're prepared either way".
Stom acknowledges Samael's scouting prowess. Well done, Samael. I would have woken most of the camp if I had tried that."
Stom considers the party's options around how to deal with the camp. "There's probably a way to silently take out an enemy, but it's likely to go loud at some point. I'm with Oppa. All options seem about the same to me." Stom shrugs and nods with head at his axe. "I think I'll let my axe do the talking, unless someone has a better idea."
Stom looks to Lyra, Samael, and Violant for their thoughts.
Violant just shrugs. She has no idea what they are.
"I think we did well with the prior pillar. You all attack, and I attempt to deactivate the pillar. It seems that the 'guardians' of the pillars are mind-controlled, so they are not are primary objective."
Stom gazes back towards the open area and wonders how they might minimize the number of deaths - assuming they really are being mind-controlled. "Our best option might be to rush toward the pit in the middle. Samael deactivates the pillar. And, the rest of provide cover. We'll be stuck in the middle of camp with no way out, but we won't be killing everyone first."
Listening as Stom goes over his plan Lyra shakes her head, "I don't know if that's the best idea, getting caught in the middle. I say lets head north, and deal with this summoned demon first and see if we can find out anything about why they summoned it in the first place."
Stom nods in agreement with Lyra. "That sounds like a better plan to me. Anyone else have something for us to consider?
"Let's go before we catch analysis paralysis".
Sneaking off to the north of this large field, you guys come up to A particularly dense tangle of trees here seems to have been chosen as the lair of a particularly horrific and cruel creature, for amid the tangled branches above is an awful nest made of bones, scraps of animal hides, bits of rotting flesh, and mud.
From above in the trees you can hear some large creature sniffing, before a cruel voice of malice and anger whispers down, in badly broken Common, "Smells like somethings wandered into my nest, goood, I was just getting hungry,"
Looking up you guys see a large vulture like head of a creature with glowing red eyes looking down at you before large black wings unfurl to launch itself down to the forest floor.
Its head cocks sideways taking you all in, "Mmmm not the ones who summoned me, interesting, I was growing bored of eating animals, you all will make a nice treat, I enjoy supping on the flesh of mortals. The crack of your bones is a delight before I suck the marrow out,"
Round 1 - Welcome to the Jungle
Stom ☘️-
Violant ☘️ -
Vulture Demon
Oppa/ Doxie ☘️ -
Lyra / Wilbur ☘️ -
Samael ☘️ -
Moving more quickly than expected given his dwarven frame, Stom wheels around to the other side of the vulture. "Pin it in!" Stom grips his axe and swings at the vultures legs in an attempt to knock it on its back.
◇ Rage
◆ Stride
◆◆ Slam Down