Flashback to the Lucky Monkey Inn.
The group begins to learn the rules of the jungle. The monkeys who rule this island only have limited rights when they are not in the jungle. But when they are in the jungle…
We summoned TongueEater by calling his name. He came to “parley”, but was turned away by a show a force. We proceed into the jungle in search of the next lantern.
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We are multiple days into the deep jungle when we stumble upon Monks of the Flying Sandal who are fighting the Monkey Monks. The troupe helps the human monks beat off the monkeys. The monks become our guides. Ash begins to learn some of Flying Sandal Kung Fu style, and Kildrak is encouraged to learn this foreign hand-to-hand style. Grim follows the scout and learns that in the jungle hearing is more important than seeing.
The group realize we are being hunted despite the monks’ efforts to navigate us away from danger. The monks point out a cave in one direction and a bridge in the other that the monkeys will not follow us to. As the danger closes in the monks abandon us to the hunters.
Battle ensues and Zymaan senses a powerful magic target locking a giant fireball at the group. Warning gives us enough time to scatter in different directions.
We can hear the monkeys targeting “her” and the group attempts to protect Nyneve. Unfortunately the “her” in question is Valeria who is attacked by six flying monkeys who try to fly way with her. Ash valiantly attempts to fend off the monkeys, taking much damage in the process (light-side point awarded), but ultimately the monkeys break free with Valeria in tow.
They land on a crag and put a bag over her head before flying off again. They land again in the company of bigger apes and hand her over. They place hands on her rather roughly and take her all her belonging, including Rowan’s gifted magic elfsword Orcsbane.
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Nyneve dragons out by jumping in the fire. Ryp jumps on her back and realizes he has been a DragonRider before. They take to the air, bonding in the process.
Nyneve hears monkeys on the ground with comments of “oh, another dragon!” and “Old Hookjaw is not going to like this!”
******
Grim & Zymaan head off towards the swinging bridge.
******
Proxen & Jaanar run into the caves to avoid the flying demon with four human hands for limbs wielding a giant crossbow.
*****
Ash and Kildrak stick around until there is nothing else to kill. They realize they are alone and the smoke from the fire is an obvious location marker where they are, and without the Flying Sandal Monks, they have no guide.
They come across three spides, which they recognize as the spiders that affix the carved jade masks to the wearers through three holes. We’ve observed this appears to give the wearer some benefits. Ash and Kildrak follow the spiders.
They come upon a monastery and steathfully observe. The spiders return and the monks clearly recognize that they come from a fallen comrade and appear to mourn the loss, bringing the spiders inside and closing the monastery doors.
The dwarfs look to find another entrance. Kildrak recalls lessons from their monk guides – in the jungle you must use your ears. He hears sticks clacking and the sounds of traing. They approach a side door to the monastery. The monastery is generally hidden in the nature landscape, but they see that this side door appears to be an easily accessible option. They observe what appear to be classes of human students entering and exiting at regular intervals.
On solid ground again, Valeria is led past waterfalls, over two suspension bridges, and through more jungle, finally to be left in a hut. Monkey attendants start bathing Valeria to remove the nasty skin smell. One brushes her hair, one washes her. A third attendance arrives in only a loincloth with a jade necklace on a platter. Valeria detects thoughts and finds that they are supposed to get her ready for dinner with TongeuEater. The monkies cannot believe it!!! A filthy skin having dinner with TongueEater – and to add insult to injury she is to wear the necklane – only monkeys and apes can wear jade!!!!
Valeria casts sleep. A flash of glitter from her brassiere puts everyone else in the room to sleep. She casts presdigitation to hide her skin smell. She walks out of the hut and one of the two guards grunts at her and approaches with spears pointed.
Ash approaches the side door of the monastery, but Kildrak sees that Ash has been spotted by a stray jade-masked monk, behind a rock, out of Ash’s direct line of sight. Kildrak gets the drop on the monk and smashes his hammer into his skull. The skull is bashed into the torso of the monk. Kildrak reaches into the monk’s body cavity and pulls out the skull with the jade mask still attached. The spiders are starting to disengage. Ash and Kildrak realize that if the spiders report back into the monastery, the monks will know one of theirs is dead. They crush the three spiders and take the mask.
They silently enter the monastery. They walk down a hallway with a green light. They hear ongoing sounds of monks training. They pass some sleeping quarters. They pass study rooms where they can hear pages flip occasionally. Ash, having spent time with and observed Grim takes a stealthly lead, but unfortunately farts loudly. The page flipping ceases. Kildrak tries to get the jump on monk in the study but finds him at the ready. The monk attacks first, but neglects to sound the alarm. The monk attacks and Kildrak dodges out of the way, seeing a green bolt come out of the monk’s stave. Ash swings his sword from behind the monk and kills him. Once again the spiders are squashed before they can return to the monks. Ash takes this second jade mask.
Valeria swoons and imitates extreme fear. The guards feel horrible for intimidating her and let her leave. Valeria progresses through the village looking for escape. She looks for a place to hide. Just as she find a spot that looks promising, an alarm sounds. She realizes that she is in the barracks. A guard yells at Valeria, and thinking she’s a regular skin slave points her towards the escape. She has made it to the gate the she originally entered. She sees the gate has guards and casts them to sleep.
Nyneve is soaring through the air. She needs to finds a place to land. Ryp spots a structure through the jungle foliage. A three-figure statuette of three monkeys – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, See No Evil. Nyneve sees it too and it mindfucks her – when she was a girl, she played in daddy’s den with a miniature version of that same statue and she broke the figurines falling into two pieces, just how this large version looks – See No Evil and Hear No Evil together with Speak No Evil broken off to the side – how can this be?!
They land on top of Speak No Eveil. Nyneve changes to human sorceress form. Ryp observes there are offerings at base of the statues. They see white feathers in the shape of an arrow pointing into the jungle. With no other obvious options, they walk into the jungle in that direction.
The dwarfs approach a ramp that descends further into the monastery. The lit torches indicate that this passage has regular maintenance. As they descends they see slats they can look through. They see and overhear a monk on a table surrounded by other monks, who place a mask that he has carved for himself on his face. Three spiders from a jar are poured onto him. They dwarfs watch this in fascination.
They continue along and soon start to hear industrial sounds – like a dwarven forge.
Seeing the large gate, Valeria casts natural jungle noises to hide any sounds of the opening, and a cantrip illusion that door has stay closed. It fails. A wizard eye has been following Valeria the whole time, and has watched and learned the whole time. A more full extent of Valeria’s capabilities have been observed.
TongueEater steps out and stands there waiting. He says “ Bad girl. Go to my room”. Four guards grab Valeria and drag her back to her room. Valeria plays the aggrieved victim, but it is not clear what impact this act has had on the slave skins.
Nyneve and Ryp follow the path into the woods. Ryp leads. Every now and then he sees markers that confirm he is on the right path. They arrive at a canoe on the bank of a river. Ryp realized he has been scratched by jungle foliage. He doesn’t feel well, but carries on. It seems as though they should get in the canoe and go down water. They do and eventually they see a landing spot.
They land and climb a steep slope where they encounter a Shaman. The Shaman says he has a series of tests for them.
The Shaman presents Ryp with the first test, the test of truth. “How many hit points do you have?”
“38”
“Is that true?”
“Yes”
The Shaman presents Nyneve with the first test, the test of truth. “How many hit points do you have?”
“18”
“Is that true?”
“Yes”
The Shaman presents Ryp with the second test, the test of pain.
(the lights dim, the roller’s hand is placed on an orb of electricity. The roller rolls and takes the damage of the die until an even number is rolled.)
Ryp quickly passed the test of pain, losing 5 hp.
Nyneve also quickly passes the test of pain, losing 7 hp.
Back to the dwarfs.
They arrive at the source of the sounds and see a refinery. They see that at the starting point is raw jade and jade minerals being fed and separated into four streams.
- Green iron which is being forged into weapons and armor.
- The jade crystals in big and small pieces.
- A third stream that looks like magic sauce, a green glowy liquid. (arcana)
- The last stream which looks like it might be waste (intelligence)
They investigate the magic sauce and see that it disappears into a nasty looking root/vein. (Visaual aid – COMIC BOOK – THE EMPTY… same as the evil magic sucking tube that the druid wants Jaanar & Proxen to vanquish)
Ultimately it looks the magic is being fed into tree roots that are being fed in the jungle. It doesn’t feel right.
They look at the waste track. Ash hears “you’re gonna die in here… cuz I’m gonna get you” and is engaged by a nearly invisible double chain wielding monk.
A bucket of hot waste dumps. Kildrak drops his shield to escape the oncoming molten floor. In climbing away, he sees items at the forge that might be of great interest and moves in this direction.
Kildrak encounters two giants with warhammers. One hammer looks very similar to Janaar’s black axe, and the other one looks even better, being made of the jade with veins of green. Kildrak attacks the giant with the black hammer and misses.
Ash sees this and wants to go to the aid of his dwarf brethren, but most deal with his foe first. In a flash, Ash catches a chain that the monk attempts to hit him with. Ash Indiana Jones the chain around an industrial grinder to try pull the monk away, but the monk managed to let go. But now he only has only has one chain.
Valeria acts to the three monkeys attendants in the hut, citing the #metoo movement. They are treating me like an animal!! They disregard this and continue to prep her for dinner, ultimately affixing the necklace and forcing upon her a green jade dress.
Kildrak fully engages the two giants. They start to attempt to flank him.
Ash and the chain monk melee but don’t hit each other.
The Shaman present Nyneve and Ryp the third test – the test of wisdom.
“A young boy is riding with his father, and falls. The boy is brought to the Shaman for healing. The Shaman says that they cannot help for the boy is their son. How can this be?”
Valeria attends dinner with TongueEater. TongueEater attempts to disarm Valeria with flattery, eventually becoming an interrogation.
He asks how we navigated through the demimonde and the deadly seas. He asks Who the ship’s captain is? (Valeria knows he is asking these questions again – this happened at the Lucky Monkey Inn). TongueEater continues to ask questions about everyone in the party.
Valeria avoids answering directly.
Ryp consults with Nyneve, and correctly answers the test of wisdom – the Shaman in the story is the son’s mother.
This Shaman congratulates them on their wisdom and proceeds to the next test, the test of worthiness.
Nyneve is confronted by a giant snake.
Ryp is confronted by a giant awesome monkey.
Through their bond, they can both feel each other’s fear and understand that they are each involved in single combat.
Nyneve tries turn into dragon form but fails. Battle ensues.
As the questioning continues, Valeria realizes that TongueEater’s motivation is solely to find a way off this island. Interrogation get more intense and TongueEater becomes more aggressive – Valeria has to start giving information about the crew.
Peanut gallery “I remember when “her-ass” was two words”
Kildrak executes a massive undersmack in the sack of one of the giant. The non-nutted giant proceeds to attack strongly.
Despite her efforts to deflect, Valeria finds herself telling TongueEater about Ash (who said TEs name and causes his summoning). Valeria is forced to agree to help TongueEater and lay a trap for Ash.
- The writer at this point in time is midway through a second bottle of wine.
Ryp rolls for firebolt and lights his opponent on fire.
Nyneve can’t do anything. Can’t even light a match.
Ryp nukes his opponent! Radiance of the dawn.
Ash continues to fight the chain monk, but continues to miss him.
Kildrak continues to battle the two giants but does not hit them. Takes 7 hp. The giant with the green hammer drops it!!
Ash realizes that his nearly invisible opponent is initiating some sort of self-destruct protocol in the refinery – everything is about to be on fire!
Ryp casts radiance of the dawn and does great damage to his opponent. The giant monkey cannot cast non-physical damage on the next turn but it’s still strong.
Nyneve tries to flank the snake but trips. She still cannot change into her natural form and it seems even more elusive each time she tries and fails.
Through the dinner interrogation, Valeria becomes aware that TongueEater is most definitely controlled by someone else.
The next morning Valeria wakes up and strangely does not feel refreshed at all.
Ash takes a moment of clarity.
Nothing.
His opponent is nowhere?!
Nyneve hits her opponent with13 damage but sees it appears to have hit harder because it was a fire attack.
Ryp casts Guiding Bolt 4d6 and finishes his opponent off with a dazzling light.
Nyneve lights the snake on fire at half damage and takes limited damage back.
Nyneve charges her opponent, and takes to the fire. She finally turns into a dragon, and burns him into eternity.
With his opponent nowhere to be seen, he rushes to help our Kildrak who is clearly in deep against the two formidable ginats. He grabs the green hammer as Kildrak tries to retreat. Ash two-handed hammer swings the green hammer into the giant who holding the black hammer.
Valeria feels so super tired in the morning. TongueEater brings Valeria on a walk.
She attempts to seduce the second in command; Fail. (her spells did not refresh overnight)
Tongue eater says he is anxious to show her a monkey maker.
Kildrak sees Ash has picked up the green hammer, but he’s still boxed in.
Ash tosses the green hammer to Kildrak. DMA decides to be a nice guy because neither dwarf can roll for shit tonight.
Ash uses flurry of blows, engaging his drunken master style. He realizes then the danger they are in – they have to get out now before the whole place burns down. He spots the tunnel where the raw jade comes in. This is their only escape.
Ryp and Nyneve have passed the test of worthiness. The Shaman presents them with the next test, the test of determination – Follow the poisoned root to the source of the jungle’s true problem.
They follow the root through the jungle and come across a monkey village. It seems as though all the monkeys are sick.
Ryp feels that he can help and must help these sick monkeys. Natural 20. He figures out that their water has been poisoned. He casts some healing spells and gains a light side in this act.
They follow the poisoned root further and in the distance are pretty sure they can see Grim and Zymaan, and Proxin and Janaar.
The dwarfs get to the tunnel to escape and find themselves in the mine beside the prison.
Valeria sees the mine and the prison. She has been brought to see this by TongueEater.
The team is reunited.