Chult Hex Crawl - IC

[agignac]

The wizened old woman lets out a shriek of pain as Draelin's arrow pierces her withered flesh. She whips her head around to the elf, and for a moment she seems to flicker, her skull-painted brown skin suddenly replaced by damp green skin and long white hair. Then she disappears from sight.

Outside the hut, the golem looks up at Nolwenn's words, flinching back and ducking as it senses hateful fire coming its way. The spell still catches his shoulder and arm, and the air fills with the smells of barbeque.

However, the construct does what it's told and drops the limp tiefling. It lumbers at the fragile wizard, and swings both its meaty, club-like arms at her. Reacting on instinct, her magical shield flickers into being, surrounding her, but is it enough to deflect the golems attacks...?

[Pyrophilios]

The twig construct used that moment, to pick up basket with assorted healing materials and hurry out towards the fallen form of its master.

[The Hellbug]

Nolwenn reflexively casts her spell when the Flesh Golem's meaty fists come down on her, conjuring an invisible shield of force to block the blow. The first swing sends her reeling, and she manages to duck out of of the way of the second one with her spell's help, but it's a close thing. She's at a loss, knowing that she can't keep this up all day alone, but inspiration strikes when Red's construct comes running out of Pu'pu's hut, carrying its cargo of potions.

Here goes nothing... Nolwenn casts her cobbled-together spell and winces, but her ideas from while the party was resting have borne fruit, and she disappears in a puff of mist, instantly transported to next to Red's construct. "Ha! Hold on!" she instructs, grabbing it by the shoulder. The wizard puts a hand on the basket and looks over the vials, selects the one that she thinks is the most potent healing potion, and shoves it into the construct's hands.

"You've got the right idea, but this is the one, go!" After she sends the construct on its way with an urgent push, she turns to face the flesh golem, ready to try to parry its blows once again.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Bonus action to Misty Step over to the twig construct, action to identify the potions and set it up with the most potent of them for Red. Hopefully Shield+disadvantage on one of the attacks from the construct is enough to keep us going.

[Volthawk]

Hm. So she was gone. That worked too. Draelin puts the matter of figuring out what he just saw to one side, given there was still trouble here and now. Turning to look outside from the doorway, it's...not a good situation out there, and his plan of distracting the thing by attacking Pu'pu didn't seem to work. Alright. Draelin settles for just putting more arrows into it instead, trying to bring it down and present a greater threat than Nolwenn.

Spoiler

Show

Steady aim into attacking, as per usual.

Attack: (1d20+7)[17]/(1d20+7)[17]/(1d20+7)[22]
Damage: (1d8+5)[6] + (2d6)[7] SA

[Pyrophilios]

While The Red Horns lay there dying, the construct tried feeding him the potion, positioning itself protectively between him and the flesh golem.

Spoiler

Show

Sadly, my death save comes before the construct's action
(1d20)[9]/(1d20)[3]

Large healing potion (4d4+4)[12]
Steel defender will use reaction ability to give disadvantage to attacker

[agignac]

The flesh golem looked blankly at the spot where Nolwenn had stood moments ago, then turned around to find her again. Draelin's arrow took it between the ribs, causing congealed blood to trickle slowly over its stitched skin.

The golem swung clumsily at Nolwenn, hampered by the twig construct, and grunted in frustration when it couldn't connect.

The construct turned its attention to its master, and uncorked the bottle that Nolwenn had told it to. Overly sweet liquid splashed on the tielfings face, but most of it went down his throat. Coughing and sputtering, he regained consciousness, opening his eyes to discover a bad headache and that he was surrounded by legs.

Draelin felt a form push past him out the door, but when he reached out with one hand, there was nothing there.

[Pyrophilios]

The Red Horns got to his feat, noticed that he wasn't in immediate reach of the monstrosity, spread his wings and took to the air, creating distance between himself and the monstrosity.

That done, he called the Yklwa to his hand and threw it at the monster. Without hesitation for the caring service of his construct, he sent it against the golem
"Attack!"

Spoiler

Show

Attack w/ Sharphshooter
(1d20+3)[5], damage (1d8+16)[21], if crit (1d8)[8]

Bonus action: Command Steel Defender

Move Action: 15 ft to stand up, 15 ft up in the air and to the west

Steeldefender attack
(1d20+7)[10], damage (1d8+2)[9], if crit (1d8)[8]

[The Hellbug]

Dodging the corpse-cobbled monster's fists is easier, Nolwenn decides now that she's concentrating on it, than dodging apples while perched on a garden wall, though then she didn't have a mystical barrier, a magically protective cloak, and a stalwart guardian to protect her from her tutor's projectiles. On the other hand, the most damage one of those apples was going to do was upset her balance and send her tumbling into a fountain, and Nolwenn is fairly certain that she'll be lucky to have all her bones intact if that golem manages to clobber her with its meaty fists.

The wizard is relieved, then, when she feels the gust from The Red Horns taking to the air behind her. An invasive thought occurs to her that she wouldn't know if he was alive--animated, more accurately-- or not even if she had reached him--another in the growing pile of reasons to be thankful for his construct. Regardless, Nolwenn reminds herself she'll have time to think on that later. "Fire you said, right?" she calls back to Red before conservatively launching a smaller bolt of flame at the golem. She's already sweating, and she knows that one wrong step could be disastrous.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Easy turn: just launching a firebolt at the flesh golem.

Attack with disadvantage: (1d20+7)[13] (1d20+7)[10]
Damage: (1d10)[2]

[Volthawk]

Draelin frowns as he feels the rush beside him, but he can't let that distract him - sure, she gets away. That's fine. They survive this, they get her stuff, come away with a profit. and then later they can deal with her - or just get clear and never see her again. Either would work, but somehow he doubted that the latter would happen. For now, he just focuses on bringing down that thing in front of him.

Spoiler

Show

Steady aim into attacking, as per usual.

Attack: (1d20+7)[9]/(1d20+7)[21]/(1d20+7)[19]
Damage: (1d8+5)[10] + (2d6)[5] SA

[agignac]

As the three - no, four - companions surround the golem, the fight quickly turns in their favour. The golem is hammered with arrows, twiggy limbs, and fire. The creature ***** its head, stiffens suddenly, and falls forward onto its face, narrowly missing Nolwenn on its way down. It lays there, unmoving, like a fallen tree.

In the trees, the winged monkeys watch and chatter. One of them drops (or throws) a piece of fruit, and it bounces off the golem's leg and lands harmlessly at Nolwenn's feet.

[Pyrophilios]

Still spitting the ocassional bit of blood and cartilage, The Red Horns cried out: "Be sure to burn it. Would be a shame if we had to fight it again some time soon."

He himself took care to cut its head off and put it into his back of disgusting things/holding.

[The Hellbug]

And the expected blow never comes. Nolwenn is leaning towards the disabled construct when Red alights next to it with his blade. "Do you think that's necessary?" she replies, "that looks like it would take a lot of wood and it really doesn't look like it's going anywh--AAAAAHHHH!" The wizard shrieks and jumps back when the clearly-only-playing-dead golem reaches and struggles for a moment, unsuccessfully, against The Red Horns' attempt to decapitate it. "Nope, whatever you say, absolutely yes," she quickly stammers between shocked gasping breaths.

Nolwenn then sits down, wipes the sweat from her brow on her sleeve, and turns her attention to Draelin. "Is Qawasha okay?" she asks her elven ally, "I feel like I've needed to ask that too much in the past day. Wait. What about our hostess? Is she..." The wizard trails off. She had heard the scream during the fight, but it doesn't quite feel right to be asking if Draelin killed her.

[Pyrophilios]

"First things first" The Red Horns said while he stufffed the head into his bag. "Where did Mama go? unless she can fly, she still has to be on this plateau. So let's look for her tracks."

The Red Horns actually wanted to take a long nap, but having a magic user on the run probably wasn't a good idea.

Spoiler

Show

Survival to find tracks
(1d20+3)[14]

[Volthawk]

After making the decision to let the other two handle finishing off and burning the flesh golem, Draelin shrugs at the mention of Pu'pu. "Not sure where she went, but I can tell you two things. One, she isn't human. Nolwenn, you need to focus on illusions, right? Because when I shot her, for a second I saw something else than what she's been showing us. Green skin, and weird skin at that. Froggy, maybe? Different hair too, long and white. Anyway, the second is that she does have real magic. Not sure if she just went invisible and was fast on her feet, or if she turned into...I don't know, smoke or something, but she vanished and when I felt her move past me I couldn't get my hands on her. Point is, don't assume she can't fly, and although I put an arrow into her she might still be perfectly able to fight. Be careful." Draelin shrugs. "Anyway, while he does that I'm going to check on Qawasha then see what she left behind. Want to help, Nolwenn?"

[agignac]

Red and his construct search the area thoroughly, but despite the ground being damp from the early - morning rain, the only tracks he can find are their own. He realizes that the golem was buried in the yard, near to the hut; probably hidden there until Nanny Pu'pu had need of it. It is in the churned-up earth here that Red finds the limp and lifeless body of Weed.

Inside, Draelin finds Qawasha still asleep. However, he is easily woken and brought outside. The elf explores the cabin, and finds a sack hidden between the hide walls. It has a strange texture, and after a moment he realizes it's made from human skin. Inside, he finds six onyx gemstones and ten adamantine ingot stamped with unfamiliar dwarven runes.

In a pile of papers, he finds various recipes for stews and jerkies, all made from human flesh. He also finds two spell scrolls jumbled up with the papers; one called flesh-to-stone, and the reverse, stone-to-flesh. There is also a paper torn from a journal, with a nicely-sketched image of an beautiful wooden mask, shaped like a tiger,s face. Scrawled writing on the margins includes some curses about the pterafolk.

Nolwenn, after making sure the golem was burning, checked the other potions. Two were indeed standard healing potions, and the other two were a potion of invulnerability, and a potion of speed.

[Pyrophilios]

The Red Horns nodded: "I think I know now what we are dealing with: Mama Pu'Pu is a hag. Fey spellcasters with a taste for human flesh. Why she didn't go for the magic stuff, I have no idea. In any case, we now have a somewhat deadly foe against us.

And that mask... I remember one of the guides asking for help retreiving one from the Pterafolk. Seems to be quite valuable.

Quawasha, how far are we still from the oracle? Have we reached the halfway point yet?"

[agignac]

Qawasha weeps silently over the body of his friend, coughing sporadically. At Red's question, he looks up with a quickly-masked expression on his face. "Orolunga is less than two days from here. If you walk to the western edge of this plateau, you will see it."

[Pyrophilios]

The Red Horns nodded: "Then we should leave here as soon as possible and find a place in the jungle to heal up and go there - before the hag returns with her coven..."

[Volthawk]

Draelin walks out of the tent with one of the ingots in hand, looking at it thoughtfully, nodding when Red explains his thought. "Fey, huh? Are they typically in the business of taking out whole villages? Stories always had them just outside of where people lived, picking away at those off the beaten track, not killing this many at once." He shrugs. "But then this isn't back home, and the stories never had them running around with golems. Anyway, look at this ingot. Dwarven runes. I wonder if that dead expedition we found out by the cliffs wasn't an accident, and there was something going on with Pu'pu and Hrakhammar Mine. Might just be a coincidence, though." He shrugs again.

The mention of the oracle and where to go next gets Draelin's focus away from his musings. "At the risk of being too blunt, are we sure the oracle will be there and alive, given..." He gestures vaguely around. "You know. And he's right, we need to go. Do you..." Draelin pauses. "Is there...something we should do for him? Some death rites of his people or something? Just a burial?"

[agignac]

Qawasha shook his head at Draelin's fears. "The oracle of Orolunga would have nothing to fear from the likes of this hag, or even a coven. She will be there."

"I will plant Weed. Perhaps his spirit will return and we will meet again."

[The Hellbug]

Nolwenn is, of course, disgusted by Pu'pu's whole array of human-body part foods and tools. Staying out of the hut while they search it, she gathers enough lumber to burn the golem and sets it alight with her magic.

Next, faced with what Red and Draelin have said, Nolwenn ponders on what the group knows about Mama Pu'pu. "Well, she definitely did use magic--likely far different from mine or Red's--both to conceal her appearance and whatever she used to escape," the wizard adds, "though perhaps not so different from--"she shakes her head"--not important, never mind. To answer your question, Draelin: yes, most spells of veiling one's appearance require uninterrupted concentration, and your arrows could definitely have broken the spell. I would be hard pressed to maintain a such a spell in that position. Secondly, I'd be willing to guess that her method of escape was mere invisibility. Spells of invisibility are notoriously poor at hiding things that might be detected by other senses: scents, sounds, a breeze from swiftly slipping by someone."

As she mentions this last method of detection she nods to corroborate Draelin's experience and continues. "If she were to use a spell to teleport away, you wouldn't have felt such a thing, and if she turned herself into mist, you'd still see the mist flowing by you. So it's safe to assume she's still nearby, but she's been dealt a grievous blow in the loss of her protector. As for what she was up to, I'd guess she was doing just what you mentioned, Draelin: living in near M'bala and posing as a healer while taking advantage of the people here--either having been the healer the whole time or by killing and replacing the real Mama Pu'pu. The real question is what made her stop doing that and move on to this. I think there's still another party in this tragedy that we're unaware of."

Once Qawasha is awake and Weed is found, Nolwenn finds that she can't find the words to help console the druid. She offers whatever help he needs in planting his vegepygmy friend but is silent for whatever ceremony accompanies it. Yet another soul lost on this expedition, but, with the Oracle so close, Nolwenn is resolved to continue.

[The Hellbug]

With Weed buried, Nolwenn turns her attention to the present predicament. "Can we be back on the trail to the Oracle tomorrow, then?"

[Volthawk]

Draelin thinks it over, before looking over at Qawasha. "Are you feeling up to getting back on the trail today, Qawasha, or do you need more time? If you're good to go, we should do what Red says and get some distance from here sooner rather than later - just in case. I'm willing to risk a little discomfort in order to ensure we don't get blindsided. After all, for we know there are more surprises like that thing buried around here. It might be a small chance that retaliation is that swift, but if we can afford to avoid that small risk, we should."

[agignac]

The ceremony to plant Weed seemed to bolster Qawasha somewhat, and he straightened his shoulders. "I can continue. And I must thank you for rescuing me. You put yourselves in harms way, and I thank you for it."

He looked over his shoulder at the cliff face. "Did you find the mask in the cave? The one from the hag's notes? It looks like she suspects this local nest of pterafolk had it."

***

Once you're on your way, Qawasha leads you with confidence to the west. The mesa is dry and mostly barren of plant life. The sun is hot, but a lovely breeze cools your sweat. Odd boulders lie about, as if some giant hand scattered them eons past. The dry ground is also dotted with holes and burrows, thought it takes over an hour before you see the creatures that live in them. Qawasha points them out to you, small, fuzzy creatures standing on hind legs, with long soft ears and a single pearlescent horn in the middle of their foreheads. They stand on hind legs and watch you pass, but if you come too close they vanish into their burrows in a flash.

As you come to the end of the mesa, the jungle trees begin to close in again. The shade is welcome, but the plants block the breeze.

The day is drawing to a close when you approach the end of the mesa. The slope back down to the jungle proper is much gentler this time, a hill rather than a cliff. Less than a day away, you see a ziggaraut looming above the canopy. "Orolunga," Qawasha says, his voice still hoarse.

As you begin to set up camp, Red notices movement at the edge of his vision. Its persistent but hard to focus on. Every time he turns his head, it seems to be just out of reach. Finally, though, he is able to catch sight of a strange little creature.

A small person, more than 5 inches in height. Its body and limbs are too thin, and moves with a jerky, unnatural movement. Its skin is inky black, and instead of a face, it has an oval white mask. Instead of regular facial features, the mask shows a spiral pattern and a black circle on the right side. A puff of black hair or feathers swirls around the mask.

The creature seems to be trying to get your attention, but then hiding whenever it thinks you see it.

Spoiler: images

Show

[Pyrophilios]

The Red Horns nodded: "Alright, get ready to move, I'll take another look at the cave. By now the smoke should be gone and I can take a bit more time to search. And I'm taking the construct with me to help me out."

That said, The Red Horns flew back to take a second, more in dept look.

Spoiler

Show

Investigation w/advantage from help action construct

(1d20+8)[12]/(1d20+8)[22] + Guidance (1d4)[4]

[agignac]

The smoke and ash had settled, leaving only the stink. Red and his construct did a more thorough job examining the cave, taking care to examine each nest, nook and cranny. He finally discovered a hiding space beneath one of the nests, and pulled out a jumbled pile of treasures. He brought them back to the others to examine in the light.

1) the carved wooden tiger mask
2) a knobbly wooden wand, made smooth by much handling
3) a set of three bowstrings, a bit tangled together. One is red, one green, one black.
4) A triangular mirror, 6" on each side, with beautiful snail shells inset along the edges.
5) A pair of clogs made from black leather
6) A pair of boots made from brown leather

[Pyrophilios]

When the party made camp, The Red Horns took time to analyze the found treasure.

When the funny creatures appeared, he made Qawasha aware of them and asked: "What's up with those. I only can make them out from the corner of my eyes."

For a test he tossed a bit of their rations toward the masked creature.

Spoiler

Show

Detect magic ritual casted and arcana check w/ help and guidance to identify magic items

(1d20+8)[25]/(1d20+8)[14]+(1d4)[4]

[The Hellbug]

Even though she had advocated staying in Mbala for another night, Nolwenn is relieved to put it behind her, even if Red's haul from his detour back to the pterafolk cavern has her wishing to settle down to investigate this new crop of treasures immediately--the wand and the mask in particular beg for attention as potentially-magical-instruments.

So much has happened in the past day that it's hard to imagine that the party of explorers was climbing up the plateau, assured of rest in Mbala at the top, only yesterday. The wonders of the Chultan penninsula continue to amaze, right alongside its dangers. Nolwenn gasps when Draelin points out the unicorn rabbits and practically dives for her sketchbook--they're exactly the sort of creature she can imagine herself begging her mother for in her younger years. And, as the sun sets, there's the sight of Orolunga, itself, exactly the sort of sight she had been promised by the stories of Chult she had heard in taverns back home.

It does beg a question, though: who is this oracle, anyway? With how quickly the expedition was on the road, Nolwenn realizes she doesn't have much to go off of besides what Qawasha has provided. And why was he so certain that someone like Mama Pu'pu was no threat to them. The wizard, who had been sketching and leaving the identification of the treasures to The admittedly more-appropriate-for-the-task Red Horns (she even refrains from looking over his shoulder), is just getting ready to ask when he points out the strange little creature on the edge of the camp. She reaches for her mirror pendant--there's something she wants to try, having thought about her own experiences in the last day--but she waits for the group's guide to speak first.

[agignac]

Qawasha looked at the mask with interest. "I believe this is the Mask of Beasts. Another guide, Azaka Stormfang, has been looking for this. She will demand you give it to her, as it was stolen from her tribe long ago."

The bowstrings he also examined. "Nsizi's strings, I believe. They were a great Chultan hunter, beloved of Ubtao before the god turned his back on us. There used to be eight, a sacred number for Ubtao, but the others have been lost or broken. Very lucky, these are."

When Red pointed out the small masked figure, Qawasha's face lit up. "A Chwinga! Spirit guardians of the jungle. Very lucky it is to see one, especially up here." He watched a moment, and then frowned. "I've never seen one act like this before. It seems...upset? The ones I've seen in the past were calm, quiet and watchful." Approaching slowly, he knelt down and spoke in soft Chultan. The little creature jumped off its branch and vanished, only to reappear a little ways away. It waved its arms again.

[Volthawk]

Draelin listens to Qawasha's input on the context of these items with interest. "Alright, so when we get back to civlisation make sure to either hide the mask or find her first to work out a deal, got it. And the strings..." He chuckles, having put the green string on his longbow. "Hopefully you're right about them being lucky. We could do with all the luck we can get, eh?"

Red and Qawasha's talk about a strange creature has him a little on edge - they'd had enough visits at their camp by magical creatures looking for a snack for his liking - but the apparent context soon becomes clear and he relaxes again. Seeing Qawasha talk to the thing and it heading off gets a shrug from him. "Looks like it wants us to follow. Qawasha, you're sure this little guy is okay, and he won't be leading us into a trap?"