It’s Tuesday, so here we are. This week, we get the fallout of our party dealing with Yan-Ti as well as meeting a legit Gladiator. I love Gladiator. Here’s a true story. I had this girlfriend, and she was cool as hell. We used to watch movies all of the time. She borrowed Gladiator and told me that she didn’t like it. At that moment, I realized that she wasn’t the one. Within a week or two, we split up. She like The Italian Job, but not Gladiator. So any single guys reading this, make sure to draw a line in the fucking sand when it comes to women and horrible tastes in movies. I can accept a bitch not liking Star Wars, but not Gladiator. This has all been brought to you by a not so famous podcast: Are You Not Kentertained.
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Tomb of Annihilation
Chapter 5 – Yan-ti? I hardly knew ye!
With Dina-Saur and his cultist friends now dead, the party scanned the room and found both a set of stairs leading up and a door that appeared to lead outside. Deciding to head upstairs first, the group found themselves in a room with three cages. While one cage was empty, the other two had a cat-person in one and an elf in the other. Both appeared to be leaking glowing green fluids and were unconscious. After Compassion broke the locks to their cages, Xilix cast Detect Magic and found that the two were heavily radiating transmutation magic. Putting their heads and magical notes together, Xilix, Ethyl, and Hertz determined that the two were likely cursed and were currently in the transformation process to become slaves to the Yan-ti snake people. Worrying that they could turn at any moment, and without proper curse dispelling magic, the group voted to lock them up in the third cage and return after their quest was complete.
As the group was about to leave the room Xilix was hit by a premonition. In it, a Yan-ti snake man casts a spell that put Compassion under his power. The Yan-ti then directed Compassion to kill his fellow party members. Xilix warned Compassion of his vision and told Compassion to concentrate on creating a barrier of iron will around his mind.
Returning downstairs, Compassion opened the door leading to the outside mezzanine. Upon opening the door, Compassion saw one Yan-ti snake man standing in the middle of the yard surrounded by four fully transformed humanoid slaves. Xilix also saw that just outside the door were a number of poisonous “Vile Beauty” plants, and he informed Compassion of this fact. Compassion then made the tactically sound decision to shut the door as the party readied itself for battle. Through the walls, the party could hear the Yan-ti yelling/hissing about how the Amulet was his and how his men would crush them.
The possessed humans eventually busted through the door into the room. Luckily, the opponents had all run through the Vile Beauty plants, causing them to become nauseated. As the group battled the minions, the Yan-ti began the incantations to cast a spell. Just as Compassion was about to kill one of the possessed humanoids, the Yan-ti finished the spell, and whispers began to cloud Compassion’s mind, ordering him to kill his teammates. Thanks to Xilix’s warning, however, Compassion was prepared for this mental assault and expelled the Yan-ti from his mind.
Enraged by the failure of his spell, and seeing his minions on the verge of defeat, the Yan-ti cried out to some profane deity to help him defeat these fools, even if it cost him his own life. Before Tempest could even react, divine forces ripped open Tempest’s backpack. The Dreamer’s Amulet flew out at a high speed and embedded itself into the Yan-ti’s chest. As the yan-ti cried out in pain, he was surrounded by translucent, fiery-green chains. Uttering words in a language the party could not understand, the Yan-ti called upon the power of the chains to create a giant green spectral serpent. The yan-ti directed the serpent to swallow the party whole.
As the serpent came in to devour the party, the remaining minions, and likely half the building, Hertz beseeched Talos for the power to protect the party from the spectral serpent. Raising his Warhammer to the heavens, Hertz was able to summon a lighting beast that took the form of a jaguar. Unfortunately, at his low level of experience, the lightning jaguar was significantly weaker than the spectral snake.
Tempest, who had just impaled yet another possessed humanoid on his spear, yelled to the party that he would finish off the minions while they found a way to kill that giant freaking snake. Unsure what would happen when divine and arcane magic mixed, Xilix decided that now was as good a time as any to experiment. Summoning power from the elemental plane of fire, Xilix was able to turn the lighting jaguar into a lighting-fire gorilla. While significantly stronger, the lighting-fire gorilla was still only able to stop the advance of the spectral serpent and did not have the power to turn the serpent back.
With no ground being made, Compassion devised a plan. He yelled to Ethyl to cast Mage Hand on the tip of his whip and asked that, if possible, Ethyl should give the hand claws. While normally not possible for Ethyl, with death imminent, she was able to call upon the wild magics that permeated her blood to form a mage hand in the shape of a dragon claw. With the magical dragon claw attached, Compassion let the whip soar. As the yan-ti was concentrating on the spectral serpent spell, he was unable to dodge the whip attack in time. The tip of the whip struck the yan-ti’s chest, and Ethyl’s magical dragon claw began digging into the yan-ti’s chest cavity. Once it appeared that the claw had taken hold of the amulet, Compassion pulled back on the whip with all his might. The Amulet of Dreamers broke free from the yan-ti’s chest and came flying back into Compassion’s hand.
Bleeding profusely out of the gaping hole in his chest and quickly losing power, the yan-ti fell to its knees. The spectral serpent visibly weakened, at which point the lightning-fire gorilla grabbed it with both hands and pulled it apart, resulting in an explosion that incinerated the yan-ti and leveled half a city block.
Upon seeing the destruction that had been caused, Compassion was about to fall to his knees and lament the loss of more innocent life. Luckily, Xilix was able to inform Compassion that the area that was destroyed was a deserted section of the city. The only thing that used to be there was a drug den that had mysteriously disappeared the other night after its patrons had tried to rob a mysterious, amnesiac elf who had been looking for “medical supplies.”
With the danger having passed, the group went back upstairs to check on whether defeating the head snake man had resulted in the curse being broken; it had not. Looking at a map of the city, the party identified three nearby temples to which they could bring the victims. Specifically, the temples were to the gods of truth, wonder, and beauty. Tempest, pointing out that, “snakes are totally ugly,” suggested that the temple to Sune, the goddess of beauty, was the best choice. Upon reaching the temple, only Compassion was allowed in due to him being the most aesthetically pleasing with that enticing red skin. Hertz responded by playing a ballad about the time Sune and Talos, “totally got it on.” While not amused with Hertz’s sacrilege, the priests agreed to treat the patients.
Realizing they may have been betrayed by Sagi and Narissa, the party sat down on a park bench to eat lunch and discuss how they would confront the pair. By the time they reached dessert, the group had decided to take advantage of Compassion’s infernal heritage. Using the party’s various illusion and glamor magical abilities, they decided to make Compassion look as devilish as possible, to the point where Compassion resembled Satan him/her/itself. So enchanted, Compassion would intimidate Sagi and Narissa into confessing.
After the party reached the inn and the spells were cast, Compassion kicked in the door to the inn and yelled, “Sagi you backstabbing, drunken bastard, why did you set us up?” Upon seeing Compassion in such a state, Sagi immediately peed himself and began incoherently babbling; pretty much the Sagi usual. Narissa, who saw the illusions for what they were, stepped in to calm the situation.
At the conclusion of the conversation, which was witnessed by a number of scared patrons of the inn, all parties were satisfied that Sagi was not a traitor. Rather, it turns out that not only is Sagi an alcoholic, but he is also really bad at his job. Sagi simply took everything Dina-saur had to say at face value, as actually performing background checks and verifying the offered information would have taken up too much valuable drinking time. In the end, Narissa summed it up best: “Huh, I guess the Dreamer’s Amulet had nothing to do with the death curse.” Legends say that Compassion face-palmed so hard at that statement that the slap could be heard all across Chult. As the party had no more use for the Amulet, they gave it to Narissa in exchange for hospitality should they ever find themselves in her ancient village hidden within the jungles of Chult.
As it was only mid-afternoon, the party was left to decide how to spend their time before escorting the priest to Camp Vengeance for merchant prince Jobal in the morning. Checking the job board at the inn, the group found a quick job they could complete that day, collecting an overdue debt from a deadbeat. Pulling the job notice from the Board, a sketchy looking human sprung up. The creepy dude introduced himself as Clau and told them that it was he who put up the job listing.
Clau explained that a gladiator named Tavan had borrowed the sum of 500 gold from Clau, which he appeared to have spent on a fancy new set of armor to wear in the arena. The group was to either bring back the money owed or bring Clau the armor. Clau told the party where Tavan could be located.
Upon entering the merchant district, the party was easily able to identify Tavan based upon Clau’s description. As it turned out, Tavan, in his fancy new armor, was challenging all comers to a street fight, with an entrance fee of 5 gold. Hertz pulled out his lute and began playing stadium-music to pump up the crowd, as Ethyl pushed Compassion forward to accept the challenge. As Compassion paid the 5 gold entry fee, Tempest asked Xilix to dip a blowgun dart into some of his “medicine that is totally not poison.” Tempest then took the “not poisoned” dart and hid in the crowd.
As the entire party was confident in Compassion’s abilities, Ethyl put a 10 gold side bet down on Compassion. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that Tavan had a lot of experience in one on one fights in the area. Seeing that Compassion was on the verge of being overpowered, Tempest shot Tavan with the poisoned dart. Much to the party’s chagrin, it turned out a poisoned Tavan was still more than an adequate match for Compassion. As such, the party decided to forgo the rules of gentlemanly combat, and they all rushed in and proceeded to beat Tavan into the ground, to the loud booing of the crowd. While dragging Tavan’s body away, one of the commoners yelled, “just what I’d expect from Gladiator Tempest, the Dishonorable Head-Kicker!”
Upon dragging Tavan into a side street, they proceeded to strip him of all of his valuables and his shiny new armor, which they then brought to Clau. Thankful, Clau paid the party for a job well done. Exhausted from a long day, the party retired to their rooms.
The party awoke the next morning to the sounds of loud noises coming from the common room of the inn. To their surprise, Jobal had arrived early that morning with an entire contingent of wait staff that were preparing breakfast. Also to Ethyl’s surprise, her hair was growing back at a pretty significant pace!
Taking a seat and eating, Jobal introduced Undrel, half-orc priestess of Savarn to the party. Their job would be to take the provided boat and escort both Savarn and a boatload full of supplies to Camp Vengeance. Jobal explained that these supplies were necessary as Camp Righteousness, which the party will pass on their way to Camp Vengeance, had been attacked and was completely destroyed. As the party headed to the boat they gave each other knowing glances . . . they would be making a stop at Camp Righteousness on their way to Camp Vengeance.
What will the party find at Camp Righteousness? How many days worth of supplies with Ethyl eat during the journey? Find out next time on Tales from the Plunderbund Consortium!
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