Did you think I forgot about this? I didn’t, I have simply been dealing with bronchitis, the death of my father, and a kidney stone. But who gives a damn about that when we could be reading some Tales From The Plunderbund. I am you host, Kent. This of course was written my by good friend Eric. This week, I had 2 songs picked out. In tribute of a lady that we lost recently, and in honor of a game that Eric and I have been playing recently, I give you The Cranberries “Zombie”. Tomorrow, yes tomorrow a new blog is coming, I hope you know something about Sam B.
Tomb of Annihilation
Chapter 3 – Murder-Hobos Come to Frog Town
Upon removing the second piece of the amulet from the alter, the adventurers could feel their minds attempting to be penetrated. While most fought off the icky visions, Ethyl could not, and her mind began to flood with images of giant eyeballs leaking black fluid and more tentacles than can be found in the backroom of an anime convention. Luckily, as Ethyl was from the underdark, such images were nothing more than an average Tuesday night for her. She quickly came back to her senses, unconcerned about the horrific visions that had just been pumped into her head.
Needing to rest and regain their spells, the party headed back to the inn. In the morning, before Xilix could take too many of his medicinal herbs, the party insisted that he tell them the location of his Emerald Enclave contact. After searching through his notes for about 20 minutes, Xilix informed the party that they should meet with female cat-person Screaming Wind just outside the city.
With a new goal, the party set out to meet Screaming Wind. After leaving the city and traveling for about an hour, the group found themselves near a bridge spanning a ravine. In the middle of the bridge the group could see a fish-man getting his butt kicked by two pterodactyl-men. As the party stopped to debate whether the fish-man was the victim or the aggressor, a cat-person jumped out of the nearby trees and proceeded to stab the pterodactyl-men in the throat. The fish-man thanked her and ran the hell away (because he was a fish and she was a cat).
As all cat-people look alike to Xilix, he assumed that this cat-person was his contact Screaming Wind. Luckily, in this case Xilix’s casual racism happened to be correct. At first conversation was slow, as Screaming Wind’s accent (aka cat screeching) made it hard to understand her. After acclimating to the horrible cat sounds coming from Screaming Wind, the group found that she was very happy to see them, as she had a job she wished them to complete. Specifically, in the area of the jungle known as Molar’s Throat, all sorts of bad shit was going down. Most notably, the pterodactyl-men were being driven crazy and undead were starting to spring up all over. If the situation didn’t improve, the cat people were going to have to leave their village in the Throat. Screaming Wind hired the group to find the source of the madness and stop it.
For the next three hours the party stumbled clumsily through the jungle, rubbing up against all manner of poisoned foliage. As such, the group spent most of the afternoon feeling sick and in a hallucinogenic state. While the majority of the group was miserable, Xilix was in heaven.
As the hallucinogins began to wear off, the party came to a clearing where it appeared a cat-person and a half-elf were unconscious and trapped in some brambles. Not sure if this was an illusion due to their hallucinogenic encounters, Tempest went over and started poking at the brambles with her spear. Tempest and the party quickly learned that not only was the bramble patch alive, but the rustling bushes made it obvious that they were surrounded by a handful of other shrub-men. While the shrub men were all self-satisfied with themselves for pulling off such an ambush, they made the fatal mistake of ambushing a group with two magic users who just love to throw fire around.
Tempest, Xilix, and Ethyl set up an assembly line of murder. In step one, Tempest would spear a shrub-man and pin him to the ground. In step two, Xilix and Ethyl would burn the ever-living hell out of said shrub-man; rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, as those three were disposing of the foliage, Compassion was trying desperately to save the cat-woman and the half-elf. Thanks to his efforts, the cat-woman lived . . . while the half-elf was completely drained of blood. At the end of the fight everyone congratulated Compassion for now having an overall victim rescue rate of approximately 15 percent! Compassion just grunted at them as he prepared the half-elf’s body for purification and burial . . . again.
Continuing their trek, the party came to the edge of the jungle. From the tree line, the party looked out onto a field where six small and adorable frog-men were performing some sort of ritual around a pillar. As the party bickered about whether or not to engage with the frog-men, Ethyl, hating conversation with the other party members, decided to crack open Volo’s guide to see what she could learn. Thanks to the guide, Ethyl learned many interesting facts, including that the frogs have a democratically elected republic, their favorite animal is the teddy bear, they poison everything they touch, and they are slavers. As the party came to the realization that the last entry was particularly concerning, Tempest, using her monk vision, noticed that at least two of the frogs had seen the group but were pretending not to.
With visions of a future life of frog-slavery in their heads, the group decided to kill the frog-men before that happened. Realizing the party wasn’t going to go down easy, the frogs immediately began trying to hide in the nearby grasses in the hopes of sneaking up on the party. Seeing half of the frogs immediately disappear, Xilix cast a sleep spell at their last known location. This resulted in the half of the frog-men that had hidden suddenly deciding it was nap time.
From there a fierce battle ensued, with the party engaging with spells, war hammers, swords, spears, and Tempest’s famous “headbutt of caving your head in.” After the three conscious frog-men were dispatched of, the group went to the sleeping frog-men and proceeded to kill them all in their sleep. While the group members themselves took very little damage, unfortunately for Ethyl, one of her spells backfired, causing all of her hair to fall off of her body.
After saving themselves from a grim future of frog-slavery, the group proceeded to loot the bodies and examine the pillar. To their surprise, another piece of the Amulet sat upon it. As Tempest collected the Amulet piece, the minds of the party members were once again assaulted, however, this time they were all able to resist being shown totally gross scenes of tentacles and ichor. Upon examination the Amulet piece, Screaming Wind deduced that it was the cause for all of the trouble in the jungle, and she thanked the group for taking the Amulet piece from the cursed alter.
It was quickly becoming apparent that 1) the amulet likely had nothing to do with the death curse, and 2) bringing all the pieces of the amulet together might actually be a terrible idea, as it may summon some sort eldritch abomination. Despite such concerns, they decided to press on with reassembling the Amulet.
Wanting to reassemble the Amulet and get it out of their possession as soon as possible, the group followed their next lead. Specifically, they went to talk with Kelvin Venscion of the Order of the Gauntlet. On their way, Ethyl insisted that they stop by the black market so that she could purchase a magical hair growth formula that had specifically been tested on animals and humans. While Ethyl found someone willing to sell a “miracle hair growth formula,” only time will tell if the formula will truly work (as opposed to just poisoning the heck out of Ethyl).
Upon arriving at Kelvin’s shop, the group explained that they were not there to buy any of the very fancy clothes on display, but instead to obtain information about an Amulet piece. While disappointed that he would not be making a sale off of gullible adventurers on this day, Kelvin was nice enough to inform the party that the object they were looking for was likely part of a shipment being smuggled into the city underneath the sewers that evening. In order to reach the most easily accessible entrance, the group would have to go to the harbor district.
As they traveled to the harbor district, everyone made sure to inform Ethyl that absolutely no hair was growing back yet. Arriving at the harbor near the sewer entrance, the party saw four individuals standing in the middle of the street, and one standing off to the side. As Compassion and Tempest went to speak with the larger group (at which point they had a very nice chat about sports, drinking, and floozies), Hertz went over and introduced himself to the loner in the corner.
The loner introduced himself as John Johnson, and explained that he and his compatriots were sell swords under the employ of Jobald, merchant prince of hirelings. He advised Hertz that the party should go see Jobald about work in the future if they were so inclined. Hertz thanked John for his advice and then told John that he and the party were about to travel past them through the harbor. In a most friendly and cheerful way, John told Hertz that they had been specifically ordered not to let anyone proceed any further into the harbor.
Rather than immediately start killing innocent mercenaries, the group decided to head to Jobald’s compound and request that they get special permission to enter the harbor district. Upon reaching the nearby compound, Compassion told the gate guard that they were a mercenary party looking for work. Always needing new recruits, the guard let them in straightaway. Of interest, the guards at the compound were wearing uniforms that looked nothing like the uniforms of John and the other sell swords at the docs. Failing their intelligence checks, the party thought nothing of it.
Upon being ushered into the office, Jobald, a large human with a stern but friendly demeanor, greeted them all warmly. As Compassion again explained that they were there for work, Jobald quickly evaluated the group’s capabilities and offered them a job escorting a priest to “Camp Vengeance” to the south in the jungle. The group accepted the job, but asked if the priest could wait two days while the party took care of other business. After Jobald agreed, the party pushed their luck even further and asked if they could have special permission to bypass his sell swords guarding the harbor, Jobald responded, “what sell swords?”
Realizing they had been hoodwinked, the party immediately headed back to the harbor district. Seeing the party return, the five “sell swords” assumed a fighting formation and engaged. The battle was tough, but the enemies were no match for our heroes.
Nearing the end of the battle, realizing that they should capture one of the bad guys to pump them for information about the incoming shipment, Hertz called upon the power of Talos. Storm clouds formed, and electricity began pumping through Hertz’s body. Hertz pointed a single finger at John, who had survived the battle thus far, and told him and his remaining men to surrender or Talos would smite him where he stood.
While Hertz was focused on John, one of the last remaining sell swords broke away from Tempest and charged Hertz. Hertz paid him no mind and allowed the sell sword’s metal short sword make contact with his body that was infused with divine lightning. Upon striking Hertz the sell sword screamed in unimaginable pain and was quickly turned into a pile of ash.
Having seen what just happened to one of his best men, most people would have simply surrendered in the hopes of living another day. But not John, he was apparently special. Despite literally seeing his friend being smited by divine lighting for merely having the audacity to strike Hertz, John decided to yell, “I’m not afraid of your god,” and he attacked Hertz head on. A sound of thunder echoed throughout the harbor district, and where John once stood, only chunks of flesh and blood remained.
What will the group find when they enter the sewers? Just how much vengeance is required to fill a camp? Will Ethyl’s hair ever grow back? Find out next week on Tales from the Plunderbund Consortium!
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