DAY12.
Day starts with a drizzling rain.
While trying to portage around a waterfall you spot a raincatcher through the trees. Exploring you come upon an abandoned camp partially overgrown by vegetation. A skeleton still sits in a camp chair beneath the rain catcher clutching its utensils the whole camp now overgown by foliage. A flat rock nearby has whats left of the poor souls mess kit.
While exploring the party finds that the camp is still occupied by a very alive assassin vine. The vine gets the best of Kylorin poisoning him badly. Eddie tires to burn the plant only to find that it is both fire and cold resistant. Lindal springs in to poke it full of holes but dares not stay close to its barbed tendrils.
Fighting with the plant attracts the attention of a dozen nearby cannibals who try to attack the distracted party. Musharib heard and yells a warning which Lindal uses to interpose himself between the incoming threat and Eddie who would be facing them. They pepper Lindal and Eddie with spears but ineffectively.then moves right up to the cliff they are standing on ans to set the clifftop attackers on fire. Meanwhile Celadon sleeps the cannibals swimming down the river towards the group neutralizing the threat.
Freya and Kylorin continue to slug it out with the toxic vine that manages to injure Kylorin badly. Freya carves it to look a bit like a dwarf and kylorin cleaves it in twain with a smite.
One of the fleeing cannibals cried "Ras Nsi, spare my life" before he flees. Lindal hunted him down like the jungle predator that he is.
Treasure : spears, 10 gp, 137 cp, necklace made of human finger bones (5 gp), Messkit, a badly charred rain catcher.
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Statue
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There is an overgrown 10 foot tall statue of a Chultan figure overgrown with vines.
In front of it you see a gruesome offering. A tabaxi guide possibly "flask of wine" was hacked apart and pieced back together with arms and legs switched. Also hanging from the tree next to it upside down is a headless human in robes poked full of holes. A crude bone flute and a collection of teeth lie on a small flat stone in front of the statue.
Kylorin and Freya scout the shrine and when kylorin uses her special vision she learns that they are surrounded by undead. Soon she figure out that there are a dozen corrupted chwinga spirits that have been turned and bound to the flute. Kylorin and Undril do their best to purify the area - destroying the tainted Chwinga and cleaning the foul offerings form the shrine. Eddie examines the flute and sees that it is possible to use it necromantic nature and his ability to control fate to make it into a beacon that would summon undead from a VERY large area. Kylorin insists that if anyone carries the flute it will be him to prevent temptation.
While trying to purify the shrine a eerie blue mist forms and drifts towards the group. Hans shows off his new spell throwing up a rope trick that allows the party to avoid the enchanted madness causing fog. It was a few hundred feet thick and took a good ten minutes to pass as it drifts down towards the coast. If it wasn't for Eddie's rope trick the party would have lost at least a day backtracking to avoid it.
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Camp Vengeance
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Through the foliage, you see a battlefield filled with trampled earth and siege weapons surrounding a wooden fort. Scattered around around the plain surrounding the fort are piles of charred human corpses and occasional flayed dinosaur carcasses swarming with flies. The camp itself has reinforced walls of rough hewn timbers, regular towers with sight lines to surrounding area and is otherwise very by the book look though the book was clearly not designed for forts this close to a swamp because the moat is swarming with insects and the miasma from the rotting dinosaur corpses left with far too much meat to dispose efficiently hangs over the whole camp.
The fort itself is crude timber fortification—a walled compound with watchtowers and tents inside it, encircled by a ditch bristling with sharpened stakes. A large gatehouse faces the river, on the shore of which are several rowboats tied to a wooden post. Two of which have the mark of a fist upon their side. Undril looks over the fortifications and sighs and turns to you to talk quickly and urgently.
Undril Silvertusk: "This is worse than I thought. This is a Terino war camp - it seems like Commander Breakbone may be in charge here. If so I expect reception might be rough for arcane casters as well as anyone with Fae blood - she says this looking at Celadon meaningfully. In general members of his order are fanatical about destroying corruption such as undead and they blame arcane and fae magics for making undead possible. He is reputed to an old military hand from a noble family long retired but who came out of retirement to help the campaign down in Chult though last report I read said his mind is not as sharp as he used to be when he was younger campaigner. This is going to be dicey I need to you support me in this. Do not antagonize him. If you can conceal you casting abilities or fae ancestry. I need to figure out what is going on and who else is there from my order and I would prefer this not become another fiasco like the Warden's camp"
As you approach the camp you see a soldiers manning each tower as well as a pair of soldiers in the fortifications over the main gates. One of them turns and calls behind him at your approach and another figure appears at the battlement - a flat faced female marine in heavy armor regards you warily. She calls out to your group.
Captain Salhana: "Halt who goes there? State your business"
(perception 14) Lindal sees the captain make a subtle hand sign as she hailed you (thumb touching her ring finger twice during her wave) Undril shields her eyes with a fist after and says
Undril Silvertusk: "I am Undril Silvertusk sent as a representative of the Lightbringers to lend aid and bring supplies to camp righteousness but find myself having tracked the remnants from that outpost to this location"
Captain Salhana: "I am Captian Perne Salhana. I was one of the commanders of the rear guard during our departure from our original base camp. We were driven out of Camp Righteousness by a swarm of undead the size we had not previously encountered. a couple hundred rolled onto us from multiple fronts in the dead of night. We retreated to our forward outpost commanded by Commander Miles breakbone and had some shakeups due to the failure at Camp Righteousness. We have been here ever since with the commander sending us on daily forays against the nearby undead. We have lots of sick and wounded and commander will expect everyone who enters to report to him. If you are fine with that you are welcome to enter."
Undril Silvertusk: "I come bearing supplies and ask that my companions who saw me here be given leave to recuperate before going further on their journey. Can we have leave to enter just so they can recover from our journey and the illnesses it has inflicted upon us?"
Captain Salhana: "You will need to wait as our camp healers are currently stressed dealing with illnesses among our fighting forces but if you wait and pitch in I am sure we can have you be seen in turn. We especially need folks with medical experience"
The party investigated the camp and quickly learned all was not well in the camp. There were clearly factions and many are sick while a large portion of the camp has been imprisoned by the fanatical Commander Miles Breakbone who as far as the party can tell is both addled a human's first anti mage bigot and a half elf to boot. The party determines that he is haunted by a fiend which has been driving him insane and is likely responsible for his "divine visions" that have lead the camp to the brink of disaster.
The party was making plans on how to sneak in and deal with him when the night time attacks start. The undead have dozens of archers and a caster casting twinned gravebolts picking off non careful tower guards.
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Night time attack.
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The horde of zombies clearly number in the hundreds though they mostly assault the main gate of the camp. Though kylorin did learn that an ghoul assasin has at least once scaled the other walls and tried killing the leaders but Miles somehow (fae-ancestory) resisted the foul creatures paralytic touch and a guard has been stationed outside the command tent ever since. Kylorin hears cries of pain and terror form the commander but the fanatical guard just says it is the commanders burden to stare upon the greatness of god and be humbled each night. Kylorin's sight indicates that it is a fiend and no god visiting the commander in his sleep.
Meanwhile outside the walls the party hears the undead coming from thousands of yards away but the real threat are the smart undead whom dart among them and try to break down the walls or set them on fire. The guards only use their arrows on these. Yet the undead have skeletal archers in numbers and these exclusively focus on the archer defenders. You get the sense that there is someone or something further back in the darkness directing the attacks. From the darkness flies eldritch bolts of black energy that occasionally strike defenders to great effect. A handfull of acolytes man the walls running to restore the defenders who fall to these bolts.
Eddie sends his familiar out invisibly to scout and sees that there is in fact a caster a couple hundred feet back commanding a dozen archers and a handful of guards. It looks like a zombie but wields a wand and targets any guard who stays exposed for more than a few seconds.The party makes pans for sneaking out the back of the camp and springing an attack on the undead commander.
Inspiration
Freya - using her family's spy skills to assess factions in the camp
Kylorin - restoring shrine of Ubtau and correctly identifying and cleansing the blight of undead Chwingas.
Experience (challenge based) 500 Individual * (5/7ths) = 357
Assassin vine and cannibals - (medium) 250
Undead chwinga shrine - (easy) 125
Mad monkey mist - (easy) 125
The party earned 2500 xp with 3 allies [Seraph, Musharib, Undril] (357 each => 4571 cumulative)
Treasure
bone flute
spears, 10 gp, 137 cp, necklace made of human finger bones (5 gp), Messkit, a badly charred rain catcher