S09E12 - Sex in the City

After arriving back in Port Nyanzaru, the heroes return the sailing ship to its owner and go to Salida’s house. Their goal is to leave Port Nyanzaru quickly to continue their search for the cursed artifact, the missing druid from Ellie’s order, and Sophi’s orphanage sister. And while they’re at it, help Avilos craft amazing songs and help Mao find and fix her broken ship.

When they arrive at Salida’s house, she’s not there. Because there is so much friendship and trust between the group and her, Sophi decides to break into her house through a back window while Avilos plays a distraction in the front street.

Inside the guide’s house, Sophi finds notes from Lord Outshine, including an encrypted one, maps, and a snake altar. She copies information from one of the maps that expands on the map the heroes already possess and leaves the house. On her way out, Sophi realizes a kid had been observing her rummage through the apartment. She tells him they’re friends and the kid happily leaves.

Mao, Chos, and Ellie go back to the inn where a slightly pissed off innkeeper wants remuneration from not being told that they were leaving town for several days. After that is settled, the heroes receive a visit from Ugor, Lord Ifan’s butler. Somehow, he’s become aware of the orb and wants to buy it. The heroes neither confirm nor deny that they have it and tell him they will consider the offer and let Lord Ifan know later.

Meanwhile, Sophi and Avilos go to Armin’s tavern in search of Melody, but she’s not been there since the last concert four days ago. Azionna also arrives while they’re gathering info. She says she’s pissed off at Avilos’s from the no-show four days ago, but she’s still flirty and they re-schedule their date for that night. After that they try to find an orb-look-alike at the market, but they only find overpriced scrying balls that Sophi refuses to buy and they go back to the inn.

After updating each other, the party splits one more time. Chos, Mao, and Ellie go to Temple of Celestian, they meet Zitembe who denies any leaks to Lord Ifan and loses the heroes’ trust.

Sophi and Avilos on their end go to the city’s race track in search of Carnivore who’s in the red from losing his hard-earned adventuring money in bets. Sophi settles his debts and they leave. They hear street rumors about Lord Outshine’s new tower being cursed, but that will later turn out to be fake news from a goofy fisherman who wanted to mess up with his blacksmith friend. At some point Sophi spots a coconut tree and climbs it and uses her magic hand to grab a coconut with the hope that it will double as the cursed necrotic orb they no longer have. Two innocent but territorial baboons were killed in the taking of the coconut.

Elsewhere in town, Chos and Ellie go check on Tiny Timmy and Betty. Much to their surprise, they’re both fine. After that, they investigate the two rumors around the cursed tower, but both the runes carved on stone rumors, and the old druid caused it rumors appear to have no substance.

After that, the party regroups at the inn. While they’re discussing, a cloaked man called Jan Wyk approaches them asking if they know where a place called Orolunga is, but they have no idea.

The group rests until it’s time for Avilos’s date with Azionna. Sophi asks him if she can join, and a very happy and excited Avilos wholeheartedly agrees. When Azionna arrives, she’s a bit set back, but also agrees and the three of them leave for the secretive Lagoon Lantern tavern. During dinner, Azionna turns her flirting several notches up, and is very interested in learning what Avilos and Sophi have been up to. While they’re eating the desserts, Avilos and Sophi start feeling very sleepy and fall unconscious.

The next morning, Avilos and Sophi are the first to wake up. They’re on the docks, their hands are tied, and they’re only wearing underpants. A fisherman, surprised to see a hot elf and a voluptuous halfling like that, agrees to their plea for help and frees them. They both head to the tavern, Sophi with an empty barrel as temporary clothing, and Avilos completely unconcerned. At the inn, the innkeeper insists on lending them old clothes when he sees them going for the bedsheets.

The whole party then heads to the docks and use Chos’s radar spell to try to locate Sophi and Avilos’s belongings. After searching for a while, they find everything except their gold, their gems, Sophi’s caged bird, and Avilos’s long flute.

Back at the inn, while the group is packing and getting ready to leave, Chos receives a call from Lady Jessamine, his patron. Chos goes to her villa and finds her completely bed-ridden. She urges him to find a cure and gives him two liters of extremely poisonous poison to help him accelerate things. A few minutes later, back with the rest of the party, he learns that Lady Jessamine is essentially the master assassin of the city.

After buying rations and meeting Salida, the group then heads to the jungle.

Once outside, they try Sophi’s whistle of attracting pissed off dinosaurs, but it only seems to attract velociraptors and other small dinosaurs.

That night, Carnivore talks to Sophi about meeting his parents and his uncle, but Sophi tells him that even though they’re engaged, he’s going too fast.

At some time during their second day of travel, the party hears very deep voices talking in a strange language. Thanks to Understand Languages they can figure out that it has something to do with searching for Jan Wyk, but the party decides time is flying and their three priorities are more important and skirt the area with the voices.