S09E15 - Arrival at Kir Sabal

The session starts with a flashback. Young Sophi is at the orphanage’s garden picking blackberries between brambles when she gets a big gash. Her best friend, Ada, is nearby and takes care of the wound with water and a beautiful embroidered handkerchief, the only memento that her mom left her. The flashback ends when a cranky nun arrives and scolds the two girls for being careless and wasting time.

Back to the present, Ellie is at the top of the hundred-meter-high pterafolk’s tower in the early evening. She spots a prisoner in a corner of the rooftop platform, only a few meters away from three pterafolk who are devouring their dinner. Still in giant wolf spider form, Ellie approaches the prisoner who turns out to be an injured but fancily dressed female peacock aarakocra called Astra. After untying her, Ellie learns from Astra that the tower is called Firefinger and that the third level is full of elder pterafolk, stronger than the pterafolk up here.

The two wait patiently until the pterafolks fall asleep to then fly down and meet the rest of the party. Astra thanks Ellie again for saving her and tells the group that they should ask Asharra, the Kir Sabal monastery leader, to perform the Dance of the Seven Winds for them so that they reach their destination, the Heart of Ubtao and Omu, sooner. Chos, whose right arm is again, completely black from the curse, thinks it’s a great idea.

Astra also gives the party concrete directions on how exactly to get to the monastery because there is no path up there for non-flying people. The heroes then ask Astra what to do about the pterafolk, but, before she can answer, Sophi accidentally says something that pisses the sensitive fashionista aarakocra off and makes her leave abruptly.

The heroes weigh their options and decide to leave for Kir Sabal to continue their time-sensitive missions. Before departing, Sophi uses some of Lady Jessamine’s poison on the corpse that the group found near the bottom of the tower in the hope that the pterafolk will come back to eat it. As Sophi rubs the poison over all exposed and some non-exposed body parts, she finds a leather pouch filled with gold and an arrow-like symbol carved on it. Next to the pouch, she finds a scroll from Valindra instructing the carrier to meet Azionna and bring her to the Heart of Ubtao.

A couple of days of travel later the heroes narrowly avoid getting trampled by a stampede of hadrosauruses. Strangely enough, the red grung that the group rescued from the giant lizards weeks ago is riding one of them. The grung makes eye contact with Avilos and gives him a sexually charged lick gesture and a wink. Avilos remembers that she licked her while she was semi-unconscious from the lizards’s attack.

A day later at night, while Ellie is standing watch, the heroes are ambushed by Rupert who, hiding on top of one of the trees, casts Web and immediately throws a fire bomb into their camp destroying all the tents and setting all of them on fire. Despite the damage, Rupert miscalculated and no one gets killed. Sophi quickly climbs up the tree canopy to go after him, but the little warforged bastard moves unnaturally fast and soon disappears into the night.

During the following several nights the heroes are on heightened alert and set up double watches. Sophi and Ellie, annoyed with each other because of the ambush, keep their distance for the next few days.

The party continues traveling South and, a few nights later, now much closer to Kir Sabal, a ghost called K’Nacha shows up during Avilos’s watch and asks him for help with a knock-knock joke. The ghost recounts that he spoke the joke in front of a secret door inside a certain tomb 200 years ago, but that it didn’t cause the door to open, which is what was supposed to happen. And because of that, he died. Avilos, unsure that he got the joke, reassures him that the joke is funny but is otherwise unable to help him. The ghost then leaves, still thinking about the situation. Avilos and Carnivore are left with a very positive impression of him. They later tell the group about the encounter and about the fact that the ghost said he could guide them to the tomb.

A couple of days later, after crossing the River Oolung, the heroes find a headless elf with six Batiri goblin spears thrust symmetrically through his body. The heroes reason that they’re entering Batiri goblin territory and become extra careful.

Luckily the heroes reach the base of the mountain where Kir Sabal is before facing the goblins. Chos uses his Sending spell to tell Astra that they’ve arrived, and soon after that, a group of aarakocras, including Astra and Skydancer, picks everybody up. Skydancer, who carries Ellie, makes her feel very welcome in his strong arms.

Once they’re up in the monastery, a small compound of a dozen buildings set on the face of the mountain, the heroes meet the monk leader, Asharra, who thanks them for saving Astra and invites them for dinner later that day. With some time before dinner, Avilos, Sophi, and Carnivore go see the mistress that Astra told them about, and ask her to make them fancy custom leather armors. Meanwhile, Ellie and Chos go to the cleansing house to pay their respects, do ablutions, sprinkle sacred chalk and gold dust on their hair, and get ready for dinner.

Once the group is back together, and while they’re admiring the spectacular views of the jungle from the terraces, Sophi meets a young woman called Mwaxanaré who claims to be the royal heir to Omu waiting for her imminent return to the city. Sophi asks her for the exact location of the lost city, but before the young woman can answer, Asharra’s servant arrives and announces that dinner is ready.