S09E16 - Do You Want To Be My Slave?

The episode starts with the heroes being ushered into Kir Sabal’s monastery for dinner. At the table, the heroes are joined by the aarakocra leader, Asharra, the peacock aarakocra they recently rescued, Astra, the surfer aarakocra, Skydancer, the Omuan princess in exile, Mwaxanaré, and his little brother Na.

During dinner, the heroes share a bit about themselves with the monks and, in exchange, learn about the strict monastery rules they’re expected to obey. The heroes ask about Omu and Mwaxanaré describes how it fell into ruin many years ago, and how she’s ready to claim the throne once someone kicks the evil that now lurks there.

Asharra, after learning about the heroes’ missions, offers to perform the Dance of the Seven Winds which will temporarily grant them the ability to fly. The only catch is that they first need to find a black orchid in a nearby abandoned summer palace. Skydancer is about to leave on a mission with a tactical ops team in the direction of the palace and is happy to fly them there. Salida needs to stay at the monastery because Skydancer is not bringing enough aarakocras, but everybody, especially Salida, is happy about that.

After dinner, Sophi looks for a place to enjoy the spectacular sunset over the jungle while Ellie goes on a fly-date with Skydancer. During the flight, he shares with her his desire to leave the monastery because of its strict rules and build a house next to the beach. He invites Ellie to join him but she’s reluctant to do so because she has to go back to her forest to defend it from Thalas-Arenda once she finds Fionghan. The couple returns to the monastery on time for the monastery’s curfew.

Later in the night, while everybody is asleep, Chos wakes up with a sore cheek as if something had hit it. He spots a cloaked figure on the window beckoning him and follows it to a nearby house. As soon as he enters, Mwaxanaré takes off her cloak revealing very seductive silky lingerie that’s probably worth more gold pieces than he’s ever seen. The princess doesn’t give him time to react. She grabs him and kisses him with the energy of someone who’s been desiring something for too long. Chos tries to stop it, but his body has already given in to passion and he ends up going with the flow.

The next morning, Asharra’s elder helper, Yingmatona, wakes Chos up five minutes before the morning meditation that he’s expected to attend. The naked Chos tries to explain why he’s alone naked in this abandoned house and scuttles to the party’s chambers, to get dressed and join the rest of the party and most of Kir Sabal’s inhabitants in the meditation hall.

After the meditation and prayers are over, the party packs up and leaves Kir Sabal in the arms, literally, of Skydancer and his scouting party and they off toward Nangalore. During the trip, Ellie enjoys being carried by Skydancer and Avilos learns more than he thought he could learn in the hands of a slobbering aakoracra who loves to talk.

That night the aarakocra are eager to join the heroes in their new Little Hut of Leomund where they all spend the night uneventfully.

The next day the party takes to the air again and by noon they arrive close enough to Nangalore where they part ways with Skydancer and company. After a short walk, they arrive at the flooded area surrounding the palace. Ellie casts Pass Without Trace on the whole party, and thanks to that they spot and avoid a bunch of crocodiles at the front of the palace. The heroes enter the palace by climbing its Western wall instead, but not before a couple of failed attempts where it looked as if the twenty-foot-high wall would defeat the level five party.

Inside the palace, the heroes find an abandoned compound taken over by nature. Ruined domes and a central palace are surrounded by colorful and partly flooded terraces and gardens.

Avilos takes the lead and starts looking for the orchid in one of the enclosed gardens but something in the air makes him get high and he becomes too happy and not that dependable. The rest of the party carefully follow his steps looking again for the orchid but they don’t see one anywhere. During this exploration, Sophi spots large creatures moving inside one of the northern domes, which they assume are the evil flying creatures that Asharra told them about. The party, still hidden thanks to Ellie’s Pass Without Trace spell, steers clear of that dome and moves to the opposite terrace.

In the last garden he explores, Avilos gets assaulted by three plants with three heads each. He fights back, and with the rest of the party’s help quickly kills the plants. Sadly, the air in this garden also has something in it, and Carnivore and Sophi get hit more strongly than Avilos and fall unconscious.

While Ellie and Chos are trying to decide what to do, a tiny fey creature wearing a mask for a face shows up and plays first with Ellie, and later with Chos climbing them and trying to do a headstand over their heads and just play with them for a while. Before leaving, the creature hands Chos a charm that an unconscious Sophi is sure is a fey turd.

Ellie and Chos ask the trippy Avilos again about black orchids and they realize that it’s more likely that the flower is inside one of the buildings, not in the gardens. Chos then tries to stealthily enter the Eastern dome and, inside, finds a veiled woman lying on a divan with a black orchid next to her. Avilos joins him and they both try to convince the woman to give them the flower, but she refuses unless they give her a beautiful and expensive work of art, gem, or jewelry, or unless Avilos agrees to become her slave.

Chos and Avilos ask for a timeout and join Ellie back outside where they concoct a plan to steal the flower during the night. The episode ends with the heroes setting camp right outside the walls of the palace.