S09E19 - The Heart of Ubtao

The episode start with heroes arriving at the Heart of Ubtao, a huge rock floating 80 meters above ground with roots sprouting out of it and a massive tree on top.

Carnivore, filled with the usual amounts of testosterone and dopamine, takes the initiative and needs to be stopped from storming the cave entrance they see on the rock’s wall.

While the group debates how to best to approach it, Salida tells them she’ll wait down in the jungle. She’s been told the rock is currently the headquarters of the Wizards of Thay, a gang of very dangerous, unpredictable people, and that Lord Outshine isn’t paying her enough to be the heroes’ guide to risk her life more than she’s doing.

Sophi then tours around the floating rock, strategically using the sun and flapping her wings as carefully as she can to try to stay out of sight of any ranged rock defenders. After touring the place and confirming that there only seem to be two entry points: the cave and the hollow tree on top of the rock, she stealthily approaches the cave’s entrance, hides in the bushes near it, and listens for any noises coming from inside the rock.

After a few minutes of silence and stillness, Ellie gets tired, flies to the hollow tree, and starts descending through it while the rest of the group approaches the cave’s entrance.

While the party is about to enter the cave, a beautiful female elf comes out to greet them and introduces herself as Valindra Shadowmantle.

Sophi’s wolf, Falkor, was already on high alert as soon as they approached the flying rock, but when it sees Valindra, it turns ravenous and jumps at her. Valindra casts a spell at the wolf and then tells him in a soft but firm tone, “Run,” before inviting the heroes to join her inside the cave and going inside without waiting for a reply. On its turn, Falkor runs toward the rock’s cliff and jumps.

The party reasons they can’t do anything about Falkor right now and follow Valindra into the cave. Sophi, who was still hiding in the bushes and hadn’t seen the event, joins them, gets updated on Falkor, and tries to refrain from running after Valindra. Ellie joins the group through the tree chimney after facing a swarm of bats housed in the trunk.

Inside the moist cave, the heroes see bookshelves, a desk, crates, two doors, and big tree roots coming out of the ceiling and dripping iron-red water, forming a small pond in the center of the room. Sophi asks Valindra about Ada, but Valindra gives them a confusing and contradictory story where Ada reaches the Heart of Ubtao as she’s searching for the Soulmonger, she disagrees with Valindra on how to best find the artifact and what to do about it, forcing Valindra to capture her, torture her, and sell her as a slave to the snake people who live in the ruins of Omu.

After this short exchange, the party is about to leave the cave when Valindra makes one more condescending and racist comment that tips Ellie over her limit, and combat ensues.

Sophi positions herself behind the desk, Avilos first casts Silence centered on Valindra and then opens a side door that reveals a large closet with six humanoid zombies and two large berserker-looking orangutan zombies with four arms. On her turn, Valindra steps out of the Silenced area, uses her death gaze attack on Carnivore, who survives it, and then she tries to stun Chos but fails. Before her turn is over, she casts a huge, sickly-looking yellow-green cloud of poison over the heroes, blinding most of them, and reaches one of the side doors.

The heroes then spread their attention over the cloud, the zombies, and the retreating Valindra. Avilos casts Fireball on Valindra, dealing a lot of damage and also setting all the surrounding bookcases on fire. Before disappearing through the door, Valindra smiles at the halfling in a way that promises a lot of future pain, and disappears into the side room, which turns out to be a magical portal. The rest of the party then tries to get out of the deadly cloud and defend themselves from the ravenous four-armed zombie monsters, but the situation quickly approaches the TPK threshold as one after the other, most of the heroes fall unconscious due to the massive amounts of damage coming from the cloud and the monsters.

Against the gods’ expectations, though, the last two heroes left, Sophi and Chos, demonstrate incredible tactical skills and teamwork. Carnivore, who was unconscious inside the poisonous and one turn away from permanent death, is saved by Sophi, who misty steps over the poisonous cloud, falls inside of it, grabs him, and takes him out so that Chos, who had delayed his action, casts heal on the dwarf bringing him back into the fray. Ellie, bleeding profusely from the trauma of the orangutan zombie who had knocked her unconscious earlier, is also brought back conscious thanks to another of Chos’s healing spells. Ellie then immediately heals and stabilizes Avilos and Thorn. Right after that, while trying to outmaneuver the large zombies, Chos casts Spirit Guardians, which kills most of the minor zombies and deals the finishing blow to one of the large ones. Sophi sneakily climbs a column and shoots at the remaining large zombie, rolling a natural 20 and dealing it 8d6 of damage.

With the zombies dead and the cloud slowly leaving the cave through the lower entrance, the heroes extinguish what’s left of the fire and loot the place. They find two scrolls of arcane gate, a robe of useful items, a few books, some of them burnt, about the history of Na Pali, and various scrolls stamped with a sinister-looking symbol that they assume is the Red Wizards of Thay’s logo.

The session ends with the heroes facepalming themselves for not using their wings during combat and discussing whether to crash the flying rock or make it their base.