Prelude part 2: The Cocokin

After rescuing Oho, the party settles on an uneasy plan to go forward with helping him. Wary of their new acquaintance, they agree to travel with him while keeping a close eye. For now, he at least knows the way to some semblance of civilization. They push onward leaving behind the body of Airam for the jungle to recycle into the world.

Cyrell questions twitch on the acquisition of a certain golden spatula that he used during the fight. Cyrell knows how he got hold of this - and Twitch, with any semblance of intelligence, would know that he knows. Twitch doesn't deny that he was in Cyrells keep, but Cyrell, more concerned with getting home, doesn't push the issue.

As the party travels through the heat of the jungle, they come across a particularly notable spot where a break in the trees lets in light through the canopy - the first time the party is seeing direct sunlight in hours after walking through the jungle. In the center, a faerie ring surrounds an empty bush with a blue, red, and yellow macaw sitting atop it pecking at the leaves. The macaw takes notes at the party and begins doing a mating dance. Paradisi tries to dance back but the macaw is offended and turns its attention to Davina. Davina perfectly repeats the birds motions in a grace that has never been witnessed before on Nessie Island and the Macaw is enthralled and gently perches itself upon Davina's shoulder.

Reaching the edge of the jungle, our heroes see the first signs of civilization in the form of a crudely made wooden fence and some defensive barricades. A cocokin in a guard tower blows into a conch shell that summons guards from behind the wall to surround the players. Cyrell pushes Oho forward which, upon seeing him, they call for the chief.

Not long after, an older cocokin with a walking cane emerges from the gate and warmly embraces his son Oho, introduces himself as Magwa, and invites the rest of the party inside for water. Samson thanks the group for getting him back to the village quickly and safely and leaves to take care of his own business.

Inside the Chiefs hut the heroes mention they are looking to leave the island. Magwa solemnly mentions that they have not explored for years, as they have been trapped in a brutal war against the Mon-Kee who seek to destroy everything on the island. If left unchecked - the Mon-Kee will ravage the island killing all life on it, possibly even themselves. Magwa offers the party a deal: obtain a weapon blessed by the god Igwe to aid the fight against the Mon-Kee in exchange for knowledge on how to obtain a wish from Igwe. But he warns that he can only promise Igwe will grant one single wish. The party agrees and is offered a place to stay in the Shell Terrin to rest and recover. Before they exit - he lets them know to beware the sinuous assassin that resides in the jungle. As they depart, Oho and Magwa begin to speak about private matters before the door closes...

The Shell Terrin is a building on a high hill within the village overlooking most of it. Decaying, but full of life, the party enters to see a wild rager ongoing. The Cocokin are partying as if any day can be their last. In the center of the festivities, a robot is lifted up in the air throwing around local currency, shillings, like candy.

Twitch is able to find his two goblin companions who were brought into the portal as well chilling on lounge chairs sipping margaritas. They explain that they went to scout ahead and found the village and have been welcomed like family. They wonder why Twitch hasn't taken them here years ago! The automaton, after being released from the crowd, asks Twitch and his companions about themselves. They get roughly acquainted, introducing himself as "Seven" and shows interest in the parties attempts to leave from the island.

Davina goes on a wild bender and suffers from severe intoxication. In her drunken stupor, she seemingly gets involved with a local cocokin to some capacity but definitively was, at some point, given a deed to one of the village huts. She misplaces her hammer and her arcane focus. Also on her person is 300 shillings, but how she got them is impossible to remember.

Her new pet macaw also flies off after Davina threw the bird to watch it fly while it was in a deep sleep.

As the party comes to a close out of one of the rooms emerges a short and slender female with brown curly hair falling to her calves. She is hooded, but shows interest in the likes of Cyrell and Davina in particular. She remains distant, but lets the party know of her interest in how they will shape the events to come.

In ordinary stories, it would be at the rave where chaos would ensue....but this is no ordinary story and it wouldn't be until the morning after that all mayhem would break loose.

The next morning, a crowd of cocokin are outside Davina's new hut cheering wildly waiting for her to emerge. When she does, a child cocokin runs up to the door and holds up two objects. In one hand is Davina's broken arcane focus. In the other is a toddler made necklace consisting of a bundle of twigs wrapped with some grass in the shape of an object that loosely resembles the now broken focus. Davina takes on the new twig....thing, as a means to channel her magic while she searches for a way to repair her original. In the village, cocokin are drafting artwork of Davina's escapades as they have never seen someone who has partied as hard as her before.

The group wonders what happened to Oho and his request to help his family - but do not go to look for him nor Samson who was last seen inside the Shell Terrin during the party.

Davina, suffering from a hangover, goes over to the village blacksmith. She asks for a spear and he says he can enchant one with magic for 25 shillings. She agrees, and he straps a chunk of seaweed to the end of a stick with a pointy rock at the end of it. He claims that if she jabs someone good with it, that they will be disoriented for certain. Little did she know that the opportunity to use her newly acquired spear would not come.

Just outside the blacksmith shop alongside the ocean, two young cocokin are fighting over how far they could throw a hammer. Davina immediately is able to recognize it as her own before the one holding it hurls it out over the water.

Little is known about Volpe as he tends to keep himself distant. His ambitions, goals motives, are all shrouded in mystery. But something about this hammer brought out a new side to him. Volpe was the first to swim out into the ocean to retrieve it. To his surprise, he is able to find it...inside the mouth of a gigantic angler fish.

Having seen the Play "Indiana Jones" he knows exactly how to go about retrieving it. It should have been in that moment that he realized the play was based on a fictional story, but determined as ever to obtain the hammer he tries to swap it placing a gold coin inside the mouth of the fish while deftly pulling the hammer out. Unfortunately he clips to tooth of the fish and it bites down...HARD.

From the shore, the party sees a pool of red bubble to the surface followed closely by the unconscious body of Volpe face down in the water. Twitch nimbly lasso's Volpe and pulls him in as Cyrell helps with mage hand. Davina is able to wake him up but not before noticing that his hand is missing. As Davina casts the spell, small leaves reach out from the ground and bandage themselves over his wounds staunching the bleeding. A happy angler fish closes his eyes into a blissful food coma.

The mysterious woman from the Shell Terrin watches from a distance.

At this point, chief Magwa is making his rounds in the village. He stumbles across the party clamoring over their bleeding companion and, with desperation (and a bit of fear in his eyes) exclaims, "YOU'RE STILL HERE!?" The party takes care of a few remaining conversations, dawdling just long enough to bring Magwa to the cusp of a heart attack before they finally agree to leave, heading south through the island.

It is several hours of mucking their way through thick leaves and overgrowth before they come across a fork in the road. One path heads towards the shoreline. The other goes inland in the direction of their objective. The party agrees it is best to go straight to their goal. Paradisi wonders what became of the mosquito who drank her nutritious citrus juice.

After a few more hours, they come across an ornate statue resembling a human that features the weathered letters 'IG E' at the base. Water flows from its eyes made of emerald gems into a pool of murky water at the base. Twitch, seeing shiny objects cannot resist the urge to inspect further. He checks the pool of water for any traps before doing a triple front-flip 10 feet in the air to the top of the statue where he, with just enough finesse, is able to pry one of the eyes loose from the statue which he eagerly pockets. Cyrell simultaneously attempted to lift a collapsed arm of the statue but couldn't muster the strength to lift it. When he sees Twitch robbing from a seemingly sacred site, he leaves with urgency. A gentle cooling breeze blows from behind Cyrell as he does. A few dozen minutes later, the party sees their first sign of life - 3 tall slender figures at the top of a hill...

Seven, eager to continue on - pushes forward towards the creatures and realizes that they are giant snakes. Seven boldly marches close to them as they give warnings not to proceed to which he pays no mind beginning combat. Twitch was able to cleverly sneak up through some bushes making his way close enough to get a single crossbow bolt off without them noticing. The mysterious woman from the tavern, still intrigued with the parties actions, follows behind but remains uninvolved. One of the snakes, seeing 8 adversaries and one of his friends brutally shot by a crossbow bolt flees as quickly as possible escaping from the parties sight.

Once they reach the top of the hill where the monsters were waiting, they can now see a several ruined buildings lying below. The most intact being what looks like an old church.

Ignoring several other buildings around, the heroes went straight to the church. Surely there was nothing to be found in the ruins, and their objective wasn't there anyway.

At the top of the stairs, the hero debate and argue over what to do. Seven picks up the most generic looking rock from the ground and turns it into a magical source of light and chucks it down the stairs that lead into the tomb. At first, only the hollow echos of the rock can be heard bouncing down the stairs before a chorus of rattling booms from deep within. Even with darkvision - only to the bottom of the steps is visible.

It is a well known fact at this point that Davina is a lover of animals. Almost certainly she loves them more then several of the companions she's found herself traveling with. The sheer possibility that some non-humanoid creatures may be waiting below for friendship drew her in first. These animals were not waiting for friendship.

From the top of the stairs, her companions had to watch in horror as 8 balls of acid are lobbed all across her body melting straight through her armor, skin, and bones. Lit by the light from the magical rock, her terrified party sees as she turns to reach for their help at the top of the stairs screaming before her bones melt and she collapses to the ground, dead.

The remaining party members have second thoughts about how to proceed. arguing while Davinas bones begin to magically repair themselves mending back together as flesh regrows to hold everything in place. Her body is not able to completely heal - as her left forearm bares a massive burn where her radius is visible. Her leg is also not able to completely repair leaving her limping.

The party continues to argue as 3 giant snakes drag Davina's body deeper into the dungeon.

Seeing their friend pulled away Twitch and Paradisi decide it is the time for action - and throw a burning oil flask down the stairs igniting two of the snakes. Combat starts, and the party begins to see their first real danger in fighting. 7 giant snakes attack. One of them is able to grapple Namira and strangle her. Another shoots two spiny darts from their tails at Cyrell. One lands in his kneecap knocking him to the ground, the other straight to his chest knocking him unconscious.

The mysterious tavern woman finally sees her call to action and leaps into the air pulling out the famed rapier 'reaper.' She is able to hit the beasts with no effort killing them instantly and breaking the fabric of reality briefly as she does. From within the grapple, Namira is able to stab the giant snake and kill it - loosening its grip around her as it falls to the floor dead. The rest are dispatched through a flurry of bops to the head and bolts to the face.

Wounded, they continue on reaching the final lair. The Sinuous assassin lies in wait with Davina grappled around its tail and a magical spear in one of its hands. He bargains with the players, letting them know he will trade the wounded Davina for the plump, healthy goblin twitch. Paradisi tries to bargain with the beast, offering parts of her fruitkin body in exchange. He doesn't accept a part of her - but is willing to take her instead of Twitch. A deal is made. He also offers to trade the magical spear for another party member, the healthy, untouched volpe. They accept this deal as well. Cyrell walks up to accept the staff - but questions why the hell they are negotiating with these beasts and attacks.

During the fight, the two giant snakes that were preparing paradisi to eat try to bite into her acidic flesh. The first bites into her and knocks her unconcious but the acidic blood burns the snakes mouth killing it. As Paradisi bleeds out, visions of her lovers come to mind and she recovers the will to live standing up to continue the fight. The second one then goes to bite Paradisi and the exact same thing happens. It is in this moment that Paradisi establishes herself as the true hero of the party.

The fight is close, but the mysterious stranger is able to beat the assassin before things get to hairy. With the fight over, and all party members alive, they recover the spear and begin to plan their journey back to the village...