Session Summary #18

[Nathan Sherman]

Session #18

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham
Q'Tahna, NPC, a Myrian ranger guild from the Nengeli tribe


The session picks up right after the party survived the attack by the small Horaxx swarm.

They decide to take a short rest in the Snatch Pit and recover. They had used it earlier that morning when slipping away from U'gitas tribe but there is still some time left to use it since they didn't travel for 3 hours to get where they currently are.

Q'tahna collects several of the Horaxx as proof that he survived a Horaxx attack, telling the party that these will increase his status in the community.

After their short rest, the party tries to hike with the flying contraption carried by several of them, but the jungle makes it hard to manage it and travel is very slow. They decide to spend a night here in the jungle under the protection of Akronos new spell, Tiny Hut. This gives them protection form the elements and more importantly, it keeps all of the jungle creatures out of the small protective sphere that it casts over the party.

The next morning they decide to take to the air again and this time they shoot up to higher altitudes to find favorable winds for traveling in the direction they want to go. Both Akronos and Theren use their mage hand to push the contraption along and they move in the right direction, despite the wind wanting to push the away. After another hour of travel, they see the ruins of an ancient temple rising up through the forest ahead. Knowing that the wind would be pushing their floating ride south without their intervention, they fly over the ruins by a mile and drift back towards it before descending to just above the tree tops.

They judge their speed by watching the treetops whip past them below. The winds are stronger at this level than they were at 1,000 feet elevation and even with two mage hands pushing their contraption to slow it down, they are moving a at the equivalent of a  fast jog. They hope to land the contraption on the top of the step pyramid that is sticking above the forest floor but realize that they are moving too fast. They try to slow even further by dragging a rope in the forest canopy but only end up tangling the contraption in the tree tops. Fortunately they didn't damage it, tip it over or dislodge any of the party from their precarious seats.

They decide to abandon the plan of landing on the temple and instead find a clearing about a mile away to land the contraption in. It is a hard landing but not as bad as their first one, so no damage was done. They hide the contraption for future use in their get away and set off on foot the last mile to the ancient Amaputu ruins dedicated to one of the jungle gods and then left to be retaken by the jungle.

As they approach, they see the marking stones indicating they are crossing the boundary to the sacred site and later they find a rock outcropping lined with skulls and bones. Soon, the temple looms up out of the forest in front of them. It is a massive four sided step pyramid with a ten foot wide row of steps leading up the center of it. Off of the stairs the temple is gigantic steps traveling five feet deep then five feet up then then next step five feet deep until it reaches the top, almost 100 feet above the forest floor. The forest has been reclaiming the area with trees and bushes growing all over the temple.

The party head up the stairs but when they are about halfway up, they are attacked. A creature best described as a bipedal leopard, the Forvalaka, springs out of the underbrush and bolts towards the party, catching most of them by surprise. It rushes to Ceress who gets in an attack at it before it takes several swipes at him. His new found skills with magic help him spring a magical shield into effect just in time to avert getting clawed up. The were leopard then bolts away from the party and back into the dense growth on the sides of the temple.

Lutheo channels his divinity and caused vines to spring into action, ensnaring the Forvalaka, preventing it from running further away from the party. Otep charges it and with the boost of speed from his magical maul, he catches up to it and unleashes punishing blows on it.

Akronos taps into his strongest magic and gives Otep magical Haste. Ceress sprints over and joins Otep in the battle while the Forvalaka is pinned down and can't escape their punishing blows. Lutheo runs to join them but the Forvalaka is just outside of his range to run and get in an attack.

Q'tahna calls for "Ox'oh'lae protect me and take my enemies!" as he positions himself between the combat and Akronos and Theren back up on the steep stairs.

While all of the strong fighters are engaging the Forvalaka down on the side of the step pyramid, another one springs from hiding and charges Akronos and Theren. It attacks Akronos and does some serious damage to him before it sprints back up the side of the pyramid, scaling the steep sides with ease.

Theren fires a Eldritch Blast at the retreating Forvalaka that just attacked Akronos while the fighters of the party drop the original Forvalaka. Seeing the first Forvalaka fall so quickly under the focused pressure of the party, the second Forvalaka sprints over the top of the pyramid and out of sight.

Otep uses his enhanced speed to chase after the second Forvalaka but by the time he gets to the top of the pyramid the creature is nowhere to be seen.

The rest of the party run to join Otep at the top of the pyramid and while they can't find the Forvalaka that disappeared, they do find that there are stairs going done the back side of the pyramid. They cautiously go down those stairs and discover that half way down there is an opening leading inside.

The party prepare to head in but Q'tahna tells them that he won't go into the temple. It is cursed and it is bad enough to walk on the temple, he won't go inside and risk becoming cursed.

The rest of the party enter and Theren creates magical light for the ones that don't have good vision in the dark. Fifteen feet inside, the passage narrows and slopes downward. Ceress notices that there is debris in the joint between the floor and the wall on each side. The size of the debris increases as they continue in further and he realizes that it is small bones, meticulously organize by increasing size as it goes further into the shrine.

When they get to the bottom of the ramp the enter a room twenty-five feet on a side, with a narrow passage leading out in each direction. When they explore the first two of these then find that they have narrow hallways leading to similar sized rooms, but each of these rooms is filled with bones, organized in crazy patterns. Some are artistic stacks of leg bones interspersed with skulls and then leg bones again to create a rounded tower of bones. Others are just piles upon piles of bones, decades of bones collected and piled up.

The party starts to head down the third narrow hallway and this is where session #18 ends.