ToA: Session 9

Commiseration of Commodities
After the shocking offer of letting us take as many flowers from the garden as we like in exchange for her own miniature warfoged, Neb and Bucket are both immediately fine with it and agree. Flanked by the retinue of Eblis, Bucket is led away to Queen Zalkoré private chambers to provide her with entertainment while she imbibes in a lovely salad of hallucinogens.

Of course, you have to be careful when dealing with someone who is a few snakes short of a herpetarium, so Neb used his most gentle persuasions to get the D-Squad back their weapons, and free roam of the gardens...after the deal was already immediately forgotten by Zalkoré. With the deal now changed to each member of the squad being allowed to pick only one flower from the garden to present to the Queen, they headed down to search for the black orchid in the flooded area.

And so summarily ignoring the first rule of adventuring, our team split up, yet again!

Floods and Furies
The remaining members of the D-Squad found themselves descending into the floodwaters of Nangalore, hoping to find their poorly named Black Orchid among the other lilies. While the Squad searched through petrified fish, birds, and people for the flower that would save Daedalus, Bucket attempted to entertain Zalkoré with his back to a wall full of the damn things.

While Bucket tried to get the Squad's attention without alerting Zalkoré, the others come up with a plan to try to get the sought after flower from the Queen without arising her ire. Finding a magical white lily (which I bet was actually an orchid), they planed to take it up and present it to her with a sob story about needing an even better one for her subjects.

At that point the team finally noticed their large, clanging, lit up comrade through the dilapidated structure above them, signaling for them to come up.

Pocketing a few rock fish and birds to sell later on, the team hurried up with the carefully removed flower.

Hissing Hysteria
The squad arrived in the chambers to present their flower and try to smooth talk their way out of there with some sweet black orchids, and maybe a bonus warforged if they could. Hearts weren't set on that, but you know, if she happened to have one lying around we'd be happy to take it off her hands for her!

The Queen, two bowls deep into some sumptuous psilocyblin, had of course completely forgotten the deal, and who we are, and most likely where and even what she was. She rose in a fury at us for desecrating her garden, but Neb was working overtime, with their only other charismatic teammate currently tied to a stone. Some clever wording and manipulation of the truth convinced Zalkoré of the deal she actually made with the squad and she approved of sending the white lily out into the world. But alas, surely a flower like this would simply not do for someone like Princess Mwaxanaré! No, surely she deserved a flower as beautiful as the dark night sky!

Thankfully, Neb has a way with insane women it seems, and Zalkoré once more fell for his persuasions, giving him a black orchid from her own collection. With how well things had been going, our beloved rogue was raring to subtly swipe a second stem from the side, so long as his sidekicks didn't shit the bed in securing Zalkoré sight on themselves.

Get ready to do some laundry, because the bed got shat by everyone involved.

With Daedalus and Fargus' attempts at a distraction only angering the Eblis and Queen, the opportunity to steal the flower was lost! And worse still, the Queen was demanding they line up at the wall for punishment. With everyone looking the other way, Neb took the chance to draw first blood and lunged rapier-first into the face of Zalkoré!

As his blade struck, it tore away the feathered veil to reveal a dreadful nest of serpents, and a petrifying gaze. Even a double crit wasn't going to get them out of this fight!

A Flurry of Fangs and Feelings.
And so began the battle! The crazed medusa queen fought with three Eblis at her disposal, while the D-Squad were going up against her with one warforged tied behind their back. But they weren't about to fail when they are so close to saving their fearless leader's life from the dreaded ghoul fever!

Neb gots a shot off on one Eblis with so much force that the bird was reduced to a fine red mist on Fargus's face.

Fargus, not to be outdone, summoned all the favor from the gods he was owed with how many times he had died, and with a perfect set of strikes that could only be described as a double crit (whatever that means, I don't know, Fargus just kept calling it that on the boat ride out), he turned the second Eblis into a second coating of his new red coloration.

Daedalus was holding off the head Eblis, Vilta, while Bucket just did his best given the situation. Daedalus and Fargus eventually carved up the last bird, but during it all Daedalus got hit with a sinister sideways stare!

With Bucket and Neb whittling down- strike that- hacking Zalkoré's life off by the chunk, the Queen called upon an ethereal protector in her rage. And there before the group stood General Thiru-taya himself! In all his giant, blue, kind of see-through glory. And what was worse, he had a hell of a javelin throwing arm on him that hit us each for enough damage to make us consider just running off every time we attacked!

A spear through the chest was enough to make the whole team pause, until Neb was struck with divine inspiration. Using his natural changeling abilities, and his cloak, he took on the appearance of General Thiru-taya himself, and approached the mad medusa.

The sight of her lost love was too much for her, and she fell to her knees in tears as the false general embraced her. Remembering the words carved into the statue, he forgave her.

With one final motion of the knife, Neb assassinated Zalkoré, and put the tormented immortal to rest, at peace. The battle was won, and they could finally save Daedalus's life.

Rock N' Roll Rafting
Or so they thought! Because the gods' favor had run out, and Daedalous failed to stave off the petrifying effects of the medusa's stare. After all that effort, all that fighting and near death, all to save their leader....the bastard goes and gets himself turned into a bloody stone!

After a considerable amount of time considering whether or not they should just leave him behind and find someone new for the squad, the surviving members let out a collective sigh and collected up the rest of the black orchids, their stalwart leader, and more importantly their bag of supplies that got petrified with him.

With the woodworking skills of their tactical survival dwarf, the group fashioned a raft and sailed down the river to Kir Sabal to deliver the black orchid. And thanks to Bucket and Neb's respect for the forest spirits, and possibly because of how sad their raft looked, Moa took pity on them and shortened what should have been a two week trip down to a couple hours, bringing the squad to Jahaka Bay, and more importantly, the base of Kir Sabal.

Once docked, the squad managed to get the attention of an old acquaintance, none other than Bombar himself! After explaining the short version of what happened, the squad was flown up to the mountain-side monastery to meet with the Teacher Asharra, leader of the Aarakocra monastery. And, unexpectedly, with a beautiful young woman calling herself the Princess of Omu, Mwaxanaré.

Birds, Bounty, and Beauty
After explaining the longer version of the story to Asharra and Mwaxanaré, Neb presented not one but two orchids. This momentarily turned Neb into a god for the second time since coming to this country (and once for the rest of the party, you bloody glory hound!), and won him the heart of the Princess, whether or not he really wanted it.

But declarations of love and worship can wait! Asharra lead our group to a hilltop garden, tended to by a young boy, and began the ritual that would save Daedalus. This of course required pushing his still stone body off the damn cliff and giving the team a collective heart attack! But the Wind Dukes of Aaqa heard the pleas of Asharra and restored Daedalus! And they gave him a sweet pair of wings to get him back up to the monastery with the rest of us. Not bad.

With the leader saved of both his petrification and his ghoul fever, the reunited D-Squad takes a much deserved break and feast with the Aarakroca deep into the night! With their usual methods, the group talked with the young royals, the leader of the village, and the locals to get some information.

Neb discovered a kinship with Mwaxanaré, as she reminded him of one of his oldest friends, and he couldn't help but feel a connection with her, especially as he couldn't help but feel that she was similarly connected to a pact, like he himself. And he wasn't deaf to her plans of uniting the tribes and taking back her kingdom.

Daedalus discovered that the young boy, Prince Na, is a prodigy that could be a truly great mind if given the tools necessary to learn. He considered offering the young man an apprenticeship, but held off on it for the time being, as the squad still has work to do.

And most importantly, the Squad learned from Asharra of a Naga guardian of the Jungle, Saja N'baza, who may be able to help the team in their quest.

New Quest Obtained: Find the Ziggurat of Orolunga!

Farewells, forks, and- OH FUCK!
The Squad left the next morning, after saying their goodbyes and making promises to return. They decided it was best to take the raft down the river once again, and after much discussion, to ignore Fort Beluarian (and a possible dead triceratops) and head back to Port Nyanzaru to resupply.

As the Squad went through the waters, they felt oddly at peace and at one with nature for the first time since entering the land. They also saw another group of giant frogs, which was surely a coincidence. A coincidence that still got a couple bows from Neb and Bucket.

Their trip back, however, was not smooth as their trip there, as the group came across a fork in the river. They made their choice to go left, and soon found themselves in the midst of a heat fog. And deeper in, a shadow started to take shape in the wall of cloud before them. Thinking it may have been a fire giant taking an inopportune bath, the group had Fargus call out to it, to show that the squad was there and were friendly.

But as the figure emerged into view it becomes obvious there was no head on its shoulders, and no meat on its bones. For it was, in fact a giant, ancient warforged.

It scanned the group before they could try to interact, and raised its fist to bring down the wrath of the heavens upon them.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Will the D-Squad make it out alive from this encounter? Will we have to introduce a fresh batch of new characters and effectively undo all the previous sessions? Will Neb become the new king of Omu? Will Fargus ever grow his beard back? And just who will win the custody battle between Daedalus and Bucket for the enhanced arcane focus?

Find out next time, on D-Squad: Operation Imminent Coffin!