(Quick note: Due to various events and scheduling snafus on my part, we don't have Bryan or Kevin for the first of the two sessions (so their characters will be 'quiet' for the first half or so of this write-up), but I figured we could get by with just three active party members.)
So where we left off, the group was stepping through an aiudara (elf gate) to Turhalu Point, a former military outpost now used as a research station. The station is at the tip of a peninsula covered in rolling plains and expanses of tall, pale-green grass shimmering with violet hues when the wind blows through it. Blooms of magenta fungus stand tall over the landscape, maybe twenty feet tall, but already starting to wilt and many show bite marks of half a dozen sizes. Immense, six-legged creatures with long-swooping necks trek across the grass towards the jungles to the west, letting out loud trumpeting calls. There's a mountain range off in the distance barely visible through the haze.
They're met by a human named Dr. Khair al-Nuaf, an associate of Qabarat University. Dr. al-Nuaf informs the group that Eyrub Paqual's group only arrived and ventured out into the wilderness a day or so ago, but most of what remembers about the group is that it was mostly lashunta mercenaries. He does remember seeing Dr. Solstarni with them, but she was groggy and possibly ill -- likely, in retrospect, drugged.
He goes over what maps they have of the region, combined with Halkueem Zan's notes, and suggests that this is going to be a trek of about 10-12 days to get to the temple they're looking for. Zar balks at the notion of a three week round trip through the jungle, but this is the group's only lead on where the Drift Rock came from and they have to go on foot -- there are a lot of restrictions on travel on the continent (and wilderness preserve) of Ukulam, and vehicles are more less forbidden past a certain point. (which is why they had to take an elf gate and not fly over with their ship)
At the university's request, he also loads them up with equipment -- mostly rations, some medical stuff, some tents. He also manages to get the security forces to give them a ride as far as they can go in a vehicle, about ten miles out into the grasslands. As they take off, Zar really wants to just cut down or burn down the jungle so it's easier to pass through, and N1-C0 puts some effort into talking him out of the idea.
They make their way through the grasslands, but because nobody is particularly trained in navigation it's slow going following the path that Halkueem Zan followed three centuries ago.
Four days in, they come across a group of the six-legged creatures like they saw before. They're immense, with tusks and horns, and munching on some sort of fungus that's scattered across the ground and not quite matching the rest of the foliage. Zar recognizes them as yaruks, herbivorous creatures native to the planet, but he doesn't know much more about them. The group decides to do the smart thing and just creep around them... and then a shot rings out.
Zar and N1-C0 catch the sight of a suppressed muzzle flash a few hundred feet away, but before they can worry about that one of the yaruks rears up in pain, bellowing out a distress call. The others either rush to defend it or take off and flee, but either way they all regard the group as threats. They take off running for a nearby river with a bridge they could cross. Malesinder uses his wings to get him some lift over obstacles, while Zar manages to spook them into veering away. N1-C0 clambers between rocks and such to get out of the way, but he still manages to get body checked. But eventually they reach an ancient stone bridge and run across it. The yaruks try to follow, but the first only gets a couple of steps out onto it before it collapses and the creature pulls back.
They just stand at the edge of the river, bellowing angrily at the group, while N1-C0 flips them off. They turn around and see one of the first major landmarks in Zan's notes -- the Rune Obelisk:
"A dramatic spire barely rising above the tree line was the first of our great landmarks. Each side of it was once engraved with untold wisdom, but only the sheltered runes near the base have survived the ages. The plants here grow thicker, as if feeding upon some gifts left by the ancient elves—sacrifices of flesh and blood, no doubt."
Charming, isn't he?
Anyhow, as they noticed the obelisk they also noticed creatures in the trees -- 'stingbats,' also described in Zan's notes. Zar recognizes them, now that he sees them, as properly called kaukariki. They're mostly shaped like a monkey, about the size of a small dog, with wing membranes under their 'arms' allowing flight and a tail with a scorpion-like stinger. They're also chattering and making noise up in the trees, throwing fruit at the group (a local blue-striped orange fruit called a ralyrian fig, tart but safe to eat), some of them chasing each other around. N1-C0 teases them, throwing fruit back at them, and notices that one of them is chattering as he talks as if it's making fun of him. N1-C0 says he's trying to get a feel for how they're likely to react as he 'plays along' with them, but he also admits he's making it up as he goes.
Then they discover that the noise was a distraction, as Zar and N1-C0 both see a few of them scampering down the trees (one of them hiding something in a hollow on the way) and sneaking up to try and attack. Malesinder is completely caught off-guard and two of them gang up on him. During the fight one of them tries to make a run for it after attacking Zar, and he charges up to chase after it in a burst of energy, wreathed in his sickly-colored, shifting aurora, and crushes it into dust. Towards the end, the last one scampers up onto a fallen tree and runs towards the obelisk. Zar considers finishing it beneath him, but N1-C0 finishes it off and goes to check the hollow in the tree to find that one of the stingbats had stashed some healing serums that looked pretty new.
The rest of the stingbats back off after that, but Malesinder opts to go first towards the obelisk just in case. It's a pillar of stone 15 feet wide and easily a few hundred feet tall. Most of the runes on the higher portions are worn away, but it looks like there's stuff at the base but the base is wrapped in green vines, fuschia bromeliads, and violet flowers. Malesinder stops, feeling something tugging at his mind and trying to draw him in closer. N1-C0 goes around him to take a look, and is entranced. He heads at the obelisk as fast as he can, until he gets close enough that some aroma coming off of the foliage paralyzes him right next to it... then this ugly bastard unfolds from the plants at the base of the obelisk and takes a big bite out of him.
Zar gets a look at it and recognizes it as a creature called a vracinea, a plant with a talent for luring in prey and paralyzing it with a pheromone. They're solitary, but dangerous. So he and Malesinder engage it at range as N1-C0 breaks free of the paralysis and backs off. It holds back, perhaps to see if they're going to come in closer, but any hopes it may have had are dashed as everyone unloads on it with ranged weapons and a couple of amazing laser shots from Zar and Malesinder set it on fire. It tries to flee, but simply can't get far enough away before they kill it. N1-C0 argues, darkly, that it'd be the perfect bonfire to cook and eat the stingbats they've killed.[0]
The group starts poking around the area, finding evidence of other people who've been through the area -- there's some torn armor and a cryo rifle that had been gnawed on until the battery ruptured but was otherwise fine. Virxidor takes a closer look at the Obelisk and determines it wasn't any sort of sacrifice site but instead an observation post -- but the deck collapsed long ago. Malesinder flies up above the tree line to see if there's anything they were watching or guarding, but nothing stands out.
Virxidor also looks over the remaining runes and from what hasn't worn away, determines that apparently the group is approaching "Loskialua, monastery of starsong, embassy of the spheres, and Temple of the Twelve." There's also some stuff there about paying respect, messengers from beyond, an academy, and "interpreters of the beacon," whatever that means. But with that in mind, the group gets their stuff together, finishes eating their vracinea-roasted stingbat, and moves on. On the way out, Virxidor turns to the stingbats still following them and uses his wildwise implant (an augmentation that allows one to communicate with animals and magical beasts)[1] to ask them if anyone else has been by. They do confirm that other two-leggers have passed through recently, and gave them meat. Hint, hint.
So the group gets back on the road.
On Day 6 of the expedition, they spot a brightly-colored creature with a tentacle-covered face following them at a distance. Zar recognizes it as a ksarik, a plant creature that's one of the local predators. Among other things, they're known for implanting seedlings into people through thorns it can spit. But once the group stops and acknowledges its presence, it takes back off into the trees -- it's not particularly stealthy, but it's not stupid, either. Over the course of the day it becomes visible a couple more times, always at a distance, and one time makes a strange gurgling noise and waves its tentacles at them. Kech takes a shot at it and misses, but that scares it back into the jungle for the rest of the day.
The next day brings the surprise of someone hoarsely calling for help from the nearby jungle. The group calls back and forth, confirming that it's not just an animal faking a distress call. They approach, with N1-C0 and Virxidor's stealth drone sneaking ahead to get a look at the person calling out -- it's a kasatha woman with a tattoo of some sort on her head. She's sitting down, leaning back against a tree, and she's not well. A branch has actually sprouted from one of her cheeks, there are signs where it looks like more might be ready to poke out from under her skin, and there are leaves at the ends of her antennae. The whole group approaches to get a closer look at what's happened to her, and Zar (making tree puns the whole time) recognizes her as having been implanted with ksarik seedlings and is very near death.
Zar also recognizes her tattoo marking her as a member of the Cult of the Devourer[2] (which pretty much nullifies any inkling he might have had towards saving her). Thinking she might speak one of the two languages, he tries speaking to her in Abyssal and then in Aklo to see if she understands but she does not so he calls her out for her allegiance. Virxidor immediately, subtly, poisons her with a venom spur (another of his biotech mods). She insists that she's not one of the more devout of the cult, that she joined to try and escape a string of bad personal and financial decisions. They ask her what the cult is looking for, and she says they're looking for the Temple of the Twelve but she doesn't know the full reason why. She also admits that the cult is the group that kidnapped the professor from the university, and that there's a priest among the group (which means the party's going to have to deal with at least one spellcaster).
But before the group can get any more information out of her, she starts gasping and wheezing (her body fighting off the poison), just as the ksarik shows up again. N1-C0 and Malesinder insist on trying to save her, while the rest of the group fights off the beastie. Zar tosses them his medkit and lines up with Virxidor, his drone, and Kech to fight off the creature. After launching a couple of thorns at it, it ducks behind a fungal growth big enough to use for cover. Virxidor launches a stickybomb grenade over the fungus to slow it down while the group finds ways to shoot through and around the fungus to hit it. It gets set on fire and Zar lunges in where he finishes it off with a burst of energy expending all of the power he's built up.[3]
Sadly, despite their best efforts, the lashunta woman shortly afterwards breathes her last and her body starts to twitch with the seedlings about to burst forth. The group quickly burns her, and moves on.
A couple of days later (Day 9), there's a shift in the air, carrying an odd scent. The group sees pink fluffy clouds in the sky. The stingbats panic, shrieking to each other (which Virxidor understands as 'Storm! Storm!'), and they wrap themselves up in giant flowers high up in the trees. Zar recognizes the sounds of a Castrovellian moldstorm. N1-C0 quickly puts together a temporary shelter for the group as they're about to have a nightmare of spores come down on them. After it passes, they emerge from the shelter to find that everything has been coated in pink, inert, fungal spores. As they're all in agreement about how much they hate this planet, they trudge on.
That evening, as they make camp, they hear a noise in the woods coming their way. Unsure of which direction from which the threat is coming, they hit on the idea of using one of Virxidor's smoke grenades to hide themselves from it. However, standing in the cloud of the smoke quickly becomes untenable as they try to haul themselves out to face the creature that's attacking them -- a whiskered renkroda, something like a movie velociraptor, except this one is dusted with spores and clearly driven mad by the fungus. They all drag themselves out of the cloud -- except for Zar, whom gets dragged out by Virxidor. Malesinder steps up to fight the thing, though, and it rocks him. It charges him and tears in with its teeth, and slams him with a tail attack and lets out a mighty roar in his face that leaves him shaken. But N1-C0 and Kech work to wear it down and boost Malesinder's ability to fight back, and he rallies to tear it to pieces.
As the group trudges on through the jungle, Kech starts to show signs of dizziness and confusion; she's been infected with the spores from the moldstorm. Virxidor has as well, but he manages to clear it up. But Kech's condition degrades quickly, enough that the group stops and actually builds a sick tent for her so Zar can put his medical skills to use treating her. Over the course of the next few days, Zar puts everything he's got into getting her through this, even loaning her his ring of resistance to help her fight it off), and she reaches the point where she starts losing her connection to reality... until one day, she starts turning it around improves. At that point, Zar steps out of the sick tent and takes his helmet off to wipe the sweat off his face and tell the group that she's going to pull through just fine.
This is the first time anyone in the group besides Virxidor has seen Zar... he's a drow, as they knew, but they weren't ready for the fact that he's got gills, his canine teeth have been replaced with a gold 'grill,' and his hair grows out of just one side of his head. But as he composes himself, he comments that it was easy enough, as 'orc physiology is simple.'
And we left off there for the session, with the group resting up before delving back into the jungle with their next big landmark just over the horizon.
[0]-- If it matters, this is the point where we left off at the end of the first session. From here on out, we had the entire group.
[1]-- I don't bring it up much in the write-ups because it tends to happen while I'm checking or writing down notes so it doesn't register strongly enough that I feel the need to write it all down, but there's been a running gag of Virxidor and Zar making up all sorts of fake facts about elves (they lay eggs, have poisonous blood, etc.) just to mess with the rest of the group. Virxidor actually gets his share of biotech implants to give himself weird abilities, just to help sell the stories.
[2]-- The Devourer is a deity of black holes, destruction, and supernovas, sort of a being of pure malicious entropy. It's followers are basically something of a nihilistic doomsday cult.
[3]-- Solarians build up power over the course of a fight, and after a few rounds can spend it on major attacks.
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