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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Abciximab" data-source="post: 5962636" data-attributes="member: 46017">Session 38.Neth the 17th (Cont).The evening went about as well as can be expected, considering we were gathered for a feast with an evil tyrant. Ruthazek the Gorilla King sat at the head of the table. Max, Taraz and I all refused to sit upon the slaves. To be completely honest, the only reason I didn’t start trying to reduce the Gorilla King, and his lackeys to ash was because I feared dragging my friends into a fight that we might not win. The “meal” was horrific. Monkey brains, blood sauce, raw hippo steak… Taraz and I refused to eat, as for the others, I lost track of the number of times Taraz had to break out his herbal tincture for nausea.  Once this meal-from-my-worst-nightmare was finally over, Ruthazek announced we had one hour to prepare ourselves for the challenges and would begin with the Feat of Strength. Considering there were two contests that might fall to Max (Strength and Combat), we felt it unfair to place the burden of success almost entirely upon his shoulders. We decided Ace’s Eidolon, Kay’Es, would attempt the first feat. Before the contest, Ace gave him every advantage he could muster by both Enlarging him and magically increasing his strength. When we entered the makeshift ring, Ruthazek produced two bundles of bones and declared that, in order to win this contest, one of us must snap the bundle in two in a single attempt. He then proceeded to show us that it was possible by grabbing the first and snapping it with little effort. Kay’Es stepped up and failed miserably. I think he may have been misled by the ease of the Gorilla King’s success. I’m confident that had he been allowed more than one attempt, he would have managed it.The second challenge was one of storytelling. Using my Journal as a reference and with the help of my companions (including quite a bit of exaggeration about some of our foes by Ace) I told the story of our adventures on the Shiv.Once finished, I looked at the rapt expressions on the faces of Ruthazek and his retinue and knew we had succeeded. After a moment, Ruthazek smiled, threw his arms wide and declared our story of heroism was truly one for the ages. We had won the second challenge.Up until now I had feared the challenges would be rigged in favor of the Gorilla King, but his declaring us the winner of what was easily the most subjective challenge, eased my concerns a little.The third challenge was one of combat, which Max was quite looking forward to. At first, Ruthazek declared it was going to be bare fist fighting and would end when the other combatant was unconscious or surrendered. Once Ruthazek had stepped into the ring and got a close look at Max and, more specifically, his tribal tattoos, he claimed some existing enmity between himself and Max’s tribe and called for his falchion. Max quickly drew forth his ancestral hammer, but not before Ruthazek advanced and slashed him with his blade. Were it not for the Stoneskin I had cast upon Max before the fight, he might have been grievously wounded. The combatants quickly exchanged a number of blows. Ruthazek was obviously a skilled warrior, but in less than twenty seconds, Max won out. With two solid strikes, the Gorilla King was driven to a knee and bloodied. Max’s third strike was surely going to be a death blow, but at the last possible second, Max “pulled the punch”, as they say. The ball of his meteor hammer stopped so close to Ruthazek’s face, that you could not tell if it touched him or not. As Max glared at him, the Gorilla King dropped his falchion in defeat.With that, Ruthazek declared us winners in his challenge for the rights to Saventh-Yhi. Then, after issuing a number of vague threats about the harshness of the jungle that seemed rather hollow after his defeat, he gathered his retinue and left. ----------Neth the 18th.After our somewhat surreal experience with the Gorilla King, we decided it was best to get right back into it and explore the last vault. Having rested at our base camp, we set out first thing and returned to the Mercantile District.After a short search, we found a set of double doors atop a small cliff with vines growing all around. As Max started to climb the cliff face, a number of Charau-Ka attacked from above. All the Charau-Ka bore copper armbands that marked them as members of a vicious group led by none other than the monstrous Bush Devil himself, Maka-Yika.They proved to be a little tougher than any others we had faced up to this point and one of them had a squinty eye. I didn’t put it together until after the creature was killed and green slime emerged from the creature’s brittle skull, but Ivo Haigan, the former leader of the Aspis Consortium, had the same odd squint and green goo combination. Something odd was obviously going on here and we thought perhaps some answers might be found within the vault. Once we opened the large stone doors and entered, we were almost immediately struck by two Cones of Cold cast by two Ogre Magi. One we quickly dispatched, the other escaped us by turning to mist and disappearing into cracks in the wall. Working our way into the massive cavern we encountered a number of Boggards led by a spell slinging Charau-Ka Shaman. All wore the same armbands and, once defeated, we noted the Shaman had the same features (squinty eye and green goo) as Haigan and the Charau-Ka at the entryway, very strange. I must note that during the fight, Ace was struck down with what was surely a fatal blow. Luckily Taraz was on hand to bring him back from the brink.  It was a not so gentle reminder of our mortality.Further in, we reached a fork in the cavern. Down one dark leg we encountered a large Roper with a single, squinty eye. The Roper lashed out at Max, weakening him considerably. Ace quickly Dimension Doored Max out of danger as Taraz and I reduced the Roper to ash from a safe distance. Green slime leaked from the corpse as it burned. Whatever is causing this weird malady must lie within these caverns.Down the other leg, which was well lit, we ran into the Ogre Mage that had escaped us and the leader of the band, Maka-Yika. He was obviously once Charau-Ka, but was now a strange combination of grafts and body parts. He resembled a Flesh Golem, but was obviously intelligent. He also had one squinty eye. It was an epic battle, with the Ogre Mage being the first to fall. After chasing Maka-Yika around a bit (he had a trove of potions, at least one of which allowed him to fly out of one of Ace’s Acidic Pits), we were finally able to corner him. With that, his defeat was assured and we soon saw that his skull, as predicted, was filled with green slime. We have found no answers as to the cause of this strange malady, so we are taking a short rest and gathering what valuables we can from this place. Taraz and I have decided we will have to watch each other and our companions closely, in case it is a disease that can be contracted within these chambers.  As I sit here writing this, I can’t help but notice there appears to be a Secret Door in the wall of this chamber. Perhaps Max can figure out a way to open it.</blockquote>

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