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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 1101" data-attributes="member: 41">10-- Fear and Loathing on The Isle of TrepidationDuring this time, the party stays in the Phanaton encampment, wary of attack from Mishkal and Hamm.  The group wisely reckons that if the half-orcs really want them dead, now would be the time to do it.  They take the Navigator and set up a base-of-operations in an unused hutch.  "By rightful Law," the Navigator says to Kyreel one morning, "I am Governor here until this island is disposed in B'hii.  Release me, and I will speak on your behalf at court.  Know this, I am a Navigator, and the mysteries of the spaces between things are known to me.  Unlike Ragna, I am not lost.  Release me, and we can free-fall to the nearest inhabited sanctuary."Kyreel replies that she will have to think it over, and discuss it with her companions.  The group again fails to reach consensus, and Kyreel returns to ask the Navigator a few more questions:  Can he guarantee that no harm will come to the party if they turn themselves in to the Wind Dukes?  "I guarantee a fair and just inquiry."Can he provide for the well-being of the Phanatons?"The Phanatons are now subjects of the Wind Dukes with no more nor any less right to their place in the service of B'hii."In the end, the risk seems less with Ragna than throwing themselves upon the dubious mercy of a Wind Duke court of law.  At least with the orcish pirate, the Phanatons will be well-loved.  The party tells the Navigator that he is to be set free once Ragna has finished her sailing vessel, and take his word that he will try no escape until that time.  Once he gives his word, they release his bonds, and free him to walk about and exercise.  In particular Kyreel enjoys his company, and if the Navigator lacks slightly in mercy, he certainly understands principles of Justice and Duty as well as anyone Kyreel has ever known.  The two have many conversations late into the evenings.-----Ragna is confident that a ship can be built.  The ship needs only integrity, as there is no concern about water-tightness.  She estimates that they will be ready to go sooner than later owing to the single-mindedness of the Phanatons and their ability to rapidly assimilate knowledge.  The Phanatons themselves are concerned about predatory attacks, so the ship is built above ground, in a rigging suspended from nearby trees.  The rigging also serves as an eventual launching cradle for the ship, so the vessel is built upside-down (in order to fall away from the island right side up). The second day of construction, the island is rocked by one of the massive storms that drift endlessly here in Elemental Air.  Mini-vortexes to the plane of Water, the storm must have itself been thousands of miles across.  Life on the island comes to a complete stop as every creature on it hunkers down and hides from the storm.Taran, Thelbar and Kyreel take the time to sit down and hash out a strategy session (Indy, of course, attends, but he spends the majority of the time playing with a fat toad he has pulled out of the nearby forest).  The group is concerned that some of the larger predators in the nearby jungle might attack the Phanatons while they are busy building a ship, and learning how to sail it.Thus, the group mobilizes to form a pro-active line of defense, and spend their days combing the nearby jungle on seek-and-destroy missions against anything higher up on the food chain than an intelligent monkey.  They fight with a cat-headed man riding a sabre-tooth tiger.  Neither the tiger or the warrior can withstand Thelbar's color spray, so fortunately no one is seriously mauled (no one who isn't at least half cat, that is).  Smaller reptilian hunters are also encountered, and dealt with.  But one issue seems to be plaguing everyone's mind--the structure in the middle of the lake.A closer examination reveals that the thing is a ziggurat pyramid that rises out of the water approximately fifty feet.  It is one-hundred-plus feet to a side at water-level, and most certainly larger still under the surface.The group determines to explore the place, and uses water-walking spells to reach the ziggurat.  The lake has drained significantly enough to reveal that the base of the structure is built onto an island formation, with coral reefs just below the original water level.A series of cave-like openings in the coral are radiating a nauseating smell of dead fish.  As adventurers can neither resist caves nor dead fish, the group edges closer.Suddenly, horrific amphibian humanoid abominations leap from the caves, charging the characters in a blind fury!  Fortunately, after a fireballl from Thelbar, and a pair of cleaves from Taran, the fish-men are no more.As the group is exploring the ziggurat itself, they notice that the entrance to the place seems to be at the very top of the structure, which is reached by means of stairs carved into one side of the structure.  Taran is in the lead, followed by Kyreel, then Thelbar, with Indy picking up the rear.A trapped step sends a flurry of darts rocketing into Taran and Kyreel.  The paladin is only grazed, but one of the darts striking Taran draws blood, and within a matter of seconds, Taran's perceptions begin to distort.He turns to his companions with a confused look in his eye, and says "I'm alright.  I'm just . . . kind of floaty right now."Before anyone gets the chance to ask him what 'floaty' is supposed to mean, he is picking his way back up the stairs, trying to keep them A) from melting completely away, and B) clear of the morass of glowing snakes that are now oozing out of the pores of the rock.The rest of the party looks at one another and watches Taran's exaggerated progress up the steps.  Kyreel says "He has been poisoned, but I think he is unhurt."<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Metagame note:  Taran just took a whopping 2d6 Cha and Wis damage, after failing both his primary and secondary saves against poison.  He is now hallucinating harder than Jimi Hendrix taking a weekend holiday with Timothy Leary.</li> </ul>The party enters the structure through an opening in the floor of the top level.  The group lights a torch for the human's benefit, then lowers a rope and climbs down.  They find themselves in an alien chamber, decorated with a mixture of relief carving and fresco paintings that seem to depict snakes crawling all over the walls with a life-like and disturbing effect.  Apparently Taran wasn't far off in his hallucinatory assessment of the scene.  The group hears a rasping hiss from just beyond the edge of their torchlight, and draws their weapons.  A horrific dessicated snake with a human-like head and one human arm approaches them.  The thing is withered and encrusted with filth.  The creature mutters alien words of power and a shimmering hemisphere of green energy surrounds it.  Taran charges the beast, apparently no less useful for having slipped into a hallucinogen-induced psychotic state, but his attacks cannot pass the energy field.  Kyreel mutters a blessing to counteract the vile nature of the room, and Indy tries to get around the back of the snake creature for a sneak attack.  The creature gestures again, and Kyreel is struck by transparent vipers extending from the beast's one extended hand.  Thelbar recognizes a magic missile spell when he sees one, and reasons that fire is best fought with fire.  But the energy sphere harmlessly absorbs his magic missiles, provoking a rare curse from the well-spoken mage.Indy and Taran press the thing, with Kyreel aiding.  The creature proves immune to Enchantment spells of any sort, but is not fully prepared to melee with three capable combatants.  After a burning hands from Thelbar, and near-simultaneous strikes from the others, the mummified creature collapses to the ground with a hiss, it's energy field slowly fading away."I don't know what that thing was, but I'm not sure that I want to ever see another one again," Indy says.  "He pulls his pet toad from his pocket.  "At least Vognu is safe.""Put that snake back where you found it," Taran says.  "They're all in our pockets, but the fire on the mountain top won't let us stop now!" And with that piece of advice, the burly fighter ducks through a low archway some 3' high.  Unfortunately for Indy, the mummified snake-thing isn't the last one they see, and the party battles with three more of the dusty monstrosities before discovering another hole in the ground leading deeper into the ziggurat.The chamber below is a massive square room, decorated like the ones above, but with a series of pillars forming a large circle in the center of the huge space. The pillars themselves are carved into the shapes of hundreds of snake-like abominations writhing together to form a grotesque mass. Given the poor lighting conditions in the room, it is no wonder that the group does not spot a pair of real snake-men using a psionic camouflage. As the party prepares a rope, and begins their descent, they are hit with the first of two waves of utter revulsion.  The small, animal parts of their minds are stimulated into an unreasoning terror and loathing.  Taran succumbs and begins his retreat, but as the group is trying to gather their wits, arrows come flying out of the darkness, striking Indy and Kyreel.  The two elves feel their muscles clench around the arrow wounds, as poison seeps into their bloodstream.It's time to run for it.The group manages to make it to the level where they fought the mummified abominations, but are dismayed to realize that the real means of passage for the ziggurat's main inhabitants are a series of fist-sized holes cleverly disguised by the artwork on the wall.  Small vipers come streaming out of the holes at some unspoken command, and the party has only their luck to thank that no one is severely poisoned by the things.Once back in the fresh air and suddenly comforting half-light of the plane of Air, the group high-tails it for the Phanaton camp to rest and recover.</blockquote>

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