Episode 37

The party starts out in a sunken jungle valley. They are tasked to find the immortal lotus flower and collect petals from it, along with some spitting orchid flowers, meanwhile avoiding any deadly creatures and tribes. (According to earlier records, the Yuan-ti  tribes are composed of evil snake-like beings that clash with each other. They all have different colorings based on their tribal phenotype. They range in colors from pinkish, black/speckled, to yellow, white, and dark green.)

The surrounding trees are gigantic; the shortest pines stretch over 200 feet, with thick 6 foot wide trunks. One of the first things they see as they enter the platform is a group of skeletons, who had seemingly hung themselves over the side of the tower’s edge. There is an oppressive aura that hangs around the area. Artistic carvings are rendered into the wooden struts of the tower, which have been built from the giant trees here. The carvings are wordless, and appear to be fragments of something much larger. From the top, the party sees more carvings at the base of this tower. They read: As the party lowers themselves to the corpse-littered floor, they step back to see that the carvings in the wooden struts reveal an image of a giant snake, mouth open and readying itself to swallow the tower. There are various tracks leading away from the tower, some in groups, some in a hurry, but the one that really stands out are giant footprints roughly 30 feet from the tower that appear to be from a great ape.
 * In Orcish, “I’ve made this world better, suck my ass” with a play on words that also reads “fuck you”
 * In Elvish, “Water drops never again, warmth seeps into the ground, desolate forest”
 * In Infernal, “though my body may decay, my spirit guards my love in the north”

They step away from the tower, and after about 500 feet away the heavy aura that was holding them dissipates.

As the group follows the large footprints, dredging through the moist flora, they notice a man pressed up against a tree to the right, obscured by the dense foliage. Lily and Seipora break away from the group to check him out, and are surprised to see him dead, pinned gruesomely to the thick base of the tree. He is half elf, apparently one of the adventurers here who was unlucky enough to run into members of the Yantee. His forearm is bare, with a snake similar to that of the tower struts’ carved into the flesh. Lily notices three tribal outlooks from the man’s position, to everyone’s relief they are unoccupied.

After an hour of travelling the large footprints disappear. A figure reaches out and grabs the bard, shushing the group and warning them about a trap up ahead. He appears young, the blonde boy shrouded under a green cloak and cloth mask. After leading the party to an improvised safehouse in a hollow tree, he introduces himself as Jared Kabal, one of the adventurers that got stuck in the valley. His four-person party, the Peerless Morale, was hired to investigate the rumors of a phoenix here. He is the last survivor, his fellow members having been poisoned by tribesmen or eaten by the large reptiles in the valley. (Aaron, Leo, Ira the lover). Jared had been in the valley for two months (give or take), sometime between then he had his right cheek melted away by acid from a giant salamander.

He agrees to help the party to collect their flowers, leading them deeper into the valley with the aid of Pass w/out Trace. The group comes across the spitting orchids first, K being a trooper and harvesting 10 flowers from the angry cluster of vines.

After many days of travel the party finally reaches the waterfall, and after scaling it’s side carefully, they begin to sneak alongside the river. K gets water shot at him from a thiccc fish. They see the old remnants of crumpled buildings along the river’s edge, tucked away under rubble and tight foliage. The ground gets steeper and steeper as they approach their destination, the distant, ruined form of a palace is seen through the thicket of more giant trees.

The trees here support the building’s crumbled foundation, shallow water fills this rounded gorge where the palace rests, with white petrified trees reaching up and out of the water. As the party approaches the palace they see a variety of mosaics buried into the floor. They have images of the lotus settled into them. They also notice a gigantic great ape, feeding on a lotus flower on the other side of the palace walls.

A few members decide to head in, safely avoiding the ape and entering into the palace. They eventually spot a giant lotus flower, 8 feet in diameter and 12 petals ready to be plucked. The flower’s scent is almost intoxicating, and 5 petals total are harvested by Lily and Seipora, who keeps consuming the oils off her blade and poisoning herself. Charmed by the lotus, Seipora turns on her party members and casts shatter on the group. Surprisingly this doesn’t wake up the beast, but Anthos picks up the sound of a roar in the distance.

The party flees the scene, where the session ends after an angry female ape catches up to engage with the group.