Episode #4: Cultists and Natives

There was to be no parley. The figure atop the ziggurat waited, while the other figures drew back and appeared again with bows in hand. As the PCs came closer, they loosed their arrows and a battle had begun.

The leader was a cloaked figure, human, ritually scarred. Carrying a wooden staff, he wielded magic that blasted the earth and sent the PCs reeling. The others were more direct, wielding bows and outlandish, wicked-looking weapons: large, flattened wooden clubs with jagged, obsidian teeth embedded around its frame. As heavy as a greatsword, and at least as deadly. (These would later be called macuahuitls.) With livid scars like war paint, these humans didn't look like natives of the island. They wore leather armor, studded with strange ornaments and bits of metal, much of it piecemeal. And they seemed to relish the fight, though they didn't have the advantage of numbers. One of them was female, and though strategically smarter than her comrades, she didn't shirk from the violence, either.

Near the cloaked leader, a large cauldron atop the ziggurat was still fuming black smoke, and through this screen he used his magic. But the power of the PCs was greater:  While Ecaris and Gregor waded in as quickly as they could with blade and fist, Elody and Penitence followed with divine spells. Gruff hung back, loosing arrows back at the bowmen. The tide turned when Edrathior used his sorcerous magic to yank the cloaked leader and one of his henchman down from the upper tiers of the pyramid.

The PCs made short work of their foes, but before the battle ended, a small gray-skinned creature crawled from the black cauldron and leapt upon Ecaris's back. A tiny demon of some kind that moved with the ease of a monkey, it tore and bit at him, weakening him with its teeth as much with its foul presence. Eventually, the creature turned invisible and fled. Gruff managed to spot its tracks, which led due north off into the jungle, but tracking it through the lush vegetation seemed impossible.

Meanwhile, Bartholomew spotted a swiftly-moving fog coming in from the nearby beach. Hiding out, he was the first to encounter four humans whose sparse clothing and weapons associated them with the slain villagers. Two were darker skinned, with tiger-like war paint marking their bodies. The other two were paler skinned, a woman and an old man. The woman carried a tortoise shell for a shield, while the old man carried a scythe-club made of bone and a grisly headdress fashioned of humanoid skulls. Three had javelins and carried the same obsidian-toothed weapons the cultists had been using.

Barthlomew, assuming these newcomers to be enemies and wanting to get the drop on them—or acting on other motive—emerged from his hiding place and attacked the elder with his dagger. The natives turned and fought back, but not before blows were exchanged and blood was shed. Elody came onto the scene and broke up the fight, furious and upset, and the violence abruptly ended. The other PCs soon arrived, outnumbering the natives.

The natives didn't speak the Common tongue, so diplomacy was an awkward, pantomimed affair. The natives were especially wary of Penitence for her horns and tail, and for Gruff, who refused to put away his bow. But some sort of truce was reached and the leader—he called himself "Uja Zem"—convinced the PCs to follow them somewhere eastward, following the shoreline. Gruff followed from a distance, bow still ready.

A short while later, they reached a hidden cave in an unassuming clearing, where two more tiger-striped natives stood guard over four burial mounds and the body of another of their dead. The others headed in, but Gruff and Penitence opted to stay outside.