Episode #8: The Arch

The net the imp-thing was bound up in was small but effective, sticky with resin and natural barbs. The PCs interrogated and intimidated the creature to the best of their ability, learning only a little. He didn't seem afraid to die; indeed, he seemed to welcome death, saying he would only come back. There was discussion about whether to kill it, leave it behind, or bring it alive. Indecision ultimately led to keeping it alive and bringing it along.

"You are in trouble, much trouble!" the creature shrieked at them. When pressed, it said other curious things. "You will be cut in two. Always in two." Penitence may or may not have recognized something in its disturbing claims, but the tiefling shared nothing with her new companions.

Gregor took charge of the imp-thing and they showed it to the Olman tribesmen. The shaman repeatedly spoke the words he used the night before, suggesting it was a demon, obviously affiliated with the invaders to the Isle.

The PCs foraged for a few hours before setting out, finding only some maroon-colored, grapefruit-sized fruit for sustenance. It was sweet and tasted vaguely of fermented cider but was shunned by the Olman. Grüff also scrounged up enough material from tree fibers and with Elody's help fashioned a length of rope to fully bind the creature in the net. Now their little captive would be easier to carry. Gregor pounded it unconscious and then they gagged it.

One of the Olman from the Tiger Clan, named Ukha, would be their guide and he would show them the way to the oracle of which the old shaman had spoken.

The meandering trek was largely uneventful. They passed through a grove of large, three-petaled purple flowers which Elody wanted to examine closer but the others urged she leave them alone. Grüff, with his keen shifter senses and ranger's training, eventually realized that the group was being followed. Not from any creature walking along the ground but traversing from tree to tree. Spying it, he saw that it was one of the little furry gray-brown, monkey-raccoon creatures they'd seem a few times already. Armed with a spear and wearing a tiny backpack, the little critter followed, unaware of Grüff's doubling back.

At one point, the PCs spotted some sort of guard patrolling the "tall road," the long stone wall that stretched across the jungle landscape to the beach, where Bartholomew, Grüff  Elody, and Edrathior first washed ashore. Merely a silhouette, the figure rode a giant reptilian mount and crawled southward. Uhkta, meanwhile, led them to a break in the wall and stopped there. They could see a trail lead into the jungle. The Olman would go no further.

So they went on, and Grüff rejoined them. The furry creature was nowhere to be seen at this point.

As the jungle around them thickened, the road they walked left them little choice but to follow it. Before long, a large stone arch came into view, nearly forty feet high, forming a threshold in the road. Idly guarding it were two men, cultists like the ones the PCs had fought in Mora upon the ziggurat. Wearing ragged cloaks, bodies ritually scarred, and wielding both axes and javelins. One sat on the top of the arch nearly forty feet off the ground; the other crouched on the ground. An iron staff was planted in the ground, with an attached chain leading straight into the ground nearby, where a large section of freshly dug-up earth lay mounded.

Seeing no way around the arch or through the dense jungle, the PCs initiated a surprise fight. Grüff led off with a shot and the battle was quickly joined. Edrathior's magic yanked the cultist on the arch forward and down, hard to the ground. Gregor closed the distance and pounded on both men, while the cultists responded with screams of rage that magically endured and assaulted those nearby with waves of scathing. When one wrenched the iron staff out of the ground, the chain was loosed and this seemed to prompt the unseen beast beneath the ground to attack. Gregor grabbed the chain before it disappeared in the earth and with it managed to clothesline one of the cultists.

The monster burst from the earth with a spray of rock and dirt and a deep roar—a bullette! Called "land sharks" by those who know and rightly fear them, bulettes are large, heavily armored, and burrow through the ground as easily as through water.

Rising up between Elody and Penitence, the beast attacked. After sustaining a psychic retaliation from Edrathior, it turned on him. Despite its bulk and squat legs, the bulette was a remarkable jumper. It sprang upon the eladrin and bit into him. Before there was proper time to keep hitting on it, the land shark dove under the ground again. Moments later, the last of the cultists fell dead.

The PCs paused to look around for the bulette. They could feel it burrowing somewhere beneath them, but when it broke out again it was beyond the arch. It rose and turned toward them, seeming calmer. As if acting at the command of a master. Buletters are known for their ferocity and dangerous resistance to proper training. Yet this one, while obviously scarred and tortured into obedience, was calm.

And in that moment, a figure emerged from the shadow of the arch, bearing the prominent horns of a tiefling.