DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Chaff (Vivimancer 5), with familiar Pretty Bird and Riding Dog Puppy Whuppy
Awg Wahmn (Calmonari 5)
Kwinsea (Aquamancer 5), with familiar Hermes
Torak (Cleric 5)
With no obvious entrance into the jungle, Kwinsea and Awg elected to slide into the surf, looking for an intelligent looking fish for the calmonari to charm, and on which the aquamancer could cast speak with aquatic animals. Meanwhile, Torak sent his troglodyte zombies to beat the tree line and see if anything was flushed out by the activity; nothing was. In the water, the swimming duo encountered the same array of weirdly mutated tropical fish, before settling on another fang fish for their conversation. While the creature was of little intelligence, it did tell them there were no sharks or other large fish-like things around, and there was a ship wreck off the end of the beach. Investigating, they found the relatively new wreck of a vessel of Xin-ish design named the "Star Runner". It had run aground on a rock off the end of the beach, leaving a few partially decomposed bodies among the debris but not nearly enough to account for the full crew. Awg and Kwinsea guessed any survivors may have made it ashore after running aground. There was little else of interest, so they returned to the beach, questioning their toothed friend some more along the way. They learned that it (and presumably all the rest of the weird fish) were created or born on the island itself. The fish told of a non-human 'upright' creature who made the fishes, and that the fish had swum out though a tunnel under the island to reach the open sea. Asked to show them the tunnel, the fish led them to a spot about 10' off the beach. Brushing away some sand with his fins, he revealed a partially sand-clogged opening , consisting of a 3' diamter round tube of some rubbery or leathery material. Kwinsea and Awg returned to the beach to confer with the rest of the party, where Chaff now sent Pretty Bird aloft to check out the interior. He spied, through the parrots eyes, a strange fleshy dome about 100' high sitting in a depression in the jungle. The jungle was a little thinner in this area, and there were some signs of cleared paths and similar intelligent activity.
Everyone decided using the ebony fly to reach the dome was easier than swimming/crawling through the tube. So with a tearful goodbye from Awg's new fishy friend, the party was airlifted one by one into the jungle. Once there, they circumnavigated the dome, looking for a way in. There was no obvious door though the rubbery/leathery material, but on the south-east side was a 7' diameter circle of thin membrane. Torak pushed the hilt of his dagger into the taut material, which after a bit of force gave way, and the dagger seemed to pass inside the structure. Awg meanwhile put his ear to the dome to listen; there was nothing to hear but the calmonari did note that the material was warmer than would be expected based on the surrounding air temperature. Though starting to get slightly creeped out, the party decided to enter. Although Kwinsea gulped back an antitoxin dose just in case.
Inside, the dome looked like an paleontological greenhouse, with a riot of primitive ferns, vines, and massive, colourful flowers. They could see a pool of water off to the right, and in the middle was another structure of the same rubbery/ leathery material. As the party circled around it, they found the greenhouse was torus-shaped with a tapering tower (which joined with the roof overhead) filling the centre. The pool (and a second one found further along) was of salt water. They were not deep, but the bottoms were rather undulating so it was difficult to see clearly was was down there. It was also difficult to see through the green riot of plants, so when a 8' tall frilled dinosaur-like creature burst out of the undergrowth, the party was surprised. It lunged at Torak and his undead henchman, spitting at the cleric's face. Torak dodged, but then the beast lashed out with claws and teeth as the cleric retreated behind his zombie bodyguards. Meanwhile, Awg scrambled up a vine to get a better shot with his laser pistol, while Kwinsea used her prismatic ray gem, unfortunately hitting one of the zombies which was at the same time being chewed on by the green spitter. Chaff finished off that zombie (oops!) with another laser shot, while the green spitter chomped the second undead to pieces, opening up a path to attack the party. It did not last long, however, as a couple of laser blasts from Awg and stabbing from the party brought it down. None to soon, as a second spitter attacked from behind, bit it fell quickly to more laser blasts, pistol shots, and a bonewarp from Chaff.
The party performed some first aid while Awg plucked a dino tooth from one of the fallen to add to his collection. And Torak used animate dead to replace his lost troglodytes zombies with a new improved green spitter zombie. With the zombie in the lead, the party continued their exploration of the eerily quiet jungle-scape. They once more found no obvious (or non-obvious) doors into the interior. Kwnisea did find one unusual thing; a 2' by 1' shelf in the side of the inner wall, forming an alcove just about the right shape and size to stand in. As the rest of the party gathered round to look, the aquamancer bravely stepped onto the shelf. The wall began to ripple and in a matter of seconds, it had engulfed the spellcaster. She had the sensation of being swallowed upward, and the rest of the party could see a Kwinsea-shaped bulge rise just over halfway up the wall before disappearing. She had in fact been vomited into the interior of the structure, and was standing in a mostly empty room formed of the same leathery/rubbery material. The floor was oddly lumpy, there was a white egg-like structure against the north wall, and another membrane door to the west. And in the centre was a huge, primitive looking lizardman scooping and slurping handfuls of something liquid out of a fleshy font in the middle of the room. It turned on Kwinsea, and grabbing up a big club and net, cautiously approved. Kwinsea tried to talk to it, but it continued to advance, so she choose the cast tidal force to keep it away. The lizardman hissed in rage as the rest of the party (less the zombie spitter and Puppy Whuppy) started to arrive, and it turned in rage to Kwinsea. Unable to reach the aquanacer, the lizardman seemed to think hard and suddenly a series of flesh pillars rose out of the floor to trap Kwinsea in a corner. The rest of the party tied and bound the creature, who was then convinced by threat of force to drop the pillars. It did, and Kwinsea, after trying all her linguistic skill, learned she could have a very stilted conversation with the lizardman using her shaky grasp of troglodyte. It spoke about a master which they figured out was another lizardman or similar, not the dome itself. She also asked it about the egg; Chaff had examined that thing, which was open on the front and full of tendrils that tried to grab his staff when it stuck it in the cavity. The lizardman indicated he had been in the egg once, but it wasn't clear what the purpose the thing served.
They party then moved on, out through the membrane door with the lizardman in the lead. The next chamber was even more empty than the first. There were membrane doors to the north and west, while in the centre of the room was a sphincter-like structure in the floor. When prodded, the lizardman revealed it led down to the Master. The party also noticed the walls, curved convex towards them in this room, seem to move slightly in and out in a bellows-like motion. Now what ...
TOTAL XP
520
GAINS
None
KILLS
1 Neanderthal-ish Lizardman (Captured)
2 Green Spitters
LOSSES
None
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