Bjorn and Azzaka sitting in a tree...

We take a long rest and the next morning we awake, much refreshed. Two guards are at the cell, flanking a dwarf with interesting armour – an amalgamation of continental and chultan armour. The dwarf has a brilliant red beard that fades down to orange. It is Captain Firebeard. We are still not allowed our stuff. He has a wooden leg, lost to a dinosaur. He tells us we are to be taken to Commander Breakbone. The camp is swarming with insects and mosquitoes etc. There is mud and puddles everywhere. It smells of sickness. We are taken to see Commander Breakbone. We pass a circular tent with sides rolled up. Inside are cots with humanoids, they are groaning and in varying degrees of ill health. They are being tended to by acolytes, who are not in a particularly good way and are struggling to manage the illness. We are taken to the larger tent next to this. In the front entrance way is Undril and at the desk a human male – Commander Breakbone. Commander Breakbone decides that we are going to transport sick people up the river and take them to be healed. The party answer back too many times to Breakbonethat he finally decides Bjorn should be taken to the stocks for insubordination. We try and persuade him otherwise, Undril also tries to reason with Commander Breakbone, he still disagrees. Captain Firebeard tries to step in. We are sent outside and told to put Bjornin shackles. Commander Breakbone lets us back in, he’s been told we are able to rid the dead. We are to aid or it will be treated as insubordination and we will be treated as such. There are rumours of the disappearance of villagers of Mbala. We have to visit and find out. Whilst killing undead along the way. We also must pay 1,000gp to aid the war effort. We are able to take Inete and Autumnreaver Harnt with us (if they wish to do so). Thanks to the persuasions of Kailyn and Bjorn we are able to continue with Commander Breakbone's mission and ask the guards to remove the shackles. He agrees we can have our stuff back.     Bjorn and Kailyn head to the tent of ill people. Sister Cynas is the nurse in charge. Kailyn asks Bjorn to find ground which is ‘diseased’. It is everywhere. Kailyn attempts to purify the ground. It does work. He sets about trying to remove the disease from the tent floor and manages to remove as much as possible. Bjorn removes disease from two people and heals two people. Sister Cynas is overcome with emotion and kisses Bjorn. Then kisses Kailyn too.   Yesne Brightstar and Fang head to the mess tent to find Inete. Inside is a makeshift bar / kitchen. Chairs and tables dotted around. Amongst the soldiers; 1 table, Inete and Autumnreaver Harnt. On another table 1 quite animated human female, Chultan is speaking to an Albino dwarf (bright blue eyes). Dwarf ‘come reclaim my home’ Chultan is a guide.   Kailyn goes back to the tent to heal people. 1 healed, another is already dead, 1 more healed. Kailyn creates 4 vials of healing Sister Cynas advises giving them to Captain Firebeard or Captain Salhana. On leaving the tent he tries to find them but is informed they are conversing with Commander Breakbone. Bjornand Kailyn head to the mess tent for food.   Yesne asks Inete if she wants to come with them to Mbala but she can’t decide if she wants to stay or not. Kailyn puts wax in his ears so as not to hear Yesne and Inete, he just proceeds to read the lips of everyone. As a consequence he is speaking very loudly.   Kailyn points out the human and dwarf and asks who they are. The human says back he’s very rude. So Yesne says hello. Yesne asks who she is, she says her name is Salida, Yesne asks where the yellow banner are. She left them a while ago (a few weeks) – they didn’t find what they were looking for so went off with Hew Hackingstone instead. She knows the deeper South parts well. Musharib is the Dwarf, he’s going on an adventure he is ‘the greatest guide there is’ (according to his mum). He wants to go to Harak Hamar – the great adamantium mines of the south. He wants to reclaim them. From beasts. Salida informs us Harak Hamar is 210 miles South, down the River Tath, you can get there skirting the coast. It’s through the Cobalt Mountain range. If we can avoid Tinder . Tinder is the red dragon found by the Wyrmheart Mines . This mine is at the end of the mountain range. Yesne wants to know where it is so asks Kailyn for the map. Salida takes interest in the map and asks what it is. Kailyn pulls out his hand sketched map, Yesne says ‘not that one, the other’. Bjorn decides it’s very hot and needs to leave immediately. He grabs Yesne by the neck and drags her out of the tent.   Kailyn gives Salida 5gp and asks what she knows about Mbala. After giving another GP. She gives information. She says it’s around 60 miles (depending on the direction). It’s a challenging ascent from the bottom of the The Aldani Basin. Can go through the jungle but there is no clear path and it’s difficult to ascend. There is a walkway up the mountain. Around 2000ft climb.   Yesne is still held by Bjorn, she can’t break free. Bjorn tells Yesne that she isn’t allowed to tell people things they shouldn’t know. But she doesn’t really understand. He says, ‘the Map’. Just then Inete comes out to try and help but together they are not strong enough. Yesne casts Grease on herself so that she slips from his grasp.   Fang goes out to forage and finds some food. Togan is it’s name, a fibrous and nutritious, purple root. She finds 5 portions.   Kailyn asks Azaka if she knows the area well, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t like heights and is not sure that she wants to partake.   Kailyn asks Musharib if they are aware of any interesting items in Harak Hamar, he speaks about Moradin's Gauntlet (Moradin is the God of the dwarves). So must be special. Kailyn says he’ll go with Musharib if they can have the gauntlet as payment. Musharib agrees. Kailyn says he needs to convince the rest of the party to go with him.   Bjorn goes to the bar with Azaka , they have a drink, they leave to do the business.   Autumnreaver Harnt says she knows the way to Mbala as Yesne is asking Salida to take us. So we decide to go with Autumnreaver Harnt.   Salida spends a long time insulting Fang in as many ways as possible. Yesne gets angry and tries to cast a spell on her. Salida takes a knife to Yesne's throat. Yesne and Fang get up and leave.   Kailyn gets out another gold coin. Asks Salida to tell him about rumours of the village where all the fishermen have disappeared. The Aldani Tribe , have not been sighted for many years. Some believe wiped out. She feels they are just more reclusive. They were originally Chultans belonging to the Aldani Tribe. The fishermen of the tribe were said to have trapped lobsters in the thousands until their greed for harvesting them meant there were none left. The Great Ubato, is said to have cursed the fishermen by transforming them into lobster folk. They embraced what they had become but scorned by the other tribes and forced to take refuge. They almost went extinct and the rest of the tribesfolk shunned them. They say the went to hide in the Aldani Basin (named after them). They are known to be relatively peaceful despite looking monstrous. Salida has had a glimpse of them along time ago. The Flaming Fist she was with wanted to attack however, the Aldani Tribe members were more interested in trading / bargaining their way into being left alone. Gave them a lot of ancient items/trinkets in return. The Flaming Fist butchered them after they traded.   Kailyn asks, The ghost village above the basin – is that Mbala? Communications between the village and the camp have stopped. Salida thinks so. The communication was before her life time. Could be around 20/30 years.   Yesne wanders around the camp fixing things. As doing so, she notices the Captains leave the tent. There appears to be two factions of troops – one native chultan conscripts, these appear to be the scouting parties. The other non-native gauntlet members. Whilst wandering, as she progresses towards the back she notices the latrines, it’s an awful smell and overflowing.   Yesne investigates the magical items we retrieved from the tower.   Lantern – a lantern of revealing. When lit, it burns for 6 hours on 1 pint of oil. Bright light 30ft, dim 30ft rad. All invisible creatures and objects become visible within the bright light.   Belt – they bind together and click on. It has transmutation magic, when taking it off if you throw it with vigour to the ground, the smaller threads sprout out into a giant centipede several foot long that you are able to control. Handle animal checks with advantage if attuned. It is called the cord of the centipede. If it goes to 0 hit points it is rendered useless for several weeks. Can be used once a day.   Sickle (from tool kit) – it has a word on it that looks like elvish but isn’t, the word is a form of elvish ‘ryld’. The closest to the common word ‘illicit’. It is in drow. The sickle is a +1 enchantment, if used on a restrained target it gives advantage on intimidation and persuasion checks for the next round.   Kailyn goes to find Captain Salhana . He hands over the four potions he created. He asks about Mbala . Commander Breakbone is curious as to what is there. Kailyn feels from the exchange that they will not make it through the night and informs the rest of the party.   Bjorn goes to try and fix the latrine problem. The daily rain floods the latrines into the camp. As the ground is soft the latrine threaten to break at any minute. The troops never use them as any other option (out of camp, off the walls) is deemed better than using the latrines. The moat is 20ft deep. They plan to have some pipes running into the moat. Bjorn goes to find Captain Firebeard who warns him off doing anything since this is not how Commander Breakbone wants to run things. Bjorn suggests that convincing Commander Breakbone to go back to Port Nyanzaru to conscript members for the campaign would be a good idea.   Whilst mending things, Yesne discovers; the guards value and trust the two captains, they close down whenever discussing Commander Breakbone (although heart is in right place, dedicated etc.). It appears that Captain Firebeard has known Caommander Breakbone for a long time and Captain Salhana too but Captain Firebeard does try to give Commander Breakbone counsel. Between them the captains do normally convince Commander Breakbone of the correct path to avoid breaking down. There is a combined scouting contingent, a mixture of chultan warriors and scouts from the gauntlet. Because they are scouts they are better able to cope in this environment. They are lead by Wulf Rygor (close friend of Commander Breakbone). The Chultan’s lead by Lorsa Bilwatal (shaved head, short braided top, Chultan female warrior, tiger war paint on face, loops of metal high on her neck).   Bjorn, Kailyn and Fang seek Captain Salhana to offer the same advice for Commander Breakbone .Captain Salhana is talking to Wulf Rygor and Lorsa Bilwatal. They are introduced. The three heroes try and convince them that they need to conscript more people to the campaign. Lorsa says they have enough (Kailyn realises this is not true – she clearly doesn’t want to lose more people to this campaign. She wants all the people from the continent to die). Bjorn talks to one of the guards, to see if he is ill as he heard him coughing. He says he's ok but Bjorn doesn’t believe him. When leaving, he hears him cough again then goes back up the ladder and leaves his water bottle.   The party go for a wash behind some screens. Yesne notices a screen with scratch marks clearly from Bjorn and Azakas earlier encounter. She fixes the screen then tells Bjorn he could probably do with some help and so gives him the book ‘Chultan and his Python’ that Jewel gave her. Told him it would probably help him out for next time. Bjorn, embarrassed, takes the book.   We head to the mess tent to meet up with Captain Salhana to speak further re moving Commander Breakbone. When we arrive Kailyn sets up some ball bearing music to attract people away from our table. Bjorn buys everyone in the tent some beer (4gp per pitcher, for troops (20gp for non troops!)) and receives a free pitcher for our table. Kailyn offers to ‘entertain’ the troops as Kailyn the Magnificent using some sleight of hand.   The guard comes in the tent to give Bjorn his bottle back. Bjorn takes him outside and finds out he is ill but is unable to find out what is wrong. He agrees to visit him again in the morning to see if he can help.   Bjorn goes back in to sit with Captain Salhana. In a very roundabout way Bjorn begins to ask Captain Salhana if she agrees with the plan to send Commander Breakbone away. Elonast in Yesnes head (I could just sting him). She tells Elonast to tell Bjorn to get on with it.   Captain Salhana suggests it is Commander Breakbone who sees this as the best option. Possible that he may send Wulf Rygor in his stead. So we need to ensure it is only Commander Breakbone that can do this job.   Yesne suggests that Elonast go and mess up some of Kailyn's tricks for fun.   Yesne decides to try the lantern on Elonast later on – it does work so I suggest that if she sees the lamp coming out that she flies past this spot to avoid being seen.   Commander Breakbone enters the mess tent. ‘Quite a lot of troops up, more than usual’ and strides over to Fang. Wondering if it has to do with us. Bjorn says it’s us saluting him and his good job!   Salida slinks out of the shadows towards Fang, ‘hasn’t come to apologise, just wants to say don’t take it personally’. Fang agrees to let it go and they drink wine together. They talk a bit about the jungle and share a bit of knowledge. Salida continues to make rude jokes, it’s easier to digest for Fang as not particularly malicious, it’s how she is with everybody.   Kailyn Tharamor goes for a ‘wee’ but actually goes to our tent and places a spell on Yesne’s backpack so that when she goes to open it, it will roar like a T-Rex.   The party retires to bed (and levels!!)