Port Nyanzaru
12 Marpenoth, The Year of Twelve Warnings (1494 DR)
Port Nyanzaru, Chult
The adventurers had just barely arrived at Port Nyanzaru, and Brostaff and Atwix already found themselves covered in thick muck while smelling of sewage.
An hour earlier, the adventurers from the barony of Tanistan and the Sword Coast port city of Baldur's Gate had teleported to Port Nyanzaru in the jungle-covered lands of Chult. Syndra Silvane, a former adventuring archmage and current merchant in Baldur's Gate had met with the adventurers and offered to teleport them all to the distant port city.
Port Nyanzaru was a bustling tropical city under a blazing hot sun. The familiar sounds of a harbor--creaking ropes, slapping waves, heavy barrels rolling across cobblestones--mingled with voices shouting and cursing in an unfamiliar language filled with clicks, inhalation, and singsongy words that made it sound almost musical.
The aroma of unfamiliar spices and tropical fruit mixed with the wharf-side smells of fish, tar, and canvas. Beyond all that, Port Nyanzaru was an explosion of color.
Buildings were painted in bright shades of blue, green, orange, and salmon pink, or their walls were adorned with murals portraying giant reptiles and mythical heroes. Every building sported baskets and clay urns of colorful flowers or was draped in leafy, flowering vines.
Minstrels, mostly tabaxis dressed in bright clothing adorned with feathers and shells, performed on street corners. Multicolored pennants and sun awnings flutter atop the city walls. A crowd of children dressed in feathered hats and capes raced past the adventurers, squealing in delighted terror as a street performer costumed as a big-toothed lizard stomped and roared behind them.
The whole city seemed to be bustling, sweating, laughing, swearing, and singing all at the same cacophonous time.
As they left the wood docks and touched the warm hot stones of the street, a boy no older than twelve with dark skin and bright brown eyes approaches Syndra Silvane as if he was expecting her and the others accompanying her. The boy spoke in Common with a thick Chultan accent, "It is good to see you again Mistress Silvane."
Syndra Silvane placed her bandaged hand on the young boy's head. "You have grown taller since I saw you last, Wakanda."
The boy smiled. "Prince O'tamu paid me to find you, Mistress Silvane. He begs that you come visit him at his villa."
Syndra gave Wakanda a shiny gold coin. "Please take me to him, Wakanda. Along the way, I will have my friends find lodging at either the Thundering Lizard or Kaya's House of Repose. They are both still in business, I take it?"
Wakanda nodded.
"Good. Then lead on, my young friend. Oh and be sure to give us the grand Wakanda tour. We would be forever grateful."
Wakanda, beaming with pride, first led the travelers west, across several small bridges that crossed narrow canals, the buildings all around appearing to be warehouses. Then after leaving through a guarded gate, the group saw several inns and taverns. Syndra Silvane pointed out the two inns she recommended.
Behind the inns, a much larger structure loomed--some sort of stadium or temple perhaps. Wakanda told the group it was the Grand Coliseum. The stone arena was the site of gladiatorial games (usually nonlethal, but accidents did happen), bloody animal combats, and spectacular circuses.
The boy turned south and began following the outer wall of the warehouse district as it curved around to the east. When the group came to a huge covered marketplace, Wakanda stopped. The group gaped in awe and wonder as a large reptile pulled a massive cart past them.
Wakanda grinned and said a word no one had ever heard before, "Dinosaur."
When the dinosaur and cart passed, Wakanda crossed the street and again headed south. This time, he skirted the large marketplace.
Finally, the boy led them through a gate in a stone wall and into a plaza with a large fountain. The statues in the fountain appeared to be two bare-chested Chultan women in a lustful embrace, water cascading artfully down from the tops of their heads in frothy streams that gave the illusion of hair. It was a truly magical and beautiful fountain.
Wakanda then opened one of the many gates on the outer edge of the plaza and said, "Welcome to O'tamu Villa."
After everyone entered, Wakanda ran in through the open doorway into an entryway with an open watercatch basin that probably led to a cistern. The boy ran up to one of the uniformed guards sitting in one of the shady areas of the atrium and spoke in the fast clicky singsong tongue of Chult.
The guard paid the boy a few copper coins and then said in accented Common, "Prince O'tamu is expecting you, Mistress Silvane. Please follow me." The guard was armed with a strange weapon consisting of a three-foot wooden staff with a foot-and-a-half metal blade at one end.
Before following the guard, Syndra Silvane turned and spoke to the adventurers. "Wakanda will take you to the Red Bazaar where you will find The Thundering Lizard and Kaya’s House of Repose. If memory serves, The Thundering Lizards caters to a raucous clientele, and a bed for the night costs 5 sp. Kaya’s House of Repose is much quieter, but a bed for the night costs 1 gp. Wilderness guides are known to frequent both establishments, looking for work. I will stay with Prince O'tamu and send word to you this evening. Please find lodgings for all of you and find a guide that can navigate us through the jungles of Chult."
The adventurers agreed then followed Wakanda.
Along the way, they came upon a tabaxi minstrel playing at a street corner.
Brostaff, the bard, recognized the tune the tabaxi was playing on his lute so he decided to join in. Together, the two played exquisitely, each complimenting the other's musical talent harmoniously.
While the two were playing, a large crowd had gathered and dropped copper coins in a small wooden cup the tabaxi minstrel had set up in front of him.
When the performance was over, the tabaxi who introduced himself as Spring Walker, offered Brostaff half of his earnings. Brostaff respectfully declined, thanking the tabaxi instead for allowing him to join in.
Spring Walker inquired as to where the adventurers, who were clearly new to the city, were headed. After mentioning the two inns they were headed to, Spring Walker told them to mention to Kaya at Kaya's House of Repose Spring Walker's name. The tabaxi said Kaya would offer them a discount if they did.
After bidding Spring Walker farewell, Wakanda led the adventurers to the Red Bazaar and showed them where the two inns stood opposite each other in a square filled with stalls selling dinosaur meats, exotic spices, fruits, and vegetables.
As everyone stood and gaped at the wonders they've seen since arriving in Port Nyanzaru, they recalled the reason for being there in the first place.
It was just a day ago when Lord Baudelaire teleported them to Baldur's Gate to meet with Syndra Silvane.
It seemed the former archmage, who was completely draped in silken cloths and wore a mask, was suffering from the Death Curse which was possibly plaguing all of Toril.
Syndra Silvane spoke of having been an adventurer years ago. She died once and was raised from the dead. She said the death curse had struck her. Clerics could offer no help, seemingly at a loss as to what was happening although powerful divination spells confirmed that she had only seventy-nine days left to live. All forms of spells that could bring a person back from the dead were also failing, which helped explain why the baroness could not be raised from the dead. Syndra Silvane added that her contacts in the Harper have learned that the cause of the death curse was a necromantic artifact called the Soulmonger. According to their sources, the Soulmonger was somewhere in Chult."
She offered to take the adventurers from Tanistan, along with a drow mercenary she employed, to Chult to find and retrieve the Soulmonger and hopefully put an end to the death curse.
Two goliaths working as bouncers in front of the Thunderling Lizard told the group the inn was full and to try their luck elsewhere.
The adventurers headed over to Kaya's House of Repose where two burly minotaurs armed only with metal gauntlets let them pass without stopping them.
Inside, the inn was lavish and welcoming. A grand wooden staircase spiraled to an upper balcony overlooking a dining hall. A large two-story stage was built against one side of the dining area.
The entryway ended at a host desk where an attractive female drow was just finishing with a newly arrived guest.
Before the group could speak to her, a female Chultan woman who was dressed like several of the other women busily serving customers in the dining room, approached the hostess and whispered into her ear.
From the looks of it, the hostess was distraught by whatever the woman was saying.
When the woman left, the group asked if everything was alright.
The drow hostess regarded the adventurers with curiosity. "Hello, my name is Kaya. I can tell from your appearance, you adventurers. I own this inn, and I may have a job for you."
Bolte the half-elf rogue walked up to Kaya, rested one elbow on the desk, and leaned in a few inches towards her. "You've got my...I mean our attention."
Kaya smiled. "For several months, food and supplies have been disappearing from the cellar here. I investigated myself for some time--just long enough to confirm that it's none of my employees or guests. But now I'm at a loss. I can't figure out how anyone could be getting in. If you can solve my problem, I'll arrange for each of you to stay at my inn for thirty days with no charge if you bring the culprit to me--alive--so I can ensure they pay for their crimes. What do you say?"
*****
The group had descended into the city's sewers after Kaya showed them a small grate in the inn's cellar. The grate's bolts were loose indicating someone or something had opened it repeatedly. However, whoever opened it would have had to be a halfling or gnome sized person or creature to fit in the hole leading up from the sewer below. When asked if there was a nearby way into the sewer, Kaya led them to a street entrance just outside her inn.
The sewer tunnels were no more than 20 feet wide with five-foot ledges on either side of a 10-foot wide stream of sewage flowed at a slow rate. The ceiling, dripping with algae and roots, arched just a few feet above the tallest member of the group. Wooden boards serving as impromptu bridges were spaced occasionally throughout the tunnels as far as the group could see. All but Tanjarra had darkvision forcing him to light a torch.
As they carefully made their way through the sewer tunnels, Atwix the drow fighter tried to step on one of the wooden boards to get to the other side. The board immediately broke under his weight plunging him into the dank stream. Fortunately, the fetid water only came up to his neck so drowning was not something he had to worry about.
The water churned further down the tunnel!
The drow fighter immediately pulled himself onto a nearby ledge just as a school of quippers, small voracious fish with sharp teeth that could tear the flesh off bones in seconds, swam past. Having lost a chance at a meal, the quippers swam down a side tunnel.
Brostaff the bard laughed at Atwix who was helplessly trying to squeeze the sewer water out of his leather doublet. "You should see yourself, Atwix. You look like a wet sewer rat. Let me show you how to safely navigate these foul-smelling tunnels."
The bard took a running leap and tried to jump across to the other side. He missed the other ledge by a couple of feet and fell straight into the water.
Atwix never saw anyone move as fast as the bard who seconds later was already standing, although dripping wet, on a ledge on the opposite side.
The drow laughed and flung a glob of something thick and slimy at the bard. "You should see yourself too...and smell yourself."
"You both should smell yourself," Bolte said. "Anyone or anything down here can smell you both coming a league away."
"Next time, you may reconsider before stepping on any wooden boards that can't hold your weights," Tanjarra the monk said. He took a running start then jumped across the ten-foot gap spanning the five-foot-wide ledges on either side of the sewer tunnel. He made it look really easy.
The bard threw the slimy glob back at the drow mercenary who easily dodged the disgusting missile. "What exactly are we doing down here again? I can't recall why on Toril would we skulking around down here in the first place."
"For a bard, your memory isn't the greatest it seems," Nip'hto the elven ranger quipped. "For instance, you kept forgetting the tabaxi minstrel's name you performed with."
Brostaff shook the last drop of sewer water out of his lute. "My memory serves well enough in things that matter most. Jest all you want but I will be the one penning epic lyrics of our great adventures here in...where are we?"
"Chult!" the others said in unison.
"Right, Chult." Brostaff finished. "Well, anyway, as I was saying, I will chronicle our--"
"Quiet down!" Atwix said. "I thought I heard something else in the water."
Just then a large crocodile lunged out of the water next to Brostaff! It clamped its jaws around the bard's waist and tried to pull him into the water. Brostaff painfully twisted his body out of the crocodile's jaws to avoid being dragged into the water causing the crocodile's sharp teeth to rip into his flesh and shredding one side of his leather greaves.
The others moved to get a clear shot of the crocodile which slid back into the water. Atwix took quick aim and struck it with well-placed bowshot to the head before it went under the murky water.
It emerged moments later just as a second crocodile, slightly larger than the first, swam into the area hoping for an easy meal.
The group attacked the first crocodile, killing it with weapons and spells. The second one fled but Tanjarra quickly followed it down the tunnel, killing it a few heartbeats later.
Without a cleric to heal Brostaff, the group urged the bard to remain by the ladder leading up to the street above while the others continued to explore the sewer.
After encountering another crocodile that Bolte did short work of after sneaking up to it, the group later reached a part of the sewers that ended. Nearby, the group noticed soft candlelight flickering through the dark narrow opening on one side of the dark tunnel.
Inside the opening, the group saw a goblin sitting in a small red chair. Curled at his feet was one of the largest snakes they'd ever seen. The goblin looked up from a book at the same time the snake hissed defensively. There was a hammock in one corner of the room hanging between the wall and a stalagmite as well as an ornate mask hanging on the wall behind the goblin in the red chair.
In heavily accented common, the goblin grins toothily. "Oh, hello! I see you've found my little home. Uh ... what can I do for you?"
For the next several minutes, the group spoke to the goblin and asked it a lot of questions including whether or not it had broken into the cellar of Kaya's inn.
Snotgargle, as the goblin called himself, said he didn't realize he had done anything wrong and was simply taking what little he needed to survive in the sewers. He said he had stowed away on a ship some time ago and had reached Port Nyanzaru. He encountered other goblins but they were different than he was and didn't accept him as one of their own. Having been attacked a few time on the streets, Snotgargle moved into the sewers and had lived there since.
He offered to accompany the group back to Kaya and apologize to her. The group agreed.
After meeting Kaya and apologizing, Snotgargle was offered a job at Kaya's inn. She said she and the minotaur bouncers she employed would help protect Snotgargle.
Snotgargle, the goblin who simply wanted to fit in somewhere and live peacefully with his pet snake he called Snapdragon, jumped for joy at having found new friends and a new place to call home.
Session played on May 7, 2020
Plot type
Chapter
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