Tomb of Annihilation - Session 18
General Summary
The party spends the next two days in Port Nyanzaru, residing at Nkansu House while they purchase supplies for their return to Mbala. Dolan takes the opportunity to use the Sceptre of the Honored Voice on the poison retrieved from Lemusi's corpse, identifying it as a potent wyvern poison intended to be applied to a weapon. Wakanga sends more guards to ensure their security, but there are no further encounters with Rashaad's minions.
Acutely feeling the death mark Sayid has placed on him, Mokomoko wishes to join their party—for his own safety, and to bring the conflict with Rashaad to a conclusion. While everyone welcomes Mokomoko's participation, Elmar's offer to accompany them does not receive the same ready assent. After discussion of his past betrayal of Duke Ravengard, his potentially valuable tomb raiding skills, and his torture at the hands of the al-Tahir, it's agreed that he may join the team—but they warn him that there will be zero tolerance for any shenanigans.
On the morning of the third day after the Brazen Pegasus docked in Port Nyanzaru, the adventurers return to the Temple of Zann. Members of the elite guard of the Merchant Princes, the Dore Kvanga, are stationed outside in their distinctive red and gold uniforms, but let them pass without challenge.
Once inside, Fenuku, the librarian, greets them warmly, telling them that people are waiting for them in the shrine below. Work to reopen the shrine to the people is progressing, but it is not ready yet. He asks Dolan and Chibuzo for a favour: "When next you see the Oracle, let her know the people of Port Nyanzaru are eager to receive a visit from her."
The passage to the shrine is cleaner and better lit than before. Waiting for them are Mokomoko and Elmar with their gear, as well as Gero come to see them off. He tells them that he has been negotiating with Wakanga to arrange a return expedition to Mbala, for the purpose of collecting the scattered books and scrolls they found in the Shrine of the Kimbala there. It's not determined yet whether such an expedition would travel upriver as before, or if they might seek the aid of the Voice of the Oracle to teleport there directly.
Elmar is his usual gregarious self, telling Dolan how happy he is to be working together again.
The others suddenly register that Ndidi is absent. As Gero relates, after she was left at the O'tamu villa during their infiltration of Fort Tajar, Wakanga took a liking to her, and she came to relish the honey pastries that he would feed her. When Chibuzo came by to collect her, she simply ignored him. Chibuzo is somewhat glum at his companion's departure from the group, but also pleased that she will no longer be in danger from their increasingly lethal foes.
Gero and Fenuku wish them good luck, and the party of six climbs down the scaffolding to the shrine below. Work is in progress here as well to clean the shrine and make it fit for worship once again. When they reach the room with the teleportation circle, Dolan instructs the magical statue outside to stand inside the room instead, and attack anyone not a member of this group.
Teleporting gives them the same scaly, squeezing sensation as before. They arrive in darkness; Chibuzo summons the power of the Gem of Brightness to light their path. They make their way out of the deserted temple into a light rain.
A short walk brings them to the upper city of Mbala, but the sound of the falling rain is interrupted by a piercing shriek. Ahead they see a large, winged, reptilian two-legged creature flying towards the city from the direction of the Aldani Basin. The wyvern issues another shriek and approaches one of the ruined towers of the city, dropping its burden—a lizardfolk corpse—into the maw of another wyvern waiting within the tower's shell. They surmise that the creatures have adopted the ruin as their nest.
After some discussion, the party decides to travel to the Tomb of the Sky Kings by the tunnel beneath the Kimbala shrine. They return to the temple and descend the stairs beneath it. Eventually they find themselves again approaching the open-roofed chamber where they previously fought the giant spiders. This time they hear the sound of falling water, accompanied by squelching noises. The gloom ahead is interrupted by intermittent flashes of blue light, and the smell of rotting vegetation fills the air.
Readying their weapons, they approach cautiously to find that clumps of bushes and trees have fallen or been pushed into the crevasse, and are now scattered across the chamber floor. A large decaying heap of animated vegetation crouches next to one of the trees, consuming it, while two tiny balls of light hover nearby: a shambling mound and two will-o'-wisps. Even as they watch the will-o'-wisps wink out from view.
Ixtli is first to attack, stabbing the plant thing with the Blood Spear but to little effect. His Hand of Harm inflicts more damage and temporarily poisons the creature. Elmar fires a crossbow bolt into it from afar, while Chibuzo charges forward to spear it with Atsu's Lance. But when he invokes its power to fire a bolt of lightning, the electrical discharge heals the shambling mound instead of harming it. Continuing his attack, he casts a spell that causes his warhammer to glow white hot. The creature seems little affected by his fiery blow, but its putrefying vegetative form starts to smoulder. Dolan fires a Guiding Bolt into it for good measure.
In response the shambling mound swings a rooty limb at Chibuzo but fails to connect. The will-o'-wisps blink back into view; one fires a bolt of lightning into Chibuzo, while the other shocks the shambling mound, healing it.
Dunch advances and slashes at the plant with his greatsword, hacking away a piece of it in his rage. An oily smoke rises from the smouldering shambler as it futilely swings its limbs. The will-o'-wisps pop into view once more, zapping Chibuzo a second time and healing the mound. But then Mokomoko spears it, and Dunch smites it again. A final volley of magic missiles from Dolan causes the creature to collapse in a pile of rotting plant matter. After a few moments of quiet, occasional flashes of blue light reach the party from above as the will-o'-wisps rise to the top of the chasm and depart.
In the aftermath, they find a locked, rusted iron box inside the shambler's remnants. Prying it open with a crowbar, they find an assortment of old gold and silver coins, a leather cap that detects as magical, and a scroll tube with two magic scrolls: Sanctuary and Continual Flame.
Continuing through the tunnel, they reach the secret door to the Tomb of the Sky Kings, which Dolan opens with the Ring of the Oracle. Nothing seems to have changed in the Tomb since they were last here; even the corpses of the pterafolk are still present. After stopping in the chamber containing the Tear of Ubtao, where Dolan uses his Mage Hand to retrieve six vials of oily yellowish liquid from the pool beneath it, they return to the room that seems intended for necromantic communion with the dead.
Chibuzo performs the ritual at one of the small shrines, filling the bowl with the yellowish liquid and adding a few drops of his blood. Calling for his grandfather, he experiences the same odd sensation as before of being drawn someplace else. He hears faint weeping sounds, and a distant, incessant howling. Finally his grandfather Atsu appears before him, bearing a haggard look. His left arm and leg are missing. "My child," he says, "praise the spirits you have come. The ritual must be performed. We must hurry. Bring the weapon to the spirit world where I can commune with it." He indicates the enormous mirror on the back wall behind the large basin. Sacrificing some of their life essence using the basin and then drinking the yellowish liquid, he says, will allow Chibuzo and his companions to enter the spirit world for a brief time.
While Mokomoko and Elmar remain on watch outside, the four adventurers gather around the basin, let out a few drops of blood into the basin, and each drink a vial of the liquid collected by Dolan. But the liquid has been contaminated, perhaps by the ochre jelly that was inhabiting it on their last visit, and they are wracked with psychic pain. Dunch is particularly afflicted.
When they recover, they find that the chamber is filled with an obscuring mist, through which they can dimly perceive moving shadows in human and other forms. The shadows take no notice of them. In the distance they hear the sound of a howling wind.
Then the figure of Atsu appears before them, telling them to come quickly to the Hall of Pillars where they can complete the ritual that will allow his soul to enter his old weapon. But, he warns, there are many angry phantoms about who may try to stop them. They must now allow the spirits to disturb his trance.
They leave the ritual room. Through the mist, their surroundings seem grander, somehow: featureless walls are now ornamented, while what was once dusty and dull now glitters pristinely. The Hall of Pillars bears no sign of the pterafolk that lived and died there in the mundane world. Outside the sky is brilliantly lit with the exceptionally vivid colours of the setting sun. Even as they marvel at the sight, though, the adventurers feel something tugging at their life essence.
"There is something you might need to see," Atsu says to Dunch. He points to the sky to the southeast. "Use Nyemba's sight."
The half-orc moves his visor's crystal lenses in front of his eyes. Looking to the southeast, he sees a single great lake in the Aldani basin, instead of the three smaller lakes he would have expected. Above the lake flies a serpentine dragon, periodically twitching in mid-flight and issuing a mournful cry.
Internally, Yollotl speaks to Ixtli: "I can see the angry spirits around us. Some of them are familiar—those you travelled with back in the jungle." At Ixtli's invitation, Yollotl agrees to aid the party, and his shadowy essence streams out from Ixtli's mouth and nose to assume its humanoid shape.
Atsu leads Chibuzo to the centre of the Hall. He will need to focus on the lance without interruption, he says, so that he can transfer his spirit into it.
They begin the ritual. Atsu closes his eyes, and a beam of pure white light shoots out from his chest into the yklwa in Chibuzo's hands. At the edges of the Hall, the murk twists and churns. Six shadowy forms emerge from the miasma on all sides and advance menacingly towards them.
Dolan swiftly uses his recently acquired scroll to cast Sanctuary on Atsu, protecting him from attack, then casts a Guiding Bolt at a shadow, blasting it out of existence. Still holding the lance, Chibuzo calls upon the power of the Circlet of Blasting to spray three of the shadows with rays of fire, while an enraged Dunch hacks at one of them with his greatsword. But the undead creatures resist the flames and nonmagical attacks. Retaliating shadows strike Dolan and Dunch with their necrotic touch, and Dunch feels the heavy weight of a curse that reduces the effectiveness of his strikes.
Ixtli spears a shadow twice with the Blood Spear, and it dissolves into a cloud of smoke. He moves to the next, channelling mystic energies into his unarmed attacks to claw and bite the shadow with magical force, until it also dissipates. Two deft strikes from Yollotl finish another shadow.
The fog around them swirls and seethes more rapidly now. Out of the haze materialize four undead spectres. Two have the form of pterafolk, but the other two are known to the party, the spirits of fallen members of the Ravengard Expedition: Shale, an Asturian guard killed by an unknown creature during the search for Akachi, and Bellin's squire Ivan, killed by Shago during Sayid's attack on their camp. Their faces distorted in hatred, the spectres attack. One of the undead pterafolk injures Ixtli with its deathly touch, while the spectre of Ivan claws at Atsu but cannot overcome his magical protection.
Dolan speaks a divine word to attack the spectre of Ivan with a burst of radiant light, while Dunch and Chibuzo strike the remaining two shadows with greatsword and warhammer respectively. Ixtli twice spears the pterafolk spectre that injured him, then kicks it; as it melts away, he joins Yollotl to fight the spectre of Shale. The two of them make short work of the former guard, then attack the spirit of Ivan until it too dissipates.
As Atsu continues his ritual, four more shadows emerge out of the miasma to join the remaining two. Dunch and Ixtli are both wounded by their chilling touch. Dolan finishes one with a magic missile, while Chibuzo battles another with his warhammer. In a sudden spate of swordplay, Dunch strikes down two of the shadows in quick succession.
A whirling vortex of mist surrounds them now. From out of it a much larger creature appears: floating in mid-air, semi-spherical, with multiple eyes and a great gaping mouth.
The dream eater utters an unearthly shriek. Dunch and Ixtli feel its cry pulling at their spirits, trying to draw them towards it, but manage to resist. Gripped by an unnatural fear of the evil aberration, Ixtli finds himself unable to approach it. He focuses his blows on one of the remaining shadows instead, destroying it. Similarly affrighted, Dolan blasts the remaining spectre back into the void with a barrage of magic missiles.
As Yollotl and Chibuzo battle the remaining shadows, two more spectres materialize from the murk, a Marakuran and a lizardfolk. Ixtli and Dunch finish the last of the shadows, and Yollotl employs his Toll the Dead ability on the dream eater. It shudders, speaks a few words in some hideous tongue, then shrieks again. Injured by its cry, Dunch also feels himself being drawn towards it, but manages to resist. Yollotl is not so fortunate. His shadowy form is dragged towards the dream eater until he is engulfed, wounded, and blinded in its maw. Nearing his limits, he allows his form to dissipate, and returns to his accustomed place within Ixtli. Dolan fires another volley of magic missiles at the dream eater, while Dunch dodges a spectre's attack.
Then Atsu speaks. "Thank you, my child," he says to his grandson. As his spirit vanishes, entering into the yklwa that Chibuzo still holds, a radiant white light fills the whole chamber, destroying one of the spectres and injuring their other foes.
Chibuzo feels a surge of power in the lance, and hurls it at the dream eater. The yklwa bites deep, and a thunderous boom rings out which injures the aberration further. Then Chibuzo stretches forth his hand, and the weapon flies back to him. He advances to engage the monster in melee combat.
The badly wounded dream eater attacks Dolan with its piercing cry, but the sorcerer manages to resist its lure. Then the dream eater seizes Chibuzo in its jaws, enveloping him in a miasma of nightmares.
Dolan speaks a holy word, blessing Dunch, Chibuzo, and Ixtli. Dunch withstands his fear of the dream eater to speak to the blinded and restrained Chibuzo, telling him that the visions binding him are not real. The effort injures the half-orc when his mind brushes up against the dream eater's, but his words persuade Chibuzo to break free of the creature, his sight restored.
Invigorated by Dolan's blessing, Ixtli spears the dream eater twice, then cries, "let the eater of dreams be eaten!" He bites deep, and the monster dissolves into nothingness. The monk's savage kick finishes the last remaining spectre.
The swirling mists settle, and a sense of calm returns to the spirit world. From the yklwa he holds, Chibuzo feels love and gratitude from his grandfather. But in the distance they can still hear the howling of the wind.
Before their sojourn in the spirit world comes to an end, they explore the other rooms leading off the Hall of Pillars. The sarcophagi in the king's mausoleum are now of fine marble, inlaid with gold; the coffin of King Mbalawa is closed. The Tear of Ubtao still hovers in its room, but the liquid that drips from it is pure and clear, and the pool beneath lacks the oily sheen it had in the mundane world. Dolan collects five vials of the liquid. In the armoury, the statue of the armoured man now looks of solid gold, and is flanked by half a dozen suits of armour instead of only two.
With a sudden wrenching sensation, the party returns to the mundane world. The shock of their return affects them all except Chibuzo. Ixtli is paralyzed and Dunch loses the power of normal speech, while Dolan sees Chibuzo transform before his eyes into a vengeful, attacking spectre. Dolan clubs the ranger with a staff, Dunch babbles incoherently, and Ixtli watches motionless, until Chibuzo finally succeeds in grappling the sorcerer and holding him until they all recover.