Tomb of Annihilation (Session 18)

 

Noting the ice as another mystery of the jungle the party continue on.

A heavy mist descends upon the Aldani Basin making visibility drop to only about a dozen feet. Later in the afternoon as they continue through the Aldani Basin something stirs in the swampy water. Three Giant Crocodiles come lunging out attacking the party! One of the two remaining Tribal Warriors is torn in half, while Crumb is viciously attacked along with Eku. 

The remaining warrior rushed forward plunging his spear into the Crocodile attacking Eku and ducking a tail swipe from the creature. As Thavakean explodes with rage, shadowy tendrils lash out at all the Crocodiles as he brings his axe down on the one attacking his faithful dinosaur. 

Meanwhile Inete retreats over to Orion who is blasts away at the one clutching Eku with a Scorching Ray. Alyssia blade dances around all the attacks coming at her. As the Crocodile on Eku swings its tail connecting with and launching the remaining broken Warrior's body beside Alyssia, she grimaces and misty steps to help attack the Crocodile on Eku erupting in divine energy. 

With Crumb near to dying Orion sending a blast towards the Crocodile now with no target so it doesn't gang up on the poor Allosaurus who is taking a beating. It works a little too well though as it rushes through the water tearing into Orion dropping her into the muddy bank.

As Inete crawls over and heals Orion the one Thavakean & Crumb are attacking finally decides it's had enough retreating into the misty swamp. 

Eku eventually frees her self so Alyssia moves back up to help Orion. However the Crocodile without the burning radiance from Alyssia now takes the opportunity to snatch Eku as a snack so it doesn't leave empty handed and retreats into the heavy mist.

Thavakean moves to help Orion but is finally dropped by the ferocious Crocodile. Crumb tears into it and a powerful blast from Alyssia forcing it to finally retreat.

The party, now just consisting of Thavakean, Orion, Alyssia and Inete, battered, bloody buit alive move on before resting.

As they rest Alyssia receives a message in the sending stone. 

Hello Professor Alyssia, Are you still alive? I think I got the sending stone working. I heard my father travels with a dinosaur man.

Alyssia replies they live and asks more about the Dinosaur man.

Without their guide as the mists persist the party loses it's way a bit and meet a Jungle Spirit known as a Chwinga. It takes a liking to Thavakean and sits on his shoulder for most of the day before bestowing a blessing on him to summon animals and leaving. They soon gets back on track arriving at the Heart of Ubtao.

The Heart of Ubtao floats 200 feet in the air, it's vines and tree roots giving it the look of an actual heart, the dripping red liquid only adding to the image. As Alyssia sends Solus into the air to look about a figure, perhaps hearing or spotting Solus approaches the edge of a ledge near a cave mouth.

The lady calls out asking the party their business they reply they are here to see the Heart of Ubtao and she replies back "you better come up then".

The resident of the Heart of Ubtao turns out to be an Elf named Valindra Shadowmantle. She explains that she came to Chult to research the Death Curse and believe it linked to something called the Soulmonger.

In exchange for swapping information she lets the party make use of her teleportation circle.

Leaving on good terms Valindra activates the circle and with a flash the party find themselves in a dark room. They bust out the door with a scream from a servant watering some plants and guards come rushing in... clearly they are back in civilisation!