Catfish, Geckos, Bears, Oh My!

and

Justin as the DM

"**Catfish, Geckos, Bears, Oh My!**" is the fifteenth episode of Rise of the Arcane, the third season of Tales From Del'nasra

The ziggurat has begun to flood with alarming speed. The now wounded Fonkey Casuals must escape the flooding ziggurat before they join the dead at the bottom of this cold, dark lake.

## Episode Synopsis

#### **Previously on Tales from Del'nasra**

*"The last we left off the Fonkey Casuals fought a group of shadows within the ziggurat and eerily the shadows seemed to resemble Antyr, but as sort of different variations. After the shadows were defeated it seemed like the armor and weapons that were scattered across the floor resembled the armor and weapons in use by the party. You moved on exploring the rest of the ziggurat which involved discovering a room with a heavy unholy presence tied to some urns, as well as finding a mural that seemed to depict a vampiric Antyr leading an army of vampires some of which resembled every member of the party aside from Vonkar in a battle against lamias and humanoids in painful looking barbed armor.*

*Confused as to the nature of this mural, you all proceeded forward at the urging of Antyr and found yourselves in a corridor filled with variants of Antyr in vertical glass coffins. Some of these bodies were dated from three years ago all the way to thousands of years ago during the age known as the New Zenith when the War of Ascension was going on. Pressing forward with their eyes closed and using Torger as support, Antyr urged the party to exit this corridor as quickly as possible which brought you all into a large open chamber where a massive beating heart was suspended from the wall with a large shadowy figure inside.*

*A notebook was found from a group of adventurers who had come to this very ziggurat to seek the elf who had mastered time and the secrets of immortality. The adventurers mentioned they had broken through the mythal protecting the continent when it was hidden and banished after Armathnan ascended. They had been here about 200 or so years ago, and mentioned that seeing the same elf in various glass coffins had disturbed them, and they had seemingly been killed after messing with the large heart.*

*You all pushed past the heart and found yourselves in a chamber of an elf named Xerion Talyns who was imprisoned within a powerful circle of magic. They seemed to match the appearance of the Antyr depicted in the mural, but this elf had no flesh on its face, but was just a skull with very noticeable vampire-like fangs. The elf stirred to life as you all entered the room, and manifested as a ghost outside of its imprisoned body and sniff each member of the party offering cryptic phrases to each of them, with the phrase aimed towards Leek seeming to cause him to retreat into his own mind.*

*Conversations were had, with Xerion revealing the location of the stained glass sword from Hopper’s vision, mentioning it was in the depths of the Drowned Maiden Reef, and that a man had come to the ziggurat a few days prior seeking to open a doorway near the convergence point. He revealed this to be Kastagar, the man who had built the Orbis Ancora you all discovered in the Jungle of Spores. Kastagar had also made their way to Drowned Maiden Reef.*

*Antyr asked what needed to be done, with Xerion explaining that maybe this Antyr would succeed where the others had failed, explaining that all they needed to do was place a piece of the obelisk, words written in their hand, and their astral cord on the altar. The obelisks would then function as doorways to an ancient time if used by Antyr to find answers on the Grand Restoration as it was coming and it was inevitable, explaining that the Ley Guardians know this and have been preparing by sending vast amounts of raw cathadiuum to the capital cities of the world. As Antyr placed the objects on the altar, it caused the form of Xerion to vanish, his remains to crumble and something large approached from the previous chamber. This hulking form resembled a twisted form of Antyr, but was eventually defeated due to some tricks with portals. As the monstrosity was defeated the ziggurat began to fall apart and has begun to rapidly flood as some of you appear quite wounded from the encounter."*

#### The Episode

As the ziggurat crumbled and began to flood around them, the party raced through the ziggurat as quickly as possible occasionally getting hit by flying debris. Eventually, the Fonkey Casuals got back to the ziggurat's entrance, each of them downing potions of water breathing while Leek wild-shaped into a quipper. As they swam away from the ziggurat they watched as it got pulled through a pinprick sized hole of magic, similarly to the Jungle of Spores and upon doing so it seemed to awaken the lake bed itself which was revealed to be a massive catfish-like creature with four, large golden eyes.

The party swam as quickly as they could to the surface and clambered back into the rowboat, just as the catfish-like creature began to rise from the water, and the rowboat was lifted up into the air by it's massive, breaching form. The creature introduced itself, but had forgotten its name, thanking the party for waking it up with a loud, booming yawn. It swam to the distant shore in a matter of seconds and deposited the boat and everyone inside onto the shore. It was revealed that he had been alive and sleeping since a war, and when Hopper asked if it was the War of Ascension, the fish said he didn't know, but it was a war with the gods. He had forgotten his name over the years and was given the name "Cheshire" by Grin, which seemed to please the massive fish.

Cheshire told the party that should they ever need to reach large bodies of water around the world they can call upon him to help and all they would have to do is return to this lake and slap the water three-times in a rhythmic pattern and he would ferry them along. They would simply need to swim into his mouth, which he opened revealing numerous uvulas that resembled lanterns. He thanked them again for waking him up, and submerged himself back beneath the waves.

While the party was distracted, it seemed that Leek had wandered off into the jungle, dropping his belongings onto the ground and leaving a trail. The party began to shout for Leek, but heard no answer and quickly started following the trail discovering more of his belongings along the way, and it seemed like Leek's foot prints started to appear more and more scorched before they transitioned into that of a halfling adult's. After following these footprints for another twenty or so minutes, they could overhear someone that sounded like Leek talking to themselves, and seemingly confused. Vonkar and Grin entered the clearing and saw a halfling man covered in long-since healed third degree burns sitting on a log. While confused, the halfling man seemed to recognize the pair of them as a friends and after thinking and gathering his thoughts mentioned his name was Ernest Stiltwhistle and that he had burned at the stake as a child in his village as a ritual, but it failed and he survived. Due to this, he was shunned and locked in his parent's basement until adulthood when he broke out, consumed by some form of angry spirit and burned the village down along with everyone in it, including himself.

He explained that Auntie Gothel had come along trying to resurrect him but failed and instead placed his soul into the body of a white leopard gecko and reincarnated him within the body, thus becoming Leek. When Xerion called him the "false child wearing false skin" it awoke those memories of his previous life, consuming Leek in the flames and freeing Ernest's soul and granting him some modicum of peace. He said one final goodbye to the party thanking him for showing him what real friends are in the time they had known one another and asked that most of Leek's belongings were returned to Auntie Gothel so she too could mourn and that he wanted the party to keep Cabbage. With his final wishes relayed, the spirit of Ernest departed leaving behind the body of a lifeless, white leopard gecko.

Doe began to play a song on their cittern while the party built a cairn on the shore of the Marrowdeeps for Leek's body that had reverted to its original, gecko form. The party said their farewells and returned to Tanbrook to deliver Fontaine the voratide fronds they had acquired.

While here they picked up Cornelius who Fontaine revealed couldn't die and would instead come back as another sort of animal upon his death and that this was recent magic. It was also revealed that Fontaine had raised Cheshire since he was a smaller fish, gesturing towards a fishbowl. The party asked Fontaine how old he was and he explained that he stopped counting a long time ago. Fontaine gave them directions to where they were headed next, mentioning to take the road west from the City of Embers towards Port Creach as it was the only way that you could safely access the Drowned Maiden Reef.

Waving goodbye to Fontaine the Fonkey Casuals sought out the nearby Grov'aar Lagoon mentioned by the people of Tanbrook and set up camp in the back of the wagon that had now been painted by the children of Tanbrook. While camp was being set up, Grin went to explore the nearby jungle for the source of the croaking noise and discovered a strange type of lemur living in a tree with long barbed fingers that was making the noise. It had successfully lured many creatures to this tree and ate them. After spearing Grin and pulling him into the tree it took one sniff, seemed displeased and tossed him out. While Grin explored Antyr began harvesting from these gilded flowers near the shore of the lagoon which seemed to mimic their voice. Antyr began to cut samples of the flowers which caused the flowers to scream and expel this thick, crimson fluid that smelled like pomegranate juice.

Grin flew back to the others, while Torger tattooed Anty's thigh with an average looking tattoo of a woolly rhinoceros and the party settled down for the night in the back of the wagon. The party however were all woken the following morning by shuffling around in the wagon, and woke to saw Cabbage standing completely upright and alarmed.

#### After the Break

The party all seemed alarmed at the sudden sentience of Leek's teddy bear, while Cabbage asked why they were in his home and traipsing about. He seemed confused and introduced himself as Lionel Montsoza. Getting off a very rough foot, he seemed to come from a position of privilege, almost talking down to the party and mocking their choice of clothing. He was told to go look in the nearby lagoon and upon doing so saw that he looked like a deranged teddy bear. This seemed to unlock some memories within Lionel and revealed that he had been looking for his son, Vernon who had been lost and during his search he stumbled across "a hag" who promised to help him search and that was the last thing he could remember.

As the party contemplated leaving him at Auntie Gothel's, Hopper reminded the group aloud that Leek/Ernest's final wishes were for the party to keep "Cabbage" which Lionel mentioned that he seemed to owe them a life debt and agreed to join them as they could aid him in finding his son, and that he was from Dawnbreak Cove and that he had vast amounts of coin stored away in the bank there. When betting/gambling Leek's money away on a fight was brought up by Torger, most of the party shot the idea down seeing it as disrespectful and Lionel mentioned he viewed gambling as a waste of money and that investing into business and real estate was the best thing to do.

Lionel attempted to help during the clean-up of their campsite, but it seemed he was far too weak to aid and when asked if he could contribute in any sort of manner, he focused on something and called down a rainstorm of bleating sheep who exploded into fireworks. Torger seemed immediately sold on Lionel and the party departed.

Over the course of the two days on the road they discussed more on what to do with Lionel, Leek's belongings and where they should go next. The party agreed that the Drowned Maiden Reef was their best bet and would head west from the City of Embers after running some errands in the city. Two days later they arrived in the City of Embers with the group splitting up to cover each of their business in the city.

Torger, Vonkar and Grin set off towards the Grimsteel Armory to pickup Torger's gloves he had commissioned, Doe and Hopper made their way towards the Brightstone Institute to possibly meet with Guardian Peshan, while Antyr made their way towards the Quill & Tome with Lionel tagging along in the hopes that he could discover some of his family history along the way.

As Antyr and Lionel made their way towards their destination, they received strange looks from passersby at the sentient, walking teddy bear that kept perfect pace with Antyr.

## Featured Characters

### Player Characters

* Antyr Xiloscient
	+ Endylus
* Doe
* Grin
* Hopper Thimblefoot
* Leek
* Lionel (new)
* Torger Otrson
* Vonkar Eldsaga

### Returning

* Ciphersworn, the Page Eater
* Cornelius
* Fontaine

### Mentioned

* Auntie Gothel
* Kena Peshan
* Stelfetz Montsoza
* Vernon Montsoza