On to Uthenegar

## Roads, Rifts and the Deep Jungle

The party was content and pleased with their victory, but they were still in the deep jungle, miles away from their destination, Uthenegar. Now that their task from Mawngoon was fulfilled, they were free to head to the great city, receive their reward from the Ronove of Am'Gaht, study at the Great Halls of Learning in the large city, and find a way back to Eirethune. Yet, they still had to get there. The party considered three options of travel. They knew the pyramid roads were probably the safest, but traveling along them was also the slowest way of getting to the city. Instead, the party sought a more direct path. These deep jungles were not familiar terrain to Freya or Aterian, but their skill in the wilderness would not be completely lost in these environs either. The party decided to head south through the jungle, and perhaps to travel along the barren lands that shouldered the Great Rift which led directly to the city.

The first day, the travel was relatively easy. The Temple of An'Zhu had caused much of the wildlife in that part of the jungles to seek other places to dwell or hunt. There were smaller, more numerous creatures that were retaking the jungle in those environs, but the large beasts were not immediately sighted. Even during the first night, there was a moment when it was perceived that at least one *King of Teeth* was hunting nearby, having defeated something south of the encampment. And although some *Giant Boar* had followed up to investigate what was left after the attack, nothing disturbed the party's slumber, and the party was able to enjoy some of Freya's smoked boar the following day. The second day was again strangely peaceful. Perhaps the jungle was proving more easy to travel through after all. That night, however, started to allow more of the jungle hunters to emerge.

Early in the evening, a pair of feline beasts with tentacles made their way around the encampment. Known as *SInda,* or *Heart Eaters*, these furtive and acrobatic creatures could be a great danger to an individual caught in the wilderness. However, these beasts were wise enough not to attack an encampment of several formidable beings. A few hours after that, some other large lizards, even larger than the *King of Teeth*, were perceived nearby, yet they too, did not approach the camp. Yet only a few hours after those creatures had moved on, something did approach the patrol of the camp. Hormish and Zak were on watch, and they definitely were hearing something moving up in the trees, approaching their position. Zak quickly ran into the encampment to wake the others, but soon after the *Nadhui* made itself known by sending out a blast of cold and necrosis against Hormish. The party had faced these beings before, but it wasn't certain how many they were now facing.

Hormish had remained up in the trees during his patrol, and now was moving through the trees to gain some chance of attacking the floating, tree creature. The cold beam of death that the Nadhui shot out was able to successfully target Hormish as he approached, but the resilience of the fighter would not be denied. Freya now circled around as fast as she could, and Zak used his ability to skip distances in the shadows to encircle the Nadhui. The rest were unable to truly target the creature, but all approached in hopes of at least assisting their allies who were able to engage it.

Again and again, the cold, deadly beams shot out from the Nadhui; damaging several of the group with the dark malice it possessed. Yet the party was formidable, and unwilling to fold when faced with this challenge. The three closest kept on the Nadhui, cutting and slashing destructive wounds, until Freya finally threw *Fast* and *Furious,* ending the horrific, jungle threat.

There was some consideration as to how to use the residue of the Nadhui. The properties of the creature would make excellent potions to ward off both cold and necrosis, but Zack was running low on arrows that had been made from the Nadhui. Although Zak was deadly when close, the added effects that the essence of the Nadhui possessed would grant arrows made from it tremendous power.

The night finally ended and the journey through the jungle continued. The following day resumed by the party finding more and more creatures returning to the jungle. Fortunately, nothing horrific was confronting them, rather the standard creatures of the deep wood.

At one point, however, Zak spotted what appeared to be some large cocoons hanging in the tree. Zak quickly notified the others and Aterian came closer to the cocoons to determine what sort of creature may have made them. Closer observation indicated that there might be something inside the cocoons...perhaps some medium-sized beasts or waylaid travelers who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the clutches of whatever made these food storage containers.

Just as the party was going to try and investigate the cocoons further to see if they could be of help, they realized that they didn't quite perceive the situation correctly. The creatures themselves were the cocoons. The creatures, who resembled cocoons, could fly and move and apparently dig underground. There were several of these **Girqua** in the vicinity, and they now revealed themselves as aggressors and began to surround the party. For the most part, surprise was on the side of Girqua, but they would be no match for the expertise of the party members. The Girqua did have tendrils that could reach out and restrain members of the party, as well as the ability to move both through the air and underground which made them more formidable than what would be considered for a simple cocoon-creature. The Girqua attempted to burrow and attack from all sides, but little by little the party members broke free of their restraints and hunted them down. The jungle was full of mysterious and strange beasts.

## A Close Look at the Great Rift

The party continued their march through the jungle, and although the population of the creatures had increased significantly since the suppression of *She Unspoken*, few of the creatures approached the party with any ill intent. The party continued forward towards a point where the jungle was near the Great Rift, and as they closed the distance, they began to observe some new strangeness in the jungle. At various moments, the party observed areas where the ground was scorched. The size and apparent local damage of the heat source was not large, like a fireball, but more subtle and intense, as if the soil and ground foliage were met with a intense heat, though not long enough to burn down the generally moist jungle flora. The occurrences of this scorched earth was not particularly frequent, but it was something noticeable and not previously seen before in the jungle.

Finally, the party saw that the jungle began the clear, showing a lightly tinted red light emanating from beyond. Reaching the edge of the jungle, the party obtained their first glimpse of the Great Rift -- steaming, foggy with dark red shades of smoke and ember permeating the warm mist. The far edge of the Great Rift was miles away, but the party took out their spyglass to see that the far side did actually exist beyond the increasingly opaque fog that loomed over the dark lava flows that composed the massive Great Rift.

Overall, and universally, the members of the party felt a sense of foreboding coming from the Great Rift. Even with the heat from the lava far below, there was a chill in the rising mist that seemed otherworldly. There were also more of the scorched marks to be found leading from the rift rim to the jungle at irregular intervals. Whatever creatures were or could come from the Great Rift were not something the party felt like they wished to encounter at this time. Their goal was still to reach Uthenegar, still days to the south, so the party elected to camp just inside the jungle edge rather than become a clear target for whatever could come from the rift.

Travel along the Rift initially proved to be uneventful. The sounds of the jungle were relegated to areas deep to their west, while the Rift provided a barrier to the east. No creature, and not even the foliage, was willing to get too close to the Rift. Although the sulfurous odor and opaque grey, red and black clouds were ominous, the party had not initially run into anything too dangerous. Something, however, was apparently keeping the denizens of the jungle away.

When the party had reached a point only a few days journey from their destination, Uthenegar, they observed some concentrations of deep red clouds forming in the Rift, close to the cliffs that rose up to their side. It was difficult to see what was causing those clouds, but soon the source would become known to the party.

Walking, although truly floating just above the ground, came strange skeletal humanoids, exuding fire from within, mimicking perhaps some of the features of the Rift itself. These creatures were known as the ***Shaigoz***. The Shaigoz had arrived at night while the party sheltered inside the stone structure which Kazin created. At first, the Shaigoz traveled directly to the west, heading into the jungle, but there was one which stood by themselves...somewhat distracted by something in its realm of perception. Although the party attempted to remain quiet and motionless, this last straggler of the Shaigoz group sensed something...slowly approaching the stone bunker in which the party was gathered. A few moments later, and this last Shaigoz finally noticed the watch and called forth to the others to attack.

The party engaged the Shaigoz quickly and learned that they were capable of terrific damage, utilizing both fire and necrotic energies to attempt to slay their foes. They also exhibited the ability to create a bolt of fire and death, shooting out from their eye sockets towards any foe they deemed deserving. However, the party was able to answer with their own tremendous damage, ending the threat of this group of Shaigoz in relatively short measure. But now, the party was aware of what foes could come from the Rift, and they would have to keep a keen eye to make sure these denizens would not get the upper hand on them.

## The Foul of the Rift

After the first encounter with the Shaigoz, the party increased their desire to observe the rift, but also attempted to increase their speed. The faster the party could get to Uthenegar, the quicker they would no longer have to worry about engagement with additional Shaigoz, or whatever else exists among the fire and gloom of the Rift.

With only two days to go, the party was marching south along the jungle tree line near the Rift, when they observed something strange akin to last time. Again, a dark red concentration of clouds was permeating an area of the cloud cover that perpetually sat above the Rift. But in this one instance, there was a highly concentrated plume of black and red accompanying the area. Cooper was attempting to seek out what could be causing it, but the opaque clouds made it difficult for the pigeon to see.

The party prepared themselves for combat rather than attempting to evade whatever came forth, and soon, the Shaigoz rose in their strange floating, walking style from the edge of the Rift. Immediately, the party acted to lock down as many as they could. Several were caught just at the Rift's edge, while others approached and used their Deadly Stare to blast into the party. The party also became aware that several of the Shaigoz were emerging from the southern jungle as well. The party was taking heavy damage, but they were able to respond by eliminating as many Shaigoz as possible. The battle continued, and the party seemed to be winning, but then a new being rose from the Rift, accompanying the last few of the Shaigoz in the group.

This new being, **The Foul**, was similar to the Shaigoz in appearance, except more gruesome and filled with terror. The Foul had several weapons at its disposal, each of which were terrifying by themselves. The *Gaze of Emptiness* was a terrible soul-invading stare which caused Force and Necrotic damage, and immediately made its victim fall unconscious. *The World is Ending* was the way for The Foul to gather strength absorbing the dead Shaigoz to heal themselves and to exude a blast of radiance and fire all around The Foul. Even as The Foul moved close to creatures, its *Stride of Undoing* caused the world to break around it, blasting all nearby with force damage. The Foul also could impose *Visions of Our Future* on groups of foes, embedding horrible visages of a potential new world in their minds, causing paralysis and force damage both. Lastly, the Foul was able to return damage that it had recently taken to subsequent attackers if the damage was in any way magical. A terrible foe, which nearly broke the party, but in the end, they were able to prevail.

Now while the Shaigoz released material that could be used for alchemy upon their death, The Foul released something else. The Foul somehow exuded a strange blue and black sphere into the ground as a single byproduct of its demise. When this sphere hit the ground, the ground around it began to swirl about it, in a very slow procession. Brocktharian took off his helmet, filled it with some soil and dug the strange sphere out of the ground with the helmet. Something had to be special about this bizarre object.

The party began to gather alchemical components from the Shaigoz, but they soon noticed the appearance of two more concentrated plumes of darkness and fire in the opaque cloud cover of the Rift. The party hastened their preservation of the Shaigoz corpses before the arrival of whatever terror they were to face, but it became obvious that two of the Foul were now rising from the depths to engage them.

The Foul were horrible on their own, but now it was time for the Foul to reveal one more bleak ability. The two Foul faced each other and began to break the world between them in some sort of static undoing between them. This *Dark Tearing* seemed to transform the world around it into black tendrils which shot out for 20' in all directions, causing necrotic, radiant, psychic and force damage while potentially restraining any foe that it could reach. The *Dark Tearing* also seemed to expand on its own, breaking the world over time as part of the Fouls' bidding.

The party and the Foul fought ferociously. Party members fell, but were healed to return to combat. The *Dark Tearing* continued to expand and horrible visions and powers were directed again and again at the party members. Finally, the tide of the battle started to sway in the party's favor when one of the Foul came out to directly engage the party. As fast as the party could, they surrounded the horror and threw everything they could at it. Although the battle was fierce, the Foul finally fell. Once that one had gone, the Foul floating out beyond the *Dark Tearing* received concentrated attacks from every party member, until at last, Wubba was able to cast the final strike to end its presence as it fell into the fires of the Rift. The Foul that had directly engaged was also reduced to a *Foul Essence* and Hormish captured the object in his helmet as Brocktharian had done previously.

## Links

Previous, The Temple of An'Zhu

Next, The City of Uthenegar