Session 5 Script

1. **Metahbound Lodge**: The party returns to the lodge after fighting the ghost of Captain Flockheart and her skeleton crew.
2. **Draconic Residents**: Upon their return they notice from a distance that the ship they fought the ghost captain on and the surrounding area near them is swarmed by curious kobolds, some seem studded with gems while others seem to wear them seem to be investigating the place where the fight occurred.
	1. **Peace**: If they get caught leaving the area or purposefully make contact with the kobolds they will take them to their leader Chieftan Vyzam in their camp to the west of the island. The leader will provide a better map of the island and offer answers.
	2. **Violence**: A group of 8 kobolds, some studded with and some wearing jewels, attack the party; these are considered the best combatants of their tribe and will not pursue the group if they manage to defeat them all. The encounter will be a mix of default and variant kobold units.
3. **The Choice**: The group will have to decide whether or not they want to stay or leave the island of Apotheosis.
	1. **Get off Apotheosis**; if the group decides to get off the island, they need to figure out a means to do so. Their options would boil down to using the kobolds boats (small but should be able to fit at least 2 people in each boat), or by climbing up the collapsed train track to follow it on foot to their objective; Nartik. If they have other ideas, use those.
	2. **Explore Apotheosis**; if the group decides to continue to explore the island they will eventually be met with Hivebot resistance and the narrative will focus more on Mikle and how his leader the Hiver reacts to the sudden liberation of Mikle's character and their errant and "dangerous" new self cognition and ability to think for himself.

### [Chapter 1 - Metahbound Lodge]

* AMB, AUD

Upon arriving into the Metahbound Lodge you can hear the rolling sounds of waves crashing into the sides of this seemingly remote island.

Entering the lodge those who can smell catch the whiff of fish, herbs, and fried potato, a hungry looking tortle man patiently waits in the corner with utensils held in each hand pointed upwards as his hands rest on the table, as he sees the group enter he lets one of the utensils go and waves at them.

* VIS, AUD

*(Shelly has a Scottish accent.)*

Shelly is a male tortle in his mid 40s, for his age he seems surprisingly young looking. He is lithe compared to other tortles you may have seen in your travels.

*"I don't think we properly introduced myself; my name is Esquire Douglas Sheldon Bennington the 5th, but please call me Shelly, after we got pulled through that red portal you all seemed to forget about me so I stayed in here and have been eating and resting off this miraculously healed broken leg with this curious sync's cooking! It has a seemingly endless knowledge of recipes at its disposal, even some dating back hundreds of years ago!"*

After his dialogue the robot steward comes inside and delivers Shelly a very fish 'n chips inspired dish with breaded fried fish and fried potato wedges with some kind of herb dip on the side, as well as some kind of tall glass drink with ice that has a yellow color on the top that shifts to a dark blue color on the bottom, garnished with slices of beautifully prepared and shaped pineapple and strawberry.

* VIS

*(Murcalumis sounds like HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey but has an occasional stutter.)*

If asked the ancient hivebot Murcalumis says *"This is known as a Vvandir Vortex, it's b-blue citrus liquor that gets floated over with an alcoholized version of root beer, very popular with Vvandir commoners back in the 1500s. It is to be mixed around like a 'v-vortex' with a finger; usually the pinky, and then imbibed. It apparently lost po-popularity once the tea and coffee trade was established around the 1600s, as the price for these luxury goods dropped enough to become available for commoners to-to-to-to enjoy."*

If requested Murcalumis will provide the players with food and drink, they can rest to recover their HP and then roll their level 3 hit dice improvements, Alex's character will stay behind to read up more information in the library giving him an excuse to stay in the lodge for the time being while he is unable to play, perhaps being sucked into some magical book or being teleported away to make him vanish outright from the lodge after some time.

Once they rest and recover they can head back through the portal and back onto the island of Apotheosis.

### [Chapter 2 - Draconic Residents]

* AUD, AMB 1, AMB 2

As the group returns from the lodge portal they can see and smell smoke rising from the ship they left, the fire that started from the stick of dynamite has seemingly consumed the entire ship during their long rest, leaving it as a charred black husk of its former self, barely anything is left standing but the wet submerged portion of the ship and a few of its support beams looking like the ribcage of an animal carcass.

Around the ship and the surrounding area you can see and hear voices speaking in draconic, if anyone can understand the language they can make a Perception check of 14 or higher to try to understand what they are saying from a distance, if successful you can overhear two kobolds talking.

1. *"It was probably just lightning, I don't understand why the Chief is so worried..."*
2. *"It wasn't lightning fool, there are tracks all over the place; and don't question the elder you nitwit."*
	1. *"Jeez, did you get sand up your ass or something? We've been here for hours and still haven't found anyone, and these tracks you seem to see look an awful lot like nothing to me."*
	2. *"Yeah well, who brings in the food, huh? Is it you, pelt cleaner? That's right, shut your snout and stay alert, the elder wants these people found, they could be of use to him."*
		1. *"Why?"*
		2. *"Why isn't our concern hatchling, but if you need a reason it's because he communed with Vylanze and saw a group transported here by 'steel and storm', so do your job and continue patrolling."*
			1. *"Hmph, fine; whatever Yok'rir, see you later."*
			2. *"Yeah yeah, get out of my sight Vin'tyr."* (as the kobold leaves he does a rude gesture to him and turns to patrol the other direction)

The group can hear kobolds patrolling all around them, they need to pass a group stealth check of 15 or else they are detected by them, if spotted they will try to capture them, if they refuse to be captured they will apply non-lethal damage with sleep darts, ropes, nets, etc., to try to capture them alive. If they fight and defeat/kill the 8 best kobold fighters in the group they will abandon their orders and flee, if the group decides to go with the kobolds to hear them out they are led towards Chieftan Vyzam to listen to what he has to say.

### [Chapter 3 - The Choice]

Depending on how the prior situation went, they are either attempting to help Chieftan Vyzam with his issue or are attempting to leave the island and head West to Nartik.