Welcome to the Jungle

We left White Moon Cove after picking up the portal stones to travel to GQE portal and then back. We popped thru the portal and started to head east until we hit the coast. Our plan was simple to not get “lost”. When we go to teh sea we follow it north and see what we find.  It took us the rest of the day to hit the ocean as we travel through the jungle.  We decided to camp for the night and Quill found us some seaweed to eat which was sweeter than it actually looked. 

It did not take long into the night for things to get interesting. Zoren was on watch and moon was blocked from our view when he woke us up. There was what at first I thought was a dragon or another obelisk, but this was more impressive. The view became clearer as looked on and saw it looked liked two ships in the sky instead of the water. One however looked more like a kracken… wait no a squid. The other had massive red sails. The ships were in battle causing fireworks in the sky as we looked on we noticed the large squidlike ship had smaller ships flying from it. 

Both ships were taking damage and one of the smaller ships was hit and was falling from the sky towards our location. This was when Quil got an excellent look at the red sailed ship and its crew…

Quill said she could see the Jackal like race of Khenra on the deck piloting the ship. This ship swooped around and fired at the crashed escape ship as it was trying to recover its own altitude. The Khenra ship was slowly assceending as it traveled south. The large squidlike ship was traveling north or northwest looking like it was going to crash but we lost sight of it. We decided to go look at teh crash site since it was close to us and we wanted to avoid any surprises…

We took to the night and traveled toward the crashed ship. We made our way quietly with Ildan and Snowball out in the lead. Peices of the ship were strewn across the jungle and trees were ripped from the ground. The sails felt like the fin of a fish not normal cloth. (We took a peice of this for Chemist to inspect and to possibly show the Khenra ambassidor and get more answers.) As we moved forward in the darkness I heard a loud snap as Snowball stepped on a branch that had fallen down. This informed the creatures we were there and they quickly revealed themselves to be Mind Flayers. 

We wasted no time as we only saw two and they looked badly hurt from the crash. One moved to cut off Ildan and Snowball as the other tried to pull more from the wreckage. They save a few more of their friends and we took down the one moving toward us. I gave Osiris’ Blessing to my friends as Quill unleashed arrows with great percision through the night. Indy was hurling javelins and making them hit the mark as well. Snowball used his speed to chase down the enemies as Ildan on the back of his steed was also in the forefront. The Mind Flayer unleased a sounwave that killed Ildan’s steed and dropped Snowball to the ground. We quickly got our friends up and made short work of the severly injured Illithids. We explore the the burning ship as we put out the fires. 

We decided it would be best to return to our original camp and then set out for home in the morning. This sky ship information as well as the location of more Mind Flayers and the spotting of Khenra outside of the Desert of Flies was too important.  We woke up and headed back to the portal but after about half a day we realized we were deeper into the jungle than we intended. 

We decided to retrace our steps and we noticed some pillars in the ground. We decided to note the location but not check them out further to reduce our risk of being further lost. We made it back close to our previous campsite and we decided to rest and try again in the morning. This is when Indy and Zoren had an interesting encounter with some friendly elementals.

They did not speak but they did give Indy a flower gift and then they left with no trace. Till would of loved to see these creatures… maybe I will go back and search them out. 

This morning was a better one and we found our surroundings more familar… excpet we sensed eyes on us the entire time. It was passive as they did not reveal themselves to us until we made it back to GQE. The eyes belonged to Snubnose Lizardmen.

They watched us as we were leaving and we decided to leave behind an offering. Some berries and food as well as a White Moon Cove armband. We didn’t have the time or want to risk a chance meeting with them but they seemed more curious than violent. After skipping through the portal we all walked to the Axe n Thistle for a few drinks and to share the new part of the map.