Session #13 - End of the Line for Persnifitus Kline
In our last session, the party emerges from a scrappy brawl with a pack of vicious viper wolves. Very few of you emerge from this battle without some amount of snake venom coursing through your veins – though several of you certainly endeavored to take the lion’s share.
With Willow & Vine ensuring the wagon’s safety, your party presses on and decides they aren’t going to let this jungle trickster have their way with you. When you hear him approaching, everyone jumps for cover in the surrounding trees and bushes – everyone except Yuka, that is. Yuka is approached by this tenacious halfling who has a bow drawn and an arrow pointed at his face. This man heard the word ‘everyone’ and wanted to know where they were, and Yuka was happy to oblige by immediately giving up Sally and Sulu’s position nearby. Another of Yuka’s phrases gives the halfling pause – ‘Woodland Corps’ – which inspires a thousand-yard stare and an immediate heel turn from the Halfling and his lizard mount.
The team springs into action as Maria bursts from the bushes and latches onto the lizard’s tail. Sulu and Sally leap across the scuffle and cut off Pernsifitus’ escape – but not before Podrick is snatched up and swallowed by the Chameleodo’s long and sticky tongue. Po delivers a righteous kick to the beast’s stomach and frees our beloved, goblin rogue from the sinister clutches of digestion. With the lizard distracted, Veera takes the opportunity to wrap her infernal chain around the would-be escapee and gives him alternating doses of fire and lightning.
The party is ready to strike a deal, so long as Mr. Kline escorts the party the rest of the way to Cretia; they promise no further pain will be brought to him. That is until Yuka and Kiwi spot the halfling’s campsite and decide it’s best to give it a once over to be safe. There they find a contraband most foul, the skinned hides of the gentle and revered Mouts – a crime nearly unthinkable to the people of the Doanian Province. This discovery sizzles away what remaining pity the party has for this dastardly poacher and he is given shackles as a reward for his deeds.
As night falls, you reach the towering, outer gates of Cretia – and are immediately greeted by Cyprus, one of Kiwi’s surrogate father figures. This tall, wiry tabaxi shuffles you through town and takes you to the Order of the Claw’s headquarters nestled inside a clump of orchards and fruit farms. Here, an old and round tabaxi named Apollo tells you of Cretia’s woes – how Mouts are dying at an unprecedented rate and how the circumstances are entirely mysterious. With some of the farms already beginning to fail, Apollo has called on your team to help find who or what is lurking in Cretia and save their jungle settlement from collapse.