The party pulls their canoes up to Port Nyanzaru, and after a month's worth of toting strange shit all over the land, they're ready to cash in their goods. Their being team of non-Chultans carrying black dragon body parts catches the attention of the civilians on the dock, but the PC's ain't about to give shits about them they're probably like level 1/2 maximum anyways.
They find their boat, and Jabori the deckhand is on board cleaning barnacles off the hull. He freaks out when he sees his boss.
"Greetings, Jabori!" Zanzibar waves.
Jabori cleans a space for the party to relax, and 🌱 goes into the lower decks to check on his Soren juice. Yep! It's been brewing well enough to give the PC's 4 doses of wild magic Soren. Yaaaay drugs yaaaay!
Jabori then leaves to go find the other workers. Meanwhile, Dur-Dur-Dur goes below deck with 🌱 and sees a strange scribbling, "This is a pretty nice boat! What's this say right here? It says 'Mc... McSneakle was... here.'" Dur-Dur-Dur then crosses out 'McSneakle' and puts his own name in its place. Nobody stops him.
It's as if Dur-Dur-Dur had been replacing McSneakle all along...
Jabori returns with Asafa, who was at the Thundering Lizard Inn. They both immediately set up the ship so that the PC's can store their shit on it. The PC's unload their large goods, mostly the black dragon head, and they decide to stick together this time since the last time they were in Port Nyanzaru, McSneakle never returned when he wandered off, and Tyr-only-knows what would happen if every party member got lost and replaced by a Dur-Dur-Dur!
They set away from the boat and head towards the Temple of Gond to pick up 🌱's white dragon wyrmling studded leather, because if there's one thing that kinky boy wants more of, it's leather gear (the thorn whip is where it gets really weird).
They find Torvil, and the albino dwarf graciously hands 🌱 his armor. "This is great!" 🌱 says, admiring his new clothes. "But what if we... had, like... wings and head from a black dragon?"
Torvil raises an eyebrow. "How big of a dragon?"
"It's head was the size of a lawnmower," 🌱 says.
Torvil, as anyone can understand, has no clue what in the world a lawnmover is because this is D&D fantasy world where dwarves live in rocky mountains, meaning Torvil has never even heard of a "lawn" before.
"Eh, a small cart?" 🌱clarifies.
"I can do that," Torvil says, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
Dur-Dur-Dur then asks if Torvil can use the dragon parts and the adamantium ingots to forge for him a powerful greataxe weapon. Torvil freaks out at the chance, though he doesn't tell the PC's why because the Dungeon Master was frantically searching for the information regarding the forging of this weapon by digging up old wikis about the Drizzt series regarding the part where Bruenor Battlehammer crafts Aegis-Fang, and how Bruenor mentioned something about how all dwarf craftsmen, at one point, create a magnum-opus weapon/armor that is so meticulously and lovingly done that all other crafts made by them henceforth fill the craftsman with dread since no other crafts can live up to the quality of the magnum-opus
But the DM can't find any of that to quote so fuggit, Torvil says he'll do it for 100 gp with the adamantium and black dragon material components because he just kind of wants to.
Zanzibar asks the dwarf during his intense thinking about Hrakhammar, where the adamantium ingots were forged, and the dwarf goes into a long tale about how blah-blah-blah dwarves used to forge adamantium there and blah-blah-blah there was a volcanic eruption that blah-blah-blah and if it were found again blah-blah-blah just scribble it into your sidequest journal and hope you find it later.
Oh, and Dur-Dur-Dur's weapon will be done in two weeks.
The PC's barter with Torvils' apprentices to make their black dragon wings into capes at a cost of 50 gp each. The capes will be finished in two days. Zanzibar offers tyrannosaurus teeth to be made into daggers for the party.
At this point, the PC's talk to Torvil about using their Soren juice to enchant the tyrannosaurus daggers, but Torvil don't know nothin' about no magic enchantment, so he says a specialist will need to come in at a cost of 250 per dagger, but the party nopes the hell out of that.
So then the PC's unload a lot of their spare parts at the Temple of Gond. They sell Minion's mithral breastplate for 1,000 gp, the six onyx gems for 600 gp total, and the bag of gemstones from the black dragon's hoard for 1,100 gp. Splitting it four ways, the party members get 675 gold pieces each. Valour uses the new cash to get a +1 shield made from an ankylosaurus back.
With pockets full of jingle-jangle, Zanzibar sets off to see the magic items available at the great market. While there, he gets a potion of jump for Vaour and Dur-Dur-Dur, and Dur-Dur-Dur picks up a regular greataxe to use while he waits on his awesome one to get finished.
The party then huddles together and discusses some matters away from the Dungeon Master regarding their next point of contact: the merchant prince Wakanga... FINE!
They cast invisibility on Stevorn so that he's a bit more covert when walking around town, but Dur-Dur-Dur is a master of always bumping into invisible stuff after the fight with Nanny Pu'Pu, so he keeps bumping into Stevorn.
They arrive at Prince Wakanga's, and the guards step aside after seeing who they are. Valour and Zanzibar enter Wakanga's meeting room while Dur-Dur-Dur and 🌱 play in the garden. While playing in the garden, Dur-Dur-Dur becomes infatuated with couches, having never seen one before, and he demands to have one just like Wakanga's.
Back at Wakanga's meeting room:
"I recognize that necklace," Wakanga says, pointing to Zanzibar's amulet.
"Ah yes, it matches the image from a journal that a certain someone gave me," Zanzibar says.
Dur-Dur-Dur ruins this dumb little playful back-and-forth banter of I-got-something-you want by barging in and declaring "Hello sir! I am Dur-Dur-Dur! I am the adventurer of legend!" he shouts, then upon seeing another fancy couch, he sits on it.
Zanzibar lures invisible Stevorn into the room, then with a great flourishing display, he drops concentration on the spell as the shield guardian appears. Tada! Wakanga is quite impressed.
They trade the shield guardian amulet for the spellbook, and Zanzibar starts rifling through the book for all kinds of voodoo nonsense. He'll have access to scrying, dominate person, wall of fire, and all kinds of cool shit once he's ready!
So then the PC's try to rent out Stevorn, because nothing helps seal a deal better than "Can we have that back pleeease?" Wakanga refutes their offer by saying he wants the shield guardian due to the protection it offers. Valour counter-offers, stating that if Wakanga wants to rid the jungle of evil, then loaning the shield guardian out to the PC's can help.
"You have money. You can hire bodyguards. You are well-liked," Valour says, then rolls 27 on a persuasion check."
"Give me a day to think about this," Wakanga says. "I will have an answer in the morning. Oh, have you had any luck on the Ring of Winter?"
The party tells them about the icy vortex in the middle of the sweltering jungle.
Wakanga nods, then tells them that he has received word of other parties in search of the Ring of Winter. "Tell me... what do you know about the frost giants of Icewind Dale?"
The party then learns about how a frost giant boat has been sighted on the eastern coast, and Wakanga can only assume the giants' reasoning for coming to Chult is to seek the Ring of Winter. Should the frost giants obtain it, they will have the power to spread their icy domain over many regions.
Well shit! Just how problematic is Chult to the survival of the world?
At this point, the party can't keep track of all the world-ending nonsense going on right now so they just ask Wakanga if he has a teleportation circle. He says he doesn't, but Grandfather Zitembe at the Temple of Savras may know more about it. Also, he suggests the PC's should consider taking a bath at the public bath house since they STINK!
Dur-Dur-Dur left this conversation about halfway through to go build a couch fort with 🌱 in the lobby, so as Valour and Zanzibar leave, they pick their buddies up. But Dur-Dur-Dur is intent on wandering away from the party to go speak with one of the guards.
Oh no...
"Hey so I heard that Prince Latasha is the merchant prince of soft fabric do you know where I can buy a couch from her?" Dur-Dur-Dur asks the guard.
The guard is not amused.
"Excuse me sir, but you seem stressed. You can lay on this couch in here!" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
The guard shoes him away, mentioning how he hoped transferring to work for a different merchant prince would mean less people bothering him.
The PC's set off to the bathhouse... except Dur-Dur-Dur, who goes to get drunk. It's not raining, so he ain't bathing! The remaining party arrives at the Nyanzaru Bath house, which is publicly funded and managed by the Temple of Sune, goddess of love and beauty.
They step inside and the place is swank-ified with arble columns, tiled floors, soothing music, pretty people, and a big ol' clam shell full of loose change offerings. Valour and the crew see that the giant shell contains mostly copper and silver, so they jingle some gold into it and disrobe in their dressing rooms. An attendant brings them into the bathing room, and the steam-filled location is full of patrons from all walks of life ebbing out their weary days.
The PC's get massages, and they notice that some NPC's are gossiping about them... taking note that the party is a team of adventurers. Zanzibar then notices the third member of his ship's crew, Badru, flirting with a woman in a private steam room nook. He casts message at him, "Shouldn't you be working right now!"
Badru panics and flees.
Back at the Thundering Lizard Inn, Dur-Dur-Dur bids hello to Charlene(?) the bartender and slams a bag of 500 gold onto the counter. "Guess who is heeere! Hey Charlene, here is some gold from my adventure! I took a nice bath at Prince Wachubi's house so I'm feeling great! He has a nice couch! My friends are probably going to need a place to stay. Will this cover it? Also, can I get one of my special drinks?"
"You mean the Dur-Dur-Explosion?" Charlene asks.
"Thaaat's the one!"
Charlene pours hard grain alcohol into a glass, puts a fuse in it, lights it, and gives it to him. "Hurry!" she says.
Dur-Dur-Dur downs it, belches, and fire bellows out. "That's why it's called a Dur-Dursaur!" he shouts for some reason.
Dur-Dur-Dur mingles around the bar and finds out that Nasty Boy isn't the lead dinosaur anymore in the dinosaur races. Big Honker is the leader now, and he's a hardcore tyrannosaurus rex.
"Did you know those EAT people!?" Dur-Dur-Dur says.
The other PC's arrive, clean as a whistle! 🌱 orders a shot of liquor, uses druidcraft to set it on fire, downs it, then spits the fire onto Dur-Dur-Dur, who is totally fine with it. At the inn, 🌱 then looks through a series of posters for Chult guides, settling on a rather sufficient guide named Azaka since she is willing to work for free if the people who hire her are going to Firefinger.
They go down to her house in the Tiryki Anchorage, which is like the trailer park of Port Nyanzaru full of dinosaur pens and low-income housing. They find her house, which is a ramshackle cabin with "DO NOT DISTURB UNLESS BUSINESS INQUIRIES" pasted on the door, so 🌱 sets about his business and uses druidcraft to make a knock noise on the door.
The door flies open, revealing a fur-clad, unkempt Chultan woman who is just one episode of Tiger King away from hiring someone to kill Carole Baskin. The PC's tell Azaka that they want to go to the Firefinger, and she's ALL about that!
Azaka welcomes them into her creepy house, which is covered with animal skins, bones, and poorly-taxidermied critters. She offers them food, which is a series of dinosaur steaks roasting over a fireplace on skewers.
Not a single fruit or vegetable exists in this place.
🌱 shows off his wooden ant mask from the Yellyark tribe.
"Who did you kill for it?" Azaka says, smiling.
"Some goblins who were really dangerous!" 🌱says. "And they hurt a tree by putting a house on it! It made me so mad... so mad that... that..." 🌱 transforms into a panther from being so mad.
Azaka says, "There is a special place in my heart for fanged felines."
Everyone sits around her living room to eat the extremely rare meat.
"Do you have something I can sit on because I am in a mood of couches lately," Dur-Dur-Dur says.
Azaka gestures to her "bone couch," which Dur-Dur-Dur LOVES.
After much discourse, the PC's then return to their rooms at the inn and sleep for the night. Zanzibar stays up copying spells from his new spellbook into his current one. Valour stays on his ship, preparing a memorial for his fallen comrades.
The next day, there's a huge downpour, so the PC's start running everywhere. Zanzibar finds the owner of Big Honker, a Chultan named Zulo, and he manages to barter 150 gp with him to let Dur-Dur-Dur ride Big Honker in the dinosaur race the next day... because it's (not) Dur-Dur-Dur's birthday!
The party goes to speak with Prince Wakanga about renting out Stevorn, and Wakanga offers his deal: he keeps the amulet, but gives Stevorn the command to obey Zanzibar. The PC's pay 10 gp a day to rent it, but their ship is up for collateral if the shield guardian doesn't return with them.
The PC's decide not to take the deal... but maybe they'll take it later.
It's a mystery!
They then go see Grandfather Zitembe at the Temple of Savras. He is grateful to see them, and asks what they saw in the jungle.
Three hours of explanations later, the PC's then ask if Grandfather Zitembe has a circle of teleportation. Zitembe says that he has always dreamed of linking Chult up with circles of teleportation, and if the PC's have discovered one, he'll gladly let them use his secret one.
The PC's follow him to his room, and they trade knowledge on the circles. They give him the letter they found in the library of Mauratal, and Zitembe freaks out when he realizes that they found a teleportation circle to Mauratal, stating that the old ruins have been lost for ages and the only way to pierce the veil of the hidden ruins is with the magic of coatls.
Coatls, you say?
The party explains that a ziggurat in Mauratal had a magical field surrounding it, and they needed a magic key to bypass it. Zitembe says he will research it to the best of his abilities, especially if it means opening up an archaeological survey into Mauratal.
The PC's have a "hold up" moment with the old man and ensure him that Mauratal is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY DANGEROUS DO NOT GO THERE!
The party leaves, and after a few hours of tending to business in Port Nyanzaru, their reputation catches up to them. A young woman, Xandala, approaches them, asking if they are the adventurers who came back from the jungle with a dead black dragon.
"I'm looking for my father," the woman says. "He is lost in the jungle of Chult."
Dur-Dur-Dur cries, "I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!"
The PC's realize that she has a speckling of scales on her face, and Zanzibar immediately recognizes her as a sorceress with dragon heritage... also, she has a pet pseudodragon named Summerwise who hangs out with her, so the hints of her being magical are kind of, you know, blatant.
Zanzibar is not keen on another spellcaster in the party, especially a sorceress! She didn't even have to study for her magic!
"But look at her, she's Khaleesi!" Valour says.
🌱 starts fucking with Zanzibar with druidcraft, so Zanzibar misty steps away. Xandala misty steps to him, cheerily proclaiming "Hey, I can do that too!"
"Oh yeah, where's your spellbook?" Zanzibar says.
"I don't have one. I just do it, see?" Xandala smiles, then casts mage hand and makes it wiggle everywhere.
"It sure is nice to have another mage around," 🌱 says. "I miss Soren."
Zanzibar gets mad.
The day passes and the party crashes for the night, but not before 🌱 goes and grabs his Gulthias seed and terracotta pot, planting it in front of the Thundering Lizard Inn and casting 8 hours of plant growth on it.
The next day arrives, and it's just a little rainy in Port Nyanzaru. The PC's go pick up their black dragon cloaks, which grants them acid resistance and gives advantage against dragon's frightful presence.
Xandala is super peppy at the adventurers who now look freakin' badass in their cloaks.
"We've lost friends in the jungle, so get ready, " Valour warns her.
"Well, my dad is lost out there, and I need to find him," Xandala responds.
Dur-Dur-Dur cries again.
The PC's venture down to the dinosaur pens for the race, and Dur-Dur-Dur meets Big Honker. The PC's debate gambling for a really long time, since gambling in Chult is kind of backwards. Valour and Zanzibar put 300 gp down on Big Honker, then they proceed to cheat like hell by casting spider climb, sanctuary, and longstrider on Big Honker.
Dur-Dur-Dur uses beast sense to speak with Big Honker... and he's weeeeeird.
"WHO'SH ON MY HEAD!?" Big Honker shouts, spit flying everywhere.
Dur-Dur-Dur tries to have a conversation with the juvenile t-rex, but all the creature wants to do is GO REALLY REALLY FAST!
The race begins, and Big Honker stays in second or third place most of the time.
"WE'RE GOING FASHT!" Big Honker shouts.
"Let's go faster!" Dur-Dur-Dur says, not wanting to lose on his jacked up crack-saurus.
"HIT ME!" Big Honker says.
Dur-Dur-Dur whips Big Honker, but he fails the check and goes nowhere. He hits the t-rex a little too hard, but after the other dinosaurs slowly start getting gassed as well, Dur-Dur-Dur just beats the shit out of Big Honker until he crosses the finish line, winning the race!
Everyone parties like hell for the rest of the day, and they crash at the Thundering Lizard Inn.
The next day, Dur-Dur-Dur wakes up and finds a strange coin slid under his door. It's from the Ytepka Society, a secret order within Port Nyanzaru that ensures people don't do anything that defies the sanctity of Chultan culture. They use their coins to warn people when they have committed a grievous error.
... Oops!
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