There she was, a pale ghost standing on a spectral dock on the river bank in the fading light. She gestured vaguely to your party and began to drift slowly up the embankment to a shimmering house just beyond. Agnes, Keljor and Fern followed the ghost to the house. The house was old, decrepit and covered in inches of dust all except for a single pan-flute on the mantle. It shown with a chrome-like shine in the dingy darkness. Keljor immediately was overcome with the desire to hold it. But the very moment that he touched it he began to play a haunting melody that brought numerous ghostly forms out of the fog to attack the party.
Over the next couple minutes Keljor played the pan-flute (rather poorly) while spirits gathered and attacked the party. Keljor was illusive and difficult to attack or grab as he evaded his companions. Finally Loris was able to snatch the flute away so that Fern could shatter it. Once shattered the assault stopped immediately and nearly all of the spirits left for the afterlife, 13 however stayed out of a sense of thanks and duty. Fern now has an axe that houses 13 friendly spirits. Meanwhile Tubbs had broken off a piece of the ghost dock… and sadly discovered that while partially material, the dock faded away to nothing as soon as the power of the haunt was broken.
The next day while floating upriver the group noticed two pairs of eyes watching them from the water. They tried to feed them fish as a distraction… which seemed to work as first but then a massive slimey, rubbery hand gripped the edge of the boat. In the ensuing fight the party killed one enormous frog AND an even bigger frog-like monster. As soon as she was able Agnes set up smoking and drying racks and created 50 pounds of frog-jerky as the group made camp for the night.
Approaching mid-day the next day the party finally arrived at the first of the two cities that they expected to visit on this jungle trip, Timna! They were invited inside the city walls under the guise that Loris was “Jeanina Jettwater of the Jettwaters of Jett” who was visiting on a jungle pleasure-cruise with an entourage of guards and her cook. After looking around the city and realizing it was more of a military camp than a true town. The party shopped and then settled down to sleep in a cozy wall-tent leaving Keljor and Prescott to watch for danger. A few hours into his watch, Keljor saw an odd light from across the grounds of the base, and the locals were rushing to the spectacle, just as Keljor’s attention was drawn by the light and chaos, he heard a very close-by struggle that ended abruptly. Prescott had been strangled with a wire and gutted with a brutal stroke of a knife! Keljor began to wake his companions as quickly as he could. Just then a pair of arrows impacted Keljor and Tubbs with bursts of frost from each. Hilo had finally struck! In a brief and brutal exchange your group was able to bring down the assassin!
Hilo had many interesting and powerful items including a “Bow of penetrating frost” and a full pouch of gold, but unfortunately Prescott seemed to be dead for good. Loris and Agnes began to tend to their dead-dead guide when his eyes snapped open. Prescott, reeling in pain, both physical and emotional, began to rapidly share what he could no remember about himself, his wife and two deals with a pair of devils that he had made. He had made a deal with a Devil to “save his wife”, but the cost was his eternal soul at the time of his death. The second deal he had made seemed to anchor his soul to this body for as long as the body remained intact. So long as he had a body he would not have to face his doomed fate in the afterlife… part of this deal was likely the reason that he could remember so little about his own past. For now he served “Doomokos” a devil that awaited the party’s arrival at the pyramid a few days away. As the group pressed for information while his mind was clear… within a minute or two his clarity began to fade and he was again unable to recall much about himself or the details of his past deals.
As soon as the conversation died down the party quietly dumped Hilo’s body in the river while the citizens of Timna dealt with the fire that Hilo had undoubtedly set as a distraction…
Settling back into your blankets for the night what questions fill your mind? With Hilo dead how might Ambrose react? What kind of “deal with a devil” might await your party when you finally reach your destination?
Beware the Murder