This Chult's Got a Death Curse!

The group investigated a tomb full of cauldrons, bowing before various objects. The group cleared treasure off the sarcophagus, causing skeletons to emerge. Quickly took a milky white liquid container as well as an Amulet of Health.

Vogun and Philomena both resisted the spirit of Papazotl. Vogon explored and found a dao, who Pizza quickly released to her freedom. Bart cleared the zombies and skeletons and everyone left, listening as the cauldrons inside continued belching up zombies.

The group investigated the room that smells of wine, cleverly shielding the sarcophagus from the light via a tent. Inside there was nothing but a plaque. The group asked Syndra to consult her notes, realized that there was a missed secret door near the dao, as well as a secret behind a gargoyle face in the wine room, considered options on how to safely navigate the obstacles. The group traveled back up to the first floor and explored the hidden staircase, which led to a factory of sorts that creates Tomb Guardians.

The group killed the Tomb Dwarves there and found Seward’s ghost lantern. The group found a masked custodian named Withers who runs the tomb and its traps, who was interested in the world above. He threatened the party and created a wall of heat energy in order to escape. The group used his office as a place to rest, peering into the ethereal plane for a moment to see 2 Night Hags cackling before taking a well-needed rest.

The group constructed an inverse baby monitor of a tasty-sounding baby. The group explored the top floor of the tomb, discovered a room with a skull, a room with masked wights, and a room with 3 coffins. In the northwest area, discovered a statue that attracted anything metal, Vogun stripped down to his undies and searched until he found 2 secret doors.

One secret door led to the room with the wights, and the group correctly deduced they needed to don the masks to avoid a trap. The group opened Obo’laka’s sarcophagus and grabbed the ring of protection inside, causing Pizza to be inhabited by the spirit of the zorbo. The group heard a tomb guardian coming up a secret staircase, ran for Wongo’s tomb.

The group used Caesar tied to a railing to deactivate the spinning death trap in the hall then headed inside. Vogon, Bart, and Jewel climbed inside the coffins and locked them, unlocking Wongo’s tomb and narrowly avoiding certain death. Philomena fought Wongo and took his mace but resisted being inhabited. The group headed into Moa’s tomb and lied to Princess Nepartak about her situation. The group opened the sarcophagus and Jewel took her staff, inhabited by spirit.

Inside was a Triangle skeleton key, which the group took and headed down. The group avoided a confusing alternate tomb copy and surveyed a wine-scented tomb. Forced some skeletons backwards with light which opened a heavy door.

The session opened with the party facing the Red Wizards outside the Tomb of the Nine Gods, the long race through Chult finally narrowing into a fight at the threshold itself. The battle turned dangerous almost immediately when one of the wizards filled the area with cloudkill, driving Pizza, Philomena, and Bart out of their alcove and forcing the group to scatter. Pizza seized Bart and Dimension Doored away to keep them alive, while the rest of the field dissolved into spellfire, counterspells, and a desperate struggle to keep control of the puzzle cubes that would decide who reached the tomb first.

The Red Wizards pressed hard. Fred attempted to turn the tide with a fireball, but Pizza counterspelled him and answered with a fatal blast of his own. Vogon was paralyzed by Thazma when he attacked, leaving him helpless at the worst possible moment while Valindra moved to seize the cubes, but Philomena broke the enchantment before the theft could be completed. Then the battle shifted in spectacular fashion when Bart used the Talisman of Pure Good to tear open a fissure beneath Needle’s Bones, swallowing the undead dragon whole and sending Vaylek flying. The move not only removed one of the greatest threats on the field, but also spared Vogon from what would likely have been a fatal bite.

From there the fight began to collapse in the party’s favor. Vogon and Philomena killed Valindra, and when Vaylek tried to raise her from the dead Pizza cut the attempt short with magic missiles. Jewel, recovering from being downed earlier in the battle, struck back as well, killing Arkanis with a fire bolt while he was trapped inside Pizza’s water elemental. As the last of the Red Wizards fell, Pizza’s fireball burned away a patch of brush and revealed the true hidden entrance to the tomb. The party stripped what useful gear they could from the battlefield, studied the obelisk for its hints, and turned at last from battle to the lock they had come to open.

With Syndra’s guidance and the group’s accumulated notes, they worked out the proper placement of the nine cubes and opened the tomb’s first defenses. Even then, the tomb did not yield gracefully. The party entered its first deadly trap, and it took another effort, with Vogon summoning Syndra by gate stone so she could help decode the chamber’s mechanism, before the lever was released and the true door opened. By the session’s end Bart had attuned to the Amulet of Souls, the Red Wizards had been broken outside the threshold, and the party finally crossed into the Tomb of the Nine Gods, leaving behind even the last fragile safety they had known.

The sewn sisters attempted to steal the phylactery, but Vogun kept it from their clutches. Pizza killed Baggy Nanna and they shifted away. Careful never to put the phylactery down, Vogun had Caesar hold it while unleashing a flurry of blasts, eventually obliterating the gem. The group used Wind Walk to travel directly over the very active Peaks of Flame, briefly fighting an Inferno Sovereign and eventually arriving in Omu beaten down and in desperate need of a rest.

Having escaped the Sewn Sisters, finally received a full night’s rest in the Kobold lair. However, upon awakening the group did feel slightly weaker. Fetched the princess and cubes from the portable hole, sent her with a dinosaur to the Diurna Varun mine, then confronted Ras Nsi. Though Jewel was tempted to kill him, the group spared his life in exchange for the 9th cube and their predecessor’s things.

Went to the entrance to the Tomb of the Nine Gods and found Valindra Shadowmantle and the Red Wizards waiting for them, demanding the cubes. Handed over the 8 forgeries, which 3 wizards placed in the door and were promptly killed.

Had a vivid nightmare of forcing Omu’s slaves to excavate the Diurna Varun, then travel to Wyrmheart Mine in the Valley of Lost Honor to slaughter the shield dwarves, kobolds, and dragon Ormalagos (called Needle by the dwarves). The group discovered three Rings of the Bara, stolen from Mezro when the Eshowe invaded and killed 5 barae, causing Ras Nsi to kill the Eshowe, who hid the rings. Awoke from the nightmare, Bart felt a strange connection to his nightmare counterpart.

The group traveled for 7 days to the cave Ras Nsi directed the party to, faced numerous challenges including corrosive mists, bile pools, lava pits, and more. Vogun eventually realized the party are within the ancient buried corpse of Dendar herself, a place where neither transmutation nor divination magic work. Faced the spirit Nidhogg, who Pizza realized the party must miss in order to hit. Climbed a steep sandy ramp, slipping occasionally and exhausting Vogun. With everyone working together, the party were able to cross the final obstacle.

The group found Acererak’s phylactery, wrapped in pristine links of chain connected to a dagger blade. Bart was the first to realize a blood sacrifice was needed, and eventually the party unwrapped the gem. Before it could be destroyed, the Sewn Sisters plane shifted in to steal it. .