The Lost City

Persaudin'

She rethink her initial instinct to attack. Anyone else want to add...

Nevermind, this whole cave thing was poorly written haha.

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You gently convince her that you're here to help. After requesting that you don't slaughter her people, she uses her flute to lead you through the Crawler Caves to a set of stairs up into the keep.

Constructed largely of a sickly green jade, the interior of the keep is polished to a smooth finish and sometimes carved in strange sinuous patterns, perhaps emulating the forms of the Mekutu’s pet crawlers. Slowly rotting clumps of star-fruit deposited at intervals along the passages provide erratic light to the chamber. Filth and clutter litter the floor.

The stench from the Crawling Caves below gradually blends and then disappears under the heavy, sweet incense that burns in bowls throughout the keep. This incense is mildly disorienting and may affect your ability to sense direction and aim. Each of you must make a Challenging (D2) Resistance test when you first breathe the incense.

Cur can't get the smell from his nose. (One minor step penalty to Awareness and Coordination rolls while you are inside the Keep.)

Withered corpses, impaled on great timber posts bolted to the walls, punctuate the halls and corridors. The corpses bear the marks of torture and mutilation. Some corpses are recognizable to the Xhotatse guides as lost beloved kinfolk, while others bear the telltale elongated skulls of the lowly Tangani.

There are even a few widely-smiling Mekutu corpses on display, victims of their sadistic ruler’s cruel, mercurial moods.One body, not long dead, bears curious small bite marks all over its body. Partly healed, they look as if some-thing repeatedly chewed on the victim while still alive. Whatever creature ate the victim, it has a mouth similar to, but much smaller than, the crawlers down in the caves.

Grisly furnishings — divans upholstered in strange cured hides, glass cabinets of long-mummified heads, great stuffed crawlers arranged in lifelike rearing poses — litter the passageways, chambers, and cells of the Jade Keep, lending the entire structure a gruesome, horrific air.

By the number of long unused sleeping quarters and cells in the keep, that the number of the Mekutu have dwindled from what they once were.

Would you like to do any searching or tracking, entering the Jade Keep to see if the Feathered Ape passed through here? If so, make a Daunting (D3) Observation test. Recall that you can spend one or more Doom to get an extra d20(s) on your roll.

You leave the area having found no trace of the Feathered Ape and unwilling to search the enemy occupied Jade Keep with no evidence it's here.

You find your way out, easier from the inside and get free of the killing zone. You have little time to ponder matters further as, suddenly, a grievously injured Xhotatsan runner stumbles into the area and, dying of his wounds, gasps:

"The Ebony Keep *… under attack! The Ape! Save the Queen from the Feathered Ape!"

* The Ebony Keep is where you meet the Xhotatse queen.

You race back through the vine-choked chambers of the city-palace heading straight for the terri-tory of their Xhotatse allies. As they near the Ebony Keep, they see that the hidden lion pits have been uncovered, the concealing vegetation, leaves and twigs kicked aside. There is no need for you to carefully pick your way through the Path of Skulls.

There are fresh corpses in some of the lion pits, bearing the distinctive elongated skulls of the "dreaming" tribe, the Tangani. All are impaled on the nasty wooden stakes lining the pits, but one Tangani is incredibly still alive! Despite a huge wooden stake sticking up through his stomach, which he doesn’t seem to feel, the man gnashes his teeth and coughs up a great plume of blood as he claws uselessly up at those of you above. Then he slumps back, dead of his terrible injury.

The fallen Tangani wear small bloodied darts on cords about their necks. A successful test also reveals a small amount of syrupy substance coating a tiny puncture wounds in their chests.

Reaching the Ebony Keep of the Xhotatse, you find the bronze Door of the Elephant unbarred and thrown open, and the black walls of the keep partially aflame. A rough line of fresh, deep gouges leads up and over the ebony wall. The gouges resemble the claw marks left by the Feathered Ape. Bodies of the guards lie just within the gates, their heads torn from their bodies in the manner of the Ape’s victims. You likely deduce that the Ape climbed up over the ebony walls, slew the guards, and opened the gates from within the keep.

Inside the smoking keep, bodies of the Xhotatse, old and young alike, lie everywhere, slain by spear or poisoned blowpipe darts, or beheaded like the guards at the door. A single dead Tangani warrior lies among the bodies, slain by several spears still embedded in her limbs and torso. A close examination reveals a syrupy puncture mark in her chest. Sounds of battle — screams, bestial howls, the clash of weapons and a chillingly familiar bellow — are heard deeper into the keep in the direction of the throne room of Queen Chitaka.

A small figure lies in a pool of its own blood in the middle of a broad passage that leads to the throne room. It is old Inokwu, a terrible clawed wound in his side (delivered by the Feathered Ape). A thick trail of his blood glistens behind him. He looks up at the player characters with dimming eyes.

"Madmen! They came so suddenly. Led by the beast itself. That clever woman at his heels. Fighting like demons, caring nothing for their own lives. The ‘dreaming’ tribe. Pah!"

He coughs up a great deal of blood and makes a dying request.

"You outsiders, you must save her, my dear innocent Chitaka. She has the mind of child."