Island Of Mystery

Rod Rambler Restates

Translated loosely from multiple magic pigeons. Rod Rambler, Chronicler

A pristine tropical island beach, bestrewn with flotsam and jetsam, and a listing, de-sailed and hull-rent twin mast vessel of golden wood. There is debris floating in the water, the sun is shining, and were it not for a lack of food and water, this would make a perfect pit-stop for our beleaguered adventurers.

As it is, a landing-party is assembled consisting of S’Erith, Cava, Gavin, while Karma and Chip go playing in the waves trying to collect whatever supplies they can (I speculate that Chip really just wanted an excuse to go swimming/surfing). On board remained Morgan and Robert the Just, as well as the animals. Tyvernos hangs out counting sand grains or something, standing on the prow of the ship and decrying to the world (what little, jungle-infested bit he can see of it) that he is, in fact, the King of the World. Bored with getting no response or recognition of this obvious fact, Tyvernos flies into the air to do a bit of scouting, seeing if he can locate the landing party, as they’ve been gone for a good amount of time. While he’s up there, Karma notices something strange under the waves, and, pulling on Chip’s ankles, beckons him below. To the coral reef below them that holds fast in its’ grip a strange orb. It is, in fact, Wilson the volleyball, and not a ley-line observation ball as posited by the ever-so-magically-inclined centaurina. Chip, emerging from the waves a’la James Bond, places Wilson on the bowsprit of Matilda looking over the beach and guarding the fair maiden (vessel, not horse).

Meanwhile, in deepest darkest jungles… the away-team has come upon a watering hole at the base of a very large waterfall. Confused by numerous tracks (animal, humanoid, maybe even vegetable), Cava scratches his head and does his best Jase Wendryn. S’Erith begins setting snares and traps to capture food that writhes and wriggles, and hopefully bleeds, too. Gavin chops through underbrush with his psi-sword like a kid with a switch in a hayfield. Just as everyone is getting ready to leave with some stores of water (meager, nobody brought a decent-sized bladder), they get the sense that bad things are afoot… they are about to be ambushed. Cava scrambles up a tree.

It’s about this time that Karma, Chip and Tyvernos, all flying, arrive on-scene, deciding that the waterfall is the most likely destination of a group who are looking for potable water. Just in the nick-of-time, Chip floats to a halt beside Cava, asking what’s up. Karma takes this moment to smash a tree with her thunder mace, to wake everyone up to the fact that there is an ambuscade in-wait. When the feral kids emerge from the foliage, festooned with frippery and foliage in equal measure (hoping it wasn’t night soil that coated their bodies, but Gavin wasn’t so sure…), they are exclaiming in a foreign tongue to each other, bickering about …
OMG! Like it’s totally God, didn’t you see him fly, look there he is now!
Oh, that’s not God, God is like, 100’ tall and doesn’t wear sunglasses!
Etc. etc.
Gavin, thinking their jibber-jabber is of a more ruthless nature, tosses the entire greeting party in to the water, at once silencing them (thankfully, though short-lived) and cleaning them of any untoward camo they’d decided was best.
Chip finally relates that these kids speak American, his native and homeland and first tongue. He does not try to disabuse the kids of their notion that he is God.

Soon after this meeting, the party is attacked by a horde of motley Trollochs. They are large beasts, and of various natures, undead, monkey, boar, etc. The kids scramble and take-off, presumably back to their hidey-hole they call home. CrIsis intervenes and Karma takes the brunt of the charge, setting her lance and withstanding the onrush of a dragon-sized wall of angry mutant flesh. Tyvernos whirlwinds one into the air, but 2 others seem too large to be affected, and charge on. Chip’s Wave Motion Gun goes off… scratching a beast and being basically the least impressive of any of the attacks yet. As Karma is fending off the charge of the lead-mutant, Cava, Overkill and Gavin all converge, having lain in wait for this moment, and in a supernatural frenzy, turn a small area of jungle into a complete blood-bath, dropping the charging mutant in a heap of its’ own gore (and getting no-small-amount splashed upon themselves in the process). The remaining mutants, trying to battle-through to the group, must, by needs of the bottleneck, pass through Tyvernos’ whirlwind, and go spiraling up to join their companion. Robert the Just chooses this moment to join the crew, and sends one of the 2 remaining muties sprawling into the underbrush with a mighty blow from his hammer. Leaving only one foul critter still on the offensive, CrIsis quickly deal with the mop-up operations, dispatching all to a grim and final end.

S’Erith sets about cooking… erm, I mean skinning and flaying the beasts for their tough hides while Cava makes a cursory attempt at tracking the now-disappeared kids. Deciding that leaving the bodies here will only attract unwanted attention, it is decided that Chip will ferry the corpses, one at a time, to the mouth of the volcano, via fly spell and a rough bag/harness made from their own skins. Sensing something beneath the burning hot magma, Chip dives in, now impervious to fire, and begins swimming against the current of the upwelling lava, down into the heart of the volcano. Eventually, he grabs Billson, Wilson’s long-lost brother volleyball, now encrusted and filled with burning hot magma-semen. Continuing on, and entering a large chamber, he notices 2 things: one is a shiny object still in the magma. Two is a ley line, extending down into the volcano itself. Excited, he magic-pigeon’s the party telling them to continue on, as he will be down here for a while.

SO the party continues on. They find a mine. There is a hotly debated discussion about the constituents of said mine, and what it may (might?) already hold. Much head-scratching ensues as characters try to figure out what their players already know.

Chip, meanwhile, finds that the shiny object floating in the magma-semen is the codpiece off a Glitterboy suit of power armor. Then he follows the ley-line to a nexus point. It’s a very big nexus. About as big as any Chip has ever seen. He gets a very bad feeling, and swims, exultantly, back up (with the current!) of upwelling burning-hot-magma-semen (no I won’t get tired of saying that). Reaching the mouth of the volcano, now rejuvenated with Potential Psychic Energy, Chip rushes towards the party, as he suspects something dire awaits them.

He reaches them in time to witness them coming out of the mouth of the mine, having successfully, during this time, deduced that the dust floating in the mine is actually Gantrium a super-rare and nation-foundingly valuable material that is, basically, super-condensed PPE in the form of matter. CrIsis has determined a way to extract, distill and otherwise collect this more-than-precious metal out of the air, through a combination of pressure (wind rush and force-field), heat (pyrokinesis), and good luck. So, burdened now with (literally) a nation’s ransom in precious dust-metal-PPE, CrIsis feels the first of the Great Volcano’s Grumblings… the very land itself seems unhappy that some of its’ precious presence is departing… and Chip chooses this time to mention the Nexus in the heart of the Volcano… and the fact that Gantrium is basically a homing beacon for any supernatural entity within, say, 3 light-years of this location, now that it (the Gantrium) has now been condensed into a more solid form. With a Nexus of Epic Proportions buried at the heart of a very-near Volcano.

Exit Stage Jungle!

But wait, the kids!

So CrIsis must needs save the feral kids from impending doom (of their causing), and it’s decided that Gavin, who so abruptly dealt with the little bastards ambush before, and Chip, who can actually converse with the little bastards, strike off for the kid’s camp, while the rest head to Matilda to get preparations for departure under way. Like, rebuilding the side of the crumpled keel. And stocking and provisioning the whole damn vessel. And scratching their heads while rubbing their tummies about how to make new sails out of palm fronds.

And, in a rapid-denouement, all converge on an empty ship (excepting Ood the silonar, who is both too dumb and too vicious to be coerced into doing anything by anybody, basically ever). Oh noes! Mini! Morgan!? Where’deverybodygo?

Back at kid’s camp of course! So just as Gavin and Chip are being befriended by the advanced warning party, the rest of the crew arrive looking for missing members. Back to camp we all go, and Chip’s ego is stroked after he shows the primitive screw-heads his boom stick, Minischmee loses a kingdom, and a supernatural mind-invading entity is left in the dust, as kids, crew, animals and graham crackers are packed up and head back to Matilda, post haste!

From there, our boat is fixed, provisioned, and now festooned with 47 rug rats age 7-13. We have a month’s worth of food from traps and good fortune, 47 bickering mouths to feed… we set sail on (yet another) 3 hour cruise, hopefully (?) headed for the Sea of Despair, en-route to a return to Sinza!

CrIsis vows to return to the Island of Mystery in the future, as time permits, to deal with things yet un-dealt with.

Reported by Rod Rambler, Chronicler
Selestra 28th, 21st Year of Emperor Voelkian Itomas II, 23rd Year of King Bafag, 341st Year of the Dominion, 9th Year of King Gedro, and the 68th Year of the Wolfen Empire- Chip tells me it is the year 110 PA.