Astra22, Asha16, Bird14, Kira10, Zyn9, Kitsune9, Ghoul2(8)(AC12/HP10), Ghoul4(7)(AC12/HP22)

A hit!!

"Kira!!" Zyn leaps off the branch and lands on the ground, spinning her chain blades a safe distance around herself rapidly. She flung the chain upwards aiming at Ghoul2! "Eeeeeyaaahh!!" she cries, using momentum to swing the blades down as hard as she could.

Attack Action: 14 Damage: 6
Attack Bonus Action: 20 Damage: 4

Astra22, Asha16, Bird14, Kira10, Zyn9, Kitsune9, Ghoul4(7)(AC12/HP22)

Asha swings at the remaining Ghoul

Attack: 8 Damage: 8

The hawk will help Astra attack the remaining ghoul! "Someone get Kira back up!"

Attack: 14 Damage: 3

 (That was a fire bolt whoops)

Astra22, Asha16, Bird14, Kira10, Zyn9, Kitsune9, Ghoul4(7)(AC12/HP22)

Tink!! Goes the firebolt. It's a hit, though!

Astra22, Asha16, Bird14, Kira10, Zyn9, Kitsune9, Ghoul4(7)(AC12/HP19)

Ghoul4 attacks Kitsune!
Bite Attack: 20 Damage: 5

Astra22, Asha16, Bird14, Kira10, Zyn9, Kitsune9, Ghoul4(7)(AC12/HP19)

Faust helps Astra shoot another fire bolt at the final ghoul again!

Attack: 17 Damage: 3

Asha casts Guiding Bolt at the ghoul.

Attack: 18 Damage: 19

Kablamo! It's dead.

Suddenly, the jungle is silent once more. You didn't realize it before, but this area was strangely quiet before you were ambushed.

Zyn retracts her blades after blinking the backflash from the guiding bolt's brightness from her eyes and kneels down near Kira. Even though it was evening, it was hot, and Zyn sweat from the physical exertion, her lean physical frame taught from the exercise.

"Don't worry!" she reassures, hesitantly. "I'll..take care of your bat for you!"

At this point, we can collect the ghoul heads and either head back to Fort Baluarian, or press further into the jungle to find the Soulmonger. Those heads might start smelling, though. More.

Astra wipes the sweat from his brow with a sigh, Hawkst resting herself at the top of his head. He feels relief wash over him when he sees Asha (or Qawasha?) bring their gnome friend back up from unconsciousness. “Quite the thrilling evening, that’s for sure! Shall we rest here and head back to the fort with some haste to collect our coin?”

Asha tosses a Healing Word at Kira 5

Day 1 of heading back

15 5 6

Day 2

6 6 4

Day 3 

20 1 8

Day 4

20 14 5

Day 5

20 11 6

Day 6 

10 13 3

Day 7

16 13 14

"Hopefully we aren't going to run into any bullshit on the way back."

Day 1

52

Day 3

1

Day 5

90 Nice

DAY: 16 - 17
DAYS LEFT: 63
PACE: NORMAL
FOOD/WATER: 63

Victorious and wiser, we headed out the next morning after taking watch. We kept the heads in a sack, held by Qawasha and Weed. They didn't mind.

ENCOUNTER! 45: We were attacked by what looked like undead monkeys, a swarm of them. We barely escaped with our lives. Unfortunately, Qawasha look the brunt of the surprise attack, and perished. We were lucky to have survive. Weed was devastated. Zyn meditated for a while next to the body, possibly performing some sort of spiritual prayer to ease his spirit into the afterlife.

DAY: 18 - 19
DAYS LEFT: 61
PACE: NORMAL
FOOD/WATER: 61

We noticed Weed wasn't looking so good the next day, his color went from a green to brown, like a dying plant. 

ENCOUNTER! 98: We heard some noise coming from behind us and through the corner of our eyes could see lizard like people peering through the jungle that we guessed were Yuan-Ti. They did not attack us, instead they transformed into snakes and fled - and we hasted our way north to avoid them. They were just scouting, we guess, as they did not attack us. When we turned around we noticed that Weed was no longer with us.

DAY: 20 - 21
DAYS LEFT: 59
PACE: NORMAL
FOOD/WATER: 50

We had to guess our way back, but we knew we had to head north, since we no longer had a guide.

ENCOUNTER! 69: We encountered a tribe of lizardfolk who were thirsty and hungry. They would only let us pass if we shared some of our food. We thought this was a good idea since we were outnumbered 3 to 1. 

Eventually, exhausted from the heat and the insects, we arrived at Fort Beluarian. We were paid 25gp per ghoul head, and the Emerald Enclave was saddened for the loss of Qawasha and Weed. We could now take advantage of the opportunity to rest, refuel, and decide our next course of action.

"Well tha' was shit. We're down both our guides an' those lizard bastards stole some of our food. Let's try an' at least get some food to make up for what we lost before headin' to Mezro."

"We shared food, unwillingly, in exchange for our lives, they didn't steal it." Zyn corrected, sad at the loss of yummies. "But it's ok. We can replenish at the bazaar."

Astra looks to be deep in thought more than usual after the events that had occured during their trip back to the fort. The wizard doesn't seem to be writing down their every step anymore, nor does he try to converse with the others. Faust tries to lift his spirits, but she looks to be unable to do so. Eventually she just flutters about the group, perching herself on their shoulders or scouting up ahead.

Eventually, when they arrive back at the fort, the wizard forces a smile, trying to look on the bright side of things. They got money to spend at least, and maybe they could gather more information here now that they had the time to. "I'm... going to see if I could possibly speak to Castellan. Ask her some questions about the Soulmonger and maybe see if anyone here might be familiar with the jungle so we don't need to spend more time going back to the port." He notifies the others. "You're all welcome to come along!" 

Once it was decided who would tag along, Astra would ask about the second in commands whereabouts to anyone who was around then make his way with the others to where she might have been. "Excuse me, Ms Halsdottir? Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"

Kira promptly raises her hand. "I'll come!"

"Not at all." she turns and faces you. She's a good foot taller than you, and she's built like a tank. Her hair is blonde, like the sun, and her face has evidence of unhealed wounds. "Go ahead."

"Goodness, your arms are bigger than one of my legs..." Zyn breathed.

"That is not a question." she smirks, looking down at the half drow.

"No, I..yeah. I..know.." she winced. "Ha haa..." she laughed nervously, embarrassed.

Astra looks to be relieved at her willingness to talk. "Thank you for your time," He gives a curt nod then begins. "I'm unsure if word has gotten around here, but have you happened to have heard anything about some sort of device called the 'Soulmonger'? Or perhaps know of anyone who might have an idea of what we are talking about? It has something to do with this, ah, 'Death Curse'. We believe it is the source of the curse, and are seeking to find it and destroy it before it can take anymore lives than it already has." He frowns a bit. "We have little time and have nearly no leads, so any information you may have would be very useful."

While some of the group heads off to talk with Halsdottir, Kitsune instead heads to the bazaar (area 4 on the map), and purchases/re-provisions goods to replace those that were used up or stolen during their last adventure in the jungle (food, water, bug repellent, etc.).  At last report, we had 59 days left, and 50 days of food/water, so she'll purchase 9 days x 5 people = 45 rations (@ 5sp per ration = 22gp 5sp).

She'll also ask around if there is any place in the fort to take a bath, as she's in desperate need of a little freshening up!

Halsdottir thought for a moment. "The Soulmonger, eh? No, I can't say that I have. Sounds like something that's been making the undead all vicious around these parts, perhaps? I'm not sure. You know, come to think of it, one of our scout parties discovered something odd the other day. We were going to send out a team to go investigate further, but they never returned."

She takes you over to the Chultan map again.

"Deep in the jungle floats a natural structure that looks like a heart. Now, that wouldn't be so odd, except, as I said, it's levitating. And, it wasn't there last week. Maybe that's what you're looking for?"

Maybe. I'm sure that the floatin' heart in the middle of the jungle isn't a sign of things bein' hunky-dory. Maybe we scrap Mezro an' head towards the heart?"

Zyn looked at the map. "Hm. Maybe we could stop at Mezro on the way? It doesn't seem to be a huge deviation?" She looked up to see if anyone else thought that was acceptable.