Chapter 3 - Session 7

The Great Wall and the Gilded Guide

Events and Actions

Following their previous foray, the party discussed their next steps with Captain De Guzman aboard the "Amada," which had been resupplied with fresh water and food. Mani expressed his sense of a significant structure inland, and the party resolved to undertake a longer expedition to investigate it. Noddy's rough estimate put them only about half the distance there on their previous trip, so they prepared to be away at least four days. The Captain reiterated that the anchorage was a fine place to resupply but not to hide, and that if the pursuing enemy ship appeared he would have to flee without them. The party agreed to head south and light a signal fire if separated, and arranged a simpler backup signal with the shore crew: if the ship was forced to flee in their absence, the sailors left behind would drive a hatchet into the inland side of a marked tree, so the returning party would know at a glance why the beach was empty. Before departing, they also had Noddy confirm via Pocket that their current landing point was likely the best available starting place along the coast.

Preparations for the expedition included Riu extracting three vials of venom from the giant spider fang acquired earlier, with Werner coating a harpoon tip with some and the drained fang itself kept as a trophy. Noddy had planned to bring his own fishing line, then realized a thread of spider silk would make a far better one; this prompted the request that rope be made from spider silk instead, and the shore party was tasked with collecting the raw material. By morning the crew had produced twelve feet of it, exceptionally thin yet strong, a discovery the party recognized could be of real value to the ship's sailmaker. The party also packed extra machetes and a boarding axe, oilskins, and a spare length of sailcloth for shelter, while Werner brought along his small keg of gunpowder; they left Salter's swivel gun behind, judging it too cumbersome for the trek. Riu milked his octopus one last time before releasing it back to the sea with a fond farewell, over Batu Batu's mild objection that it seemed a waste of good eating. Batu Batu, the ship's cook, and Salter, a sailor, agreed to accompany the party, Batu Batu going bare-chested with two machetes at his belt and bringing his own sturdy supply crate of camp and cooking gear rather than a simple pack. Batu Batu also delighted the crew with an exceptional fish stew, "Batu Batu" (the dish he is named after), before their departure.

The next morning, the party (PCs, Batu Batu, and Salter) ventured back into the jungle. They retraced their path to where the giant spider had fallen, finding its carcass being scavenged by a wild pig. Nothing else troubled them on the way back to their previous camp, likely because the faster return journey left little opportunity for encounters. Pressing on into uncharted jungle, the party caught a brief flash of yellow off in the trees — a second giant spider of the larger, more dangerous kind — but it kept its distance and nothing came of the sighting. Soon after, Mani sensed he was being watched and glimpsed a person-sized figure in the trees, but it vanished before it could be identified, despite Batu Batu calling out in the Islander tongue.

Later, while scouting ahead, Knick Nab came upon a small stream crossed by a moss-covered, long-fallen log serving as a rough bridge; a small ring of woven vines sat perched at its centre, evidently some kind of snare. As he leapt across, he startled Leela, an Islander woman crouched on the far bank, watching the direction the party had come from. She fled, and Knick Nab gave chase, easily gaining ground until she took refuge up a tree. Noddy attempted to magically put her to sleep, but she resisted despite a strong casting, and continued climbing out of easy reach, where she settled to watch the party below.

The party tried to establish communication through Common and even Elvish and the arcane tongue, none of which drew any response beyond a brief, curious pause at the arcane word. They settled for showing goodwill instead: withdrawing a short distance, building a fire, and setting aside a bowl of food and a cup of rum for her, while Knick Nab sang to ease the tension. Drawn by the smell of Batu Batu's cooking, she eventually climbed down. Batu Batu, though hampered by dialect differences, managed to establish basic communication, confirming for the party — by her sense of smell — that no spiders lurked nearby. She was young, healthy but thin, and adorned with significant gold jewelry — a gold belt, large studded earrings, arm and leg ornaments, and a substantial choker that doubled as a rough breastplate — over clothing carefully worked and stitched from hide rather than simple draped skins, with other metals and beadwork woven in beyond the gold, some of it apparently functional rather than purely ornamental. She carried two fine steel knives. She grew startled at the sight of the party's stacked rifles, then intrigued once Batu Batu conveyed that the party had killed a large spider with them; she repeatedly said "big one" and gestured for the party to follow her in the direction they were already heading — towards the sensed structure. Knick Nab traded one of his plain daggers for one of her ornate, gold-decorated steel knives, a clearly superior blade.

Leela led them at a swift pace, forcing the party to jog to keep up while still notching trees with their machetes to mark a way back. As dusk approached, her anxiety to get out of the jungle grew, and she eventually sped off ahead, leaving the party to continue alone in the dimming light. They pressed on through the night, guided by Cosimo's and Noddy's projected light spells, Knick Nab's innate night vision leading the way, and a torch held in reserve. The going was slow and unnerving; at one point they blundered into a spider web, and the darkness was thick with eerie sounds and unseen movement.

After several arduous hours, Knick Nab crept ahead alone and broke, unseen, from the jungle's edge into a vast, open area of churned, freshly tilled-looking earth. Before them stood a colossal wall of packed dirt, its surface faintly glistening with moisture in the moonlight, rising 80 feet and stretching as far as they could see in either direction, its line meandering rather than running straight.

While gathering firewood, Noddy sent Pocket up for a brief flight along the wall's crest; the gull glimpsed a distant glow and a change in terrain on the far side, feeding Cosimo's overnight theory that the wall might be the product of earth-shaping magic rather than ordinary labor. The party then decided to camp with their backs to the wall for defensibility, working hard to keep a large fire burning through the night despite the dampness of the jungle wood, and standing two-hour watches in pairs. Sleep was fitful for everyone; strange animal sounds, including a violent squeal and tearing sound nearby, kept the camp on edge through the night.

At dawn, the sheer scale of the wall became even more apparent, and Mani confirmed his sensed "thing" still lay beyond it. An inspection of the churned earth near their camp revealed massive, toed footprints — scaling up from a human foot by doubling it twice over suggested a creature perhaps 40 feet tall had passed nearby, alongside broken branches and trampled undergrowth marking its passage. No obvious gates or entrances were visible on the immediate stretch of wall.

The party briefly considered digging hand-holds directly into the packed dirt as a slower, safer way up, but with eighty feet of wall to climb, Riu instead prepared to levitate to the top using a rope and grappling hook for backup. The ascent proved painfully slow, rising at only about a foot per second, and as he climbed the wall's slick, wet surface curved subtly away from him; he used his telekinesis to push off a thrown torch and then a bundle of sticks to stay close against it. The spell's duration gave him barely enough time to reach the top with nothing to spare — had he misjudged the climb, he would have been left stranded partway up the sheer face when it expired — before he finally hooked his rope over the lip at the top and hauled himself over. While Riu ascended, the rest of the party split into two groups to scout along the base of the wall to the left and right. The group heading left discovered a panel-like depression in the wall's surface, about 25-30 feet up and roughly 100 feet from their campsite.

From the top, Riu confirmed a well-worn path along the wall's length, evidence of regular patrol or travel. Looking over the far side, he saw more jungle and clearings, and in the far distance an area where the jungle ceased entirely, with signs of movement — the same distant glow Pocket had spotted the night before. The sea lay only in the direction from which they had come, and the wall did not appear to extend to it in either direction; far off to both sides the land itself seemed to rise, hinting the wall might run all the way to higher ground beyond the range of sight. The island was clearly far larger than they had realized.

NPCs & Creatures

Captain Otto "Cut Close" De Guzman: Captain of the "Amada".
Batu Batu: Cook on the "Amada", named after his signature fish stew "Batu Batu". Accompanied the party inland. He facilitated basic communication with Leela.
Salter: Sailor, accompanied the party inland.
Pocket: Noddy's seagull familiar, used for scouting.
Giant Spiders: One previously killed, its carcass was being scavenged. A second, larger yellow-morph giant spider was briefly glimpsed at a distance during the day's trek but kept away. Evidence of others in the jungle.
Wild Pig: Seen scavenging the giant spider carcass.
Leela: A young, dark-skinned Islander woman native to the island, healthy but thin, richly adorned with gold jewelry (belt, earrings, arm and leg ornaments, and a breastplate-like choker) and carrying two fine steel knives. She guided the party towards the Great Wall before speeding ahead and vanishing into the jungle at dusk.
Massive Ape-like Creature: Inferred from enormous, toed footprints — scaling to perhaps 40 feet tall — found near the jungle's edge by the Great Wall.

Locations

Unnamed Island: The primary setting for the session.
- Jungle: Dense, spider-infested, difficult terrain.
- Stream with Log Bridge: A moss-covered fallen log crossing a small stream, with a small woven-vine snare perched at its centre. Site of the first encounter with Leela.
- Churned Earth Clearing: A large, open area of disturbed, tilled-looking earth before the Great Wall, showing some sparse regrowth and traces of burnt material alongside the fresher disturbance.
- The Great Wall: An immense, 80-foot-high wall of packed earth, its surface faintly glistening with moisture, meandering rather than running straight and stretching for miles in either direction. It has a well-worn path on top, evidence of regular patrol or travel and broken at intervals by small notches of unclear purpose, and at least one panel-like depression set into its face.
The "Amada": The party's cutter ship, anchored offshore for resupply and as a base.

Conflicts

The party experienced a tense night camping at the base of the Great Wall, with unsettling sounds from the jungle, including a pig-like creature apparently being killed nearby.
The chase and initial interaction with Leela were tense but did not escalate to violence; the party weighed firing a warning shot into her tree or discharging a weapon to gauge her reaction, but set the idea aside in favor of building trust with food, fire, and song.
Riu's levitating climb up the Great Wall was a race against the spell's limited duration: he had just enough time to reach the top and grapple on before it expired, with no margin for a second attempt had he misjudged the ascent.

Learnings and Discussions

The "Amada" is resupplied, but Captain De Guzman will flee if the pursuing enemy ship appears, necessitating a rendezvous plan and a hatchet-in-a-tree signal for the shore party.
Pocket's earlier reconnaissance found no river delta or shorter inland route along the coast near their camp, confirming their existing landing point was likely as good a starting place as any for the trek toward the sensed structure.
The party debated whether carrying part of the dead giant spider might ward off smaller ones by scent — none had bothered them on the carry back with the fang and leg — but couldn't rule out that the shorter return trip alone explained it, and ultimately no one wanted to smear themselves with spider matter to test the theory.
Mani's sense of the "wall" or structure was confirmed to be in the direction they traveled.
The party is capable of making exceptionally strong and thin rope from giant spider silk, a discovery with potential value to the ship's sailmaker.
The island is inhabited by at least one group of people (represented by Leela) who possess gold and steel items, and speak a language distinct from Common or Elvish; only their own tongue and, curiously, a word of the arcane language drew any reaction from her.
Leela communicated about a "big one" associated with the direction of the Great Wall.
The existence of the Great Wall itself, a massive, ancient-seeming construction of packed earth, possibly magical in origin (Cosimo's theory). Weighing the wall against his own knowledge of earth-shaping magic, Cosimo reasoned that even a powerful caster could raise no more than a small section per day before needing days to recover — meaning a wall stretching for miles represents either an almost unimaginable feat of magical power, or the sustained labour of tens of thousands of people.
The wall's smooth, consistently damp, and slick surface seemed deliberately unsuited to climbing, prompting speculation that it was built as much to keep something in as to keep intruders out.
Evidence of a colossal, ape-like creature, perhaps 40 feet tall, inhabiting the area near the wall.
The top of the Great Wall is patrolled or regularly traversed.
There are signs of habitation or significant activity (a distant glow) beyond the Great Wall.
A potential point of interest or entry was found on the wall: a panel or depression about 100 feet to the left of their camp, 25-30 feet high.
The sheer scale of the wall renewed the party's sense that whatever built it might connect to the very thing they were sent to find: either a civilization capable of moving earth on a massive scale, or a command of power like the kind some of their own number wield.

Items Gained

Three Vials of Spider Venom: Extracted by Riu from the giant spider fang.
Giant Spider Fang: The drained fang, kept as a trophy.
Leela's Knife: A high-quality steel knife with a gold-decorated handle, received by Knick Nab in trade from Leela.
12 feet of Spider Silk Rope: Crafted by the party, noted for its exceptional thinness and strength.

Items Lost

Knick Nab's Dagger: Traded to Leela for her knife.
Riu's Octopus: Milked, then released back to the sea.
Provisions and Supplies: Consumed during the expedition (e.g., food, oil for fire/light).