With the battle over a silence descends on the walled compound. But only for a moment as a gargantuan and deep roar of some mammoth beast echoes around Omu, bouncing off the cliffs and making it hard to tell what direction it came form. Birds explode into the sky and monkeys shriek. You look around worriedly, but nothing else seems to occur except for a small voice saying "If you wouldn't mind helping me, that would be most appreciated", from the broken building behind you. It is the older man from before. You lift the wall off him and use some magical healing on him. He doesn't seem very pleasant. He is arrogant, dismissive and nasty, but he tells you that now that you have rescued him that you may have the pleasure of his services. He tells you that he came here with a large contingent of the Red Wizards of Thay along with a small army of mercenaries. He was here as a translator due to his ability to read ancient Omuan - are rare skill that even the most studious scribe does not have. When he sees the corpses in the yard he declares that there are probably four Thayan survivors and about 10 Chultan mercenaries. He manages to get you to admit that you are searching for the soulmonger and asks you if you have found any of the puzzle boxes yet. When you look confused he asks you if you know what they are. When it becomes obvious that you do not know what the puzzle boxes are, or anything about the history of the city he exclaims in exasperation, "how can you expect to defeat Acererak if you are not prepared. Right then. I'll assume you know nothing (which is probably correct) and tell you about Omu". He launches into a history of Omu. Omu was once a jewel in Chult's crown. Built over rich mineral veins, the city garnered wealth in abundance. Omuan jewelry was coveted far and wide, and the city's merchants grew fat on commerce. To enter Omu, it was said, was to enter the gates of paradise itself. Such wealth brought greed. Omu's hunger for slaves made her rulers demand ever greater tribute from their neighbors. When their vassals couldn't pay in flesh, they paid in blood. Omu's feared legions marched across Chult. The Omuans' greed and hubris angered the god Ubtao, causing him to turn his back on Omu two hundred years ago—long before he abandoned the rest of Chult. Omu's clerics lost their spells, and the city fell to sickness and disease. Slave uprisings wracked Omu, and its nobles fled in droves. Maps showing Omu's location were destroyed, and its coins were melted down and reminted. Fallen from grace, Omu became known as the Forbidden City. With Ubtao gone, primal spirits arose from the rainforest to bewitch the few remaining Omuans. They disguised themselves as jungle creatures and promised great power in return for devotion. Desperate for redemption, the Omuans tore down their temple to Ubtao and raised shrines to these nine trickster gods. The new deities were divisive and often cruel. Too weak to grant miracles to every follower, they concocted elaborate trials to winnow the clergy. On holy days, the mettle of aspirant priests was tested in their nine shrines, with deadly consequences for failure. The trials provided entertainment for the degenerate Omuans and fed their weakling gods with much-needed sacrifices. For nine decades, the city folk lived by the mantras of their trickster gods. They built statues in their names and schemed against each other to assert their chosen god's dominance. Omu's glorious past was lost, but its people endured. Such mercy did not last long. Omu's bloody trials drew the attention of Acererak, an archlich who wanders the cosmos in search of souls to harvest. Acererak, who is fond of deathtraps, marveled at the trials concocted by the Omuans. They inspired him to create his own dungeon below the city. A little over a century ago, Acererak entered Omu and slew all nine trickster gods. He then enslaved the Omuans and forced them to carve out a tomb for their defeated gods. When the tomb was complete, Acererak murdered the Omuans and sealed them in the tomb with their false gods. The archlich resumed his odyssey across the planes, content that the dungeon would feed his phylactery with the souls of dead adventurers. The jungle reclaimed Omu, and it fell into ruin. Orvex explains that the Red Wizards, through divination spells, have worked out that the soulmonger is in Omu in the dungeon created by Acererak, but that this dungeon is held closed by a key that can only be opened by using 9 puzzle boxes. Each of these puzzle boxes is dedicated to one of the trickster gods and all the boxes are somewhere in Omu. The wizards were searching for these boxes when they were ambushed by Yuan-Ti. Orvex was crushed by a wall during the attack and was not found afterwards. He had been there for most of the previous day and all of the previous night. You decide that a good place to search for puzzle cubes would be in the shrines that Orvex mentioned and you can remember buildings that looked like shrines when you decended into the city. It is still only about 10am but you are hurt and depleted. You take a short rest and poke around the nearby buildings as you do so. Trayzeal uncovers a magnificent horn that appears to be magical. This is identified as a horn of blasting He gives this to Sudren. You then make your way to the first Shrine. A rectangular pool of murky water stretches before this vine-draped shrine. Rope bridges that once spanned the water float on the surface, tangled with other debris. The shards of a toppled monolith form stepping stones to the middle of the pool, where a statue of a stone frog rises above the water. In the water you spot some eyes on eyestalks sticking out the pool. They do not seem to be a threat so Sudren skirts the pool and heads towards the gate. As he gets halfway along the wall, the eyestalks raise up, revealing a massive creature underneath, as large as an elephant. It is a Froghemoth, a massive amphibious predator. It whips a tentacle out at Sudren, lifting him from the ground. It then draws him into it's giant maw, chews on him and then swallows him whole. The rest of the group are horrified. Hoping beyond hope that Sudren might still be alive in the belly of the beast you attack, but it is obvious that you are outmatched and will soon be killed if you continue to battle. Instead you flee, escaping from the creature and climbing back over the wall into the walled compound you were at earlier. You are hurt, exhausted and realise that without a decent rest you will be unable to continue. You decide not to stay here in case the Yuan-Ti return so search through some nearby houses until you find one that is a decent and safe hiding place. During the night the rain sets in again, and while on watch Grizzlee sees some figures passing through the dark. He sneaks after them and listens. It is 3 chultan humans wearing nothing but loincloths, but their features are distinctly serpentine. When one speaks a forked tounge can be seen. They are obviously searching for you, and Grizzlee hears them discussing whether you will be made slaves or 'transformed'. They pass on out of sight. In the morning you are much refreshed and you spells are replenished. You sneak back to the shrine (except Orvex who doesn't even try) where you see the eyestalks in the water once more. Grizzlee turns the bad weather into a storm and starts hitting the pool with lightning. The froghemoth lurches out and towards you, but the lightning seems to slow it down. You are able to continue hammering it with lightning and other spells as you retreat until you wear it out. When it dies, the semi-digested remains of Sudren are disgorged. His flesh has almost completely been melted but his armour, bones and some equipment remains, though badly damaged. The only undamaged item, the horn of blasted is quickly claimed and Trayzeal grabs one of Sudren's horns as a momento. Passing the corpse of the beast you head to the gate of the shrine. Carved into the lintel above this locked gate is an inscription written in Old Omuan: Kubazan urges us to tread without fear and to give back as much as we take. Grizzlee finds a stone key in the statue in the pool and you use it to open the gate. Inside the shrine steps descend to a ledge overlooking a pit of sharpened stakes. An alcove on the far wall holds a pedestal with a stone cube resting on it. A relief carved into the back of the alcove shows a monstrous frog with tentacles fighting a crane. Wooden beams radiate from the walls at floor height, with four-foot gaps between them. Carved frog heads extrude from the walls above the beams. Orvex tranlates an inscription carved on the walls: When evening came, a wily eblis stepped from his reed hut. He didn't like the Omuans, but without them he'd have no one to play his tricks on. The eblis sent a marsh frog to reason with Ubtao, but the frog was angry and decided to wrestle the god instead. This amused Ubtao, so he gave the frog tentacles to make it stronger. When Kubazan the froghemoth returned to Papazotl the eblis, he chased Papazotl into the swamp with his new tentacles. Besh jumps onto one of the beams, thinking to jump around the walls. He then realises that perhaps this would be better done by someone more dextrous he then jumps back, and the beam he was on retracts into the wall. You decide that this is not the best way to proceed. Trayzeal remembers the words on the lintel, "Kubazan urges us to tread without fear and to give back as much as we take". You find a rock outside that looks about the same size as the cube on the pedestal. Trayzeal then steps forward without fear. He puts his foot out over the edge of the pit as if there were an invisible bridge, then moves his weight forward until his equilibrium changes and he goes beyond the point of no return. At which point he plunges into the pit of spikes. He is skillful enough though that he turns he is able to land on his feet and avoid landing on the spikes. He then walks across the pit, climbs the wall on the other side and removes the cube, quickly replacing it with the rock he had brought for that purpose. He then returns the same way he came and you leave the shrine with the first puzzle cube.
