Tangled in Vines

With plans in motion we made our way into the Vine tribe under guise of Mountain tribesmen, well at least most of us, while Darren, Flynn and Ashley scouted invisibly. Inside, Lan'ro greeted us with a bit of a surprise, the Red Scarves along with the Griffin apparently also solicited the Vine's aid. Furthermore, he summoned the Mist Serpent after this reveal to 'judge' our resolve and commitment to their cause. The Scarves leader passed the test, then we waited anxiously for Justine's turn. At that moment, Darren made a hasty decision to set off his flare as a diversion. This only raised further suspicion from Lan'Ro so Justine offered to send one of us to 'investigate' the flare. Still weary, Lan'Ro allowed this only with the escort of one of his seeker apes and some lizard guards. Justine chose Jeeng for this task to help him recover from a slightly embarrassing display of feigned shock. Meanwhile I kept a look out for the airship and readied to set off the flares marking the bombing targets but instead I noticed something peculiar about the ground under our feet. It seemed we were standing on a thin layer of dirt and sticks covering one of the abomination pits somehow magically generated. I let the group know in a whisper and prepared to use my hammer as a strong hold should the ground give way. Darren's flare set fire to the first tent, then the second exploded shortly after, probably his doing as well. The ape was onto one of them after that as Justine stepped onto the altar to be tested. Eventually I heard the approaching engines of the Scrappy and prepared to set off my own flares in the outer pits. To further shift suspicion Darren broke invisibility to attack one of the lizardfolk and Jeeng managed to convince them it was the Scarves soldier nearby, while still trying to put out the tent on fire to show good faith. Finally the Scrappy arrived to herald the start of combat. Upon sight of it, the final tent exploded in an violet inferno, blasting back a few lizard guards, Flynn also revealed herself by stabbing Lan'Ro just as he was about to behead Justine. The ground underneath us opened up to reveal the pit holding a 6 armed abomination who unfortunately devoured one of our Silverflame allies while Riken and Penny misty stepped to safety and the Griffin dimension doored away with the other Scarf, to the surprise of their leader. I held Jeanette and myself suspended above the pit with my hammer and let her off just to the edge and swung myself over after. The creature pursued us climbing the walls of the pit so I made a break for it, shouting for Jeanette and the other flame to follow post haste. Justine recovered from her trial and pretended to take on Flynn in a fight, maintaining our ruse a little longer, however after the last Scarf also vanished, we were left with little choice but to go on the offensive. Since our seeming disguised remained, we decided to play our part as Cliff Tribe members to the end. The Mist Serpent decided to try and smother us in poisonous cloud which it dropped all over the camp. I dodged the first one only to be surrounded by several guards and a hard hitting hound who bloodied me. Meanwhile Jeeng managed to hold Lan'Ro still for Flynn and everyone else to land a few hits before I tried out my new radiant cannon which softened him up for Darren to land the finishing blows. As the second cloud dropped, Jeeng made his way to Jeanette who seemed pinned by the burning tent and the maw creature. Luckily Flynn made her way to help but the summoners continued to pull more monsters out of the pits. On top of that, the airship bombardment couldn't land many direct hits due to the Mist Serpent obscuring the skies. As we scattered to evade the overwhelming forces, that left me the focus of many of the remaining attacks so I could do little to aid in the fight. Eventually Penny summoned her trusty dragon to help turn the tide. It took a lot of hits but eventually fell to the onslaught but distracted the hordes long enough for several of Justine's fireballs to wipe a handful of the lizardfolk from the board. Our invading forces headed with the super weapon King Joe raged toward the south, and had been drawing monsters summoned from the pits throughout this battle. After some large bursts of necrotic energy, the Mist Serpent was also drawn away from the camp. After this, our air support rained down in full force helping us clear the remaining mobs at the camp. Just then, Alli appeared from the west, bloodied and missing an arm but supported by Lia. She brought news, confirming the Red Tide's interest in the Weapon King Joe, or at the very least his necrotic core. Knowing this we still had a choice to make. The airship could only take us so far because another huge mist veil covered the area and seemed to be centered on the main battle between Joe and the Serpent. Jeeng could sense the necrotic energy from this new fog of war leading us to believe this RT bard might be the conjurer. Other than obscuring our vision, we couldn't discern any other immediate dangers from the mist so we decided to venture into the jungle with Alphy, Lea, and Jeeng's captain to find any surviving allies and take out some enemy forces that escaped the camp. The trees were thick but we found and followed a cleared path littered with foreboding corpses. Because we knew the Red Tide's m.o. we took caution and tried to burn as many bodies along the way as possible. Even still, their haunting forces managed to animate some of the poor souls to impede us. I called upon the holy powers to push back the first wave, giving us an opening to proceed but more lay waiting ahead. Before reaching the clash of the titans, Darren noticed the ghostly possession start to take hold of Lia, but how to convince her she was vulnerable and needed protection when she wasn't aware of her resurrection? Before we could ponder that dilemma, the Griffin reappeared for an ambush with some henchmen. They wanted to disrupt our disruption of some kind of necrotic ritual which Jeeng and Justine almost succeeded in doing by destroying 2 altars along the way. However, as the tide turned on the Griffin's forces, one of the cronies sacrificed himself to complete the blood ritual. Penelope managed to hold back some of the magic by displacing the earth where the blood circle was drawn but we could still feel it pulsing beneath our feet. Instead of trying to destroy the circle, we switched tactics and went after the mob ahead who might be fueling the ritual. Penny's dragon informed us this group would be large and was holding Penny's really good lady friend. Lia seemed to wander mindlessly into the crowd, drawn by the necromancer's spell. Beyond the mob, the Scarves leader convened with the Necrobard who remained hidden a while longer. His minions didn't seem to react to our presence and he even addressed us with an illusory projection of a pale figure resembling Lady Maria. He gave no name but identified himself as part of the Tide's crew. He also explained how the Scarves and Tide realigned themselves against the Serpent, and that the blood ritual circle we'd tried to sabotage was part of their plan to contain the Serpent and K.Joe's energy to a breaking point that would annihilate them both. He gave us a chance to leave them to their business in peace but we couldn't let them sacrifice our friends for this plan, so in that moment, Jeeng shot a signal flare to summon Jimmy and the rampaging giant. With the cavalry, the tide started turning, even so, the collateral damage knocked Darren into a coma cocoon for a bit. Meanwhile I turned some more undead but not enough to prevent Zindel from spilling her own blood under possession. Darren emerged a moment later in a burst of light which rejuvenated and elevated us to a new level. He then summoned a shadow hound and a dark duplicate out of his shadow to aid us further. Just when victory was in our grasp, an explosive force from the titan's arena blew all the mist away. Our mysterious necro bard used this distraction to disappear and left his undead puppets for us to finish off. With the last of those dispatched, we left the incapacitated and bound Zindel in Haliford's care while we pursued our ultimate foe, the Serpent. Upon reaching the battlefield, we found K.J. holding off a number of mist monsters though at a heavy cost in the form of thick ice freezing most of it limbs. The Serpent immediately noticed our entrance and set a deadly acid spray. Half of us took the brunt of that attack including myself and we quickly scattered to avoid a repeat. With my energy revitalized by Darren's transformation, I was able to fire off another radiant beam to damage a few of those misties as Jimmy and his giant took on the Serpent with Penny's dragon at the flank. Next I drew a wall of fire through some of the larger mist masses and the serpent and M. Justine finished it off by creating a dimensional rift by cleverly manipulating some bags-of-holding. Unfortunately the giant continued to aimlessly rampage in absence of its target and we had to blind it while we made an escape on our airship.