The party contemplates a few different passages away from the three starving, chained air cult initiates. Haerelben leverages his invisibility to become the inquisitive pneumatic projection of Yan-C-Bin. The first starving, chained initiate doesn’t buy into the ruse. The second starving, chained initiate doesn’t buy into the ruse. The third is willing, but can’t muster the moisture to produce the recognition whistle of the cult. He does report that Prophetess Aerisi Kalinoth can be found in the temple.
“Initiate” Theren leads the party north toward a moat-surrounded pyramid of dwarven construction that doesn’t look unlike a temple. Meega and Bromsby are loosely bound by rope as Theren and Lefty’s “prisoners”. The crashing sound of falling water fills the underground chamber. Bromsby notices a wyvern perched atop the pyramid and a rider perched atop the wyvern. The rider notices Lefty and they swoop down to ask Lefty just who she thinks she is, bringing prisoners to the temple? Lefty takes the sky weaver’s point and was just wondering the same thing, but Theren persists and wishes to offer Meega, one of the butchers of Feathergale Spire, as wyvern food. Lefty flicks a dart at the rider, but accidentally sticks Meega instead, outraging both Theren and the rider. Imposter Lefty is bound to Meega and Bromsby, and the rider directs Theren to lead the procession to Aerisi.
It takes just a few moments for Theren to realize he isn’t actually in the air cult, and he doesn’t know which direction to follow for Aerisi, but that never stops Theren. He leads the procession straight to double doors across from the waterfall into the temple pyramid. He confidently throws open the doors and leads the prisoners in. The rider, a sky weaver, blocks the doorway behind them with his wyvern.
Seven cultists levitate slightly off the floor of the chamber, chanting the praises of Yan-C-Bin. Pillars of carved dwarves stretch twenty feet to the ceiling. A pair of staircases lead up. Howling air blasts up into the room from a pit in the center.
Theren addresses Aerisi directly and begs pardon for the interruption. The cultists all touch down, turning their piercing attention to Theren. Theren again offers up Meega, this time to Aerisi. The cultists swarm and attack Theren. They know something Theren does not: Aerisi is not here.
Theren is brutalized by the riled cultists and the wyvern who whips him nearly to death with its poisonous stinger. Invisible Haerelben, observing the mayhem from outside the chamber, banishes the wyvern and its sky weaver rider to a harmless demiplane for a hot minute. Lefty and Meega each drop a pair of cultists. A sky weaver chases Bromsby with lightning, and a hurricane chain punches Theren while catching Theren’s retaliating crossbow bolt.
Bromsby grasps the magic flute and launches a thunderwave at the sky weaver. The magic flute and Iron Oath launch themselves in opposite directions and the thunderwave backfires on Bromsby. Meega charges the sky weaver, smashing her to the ground and bisecting her with Giant Slayer. Bromsby decides he can wield only one artifact at a time and grabs up Iron Oath to critically and lethally erupt earth under the hurricane. That’s more like it. Theren eagerly accepts the magic flute.
The cultists are searched and mined for their uniforms. A pile of magic darts [10 seeker 120’ range 1d4 + DEX + 3d4 lightning] is collected up by dextrous Lefty.
The wyvern and sky weaver will return imminently. Theren channels a wind wall outside the doors through the magic flute to prevent the wyvern’s escape. Haerelben blesses the party. Everyone prepares a surprise attack and the wyvern and rider pop back in.
Damage pours on the duo with the grand prize going to Bromsby’s erupted earth. Neither the wyvern nor the sky weaver can manage a counterattack before being brutally cut down.
The party prepares for a short rest, dragging bodies into the chamber and closing the doors. Bromsby points at the stairs that everyone else has forgotten. Resting might be difficult if the ruckus was heard from upstairs. Hopefully a more discrete location, nearer to the exit of the cult area, can be found to catch some rest. But the party does take a moment to toss a dead cultist into the howling air pit to see which direction it goes: down, but slowly.
Theren wastes no time popping into the room. He sends two crossbow bolts vaguely in the priestess’s direction and pops back out again. Bromsby erupts earth under the proceedings killing one cultist. Lefty heads straight for the priestess while the scimitar wielding cultists, met by Meega and Bromsby, clog the doorway. Theren takes out the priestess and then comprehensively atomizes a cultist’s head with an overcharged bolt. Lefty drops the two cultists blocking the doorway. The black pudding envelops the prisoner. Haerelben banishes the black pudding to a harmless demiplane where it spends an anxious minute not eating. 
Lefty finds a box of samoa cookies on a cultist, but concludes, to her own disappointment, they must be poisoned and she smashes them to crumbs. Bromsby checks out the obelisk where the black pudding resides in its porous surface. He spots an object in a crevice and retrieves an oiled bamboo flute.
Haerelben explores ahead, opening a door into a courtyard where an air cultist is conducting an ensemble of flautists. The conductor is highly dissatisfied with their performance and berates the flautists. Then he berates the interrupting flock of kenku squawking, “Imposter! Imposter!” The conductor well-knows when an untalented group of hacks have misrepresented their fluting proficiency, thanks very much.
The anticipated expiration of the devastation orb’s timer has elapsed by four hours. Haerelben hands Theren’s coat back to him and offers to predict the outcome for 25 gold, the component cost for placing a divination call to Sehanine’s customer service representatives. 
Theren expresses reluctance to descend to Black Geode at this time. Bromsby could orienteer them out of this temple into some other dangerous part of Tyar-Besil, if that’s of any interest. It occurs to Haerelben that it might be worthwhile finding the temple proper, now that the area is safer with every defeated cultist. Meega is ready to make it even safer, chopping her way to a cultist-free world. Lefty is down for whatever.
Stone-masked Haerelben shoves “prisoner” Meega into a dilapidated marble room of campfires and bedrolls. They are confronted by a bulette-mounted burrowshark and four attending hobgoblins whose improvised armors, notes Bromsby, suggest they are hired mercenaries instead of dedicated earth cultists. Haerelben fast-talks his way into conflict with Nartham, the burrowshark, and confuses stone-mask wearing Theren who can’t work out which angle Haerelben is playing. Bromsby wastes no consideration on the issue and thorn whips belligerent Nartham, pulling him unexpectedly off the bulette right into Meega’s waiting axe. Meega, Lefty, and Theren quickly wipe out Nartham but not before he commands the bulette to leap upon Meega. Haerelben channels Sehanine’s healing grace into Meega, but the divine reception down in Tyar-Besil is poor.
Adrik celebrates victory over the second goblinoid wave as a rock flies over the defensive wall around Goldenfields and conks him in the head. Adrik loses consciousness. Grund won’t be quite the same until his comrade comes to.
A pair of ogres lead a third wave of goblins in from the fields. The ogres smash Lifferlas back down, wood chips flying everywhere. Grund charges into an ogre while firebolts from Harry and Naxene blast it. Mel, unable to find time for mending her battlehammer, chops the ogres with her handaxe while simultaneously bringing Lifferlas back to the fight. Again. Zi’s quarterstaff bashes the ogre, and Xelbrin’s crossbow just barely finds it way into the ogre’s big toe. Shalvus sneaks in a hit, and the first ogre is down. Self-appointed treasurer Baergar continues searching for gemstones.
Northfurrow’s End is clear of goblins for the moment. The party, along with proprietor Xelbrin, dextrous stranger Shalvus Martholio, and watchful mage Naxene Drathkala, sprint toward town to see what ruckus has befallen Goldengulp. They link up with town defender Zi Liang and town tree Lifferlas. A wave of goblinoids from the south crashes into their defensive line.
Lifferlas is indistinguishable from any other tree knocking a morningstar out of the hands of a bugbear. A goblin kills Lifferlas making him indistinguishable from any other fallen tree. Adrik, Zi, and Baergar beat back the goblins while Harry, Naxene, and Xelbrin position themselves at range for spellcasting and crossbowing, sending in bolts of fire and cross wherever Adrik directs with his hand axes. Grund hammers his way through a bugbear, revives Lifferlas, and booms out taunts of being nursed on the blood of the goblins’ ancestors, much like the Judge is nursing on their blood now. The wroth goblins clamber to overwhelm him, distracting them from attacking the other defenders according to Grund’s plan. Mel brings Grund back to life with a healing word.
Glowing fungi in the cavern attract Shroom’s attention. When he attempts to collect some into a jar, Shroom realizes the cavern wall he is scraping is actually a camouflaged cave ape covered in the glowing fungi. The scraped ape bites deeply into Shroom. Three more hiding cave apes pounce on Bizzle and Shroom. Now it’s on, like some kind of mashup of a pack animal and a giant simian rolling barrels down a deranged structure in an attempt the prevent the party from advancing.
The party explores a passage the mind flayer exploited to ambush Tatters. Bizzle checks through the fallen mind flayer’s possessions and comes up with a magical sword. Vaguely aware of the tendency for his scimitars to liberate other weapons, Bizzle proposes someone else carry the magical sword. Tatters accommodates, strapping the longsword to his small gnome frame.
Shroom sends his zombie cave ape pet, Fubca, to beat down one of the doors. Tatters reaches out to Apholatzin with the helm of telepathy to inquire about artifacts and the possibility of opening some of these doors. Apholatzin offers Tatters all the rings he could carry as an incentive to depart. Fubca breaks through the door exposing piles of treasure, including rings. Tricksy points to a pair of cave apes lurking at the back wall. Tatters tosses a fireball at them. Shroom’s ice knife, Tricksy’s arrows, and Tatters’s ray of frost drop one ape, Slick’s sneaked great axe and Bizzle’s scimitars drop the other.
Shroom collects fungus while Bizzle uses a pan from his mess kit to scoop piles of rings into his greycoat. Tricksy hears the sound of a door opening and closing signaling the escape of a person of interest. She pries at the door with a dagger while Tatters freezes it brittle. Shroom gallops up riding Fubca who smashes down the door. Bizzle gives chase and finds the fleeing mind flayer in the next room. Shroom gallops by on Fubca with a hearty, Never bathe! Fubca and Shroom claw at the mind flayer with primal savagery.
Shroom and Tatters can see a sunken room pooling a brine solution and occupied by a giant elder brain. Giant elder brain Apholatzin is accompanied by yet another mind flayer. Shroom sends his new mind flayer zombie pet in to feed on the giant elder brain. Apholatzin lashes out with a psionic attack stunning Tatters and killing the zombie. Slick puts a crossbow bolt into Apholatzin. Tricksy scales a wall. Shroom pokes his head in to cast confusion, but Apholatzin maintains well-ordered thoughts. Shroom ducks back out. The mind flayer finds him and attaches itself to stunned Shroom’sface. Bizzle blinks into shadow and slips up to Apholatzin.
The party explores around and discovers an eclectic trove of artifacts: a small wooden chest containing a desicated eyeball, a monstrance, a chakram, a staff, and a small jar. Tatters collects the artifacts into his greycoat, confident that the chakram is the “ring” sought by their patron, Baron Van Fostern.
The party has made its way to the center of the Chult jungle to a structure in the grip of a slowly encroaching jungle. Trapmaster Tricksy points out the walls and floor of this structure are made of an unrecognized metal, constructed in hexagonal patterns, and the door separating them from the escaping tentacle-faced guy has no mechanical opener. Tatters, tying up critically injured Bill the mule, overhears Tricksy’s observations and comes dashing up, out of breath but with a great idea. Tatters reaches out to the door psychically through his helm of telepathy. The door’s representative answers and offers to open the door. Discouraged by his own success, Tatters reluctantly accepts and the door slides open. 
Shroom, already empathetically hugging the door, falls into the chamber. Shroom’s captured zombie servants shuffle in to help him up, but dissipate when they get near. Slick follows without dissipation and sees a curved hallway with more doors. Tatters follows Slick but freezes, catatonic, immediately inside the doorway. Shroom tries to waken Tatters by sticking his fungal fingers into Tatters’s mouth, but this previously established method fails. Shroom grapples Tatters and demands answers. Bizzle steps through and becomes catatonic next to Tatters.
Tatters and Bizzle find themselves in a village and in a conversation with the disembodied voice of Apholatzin who offers any old thing they would want: riches, magic rings, bus fare, you name it. Bizzle peeks into the buildings and in fact there are piles of treasure. Apholatzin is not especially forthcoming with his plans and designs, but does show some interest in bartering for Bizzle’s sentient scimitars, Destra and Sinistra. Apholatzin screams in a weird language, then Destra and Sinistra scream and vibrate back at him. Unnerved Bizzle activates his blink belt, abandoning Tatters, and finds himself in shadow world but back in the structure with Tricksy. Slick and Shroom have popped over into the mind village.
The tentacle-faced guy drops from hiding on the ceiling, perfectly positioned to attach his tentacles to Slick’s brains, but Slick side steps defty. Shroom knows a mindflayer when he sees one attach itself to his face to stun and psychically damage him. Tatters summons a high level sleep spell that knocks out the mindflayer. It slowly oozes off Shroom. Shroom gently eases it to the floor.
The mindflayer won’t stay unconscious for long so the party hovers over it, preparing their best spells and weapons. They nominate Slick to go first with a critically mighty chop to the mindflayer’s neck [65 slashing damage]. The mindflayer’s head pops off and forcefully splatters onto the wall. Shroom’s spell is already erupting, spraying the head into a mist that covers him in a film of atomized mindflayer debris.
Tatters again focuses his helm of telepathy on a door, but now Apholatzin is rather snippy at the destruction of Cidivox, the mindflayer. He won’t open this door. Tricksy jams the point of her dagger into the jamb and pries the door open enough to get the tip of her crowbar in. Shroom shoves on the crowbar too forcefully and the crowbar breaks. Bizzle retrieves a backup crowbar and Tricksy forces the door open enough for them to squeeze through.
In the quiet post combat moments of the darkened ruins deep within the Chult jungle, the group dedicates some time to investigation and contemplation. There are no artifacts for Van Fostern in the ruins, nor treasures for payment beyond what Slick loots from the grungs. 
The party camps off the road and divides up watches. On second watch, Shroom hears a patrol of three and wakes each cohort with a probing fungal finger in the face. Tatters whispers that maybe they should be quiet and let the patrol pass. Bizzle nods affirmatively but springs out of the jungle at the three grungs anyway. 
Tricksy, Slick, Tatters, and Bizzle lounge in the warren getting to know new R&S agent transfer Shroom, a likeable, fun guy lurking somewhere in a druidic cloud of unbathed spores. Rooster emerges from his office with rotund Baron Flocculant Van Fostern after an hour of unsuccessful negotiations. Whatever Fostern has in mind, R&S can’t provide a fixed scope or basis of cost, but Rooster consents to allowing agents to contract independently with Fostern, completely off book and sans standard death benefits package R&S provides to its employees.
Tatters knows all about brain flukes, ingested from drinking tainted water. He fills his bag of holding with waterskins and rations for the journey. Sundry other provisioning is made and the group sets off into the jungle where they soon meet adventurer Mercer and his mule Bill coming the other way. Well into the conversation about ancient ruins, artifacts, and plate sized rubies, Mercer’s head explodes from excess brain fluke. The party invokes finders keepers acquiring Bill the mule. Slick helps himself to Mercer’s boots.
A few days into their journey the party comes across an abandoned pack, left as though its owner had tripped and then mysteriously vanished. Slick sees no traps or obvious danger so Tricksy opens it, revealing a large ruby, two gold nuggets, and a couple of hungry looking purple worms. Shroom hammers a worm into purple paste with his petrified mushroom warhammer. Slick axes up the other worm into purple julienne. Keen-sensed ranger Tricksy hears incoherent whispers and senses the party is being watched. Tatters checks out the abandoned loot, but notices nothing amiss. Bizzle claims the giant ruby as their first progress payment and notices the warm sensation of happiness that undoubtedly accompanies the sudden acquisition of great wealth. The whispers unnecessarily encourage Bizzle to acquire more treasure. Shroom is visibly disappointed that no fungus is among the treasure and swabs out his nostrils to purge any purple worm brain flukes that might be in there.
Tricksy is pretty sure the group is being followed. Tatters advances cautiously and sees eyes peering back. The eyes, and seven similar pairs, leap out at the party in the form of cute little grungs trying to stab and poison them.
Grungs emerge from all around, this time accompanied by a jungle troll. Tatters thinks it’s pretty weird for grungs and trolls to socialize. Tatters and Shroom clean out the grungs while Slick, Tricksy, and Bizzle confront the troll. The troll, trying to reach for Tricksy in the tree, claws, bites, and shoves aside his assailants despite Bizzle’s galline tauntings. Attacks land on the troll, but it regenerates until Tatters hits it with a fireball. Tricksy’s arrows slay the troll, and the last of the grungs are finished off.