Keep waiting

The heroes receive the kodama charm from the kodama in Aramestes’s castle. KB goes dormant during the night in the spooky castle.

The gang heads down the mountain to retrieve the dogs and they’re all fine! Except, don’t forget about the ones in the village that escorted those victims of Grandmother Nervepeeler.

The heroes montage through Iskos Valley, avoiding the goat village (they’ll be waiting quite a long time for that goat apocalypse). On the way, they chat with Yoldo the surviving head of the Skull Lord (Temarian Yoldo and Sull) from Aramestes’s manor, who is such a “nice guy”, am I right, ladies?

Dirigimon, Dirigble Monsters

Over the horizon, there is black smoke rising and hovering dirigibles in the air. The heroes arrive in the town square, looking for their dogs and find only the cloud giants starting to enslave a bunch of people! So rude.

Sora plummets to the ground after being held in the air, the lead giant (Prince Riffrick) beats Livius up like he owes him money (Livius surely must owe someone money), and these giants know more spell and are more maneuverable than you might think. These big honkin dudes.

But Riffrick’s pals are just baby giants. Riffrick’s the real deal–and oh whoops, he is almost dead and he starts booking it. The dirigibles show up above and start deploying more giants and Riffrick wants to strike a deal:

“Pay us off and we’ll leave Iskos forever.”

But the giants don’t want to let the dogs go! Thirurl, Rox, and Goliath have been hanging out in town for a few days after their escort mission. So they do the old put the dogs in the middle and have them come to whoever they love best trick. It’s a low DC because of course they love you, they’re bonded to you by magic, you goofs. Everything doesn’t have to be a huge challenge, we just need the narrative to play out in the way it would, don’t look at me like that.

Livius is really itching to blast some giants out of the sky but cooler heads prevail.

“Give us a ride to kill your sacred beast”

The heroes ask for a lift to Lemba, and the giants agree for an additional price. Then the heroes tell the giants that they want to kill the sky swimmer and ask for their help, and the giants say well we’re definitely not helping you with that.

The heroes taunt them and call them chicken and the giants are like, uh, that’s our sacred animal? So nice diplomacy, guys.

Tell our story, Whaler Ron

But Whaler Ron helps them home on his whaler and says that hes excited to regale everyone about their stories. Truly you are a legend and didn’t beef the whole big-damn-hero thing like you did on Jolos and defiled those corpses by turning them into zombies. The people on Iskos all like you! (At least the coastal villages). Isn’t that good? You’re heroes this time!

The heroes arrive back at the ship and boy, are they ready for blood. They’re so down to clown. They’re ready to bounce, to get back home, get after Hespero (after the coincidences start making sense), to get that last key, to defeat the Deathless One. Hell yeah.

But Hungry Hamboy Hugo made soup AGAIN (the fairy food made them go crazy but at least it was good), so they’re a little lethargic when the heroes return.

Yoldo talks to Natalya and spooks her real bad. Despite all m’rage, I’m still just a creep in a cage. So they put him away and hand over the book! Doot-da-dup, you’ve leveled up!

The real encounter was the friends you alienated along the way

However, when they do, KB starts talking shit about Natalya, saying that she is an abomination and partially responsible for their current situation. Natalya seems frightened of KB and communicates her fear via your shared sign language, which KB cannot understand. She tells you that she wants to defeat her brother the Deathless One, that she wants to help you return to the material plane, but KB says that she must be lying, that she is an abomination.

Hobbes steps in and defends Natalya as she cowers behind Livius. Hobbes empathizes with Natalya, getting angry with KB for making her feel less than for being different, the same feelings he went through as a doppler in Argot.

KB backs off but warns the others that “there will come a day when you will have to choose,” and walks to the other side of the ship

The others share stories in the hold. Nahk delights everyone but I forget how. Sora decides to leave (everyone was getting a bit too chummy) after Cas touches her face. Sora bops Cas on the nose and exits, stage left.

After credits scenes

• no one noticed but inexplicably in everyone’s blind spot at the same time, Nahk was actually one-on-one-ing a seventh giant during that combat encounter
• there was also a scene where the alchemist was just playing with all the dogs in a dog pile. Good Malory grabs one of her leg bones and she hops after him to retrieve it

It is the morning of the 31st day since the Battle of Aurochs Island, the first engagement in the Argoti-Mineosi War.

The heroes are on Lemba, having returned from Iskos after protecting the coastal village from a giant raid.

The dogs are all back.

Three islands left: Nistora, Dorost, and Charatos

One beast left: The Skyswimmer.

You are on a demiplane, and Zulon is due to arrive today on the material plane.

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