After a bit of looking around, the party came across a basic hermit-style dwelling. The door was answered by a burly-looking guy who spoke Eastern Common and said he was Pazeel, a follower of freedom. (At this point, Silvana and Ganeth exchanged a look that could be roughly translated as, "Ah, a Chaotic Evil Pazazu worshipper.") Pazeel, who said he'd been brought to the island by some djinn, confirmed that the cloud island flips every three days or so, as measured by his gnomish timekeeping device; he also thought it would be nice if the party would clear out a group of trolls who were blocking the tunnels leading to the city on the other side. Then his change self went down, revealing a magey-looking guy in a robe. Meanwhile, Jenx snuck into Pazeel's dwelling and discovered that the guy has a safe (which is not considered a normal piece of hermit furniture).
After bidding adieu to Pazeel, Stealth set up a shelter and the party camped for the night. (Not that there's really night, dusk, dawn, sun, or anything else of the sort in the Cloudlands, but you get the idea.) Unfortunately, the hut was made of the same material as the clouds themselves, so a group of cloud trolls was able to burrow in and attack the party. (The good news about cloud trolls: They vaporize when they hit -20 hp. The bad news about cloud trolls: They're 8+ HD, immune to electricity, and regen 4 hp/round with no startup lag. No wings, though.) And they were attacked by a hunter for good measure, though it seemed to be lacking in the half-dozen friends department.
Before memorization, Ganeth cast plane source on the local cloudstuff; he got a dual Alternate Prime/Elemental Air reading. So it's no great surprise that air bolts do double damage around here. Btw, apart from the party's version of the Prime and wherever the big birds come from, the Cloudlands connect to Pandemonium, though not to the Abyss -- according to Jenx, anyway. And despite the normal gravity, Jenx has never seen or heard of an actual ground against which to traumatically decelerate. (Of course, he hasn't taken the big plunge either.)
After memorization, healing, kata, and so forth, the party set out (rangers first) to trace the cloud trolls back to their lair and loot it. They followed the tracks back to big cave, which Stealth and Jenx promptly scouted. Stealth found a passageway heading steeply downward (perhaps the one Pazeel wanted cleared out) that was strewn with machinery. Jenx saw two partially buried (and possibly sleeping) sentries near the entrance and a large cavern further in; the cavern contained a throne, a half-dozen trolls, a technological device (humming; had dull silvery opaque tubes; perhaps of githyanki origin), and a two-headed troll queen fiddling with said device. There was a smaller room leading off from the main cavern, though its entrance was halfway up the wall.
After looking at the track pattern a bit more, the rangers thought there might be a secondary base a short distance away, so the party headed off. Sure enough, there was a small cave with cloud trolls; the party killed a bunch of them and captured their leader, who calls herself Elg and speaks rudimentary Western Common. Cambra tried to learn a bit about the local troll community...
- Cambra:
- "Tell me about mates?"
- Elg:
- "Guzig is tasty. Jungjung is chewy. Vargog is runty."
Elg was more than happy to talk about lots of treasure and try leading the party back to the main troll cave, but the party was much more interested in moving into her cave before the island flips again. Meanwhile, Jenx searched the cave and found some translucent ellipsoidal light blue gems and a magic lamp; the lamp was uninhabited, and none of this stuff radiated evil (unlike Elg).
While Elg pretended to sleep and the party pondered what to do next, a djinn appeared and grabbed Jenx, though he didn't do any harm and Pepper's danger sense never kicked in. The djinn approved of Ganeth's blue dragon scale armor and was intrigued by his possession of a ki-rin mirror but was less than impressed with Jenx ("He is a useless guide. Did you not see his wings?"); however, Jenx was able to command some fear (though not respect) with an item he brandished (maybe something for trapping air elementals).
After a bit of negotiation, the party learned that there are some powerful evil people running around imprisoning air creatures, and there's at least some chance that they're from Marakeel and environs. They also learned that Pazeel was on the run from a balor. The djinn extended an invitation for the party to visit the djinn's Caliph and then puffed off.
The party figured that if they were going to be on the island for a while, they might as well try to grab some treasure from the central troll base. Unfortunately, with a lot of the party's offensive spellpower somewhat useless against the electricity-resistant trolls, a cunning plan was called for: Frankel and Pepper would go off and lure small troll hunting groups back to the party to be ambushed and beaten to an airy pulp, and when the trolls got tired of being slowly picked off and came out in force, the party would double around, steal their treasure while they were out, and then return to Elg's cave to wait out the flip.
(Incidentally, cloud trolls seem to be somewhat smarter than conventional ones; Elg was working on a plan to capture a djinn and make it create food for her so she wouldn't have to go hunting all the time. Elg also seemed to enjoy the novelty of being tied up and gagged, but didn't care much for the blindfold.)
The party ran two ambushes and took out five trolls with minimal difficulty but postponed the rest of the plan when the djinn returned with a few palanquins to take the party to an audience with the Caliph.
- Djinn: [whispered]
- "You should honor the Caliph with gifts."
- Beeel:
- "Could the Caliph use a smart pet troll?"
- Djinn:
- "Trolls are messy. The Caliph's place is very clean."
So the party released Elg, figuring she'd report back to the other trolls and fill them in on her adventures. Since the party will be returned to the island after their audience with the Caliph, their plan is to have the equines do their routine again; since Elg will have warned the trolls about the party's hunting tactics, they'll hopefully chase after Frankel and Pepper in force, leaving a clear path for the rest of the party to nab the treasure. And then it becomes a question of not getting stomped on before the cloud ship regenerates.
But first, the Caliph. Stay tuned...