The pig-sized snake is trying to eat Zann, but with his excellent mastery of unarmed combat, he is able to fight the snake off with furious punches and kicks that stun it in place. While the snake is stunned, Zann conjures a big ball of fire in his hand, gets as close as possible to the snake, and then throws it right into its face. The snake shakes its head back and forth to try to get rid of the flames, and while it’s doing that Zann flies over to the snake’s head with his broomstick and bashes the snake in the head with it, stunning it in place again.
Meanwhile, Noreaga is still insisting that the heroes get on the boat and sail away. Noreaga is pointing with one flap of his wings in the direction of the boat, which is much farther away than it looks. It would be quite the swim. Zann heats up his knife, makes some tricky maneuvers by himself using his levitation power, and tosses his knife across the water. The knife travels all the way to the boat, slices off the rope Noreaga was tied to, and then returns to Zann’s hand. The boat immediately starts to drift away down the river. Once Noreaga realizes that Zann has just saved his life, Noreaga starts to be much more agreeable. It helps that the giant snake had stopped eating him, too. Eventually, they all get to the boat, and a strong gust of wind blows it towards the giant snake. Once they’re all on board, there’s toast for breakfast.
The heroes talk about their next plan. They decide to just go to Nessus, the seventh moon of Monoculus. There are no giant snakes on Nessus. Zann, for some reason, is persuaded by Noreaga to help him catch the snake that’s been following them since they left the capital. While the boat is going through the Flickering Forest, they pass six small monsters that don’t look dangerous. Noreaga tells Zann he should kill these monsters to get an easy way to get to Nessus without much trouble. Zann kills two monsters quickly, but before he can get his sword out to attack the third one, he asks himself, “Should I?” He stops himself and then just punches the monster back to its home in the Flickering Forest.
As soon as they pass through the Flickering Forest, Zann notices that the air is more humid. He flies around a bit with his broomstick and gets a sense that the humidity is a lot higher than normal and that it’s very difficult for him to breathe. He gets back to the boat and tells the group that he thinks they’re coming to a swamp. The heroes are very excited when they hear the word “swamp” because they’re sick of the desert. They take off their clothes and convert their boat into a raft. Then, they jump off the boat and start to float downstream.
Zann builds a boat out of wood he finds in the swamp and he, Noreaga, and the snake all start to sail towards Nessus. Once they’re sailing, Noreaga is still trying to convince the snake to help him get into the castle. The snake keeps shaking its head no and going straight ahead. It is clear that Noreaga doesn’t have much of a plan for how to get the snake to make him king. It’s also clear that Noreaga can’t swim and will probably die if he stops trying to get the snake to take him to the castle. Towards the end of the day, they enter Nessus.
Nessus looks like tiny ragged chunks of floating land sailing through the air. The key difference with a moon orbiting a planet is that it is in free fall, moving in a fixed orbit. It’s also very foggy, which makes it very difficult to see anything, including the next floating piece of land.
The atmosphere on Nessus is poisonous and extremely hot. It makes the skin of every single human extremely painful and sensitive to any kind of touch. This is because the atmosphere on Nessus is a lot more humid than the average desert. This is also why you can't hold your breath: 1 Atm is equivalent of 14.696 feet of water. Thus, if you breathe in a lot of water, your body will feel a huge increase in pressure even though there is basically no change in air volume.
Noreaga struggles to move on land and falls down a lot. He eventually builds himself an entire contraption of tiny wooden walkways to get around the land and get from one piece of land to another. After about four days of building, he finally gets to the top of all of his walkways and starts flying southward with his giant wings.
The heroes’ raft crashes into a piece of land, which the players recognize as Nessus. The raft lands on a nice, sandy beach with the most beautiful palm trees the players have ever seen. They walk up to the palm trees to appreciate them. Zann looks back and sees Noreaga and the snake fly past them without stopping. They all run after Noreaga, and they’re stunned by what they see.
They run through some stone arches to gain a better vantage point to see what was further down the road.
