"Finally." Nymph mutters as she steps over to the Sahuagin and begins hacking.
Nymph rather easily kills the sahuagin who vaulted on the ship near her.
The sharks surround and attack the crocodile (map update to follow now that I've inexplicably regained access to the site).
The crocodile is torn to bits.
Trevor curses as three uglies climb on board on his side of the ship: "Best you dive back before we smoke or salt you!" As he threatens the sahuagins, Trevor weaves eldritch power in his words.
Bahrin turns and spots the sahuagin clambering onto the deck on the opposite side of the ship. He blasts it with a brace of magic missiles.
Yuki fires two more arrows at the closest Sahuagin, moving within 30 feet to place them in point-blank range.
Trevor's magical insults slam into the sahuagin, one of whom screams as it bursts into flame. Yuki slams its arrows into the one across from her and it slumps over dead.
Bahrin's magic missiles likewise blast holes in the sahuagin in across from him and kills it, leaving only the on fire sahuagin left on deck.
It jumps into the water to douse the flames and direct the sharks.
Moving around the shore boat Nymph goes up to the fried Sahuagin to introduce it to her sword.
Trevor moves to the edge of the ship to keep an eye on the Sahuagin and prevent it from climbing on board. He shouts: "We want them to stay in the water, right Cap'n?" while glaring at the smoking Sahuagin.
"I think we can ignore the sharks, they're just pets of the Sahuagin." Yuki advises the others as she moves to the other side of the ship and fires an arrow at the escaping fish guy.
"M'kay... Someone has a bow to spare? A javelin? A rock?"
As Nymph, somewhat heroically, lowers the longboat to descend and attack the sahuagin Yuki fires an arrow at the retreating sahuagin and slams it into its back. It bobs to the surface and the sharks surrounding Galean disperse.
"Good work, guys! Now let's look at the map to figure out where this treasure should be..."
Yuki discovers a small cave system towards the southwest - around midmorning, a few minutes after you kill the sahuagin, the sun hits the rock face just right and group of caves and crevices on the cliff face takes on the appearance of a grinning skull. As the morning sun illuminates the shadow that resembles the skull’s mouth, a previously unseen glint of gold sparkles brightly in the sunlight, as if the skull has a gold tooth.
"Why is it always Skull Rock?" muses Bahrin. "How come it's never like, Torso Rock or Arms Rock or something?"
Trevor looks at Bahrin, not laughing: "Torso doesn't signal imminent danger of dying to the same extent that Skull does? In any case, I'm freaking out, and yet, I want to go check out that tooth. I guess we're all here some special kind of stupid..."
He then walks away to bark at his men to keep an eye out for attackers, above and below water.
"Oh yeah, that's gotta to be the spot! Ayre and the crew can keep the boat safe, while the rest of us will climb up the skull and check things out. Uh, even though most of us can fly, we should probably bring some extra rope just in case." Yuki says, sounding extremely excited as she makes her way to one of the ship's boats to cast off towards their destination.
As you row across the bay, happily thinking about the amount of gold that can be pressed into a tooth that fits the size of the skull cave, you're tremendously disappointed to discover that it's actually a pyrite formation - worthless, even if it does sparkle in the sun.
This gives you two "eyes" to climb up thirty feet above the cliff face where you ship gently bobs in the water.
Buzzing overhead, Galean finally lands on the boat. "Uh. That's disappointing.", he comments as the metal in question turns to be the fool's gold. "I can hang the rope somewhere up there, Cap'n?", he asks, before remembering the magical grappling hook.
"Are we going all the way to the top of the head, or are we going to delve into the eyes first?", asks Galean cheerfully.
"Or Bahrin can fly there..." adds Trevor, rolling his eyes.
"Let's climb up to the eyes, we'll go with the left one first." Yuki advises the others while she waits for someone to throw the magical grappling hook. "I think everyone can either climb okay with a rope or fly, right?"
Nymph scratches her head and shrugs. "I did okay when we got pressganged, this'll hopefully be easier."
"You can fly if you want, Trevor," says Bahrin. "Actually probably good for someone to fly in case anything goes sideways. Captain?"
"I think Galean is the most perceptive among us, so I suggest he goes first and looks for traps. I mean, if it holds the treasure that it's supposed to, it's gotta be trapped."
"You can fly if you want, Trevor," says Bahrin. "Actually probably good for someone to fly in case anything goes sideways. Captain?"
"I can fly all right, but only downward, and I haven't found a way to slow down. Except, of course, using the ground... No, I'll climb; you fly."
Nymph hops up and plops against the wall and... doesn't do much else, having forgotten what your body does next in regards to climbing.
Trevor rises up in no time: "Lots of nice footholds! You barely need a rope here!" he comments, showing off.
Bahrin casts his usual spell and rises up with Galean and Trevor.
"Come on Nymph, we have treasure to find!" Yuki calls out to the other woman as she tries to climb up the rope.
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"That's not a great as motivator as you'd think."
"Now, climbing up right behind you, that's a motivator."
As Galean admires the view from below, Trevor sees a narrow earthen opening ascends into the cliff above. The cave mouth is a tight fit behind the screening vines and roots, but it looks accessible with a little effort.
The cave extends upwards at a fairly steep slop with an 8-foot ceiling - you see no tracks or other signs of passage within.
As you climb the tunnel climbs to a point just below the island’s surface. Sunlight filters faintly through a rent in the earth above, where a gargantuan tree grows down into the rocky soil, its prodigious
root system blocking any further progress ahead. The fissures and crevices in the bark of the tree’s trunk, just visible at the roof of the tunnel, vaguely resemble a wrinkled human visage with a craggy crown upon its brow, while the spread of roots below seems like the hoary growth of an ancient beard.
You seem convinced that this where you have to start digging.
After digging your way down 10 feet you eventually hit a layer of 6-inch-thick wooden planks laid across the pit bottom.
Trevor gives his companions a wide grin as he sweeps the caked earth from his forehead. "All right Cap'n, will you do us the honour?" and he hands her the ship's crowbar.
He gets behind her and helps her on the crowbar.
"With pleasure, thank you Trev." Yuki said, satisfied that all that hard work digging finally unearthed something. Unfortunately, her sweaty hands slip off the crowbar, leaving the Bard to do all the work."Oopsy."
Galean jumps down in the pit, nodding at Trevor. "Uh... I could help with that?", he asks, nodding at the captain, as he takes her place at the crowbar. "You'd still have the honour of ordering us to do this, I imagine.", he jokes with a wide grin.
As the pirates pry up the planks they reveal a sinkhole descending into the rock. It drops thirty feet to the still, dark surface of water below. The broken remnants of a wooden platform and stair cling to the wall, but the structures themselves have long since rotted away and dropped into the inscrutable depths.
Nymph blinks as she stares down into the sinkhole. "What the hell kind of buried treasure is this?"
"This is weird, yeah." Yuki says with light consternation as she looks down the hole, "Any of you guys have a light we can toss down there and see if anything hungry is living down there?"
"Nope."
Bahrin snaps his fingers and several small, eerie blue lights appear in the air. With a wave of his hand he sends them spiraling down into the darkness.
"This reminds me of that one story, the Count of... something, I can't remember where. But he goes and collects a buried treasure and it turns out to be deep in a pool of water so you have to swim down to get it."
The lights Bahrin summons shows the sinkhole below descends another 20 feet below the water level and a tunnel exits to the southwest.
Not even a copper coin glints at the bottom of the water.
Galean scratches his head. "Uh. Maybe the island itself is the treasure? Or we need to fight a guardian for it?", he questions, before pointing down the hole. "I'll go ahead first, unless someone objects? Or me and Yuki, but she wouldn't be able to fly out if need be.", he reasons. After a short pause, he shrugs, stands on the edge, and assuming the form of a cormorant, flaps down into the sinkhole.
"Um, there's a problem here guys. Do we have any means to breathe underwater? I think I can do it eventually, but not right now. Maybe Sandara or Ayre can help us out? Otherwise, we'll either going to have to wait until tomorrow or sail back to buy some magical stuff to help us out." Yuki says to others after a moment of thought.
"Afraid not. I can go check as far as I can hold my breath, if you want."
Nymph grins but doesn't otherwise comment on the current predicament for the air breathers.
Galean stops his pondering next to the hole and scratches his head. "Uh, Cap'n, I can help everyone here breathe, but that'd be tomorrow. I can't do anything today." He looks around the island. "Maybe we should go around and see, so that we don't get ambushed by fishmen by the time we go out of that hole?", he proposes, scratching his head with severe noise.