"I don't feel right about cutting and running just because this thing has shown us some scary images... I've never run from a fight that I thought I had any chance at all of winning. But I'll do what you say, Sera."
Milo is surprised, but relents. "Sera makes a good point. I hate to leave, but we should do this together or not at all. If you'd rather come back later, we should seal this place up as best we can. I hope we can take out the gems and block the passage again."
"The best we can hope for is too remove the gems and keep them safe as we leave. I have no knowledge if it's those specific gems or if it could be any gems of that color or if the way will even seal itself away again. I suggest we leave both immovable rods in their place and take away the gems and see if that seals the entrance."
"Standing out here all alone is as dangerous as going inside. The same monsters who attacked us before can influence whoever is outside to lock the others inside and then we're screwed. It's a good idea, Maja, but I think we should just leave and try to do something to seal the place, for now." She will try to reactivate the locking mechanism using her unique skills. "Do we have magic to cover the entrance?"
Milo takes precautions to scuff out the party's footprints, both inside the cellar and at the entrance to the tower. "Now we can tell if anyone else visits this place while we are gone."
Idris looks disgruntled at not facing whatever's behind the door, but silently goes along with Seraphina's decision.
Kivan makes sure the rods are back in position and that they remove the gems after leaving the cellar area.
Seraphina gave Idris a comforting pat on the back. "Don't worry, we won't leave it long."
She appeared to agree with Kivan, "Seems clear the place must have a means of resealing itself as it had admitted these men before us and we found the place closed." After the gems were removed and the cellar doors closed, she waited a few minutes to see if it had magically resealed. If it did not, then she would look around for a rock large enough to conceal the entry.
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Pretty isn't able to re-lock the doors, per se. However, she can jimmy the lock to obstruct opening the door. No key will unlock the portal, but the careful application of tools can remove the obstruction.
The Immovable Rods are pressed against the doors and re-activated. One by one, you ascend the steep shaft towards the surface on the rope you lowered yourselves down by. Once at the top, you retrieve the rope and remove the gemstones from their receptacles. As each gem is removed, the stone column moves upwards to incrementally block the cellar door. The strange, mind-churning symbol remains burned onto the mantle, but devoid of gemstones it seems only a dark, greasy stain. The gems themselves seem to resist removal from the tower, a faint force pulling them back towards the cellar door. As you exit the tower, they cease their twitching and rest easy once more.
It is a simple matter to retrace your steps back to the raft which got you out here. No gibbering undead or wisps rise to challenge you, but the sense of malevolence continues to gnaw at the pit of your stomachs. As you embark on the raft and shove off, the sensation is replaced by a visceral relief, like sunlight on your face after a long, dark winter.
The good mood doesn't last too long, however. As you draw near the mainland, you notice that your horses are nowhere to be seen. The landing spot reveals significantly more information.
The damp soil of the lake shore has been churned into sucking mud by many hoof- and foot-prints. Splotches of blood spill across the ground. Several broken spears and two dozen arrows litter the ground - crude affairs of wooden staves and knapped flint heads. Your saddlebags lay rent and torn across the ground, with the possessions formerly contained within scattered and trampled. Any edibles or weapons left with the horses are gone.
Drag marks flanked by footprints trail off to the southwest.
As they leave the tower Kivan sits back and focuses on writing down a few things he forgot to write down before. He focuses on his experience with the shady figure and that one spell he seemed to cast before making a note to try and see if is an actual spell or a hallucination of the mind. As they arrive back at the shoreline Kivan seems angry at the death of his horse. Walking forward and examining the scene further Kivan tries to examine the evidence.
"So the lizardfolk killed our horses and robbed us, great, just great. I vote we hunt those lizardfolk down and stop them before heading back."
Milo remains silent as they paddle back to the mainland, enjoying the sense of relief for only a few moments before noticing the horses are gone. Instantly, his mood sours. He hadn't thought the day could get any worse, but somehow, it had. Once on shore, Milo sighs and his shoulders slump. At first, Nix won't go near the mess and watches with her hackles raised.
Gesturing at the blood and debris, Milo says "Our brave horses. These beasts carried us through rain and snow, good days and bad, attacks by bandits, cultists, and rocs..." Trailing off, he dejectedly surveys the scene to see what he can learn. But his tears make it hard to see, and his memories make it hard to concentrate. Milo had raised Comet since he was just a little foal, seven years ago. Just that morning, he'd curry combed him and hobbled him here on the shore so he couldn't wander too far. And now he was dead, along with the other five horses. He might not have known them as long, but he'd taken care of all of them at some point or another. He'd seen the lizardfolk tracks that very morning. Why hadn't he thought the hateful creatures might attack the horses?
Kivan's words snap him back to the present, and his sadness vanishes, replaced with anger. "That makes two of us. Let's see which way they went."
Milo stalks around the perimeter of the area while Nix snuffles at the ground to track the lizardfolk. He tries to determine how many lizardfolk dragged off the horses, and if it looks like they slaughtered all six horses.
"Damn!! I knew we were taking too long!" Pretty's feelings never lie. But there was no point in mentioning that right now, so the rogue turned to seek for any sign where the captors went. She was pretty sure it were the responsible for the footprints they found before, but maybe it was something else.
She tightens a fist, specially when realizing her things are all messed up, aside from some daggers and a shortbow that were taken. And a dead horse, of course there was that too. "I can't wait to give them some payback."
"I guess leaving our horses here was not the smartest thing we could have done. Well... let's keep our hopes up. Maybe some of them are still alive."
Seraphina gave a shuddering sigh, feeling weary deep down to her very bones. After the long swim, the terrible visions, the dissention and the return trip, ferrying them all back to the shore, she felt there was little enough left of her for today. She surveyed the bloody scene dripping with lake water, not even having bothered to wring it away from herself and her teeth bared in a grimace that was entirely un-ladylike. You knew this was possible. Failure wrapped in folly and foisted by FOOLS! Her thoughts screamed in frustration. She said not a word. She did not move to retrieve one thing. She merely aided in following the tracks, relying on fury and instinct over training.
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The tracks are easy enough to follow. It's hard to conceal dragged carcasses the size of a bunch of horses, after all. The tracks lead west and slightly north, towards the forest which looms on the horizon, and roughly parallel to the lake shore.
As you progress, you notice the water of the lake growing darker and shallower close to shore. The rocky shoreline transitions slowly into a marshy bank with increasingly higher concentrations of dank peat moss, while reeds, cattails, and rushes grow more frequently and to greater heights, replacing the low scrub bushes of the plains
After an hour of walking, you find yourself gazing at a river which flows into the lake. The water of this river is extremely slow moving, the sluggish current dark and thick with sediment. The air hangs thick and heavy, and the sky becomes a battleground where swifts and swallows flit and swoop to feed upon winged insects.
The tracks turn west to follow this river, briefly. After a couple hundred feet they abruptly turn north again and disappear into the river. It seems that the lizardfolk decided to drag the carcasses through the swampy water instead of hauling them overland.
Following the river to the west, you enter a predominantly marshy area. The river is wide, shallow, and slow. Sounding its depths with a stick reveals an average depth of about three feet. The central channel is some forty feet wide, but the marshy, muddy wet zone extends some hundred feet out on each side of the main channel. As the sun sets in the west, you see a curl of dark smoke stretching out of the middle of the river into the sunset.
A low, muddy hummock protrudes from the middle of the widening river, surrounded by a palisade of outward-facing, sharpened wooden stakes. Inside, tendrils of smoke rise from a handful of mounds clustered around a single larger mound. A simple wooden gate on the eastern side of the hummock seems to be the only entrance to the fortified island.
Through gaps in the palisade, you see faint light from campfires inside the mounds. You cannot see any lizardfolk on guard duty, although the palisade may shelter unseen guards. As you size up the situation, the last light of the sun fades and night descends.
Milo's sadness fades and turns to anger as he trudges through the swamp with Nix at his heels. They had abandoned the mission on the island, only to have the horses killed while they were gone. Now whatever horrors were going on within the tower could continue, and the horses had been dragged through a swamp to serve as dinner for the cruel lizard people.
He surveys the lizard folk encampment from a distance, watchful for signs of sentries, and to see how or if the gate is secured. "If the gate isn't locked, we could rush in and take them by surprise, " he suggests, not particularity caring how they reached the lizard folk, just that he could exact his revenge.
Pretty could also express her feelings that they did bad leaving their horses unattended, but those pointing finger situations never led anywhere. So she focused in the current problem.
"Whatever is there is abominable and cruel. It doesn't even know how to handle horses, the most docile creatures. Give me some minutes and I'll use the cover of darkness to scout around that fort and see how many enemies and guards I can find through the gaps." She waits for a confirmation from the flock, though.
"Finally, a real fight!" says Idris, looking forward to the coming battle. She oils her weapons and strings her bow in preparation.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Kivan simply nods at Pretty's suggestion as he focuses on preparing himself for the fight ahead.
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The red glow of sunset lingers for some time after the sun itself has sunk below the tree-flecked horizon. The sound of the marsh changes gradually from the buzzing of dragonflies and sharp chirps of swifts to the low drone of cicadas and grasshoppers punctuated by guttural bullfrog calls. Under the cover of darkness and the background of these sounds, Pretty slips from the bank to scout out the encampment.
The walls of the lizardfolk camp are rough-hewn logs, sharpened at the top to crude points and shoved a few feet into the ground. A ballista or catapult would make short work of these walls, but unfortunately you did not bring any siege engines with you from Haven. The logs are fairly tightly spaced, and the gaps between patched up with a mixture of swamp mud and reeds in a wattle-and-daub construction. The patching job was not completely thorough, however, and Pretty can avail herself of several peepholes.
A central fire burns in the settlement, casting flickering light against the pallisade. Large haunches of meat, impaled on spits, roast over this fire. A pair of lizardfolk turn the spits, ensuring that the meat is cooked evenly. Several other lizardfolk sit around the fire, performing odd tasks like scraping hides or knapping stone points for their spears. Two lizardfolk lean against the inside of the gate. It has no provision for a lock, but a heavy plank hewn from a large oak tree bars the doors from opening. The doors themselves are crude and heavy, but the hinges don't seem too sturdy. Lacking metal or metalworking, the lizardfolk have resorted to wooden hinges that could be attacked far more effectively than the door itself.
Five modest dwellings ring a larger, central building in the middle of the compound. The buildings are of the same mud and reed construction as the wall reinforcement, and each one has a hole in the roof from which smoke curls. Leather door curtains block the view into the dwellings.
No dangers are apparent to those who survey the swamp. The mosquitoes are becoming quite numerous, however.
Milo lays out several options based on Pretty's scouting. I can turn the earth under their wall into mud, but I can't say for sure if it will make the wall fall over. Plus, all of us would have to wade through the mud to get in. If it did fall, though, they might all come to investigate, giving us an opportunity to attack from hiding at a distance. Or, we could try to sneak in and climb over the walls once they go to sleep. Or we could keep watch, wait for them to open the gate, and then rush in to surprise them. I don't have any way to attack the hinges to break down the gate. Any other ideas?"
Now that he'd found his quarry, Milo feels better. Hunting had taught him patience - he could wait here for as long as it took for an opportunity to attack the lizardfolk. The camp has only one gate - that was foolish, even a rabbit's den has multiple escape routes in case of a predator attack. And the odds were surely in their favor, especially if they took the lizardfolk by surprise.
"Maybe Kivan could make you fly with magic?"
Kivan sighs and shakes his head at Idris's suggestion.
"Unfortunately I have exhausted my spell of flight for the day. Waiting until night and then sneaking over the wall and attacking might not be a bad idea."
"Would that give you time to rest and prepare more spells?"
She nods at the several options. "I like the option to let them sleep first. There are several of them, and we know they are very strong, judging by how easy they carried the horses. The better the plan the lesser the risks. I don't like that mud thing, tough, Milo. It could attract the attention of all of them. If we want that, it would be better to kill one or two of them from afar already. I think we can find some gaps through the wall to do a coordinated attack like that, eliminating some of the enemies before they get a chance to retaliate. Then we could wait away from them, since if they want to come at us they will leave part of their numbers behind. Still, I like the sleeping plan better. Let them rest after their meals, and then we strike!"
"The middle of the night sounds good, Maja. I agree, let's not make our camp right here. We shouldn't light a fire either, as nice as that would be. "
With that, Milo looks for a likely place to camp about a quarter to half mile away from the lizard folk camp, preferably on dry land. He also does his best to conceal their tracks as they go.
The Lords move away from the camp, as best as they can guided by the experienced Milo and his faithful sidekick, who also try to cover the party tracks. They make slow progress due to the darkness, but with some help from the tiefling they manage to find a spot after half a mile or something close to that they find a spot to sit, where they could discuss their plans and better use the information Pretty gathered from her scouting.
The adventurers use their vast horse-roasting experience to predict how much time would the meat take to be ready, and then will wait for another hour before returning, knowing that this time would probably be enough for most of them to sleep, hopefully even the guards that were supposed to be watching the gate.
Then they will approach south, very slowly to remain undetected. That advantage point was chosen because it's far enough from the fire to guarantee them some cover from the darkness, especially from the guards on the gate, who will probably the most alert ones. They will use their climbing equipment to go over the gate, letting Pretty go first to use her darkvision and darkness ability to check the perimeter inside, and then Milo and Maja, who are great at ranged combat so they could take out anyone that sees them and possibly avoid an alarm. Then the others will come, but they will probably leave Nix outside to watch their back and to drive the attention from anyone.
If everything goes according to plan the rogue will try to stealthily kill some enemies inside the nearby dwelling, but otherwise they will see what happens.
"Nix will either run back to me or defend herself if she's spotted. She might be able to climb the wall and get in if she's trying to get to me. " Milo agrees with the plan of waiting a few hours and sneaking into the camp over the southern wall. He will tell Nix ( quietly) to stay outside the compound, meaning she will come to him if she is noticed.
"I'm not bad with a bow either. You want the rest of us to wait? What kind of a signal do you think we could use?"
At least two of them would be able to climb the wall at a time, then. "The same equipment we had back on the island, a climbing kit."
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As the savory scent of roasting horseflesh wafts over the delicate notes of swamp and mud, you withdraw to mount your attack later.
The marshy territory shows tracks clearly, but is also a loose enough slurry that covering them is trivial, and you have the assurance that the slow-moving water will soon wash away traces. You pitch a hasty camp in the darkness on a somewhat dry mound with the bits and pieces of your bedrolls and tents left at the massacre scene. It's a step down from what you're used to, to say the least.
After some hours have passed, and night has well and truly fallen, you once again creep towards the lizardfolk settlement. Quietly, you edge up to the southwest corner of the palisade wall. Peering through small gaps in the mud filler, you confirm no lizardfolk are near your chosen insertion spot. Two of the primitive beings still sit around the campfire, picking at bones. They're looking at the fire, and not in your direction. With their night vision ruined by the firelight, it's extremely doubtful they could make you out if they happened to glance in your direction. The two guards are disappointingly still at their post by the main gate. They lean against the walls with obvious carelessness, and though they have spears they are laying on the ground near their owners. Obviously, the lizardfolk are not expecting an attack.
While they wait for the lizardfolk to fall asleep, Milo wraps the spikes of a grappling hook with rags. Having seen how well she climbed down the haunted tower earlier that day, and she had volunteered to be the first over the lizardfolk's palisade wall, he asks "Pretty, when you climb up, can you hook this to the top of the wall so we can follow you up more easily?"
Once they reach the compound, Milo shows Nix a spot near where they will be climbing and gives her a hand signal to stay. After Pretty goes over the wall, Milo will follow her.
Pretty doesn't need any extra safeguard actions. She is always carrying light weight and moving like a shadow, so that was natural to her, but she could not say the same about the heavily armored guys from their crew.
She will wait for at least one other party member to climb to the top before going down the other side, and will do so as smoothly as she can, using a rope tied to the top of the logs to help with descend. When she's there, the rogue will help two or three party members get down before telling them to wait and moving into the darkness to hunt! She will move into the tents one at a time starting with the closest one. To do this she will activate her darkness ability to protect herself better, and then assassinate any unfortunate soul in there. Every soldier she gets is one less enemy to fight in the open.
Kivan waits below the wall trying to make himself as small a figure as possible as he waits for a report from the wall climbers.
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Pretty slides up the wall making nary a sound. The croaking and singing wildlife of the marshes shield quite a bit of noise... not that the nimble-footed tiefling needs the help. Flattening herself on the top of the palisade, Pretty extends a helping hand to the slightly less stealthy Idris, helping her up.
Milo is next up the wall, finding the rough-hewn timber not unlike the trees he's been climbing his whole life. Sadly, it seems that Nix would have trouble with the affair, so she obediently waits at her designated spot.
None of the lizardfolk have taken notice.
As quietly as she might, the sorceress began the climb up the wall. Struggling a bit to pull herself up, she regretted not casting her strength spell, but as she had few enough spells left for the day she could not afford to waste them now.