Aakif, Sasha, and Jask agree to stay with Gelik.
As soon as the heat breaks, you set out from the village, following the trail past the first split and all the way to the second. You then turn north. You haven't been along this portion of the trail before, so you keep a close watch for any remaining traps the cannibals might have set.
Douena does indeed find one just a quarter of a mile or so up the trail. Disabling it proves simple .
A couple miles later, you reach the trail that would take you to the old hut on the plateau. You continue north past it, however, into the pass between the plateau. The two plateaus raise up 50 feet or more on either side. The distance between them varies, often as little as 10 feet apart. By this time, the sun is getting low in the west and little of its light reaches into the pass, making the shadowy forms of the cliffs both awe inspiring and slightly oppressive.
About a mile into the pass, you discover another snare trap. This one's a little different than the others since there are no trees. Instead, it appears to pull the victim part way up the cliff. Again, it's easily disabled, and you continue on your way. Another mile later, you emerge from the pass into more open air.
The trail soon branches again to the east and north. You take the east trail. It's not long before you're back onto a part of the trail you've travelled before.
"The island seems so different now," Lorenz says, lowering his pack to rest for a few moments. "It's actually pleasant to travel now."
You break for a short time while Douena communes with Desna (and secretly laughs at the others for falling for her little ruse). Once she's finished, you resume your journey to the hill. The trail passes around the plateau heads southeast. You get close to the coast where you found the partially completed wooden shack of some previous shipwreck survivor (the one with a pentagram carved in the wall). You don't go all the way there, however, before turning off the trail and heading east into the jungle.
Travelling through the jungle at night is more awkward than in the daytime, so your progress is a bit slower. It's not long before the ground begins rising, first at a gentle slope, then at a slightly steeper one. After an hour and a half or so, you suddenly emerge from the jungle. The crown of the hill is entirely free of jungle and is just an open area of tall grass. You continue on, making it to the top easily. From here, the hilltop gives a view of the island's eastern shoreline. You suspect that in the daytime, it's probably breathtaking.
According to Ishirou's map, you need to wait for sunrise and then walk to a point atop the hill where the sun seems to be rising directly between two spike-shaped rocks protruding from the sea to the east. In the dim night light, you can just make out the outline of what you think must be the rocks. You just need sunrise now.
Lorenz wipes the sweat from his brow, amazed at how warm it is even in darkness.
Yawning, he finds a comfortable place to sit down where he can watch the horizon beyond the rocks. "This would be more exciting if I weren't so tired."
Douena flops down on the ground beside Lorenz. "Go ahead and sleep; we'll wake you up when it's time to dig. Or you could stay awake by counting the stars. One ... two ... three ... four ... no, wait, is that a star or the reflection of a star in the water. Maybe I should just count them all and then divide by two ... five ... six...."
Ishirou and Pezock already up by the time the first rays of the sun peek above the eastern horizon. Ishirou has just been watching the sea quietly and serenely, while Pezock has been pacing about, grumbling his annoyance at the sun taking too long.
As the sun begins to rise, Ishirou moves swiftly to find the place where perspective makes it seem as if the sun is rising right between the two rocks. He quickly marks the spot on the ground.
Pezock is already calling the others. "Shovels!" he cries. "Time to dig!"
"Dig! Hurry, Lorenz!" she pokes him in the side to wake him up. "Before the sun rises too far!" She finds a position where she can supervise and get a glimpse at whatever is being dug out of the hole. Unfortunately, such a position is incompatible with not getting in the way of the shovel wielders.
"Ow!" Lorenz complains as he gets to his feet. "I never went to sleep!" He watches Ishirou mark the position even as he admires the sun falling over the hillside, illuminating the world around him.
"It's beautiful," he says, his voice quiet with awe.
After a moment he moves forward and begins to dig. Once the hole gets waist deep, he climbs out carefully lodges a grappling hook in the ground a few feet back from the hole, ties a rope to it and drops it into the pit.
"Just in case it gets too deep or the walls cave in or something," he offers by way of explanation. As he works, he's careful to stay near the rope.
Ishirou joins Lorenz with the digging, while Pezock remains above giving directions. The digging takes hours. You have to adjust your position a couple of times (probably because the mapmaker didn't taken into account the fact that the apparent position of the sun changes depending on the time of year), but eventually you hit something about ten feet down: bones.
Clearing a bit more out, you find that the bones are part of the skeleton of a dwarf. The skeleton is still dressed in rotted leather armour. The skeleton is lying on top of a large, wide wooden plug.
"Do you think if we'd dug up the treasure before breaking the evil altar, he'd have jumped up and attacked us?" Douena wonders while holding her butterfly at the ready to channel if the skeleton does decide to jump up and attack them.
Lorenz backs away from the skeleton with suspicion. "Why would destroying the altar make a difference?" He holds his shovel with both hands, ready to hammer at the skeleton if it gets up and tries to attack him.
When nothing happens (presumably) he relaxes and looks at the plug. "I guess the treasure is under that." He wraps the rope around his waist before moving closer and clearing away the skeleton with a trembling hand.
"Aycenia said us ending the ancient evil would stop making the dead walk," she reminds him. "Be careful; we'll have to give him a proper burial. Well, re-burial. Fortunately, we'll already have the hole. Who is he, Ishirou? Why would they put a dwarf on top of the treasure?"
Ishirou bends down and examines the body. After a moment he shrugs. "There is nothing to identify him, but his armour has been slashed and there are deep grooves on the ribs."
"Oh." Lorenz says, feeling better about the skeleton. "I wasn't there when she said that."
"Can you help me remove the plug, Ishirou?"
"Oh." Lorenz says, feeling better about the skeleton. "I wasn't there when she said that."
"Oh, that's right. You stayed at the cannibal village," Douena remembers. "She said there was a curse that lured ships here, too, and it went away." She examines the dwarven remains to see if she can tell how he died after such a long time.
"Oh." Lorenz says, feeling better about the skeleton. "I wasn't there when she said that.""Oh, that's right. You stayed at the cannibal village," Douena remembers. "She said there was a curse that lured ships here, too, and it went away." She examines the dwarven remains to see if she can tell how he died after such a long time.
Douena detects no magic coming from the corpse. The deep grooves on the ribs indicate that the dwarf was stabbed through the heart with a blade from behind.
Meanwhile, Lorenz and Ishirou begin working on the plug. It's in quite tightly, and the earth surrounding it on each side is a mixture of dirt and clay with a consistency almost that of soft stone. However, after some strenuous work (which takes close to an hour), they are able to clear away some of the ground from one side of the plug and then pull the plug free. The stench of rot greets them as they reveal a 10-ft wide pit that drops 40 ft to water. There are two bodies floating in the water.
"There's a lot of dead people in this treasure," Douena says sadly. "I won't feel bad at all for taking it away from whoever buried it. I guess they made the dwarf dig the hole and then killed him so he couldn't tell anyone where it was."
From this height, you can't be sure. They're definitely humanoid, and they're not skeletons as they still have flesh (albeit of the decaying variety) on them. That would indicate they either died recently (which is very unlikely), they've been preserved in some manner (also unlikely), or they've spent time as undead (more likely). :)
"Go ahead and fish them out, Lorenz!" Douena calls down from the top of the hole. She lights up a rock from the pile of dirt and drops it into the water, hoping it will give them some idea how much farther down the bottom is.
New day new rolls
Nylithati ring
arrow
X room block of incense
Yarzoth potion
=================================================================
[b]"We have this Potion of Water Breathing.
"Wise man suspects that the fall of shadows encourages the dawn," Mahjik mumbles to himself, there's a bit of a smile - but this is more for himself, as if the meaning of the words suddenly make sense to him. "Unless the water seeped in from the ocean somehow, the water is there by design - meaning either there is a way to flush it out, or there isn't so much of it that its too hard to get to the treasure." He gauges the height above sea level.
Wrinkling his nose, Lorenz makes sure he has a firm standing at the side of the hole and unwraps the rope from his waist. Then he calls up for someone to free the grappling hook and *carefully* lower it down to him.
With several coils of the rope in one hand, he lowers the grappling hook with the other and tries to swing it around so that he can hook one of the dead bodies.
If he's able to snag one, he carefully draws it out of the water, ready for it to animate and try to kill him at any moment.
New day new rolls
Nylithati ring 1d20+7
arrow 1d20+7
X room block of incense 1d20+7
Yarzoth potion 1d20+7
The lit rock drops into the water with a plunk and sinks down. The water is very murky and shrouds the light from the rock somewhat. However, quite a bit of light still escapes the surface of the water, so it can't be very deep. You estimate 10 to 15 ft.
Lorenz lowers the grappling hook down and tries to snag one of the bodies. It takes a couple of tries, but eventually he manages to hook it into the tattered clothing. Unfortunately, as he starts to pull the body up, the clothing just tears and the body splashes back down. He is unable to hook onto the body itself without the body just slipping away in the water (there's just no way for him to get enough momentum to pierce the skin from this distance).
On the plus side, the bodies do not animate. :)
Lorenz, his face now an unhealthy greenish tinge, turns to look back up to Douena. "I can't get ahold of the body! But the water isn't that deep, only about 15 feet."
He steps away from the hole and starts drawing up the grapple hook.
"Okay, I dug the hole. One of you can go find the treasure."
"Fifteen feet's not very deep?! That's more than four of me!" Douena looks around for a taller volunteer.
"I'll go." Urza offers. He prepares by casting a couple of spells (Mage Armor and Shield) and putting on the Ring of Swimming. He ties the rope around him. "If I get into trouble, I'll pull twice on the rope." With that, Urza climbs down into the water.
The water is cold and clammy to the touch. As he lowers himself into it, Urza can feel the dirt and grime in it caress his skin. The water turns out to be only a little over 10 ft deep. It's hard to see even with the lit stone because of the murkiness, but he notices an underwater passage leading out from the pit on the north side. The passage is about 5 ft in diameter.
Taking the lit stone and proceeding a short distance along the passage, he sees that it turns sharply upwards and comes out into a small underground chamber with a pocket of stale, but breathable air. A chest sits on a narrow ledge just above the water level.
Lorenz holds onto the rope and spools it out as Urza moves into the lower chamber, ready to start hauling at it when the half-orc needs him to.
Urza checks to see if the chest is locked and tries to look inside. Ideally it is locked and watertight. If it is he'll tie the rope around the chest and gives two tugs on the rope.
The chest is locked and it does appear to be watertight. Urza ties the rope to it and tugs twice. Back above, Lorenz begins hauling with Ishirou's help.
The chest drops straight down from the ledge and sits at the bottom until Lorenz and Ishirou have gathered the slack. Slowly they pull it along the underwater tunnel and then up and out of the pit. Urza follows behind it, adjusting its position so that it doesn't bang around too much in the tunnel. Once it's out, you easily raise it to the surface and climb back out onto the hilltop.
Pezock looks delighted. "Open it!" he exclaims.
Douena doesn't find any traps on it (if there are any, they probably would have been set off moving it).
It takes Douena a couple of attempts at the lock, but she soon gets it open. She is greeted by the sight of many, many coins.
THE LOOT:
3500 cp
2000 sp
1000 gp
50 pp
silk pouch of garnets and amethysts (total value: 500 gp)
several moldered and completely ruined noble's outfits
bejewelled masterwork cold iron starknife (value 650 gp)
buckler that detects as magical
watertight mithral scroll tube (value 500 gp) -- one magical aura can be detected inside the scroll tube
Lorenz quite loses his breath as he looks into the chest. So much money... he thinks.
Finally he looks up at Ishirou and grins. "It looks like your map was quite accurate after all!"
Ishirou nods, a large smile on his face. "So it would seem."
Pezock looks at the treasure and sighs. "That's it?" He looks over at Urza. "You're sure there wasn't another chest or two? This thing has almost nothing but useless coins in it!"
"The coins won't be useless in Eleder, Pezock. We may not be there for very long but at the least we'll want rooms to sleep in, food to eat and ale to drink."
"Not nothing," Douena corrects Pezock, her eyes lighting up at the sight of the starknife. She grabs it and waves it triumphantly over her head, nearly putting several eyes out as everyone is gathered over the chest. "What do you call this? Desna put it here for me."
Pezock stares at the starknife. "I call it something that's much too small to use effectively, so useless," he grumbles.
Identify Buckler
Read Magic on scroll in tube.
"Useless to you, Pezock, but I think Douena will do just fine with that blade in her hand." Makoa comments. "Especially since it seems to be a gift from her Goddess."
Identify Buckler 1d20+7
Read Magic on scroll in tube.
Lorenz agrees with Pezock on that but wisely keeps silent.
"Useless to you, Pezock, but I think Douena will do just fine with that blade in her hand." Makoa comments. "Especially since it seems to be a gift from her Goddess."
Douena nods at Makoa with satisfaction. "By that standard," she says disdainfully to Pezock, "your sword is useless because it's too big for me." She turns the weapon over in her hands happily. "I always wanted a starknife, but I couldn't afford one and my tools." She attaches it at her belt and admires the way the jewels sparkle in the sunlight proudly. "This is much better than any old starknife I could have bought in Whistledown, anyway."
"Raise Dead! Aerys!" That is when Urza remembers how they buried her. He turns to the sea. "She is sitting at Pharasma's feet. I will have to be content with that." He tries to hide his sadness, but it still shows.
"Knew we shouldn't have saved the treasure for last," Douena says unhappily.
"Well, Ishiro, how do you feel now that you have your treasure?"
Ishirou thinks for a moment. "Not as happy as I expected," he says finally. "Our time on this island has taught me to value other things more than gold. But I am glad that we have found it."