Darian attempts to flip and reposition himself opposite the creature to attack from a different angle, and brings his glaive down in a spin towards the creature's head...
__________
Unfortunately, Cai'nan can't quite get around the creature safely to flank, and the leucrotta lunges out at he who is overconfident.
The leucrotta seizes on the man's ankle, ripping and tearing and sending him to his knees. However, Cai'nan is ready and sends out a powerful swing, nearly severing the huge creature's head from its body. It slumps down, dead.
"Well," Cai'nan says as he uses his glaive to help himself up to his feet, "THAT was interesting. Let's check the debris, may be someone still alive..."
"Or at least we might find something interesting. But let's not linger too long. We do have somewhere to be."
Unafe winces as her magical link with Cai'nan causes bloody bite-marks to appear on her calf.
She gets off of her horse and goes to check on the bodies by the fallen wagon, and then the spilled contents and the surrounding area.
Salla makes sure the horses are settled and secured before taking a look around.
The group takes a moment to search around the fallen caravan, and while doing so finds a few interesting things. It looks like the caravan was transporting goods back the way you came, and was guarded by a pair of guards on horses.
Both of the caravan's horses have been killed by the leucrottas, and the cart's driver lies about twenty feet into the swamp, dead as well. One of the cart's guards was thrown from his saddle and his head was crushed by his horse's hoof, who appears to have escaped. The other guard was killed by the leucrottas.
Both guards carry mostly mundane weaponry and armor - they both wear chain shirts, they both have heavy crossbows, One guard carries a potion labeled as a potion of blur and a vial of some bright green liquid. They both have longswords, but one guard's longsword appears to have been something of a prized possession. It is made of silver, is masterfully crafted, and has an engraving in Shadowtongue: "उनको महिलाहरु को विलाप सुन्न तिनीहरूलाई तपाईंले पहिले संचालित हेर्न, र आफ्नो शत्रुहरू नाश गर्न।." Such a blade would certainly be of value if sold due to its unique design.
A few barrels and chests of things in the back of the cart are filled with valuables. Variously, they are filled with spices, expensive fabrics, chocolate, candy, art, books, and other leisure and recreation items that Nicholas knows to be restricted, illegal, or extremely expensive to acquire in Nidal. One chest is locked.
It appears that there is a person missing from the pile of corpses here... Both Unafe and Cai'nan notice the tracks of a man escaping from the cart and running into the wilderness. One skilled at tracking could follow the survivor, or the escaped horse...
"What a cheerful saying," Nicholas says dryly as he examines the sword. "Still, it's quite beautifully made. We might be able to put it to good use. And its owner certainly doesn't need it anymore."
"What's it say?" Cai'nan rummages through the items looking for anything useful, eventually coming to the locked chest. "Anybody care to open this the gentle way?"
"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women," Nicholas recites dryly. "About what I've come to expect living in this country. And I'm afraid that lockpicking isn't one of my specialties."
"Didn't do much crushing, seems to me," Cai'nan says sarcastically as he looks over the debris. "And it's a BLADE! Who tries to crush with a blade? Clearly it's prior owner didn't know much about how a sword worked."
Salla moves to the chest.
Once the chest is open Salla will study the tracks for any clues as to who ran away?
Salla examines the locked chest, finds it to be un-trapped, and gets to work unlocking it. It's a surprisingly complex lock, but Salla has it cracked in very short order. Inside the chest is an item, about a foot long, wrapped in a thick oil cloth and tied with twine. Below it is a note, written shortly on vellum in a steady and careful hand. It would take a skilled linguist some time to decode the code by themselves, and hopefully a peaceful workspace and lots of paper to take notes on.
The oil package is easy to unwrap. Inside is a hard, black length, sharp at one end and blunt on the other. Obviously, this is a huge black tooth.
Salla looks around the trampled area near the fallen wagon, and manages to pick out two trails of creatures that left the area. One, a horse, went back the way it came - along the road towards the Conquerer's Bay. The other, a human, went farther into the swampy wilderness, to the east. There is also, strangely, a set of hoofprints following the human prints going into the wilderness. They seem, however, to be bipedal.
The note inside of the chest is short and simple. It reads, 'Here is one of six. Double the agreed price, and the rest are yours.'
Salla tries not to touch the tooth, holding it by the oilcloth wrapping. She displays it to the others. Making sure everyone is aware of it.
Once she's finished her tracking she reports. "One horse - went that way." She indicates the road to Conquerers bay. "One human, ran into the swamp. Something with two hooved legs followed?"
First of all, little claw marks on the lockbox Salla opened, both of the outsides of the box and near the keyhole. The claw-marks are slightly scorched, and a slight crust of hardened, dry dirt around the hoof-marks reveals them to be slightly scorched as well. About twenty feet out from the site of the attack, the hoof-marks disappear, to be replaced by pawprints.
Based off of these things, you conclude that the creature in question must be a ghul. Such creatures are the undead remnants of genies struck by a curse or other disfavor with the powers that be. They have the ability to transform into hyenas, and occasionally retain one or more of the abilities of the form that they once inhabited. Driven by grief for their lost selves or jealousy of the living, they number among the murderous undead who spread misery simply for the sake of it.
Only a cold iron weapon blessed by goodness can harm a great ghul, and their efreeti origin keeps them safe from fire as well. They also have the ability to spread their curse - whenever they kill a humanoid or a fellow genie, the creature rises as a ghoul, a ghast, or a ghul depending on what it is that died.
"Two hooves..." Nicholas frowns and looks around, trying to remember why that sounds familiar. "I think I remember something about that. And see here..." He points to the box. "These claw marks and then the prints change. I think that this was a beast called a ghul, an undead genie. But they're not exactly the most common of creatures, especially in this area. I'm curious why one of them was involved in this. Though that might explain the other creatures as well."
Unafe looks with sadness at the pile of corpses. "They're all far past the point of healing, I'm afraid."
Eventually she turns away to looks over the goods. Most she's never encountered before, though a peddler of chocolates once came through the Goakepe's territory.
Unafe sniffs dubiously at the green ichor. "I feel like I should be able to place this, but it eludes me."
Her frustration at not making out the ichor is interrupted when Salla points out the two sets of tracks.
She nods to Nicholas. "And not just any ghul, a 'great' one: the twisted undead remnant of one of the efreeti. See this burnt bit of soil here? They retain the efreeti's habit of burning whatever they touch, and I've heard they have the ability to become invisible in combat, all the better to stalk and kill their prey. Not only that, reportedly they can shape-shift into a great variety of humanoid forms, ranging in size from a halfling to an orc.
"Only a cold iron weapon blessed by goodness can harm a great ghul, and their efreeti origin keeps them safe from fire as well. They also have the ability to spread their curse - whenever they kill a humanoid or a fellow genie, the creature rises as a ghoul, a ghast, or a ghul depending on what it is that died."
She pauses and then asks, "The question is, do we follow this man and his ghulish hunter into the swamp? I'm loathe to wait too long before getting to the Conquerer's Bay...though that black tooth fascinates me as well."
___________________
detect magic does reveal a magical aura, though only a lingering one, as if the magic ended or was disrupted. The aura resonates strongly of illusion, enchantment, and necromancy magic. It's certainly plausible that it's a dragon's tooth, though simply the size of a large tooth isn't enough information to go on, and usually teeth are white.
Nothing else in the area radiates magic.
Impressive, Ciervo has to admit to himself, when Nicholas and Unafe identify the bizarre creature by its footprints alone. His attention is otherwise mostly directed up and down the road. At the moment, their group could easily be mistaken for bandits.
"There will be trouble if we are discovered here. Whatever we do, we should move quickly," he suggests, looking back to the others. For a moment, his gaze rests on the strange black tooth. It seemed to be a stretch, but... "If the man that fled was with this caravan, he might know more about what happened. Assuming that this 'ghul' has not already slain him, at any rate. However, we do have pressing matters to attend to in Conqueror's Bay..."
"If this thing is attacking travelers, it's likely not going to stop, but we go have business. Let's see where the trail leads and if it looks like it's going to take too long to get anywhere, we can back down and ride for the Bay at top speed."
Salla shows her agreement with this by a quick nod.
"OK then, let's go!"
Unafe does her best to point out the tracks to follow.
Unafe ties up the horses by the side of the road, to a series of small trees, and then the group proceeds into the swamp, following the tracks of the escaped man and the ghul that followed him. The mire is difficult to walk in, and all get their feet, ankles, and calves wet and muddy as they tromp through the mud. However, the tracks are quite easy to follow, as they seem relatively fresh, and they are deep in mud.
The tracks proceed into the swamp for a few hundred feet, before coming up out of the swamp onto an old, overgrown road, and then going another few hundred feet to the edge of what seems to be an old, forgotten village. A dozen wooden houses, rickety, collapsing, and grown over with vines and weeds and moss, sit around a central area with a small shrine. The road to this village was grown over and abandoned long ago, and it seems none live here.
Both sets of tracks proceed into the village, but from your vantage point on the village's edge, you can see a man, his clothes wet with mud and a beautifully-forged midnight-black scimitar clutched in two hands. He is slowly walking around the village clearing, his eyes on the buildings. He calls out, "You cannot hide in these rickety shacks forever, young man."
As they walk, Cai'nan asks "So, do any of us even have a cold iron weapon to hurt this thing, or are we all marching to a futile death here?"
When the ghost town and man comes into view, Cai'nan looks to the others and whispers, "Doesn't look very ghoulish to me, from what I've heard," he then becomes uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn.
Salla makes sure her crossbow is loaded with her cold iron bolts.
"It's certainly not what I was expecting," Nicholas agrees. He doesn't carry cold iron, but he hardly needs it with his powers.
The man walks up to one of the buildings, pulls a rotten door off of its hinges and tosses it over his shoulder. He forges into the building, and from inside you can hear wooden objects being tossed about. "Show yourself!" shouts the man. "And give me what is mine!"
After a moment, he comes out onto the building's stoop, visibly frustrated. He walks out onto the lawn, and towards one of the other buildings.
You can see a second man drop quietly out of one of the run-down buildings in the first man's path. He crouches in the tall swamp undergrowth and slowly moves towards one of the buildings that the first man's already checked.
Salla.
Nicholas looks around.
While the group stands and simply observes, the man with the black scimitar continues to search through the abandoned village.
He pushes into another building, growling with displeasure as he tears the door of another ruined cottage out of the doorframe and throwing it into the town square. He searches through that little overgrown cottage for a moment before a yell is heard from within. The man comes out onto the stoop of the cottage, his free hand wreathed in flame. "You'll have to come out sooner rather than later!" he shouts, before turning to a nearby cottage and hurling the flame in his hand into the cottage. The old wood, covered in vines and roots and dead plants, lights up after not much time at all, and the fire begins to spread. He turns to the next cottage, and hurls the flame at that cottage as well...
"Oh, he's definitely the one we're worried about. I think I can lure him into position if we want to try to ambush him, but I suggest we have a decent plan of attack if we're going to go in there. I can make a few people invisible as well if that will help."
Ciervo quietly assesses the scene, trying in vain to find the one that the apparent ghul is searching for.
"That would be ideal. But without the appropriate armaments, we will have to rely on brute force to breach his defenses. So if possible, I'd like to surround him." The dhampir looks to Cai'nan rather pointedly.
Salla produces a cold iron dagger from her sleeve and offers it to Ciervo hilt first. "Still need a blessing." She says in her usual quiet voice.
Ciervo accepts the dagger with a nod. "Well, unless any of you are secretly a goodly priest, we are out of luck in that regard."
"I'm afraid that's not really my specialty. We'll have to make do with what abilities we have. Take up hiding places near one of the houses and I'll lure him over with an illusion. Then you can all jump him at once and get the drop on him. That should at least help."
Cai'nan nods, "Alright, we should set up..." he looks over the houses near the periphery and points out one with plenty of room to fight, "there."
Salla.
Nicholas nods and moves to take a position where he's concealed behind the houses and can still see the street where the ghul is standing.
As they chat, Unafe's eyes go wide. She gestures and whispers, "Look. The other man just dropped quietly out of that run-down building in the ghul's path. Can you see him? He's crouching in the tall swamp undergrowth and slowly moving...probably towards that building there--the one that the first ghul's already checked."
As they plan, Unafe weaves her spirit together with Cai'nan's, Nicholas', and Ciervo's.
"When we are ready to fight, I will call your ancestors to speed your limbs...but I cannot do so in a whisper and I suspect doing it now will ensure we're noticed."
Unafe sees the man from the caravan duck around a corner and down an alleyway, while the group attemps to sneak out and into an advantageous fighting location in the town. None of them get too far before being seen, although Nicholas gets the furthest. While sneaking out and around a well in the middle of town, the man who is a ghul points at Cai'nan and Salla. "You!" he shouts. "Do not step where you do not know, or..." and as he says this, his form shifts into a terrifying genie-like form with dead, waxen skin and goat's hooves instead of feet, shrouded by a billowing, choking black cloud. ...You will encounter something that will destroy you."
Hungrily and ragefully, the ghul rushes forward into battle.
Cai'nan takes up a defensive stance, looking this thing over for an obvious weakness to exploit.
__________
Unafe opens her mouth wide and chants in deep loud tones "Nui tupuna, tēnā tere te wahi o koutou tamariki."
Ghostly wisps emanate from her mouth and swirl around her allies, lending them speed.
Ciervo knows it is wise to err on the side of caution, but at the same time, knows that the start of battle gives him an opportunity he cannot ignore. Feeling the familiar rush of being magically hastened, the dhampir darts forward with daggers in hand, and fearlessly stabs at the ghul.
"Damnit," Cai'nan mutters as Ciervo rushes in. Not wanting to risk the loss of an ally against this thing, he runs forward as well to join the fray.
__________