Sledge will try to free a peasant.
Octopus (26)
Darius (25)
Sledge (25)
Jones (24)
Zin (8)
The octopus crushes the 4 remaining people in its tentacles, knocking them unconscious. It drops them in the water.
Its remaining tentacles focus on Sledge.
Unfortunately, Sledge saves three people at the cost of his own safety.
Darius draws his bow and imbues the weapon with extreme prejudice against this.. creature. He launches a Shot aimed at the head.
The octopus flails and warbles as the arrow takes it in an eye, blood spraying everywhere!
But it does not fall. it is merely very angry now.
Jones drinks his Dex mutagen before closing in, dodging tentacles as he skims along the water.
A tentacle whips out to nab Jones.
Luckily, the half-blinded octopus is unable to grab hold of the slippery Half-Elf.
Darius calls out, " Get the People someone! They wont be on the surface for long and start drowning! "
Sledge will juke the big chomp.
The nimble octopus takes a brutal hit from Sledge, and dodges the brunt of Zin's fireball. It remains floating...though just barely.
Given how well his allies are handling the monster, Jones turns around and picks up one of the drowning people.
The unconscious man gurgles appreciatively as Jones drags him to shore.
Sledge socks squidboy.
He focuses on the Octopus more lining up two arrows toward his target.
Darius puts an arrow through the octopus' other eye, and this time it goes all the way through, splattering octopus guts all over the harbor. It collapses.
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Jones drags another peasant to shore.
Sledge will save villagers.
Darius drops his bow rushes to the pier drawing out Grimoire and archs the metallic whip into the water to snap around a villager in the water and pull him up and out.
Sledge is strong enough to carry two, so Darius' assistance is not necessary.
"Thank you!" some of the passers by yell.
"Don't know what we would have done..."
"No need to thank us." Though perhaps you could start being more friendly towards visitors when they ask you simple questions.
Darius finds it appropiate that there was so much hate for them at first but it only took such a situation for some change in attitude to happen. He waves off the thanks and inspects the people, stabilizing them and ensuring there were no excess wounds before bringing each one back to consciousness.
" Hrmmph "
Darius brings all of the villagers back from the brink of death. They gasp and sputter to life, and each complains of broken ribs, but it seems they'll survive.
"Here, this should help."
Jones hands a healing extract to each of the 4 injured townsfolk.
Then he starts healing Sledge.
Darius scoffed, " The ability to live and complain is indication enough that you can get past a few chest pains. Luckily for you all we are not vindictive and have curatives. " Noting Jones.
He inspects Sledge too noting the injuries wonder whether he'd need any more assistance.
Looking to Zin he simply gives her an appreciative nod and indication of a well done job.. for now.
He addresses the people, " It would best for you all to start talking, for I can assure you a Sea creature of that size is not normal by any means. Even moreso it seemed to be on a mission rather than for food. "
The townsfolk sincerely know nothing about where such a sea creature may have come from. They say even the Order says they don't know what's going on.
Darius grits his teeth and stands after the healing procedures, " Then I guess it's time to find out if that is true. Point us to the Order, we need to have a talk with them. "
"They're the church, near the town square. Can't miss it. Made of dark fieldstones, older than the town itself or so it's said."
" Right, the wounded should take a few moments to rest but the swelling should go down, until we return spread to the rest of the populous to not go near the water for now. There might be another one of those creatures or worse. "
He motioned to the party before heading towards the Church, Casting Heroism on himself and pocketing his mutagen. He currently did not wish to freak any bystander out with his transformation but it seemed there was something wrong about this whole situation
The front of the church is a quite pretty little portico, facing Lake Encathan. A statue of a mermaid with long flowing green hair stands in the center, a trident in one hand and a conch shell in the other. Those versed in Religious knowledge recognize this as an obscure depiction of the god/dess Gozreh.
The door opens into the vestibule. Eleven pairs of shoes sit in a row beside the door. Inside are a number of pews, and the north and south walls show stained glass depicting the same mermaid.
On the east wall are two doors and an open archway.
These lead into the Bethel, where another mermaid statue stands. This one is made of wood, and holds an octopus rather than a conch.
The room as a whole has a nautical theme, and the pews are warped.
Four priests are on their knees praying around the statue.
Jones drinks Heroism, Barkskin, and another mutagen before entering the church.
This appears to be a covert indicator that this is a temple of Dagon, the "Shadow of the Sea", an incredibly ancient Demon Lord (even by their standards).
Darius looks around at the scene drawing in the differences, the fact this was Gozreh had a play on his perception, it was quite devoted to the Sea more than anything else.
He found something odd about the symbols however.
Noting it was.. different Darius tossed back the Mutagen he'd had ready and silently bathed the 4 priests with Detect Evil.