"Let's head out, but be careful. They are looking for us." Eustoma takes the lead as they head out again.
With Karla in tow, you continue your journey to the destination marked on the mites' map. After several more hours, you near the location.
A wooden cabin, small and square, stands in a clearing dotted with tree stumps. Someone has deforested this area to make room for the structure, leaving only tall grass to carpet the clearing. A jumble of poles near the cabin serves as a rack for drying animal hides or fish. No smoke issues from the chimney.
The woods immediately surrounding the cabin are marred by countless scratches and the bones of dead animals, and an eerie mewling sound echoes through the trees. The source soon becomes apparent as a lynx emerges from the undergrowth. It hisses at you, ears flat against its head. It arches its back, clearly agitated.
"Something strange is going on here", Wulfram said in a low voice. He looked around for clues that might help him understand the animal's behavior.
Something must have seriously traumatized the lynx for it to act in this way, though Wulfram can't see any immediate evidence of the cause. The cat yowls and swipes at Karla as she approaches, leaning down as if preparing to pounce!
Rogar prepares to block the cat if it attacks, noticing his companions have yet to strike.
"I wonder if the mites abused it," Wulfram said. He retrieved a scroll and read it aloud.
Wulfram casts the spell from the scroll, and the lynx's demeanor immediately becomes more relaxed. It lets out a few mews as it settles back down on its haunches, calmly regarding the four of you.
"It will only be affected for about a minute or so," Wulfram told his companions. "I'm going to put a leash on it while we figure out what's going on here." He approached the lynx and offered it some food. He took some rope out of his pack and made a makeshift leash, which he tied to a tree. Once the animal had been restrained, he looked around the area, looking for more clues.
Eustoma takes a look around the building to see what she can find. "I wonder if that was an animal companion. It's not acting like a regular lynx. I'll look around and see what I can find. Stand still please so I can search for tacks and things like that."
Wulfram and Eustoma search around the area. The high grass conceals numerous tree stumps, as well as two bear traps that they discover before stepping into them.
Eustoma sees the lynx's tracks crisscossing the clearing, as well as older tracks of small humanoids that probably belong to the mites. She also finds the door to the cabin trapped with a simple arrow trap set to fire if the door is opened.
Other than that, the area around cabin and the smokehouse is quiet.
As the calming spell wears off, the lynx yowls anxiously again. It tugs on its leash, then lays down and looks at Karla curiously.
"Shall we examine the inside of the cabin and then the smokehouse? Can anyone disable this trap?" She points out the the group. "If, not I can try to spring it. I think we need to get inside."
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In response, Rogar raises a stone wall in front of the door, blocking most of it but leaving the door handle exposed.
"After ye."
Standing back as far as he could, Wulfram knocked on the door with the butt end of his spear. "Hello, anyone home?"
There's no response from within the cabin.
The lynx sniffs Karla apprehensively. It looks at her when she asks its name, but makes no response.
Wulram stepped back to give Eustoma room to work (and to keep out of the line of fire).
Eustoma stands close to the door ducking low, and opens it.
Eustoma ducks as the trap triggers. The arrow whizzes over her head, shattering against Rogar's stone wall behind her.
Inside the sturdy wooden cabin, the ceiling has partially collapsed, and all of the furniture save a single stool has been smashed and overturned. Dust and cobwebs cover most surfaces.
A half-elf man is seated on the stool, but his skin is drawn and withered and his eyes glow a fierce red. He snarls when he sees Eustoma and leaps to his feet, drawing a handaxe!
When his stone wall collapses, Rogar immediately reacts to the potential threat inside, holding the shards of rock in midair. When the stranger charges, the dwarf plants his feet and sends a battering torrent of earth at the creature.
The shards of rock slam into the charging creature with incredible power and accuracy, leaving it heavily wounded.
"Look at his eyes!", Wulfram exclaimed. He wondered if this might be one of the undead that he'd heard people talk about. Dropping his spear, he pulled out his morningstar as he moved through the doorway. "Drop it!", he yelled, reading to strike if the "man" tried to attack.
Wulfram moves through the doorway, readying his weapon as he calls for the man to drop his weapon. The half-elf shows no signs of complying with his request, though.
As Karla scrambles over to the cabin, Rogar hurls a torrent of stone at the withered man. The shards of rock tear through him, leaving gaping holes in his body. No blood pours from the wounds, though, and through the gaps you can see yellowed bones and rotting organs.
The undead man raises his axe and rushes at Wulfram, but the burly smith brings his morningstar down hard, crushing the half-elf's skull. The man collapses, bits of brain oozing through his shattered head.
Wulfram had a closer look at the man, trying to determine if he'd already been dead (Wulfram hoped he hadn't killed a living person by mistake).
After that, he checked the body for items, then looked around the room.
It appears the man has been dead for several weeks at least. Wulfram discovers evidence of a broken arm, ankle, and several ribs, damage that wasn't done by Rogar's blast.
Besides his well-crafted axe, a single boot lies among the rubble, a match to the one found in the mite's sack. A fine longbow also hangs above the fireplace.
Wulfram also discovers hidden compartment under the floorboards containing some gold, potions, and arrows.
"He's been dead for a while, this man," Wulfram said. "Perhaps the lynx sensed the foul presence of unlife, and that's why it was behaving strangely. He rose, saying "I'd like to give the body a proper burial."
While the others are searching the cabin, Rogar makes his way around outside, keeping a watchful eye out for any threats or points of interest.
When it's time to bury the man, Rogar offers to help, moving far more earth than they could with tools.
"He had several broken bones prior to today," Wulfram replied to Karla. "I don't know why he came back. Hopefully his soul will rest in peace now." He helped Rogar bury the half-elf, and prayed to Desna to guide the spirit to it's final destination. He would have liked to cremate the body to allow the Flame spirits to cleanse it, but they couldn't really afford the time to collect the fuel for a funeral pyre.
After the makeshift funeral, Wulfram returned to the lynx. He observed it for a minute and prepared to set it free.
Searching the smokehouse uncovers a large collection of heavily smoked and salted meat and fish that remain edible.
When you bring the man's body out, the lynx begins yowling and thrashing in agitation again. It tries to pull on the rope to get to the man's side. It seems like the animal was close to the half-elf in life, most likely as his animal companion.
After the funeral, the cat seems to grow sullen, mewling in mourning.
Rogar waits solemnly as they give the man his last rites, whispering a quiet prayer to Torag. When it comes time to leave, he carries as many provisions as he can.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Wulfram said to the lynx. As he reached to remove the leash, he healed any wounds it might have.
"Be free now!", he said, as he release the animal.
The lynx seems to be more at peace once the half-elf has been buried. It calmly allows Wulfram to remove the leash, though it doesn't appear to be injured at all.
Once free, it doesn't run off. It stays close to Karla and rubs against her legs affectionately.
"It does looks like you have a new friend," Wulfram said to Karla. "Of course it can stay!" After a moment, he said, "It needs a name (or we need to learn it's name)."
Wulfram felt embarassed (and secretly pleased, although he didn't admit that to himself) by for Karla's sudden show of gratitude. In the back of his mind, he was getting a rather sulky vibe from Pele, although to be fair, lynx were known to kill and eat foxes in the wild.
"Good job Rogar. Those stones of yours are getting very deadly. Let's see if we can figure out those boots from this one instead of the other one, and the longbow as well.
"We're getting quite the menagerie. Between the wolves, Sia, Pele and our new friend we have lots of animals to love and care for. That makes me happy."
It is pretty late at night by the time you return to the camp. You notice a new sheep has been added to the flock, and Jet has lead her group in a rather successful foraging expedition.
Of concern, however, are three of your followers. Farrow, Delvin, and Giselda lie in their bedrolls, coughing and covered in a cold sweat. Rhyna tends to them, pressing damp cloths against their foreeheads, an uncharacteristic frown on her face.
"These poor folks have caught filth fever!" the adept says. "I'm not sure where they got it from. They need to rest if they're going to get back into tip-top shape again!" Her squirrel chitters in agreement.
Kining also grumbles angrily, a few new scars attesting to some wounds she sustained earlier. "I ran afoul of a big, nasty boar. Clever bastard, too! He attacked me in the woods north of here, goring me and making off with my pack!"
As Karla talks to the survivors of Phaendar, Edran approaches her with a smile. "I guess I'm not the new guy any more. My name's Edran. It's nice to meet you."
He holds his hand out for the sorceress. "I'm not from around here. It was my bad luck to be staying in Phaendar when the hobgoblins struck. Are you a local? What sort of abilities do you have?"
"Talking and writing won't be much good against those bloodthirsty brigands, unfortunately," Edran says with a scowl. "I hope for your sake you can fight as well."
Before they headed back to camp, Wulfram spent a few minutes triggering the traps he had spotted earlier around the hut (using rocks, fallen tree branches, etc). "We may want to move the camp this way, and I don't want our own people being maimed by these things," he said.
When they returned to the encampment, Wulfram attended to Kining's wounds. "That must be the one that the hermit Veld was talking about; she called him Gashmaw."
He joined Rhyna to have a look at the sick townsfolk. "Are they in any condition to travel a few miles? We encountered a Hobgoblin raiding party, the one that captured Karla. The Ironfang intend to hunt us down, enslaving any they don't kill. We'll want to move the camp further east."
Rhyna looks at her patients thoughtfully. "You guys can walk, right?" She picks up a stick and pokes at Farrow's leg.
"Hey! Cut it out!" Farrow says, batting the stick away. He coughs a few times. "I've got a fever, but I'm not an invalid!"
Rhyna nods. "I guess they can walk. But you shouldn't make them work tomorrow. They need to rest or they'll get sicker!"
Rogar moves to talk to some of the sick townspeople to try and figure out what happened, "So, wha' have ye eaten in the last few days? If some o' our provisions are tainted, we need ta get rid o' them.?"