Calvin would have been hit if not for the new ring. In retaliation, he swings his sword in an arc, trying to take the zombie's head off.
Gideon gives a cry of surprise when the undead emerges from the water, his eye immediately drawn to the strange brain-like creature latched onto the thing's skull.
Already carrying his machete, he does his best to maneuver around into a flanking position with Calvin, shouting a warning to the others that the thing is controlling the corpse.
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Attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16
Damage: 1d6 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10
"If the squid needs the corpse to get around, then hit the corpse for now!"
Weyve concentrates, drawing out his silhouettes once again, and with a shout his eyes and skin turn dark blue. A horde of shadows seems to converge on the zombie from all sides, enveloping it.
At the last moment, Calvin's magical ring deflects the zombie's attack, causing it to just miss him! The gillman retaliates, slicing the undead creature with his Azlanti blade.
Gideon circle around the fight, flanking the enemies with Calvin.
Weyve casts a spell, and the zombie's shadow traps it in place, entangling the creature.
Realizing his crossbow won't do much good, Tobar draws his machete and moves in to slash at the zombie. He scores a critical hit, lopping the creature's head off of it shoulders! The incutilis flails its tentacles as it is ripped free of the zombie, and the dead woman's body collapses.
The aberrant nautilus retracts its tendrils and turns to Gideon. It lashes out with its tentacles at the bard, slapping him but failing to grab a hold.
Gideon gives a cry of surprise when the creature falls off the corpse's head, only to apparently take a shot at him! Only just managing to avoid the tentacle doing more than damage, Gideon slashes frantically at the nautilus-like thing.
Tobar grimaces and slashes again at the nautilus-like creature with his machete. "Shoulda killed it first," he says. "Misjudged my aim."
Calvin grunts and plunges his blade down, trying to skewer it.
Calvin stabs the incutilis with his blade while Gideon and Tobar hack at it with their machetes. Shards of shell and bits of soft flesh fly as their swords slice the monster to bits!
Gideon takes a deep breath as he wipes a thread of ichor from his face, looking to the others. "That...that was a kind of aberrant nautilus called an incutillis. They're not just animals, they're intelligent...they take over the bodies of the dead, almost like a zombie."
"Guess we have a new theory about what happened to the colony," says Tobar laconically.
"It's certainly not looking good for the people left here...but there's still something more going on. I don't think this thing could've made that clockwork spy on its own. Even multiples of them, I don't know if they'd have that skill."
"Or the materials to do so. It didn't exactly have a workshop or fine motor control, now did it?" Calvin adds. "I get the feeling there's something else going on here too."
"Gods! Don't ever let one of those things stay on my head."
Weyve shudders.
"Can these things control a living host? Or only dead ones? And are they intelligent?"
"They may not be able to make things themselves, but if they control a human body that body could do such things for them. Or, if they are intelligent they could be in league with someone else. Or, some-thing."
"If those things carted all the bodies off, that would explain why we never found any, but we didn't see bloodstains either."
"Well...I suppose the technical answer would be no, but the reality is worse. They can't control a living host, but they can creep up on a helpless target and inject them with the same toxic soup that allows the incutillis to control the dead...which, in the process, kills the host. Practically instantly, too. And yes, they are intelligent, thinking beings." Gideon says.
Tobar snorts. "Sure didn't think this through."
"I think intelligence is a pretty wide scale." Calvin quips. "Must have been on the bottom end."
"I suppose anything is possible...even so. We should keep a close eye out for them. In this setting it wouldn't be hard for one of 'em to sneak up on us. They aren't going to try and talk to or befriend us. Ever."
"I don't care for anything that involves creating undead, no matter how it is done. But it seems so strange that a creature could do this naturally. Do you think these incutili were magically modified to have this ability?"
"However they came about, we should press on. I don't want to camp out here with those things crawling around."
"Oh yeah. Ain't no sense sleeping where somethin's gonna crawl on your head and fry your brains."
"Agreed." Calvin returns to taking point for the journey to their meeting place.
You continue traveling for another hour or so. That's when Tobar notices something odd about the terrain ahead. An unusual swath of ground lies ahead. A section of ground approximately ten feet wide crossing your path looks as if it is grooved, covered with minute depressions and trampled grass. A first impression suggests a path left by hundreds of thousands of insects marching in a tight formation, but none of the plants appear to be eaten or damaged. Where the strange trail intersects with obstacles, it either splits and goes around the obstacle like water, or veers to avoid it entirely.
Gideon studies the strange path in the grass, kneeling down to it and even running his fingertips along the ground to see if he can discern anything further.
Calvin hardly notices anything!
"Strange. Some kind of tracks?"
The trail is not perfectly uniform in width, but it is consistently about 10 feet wide with some minor variances, usually where the terrain is uneven.
Weyve peers more closely at the trail. Close examination reveals tiny pointed impressions, like the trail was formed by hundreds of stabs from small spikes. The trail was created by hundreds of creatures or objects, rolled or rolling across the ground. Each is heavy enough to leave a slight impression but no enough to flatten the ground.
After Weyve points out to the group the small pointed pit impressions left in the ground and the likely origin of the trail, Gideon takes a moment to consider the evidence, hoping that somewhere in his memory, he can put a period to the enigma.
Unfortunately, Gideon can't recall anything that might explain this strange phenomenon.
"Sorry guys...I don't think I'm going to be any help on this, aside from the Weyve figuring out that it's a swarm of something. We need to be careful going forward though...as if we didn't already have reason enough for it, with brain-sucking tentacled-things running around.
"Th'heck... maybe whoever made that spy-thing made some kind of crawly-machine," guesses Tobar.
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing...some kind of machine, almost certainly, and more than likely a swarm of micro-sized ones. We used up all that alchemist's fire earlier, didn't we? Have we picked up any more ways to deal with lots of small things that want to eat us?"
"... No." Calvin grunts, concerned. "If it shows up, lets try running for now. We can heroically smite it when we have the means to."
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Musing on the questions the trail's discovery has raised, you continue on. A light rain falls as you walk, though it only lasts about an hour before the sun returns. You emerge back onto the island's shoreline for the last bit of the trek. The shoreline arcs to the northwest until it hooks sharply south like a bird's beak to form a small cape. Anchored offshore is the Peregrine. Pulled up on the shore is a ship's boat, evidence of a landing party.
Ramona Avandth waits near the boat, accompanied by a few sailors and colonial soldiers. When she sees you coming, she rises to her feet quickly to greet you.
"You're here. That's a relief. We had some...unexpected problems. I'll tell you about it, but first I'd like to hear your report on the colony. What did you discover?"
"They're gone," says Tobar bluntly. "Not a lot of signs of struggle though. We encountered some ankhegs, but that wouldn't explain the disappearance of everyone. Found some kind of spying device and broke it. Also ran into a weird nautilus-like thing that sits on your head and kills your brain and drives your body around like a cart. Saw strange furrows in the ground like some kinda giant ant swarm crossed by. Lots of strange phenomena, not a lot of answers."
"We located several things in the first colony, though." Gideon remarks, producing the box containing the logbooks and other information recorded by the settlers of Talmandor's Bounty.
"I'm afraid there's more bad news, though...we met a ghost, the spirit of a man in the colony named Silas Wetherbee, listed in the logbook as a farmer. We found his corpse hidden in the altar, stabbed to death; Silas asked us to find out who Rayland Arkley murdered him."
"There was also a choker hogging all the booze." Calvin adds, "and some kind of weird trail in the woods that looks like some kind of swarm of spikey things rolled through."
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Ramona's eyes widen a bit. "Wow. That's...quite a bit going on. I knew Rayland Arkley as a man of honor. Why would he murder somebody?"
She pauses a moment, an intense look in her green eyes. "What about the state of the colony itself? Are the buildings mostly intact? Did they plant crops? Are there tools and equipment still there?"
"Most of the buildings seemed to be intact, though some of them had infestations of giant insects."
"I think they should have completed a palisade first around the whole settlement though. It looked like only the 'fort' area was supposed to be walled, and that wall was not complete. Since we don't know what happened, it's hard to say whether that mattered or not, but it couldn't hurt."
"There are so many unanswered questions. The only thing I can think of to do at this point would be to follow the strange spiky tracks we found on the way here."
Ramona considers things for a few moments. "It would not do to go running off into the wilds before we have a secure home to operate from. It seems that despite the first settlers' disappearance, we'll still have everything we need to survive at the colony. Although the situation is not ideal, the best course is to have the colonists disembark at Talmandor's Bounty. That is, if the ship can actually get there."
Her expression turns glum. "After we dropped you off, the Peregrine sailed almost all the way to where it is anchored now, quickly and without incident. When the ship approached the cape, however, its momentum dropped to a snail's pace, despite the fact that its sails were full of wind. The anchor wasn't lowered, they weren't dragging the keel through a sandbar, and no giant monster was sighted with the ship in its clutches. At least one sailor swam underneath the ship, but didn't report anything unusual.
"Both the ship's crew and the passengers are on edge. I believe that if whatever curse has befallen the ship were to be lifted, the nervous colonists might relax. Would you mind checking the ship and find the cause of the mysterious problem?"
"In the interest of full disclosure, I want to add that the spying device Tobar referred to was a clockwork spy. It seemed to me that it was deliberately trying to conceal itself from us, but when I spotted it hiding in the rafters of what seemed some kind meeting hall, I made a snap decision to try and destroy it. Whatever happened to the previous settlers, I didn't want any responsible party getting a heads-up on our appearance here." Gideon adds.
After hearing the troubles of the Peregrine, he also says, "I believe I speak for us all when I say we'd be willing to give the ship the once-over." Gideon says to her, then looks to the others to make sure that he really does speak for them all. "If the hull has been checked by one of the sailors, we might want to check down in the holds first. I am by no means a sailor, though, and will happily defer to someone with more direct experience."
"Me and Weyve can go peek under the ship again, since we can take our time and search around." Calvin offers, bringing up the fact that he's capable of working indefinitely underwater.
"While you guys are working on that, I'll walk around on the deck and see if this new Detect Magic cantrip you've taught me picks anything up."
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The sailors row the boat back to the Peregrine. When you reach the ship, Gideon and Tobar climb aboard while Calvin and Weyve dive underwater and swim beneath the keel to investigate. As the two gillmen search, they notice two creatures attached to the bottom of the hull. These thin, colorful fish are about three feet long and have a broad, segmented sucker above their narrow mouth, which they are using to hold onto the ship. A line of spines runs down their backs.
Meanwhile, aboard the Peregrine, the tension among the passengers and sailors alike is so palpable it can be cut with a knife. Gideon and Tobar overhear whispered conversations that the expedition should be scrubbed and everyone sail back to Almas. The ship's officers and crew look sullen and apprehensive.
Gideon casts a cantrip to detect magic, and after a few moments of concentration, he discovers that the entire ship is radiating a faint aura of transmutation magic.
Concerned deeply with the attitude of hostility he senses in the air, Gideon glances over to Tobar and tells him in a low voice about the aura of transmutation magic, then finds Ramona to make the same report.
After that, goes to find Perrell, Lyra, and, Carver to ask their view on the strange trail they'd seen in the jungle, and finally, he finds Eamon and Kurvis to tell them about the spirit they encountered in the colony.
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Ramona has gone to try to calm the colonists, but as you Gideon approaches, it seems that she isn't having much luck. Several people are starting to talk more loudly about abandoning the expedition, feeding the sense of desperation among the group. Ramona glances at the bard worriedly.
"I could use a bit of help here. I don't want this to escalate to a confrontation--we need to assuage their fears."
Weyve examines the strange fish underneath the ship.
Hmmm... they remind me of dolphins. More fins, though, and dolphins would surface now and then. Maybe Gideon knows what they are.
Weyve returns to the surface to give Gideon a description of the fish, when he sees the crowd.
"Hey... what's going on?"