Not letting the flow of fire go out in her staff, Katya sweeps her staff across the clearing and points it directly at the last of the beasts just before another bright searing ray of fire bursts from her staff. Her arm shakes as the fire rages out of the control and her eyes widen in surprise, feeling the flaring heat radiate both from her staff and her robe's arcane runes. Smoldering heat waves radiate out of her staff and Katya gives a yelp as she reaches back to hold her shoulder, where a glow emanates faintly.
The third of the creatures is burned to ashes by Katya's lethal flames, along with a broad swath of greenery behind it. By dint of his quick retreat before the spell, Adam is able to save his eyebrows and the hair on his feet, but it was a near thing.
"Watch where you're pointing those things, eh?" Adam says to Katya... though there is little actual anger in it, as he seems fairly relieved to not be within claw reach of a nasty lizard.
Beatrix turns back and gives Katya a respectful nod. [b]"These things look something like what Oleg was describin'. Let's bring a head back for him." She approaches the largest, and with a single swing of her greatsword, decapitates it. She picks up the head, looks at it distastefully while the blood drains out, and stuffs it in a bag.
"Is everybody alright?" Sabrina asks ready to mend any remaining wounds.
"That depends on what you mean by 'alright'." Jacyn responds, pulling a hand away from his bloody side to expose the wound.
Bea considers a moment. "Think he'll want two heads? Maybe he can sell the other or something." She goes back to where she slew the smaller creature and stuffs its head in the bag as well.
"We might find a traveling wizard who needs exotic spell components or something too. Good money in those things, or so I've heard." Adam intones.
"Let me have a look," Sabrina says as she lifts away Jacyn's breatplate.
"Don't worry I have just the thing you need," Sabrina says as she begins gathering the positive energy to wash away Jacyn's wounds.
Jacyn winces in pain as Sabrina moves his armor and shirt around the wound to see it properly, but the pain eases greatly and his wince fades as the healing the young girl provides takes effect on his wound.
"Thank you, Sabrina. Very much. I feel much better now."
Addressing the others, Jacyn adds, "Why not just bring all three heads?"
"We can bring all three heads, if you like. So long as I don't have to hold one of them. I'm not a fan of bloody viscera."
I'm afraid so. It had one HP left, and by itself the spell would have almost taken it to -CON in one shot. (HP 22, CON 12; spell did 33 damage.)
Bea looks at the charred remains of the third beast. "No, I honestly don't think there's enough of that head left to be of much use."
"Do you think it might be of use to track these things prints back to their...nest...cave...uh, home, to see if there are any others out there. We wouldnt want them ambushing anyone else out here, after all."
Following the trail of the creatures, you find a small island in the middle of the river, with piles of debris in the water around it. Adam, Havrin, Jacyn, and Katya all see a skeletal hand protruding from the debris pile on the island.
Beatrix looks at the debris in confusion, then turns to her companions. "What do you make of this? A destroyed bridge?"
Adam looks at the debris as well. "It doesn't look like it went all the way across."
He looks for any signs of human(oid) habitation in the debris, signs of a culture (or kingdom) he might be familiar with.
"Who wants to try to wade across? With all of the debris it doesn't look safe for the horses," Havrin observes.
"Aw, well. I might as well give it a shot," the stoic ranger adds after a moment's consideration. Havrin dismounts and ties off Stepper's reins, then stows his bow on his saddle and retrieves a coil of fine silk rope from his saddlebags. Securing one end of the rope to Stepper's saddle and tying the other end around his waist, the ranger then steps out into the water and attempts to wade to the island.
Havrin, the debris under the water shifts unexpectedly and you're unable to keep your balance. The rope keeps you from going far, though you end up kind of wet.
Adam, it looks like it might have been a bridge, and there are a couple of old paving stones at the edge of the water. You guess that the bridge may have collapsed and the river cut a new channel around its north end.
There's a lot of shifty stuff under the water, Havrin. Unfortunately for you.
"It is a bridge, then. The river went around the dam that the collapsed bridge made. Well, there's one thing I've learned in civilization. Where there's a bridge, there's usually a path."
He laughs a little at Havrin's attempts to reach the island.
"It would probably have been easier to throw me across. I can land easily enough."
Jacyn accepts the other end of the rope from the ranger, wrapping it twice around his saddlehorn before grabbing the little that remained past that, just to make sure it didnt get away from him.
After watching the ranger slip and fall into the water multiple times, Jacyn offers, "Maybe you should try staying out of the water?" with half a smile.
The third time is indeed the charm, as the now-sodden ranger makes it to the center islet.
Investigating, Havrin finds that the skeletal hand is only attached to a broken arm that looks like it's been gnawed on. The rest of the skeleton is there, though, mostly disarticulated and the long bones cracked for marrow. Under the bones is a suit of scale armor in remarkably good shape for having sat out in the wilderness for some time. The remains of a weapons belt holds what looks like a longsword, and a moldering backpack clinks a bit when moved.
Beatrix looks across the river curiously. "What'd you find?"
"Several bones!" Havrin calls back in reponse to Bea's question. "Looks to have been one poor soul. There's a suit of scale mail in remarkably good shape, plus a longsword and the remains of a backpack," he adds, bending down to examine the items in more detail.
"And I believe I heard the jingle of coins." Adam says hopefully.
"Your keen ears heard the jingling of something, at least," Havrin replies, peering into the moldering backpack.
"At the very least we should bury the bones. Seems only proper."
Staying silent after the powerful display of magic that surprised her, Katya trails behind the group and doesn't really pay attention to where the group is going until the moment she bumps up into Bea and stumbles back in surprise.
"Oh! Sorry Bea, I was... thinking."
Katya's arm strays up to her shoulder again and rubs it as she looks over the river while Havrin looks over the dead body. Once the mention of burring the body comes up Katya looks around the forest area and clears her throat.
"Not to be insensitive, but do we have the time for this? The Stolen Lands will not explore themselves, and it must be getting late."
There is, in fact, some coin in the backpack, along with a few other things. Contents are as follows:
38 gold pieces, mostly Brevic mint
100 silver pieces, likewise
6 silver ingots worth 10 gp each
pewter drinking stein, good quality
silver ring
jade plaque carved with the image of a nude male elf with a curved sword
watertight scroll tube
There's also what looks like it might have been a spare bowstring and arrowheads before spending a couple of years in the mud, the shards of an ink bottle, and other detritus.
Jacyn accepts the plaque from Havrin as he passes the objects down the line. "Im all for letting on of our female companions keep this thing, I think." he says, briefly showing the image to Adam before tossing it to Katya.
There's a map inside the scroll tube that seems to indicate that this person entered the Stolen Lands from the northwest. The marginalia suggests that this was part of an informal exploration effort undertaken by House Lebeda from about ten years ago.
Katya catches the plaque and looks down at it with curiosity saying, "What do you mean..."
When her face suddenly flushes as red as a beet and she drops the plaque like it scalded her, looking up at Jacyn with a glare, "What kind of woman do you take me for!"
"I wouldn't presume anything about what sort of woman you are, milady, just that you, Bea, or Sabrina might find it more interesting than Havrin, Adam, or I. On second thought I don't know if Sabrina should be looking at that either."
"Bea is a paladin. I doubt she would be... 'intrigued' by that. It seems to be made of a good solid piece of jade, however. And if the artistic talent is as good as it seemed to be when you flashed it at me, the whole thing is probably worth a bit of gold."
Bea catches a glance of the plaque and laughs as Katya drops it. "No, I think Katya should hold on to it. Might do her some good." She smiles and winks at Katya. "I seen plenty worse in the soldier's barracks anyways - nothing new to me. Though...I'm not sure Sabrina's ready for such things yet. She'll have to learn about it eventually though, and I 'spect I'll be the one that has to explain it to her."
She turns away, her face serious suddenly as she realizes something that Adam said. A Paladin? Me? Sure, I've Erastil's favor as I pay my debt to him, but I always thought Paladins were shining knights off on crusades to slay evil...I'm just a soldier-for-hire working as a glorified bodyguard in this forgotten wilderness. How could I be a Paladin?
After some spirited discussion regarding the appropriateness of certain items of treasure, the party gets everything packed up and continues on.
"This should come in quite handy," Havrin comments as he examines the map from the scroll tube and compares it to the one that the group is preparing. "Let's give this poor Lebedan a proper burial and then continue on with our explorations."
There is nothing in what you've found to identify the explorer. Adam is sufficiently knowledgeable about court intrigue to suspect that this might be deliberate, so that if the explorer was caught or killed the House could disavow any knowledge of their actions (as it were). I believe you are capable of checking the items for magic; who's going to?
Adam glances over at Katya...
"Perhaps the equipment is magical then... *Ahem*"
Sabrina speaks, "Father help me understand these items."