"Check the potions when you get a chance."
Parity will help gather things and haul them off.
Maeve stretches out as she gets up. "Well, if you guys insist. I wanna get back to town as fast as possible, though." She checks her pouch for the all-important note.
"If nobody objects once we get the stink washed off of it I would like to wear that chain shirt. It fits and it might help me keep up or handle a dog so I could keep up with everybody."
I wonder how many times I'll have to wash it?
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The next morning Heng secures the samurai's remains to his back. "I am eager to return as well, but I wonder if we might check on the witch again. It occurs to me that the goblins are not the most reliable source of information so she might actually be helpful. Perhaps she knows more about this lost ship."
"Right. That's fine, but I think we can do that in a couple of days." Maeve points out.
Shortly after dawn, you leave the caverns and head back the way you came. Yesterday's storms have moved on, and the morning air is cool and crisp; a low mist hangs in pockets around the marsh. Your first stop is by the "witch's" hut, which remains much as you left it yeserday... silent and unused.
Malnival aproaches the door and knocks loudly.
As before, your knocking elicits no response from within, only a shower of moldy dust from the door and frame.
Malnival looks to the others. "I don't think anyone is here, and by the looks of things haven't been here in a long time."
"Best not to disturb any more then. Unless we want to know what happened to her?"
Sandru would tell me not to. Of course he's not here...
"I don't really think so either," Maeve says. "Learning more about the shipwreck was always a long shot anyway."
"It matters not to me. If she isn't answering she is either inside but dead, or elsewhere and may have a problem with us kicking in her door. I try not to make is a habit of making hermit swamp witches upset."
Heng leans on the door and after a moment of resistance, it collapses inward in a cloud of dust motes, mold and splinters. As Heng steps forward to regain his balance, the floorboards beneath his foot cave in. Additionally, the entire structure of the hut lets out a low groan. From outside, you can see the walls lean a few inches to the right before it settles again.
Inside, in the small entry room, sheets of fungus grow along the walls and floor of this room, and on the numerous gourds, twigs and bones hanging from the cieling on sinew and string. There are no windows, but light peeks in from outside through numerous cracks and seams in the walls. The odor of mold is nearly overpowering.
There are doors on the left and right walls, and an opening opposite you going into another room.
Malnival shrugs, "Well in for a copper in for a pound." Malnival will pull his sword and enter behing Heng, careful of his footing.
"Are you okay Heng? Do you need healing?"
"Well, defenitly no one living here. Let's cut to the chase shall we?" Malnival begins casting a spell to locate magical auras.
"At the risk of being called a hypocrite, doesn't this foray seem a bit ... foolhardy?"
Regardless, Parity draws his sword and follows Mal.
Honestly Parity, if it wasn't for fools and adventurers who would discover all of the wonderful recipes in the world? Nobody, that's who! Now be careful, there's a half-orc at your feet."
Maeve sighs and just steps in as well, looking around carefully for any sign of disturbances....
Maeve sighs and just steps in as well, looking around carefully for any sign of disturbances....
1d20+4
Besides the obvious signs, Maeve can tell no one has lived in the hut for several weeks or months, at a minimum. Peering through the opening, you see the mold-covered remains of a living room - sagging benches surround a table, a large collection of fungi grows upon something atop the table, and a rusted iron stove sits on the far wall.
Harlan limps up to the doorway and looks around.
"This house doesn't look very witchy. More...moldy."
Maeve blinks in surprise as she notices something. "The air behind this door is too cold." She spins around and tries to kick it open."
She spins around and tries to kick it open.
Maeve's showy kick has no power behind it, and your foot bounces off the closed door. As you pivot to reset, the floor board beneath you splinters and bends, throwing you off balance and unceremoniously to the floor.
"This place feels wrong. Nothing sentient has lived here for a long time. Anything that does live here amongst the fungus can't be healthy. Hell, the fungus itself probably isn't healthy.
With that, Parity casts resistance on himself and then mending on the floor in front of the cold door.
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"Careful, Maeve. This place is dangerous." He shivers inspite himself. "Aren't ghosts supposed to make things colder? Mybe I'll take a look at the rest of the house first."
Getting up and dusting himself off, Heng peers through the opening opposite the entry door and then tries the non-cold door.
perception
Getting up and dusting himself off, Heng peers through the opening opposite the entry door and then tries the non-cold door.
Heng tries to push in the left door without going through the floor this time.
The door gives way with a pop, swinging wide and impacting with the inside wall. Though the floor remains intact, the hut shudders again and a cieling timber above makes a drawn out series of crackling noise as a large crack runs along it. It holds, for now.
The room beyond is the sodden remains of a bedroom. A large bed, its sheets thick with mold and puddles of water from the leaky roof, slumps in the corner of the room. To the side is a stack of books, obviously ruined by exposure to the damp.
Malnival looks around the room.
Perception:
Cast detect magic.
Harlan shakes his head as he stands off to the side of the entrance, the rotted wooden wall to his back.
"I don't think the witch lives here any more. I would like to know what happened here, if it happened here, for my own peace of mind."
Cast detect magic.
Alternatively, we could leave at any time."
Parity will stand back near the entrance to the building.
The bedroom has little of note beyond the collection of books. As Malnival flips one open for a closer look, the cover comes off in his hand. Worse, the damp has melted the pages together into a pile of inky mush.
On the opposite door, Heng bashes it open with a swift kick. You all look up, expecting the hut to complan, but surpisingly it remains silent this time.
As soon as the door is open, a wash of frigid air spills into the entry room. From the threshold, you can see what must have been the old witch. Sitting at a bench before a table covered in alchemical apparati and oddments, is a hunched, desicated figure. You recoil in horror as you notice her bones appear warped and twisted, her left arm vaguely in the shape of a wing, and her ribs pointed and bent inwards. Lastly, entirely covering the body and lab table is a thick carpet of earth-colored fungus.
Maeve looks ill as she sees the remains of the witch. "Okay, all in favor of letting the swamp finish cleaning this up?"
Knowledge Dungeoneering:
Malnival covers his mouth an nose with his sleeve before backing away from the room. "That is brown mold! Do not get close!
"This whole place is full of brown and green mold, and I think I see some red over there. What difference does it make?"
Who would've thought he'd be so delicate after fighting skeletons?
Knowledge Dungeoneering: ... 26!
Malnival continues to back away from the room with the mold. "Put you nose into a book instead of a crockpot sometimes. Get too close and that mold will suck the heat from your body as sure a as banshee's kiss! If you try to kill it use cold! I will watch from back here!
[I] that's enough for me, time to gtfo [/b]
Parity steps out of the door and walks down the path.
"I wonder if we could use it to keep food cold on the trail? Sandru would love that idea! Well it probably wouldn't work anyway, and I don't have any cold to kill it with."
Harlan limps out of the shack.
Maeve backs away as well. "Yeah, that's it, I have nothing, mystery solved enough I think." She quickly backs all the way out of the shack.