LAwdrak steps up to the blue-tinged, charred survivor of Adra'a fire and hacks at it.
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Sharpmaw seizes the last creature in her jaws and bears it to the ground. AS it ceases to thrash, the dinosaur twists her neck, tearing out a chunk of flesh and begins to eagerly chew.
The chewing slows as a clear look of disgust spreads over her saurian features. She spits and thrashes her head, even plucks at her teeth with a long toe-claw, and eventually clears her maw of the bits of dead vegepygmie.
The side-cocked, one-eyed look she flashes Lawdrak clearly shows the depth of the betrayal that the druid wrought by siccing her on salad instead of steak...
Adara approaches Hana with healing fire.
"Is anyone else injured?" the oracle asks to make certain she best uses what power Sarenrae has blessed her this day.
Hana grits her teeth briefly, her lips peeling back, as the healing fire painfully reinvigorates her.
Adara frowns at the plant creatures. "Do you suppose these will also birth their own descendents as growths from within their...plant-corpse bodies if left uncleansed?"
She snaps her fingers and a small flame appears on their tips.
Hana nods. "Cleanse it. Then we find the heart of this infestation and destroy it."
Assuming there is something easily ignitable as kindling within the fungal infestation, Adara will waste no time in piling the vegepygmies and setting their bodies ablaze. Her mouth twists in disgust as she once again sets her gaze across the disturbing landscape of the small isle.
"Would that I had yet gained enough of Sarenrae's favor to conflagrate this entire island..."
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The castaways continue their journey around the rest of the small island. As evening arrives you see off to the east a smaller island, really more of a large rock, but with one rather striking feature.
A fifty-foot-high pillar of fungus-covered rock thrusts up from the surf here, angling away from the main body of the larger island to the west. The rock is connected to the main island by thick tangles of fibrous fungus, perhaps providing a way to cross the churning surf below.
"Ugh. I wonder how slippery this... stuff gets."
"How interesting... should we see if we can cross? Do you suppose those strands of fungus would hold our weight? Unlike the shipwreck, I don't see too much in the way of hiding spots for nasties... my curiosity is slightly edging out my reluctance."
"Mine as well," Dereje agrees, loathe as he was to touch the fungus. He reaches out and grabs one of the fibrous strands, testing its durability, before putting all of his weight on it. When he is satisfied that it won't snap right away and dump him into the surf, he sighs and starts the climb across. "Here goes."
Surprisingly, the suli oracle makes the crossing look easy despite her once fine clothes that some might say were only marginally designed for the outdoors and physical activity.
Dropping down next to Dereje, she draws her scimitar, her wrapped hands gripping it without familiarity.
Hana slides out onto the fungus, windmills her arms comically, falls into the ocean below, then a few minutes later stalks out onto the shore on the far side, drenched and unhappy.
After seeing Hana struggle, Estietre decides to imbue herself with climbing ability before crossing.
"Should we wait for the others before ascending?" Adara asks Dereje and Mum as she looks up at the top of the towering rock.
At that moment, the sun breaks from a small patch of high drifting clouds and shines into the suli's eyes causing her to squint and raise a hand to shade them.
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Lawdrak climbs across, leaving Sharpmaw alone on the other side.
The party beings to slowly climb, finding near the top of the rocky spire on the northern face, obscured from the sun and 40 feet above the sea below, is a cave mouth. Numerous strange offerings lie around the cave mouth; brightly colored seashells, bits of polished stone, and many bones and skulls. The opening leads 15 feet inside the pillar through several thick curtains of fungus to a 30-foot-diameter cavern.
"It looks as if someone has left offerings here? Maybe vegepygmies? Is this fungus sacred to them?"
Dereje lightly touches Adara's shoulder, healing over some of the wounds she still had. She could heal herself just as well, but it seemed more generous to share his power with everyone. However little of it that he had.
"I don't like this," Dereje says plainly, inspecting the bones with a dour frown. The possibilities Mizu mentioned all seemed rather likely. "Not one bit. If we should proceed, it should be with caution... more than we have exercised in the past, even. With me being out of ammunition, and without the company of Lawdrak's sharp-toothed friend, we might have trouble facing more of those vegepygmies."
Adara seems wary.
"I feel strongly that this is a thing which may become important for us to find a solution...but perhaps we should return rested before we attempt to solve it. I...don't think we will find our way off the island by dealing with a 'local god' worshipped by the overactive plant creatures of the isle."
She looks at the others. "I do think we should investigate this and that fungal ship eventually however. But now may not be the time. We still must worry about the island's other humanoid occupants. Especially since most of you seemed convinced of their cannibalism..."
"Very well... let's explore some other part of the island."
"I feel like it's a bad idea to stay on this rotting fungus rock. Let's rest a bit when we get away from all this back on the main body of the island," says Hana.
Mum nods and smiles - relieved to hear the suggestion... "Let the veggies have their tiny island. I've had enough of it."
"Aye - let's hie back to the main island. I'd hate to sleep on such..."
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The party returns to main island and finds a suitable location to setup camp for the night. While muggy, hot, and sticky, the night is rather uneventful and you awake to increasing winds.
It seems like it will likely not be as oppressively hot today, but there would seem to be a better than average chance for a storm.
The oppressively humid weather does not agree with Dereje at all, but he makes no complaints. It was not much worse than the weather in the Mana Wastes, after all. And at least there weren't any mutants on the island.
"Around the coastline, then," Dereje agrees, wiping some sweat off his brow. "We're bound to go full circle eventually."
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You continue along the shore line, the coast taking you up a hill side, and eventually along a shear cliff side. Dense jungle lies to your left
After a few hours of hiking along the elevated coast line you notice a trail, not unlike the one you traveled a few days ago when you were ambushed by the natives, heading off to the east. You are currently at a fifty-foot-high cliff overlooking the sea below. A number of knotted ropes and vines
hang over the edge, leading down to a rocky beach below.
It is roughly an hour before mid-day, when you would normally rest to avoid the heat, but you suspect the breeze coming off of the ocean from the likely approaching storm may just keep it cool to press on instead.
"Seems like it will be a cool day, for once," Dereje remarks, lifting his tricorne off his head so he can better feel the ocean breeze. He replaces it before looking to the others. "Well, what do you think? Shall we climb down?"
Estietre peers down then shrugs... "I don't see what could be down there of worth, but if there are ropes, there must be a reason."
"I could stay up here as a lookout, and to keep Sharpmaw company."
"I'll go." Hana crouches and starts carefully making her way down one of the ropes.
About halfway down she muses, "Should've checked first to make sure the rope is sturdy and not going to pull out of the cliffside."
Adara follows Hana without preamble. The many things they have chosen to leave unresolved thus far absently dancing through her mind as she loses herself to exertion of the climb, the familiar ache of muscles burning in her arms and back.
Lawdrak gives a sharp whistle and s gesture to Sharpmaw, pointing at Mum and saying
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Dereje, Hana, Adara, and Lawdrak descend the knotted vines, to the rocky shore below.
Reaching the bottom, you look out on mostly clear, calm, but deep waters. Just as you are about to call the trip down a waste of time, Hana notices something about 50 feet out from shore.
"Oysters!" Hana says suddenly, and you realize that for the first time her Stoic samurai-ko demeanor has broken and she looks happy.