The scroll case opens without incident. There is an old sheet of parchment inside.
This is a scroll of blessing of fervor.
"Ahh, zombies. Help!"
Lenna shields her face with her hands.
Turning back to see Lenna's distress, Mira's face shows a look of genuine concern for the first time all journey. Then the look vanishes in a burst of horns and teeth, as Mira transforms momentarily for the leap back across the water.
Human once more, Mira crouches down next to the halfling. "Hey. You okay? Hey. Look at me." She holds up the scroll. "Can you tell me what this does?"
Lenna is unresponsive of Mira's assurance. Her whole body continues to shake in a frenzy of uncontrollable spasm while muttering "zombies."
Mira doesn't give up that easily.
She gently turns Lenna around to face her, shifting so the undead leave her field of view. "Listen. The zombies aren't going to hurt us. You know why? Because I won't let them. And Sunny cast a spell so they can't even see us - I just jumped right over them and they didn't even twitch."
"Really?"
Lenna waves her hand in front of them. She also pokes her tongue out.
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?"
The halfling takes the scroll of Mira and focuses on it so hard that lines appear below her eyes.
"So about this scroll? You want me to have find out what it does, right? Just be ready to pool in your knowledge if I don't know."
"Wow, just wow. This is jackpot. You know what the spell that speeds you up. Haste or something? This spell is like that spell but a more limited version. You can't have all the good stuff that haste gives you. You can only choose the one thing from haste every six seconds. The good news is it also give you the option to use that six seconds to extend any buffs that you try to put on yourself like that bull strength spell that Zozo used. Plus, it has its own name. Fervor of blessing and holy people can cast it, I think."
She folds the scroll.
"Let's save it for the major fight when we are fighting for the holy grail thing. Right now, not the best time to waste it."
The undead horde calms down and seems to be waiting to be disturbed again.
Seeing Lenna recovered, Mira turns back to the water and frowns. "If I remember right, this sort of spell ends if we touch them, so swimming's probably still out. But they don't seem to be attacking the boat itself, and that water only looks about five feet wide at the closest point. So what if we all just climbed in and pushed off?"
Sunreturn has been very slowly turning to face Lenna and say something, and then her and Mira start talking.
"Oops. I forgot to say that the undead could not see us. It will last for over half an hour. Can anyone fly or summon beasts who fly, to pull the boat along?"
"I have another summon scroll. Not going to risk it because the number I get is random. If you want, I can beam us across."
While you are looking around and Mira sends her lights dancing about, you notice a cubic stone shape, about three feet to a side, that seems to be sinking unevenly into the muck over the decades that is on the isolated patch of land near the middle of the west wall.
Sunreturn says, a little more swiftly this time:
"I cannot think of any magic I possess that would move us safely. I wish such magic would happen."
He attempts to solicit aid subtly from Zoltan.
You note the lay out of the water and think that rope might be useful here.
"Before I do it, let's try to see we can cross without the boat. Anyone know any way of crossing this river without touching these sea of rotting smallies?"
Sunreturn turns his head from one side to the other, looking for any other means across.
Sunreturn and Lenna notice sets of kobold footprints that walk up either side of the isolated penninsula that they might try to reach first.
These footprints are deeper especially with the toe first suggesting the kobolds were pulling something as they walked.
Sunreturn points a green finger at something and moves it to indicate a direction.
"Kobold tracks there ...and they were pulling something with them. Let us follow them and see where they went."
The tracks stop pulling there (as marked on the map). It seems the kobolds pulled as far as they intended to. They then walked back to the southernmost tip of the water. Then the tracks disappeared.
Sunreturn strolls over to that tip and peers into the water.
Sunreturn can spy kobold zombies lurking under the surface but nothing more of note.
Mira scratches her head and peers down into the water by the footprints. "Maybe they dragged some sort of bridge over it? But there's nothing here we can use." She sighs in exasperation. "Look, what if we just moved the boat to the narrowest spot, you all climbed in, I jumped over, and you stuck out a spear or something for me to pull you across. How's that?"
"Mira, That could work. Let us try it."
Lenna pulls out some rope.
"Not a bad idea, Mimi. I got some rope if the Sunny's spear is too short. If we are using rope, Mimi should leap to the other end with one end of the rope. Then, one of us tie the other end of the rope around our waist and let her pull them to the other side and then toss the rope back to the boat. Rinse and repeat until we are together. Easy, right?"
"That sounds good. I shall make a longspear."
Sunreturn is taking care to describe what he is doing, especially after the misunderstanding with the hide from undead magic.
When Sunreturn summons another longspear, the water begins roiling. It seems the undead remember the type of thing which touched the water and, as soon as the longspear nears the water, rise up and tear it from the Ghoran's hands, shredding it. They then return peacefully to the water.
If Sunreturn had eyelids, they would surely be blinking in surprise right now.
"We cannot touch the water."
"Perhaps we can use the rope to drag the boat across by one on each side of the water pulling it across? That looks like what these tracks represent to me."
"Perhaps. Let us try that."
Sunreturn and Zoltan take Lenna's rope and Mira holds it while she and Lenna sit in the rowboat. The two fellows then walk up either side of the penninsula they are trying to reach and pull the rowboat up to it.
Sunreturn looks around.
"Perhaps we should try the same over there to the west, and investigate that stone.", he muses out loud.
Lenna blinks.
"Eh, that works. On the bright side, we don't need to do all those troublesome stunts that I thought up."
Mira gives a few quick claps when they make it across the water. Once Zoltan and Sunreturn tug the boat back to their side, she takes one end of the rope and pulls them across as well. Then if no one objects she follows Sunreturn toward the next crossing, dragging the boat through the water.
Looping around the bend in the shore, she surveys the area with renewed interest. "Maybe if we stretched the rope between us we could do the same thing again, but at an angle?"
Sunreturn nods and moves with the rope.
"Interesting design, this..."
Considering the winding waterways, Zoltan concludes it's most likely the water filled this area naturally over time and the kobolds adapted to the situation.
Sunreturn and Mira pull Zoltan and Lenna to the island.
Grunting as she heaves the boat through the swampy water, Mira pauses to judge the distance before addressing Sunreturn. "Then if you passed your end to Zoltan, he and I could probably get Lenna the rest of the way to the box."
"Sounds good. I will do that."
You do find it somewhat difficult, indeed, to lug the boat through the slimy water but the undead do not seem to mind its bony hull sliding through the thick mudwater.