Mara didn't feel in a party mood any more. She stopped singing and tried to calm things down. "Oh dear! Can't we all just get along?"
She whispered to Rowan, "If you need to strain yourself to wake up faster, I'll heal you."
Afterwards, she asked the musician about the soul trade that she had mentioned.
The rest of the hag's entourage quietly slips away, their loyalty apparently ending at death. The musician, named Kavriki explains, "Night hags come to mortals in their dreams slowly night after night trapping the victim in a dark soul gem. Once a soul is trapped, killing the mortal, they will then sell to other evil outsiders. Quaveandra was working on opening Dylath-Leen as a new market."
”Righto.” She throws a two fingered salute to the musician, then turns to her comrades. ”We got any other business then? If not, I’d say better’n not to get out of here before whatever passes for coppers here show up.”
Mara replied to Kavriki, "Sounds like a nasty business! I can see why you'd want to stop her."
She was trying to convince herself that what they had just done here was justified, even though they didn't know the details before hand. We didn't just murder the ambassador because we wanted her trinket, did we?
She agreed with Kat, "I can't see much reason to stick around here."
Dervak wakes up.
"Was that the plan? I wasn't sure what to do when she caught Theophilus. Figured a Night Hag was dangerous enough to not let her get the drop on us."
Theophilus and the White Rabbit give Dervak an extremely weak thumbs up.
Rowan and the rest of the party feel a little wobbly when they wake but it shortly passes.
Day 54
Dervak has no particular plans.
He offers Glower another drink of water.
He thinks about having an actual life someday.
He practices with his falchion.
"Skywin... do you know of a group that would be a good employer for someone like me? I don't mind a fight but I'm not an assassin or an executioner."
Mara needed a break. She sat out on deck, watching the passing riverbank for a while. Eventually she went into the galley, and prepared lunch for the group.
In the afternoon, she grew bored, and looked through her notes. After a few minutes, she said to her comrades, "I guess we just have the wamp foot to collect. But I don't like the idea of killing a living creature, just so we can present its body part to the Mad Prophet as a gift. I'm not sure what the solution is."
Kat finishes her latest crafting project and distributes a holy weapon balm to Dervak, Rowan, and herself. ”Just gotta figure out what’s to make next.”
Kat scours through her gear, looking for something she is definitely not finding. ”Bloody hells. Must’ve forgot my deck of cards. Could use it around now.” Already mildly irritated, she frowns at the reminder of the last task. ”Maybe we can go and check out the situation in that part of the Dreamlands and see what’s what. I ain’t a big fan of just lopping off creature’s parts either, but maybe the situation will have nuances we aren’t seeing yet. If it don’t, we can make the informed decision at the time.”
"Sounds like hunting. People collect trophies all the time. A tusk of this or a horn of that."
Dervak shrugs.
"I am fine to do it if you don't want to. Or maybe there is more to it like Kat says."
Skywin stifles a chuckle, "You could always become a pirate." She reaches upwards and slaps Dervak on the back, "But if you're looking for a challenge I hear that Mendev is hiring mercenary groups for the 5th crusade. Not that I would got to a demon infested war zone, but you know I think you might like it."
Dervak nods thoughtfully. "Piracy is not for me. Well maybe a privateer against Cheliax or something. But a Mendevian Crusader... it would be good to reclaim the land of Sarkoris for the Kellids. And end the threat the demons pose to Golarion. It is a noble battle."
He thinks about this for a while.
After a bit, he turns to the hatter and says "Theophilus, can I borrow your fishing line?"
Dervak will spend the rest of the day alternating between fishing (giving the line back to Theophilus when he wants it), drinking the occasional ale, and watching the land go by.
It is rather nice to not need to do anything.
Mara replied to Kat, "I guess we'll have to figure it out when the time comes. Oh, remember that the wamps look for food in graveyards, so be prepared for undead. They're also supposed to be carriers of corpsepox, ghoul fever, and zombie rot."
Theophilus spends his time ideally playing cards with the White Rabbit.
Certainly, my good Dervak. But I do believe it's broken. Never seem to catch anything.
Kat sighs as Mara rattles off the diseases. ”Guess I’ll need to make sure I’m stocked up on antiplague then, eh? Guess I know now what I’m making next.”
Kat pauses as she mulls over saying something that had been rolling about in her head for a while. ”Gotta say, I appreciate how you keep up good spirits. Got your heart in the right place. Girls like us don’t get that luxury much often, right?” Kat smiles wryly then buries her hands in her pockets, a little embarrassed at her own earnestness. ”Just an observation.”
Mara thought for a moment before replying, "I guess I just feel like I shouldn't be complaining — I don't want to bring everyone down. If I really stopped to think about everything we've seen, I'd probably go mad. After we finish, then I can go bonkers!"
1st lvl (5): Ant Haul, Cure Light Wounds, Liberating Command, Protection from Evil, Remove Fear
2nd lvl (4): Barkskin x3, Calm Emotions
3rd lvl (4): Heroism x3, Remove Disease
4th lvl (3): Divination, Threefold Aspect, Slowing Mud
As the group prepared for another Dreamlands Excursion ritual,Mara asked her comrades, "Does everyone have an antiplague? I don't think wamps have the best oral hygiene."
"Eh, if our bodies get sick in the Dreamlands, that won't come back with us, right?"
I don't think Dervak has antiplague. He has antitoxin, not the same thing. Unless there are some in the party loot?
Theophilus offers to craft some Antiplague.
Unfortunately, it looks a bit off....
Kat pulls three antiplague out of her bag. ”I’ve got three of ‘em. I can make more with time. I’m pretty good at all that. Bit of a hobby.”
The White Rabbit accepts the nost gracious offer with a courtly bow.
He then kicks the Witch.
The tall buildings of a large city press in around a wide square. The sky is low and leaden, and a feeling of oppression and abandonment hangs in the air along with a powerful, unpleasant odor of decay. A few scraggly plants formed from yellow ceramic stand in window boxes on the buildings, and a few trees of the same ceramic composition cluster together in a nearby park. The buildings are all constructed of stone and the same yellowish ceramic material.
Everyone but Dervak sees the all too familiar tight pallid skin, long tongues and sharp teeth of ghouls peeking out from windows and down dark alleys.
Mara remarked to her friends, "I don't see any wamps, but I can see ghouls looking at us from the windows and the alleys. Perhaps we can reason with them and make a deal, but best be prepared in case that doesn't work out." She recited a few prayers, bolstering her allies.
She eyed the bizarre plants and commented, "Those plants in the window boxes look ceramic to me. What's the deal with that?"
After Mara casts the first heroism spell she feels the oppressive atmosphere of the town weigh down against the it. Mara knows little about the ceramic plants, however they are very detailed and closely resemble the real thing. The ceramic in the buildings appears to have wood grain.
Theophilus and the White Rabbit seem to be looking for a Yellow Brick Road. Those near them only know thic; because, they are both mumbling,
Follow da yellow brick road...
Dervak looks around the strange town.
The usual surge of confidence he feels from Mara's spells is only barely there. I don't like this place.
"Dreamlands Ghouls? Wonder if they know about the other ones... we can try to talk.
I have a feeling that something bad happened here. Those ceramic plants can last at least; I don't think anything living would still exist in this place."
Soon a trio of ghouls approaches the party, they are careful to keep their distance and one says in a low raspy voice, "Welcome to Arventon. It has been many years since we've encountered a living being. I am Kharesto." She motions to the other two, "This is Millahna and Utrenk. Might we inquire as to your business here?" They appear to have formerly been humans and look nothing like the Leng ghouls.
After Kat sees how little Mara's heroism affects her, she holds off using her own. She instead goes for some of her extracts that will heighten her senses.
"Yeah, not a fan of all this." She takes a big sniff of the air, realizes her mistake, and coughs in long hacks. "Gonna need to get used to that, eh?"
Kat looks over the ghouls, then puts on a cheery smile. She's never been great at making striking impressions, but she has always been happy to soften the landing for her more charismatic fellows. "Cheerio. Name's Kat. One a' my bruvs here does the talking."
Kat notices that the ghouls are the source of the stench as she can smell them coming. This is when she realizes that they are not ghouls as such, but the more powerful ghast. She surmises that they are keeping their distance so as not to catch the party in their stench.
Mara greeted the ghasts in Necril, before switching to Common so all her companions could follow the conversation, "Hello Kharesto, my name is Mara. We have come here looking for unusual multi-legged creatures known as wamps; they're supposed to be pale, with red webbed feet. My research leads me to believe that they might be found in this area."
Dervak is more polished these days, and probably could help Mara's negotiation, but he isn't quite sure what to say. He is wary of these ghouls, and keeps quiet.
The ghasts look at each other and nod; Kharesto says, "We are relieved to hear this. The creatures you call wamps, have infested our cemetery and we cannot reach our food. If you were to kill or drive off these creatures we would reward you."
It sounded to Mara like the wamps were too much for the ghouls and ghasts to handle on their own. I wonder how nasty these aberrations are? She replied to Kharesto, "We'll see what we can do. Are these wamps fierce? Perhaps you can show us the graveyard, so we can assess the situation."
Theo licks his finger, puts it into the air and he licks it again.
I say it tastes like pea soup.
The White Rabbit repeats the performance. He shakes his head.
Yes; with a bit of pumpkin.
They both look at the ghasts with wide smiles.
Theophilus Carter; we represent the lollypop...err...ourselves in this endeavor. Yes, Miss Mara has the right of it. We shall see your Cemetery, if you please!
The White Rabbit kicks a patch of dead grass.
Yes; another cemetery. Never an amusement park! We would love to go to Disney!
Theo still casts his buffs.
"Your food is corpses? And the wamps are keeping you from the corpses?"
Dervak shudders a bit. This whole place is a nightmare.
"What happened to Arventon?"
When White Rabbit kicks a patch of ceramic grass he stubs his toe.
The ghouls answer Mara, "Yes they are. They ate some of our fellow townsfolk just as easily as they eat the corpses in our graveyard." Millahna says to Dervak while hanging her head, "We don't know. We were once human like you but one day almost everyone turned into a kind of yellow statue, along with all the plants. Those who didn't turn into statues changed into whatever we are now. I think we're dead but not dead, and a hunger that only rotting flesh can sate."
They lead the party to the wamps. The stinking, ceramic city opens up into an enormous cemetery dotted with mausoleums, monuments, and headstones. The cemetery stretches for nearly a mile in every direction and is ringed by a tall iron fence. A section of the fence is knocked inward, allowing access to the lumpy ground of the cemetery. Outside the fence, a wide ring of ceramic statues stands vigil, facing inward toward the cemetery. Many of the graves have been torn up, soil and smashed caskets strewn haphazardly about. Six wamps root around in the graves, they are crimson-footed, nine-legged monstrosities. They have an egg-shaped body covered in dirty white fur. It has an eyeless face, piglike snout, and a toothy maw.
Mara felt bad for the ghouls. Evidently some sort of cataclysm had befallen them to make them what they were now.
When they reached the graveyard, she looked at the bloated, vaguely spider-like wamps with disgust. She had imagined them as bizarre bird-like creatures, but they were much worse!
Mara recognizes that wamps are unnatural creatures. Kat additionally remembers that wamps are unable to digest anything but corrupted dead flesh. Often slaying living creatures and then letting them rot for several days before they feed on them. Perhaps because of their feeding habits wamps can easily disguise themselves as undead, even to magical detection.
The White Rabbit cries.
Mara conferred with her team-mates, "These wamps give me the creeps! Shall we clear them out?"
Upon hearing that the creatures were blind, she asked, "If they can't see, couldn't we just shoot them from a distance?"
Kat indeed shares what she remembers. ”I mean, perhaps. I don’t think any of us are that great with bows, though. Suppose we could try to sneak around them if they only can sense people within 60 ft.”
Theo peers around.
Perhaps, Frederick, could lure them to an advantageous position for our Dervak?
"Arrows would take a while. I have the Vorpal Scimitar. Just say the word and I'll take them out."
Dervak casts Shield and, using the Mnenomic Vestment, Cat's Grace.
Mara decided it was best to be prepared for a fight, so she recited several prayers to increase the party's defenses. In addition, she attuned her phylactery to Dervak, Kat and Rowan, and used a scroll on Rowan.
When everyone indicated they were ready, she concentrated, causing her form to start wavering. She also took out a scroll and read it, allowing her to rise into the air.
She told her comrades, "If the wamps bunch up, I'll coat them in think, sticky mud."