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[b]"If you want to get to the Island, I offer you my ferrying services.
After the uneasy night you head back to the village to investigate at Gerlach's lab.
The stone foundation cracks loudly as the house shifts, leaning askew. Inside, an alchemical lab composed of alembics, stills, and glass tubes lets off a foul odor. A large urn contains the body of a half-formed homunculus that is part man and part fish.
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With his hulking servant once more behind him, Iason scans the bad-smelling interior of the house with a dark gaze. He mutters words and sketches a shape in the air.
Etrigan is less circumspect. The man-beast lopes in, moving ape-like over the counters and crunching a few pieces of glass under his claws as he goes.
"What's this, in the pot?
"A stew, left to rot?
"No: Fish sticks, and stones--
"Scales, skin, and bones--
"By its maker, sadly forgot."
"Forgotten," Iason corrects absently.
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Iason takes the scrolls with arched brows, glancing them over. "What have we here..."
Etrigan, for his part, sidles over to the now-shattered urn, crouching down by the remnants of the homunculus. The fiend pokes at the gooey, half-formed body with one clawed finger-- grins-- and fishes it out of the remnants of the urn, in order to--
"Do not eat that," Iason snaps. "You have no idea where it's been."
Etrigan bares a mouthful of jagged teeth at Iason in turn, but sulkily drops the homunculus.
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The scrolls are two scrolls of comprehend languages. Iason has a closer look at the dead creature. He finds out that it is only half-formed, it seems not to have finished it's transformation. It's a weird alchemist experiment.
The villagers believe that during the day they are largely safe from the predations of Mohl’omog’s minions at sea, provided they hug the coast and stay in shallow water, and many have taken refuge in their boats. Their crews do not respond to any hails from shore.
A loud clatter comes from within a nearby cottage, hinting at life inside. The door must be forced open to due to a buildup of sand inside. Within, several crabs have knocked over a bowl. The cottage also contains a small altar draped in seaweed and adorned with cowrie shells and urchin spines. You identify the altar as a shrine to the deities of the sea. Other cottages have similar shrines.
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Estian offers his ferrying services to the island. The broad-shouldered man is unafraid of fishing and traveling the waves. Estian’s large rowboat carries up to eight passengers, and he expects you to be ready before dawn breaks. The journey over seas is choppy and lasts about 2 hours before the island comes into clear view.
The island materializes ahead as imposing cliffs lift weedchoked ruins far above the frothing sea. Miraculously, the broken tops of several towers orbit the island in slow, lazy ellipses, some plunging into the ocean before emerging aloft again. A huge blanket of floating jellyfish lurk just below the gray waters as Estian croaks a rough sea shanty under his breath. He sniffs the salty air and nods toward the jellyfish bloom, his wide mouth breaking into a toothy grin. "That’s a bad place to be right now, surely, I’d say!" Suddenly Estian stops singing and rowing.
You sense Estian’s nervous agitation.
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"Hmm. Scrolls to let one understand languages," Iason says with a shrug. "Potentially useful... however, I cannot make use of them. Should someone else desire them, they are yours."
He beckons for his servitor to follow, and they leave the lab, seeing nothing else of use there.
The little sea shrine, practically reclaimed by nature, makes Iason's lips thin into a line. "Clearly, the people of this town have strayed somewhat from proper respect to the Prince of Law," he tsks. "I've not seen a pentagram since arriving.... and plenty of worship of whatever primitive nature deities hold sway here. Tsk."
Still, soon enough they're on their way out to the island.
Etrigan lurks in the bow of the boat, hunched up with his hood drawn and cloak wrapped around him. From the depths of the hood, burning eyes watch their sailor.
"What agitates you, Estian?
"What fills your soul with hesitation?
"Come. Confide in Etrigan.
"Alternately: face cremation."
"Etrigan," Iason says with a frown, but looks, not at his servitor, but at the sailor.
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Suddenly Estian undergoes a rapid and horrifying transformation from a normal-looking human into a croaking fish-man. He croaks something in an unintelligible garble and rocks the boat to pitch you overboard into the jellyfish bloom.
Mollok
Etrigan
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Estian
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Perhaps the connection he shares with his servitor enabled him to feel something of the situation about to unfold, for Iason manages to hang on to the sides of the boat, at least.
Etrigan grins hugely, showing teeth beneath his hood, and lunges for the transformed villager.
"Treachery! How sweet its taste.
"Why, it makes me long for home!
"But YOU'RE hardly one of Hell's disgraced
"So choke on your own seafoam!"
Etrigan attempts to savagely bite the villager-turned-fishman, flames roiling out his fanged maw.
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Mollok and Clandelve are not fast enough and fall overboard into the jellyfish bloom. These poisonous invertebrates float along the upper waves in dangerous swarms of thousands and the water here is rough.
Estian, badly hurt from Estrigan's attack, does not stop. He tries to sink the boat once more.
Everybody is up :)
Kiyomi attacks Estian and the now fish-like man jumps into the waves and disappears.
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Seeing that she is unlikely to be able to help her friend back into the boat in her normal form, she spends a Move action to turn into her kitsune form, then tries to help haul Clandelve back into the boat.
Unfortunately, she's more used to her paws than these awkward hands, and misses his arm completely.
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Etrigan lolls back into the boat, grinning, his claws and mouth bloody. Iason scowls down at him and pokes him in the shoulder. He says tersely, "Help."
Smirking, the creature rolls to one side and extends a clawed-- and flaming-- hand over the gunwale to Clandelve. Iason gives him a stern look, and Etrigan sullenly extinguishes the flame. Smoke rises from his fingers.
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Clandelve climbs back into the boat and you can continue the trip to the island.
The ruins of the ancient Azlanti city of Nal-Kashel lie atop cliffs that rise 100 feet out of the surf. Two sunken beaches provide the only easy access to the island’s interior, one lying to the east and the other to the west, just above the level of the waves. The island climbs steadily toward the center, broken into three tiers separated by 40-foot-high cliffs. Theentire island radiates strong and overwhelming auras of transmutation and enchantment magics.
You approach the island from the east, making Wedding Rock Cove your landing spot. Imposing cliffs rise above the frothy sea, collapsing at a rocky beach of dark sand. Graceful spires and golden domes pierce the island’s thick foliage high above, and the remains of a ruined road of white slate crumble down the cliffs onto the beach. Overhead, a half dozen broken towers float in slow elliptical orbits around the island. A large rock covered in graffiti juts from the sand in the middle of the beach.
A disturbing hum emanates from the rock.
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Having taken a form with a mouth, Kiyomi says "Friends, this is a perilous mission indeed. We must practice extreme caution and keep ourselves safe, otherwise we will not be able to save anyone else. Clandelve, did those jellies harm you in any way? I do hope not. You must be careful with such things, they can paralyze or poison..." She goes on and on, chattering on for several minutes and making everyone wish she would change back to her fox form.