Erhun's mighty overhead chop puts his wolf down, but the rest of the pack keeps surging forward despite any wounds they might bear, worrying at Miklos's flanks, though he avoids their bites with some fancy footwork.
Bold may go
Miklos
Krstani -5
Caelhal
Erhun
Wolves Blue Red -10
Aviram
Ilyaleh -2
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With the wolf that bit her now down and unmoving, Ilyaleh reached for her quarterstaff. "Wait for an opportunity and attack," she urged her familiar as she started forward. She felt much more protected now that there was a wall of friends between her and the wolves, but it also made her spells a bit more difficult to manage since, you know, her allies were in the blast radius of her cone.
Aviram and Miklos manage to finish off the last of the pack, and after a few tense moments, it seems as though nothing else is going to come charging out of the night.
The rest of the watches pass uneventfully.
The next day your journey through the Fangwood continues; after a few hours you pass by the Gray Lake, a good place to refill your waterskins and grab a quick lunch.
As you arrive the trees begin to thin, revealing a field of short, green grass that leads to the shores of a wide, calm lake reflecting the overcast sky above. A dense fog hangs over the center of the lake, obscuring the far side, but near the shore of the lake, you can see a dark form lying next to the water.
What do you do?
As you get closer you are able to see that the mysterious form is that of a man in an advanced state of decay.
There are huge bite marks all over his upper torso, and Krstani notices an ugly tinge to the wounds that might explain why he seems to have been untroubled by scavengers.
While Krstani examines his wounds, Aviram's vigilance is rewarded with what look like some of the unfortunate man's belongings. Nearby is a short sword, still razor sharp despite its time in the damp, and a coin pouch with several newly minted Nirmathan crowns.
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Don't joke about the dead, and those who should be dead and aren't.
Erhun voice is stern, but he does his best not to sound too rude.
If we don't take the time to bury him, praying for his soul before we go to the crypt won't slow us much.
Erhun improvises a short ceremony to help the dead man's soul find his way in the afterlife
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Ilyaleh stands back as the others examine the corpse, unwilling to get too close to it after her brush with the wolves the night prior. Ara licked at the closing wounds on her arm, sympathetic. She rubbed at the patch of fur between his ears, atop his head. "It's not so bad," she said to him quietly.
She stood for the improvised service Erhun set up, not wanting to be rude to the dead.
"If he is not from Kassen, then we can try to pass on a message to wherever he's from - were there any identifying marks on him? Perhaps a letter or something with his name and home on it?" Although Ilyaleh didn't much like people, she also didn't particularly like the idea of dying off in the wilderness somewhere with her parents entirely ignorant. They should know, if only so they could properly mourn her instead of finding out far after they ought.
Caelhal's examination of the wounds suggests that, although the large bite marks were likely the cause of death, the bites seem to have been venomous.
Luckily whatever did this doesn't seem to be nearby.
After Erhun's service, you leave the Gray Lake behind. After about three more hours of cold rain through the Fangwood, the trail takes you through a twisting maze of trees and confusing ravines.
As it tops a small rise, a broad valley spreads out before it, the opposite side of which looks like a writhing serpent. Yet between the two lies a steep hill sloping down into the valley. The Crypt is down there, but the footing looks treacherous.
It looks like with as rough as the slope is, it should take you about a half an hour to get safely down there, an hour if you go particularly carefully.
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Ilyaleh isn't too happy about the rain - and neither is Ara. He hides under her cloak and disappears into her inner pockets during particularly heavy sections of it to stay dry. Some of the drops fizzle when the touch her, but for the most part, Ilyaleh's kept about... 60% dry by her cloak. Of course, when one of the trees dumps a particularly large amount of water on her, she sputters, scowling at the tree before moving on, shaking off some of the wet.
When they get to the slope, she frowns. Considering the rain, she thought it a bad idea to go down without any care.
"I've a sturdy rope," she volunteers, drawing a silk rope from her pack.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, Caelhal, along with most of the group, is able to safely negotiate the treacherous slope
Aviram's climb comes to a somewhat more abrupt end than he had planned for as his rope snags and he finds himself sliding down the hill into a pair of thickets. But at least he's at the bottom.
Ilyaleh's descent too is marred by mishaps as she seems to ricochet from tree to tree, landing in a heap at the bottom of the ridge!
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Ilyaleh falls unconscious, so the party is treated to the sight of her unmoving body at the bottom of that ridge. The journey down doesn't start so bad, but a bad grip high up leads to a slide that quickly turns into a really bad pivot and suddenly she's catching quite a bit more sky than she'd like. It's the last thing she recalls before everything goes black.
Ilyaleh lay stunned, her only awareness that of Ara squirming around in her clothing. It doesn't take too long for her to come back around and she sits up with a groan, feeling the aches and pains in her body as she slowly gets to her feet. "Owwwwwww," she said, drawing out the word. She rubbed at her hip - whatever she'd hit had been sharp, dammit. "I would like to not do that again, please." She might or might not be wincing, but oh man, she was going to be feeling that for a while yet. Ugh.
The ifrit was pretty sure she'd hit that last tree dead on. All the same, she slowly drew her things back together again, cringing at the occasional movement. Ugh, she wans't too sure what had happened in those last few seconds, but... It couldn't have been that bad, right?
Either way, she owed the person that had helped her some gratitude. "Thanks," she'd say, with meaning. "I owe you a drink, at least!"
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Miklos goes over to Ilyaleh and gets out his waterskin. He shakes her gently and splashes a bit of water on her face to try to rouse her. He waves one of the others over. She's only stunned , i think. She must have hit her head on the way down. We need to get her healed quickly...we can't waste time...
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Up again, the ifrit shakes her head and rolls her shoulders, testing her body. Once she's satisfied, she turns to Caelhal and reiterates her thanks, adding: "I didn't think I'd fall like a stone in an avalanche, but apparently fortune wasn't with me. Were I alone, I surely would have died. Thank you!"
She wipes at some of the water on her face and, reminded that water exists, goes to drink of her own waterskin. It was good to stay hydrated and healings always made her a bit thirsty.
The ifrit recollects her silk rope and checks on Ara who, after an initial check up, is satisfied and returns to his dry pocket.
"What next along the way? The Crypt is near, is it not?"
At the bottom of the valley an archway of stone is set into the side of a small hill. Moss has overgrown many of the details, but one is still quite clear. The keystone of the arch is carved with a flame symbol with a stylized rune in the middle.
Beyond the archway is a darkened tunnel that leads to a pair of massive
wooden doors, one of which is slightly ajar.
A pair of horses and a trio of ponies lie slaughtered next to the archway, each corpse still tied to a post set into the ground nearby. A swarm of flies hangs lazily in the air above them.
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I don't like the sight of this...What happened here? A wild beast attacking the mounts? Look... there, under that horse... human bones...
He seems to think a little
Can't be scavengers. They wouldn't have picked at a human corpse so quick, without touching to the fresh dead horse flesh. It must have been an animated skeleton. Prepares some blunt weapons.
The bones do look significantly older than the horse atop them.
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"We have to get past one way or another -- should we ignore the skeletal remains? Try burying them? I don't know about you, but I'd really hate to try to help only to get attacked by whatever that is." The ifrit frowns at the very idea. Eyeing their surroundings, she points out, "Still, I only see the one - do you think there might be others?"