"Well that doesnt sound very reassurin'." Lionel grumbled as he looked the corpse over. "No offense to ol' Sticky, but I think ill be joinin' him on the watch tonight." He added, as he started to look for a good place to settle down for a sleepless night.
"Joyous day...we're on an island with abnormally large chupacabras. Just add that to the list of flying reptiles to look out for. Oh, and the giant snakes. Yay! Its island of the giant monsters!" With a sigh, Kayle slumps in a corner and gnaws on some dried fish.
Gathien chuckles and then says in an obviously overly cheerful tone, "But just think of the adventure", and then laughs again.
He then looks at Lionel and says, "We should share the watch duties. Last thing we need is for you to be too tired to swing your claws tomorrow."
"As long as someone shares the watch, I dont care who ends up doin' it." Lionel said with a shrug. "So, you be wantin' the first or second watch then?"
Gathien shrugs, "Either one.... though I'm not at good in the dark as you are."
"Joyous day...we're on an island with abnormally large chupacabras. Just add that to the list of flying reptiles to look out for. Oh, and the giant snakes. Yay! Its island of the giant monsters!" With a sigh, Kayle slumps in a corner and gnaws on some dried fish.
"Ah, but you're not paying attention to the highlights! The beautiful beaches! And the trees! Oh, the trees are marvelous on this island!"
"As long as someone shares the watch, I dont care who ends up doin' it." Lionel said with a shrug. "So, you be wantin' the first or second watch then?"
"Sticky will be up all night. I will take the first watch. My elven eyes can see in dim lighting but not in dark."
Snorting at the halfling, Kayle pulls out her spellbook and idly flips through it. "Yes well..adventure is why I set out here. But we haven't even seen any ruins yet!"
She pulls out a piece of charcoal and starts to roughly sketch the ruined ship she'd fallen into earlier that day, talking to the others without looking up. "Eh..Scenery is much less exciting than the large, ruined remnants of past civilizations that I was expecting. Oh well, maybe we'll find something worth studying on this island!"
For those on watch, the night passes uneventfully, although the never-quiet jungle always manages to make a few hairs stand on end.
Kayle drifts off to sleep, imagining the ancient ruins and magical secrets she could uncover here...when she awakes, she’s sitting down in the galley aboard the Jenivere, getting ready for her meal. The ship’s cook has given her a steaming bowl of soup, but she drops her spoon. She sees that the deck below is covered with seawater up to her ankles, and her dropped spoon has sunk into the water and washed out to sea through a hole. She’s forced to lift her delicious bowl of soup to her lips and drink. But something big goes into her mouth as she does so, and she feels a sharp bite on her tongue. She drops the bowl, only to reveal a serpent had hidden in her soup that now dangles from her tongue as it chews furiously. She starts awake, biting her own tongue in an attempt to bite through the snake’s body...and wakes up with blood in her mouth as the pink dawn sky stretches from the horizon.
As the explorers finish up their dinners and prepare for bed, their small campfire starts to flicker. Flecks of green and blue start to appear in the orange flames--the color spreads until the fire is completely subsumed by a glowing blue flame. A shape appears in the flames: a gleaming metal hook. The hook rises, revealing the arm it's attached to, and soon an entire figure stands before the camp, the fire having returned to its normal orange glow. Before you stands what looks to be the remains of a man: a human skeleton with burning blue flames in his eye sockets, one hand replaced by a hook, and wearing a seaman's coat and captain's tricorn hat, all of which seems to be dripping with seawater.
"Thieves! Scoundrels!" he spits from a fleshless mouth, his voice raspy and tinged with a deep, unnatural rumbling. "Traitors! Mutineers! Give me back my Aeshamara! Return my beloved to me!" he screams, turning wildly to each castaway, flinging ghostly water droplets from his clothes with the motion that disappear as they touch the ground.
"By all the briny sprays!!" Lionel roared, leaping out of his half asleep stupor and moving several feet away from the fire. That was all he said, consumed by an uncharacteristic awestruck fear of the apparition before him.
Letting out a brief scream, Kayle scrambles away from the fire, kicking sand at the skeleton as she reaches for her spell pouch. "We're not mutineers or traitors! And I'd like to think we're hardly thieves! Who are you and what do you want from us?"
Sil scurries up from his position sitting on the ground next to Sticky. He motions for the treant to stay still and listens to the apparition. "We can find your beloved! But where do we look?" His eyes are wide with wonder at the sight before them.
Kayle scrambles about in the sand and stands up, looking for their bags of loot. "Lionel, where did we put that locket? That name..there was a woman in it with that name on it!"
Gathien turns to face Kayle, "So you're saying we give the phantasm the locket?"
"Arrrgghhhhh!" the spirit screams in rage, flecks of ghostly seawater and blue tongues of flame evaporating into the night air. "Liars and thieves! You took 'er from me, and you'll give 'er back if you know what's good for you!" YOU!" he shouts, pointing his hooked hand at the cowering Lionel. He stalks over to the sailor, grinding his cracked teeth. "Where is she? Fess up, dog, or I'll have your skull for a cup!"
"Give him the locket, Lionel! Maybe that will calm him down!"
"Why the bloody Hells would I have it?!" Lionel yelled back, sounding halfway between rage and panic, even as he patted himself down as if he wasnt sure he didnt have it.
Kayle pulls out the locket and tosses it at the skeleton.
The locket lands with a wet, dull sound as it hits the soggy leaves of the underbrush. The skeletal man turns toward the sound, looking down at the bit of gold glinting in the firelight. "What is this?" he hisses menacingly, but he stops his stalking toward Lionel to bend down toward the locket. He reaches out for it with his bony hand, but it passes through gold and wet leaves insubstantially. He tries a few more times before howling in frustration. "What trick is this?" he yowls at Kayle, stepping over the closed locket and stepping toward her. "I'll give you traitors one last chance!" he threatens, coming toward Kayle. "Now...
the spirit screams, the blue flames in his eyes bursting from their sockets and engulfing his entire head in ethereal flames.
"Curse it all! Bloody freaking undead!"
Trying to think of a solution, Kayle will avoid the creature and snatch up the locket, opening it and holding it out to the skeleton. "It's in the stupid locket, you idiot! Take the bloody thing and begone! Cursed freakin' island treasure.."
"Is bad luck it is, an ill omen, and yer talkin' to it like that?" Lionel hissed at Kayle through clenched teeth, still stood far away on the other side of the clearing.
The ghost stops dead in its tracks, his attention focused on the locket's interior. The flames die down to a mere flicker, as he tentatively reaches out for the locket with his skeletal hand. The bones trembling, he briefly touches the interior before his ghostly form fades away into nothingness with a long, melancholy sigh.
Gathien shudders and says, "I'm glad that worked.... So now do we just leave the locket here, or should we be prepared for a nightly visitor?"
Lionel stroked his chin thoughtfully, looking his usual stoic self. "I reckon he wont be comin' back. I aint got any book smarts, but all the tales says when a ghost gets what it wants, it be leavin' for good." He shrugged and returned to his post.
"Either way, the way he was yellin' I reckon we will know soon enough. No use loosin' sleep over it."
Kayle runs a shaky, sandy hand through her hair. "I curse a lot when I'm flustered. Its a way of..I guess trying to be courageous. Are you sure it won't come back?"
Kayle looks down, is the locket still even there?
"Well, even if it does come back I think we helped it. So he won't kill us instantly, right? Maybe we should hold on to the locket for now. A spiritual guide might not be a bad thing. And if nothing else, we can keep it safe for his sake rather than just leave it lying here."
The next morning Sil suggests continuing to follow the tracks.
Gathien nods at Sil's comment and then chuckles, "Worst case, we can sneak it onto any enemies we may encounter."
Sil will hold onto the locket if no one else wants to. He leads the way following the tracks.
Gathien follows, keeping near the druid in case there's a need to sneak ahead and scout.
After the encounter with the ghostly captain, the locket remains; it is slightly chilled in Kayle's hand with the dripping, ethereal hook touches it, but soon returns to its normal temperature. Magical investigation reveals that the locket is as mundane as ever.
-----
Once the sun is up and the explorers set out, Sil tracks the prints for only an hour when the jungle clears out somewhat. Before him, running north-to-south, is a game trail, seemingly widened with frequent use. It's more difficult to track here, but the elf manages to deduce that the tracks turn north. There are also many other humanoid footprints here--some very old, and some fairly recent, all barefoot...
Lionel looked down the road in both directions, arms crossed and a grouchy look on his face. "Many people walkin' here you say? And barefoot. Could be tribesmen of a sort. This could be very good or very very bad." He rubbed his chin and looked both ways again. "If we follow the tracks, stickin' in the brush would likely be a good idea."
"I'd like to figure out who the humanoids are before we go tracking down game," Sil notes.
Gathien nods in agreement, "Besides, if there are humanoids, they may likely survive by hunting the game. Which means they likley have ambush sites along the game trail."
"Dangerous, or possibly other shipwrecked people! With..no boots? They may have been here awhile. We should go after them!"
Gathien chuckles, "The hunting on this island must be bad, indeed, if they were all forced to boil their boots for soup."
As the explorers progress north and west along the adapted trail, the shod footprints continue. They are more difficult to track on this harder-packed earth (and without being able to track as many signs in hacked-through and stepped on flora), and Sil hardly knows what's happening when he trips over a hidden vine that lays across the trail. It pulls a hidden snare that pulls against the elf's legs.
The snare tightens around Sil's ankles, and yanks him up into the air as a tree off the path bends up. The elf swings up toward the swing as he rises, toward a patch of sharpened stakes lashed to the tree as part of the trap. He just manages to hold his shield up and twist in the right direction to avoid being impaled. However, he is still left hanging upside-down, ten feet above the ground.
"Hmmmmm-oof!" The trap catches Sil off-guard as he tracks through the jungle.
Hanging upside down from the vine, Sil reaches for his dagger and commands Sticky to stand underneath, hoping the treant will either catch him or break his fall. He then cuts his way loose.
The vine yields easily to Sil's dagger, and he falls into his treat's waiting "arms." Sticky lowers him gently, and besides a few insignificant bruises, the greatest injury Sil likely sustains is to his pride.
Lionel chucked without any attempt to restrain himself. "That was a right riot it was Sil me mate." He finished chuckling, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye. "Would have been worth a proper laugh if it wasnt such a bad sign." He suddenly looked very serious.
Walking to the front, he started to follow the tracks. "Hows about I take the next one then eeh?"
Staring at the spiked trap with a hand to her mouth, Kayle runs up to Sil when he falls back down. "Are you alright?! I wasn't expecting something like that! Whoever we are following is dangerous. I don't think that trap was designed for an animal. Do we want to have someone scouting ahead while we continue?"
"I'm not terribly stealthy. Between Lionel and myself we shouldn't have any problems following the tracks. I'm alright, really. I suppose I have quick reflexes."
Gathien says, "I can scout ahead, but the problem is, I don't know where ahead is."
The footprints from the eastern side continue north along the game trail. The pace is much easier here, without having to hack through bushes or detour around cliffs and swamps. The five castaways make considerable progress along the trail, which follows a ridge that rises to the west, and go about a mile in only half an hour before the path branches off: the fork diverges into a western path and a northern one.
Despite the explorers being aware of and keeping an eye out for further traps, Lionel manages to trigger one at the fork.
The beefy sailor manages to stand his ground as the snare catches his leg, though, and he manages to hold fast against being pulled up. The line quickly is quickly severed and crisis is averted.
"Didnt I tell ya?" Lionel said with a smug smile, severing the ropes with his claws. "Aint nothin' to it, just gotta have some heft to ya is all." He held Sil by the shoulders and lifted him an inch or two above the ground before setting the elf down again. "Then again, you elves aint exactly famous for your mass now are ya?" He chuckled loudly before turning to the tracks. "Hmmm, lets see..."
He remained silent for a full minute before getting up from his crouch, dusting his pants off. "Pretty sure the tracks continue west from here."
"These tracks go on for forever..maybe we should return to the camp for a little while to make sure everything is okay?"
Lionel growled and shook his head. "And what happens when they find two empty traps? Aint exactly like animals to break out of these things. Maybe once in a blue moon, but twice in the same day?" He shrugged. "We could send ol' sticky back with a note maybe? But I think we need to see this through."
Gathien adds, "If they examine the cuts to the ropes, it might be another sign of us -- I imagine a sharp dagger is a cleaner cut than claws. Still, sending some sort of note would be useful."