Taking the thunderous crack of the pistol as her cue, Imhara, allowing Cethel's divine magic to guide her hand, takes aim at one of the shambling former sailors and lets fly a crossbow bolt.
zombie 1 - 8
zombie 2 - 3
zombie 3 -
zombie 4 - 10
Karathiel's shot slams into the head of one of the approaching undead, blasting the jaw and most of the neck away from the body. Despite this heavy damage, the zombie keeps walking.
Adornis and Amboy strike different zombie with Cethel's magically-enhanced rocks. The magic seems effective, tearing flesh and snapping limbs, but the creatures' animated nature carries them forward where a living being might be killed.
Imhara's bolt punches through the chest of the zombie Amboy hit, but it doesn't stop the walking corpse.
Gritting her teeth as the unholy thing survives a wound that would stop most anything shy of a land-shark, Karathiel reloads and fires once more.
St. John waits for the others to attack and once they have advances to the closest standing zombie and attacks.
Cethel hurls his stone, and it tears into the flesh of the zombie.
Seeing the band of shambling zombies draw nearer, seeming not to be allowed in the slightest by their initial assault, Imhara breaks ranks with her fellow survivors and moves into a position where she can unleash her magic without fear of harming them. She calls to the wellspring of arcane power deep beneath the island and it responds eagerly, as if the land itself wishes to be rid of the undead blight. The witch speaks the in her mother tongue, trying focus herself as she shapes and seeks to control the power that threatens to overwhelm her. "Kando ya roho za mababu zangu, kwa uwezo wa dunia..." A small spark can be seen flickering between her outstretched hands. "Utakuwa kuchoma." In a flash, the spark grows into a blaze that threatens to consume the zombies.
As he had promised, Adornis moves towards the zombies with his shield raised, hoping to draw their attention and keeping the others behind him safe and sound. "Hey you stupid zombies... come to me for I'm delicious! Or at least I've been told so!" He looks towards Imhara and blinks to her with a smile in his face.
After the second pistol shot Amboy sprints around to his left to get behind the foul creatures. Once there he pulls out his rapier.
Amboy had heard of zombies but has never encounter one before. He looks at his blade and thinks that it may not be the best choice of weapons.
"Come on zombies let's dance!"
Between Karathiel's second shot, Cethel's stone, and St. John's falcata, the party is able to weaken the approaching zombies sufficiently enough for Imhara's flames to finish the job. Nothing but their smoldering bodies keeps you from approaching the Tatooed Lady.
"Ah! That went pretty well, actually! Nice magic, fiery girl!" Moving his hands atop the charred bodies, Adornis knelt beside them to look for anything still useful. "The smell of dead and burnt flesh is something undeniably terrible... but who knows, perhaps we can find something still useful."
Once he is done, he points his thumb to the wreckage. "So... lets take a look? Despite the zombies, I think there is still a slim chance that anyone in there survived... or, at least, we could find something in there to help in our survival."
Karathiel nods in satisfaction as her bullets destroy the walking dead. "Score one for civilisation."
"The smell of dead and burnt flesh is something undeniably terrible...
Adornis' remarks earn him a disdainful flick of her red eyes. "Disagree. Smells like... victory."
Stowing her pistol on her belt, she moves forward, ready to explore the wrecked ship.
The Tattooed Lady lays on its side, beached and broken. The skeletons of unfortunate sailors, picked clean by wheeling circles of sea birds you can see above, sprawl across the beach. Most are half-buried in sand.
Chests, crates, and casks are strewn throughout the area. Most are rotted and destroyed, but in more than a few, you find valuable items.
11 x bags of salt (2 sp, 1 lb)
1 x bolt of linen (5 gp, 10 lb)
2 x box of charcoal (1 sp, 20 lb)
1 x handsaw (3 gp, 5 lb)
1 x large iron box (2 gp, 100 lb)
- 1 x mwk light steel shield w/ crest of Andoran
- 1 x scroll of entangle in water tight tube
12 x small casks of Andoran ale (2 sp, 8 lb)
1 x wooden drum (5 gp, 3 lb)
It's a grim business, picking over the remains, but there are worse jobs. Karathiel passes the scroll to Imhara. "Guess this is yours."
She can't see much use for the linen, but the charcoal, handsaw, iron box and the salt will come in handy. She gathers up as much as she can carry. "Back to camp?"
St. John nods to Karathiel, "Back to camp with it all. The linen will provide some shade, always useful with this hot sun."
Imhara eyes Karathiel and the proffered tube rather dubiously, but in the brief battle between her sense of self-preservation and her manners, manners wins out and she takes the tube the elf hands her. After cautiously opening it, Imhara unfurls the bit of parchment found therein and takes a moment to study it.
"Oh. It looks to be a spell that would cause the jungle to rise up and ensnare one's enemies. I'm not very familiar with this sort of magic, but with a bit of finesse, I may be able to make use of this should we need it." Glancing back at Karathiel, she eyes the elf as if seeing her for the first time - or perhaps simply in a new light - before rolling up and stashing the scroll away in its tube. "Thanks," she says, sincerely, if somewhat awkwardly. Looking around at the rest of the salvage, Imhara smiles at seeing the half-buried drum in the sand and goes to recover it. A gift from the ancestors if I ever saw one. This should to help lighten the spirits of those back at camp, she considers, the thought of beating drums and dancing around a bonfire taking her back to a much happier time in her life.
Broken from her brief reverie by St. John's pronouncement, Imhara is a bit disappointed to hear that he already has designs for the linen cloth. She had hoped to make a set of clothes for Jask to wear instead of the rags his captors had left him in, but she consents that the group's health was a more pressing concern than one man's modesty. Nodding her agreement with heading back to camp, Imhara helps to gather what she can carry of their salvaged goods.