"By chance can you lower a rope or something? Feats of physical prowess were never my thing."
Karia moves to look inside the wreck.
"You seemed to be doing just fine in my opinion," Sizara says laughing as she helped both Hamual and Karia up onto the ship. She then tossed a rope over the side of the shipwreck for the others to use to help them get onboard.
Corliss looks at the rock face dubiously before whispering a quick prayer to Besmara for aid in the climb. "Almighty Bessie, protect your humble servant who can't climb well as he scales yon rope and rock wall for both booty an' your honor. Please."
"Ah, Bessie--that's one thing I've always admired...your sense o' humor! Now that you've had a good laugh at the expense o' your humble an' not the least bit pissed off servant...can we get this climb over with? Please?"
"Corliss...there's a rope for you to use," the jungle elf said with a sigh.
"I'm usin' it, I'm usin' it!" Corliss yells as he slowly makes the climb. "Why do ya think I ain't fallen to me death yet?"
"You are a priest of Besmara? Were you a pirate out of the Shackles prior to being marooned here?"
Hamual will stay close to Sizara, not for his own protection but because she seems capable.
"Aye, I crewed aboard the pirate ship The Dark Lark for a time, it seems, afore one o' the ship's booms well...lowered the boom on me. Cracked me head an' damned near killed me. Ship left Port Peril afore I was fully recovered--if you can call it that, I've still lost most o' me memories from before the accident--an' I took a job aboard the Jenivere with these fine folks afore we shipwrecked on the Shiv's northern shore. Ain't exactly a pirate these days, but Bessie ain't abandoned me neither."
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Besmara apparently thinks pirates should do their climbing in the rigging, not on cliff faces, as even with Sizara's rope, Corliss barely makes it to where the ship is wedged in the rocks.
The hull of the ship is easy to enter, as Sizara can just walk through the hole that has been ripped in the side. The inside of the hull is cool and dark, although Sizara feels the hull shift and tip a little as she enters - the ship is obviously not as firmly wedged as it appears, and too much weight inside might cause it to fall.
Little remains inside, but with her low-light vision Sizara can see that several doors lead off from the section she is in. One door in particular seems to have been attacked for some reason, as large scratches and gouges have been cut into it. A handaxe is still wedged in the wood.
"Sizara, let me check that door." Karia calls quietly.
Waiting until Sizara moves out of the ship before entering.
Sizara notices the mage staying close to her.
She says with a smirk to Hamual, "I take it you're not used to being outdoors?"
Later once the others were up onto the shipwreck...
Sizara looked at the door in puzzlement.
"I wonder what happened to cause people to attack this door. Was there something important in that room?"
Sizara moved aside to let Karia investigate the door to make sure there were no traps.
"The wild is a bit to wild? for my liking, I would much rather it not be so open as to not be attacked for every angle and well Anything that wishes too. As to the door I assumed if someone took that much time to as to use an axe to try to break in there was something important."
Hamual will inspect the door prior to Karia trying to open it.
Making sure of her footing Karia checks the door
If it's not trapped she will unlock the door
As Karia is inspecting the door, Hamual will conjure some lights for her to make it a bit brighter.
The door is not trapped, and the lock appears to be brokem, but it seems to barred from the other side. It will take considerable force to break it open.
As Hamual steps inside with Karia, the wreck groans ominously, and shifts fractionally beneath their feet.
"Out!" Karia squeaks, also moving out of the wreck. "Looks like it's one at a time"
"The door isn't trapped, but it's barred. Since only one person can be safely in there I think Sizara should see if she can break it open?"
Sizara cracks her knuckles as she gives a fierce smile and begins to break the door. It takes a couple of tries, but she is eventually able to knock the door down to the ground!
Humual will mentally move the dancing lights into the room with Sizara, he will tuck them on the whatever roof he can see from there.
Corliss watches the proceedings from just outside the precariously-perched ship, marveling at Sizara's ability to crash into hard objects without taking a boatload of damage.
"Just call if ya need me!" he says with a grin.
"Do you need the lights moved else where? I can only really see the roof a bit from here and cannot move them if I cannot see."
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Sizara slams herself against the door, seeking to knock away whatever is barring it, or to break the door itself off its hinges. As she crashes against it over and over, the wreck begins to tilt on its precarious perch. As she rebounds from the door one more time, her weight catches the tilt at just the wrong moment, and the whole wreck tilts back almost 45 degrees.
Sizara tumbles, crashing against the bulkheads, before the wreck rights itself, hurling her forward again against the wooden door, which finally cracks and bursts open under her weight.
The wreck creaks ominously as it settles back on its rock. Surveying the room, Sizara sees what must have been the captain's cabin. Most of the furniture is broken or rotted, but in the middle of the floor a skeletal figure of a man lies still. Where one hand would be is a metal hook, driven into the wood of the floor, while with the other hand he reaches out to a seachest that is bolted to the wall.
Sizara said, "Ouch."
She looked around the place.
"Well, I found the body of our mystery lovesick spirit. Karia you might want to come check the chest he was trying to get to," the female elf said.
She groans as she gets up.
Corliss does his best to position his body and weight in a position to balance out Sizara and Karia and keep the precariously-perched vessel semi-stable.
Waiting until the Wreck settles Karia moves in cautiously and checks the chest.
Trying again, biting her lip with annoyance.
*click*
The chest is not trapped, and with a little bit of trial and error, Karia manages to open the lock.
Inside the chest are a small velvet bag, a large leather-bound ships log, and a small framed portrait of a red-haired woman.
Suddenly, there is a terrible groan of timber as the wreck lurches sideways, and then begins, very slowly but definitely, to topple forward again on its rock.
"It is time to leave, I didn't die in the first ship wreck I was in and I don't plan to die here. Move quickly I will stay only moments to keep this balanced."
Corliss stays at the exit, offering his hand to the women to aid in their escape.
Karia grabs the journal before making her way out of the wreck.
Sizara seeing that Karia had grabbed the journal, goes for the small portrait, saying, "A shame we can't get the pouch too, but I don't think there's time to get it."
While she is talking she's making a mad dash out of the room and off the ship as fast as her bare feet can run.
With the wreck tilting precipitously, everyone grabs something and rushes for the gaping hole in the hull. Sizara gets out easily, and Hamual manages to concentrate sufficiently to pluck the velvet bag from the chest as he goes. Karia, however, weighed down by the heavy log book, looses her footing and tumbles as the wreck shifts.
As she is thrown to the floor, a strong weatherbeaten pirate hand grabs her wrist and pulls hard, jerking her free of the wreck without a moment to spare, as it finally passes its tipping point and crashes down onto the rocks below, smashing into a mess of salt-sprayed timber with a noise that sounds like thunder.
"Is everyone ok? I managed to scoop the bag, lets get back to your friends and we can see if this was all worth it."
Hamual will head back to the rope and back down to the beach, awaiting the others.
Corliss gives Karia one of his crooked grins as he pulls her to safety. "Well would ya look at that--I'm occasionally good for more than just a bit o' comic relief! You're not gettin' away from me that easy!"
"That's a good idea Hamual. We at least now know why that ghost thought I was his lost love. A strange thing," Sizara said.
There is no sign of the ghost pirate for the rest of the day, or the next, as the group gradually rebuilds their camp. The cache of material that was left in the jungle appears to have survived pretty much intact, although the boat is full of rainwater and everything needs to be thoroughly dried out, such as the rope and the block and tackle.
The weather on the Shiv seems to be slowly returning to normal, with the sky clearing the last of its wisps of cloud, and the heat and the humidity of the afternoon making an unwelcome return. The storm seems to have stirred up the ocean around the island, and there is much detritus on the beaches - fragments of wood, piles of seaweed and assorted washed-up trash. Many strange sea creatures have been either stranded on the shore or trapped in rockpools, including a couple of sizeable crabs that swiftly end up in a cooking pot, and bring a nice change of diet.
Yes, you can have the boons.
The velvet bag contained a spyglass, three sunrods and half a dozen mysterious paper tubes filled with coloured powder. These appear to be larger versions of the spark-throwing fireworks that are sometimes seen at festivals and celebrations.
"So...now that we've had a little vacation an' rested up...is everyone up for huntin' down them annoyin' cannibals once an' for all or mayhaps lookin' into that weird purple lightnin' we saw the other night?"
"I will continue to hold the sunrods and the other things, I have nothing else to carry and they may come in handy at some point."
Before tying the bag to his waist belt, he will look over the powder filled paper.
Hamual after accessing his own supplies looks around at those that remain, "Where were you headed after this? I know that you just found me but I never really asked how you plan to leave the island. I did notice a island with purple fauna but couldn't make it there by myself."
Karia thinks about what to do. "We haven't really searched the Shiv for any resources. I think we should sweep west passed the old camp until we reach the causeway to that strange island. Perhaps a closer look will let us decide if we should explore it or not."
"Sounds like a plan," Corliss says to Karia with a goofy grin. "The Cap'n's gonna head up the camp fortifications, so it looks like it'll just be the four o' us: Me, you, Sizara, an' Hamual. Everyone up for a bit o' adventure?"
Hamual nods at Corliss, using a tree to help himself up. He dusts off his robes a bit, "Can I borrow a pack? carrying this spell book around by hand is heavy and it could be damaged."
Hamual accepts the back pack, placing ever so gently his spell book inside of it, he then takes a blanket he was using and places it in the bag as well.
"Shall we then? Who wishes to lead?"