'You don't know how lucky you are...' the worker/prisoner mutters from his place in the corner of the room - a look at his face reveals not raving madness or odd placidity, but good old-fashioned anger.
Moffrey stretches and wakes, apologizing that he couldn't take a watch - he does, however, look markedly better than he did yesterday. A good night's sleep has helped him recover from the shocks and the injuries, and although he's not perfect his face is no longer quite so ashen, his hands steady as they reach for his hipflask.
The nameless hound is lying with its head on its paws, watching the maddened worker ceaselessly. It has been doing so for most of the night, according to those who were on watch. It doesn't seem aggressive towards the man so much as... wary.
"Anything interesting?" he asks, seeming angry and despondent.
Now that you mention it, Mr. Bishop, there are two things a man of medicine such as yourself may be interested in....down there."
The Professor points down to the tempestuous flotsam and jetsam churning below.
I believe that is one of the many poor souls whom attacked us yesterday....and there's something else....a raft of some sort....i remember reading about something similar, but for the life of me I cannot recall what.
Also, I found this:
The Professor pulls out a diary from his coat
I placed a button on the page it was open to, just in case it would give us a bit of insight on the events before we arrived...
Just strength damage
Strength: Damage to your Strength score causes you to take penalties on Strength-based skill checks, melee attack rolls, and weapon damage rolls (if they rely on Strength). The penalty also applies to your Combat Maneuver Bonus (if you are Small or larger) and your Combat Maneuver Defense. A character with a Strength score of 0 is too weak to move in any way and is unconscious. Some creatures do not possess a Strength score and have no modifier at all to Strength-based skills or checks.
Heals 1 pt per day
Silas looks over the side, and asks his companions if someone could fetch a sample, and if the body could be checked; preferably without someone entering the water.
"If it is one of the workers an autopsy while the corpse is comparatively fresh could prove invaluable."
The mould is Red Jask, a common sight in dark, damp places around the forests. It grows fast and hardy but is ultimately harmless. In fact, for people with certain skills it can be a boon – when desiccated and ground down it becomes a fine powder with mild curative effects, although as a medicine it does have its drawbacks.
There is enough mould present to attempt to create 4 applications of powder. Each creation attempt takes ten minutes of work and requires a nearby flame and objects to act as a mortar and pestle.
The body is floating about 70ft away, and it look like it could be reached and dragged back to the tower, and then attached to the same winch system you used to transport Atterleigh and Kay to bring it up to you. You would not however, be able to reach it without wading through the river-slurry.
.
" I'll fetch the body... If someone wants to help that would be good. What's so SPECAIL about the mould? "
Harbek will wait for another volunteer (and possibly an answer about the mould) before heading down into the water.
"Thank you Mr Harbek. I believe it to be Red Jask, a psychoactive promedicus - a wound healer."
"I don't suppose one of you happens to be a shipwright?" Silas asks, in what was probably supposed to be a joking tone.
Caveth awakens refreshed--this room is spacious and comfortable compared to that one he "enjoyed" for so long and the stove they lugged up from the keeps it warm and cozy throughout the night. He spends an hour quietly meditating after rising and then joins the others to face the new day.
"I told Silas I would look at the barges so I have to go down anyway, Harbek. I can help you with the body." he offers when the Dwarf asks for assistance. "I hadn't noticed the mold. We can bring it up too if it's special."
" Well we could use a wound healer. Good spotting Professor. "
Harbek gives Caveth an uncomfortable stare. " Alright. Let's get it done then. " He says just before the silence gets uncomfortable.
Wth the tea and coffee underway, Kay uses the advantage of height from the watchtower to look out for trouble as her friends entert he water below.
Unfazed by the Dwarf's look, Caveth lowers the ladder through the trap door and then descends. The water tugs gently at his lower legs as he makes his way to the corpse and floats it back to the base of the watch tower with Harbek. They maneuver the body up into Silas's care with the winch system.
"I will check if the boats can be mended." he says to Silas, up the ladder, and Harbek, standing in the river water with him.
Kay, you see no immediate danger.
Caveth, most of the boats are not there - you assume they were either destroyed by the explosion or were washed away. There is one you could wprk on, but it might take some time (14hp to repair).
After winching up the body Harbek ties the moss raft to the makeshift winch and pulls that up too.
Silas uses the time when the others are working to study his books
Thank you, Mr. Harbek, most kind...just an old man's luck. Say, Ms. Towerweed, might I have a bit of that coffee? I would like to set to work with my alchemy if I have the time and that would most certainly steel my bones against the rain.
The Professor will go about studying his formulae book and preparing his mutagen, extracts and potions.
The rain doesn't seem to be getting any stronger but the wind is picking up, and the broken window of the watchtower is starting to become more and more bothersome for those inside. The smaller trees are bending and swaying - storms this strong are rare, but can last for days at a time. You have a feeling that it's going to keep getting worse before it gets better.
Caveth loosens the moorings on the boat that may be repairable and drags it across the flooded camp to secure it to the base of the tower. He climbs up to speak to the group, explaining that the barge looks like a possible candidate for repair but that the operation will take some time, perhaps as much as an hour or two.
"We never got a chance to search through the worker lodgings before all the action yesterday," he mentions. "I think it would be worthwhile to do so now, before I get busy repairing. Does anyone care to join me?"
It seems that the quarters have been searched before, possibly recently by the smaller humanoids that were picking through the wreckage of the office last night. However, you do find several more stoves, a few more blankets and a variety of articles of discarded clothing, mostly Hawcroft slacks and light shirts suitable for outdoors work. They're useless to you as clothes, but could be torn up to provide extra bandages in a pinch if you need them.
You also find a variety of stashed objects - mostly personal effects, such as love letters, lockets and small ornaments, none of them worth more than a few silver pieces at most.
You do, however, find a few things of note. Down the side of one of the bunks are several sprigs of some kind of herb that you don't immediately recognise, protected from the damp by tightly-wrapped brown paper. One of the personal chests has a necklace inside, made of nothing but wood and string but feeling vaguely warm to the touch, and several of the workers have stashed food in various places - most of it now rotten or useless, but some of it in tins or boxes that looks like it could still be edible. You also find a bottle of what looks to be decent gin, unopened.
Wading from building to building, Caveth thoroughly searches the residences that they were unable to get to yesterday. He collects everything together and, using the blankets, creates separate bundles for the knick-knacks and personal items, the tinned and boxed food, and the clothes that could be used to replenish the group's stock of bandages. After some consideration, he adds a bundle containing the spoiled food to the rest; Milani has helped sustain him on putrid food in the past. It is also within her power to make the smallest amounts enough to fill his belly for the day. Although he hopes it does not come down to that, he is not in the habit of wasting resources.
Caveth shoves the gin bottle into his front pocket. Making a yoke of his bow, he slings the treasures onto his back and sloshes across the camp to the watchtower again. He ascends the ladder and spreads his finds out on the floor for everyone to see, reserving the rotting food--this he sets aside without guile.
"Look what I found!" he beams.
"That's great Caveth, it looks like you're settling in for a month or two..."
"It's not that much," he counters amiably and reaches into the bundle of knick-knacks. He withdraws the wrapped bundle of herbs, waving it briefly under her nose. "I think this might be of interest to you," he says, pressing the package into her hands.
, you don't need a check to recognise that smell. That's Girriweed, a potent hallucinogen when ingested. Very illegal to possess within the city boundaries, but of questionable legality out here in the forests, and quite rare as well.
"Now, that is interesting. I assume you mean medicinally, Mr Caveth, otherwise I may have to toss you from the watchtower." She enjoys a little joke in the midst of this tense situation.
"It's called Girriweed, a potent hallucinogen when ingested. It's illegal to possess within the city boundaries, but of questionable legality out here in the forests, I suppose, and quite rare as well. I wonder if this had much to do with the present situation?"
You have barely started the autopsy on the sodden worker's corpse before you make a discovery that brings you up short - a pistol-like contraption, loaded with a glass charge full of what appears to be green and black grit. Whilst many of you are unaware of what this actually is, Harbek has definitely seen one before.
Also without equipment bonuses.
Amateur corpse-openers, you do the best you can with the tools available.
The man's lungs are mostly empty of water, and there's no bruising around the neck or throat - you're guessing he was killed by the explosion, rather than drowning.
He has no form of identification in his pockets, but the ripped remains of his slacks have a scrawl inside the waistband that reads 'MDL'.
His feet are bare, torn to ribbons and the wounds mixed with plant-muck, twigs and mud. He's been running barefoot for some time, by the appearance of it.
There is a large wound, more of a missing chunk, in his upper right thigh - probably caused by a flying piece of the office in the explosion. You're guessing he bled out.
His clothes are charred but not by too much, but blood is running from his ears and nose - shock trauma, if you had to guess, but you can't be sure.
One of his eyes is missing, and the other has a milky fluid covering the majority of the eyeball that's viscous to the touch. And, most importantly of all...
If you apply pressure to the front of his face it gives in, and if you pull it comes apart easily, like a set of cabinet doors. The inside of his mouth is partly split, and it runs from the base of his throat, trough his jaw and up to the ridge of his brow. It is symmetrical and perfect, and deeply unsettling. You can feel the growth of unusual bundles of tumorous musculature on either side of his jaw, near the ears, and the front of his skull opens up like paper with the slightest of touches. The skin and bone are thin but strong, and the blood seems to have coagulated with an unnatural thickness, an effective barrier. His brain is evident inside the unfolded head-space, but seems... unusual. Neither of you have the relevant training or appropriate anatomical books to determine entirely how, but it's a fair guess to say the affliction which had been working through the skin of his face and throat was continuing into his brain.
"Fascinating. Fascinating." Silas hinges the face forward and back a little, washes his hands and takes some quick notes.
", Mr - have you seen anything like this before? I think the next stage may be to use my surgical saw to bisect the skull here and see if we can note more of the tumorous growths around here."
"I confess I have my theories about this 'plague'. I believe that somehow a sensory stimulation - such as that terrible noise we heard - triggers changes in the brain itself... somehow opening its perceptions and leaving it vulnerable to control from something, some progenitor. Ongoing effects then somehow rearrange the features and face. I believe this is why the plagues have been short run - I'm not sure how it is infectious in the traditional sense."
"I strongly suspect Mr Atterleigh - and possibly others of us - have been partially effective. I can only hope sedation slows the effects."
"I'd give even odds our friend here" he points at the bound wild man "Is somehow in communication with the progenitor creature, which looks through hie eyes even now. It will be fascinating to compare his physiology with that of the subject."
.
Harbek takes the pistol contraption " Hmm, flare gun. This could be handy, looks like it needs cleaning out. " he sits away from the autopsy and begins cleaning out the firing mechanisms. As Silas starts describing things Harbek pauses in his work to wedge some cloth in his ears...
'If that's your thinking... then I might be in trouble.'
Moffrey's voice is quiet, yet still somehow seems louder and more immediate than the storm. He looks at each of you in turn, fear evident in his eyes.
"Oh we're all in trouble, Mr Moffrey. We're all in trouble. What are your symptoms?"
'Since I woke up this morning I've been hearing things. Voices, though I don't understand 'em. I thought it was.. shock, or something. But...' He looks out at the rain and shivers. 'Anyway, I hear them. And the rain. It's getting to me. Makes me uneasy, but... well, I like the rain. Always loved a good storm, our on the wagon. But now it feels... Ach, I'm sorry. I just can't describe it. It just feels wrong, you know? Dirty, in some way.' He shrugs. 'Either way, I don't feel right in myself. But I'm not going to do what he did. I promise.' Moffrey jerks his head toward Atterleigh's paralysed form to indicate who he's talking about, and huddles down a little more under his blanket.
Joseph looks to Moffrey and starts speaking calmly - the way he feels a man of his station should act. "He mentioned whatever caused this hating the rain. But don't worry; we'll find a way to solve this, I promise. Many poor unfortunates died prior to our arrival, but that ends now - you have my word on it."
, your tone may be a little too intense for the frightened man, but your words do get through to him. He manages a weak smile.
'Thankyou, sir. That means a lot. Y'know you're not bad for a higher-up.'
Kay ponders the idea that this infection or parasite it whatever doesn't like the rain.
"Maybe we should make a break for it now, through the rain, I mean it, whatever it is, seems to be avoiding the rain and the water. Maybe that's why it destroyed the boats."
Silas, Joseph and the Professor, further examination of the corpse without the proper tools garners no results.
On the plus side, Caveth, your repairs on the boat are completed. You're pretty sure it will survive the journey downriver.
"The boat is repaired. We can leave now but...is that the best idea? If any of us is infected with this, we could be carrying doom with us downriver to the city." He gestures subtly at Moffrey and Atterleigh, "Maybe we should save the boat as a last resort. We owe it to the citizens of Barrjka to investigate further, to ensure that we are not bringing this madness into their midst."
Silas immediately starts packing his surgical tools away, moving with speed as he speaks
"There were things I was hoping to do first, such as process the 'wound healer', but I feel we should immediately start downriver. The plague has erupted in cities previously without becoming epidemic, but knowledge of it appears limited. What we have discovered may be the key to a cure, or at least containment."
"If my suppositions about the mental communication between victims and progenitor are correct then 'she' now knows of our plan. While it may dislike water it has just become critical to prevent our departure."
"Therefore it is imperative that we leave, "
"Mr , can you prepare the elevator please?"
"Mr I have my hope that the more... occult members of the city may be ale to erect some form of elementary protection around Mr Moffrey and Mr Atterleigh to prevent further infection."
"Ms , Mr , while I would be delighted to return our third and our deceased subject to the city for study I feel it too risky both in terms of infection and in terms of the danger of keeping a hostile person captive on a small boat. Do you concur?"
"You would say that after I've given my word not to let anyone else die," Joseph says drily. He things for a moment. "You're right though. Seeing as we intend to come back at soonest convenience, he remains useful to whatever the being is that is controlling him; if we bring him with us, she may decide to sacrifice him in an attempt to drown the rest of us - or later on to attack the town. I'd hate to see a repeat of last night in the town..."
.
Harbek pauses while wiping grit from the flare gun. " He doesn't like the boat idea. " the dwarf says gesturing at the captured worker. " I'd rather be on the move than sitting here waiting to go mad. " He tucks the flare gun in his belt and prepares the makeshift lift.
"Yes, let's get out of here before we all go mad."
"We're bringing two infected allies downriver with us; I fail to see any additional risk in having an infected prisoner along as well. I'm certainly not going to stand idly by while you murder this unfortunate for the sake of convenience because, let's be honest here, that ~is~ what you are suggesting, right?" The half elf glares with disapproval at Silas, his lean face a visage of determination as he scans the room, hoping to find compassion rather than selfishness and a distressing lack of foresight in any of the others.
"I renew my objection to returning to Barrjka, carrying an infection of unknown cause that could spell doom for thousands and might very well be precisely what "she" wants us to do. If you all insist, I won't prevent it from happening but, mark my words: if Atterleigh and Moffrey go on the boat, so does this man." he declares, readying himself to protect the prisoner from the others if it comes to that.