Anything else up there? And while you are there - have a look around Crow! What do you see?
The leaves are too thick to get a good look around but the prompt does remind him of the spyglass mounted on the stockade wall.
"Much appreciated, Bessie." Orslaw says as she examines his neck. "Whole dern neck's probably redder than a landlubber on his second day at sea right now though."
Guillaume approaches the others. "That was nasty. Everyone ok?"
"Someone wanna go fetch that spyglass, and I'll see what I can see."
Nice blasting Guillaume! I think everyone is basically ok - you?
Spyglass? Ah... Bessie takes a moment to look around, and finally spots the spyglass. Actually Crow, how about you flap on over to the wall and take a peek through the spyglass to see what these things 'ere watchin?
Orslaw looks up to where the spyglass is at. "I think I can make it up there without too much of an issue. Let's have a look at what these things are watching." Orslaw climbs up the tree and heads over to the spyglass to look out.
There is a step ladder so reaching it is simple. When Orslaw looks through the spyglass he sees two of the goblin squids in the bay on the north-west side of the island. It looks as if they have been watching the stockade. After a moment of intense staring in Orslaw’s direction, one hits the other who in turn pulls a tricorn hat out of the water, possibly Sandarra’s, and waves it above his head. It waves the hat in the air for a moment or two and then both dive below the water.
Orslaw shakes his head as he let's out a few choice curses under his breath. He grabs he spyglass with him as he heads back down to the rest of the Peril Crew. "The good news is that it looks like our people may still be alive. The bad news is that they're the bait. There were 2 of the squid-goblins by the shore over there, " he points off to the north-west, "and they waved Sandarra's hat at me and dove under the water. So it looks like we're expected to follow."
Nasifi has a fresh vial of alchemists fire in hand.
"So finish looking around here or go straight on to the bay? she asks.
"As much as I hate walking into a trap, knowing about it gives us at least the chance to turn it around. If we want to search, let's be quick about it."
Ain't the first trap we walked into... actually breaking traps is kinda our thing. Lets do a quick search here and go break something.
Orslaw sticks the spyglass down into the bag with the wedding dress, then says, "Into the shack, then into the trap." Then he situates the bag and gets his falchion in his hand while walking into the shack.
"So be it." Guillaume says, before following the others.
[ooc[Correction on direction. I said north-west side of the island. That should have been south-west side of the island. Map has been revealed. [/ooc]
The wooden door to the shack is of good construction but is currently ajar. Inside is a single chamber, crowded with a large amount of furniture, including a comfortable bed, a small writing desk, cooking gear, and several barrels of rotting food. The stench of rot is overpowering and flies swarm within the room, particularly around the hooded corpse hanging from a chain off a beam in the middle of the room. A stool lies on the floor nearby where it was kicked.
With Orslaw's entry the flies swarm and apparently decide Orslaw would make better food than the dead man. Before he can take action, the swarm is upon him. Orslaw swings and bats at them but the voracious and aggressive flies nearly cover him. He cries out in pain and panic warning the others of trouble.
Orslaw runs out of the shack swatting at the flies, hoping they stay in the darkness of the shack. He calls out a warning for the others to make way as he darts northward around the tree trying to get to the small pool of water.
Orslaw takes off running with the flies in hot pursuit. (Other PCs get an action essentially while the flies are in the doorway. If you wish to wait for them to come around the building you will need to wait for the flies to go next round.)
Nasifi throws a vial of alchemists fire into the cloud of flies as Orslaw separates himself from it, then she retreats herself.
"Watch out!" she calls to the others as she goes by. "Swarm!"
Guillaume fires a blast of pressurized water at the swarm of flies.
Swarms are nasty business...especially to us casters.
Bessie begins to pulls a torch out of her backpack and lights it.
Orslaw still had a couple hundred of the little blood suckers on him but they were mostly washed off as he jumped into the shallow pool. Nasifi's fireball worked quite well but Guillaume's water blast seemed to be too narrow and barely affects the swarm as a whole, he may have gotten a fly or two. Bessie recognizes them as bot flies but especially aggressive ones. She also recalls swatting at an angry swarm amounts to little but smoke and area attacks are useful. Nasifi runs around the north side of the shack, Guillaume and Bessie go along the south.
The swarm flies away from the fire blast (nasifi's bomb) and goes around the shack to the south side. They are much faster than those trying to escape and overtake Guillaume.
+ FOR save
This time Nasifi takes out one of her bombs and tosses it into the swarm of flies, making sure to keep it at an arc that will not harm Guillaume.
As soon as the bomb leaves her hand, she runs over to join Orslaw standing in the pool of water.
"Make a run for the gate! I have a plan!" she tells him and Vlad.
Bessie and her torch retreat out the gate further, trusting in Nasifi and whatever she might have planned. Bessie smiles as she expects things are about to go boom! Make it good my sister!
She will prepare to heal Orslaw and Guillaume once they are in close enough proximity, and she is sure the healing granted by Besmara will not aid the swarm.
Orslaw hops out of the water and moves through the gate. "Movin'!"
Vlad knows enough to listen to good ideas. He pulls out an alchemists fire, and runs with the others.
The bomb catches the little hellions on fire and it spreads across the swarm. By the time the air clears there is not a fly to be seen.
You are hot stuff Nasifi! Good thinking! Bessie says giving Nasifi an approving wink. Orslaw, or should I say lunch... let me see you again...
Orslaw as well as Guillaume has numerous bites. A few of Orslaw's look very bad, already forming a greenish white circle around them. You suspect he may have contracted Hall's disease, a wasting disease that slowly kills a person over a couple of years, or ghoul fever. You should be able to tell which after 24 hours.
Grrr...Bessie frowns at her examination of Orslaw, Ok, I will need to recheck those. The bites are definitely infected. Nothing we can't fix.
Now you! She says in a tone indicating there will be no arguments as she points at Guillaume. She is just expeting more of the same...
Guillaume has a large number of bites as well but none of them have the nasty greenish white circles. Bessie believes Guillaume should have no further issues other than being itchy but it couldn't hurt to check him in 24 hours as well.
Nasifi sighs deeply in relief and step out of the water. She's relieved and surprised the flies were dealt with so quickly. The rest of her plan involved continuing to chuck fire at the swarm, and if it came at her lying prone in the pool and submerging herself. She would have stayed there, holding her breath until the flies lost track of her. Then she would get back up and start the cycle over again. Not much of a plan really and who knows how well it would have worked out?
She shrugs and smiles a little awkwardly at Bessie's compliment.
"Do we still want to look inside the hut?"
"There's a dead body hanging from the ceiling." Orslaw states while rubbing around some of the bite marks on his neck. "My guess is its probably whoever built this place. I'll take a look and see if maybe he left us some information. You know, and isn't a freakin' ghoul." Orslaw goes back in to the hut, but pokes at the body with his sword a few times before entering close and searching.
Bessie tries to resist the urge to sneak up to the door and yell "look out"; but she does follow just in case the dead ain't so dead.
Bessie is at the door and contemplating yelling 'look out' when Orslaw jabs at the body hanging from the ceiling. They both jump back a good three feet when the thing starts to kick, reaching with its feet for Orslaw. Luckily, he is out of range. It begins to pull itself up the hanging rope.
Orslaw lets out a dozen strings of curses as he stumbles over himself to get out of the hut. "Not dead! Or something!" he shouts frantically. He moves beside the door and readies an attack against whatever comes out of the hut.
Guillaume moves up and prepares a blast for whatever exits the hut.
Orslaw sees the undead thing attempting to get the noose off of its neck. It is apparently unable to do so as it must grip the rope in one hand and work the noose with the other.
Guillaume, Nasifi - blast it from range! Bessie says as she backs out to give the pair a free line of fire at the creature.
@Bessie: it would appear so.
After a few blasts and/or arrows the thing finally stops struggling to free itself and hangs there.
Bessie says a quick prayer of thanks to Besmara for allowing them victory.
Orslaw, go poke it again, to be sure it is dead... Bessie jerks her head towards the shack and hanging body and looks expectantly at Orslaw.
Orslaw gives Bessie a look that says, "Really? Me?" But then laughs out loud and goes to poke the ghoul again while keeping as much out of its reach as possible.
"Shall I find you a longer stick, Orslaw?" Vlad jokes. It may not be the best time to be joking, after those hideous bot-flies, but if you can't laugh at the absurd, you might as well give up. "How many of these things are on this accursed isle?" he asks no one in particular.
Bessie gives Crow a grin and a wink.
Lets check out the shack here and see if we can figure it out.
Among the furnishings in the lodge are a suit of leather armor, six spears, and eight finely tailored courtier’s outfits (30gp each), a spice cabinet holding 5 pounds of pepper in waxed bags (worth 10 gp total), a silver tankard (30 gp), and a silver locket depicting a beautiful, buxom young blonde woman (45 gp). Oddly there are no books nor writing utensils.
Cast Detect Magic
Nasifi contributed a bolt shot from her crossbow to putting down the hanged ghoul.
She helps look around inside. While she doesn't know a thing in the world about nobles and such, she does examine the clothing to see if if seems safe to take considering the amount of disease everywhere they turn on the island.
"What do you think has been going on here? Those bodies back at the tents still had flesh on them. They couldn't have been dead for too long in this climate. There might be other people besides us still alive here."
"We're not finding the kinds of things that fit with what you'd expect to find in some isolated fishing village like those huts we saw. It looked long abandoned anyway. Plenty of fancy clothes, pepper, a spyglass, I'd put my money on shipwreck survivors. Or maybe pirates used this island as a base and the rest took off when things went bad."