Worried or baffled by the events that have transpired during the night, the group has trouble getting a restful night's sleep; the quivering mass that remains of what was the captain is hard to ignore, and the strange creature that masquerading as his cloak is still clearly somewhere on the island. For the hours they do manage to find sleep, it is fraught with apparitions and nightmares; anyone in the morning who inquires will learn everyone at the camp was plagued by nightmares of drowning while being watched by a series of glowing red eyes or trapped in monstrous tentacles; you can almost feel the slimy appendages drag at your heels as you wake up and move around in the morning.
As the sun overtakes the horizon, the ugathol still lays still in the middle of the camp, now clearly dead. The creature appears to have dried out, almost like clay, and has hardened into a solid mass rather than the undulating mass of flesh seem before. There remain no signs of the Aspis thugs or the missing colonists, at least not near your camp. Taking the high ground might allow for a better vantage point to spy anything unusual, or a location where they'd be likely to hole up.
As dawn comes, Annika wakes up and rubs her eyes, feeling her head aching and her muscles stiff. Her dreams left her tossing and turning all night and she feels vaguely ill until she gets some water and clears her head in the sunlight. "Well, I guess we're not going to get anything useful out of him anymore," she mutters as she looks at the captain's shriveled body. "I guess we should get started on exploring the island. The colonists have to be somewhere."
Marcus was up early. It was a habit he'd had for years. He was one of those people who just didn't like sleep much.
The group woke up to the smell of a surprisingly tasty breakfast, given that they were in a cave with almost nothing.
Day one in a new homestead was always critical. Marcus had taken a section of sailcloth from their salvage and stuck it to the wall of the cave with some alchemical glue. It had a few markings drawn on it, like the beach they'd arrived at, and the cave, but little else.
"Rise and shine, folks. Get your grub. Like the lady said, we have a busy day ahead of us."
"We have something important to deal with first though. The captain was a shapeshifter. That means any of us could be too. So, we're going to prove that we're regular people." Marcus dragged a fancy curved dagger across the corpse's leathery skin, showing the observers how hard it was to cut the thing. "Simple test. If you can be cut by a knife, we know you're a person. So, when you come get your breakfast, you're going to drop your weapons and then get a little nick. Then we're all going to get to know you. You're going to tell us a few things about yourself that no one would easily know."
"After this, any time anyone leaves and comes back, they're gonna get a little nick and a question to prove who they are. That's our system to make sure we don't get infiltrated again."
"I'll go first." He passed his dagger and his spear to Annika and let her give him a small cut on the inside of his forearm. He bled red. "My name's Marcus Cowl. I used to be a bandit working for a mean bastard called the Stag Lord. His crew used to call me the Staghound. I left and he's been trying to find me and kill me ever since. Last year I caught a werewolf in a bear trap and then spent a week keeping it from escaping while my crew went off to find something that could kill the thing. I stole this dagger in a dream, and I still have no idea why it was in my hand when I woke up. I've seen the herald of Erastil with my own eyes. I learned alchemy from the ghost trapped in my head."
He let his blood drip long enough that everyone was sure, then took his dagger back. "Who's next?"
Annika takes the spear and blade with a moment of hesitation. Then she flicks the blade across the bandit's skin, drawing a thin line of red from under his skin. Well... that's something else." She passes the weapons back to him and draws her own dagger, cutting a small line and drawing a few drops of her own blood. "I'm Annika Valarius. My father is a Spire Elf and he sent me lots of books on Azlant. I'm the only person in Riddleport that I know is totally fluent in the language. I taught a few buddies at the Cipher Lodge a few things."
Gallidren sighs and then unsheathes his dagger and draws blood. "As you all know, I'm Gallidren of Rostland. My father was an Aldori Swordlord of some renown whom tirelessly opposed House Surtova ... and died for it. I too was exiled for my opposition to Issia. Since then, I've spent most of my time hunting bandits in the Green Belt and exploring Brevoy's southern hinterlands. My experience as an explorer has led me to this illustrious expedition - which, I must confess, I am beginning to regret."
Marcus looked at Gallidren for moment, realizing for the first time that a year ago they'd have probably been trying to kill each other. He was glad he hadn't mentioned the price the Swordlords had put on his head, but there was a good chance Gallidren already knew about it, especially now that Marcus had outed himself as the Staghound.
He sighed and decided that trust had to start somewhere.
"Gallidren, that's stuff anyone could find out about you pretty easily. If I was out there watching this camp I could get most of that inside an hour just from watching how you walk and wear your sword and hearing your accent. We need to hear the things no one would know. The weird stuff. It doesn't even have to be true. It just needs to be something we know to ask you about, that someone pretending to be you wouldn't know."
Waking up with the sun but not bothering to move from his place on the ground. Slowly moving his head around and looking at the others on the ground. Smiling at Marcus's back when he starts cooking That's good.
Sitting up when Marcus decides to start talking. Slowly getting up and stretching before walking over having left his weapons with his things, "Just so you know if anyone here is one of those things then they know these secrets."
Crossing his arms, "Cause he bled just like a normal man from those arrows."
"If anyone here is one, the knife check should catch them. Sure, they bleed if you stab them hard enough. This isn't about whether we all bleed. This is about whether we can all be cut normally."
Holding out his hand, palm up, displaying a tattoo of Iomedae's symbol that fills most of his palm. Tilting his hand to the side, "Have at it then but don't cut the tattoo. Try the side please."
Once his hand is made to bleed he starts sharing, "I do not remember getting on the boat. I laid my mother to rest in the ground and then I woke up to the smell of the sea. Beyond that I think I am plagued by a mischievous spirit who greedily keeps my things in my pockets, my bag, or at least way from me. The first I shared with no one but the captain who brought me here and my commander who approved me leaving my post. Though he is in Lastwall. I only had a day to get back to the boat so he is long gone as well. While the other I only shared with my dead mother."
Offering Marcus a toothy grin, "Is that sufficient?"
Marcus chuckled and nodded. "We should compare notes sometime."
"Who's next?"
Shrugging, "Maybe when things are a little calmer."
Janus shrugs before baring his forearm for the 'proving' wound, "I am not good with sharing. I defeated an ice bear singlehandedly when I was 17. I hate whiskey. My mother and sister were slain by orcs during my 19th winter." He pauses for a moment then, with slow and deliberate movements, reaches into the campfire and picks up a bright red coal with his bare fingers, "And fire is less of a threat to me than to most." He seems to completely unharmed by the ember before he flicks it back into the fire and shows an undamaged hand.
Erastil nods at Marcus. "Once, when I was in the Greenbelt, I was visited by the herald of Erastil - a great white stag. The Stag told me that I would find the answers that I seek beneath an abandoned temple of Erastil. I was to purge the corruption from the temple's veins and the Greenbelt would follow. the Herald of Erastil told me that I am the light in the dark. I still live by those words, though I was not able to free the Greenbelt of its corruption."
"When I was younger, I almost died from a snakebite. I startled it in a riverbed, and it bit me before I could get away." One of the sailors walks up toward the last embers of the fire, pulling up the leg of his pants slightly. Two red marks are left on his calf, the only mark of his prior attack. "I managed to stumble back to my home before I collapsed, but it took me days before I came around from the fever. I couldn't walk for weeks." Another of the sailors steps up, pulling his coat over his shoulders.
"I left Oppara after my brother and I accidentally killed a man who attacked us in a bar fight. I haven't set foot in Taldor since. I set my mother and father up with a home in Varisia after my fist few voyages so I wouldn't have to risk going back."
The other sailors step forward to share personal details about themselves, before the one who had suffered the snake bit speaks up. "So... where do we go from here? It looks like there isn't much to the south of us other than beach and the ocean. We need to find those settlers before Aspis does... or whatever that is." He jerks a thumb toward the body of the ugothol, and shudders. "You all seem to be better suited for this; you've fended off sahuagin and had adventures, Where you go, we'll follow."
"This place is probably going to be our base camp for at least one more day. We need to find a source of fresh water, and then we need to find a place somewhere near that water source that would make a good settlement." Marcus said.
Gallidren nods at Marcus and gathers his gear. "Let's go!"
The half-elf can't keep a smile off her face as the sailors all seem to rally behind them. Markus might be slightly paranoid, but he does have a great deal of force of personality. "You seem to know your wilderness survival," Annika says as she adjusts her sword belt and pulls on her heavier gauntlet. "Lead the way and I'll make sure to watch our backs."
Marcus nodded and picked up his pack. "Garrick, you want to hold down the fort here with the sailors?"
Shouldering his pack and club, and with a quick roll on the drum that evokes eagerness, Janus joins the others by the entrance to the cave.
The group sets out as the sun just begins to raise over the horizon, leaving the cave behind with the soldiers and the dead creature with Garrick keeping watch over them all. The party heads northeast as they follow the river near their cave, leading them up and away from the beach. Marcus passes by what he's certain is the tracks of the Aspis soldiers; they've made no attempt to hide their passing and the uniformity of the boot prints suggests these aren't the colonists they're looking for. The tracks head due north through the river by his reckoning, although he's not able to tell much else without a thorough examination of the tracks.
Marcus was at the back of the group, erasing their tracks. When Annika called him forward to take a look at the mess the Aspis soldiers had left behind, he just shook his head and chuckled. "Take five here in the tree line, but stay quiet. I'm going to see what I can make out. If one of you wants to climb a tree and get the lay of the land, that'd be good."
While he looked over the Aspis tracks to make out their course, numbers, and anything else, he found a trail.
Gallidren will climb nearby tree with a commanding view and will survey the area.
Annika keeps one hand on her blade's hilt as the group makes their way inland. "Well, aren't they confidant," the half-elf drawls as they come across the obvious signs of the Consortium's passing. "We're going to have to remind them that we're not so easily messed with."
Sucking in a breath and letting it out slowly when Marcus pulls away from the group. Scouts are valuable but taxing on the nerves. Nodding to Annika, "Agreed."
Marcus takes a closer look at the Aspis footprints, and counts two dozen distinct boot prints in the soil. The prints are pressed deeper into the soil than he would've suspected if they were traveling light, and it's unlikely a scouting party would be quite so large. Only one set of footprints seems to step lightly where the others trod so heavily, several paces ahead of the others. However, Marcus also a set of footprints far behind the others, these stopping about thirty feet behind the other sets before peeling off back into the jungle. These footprints are small, maybe half the size of a normal man's, and are curiously barefoot.
Marcus returned to the others in the treeline a few minutes later.
"Two dozen of them. Looks like a small scout group, with a larger group following behind them, carrying something. Also, another set of prints. Barefoot. A child or a halfling, maybe. Not traveling with Aspis. WHatever it was peeled off into the jungle."
"I kinda want to get eyes on them, just so we know where our enemies are."
When no objections came, Marcus led the group down a parallel path to the Aspis tracks. He was curious about the barefoot person, but knowing where their enemies were was just more important right now.
"I could buy a halfling," Annika says as Markus shows them the tracks. "That would explain the lack of shoes." She nods for him to continue leading the way while she keeps an eye out for danger.