EDIT: Calanthe and Norine are remarkable healers, and they get the feeling that their efforts have not been in vain. The man should recover in time!
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Ebon takes of his wet things, soon standing in just his breeches. He checks his bow, and the string, after watching Targost with his. It is still heavily smeared in grease/fat and not bothered by the weather so he shrugs. Then stiffens in near-fear when Targost mentions monkeys....
He seems almost relieved to discover that it is ghouls and not some other chittering animal....
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Norine and Calanthe whip up a strange and foul-smelling concoction to give the man, and give the resident healer instructions to deliver the same every hour for the next 24 hours. After all that effort though, Calanthe feels confident he'll survive, and the witch smiles happily to herself.
"Actually..." At Mez's joke, Calanthe digs through her small coffer of various medicinal and alchemical supplies and draws out a small glass container containing a couple of spoonfuls of white powder that appears not unlike salt. "Mix this with water and it creates a fizzy cocktail... give it ten minutes or so and your hangover should be gone."
You step outside, where Dalard has been waiting. He turns to you and speaks:
"Thank you for treating him. Your kindness is truly appreciated. But it sounds bad for old Becher. You said that you wanted to set up some sort of Lodge in the distillery? Well, that deed Becher was after is going to be your ticket. Those soldiers won't have a leg to stand on in court if you have it, but otherwise it's 'might makes right'. And there's dozens of 'em. These ghoul bites are worrisome too. I hope they did trap the creatures in that cave, but what if they didn't? You be doing us a double service if you take care of them too. Here, I have some items to help you."
He leads you the short way to his house. He goes inside and returns a moment laterand hands you two scrolls and a vial of liquid.
"These are scrolls for casting 'remove disease' and that's a potion to remove paralysis. Like those ghouls can cause."
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"Off we go", Norine seems less confident than Mez, especially at the mention of more than one ghoul at once. Potions won't do much in combat - we need some of that lucky elven stock... I wonder whatever became of Dracothis? Norine's thoughts skitter here and there, alighting on the Keep and their first time at the Museum.
Dalard provides directions to the caves, and the group sets off. A narrow footpath leads down a gentle but muddy escarpment, disappearing into thick tangles of shrubs and swamp-weed. At the base of the hill, the dirt path turns to soft sticky mud. It winds back through the shadowy mire. Nailed to a nearby tree hangs a moss-covered plank crudely cut into an arrow that points towards the mucky path.
Beneath the moss, faded writing on the plank reads, “Barrel-Caves 2.5 miles.”
The mire muck itself is 16 inches deep in most places. As the team heads through the muck (no way around, sadly), Ebon feels a prick on his calf. He looks down and finds a leech clinging to his leg!
Immediately, eveyoen begins to check their legs or any exposed skin.
As the team inspects their legs, each member finds some leeches on them.
Leeches:
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Calanthe whimpers as they trudge through the muck, frequently stopping to pull off a little bugger here and there. Luckily, she's quite sensitive-skinned and can quickly tell when something is biting into her! In a stroke of genius, the witch recalls that she has a small (and almost empty) salt shaker in with her travel rations and that helps get most of the leeches off before they can deal too much damage.
The path continues for about a mile and a half when it comes to the edge of a shallow bog whose waters rise above the muck, covering the tracks entirely. A patchy film of sickly-colored, rubbery fungus floats upon the surface. Near the water’s edge, three moss-covered planks hang cockeyed from a rotten wooden post.
Once the moss is cleared, the first sign reads, "Railford 1-3/4 miles", the second reads "Barrel-Aging Caves 3/4 mile," and the third sign reads "Beware of Screamers."
The path clearly leads through the bog, so Mez steps gingerly into the shallow water. As soon as his foot touches, and ear splitting scream comes from the patch of fungus on the east side. It lasts for about 12 seconds, and drowns out all sound for the party. After it stops, a human-sized purple mushroom advances towards the party. Deep violet tendrils slither out of the dozens of fissures in its pointed cap.
Initiatives!
In Order:
Ebon
Calanthe
Norine
Mez
Muluk
Targost
fungus
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Calanthe clasps her hands over her ears as the piercing scream temporarily deafens her. When the noise finally dissipates, and she can open her eyes again, she groans, "Well... that explains the screamers..." The witch desperately searches her mind for any recollection of what this fungal creature might be.
Though her ears still ring, and though the strange plant is clearly not her... normal realm of expertise, it's still a living creature, which means she can use her powers to affect it. Rather than trying to puzzle out the alien soul-auras (Did plants even have a 'soul'? she idly wonders. It certainly has a life-force, and yet... it's different.), she instead turns to her friends for... 'inspiration'. Ah, yes... right there, Muluk had a small wound in his aura, perhaps doubt lingering from when he nearly perished during his mission into the Blakros Museum not long ago. Plucking that from the cavalier's soul, she forces the curse and unluck into the violet fungus.
The party unleashes a furious assault on the fungus, and it falls, split in half by Ebon's sword.
Calanthe is able to recognize the creature as a violet fungus and the other noisy thing as a shrieker.
The group is able to easily destroy the shriekers and pushes through the bog until they reach solid ground again. The path is clearly marked by the familiar moss covered signs hanging from a post on the other side of the bog. From there, the trail continues for another several miles,
leading straight to the barrel-aging caverns.
Poking up from the murk in front of a crumbling foundation of cobbles, a cracked and faded sign swings upon a moss-covered post. It reads "Barrel-Aging Caves". Within the foundation a pile of debris clogs a 5-foot indent in the ground that looks like an old stairwell. A few feet away, a muddy corpse lies face down in the murk.
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With the violet fungus handily dispatched with, Calanthe continues on after the others through the awful muck and mess of the mire. Upon spying the corpse, she waves the group to a halt, allowing her extra-sensory vision to inspect the body from a distance. She searches for any signs of life... or, as she feared, the dark and putrid shadowy tendrils of negative energy that signified undeath.
Calanthe examines the corpse with her magic and finds a...confusing image. The body is definitely dead. But she senses the aura of undeath hovering over it, as if trying to invade.
She can see deep bite and tooth marks, even from here. Based on her work with the man earlier, she almost immediately recognizes the signs of a ghoul fever infection. If the corpse is not completely destroyed, it will rise as a ghoul!
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"Perhaps dismemberment would suffice. It's grisly, but humane, under the circumstances, and we can properly bury or retrieve the body on the way back. We should search it, though, for any identification." Norine pulls a volume of the Pathfinder Chronicles to consult, showing it to the others, as well.
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Mez, who is still recovering from the swift death of the purple mushroom thing, just nods at Targost's idea while downing some of Cayden's nectar of enlightenment. I had been planning to wait till after the mission to test Calanthe's powder, but my head is THROBBING from those shrieking things... A few sips won't hurt...
The infected body melts away into the earth under the corrosive power of Targost's acid spells. The Calanthe, Ebon and Mez turn towards the pile of rubble.
Calanthe and Ebon start moving some rocks, when Mez's sifting wind reveals a double danger!
First, Mez notices the form of a humanoid creature thrashing violently about under the detritus. And he also can tell that the ground is very unstable. If his friends don't get back soon, they could fall!