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Honus stays in position for just a bit longer, listening intently to their surroundings and letting the soft sounds of the light rain wash over him. He finally allows his shield to sag to his waist after what has seemed like hours. The mud from his earlier fall splashed across his sword and somehow managed to cleanse it of canine blood. He gives the steel a sharp flick and wipes it across his thigh before sheathing it, mouthing a silent prayer as he does.
He winces and clutches his chest, obviously still in pain, but does his best to shake it off and present himself as healthy.
"Is everyone okay? Alahazra, I can't not not. Thank you. Enough? Sorry. I can't, thank you, enough. Um. Thank you. So, I'm going to check the archers. Everyone is okay? Okay."
Honus high-steps his way to the bodies, turning his face away to observe them using only his periphery as he does so. Gross. But they deserved this, didn't they? They attacked us. They sicked dogs on us. If anything, we should pity the dogs. He looks back toward the group as they collect themselves, and the lifeless hounds beyond them.
"Fahim, you did what had to be done. Maybe no other soldiers are close enough to have heard all that, but we should do something with these two. Right? If Kretchmoor finds out, he'll storm the town and do worse to them than what we just got. Speaking of which, we need to discuss a better strategy. We haven't even reached the caves yet and we are already tired and injured and limited on healings."
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Fahim gives Honus a grim expression, clearly not interested in discussing strategy at the moment. He winces in pain as he shifts his satchel around with the supernatural elegance that has permeated his body.
Rovagug’s unholy balls this hurts! Who knew being shot with an arrow was this painful? I think its stuck in a bone.
Fahim grabs at the arrow in his gut, and then quickly lets go again.
Holy t+&+ of Sarenrae that hurts! Yes, definitely embedded in my spine. I need to fix this quickly.
Fahim gingerly moves off to the side of the road with a dancer’s grace, standing under some trees to take what passes for cover from the rainfall. He then pulls out a small journal sized book, opens it to a page, and sets it in the crook of his left arm. Whatever water gets on the pages appears to bead up and run off its chemically treated pages. He places an empty potion bottle in his outstretched left hand, which is already upraised from holding the book. With his right hand he dexterously rummages through his satchel to pull out small amounts of powders, granules, and fluids, which he quickly adds to the potion bottle. The final mixture looks like dirt floating in milky oil. Fahim then draws out a small crystal, no bigger than the end of his pinky, bringing it first to his lips, then to his forehead, and finally his heart, all the while murmuring as he does so. The crystal glows brightly for the briefest of seconds before Fahim adds it to the potion bottle and swirls it around. In seconds, the bottle’s contents transform into the familiar honey color liquid easily recognizable by any adventurer as a potion of healing.
The whole process only takes a minute, and Fahim downs the potion quickly, eagerly awaiting its healing effects. While the potion courses through his body, he gently pulls on the arrow, letting his newly regrown organs, muscle, and flesh push the arrow out, though the wound does not completely heal.
He lets the bloody arrow fall from his hands in mild disgust. He then places the empty bottle and his book back into his satchel and turns to face Honus.
"Much better. As for what to do with the dead, if we were in the desert, then I’d leave them for the carrion eaters. While I don’t know what passes for that here, I’d still be fine leaving them where they are. I don’t know what good hiding them would do, since I assume a dog could smell that stench from anywhere. Still, if you want to throw them in the bushes, I have no objection to that.”
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"Fahim, you did what had to be done. Maybe no other soldiers are close enough to have heard all that, but we should do something with these two. Right?"
In all the confusion and trying to figure out their next move, Honus failed to notice the arrow firmly lodged into Fahim's mid-section. He peers up and down the path, then looks over the archers, then finally turns to give his full attention to the group.
"Fahim! You have an arrow in your belly! Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. What can I do? What are you doing? Do you need me to hold that?"
He fusses over his friend, darting his hands out and back to grab or hold or catch something, unable to determine exactly what he can do to assist. Fahim's patience and practiced skill manage the task efficiently, however, so Honus just hovers awkwardly trying not to interfere in the delicate procedure underway.
"What is that? Are you sure I can't-- No, you've got it. Okay."
He stops fussing and watches in awe as Fahim guides the arrow as it delicately works its way out of the closing wound. When the alchemist finally relaxes and tucks away the bottle and book, Honus gives a simple smile of relief.
"I don’t know what good hiding them would do, since I assume a dog could smell that stench from anywhere."
"Yes, I suppose you're right. The bushes will do in the event that the next of Kretchmoor's men have no dogs with them."
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Mexus considers the situation for a moment, apparently ignoring the fact that his face, robes, and just about everything else is covered in a mixture of mud and his own blood. He seems to absently note that Fahim has more or less healed himself, as he continues to contemplate the situation, all the time his tail flicking contemplatively. Finally, he looks over to Alahazra, saying in a detached and emotionless tone, ”Madame, when you have had a moment to compose yourself, will you please check to ensure that the aggressors are in fact dispatched?” He then refocuses on the scene at large, and continues, almost to himself, ”If either of the two sell-swords can be salvaged, we have additional choices to make.” It appears as if a moment of understanding pours over Mexus, and his countenance shifts from one of intellectual contemplation to one of matter-of-fact action, and he again adjusts his stance to address the party in general. ”Assuming that the women have passed, can anyone think of a way that we can quickly make it look like these mercenaries fell at someone else’s hands? If so, we should do that, check to see if they have any written orders on them, and then move on. If not, we need to move on quickly, before someone comes looking for their comrades. Hopefully no one is in earshot of those explosions. Once we’re sufficiently far off, I’ll take a few minutes to clean us all, so that it doesn’t look like we’ve been in combat.” Mexus then looks from one Pathfinder to the next, hoping for a response.
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Honus stands over the two dead hounds, looks up at Mexus, and runs a hand through his wet hair.
"We can check their pockets, but who else is there? Railford is situated by itself, with no other town for miles, and these are not well traveled roads. And no matter their condition, we need to move quickly. Becher and others are still trapped in the caves."
He reaches down and grabs the hind quarters of each animal, dragging them off the path and setting them behind the base of a tree. He finds the pick that he dropped earlier and pries a shrub or two from the mud, tossing them unceremoniously over the hounds. Stepping back onto the path, pick in hand, he looks toward the burnt bodies of the archers.
"One thing I don't understand is why Kretchmoor is wasting time out here. If he wanted the town, why doesn't he just take it? What is he waiting for? Maybe he doesn't have the numbers we thought."
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"While Honus raises some good questions, I do not think 'here' and 'now' is the best time and place to discuss them. Further, we simply do not have time to come up with elaborate misdirection as to what happened here. Let us dump the bodies in the bushes and be done with it. We can figure out what to do next once we are well away from here."
With those brusque words, Fahim moves over to the unburnt leg of one of the archers, and starts to slowly, and with great effort, drag the body off the road.
Alahazra doesn't confirm that they're dead; stepping close to the corpses quickly provides anybody with all the confirmation they need. They stink of cooked meat, a disconcertingly appetizing smell, and the two young women are horribly burned and ruined by Fahim's bombs. Hair falls in clumps in the mud behind them, and their eyes stare up sightlessly at the falling rain.
Mexus checks their pockets and belongings, and quickly scavenges two masterwork longbows, their respective quivers, a pair of longswords, and their now muddy and burned studded leather armor.
Alahazra shivers and hugs herself, and then glances warily around as the bodies are disposed of.
"I agree. Let's be gone from here before another patrol presents itself. If this is the last time I'm forced to fight a pair of distant archers, it's still one time too many."
After hiding the corpses as best they can, the group heads down a narrow footpath which eventually 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.
Barrel caves, 2.5 miles reads the sign.
Following the path leads them through mud that's almost consistently about a foot deep, sometimes deeper. At some point when the group pauses to catch it's breath about half an hour later, Mexus feels a sharp prick of pain under his pants leg just above his boot.
Lifting his pant leg, Mexus sees three oily black leaches attached to his flesh, their bodies slowly pulsing as they suck the blood out of his body.
In quick order, the others in the group check their legs and find a number of leaches attached to them as well; Honus finds four on his legs, Fahim and Alahazra two.
While neither Honus nor Mexus seem to feel any negative side effects, both Fahim and Alahazra realize that their light headedness and fatigue that has only recently started to plague them stems no doubt from the leaches on their bodies.
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Mexus's tail pulls a dagger from a wrist sheath and places it in Mexus's hand as if it has a mind of its own. Without hesitation, Mexus proceeds to carefully pry the tail of the first leech from his leg, and then, while grasping its tail, slide the razor edge of the dagger between his leg and the leech's oral sucker. As soon as he pries it free, he stabs the leech's abdomen with the tip of his dagger, causing a short font of blood to spray forth. He then repeats the process with the other two leeches, gritting his teeth and finally proclaiming, "It's my blood, vermin. You can't have any."
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Honus watches as Mexus agonizingly removes the blood suckers from his legs, and observes the color drain from Alahazra and Fahim. He furrows his brow and squats beside Fahim to gain a better look at the creatures. He drifts his finger over it, scanning carefully, but making sure not to actually touch their oily hides.
"Hrm. These look like Viper Leeches to me. You can tell because of these yellow markings around the heads, here. These are quite a bit bigger than the ones I'm used to, but removing them should be the same process. Burning them off, like a deer tick, is usually the most effective method. You can also smear fresh blood over a warm plum, but that isn't as... Okay, well not that one in this case, I guess. Anyway, if anyone has a scrap of cloth, we can soak it in a bit of oit, then wrap it around an arrow head. Sort of a tiny torch to hold up to the leeches. They should retract their fangs at that point, and before shifting to another position, then you can stab them with your knife."
Honus draws forth an arrow and holds it out, looking toward each member of the group one by one.
"Oh, and one more thing. Try not to touch them with your bare fingers. You don't want that oily residue on your skin."
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"WAIT! That's right! The oil on their back is what protects them. Fahim, of your many powders and spices, do you have any salt? A mere dash will cause them to dry up and fall off."
Fahim produces a tiny jar of white crystal and takes just a pinch to one of the leeches on his own leg. It takes immediate effect, causing the plump body to shrivel, curl, and roll off his skin and plop into the mud. He does the same to the second and then passes the jar. Honus dusts each of the Viper Leeches for Alahazra before tending to the four on himself, and finally hands the jar back to Fahim with a confident smile.
"Let's keep moving. Less than a couple miles to the cave left. We're almost there."
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 sicklycolored, rubbery fungus floats upon the surface. Near the water’s edge, three moss-covered planks hang cockeyed from a rotten wooden post.
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Honus moves up to the post and reaches to brush away the moss. He stops at the last moment, though, narrows his eyes and retracts his hand. Instead, he grabs a stick off a nearby tree and uses that to carefully lift the moss from the planks. He does his best not to disturb anything but the moss itself. Any disruption of the delicate planks or post could cause them to twist or fall. He will even use a hand to gently brace anything that threatens to move, and call for assistance if necessary.
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Mexus eyes the scene carefully, then calls out to Honus as the stick is brought into the question. "Hold up, Sir Gisbourne! This, my friend, is something that I can accomplish for us." With that, Mexus mutters a brief incantation and waves his hand to and fro, causing the moss to fly straight up from the sign and then gently float toward Mexus, all the while trailing tiny golden motes of light. Eventually the clump of moss lands at Mexus's feet, and he looks back to Honus with a fanged smile tinted with the slightest bit of pride.
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.”
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Honus stares at Mexus with a sleepy look, clearly unimpressed by the minor use of magic.
I remember when I used to delight in watching even the simplest of magic spells. Those were better times, when magic wasn't so crucial to everyday survival and maintaining a positive attitude during bleak missions such as these. Now knowing a bit more about the subject, like its daily limitations, it hardly seems appropriate to waste such talents when I could have just lifted the moss with a stick.
Honus drops the stick in the mud.
"Does anyone know what a 'screamer' is?"
"Probably the ghouls, but keep your wits about you."
"There's dangerous moss everywhere," he mumbles.
Honus rolls his eyes and turns away. He glances at the others, then puts his hand to his chest and winces in pain, and looks back at Mexus once more to survey him as well.
Alahazra and Fahim aren't looking too good. Still pale after those Viper Leeches. Ugh, and I'm not in good shape either after taking two arrows to the chest. He shudders, then looks back once again to survey Mexus as well.
"You feeling okay? Did your leg stop bleeding? We may need to bandage it. In fact, none of us are looking overly healthy, and we still haven't even made it to the caves yet. We will have to consider some options once we arrive."
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Why isn't he responding? He's just standing there looking confused. Perhaps I wasn't loud enough. Oh, no! What if I was too loud? He might have heard my comment about dangerous moss. Dammit! I should have kept my mouth shut. He was trying to help out, and I'm just frustrated with our situation. He didn't do anything wrong and now I've made a comment and upset him. Should I apologize? I mean, I know I should, but that might draw more attention to it. He's still making that weird face at me. How long have we been staring at each other. Maybe I will just repeat my question to him and act like nothing is wrong. Hey, let's move past anything stupid I said, yes? Yes.
"Is your leg still bleeding? We should bandage it, if so."
There we are. Like it never happened...
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Honus stands silent as Mexus casually checks his leg and continues to not speak.
Okay, doesn't appear to be bleeding from what I can see. He's still not saying anything, but certainly has a look of intense concentration. So what is Mexus thinking about? Bah, who knows! He's always lost on his own plane of existence. This is ridiculous. We need to keep heading toward the caves instead of wasting time by standing around and barely speaking.
Honus shuts his eyes for a moment and gives two shakes of his head before turning toward the direction of the sign and marching onward.
Honus shakes his head and walks through the group, heading in the direction of the barrel aging caves. He splashes one foot into the bog, and the ripples send the rubbery, sickly looking fungus that floats upon its noxious surface swaying.
Immediately the air fills with a god-awful, terrible screeching as the fungus contracts and expands violently. The sound seems to cause the very air to quake and tremble, and sends searing pain into all of your heads.
Inits!
I'm going to say that everybody holds their actions as they clutch at their heads for a few seconds until it's the Enemy's turn, at which point it appears, and we begin with actions at Alahazra.
The water perhaps ten feet from the bog's edge suddenly swirls, disturbed as something rises from below. A peaked and malevolent violent fungus appears, brown water flowing off its toadstool, and immediately four tentacles begin venturing out toward the party, each dropping a vicious ichor.
Alahazra lifts both hands and cries out in a foul language, casting Doom on the fungus.
It seems to shake off the effect.
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Mexus’s eyes snap wide open as the bog surface ripples, but he doesn’t have much time to react before the fungal wailing envelops his world. He hunches, claps his hands over his ears, and his tail flails wildly as the mycological cacophony threatens to rupture his tympanum and strip away his sanity. After a few seconds, the main fungal cap rises from the depths of the bog, and Mexus begins to think straight as the primal part of his mind kicks into survival mode. He rights himself, and tries to block out the screech that sounds like a vargouille being cleaved. A bitter taste washes over his tongue, and he finds that his feet have deftly carried him a few feet back from the shroom-of-doom even before his wits were fully about him.
Think, Mexus, think!
You can do this. Just open a portal to somewhere really bad. It doesn’t even have to be a big portal, just big enough for something awful to come out … but where?
Then, inspiration strikes, and a wave of clarity washes over him. His eyes narrow, and his brow quirks in concentration.
Alright, focus! A portal merely the size of a coin ought to do the trick.
With a wave of his hand, a small indigo mote of light appears above the creature’s cap, and then it quickly expands to an indigo ring, with the very essence of reality rippling within it.
Hopefully they’re feasting in Hell’s capital today …
And with an effort of will, Mexus connects the tiny portal to a lonely pressurized vat that serves as part of the sewage treatment system under the City of Dis.
A jet of yellow acid, tinged with a brown rockets towards the tentacled creature …
The acid fizzles and bubbles as it corrodes the fungus' cap, burning away a good section to reveal the pulsating and palpating lung-like gills. An acrid stench fills the air, and the tentacles spasm before lurching even quicker toward Honus.
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Gut reaction snaps Honus' hand to his sword hilt, even as he stumbles backward. With a ringing in his ears, head now throbbing, he sizes up his opponent and the battlefield before him.
If I charge in, the monster has the advantage because of terrain. We should be able to retreat beyond its reach, assuming it's confined to the edge of the bog. We can use the bows to dispatch it from a safe distance.
"Everyone, back!"
Honus continues to splash backward, opting to dawn his shield rather than drawing his sword as he retreats.
It has good fortitude saves, low-light vision, immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms). Immunity to paralysis, poison, polymorph, sleep effects, and stunning. Proficient with its natural weapons only. Not proficient with armor. Plants breathe and eat, but do not sleep.
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Fahim initially crouches down and slams his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to keep out the piercing wails of the aptly named Screamer. After a few moments, he stands shakily to his feet, blood trickling down out of his nose and ears.
Good gods! Even the mold is deadly in this forsaken swampland. This is why any sensible trader sticks to the desert. At least out there only respectable things will kill you, like scorpions and quicksand. I should do the nearby village a favor and burn this hellscape to the ground.
Fahim moves backward with the group, fumbling with his pack as he does so. While he lacks the unreal dexterity he once possessed while under the effects of his mutagen, his motions are just as steady as he crafts his bomb. He stops a mere 20 feet from the Screamer.
"Brave Honus, to my side! I cannot move as far away as I would like and still safely hurl my explosives. Stay by me and we shall see this thing burned from the face of this swamp, and hopefully some of the swamp along with it."
to hit the target’s touch AC.
with 1 falling short and 2 through 8 rotating around the target clockwise.
and 5 splash damage to anyone in the adjacent squares.
The bomb shatters across the violet fungus' form, engulfing it in flame, causing large sections to bubble and fall off as its tentacles writhe and flail in what muss pass for vegetable pain.
The violet fungus approaches steadily, coming right up to the edge of the bog, but not close enough to close.
Alahazra draws forth a scroll, and steps up behind Fahim, reading quickly from its contents as she presses her hand to his back.
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Mexus scrambles back further, in accordance with Honus's commands, concentrating the whole time to keep the tiny extra-dimensional portal open. As the fungal hulk shambles forward, it clears the small caustic spray, which leaves a jet of piss-yellow liquid sputtering into the bog. Where the acid meets the water, there's a violent reaction which causes the liquids to bubble as if boiling, and a brim-stone vapor begins to eek out of the bog.
Once Mexus is ten yards from the creature, he waves his hands in a flurry of arcane gestures, as if weaving unseen threads of reality into some new and fantastic tapestry. The coin-sized, indigo-rimmed portal responds to his silent commands, and whips forward in the air, again coming to a stop near the creature's cap and now exposed fungal-lungs.
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"I think it is as hampered by this muck as we are. See, it only moved a few scant feet towards us. As long as we keep 20 feet of distance between us, we should be safe."
Fahim backs up to a distance of 20 feet and then prepares and lobs another bomb.
to hit the target’s touch AC.
with 1 falling short and 2 through 8 rotating around the target clockwise.
and 5 splash damage to anyone in the adjacent squares.
The violet fungus can barely lurch toward the party. Vast chunks of its stem and the carpet of roots which it uses to move are burning, burned, or simply blasted away. There's precious little of its purple cap left, and its whole corpus lists badly to the side like a ship caught in pack ice.
Still it lurches closer, almost collapsing under its own weight.
Alahazra draws forth her sling, whips it around her head, and let's fly!
Her stone passes clear through what remains of its cap, and then the whole mangled mess collapses and goes still.
She turns and smiles at the others. "If only all our future encounters could be so easily dealt with. Shall we?" And with that, she walks around the violet fungus and continues to follow their path through the bog.
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Honus fumbles with the longbow stretched across his back as he stays by Fahim's side.
Come on. Caught on my pack. There we go, and already strung. Now grab an arrow. So what if nearly all of my training has been with a longsword. I haven't picked up a bow in over five years, but when I learned, I did really well. Okay, maybe just moderately well. Either way, not every battle can be fought with a sword. Now pinch the nock. Easy around the fletching. Shaft to shelf. Pull. Breath. Annnnd...
Alahazra launches a sling stone, collapsing the fungus. Honus lowers his bow and retracts the arrow.
Oh, good. That might have been an embarrassing shot.
"Well done, everyone."
He replaces the bow and arrow and follows behind Alahazra.
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Mexus nods in agreement. "Well done, indeed. And excellent tactical advice, Sir Gisborne." Mexus pauses for the briefest moment of consideration before continuing, "Is there any chance that others might have fallen to this fungonoid? And if so, would it be worth checking to see if any of their equipment survived?"
Mexus looks about for any kind of lair or cache.
Mexus pokes around the mire, sinking his dagger into likely hummocks and pushing over logs, and is about to give up when he almost trips over something buried under the tea-colored water. Peering down, he espies the pale outline of a human skeleton, a waterproof bag of some kind clutched in the remnants of its hand.
Dragging up the bag, Mexus opens it to discover about 750 gold pieces covered in slime and silt.
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After investigating the bag's contents, a wide fanged grin erupts on his face. He hands the bag off to his tail, and then proceeds with a familiar short incantation accompanied by a few arcane gestures and an effort of will. A ring of white motes of light form near the top of the bag and slowly proceed towards its bottom. Half a minute later, Mexus finds himself doing some quick math in his head and doling out 187 gold pieces and 5 silver pieces of perfectly clean cash to each of his companions, while they trek forward towards whatever awaits them next.
Successfully slaying a reasonably challenging foe, and finding more gold than most of this lot has probably had for some time ... that should do something for their spirits.