Marten digs in his heels and tugs on the door, but all he accomplishes is making another foot-shaped hole in the floor. He manages to keep his balance.
Marten stumbles but maintains his footing.
Maybe some doors are best left closed... he muses, looking down at the hole and thinking how easily he could have broken an ankle.
Seeing his brother struggle, Gryf steps up to the door and begins to push it open.
Gryf has better luck than Friday, managing to push the door to the room open. The entire shack *CREAKS* ominously.
Once an alchemical laboratory, the equipment in this room has fallen into decay. Ancient chemical spills create weird stains and colorful crystalline growths amid the partially collapsed workbenches. A skeleton, still dressed in the tattered robes of a mage, also lies among the workbenches. An examination of the witch’s remains quickly reveals that some hideous transformation or deformity has disfigured her skeleton—the skull seems half melted and weirdly elongated in the face, one arm looks more like a bird’s talon, and the ribs have grown long spurs of bone that protrude both into and out of the rib cage.
A scroll is clutched in the skeleton's intact hand.
Stepping up beside Gryf Friday almost moves to explore the room but reconsiders when he looks over its arcane nature. He then turns to Valeria with a look for approval before tentatively stepping in.
Ag Friday's look, Valeria muttered a few arcane words before casting her senses over the room, looking for any magical energies that could be a danger.
As you look around the room with your arcane sight, you notice the scroll in the skeleton's hand is glowing blue.
Unfortunately, Valeria's examination is interrupted--the ratling from before scurries out from under the floorboards of the room, and bites at Friday!
It manages to sink its teeth into Friday's unprotected leg, drawing blood!
"Only magic I'm sensing here is that scr-" Valeria was cut off by the ratling's sudden return.
Not wanting this to drag out too long, she quickly shuffled back to clear the way for Gryf while a bolt of raw force lanced out from her staff, deftly dodging around Friday to slam into the ratling's side.
Focusing on Valeria and her detection abilities and skills the sudden attack took Friday by surprise, much to his chagrin. Stepping back to use his spear he lunged at the familiar.
It's the last mistake the ratling makes as Friday skewers it on his spear.
Unfortunately, a dark patch appears on Friday's boot where he was bitten... his wound is still bleeding.
Not even bothering to shake the rat corpse from his spear he lifts his leg to inspect his boot and foot within, bleeding much more than he thought it should have from such a bite.
"Um..."
"A good kill, that vermin through to catch us unaware." Gryf takes a quick look around the room, if nothing else attacks them or stands out to be investigated more he will more to search the rest of the house.
It appears that the shack is well and truly empty of life now--Gryf can't hear anything else out of place, and nothing else leaps out to attack.
Let me take a look at that wound, Friday. But not here, outside I still don't trust this place. Can the rest of you search here quickly? But be careful.
Once back out of the creaky shack, Marten binds the wound on Friday's foot and staunches the bleeding with a poultice of crushed herbs from his satchel.
With the threats dealt with, Valeria pried the scroll out of the skeleton's hand before quickly leaving the shack before her sinuses went nuts.
"Five gold says this has the spell that made her ribs want to take a look inside her lungs." Valeria joked as she opened the scroll to examine it.
The writing on the scroll seems to defy your attempts at reading it normally--the symbols on it are scrawled in patterns that make your eyes hurt from looking at them.
The air was filled with a stream of rather un-lady-like words from Valeria, as much aimed at her own stupidity for not using the proper magic first (not that she'd prepared it that day anyway) as for the stinging the scroll's writing triggered in her eyes.
"Whelp; I'm an idiot." she said finally as she closed the scroll back up.
"Well... let me have a look, at least... I'm not great with magical writing but sometimes I can get it."
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"Hmm, this can't be what caused the person's death. It's a healing spell, cure light wounds if this character is what I think it is."
"It could if the person wasn't alive before." Friday offers.
"I wasn't serious about that, you realise?" Valeria said as she pulled the handkerchief down from her face, a touch disappointed that the scroll wasn't something more exotic.
"Huh; feels like Xel's on his way back." she remarked, sensing changes in her empathic link with the bird.
Haru winks playfully at the mage, and adds, "I won't hold you to the 5 gold either."
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"What does it matter how.. it died. It's dead, we should move on i don't think we'll find anything else around here." Gryf turns and begins to walk away from the others.
"Well it hold some interest to those of us curious about transmutation magic. Whatever spell was put on here backfired spectacularly, of course, but it's still a magical curiosity. How'd you react if you found someone killed by what you could tell was a particularly unique sword style?"
"Get mad and kill something, I expect," a remark from the trees came as Xel finished landing.
"What matters," Friday interrupts, "is that who or what killed her may still be about, in some form or fashion."
Gets grunts at Valeria, softening his harshness. "I suppose.." He then sharply turns to Xel. "Speaking of killing I still have plenty of that left in me, that rat thing didn't tired me out so watch yourself."
"If down thing killed her it was the rats and we pull them all down even that big ugly one." He says as he starts to clean his axe.
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Locals thought her to be a fearsome witch, with their impressions of her not helped by the man-faced rat creature she carried everywhere with her. Gods only know how she met her final demise...
As he is binding Friday's foot Marten takes a glance around at the ground around the shack
I don't see any of those skeletal footprints around here. Maybe we missed something. I think we should double back and see if we can pick them up again, I don't think they came from here.
"I think this must have been Old Megus! She hasn't been coming to town for many years now, but I remember stories of the old witch who lived in the swamp and had a rat with a human face. I wonder how she died?"
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"We could always ask whoever was in here with her a few moments ago."
Well however it was it seems like it happened a while ago. Animals would take time to strip a body to bone, even out here Marten says thoughtfully
"We could always ask whoever was in here with her a few moments ago."
"You just killed it, Friday. I think the ratling was casting a spell, probably trying to heal itself. "
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"... oh... I didn't know they could talk." Friday lets out meekly as he lowers his head.
"I'm not sure if it could have talked to us. Familiars can sometimes talk like Xel, but other times they can only communicate with their mistress."
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After a few minutes of searching around, Haru and Marten are able to pick up the skeletons' trail from the shack, despite the rain's best efforts. The rain is beginning to let up as the party departs from the old, decaying shack.
After a half-hour of following skeleton tracks through mud and all manner of thorny plants, a curious sight appears in the midst of a copse of trees. What appears at first to be a strange tangle of branches is in fact the moss-covered ribs of a wrecked ship. The ruined ship lies on its side, split down the middle and mostly sunken into the mud and murky water.
"This swamp has hidden entirely too many ships." Friday muses as he approaches the ship to look it over.
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Upon closer inspection, what's left of the ship appears to be of the same style as the last ship you came across. Unfortunately, this one has not weathered the passage of time as well as its sister.
As you approach the ship's husk, a small gleam appears out of the corner of your eye. The gleam comes from a corner of a verdigris-encrusted nameplate hanging from one of the shipwreck's timbers. The inscription on it is written in Tian.
Friday will reach out to take the nameplate from its ruin. "This ship's name... the first word is the same as the other one... or at least similar!" he excitedly calls out.
Gryf frowns as he looks over the ship. "Same as the other one, but this one is a lot more worse for wear. Do you think there's anything for value in there?" Gryf moves around looking for an easy way in.
Wait... so let's think this through. At some point in the past a fleet, or at least two ships, sailed across the ocean to come here. They must have made their way along the river in land and then what? Got stuck when the water level dropped in the swamp?
Hmmm... Marten considers it all as he scratches at the stubble on his chin.
But why? I suppose inside is the only place we shall find answers.
"Could a storm have made it run aground here? I mean it looks like it's been here a fair while." she asked, looking over the wreck.
"Starting to wish I'd taken Ameiko up on her offer to learn Tian. Guess we can at least sketch the name, see if she can translate it when we get back to town."