"Oh wait," Aurelian catches himself. "Aurelian Fache has just remembered that the lovely Ramona could not bear to be apart for long from Aurelian, and wished us to return as quickly as possible..."
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The graves were a poor substitute for a real interment-- basically a shallow layer of sandy beach, but they'd have to spend more time when there was, well, time.
Jenner clasped the key twined into his beard and raised his other hand empty.
"Thou deserve better, souls that travel now on the path from Creation to that which is beyond. Thou deserved the more perfect world ye sought to build upon this further shore. In Abadar's Vault all things exist in perfection. May those of thee who serve His golden scale be well weighed upon it and found of fine mettle, and may Pharasma guide all others to the bosom of their own sworn faith, safely and swiftly. I cannot name ye all but the gods do, knowing thee as their own according to each one in thy fashion. May all kindly gods smile, now, and may each one of us get his just reward."
Elizar weeps during the mini-funeral--no different than he always does--sobbing and wailing mournfully as Jenner gives the dead a proper prayer.
Ashlyn pats Elizar on the shoulder comfortingly, as if he we actually weeping over the dead. Her rhythmic pats on his shoulder make squelching sounds that are more than a little distracting.
She watches the poor graves she helped dig sadly as Jenner speaks over them
"May you find peace in the afterlife." she prays once Jenner's done. Then she takes a deep breath, exhales, and turns to the horizon, ready to travel with her companions to the meeting place.
Aurelian seems more somber than usual during the funeral.
"You do not need to worry anuymore," he tells the bodies. "Aurelian Fache will avenge you!"
An edge of hardness creeps into his voice, one that's not been heard before.
Having buried the bodies you collect your gear together and head off towards the second rendezvous point. Unfortunately what should have been a fairly straight-forward trip along the coast is blocked by a huge chasm, at least one hundred meters wide - as though some giant has torn a large chunk from the landscape. You all turn inland to try and skirt this obstacle and this takes you a long distance out of your way.
As you move deeper into the island you find a small stream running through a clearing in the forest. You've been following a well worn path with occasional cut trees which show signs of deliberate and practised logging. Approaching the clearing you see a figure ahead fall into the stream ahead of you with an incoherent scream.
Sarine rushes forward to help. This might be the first survivor they have encountered! "Hold on!"
Ashlyn toses her backpack onto the shore and rushes forward, diving into the water to save the person without a second thought.
Elizar looks surprised as Ashlyn takes off running, then terrified at the sight of someone falling into the stream. Despite his apparent fear he hurries after Ashlyn, wailing the whole way. When she dives into the water he follows, diving in alongside her as he cries.
The stream is barely four feet deep, so not swimming so much as wading for most of the party .
Ashlyn and Elizar leap into the stream and between them manage to haul the body out of the water. As they turn it over Ashlyn has a spit second to notice the pale, dead flesh and the tentacles reaching for her before the creature strikes - its ambush working perfectly!
"What are you?" Ashlyn asks in confusion as the dead man's tentacles flail in her face.
"Hey! Cut it out!" she exclaims.
Ashlyn attempts to drag it out of the stream and onto shore.
Elizar takes a far less gentle approach, roaring with hate at the thing trying to harm Ashlyn.
He rears back and slams into the creature.
"I'm not getting in that water if I don't have to and what in the name of every wave to crash on every shore is that thing?" Jenner bellows, moving up to stand (reluctantly) side by side with Elizar, and sloshing at least along the bank.
He takes a hack at the thing with his axe!
Sarine moves into the stream to attack the creature with her greatsword, sinking well above her waist into the water.
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Aurelian joins the rush to help with the creature , stabbing wildly as he splashes into the water.
"No, creature, you do not rub your testicles all over our friend!"
Evie, taken by surprise, pulls out an arrow and tries her best to hit the zombie creature without putting an arrow through Elizar, or worse Ashlyn! "What is that thing?" She cries as she grasps a second arrow.
Fleur, rushes forward to see better, and begins to sing an inspirational ditty to encourage her companions to greater deeds of mayhem against the tentacle beastie.
The creature flails wildly at Ashlyn as she tries to drag its host from the water, to absolutely no effect. Ashlyn however is not able to move the waterlogged zombie.
Elizar simply smashes into the creature and with Jenner and Sarine helping the zombie is rendered into small chunks. Unfortunately this means that neither Evie or Aurelian are able to hit the small grey creature that detaches itself from the back of the creature's head.
It plunges into the stream and streaks away downriver, provoking attacks from Jenner, Elizar and Sarine as it goes.
You have one badly hacked up body, now really dead, in the stream.
"What was that thing? Did anyone get a good look at it?"
"Aurelian Fache did, but he has never seen anything like it. But it was very cowardly, to run away like that before Aurelian Fache even got a chance to stab it," he says.
I've read about these things before, but never seen one." Evie replies hesitantly glancing into the water.
"They are called Incutilis. We all know that life began in the sea, some crackpots claim that the sea has manipulated the course of humanoid life through ages beyond reckoning, citing the incutilis as evidence of this. They mostly live their entire lives amid the deepest trenches of the darkest seas, but some venture to the border between water and land. They have been recorded to have slain land dwellers and commandeering their flesh to bear the incutilis on shore."
She pauses for a second and realises she has been waffling on - something she has been warned of by previous friends. She simply offers the suggestion:
"Perhaps if there is one of these things, then there were others who have harmed or taken over the colonists."
Jenner whiffs with his axe, and growls at the water that has shielded the little nasty thing's escape.
He listens to Evelyn's explanation with knit brows. "Bloody hell, those little blighters control the body? This poor bastard mighta been a colonist? Damn. Well, that makes me not eager to get in the damn stream."
Elizar lashes out at the scuttling creature.
"Don't let it get away!" Ashlyn exclaims as it slips from her grasp.
Sarine lands a blow but its impact is lessened by the water and the creature escapes, leaving a wispy trail of dark blood in the water - which slowly dissipates.
Ashlyn reaches after it, but is ineffective at getting hold.
"Can you catch it Elizar?" she asks frantically.
Elizar shakes his head and wails. He glares downstream after the strange beast.
"Shoot!" Ashlyn exclaims, smacking the water with her palm. Then she sighs and drags the dead body out of the stream, pulls him up onto the shore, and climbs out of the water after him.
"Who were you?" she asks the dead body as she searches him for clues to his identity.
"This is a very distressing development... If these creatures can infect and possess anyone, how will we ever know who is themselves still? I could see how such a situation could destroy a nascent colony."
"Well, it did have horrible headwear," Aurelian points out. "If any of you have tentacles all of a sudden, Aurelian Fache will be sure you are not yourself."
He waits while Ashlyn looks over the body.
Sarine glares in the direction of the escaping...thing while the stream flows around her body. She didn't really hear what Evelyn called it. Eventually, she looks briefly at her sword, taking note of the look of the creature's blood before washing it away in the water and wading back to dry land.
"If what you say is true, I doubt we've seen the last of those things. If it left its home to explore the surface, it must have some design up here," she remarks with some disgust. "And here I thought we'd found a survivor."
The corpse is dressed in the remnants of practical leathers and appears to have once been female. There is a hatchet driven into a tree-stump nearby. Unfortunately it appears the body has spent a lot of time in the stream and this has destroyed any more clues than the most obvious ones.
Apart from laying the corpse to rest there is little more to be done here and you move on, eventually finding a way to skirt the crack in the landscape, although it has cost you hours to do so.
As you get closer to the coast again the trees begin to thin out and Jenner sees something strange up ahead.
"Looks like a lumberjack from Talmandor's Bounty." Ashlyn remarks, noticing the hatchet in the tree stump. "A woman."
Flipping the corpse over, Ashlyn examines the body further. "Here," she remarks, pointing out a circle of jagged puncture wounds on the back of the corpses neck, with a much larger puncture wound in the centre. "This is where it latched onto the victim. Right there on the back of the next. Maybe even how it controlled her."
With a sad sigh Ashlyn readies the body for burial and starts to dig a shallow grave for her.
Elizar moans sadly, then drifts forward to help Ashlyn dig.
"Poor woman... yes, let's give her a proper burial... " Fleur helps as she can, but not having any special tools like a shovel, the best she can do is soften the earth with her dagger and move the loosened soil with her hands. Once the burial is complete... she moves on with the others toward the shore.
Jenner somberly assists with the somewhat unsatisfactory burial, again reciting words to guide the soul or at least let it rest, and then they continue forward.
He gestures for a stop, shading his eyes with his hands. "...that's odd. The ground up ahead-- it's been trampled but.... in grooves? Like soldiers an inch high had used it for drill march, heh... Never seen nothing like that."
Fleur walks over to the odd patch of ground, without actually stepping on it... She examines it trying to figure out what might have created such terrain.
Ashlyn collects the hatchet.
---
"Where?" Ashlyn asks, looking where Jenner points.
While Ashlyn bends down to look at the earth, Elizar watches her.
Eventually he turns his attention to the surroundings, watching for trouble.
"I suppose we'll be seeing a lot of tracks that aren't familiar. This land is new to us...more than we guessed."
Sarine keeps an eye out for any threats in the area, leaving the others to examine the tracks.
Aurelian also leaves the study of tracks to the others, having no interest and even less knowledge in such things.
He bounces lightly on the balls of his feet, waiting eagerly for the next threat this place has to send at him.
"Yes. Aurelian Fache has seen many things he has never seen before," he agrees with Sarine. "These things are lucky to get to see Aurelian Fache, or would be if he did not have to keep killing them. You are very impressive too, with your sword, even if it is not a very elegant way of killing things."