Belanos re-dons his breast plate.
As the party approaches the sound of the waves, the sea becomes louder at a greater rate than you might expect based on your walking speed. It's as if the sea is moving toward you while you move toward it.
Out of nowhere, a breeze picks up, and before your very eyes, it blows away the mists.
You stand upon a grassy hilltop not far from a cliff that drops to the sea below. Waves crash upon the rocks as the sea churns fitfully. Dark clouds hang low in the sky, and in the distance, the horizon is obscured by a wall of dense cloud over the water.
The more experienced outdoorsmen among you can discern that the sea lies to the west. To the north and east, the hilly landscape continues, dotted with clumps of trees and pale wildflowers that you are sure you never saw when you were in the mists - even in the direction from which you are certain you came. To the south, a tiny fishing village sits in a valley upon the shore, just over a mile in the distance. The flicker of torches and cooking fires flit among the huts, warding against the approaching dusk.
Your attention is grabbed by a more immediate concern, however. No more than 50 feet away is a scene of brutal carnage. Several human bodies lie in various states of dismemberment, and two humanoid figures are hunched over the corpses, tearing at flesh with their jagged teeth. The figures are pale, with sunken, rotting skin and palely gleaming eyes. Long claw-like nails dig into their slain prey as they feast.
As the mists quickly drift away until none is visible in any direction, the foul creatures take notice of you and glare maliciously.
Before Nathaniel can even make the obvious comment about how odd this place – and whole situation – is, he notices the carnage taking place nearby.
Eliva nocks an arrow to Kani's bow and murmurs a plea to Erastil as she shoots at the nearest foul creature she sees.
Identify Creatures, Knowledge (religion): 1d20+9
Edit: added knowledge religion check to gain more knowledge about the creatures.
Angalia draws her dagger and looks with utter disgust at the ghouls.
"Charming."
Res hears Eliva cry out "Ghouls!" As the group moves into action, Res moves forward, pulling out Gorum's holy symbol and says "Gorum, bless my allies with your warrior might that their blows land true on these vile creatures and give them courage that they do not fear what is ahead."
Angalia notices with interest that the human corpses are dressed in black or deep brown, most are wearing leather armor, and a few were armed with finely crafted weapons. There is a small, finely wrought box beside one of them. They all have scarves or bandanas partially covering their faces as if to deliberately hide their identities. In Angalia's experience, their appearance and dress marks them as highwaymen or thieves - and judging by their gear, rather successful ones.
Angalia notes that two of the bodies are actually slain ghouls. She suspects that the fighting here was intense, but that the highwaymen were eventually overwhelmed by what was initially an attack by four ghouls.
Erfan raises his eyebrows at first, then frowns when the snarling creatures turn their attention towards the group.
"I'll take point- Form on my flanks, archers and casters to the rear," Belanos speaks calmly, but with authority.
It's obvious he's used to command- better to apologize for his manner later than assume these folks are used to working togethere.
The first ghoul lets go of its pray and lunges toward Belanos, swiping at him with its foul claws.
The other ghoul moves closer and sizes up its opposition.
Angalia gets her bearings and moves to flank with Belanos, dodging past the ghoul's claws.
"Surprise!"
After the first ghoul swiped at Belanos ineffectually, the fighter struck back, hacking at the undead abomination with his sword. Distracted, the ghoul failed to take notice of Angalia, who snuck around behind it before slashing at it and cutting at its vital joints. The ghoul, unable to move on its own strength, collapses in a grotesque heap, and will no longer terrorize any living thing.
“What are these things?” asks Nathaniel, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. Nocking an arrow to his bow, he steps around Belanos towards Angalia (by which time the two have already dealt with the first cannibal) and looses an arrow at the second creature.
In answer to the warrior's question Tiff curses, "DEAD!". With that she brings up her crossbow and squeezes off a shot at the closest monster.
"And getting deader."
Nathaniel, then Tiffana, then Eliva, fail to hit their (surprisingly nimble) target. Res calls a blessing upon his companions.
Res watches the first ghoul fall. Once again, he holds up his holy symbol. "Mighty Gorum, bring down your wrath upon this abomination in front of me!" Energy once again burst forth from the holy symbol, this time however, the energy is a darker form as Res uses Gorum's energy to injure the ghoul.
Erfan trundles up amongst the others and presents his spear tip with a sneer.
The ghoul moves toward Belanos with a leap and tries to sink its teeth into the fighter's flesh.
Erfan takes the opportunity to strike at the ghoul, but misses with his spear.
Grimacing at the foul breath revealed by the creatures bite, Belanos puts a little extra umph in his swing.
....For Justice!"
"Who's Justice? Is he cute? Or at least very rich?"
"Who's Justice? Is he cute? Or at least very rich?"
Eliva snarled and readied her gauntlet encased fist for a blow. The combat was too close for her to be shooting with any accuracy - it was time to get in close and finish the monstrous thing off.
"Who's Justice? Is he cute? Or at least very rich?"
Belanos's attack misses the ghoul.
Angalia moves around to flank with Belanos again and stabs.
"Whoever he is, I hope he doesn't smell like these things."
The stink gets to her.
Nathaniel drops his bow and draws his axe as he dashes forward, hacking savagely at the monster, his weapon gripped in both hands.
Angalia moves around to flank with Belanos again and stabs.
"Whoever he is, I hope he doesn't smell like these things."
The stink gets to her.
At the last second, Angalia's muscles instinctively overcome her nausea.
Better than missing :)[/ooc]
Angalia moves into position behind the cool and strikes it in a vital area. Nathaniel sees his opening and cuts down the foul creature with his axe, and it crumples pitifully.
Seeing the foul creature fall, Eliva immediately moved over toward where they were feasting. Maybe some poor soul was still alive and could be assisted. She also examined the tracks and signs left behind from the struggle. Maybe someone ran off, or maybe she could find what direction the humans had come from. They might be able to find their way toward some settlement, and bring news of what happened here.
checks bodies, looking for heraldry, uniforms, evidence of allegience.
Asks others to do as well.
"Do you see any badges or colors on the bodies? It might tell us where we've gone."
also
"Justice is never rich, but it's always expensive."
Studying the tracks, it appears to Eliva that the bandits were caught off-guard by the ghouls. They put up a fight, and took out two of the undead creatures, but it doesn't appear any of them got away. They are all dead, and many badly mutilated by the ravenous ghouls.
Belanos observes one or two items in the bandits' stash that have had various emblems or heraldric symbols scratched off, as if to hide their origin. The bandits did not want their (most likely stolen) items identified.
Erfan extends his hand towards the bodies and begins mumbling, his eyes glazing over with an otherworldly sheen.
Nathaniel flashes Angalia a rather grim smile as they take the horrid creature down between them, then steps away (the stench is not pleasant) and cleans his axe, then hunts about for his errant arrow.
Having done that, he joins the others in examining the bodies. “Sweet father Erastil, they were eating them …” he says in horrified wonder. “These people may have been bandits, but I’d be hard pressed to say even bandits deserve such treatment.”
The ranger is somewhat hesitant about sifting through the gory mess for valuables. He’s not squeamish about blood, but what has been done to these people is stomach churning. He’ll collect a few arrows if there are any though, to restock his own supply.
“Perhaps we should bury them,” he suggests after a while. “Someone shouldn’t need to stumble across this … we don’t know what gods they followed if any, but a burial might help them rest more easily.”
Angalia picks up the box she spotted earlier and looks to see if it's locked.
"This."
Tiff stands silently watching, both her companions and her surroundings, as the searching continues. She is rather eager to see if the gnomes detection spell locates any magic.
Res, undeterred by the stench and gore, begins searching the bodies and the area.
Eliva helped the others comb through what the poor bandits had on them. "I sure wouldn't wish this fate on anyone," she said in tacit agreement with Nathaniel, "but it'd be fair foolish to not take anything we can use in this strange place. Where there are bandits, there are people. This lot looks like they've taken gear from many places - which suggests we've a chance of finding not only people, but markets and the like. That's good news at least. Maybe they'll have coin that will tell us where we are. And they definitely deserve a good burial, to help them rest easy."