"Nothing I recognise, I'm afraid." Shenuska replies, although she crouches down to examine it anyway.
"Just... uh... floppy chunks of flesh," says Rudrik. "Like leftovers from the butcher shop!"
He sheathes the old shortsword. "Kinda glad I didn't have to use this. Imagine what would've happened if it had run into someone who was not armed!"
After a moment he scratches his head, and then says, "Hey, wait. What if there are more of them out there in the night fog?"
"Then we will kill them," Calendula says plainly.
"Much as I'm glad it went down so quickly, I would much prefer that half of us not be dog-tired in the process," Theo said, "on the other hand; this protective spell I cast is going to last for about an hour and I'd hate to waste it on something that never actually attacked me."
Sticking close together in case more monsters emerge, you make your way along the river to the west of town. You start to feel slightly better as you warm up after the haunt's chilling effects.
Roderic's Wreck is located slightly outside of town around a small bend where the river meets the waters of the Varisian Gulf. Approaching the house, it is immediately apparent that Roderic's Wreck is indeed a wreck. The house slumps visibly toward the water, one corner edging dangerously into the river. Boards in the house's walls have warped and popped free from their nails, peeling back like bark from an old tree. Moss grows over the roof and clings in patches to its walls. A light haze of black mold and thin bubbles of moisture creep across the house's windows, obscuring anything that might reside within. The front door hangs slightly ajar. The sound of buzzing insects, creaking tree branches, and the river flowing by hangs in the moist air.
Calendula walks around, peeking into the house through the popped boards and open door.
Calendula can't see much between the popped boards. As she approaches the front porch, she spots a glint of silver near the front step. Unfortunately, she also spots the pair of creatures nesting beneath the porch, moments before they crawl out to greet her! These insectoid creatures have two pairs of bat wings, a tangle of thin legs, and a needle-sharp proboscis.
"Stirges!" Shenuska calls as she catches sight of the creatures. "These shouldn't be much of a threat, but watch out if there are any more!"
"Eww!" Nime exclaims. She waves her hands around in the air as if waving off flies and eddies of air begin swirling around her.
"Well, could be worse," Theo remarked as he lobbed another blast of acid at one of them.
Theodric's acid sizzles as it strikes a stirge, but doesn't seem to hurt it much.
The creature's buzz forward, one landing on Calendula and the other Rudrik. They jab their proboscises into their victims' necks, barbed legs latching on as they start to drink blood!
Rudrik howls and grabs at the stirge to try to squeeze it between his hands!
Spear in hand, Theo moved to stab at the one holding Calendula.
Shenuska, unwilling to risk hitting her new companions, pulls her dagger and slashes at the one biting Calendula.
Calendula grabs the beastie frantically, trying to pull it off and out of her.
"Ew. Ew. Ew," Nime repeats as she attempts to poke the one on Rudrik with her spear.
Calendula and Rudrik both pull the stirges off of them, holding them tightly. Shenuska and Nime both hit the beasts, wounding them.
The stirges wriggle free of your grasps and start to fly away!
Calendula swings her sword uselessly in the air at the vermin.
"Ew," says one final time as the creatures fly away.
She shudders.
"Hopefully, other than Roderick's ghost, those are the worst things we run across. Shall we go inside?"
As the insects flew off, Theo taking one last swipe at them as they fled, he turned to Rudrik and Calendula.
”You two alright?”
Shenuska is too slow to attack the stirges as they fly away, not that she's terribly upset by that.
"Well that was nasty. Shall we push on?"
Theo stabs the stirge that was attached to Calendula, while Rudrik dispatches his own stirge before they can fly off.
Examining the glint of silver Calendula spotted, you discover a silver locket containing the portrait of a young woman.
Once you are ready, you climb onto the porch an enter the front doors. A dank smell pervades this five-foot wide hallway. A set of stairs rises to the next floor, and the hallway turns sharply to the north past the staircase. A small closer under the stairs contains only collapsed shelves and soiled, rotting linens.
Rudrik shudders and wipes the spot of blood off his arm where the stirge punctured him.
"I feel worse and worse," he grumbles.
Glancing at the locket, he adds, "Oh, hey! I recognize that picture! That's Caralee Freson. She's departed but her daughter is a milita commander now. I wonder how it got out here?"
Calendula glances upstairs but turns round the corner, waiting to make sure the others will follow
Four doors lead off from the first floor hallway into various rooms.
Calendula heads left down the hall, opening the door on her left
A moldering sofa sits along the south wall of this room, and once-comfortable chairs sit in front of mold-covered windows.
As Calendula searches through the room, she hears the eerie sound of children giggling. She gets the feeling something bad is about to happen.
"Don't go too far, Calendula," Nime says as she looks around the hall in wonder.
Calendula shuts the door and takes a step back. "I hate children," she mutters. "Terrifying."
You can hear a long, gasping shout from beyond the closed door--"Get out!"--but Calendula suffers no other ill effects.
Brave and not afraid of anything, the soldier cracks the door back open, peeking around for the source of the noise.
"Awww... children are sweet," Nime says with a pout. "There aren't children here are there?"
There's no apparent source of the noise. Nothing stirs in the ruined family room. Whatever might have manifested, it's gone now. Calendula doesn't find anything of value.
A sickeningly sweet scent hangs in this room's otherwise stale air. Mold and fungus grow up the side of the northern walls, and what was once a table lies decayed and slumped to the floor at an angle. A door and a stone hearth occupy the west wall of the room, the oven's door slightly ajar.
Nime, Rudrik and Shenuska all spot the danger here a few moments before it presents itself. Blending in among the fungi and mold is a mass of acidic, protoplasmic ooze. It slithers towards you menacingly.
The ooze is surprisingly swift, moving up to attack Calendula. It slams her with a psuedopod, and her flesh bubbles and burns at its touch! She falls to the floor, unconscious.
"Whoa!" shouts Rudrik, drawing his old sword once more. "Uhhh... I hope this thing can be stabbed!"
"Oh my! Calendula!" Nime exclaims.
She stumbles to her knee and reaches out to touch the scarred woman.
"Oh Sheyln, touch this woman with your love."
"Brainless twits!" Shenuska mutters before flinging a handful of former table at the ooze. Whether this is refering to the monsters they've encountered so far or her companions is not entirely clear.
With no way into the room, and this creature looking to be a little too acidic for his only combat spell to really work, he instead moved around the girls to Shenuska and placed a layer of protective energy around her.
"You might need that," he said as the spell solidified around her.
Calendula stands up and simply stabs out at the ooze, angry at its prior attempt to injure her.
Nime heals Calendula, rousing her to consciousness. Theo wards Shenuska with mage armor before the psychic hurls a projectile at the ooze, missing by a wide margin. Rudrik stabs the ooze with his sword, then Calendula stands and slices off a chunk of its protoplasmic body.
The ooze lashes out at the scarred woman as she stands, burning her with more acid. Then it exudes a foul-smelling stench that threatens to overpower those nearby!
Nime calls out another prayer to Sheyln and touches Calendula. She then steps back out of the way of the doorway and watches the engagement.
Shenuska hurls another piece of rubble and then steps back too, opening the way for Theo to assault the creature.
With the way clear, Theo moved in to deal with the creature more directly. Sadly, most of the spells he knew were more meant for dealing with brigands on the road, something he would have to rectify in the future.
As Calendula steps aside, Theodric moves in and thrusts his spear deep into the ooze's central mass. It quivers and pops, more foul gases filling the air as it collapses into an inert puddle of sizzling protoplasm.
Theo coughed and spluttered as the gases poured out of the creature. "Oh bloody hell," he coughed out before checking his weapon. "Hope that stuff doesn't eat through my spear."