"Despite all the time I have spent on boats I have never learned anything about steering or sailing one, sorry. " Vadoma says in response to Heddy's request.
"Hoist up the Night Talon's sail! See how the main sail sets!" Murillo directs the crew and helmsman as they attempt to sail safely through the reef.
Jordanna moves to assist Murillo.
Paddy will act as a spotter for Murillo, though occasionally he stands on his tip toes to see over the guard rail.
Hedy hops in the water and begins to scout for a path through the reef. Murillo guides the ship along behind her at a safe distance as they slowly work around the south side of the island. After longer than expected, and a couple of false alarms, the captain discovers that toward the eastern end of the southside there is a break in the reef that the Talon can fit through; it opens to a fairly narrow trough that heads westward to the cove.
The priest maneuvers the ship through the break, following Hedy's direction, and begins sailing slowly towards the cove. About halfway there the ship lurches to port as the hull drags through an outcropping of coral. Thanks to help from Jordanna and Paddy, the damage isn't as bad as it could have been, and the ship is able to continue sailing without having to be pushed off the reef.
By noon, the Night Talon is in the cove and her senior officers are ready to return to their exploration. In the daylight, they can see both ends of the beach from the cove, and the path towards the old home is much easier to spot. The tall bushes and scattered trees still prevent them from seeing the plantation from the beach though.
"I've no way of dispelling the gate's enchantment. It'll be easier to simply clear a path through the brush around it so we can move the loot to the ship.
"We should take a look around the manse's grounds in daylight as well - could be we missed a better path in the night."
"Sounds good. We can scout it and other paths out, blow the damned thing up if we need to as well." to her first officer "Pick a few of the crew to hide out on land a bit out from the ship to watch and listen, in case being bottled up in here leads to disaster. And have the ballista's manned at all times." then we'll head for the gate, and keep an eye out for anything we miss.
With crew members assigned their various tasks, the treasure hunters follow the path back towards the well-preserved manse. They pass the remains of the halfling attackers along the way and arrive safely back near the gate. Stopping twenty feet before the gate, in the hopes of avoiding any new visions while they consider their course of action, they can see the large home, some hundred yards off, framed between the bushes and trees of the scrub brush, but they cannot yet see anything else.
Hedy turns to their cleric and witch "So anything you can tell us different here in the daylight, or should we try and destroy it."
Saph checks the map, wondering if the innuendo was a clue that went over her head. Maybe I took the Blue Booby name personally and got distracted?
Saph reviews the map once again. The southern coastline of the crudely drawn cartograph seems reasonable similar to the beach the pirates walked, and the "X" at the center of the sketched island appears to roughly correspond to the plantation house. There are no further hints that she sees to explain the cryptic statement that the treasure rests "beneath love's final bed, beyond the gates of paradise."
"Opinions? Or I blow the thing up." the captain hefts one of her homemade bombs and looks around at her officers.
"If'n dis be de Gates o' Paradise, blowin' it up ain't gonna be good fer us. It bes soundings like a riddle, an I don't want te waste a chance at more loot."
The mention of more loot has Hedy's interest, so she puts the bomb up "Then we must rely on our priest in this matter I think." she lays her hand on his shoulder and looks up at him, "Now that is light, do you think you can?"
If not, we go around and loot the mansion. Better to get everything packed and ready to split if things go bad.
Saph says, “Love’s final bed… is that a death bed or a grave, maybe of the woman who we saw get shot near the gate?”
Murillo shrugs. "I'll see what I can do. It may show its little melodrama again; you may want to back off."
After giving enough time for anyone who wants to leave the area, Murillo quickly advances up the path towards the malicious gates. He tries to ignore any illusions and get close enough to hit them with a cure moderate wounds.
Saph stays out of the way and observes.
She does consider whether her grappling ability can keep the gate from attacking.
Murillo rushes forward and places a glowing hand on the banged up gate. It recoils from his touch with the squeal of rusty hinges.
The ghostly figures vanish as quickly as they appeared, though the feelings of loss, and guilt, and overwhelming slowness linger.
You believe that destroying the gate might destroy the haunt (not vice versa). If that doesn't work, you may need to find the remains of one of the three figures from the vision and put them properly to rest.
Saph crouches into dragon stance and races to one side of the gate. Since the metal door is the weapon, Saph intends to hold it so the gate can’t swing—and ideally, she does so from out of the other gate’s reach so she doesn’t get clobbered.
“I… hope… this… works!” she says through gritted teeth.
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Long since used to loss and regret inspired by women, Murillo shrugs off their hold over his body. Trusting the blue brawler to restrain the angry architecture, he casts another healing spell onto the gate in the hopes it has the opposite effect.
Thinking quickly, and keeping his wits about him, Murillo touches the gate a second time with glowing white light. The barely visible tendrils of ghostly mist that wove their way through and around the stone and iron dissipate, and the metal gate Saph is wrestling with falls off in her hands. The gate does not move (on its own) again.
Turning to look beyond the gate, Murillo and Saph, and those who join them, discover that the overgrown area that has not yet returned to scrub accounts for at least twenty or thirty acres, if not more. The same bushes of flowers that mark the path to the house also spot several places that must have once been gardens. Weeds and tall grass have taken over most of the fields but occasional clusters of food plants and sugar cane hint that this was once a working plantation. Aside from the surprisingly well-preserved home straight ahead, there are a rundown old barn off to the left and the remnant of a number of modest shacks behind the house and off to the right.
"Good work, Murillo. One less danger for the crew when they come to fleece this place." the captain gives the man a delighted smile of a job well done.
She looks over the options, with a slight frown and her hands on her hips. "Hmmm... those structures could contain all sorts of worry and danger, now couldn't they? It would be a shame to get all sweaty and distracted with moving all that furniture, setting us up to get ambushed with ease. Let's check out the barn, and keep an eye out for graves as our master of arms suggested."
The treasure-hunting pirates stay in formation as they make their way cautiously to the barn. It seems more rundown than the house. Inside, to the left, a hayloft sits empty and stinks of stale animal droppings. The keen-eyed among them spot dozens of bats sleeping in the rafters. Below the loft is a collection of tools and tack, all in poor condition. To the right, both sides of a central aisle are filled with open stalls. Skeletal animal remains are visible on the ground in some of them. At the far end of the aisle, a skeleton in tattered breeches mindlessly scoops nothing from an empty barrel with an old shovel and dumps it over the nearby stall door. It doesn't seem to have noticed the pirates' arrival.
Saph is fine with Hedy’s call.
Saph watches the skeleton with the shovel. “Maybe love’s final bed is where a body was buried?”
She goes over to the skeleton and stands about ten feet away from it. “Excuse me. Can we talk?”
If the skeleton comes at her to strike, she’s ready.
But she’ll only attack if it moves within five feet of her.
"Scooping feed from when he was alive?" the captain suggests as she watches to see if the skeleton gets its face crushed in.
The skeleton continues scooping nothing into the empty stall. It seems completely oblivious to Saph's question.
Saph says, “Go ahead and look around. If you touch something important, this guy’ll try to whack me. But I’ll smash him.” She seems fairly confident this will work.
Murillo begins to search the barn, saving the area occupied by the skeleton for last.
Hedy moves along with Murillo looking for treasures. "Graves, Graves, come out come out where ever you are."
Paddy helps Murillo and Hedy in the search for treasures. As a strange quirk, Paddy tends to sniff the air when searching for gold. It probably doesn't help, but he swears he can smell valuable minerals.
As soon as the pirates start disturbing things in the barn in their search, the skeleton turns towards them. Saph's readied punch makes quick work of the creature though.
It doesn't take long to discover that there's nothing of any real value in the barn. However, as Murillo, Hedy, and Paddy head back towards the entrance, through the open doors they all spot a small stone structure standing north of the house (behind it from the path they came up). The building is the size of a modest shack, and its construction is rather rustic, but it looks as though it may be some kind of mausoleum.
"Ah... that does look promising. Now everyone get ready, I doubt the treasure will just present it to us without a fight." Hedy downs her potions.
"Ready, let's go get rich." Hedy orders her crew forward.
Saph’s pretty sure the mausoleum is the actual love’s final bed, this time for real!
“Remember, this is Blue Booby Island, so whatever treasure lies in the final bed probably has blue booby traps.”
"That sounds... bad?? on many levels." Hedy grins as she makes sure her gun is loaded and she has a bomb ready to toss.
Getting out her deck of cards Vadoma stands there, smile on her face. "Let's solve this mystery and let those lovers have their rest."
Rest? …oh!
Thinking of how innocent the apparently-female and apparently-make skeletons seemed (though she smashed them anyway), Saph asks, “Oh! Are the smashed skeletons the lovers? Should we bring their bones into the mausoleum?”
Paddy goes over to the entrance to the mausoleum, and investigates for traps or other hazards. Baring none, he hefts open the door.
"First we investigate the place, Saph, as our good master Paddy has begun to do. Then if there are not mounds of treasure, we can cart all sorts of things here in hopes the gold appears."
The pirates prepare themselves as they walk the hundred yards or so from the barn to the small stone structure out behind the house. When they arrive, Paddy looks over the door and finds no sign of traps.
The fearless dwarf grasps the iron handle and shoves the door open. Beyond it, the stone structure houses a single room in which two platforms flank a center walkway. Upon the platform to the right, skeletal remains rest peacefully in a white silk dress, posed as if holding a bouquet of dried tropical flowers. Dust floats through the air over the platform to the left, disturbed by the desiccated corpse that has just stood up.
At the end of the short central walkway stands a glaring undead figure dressed like the desperate man in the vision at the gate. He wears a bloodstained chainshirt beneath his fancy sailor's coat and carries the same rapier that ran through the spectral gunman although, unlike in the vision, the blade is wreathed in flame.
"Oh waddaya know? Ey b'ys! I founds thems I did. They beens waitin' I reckon. Let's send em down te see Ol' Hob." Paddy calls back, sinking into a combat stance.
+ 2 cold = 9 damage
+ 2 cold = 8 damage
"Dead people in a crypt, imagine that." the captain snarks as she lifts her pistol, lines up her shot, and unloads both barrels at the dead man in the fine coat. Not as fine as hers though of course.
Both of Hedy's shots impact the creatures chest, though once again the fail to inflict as much damage as she expected. The figure snarls at the intruders and shrieks, "" as he lunges forward, thrusting his rapier at Paddy.