The door to the aft cabins are locked.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seeing the flooded room Davor takes the lantern and checks for oil. He turns to Shalissa once he hears her comment/question, handing the lantern to her when she reaches for it. "Not even close. My father abandoned my mother and she had to raise me alone. There were many hungry nights, but I learned that I could rely on her and she on me. Stuff like that is worth more than coins."
"Besides, until we find a way off of this island.... there's not much we can do with coins. But we can carry them back to camp, and split them up when we do find our escape!"
Reaching the locked door, Davor pulls his toolkit from his pouch and sets to work.
"In many human faiths, the leader of a church is named 'Father.' So it is with me. I am the voice of Iomedae out here, and my title in Her church is 'Father.'" Father Kerndrew pauses briefly, reflecting on what he just said. "That's somewhat unfair of me, though. Iomedae's is not only a human faith, though She was human in Her life. I've known people of all races to choose Her church. She would welcome even an elf of the Mordant Spire with open arms. She is known as 'The Inheritor' for a reason; as the inheritor of Aroden's church, those who revere the Azlanti sometimes find Her church to be a logical destination."
Solrisa holds the lantern with Davor while they light it up. The flame sharpens the half-orc jaws and impose hardness on his features, making the elf feel weak while he talks about his life "That sounds like a hard childhood... Was... was your father a true orc?"
"I hope no one of you is thinking to kill the others to get the full share" Shalissa looks around when distributing the coin is talked about "I know some humans are like that"
While Davor forces open the cabin, she keeps engaged in conversation with Kendrew "That is interesting. Does that mean you are a High Priest or maybe a Bishop of Iomedae?"
"I can guess being the Inheritor they taught a lot about Azalant in the Seminary. Did you took formal education to become a priest of your order?"
Davor is taking some time with this one and when you open the door finally you notice that you have attracted the attention of the single inhabitant.
A humanoid creature in rotten clothes and with Seaweed hanging all over her body is leaving the door his was banging alone and slowly starts to lurch towards you.
This is a Brine Zombie the remmains of a drowned sailor. They are a bit tougher than normal ones, and have DR from everything but slashing damage.
They are also fire resistant and quite skilled with their cutlasses.
Shalissa is left without gasp when the door opens. Before the light really starts to pour inside she shouts in alarm "That's not dead! Is a Brine Zombie! The remains of a drowned sailor. Those are tougher than the normal ones and will resist non slashing weapons. Also do not try fire on them and be cautious with their cutlasses because they really are skilled with those"
Davor drops his rapier and pulls a dagger and nods, "I can slash with my smaller blades. Fire resistant you say? Makes sense if he's water-logged from drowning."
Davor steps up ready to face the zombie, while Father Kerndrew () steps next to him and prepares an attack should the Zombie attack.
The Zombie turns to the group, lurches nearer and attacks Kerndrew with his cutlass, after easily avoiding the paladins readied attack.
Father Kerndrew, recovering from his lurching swing, steps a bit to the side, trying to open up some space and eventually flank with Davor. He swings more carefully this time.
Gregor moved through the door, axe in hand and went around Father Kerndrew, swinging the axe at the foul undead.
"Good slash Kerndrew!" Shalissa cheers up the team from the door "Yes! That axe is a badass Gregor!"
Then, if the zombi is still moving, she raises her holy symbol and channels energy to damage it because it worked great before.
The Zombie looks really beaten up but is still raising his cutlass for another attack.
Davro slashes out at the Zombie and manages to sever her hits arms dropping it finally dead.
With the enemy down Davor starts a careful search for any dangers (or anything useful) in the room.
"Scary what one can find on these ships... This place is really hunted, they all must have died horribly" Shalissa approaches and helps to search the room with the others.
The room itself contains no valuables, but on the door to the smal cabin you find clawmarks. Apparentyl the zombie was trying to break into that room.
The Door is closed.
Father Kerndrew keeps his longsword held ready as he approaches the door. "Davor, you want to check this out? The zombie though it was interesting; we may too. I've got you covered." He stands ready to strike if there are any surprises when the door gets opened.
"Hmmm... interesting... why a dead creature would try to get into that room?" the elf shrugs "Well, whatever it is, I guess we want to find out"
Having noticed Davor is the expert on those matters, Shalissa waits for the half-orc to find out if there are traps or to unlock the door if locked. She offers him, or anyone else trying, the guidance of the gods "Let the wind guide you"
Afterwards she is happy to follow up the others into the closed next cabin.
Sheathing weapons Davor again takes out his tools and starts working on the door.
His initial attempt is a total failure, causing him to drop a pick. He pauses and gathers his wits about him and tries again....
When the lock clicks open he packs the tools safely away.
The door springs open and you enter the captains Cabin. Immediately you spot a skeleton slumped on the floor, its bony hands clutching at a well-made, watertight darkwood coffer sitting in an opened secret compartment in a rotting desk. This coffer is locked, but time has not been kind to the mechanism. Davor is easily able to open () the box and you find a gold locket worse a few hundred gp at least, a dagger, a ledger and a journal.
Further Search shows the room to be empty.
Father Kerndrew flips open the ledger and journal, and while he doesn't just sit down and start reading thoroughly, he tries to get a quick sense of what each contain.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Ledger contains entries for various ships as well as their dates of departure, cargo and ports of destination. Also there are various names with recurring payments written next to it.
The Journal is the Ships Journal of the captain of the brine demon. Apparently he was very successful in bringing u Sargavian merchant vessels. Unfortunately on his last trip he sprung a trap set by the Sargavian navy and was driven to hide on the Shiv. Unfortunately the ship was driven into the cliffs by the wind and the crew mutineered.
"Yes!" The Father exclaims. "Definitely the Brine Demon; this is the Captain's journal. Hopefully we can find Jask's info in here to exonerate him."
You cannot find his name in the ledger, which should be a good thing.
Gregor smiles and claps Davor on the back...Well Done Davor!!!Well done indeed
Davor checks out the locket to see if it can be opened. "Since this was in the box I'm assuming it belonged to the Captain. Unless he stole it from a prisoner!"
Nope definitely not animated. And the dress is too rotted away to really be sure.
The locket contains a tiny, incredibly detailed portrait of a beautiful, red-haired half-elf woman, identified along the bottom edge of the portrait as “Aeshamara.”
Shalissa checks the papers with Kendrew while the others check the other documents and the locket "It seems Jask certainly had a point and he has nothing to do with the corruption at Sagrava. I was wrong to be suspicious of him... He is going to get very happy when we give him all this documents. We better keep them safe and dry"
When Davor brings the attention to the portrait of the red-haired half-elf woman Shalissa comes to check with curiosity too "Aeshamara you say? Was that not the name your friend of the beach was saying Davor?"
She kneels next to the fallen man next to the box "This must have been the Captain... he was desperately trying to reach the box when the death came to him..." Shalissa performs a small ritual drawing a spiral on the fallen body's head "Let the waves claim you and bring you peace, whatever you did with the Sargavan government none deserves the torment of being left here forgotten"
"Perhaps we shall thrown him into the sea, like a good sailor" seeing there is nothing else in the wreck to explore she adds "Seems we found everything we came for and more. Perhaps it is time to go back to the beach and think about start walking back to the base camp"
"Aeshamara is the name here... and the name from the spirit on the beach. What do you want to bet that she's also the woman that got our captain all mixed up. Some kind of siren, perhaps, drawing men to their doom on this island?"
Davor closes the locket and tucks it away in his belt pouch. "Let's find something to wrap the body, then we can commit him to the sea."
"It was the woman who was pushing him to drive his ship with all his men to doom on this island... He came up crazy out of love for the woman... Typical men stuff to say." Shalissa looks opposite to Kendrew and back to the picture "Most probably this crazy man was skulking her and making her life impossible. Whom else is able to come back from life and keep bothering everyone. Best thing it could happen to her was to free herself of that nightmare."
The elven woman nods to Davor "Yes let's do it"
Wrapping the dead body with whatever at hand, Shalissa helps to throw the body into the sea.
She then is happy to come back to the beach and walk the way back north.
Before the body is thrown in to the sea, Davor pauses. "May whatever god this man held to in his life take his soul as we give his body to the sea." Then he drops the body into the waves.
Gregor frowned. Wasnt the figure on the beach the wandering spirit of this Captain here? ....seems his love was much like our Captains for some strange woman. Captain Kovack and Leana right? ...wonder if theres connections since theres similarities? and who was the zombie in life before it was left in a state of undeath? The First Mate maybe?
You leave the ship discussing the mystery of Captain Kinkarian and this red haired elven women. Afterwards you decide to travel back north. Night catches you out on the beach shortly before you find yourself back at the Bloody Doll.
On the next Morning you travel onward to return back to your camp. In the late morning you reach another bay reaching inwards. When you come nearer you spot the remnants of a quickly rigged shelter and evidence of a small campfire well above the high-tide line on this narrow, sandy beach.
Before anyone can spoil any tracks. Gregor moves forward carefully looking for signs of who it was and what direction they went off to.
Gregor finds some discarded refuse, including both Captain Kovack’s tricorn hat and a few brightly colored scarves.
Looking for tracks you find signs that two persons moved south along the beach in the direction from which you came.
"Was Kovack the captain of the Janivere?" Shalissa asks while they travel back north "And this Leana... whom is she? Was she walking by? Perhaps that is the reason he moved the ship into the island... perhaps there is some kind of curse that make in-love captains crash their ships here looking for their lovers???"
-----------------
When a couple of days later they find the remnants of a small campfire Shalissa starts to look thoroughly for any left detail "This must be the the smoke column we spot a week ago"
The elf takes the brightly colored scarves "They are beautiful. Likely Varisian stuff, they love scarves. Did the captain love scarves?"
When Gregor finds the tracks going south she adds "Are they fresh? If they are not, we probably should continue with our plan and come back to the base camp"
"Now... if they just left..."
Gregor studies the impressions a bit more. Freshness. who might have made them. race, foot size.
The tracks are at least 3 days old and could be from humans but its a bit hard to tell after such a long time.
Ieana was very fond of her colored scarves.
Davor thinks about his time on the ship and conversations with the crew. He usually dealt with the First Mate, not the Captain.... "Leana liked colorful clothing, and scarves. The Captain.... Not so much, but he did seem to like Leana, I think."
"These were Leana's scarves?" Shalissa sniffs the clothes trying to get maybe some unknown clue out of their smell.
"So... it seems your Captain decided to crash the ship and kidnap this woman he liked. Or shall I say she was obsessed with..." Shalissa clicks with her tongue bothered by the thought "What else do you know about her? We have to save her from this crazy beast of a captain before it is too late"
Lets not forget, the Captin did not act abnormal until she boarded. Then he became obsessed with her. There's always the possibility she ensorcelled him.
Shalissa is examining the scarves even closer, but after 3 days in the rainy climate of the shiv they mostly smell of damp water.
after another half an hour looking for clues the party decides to continue on their treck alog the island coast. The oppressive heat of noon has almost started when you find the next unlucky vessel to strand on the cliffs of the shiv.
The Golden Bow is listing heavily portside sitting among the cliffs of the turf.
Shalissa buffs back at Gregor "That's it again... the woman that ensorcels the man. Such a fortunate way to justify his despicable actions..."
When the group comes by the looming presence of the Golden Bow, the elf looks back at it trying to find a safe way up to its deck "I fear I will need your help once more"
"To be fair, Shalissa, we're talking about a man whose behavior changed dramatically--and dangerously--once the woman appeared. So dramatically as to drive his own ship onto the shoals of this island." He shrugs. "I see your point--in general--but in this case, it's perfectly fair to suspect some kind of enchantment at play."
seeing yet another shipwreck...Gregor muses Does it seem strange there are all these shipwrecks right off the coast. Ive heard of places with storms that take a lot of ships down to the the depths, but not many that continuously drive ships into islands.For a second..what if there is a sinister power at play. A Siren like being that likes to go out into the world of man and lure ship Captains to crash their ships...and provide whatever foul intent. Maybe theres a race here that eats peopleand this is a source of food...or worse... he glances around. his paranoia mounting
"I see you just again prefer to bring suspicion to this woman. What did she do to deserve such treatment? Just because she happen to appear when the Captain started to behave like a beast? In that case, did I ensorcel Kenderella just because she decided to suicide herself by the time I appeared?" Shalissa negates with the head while totally shaking "I see with even more clearness the only guiltiness of this Leena is being a woman. And you are just redoubling now on that abominate sin by making her suspicious for her kidnapper deciding to show his true face"
She holds her stare but turns to Gregor when he makes his statements. It takes a bit of time for her, but finally the elven woman concedes "You might be right, this is too much of a coincidence... I wonder though how we can find out"
"In any case, we probably just should explore the shipwreck. We might find more hints, or at least some supplies" Shalissa proposes and casts guidance for anyone willing to climb.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
After carefull examination you find this vessel to be mostly empty. You find however a purse with a yellow gemstone and 30 SP.