Hopping into the water is fairly pleasant in the current heat, and Morgana submerges herself in order to get a good grip on the canoe. Just as she does so, there is a sudden commotion in the water by her feet and a gremlin-like creature with lobster claws for hands and an almost canine face with webbed ears attacks from underneath the dock, defending its home from the intruder.
Once per day, a fuath can surround a creature in a thin layer of magically viscous water as a standard action at a range of 30 feet. A target that fails a DC 10 Reflex save becomes entangled and must hold its breath or risk drowning. The target or an adjacent creature can spend a full-round action on its turn scraping off the clinging fluid, allowing a new Reflex save with a +2 bonus; otherwise, the effect lasts for 1d4 minutes.
"Morgana!" cries Shaumatiel. The elf's eyes go black for a moment as she reaches out to the natural world to call forth its wrath. The water around the gremlin briefly becomes superheated as she tries to cook it!
"Wait!" Vasia calls out to Melody and Jenica before turning and racing back to the dock. Reaching the scene, she stretches out her mind and one of the rocks in the sand rushes towards the underwater creature.
Jenica strides across the sand towards the dock as well.
Morgana reflexively jabs out with her spear as the creature coats her in sticky nastiness.
"What? Oh, fiddles and sticks" she turns and runs after Jenica, as fast as her little legs will carry her.
The Grindylow lashes about as it is scolded by the boiling water, before Morgana manages to skewer it on her spear, ending the creatures life as suddenly as it attacked.
Eventually pulling the canoe up from beneath the dock, a hole in the bottom hull is evident. The canoe’s construction is recent and it was likely built on this island from the materials and lack of wear and tear.
"Oh dear..." Morgana says, water running off her as she examines her prize. "Look. This was sunk deliberately. Someone bored a hole from inside the boat. Which means there's something on this island than someone didn't want to get off it again..."
She frowns. "Let's stick together."
"yes, sticking together..." Melody nods. "These... tentacle goblins? Could they have done it?"
"Not easily." Morgana replies, passing Melody her spear while she wrings out her dark hair. "The hole is neat, done with a tool of some sort. Driving a spear through the bottom like that could be done, but it'd make more of a mess. No, I'd bet on it being a colonist, or at least someone with access to their tools..."
She does not seem happy about this!
Melody bites her lip wondering why a colonist would have stranded themselves her. "We should... check the houses?"
Vasia nods with a frown. "This doesn't bode well for any surviving colonists," she says, more to herself than to the others. "We shouldn't spread out so much."
Jenica puts a reassuring hand on Melody's shoulder. "Stay close, My Lovely," she says. "Let's check the nearest house."
A well-worn path in the grass rises up a slope toward a cluster of buildings to the east. The buildings are arranged in a rough triangle, with each point ending in a wooden circular enclosure with rectangular notches cut intermittently, like battlements. These round enclosures are clearly meant to be three points of a wooden palisade fence, which would enclose this first group of buildings once completed. The palisade fence, however, is complete only along the southeastern side of the triangle and is obviously unfinished elsewhere.
The grass around the settlement looks like it was cropped at one point, and many paths exist between locations in the settlement, but in less well-trafficked spots, the grass has started to regrow. All the buildings are constructed of either rough timber or mud bricks set in a wooden frame, and have pitched thatch roofs. Many have open window frames, but only a few have actual shutters or even a canvas curtain for privacy. Doors are basic, wooden affairs, too simple for locks, and some buildings lack them entirely. The construction is new, quite rough and unfinished.
The first building you come across is actually not a house. This L-shaped building is constructed of mud bricks on a wooden frame. The western portion is of the structure is enclosed by four walls. This section has a single open window on the south side, with a canvas curtain hung across the opening. The single entrance is a wooden door, standing ever so slightly ajar, on the southern end of the eastern face of the building. A ten-foot extension connects to the building on the east side. This extension has only a northern wall and is otherwise just a roof sheltering the space below, which is open to the outside. Underneath this cover is a forge with an exhaust flue directly above it, a worktable covered in metal scraps, a small tub of black water, and a partially sheltered anvil.
The actual anvil and forge are outside the building, identifying it as the smithy under the shade of a roof extension. The outdoor worktable is covered with a few blacksmithing tools and pieces of metalwork, such as weapons, tools, or farming implements abandoned halfway through being forged or repaired. The water in the tub is filthy with soot, ash, and charcoal residue.
As Jenica moves quietly inside to check the rest of the building, Vasia looks over the forge. Running a finger through the visible ash, she frowns.
"This has been cold for about a week," she says. "So whatever happened it, couldn't have been too long ago."
Morgana nods but doesn't otherwise respond, her spear is up and her gaze is flitting all around, seemingly expecting an attack at any moment.
Melody barely pauses to look at the forge, instead sticking with Jenica as she moves toward the building. Something about moving out of the light into a darker building has her skin goosebumpiing but she grips her spear and quietly moves forward.
As Melody slowly opens the door, Jenica takes a first look into the darkness. A pungent animal smell wallops both Melody and Jenica as they stand in the doorway clearly indicating this place was used for something it was not planned for.
Jenica does not get a second to take a proper look at the place. As soon as she peers in, she is confronted by two small eyes staring back at her, clearly shocked at her spectral presence before it lets out a surprised alarm.
There is one goblin standing inside and two goblins stirring from their make shift beds. Theres no map for this one.
"Goblins!" Melody exclaims needlessly as she clenches her nose tightly. "Jenica, they are calling you another one. which is wrong, there is not another Jenica anywhere."
The phantom takes a step through the doorway and swings her spectral sabres at the diminutive figure.
Vasia does her best to contribute by flinging something best left unidentified at one of the other goblins.
"There certainly is no-one like Jenica!" Morgana agrees, striding into the darkened building.
In the darkness, your eyes find it difficult to adjust and only Jenica makes contact with one of the nuisances. Shaumatiel strides forward drawing her elven curve blade as she does so and slashes at the first goblin but also is not able to catch it, as it rolls out from under her blade.
The Goblins find their spears quickly, from beside them and jab back at their attackers, but in their haste, do not manage to achieve anything.
Goblin 1 -5
Goblin 2a
Goblin 2b
As her eyes adjust to the gloom Morgana impales a goblin clean through on her spear.
Melody gives a heartfelt agreement to Morgana's announcement. Stepping up behind the uniqueness that is Jenica, the little halfling tries to help out with the goblin she is fighting.
A semi-rotten piece of fruit is Vasia's next choice of ammunition, grasping it with her mind and sending it towards Jenica's opponent.
Jenica takes heart from Melody's support and continues to swing at her small opponent.
Morgana skewers a goblin, through its chest, its shriek loud enough for all to hear as Jenica takes down another with Melody's help. The third Goblin let's out an involuntary squeak of panic as he dashes for the window to make a bid for freedom.
Shaumatiel quickly lunges at the goblin with her blade, slashing at its back as it crumples to the floor. "We couldn't let it warn any others." She says as silence falls over the blacksmiths.
A few pieces of equipment of exceptional craftsmanship can be found among the mess the monkey goblins have created. Among them are two masterwork
machetes, a masterwork chain shirt, and a +1 darkwood buckler, which appears to have had a new arm strap affixed recently. You can also salvage 40 metal arrowheads from the debris that have yet to be crafted into arrows. The goblins each had a buckler (small), 3 daggers and a rough hewn spear.
Rummaging through the mess, its impossible to find any other clues as to the previous inhabitant of the smithy.
"You should wear the armor." Morgana says, offering it to Vasia. "We're all going to need more protection out here." She herself claims the shield, it's light enough that it won't get in her way and the idea of wearing that much metal makes her skin crawl for some reason.
She claps Shaumatiel on the shoulder in recognition of a fine blow and gives Melody a smile and a little wink. "You two are quite the team!" She says. "That goblin never knew what hit him!"
With nothing else to find here she points to the next large building (A6) and then leads the way.
Melody seems quite surprised that she managed to HELP in a battle. Her eyes wide and her grin unsure, but still happy no one got hurt. "These are odd goblins, aren't they? What do you think they meant by seeing someone else like Jenica?"
"I've no idea." Shaumatiel answers with a shrug. "Jenica is certainly unique, perhaps they have also seen another ghostly figure around here. Either way, we should remain cautious of the living or of the dead, as both are equally harmful."
This large building is durably built in a log cabin–style construction with a thatched pitched roof and three gables. Its several open windows are uncovered, and the sole entrance on the east side of the building is bereft of a door. A small porch covered by a gable shelters this door, though the porch has not been swept and dirt and dust have started to accumulate, while one end of the gable is starting to sag from neglect.
The interior of this building suggests a modest place of worship—not quite a temple but more than a mere shrine. A table near the center of the west wall appears to serve as an altar, draped in a white but dusty cloth. Behind the table, a large wood carving of a humanoid figure with a stag’s head leans against the wall. Two rows of benches face the altar, although some have been knocked over and two piles of ashes are visible in the aisle between them. Scattered haphazardly throughout the room are assorted objects related to public worship, such as a chalice and a ceremonial rod. An ornately carved longbow hangs on the wall near the altar, as if on display.
Against the north wall is a smaller shrine. Nearby is a wooden statue roughly three feet tall that depicts a male half-human and half-avian creature. One carved wing hangs partially broken from the statue.
10 - The carving behind the altar represents Erastil.
15 - The smaller shrine is the agathion patron of Andoran, Talmandor.
Startlingly, as Shaumatiel takes a couple of more steps into the building, a ghostly, skeletal figure rises up amid a whirling cyclone of debris, coins and religious artefacts appears with a loud ear-splitting wail.
"These are odd goblins, aren't they? What do you think they meant by seeing someone else like Jenica?"
"Perhaps the island suffers a plague of beautiful women," Jenica says with a wink at the halfling.
~~~~~
Her blades appearing in her hands, Jenica steps forward to confront the spectre. "So this is what they meant," Jenica she says, striking with a phantom blade.
"You should wear the armor." Morgana says, offering it to Vasia. "We're all going to need more protection out here."
"You've got to be kidding," is Vasia's initial response when Morgana holds out the shirt of rings to her. With a shake of her head she puts her arms through it and tries to get it settled on her shoulders.
"I'm only doing this for you, you know," she says when she's finally adjusted it over her top.
~~~~~~
Her first instinct at the appearance of the undead is to blanket them with a pulse of positive energy. But it seems that due to too much time spent idle in the city as well as on the ship means that she's too long out of practice. So she falls back to basics, flinging a piece of debris at the figure.
"I'm only doing this for you, you know," she says when she's finally adjusted it over her top.
"I'm holy enough for the both of us." Morgana replies, kissing her girlfriend (although that word seems so inadequate now) on the cheek. "Thank you."
--------------------------------
Her blades appearing in her hands, Jenica steps forward to confront the spectre. "So this is what they meant," Jenica she says, striking with a phantom blade.
"Yeah..." Morgana says, trying to stay calm. "I don't think there's much I can do to that thing..."
The ghostly figure flings a silver chalice from the side of the room towards Vasia but it clatters at her feet. Jenica's blades slice through the phantom, as it flickers ever so slightly.
-2
"Vasia? Can Jenica hurt it when she's not solid?" Morgana asks, stepping between Vasia and the spirit with her new shield held high. "I don't know what else we can do! Shaumatiel, can you hurt it?"
Shaumatiel nods and focuses upon the creature causing flames leap up around it, licking the creature's sides, but it barely notices.
"The goblins are blind" Melody says simply but with a bit of a huff, at the very notion that Jenica could be referred to as another THAT.
"I'm hoping she can hurt it now," Vasia replies as she concentrates on seizing another piece of debris and sending in the manifestation's direction.
"You think to hide from your fate by concealing yourself in other dimensions?" Jenica declares with a laugh as she swings her weapons wildly.
Jenica's first strike manages to make the poltergeist flicker yet again.
"You'll pay for what you've done!" It wails, before lobbing the statue of Talmandor at Jenica but misses in its frenzied state.
Shaumatiel continues to concentrate on the flames, as they grow taller and taller.
"If your intent is to punish me for my sins then get in line!" Jenica snaps back before slashing again at the undead.
"What we've done?" Melody asks, then repeats the question is magical screaming.
Morgana remains in her protective position in front of Vasia and watches as her companions rend the spirit apart.
The poltergeist raises its hands to its ears as Jenica slashes at its torso and it flickers once. Then twice. Before completely vanishing before you.
Its clear you were not the first people to have a tussle in this chapel, with the furniture having been thrown around and many haphazard chalices, holy texts and other religious paraphernalia scattered around.
There is a lingering smell of rotten flesh pervading the chapel - it is much stronger in the area around the altar.
Against the north wall is a smaller shrine. Nearby is a wooden statue roughly three feet tall that depicts a male half-human and half-avian creature. One carved wing hangs partially broken from the statue.
Finally getting a chance to look about the chapel, Vasia gestures towards the carving behind the shrine. "It's to Erastil," she says. "But what horrors happened here to produce something so ... broken?"
Her nose wrinkles in distaste. "There's old blood on the floor, but ... something ... isn't right." She moves closer to the alter seeking the source of the stench. As she approaches, she calms her breathing and reaches out with her feelings.
Morgana has been finding a lot of her sense heightened every since the Beast. This is one of the numerous times that's been less than pleasant. She follows Vasia cautiously, trying to hold her nose as she gently pokes at the altar with her spear, trying to track down the source.
Vasia feels an intense rush of negative emotion as she reaches out. There is something emanating from the altar.
Pulling of the dusty white cloth, reveals that tha altar is not so much as a table as a chest with religious carvings on the front face. Searching it carefully, you find a secret sliding panel that opens it and upon peering within you find the source of the stench. A rotting dead body that bears resemblance to the poltergeist you just destroyed.
After a sudden intake of breath when the body is revealed, Vasia calms herself. "Someone stabbed him to death. But who and why is the question. He needs to be laid to rest properly. But perhaps we should investigate further before we spend that effort."
Morgana nods and tries not to leave the chapel too quickly.
Outside she gags repeatedly, looking rather wretched.
"I never realised how bad bodies smelled!" She says mournfully. "Let's go somewhere else!"
Unless anyone objects she skirts the chapel and heads for the long building by the palisade wall.