Zalona pauses on the stairs to cast Light on a copper piece and starts to throw it towards the clicking and squeaking sounds, but when she sees the tattooed hand clutching a dagger she stops, and instead uses it to shed illumination on that instead, trying to tell if it is just a body, or someone alive crouching there in wait. Surely that was just her imagination, wasn't it?
The tattooed hand clutching a dagger is on the floor, as if someone is laying down holding a dagger.
Zalona goes closer, still trying to stay out of arm's reach, bending over and trying to see if there is the rest of a body down there.
"Don't touch the body, Zalona...It could be diseased..." she hints with a voice of concern. Obviously, the statement is rhetorical and more said to volunteer her own concerns.
She will look at the dagger from afar, trying to gauge its worth.
Once she is done lowering the anchor Aris tryss to catch up with those who made their way below.
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With nempura’s call ‘Is anyone alive down here?! HELLOOO?’ there is no response besides the squeaking, clawing, and gnawing sounds of tiny feat and teeth. Zalona’s Light on the copper piece reveals rats and mice that have taken over the Hold. Thankfully, nothing like the swarm of them coming from the cabin upstairs.
Zalona going closer to the tattooed hand gets a flinching response of the arm moving as a board creaks under her weight. Once able to round the stairs reveals a severed arm at the forearm that is clenching the dagger. The movement of the arm was caused by a hissing rat that has been gnawing at the fleshy meat of the exposed muscle.
The dagger is very finely crafted, but even the craftsmanship of the dagger doesn’t stand out as much about it once you realize that it looks to be made of silver.
"If this arm is still here, they couldn't have died too long ago. He probably was the last alive, given how many rats there are on this boat. Unless there was a lot of food for them to get into first...Anyways...grim news aside, that dagger is a mastercrafted silver dagger. A great weapon and worth a significant amount. About three-hundred crowns, retail."
Arn stands guard as the other search the area. When they travel below the chittering and sight of the rodents gnawing on flesh made is stomach turn. "I'd say poor bastards but it be startin' ta hav' a diminished effect."
Zalona jumps when the severed arm moves, but then lets out a sigh of relief that it was just rats. After Nampura explains that the dagger is worth quite a bit, Zalona goes and tries to recover it.
Zalona moves to recover the dagger from the severed arm. As she approaches, the rat that is filling its belly from the flesh of the arm hisses at her before it runs away. Zalona gives the dagger a pull but is met with slight resistance from deaths grip. She recovers the dagger.
She doesn't want to be the know-it-all busybody, but she does like to let her preferences be known. In a whispering voice, she will state, "I will watch the long-range here toward the stairs if you want to check that door on the left." She will then move to the right side of the hallway so as to not be obstructed in her sight of the long hall and also so that she could potentially shoot into the room that will potentially be open soon.
She observes the door for any potential traps from what little experience she has.
"I think I see a trap on it...no wait, that's a shadow. No, wait...," she seems unsure.
Zalona shrugs and motions everyone to stand well back. She casts Open on the door to the left from a distance in order to avoid the potential trap that Nempura may have seen.
Zalona motions for the party to move well away from the left door and begins saying an arcane incantation while focusing on a brass key. Once the spell is cast, the door creaks open slowly, but then the door swings open once it is past the tipping point due to the pitch of the ship hung upon the rocks. The slam of the door hitting the wall causes everyone to jump just a bit. Nempura almost loosening an arrow, but still keeping her composure.
Looking within this room….
You see a partitioned cabin that holds four berths. The place is a mess with bedding, clothes, and other small trinkets covering the floor. The door you just came through bangs gently against the wall as waves hit the Sea Sprite.
You start to notice the clothes and bedding are soaked with a dark liquid, and quickly realize it is blood. You see the closest beds to you hold two dead bodies, killed as if in their sleep. Third “room” holds a fallen body that has four parallel slashes cross its back laying upon a pool of blood. The fourth, most southern section has a sight that is even more gruesome. You see a body pinned to the wall via a harpoon thrusted through the chest of this man slumped and pinned to the wall, lifelessly off of the floor.
Turning away from the horror of this sight, you also notice a door at both ends of this room.
Zalona goes into the cabin, casting Detect Magic and searching through the small trinkets and then the bodies to see what else there might be of value.
After searching, she casts Prestidigitation to clean off any items she sets aside, and well as cleaning any blood off of herself as well. Not something she really wants to carry with her.
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Aris examines the door closest to the bow of the ship. Opening it when the group is done searching.
Nempura tries to stay focused on the hallway rather than think of the severed arm that the dagger was pried from, but as the door opens to the crimson pools and bodies, she keeps her composure on the outside, losing the arrow, but inside, she really struggles.
"This was more than a disease"...I think they killed each other...creepy" This is just from her initial view. As they explore the various subsections of the room, she has to avert her eyes from the various scenes, in particular, the man with the harpoon.
Bravely, she will watch over Zalona as she goes to pull the trident from the impaled torso of the man and let him finally fall to the floor to rest. She then will throw up a little at the sight of him...spilling out...and will look to her companions as they bravely search forward unfazed on the outside.
"Would you say some words over these bodies too?" she asks Helgar.
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Helgar nodded, numbly. She had heard stories of miners who, trapped underground, had turned on each other. Such stories usually revolved around the ghosts that they turned into.
Luckily, for her, she was a trained cleric, and having duties to go about steeled her. She went from body to body, checking each one for clues as to whom they worshiped, and then saying a prayer over their body. This doubled as learning about what had killed each man, and removing anything that was useful from the body, as each one was respectfully prepared for a burial at sea.
”Hurry up,” Aris urges as she fidgets by the door. ”This be unnatural and no good will come of messing with these corpses.”
Thankful for the reassuring presence of Nempura and Helgar, Zalona finishes the grisly task, trying not to let her hands shake. This ship was creepy in the extreme. She wondered what had happened to all of these people. Had some strange cursed item really caused all of this... and would she recognize it if she saw it? What if she picked something up and it cursed her too?
Cleaning off the blood made her feel somewhat better, and the prayers even more so. Perhaps they could at least make sure these people's souls found peace.
"Let's check this door back here before pressing forward."
She will indicate the door behind them, back toward the direction of the stairwell. Once the others mess with the doorway, she will ready her hand by her arrow once more.
Zalona moves into the room casting and maintaining Detect Magic as she searches through the room. As she skims through the items she doesn’t find anything magical but in the trashed room and shredded bedding you do find a few possibly useful items.
Watertight Scroll Case
Turquoise Lizard Carving
Small Pocket Mirror
Glass Vial with a familiar symbol on it marking it as Alchemist’s Fire
Zalona moves forward to pull the trident free from the impaled torso of the man. Giving it a few jerks, on the third one it loosens but she slips on the blood slick floor and falls as the weight of the dead man lands on her. At this, Nempura loses any breakfast that might still be in her stomach.
Helgar begins examining the bodies
The first two bodies look as if they had their throats slit in the middle of the night and bleed out with no struggle. The last one was also done with a weapon, but the throw of the harpoon was from afar with great strength that forced the man to be lifted from his feet. Or… it was done at close range and he was lifted before he was impaled.
The third bunk room, is something completely different. This one has the four parallel slashes across its back, almost as if done from claws. You begin examining it a bit closer and you begin to see some necrosis of the skin around the slash marks, and using a tool to spread the slashes, you also notice that the necrosis is deep within the slashes. You are unsure of what could cause this so quickly, but you believe it is something unnatural.
When Zalona slips and the body lands on her, she can't help but scream...
Get off, get it off!
... squirming around and getting covered with blood before she is able to get out from under it and calm down.
Once free she spends several minutes trying to get her hyperventilation under control, after which she cleans herself thoroughly and almost obsessively with Prestidigitation, then cleans the items as well as she retrieves them again from where she dropped them.
She considers leaving the harpoon/trident behind after all of that, but ends up cleaning it and picking it up after all, feeling embarrassed at her overreaction, and trying to look like nothing is wrong as they move on.
Nempura grits her teeth as her companions sort through the bodies. "No one said it was glamorous being an adventurer," she whispers and groans as various...soggy parts in their search, as if empathetically in their place. Her tone is a sad attempt at joking to lighten the mood.
She will take note of the various things they find, but when the little carving comes out, she comments, "Aww, that lizard is cute. I wonder if this poor guy had kids?" "It might be too much to ask their employer to give us contact for her employees."
With the action and sound of the polearm being ripped from his body and it ultimately falling on Zalona, any hint of joking or lightening the mood is long gone. After losing her breakfast on the rotting wooden wall near her, she isn't sure if she's feeling more dizzy from what just happened or by the boat slightly rocking with the sloshing sound and smell of bloody water in the air. The bard will quickly move to offer a hand up, but its clear that she's not the strongest arm of support at the moment. Any aid is better than none when a cold, wet lifeless body is laying on you.
"Don't touch me..." she involuntarily says, almost as a grossed out reaction to Zalona helping her up. "Not until you take a dip in some sea water."
As Aris and Arn move to open the door, the bard clears her throat of any lingering nastiness so she can properly cast if needed and is glad to move on.
As Zalona is cleaning herself and collecting anything of worth, Helgar is continuing her examination of the dead.
Aris begins to examine the door closest to the bow of the ship. She finds this door unlocked and easily opens. Looking in from the doorway, thanks to her Darkvision, Aris sees several open sea chests and sacks split open cluttering this small, cramped cabin. Deep shelving set along one wall holds various odds and ends useful aboard the ship. This is the first room that looks as if it has been pillaged.
Once finished with the rites, Helgar walked over to Zalona and raised her hands, filling them with water. "Here, let's wash you off." She said, kindly. Then, seeing that the bard had it covered with her own magic, said "We're going to be fine, aye? Ship's empty, except for rats. And we can handle those."
Thanks Helgar. ... Yeah, it's just kind of creepy. I wish we knew what caused all of this. Makes me nervous, thinking that we could pick up a cursed item and get caught in the same curse somehow.
”It be looking like someone …. or something has been through this room already,” the dwarf says as her voice rises an octave betraying her nervousness. She quickly makes her way into the room to search the chests making sure nothing was left behind.
Nempura smiles enthusiastically to the encouragement of Helgar with a resounding "mhm!" to her words.
As Aris opens the door, she leans to the left and right, trying to get a peek of what's ahead.
"I hate cramped quarters..." she thinks to herself and then listens when the rogue voices what she sees. "Why this room?" she tilts her head at the room as Aris heads inside. Occasionally, she will look behind her and will stomp her foot to scare away a more brave or curious rat away again.
"Curses are just nonsense. Bedtime stories to scare kids. I've heard tales from many people involving 'curses'. Most all of them are common magics misunderstood or events going on in the world unexplained. This could have been an item that caused a disease that aggravated the people on board for carrying it. That probably then caused a mutiny because sailors can be a fickle superstitious lot and don't do well when things don't go their way." She pauses and then says, "Sorry to any here who are sailors. I think one half was put down by the other half. The last survivor, diseased and unable to handle the ship himself, tied himself to the wheel knowing his ultimate demise." She scoffs. "I've yet to see anything that tells me curses could be responsible here. In magic, curses have a direct purpose, do they not? Not mystic hoop-a-loo."
She doesn't even know why she says this except to ramble and perhaps take some of the fear off the edge of her heart. As she speaks, she will move forward and scan the room herself closer to see if she sees anything of note such as traps or secret doors.
Looking through the mess of this cramped room you do find a few items worth noting.
The first item you find is a fine white silk scarf that is hand embroidered with delicate blue and red flowers decorating the edges that flow into a small garden of the flowers in the center. Roughly a 3 ½ ft square.
The second item you find is a small leather pouch holding 15 gold crowns. The thing that stands out and you might find interesting is that they are all different. Different markings, sizes and even different languages used on the coins.
The third item you find is soft bound leather journal that is tied shut by a leather string attached to the back of the journal. Opening the journal up, you find beautiful intricate pencil drawings of strange and exotic animals and birds. They even have been colored to show the wide array of colors that these creatures have to display.
The final item is unique and foreign to this land, but those who have knowledge of animals would know what it is. There is a two-foot-long piece of white material that has a slight curve to it. It reminds you of what could be a tusk. It has a carving of a great sea snake decorating the item.
This is scrimshaw, carving on ivory or bone from an animal typically of whales or walrus tusk when found at sea.
Nothing else in this room has much worth.
Zalona casts Detect Magic before picking up the items, trying to avoid a cursed item.
If something seems magical, she will investigate it further,
but if not, she just examines the items.
--She finds the scarf charming and is amazed that it still seems white after being in this mess.
--The different kinds of coins are fascinating in how different they are, but that they are worth the same.
--The journal seems filled with beautiful things, and Zalona appreciates the colors of several species that she hasn't seen before.
--The carving of a sea-snake is cool and smooth, and Zalona wonders where it comes from.
(fail)
At Zalona's ponderings over the items, she will add her ideas to the group's.
"This scarf looks feminine to me." She will display it by wrapping it around her a moment to show just how feminine it could be before her eyes catch the bloody mess again and she stops. She will fold it up nicely and hand it to the next person to see. "Hardly what a scrubby sailor would wear. These coins remind me of a collection. One coin from each port. And this journal, a log of each unique animal the artist had seen. Finally, this carving of a seasnake is made out of ivory or whale. Likely found very far from here. The maker of this was a scrimshander. This is called a scrimshaw. These each speak of mementos. A cupboard of mementos for the crew."
Whatever the others don't take, she'll add to the pile of things they'll take off ship. She could easily share a love for the odd things found in the world, as well as the rare. Even the coins she will gladly linger over and observe each port they came from and which language it is.
Looking over the items, and a general scan of this cramped room, Zalona does not find anything magical among the belongings. You are unsure of the value of the items, but you can tell from the rarity and craftsman ship of them that they could fetch a coin or two.
As Nempura looks over the various gold crowns she begins to connect the coins to the locations that were marked on the sea charts, and they are in their local common tongue. Nempura would believe that she could do a better job recreating the sea chart layout with the addition of these coins.
There is a sudden crack of lightning followed by a gust of wind that causes the ship to lurch side to side. With a loud bang, the door you all came through slams shut. The group of you stumble in these two rooms, falling or catching yourself on the wall, you all are no worse for wear and brush off the dust.
Somewhere else within this ship you hear banging and what sounds like cracking of wood.
"FOOK the ocean!" Helgar blurted out as she stumbled, her facing flushing red after the outburst. "Let's get enough evidence to have the job be done and then let's go, aye?" She said, moving to reopen the shut door. It made her feel uncomfortable, as if though they were trapped.
It's okay Helgar. Just a little longer.
Zalona moves on to the next closest place they haven't explored.
"Woop Woowoo hoo hoooOOO humphf" she melodiously calls out various points as she is thrust about, some of these sounds eke out as she's flailing in balance and/or crashing into the bodies of her teammates. Each valiant effort and sound produced is her vain attempt at giving extra effort to keep away from the unpleasantness in the room. Despite this great trial, her boot ends up splashing into the bloody water and all she can think is, "Ewwww!"
Fortunately for her, she keeps hold of the trinkets she had and now rights herself.
"My dearies," the young bard speaks up, "I would have to agree with Helgar. I think this ship has lost some of its ballast. We could be in for quite a ride if this storm rises more. I'd wager there's a hole in the bottom of the belly of this beast, cracked open on those rocks outside. Or we are hitting some large waves now. This might be a repeated event!"
She makes movement toward the door, and attempts her best to help Helgar swing open this other pathway. With their gear in tow and secured with them, she will once again try to stabilize herself enough to make a shot with her bow, should any threat present itself.
Moving down towards the stern of the ship you reach for the handle, unlocked. With a turn of the handle the door freely opens inward to the room (11). With the pitch of the ship on the rocks the door pulls free from you hand and sways open.
The door pulling free might startle you at first, but something else quickly steals your attention. The overwhelming aroma of death pours from this room and fills your nose. So pungent of a smell that you can taste the rot.
Looking into this dark room from the doorway you see dozens of hammocks that hang from the ceiling. Sea chests stand about the room. A huge pile of clothes and blankets are heaped against the stern wall of the ship.
You also see dozens of bodies carelessly lying about the floor. Flies swarm about the bodies of this room.
"Eugh." Helgar said, covering her face.
She stepped forward to say rites over the dead, but couldn't stop from gagging. The dwarf retreated from the room, her eyes watering from the smell.
When the smell hits her, Zalona bends over, dry retching for a moment, trying to get control of her gag reflex. Then she takes a kerchief out and ties it over her nose and mouth, trying to deaden the smell.
She casts Open from the doorway as many times as necessary to open any sea chests she sees, then casts Detect Magic, bracing herself, and takes a quick trip into the room, not planning on staying long, but trying to spot anything they might need, and then comes out again to breathe the comparatively fresh air.
Depending on what she finds, she will then take other short trips into the room to retrieve items or even to tie her rope to a chest if they need to haul the whole thing out. She tries not to stay in there very long at a time, but she tries to be thorough, looking through the pile of clothing and blankets as well.
If any of the blankets are clean, she will retrieve one, tear it into strips, and offer anyone else who wants one a mask to go around their face to deaden the smell as well. She hopes that might allow Helgar to give the bodies their last rites, but otherwise tries not to think about the poor people's grisly fate, attempting to focus on the job before them and get it done as quickly as possible.
While others experience the disgusting smell of the room, if the aroma of the room is so pungent that one could taste the rot, Nempura takes a big bite. Immediately she begins dry-heaving with her whole body, but this time far more silently due to having emptied her stomach earlier.
"This sucks..." "What the hells..." she comments with a shiver in between dry heaves. Zalona enters the fly-infested room and Nempura is actually impressed by the elf's determination to find loot. Even the hedonistic Nempura doesn't wish to go digging in there.
Upon being offered a blanket that was slept on by potentially rotten diseased sailors before the ship thrust them into their current positions, she shakes her head "No" to Zalona.
"I'm just going to close this door. There is one over on the other side of this wall in the hallway where that guy with the dagger was. I'll meet you there when you're ready to come out."
She obviously doesn't know about the door on the far side of the ship. The bard now looks to Arn and any others who wish to join her over there while Helgar and Zalona deal with the loot of the room. If agreed, she will close the door and try to run up on deck at the top of the stairs briefly for some fresh air.
Arn's stomach had been turning for quite some time abroad this death ship. The stench of death and rot had moved from his nose and taken up residency in his mouth resulting in involuntary twitching from time to time.
Responding to Nempure, Zalona says
You don't mean shutting me in here to deal with this all at once without any fresh air, do you? Feel free to walk away farther, but I need to do this a little at a time or I won't be able to cope. I need the door open.
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"Alright! I don't blame you, dearest!" she responds in a quirky manner as the limber bard literally runs away from the door now left open.
Zalona nods thanks, rests her hands on her knees again, trying to get her breath back and stop shaking from the smell and from the horror of it all. After a few minutes pulling herself together, she casts prestidigitation to clean herself and everything she has recovered so far off, and then goes in again, continuing the process.
Zalona covers her mouth and begins to go into the Crew’s Quarters. Taking a second look, she notices that all the chest currently sits open. The use of Detect Magic does not produce anything fruitful.
Heading in, she finds that the open chest sit empty around the room. You think that maybe the clothes and blankets against the stern wall might have been stored in these sea chests.
The putrid bodies you pass are emaciated and, from what you can tell, their skin across their body has darkened beyond what sailor would gain out at sea.
Walking back empty handed, Zalona feels something cold and clammy brush her calf. Looking down, one of the bodies is struggling to reach her as it crawls towards her. It lets out a horse, wordless groan as it struggles. Her eyes catch a few other movements coming from the other bodies within this room.
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Zalona screams, surprised and freaked out.
Undead! They're undead!
Then she takes out her morningstar and starts hitting the one that touched her over and over again, the poor, helpless victims she had been mourning a moment earlier suddenly are transformed into a source of evil incarnate in her mind, and she reacts to her fear with violence, trying to smash them to pulp.
With a sickening thunk, a single blow halts the movement of the person now laying lifeless on the floor. With the continual hitting of the Morningstar, those looking in from the door way see Zalona standing over a grim site. Blood and mangled flesh hang from the Morningstar, falling onto the pulp of a corpse below.
The remaining movement within the room stops, but dry whimpering cries come from two of the other bodies within.
Zalona stops, realizing that the creature isn't moving anymore, and that... she might be wrong, which makes her sick.
She backs into the hall and vomits messily, sinking to a sitting position against the wall. She cleans the vomit and her weapon with prestidigitation, but otherwise just sits, staring at nothing.
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Hearing a cry of undead, Helgar sprung into action, her disgust fading at the prospect of imminent danger. Hammer in hand she strode into the room, looking around wildly. Hearing whimpering, she slowly lowered her weapon and she walked forward towards the source.
Arn moves forward at the cry, he had never encountered the undead, he had heard stories but never dealt with one up close. Standing next to Helgar, Arn does not lower his weapon or shield while Helgar examines the bodies.
Rushing into the room, Helgar springs into action. Brushing past Zalona who is heading to the hall, Helgar quickly follows one of the whimpering sounds. With a quick once-over, she discovers that this woman is alive. Barely. Unsure of what the problem is, you do know that with the faint pulse and breathing, and from what you could only assume lack of food and water, this she is not long for this world. Her eyes lock onto yours and you can see the pain and fear within them. Eyes that wish they could speak.
Arn approaches as Helgar is finishing up the examination. He also sees the pain and fear within the woman's eyes. He hears another whimper not to far from where this woman lays. Looking over, he sees a man in a similar state. Emaciate, faintly whimpering and crying, and a skin that is darkening more than a tan would give.
Zalona walks into the hall way where the rest of the party is and vomits messily, sits and cleans herself before staring into nothingness.