Dolgrin agrees with the plan to sleep in the priest's house, and even offers to take first shift.
"I can stay up a little longer, and cover the first shift so those of you who need it can focus. We have a long trip in front of us tomorrow, so everyone should be sure to get enough rest."
Grateful to Dolgrin for his generous offer to take the first shift, Ankha sleeps soundly, tired from the eventful day, until she in turn is woken for her own shift. During her watch, Ankha quietly busies herself with brewing a new mutagen with her portable alchemist's lab, and scribbling ideas for new extracts, ideas gleaned from Hendrake’s spellbook. By the time her watch is over, her fingers are stained with ink and the floor is scorched and corroded by her experiments.
Luckily for the party, nothing seems to mess with them or attack during the night. The next morning starts with a bright sun and a beautiful blue sky.
Awakening early, Ku'Hania heads to the shore for a quick early morning swim, stripping down and swimming out just deep enough to be submerged, her connection to the water invigorating and re-energizing her as she communes with Haplo and the ocean itself, recharging her magic, and engulfing herself in the ever-flowing source of life.
Returning to the large house, she gathers her gear and weapons, joining her companions in readying to continue their exploration.
Rousing herself with outstretched arms and a bleary yawn, Ankha quickly perks up when she notices the weather. “Ooh, what a beautiful day!” After snacking on a breakfast of yesterday’s plums, she scrounges some more food for the day from the gardens and the plum tree. “How long do you think it’ll take us to meet up with Ramona? We’re okay dealing with the ankheg mother later, when we have the rest of the crew to help us, right?”
"I agree, we should meet the others before dealing with the ankheg problem." Ku'Hania replies.
Ankha nods as they head out towards the secondary landing site. “If I remember correctly, we just need to keep heading north and we’ll eventually find them.”
Braxton shakes his holy symbol of Cayden Cailean, the splashing sound within revealing a large amount of air where liquor used to be. "Indeed, we are dangerously low on certain supplies." Braxton says with a mischievous smirk. His mood is not as jolly as it seems, however. A night of sleep to ruminate on their bizarre findings did not bring to light any more answers than he went to bed with. Informing their expedition leader of the troubles so that they may get more hands and eyes working on the problem of the vanished budding colony is of the utmost importance.
From your knowledge of the island and what maps you did have on the boat before disembarking, you guess that the secondary landing area is only somewhere around 10 miles northwest from the colony. The vegetation and salt marshes will most likely make the journey longer than if it was a straight journey however.
The trip starts easy enough on the open beach before the trail to the northeast heads into the jungle around a fourth of the way there. You've only gone a few minutes into the treeline before you notice a lot of tracks in the mud underneath the trees. Ku'Hania and Ankha are quick to identify them as the tracks of boars, and recent ones at that.
Within a few moments the boars emerge from the underbrush ahead of you, 2 large aggressive specimens that have clearly seen you and are interested.
Sleeping soundly after his watch, Dolgrin was eager to report their findings to the expedition's leader and theorize with the other experts of the expedition as to what might have occurred here given the evidence.
As Kuhania and Ankha display their exceptional tracking skills, identifying the nearby presence of wild boar, he hefts his spear, a likely better weapon to deal with a charging boar than his new sword. Soon enough two especially large specimens appear, eager to make their presence felt.
"Well, at least we'll be able to welcome the expedition with a roast tonight no?" he half-jokes, striding forward with spear lowered at the oncoming beast.
Looking up at the sudden appearance of the boars, Ku'Hania moves forward uttering a spell as her outstretched hand sends a powerful blast of water crashing toward the boar on her right.
The two boars don't seem to be that intelligent, as they charge head first into the two people up front.
Braxton strides up behind Dolgrin and jabs at one of the boars, but his blades' tip skips off the animals thick hide!
“I do like roast pork,” Ankha replies to Dolgrin with merry earnestness. “Just be careful with their tusks,” she advises when one spills dwarven blood. “They’re sharper than they look, and they can pack a wallop with how strong boars are.”
For her part, the alchemist tries to skirt around the fray, hustling through the edge of the underbrush and keeping her distance to maximize the efficiency of her polearm. She is partway around the one next to Ku’Hania before she unleashes a swing at the beast’s side. Unfortunately, it appears that the young woman can't run and attack at the same time, as her blade sails a good foot above her intended target.
The hungry boars repeat their attacks, attempting to take down their prey.
Letting out a cry of pain as the boar gores her leg, Ku'Hania brings her spear down on the creature's back.
Dolgrin jumps aside as the boar comes charging in, trying to strike it as it passes.
“Hang in there Ku’Hania!” Ankha cries out, visibly worried by the half-elf’s injury. “Keep its attention for just a little bit longer, and I’ll attack it from behind!” The alchemist swiftly circles around the boar until she is in its blind spot, then slashes her polearm downward in a heavy overhand chop that's aimed at severing its spine.
"Ugh! I am not versed in the ways of slaying hoofed beings. Bring me something with fins and I'll cut it down in a jiffy."
Ankha and Ku'Hania join together to slay the one that gored the shaman, and Braxton hits the second one for a hefty amount that seems to break its will to fight for food alongside the death of its partner in the hunt,
It breaks away from the fight and attempts to flee into the forest.
As the second boar turns tail, Ku'Hania plunges her spear into it's back to take it out.
Similarly, Dolgrin stabs at the boar as it flees.
“Well done everyone. Looks like we’ll have plenty of fresh meat to offer the rest of the crew. Dolgrin, Ku’Hania—are you sure you’re both okay?” Ankha asks with a note of concern as she eyes their wounds, then turns her attention to the dead boar at her feet. With her dagger she quickly butchers the animal with a sequence of anatomically precise cuts, extracting just the easiest and choicest parts, and leaving the rest for the carrion feeders.
“Hopefully you don’t mind eating hoofed beings Braxton. We should move on quickly—it won’t be long before the carcass attracts
predators.”
Ku'Hania manages to bring the second boar down with her spear, getting her revenge.
Ku'Hania cleans the blood off her spear with a touch of satisfaction, as Ankha carves up both boars.
"Nicely done! It'll be quite the welcome meal this evening." Dolgrin says with a chuckle.
"It's only a minor wound, fortunately. we should get moving."
Ankha nods at the dwarf, relieved that the injury isn’t serious. Packing up the fresh meat, she shoulders her pack and sets off for the rendezvous point. “Let’s go then. We can treat your wound properly after we meet up with the rest of the crew.”
With a nod, Ku'Hania joins the others in heading toward the rendezvous point.
Past the clearing with the board in it, the small path (that is closer to a game trail, really) continues north west towards the coast. Another hour or two of walking is mostly uneventful, beyond the occasional encounter with local smaller wildlife.
The group notices, however, that something is off with a patch of terrain you find in a break between the seemingly unending jungle trees. An unusual swath of land lies ahead, and you can immediately see it has been disturbed. A section of ground about ten feet across crossing the trail looks as if it is grooved, covered with minute depressions and trampled grass. A first glance suggests a path created by hundreds of thousands marching in a light formation, but none of the plants appear to be eaten or damaged. Where the grooved paths intersect with obstacles, it either splits and goes around the obstacle entirely like water, or veers to avoid it entirely.
Strange.
“Ooh, how curious!” Ankha points out the unusual patch of ground. “I wonder what happened here?” Though she doesn’t step on the grooved terrain, she does edge closer to examine it more carefully.
"Definitely an of set of tracks! Look how they split around the obstacles in the distance." Dolgrin points out, studying the unusual markings on the ground.
The two investigators uncover some peculiar details about the trail, starting with the fact that it’s not perfectly uniform in width, but maintains about a 10 foot width across the entire thing. Closer examination reveals tiny pointed impressions, like the trail was formed from thousands of stabs from small spikes. These in combination with other details proves that whatever caused this was hundreds of creatures or objects rolling across the ground, each heavy enough to leave a slight impression but not so heavy as to flatten the ground.
Whatever it was that did this, it is obvious that it’s not around anymore.
"Definitely something to be wary of." Ku'Hania says, studying the bizarre prints.
Ankha nods. “Who knows what strange creatures live on this island? I’ve never seen any tracks like this in my life. It looks like there was a swarm of centipedes wearing high heels.”
She gives a little shrug. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now. Maybe we’ll come across it later, but for now we should keep on moving. We want to be sure to make it to the rendezvous point before dark.” So saying, she continues onward.
After a few more hours of thankfully eventful walking through the rapidly heating jungle, you finally reach the landing spot. The island shore arcs to the northwest until it hooks sharply south like a bird’s beak to form a small cape. Anchored just offshore is the Peregrine, and pulled on shore above the waves is a ship’s boat, evidence of a landing party.
It doesn’t take long to find Ramona, accompanied by a few sailors and colonial soldiers, speaking urgently and quietly with a silver-haired half-elf man. Ramona quickly moves away from her group towards you as soon as she notices you, her face tight, and beckoning for the pale skinned half-elf to follow her.
”You’re here, that’s a relief. We’ve had some…unexpected problems. But before I get into that, I’d like to hear your report on the first colony. What did you discover?”
She’ll tell the PCs about this shortly, but you are aware of the situation and have been roped into trying to fix it.
Dakari stands at the edge of the clearing waiting for Ramona to debrief the others. Looking him over, the party can see that his pale skin has bluish/green tinge to it, the color of seafoam. His hair is shockingly white, like the white cap of a wave and just as wild. Along either side of his neck appear three parallel rows of what might be badly healed scars, or nascent gills. As if to further prove his heritage, slight webbing stretches between each of his fingers. Incongruously, a pair of dark drown eyes stare at the rest of you as you confer with Ramona.
"The community turned on itself, led by Rayland Arkley, who killed some of the others, Barnabus among them, not completely clear as to why. Some documents are lending a bit of insight, as well as the poltergeist of Silas Weatherbee."[b] Dolgrin explained in a hushed tone. [b]"I believe we’ve resolved the haunting, at least for a little while, though getting to the bottom of things may be necessary to permanently put the spirit to rest."
Taking a moment to let that sink in, the dwarf continues. "We haven’t found any signs of anyone from the expedition alive, though there are strange primal goblins both on land and in the water that we encountered, scavengers most likely, taking advantage of the absence of people there."
Ku'Hania glances over at the half-elf standing with Ramona, giving him a nod. From the look of him, his aquatic heritage was even more direct than her own.
"There is also an infestation of ankheg larvae among the crops that needs to be taken care of before the farmers can work the area safely." she advises Ramona.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
“Hello Ramona!” Ankha waves merrily at the expedition leader, seemingly oblivious to the concern on her face. “And hello Dakari,” she greets the white-haired half-elf, displaying either a keen memory or an interest strong enough to remember his name. “I don’t know if you remember me—I think we only met a couple times, and I wasn’t really fit for company then.” Indeed the young woman was a sickly shade of green for the first half of the voyage. “But I feel much better now, especially after spending a night on land. Ankha Brushbender,” she adds, just in case he had forgotten her name. Her gaze lingers on the triple lines on his neck before contributing to the team’s report on the first colony.
“Everything seemed more or less okay until about a month ago—at least, all the logbooks and journals in the government house were normal until then. Then the entries became sporadic and stopped around a week later. We found this charter too,” she holds it out for Ramona and Dakari to examine, “up in the rafters for some reason. The back where the colonists all signed is particularly interesting,” she turns the document over. “As you can see, all but five names are crossed out: Eliza Haniver, Rayland Arkley, Silas Weatherbee, Barnabus Braeton, and Edwin Fox. It appears that Rayland murdered Silas.” Her normally cheery face looks downcast for a moment.
“We also found this note buried near a plum tree,” she hands over the note, “which corroborates the infighting. But even a civil war doesn’t explain the complete lack of colonists. Oh!” Her eyes suddenly light up excitedly as she remembers something. “But there’s someone around somewhere: we found and captured a clockwork spy—Dolgrin has it in his belt pouch, I believe. It’s very intricate, but if there’s someone skilled with such devices, we could listen to its recording, figure out what its orders are, and maybe even reprogram it to our advantage.”
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dakari steps up to the group when Anbkha calls out to him. He nods to Ankha "Yes, I remember you. It's a small ship and the fish ate well...at least for a few weeks before you got your sea legs underneath you." he smiles at the young girl to take any, unintended, sting out of his words.
He listens as she rattles off their findings examining the lost colony's outpost. His pointed ears perk up as she mentions the splitting of the expedition into two, possibly more, factions "Are you sure this Rayland murdered Silas Weatherby? Sometimes people will crack under the strain of being in a new, unknown, situation but you think the Bountiful Venture's recruiters would have tested for that in some way."
Dakari's eyes widen as Ankha mentions the clockwork spy "I've had some experience with clockwork devices from some of the expeditions I've been on." he looks to Dolgrin "May I see it, please?"
Dakari turns the device around within his hands as he tries to remember anything about this particular type of construct. Satisfied, he pulls a set of tools from his pouch and, before he begins to tinker with it, he casts a spell and draws a deep breath and sets to see if he can get it to replay it's last recorded messages
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
“Well,” Ankha hedges when Dakari questions the murder, “it might not be enough for a court of law, but we’re sure—we talked to the spirit of Silas Weatherbee himself! Well, ‘talk’ might be too strong a word—mostly the spirit threw things around, but we were still able to communicate. Here, you can still see the holes in Arkley’s name on the charter—that’s where he pierced it with three arrows, to tell us that Rayland was his killer. We found his rotting body inside the temple altar.”
The stocky, muscular woman makes a face at the memory, then suddenly brightens. “Ooh, I forgot. We killed a couple boars on the way here, so we have fresh meat for the colony!” Putting down her fauchard and digging into her pack, the short human proudly holds out a large, bloody chunk of meat.
Ramona seems to be a bit overwhelmed at first, but quickly pulls herself together and starts cataloguing the things that need to be done.
"Alright, that's a lot of information to handle at once. All of it useful, though, you did a great job." she says, nodding to each of you.
Dakari pulls apart the clockwork spy easily enough with his wonderful skills, and discovers the key inside the mechanics that will allow you to wind it yourself and reprogram it. He also can also review its current orders: to maintain position, keep itself wound, await the arrival of humanoids other than monkey goblins, record any conversation, and return to a predetermined location for further instructions. It can take you there, but Ramona speaks up again even as he tinkers with the thing.
"There's two large problems I see up front: the ankhegs and the spirit. We'll have to deal with them later, but the more immediate problem is with the ship. After you were dropped off in the colony, the Peregrine sailed almost all the way to where it is anchored now, quickly and without incident. When the ship approached the cape, however, its momentum dropped to a snail’s pace, despite the fact that its sails were full of wind. The anchor wasn’t lowered, they weren’t dragging the keel through a sandbar, and no giant monster was sighted with the ship in its clutches. At least one sailor swam underneath the ship, but didn’t report anything unusual." She sighs heavily before continuing.
"Both the ship’s crew and the passengers are on edge. I believe that if whatever curse or dark magic that has befallen the ship were to be lifted, the nervous colonists might relax. Could you check out the underside of the ship’s hull and find the cause of the mysterious problem?"
"I know I am asking a lot of you, but you've already proven to be quite capable at solving problems. Here, if you agree to act as somewhat of the 'troubleshooters' for our colony, I'll find you a house to move in immediately instead of having you wait in the temporary tents. What do you say?"
“Ooh, you have such delicate fingers! Where did you learn to do that? Have you worked as a clockmaker before?” With her dark, thick eyebrows raised in an expression of wondrous respect, Ankha watches as Dakari works his magic in dissecting the clockwork spy. “We should listen to its recording and follow it back … “
The alchemist quickly discards the thought when Ramona interrupts. “Of course,” she responds eagerly, “I’d be happy to help however I can.” Her warm brown eyes glow at the idea of being useful. In her enthusiasm she gaily shoves the lump of boar flesh into Ramona’s arms, picks up her fauchard, and starts heading towards the shore. “I don’t have any way to detect magic, but I can at least take a look underneath the ship. Though … I’ve never really learned how to swim either.”
She gives a little shrug, not seeming particularly concerned by her unsuitability for the task. “No matter. Ku’Hania is an absolute whiz in the water, and so is her pet octopus, and I can prepare an extract for myself easily enough.” Pausing, she rummages in her belt pouch and starts mixing some ingredients together in a glass vial.
"Of course we'll check under the ship and see what is affecting it." Ku'hania says, turning to look at Ankha as she starts striding toward the shore with little preparation. She didn't recall her being much of a swimmer, a fact that she confirms just moments later, at the same time complementing her on her own prowess in the water.
The shaman shakes her head to herself, while giving Ankha a smile of appreciation, by now accustomed to the alchemist's oddities.
"This place is strange." Braxton adds usefully. After just the one night on the island he already felt markedly different, though he could not point out how. He did not partake of the weird fruit near the weird abandoned village, but he could not deny feeling odd. A new spark of magic within, perhaps?
As for the ship... "Barnacles. Ever the enemy to an on time delivery. Or cursed by a sea witch. I think we have enough evidence to posit that high magics permeate this strange land. I have equipment for working underwater, I just need to acquire it from the ship. And, uhh, don't repeat what I said about a sea witch to the crew." He chuckles. "Sailors are nothing if not superstitions."
Aboard the ship, Braxton finds his things, guarded by the terrible mule Blaudon the Annihilator, Herald of Rovagug. Amongst the gear is an artificial gill and saltwater goggles from his younger days. Diving into the deep to remove aquadynamic-killing barnacles from the hull of the ship was below Braxton's most recent station as a merchant marine, but he kept the artificial gills because you never know when you might need to breathe underwater. He also takes a spell component pouch, though it probably won't be much use.
After you accept the offer of helping out with whatever is afflicting the ship, Ramona gives you the use of the last remaining ship's boat to reach the Peregrine, since the other one is anchored at the colony.
When Braxton goes to gather his things from the ship, he doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary on the ship itself. A few crew members are around to answer any questions the party may have, or you can dive into the water immediately and see what you can find.
"When your life depends on disabling a trap in some dusty tomb you get quite proficient, and quickly, at it" he tells Ankha with a smile.
Dakari will help the others launch the ship's boat before he climbs aboard and helps row out to the Peregrine. Once aboard he will talk to the crew about what happened to the ship, where, and when. Once he's satisfied he will cast detect magic. As his eyes begin to glow with an eerie blue light he wanders the deck to see if the ship is under some sort of magical curse as some of the colonists seem to believe.
“That must have been a lot of traps!” Ankha responds admiringly to Dakari. She clings tightly to the boat’s gunwales as the others row it back to the Peregrine. Once she’s safe upon the larger ship, she looks up at the sails, gauging the wind before peering over the railing at the waves below.
After this preliminary investigation, she asks to speak to the Captain. “Hello, Ramona sent us to try to help. Could you please describe exactly what happened, and where? Was it right here? Did the ship stop completely, or just slow down a lot? And the sailor who swam underneath to investigate—he wasn’t slowed down at all? He could swim normally? Ramona said that he didn’t notice anything at all.”
The young alchemist muses as a sea breeze tousles her tangled caramel hair. “Very, very strange—I’ve never heard of anything like this. But don’t worry,” she hastens to reassure the captain, remembering Braxton’s sage advice. “I’m sure we’re not cursed by a sea witch or anything like that.”
"Ah, you're the ones she's been telling us about. Glad to see you made it back safely!" Captain Markosi claps Ankha on the shoulder roughly before answering her question.
"As soon as we came within sight of this cove, she slowed to a crawl." he says, slapping a hand down on a railing and then continues in a whisper. "It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen on the seas, if I'm honest. Both the crew and the colonists are ansty, they're starting to have misgivings and pressure is boiling. I had one sailor swim under the ship looking for anything unusual, but he didn't find anything. It's a big ship, though, so he might have missed something. I wish I could help more, honest."
Dakari, in his rounds of talking to a handful of crew, notices the tension the captain mentions when they meet with him. If whatever is going on isn't fixed soon, you may have a full mutiny on your hands. Unfortunately he doesn't discover any useful information beyond what the captain tells you.
His detect magic turns up some results, however, and shows a faint transmutation aura around the entire ship. Something is amiss, and it's likely not a natural effect.
