Way back to the ship should be clear. Hope you can make it on your own - the Captain's got enough of a head start and I'm not keen to let her get away with what she did. You've currently got no beef with us, but if the Captain makes it back to the ship before us and tries to leave, and you let her. Well then, you best hope she killed me, or you'll need to spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder.
Dragos folds his arms as Jaspin absorbs the words of his companions. "We can always just tie ye up and leave ye here if'n ya don't want ta walk back alone. What they're sayin is, yer not comin with us."
"Now if we wanna move this, we just need some leverage, right? Lemme look..." Dragos begins pacing through the room, moving detrius and inspecting the sturdiness of a few objects when he sees the proverbial light bulb go off in Socratie's mind.
"Or... That looks easier." he chuckles.
The old pirate reaches up and presses a finger into each eye of the... tr-eye-clops just the way that the elf describes.
Jaspin stands up and brushes himself off.
I am NOT letting you leave me alone to die. Look, I'm just gonna stay in the back okay? Maybe a tune to cheer ya up if need be. But I'm not...
The Cyclops slides aside and he whistles...
staying behind...
Within this expansive room, cyclopean statues stand at attention, pointed toward the center of the room from alcoves set in the facing walls. At the northeastern end of the room, stairs lead ten feet up to a stone table.
Cowering near the rubble, is Vancid Creed. His face and body is covered in blood and some sort of blach ichor. He turns to the team as they enter in and his eyes grow wide as he hisses like some kind of feral animal...
Creed! Jaspin calls (Assuming you let him tale you) Creed, what's wrong with you!? It's us!
Creed hisses again and stands, pulling something from his pouch pocket... Socrates recognizes it immediatly. A BOMB!
PATHFINDERS FIGHT! THE BOLD MAY ACT!
Dragos
Jack
Setare
Socrates
Nyvorlas
------------------
Creed
"Oh, you don't want to do that." Nyrvolas stares intently at the turncoat.
"Just put the bomb back and come out here."
Moselle stands next to her husband waiting to see if the man puts the bomb down.
He's gone mad...
Jack approaches the clearly insane alchemist and brings his falchion down.
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Socraties will step up a bit to stay close to those advancing and spread out the team from the bombs.
I know I didn't make a good impression, but this is taking it too far, Vancid. Team, something is wrong with him. Try not to kill him, we can tie him up and bring him back to the ship to fix him up later.
With flag still in hand he will begin to sing.
You should get that looked at Creed. Dragos chimes in, uncoiling his whip.
Somenn aint right here. Creed aint dumb enough to try n take us all with out help. Maybe try not ta hurt 'im to bad... Dragos adds as he eyes the hissing alchemist's leg.
Seeing the fixer team rushing up at Creed, Hinsin calls out...
Try not to hurt him to bad! He ain't in his right mind!
He holds a flute up and plays a sharp note, which forms into a glittery ball that flies out at creed.
He cries as glitter bursts around him, covering his eyes and dropping the bomb to the ground as it rolls away harmlessly.
Nyvorlas magic instills fear into him as he scuttles back, unable to see where he should run to.... so penalized, Dragos trips him with his whip even though it was a shameful attempt, and he falls to the ground as jack slashes at him as he tries to stand up.
He wipes at his eyes as he stands and, frightened, scrambles back into the alcove behind him...
Nyvorlas tries to think of what the ichor is, but he's never seen such a thing before....
PATHFINDERS FIGHT! THE BOLD MAY ACT!
Dragos
Jack
Setare
Socrates
Nyvorlas
------------------
Heartbreak
Creed
Jack hesitates for the barest moment, almost imperceptible, as if waiting for something, before bringing his blade down once again on their old crew mate.
After his initial slice Jack swings the blade around for another chop, but once again hesitates ever so slightly before bringing the blade down.
Seeing his companions easily overwhelm the former crewmate, Dragos takes the time to look down at his wrist and whip, wondering how in the world that actually worked, and why it felt so awkward. Eventually he shrugs his shoulders, flexes his wrists and wriggles his fingers, prepared to strike again if needed.
Jack slashes Vancid once, and as he stumbles Setare sets in on him and clocks him hard across the temple, causing him to fall to the ground, unconscious.
PATHFINDERS WIN! VICTORY!
As they look closer at him, the black, sticky ooze drips from him... now with closer inspection, it's clear that he's not ingested any of it, and it's not coming from him, he's just been splashed with it. Whatever caused him to "Snap" didn't poison him to do it.
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Here Setare, I got him. Socraties says as he pulls his silk rope from his Handy Haversack and ties up Vancid.
I suggest we take him back to the entrance, just in case we need to make a quick escape, I would say the ship, but I don't think we have time for that...Unless Hinsin here can take him back to the ship with him, I will even give you a tap of Ant Haul to make it easy on you.
"That is an excellent plan, Socraties." the elf the elf compliments. "Dragos, can you still see the tracks. I fear that time is not on our side as we deal with these denizens of the island."
Giving his father a moment to regain the tracks, Moselle lingers close.
'The ichor. It is important. You need to find out where is came from.'
Heeding his wife's words, the elf approaches the others. "You all have faced more dangers than I. Does anyone here know what could produce an ichor like that?"
Dragos nods his agreement with his phantasmal daughter in regards to the importance of the ichor, or whatever it might have been that set the man's mind on a crazy tilt.
"Mighta just hated us all along." Dragos adds, not believing the words he just said for a second.
As Socraties works on understanding what happened to Creed, Dragos looks around to confirm that they are still following the tracks of their wayward captain, who would seem to be all alone at this point.
Might be worth waking him up to ask a few questions. We can knock him out again if we need to. Or d'ya think he'll still be stark raving mad when we wake him up?
Socrates studies the ichor... but without context, he can't really figure out what it's from. It kinda reminded him a little bit of squid ink, and a little bit of bees wax, as it crystallizes and hardens wherever it falls away from Vancid's body heat.
Hinsin nods at Socrates.
I... I can take him to the entrance at least... I don't think I could make it back to the ship, but well...
He digs around in Vancid's pack and pulls out some vials.
I know how to chuck these at least, so... I'll squirrel us away and wait for you near the entrance. Just... don't leave us in the cold okay?
He looks genuinely worried about it and looks up at them.
Just... If this happened to Vancid... you have to rescue the Captain... i know she's done you wrong. I don't know if she'll ever make it up to you but... but...
He looks away and you see a drop of water fall from his face... perhaps it's just sweat, but his voice trembles.
She means the world to me. She's made bad choices, but she's never done them with evil in her heart. She's just human is all... Please, bring her back safe? If it's at all possible, bring her back to me?
"Hold just a bit..." Dragos asks, already in the throes of some simple spellcasting.
Confident he has identified the tracks of what should be the only person left to follow, thanks to Socraties tracking powder, Dragos points down the tunnel, keeping his eyes peeled for any nasty surprises or hidden doors.
[ooc]Let's just do a constant take 10 on perception if that is ok while we head down the tunnels - gives me a steady 23.
Disappointed that they could not identify the ichor, Nyvorlas and Moselle follow the wary group.
"I am not sure why everyone keeps telling us to be so forgiving to the captain. She did wrong by us." he makes his feelings know to the group.
"My lady." Nyvorlas turns to Setare. "I know heartbreak; yet I did not betray those that were loyal and kind to me. She is a leader; yet you claim that she is ruled by emotion. That makes little sense to me.
"For the good that is in you, and that you have shown us, I shall stay my hand to give her a chance, M'lady. But I warn you, I do not trust her." Nyvorlas just shrugs and follows along.
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Setare nods.
"I ... I am really easy to tru ... trust ... tha ... that is not always go ... good. I know tha ... that. " Setare says in thoughts.
"Lo ... look Nyvorlas, I ... I just hope we gi ... give her a cha ... chance to talk to us a ... and don't ju ... just attack her ... " she says with a big question mark on her face.
This octagonal room is fifty feet wide. A twenty-five-foot-wide archway takes up most of the northern entrance, and three staircases descend from it to the south. A raised stone lip in the center of the room defines a pool of clear water. At the bottom of the pool, a mosaic eye resembles the large single orb of a cyclops. The eye appears to gaze directly at every creature in the room, following them as they move around.
Setare detects nothing evil in the room with the pool.
Nyvorlas and Moselle follow the group into the room, scanning for an possible clues.
"Do the tracks give us any clues?" he makes his way to the well thinking about what puzzle this could be. "Shall we move along or is there something in this room that we need first?"
The tracks that they've been following go straight past the fountain... with one set of footprints coming back, and fast. You suspect those are vancid's.
While the sneakiest of the crew begins to sneak, Dragos murmurs another prayer to the pirate queen. He blinks his eyes while everything turns an imperceptible shade of dark blue, and all things magical begin to glow.
Jack waits along with the party, continuing to seethe and say little. It seems their time in the dungeon has done little to calm his steely resolve to get revenge on the Captain.
Nyvorlas follows the group.
Stairs from the northeast descend into this octagonal room. Against the walls sit a carved stone weapon stand, a broken stone table, all scaled for creatures twice human height. The southwestern wall is covered in an unusual black substance that looks like coral, and massive formations of the material choke the exit to the southwest. A narrow path seems to have
recently been cut through the mass into a room beyond.
The way through is small...
"This isn't the same black stuff that was all over creed, was it?" Dragos asks as he inspects the growth and the size of the passageway they have to squeeze through.
Confident in his ability to heal himself, Dragos bends and contorts to try to shimmy through the opening.
"Yikes! That stings..." he frowns as he leaves a trail of red, the salt in the air stinging the cuts.
Dragos looks at the coras closely... it's the same oily black as the stuff covering vancid, but where as that was sticky and liquid, this is hard and, as he quickly finds out, VERY sharp as he finds himself unable to pass through the narrow passage after jabbing himself with a piece of coral in the side.