Arc 1 Post 17: Of Death and Withering
Of Death and Withering
The Season of Still Stone
"Gorok, stay back!" you shout as you raise your own weapon. With your healing magic spent you would rather not risk the most badly battered of the company. No sooner had the words come out of your mouth that you curse the impulse, sure that he will take it as an affront on his courage. Yet as your first bolt snaps out to embed itself into the beast's carapace you see him duck out of the way of its lashing filaments.
He had listened.
You do not have much time to consider what that it means as Cob lobs a stone form his own weapon right into the beast's head before nimbly rolling aside from the lash of its tendrils.
Mina, you note, did not need any telling to stay out of harm's way, not that you can blame her. The stench of blood and the harking sounds of the dying are enough to make anyone sick, anyone with something beside brass gears ticking in their chest. Twice more you fire and once more does Cob have to evade the grasping tendrils before the beast is put down. Down in truth as it crashes on the floor, squirming weakly under the weight of the chest and blades lashed to it, until that is Gorok puts it out of its misery with a quick blow of his bone hammer.
Gained 600 XP -> Party XP now at 1005/2000
"I... I'm sorry...." Mina mumbles, looking around helplessly at the carnage.
Truth be told you are not sure what to say. Reassurance might lead to her freezing up in the future, which would serve everyone here ill, but it would do little good to chastise her so you settle on: "See if you can save either of the prisoners. They might know something of use."
With bone needle and dried sinew for thread taken from an ambivalent Gorok she manages to stem the bleeding at least, though she makes no bones about the risk to the wounds souring. If it were not for the kindling found among their meager provisions they might yet have perished, but a fire there is spilling light and color into the shadows of the corridor. The edges of your shadowed cloak dance with the sickly flames, they catch and hold the smoke.
Besides the fungus wood the rest of their provisions, kept in yellowish sacks that Gorok marks as cave troll stomachs, are a collection of gritty meats that are probably salted and unrecognizable dried organs. As the saying goes in the camps of the People, you'd put that on the fire but not in your mouth. Cob, however, is undaunted, trying a little bit of everything, only getting distracted when Mina asks you for some water to wash off the swords.
Not that your own eyes are any less drawn to them. About ten hands long and two fingers thick, tapering to an elegant point, the hilts are still as fine as the blades, but blackened. Not by fire or soot, but some secret smith's craft. A smile pulls at your lips. With these alone you would count the peril of battle well worth it. Gorok, of course, does not smile, but in his own laconic manner agrees.
So it is without any trepidation or fear of disappointment that you turn to the chest, only for Cob to undo the chains it had been secured with. It takes him a a couple of tries, either that or he just loves the sound of jangling chains, but in the end he manages to open it to reveal... not gold, not silver, not fine steel, but something altogether stranger.
"Is that a... body?" Mina looks to Gorok for confirmation, but it's clear your scaled companion had not seen anything like this before. About six feet long, though it would be more like eight and a half if the tale had not been bent to the side, the blackened withered body is a strange conjoining of humanoid and fish with a sloping forehead and a jutting jaw that opens to reveal a row of needle-like teeth. To your eyes it is as cold as the box it came in, though looking deeper you can see the corpse-light of the Grave Dancer's magic all around it, strong as you have ever seen it.
"Oof... that not look like good eats," Cob sighs, standing on tiptoes to look down into the chest. "Maybe crush it into magic powder?"
"I think we should set it to a pyre," Mina almost whispers. She seems paler than usual. "I really don't think we should be meddling with a stranger's remains, much less of something we do not understand. We should give it peace."
In spite of her earnest tone the scaled hunter does not seem convinced. "If chains held from where they took it to here, they will hold from here to Cauldron. I know an alchemist who buys such things."
Gained
- 20 Hours worth of Kindling
- 40 gp worth of Chitin and Sinew Rope from the bug
- 15 Days worth of 'Morlock Meats' in provisions
- 2 Masterwork Rapiers
- One Mummified Corpse radiating an aura of Moderate Necromancy
- Chains and box worth 25 gp
[] Burn it
-[] Write in arguments
[] Take it back to sell, the vegepygmies can wait
-[] Write in arguments
[] Take it with you
-[] Write in arguments
[] Write in
OOC: You did not think that just because these people came off a random encounter table they would be carrying generic loot did you?
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