A Mystery Awakes

Last week saw the party launch an attack on the Licktoad’s village. They had cleared out most of the huts, and one of the surviving goblins was running for his life, but two more had Sandoval backed into a corner (or did he have them backed into a corner?), and there was still the matter of a locked set of double doors on the village’s largest hut.

 

As the lone goblin fled, a door opened in one of the unexplored huts and several of his comrades decided he must know something they didn’t, and they all dashed off into the swamp together. Sandoval killed one of the goblins facing him, and Zhustin and Bella sniped off the other from the walkway. Sawyer and Nicki were trying to force their way through the double doors, but Sawyer couldn’t seem to get enough leverage on the narrow walkway, and Nicki was learning that this lock picking thing was harder than it looked.

Meanwhile, Shinjiro had noticed a ladder propped up against the back of the large hut, apparently leading nowhere. He climbed it, and discovered a poorly concealed secret door. Inside, he found a closet-sized room, but he could barely find his way back out, let alone any other exits, so he summoned Bella to come take a look. She easily found two more clumsily hidden doors, one leading north and the other east.

At the front of the hut, Nicki had given up trying to help force the door, and got out his one remaining oil flask, standing ready to light the fuse and toss it in as soon as Sawyer got the door open. After several tries, Sawyer managed to break through the bar holding it closed. They got a quick glimpse of the Licktoad’s “throne room”, decorated with numerous poorly preserved horse and dog heads, along with other trophies like broken weapons, brinepickled bodies of brutally slaughtered furry animals, and other bits of grisly ephemera. Chief Rendwattle Gutwad crouched behind his throne — a rickety, 5-foot-tall wooden chair with a ladder built into the side that the goblins call the “Teeter Chair” — as he lit the fuse of a cardboard tube that he had pointed straight at the door. With a whoosh and a shower of sparks, the skyrocket shot forward and exploded at Sawyer and Nicki’s feet, burning and deafening them. Nicki desperately juggled the vial of volatile oil he was holding, but he lost his hold on it. Luckily, it barely missed shattering at his feet amid the sizzling sparks, and instead dropped into the mud below the walkway.

Chief Gutwad’s three bodyguards charged to attack Sawyer and Nicki, but Marie interposed herself in front of Nicki, casting a Channel Positive Energy to heal everyone in her vicinity as she did so. Bella, having found the secret doors in the Chief’s escape route, pointed them out to Shinjiro, who charged into the room. Chief Gutwad had just drawn a large bow, and turned and fired an arrow at Shinjiro, who batted it aside disdainfully.

The three bodyguards fell quickly, and Chief Gutwad found himself surrounded. Sandoval and Zhustin tried to persuade him to surrender, but he responded with foul curses against all humankind. Despite being surrounded, Gutwad was quick, small, and well-armored, and no one seemed to be able to land a blow on him. Luckily, he was equally ineffective in his attacks. Nicki and Zhustin pecked away at him with acid attacks, gradually wearing him down, until Sawyer finally landed a killing blow.

While Marie began the grisly task of harvesting goblin ears for the bounty, the rest of the crew looted Gutwad’s body and explored his hut. In the back room, they found Bella standing over what was left of the Licktoad’s treasury: a single, beautiful red lacquer chest. Despite the mud and filth encrusting it, they could see delicate etchings of cranes and frogs playing along a beach. Its outside was marred only by an area where some emblem had been scratched off. The inside was lined with velvet and contained a half-dozen masterwork shuriken, a large cache of gold and silver pieces, a long hairpin with a red pearl on one end, and a gold and ivory fan depicting a gecko walking amid cherry blossoms.

The group noticed that Shinjiro was staring at the chest with open-mouthed amazement. “It’s … it’s exactly like my grandfather’s chest!” he exclaimed. Although the quiet monk had kept to himself so far, he now opened up to the group about his past. He’d been raised by his grandfather, he explained, and years before his grandfather and father had been shipwrecked in the northern seas. They had survived by clinging to his grandfather’s red chest, which was an exact duplicate of the one in the Licktoad’s camp. His grandfather had died a few weeks ago, but just before he died he told Shinjiro that he must travel to Sandpoint because his destiny awaited him there. Shinjiro removed a chain with a medallion and a key from around his neck, and fitted the key into the chest’s lock; it was a fit.

As the group tried to understand how the goblins could have come into possession of a chest that obviously originated on the other side of the world, and how it might be linked to Shinjiro and his family, Bella was continuing to search the chest for any secrets and appraise its contents. As she examined the fan, she saw that someone had drawn a crude map on its back. After some study, the crew concluded that it was likely a map of the Brinestump Marsh and its waterways. A stick figure marked the location of the Licktoad village. It also appeared to show two ships with red stars beside them, and to the south there was an unrecognizable emblem with even more stars beside it. Thinking about Shinjiro’s story of his grandfather’s shipwreck, they wondered if the two boats on the map might signify locations of shipwrecks along the coastal edges of the swamp.

Crude Map

They finished collecting their loot and made sure that all the goblin bodies had given up their ears, and then began to make a closer examination of the village courtyard. It was obvious that a battle had taken place here recently. In addition to the goblin bodies that had hastily been cremated in the pit, there were a handful of skeletons lying in the courtyard. These looked to be far older than the battle – many decades old, at least. They wore the rusted and rotted remains of strange armor, which Shinjiro identified as being in the style of Minkai. Looking closely at the drag marks they’d noticed on their way in, they decided that something heavy had been dropped off the walkway in front of the chiefs hut, then drug out of the village and into the swamp. Comparing the odd footprints that accompanied the drag marks with the skeletal remains in the village, they realized that whatever it was had been hauled away by skeletons – and a lot of them.

There was some debate about what to do next. Several members wanted to check out the shipwrecks indicated on the map, but Sawyer thought it was best to follow the skeletons’ trail while it was still fresh. Since Sawyer had the biggest sword, his logic won the day. The trail was not hard to follow; the skeletons had made no attempt to hide their track and whatever they were dragging was heavy enough to leave a clear imprint in the soft ground. Even when they crossed one of the tributaries of the Soggy River, they were easily able to pick up the trail on the other side.

The trail led southwest through the marsh until they finally came to a fifty-foot-high cliff rising along the marsh’s southern border, its face a thick tangle of jutting rocks and bright green vines and nettles. A curtain of these thick nettle vines partially concealed a cave opening at the base of the cliff, and the drag marks led directly into the cave.

Knowing where the skeletons had gone, Sawyer was now happy to investigate the possible shipwrecks before venturing into the dark cavern. Everyone else agreed, but Bella was anxious to check out the cave. “I’ll just peek inside,” she said, and disappeared into darkness (narrowly avoiding being stung by the many nettles draped across the cave mouth). Several long minutes passed, then Bella came dashing full speed out of the cave, pale and panting. “There was a spider – a really big hairy one!” she explained, and everyone chided her for being afraid of a little bug while they turned and set off through the swamp towards the location of the nearest shipwreck.

After slogging through the swamp for some ways, they came into a small clearing. What appeared at first to be a strange tangle of branches was in fact the moss-covered ribs of a wrecked ship. The ruined ship lay on its side, split down the middle and mostly sunken into the mud and murky water. The soft sound of the surf could be heard some distance away, and they concluded that some great storm must have cast the ship inland into the marsh, but from the obvious age of the wreck and the vegetation that had grown up in and around it, it must have been decades ago.

They moved forward to investigate. Suddenly the ground at Bella’s feet gave a heave, and a figure arose out of the muck, its skull grinning. It pulled an odd rusty shortsword from between its ribs and charged to attack. Another rose up out of the swamp a few dozen yards away, while more appeared from the cabin and out of the hold of the ruined ship.

The party engaged with the skeletons, but quickly determined that their blades were having little or no affect on them. Marie, however, knew what to do. She quickly cast Magic Stone on a handful of sling bullets, and handed them to Sandoval. “Throw these!” she commanded, and then positioned herself in the midst of the cluster of undead and channeled the power of Desna to smite them. Four of the skeletons instantly crumbled to dust. Sandoval heaved one of the stones at the last remaining skeleton and it, too, dropped.

When no more undead enemies appeared, the party searched what was left of the ship, but found nothing on board. On the back of the ship, however, was a verdigris-encrusted nameplate that read “Kaijitsu’s Blossom”. Everyone recognized the name Kaijitsu – the proprietor of the Rusty Dragon back in Sandpoint was Ameiko Kaijitsu. What could her connection be to this ship? They pried the brass nameplate off the ship to take back to her, then set off through the swamp towards the other shipwreck marked on their map.

They crossed another stream, and on the other side found a large clearing. A sagging one-story shack sat in the clearing, its walls dingy with age and encrusted with lichen and fungus. A partially collapsed shed was just to the northeast, while small pouches, twisted knots of feathers, and dangling wind chimes made of bones hung from branches and roof edge alike. Zhustin remembered the stories of Megus, the swamp-witch, that the locals had told him back in town; he’d been sure they were just wild tales then, but now he wasn't so sure.

Marie went to the front door and knocked, but got no response, although the floorboards creaked ominously beneath her feet. Sawyer joined her and tried the door, and found it was warped shut from the damp. He forced it open, and part of the porch floor collapsed beneath him, almost toppling him over. Marie ventured cautiously inside, calling but still getting no response. Sheets of fungus grew along the walls and floor of the entry room, and on the numerous gourds, twigs, and bones hanging from the ceiling on sinew and string. Just beyond it was another room with more fungus and mold growing on the sagging benches, broken table, and narrow cupboards there; an old brick stove sat against the west wall. Several closed doors were on the north and south walls. As Marie explored inside, Zhustin tried peering into the mostly collapsed shed to the north, but could make out nothing in the darkness within.

The group received 884 XP for the night, bringing them to 1723 XP, with 2000 required for Level 2. Everyone should start prepping their characters for Level 2, as you’ll probably get there after next week. We’ll be at Leo’s next Sunday.