Rats!

As the group explored the Brinestump Marsh, looking for the mysterious shipwrecks marked on the crude map they’d found in the goblin village, they had stumbled across a mouldering shack deep in the swamp. They’d heard tales about a witch named Megus who lived in the swamp, and wondered if this could be her home. Marie had gone into the shack to look around, but was finding nothing but mold-covered walls and furniture, and a floor criss-crossed with rat prints. Zhustin had checked out a collapsed shed nearby, but couldn’t see anything inside.

 

Marie opened one of the closed doors inside the house and found herself looking at what had once been an alchemical laboratory, now fallen into decay. Ancient chemical spills created weird stains and colorful crystalline growths amid the partially collapsed workbenches. On the floor was a skeleton, still dressed in tattered clothes. Remembering the skeletons that had attacked them a short time ago, Marie prodded the bones carefully, but they showed no signs of life (or unlife). An examination of the remains quickly revealed that some hideous transformation or deformity had disfigured the skeleton — the skull seemed half melted and weirdly elongated in the face, one arm looked more like a bird’s talon, and the ribs had grown long spurs of bone that protruded both into and out of the rib cage. She concluded that this must be what was left of Megus, and that some experiment had gone horribly wrong for the old witch.

Sawyer came into the shack to join Marie. As the stood looking at the witch’s remains, a creature darted out of a hole in the wall and snapped viciously at Marie’s legs, narrowly missing her. It looked like an oversized rat, but had the leering face and hands of a wrinkled old man. 

Skitterfoot

Thinking that perhaps the witch had transformed some hapless human into rat form, Sawyer tried talking to the thing, but it simply snarled and snapped at them, so Sawyer did what he does best and swung his longsword. The ratling snarled some incomprehensible words, and Sawyer found himself terrified of the thing. He began to flee the room, but luckily, Marie was able to intercept him and cast Remove Fear. By that time the ratling had disappeared back into the walls.

Outside, a quartet of dire rats rushed out of the ruins of the shed, and attacked Shinjiro and Nicki. Shinjiro brushed away their feeble attempts to hit him, but Nicki found himself very badly bitten. Zhustin hurriedly cast a Sleep spell into the midst of the fray, and three of the four rats fell into a deep slumber. Unfortunately, so did Nicki. Bella moved up to bravely battle the sleeping rats, while Shinjiro quickly did in the one remaining standing, and Zhustin shook Nicki back to wakefulness.

Sandoval moved around the side of the shack and found a rear entrance, and went inside to help Marie. But no sooner had he stepped into the room when Skitterfoot (the ratling) reappeared from out of the walls and cast Cause Fear on the bard. Without Marie to counter the effect, Sandoval ran screaming (in a very musical falsetto) out of the shack and off into the swamp. Bella took off after him to try to bring him back.

Dozens upon dozens of rats began pouring out of the walls of the shack, up through its floorboards, and even dropping down from the ceiling, covering Marie in a writhing, biting mass. Panicked, she wrenched open the door to a closet and locked herself inside. Sawyer became convinced that the best solution was simply to burn the whole shack down, and began trying to apply his torch to the outside wall, but the damp, moldy wood was difficult to light. And in a flash, the swarm of rats moved outside to cover him and Shinjiro. He slashed right and left with his sword, but every time he killed one rat, two more seemed to take its place. Zhustin and Nicki cast acid attacks at the swarm while Shinjiro punched and kicked madly.

Inside, Marie peered cautiously out of her closet, and seeing the rats outside, decided to sneak out the back door. But before she could reach it, Skitterfoot reappeared, and nipped at her calf. The bite itself did little damage, but wound continued bleeding. Marie smashed at the ratling with her mace, and it disappeared. It didn’t run back into the wall as it had before – it simply vanished.

Outside, the party finally managed to kill enough of the rats that their partners abandoned the attack and scattered. Nicki, still badly injured, retreated to the fallen shed and sat down, trying to catch his breath. Moments later, Skitterfoot crept out of the wreckage of the shed and sank his teeth into Nicki’s thigh, then vanished back into the fallen timbers. Nicki tried to struggle to his feet, but the bleeding wound was too much for him, and he fell unconscious.

Shinjiro drug Nicki away from the shed while Marie moved into a position where her Channel Energy could heal the party but not reach the shed where the ratling was hiding. Her magical healing brought Nicki back to consciousness. Sawyer resumed his rant. “We just need to burn this %(*@ place to the ground! Too bad it’s so @($# damp!” Nicki rummaged around in his pack for a moment. “Here,” he said, “maybe this will help.” and tossed Sawyer his one remaining flask of oil.

With a satisfied grin, Sawyer stalked back into the shack, smashed the flask against the wall beside the witch’s laboratory, and set his torch to it. The oil ignited immediately, and as the fire began to consume the witch’s spilled alchemical supplies, multi-colored flames and thick smoke began pouring out. At that, Skitterfoot suddenly reappeared directly behind Sawyer, screaming in fury and trapping him in the burning building. Fortunately for Sawyer, the rest of the party was able to surround the ratling and do him in before the flames reached the fighter. Sawyer staggered out of the shack, coughing from the smoke, and the group watched the witch’s shack go up in flames, along with whatever magical supplies and secrets she had accumulated over her long occult life.

By this point the day was growing long, and the party decided it was best to head back to Sandpoint for some well-needed rest before exploring the second shipwreck. It was dark by the time they returned to the Rusty Dragon and pulled Ameiko aside. They told her what they had found in the marsh, and showed her the nameplate from the Kaijitsu’s Blossom. Ameiko was bewildered. “I never heard of any ships with our family’s name on them, and certainly not of any that were lost at sea. My family’s business is glassblowing, not shipping. I was never close to my father, but I don’t remember him ever talking of shipwrecks.”

They showed her the red lacquer chest and the items it held. She turned the fan and hair pin over in her hands. “These are obviously from Minkai. My mother had things very similar to these when I was a girl. But how could the goblins have gotten them?”

“Are your parents still living?” Zhustin asked.

“No,” she replied. “My mother died when I was young, and my father was … killed a few years ago. I don’t like to speak of it.” She turned away and would say no more.

Sheriff Hemlock had heard of the party’s return, and had come to the inn to hear if they had news. He eagerly listened to their tale of the battle with the Licktoads, and gladly paid them the promised reward for their stack of goblin ears and Chief Gutwad’s head. He was disappointed to learn that a few of the goblins had escaped, however. “I hope there’s few enough of them left that they give up on living in the Brinestump, and go join some other goblin bands. I’d feel a lot better if we knew where they’d gotten those fireworks, though.” The party promised to keep investigating, although they kept the red chest and its contents secret from the Sheriff.

The next morning they rose at sunrise and set off again for the swamp. They quickly made their way back to the Licktoad village, and confirmed that the escaped goblins had not returned there. Then they followed the stream near the village east towards the next shipwreck marked on the map.

About a mile farther, they came to another clearing, with another shipwreck in the center. This was much better preserved than the first one they’d explored, and showed evidence it had been inhabited until recently. A rail fence surrounded the ship and a crude hut had been built on the top deck, with a stovepipe extending up from its roof. Bone wind chimes and fetishes hung from the deck and rigging. Moving closer, they saw the decayed corpse of a horse lying beside the ship, and on deck found the bodies of two dogs, dead several weeks. The rest of the ship had clearly been looted, with nothing valuable or edible remaining (save a few goblin bones in a stewpot on the stove). They looked for the ship’s nameplate, and were not surprised to find that it read Kaijitsu Star. They also took this for Ameiko, then set off for the cave.

Knowing where they were going, they were able to make better time through the swamp. Still, every time they came to a river crossing, they were a little anxious, remembering Zhustin’s encounter with the snake. Sawyer stood guard on the bridge while Bella and Nicki rushed across first, then waited on the other side with relief that they had made the crossing safely. Suddenly, the underbrush behind them was pushed aside, and an enormous beetle came lumbering out of jungle, slashing at Bella with its huge pincers and slathering jaws. Badly hurt, she lunged away, and Sawyer and Shinjiro stepped forward to engage. It bit at Shinjiro, and its digestive juices ate away at his clothing, but didn’t seep into the wound. But the group was able to bring it down quickly, and with a little healing, they moved on to the cavern.

When they reached the cavern’s mouth, they took a few minutes to cut away the nettles hanging across the opening before venturing inside. The stone floor was damp, and there was standing water along one side where the floor was lower. They made their way cautiously down what seemed to be the main passage, avoiding a side passage that Bella warned was “where the spiders live”. It soon grew too dark to see, and a lantern was lit. They had to wade through the water which, while not deep, concealed a very slippery bottom; several people lost their footing and were drenched.

They ignored another side passage and continued on. A short way later, the tunnel opened up into a large cavern. The water expanded into a large pool to their south and east. Before them was a large open room, its floor littered with human skeletons.

The group gained 277 XP for the night, putting them at 2000 XP, exactly enough to reach 2^nd level (and no, I didn’t round anything). Everyone should prepare their 2^nd level characters and send me their updated .por files. We’ll be at Leo’s again next week.