Chapter 40
With the zombie tyrannosaurus rex turned to dust and the yellow musk creepers slashed to pieces, Nyx turns to the adventurers.
“Looks like my job here is done. Watch out for those yellow creeper flowers, they’ll be on you before you know it.”
Gven asks, “Before you leave, can you tell us how you came to roam this island?”
“I arrived here like most folks, on a boat. Despite my feline heritage, I was quite the pira, um, sailor at one time. Like many ships on the Cracked Crystal Sea, mine ended up here. I’m quite curious, probably because of my feline heritage, and discovered that this beautiful land in the middle of the sea is hurting, perhaps even dying. I know what they say about this being the home of the gods, and it probably can’t die, but it sure is sick. Being a blood hunter, my particular skillset is quite useful when dealing with monsters of all sorts, which this island has in boat loads.”
He pulls out a long knife and cuts a mark into his tabby-striped arm, alongside three others. “That was the fourth undead T-Rex I’ve taken out in the year I’ve been here. Buggers keep not-dying, thanks to these damned flowers.”
After all this time using his spiritual weapon in battle, Bilwin has finally noticed the floating hurdy-gurdy next to him. Wondering why his instrument is floating and not in its case on his back, he reaches for it, but his hand swipes right through the ethereal instrument. Realizing that his real hurdy-gurdy case is in his other hand, the dwarf curses in his native tongue, “What ore-headed oaf lets their hurdy-gurdy fly about all by itself!”
Nyx continues, “Why are you wandering around this inhospitable chunk of land?”
Dolor responds, “We’re headed towards that temple on the mountain, looking for answers to questions.” With a brief glance at Bilwin, “We’ve been told by a…close acquaintance…that we’ll find answers there.”
“I can see that you know how to handle yourselves, even if that large one,” the tabaxi looks at Gven, “is easily charmed by pretty things. That temple’s a mystery. Used to be when I first discovered it that folks would poke around it and then get back to where they came from. But no more, now they seem to go in and never come back out. Keep your wits about you, if you’re determined to go there.”
Gven asks, “Would you be willing to guide us or help us understand what other troubles we might encounter on the way?”
Shaking its head, “I can’t guide you. My duties lie with the undead. But I can tell you this. That mountain is dangerous, even moreso than the rest of this island. Keep your eyes and ears open, your mouths shut, and don’t play around with the carnivorous vines. They’d as soon eat ya while that one over there,” he nods at Gven again, “is smelling the damned things flowers. And keep a look out for the bird folks. They might be friendly to ya…and then again, they might not. You never know about birds.”
Mond adds, “Valindra didn’t mention anything about aarakocra between us and the temple.”
“Oy, beware that elven mage. I get a strange scent from that one.”
Sliding the scimitar into its sheath, the muscular tabaxi adjusts its armor and prepares to leave. “I’m off to find an undead lizard that lives in the seawater. According to the locals, at least the ones who say they’ve seen it, it’s supposed to be as big as one of these T-Rexes. Should be an interesting encounter. Be wary.” Before anyone can respond, Nyx lopes off into the jungle.
Dolor leads the way towards the mountain temple, opposite from the direction Nyx was last seen. The group falls into their routine order, Bilwin immediately behind Dolor, with Mond and Grindlefoot in the middle of the group, and Gven as their rear guard. There’s no sight of a trail, but they push onward through the foliage and vegetation, keeping Nyx’s warning in mind and trying to do so quietly.
Roughly two hours later, they come to a break in the thick trees and are able to see the mountainside up ahead. It’s obviously closer and Dolor breathes a sigh of relief that they’re making progress in the right direction. With the thinning trees, Dolor notices that they’re now on a narrow pathway that appears to have been unused for quite some time. He warns the rest of the group and then continues forward, wondering what they’ll encounter.
After a few hundred yards, the trail opens up into a decent-sized clearing with enough room for several roughly-made huts circled around the remains of a large fire pit. The vines, flowers, moss, and other vegetation have begun to overtake the crude dwellings, and from the distance they seem to be in a state of disrepair.
Without moving into the small village, Dolor is able to see scorch marks on the buildings, as though they were struck by lightning. Analyzing the surroundings with more intent, the tiefling notices that the scorch marks on other buildings are horizontal, not how natural lightning would behave. He notices even more charred lines and singed areas on the ground, reinforcing his gut feeling that these weren’t made by natural causes.
Mond peers at the fire pit, trying to deduce if the charred lumps are wood logs or humanoid corpses. Everyone begins to feel a chill on the backs of their necks.
“This place is creepy. I say we avoid it and go around.” Grindlefoot supports his statement and suggestion with a visible shiver of his whole body. The rest of the group agrees and they decide to sneak around, but keep it in sight so they can be aware of anything—or anyone—that might happen.
The halfling casts Pass without Trace, allowing them to conceal their passing more easily. Dolor and Gven are completely undetectable, given their natural stealthiness. While the rest of the adventurers are louder than the tiefling and half-orc, they pass quietly enough to avoid detection by anything untoward.
As they reach two-thirds of the way around the village, Dolor crosses a path leading away from the village. Looking to the side, he can see a rocky path that leads up a short hill to a stone structure about 30 feet away. A body is lying in the path. Not wanting to chance an ill-fated encounter, he ignores the alternate path and continues to move ahead.
As Mond crosses the narrow path, he looks at the building and thinks that he sees the symbol of B’raq on the stone building. “Hold. That looks like the symbol of B’raq up there. We should take a look.”
Dolor, Bilwin, and Grindlefoot join Mond as he walks up the path towards the structure. Gven remains at the bottom of the path to stand watch.
Stopping at the corpse, they can see that it was a young woman wearing an acolyte’s robe, finely made although unadorned. Her hand is held out from her body and pointing away from the building behind her, as though she was protecting herself in the last moments of her life. Across her body in a few places, they can see deep scorch marks, the apparent cause of her death. Bilwin is struck by her devotion, especially as she faced her own demise, and drops to his knees in prayer. He quietly performs Hanseath’s version of last rights, knowing that her god will understand.
Dolor, Mond, and Grindlefoot continue onward to the stone structure, which now that they’re closer, they can clearly see is a shrine to B’raq. At the top of the pathway is a round arch, allowing them to enter the four walls of the small shrine. The stone of the walls matches what they’ve seen during the day’s journey, telling them that it was built with rocks found locally. Entering the shrine, which is about fifteen feet wide and deep, they see a small human-made pool that is fed by a small spring from the back wall. The water appears to be clear, but they won’t chance drinking it. The rock walls are covered with a black residue and Mond gets the sense it’s pollutive to the shrine, and likely its deity.
Leaving the shrine, Mond turns to inspect B’raq’s symbol closer. “Look at this, no wonder we didn’t recognize it sooner. It’s been overwritten somehow, perhaps these are more scorch marks?” Examining the symbol, they can see that a different symbol covers B’raq’s and it seems to have been scorched into the stone. None of them recognize it, not even Bilwin.
On their way back down the short rocky path, Dolor stops to investigate the young female acolyte’s body. Bilwin cautions the tiefling, “Be respectful, rogue.” Dolor acknowledges the dwarven cleric’s protective statement with a nod.
Moving her body as little as possible, he begins looking for further clues as to what might have happened here. There are no wounds beyond the scorch marks and the look on her decaying face is evidence of the pain she endured at the end. Their initial assessment appears to have been correct, she was facing off against someone—or something—that was attacking her to get to the shrine. Most likely, they’re the ones who defiled it.
The tiefling notices that her outstretched hand is closed, as though it’s clutching something. Opening her fingers gently, he finds a medallion. It’s made of ordinary metal, not worth anything to a regular thief, but it has the symbol of B’raq etched on one side. It was invaluable to her, a token of strength to bolster her courage in her last moments as she held it out in front of her, defying her foe. From his pocket, Dolor retrieves a tiny hand-blown piece of blue glass, closes his eyes for a brief moment, and slips it into her pocket.
Standing up and looking at the scene again, Dolor realizes that the scorch marks all move up the stairs, towards the stone shrine. Further evidence that the young acolyte faced a powerful attacker, determined to get to the religious place and defile it.
“There’s nothing more we can do for her, or this village. Time to move on.”
The group continues past the village, silently and without any interruptions or surprises. Walking for several hours throughout the afternoon, the terrain becomes more rocky and the trees begin to thin out, opening up their view of the sky and the mountain ahead of them.
Grindlefoot suggests that they make camp now, where they can find fresh water and sleep under the cover of the remaining trees, before heading further up the mountainside.