Exploring the 'Guineaman'.

[Bluehorse]

Rexlin & Fishy

Rex looks at the ghost Siggard What the hell?! Did you die and come back to haunt me or something?! Go bother your damned monkey! Rexlin draws his Short Sword once more, ready to take a swing at the ghostly form of his crewmate if he comes in range.

Fishy reloads.

[Zhym]

Zoggrot takes a swig from his healing potion and hands it to Goldie, who took the blast worse than he did. Then he starts looking around for anything valuable or interesting.

[Leitz]

Frustrated with the hand's treachery, Stubble hangs back in the doorway. "Sorry all, it was to help you if needed."

[GreyWolfVT]

Pocc stands by not sure what the heck is going on with the others in the other areas on the ship "Take the time you need Fenis." the druid avoids the stuff dripping in through the cannonball hole and searches a cabinet nearby.

[Hotgoblin]

Iggway aids the others with their wounds. Let’s keep going, if there are more of these creatures, I’ll ward them off as best I can. Iggway heads to the next closest room.

[Monsieur Rose]

Bello

"I'm going to the cabins. Let's get under cover from this bird tosser." Bello moves to the stern and looks through the shattered doors. He'll call to those within. "Hey! Anyone still alive back here?"

If he notices the dripping ooze from the ceiling, he'll avoid that and try to enter the first door on the port side. (I think it's open.)

[Spearmint]

Mainmast

Alderhay recovers his wits and invokes a divine blessing over his life, a skill learned from his native heritage rather than his formal schooling. His pointy ears more cauliflower in shape, eyes like a panda, an egg sized bruise on his temple. He still limps from the broken metatarsal but gamely climbs the lower spars, casting another spell (Detect magic), which he focuses on the skeketal figure. He catches a glittering grin from the skulls' visage, almost as if the figure is studying him in return. Black carrion birds rise squawking from the crows nest, a severed hand retreats grick like into the trenchcoat sleeve, the breeze whips up a fluttering sailcloth to mask the body.

Rexlin also recovers his wits, confused by the cannon blast and wispy etheral lights, he realises the ghostly apparition seen above the stern was in fact the levitating mage. Or was it? For the flitting shadow no longer catches the corner of his eye. He can smell though a foul odour, 'Hagsmist' in fragrance, wafting from the cargo hold. Fishy, who smells 'fishy' too, balances precariously on the spar while loading his musket. He will follow Rex up or down.

Ferrol 'Bello' steps over the stern doors, parted on broken hinges, the 'severed hands' door handles hang limp. Wary of the ceiling jelly, he kicks open a portside door. The room is sparsely furnished, containing a marble shrine. A small chapel room with ornate rail, stained glass porthole window, dropdown bunk and mattress, a broken cabinet and a wardrobe from which hang mildewed clerical garb.

Stern hallway and cabin (room 4).

Stubble makes his apologises, learning a cruel lesson from the crawling claw. He steps over the deceased-again ghoul just in time. The invertibrate ochre jelly which spread through the hole in the ceiling finally drops onto the faerie fire ringed carcass. It envelopes the putrid body, releasing acidic enzymes and begins to knead itself, digesting the rotting skin and bones.

Goldie, Geoff and Old Plighty help to search the room, refreshed from the healing liquer.

Rene, the halfling found hiding in the prow cabin, introduces himself to the group. He must be awestruck and dumbstruck in the middle of the motley crew. A fire scarred shaven dwarf, a native dressed shaman with orphidian fangs and several holy symbols, a pegleg crusty seadog, a squat thug with gold gnashers, a half drowned bloodied cutthroat, a druid with a snake wrapped around his throat, (or is it two snakes?), a levitating mage clasping a globe like he wants to dominate the world, a swashbuckling youth, another thug with a zapping cattle prod and worse of all, a huge 1/2 orc muttering curses and clothed in the bones of his past victims. Unsurprisingly Rene faints ...

Zoggrot, Pocc, Fenis and Siggard search the starboard room also. Van de Poel enters the port cabin room via the open windows, shutting them, mindfull of the ghouls returning. He is joined by Iggway (in room 3).

Face plays with Hand whilst Roger and Gaston the Ettin snake, burp and hiss once more. "Told you that anything can happen in the next half hour," they say in unison.

next actions please.

Search of room ... Captains starboard cabin: Fenis can find a change of dry clothes. Some silk shirts, fancy pantaloons, a leather braided waistcoat with ivory tusk clasps and a grouse feathered tricorn hat. Much nicer ware than the rag 'n' bone clothes Rene jumbled together in the crew cabin.

The mother of pearl globe displays the 'known' world depicting the Iberian peninsula, Breton coast, Africanus coast and the Carib Sea islands and lots of uncharted seas. It is held in a heavy bronze stand.

Several fur rugs of exotic bears and felines. Gilded portrait frames, teak, redwood, cedar.

Veneered mahogany writing desk. Inside are watermarked parchments, quills and inks for scripting or calligraphy. A log of sorts is blotted and torn, pages shredded and scattered about the room. The writing varies from neat Iberian to crimson streaks of jagged runes and scribbled mad phrases.

Officers portside cabin: Vdp and Iggway search. There are four bunks. Nesting in the straw of the mattresses are several rodents. The rats, of normal size squeak and scatter. Also nesting is a pouch of coins, Iberian doubloons. (Iggway roll 5d20 please). The room is damp and smelly. A streaky green algae climbs the walls. In the corners of the rooms are sorted piles; human bones, battered trinkets, soiled clothing.

[shaidar]

Alderhay squints up at the skeletal figure, and frowns as the cloth masks the body.

He looks up at Rexlin and Fishy, on the spar above him... "I need a closer look at the magic aura on that thing, can you cover me as I climb up?"

[Rex]

Fenis

Fenis changes into his new to him clothing, thinking it was a nice improvement. He then moves to cover the entrance well the others finish their search.

[Monsieur Rose]

Bello

Bello examines the shrine and the furniture. He'll try to get a sense of which god was represented here. He'll check under the mattress as well.

[OGRE MAGE]

With enough searchers in the room now to find a needle in a haystack, Siggard takes his new globe and checks on his downed halfling friend to make sure he is not actually dead.

He then takes to the sky again, slipping back out of the window and nodding to Gin to keep him tethered as he continues his search of the outer hull of the ship.

Floating in mid air, he checks the rest of the stern out for any other windows, portholes, or anomalies in the hull. Once he is content that nothing of importance is found, he makes his way around to the opposite side of the ship and continues making his way fore again.

[Leitz]

After sheathing his sword Stubble takes what he can of the writing implements and any good paper left. That's what back packs are for. Measurement instruments like a sextant or whatever, if present, would go in the bag as well. If there's enough of the log to read he'll take that too.

[Leitz]

After Stubble stashes the good stuff he flips back through the log. "Ugh." he muttered and then looked around the room. It took him a moment to find Iggway, but he showed her the logs about tasty, hunger, etc. "Looks pretty sick if you ask me; I don't want to know who Nunions was."

OOC: The log: One is a 'cargo' manifesto, listing bulls, cows and calfs. Some diary events read 'stuck in doldrums', 'grain store festers with disease', 'offered blood for wind to no avail', 'quell mutinous crew with lashings', 'tasty, tasty', 'they hunger', 'I hunger', 'we took broth of the little one' , 'who knew sea salt and mustard could make a leg of lamb so sweet', 'cook made foie gras from liver and Nunions', 'the Padre said stolen honey tastes sweet on the tongue but bitter on the soul', 'the more we eat, the more we hunger'.

[GreyWolfVT]

Pocc continues to try and help search for anything else before asking "We should probably check some other areas of the ship."

[Ahlmzhad]

Rene rises from his temporary faint.

[Monsieur Rose]

Bello

Bello sticks his head back out into the hallway. He avoids the jelly on the floor and moves to the next room on the port side. He waves a newly found morningstar at those he sees.

[Bluehorse]

Rexlin and Fishy

Rexlin keeps his eyes peeled as he reloads his rifle and hollers up to Fishy. Might as well come on down. More of those hands around here somewhere and I don't much care for those ghouls under the jetty over there either. Once I am loaded up, I'll start trying to snipe them from here, you can watch my back.

[Hotgoblin]

Iggway takes the pouch and watches as the green ooze slides around...VdP let’s get out of here, the walls seem to be alive!


[5d20] = 36

[Zhym]

Zoggrot looks under the rugs and behind the pictures on the wall, mostly out of a sense of obligation. He'd feel like a fool if he missed something hidden in such obvious hiding places. Then he peers under the bed—and the mattress, of course—just to be sure.

Then he inspects the writings more closely to see if he can make out anything interesting.

[Spearmint]

Mainmast Alderhay uses the couple of rounds that Rexlin and Fishy take to reload to climb further up the mast to the crows nest. He focuses on the skeleton with his spell as it radiates a type of enchantment. The figure gently twirls on the end of the top sail spar, a few feet higher and further out. Despite some shrouding from fluttering sail, you can see that the skeleton is barefooted but still wears a dusty trenchcoat, leather bandolier and the scraps of trousers. Some bones have been broken, perhaps by a recent musket shot. It has no eyes in the sockets and displays a gold toothed grimace from a slack jaw. It certainly looks less threatening and imposing from here.

Rexlin wants to snipe at the hiding ghouls but you will need to be in the crows nest to have a long range shot or move to the stern castle.


Sterncastle Siggard floats to investigate the rear the ship using the remaining time of the levitation spell. He sees a skeleton in cruciform position nailed to the aft mast. Pinned above is a note declaring the unfortunate victim to 'Despair, for your hope fades as certainly as your home sinks beneath the horizon'.

There is a dry patch on the boards where the ochre jelly rested and a hole through which it dropped. A severed hand steadfastly grips one handle of the helm which displays a tiled mosaic of a swan.

Stern cabins Stubble translates the log and gathers the scattered mechanism to rebuild a broken sextant navigational tool.

Fenis dries out in a change of garb. One pocket has a nice cigar case in. Zoggrot searches and finds one of the picture frames contains a glass vial. In the vial is a small parchment of vellum. Pocc seeks to search elsewhere. Iggway in the cabin next door gets the creeps from the fungal mold on the walls, deciding not to search through the sorted piles. Geoff, OP and Goldie watch for dangers. Van de Poel remains tied by the umbilical rope to Siggard. Rene bags up a load if trinkets to sort through later.

The globe and desk could be worth good coinage if you could remove it off the ship.

Chapel room Ferrol bellows. The elf smiles as his instincts detect the false panel in the wardrobe and his training confidently persuades him no trap is present. Opening the niche he discovers a fine morningstar and reaches to take it. In his mind he pictures twirling it triumphantly before the group. However they hear him give a sharp cry of pain and he staggers from the room clutching his wrist, the weapon falling from his grasp. Momentarily his arcane memory of runes, gestures and empowered vocabulary is rebuffed. (-2hp)

Hallway The Ochre Jelly ripples and oscillates like a giant heart out of body, leaking gastric juices and frothy blood. The enveloped form finally gets absorped within the gelatine amorphous blob which releases a gassy burp, before quelling its' feasting. It rests, covering the centre of the hallway floor, about eight feet in diameter and a several inches thick. It is coated in crockery fragments and splinters of shiny glassware, giving the impression of a giant dessert.

Okay, next actions please. Those in the cabins may try to nip by the jelly in the hallway to search other rooms or conclude their present searching and exit the cabins via the windows to climb up to join Siggard. You have enough ropes to secure a safe egress without falling into the waters and ghouls.