We covered a lot of ground this week...
Having made a new camp on the east side of the island, the Japanese guy who I've now found out is called Ishiru turns out to own a cache of treasure maps, one of which concerns Smuggler's Shiv. Ishiru thinks that the party is near it, and that as the treasure is going to take more than one person to obtain, could we help him dig it up for a reward? Never ones to back down we soldiered up to the top of a hill and waited for a little while, until the following morning where the light between two stones shines on the area that we have to dig. And dig we did, until we found a wooden floor and the skeleton of a dwarf with a dagger in his back. Traugon the Half Orc Mage hacked through it with his greataxe, and there was little underneath but a pool of water. In this water were three water-ghouls, forgotten their names, whereupon there were several members of the party dingle-dangling from the rope swashbucking with these ghouls. Raziel leapt down the ropes and shot at them with his hand crossbow; the weapon isn't strong enough to do them any significant amount of damage but at least it was something. Having finally killed the things (it took two goes during which Garond (Dave's character) got himself paralyzed and infected with Ghoul Disease, that would have turned him in to a ghoul were it not for the restoration potion that we had,) we found an exit underneath, and thereafter the treasure. Ishiru took 1/4 of it and the party had the rest, though it was of little benefit to me as the other members of the party had the magic weapons, and this being a desert island there were precious few places to spend the money.
Journeying on into the centre of the island we came across an abandoned campsite, featuring a partially-completed shack. It was a disturbing sight once we got inside, there was a large pentagram on the wall with what looked like human teeth hammered around it. However, nobody had used the place for years and it didn't appear dangerous, so we spent the some time resting there.
The next place we found was, if anything, even more disturbing. In a small clearing was a partially-collapsed hut made out of skulls, and the skulls weren't in superb nick either. Many of them were scratched or damaged, the damage being done by stone weapons and human teeth... Inside we found a journal in tatters that appeared to come from the captiain of the ship called the Throom's Fang. There weren't many pages left but the ones that were seemed to infer the following - somehow the captain had fallen out of ideal with a female called Nylithati. The captain went away and Nylithati looked after the crew, who subsequently and probably because of her influence became cannibals. The diary makes reference to ceremonies involving a calron, half-eaten bodies that were still alive, and the evidence suggests Nylithati as their leader. I'm envisaging an antagonist that we're going to have to deal with at some point...
Further down the line the path winded down a gulch, where we happened upon a snare trap. As far as we could see the trap was supposed to fling it's victim up towards some spikes at the top of a ledge. I disabled the trap, and set it off, when we were set upon by what looked very much like a cannibal. Using the right combination of spells and missiles we tore after it, and when it became scared and ran away, Raziel shot it in the back of the head with the crossbow and it died. Always nice to make a kill, but somehow I don't know if we'd fare so well against a whole army of the things.
The path branched South and North so we decided to head North. Happening across a narrow beach we saw an immense crab, though the appropriate amount of perception suggested to us that this was no true creature. Instead, we flushed out it's owner, who turned out to be a Tengu. The Tengu told us that the crab was for protection, and that he used to be on a ship called the Crow's Tooth and the Captain was his another Tengu. He also suggested that he'd seen our Captain and his co-called lover heading south towards the cannibals... though he could just be three parts bonkers.
And that was where we left it. Well, if my purpose for being away from the shackles is to lie low for a little while I seem to have picked the right place; it doesn't look like anybody who lands here makes it out again alive. I would not, however, like to think I was stuck here permanently, and would like to find a way off the island if possible. Nonetheless, I have a feeling things will get far more complicated than that once we find our erstwhile Captain and the cannibals...
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