"I'm with Holly. A rest would be great."

OOC: I suppose taking the vials and flasks with us and give them to... Coal to find out what it i would be our best bet.

This is a terribly creepy place to sleep for the night, but Holly is right.  You guys need rest.  Only half of you brought bedding, and while there are bed frames down here, the soft parts have long since deteriorated.  You decide to "make camp" in the relatively uncluttered center of the cavern where you won't roll over into nails, broken glass or human bones in your sleep.  It's not even sundown yet, so there's plenty of time to kill before you need to sleep.  You've eaten recently enough that you're not hungry again yet.  There's plenty of time to take a closer look at the loot, or just discuss your next move after leaving the tower.

Glumr puts his everburning torch into a thick sack to hide its light and uses his small light cylinder to see by, ready to tuck it inside his duster at a moment's notice.  It's hard to be stealthy in the dark while carrying a light source, but he's going to give it a go.  He walks out past the cavern exit into the darkness and just stands there for a few minutes to let his eyes adjust before slipping silently away.

Holly's light spell flickered out while Glumr was searching the cavern, so you're using Farden's lantern now.  There's plenty of oil to last all night if need be.  Holly smiles, remembering Mord's colossal purchase of gallons of lantern oil.  It seems like a long time ago, but you've still got plenty of the oil he bought from Ironbottom back on the cart.

"You know, the jewels look as if they are indeed Avaldamons jewels. Property of the Ferisedan clan..." Sunna sighs. "We could, however, break the items and sell the gems individually. I guess they are worth a lot even then. Would be a shame, though."
This message was last edited by the player at 11:06, Sun 01 Feb 2015.

Glumr gives his friends a wave as he leaves the room.

Holly picks up one of the books, and opens it. She knows there is danger in doing that simple action, but at this point she believes she has to take the risk.

These books are OLD.  You can hardly believe they've survived this long.  The covers are in pretty good shape but the pages are dry and brittle.  You have to be careful with them.

The first book you look at is disturbing.  Not because of its original subject, whatever that was, but because of the deranged scrawl defacing nearly every page.  When you can make it out it says things like WHERE HAS DARSIN GONE?  WHERE ARE YOU?  HOW DID HE LEAVE?  NO WAY OFF THE ISLAND!!!  The entire book is written over with this madness.  This book is clearly worthless.

The next book is much better.  The diction is strange and there are words you've never seen before, but you can make out enough to understand the subject matter.  It's notes on the spirit realm... how to go there, what it's like, what to do there, how to bring things there and back.  If this stuff works, it's item enchantment gold!  You think Coal (maybe Snow too) would love this book.

Glumr returns to his friends to tell what he found.

"I'm back, this tunnel takes us to the shore.  There's portcullis to open, but I think it's still works and just needs some extra muscle to turn its wheel.   I see lots of boats through the gate which we might be able to use to return to shore."

"Or at least get us out of the fog to our awaiting ship. Nice work Glumr on the books. One very interesting item we might be able to use to bargain with Coal, if we need other items like my sickle." Holly sat a little happier now they had a potential way out, and one that would hopefully get them to safety without further undead bothering them. Although she was tempted to try out the staff she was currently looking after, she also was aware its potential for being misused.

What's your next move?  Go check on the boats?  Ignore the boats for now and get to sleepin'?  Something else?

Carefully Sunna takes the book Holly had just laid to the side. She frowns at the scribbling ruining the original contents, then puts the book aside.

"Oh, that's great news, Glumr."

I would still vote for resting on the island before returning. But check the boats first.

"We are secure here, at least as secure as we can be. Lets leave opening the gate until we are ready to move, and that won't be until Sunna and I have restored our spells I would suggest. I don't like staying here for a night either, but we should prepare for the worst. At least if there are boats, we should be able to get away from here in the morning." Holly says, wanting to be home, but aware they need to rest after the fighting of the day.

It is a very strange night.

The night is not restful in the least.  Everyone is haunted by nightmares that stick vividly to their consciousness long after they wake screaming and sweating.  Staying awake doesn't dull the sense of fright and going back to sleep only plunges you back into the horrors.  It's a terrible lose-lose situation.  At least there's no shortage of people willing to take a shift at watch with their eyes wide.

You judge morning by oil burned by the lantern.  All four of you have given up on sleep hours ago.  You're more tired than when the night began.  Another night of this would not only push you past the point of total exhaustion, but it might begin to drive you mad.  Holly is able to successfully prey for her full spells at the normal time, but Sunna finds her abilities depleted.  She will only be able to cast two 0 level and two 1st level spells today.  You do not think that resting any further in hopes of regaining health is a good idea at all.

Holly is glad her link to Obad-Hai isn't as forsaken as in her dream and she focuses her mind on securing the spells for the coming day, partly based on the nightmares. Her first action after that is to call upon Ebony to join her on the material plane, and Holly quickly hugs the bear and feels a little of the terror leaving her as her companion licks her hand in recognition.

Checking on the others, Holly suggests they might want to move to the exit and await the light outside to show them more of what is going on outside this dark and nasty place.

Not that talking animals are entirely new to our Triplefang heroes, but Holly is more than a little surprised (as are the rest of you) when Ebony talks to her in Clantongue.

Sunna pinches herself upon awakening to see if she really is awake or still dreaming. Just to be on the safe side. At least she doesn't look like in her dream, so hopefully it really was just a nightmare.

"I can't wait to get off this island", Sunna admits, "and out of this room." When the bear speaks up in Clantongue Sunna looks at it in surprise, then turns to Holly with a questioning look.

"Ebony! How are you doing that?" Holly asks, before looking around the cave again and wondering what else it might affect. Turning her attention back to Ebony, she gently strokes his head as she tries to work out what is going on...

As Erma moves closer to the others, she gives them morning greetings,  "Daylight Greetings...",  Erma sneeze, the smell of humans tended to tickle her nose from time to time.  She looks about  at the others and tries not to take offense, that they were mistaking her for Ebony.  It was true, bears probably looked alike to them.

About as much as they all looked alike to Erma.  When Erma spoke, it was with what one might think of as an 'accent'.  She tended to growl and yowl certain words out, while certain sounds just didnt seem to want to form in her mouth.

She gave Holly a dumbfounded look, "With my maaaaw.", Erma looks at Holly her jaws widening to show off her pointed teeth.  Was Holly a little slow this morning?  Usually she was considered pretty bright, for a human at least.

'Sleep on a mound of ants, and you'll get no sleep.', Erma thought to herself, but couldn't be bothered to translate the adage to human.

"Saaaau~na right.  Time to goaaawl.", Erma comments agreement with Sunna.  The Salmon never leapt into the maw of the bears who stood around.  If you wanted something you needed to go about and earn it.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:41, Tue 10 Feb 2015.

Glumr is happy the morning is here.  "By Elhonna, I had the most awful dreams last night.  Everyone was dead... or dead then reanimated as if by the necromancers who lived here.  It was terrible.   Holly, can you call on Obad-hai to see what is magical so we can carry anything of worth out of here."

...BEAR TALKS...

"What?!?!  What kind of creature is this?"  Glumr says to his friends

Glancin at Glumr, Erma decides to sits on her rather wide bottom and regards the party.

They were all a little slow this morning, were humans always this slow to wake in the mornings?  Maybe they just needed some food in them and a moment to gather their wits.

Erma could be patient.  Patience was sleeping through an entire winter and dreaming of warmer weather.  Yes.  Erma could be patient.

"I used my summoning spell to call on Ebony's help, something I should have had prepared for yesterday. Might have saved me some hurt. But rather than Ebony, our friend here arrived. She seems to know us... and I don't know how. Lets be careful in case its something possessing Ebony, or whatever came from the summoning." Holly looks carefully at the bear, slowly resting her hand on her sickle as she considered the spell she had cast, and the results of it. Holly knew she could potentially unsummon it, if it had come through in responce to her spell, but didn't want to consider a day without a little added protection.

"Who are you, and how do you know us? Are you a ghost?" Holly asked, wondering what evil trick was being played on them now. Perhaps she wasn't really awake yet...

It was a complicated question, or at least the answer was.  Erma was not feeling compelled to explain her existence.  Why should she?  She didn't ask them to explain how humans who's heads were so dense with thoughts they missed the obvious could survive this long in the wilds, why did she have to explain her existence?

The problems with most humans were that they over thought things.  Why contemplate what the salmon was doing in the river, instead better to enjoy the good fortune of snacking on one.

At the thought, Erma licks her maw thoughtfully.  She did enjoy a good snack now and then.  Salmon were so much tastier, and didn't leave mucky patches of blood that matted up her fur... like... other things.

"Eerrrrr~mmmaaahh", Erma tries to comment, but it was like listening to a Wookie trying to speak english.  One that required patience.  Was it worth wasting a 'speak human' spell?  Sure she could do it a few times a day, but was now really the time for it.

Erma looked from one triplefang to the other, they didnt look like the sharpest tooth in the maw, she just might have to do it to get introductions over with.  Silly human, one sniff and they should be able to tell she wasnt going to eat them, this talking stuff was really over rated.

"So, your name is Ermaa?" Sunna asks the bear. "Well, uhm, nice to meet you." Wherever this bear came from. But so far it - she? - had made no move to attack anyone yet, unlike any other inhabitant of this island. Question is if the bear had something to do with this island, since Holly summoned it here.
"If you don't mind me asking, Erma, were you here on this island before? Do you know this place?"

We can keep up the bear Q&A, but let's move forward with getting off the island preparations too.

Erma decides to get up and start leaving.  It was time to go, and this wasnt a good place to linger.

"Haw~twed.", Erma lumbers up to the 'exit' and lingers there waiting for the party to gather up their material booty so that they could leave.  Humans were pretty soft and squishy without their 'things'.  The only things Erma was really concerned about were of the edible sort.