2B - TBG - Part Two: Kraken's Cove
Celene tries unsuccessfully to dive under the ship but her backpack gets tangled up in one of the iron plates of the prow, dragging her along and bashing her against the underside of the ship (2hp damage). Both of the backpack straps hold firm and the sorceress realises she is trapped under the surface until she can free herself.
Fortunately, a second later she feels strong hands wresting her back free from the plating, and another set guiding her to the surface. When she finally pops above the water and takes in a choking lungful of air, she sees Alohan and Kassius on either side of her - the two men had dived into the water and come to her aid.
OOC: Just as well too, since I was going to make Celene make an acrobatics check each round until she passed and take 1d6 damage each time. Alohan takes 5 hp hp non-lethal damage for his efforts (but no lethal damage - he only jumped in from 40' ft, not 60'). All three of them are now 12 squares (60') from the shore. Note that this bay counts as 'rough' water so requires a DC15 swim check if you want to move at more than quarter speed.
As the three of them look towards the shore through the swirling flames, they see that their comrades on the beach are now under attack.
Logan, Angati and Kibeti make it to the fifty-foot-wide beach that separates the burning waters of Kraken's Cove from the cliffs to the north. Swirls of the stinky green mist are still in the process of clearing out. Behind them the central section of the walkway is now nothing more than a length of shattered wooden supports, and the fire plagued two masted caravel that caused the damage is now in the process of sinking to the bottom.
OOC: NB, the two masted caravel that smashed into the walkway is not the same ship as the three masted caravel that tried to squish Celene.
Just in front of them a ten-foot-wide cave opens at the base of the cliff while to the east several planks provide a crude bridge across a tide pool to a second, smaller cave entrance. The beach is covered in swaths of blood and ragged body parts strewn across the sand, testifying to a terrible and recent battle here. Broken crates and bamboo cages litter the area, with blood and bits of bone sprayed across bolts of colourful silks and cracked barrels of ambergris slowly allowing their precious contents to sink into the coarse, rocky sand. A number of mangled naked corpses, each stripped nearly clean of flesh, and with bones cracked open, lie strewn about the beach. The casualties are staggering, with a quick count putting the dead at nearly twenty.
As the rogue, oracle and animal companion leave the walkway, several gibbering menaces rise up from their hiding place among the wreckage and charge. Logan takes the first two attacks from creatures that may have once been men, but are now, with their grey skin, strangely flopping arms and legs, and vacant-eyed vestigial heads hanging from their necks, anything but. Yet, perhaps worst of all, are the creatures' mouths; the cavernous red wounds in their twisted faces are filled with a disjointed landscape of teeth that can be designed for only one thing - the tearing of flesh from bone.
Logan manages to keep away from savage biting heads, but the savage pirates also attack with their short swords and one catches Logan in the side (6hp).
