"Thank you.  Sorry it didn't come sooner."

He helps with the clean up, then advances/scouts a bit to see what can be seen.

As the last of the lizard trogs dies, the odor begins to lessen somewhat.  It is still awful but not lethal.  Delta searches the bodies and finds that they have little on them other than their weapons and a few rags of clothing.  A quick scouting from Tanyl finds two things of note. On the upper floor, an area that was clearly the trogs "nest', lots of cloth and sea grass is strewn about to create an area of bedding.  In the back of this is a locked iron chest.

As the others prepare to drag the dead to the water, they see the other other on the far side of the water on a ledge, he is unmoving and covered by a sheet.  Before you manage to toss any of the dead, the water at the shore ripples and splashes, and something peers up at you from the clear water.  Is it the Goddess of Death, truly, it certainly favors the statues!!


ooc: on the new map A is the nest, B is the other scholar

Well impressed by the goddess, Delta hopes that an attempt at friendly discourse might be the way to go.

"Hello, Goddess. May we talk?"

She starts with Common, then tries all of her other languages, hoping to spot a glimmer of understanding in her large eyes.

Keeping her distance from the water, Delta is quite unhappy with the fact that there seems no dry way top the man they still hope to rescue. Does the water seem to open to the sea?

OOC She speaks Common, dwarvish, gnome, halfling, goblin, kobold, and can also communicate with any burrowing mammal

She looks looks at Delta, blinks several times, and responds, a language that is shrill to your ears, but unknown.  She glances around, looking hopeful, to each of you.  None of you understand her words, but Delta, being closest with knowing how animals speak, feels something, worry, sadness maybe.

"Poor thing, she seems scared. I hope we can get around this without killing her."

She tries to mime asking the creature to bring her the body.

Janek sheaths his sword.

Tanyl pulls out a necklace and, watching the creature, makes as if to put it over his head.

The "goddess" doesn't seem to recognize the necklace, but speaks again in her strange shrill language.  Magically, everyone understands the meaning behind her words,

"You've killed my worshippers, who will bring me fish to eat?"

"Can't you get your own fish?" Tanyl queries.

The she creature answers, "When I swam free, I could."

Vala looks startled when the 'goddess' speaks, but follows Delta in trying negotiations first.
"How did you get here? Maybe we could help you?"

Impressed with Tanyl's magic, Delta shares a thumbs up in his direction at the goddess starts to speak in a way she can understand.

"What has stopped you from swimming free, is it something we can fix? If not, the man over there," she says, pointing to the form on the far ledge, "is a man who might be interested in bringing you fish, I think he was here to learn more about you in the first place."

"The creatures you killed captured me just off the coast, years ago. They lived here and thought I was the goddess of this place.  They smell bad and are stupid but they swim fast.  They carried me here in a net and have kept me ever since.  If you are strong enough, you could carry me back to the sea, there is a passage that leads to the beach.  The man there is asleep.  He just whined and moaned all the time after they tried to feed him to me.  I don't eat manflesh, but he wouldn't calm down so I put him to sleep."

She indicates with her webbed hand to a place on the wall in the hall you are standing and sure enough, a hidden door there opens to a natural passage, the sounds of waves, and blessed fresh air flows from it once opened.

"Vala, this seems your area of expertise. Muscles and all. Do you think you can manage it?"

She turns to face the goddess once again.

"Do you know anything about this place? Do you mind if I go to him, across your water?"

Delta can swim fairly well.

"I'd be willing to try," Vala replies, grinning. The barbarian warrioress looks at the 'goddess'.

"I hope I smell better than the last people who carried you!"

The goddess knows very little of the temple, she has only been in the pool and seen what she can see from that place.  It is her theory that her people, who migrate vast distances in the sea, probably used to visit these beaches, and long ago, the people who lived here may have thought them goddesses, even as the Trogs did.  The statues so resemble herself that she feels this might be the case.

Delta swims over to check out the scholar and finds him deeply asleep, magically so, she cannot wake him.

Vala with great difficulty is able to carry the "goddess" to the sea. She is so happy, she kisses the warrior on the cheek as she is placed into the water, and then in flash, swims away.  Vala sees her far offshore leaping above the water!

"Well," says Tanyl.  "Time to check out that chest?"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:34, Wed 03 Mar 2021.

From the platform, Delta checks the scholar to make sure he is okay, then surveys the room from that vantage. This would make a nice temple, even if the 'goddess' had left it.

She wonders if it is close enough to town for the party to make a lair out of it.

"He seems okay, but I'm not a good enough swimmer to get him back, and he wont wake up."

The chest isn't large, and it has a trap, a poison needle, but the Trogs smashed and beat the lid till it caved in.  Avoiding the lock altogether.  The chest is full of ancient gold coins with a rough shape of the goddesses head on it.  By size and weight, there are probably at least 500 of them.  They are probably worth more than just the gold in them, given their ancient nature.

Delta, with the help of the others, is able to get the scholar back into the main temple.

There does appear to be another alter below the water, but there are several of them around in the temple, while of historical value, not likely to yield much else.

ooc: congratulations, you have rescued the hostages, killed the enemies, and will increase your fame within the city, and your wealth as well.  I will calculate up the treasure found and experience points tomorrow and post the results.  For now, its just clean up work and returning to town triumphantly!

Tanyl advises the charmed hobgoblin he is free to leave.  And that he should, lest the guards find him.

Delta starts a small fire to help her, Vala and the scholar dry out. She heats up a little stew as well, and explores the cave a little bit before they head out. Her own thought is it is too dangerous to climb the rope while he is asleep, but if the others push she will comply.

She searches the cavern a little bit, but stays close to the others for the most part.

"Well I guess that's the first goddess I've been kissed by," Vala says. She laughs. "When I have the bards sing of this I hope they make her less... briney."

Shooting a grateful look at Delta for starting a fire the warrioress tries to dry herself out. "Let's not try and pick a fight until we get back home. I love a good fight but that was close and I'll ache for days."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:16, Thu 04 Mar 2021.

She offers a bowl of watered down stew to Janek in the hopes that it would settle him stomach after that foul encounter.

She had been tempted to try and save whatever part of the troglodytes had made them so odoriferous, but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Picking up her lute, Delta starts plucking out a few tunes, trying to find a nice sound as she works on the lyrics to a new tune. Romance was not her forte, and she had no interest in making a tale about Vala into a comedy or a ghost story, so it was slow going.

Staring up at the statue, she tried to capture the creatures charisma, her strength, yet her vulnerability.

It was going to be a long time before it became anything really good, but it was a start.

"Tanyl, have you searched the place? Curious, did you get your necklace back?"

"Searched around a bit, yeah; I think the chest may be it."

"With Janek's departure, we need a fourth.  For card games, and adventuring."

Tanyl smirks at his joke.

"In the meantime: I'm really interesting in buying some particular spells.  Particularly because I'm learning the hard way that I really should try to avoid being anywhere anyone can hit me."