As the place is searched, Leah continues to stay on guard outside, alert and wary, although after a few minutes in the heat, she moves to stand guard in a shadier spot.

Karok picked up the small, empty barrel in the back of the hovel from along the outside wall and brought it around to the front.

"You never know," he said to no one in particular. "Might come in handy."

He put the barrel down and continued his slow march around the perimeter, about thirty feet in.

While Jhaelin and Durwe begin checking the shelves and whatnot, Roxie approaches the corpse in a wary and respectful manner. "If you knew something would be wrong in the future, would you keep what was needed close to you?" she asked in a whisper as she started inspecting everything (clothing, chair, hands, etc.).

Shandrilar leaned back against the porch beside Leah with an arrow knocked in her bow. She'd managed to finish mending her top recently. In the heat of the day, she stashed her red cloak in her pack.

Jhaelin rubs at the stubble atop his head and approaches one of the shelves that looks promising. It contains many jars with strange contents. One of them could be the pickled root they seek.

A cluster of items sit in front of the old wide topped glass jars. Each har is covered with a stretch of hide and bound with a leather thong. Several different types of spoons and ladles occupy a wide wooden plate. A thick candle sits on the edge of the shelf. A leather thong hangs from around the candle. A pendant dangles at the end of it below the edge of the shelf. The pendant is a gruesome looking shrunken head with leathery dark skin, stringy black hair, stitched eyes, wrinkled nose and mouth, and a leather stitch around the neck.

"eeeeeckkk! Jhaelin mutters, ignoring the gruesome thing.

Along the back of the shelf the jars are lined up two deep. This is where he will begin his search, taking the first and trying to identify it or at least see if it resembles the shape of a rat's tail.

Roxie searches the linen burial wraps that sit in the strange chair. She discovers there is no skeleton beneath the linens. Indeed no body at all, just some bramble and cloth. Apparently, someone tried to make it appear a corpse was present.

When Jhaelin touches the jar on the shelf a creaking pop comes from the center of the hut. The air there is suddenly saturated in a cloud of rust and those in the hut are startled to see the large cauldron move! It tumbles forward toward Jhaelin as if kicked hard from behind by an unseen giant foot. The cleric leaps to the side and the cauldron stops upright where he was just standing.

If a cauldron can look menacing... Jhaelin is feeling it.

As the seconds pass, the dust settles around it.

---

Begin combat round 1120.06 (rnd1)... maybe.

Magic in play...
Armor on Illiana, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Shandrilar, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Tynia, AC6, 9 points remain

This message was last edited by the GM at 23:54, Sat 19 Nov 2022.

Karok paused in his orbit, sword and shield up. "You all well in there?" he called.

"Now I know someone's playing with us," Roxie said. "There's not a body here, just something to look like a corpse."
Then the cauldron decided to move about and she glared at it for a moment. "You must have been getting close to something." She started eyeing the shelves, wondering if she might be able to leap and find footing enough to rifle through without the cauldron getting to her. Then an idea came to her and she took a deep breath. "Oh great one, we come to you in peace seeking only to help the people of a town and were told you have something that would be of great help," she called out loud and clear.

Karok had started for the cottage, but then stopped when he heard Roxie call out... in prayer?

So, next Jhaelin would steal something? At any rate, it did not sound like anything dangerous was immediately happening.

Karok resumed his picket march.

Like with Karock, Leah does not hear anything disturbing, nor is there anything visually troublesome she sees from here, so she continues to guard her shade patch fiercely from all enemies.

Jhaelin barely escapes the path of the iron cauldron, dropping the jar where he began to pick it up and leaping to the side quickly. His breath catches in his chest and he stares at the cauldron in wonder.

"Jorgundal's beard! Did you see that!?" he asks, looking at the others.

Just in case, he pulls his dwarven war hammer from his belt and backs away as Roxie begins her call to some unseen thing or being.

Durwe turns from visibly scanning the shelf he is at when the cauldron moves. His eyes go wide (well, wider than the normal elfen eye) and he pulls his sword immediately, ready to leap to the attack of whatever moved it. He pushes his sword through the air behind where the cauldron once stood in the hopes to cut through the unseen.

"Something or someone is invisible to our sight!" the elf calls out. "Karok!"

Cassius is studying one of the twiggy stick figures grown over in the yard. It appears to be an effigy of some animal, well formed yet grown through with crawling ivy and grass.

Jhaelin backs away from the cauldron. It does not follow him, nor does it move again. Durwe's blade slips through the air without any resistance and Roxie's call to the unseen goes without any answer. All seems quiet for the moment.

A heartbeat or two later, Karok is at the door, sword and shield ready. "Somebody call?" he asked.

Hearing Durwe's call, Leah is quick to respond. "YES, WHEN SOMEONE IS INVISIDIBLE IT MEANS THAT IT IS FOR SIGHT, OTHERWISE WE WOULD JUST SAY THAT THEY DID NOT MAKE ANY NOISE OR `WOAH, YOU DO NOT HAVE A SCENT, SO YOU ARE UNAPPETIZING' OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. INDIVISIBLE IS FOR SIGHT! BUT KARROCK IS NOT THE ONE THAT IS INDIVISIDIBLE, YOU JUST DID NOT SEE HIM BECAUSE HE WAS OUT HERE GUARDING WITH ME! SO THERE WAS NOTHING INVILID... NOTHING THAT YOU COULD NOT SEE BECAUSE OF MAGIC!!!"

"Uh... yeah... what she said," Karok agreed, vaguely, with a head cock over his shoulder. "So... are you being attack by something... undavisible, or something?"

Shandrilar stands about twenty feet outside the cottage, keeping a wary eye on the surrounding forest and sky for any danger. When something becomes amiss inside the cottage, she readies her weapon and focuses her attention on the doorway as Karok responds to a call. As he questions them, she then scans the clearing and the edges of the forest looking for strange movement in the grasses or bushes which might give away someone or something that is invisible through magic.

"Uhh... dunno for sure." Jhaelin replies to Karok. He raps his war hammer against the side of the cauldron lightly. The peel of metal against metal rings hollowly. "Something knocked this kettle from the fire pit at me!"

Durwe slides his sword back into its sheath. The hilt bottoms out on it with a resounding click! He looks over at the dwarf.

"Whatever it was is now gone I guess. Lets find this root, if its here, and leave."

Durwe moves to the next shelf and begins scanning it with his eyes.

Karock looks at the elf, askance. A month ago it was the kind of thing he would have expected from "the fair folk." Now, he decided, it sounded like it might be a joke, but probably wasn't. Probably.

He transferred the look to the cauldron and made it suspicious, as if to say, "Don't try that again," to the big pot.

Then he withdrew a few steps from the cottage, turned, and resumed exterior guard duties.

It was right about when Durwe made a pun statement that Roxie decided to avoid the pot entirely and leaped up onto the shelves. It was graceful like a cat for the most part but she'd started giggling so she landed a little too close to the edge. Flailing her arms, she tried to stay upright and it seemed for a moment she just might succeed.

Then one of the pegs holding the shelves to the wall popped ominously and Roxie knew her attempt had been pure folly. "Oooooh sheka!" she squeaked, flailing again as everything creaked and careened. Everything started to fall around her and though she lunged forward to try to grab for the wall she found herself skidding backward until suddenly there was nothing under her feet but air.

The next thing she knew she bounced off the damned cauldron and landed with a heavy thud onto the floor with jars and books falling on top of her. Some of the contents were loosed and she found herself surrounded by tiny eyeballs and other unidentifiable things that reeked to the high heavens. "That's gonna leave a bruise," she groaned sarcastically as she half-rolled onto her side and placed a hand on her backside.

Jhaelin kneels to help Roxie up from the floor when a jar catches his eye. It lies askew beneath Roxie's elbow, broken and leaking fluid. From his close scrutiny it appears to be exactly what they are looking for.

"Roxie! I think you found it!" he says, picking up the jar and looking closer. He rubs away some wet straw from the glass to read a faint charcoal mark.

"Moradin's Fortune!" the cleric exclaims while standing. The last of the liquid in the jar leaks out. "This is it! It's even labeled! I hope it doesn't go bad before we get back to Laurel."

"Glad I could help," Roxie half-chuckled though it turned into another groan as she made her way to an upright position. "Is there anything else we need or can we make haste back to Laurel?" Glancing around, she still couldn't shake the feeling that something truly bad was going to happen. The tale after all was that the witch usually exacted a morbid price and given there was no corpse, she felt a debt would still be requested.

Roxie's attempt at getting atop one of the shelves ends disastrously with her being sprawled on the floor amidst the contents of the shelf. As she is getting to her feet, she is whalloped from the side as the cauldron suddenly lurches forward as if kicked from behind! It flies the few feet and slams into the rogue, knocking her all the way out the front door (-4). It follows suit, bounding a few feet beyond her then stops upright where it is...

---

Begin combat round 1120.12 (rnd2)... maybe.

Roxie must spend the next round getting to her feet unless she wishes to take action from the ground at penalties. AC and saves suffer a four point penalty and attacks suffer a two point penalty.

Magic in play...
Armor on Illiana, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Shandrilar, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Tynia, AC6, 9 points remain