While Leah and Karok continue to fortify the entrance to the cottage with the unhinged door, Roxie enters the clearing taunting the animated cauldron with barbed words. Perhaps wounded by her words, or perhaps just the nature of the beast, the cauldron deviates from its path and heads right for her. Quick as a mouse, Roxie reverses her direction and heads back to the woods at a sprint with the cauldron hot on her heels (pun intended). Roxie enters the edge of the forest with a leap past the trees rounding one quickly to keep it between her and the cauldron. The cauldron comes to a complete stop at the edge of the clearing smoldering and glowing a deep orange with heat.

Upon hearing Roxie's call, Karok and Leah sprint from the cottage door heading for the forest. Leah's long strides outpace Karok and she enters the trees first. Karok keeps a wary eye on the far side of the clearing and can see the cauldron sitting at the edge of the wood. Suddenly, it lurches backward and there is no doubt it comes for him. Luckily, the cauldron has much ground to cover and Karok leaps into the woods passing several trees with plenty of time to spare. The cauldron makes a sudden change in path and disappears into the cottage. From Roxie's position, she can see it sitting where they found it. In the fire pit glowing orange with the heat from Jhaelin's spell.

A sudden flare of flame erupts from near the cauldron. A flash of light and what was a small flame quickly spreads as if fueled with bog gas. Flames lick the burial linens of the fake corpse sitting in the chair of teeth.

---

Begin combat round 1120.48 (rnd8)...

Magic in play...
Heat Metal (searing hot) on Cauldron, 3 rounds (not including this one)
Armor on Illiana, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Shandrilar, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Tynia, AC6, 9 points remain

Karok's voice boomed across the clearing to the more distant party members: "DO WE HAVE THE THING WE NEED FROM HERE? IF WE DO, LET'S MEET UP AND LEAVE. IF WE DON'T, WE'D BETTER GET IN THAT HUT AND PUT OUT THAT FIRE."

Jhaelin, standing near to Roxie, winces at the spreading flames within the hut. That could NOT be good... and the jar of rat tail was still in there.

Karok's voice booms across the clearing. Jhaelin shouts back, "I DROPPED IT INSIDE THE HUT!"

Damnation and bulldoggery!

Only he knew where it was on that shelf. Only he could retrieve it. Grimacing, he leaps out into the clearing at a run for the cottage. There is no time. Mayhap, his spell has run its course and destroyed the cauldron. If not, well... injuries would ensue. They could NOT let that reagent be destroyed.

"Cassius. With me!" he shouts over his shoulder.

Cassius sprints from the edge of the wood, following close behind Jhaelin with the words of a healing prayer and the wand of healing at the ready.

The flames already were spreading and as they run, something in the hut near the cauldron ignites. Probably something from the contents of the shelf Roxie fell from. Shards of glass and spewing flaming liquid cascades out the door in a shower. The grass in front of the cottage catches fire and smolders.

"Have you lost your senses?" Cassius huffs behind Jhaelin while shielding his eyes by an arm. "You will get torched in there. Perhaps this root can be found somewhere else."

From the verge of the trees Karok saw the clerics break cover. "Oh, ferslugginer," he growled, under his breath, and took off running towards the hut, as well.

"MY POLE!!!" Leah shouts as she sees the fire begin. "IT'S NOT IN THE HUT, IT'S ON THE HUT!!!"

With several of the others, she runs back to the cottage, pleased they are all intent on helping her to retrieve the enchanted Pole of Remarkable Use from the roof of the cottage.

"You should have let me lure it out again," Roxie shouted as she sprinted right alongside Jhaelin. "Maybe I can still lead it away for you to get to it ... if you spread out to the sides and I'll go straight for the door," she suggested. She felt a bit of guilt that the place had caught fire, even if the person had died. "Too bad no one has a water spell to put out the fire ..."


OOC: Oh for a wand and the Accio spell! If the others concur, Roxie will take the path to the door to get the thing moving out after her again and ala Captain Jack Sparrow run around the clearing trying to stay just out of the burn range.

(DM) RE:OOC... this is possible, but will depend on success by movement rates and initiatives. Roxie has a good chance of outrunning it due to her very high dexterity (hence better initiative at -2 to the roll), but bad luck on a roll could hurt.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:11, Sun 20 Nov 2022.

Jhaelin, Cassius, Roxie, Karok and Leah all race back into the clearing. Jhaelin and Cassius acknowledge Roxie's plan and fall back a few steps, letting the rogue advance on the doorway while Karok and Leah approach the cottage from a perpendicular angle to the doorway. The fire is spreading quickly among the more flammable materials in the cottage. Linens and wood are especially susceptible and ignite quickly. The fake burial linens and what they covered is fully engulfed in flames that lick the top of the ceiling. Hanging dried herbs catch fire and then spread quickly into the thatch of the roof in a manner of seconds.

The cauldron does not sit still. As Roxie approaches the cottage it rolls onto its side and squeezes through the doorway before tumbling toward her head over end. Roxie sprints away to the left with the cauldron following. Jhaelin reaches the doorway with Cassius at the same time Karok and Leah do.

A jar explodes within the cottage. A smelly, foul liquid spews from the open doorway onto Karok and Jhaelin. Some kind of tentacled thing splatters against Jhaelin's face and something resembling slimy seaweed spatters into Karok's beard.

The inside of the cottage is an inferno. There is a path to the shelf Jhaelin was at and where the jar of pickled rat-tail is. It is yet to catch fire but woe to anyone trying to get to it.

---

Begin combat round 1120.54 (rnd9)...

Magic in play...
Heat Metal (searing hot) on Cauldron, 2 rounds (not including this one)
Armor on Illiana, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Shandrilar, AC6, 9 points remain
Armor on Tynia, AC6, 9 points remain

Jhaelin brings his shield up for protection, but too late. Something wet and icky splatters against his face. He spits to the ground and looks down at some once preserved tentacled thing.

"Ughh!" he murmurs.

The heat coming from the cottage is overwhelming. The stench reeking from the doorway, nearly as bad.

"I'm going in. I'll be right back."

Jhaelin gives Cassius a knowing look and nods, then darts into the cottage with his shield in front of him.

OOC: Jhaelin attempts to locate and retrieve the jar of pickled rat tail.

Cassius dumps the remainder of his waterskin on Jhaelin just before he plunges into the cottage. Its not much, but could help. Then, he laces his fingers and offers Leah a hand to the roof.

"I'll help you up there. Get your stick and be quick."

Illiana races from the trees. They do not think of me, she thinks crossly. They do not ask me what I might be able to do. They think me only a petulent brat without power. A witless mage perhaps. They will see.

A fire... now THAT she could deal with. As soon as she gets to a spot near enough that her spell will work, she begins reading from a scroll. Words begin burning away from the parchment as she chants the incantation.

"Insol-volati n'bereftomonus!"

Finished with the incantation she extends one arm out with fingers on her hand splayed wide. Then, with deliberate control, she closed her fingers into a fist...

Leah looks for a window, where there might be a sill close to where her pole went, so she might climb up before the roof is lost. As she tries to decide the best approach, the storyteller offers her a lift to the roof. With a smile, she accepts his help and says, "This will be a great tale for you one day!"

Her intention is to grab the pole and drop back down to the ground if possible, rather than climb on the roof itself, but she is willing to do what she must to regain her weapon. Ten foot poles do not grow on trees, you know!

Roxie keeps a pace in front of the cauldron, leaping over twiggy animal-like effigies that get in her way. The hot cauldron follows her with grasses smoldering in the path behind it. Luckily, it rained heavily the night before or the whole clearing might have already been burned away and spread to the neighboring forest. Roxie is on the other side of the cottage when she hears a heavy thumpf behind her. Glancing over her shoulder she sees the cauldron lying against a tree at the edge of the clearing. It no longer glows orange, but heat still emanates from it.

Jhaelin enters the inferno with his shield raised. Cassius dumps water over the cleric's head as he enters, the last from his water skin. Inside the cottage the fire roars from the burning linens and chair. The walls have caught fire and the ceiling is hidden from view by black roiling smoke and flame. Several shelves are on fire, including the one he seeks. Jhaelin chokes and coughs while pushing his way to the shelf he had been standing at before. The jar is there within flames and he grabs it, then drops its as it burns his hand. He grabs the disgusting pendant he saw earlier that hangs by a leather thong and wraps the leather around the jar. Twisting it tightly for a good grip, he then snatches the jar from the shelf and turns to get out of the cottage.

Another jar explodes nearby, showering Jhaelin with shards of glass (-2) that cut his face and a smelly unidentifiable icor that has a consistency of fat reduced to a gelatin. Then, to his amazement, almost all of the fire dies down to nothing but smoke and he leaps from the cottage with the jar in hand.

Leah puts a foot into Cassius' offered hands and he lifts her to the roof. She easily grabs her pole and it pulls free. A successful retrieval of one of her most valued possessions.

The companions regroup near the edge of the forest. After a short time, the fires reignite and the cottage begins to burn to the ground. A thick column of black and grey smoke boils into the sky.

---

End of combat...

"If that wasn't the Hag laying in there already," Karok observed. "She's going to be ticked when she shows up..."

Responding to Kharock, Leah nods. "If she needs a place to stay, perhaps I can offer her a room when I have my inn."

She had successfully recovered her pole from the roof, so she now goes and gathers up her armor. Fortunately, it was out in the clearing, so it should be an easy task, although, at the moment, she does not don it. It is still too hot out here for metal armor.

She is not too certain of what the purpose of coming here was, or if it was a success, or much of anything else, but the cleric seems satisfied, so perhaps something good happened. Maybe it was a haunted house. The poor girl did say something about the cauldron being possessed, after all.

When the others are ready, Leah is prepared to move on, wherever the next destination might be.

"A sound reason for not hanging around here too long I think." Jhaelin says in response to Karock's observation. "We have all the reagents. Now, to get back to Falcon's Hollow. Laurel will be excited to discover we were successful."

The cleric wiped bits of gunk from his armor, then places the jar with the pickled root in his pack. "And I would welcome a good bath."

Jhaelin takes out the crumpled map and studies it. A furrow creases his bloodied forehead as he ponders the route. Thick forest all the way and they would have to skirt the lake. It would be much shorter to just swim across the river straight south.

"We might be able to make it back to the cut by the turn of new moon (6p.m.) We will have to spend the night there, or in the forest. Should make Falcon's Hollow by the turn of high sun (10a.m.) tomorrow if we skirt the lake to the east."

"Or..." he says, sighing. "We could make for the river to the south and swim across it. Then, we might make it to Falcon's Hollow by nightfall. Dangerous yes, but quicker. The river is known for its giant moor snakes and the largest gators in the realms."

Durwe kept an eye on the cauldron resting on the other side of the clearing against a tree. Jhaelin's spell must have destroyed the magic animating it. Thick smoke rolls across the clearing toward the east, impairing his sight of the cauldron a bit but, he keeps an eye on it just in case. He glances away just enough to respond to Jhaelin's words.

"If we truly want to save as many lives as possible, we should swim for it."

Illiana sighs, an anger roiling in her gut. Was she to forever hinder this group?

"I can not swim. I have never learned."

Roxie had finally stopped running and leaned over with her hands on her knees as she panted and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Please don't set the trees on fire," she muttered. "The little furries would be mighty unhappy to lose their homes." Then she looked as the hut seemed to flare and was quickly consumed. "And worse is an elderly magical woman who now no longer has a roof."

She wasn't normally one to worry that much about things like that since she had always been on the move but she was changing on the inside as much or maybe even more so than all the changes on the outside. Her conscience had always been there but she'd gotten good at ignoring Jiminy Cricket. As she rounded the corner, she saw the reason and smiled.

"Mission accomplished?" she asked Jhaelin and placed a hand on Karok's shoulder. Looking at the map, her eyes were riveted to the blue of the lake. "There's as good a bathing place as any until we can get to town." The longing for a good soak, a tasty meal and drink, and soft bed were tempered by her task of telling a certain man that his kin and his lady love were gone.

Tynia laughs at Illana. No surprise there...

"Even so, we should swim for it. I can pull Illana to the other shore with me. I have saved more than one from drowning before."

On some level, Tynia relishes the idea of having Illana cling to her. Depend upon her for her very life. And if the mage happened to let go...

Tynia purges the thought from her mind. What was she becoming? Such thoughts!

Illiana glares at Tynia with a look filled with loathing.

"I am sure I can manage on my own. How hard can it be after all."

Leah considers. She just recovered her armor and donned her pack. It's heavy, and it is a struggle to carry even that, much less try to swim with such encumbrance. And crockagators would be attracted to the smell of the delicious food. However those are not her prime concerns. Karrock is a dwarf, and made of earth. Everyone knows dwarves dissolve if immersed in water. And then what would happen to the children?

But it is best not to embarrass poor Karrock. So, she says, "We should walk instead. We can't swim and fight crocagators at the same time, and all the armor would rust when it dropped to the bottom of the river, maybe with us in it. Well, not all of us, just the ones actually in the armor itself if you tried to wear it while swimming, or if you did not let go when it tries to pull you underwater if you carry it. Armor doesn't float you know, unless you make it out of wood, but we don't have wooden armor."

She pauses and thinks. "That would be a good thing to use against rust monsters. Maybe if we got enough ten foot poles..." She drifts off, considering the possibilities.

"Is there a ferry or something similar to get across the lake without having to swim? Seems to me there would at least be some fishermen who might be willing to take us across and at the very least we could rig up a couple of rafts," Roxie opined. She didn't mind going for a swim but given Iliyana's temper she was trying to find a way to make a little peace.

Jhaelin offers no comment on Leah's rumination. He smiles at the one-day innkeeper, then answers Roxie's question.

"No. No ferry, and as far as fishermen go, there are some. Loners that live near the river who fish for market, but usually hunt gators and snakes for hide. We might run across one of them along the river if we skirt it."

Jhaelin folds the map and puts it away, satisfied with the direction they had to take.

"Lets head for the river to the south. If its too wide or too deep to cross then we can skirt along the bank around the lake and follow our previous path back to the cut."

Leah nods at Jhaelin's words and gives him a knowing look. It seems a perfect way to avoid embarrassment. Pretend to look for fishermen, and then walk around things until they get back. That should allow Karrock to save face and stay together. "That's a good idea. I agree. It's just what the stinky cheese man should have done too," she adds with a subtle wink to Karrock, so he will know they are looking out for the welfare of dwarves.