Tawmis looked around him and heaved a deep sigh. “So we’re looking for the captain’s sword,” he muttered beneath his breath, looking around the ship. “It’s not here,” he finally concluded.
“I did find this,” Coy appeared, seemingly from the shadows, holding a shovel in his hand.
“You expect us to dig up this whole island to find this man’s sword,” Tawmis gestured to what he still believed to be a statue, and not a petrified version of the Captain of the slaver ship, The Elf Wind.
“There was this,” Coy held out a parchment, “wrapped around the handle.”
“Well, that’s certainly convenient,” Tawmis grumbled as Taren and Blaz’tik came to stand behind the Ratling.
Coy unraveled the paper, and there was a mark of a blue dot, and then a path, with some numbers. Blaz’tik recognized it immediately, “That –tic!-,” he said excitedly, “is the –tic!- life stone over there. These –tic!- must be the steps to –tic!- find the Captain’s sword.”
They followed the directions, turning at the tree, take a few more steps and coming to stand by a small mound. “It would seem,” Taren’s voice boomed, “that something is indeed buried here.” Coy handed the shovel to Taren. The massive minotaur looked down at the Ratling.
“You’re the biggest one here,” Coy shrugged. “It’s going to take you the least amount of time and effort to dig up the Captain’s sword.”
Taren’s nostrils flared. The Ratling was right. He began to dig where the mound was, and eventually the shovel struck something. The others gathered around the hole, and were amazed to see, as Taren cleared off the dirt, that it was wood.
“What now?” muttered Tawmis.
Taren continued to dig, well into the night, until what he had uncovered was a coffin.
“This doesn’t bode well,” Tawmis said aloud. “I mean, who puts a coffin in the middle of an island with a map to dig it up?”
“Wizards,” Blaz’tik answered before Tawmis could accuse the mages.
“That’s right,” Tawmis couldn’t help but smile at Blaz’tik’s answer.
“It could be –tic!- trapped,” Blaz’tik noted, looking over at Coy.
“You want me to jump down that hole and check if a coffin is trapped?” Coy asked in disbelief.
“You are the stealthiest one,” Taren smiled, seeing Coy squirm uncomfortably. “It’s going to take you the least amount of time to see if it’s trapped.”
Coy, if he could, would have rolled his eyes, as he had seen Tawmis do plenty of times; instead, his whiskers twitched in annoyance. Taren lowered Coy into the rather deep hole. Coy ran his thin fingers around the edges, and sniffed for explosive powder. He looked up, “Nothing! Now get me out of this hole!”
Taren extended his arm and helped Coy out. “You seem unusually timid around coffins,” Tawmis noted.
“Just because my people are like the rats of your cities, does not mean we enjoy being around the dead,” Coy said, “especially, if you have seen what I’ve seen.” Coy, uncharacteristically, shuddered.
Taren jumped down and opened the coffin, expecting a stench and decaying body; there was a stench, but it was something that he had smelled before. But there was no body, just a pair of robes, of a pale green color.
“I know those robes,” Tawmis said, “and that odor. The odor is embalming fluid. Those robes are ones traditionally worn by embalmers in the temples.”
Blaz’tik shrugged, “I –tic!- would wear them,” he pulled on his current, tattered rags, “over –tic!- these robes.” Taren reached down into the coffin and pulled out the robes and handed them to Blaz’tik.
“So where’s the sword?” Tawmis suddenly realized. “I thought that’s why we dug this hole up?”
“We –tic!- assumed that the –tic!- sword was here,” Blaz’tik countered, as he slid the embalmer’s robes on.
“That would have been too easy,” Tawmis finally said and sat down on the mound of freshly dug dirt.
Elsewhere on the island…
Sir Karin hacked away at the brush before him, his massive sword, glistening beneath the stars as branches snapped and broke before his wrath. “What kind of island has such a dense forest?” He complained as he knelt down to breath for a moment, leaning heavily on his long sword. Stonebreaker was smashing branches with his massive club, showing no signs of slowing down, despite being significantly older than Sir Karin.
Stonebreaker’s next smash opened up a pathway.
“He’s old,” Jorale whispered to Alissa, “but those muscles are fun to watch.”
Alissa blanched at the thought. “He’s a primitive man.”
Jorale smiled, “That’s all you need under the tent; a good, strong, primitive man, that knows how to swing his club.”
Alissa turned her head, as if exposed to a horrid odor.
Sir Karin stepped through the clearing first, while Stonebreaker examined the damage done to his club, by the relentless destruction to the odd trees. “There’s a sign,” Sir Karin called out behind him, “It appears this forest is known as Twigroot. There’s also a satchel, and,” he paused, “a dead body next to it.”
He kneeled down and took the satchel and opened it. “This might do you some good,” he handed the rolled parchment to Jorale. “It would seem our deceased friend here was an Alchemist, much like you. By the looks of it, stranded on this island for some time.”
“It appears,” Jorale confirmed, scanning the parchment, “that they had noted what plants were poisonous or not, and even how to make a mending potion with some of the components on the island.”
“That will come in useful no doubt,” Alissa noted, noting that the hike through the condensed trees had broken two of her finger nails, which had been decorated with flecks of gold.
“The body needs no such healing,” Stonebreaker grunted from the back. His rippling muscles were adorned in hundreds – if not thousands – of various scars and battle wounds. “Such dependencies make the body weaker, more reliant on such things.”
Sir Karin looked from Stonebreaker to Jorale, and then down the path. “I suppose we should press on down this path. At least that means less hacking away at trees.”
“Yes,” Alissa said as they began, “but one must wonder what killed the man…”
The CRYSTAL AMULET the one that prevents petrification.
