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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 4171841" data-attributes="member: 2205">Teren'Kol heard a lot of screaming, fighting and dying in the streets that night… or he would have if he hadn't slept soundly through it all.  Caden had a more interesting experience.  He managed to board the ship unseen and poke around.  It wasn't very large, and most of the crew had a large, communal barracks style sleeping arrangement, hanging in hammocks.  Most of them were enjoying their remaining money and night on the town before having to leave again in the morning.  The cargo hold had a rank smell, and he found it was full of distended and swollen bodies of drowned sailors, stacked up like soggy firewood.  The trade in bodies to Cryx's necromancers was one of the most lucrative import items into the island nation.  Caden thought it best not to wonder if this ship found these bodies, or actually sank the ship and killed the sailors first, and then scooped them out of the water.At the nicer establishment where Fairlight, Jek and Eladkot were billetted (Sven's player couldn't make it this session; his character was just notoriously invisible the whole time) there was a loud scream and continued sobbing and crying in the middle of the night.  Eladcot got out of bed… and crawled under it.  Jek stayed in his room too, sitting up straight in bed, his eyes wide and scanning the room.  Only Fairlight actually went out in the hallway to investigate.  A small crowd of guests in their nightclothes was gathered in the doorway to a room nearby.  Fairlight covered up as best she could (I like to imagine her in a very small, filmy bit of lace—but I do have to admit that the player didn't exactly describe her dressed in that way.  Jek's player did mention that his character was sleeping without any clothes at all, which was kinda funny when he later came out of the room.)In the nearby room was another young girl, sitting on the floor surrounded by a growing pool of blood.  Her eye sockets were empty and her face was covered in blood.  Fairlight kept knocking on Jek and and Eladcot's door until they came out.  "Did you see this?  Isn't that terrible?""Yeah, bummer," said Jek.  "Be sure and lock your door tonight."They went back to their rooms.  While getting ready to climb back under the covers, Fairlight happened to glance at the dingy mirror in her room and she saw, briefly, a small, ugly little man no more than two or three feet high wearing a coat much too large for him and a tricorner hat.  He was sitting on her dresser with a bloody spoon in one hand and popping bloody, red-rimmed beautiful green eyes into his empty sockets.  She saw his reflection turn and look at her with a smile full of steelgray, needle-like teeth.  When she looked directly at the spot where he should be, she saw nothing; there was only his reflection in the mirror.She stumbled backwards with a strangled cry and ran out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her, and began pounding on Jek and Eladkot's doors again.  "You've got to come to my room with me," she said.Jek slowly smiled and looked at her appraisingly.  "OK" he nodded."And bring your sword," she added."I never leave home without it," he laughed, hitching up his boxers a little.  "No, your REAL sword!" she punched him in the arm.  "That eye thief thing is in my room."Eladkot's door slammed again and it took a lot of knocking to get him back out.  When he came back out, he had a robe thrown over his nightcloths and had his pouch of spell components with him.They crept quietly into Fairlight's room.  The lamp was still swinging slightly on the wall from the force of the door slam earlier, making eery shadows leap across the room.  "Look in the mirror," Fairlight whispered.They gasped; although they couldn't see anything on Fairlight's bed other than a small indentation in the covers, in the mirror, they could clearly see the small, ugly little man polishing an eye on his sleeve and popping it into his last socket.(Sadly for me as DM; at this point the encounter, which had built very well into this creepy thing, just went downhill fast.  Jek and Eladkot both beat me on Initiative, so Jek also had sneak attack damage, and before the poor little eye thief could even move, he was on Fairlight's floor dead.  *sigh*  I guess that's the way they roll sometimes.  Still; no regrets; the encounter was tons of fun even if the combat itself was anticlimatic.)Eladkot looked thoughtful for a moment.  "I've heard of these things.  If we recover that girl's beautiful green eyes and take her to any competent local priest, he can pop them back in and cast remove blindness and she'll be as good as new.  Better than new, even; she'll have an advantage for having had her eyes in the skull of this eye thief."  He looked even more thoughtful for a moment.  "Anyway, I'm wide awake now," he laughed, rubbing his own muddy brown eyes with his hands to remove the sleepiness.  "I'll get dressed and take her myself."When he returned he was smiling, and this time the smile did reach his beautiful green eyes.When I type the next update, the group will head out of Jekara, interesting though it's been as a place for adventure, and head for the even wilder Blackwater, pirate haven of Cryx.If you think Eladkot stealing that poor young girls eyes was bad, you ain't seen nuthin' yet.</blockquote>

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