(Might we take a short rest, perhaps on the raft, and then check out the treasure pile?  I'm thinking a little bit of bandaging would go a long way depending on what's coming up next)

Quote from Guiltysparc >>

(Might we take a short rest, perhaps on the raft, and then check out the treasure pile?  I'm thinking a little bit of bandaging would go a long way depending on what's coming up next)

(OOC: Your group is fine taking some time searching the cave and the nearby areas. But this was the aboleth's primary habitat. Between the smell and the psychic echoes left behind, I'm going to say that your party can't relax enough in this place to get "rest".

The raft was abandoned on the main river, and has floated to who-knows where.

I'm going to say that Water Walk will expire in under 10 minutes. (Hildigrim's Detect Magic ended a while ago.) At that time, your choices are to swim in the fouled water, head to the island, or back-track to some other place with dry land. Unless Quillary wants to cast the spell without using a ritual.

Drusk got you back to 31 HP. He is getting low on spell slots, but could get you another 10 HP or so, if that is your only concern.)

Quillary will follow the trog-zombie to the island, with the intent of being able to ritually cast Water Walk again, after making sure the island is safe.

Jorin follows after Quillary.  He will help secure the island and then look through the piles of stuff while she works on her ritual.

Hildigrim also walks over to the island after the others. He's still curious about the unknown creatures, so he calls into being his four orbs of light and sends them toward the western passage to see if he can see what's what better with some light.

The weathering of the otyugh statue suggests that it was petrified at least decades ago, maybe centuries. Crudely carved into one of the stone legs is the name "Bulba-Slopp", a Kuo-toa name. Combining your knowledge, this is probably one of the "gods" that the insane fish-men create so they can worship it. The slime covering most of the site suggests that it hasn't been worshiped recently. If the aboleth moved into this cave in recent weeks (around the time when the ettin said the river water was becoming foul), it probably caused most of the kuo-toa to flee to another area.

Hildigrim guesses that the shapes fleeing underwater are kuo-toa. If they were under the charm of the aboleth, they were freed when it died. They are racing in the direction of the caves where Volo was trapped in a net by kuo-toa two days ago. Within a minute, they swim away from this cave, and leave the owl's sight.

The ground is littered with thousands of coins. Unfortunately, most of it is copper. Since (in general) the party is not overly concerned with wealth, it is not worth the weight to gather all that copper. But there are silver and gold coins mixed in. Drusk would like the time to get the more valuable coins, in honor of Lliira (goddess of wealth and happiness) and to help with the Road's End Bistro expenses.

The net draped over the otyugh is woven with worthless shells and bones. Tied to the net are an empty wine bottle (the label worn away), a small caltrop made of bone, a rusty gauntlet, a leather boot, and an amulet made of composite wood and iron. Scattered among the piles of coins are a pair of tin cooking pots, a rusty helmet with a mace-sized dent on top, and a bugle that has been bent in half. 

Quillary gravitates towards the net (she barely looks at the coins, but sets the trog-zombie to pick up one of the tin pots and begin collecting gold pieces for Drusk). She pulls at the wine bottle, then slices it away from the net with her small knife. "You know," she says to nobody in particular as she examines the bottle, "Glass is formed when sand and fire meet..." her stare falls into the middle distance and she gives a little shudder.

Jorin puts a hand on Quillary's shoulder saying, "Quillary, you need not fear the flame anymore.  Fire can be destructive, but it can also be that which hardens us, makes us better.  The fire of battle, the blacksmith's forge, the potter's oven, or the searing heat of the cook stove, " he throws a nod to Pascal, then adds, "Without the heat of the flame, we would never become our better selves."

Pascal: "I did apologize for the fire elemental. I wouldn't have it attack you, under normal circumstances."

He pulls the tin pots away from the zombie. He taps them with a talon, bangs them on the ground a few times, then chucks them away.
"Rubbish. You'll never get a decent steak sear with that poor workmanship."

With the kuo-toa gone, Hildigrim is free to look at anything that catches his eye. (Volo will independently keep an eye on the surroundings from above.)

(that amulet might be worth taking a closer gander at)

Quillary looks at Jorin and Pascal as from a great distance, her spores writhe around her, as always reminding you of ash as much as anything. “There is much that grows when fire passes through, it is the way of death and rebirth, there is not one without the other, but fire… is hungry. It is not sated until there is nothing left for it to feed upon.” She comes to herself, blinking and smiling shyly. “It is kind of you to comfort me, Jorin of the Bodt, and you Pascal. I am well, just given to maudlin from time to time.”

The trog-zombie gives Pascal a reproachful look, and shuffles over to pick up one of the thrown tin pans, again laboriously putting gold coins inside.

Quillary, after giving the rest of the island a once over glance, settles down close to the edge to incant her spell, in a ritual fashion.

"Gone," Hildigrim says, apropos of nothing. He turns back toward the island and walks around the petrified creature, examining it as best he can and ignoring the other items on the island (even the coins!). "Bulba-Slopp," he intones. "Bulba-Slopp," he repeats, clearly trying to memorize it. He smiles at Jorin. "It may behoove us to be familiar with that name later." Turning to look at the water, he says to no one in particular. "I theorize the three-eyed creature is what was polluting the water. Oh!" he exclaims, reaching inside of his tunic and lifting the amulet he stole from Yraxilinith. He holds it out with one thumb toward the others. "I also theorize that my feelings of being watched ... are a byproduct of this." He grasps the chain and begins to remove it, but then stops mid lift. After the pause, he releases the chain and smiles at the others as the amulet settles back onto his chest. "Anyway, despite the death of the creature, I am still experiencing the same feeling of being watched previously attributed to the creature's all-seeing nature. Since it can no longer be watching us, and it is extremely unlikely that anything else is watching us ... I have thought back to when I first began feeling this way, and it has been since the morning following the first time I put on my amulet. It seems there is a thorn accompanying the rose." He tucks the amulet back into his tunic and turns away from the others, seeming fairly unaffected by this revelation.

Quillary continues to incant, oblivious to Hildi's revelation.

Drusk asks Hildigrim: "Earlier, you cast Detect Magic as a ritual, while Quillary was doing the same with Water Walk. Will it be useful to do so again?"

Jorin adds to Drusk's request saying, "I have no mind for magical things, but there may be treasures yet in this pile of trash."  He look over the amulet on the statue.

He then turns back to Hildigrim and says, "If your amulet is the source of your anxiety, why would you not be rid of it?"

Hildigrim all but smacks his forehead in response to Drusk's suggestion. "Your wisdom abounds," he says, smiling broadly. He whips out his spellbook and sits down to begin casting the spell ritually. Jorin's question does interrupt him, but he answers without any hint of frustration. "Ah, but my amulet is a boon. It has many benefits. It is true that I am unlikely to ever accurately feel when someone is truly watching us, but the positives far outweigh this one negative. Most importantly, it is the source of my new-found ability to confound, which I'm sure you would agree was helpful in our previous battle."

Drusk: "Kind of like my Sentinel Shield. It has aided me greatly, despite me feeling like we are being watched by that Hag who gave it to us." He glances down at the shield, and does a double-take at the eye painted on the front. After staring at it for a few seconds, he whistles a random tune and angles the shield away from Hildigrim.

The zombie picked up 600 SP and 320 GP (with the aid of Drusk and Pascal). There are still more of those coins mixed in with the copper, but it will take much longer to sift through the piles of coins. (OOC: The party can chose to stay to get every silver and gold, but I figured you just want the quick and easy loot. I'll add it to the "party funds" later.)

With Detect Magic active, Hildigrim reaches over and picks up the leather boot. After brushing off a layer of gunk, you can see the boot is in surprising good shape. The magic is weak, but Hildigrim remembers that magic boots only work as a set. A single boot will not function.

The amulet also catches his eye, but it also has unstable magic, like it is missing something. Both the amulet and boot can be studied later, when you have more time and under better conditions.

The party’s buoyancy re-established, Quillary stands up, dusting off her hands. “I wish to see the sky again,” she declares. “Shall we go?”

Drusk: "Do we return to the river and continue downstream?
Or we could go upstream, to check that part between the ettin and our current location, that we haven't visited yet."

He eyes that underwater passage on the west wall. "I'm curious about where that goes. If the aboleth kept a bunch of kuo-toa there (who have now fled), there may be something of interest."

Jorin listens to Hildi and Drusk describe their items and spits on the found, "Sorcery..." Then, "Let us look at the beast's lair, I would know more about this foe we have defeated."

(The other boot...do we need to sift through the island trash to find it or are we thinking we'll find it elsewhere in our travels?)