Barnacle looks down at the bolt buried deep within his shoulder, a look of utter surprise on his face.

"Ooooh, that is going to leave a scar."

Looking up at the proffered potion, Barnacle reaches out for it, but stops himself from taking it.

"Is it going to help with..." he gestures to the bolt, brushing his punctured skin and winces.

"Ouch."

"Um... No, do not think so. That things," Gulp looked in disgust at the disarmed bolts, "they look poisonous. With that, it might help. Otherwise, I can just yank that thing out of your shoulder but maaaaaybe Sandlot can do it better. Just saying."

Gulp rushes back into the food storage room and sees what happened to Barnacle. The monk tries to help by offering a crimson potion he has been carrying but, after some back-and-forth, the duo seems unsure whether the fighter would actually benefit from drinking it at this moment. Barnacle has enough experience in battle and understanding of his own vitals to know that he is not currently poisoned or otherwise affected by the ballistae bolt apart from the puncture wound.

A few feet away, Undetow silently untangles Riptide from the second bolt. The octopus looks hurt but not severely. The ranger reaches for a piece of fish hanging from a nearby hook and gives it to his beast as a reward for bravery. Nonetheless, he only does so after Gulp confirms that the food in this room seems fairly fresh and not tampered with.

Following up on Gulp's request, Shanty moves into the bedchamber. The first thing that he notices is that, despite the monk's working assumption that this is Gar's quarters, there are actually two separate resting places within this room. Then, focusing more directly on the hanging schemes, the bard unhooks the frame from the wall and studies the parchment closely.

@Shanty:

Shanty grunts and then looks apologetically at Gulp.

"Sorry friend, this is nothing but a trinket.  Some sort of gnomish device used as a room decoration."

Barnacle shakes his head. "Thanks but no thanks, keep the potion for another time."

Gingerly gripping the shaft of the bolt, Barnacle looks to the others, "If I pass out and Gar shows up, can someone please ask him about which of his two tridents he prefers and whether he has any thoughts about a new swing thrust idea I have..."

He then pulls.

Bubbles swims up from the back as he hears the trap discharge and Banacle grunt in pain "What's going.....oh....that looks bad. You need help with that?"

.

"Much does Gar have to answer to.... this one is certain...." Sandlot pipes up finally, nodding in agreement. "But your passing through the mesh?" He continued, floating over once Barnacle was well and truly away from the wires, and offering in a gesture to help in the arrows careful removal without added injury. "Your own doing, it is... your own fault, mn?"

Medicine: 12(for flavor, if accepted)

Once the wound is seen to and patched up one way or another, the aged Locathah looked about the area once, then let his eyes fall back on his fellows. "Few are the miracles, this one can still channel... but spare them, this one can... if not find place to rest... if but for a moment..." His attention then turned towards the curtained off room/bedrooms. "A risk, it is... no matter how one looks.... But, leave this I will to you all."

(In short, Sandlot is suggesting the group takes a short rest before attempting to move on and get back what short rest resources at least we can.)

(Shanty would concur with Sandlot's opinion.)

Shanty returns to the food storage room and clarifies two points. First, whatever Gulp found there turned out to be fairly meaningless. Second, there are plenty of trinkets in that other half of the wreck should the group want to spend time examining them. This second point serves as a segue into a proposal that Sandlot has been rummaging. The old cleric suggests that the group take a moment of respite in the more inviting of the two rooms.

Shanty agrees to Sandlot's proposal right away, but the rest of the group needs a moment to think about whether to rest or not. At any rate, one task must be dealt with more immediately. Barnacle's wound looks quite serious and, while the fighter refuses Gulp's potion and Bubbles' help, he cannot say no to some first aid. Sandlot uses all of his knowledge of locathah anatomy and in-battle medic services to carefully pull out the bolt. He does so in such a way that no additional damage is caused by the bolt on its way out. Truly the work of a master. The wound is then dutifully dressed, although Barnacle only feels slightly better at the moment (i.e. no healing).

(OOC: Feel free to agree on whether to take a rest in the OOC chat, if you prefer.)

"If we are taking the rest" (and Gulp personally always welcomed a rest), "then better to do it with that room with the trinkets. They might be useless, but there were two hammocks in there. Can even sleep if we want." Shanty's information did not disappoint him, he never expected anything good from the gnomish trinkets.

Gulp went ahead, showing the way to the good resting place.

Barnacle shakily raises his hand.

"Here's another vote for taking a rest for what it's worth."

Turning his raised hand into a shrug, he adds, "Unless there's a strong reason to make sure we don't let Gar get too far ahead of us. Or we're worried about whoever these hammocks and bolts belong to..."

"If harm, they mean us... intentionally so, at that... then deal with them, we shall.... amicably even, if possible... but push forward, we should not... Pressing though time is, Gar admitted himself, this one recalls.... admitted to numbers of the lost...  not quite being enough." Sandlot replied to Barnacle. "So, a brief respite, this one suggested... but no more than that after, we should expect...." A gesture then goes to the room prior to the aged Locathah finding a spot just outside the curtained off area to finally sit down.

"From here, this one keeps watch... Mn.. "

The group agrees to rest for at least the next hour. Gulp leads them to the cozy bedchamber full of trinkets and the locathah find comfortable spots to relax, bind their wounds, and regain their strength.

(@All: I assume this is a Short Rest. If you want to make it into a Long Rest, let me know.)

(@All: Before rolling Hit Dice, please describe what your character is doing during the next hour. For example, if anyone is looking about the room, please roll an investigation check; if anyone is keeping watch, please roll a perception check, and so on.)

((That addition to HP maximum still stands?))

HD: 7

Gulp, who already "investigated" the room and found nothing, this time sat at the entrance, hidden by the curtain but watchful - pecking through the strings of shells and listening.

Perception: 16

Shanty will spend some time puttering about the room, poking in what ever interesting corners he can find.

Investigation: 21

(No hit dice for me, just regaining inspiration.)

Barnacle settles in for a spell, finding a nook facing the way the group entered the room from to provide a decent vantage point. Setting his trident close to hand, he nocks a bolt into his crossbow and sets out across his lap.

Not wanting to be taken unawares, he keeps a watchful eye out for anyone who approaches the group.

Perception 16

(OOC Going to roll the remaining hit die in Barnacle's pool (5d10 plus CON for ... 59 hp.)

(@Blue: I would hope so, as I doubt it's been 8 hours since its casting.. Maybe 5 after this most recent short rest.)

Sandlot putters about at the curtain, visibly seeming to weigh the pros and cons being just behind or in front of the curtain. Deciding it best to stay more relatively in view of the others, the old catfish eventually followed the others inside, murmuring prayers asking for strength from Eldath. But, work would be down to clear up at least some of the clutter about the widows viewing the chamber, so he too can keep at least a halfway decent lookout.

---> Using Harness Divine to get back a 2nd level spellslot before the short rest officially begins.

Perception: 8.

.

Shanty will play his song of rest for everyone.

OOC: Back at home

Bubbles, feeling at peak health, takes up a position near Gulp and also keeps watch over the group

Perception: 14

No real benefit for Bubbles unless we take a long rest (which will get 2 rages back) so he would be wanting to take a long rest

DM's Screen:

-> Rolling the Song of Rest die for Gulp and Barnacle, in that order: 4 and 1

-> Rolling the Song of Rest die for Undertow and Riptide, in that order: 2 and 1

-> Rolling a Hit Die for Undertow: 4

-> Rolling Hit Dice for Riptide: 14 -> Spending one more: 6

For the next hour, the group focuses on recovering their energy and/or seeing what this chamber has to offer in terms of trinkets of vantage points.

@Gulp & @Bubbles: You take it upon yourselves to keep watch over the curtained entrance while most others rests. For most of the next hour, you do not notice anything that catches your attention. The one exception happens just around the hour mark, when Gulp notices a noise coming from the upward sloping path in between the two halves of the shipwreck, a path the group had not explored before taking the rest. Gulp pokes Bubbles so that he can notice it too. After the noise ceases, the monk and the barbarian discuss and agree that it sounded familiar to them. It was the low but strange sound produced by the coral when Gar had forced it to grow unnaturally fast in an attempt to trap the party in his throne room. Looking about from your positions; however,  you cannot see exactly in which spot the coral grew this time around. (Gulp recovers 11 HP.)

@Barnacle: You find a nook and take precautions as to not be surprised should anything come up. Despite your best efforts to stay alert, the pain from the recent bolt wound is throbbing and it takes away your focus from anything else. You fail to keep an effective watch, but at least it didn't seem like anything warranted your attention. (Barnacle recovers 47 HP.)

@Udertow & @Riptide: Master and beast focus primarily on tending to their wounds and enjoying Shanty's tunes. (Undertow recovers 10 HP; Riptide recovers 23 HP.)

@Sandlot: You take your watch by the windows, making sure to clear them from some clutter so you can watch the field of colorful and lit coral outside. Dozens of minutes pass during which nothing of interest happens outside and, old age being what it is, you inadvertently take a power snooze for a portion of your watch. When you wake up, the group is just about starting to get ready to leave.

@Shanty: After you play a few melodies for the group, since you do not feel tired yourself, you decide to search for whatever goodies this bedchamber may be able to offer. Most of what you find hanging from hooks or within nets seem to simply be mementos of someone's past life. Nonetheless, a few of them are at least interesting curiosities. For instance, you find a tiny cage that appears to have no door, a glass jar containing lard with a wooden label that reads “Griffon Grease”, and a mummified goblin hand sealed in a glass jar, perhaps previously attached to that same goblin depicted in the picture Gulp had spotted earlier. Regardless, you see little value in any of these items. You are just about to find a sitting place for yourself when you finally spot something that might be worth your time. It is a journal, enchanted such that its pages and ink are not affected by water. You spend a good amount of the resting period reading and sharing the information you gathered with the rest of the party.

The author of the notes within the journal is a person called Fhenimore, although sometimes another individual, named Whymsee, has also made notes within. You gather by the way that they refer to themselves that both of these individuals were female. Since there are two beds in this room, you surmise it belonged to them. Whymsee describes Fhenimore as a tall, lanky mostly-human woman with a too-wide mouth filled with rows and rows of sharp teeth, like a shark. Her hands and feet are both webbed and, like a shark, she has an angular dorsal fin that protrudes from the middle of her back. In turn, Fhenimore describes Whymsee as a shorter woman with broad shoulders. Her legs have been replaced with tentacles, and her upper torso is covered in some kind of tough, conical shell. When startled, she can tuck in her head and pull her tentacles up into the shell protectively, like a strange hermit crab.

Your learn that these were not always their form; they were human once. Being previously Thayan slaves, these two tough-as-nails women fled Thay after discovering they were both intended for execution and summary transformation into undead warriors in the dreaded Thayan army. On their way out of Thay, they were forced to take refuge on a broken-down skiff that drifted far out into the Sea of Fallen Stars. Both Fhenimore and Whymsee preferred death to becoming the immortal undead servitors of their wicked masters.

In their last weary moments, an aged Kraken rose to the surface nearby, and spoke to them telepathically. The creature was actually on its final swim: a group of powerful adventurers sought it out for its treasure, and though they failed to slay the Kraken, it was so badly wounded in the fight that the rest of the sea life around it began to strike at it, taking advantage of its greatly weakened state.

Just before passing away, though, it transformed Fhenimore and Whymsee into Kraken Priests so they could protect its only offspring. Thankful for their respective transformations and another chance at some kind of life, the two then embarked on this mission with great enthusiasm and have spent the last ten years looking for a place where they might protect the young titan from the world, so that it might grow in power.

Thankfully, they met Gar Shatterkeel, who offered them a potentially ideal place for the juvenile Kraken to grow. He convinced the pair of Kraken Priests into bringing the young Kraken into the coral mountain, where they might “nurture it into maturity in relative seclusion.” Although they accepted the offer, they seemed to be somewhat suspicious of Gar’s intent, as he was always particularly interested on how the young Kraken's growth was coming along and how healthy it was. Fhenimore once caught Gar mentioning some sort of ritual, but was never able to extract much information from him on that particular point.

Being both intent on nursing the Kraken to adulthood and slightly weary of Gar Shatterkeel, they duo dutifully maintained the food stores here while also working to carve a passage through the coral, which is turning out to be more difficult than originally thought. The intent is to have ready access to and from these chambers for the young Kraken so it can exit and enter at will. This is something it hasn’t been able to do, as the creature has grown much larger than the opening currently available in its abode.

(OOC: It has not been 8 hours yet, so Aid is still in play.)