We definitely hear a strange squelching sound that is coming from all of the strange bodies.
They all smell of rot even though they are not old corpses, there is also a hint of cinnamon. The smell is reminiscent of the mummy corpse to a degree.
The male's clothing is out of date, more from the late 1800's and not from the 1920's.
almost nothing in his pockets.
The two female strange humanoids do not smell of rot and just smell of cinnamon. Their clothes are more modern and period appropriate.
There is nothing in their pockets that seems strange or out of place.
There are no undulations in the skin that would indicate the presence of one of these slug creatures.
We move them all into one hut so we can keep an eye on them in the event that something weird happens.
Father Fury attempts to persuade one of the islanders to help get the corpse of the islander that is in the water. He does and we are able to fish the body out of the water.
We determine that it is pretty likely that these creatures swam here and did not use a boat.
Nayra is going to leave the island in the morning, but she does not want to tell us where she is going. She fears she is being hunted by Kharisiri.
We set up a watch order, working in pairs:
Cillian and Albert
During their watch Albert notices off in the distance, maybe a quarter to half mile away, in the moon light he sees something on the lake. He is able to see that it is a boat. It appears to be empty and drifting. We resolve to keep an it to check it out as we leave.
Mickey and Father Fury
Elias and the Islander
Nothing else happens as the sun begins to rise.
Nayra plans on taking the bodies of the Islander's as she and the survivor's flee toward the middle of the lake and out of sight.
Albert is back to some semblance of normal after the rest.
Father Fury does last rites over the corpses of the Strange Humanoids before we tie anchors to them and dump them into the lake.
We still see the unoccupied boat and we plan on checking it out on the way in.
As we paddle into Puno we stop and check out the boat. It is clearly empty as we come up along side it. It is similar to the ones we saw on the reed island, but there are a few nicer items and newer looking fishing gear that it seems strange that someone has left behind.
We are able to, after a considerable amount of arguing, make it back to Puno.
We switch back to the other group. As the sun sets Augustus Larkin shows up at the hotel, he joins us for a drink and seems excited for the travels of the next day. He talks about the supplies and and plans for tomorrow, but he does cough quite a bit. He does quickly retire.
Nigel and John stay up until after midnight waiting for the rest of the group, who do not appear.
In the morning the Doc is able to acclimate to the altitude and is feeling much better than he was the day before.
Larkin goes to check on the mules that he has secured while we head to the docks to try and figure out what happened.
John is able to find a man that speaks English. John talks to them for a while and he learns that the other group left late in the evening yesterday and no one has seen them come back unless they returned in the middle of the night.
We aren't really able to learn anything additional about where the other group went to where to start to look for them.
We spend some time talking about what to do. We wait for a couple hours at the docks to see if our companions return and much to our relief, they do.
The Doc tries to deal with some of Cillian's wounds, but in his nerves from what he is hearing from the experiences of the island cause him to fumble, doing damage instead of healing.
We relay all the information to one another as we return to the hotel. Larkin is waiting for us and wants to leave immediately, we lean into that and shortly there after we do leave heading due south.
We start off across some open plains towards the mountains. We see some ranches, and alpaca ranchers, but the feeling that we are not welcome is even more pronounced here.
John was able to find us a good campsite, including a good cleared place for a fire.
John is also able to identify a large anaconda in the lake we were going to use for water so we are all aware.
He is also able to trap a brace of rabbits that make a decent warm meal.
We set a watch:
Cillian and Doc
The doc was able to heal Cillian up.
Additionally, we see the anaconda slither up out of the lake and checks the camp out. It slither's through and then moves on.
Mickey and Nigel and Elias
Albert and John
During this watch, there is a horrifying scream that rings out of the dark. They are able to determine it is coming from where the mules are. They rush over and see that one of the mules is down and unmoving. The other mules are bucking and rearing.
On the approach Albert sees some sort of hunched figure, most likely a humanoid, rushing away from the camp into the darkness. Albert fires of a crack shot at the fleeing form. He thinks he hit it, but it continues to run. It cries out, but it doesn't slow.
He fires another round and misses.
The figure rushed off to the southwest, not far enough off our course to alleviate concern.
Boris and Father
The mule has a vicious looking set of slashes on its front haunches. There is also a now familiar round lamprey bite among the slashes.
Doc is able to determine that the slashes happened before the bite.
The wounds reek, almost like barnyard offal.
We do what we can to get rid of the mule corpse and resolve to solve the issue of the equipment in the morning.
We talk about just abandoning some tents.
We ended the session there.
Session 9:
The Expedition Begins
My fear again waned low, since a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodings over the unknown.
