The Island Caves

Military: Skirmish

Seeking answers, the adventurers explore more the island to learn more of what's happened.

For the adventurers, this island had no shortage of mysteries and oddities. Every step they took left them with more questions and concerns than before. Whether it was familiar weapons and techniques, or strange entities hiding in odd places. For most however, a similar list of questions had started to form. * Who was this sun goddess the cultists were worshipping?
* Who was controlling the weather like this?
* How was the weather being controlled?
* What was this strange ritual protecting their ships?
* Where were the missing crewmembers?
* How can we kill this damn priest?   Of those questions, two had a more immediate likely answer: "where were the missing crewmates" and "What was the strange ritual protecting their ships?" The industrial Brutus had in fact, not found one but two sets of tracks. The second of which would be followed to a strange cave system inhabited by the cultists.   Initial scouts allowed the party to take stock of the position and various happenings in the cave, and make for a temporary but quick assault plan. Leaping into the dungeon and taking the fight to them, the adventurers quickly cut down the entrance guards, causing a great confusion amidst the gathered cultists, and for them to attempt to rush their ritual to completion though this was unbeknownst by those who had intruded so suddenly who would continue their exploration of this cavernous system.   Increasing the dangerous and likelihood of a failed ritual was that the sudden rushing tactics employed by the adventurers meant that one of ritualistic casters could not participate - lest their guards be wiped out with even greater alacrity, serving as the Gecko's tail in order to distract and delay them, their ghoulish warriors used as fodder to create the chaos necessary to delay the intruders for the requisite time until the ritual could be completed.   But, haste would ineivatably make waste, and this, combined with the ritual missing a key component, their attempts in sealing off the island peak would go slightly awry, unable to fully seal it off with the missing components and hasty performance. A mattter which would shortly be discovered by the Adventurers whom would arrive within the ritual room.   With magical auras still seething within the air. The adventurers would finally discover at least two answers to earlier questions. For supplementing one of the missing members of their crew, they would find the desecrated and sacrificed corpse of Mister Cleveland of the Unfetted Heron, as well as - upon the ritual wall, lit by Naffy's torch would be a story of the first peoples who had come to this island. Under shared circumstances as they themselves, these fellow had climbed to the island's peak where they had witnessed the might of a figure embodying the sun's might and power within the halls of a sacred shrine. They had come to worship that figure, and received it's blessing, but in turn must sacrifice to it. Of the living and the dead, to give to the sun was to receive her grace.   The natives however, rather than risk the sight of their holy site to the outsiders had attempted to seal it, yet; their ritual had gone awry, with missing pieces to the ritual. With missing sacrifices to the ritual, it was incomplete and had missing chunks of their barrier. With a map having been stolen previously from the bone vessels that had once assaulted them, it was learned by the adventurers that this seal was incomplete, and they could attempt to soujourn to the peak, learn the secrets of their protective ritual and slay the priest who had led these peoples.   But if the shrine had predated these cultists, who had made it in the first place? In fact, who could say the cultists knew anything of the area of which they now inhabited? Such uncertainties were only compounded by the adventurs having identified more strange oddities within the caves themselves.   Whilst the cave room filled with water, and the gaseous vents had been their own mysteries, what was perhaps the most perplexing had been the strange artworks within the ceiling - almost seeming to lead to their own worlds, yet they were sealed off. Unable to be opened or revealing what their purpose was. Surely the cultists would've opened them, revealing visions of the sun they worshipped so much if they could, but the strange lack thereof would leave the adventurers with a curious note remaining in their heart at the as of yet, unsolved mystery.