"I'm in no mood for your..." Zuberi begins before looking and seeing their numbers and foul mood "$&"%$£! me with a ten foot poll, where did they all come from." He takes a step back clearly considering just running to be a very nice option currently.
Tollo audibly gnashes his teeth.
"HAS NO ONE IN THIS F+$&ING VALLEY HEARD OF WRITING A *SIGN*?!!!", he says quietly.
Loges smiles sheepishly, as he nonchalantly kicks some dirt over a bee bit...
vs DC 10 = Success!
Still fueled by his rage, Horek glares at the Gorm worshippers arrayed in front of him. All it will take is a word from his allies and he will send himself into their midst, his axe swinging...
Even though they are all wearing full-face masks, you can tell that the Brotherhood of Gorm does not buy the Shelynite's flimsy excuses. The do not yet attack, looking toward their Grand Master for a sign or command.
He finally sighs and lowers his weapon slightly.
"You have desecrated our Holy Treasury with your Wazarek feet and your Wazarek weapons and killed the Holy Bzzts. This cannot be easily forgiven, and for this you must give recompense. You may yet redeem yourself with an act of Holy Obedience to Gorm. You will be allowed to leave, but may not return to our lands unless you bring with you the Queen Mother Bzzt of either the Magi of Usamigaras or the Warrior Maidens of Madarua. Only then will you be forgiven for your blasphemy. Return with the Queen Mother Bzzt, and you will once again be welcomed into our lands and given succor."
The other members of the Brotherhood relax a bit at the Grand Master's words, but still threaten you with weapons drawn, ready to attack at a moment's notice.
Horek lets go of his rage, though the half-orc strives not to let his exhaustion show as he deliberately sheathes the massive sword. "You should have locked your back door, then. When we opened it, the bees attacked us. We only defended ourselves." He glances at the others, then speaks on when nobody else does so immediately. "We will seek this Queen Mother you speak of. We believe one or both of those groups might be responsible for the attack on our caravan. Maybe you can keep us from stumbling around blindly and tell us how to find our way to the 'Realms Below' that you told us about." His patience with these cultists is wearing thin, but the barbarian knows that a fight could be very dangerous - especially given his current condition.
Loges begins taking out his writing essentials.
Now, if you good folk could give us those directions, we shall no longer be a...uh...bother.
After the others translate Horek and Loges' words into the archaic form of Kelish, the Grand Master shakes his head.
"They do not live in the Realms Below, simply in the Pyramid, but on the next level down. And you could have simply closed the door when you saw the Holy Bzzts, you did not have to kill them! They do not have hands! They wouldn't have been able to follow you! As for the door being open," and here he seems to become a little self-conscious, "the doors of the pyramid have no locks. We assumed that the bees would be defense enough. We were obviously wrong."
He collects himself, then points toward the door you came in through.
"Now begone, thieves! Do not return without the Queen Bzzt in your possession, or feel your eyes turning to fire as the Gormian Curse boils them in your sockets!"
As the group retreats the way they came , Tamru grimaces and mutters in his lilting accent again. "I think he was over-reacting, yes? There was nothing holy about those bees, no, not at all." With a shake of his head, the garundi's gentle smile returns and he speaks louder to the others. "Let us go see our dog-woman friend again, yes?"
Bolgar bows to the Gormites.
"Forgive us, friend. We did not realize that these were your... your Bzzts. We will make amends."
Bolgar turns away with the others.
"I didn't realize you could train such creatures, not without magic anyhow. How do we capture a Bzzt? I mean a Queen Bee? Will smoke work?"
Bolgar turns to Tamru.
"The central room had one other exit we did not explore. Should we explore that first? Or head down the stairs now?"
Horek is irritable and mutters in Orcish under his breath as he follows the others. He has no strong urge to head down, as his patience with this place has worn thin and he is starting to look forward to some food, drink and rest. Especially with the poison flowing through his blood that has weakened him to some extent.
Zuberi cranes his neck calling out "Are there any other sacred objects or places you would like to tell us about rather than assume we as outlanders would know about despite us having no way of knowing it's important to you..." before muttering to the others "...before we kill them."
Listening intently to Horek, the wizard guesses the gist of his concerns.
Placing a hand on the 1/2 orc's arm, the youth says,
Perhaps, we should return to our campsite. A day of preparation would allow me to study more pertinent spells for further exploration.
The Grand Master nods politely to Bolgar.
"You speak well for a hairy wazarek and do your people proud."
Zuberi cranes his neck calling out "Are there any other sacred objects or places you would like to tell us about rather than assume we as outlanders would know about despite us having no way of knowing it's important to you..." before muttering to the others "...before we kill them."
The Grand Master shakes his head.
"No, you have done enough here and there are no other relics of our faith that you can kill, unless you mean to also kill us all."
"Now leave us, so that we may entomb our bzzts in the holy sepulcher. This will take a day of travel for us, so if you return before then, you will have to wait."
Horek manages a smile at Loges' gesture. "I am well enough. Let us see about that passage leading off of the central room that Bolgar mentioned. We can save our exploration of the area below for tomorrow."
The group moves back into the entrance room and then turns northwest. The corridor found beyond looks very similar to its southern counterpart, with a hallway that soon turns northward.
Carefully moving forward finds that the corridor soon turns eastward again and then turns south. Before the turn is a doorway in the southern wall, which according to Loges and Tollo seems unlocked and untrapped.
Seeing as it's untrapped and unlocked Zuberi will move to open the door.
The room you open seems to be a long-disused storage chamber of some sort. It contains rotting bales of what might be cloth and dusty crates that are empty. It smells bad, as if it has been closed off for a long time.
Loges looks around.
Just a bunch of junk now.
"Careful, boys: this might be *sacred* garbage.", Tollo adds.
Tamru scrunches his nose and steps back from the door. "Uh... I think we should skip that room, yes?" He takes a few steps away from the stink and toward the corner of the hallway ahead.
"This stuff might be useful if we need kindling, or something to make torches out of. Other than that, though, I don't know if any of it can be salvaged."
"Let's move on."
Horek grunts and agrees with moving on.
Unimpressed by the old storage room, the group moves on.
The corridor snakes around a bit past it, and another closed door on the northern side of the corridor stops further movement.
After Tollo and Loges check it thoroughly, the halfling opens it, revealing another storeroom packed with dusty crates. Unlike the previous room, this was is occupied by a half-dozen small, luminous, winged humanoid creatures less than a foot in height. Their nearly black bodies radiate with color and light and their wings look like leafy palm fronds. They are sitting on the crates, speaking in some unknown lilting, musical language, and are playing some kind of dice game when you open the door.
Their heads immediately snap around to stare at you with suspicion and annoyance. One of them stands up from where he has been sitting cross-legged, and belts out a command in a very high-pitched tone in Kelish: "Close the door, stupid giants, you'll let in a draft!"
Horek glances at the others when he hears a high pitched voice ahead of them coming from behind the door - though he cannot understand the words. Deciding that there is no imminent threat, still the half-orc edges forward to get a glimpse, and his jaw drops a few inches as he takes in the scene. "What are they?" the half-orc asks the others in a tone of awed wonder.
Loges looks on at the scene with eyes wide open.
He is speaking kellish, actually.
The young wizard bows before the tiny folk.
Tollo grimaces in disgust, backing away from the room.
"This place is awful."
"What did they say?"
Tamru leans in next to Horek, looking on with wonder.
At the mention of the sacred bees, the creatures begin laughing uproariously, slapping their sides, and holding back the tears.
Once they collect themselves, the first one who spoke to you tries his best to keep from laughing more. "Oh, you are THOSE people. We have heard about you from the vermels. Quite a mess you've made, and you've only been here for a day."
"Oh, yes. That sounds like us, to be sure!"
Bolgar bows with a flourish.
"My name is Bolgar. Who might you be? And who might the 'vermels' be?"
Zuberi moves into the room. "I'm glad you're amused. They got very upset we killed their holy bees when they attacked us... apparently those are the holiest creatures they have but I think they are holding back so they can be upset with us all over again when we kill another sacred creature sitting in a room unmarked as such."
The head winged creature bows in return, sweeping back its wings like a cape.
"We are the etuvians. We are fey creatures of the desert who come here to the pyramid to amuse ourselves. The giants here are very amusing with their masks, their rituals, and of course, their sacred bees! You are from outside the valley, yes?"
"Yes and we are confused by their masks, their rituals and of course their sacred bees."
The creatures chirp with laughter at the mention of sacred bees again.
"Yes, yes, they are very humorous. You giants have such funny ways."
Then an idea suddenly lights up his face and he grins a not all-together confidence-inspiring grin.
"Say, you wouldn't be interested in a bit of a dice game, would you? We play here every few cycles, and you've rudely interrupted us, so it's only fair that you join us for a bit, don't you think?"
The creature picks up a tiny cup made from a dried gourd and shakes it. Tiny dice made of bone can be seen clattering about inside, all with differing numbers of sides and marked with strange symbols.
At the suggestion of gambling, Bolgar perks up.
"Hmmm... a game you say? What are the stakes?"
The winged creature smiles broadly at the dwarf's question, throwing the cup from one to the other while thinking.
"Well, we etuvians don't have much interest in baubles or money. What is there to buy in the desert, after all? What we do like to do is talk. We talk a lot, to anyone who will listen, and during this talking we learn things. So if you were to win at our game, we would give you little trinkets of knowledge concerning this pyramid, and the creatures who inhabit it. Sound like a good deal?"
I think it's a splendid idea!
Bolgar frowns slightly, and looks at these 'etuvians' more closely. When the house doesn't tell you what you have to put up to gamble with, that's a bad sign.
"And if we lose?"
The head etuvian smiles widely, revealing several rows of teeth stacked inside of each other like nesting dolls.
"Well, you have lovely hair. We could make some nice necklaces and belts with it. How about you lose, we get your hair. Sounds like a fair deal, giants?"
Zuberi runs his head over his shorn scalp "Too rich for my blood."
Loges rubs his hands together.
Tollo, are you up for it?
The wizard winks at him.
Tollo blows on his knuckles after the Kellish speaking companions explain the situation.
"I know my way around the bones, let me in there."
With a flick of the wrist, he sends the bone dice scattering from the gourd.
Horek eyes the sprites, but they are quite small and would likely fall to his axe quickly if they are lying. "I am willing to see if they know something about this place that might serve us. A little hair is a small price, if we lose." The half-orc glances at Tollo, wondering if the halfling knows the rules to this game. Horek doesn't recognize the runes on the dice.
Bolgar sighs.
"As you can see I am bald, so I have nothing to gamble with. I'll watch the rest of you play."
"Oh, they want your beard Bolgar. Don't worry, you can contribute.", Tollo says, "helpfully".
Loges claps Tollo on his shoulder.
You will look good bald. Who's next?
The wizard prepares to assist.
"I do not have much to offer, but I am willing to share what I have."
Tamru won't participate in the game, but he appears willing to stake some of his minimal hair on it.