Ebirah nods and smiles at Lorelei. "Yeah!"
After the skum attack, several more weeks pass in peace. In this time, the nascent colony begins to prosper, completing the palisade and constructing several more houses. In about 3 weeks, another ship, called the Argent Cornucopia arrives from Andoran, bringing new colonists, additional tools and supplies, and more soldiers to reinforce the colony's garrison of 6. The atmosphere of fear and mystery in the once-abandoned colony is, if not absent, then significantly lessened after these weeks of calm.
Six weeks after the skum raid, Ramona calls you in to a meeting at the government house concerning a new discovery. When you arrive, you find her, Carver Hastings, and Lyra Heatherly standing over a table, inspecting a map of the island that looks very old. Carver speaks once you enter.
"Greetings, friends! As you can see, Lyra has discovered a new map of the island, one with numerous sites in interest. However, she also found a journal, which suggests this map was not made by the Azlanti. As you may have guessed, I am more than a simple soldier- I am also an associate of the Pathfinder Society. And it would appear that this map and journal are documentation of one of the early explorations of Durvin Gest, one of the first Pathfinders. The journal also indicates that these sites were not fully explored, giving us several opportunities for discovery."
He moves aside, allowing you to examine the map.
Four locations are clearly marked and labeled, while in the center of the map is written Observatory? with no clear corresponding mark.
"How about that one marked 'Sunken Laboratory'? It's not far."
Ebirah gives a slight bow as Carver introduces himself as a Pathfinder agent.
"True, depending on how difficult going over or around the mountain there will be." he says to Bhookaj.
"It seems a good place to start. Though I would be interested to see if we can find out why the Ulfen settlement was abandoned."
Ebirah nods. "And that crystal monument out there is very interesting, but it would take a lot of resources and time to investigate that."
"There's no need to go over the mountain, we could just follow the beach around the mountain to the laboratory."
Ancorato is named after the Andoren captain who found the island about a year ago, so it's not labeled as such on Durvin's map.
Carver opens the journal. "It says in Durvin's journal that there was an underground research facility here at the bottom of an impact crater. It also notes that there are dangerous undead in the area, and a complex locking mechanism that prevented full exploration."
"Well, even following the beaches would make that old laboratory closest.
"Maybe with any luck we can figure out how to get past the lock's Durvin mentioned.
"I don't suppose the journal elaborated on the undead, did it?"
Ebirah's face twinged slightly with disgust at the mention of undead. "So the laboratory is sunken into a crater, not sunk in the water?"
"It seems from the description that it was not underwater. It also notes that the undead were humanoid, looked to have been burned to death, and their bodies gave off smoke and heat."
LOrelei's nose wrinkles as she imagines the horrible smells they will soon encounter. "Well, that sounds less than lovely. Though it does make it sound more important that we assess that situation, otherwise there could be a chance of smouldering undead wondering into our settlement."
Valdern looks up from studying the map. "Impact crater or explosion? Sometimes the two can look very similar. But in any case, I agree with Lorelei here, that site is rather too close for conform if it is still infested with the undead."
"Sounds like it would be prudent to clear that spot out first, then."
Ebirah nods in agreement. "And since it's not underwater everyone will be able to investigate with less issues." he adds, though he was a little let down that he wouldn't get to swim through an underwater laboratory.
"Shouldn't be a problem, I reckon.
"Three of us are more than capable of swimming if needed.
"Having undead giving off heat there sounds odd, though."
"Yes, undead this near is worrisome. It could be an explosion, but given the number of meteorites that crashed into Azlant during its fall, an impact crater seems more likely."
The journey is brisk and unremarkable. The mountain has a very gentle slope, making traversing it easy. Once there, the site is unmistakable, though obscured by lush vegetation. A massive crater, easily a hundred feet in diameter, punches its way into the mountainside. Crumbling stones and pillars have collapsed and fallen toward the center of the crater. Numerous small streams divert from their course down the mountainside to trickle the cavern at the bottom.
"Look, there's some glyphs here.
"They're not in Azlanti, but I can't read them.
"One is pointing to the centre of the crater."
Ebirah follows up behind Bhookaj, nodding along after looking over what the Undine saw before looking around some more. "Oh hey, there's some shiny jewelry over in that skeleton over there." he says before stopping and looking at the ruins. "Hey, one of those shadows just moved, it was person shaped. Everyone be on guard."
With that he draws his weapon.
Bhookaaj isn't sure what exactly the glyphs he found mean. Once pointed out, they are apparent to everyone.
Bhookaaj draws his light crossbow and tries to look for the shape Ebirah saw:
... but can't see it at all
Trusting the others to deal with person-shaped shadows, or at least warn her if they were going to be a problem, Elia set about examining the glyphs.
"Danger, undead," she translated with a certain degree of irony. Not that the confirmation went amiss. "And coordinates pointing to the crystal monument. Which might elevate that to our next destination."
Now that everyone was on alert, and unless it looks like the shadows are moving closer, Ebirah will move over to retrieve the shiny.
Lorelei shrugs at the warning. "Well, we already knew that there were undead near here. At this point I'd be more interested in knowing who wrote the warning, when they wrote it and what happened to them."
"Well, they're Pathfinder glyphs," Elia noted, "So it might have been Gest, or it might have been somebody working from his journal, much like we are."
Ebirah is easily able to remove a beautiful sapphire from its place in a heat-warped circlet. The rest of the ancient skeleton's items seem to have fused or warped by heat beyond use.
"That's a good start.
"Hopefully the rest of this place won't be too difficult either.
"Although I won't hold my breath for an easy time of it."
Ebirah quickly returns to the group holding out the sapphire and nods. "It's certainly pretty, I wonder if it's magical?"
The sapphire does not detect as magic, and neither does anything else in the area.
"Well, we might as well go in and see what else we can find"
Bhookaaj will then proceed with caution, and ready to shoot with his crossbow, if needs be.
As Bhookaaj moves toward the center of the crater, he hears the sound of a distant scream. Everyone has a sudden and intense vision of a fiery comet plummeting from a sky darkened by ash. The comet strikes the ground and explodes in a brilliant burst of light and heat. You blink, and the sky is clear once more. However, you notice that you appear to have been somehow burned.
Lorelei can't help but let out a scream as she suddenly finds herself burned and in great pain. She channels healing energy to herself and her group.
"Damn, that hurt. I think that we have entered a Haunt. We must have just relived the last moments in the lives of the Azlanti who died here and whose firey bodies are supposed to be residing here still. Such things as Haunts can only be permanently destroyed by acomplishing a specific task. We need to find out what that task would be here."
”Wha! Oh, thank you, Lorelei. Task? Hmm, that might be difficult. Can’t really talk with the memory of an explosion. Or can you?”
Dusting himself after somehow dodging for cover, Bhookaaj says:
"We'd best find out what that is, then. We can't be dodging fire all day!"
The hole in the bottom of the crater is quite deep, requiring the use of rope to get to the bottom. The vertical cavern widens and gives way to smooth, manmade walls, albeit ones in severe disrepair and neglect. The whole chamber is at a slight angle, and there are numerous piles of random debris. The floor is made of interlocking brass and copper tiles, with intricate designs inlaid in silver. The tiles are corroded and partially covered in a few inches of water, falling in from the small streams above. There are steel doors to the north and east, with niches about the right size for an ioun stone.
Lorelei steps carefully in case the water covering the floor hides any deeper holes.
"Well, north or east? Which door should we try first? And what are the niches for? A type of key to open them, maybe..."
For all that it had been the merest echo of the fiery doom which had come upon Azlant, the haunt had hurt. But how did one go about smoothing over the effects of an event like that?
"North seems as good a direction as any," she said.
The northern door proves to be locked, with a spindle-shaped niche. Before something can be slotted into it, however, a pair of smoldering undead creatures dressed in tattered green robes suddenly appear. Their hands are sharpened into claws, and their eyes burn bright red.
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Bhookaaj will draw 'chop-chop' and wait to see what attack can preset itself.
Sound like it doesn't have obstacles like that.
Just wanted to know if I have a chance to make use of either of his archetype abilties of Swinging Reposition or Scout's Charge.
Preferably both, of couse!
"Ok, I was expecting flaming skeletons walking around, not whatever those are." Valdern lower his spear and poke at the first one in front of him. "Hum, they aren't easy to hit, wonder what exactly they are."
Taking queue from Valdern, Rhyfedd moves forward to attack. His attacks are more precise than Valdern's. The blows are strong, but since the target is already dead, it is hard to know the impact of them.
The undead manages to sidestep Rhyfedd's first slam but not his second, which causes the creature to stagger back a step. The undead hiss in anger and begin to give off a cloud of thick, black smoke, obscuring them. The first lashes out with claws at Rhyfedd while the second steps forward to attack Valdern. Their claws are both sharp and hot to the point of burning.
Caught admiring tthe floor tiles and the intricate silver running through them Ebirah jumps when the undead appear before charging at one.
Lorelei fires off an icicle at one of the smoldering corpses.
The corpse raises an arm to block Ebirah's sword, its burned and thickened skin largely deflecting the blow. Lorelei's icicle lodges in its side, and the cold somehow dissipates the concealing cloud of smoke.
As she often did while sizing up a new enemy, Elia opted for a defensive approach, conjuring a protective ward. If nothing else, her usual fire-themed approach seemed unlikely to be effective.
Valdern feels the pain of the attacks twice. Once when he gets attacked, and then again when Rhyfedd syphon some of his life essence to remain on this plane. "Aarghh... Bloody hell, that hurt like crazy." He steps away from one of the undead while staying next to his phantom. Calling upon his psychic energy, he tries to heal some of the wounds that Rhyfedd suffered.