"Office first, then upstairs?" Dryn whispers.
The palizard nods.
To the observatory?
The revolting stench of rotting flesh roils from the open door. In the room beyond, ten chairs surround an oblong dining table situated parallel to the door. Along the north wall, a wide staircase leads to an upper floor. A wooden door below the stairs presumably leads to a slim chamber. Two doors line the south wall. A sagging antique wooden shelf dominates the west wall, looking like it might collapse at any moment.
Three tall candles on the dining table illuminate a sight of terror. There are ten chairs at the table, and with the exception of the place at the western end, each of the chairs surrounding the table holds an awkwardly seated humanoid figure. The nine bodies are in various stages of decomposition. Some sit with splendid posture, paused as if midway through a sumptuous feast. Others slump treacherously close to the floor.
Heaping plates of apparently fresh food sit before each of the diners, but the empty place setting features a clean plate and set of utensils. Several bottles of red win rest upon the table, and each of the corpses sits before a half-finished glass. A fly passes nearby, its there-not-there buzz breaking the eerie silence.
"Looks like the dead are not completely dead in this room."
"Um, want me to bomb them from here? I've only got, let's see, 2 left. And 3 flasks of acid."
I cast detect magic while carefully examining the corpses from a distance.
Knowledge(religion):
Justin readies his trident for reach and detects to see which ones are actively evil.
"Maybe Rohara and Dryn can effect them from a distance. If I am enlarged I can really affect them from a distance."
I can make you larger, but I wish to know what these are. So far they have not moved discernibly. The question is why. I hate despoiling the dead, but it might be a good time to make sure that these dead remain dead.
"If I can see them, then yes, I can channel positive energies to harm the walking dead." she whispers as she pears over at the almost unmoving forms.
They are zombies and definitely evil as they are undead. However, they have made no move away from the table and certainly are not acting like you imagine zombies would act.
"Evil undead, as much as I am committed to destroy you upon sight, have you any reasons we should not be destroying the very presence of your kind?"
"I think they are playing dead and hoping you pass by."
No reaction from the zombies
Kilthan says, "There's no way I'm leaving a pack of zombies between us and the exit."
Justin rushes the closest zombie with his trident after giving his companions time to prepare. He coordinates with Kilthan, but his swing is wide.
Kilthan readies his axe in hand and waits for the nod of Justin's head, then springs into action, bringing his axe down on the nearest zombie, "You want to go back to sleep, dead thing? I'll make it happen."
Justin swings at a zombie and misses while Kilthan hits one killing it. The other zombies are still in the same pose and don't move.
Justin joins in.
This is easy, maybe too easy.
You slaughter all the zombies with ease and without resistance
After the zombies are put down the Rohara looks over the table area where they were seated around. "That was rather... odd behavior. I suppose if they were commanded to remain seated, they would not have put up a fight."
You go about searching this level and one of the rooms is a kitchen which contains an enormous wheel of cheese, a moldy loaf of bread, and several strips of stringy cured meats.
There is also a pantry with a couple different spices but is mostly empty.
Also there is a storage closet which contains four extra chairs and eight copper candle holders. The candle holders you think could fetch maybe 5gp each in town.
Yes both of those seem to still be good
she'll take them.
Justin grabs the spices too. He likes spicy food.
Perception:
Seems to me that our crazy necromancer is interested in recreating scenes from his life. He made the zombies to live out some fantasy, or nightmare. We will have to be careful to see what other stunts he has.
The stairs lead to a massive bedchamber that fills an entire floor of the observatory tower. Light filtering in from the tall windows ringing the chamber catches motes of dust in the calm air. A fine bed with plump red linen sheets squats upon a dais along the southeast cradle of the tower’s arc. A nightstand next to the bed holds a wax-choked candlestick and a black book bound with brown and red leather.
At the midpoint of the eastern wall a strange form stands rigid atop a short wooden stool, as tall as a halfling and clothed in a fine black suit and top hat. Clean cloth bandages wrap every inch of the sentry’s skin. A pair of ash-tinted spectacles rests upon a long skinny nose. The diminutive dandy holds a silver platter as if presenting a meal, and upon the tray rests the freshly preserved severed head of a middle-aged human woman. A platinum piece sits upon her outstretched, purple tongue.
A messy desk rests against the opposite wall, piled high with loose papers. An apparatus holding four long tubes filled with colored liquid peeks out from the clutter. Doors on the north and west walls appear to lead to small closets. Wide stairs lead above and below. A massive white stone statue of a thin human man with outstretched angelic wings and a beatific look upon his idealized face looms large in the northwest arc of the tower wall. The angel holds a sword in one hand and cradles a harp with the other. The presentation conjures thoughts of mausoleum peaks or the graves of important men. Tall letters etched upon the statue’s base spell out a single word: “Filge.”
This creature is probably evil and smiteworthy.
Justin will begin to detect evil centered on the bandaged creature, but is ready to abort that action to a charge at first sign of movement.
Justin heals himself quickly touching his holy symbol
Kilthan whispers, "Can anyone tell what the apparatus does?" And then studies the statue carefully.
"Ok, this room is slightly creepy"
"Creepy, almost feels homey!" Dryn will go study the apparatus on the desk and the papers.
"I was referring more to the Head on the silver platter with it's tongue sticking out."
"Yea, I don't get that either. If you want to preserve a head, you need a jar with some wax to keep it airtight. Oh, and a few fun chemcials. Must be some kind of art."
Justin The "creature" does not detect as evil and nothing else does in this room either.
Kithan The statue is clearly as disturbing as anything else in this room, but otherwise normal. You now have an idea of what Filge must look like, albeit not as grand or with wings you suppose.
Dryn'taka The apparatus is a cruder, less elegant version of your infusions. There is a syringe that holds these special shaped tubes that holds an alchemical mixture or potion. There is a beaker holder with the label "Necroturgeons" written on it containing 6 of these glass tubes, 4 of which are filled with some sort of liquid.
"Ooh, these are like my alchemical goodies. Hmm, not as good as mine are though. I think you have to inject them instead of ingestion. Wonder what they do..."
Justin is interested in the black book and examines it while Dryn checks out the alchemy stuff.
You can learn a lot by what people read.
Justin You cannot read the book, it is in some weird language. There are about twenty or so pages written like that, and the rest of the book is blank. (around 80 pages or so)
Dryn'taka I meant one each, that will work!
You determine that these four containers used by the syringer contain something like a potion, but can only be injected, not drank. (Though the container if used or emptied would hold a potion.)
Necroturgeon #1: A milky blue substance that would function as a gentle repose spell
Necroturgeon #2: A deep red substance that would ct like false life
Necroturgeon #3: A sallow yellow mixture that would act like a ghoul touch spell.
Necroturgeon #4: A white with black streaks mixture that you are not sure what it would do at this time.
Rohara looks about the room with the others and is taken aback at the this necromancer's strange tastes. The woman calls to her divine magics and casts an orison to reveal magical auras.
She looks to one of the other women, "Perhaps a read magic spell on the strange texts of that book Justin has? Maybe it is a spellbook."
Rohara Nothing is undead in here.
Strangely enough you have heard of the name Filge before. He is a necromancer that lives in Magnimar area. Word is he is a little crazy but gets results.
When you detect magic something glows within the papaers near the apparatus Dryn'taka is studying. Sifting through the pile you discover it is an arcane scroll of animate dead
Going through the chemicals, she exclaims, "Oooh, these are neat! This one makes corpses decompose slower, this one makes gives you a little more life, and this one gives you a ghoulish touch! Not sure what this white one is tough. Anyone wanna volunteer to find out?" Dryn will continue to look through the other papers on the desk, only mildly interested in the Scroll.
"No, thank you.
I recall an old alchemy lab I explored where the alchemist swapped the labels of his stuff on purpose to screw with thieves."
Dryn Injecting is a move action if it is already pre-loaded. It is a move action to load one. A fullr ound action if you want to do both in one round.
"Swapping labels? That's just mean." She obviously considers it for a moment after speaking, a smile playing across her face. "Well, maybe..." Dryn scoops up the Necroturgeon's and injector before moving on. "Shall we check out these two smaller rooms before heading up?" Dryn moves to check the southern doors, next to the desk.
"You don't want to know what was labelled as the cure potions,
though I'll admit some did have funny results."
As the others mill about the room, I look at the strange statue and the severed head.
Knowledge(Arcana):
Knowledge(Nature):
Knowledge(Planes):
Knowledge(Religion):
--> Do I know anything about the type of creature this is? What type of ritual would this severed head on a platter represent? What type of creature the statue is?
I don't have Read Magic memorized, so we will have to wait on deciphering the spellbook.
I also examine the one flask that Dryn could not figure out.
Spellcraft: