"Do you really think so?" Délia says. She starts slowly rising up, and her expression turns into a more confindent one.
"Damn right!" She exclaims. "I'm not letting some oversized butterfly bully me into giving up! Next time I'm in town, I'll seek those urgathoans and ask if I can join! Happy now, eh? Bet that they throw better parties than your followers!"
After venting her frustration towards the likely innocent Desna for a while, she looks towards the way to deeper to the crypt, then her companions.
"Should we continue forward, or rest for a while? I don't think that these skeletons will be rising anymore, but you never know."
Elaina calms down enough to start uncurling herself.
"W-w-we s-s-should g-g-g-go b-b-b-b-b-back."
The surging excitement of the battle has left the normally jumpy Sevrin in a drained, strangely calm state.
"The flame? Honestly I'd completely forgotten why we're here. Something has happened here, and we need to fully investigate this crypt to make sure it's not going to be a threat to the village. There's nothing wrong with resting first however. I dunno, maybe inside the crypt isn't the safest place to rest though."
"Do you really think so?" Délia says. She starts slowly rising up, and her expression turns into a more confindent one.
"Damn right!" She exclaims. "I'm not letting some oversized butterfly bully me into giving up! Next time I'm in town, I'll seek those urgathoans and ask if I can join! Happy now, eh? Bet that they throw better parties than your followers!"
Not quite what I meant, but at least she's got her fire back
After venting her frustration towards the likely innocent Desna for a while, she looks towards the way to deeper to the crypt, then her companions.
"Should we continue forward, or rest for a while? I don't think that these skeletons will be rising anymore, but you never know."
"A good question..." he muses.
"W-w-we s-s-should g-g-g-go b-b-b-b-b-back."
"Your brother is right, it'll be okay. We won and we should be proud of that," Nedyr assures Elaina.
"The flame? Honestly I'd completely forgotten why we're here. Something has happened here, and we need to fully investigate this crypt to make sure it's not going to be a threat to the village. There's nothing wrong with resting first however. I dunno, maybe inside the crypt isn't the safest place to rest though."
"We're dinged up and demoralized, but the flame isn't just a test of character...it's an heirloom of our people. Let's look around for it, and see what signs we can find. Then, we get outside, and rest up , restore our healing energies and so on. In the mean time, if more undead come...we retreat."
The immediate danger of ravenous dead now removed, Nedyr took the time to examine the room a little closer. The paintings across the walls all depict Kassen and his various exploits as the region's local hero all those years ago. Neither of the two doors leading out of the chamber appear to be locked, but neither are they open. Two of the bodies in the room - two that hadn't stood and tried to murder you - appear to be much more recent. They are still wearing clothing, as tattered as it may be, and the dried blood below them looks like a fairly recent addition to the crypt's dusty floor. But, at the very least, nothing else in here seems as though it wants to kill you.
Somewhere in the distance, a faint noise echoes through the deeper halls. Nedyr freezes when he realizes what it is - a wail of sheer terror.
"W-w-w-what w-w-was th-th-th-that?"
Elaina manages to get up on her feet and grab her bow. Her face is pale, and her eyes are a little puffy from her breakdown.
Elaina's calm broke as the wailing of an unknown creature echoed within the antichamber. Still within big-brother mode, Ed's courage had multiplied.
Choosing to switch to a devastating weapon, Ed brandished his great axe with increased vigor. The wounds from moments ago seemed to vanish as the wild Tirel became...the guardian.
Pressing ahead of the team, Edvard swings his axe upward, catching the light flecking from a nearby torch.
"WE WILL BE THE LIGHT, FOR KASSEN'S HONOR!!!" belted the passionate fighter.
Finishing the exclamation with a showy display, Edvard rushes towards the source of the sound. If there would be anyone to break the fear of the Undead, it would be Elaina's brother.
"W-what? ED! GET BACK HERE!"
Elaina stumbles into a run and follows Edvard down the passage. Her wary eyes looking for trouble that Ed was bound to run into, or right past.
"These corpses are..." Then the wail sends a shiver down his spine, "new..."
Then Ed races off towards the sound, "Ed? ED!" I swear, I do not know if the man is an idiot or a hero in the making. I guess it will all depend on if he gets us all killed or not. Nedyr chases after the siblings.
"Of course you're right Ned. We'll find that flame."
Sevrin joins Nedyr in looking around the crypt. Examining the corpses he muses "I wonder if that's all of them, it looked like there were only two mounts right? I guess they didn't get far?"
Then a distant wail breaks Sevrin's calm.
"Ahh! What is that? It never ends in this place! Alright we need to be carefu... Oh for the love of, whoever, Ed what are you doing?"
Sevrin pauses for a moment to heave a shuddering sigh and then hurries of after Ned and Ed.
Edvard bolts through the eastern door and charges off into the darkness, his battle cry reverberating through the tunnels. Leaving the safety of the dimly lit room, he blindly pushes into the darkness, his eyes slow to adjust to the pitch black gloom. He bumps into a wall, shrugs it off, and continues onward...
Ka-Chik
And his footsteps suddenly find no purchase on the ground. The sound of a spring-loaded mechanism resounds even over his battle cry, and the burly man drops like a brick into darkness. He tumbles forward, falling belly-first towards the unknown.
With a sudden WUMP, the fall ends - surprisingly safely. The man's bones all ache, and he can't see two inches in front of his face, and he's got something of a headache developing... but he landed on something soft. A little lumpy, maybe, but certainly not rock. Feeling around in the darkness, Edvard grabs one of the objects he's laying on.
...Pillows?
"WHAT TREACHERY IS THIS!!! A PIT OF PACKED FEATHERS??? roared the passionate fighter.
He was taken aback from the sudden fall. His frustration turned into laughter as he had little choice buy to place around a pit of pillows.
"HAhahahHAah So fluffy" laughed Edvard.
Elaina skids to a halt at the lip of the pit after seeing her brother disappear. She peers over the edge and calls down.
"Ed? Are you okay?"
Huh huh huh, feathers... could be heard Ed's laughter echoing from the pit.
And then it hit him, the main reason why he plunged into the darkness - his baby sister.
Elaina? ELAINA!!! I'm down Heereee!! And there's pillows! Lots of them!
.
"ED?!"
"HAhahahHAah So fluffy" laughed Edvard.
Nedyr looks at Elaina, "Once we're sure he's okay, would you please slap him upside the head again?"
Elaina? ELAINA!!! I'm down Heereee!! And there's pillows! Lots of them!
"Hard." Nedyr adds
"Pillows? I don't understand anything anymore."
Sevrin stares into the pit for a while.
"Maybe they were left here to keep youngsters from breaking their necks during the pilgrimage. Pity they didn't leave some at the bottom of that hill."
Sevrin holds his light pebble aloft and looks around.
"I think the skeletons must be part of a different agenda."
Délia arrives a little late to the scene, as it had took her some time supressing her better judgement enough to rush blindly deeper into a probably undead-filled crypt. Somehow, she is not surprised at all when she sees that Ed is in a pit playing with pillows. Though, those pillows do look fluffy.
"Ed, I know that you are having fun, but I think we should go check out that scream we heard first."
She takes a fine silk rope from her backpack and throws it down the pit for Ed.
It wasn't easy for the wild boy to come back to his senses. In all of his life, he had never encountered something so....magical ( in mundane terms ). Grasping as many pillows he could hold, he held on to them tightly and smushed his face in a reverberating manner.
"This is'll be the last of these friends..." thought the fighter as he bided farewell to the feathery packs of fluffyness.
Grabbing ahold of the silk rope, he gave a few tugs before attempting to climb up. He couldn't get a footing exactly, but roared and hollered with courage hoping to "will" his way up.
"TO DESTINY I CLIMB"
"This is all very confusing, like some game, except the skeletons and wolves... those were very real. But pillows in pits? This feels like a game gone awry." The druid scowls
Elaina nods at Nedyr's request. She helps Delia anchor the rope, as much to get close without arousing his suspicions as to help get him out of the hole. She helps Delia coil the rope before grabbing her staff and lining it up with the back of Ed's head.
THWAK
She waits for him to turn around before launching into a fear and anger filled tirade.
"ED! You idiot! You could have been killed! We don't know what's in here. We've got-- got t-to be more c-c-careful."
Elaina stands there for a moment, her eyes brimming with tears and her body trembling more from fear than anger. Slowly she manages to calm down enough to think at least half-way clearly.
"Ned, what was that noise we heard?"
Something about her voice suggests that she is hoping that it's not what it probably was.
With Sevrin's lit pebble finally catching up to Edvard, the group tosses the madman a rope that he quickly ascends.
The room itself appears to be a series of narrow corridors and pillars, cobwebs coating the ceiling. Several bones line the floor, many of which are cracked or crumbling with age. Fortunately, none of them stand to greet the newcomers to the room.
A doorway lies just beyond the hole that Edvard tumbled into, and just next to the group is a strange looking switch. Before anyone can investigate it, the sound resounds through the tomb once again - closer now. It is impossible to tell if the wail of terror is from the living or the dead...
Sevrin flinches as the wail sounds again.
"I don't feel too good about this. There were two mounts, right? And two corpses inside the entrance. So who would that be? Maybe we don't need to rush off and investigate."
"No."
Despite being deathly afraid of what lurked deeper in the tomb, despite being pale white from fear, and despite wanting to leave very, very much, she stood straight looked Sevrin in the eye.
"What if it's someone in need? We can't leave them. We need find them and help them."
"Elaina is right. If it is a threat we can't fight, no shame in running when we find it, but if there's someone in danger, well, we can't turn our back on them either."
"No, we do not run" murmured Edvard, his warrior side re-awakening.
He gripped the greataxe tightly, readying his body to collide with the enemy. Resuming his bravado, he charges towards the source of the sound.
"FOR HOUSE TIREL!!!
Elaina tackles Edvard before he can get too far from the group.
"Have you lost all your wits?! We need to hurry, but we need to be careful!"
"oof..." Edvard managed to make a small sound as his younger half got the better of him.
His greataxe clanging against the ground.
"Fine...we do it your way" said a frustrated Edvard.
Sevrin is finding that heroism does not come easy to him. The stress leads him to speak with uncharacteristic bitterness, if with entirely characteristic trepidation.
"Oh alright. Let's go get killed over the slight chance that someone in need actually made it past that room full of killer skeletons, instead of fleeing from the very large chance that there's something out there waiting to eat our souls. Oh, and the fire thingy.
At lest I won't live in regret. Not that I wouldn't be willing to give it a try.
"Uh Ed, let's try that again at half-speed. Try to stay in the light."
Sensing that his friends didn't approve of his bursts of heroism, he resumes a position at the front of the party remaining silent - letting the battle consume him internally.
"Urr..." moaned Edvard has he grinded his teeth against the sudden caution held amongst his team mates.
Délia does appreciate being cautious, but she thinks Sevrin might overdo it a little.
"Come on, Sevrin, if there are more killer skeletons, Elaina and Edvard can bash them. And if they still move after that, we run away. Or have them bashed again. Sounds good?"
"P-please don't mention skeletons"
Elaina has her glaive at the ready as the group makes it's way forward.
"May the lord of the hunt shelter us in this," Nedyr lets the warriors lead, but hopes his quick prayer will give some comfort to any other fellow worshipers in the party.
"All right, no skeletons. What about zombies?"
Zombies!!! asked Edvard with great interest.
Turning round, he starts doing his best paladin impression.
"Die evil creatures!" as he swung his battle axe with fun"
Elaina pales and it's possible to hear a meek whimper escape her lips.
"Buck up, Elaina," Nedyr tries to get the warrioress' confidence back, "They're just having fun, it's their way of dealing with fear I suppose. Myself, I think right now I'm relying on faith and a sense of moral outrage that anyone would defile this place so."
"I-I know, but they didn't almost get eaten."
"Hopefully whatever there is out there to fear, we'll fear it less when it's dead, again that is. Or if it kills us, that will take care of the problem to. So uh, does anyone want to see what that switch does? Or to we go through that door? Can anyone tell where the sound is coming from? Is it up ahead?"
It is readily apparent to anyone in the room that the sound is originating from somewhere beyond the door at the south end of this room. Unfortunately, the small, fluffy pit that Edvard had fallen into is blocking the easiest access to the doorway, and it's just wide enough at five feet that you can't really take a super wide step over it. You'll have to go around or jump it.
There's also that strange lever directly behind the party, in the alcove next to the hole. It appears to be made of copper or bronze, although it has been quite tarnished and scuffed from age or use - possibly both. It's large enough to notice at a cursory glance, but it's not as though its comically large.
"HEY! A LEVER!!!"
Cried out Edvard as he hastened to the device like a hungry monkey. Without hesistating, he pulls back on the switch waiting for a click or something.
Nedyr moves after Edvard, "Edvard, we don't know what that does yet."
Sevrin shrugs. "I suppose we'll find out now. Hopefully it gets us over this pit. I mean, I sort of hope for that."
"You're boring. I hope that it reveals us a hidden chest full of money and booze."
The lever's corroded mechanism take a little bit of work to get moving, but finally the gears within slide as Edvard yanks it downward. Somewhere behind the wall, there's the mechanical sound of something moving, sliding. It lasts for about ten seconds, and then there's another noise - a grinding this time - as the lever forces itself upright again.
The pit of pillows, however, remains unfazed by Edvard's expert lever-pulling.
Also, they are still not made of gold or booze.
"Shall we split our winnings now or later?" Nedyr says drily.
"It looks like we can just go around. Can any of us disable any traps we find?"
It doesn't matter if any one can or not, she goes around the column and follows the sound of the scream.
Délia follows on Elaina's footsteps, having deduced that near the young fighter was the safest place to be in the gloomy crypt.
"Does "Have Ed tigger it" count as disarming?"
"Only if knocks some sense into that thick skull of his."
Edvard had stared blankly at his baby sister - feeling as if he was called to a higher purpose.
Moving towards his sister, he had merely grabbed and held her high.
With a simple command, he uttered one thing.
"I Big Brother. I protect you"
Placing his sister down, he assured his use as a meatshield.
Elaina is about to take a step to the north around the column before Edvard abruptly grabs her shoulder and stops her in place. Taking her place, Edvard gladly charges forward into the unknown...
Until Elaina grabs him right back. The square Ed was about to step into appears to have the same pitfall mechanism as the first one he triggered. With a little bit too much weight, the floor would give way and drop him into another pit - of pillows, perhaps?