If you are looking for who is stealing the bodies, then you are working for the Church of Pharasma. He seems suddenly less interested in talking.
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After a moments hesitation thinking she wanted the wineskin Lyteonira hands the tanglefoot bag to Amelie. She takes the second acid flask but declines the alchemist fire "You want to be careful of those underground you might hit a pocket of gas that will explode in your face"
"Now Svilennius there's no need to be like that. Tell us what we need to know and we can make sure you get out of here alive and not in the hands of the pharasmans. So what should we know?
I don't have any answer to anything in regards to the church!
I don't want to tell anything to those who work with that blasted church in Kaer Maga!
Three large glass vats stand against the eastern wall, filled with bubbling green fluid. Floating within the vats are three grotesque objects—putrescent corpses, tubes and wires embedded in their rotting flesh, their skin discolored with decay and chemical stains.
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Thessaly shrugs. "You don't call this evidence? He's admitted to being a bleedin' necromancer, he has undead he went and raised through is book, he's got a bone to pick with the church... seems like a set case to me."
She yawns. "But there might be a lot of shiny down here, good stuff for pickin'. I say we keep looking around."
She moves in and delivers a sharp elbow to the alchemist's temple.
The party heads to the pit to the north. It is 20 ft. deep, but the walls of it only go down about 10 ft, and have an opening east and west, as there is seemingly a hallway below.
You see there is narrow ledge about three inches wide along the wall of the pit. It looks like it might be difficult to cross
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Maulaxe motions for his companions to wait a moment while he crosses the pit.
Maulaxe will carefully move around the outside of the pit, trusting his balance on the narrow ledge.
Maulaxe then reaches for his rope to toss back before realizing he used it to tie up the alchemist.
Maulaxe grunts instead as he shrugs and looks back at the party. "Uhrnf."
Maulaxe makes it across.
This large chamber has a vaulted ceiling, and unlike the rest of the ossuary, bears a distinct impression of habitation rather than abandonment. Lit candelabras reveal old tapestries hanging from the walls to ward off the subterranean chill, and a threadbare carpet covers the floor. Shabby furniture—a few chairs and tables, an armoire, and a dresser—flanks a large canopied bed in the center of the room, topped with satin sheets and a heap of lumpy pillows.
A woman stands in the center in front of the bed. Her face is beautiful, yet decayed, but does not seem to have lost all of her human features. You see she even has decent, but worn, clothes on, and she has a spell component pouch by her side, along with lots of adventuring gear. She looks like she may be wearing heavy amounts of makeup to disguise her ghastly self.
Alongside the woman are two human female zombies. They seem to wait for a given command.
The more intact zombie steps towards the hallway as Maulaxe goes across, see the whole party at this point.
Hello? Intruders! Who are you? Explain yourselves! Did you meet with Svilennius first? Does he know you're here? She speaks with conviction but also a hint of being frightful.
She sees Svilennius carried by Kayde. You... you knocked him out? You see her stare at the body. ...who ARE you?
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Before leave the laboratory, Malakiah aids his comrades destroying the vats with the "zombies in processing".
Malakiah sketches an ironic smile. "As I said, the investigation wasn't finished yet, my friends. It seems like we can find more answers with her."
The wizard spots the pit and tries to calculate if he is able to jump to the other side, as Maulaxe did.
What investigation? she asks.
Yes, my husband. I see you dragging him along. She looks away from the party, her eyes full of woe, then snap back her head in conviction. Don't get too close! You still haven't told me who you are!
She says to Amelie, I've heard of Pathfinders in the city before, but only vaguely.
And then she speaks to Kayde, He's... misguided. But that doesn't help the fact that you clobbered him! How do I know I can trust you?
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Thessaly curses darkly at the sight of the stupid pit in her way, and swigs a potion before leaping across with surprising grace for all her clangy clumsy armor.
Listening to the exchange, and looking at the decay of the woman, she makes a face. "Your hubby there told his creations to 'get us' when we came callin', so he's lucky to have his limbs left at all. Don't worry, he's mostly intact-- all his toes, fingers.... other important bits.... Though I gotta ask, do you two really..."
Cue some gesturing here. "...never mind, I don't care to know. Anyway. There's a lot more of us than you, so how about we talk? You can choose to trust us or not, it don't matter much to me, but it will go south as Garund for you if you attack us."
I'll at least let you in on what happened. She sighs.
My name is Esme. You may see that I am of the undead now, but I really wasn't all that much different in life as I was in death. I got some kind of incurable disease that rotted away my skin not so long ago. It was painful, and I looked horrid. I wanted to get rid of that pain. That's when I met Svilennius.
He said that he would find a way to cure my affliction. I believed him despite many others trying to cure me, and he took me down to this lab. My condition became worse, and still he found no solution.
One day, he told me that he thought of a way to bring me back as a zombie, but be able to retain my memories and thoughts. I was skeptical at first, but eventually agreed because I was nearing the climax of my disease. When I didn't wake up from the process, he thought he failed and burned up all his notes on the alchemical process he used. I rose as a zombie three days later.
I am now as I am. I don't blame Svilennius for this state... I did agree to it after all. But as time has gone on, he has gotten more and more mad and started taking bodies from the catacombs and trying to replicate his process with me, but he has so far been unsuccessful. I... I haven't left this place in months, maybe years!
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Thessaly winces. "Poor luck there, lady. Sorry you're corpsified and such. All the same... 's not like we can just let him carry on what he's doing, is it? You said it yourself, he's a bit mad."
She looks down at Kayde's burden. "Maybe more than a bit."
Thess leans on her glaive and looks at the others. "Look, she seems a nice sort. Think we can just let her go? With a thick enough cloak she could probably walk around up-top without anyone seeing. Of course... she'd have to agree to not interfere..."
No, I suppose it's best to not let Svilennius to continue his work. I worried that this would eventually get him in trouble, and clearly it did.
I actually could seek life in Ankar-Te, which is a section of the city here in Kaer Maga. Undead are accepted there.
I certainly could, as I tire of being down here in these chambers. My only request is that you don't kill my husband. Turn him in to the church, fine, but I would like for him to eventually have a second chance.
I can certainly tell you what I know!
Back near my husband's lab, there is a staircase. That staircase leads to a hidden door to head back into the catacombs that the Pharasmans don't know about. My husband was smart enough to not steal any bodies in proximity to this exit so that they wouldn't suspect to look there. You can use it to exit this place, and I will also be using it to sneak my way out of here. The door is quite easy to spot from this side.
Near that staircase, the door to the south has a few of his creations in a small room. The secret door next to it, also easy to spot from this side, has a few of his skeletal minions. You will find that exiting from this side of the secret door problematic as they are ordered to attack anything and the quarters there are really tight.
My husband and I also explored the crypt some. To the far north of this crypt there is a very large pit, and something pretty scary crawled out of it. We left before we found out what it was. There was also a door with a Sihedron star to the west in the hallway. We didn't explore what was beyond.
She continues explaining areas of the crypt, all the rest of which you have already explored. This includes the large room you found, but she seems to only know about the secret door you found and all the passageways inbetween you took to get to where you are now.
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"I apologize for the inconvenience, my lady. And we are very thankful for your informations. As Amelie told, you have our word that we will keep Svilennius alive. We will bring him to the Pharasmites and he will face their justice. Count with us to help going out from this place. When we finish the exploration, we'll come back here to take you. Right?"
What's another few hours, or even few days, when compared to several months in here? I can stay, but I won't be able to be spotted by the clergy here, so won't be able to walk with you through the catacombs. They are Pharasmans after all. They may kill me just for what I am now.
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"Why don't we just take him topside now? A lot less chance that he'll run away. Or maybe worse, get killed as we clear this place out. I don't want to have to keep him alive should things go sideways."
"If we do this, they should consider our task done, and maybe deny us to come back to continue exploring. And we don't wanna stop now, do we?", Malakiah grins to Kayde.
"I suggest that we can go to the south passage and see what have there".