"Apparently, the throne allows teleportation between several locations, provided you know the proper command word."
"That explains the meaningless word on the base." Xanos said. "The fountain is enchanted as a water supply."
Albrέkt dips a gauntleted hand into the fountain, as a scowl plays across his pale features;
"Just wasser? A pity... A fountain ov blut vud haf been perfekt."
As the others discern the throne's purpose, the ironclad wretch lumbers to the ornate seat and grins, flashing a uneven mouth of fangs;
"Ve schud send vun of Der Leben to test it Ja? If zhey fall at der other zide ve will rekover zhier korpse und gift zhem undeath..."
"Hmm. Interesting. Perhaps if we get separated in our endeavors here, this would be a good point to regroup."
(I5 and I7)
These two rooms are ransacked barracks. The larger room hold a dozen beds and the smaller 8. A thick layer of dust and cobwebs covers everything. The bedding has degraded severely over the years, but the bed frames are perfectly serviceable and it wouldn't take much to turn this into functional housing once more. Poking about Sariana finds a brittle pouch that must have been missed during the initial pillaging. Inside there is a potion and 31gp worth of mixed coinage.
"Useful." Xanos said. He did not waste time. After scanning the room for magical auras, he moved on and opened the next door.
1-6
There is nothing here but ash, blast marks and few burned bits of refuse. Some sort of explosion rocked through here long ago. Greasy soot and bone shards plaster the room.
1-3
This is another empty guardroom adorned only by an L-shaped stone bench in the southwestern corner.
1-4
This is a cool stone stone chambers. The corpse of a minotaur lies on the floor, pinned to the floor by a spear.
"Curious." Xanos said, looking at the body. "The death is recent."
Albrέkt eyes the corpse with a cold smile;
"Uzval raw materials Ja?"
The towering wretch looks the surrounding area for clues to the monsters demise...
:
but his attention is fleeting as the stench of death proves too distracting.
Survival
"This is certainly strange. I would think the boggards would have noticed a minotaur of all things coming up here."
As Molasbar examines the site, he thinks to himself I should take up smoking a pipe.
Molasbar tries to piece together what happened with the minotaur.
He also casts detect magic to see if anyone cast some sort of extended Gentle Repose on it, or perhaps an item that creates that effect.
"If there's others here, my scout will find them, and likely be unfound in return." Haruk says, offering to help Molasbar.
Albrέkt frowns at the bull-man's corpse;
"Vhy leave der speer? Perhapsch it vas Der Minotaur's? Or zhey mean to return?"
Mulling the prospect of rivals or a foe capable of felling a minotaur are loose within the dungeon, the brute vampyr draws his heavy blade;
"Ve are lineal here."
"Dead. A lifetime ago." Xanos replied.
The minotaur looks as if he died yesterday. The body has several superficial wounds, but the deathblow was very much the spear through the chest.. He bears upon his arm a tattoo of a white horse skull with three burning green eyes. From what anyone can tell, no one has been in this room for decades.
"That tattoo likely marks him as a servant of the former cult that resided here."
"Indeed." Xanos said, looking around the room carefully, holding his gauntleted hand out like he was feeling for something intangible. "There is more going on here than is obvious."
1-8
Another sleeping room full of broken bunks and moldering personal effects.
1-9/10
You open this door and step into a dusty and cobweb filled, but otherwise mostly intact, tavern. It's actually not in terrible shape for a building that has been abandoned for eighty years and a little coin and elbow grease could have it up and running again in no time.
1-11 through 1-15
These appear to have once been the rooms of the temple acolytes and servants. They mostly hold more broken bunks and moldering personal effects, but in one of the rooms a sharp-eyed Sariana catches sight of a small, well-preserved book. A quick look finds it to be the journal of one Brother Zander Trask. It seems repetitive and poorly written, but there might be useful information in there for someone who took the time to read it.
Xanos chuckled as he deciphered the enchantments in the dead minotaur's room. "This is a larder. The room is enchanted to preserve food and drink. And, it seems, corpses. Very useful."
Once in the temple rooms, Xanos picked up the journal, thumbed through it for a few moments, then slipped it into his bag to read later. "Does not look important, but it may render some contextual information to this place." he said, mostly to himself.
"Ah, that makes sense, then. The minotaur could have been slain here decades or centuries ago. It is just a coincidence that it fell in this preservation zone."
Molasbar considers, then adds (as much to himself as to the others) "Someone must have occupied this place for quite some time if they went through that much trouble to create this space. We will have to bear that in mind when we encounter other oddities. It may help us understand what we are witnessing."
"This place was once the home of the most successful doomsday cult in history. Daemonic power is woven into the stone of the entire mointain. They diverged sharply from my original intentions, but in spite of being largely useless to me personally, I cannot deny the Sons of the Apocalypse were an impressive group." Xanos said.
|
"This place will serve us well in future." Sariana comments, without giving her thoughts on the Doomsday cult. "We kould build a mighty base here. My clan will protect the entrances below, and we would be well defended."
Assuming the group does not wish to pause longer she leads the way to continue with the exploring.
Albrέkt nods in agreement at the words of his fellow Knot;
"Ja. Ve too are Furcht erregend!"
The ironclad wretch eyes the tavern with a jagged smile;
"Blutwein vill be der haus spekiality!"
Furcht erregend = formidable, fearsome
"I was thinking the same thing Sariana, that this temple would be a good place for us to establish a base."
He too notes the journal "I would like to look that over as well, when you are done Xanos"
"Of course." Xanos said, moving on to the next set of chambers.
1-2 and 1-17:
These rooms we once another guard room and an armory, respectively. They are both thoroughly picked over, with nothing of particular use to be found.
1-18:
Broken glassware and alchemical equipment litter the floor of this room. Shatter shelves and scattered papers are everywhere. Lying upon the stone slab in the center of the chamber is a broken and ruined alchemical golem.
Haruk looks over the golem from a fairly safe distance. He wasn't overly well versed in such creatures, but he wasn't about to go near one stupidly. "That could be useful, should we able to repair it."
He'll look through some of the papers for anything useful.
"Alchemical components are valuable. I would posit this room has been looted." Xanos said, eyeing the golem.
Molasbar approaches the golem warily, in case it isn't as defunct as it seems. Assuming it doesn't pop up and attack him, he'll inspect it for valuables or the possibility of repair, calling out what he is seeing to Xanos. .
After that is complete, he scoops up the papers scattered around the floor, not terribly concerned with their contents or any sort of neat organization. He drops them all into his haversack for later review.
Albrέkt taps the inert construct with an armoured fist and a sombre expression;
"Do ve need ein Alchemistisch Golem? Ve hav Der Auferstehen az our soldats ..."
Poking about the wreckage with both mundane and magical means your find several items of note. It doesn't take long to realize that some of the papers in the mess pertain to the golem. Under Xanos' supervision you quickly sort through the papers and piece together the schematics for the alchemical golem. At the top of the first page is the name 'Artephius'. You also find an oddly shaped glass reservoir that somehow survived the mayhem and three doses of stone salve.
Referring to the schematics, Xanos identifies the reservoir as part of the golem. It is where the primal essences needed to power the creation mingle and it is a simple thing to replace. Beyond that, the golem is severely damaged, but no beyond hope of repair. Referring to the notes and with Molasbar help, Xanos identifies the repairs and replacements needed to get the golem operational.
1. The Eye – Artephius even if activated would be blind. Its single glass lens has been shattered. The lens is entirely present however and so could be repaired using the make whole spell. Failing that, a new lens matching the exacting specifications of the schematics could be bought in Farholde. It would cost 1000 gp.
2. The Brain – Artephius needs a new human, dwarven, elven, half-orc or half-elven brain. No other race will do – they are not the right size and attunement. It need not be from a living person. Someone who died in the last twenty four hours from natural causes will do. Of course, murder is always an option.
3. The Heart Cog – Artephius’ mithral heart cog is missing. Without this critical component, Artephius will not activate. A new cog will have to be made. Fortunately, the exact shape is described in the schematics. 500 gp worth of mithral will suffice to make the heart cog.
4. The reagent of fire - Artephius needs ten doses of alchemist fire.
5. The reagent of ice - Artephius needs ten doses of liquid ice.
6. The reagent of acid - Artephius needs ten doses of a potent acid.
7. The reagent of electricity- Artephius needs a large supply of lightning elemental blood.
Golem
"Albrekt, while your zealous devotion to your 'race' is admirable, it is relatively easy to destroy most undead. Any cleric of the holy gods can easily call forth the pure energies that are anathema to your kind. Those who draw their power from the sun or light in general, can blast Der Auferstehen to dust. Golems, on the other hand, are generally highly resistant to magicks, and are just hard to kill or stop, period." The infernalist explains, hoping he gets through to his vampiric companion.
"Need is subjective. Want is enough." Xanos said simply as he perused the paperwork with Molsabar.
After a short time he raised an eyebrow at the schematics. "Lightning elemental blood? That would require... Planar Binding. A simple summon spell would not leave blood behind. Strange that the designer would require that, instead of Bottled Lightning."
"Finding such a creature already bound to this plane is unlikely."
Albrέkt's lip twitches involuntarily as Haruk extolls the virtues of constructs over undead.
"Animate your Golem zhen... Schuld it ever prove unreliable know I vil destroy it... Period."
The towering vampyr taps the monstrous puppet once again, flashing a fang'ed grin.
"If not for the absurd elemental blood, I could have it working in a matter of hours." Xanos said. "The cost is minute compared to the usual investment required for these sorts of constructs."
Haruk sighs at Sariana's comments "Sure, vampires are exceedingly quick and can be silent as death. You realize you're not the only type of undead, right? Last I checked, zombies weren't the epitome of fast and sneaky, nor are skeletons usually capable of destroying a cleric all by their lonesome."
1-19:
Guard room. Nothing of interest.
1-21:
This appears to have once been a trophy room of sorts. The trophies are missing, but the wall is still discolored where the trophies long hung and the plaques beneath the trophies still remain. In all a dozen tarnished plaques dot the wall.