Realzing that Malthair is no longer speaking the words required to bring forth one of his summoned allies, Garidan risks a glanc in his direction, only to find the elf apparently gripped by the same mental hold afflicting Gruskorb. Fortunately, the siblings seems to have escaped the effect, and that means the party has a chance! Garidan quickly drives his rapier into the exposed back a second time, feeling again that noticeable resistance that impeded his first attack. What is this creature, the swashbuckler wonders in passing; the appearance is so tantalizingly familiar, he just knows he's read about this before. But to his immense frustration, the details remain just out of reach.
With an annoyed grunt, Garidan shakes the stray thoughts away and focuses on the task at hand: putting this undead horror back into it's little box again, and this time, for good. Pulling his rapier out of the body, he assumes a watchful defensive stance, ready to react in a moment if the thing turns its attention to him in lieu of Truk'tosh; he can only pray that Gruskorb remains ignored for the time being as no threat.
-OR-
The twin's mother is a woman of great foresight. Many moons ago, she gave her daughter a bone carved with runes that could remove supernatural fear.
Niyut reaches into the pocket of her robe and pulls out a piece of scrimshaw. Reading the runes aloud causes them to glow with an eldritch light before the bone cracks and crumbles into dust. The fear that had petrified Gruskorb and Malthazir falls away.
Pulling the shadows tighter about her, Niyut's form blurs.
The mummy rears back and turning to the young swashbuckler, strikes again at him with its outstretched arm. The blow glances off Garidan's face leaving a massive welt.
Working in tandem with Garidan, Truk'tosh gives the mummy another fierce pair of blows with his axe.
Staggering back under the blow as it slips past the weaving tip of his rapier, Garidan gives his head a quick shake to clear the ringing in his ears, then immediately responds with a third thrust of his weapon into the unyielding body of their undead foe. As with the previous strikes, he puts a bit of force into this one, while hoping that loss of fine control over his weapon will be repaid with the creature's hastened demise.
-OR-
Garidan and Truk'tosh hack at the mummy as it moans and absorbs the damage. Pieces of its wrappings drop to ground along with its rotting flesh as it begins to stumble, clearly close to be vanquished to an unending slumber with the dead.
Malz comes out of his fear, shooting a ray of positive energy at the zombie.
Though his paralysis had been remedied by Niyut, the rogue's instict was to run. Quelling that motive in a fit of anger at the abomination of the undead, Querkus convinced Gruskorb to stay.
Use my power. Extend your fingers. Get rid of that abomination!
A charge came down his arm and spread from his fingertips.
Niyut joins the elemental barrage that lances towards the mummy. "Return to beyond the Veil, spirit!
Perception
+11 with familiar
+13 in dim light or darkness
With a barrage of magic fired at the mummy from the others, the creature is destroyed and falls into a heap within the sarcophagus. Niyut and Malthazir quickly scramble up to the tomb and peer into it looking for any of the magical life essence from the banished undead. A single ball of life energy hovers above the mummy, slowly pulsating as it waits to be absorbed.
As the group peers at the grotesque staff lying next to the mummy, Truk'tosh and Malthazir notice an odd colored section of the old, worn wooden flooring to the sarcophagus. A quick prodding of the loose wooden block, reveals a handle to lift the false bottom and reveal something beyond... once the mummy's inanimate form is removed.
Malthazir quickly strides forward to capture the essence.
Once the creature is down following the barrage of spells that come in immediately behind the strikes from himself and Truk'tosh, Garidan waits a few moments more to see if anything else is going to pop up and cause problems. Seeing nothing, he then sheathes his rapier with a relieved sigh. Nodding at the staff with a curious expression, he asks. "Is that what we're here for then? Doesn't look like much, I have to say." He feels a brief moment of tempatation to fiddle with the staff, but quashes it firmly before it can become anything more than a passing thought; this is not the time or the place to let his curiousity loose.
"If this is what we're here for, I suppose we should get ready to leave then. Make sure our gear is in order, that we're in good form, and that there's nothing else in here that we might need or want." Looking at the staff again, Garidan frowns before continuing. "I do hope this staff can get us all back to Talanor in a hurry, as the Hazard of Necromancy claimed. Because I'm not sure how much time we have left, but I know full well that it's not enough for the same long plod that brought us here."
"I doubt it is what we are looking for since the staff that was described to us has a place for a gem. Whereas this one has a skull."
Despite her doubt, Niyut will peer into the Veil to detect magic on the staff and mummy.
Niyut stares at the staff yet cannot detect any trace of magic within it.
She will also take out that one book on dark magic and see if there is any part of a mummy that is useful as a power component.
"There's something hidden down here", Truk'tosh says as he reaches inside beyond the mummy's remains. "It's a handle I think. Let me try giving it a tug..."
Gruskorb shook his head. More secrets and sentries. Is there an end to this, or is such a marathon this arcanist's idea of a little game?
"That staff would have to be able to move us itself; we're not going to survive a round trip at this rate."
I wonder who the corpse was? Relative? Rival? Slave?
Niyut glances up from the book, where she is looking for a use for the mummy, and whispers:
"We will survive what we must survive. The only way through this new world is forwards."
A disappointed look forms on Niyut 's face as she fails to find a passage describing any use of the mummy's wrappings or corpse as a spell component. While Niyut had been consulting the book, Truk'tosh removes the wooden block and pulls the handle. The bottom of the sarcophagus begins to pull upward exposing a small compartment under the floor. However, the mummy's corpse prevents him from fully opening the "false bottom" to the sarcophagus.
Truk'tosh carefully removes the mummy's remains. "There's a compartment down here. I need to make some room."
Crouching down next to the ancient corpse, Gruskorb wondered how such rituals got started. Seems like a lot of work to go through playing dress-up for the dead.
Perhaps it was the case necromancers needed the bodies in a certain way, but the rogue knew there were many less-nuanced beliefs of the supernatural he would never know for truth or falsehood. At least until I'm dead, and then it's kind of pointless.
He stood. Just need to make use of the time I have then.
"Need me to help with the bottom? It shouldn't have any hidden pieces if that was its guardian."
While Truk'tosh unloads the mummy's corpse from the sarcophagus, Gruskorb peers into the vault for the undying to look at the false bottom that Truk'tosh had discovered. Carefully examining the handle as well as the hinges, he determines that no trap is present. The half-orc leans over the edge and slowly lifts the floor of the sarcophagus to reveal a storage area not more than a foot deep.
Neatly folded in the compartment is a pile of black, silk robes. Resting on top of the robe is a veil made of tear-drop shaped golden scales woven together with leather cords. At the head of the compartment, five glass jars are filled with fragrant oils, and at the foot, a wooden box sits closed with a shallow golden bowl sitting atop it.
Malthazir peers over his shoulder and scans the contents for magic.
Niyut examines the contents of the tomb.
The golden veil has a faint aura of divination upon it but the magic seems fragile. At one moment, the aura seems to intensify while the next it begins to wane. Nothing else radiates any other magical properties. Niyut gently lifts the veil from the sarcophagus to examine it more closely. As she does, Malthazir feels the magical aura shimmer and move from scale to scale like a wave of ethereal energy rippling across the water.
Holding it in her outstretched hands as though it rest upon an imaginary head, Niyut begins to feel the movement of energy. The magic swirls about the hooded veil, leaping from scale to scale as if were it moving from where a mouth would have been to the top of the head and then to the back of the neck. As the ethereal energy flows throughout it, the veil becomes rigid in her hands until the wave comes to rest in a single scale where the left brow of wearer would have been. Malthazir can see the aura pulsate and feels it reach out to him as if pleading for relief.
Then, the aura retreats within the single scale and dims to the elf's ethereal sight. With the faintest of sounds, the ancient leather holding the scales together crumbles to dust, and a shower of golden scales fall to the floor of the chamber ringing out into the silence. With a gasp, Niyut looks up to see a single scale held aloft between her and Malthazir with her hands grasping two strong leather cords still attached to the golden, tear-shaped scale.
Gruskorb heard the scales fall, turning his head to see what the clatter was. How did that happen? He was about to ask Niyut directly but then thought better of it. More spirits than I want to dance with in this place.
"Anything interesting down there?"
Malthazir looks at the magic curiously. "You should scan that. I haven't seen anything like it. Also those robes and oils were likely used in a burial ritual for the mortal that had become the mummy."
"Quite curious."
Niyut disappears the golden bowl into her sleeve. Quality ritual implements are nothing to turn one's nose up at. She will then examine the contents of the box.
As the sarcophagus is cleared of its few valuables, Garidan does a slow, careful circuit of the room, silently seeking out evidence of concealed doors or compartments--or further traps. With the staff in the undead's possession apparently not the one they are seeking, there is obviouly more of this damnable tower to be searched. And so, unable to profitably add to the identification and seizure of the undead's unneeded grave goods, Garidan decides to spend his time hopefully making the required next stage proceed a little faster and safer, if he can.
Niyut focuses on the scale and determines that it faintly radiates arcane magic that suggests divination. But she is unable to determine more. Opening the box, she finds that it is filled with strips of fine linen. The box, itself, is lined with felt. A pair of silver tongs sit in a recessed nook of the box. As ancient as the box appears, its contents are pristine.
Other than the additional glyphs near the entry, Garidan finds nothing of note.
A faint furrow mars her brow as she murmurs, [smaller]"It's nature eludes me as well. It has some divinatory enchantment." She places the scale in the box and it too disappears into her sleeve.
Niyut then goes to press the secondary glyph and moves on to the next room.
Niyut touches the secondary glyph which begins to glow as the inner tower rotates and exposes a hallway to the group. Moving slowly and stealthily, Niyut and Gruskorb head down the dusty hallway, following it as the passageway turns right. After a few feet the hallway expands into a large chamber with a passageway leading out directly ahead. Musty smelling tapestries drape upon the walls of this room with scenes rituals presumably of a lost, dark magic. Several wooden benches are scatter about the room, some toppled over. Most of them are in disrepair. The heaviness of the air can be felt in this room.
Scanning the room neither Niyut nor Malthazir detect any magic. Certain that nothing awaits them here, the group forges onward. After twenty feet the hallway turns to the right again. Twenty feet further, you can see the familiar seam in the walls that indicates you are moving back to the outer tower.
As you look down the long hallway and into the chamber, you can see a chilling sight. Hanging from the ceiling are a dozen rotting corpses, dead long ago. A single flickering torch is suspended in a rustic chandelier. The light flickers between the corpses casting an eerie visage across the floor. Broken chairs lie all about the room. It appears to be the scene of a mass suicide. A single skeleton of a humanoid lies face down in the entrance to the room with its arms extended out into the hallway. The shredded remains of leather armor cover what is left of its body.
On the wall on the far side of the chamber, you can make out the 'primary' glyph.
Malthazirs nose curls up at the grotesque sight. Necromancy. It breeds the worst in people. Malz suppresses a gag with his sleeve, turning away from the scene.
Looking over the room's grisly tableau, Garidan has to swallow hard (and more than once at that) to keep his most recent meal of rations from making an abrupt reappearance. Once his stomach is mastered, however, he takes the time to look the scene over carefully. Examining the nearest hanging bodies, as well as the skeleton, from the relative safety of the hall, the swordsman is visibly suspicious of the room's contents, and says as much to the others. "This place is rife with undead, so I'm going to go ahead and guess that some or all of those bodies in there share that particular trait."
Pointing to the skeleton, he further remarks. "That poor bastard looks like they were mauled by something, in fact." As he speaks, Garidan examines the skeleton more intently, trying to determime what reduced its armor to such a state. "And isn't it odd that all of these other bodies are still rotting, while that one is already bone? How long ago could this have happened if these other bodies haven't already finish their decay." Finally, he points to the flickering torch. "There's another weird thing there, why hasn't that burned out yet? If the master of this place is gone, as Ghurlehz stated, why light this room?"
Looking once more at the room in its entirety, Garidan shakes his head with a dubious expression. "No, there's nothing about this that doesn't scream 'trap' to me. I think we should be preemptive this time, hit those hanging bodies from right here in the hall until there's nothing but pieces too small to recognize." Glancing at Niyut and Malthazir in turn, he nods toward the bodies in question. "I think the two of you would be best suited to that, with those minor magics you each command."
Niyut studies the tapestries carefully as she passes them.
Unlike Malthazir, she is more intrigued than disgusted. For every task, there is a tool. I wonder what tasks require such awful tools?
Her suspicion is kindled by the tableaux the find in the room with the next glyph. "You are right, Garidan. This is all very suspicious.
She then peers into the spirit world to see if any undead or magic lurk nearby.
Truk'tosh growls nervously and grips his weapon tightly. "What do the spirits tell you about what happened here?" he asks his twin. "It must have been terrible for these people to take their own lives."
Gurskorb turned to their resident mage upon seeing the ghastly sight. "Malthazir, what do necromancers need with this many bodies? Locked in a tower like this? It's not like there's a shortage of undead now or anything."
Garidan was right in noting the various states of decomposition. "A pyre would nicely put these people in a more final end and give us some assurance they're not going to stab us in the back".
Considering Gruskorb's suggestion, Garidan nods shortly before pointing out a few details the hobgoblin seemed to have overlooked. "True enough, and it'll be pretty quickly done. But it also risks destroying anything useful that might be in there as well. And if there's something lurking that isn't bothered by fire, I really don't want it running right into our midst and sharing the warmth." Shrugging slightly, the swashbuckler concludes. "Further, we're sort of short on quality incendiaries to toss in right now in any case, and I'm not about to run through there waving a torch and a flask of oil either."
"Resources. Decoration. Anything in between." Malz steadied his stomach and looks back. "We have a mission, we can come back for this."
As Garidan bends down to examine the skeleton's armor, he notices a piece of parchment clutched in the skeleton's left hand.
Though the examination is interrupted by his periodic sweeps of the room itself--one can never be too careful, after all--Garidan does manage to learn some rather disturbing facts about that skeleton's destroyed armor, which only serves to heighten his certainty that the room is a trap waiting to be sprung. Sharing this knowledge with the others, he also notes the parchment fragment that the skeleton is clutching. Easing forward cautiously, he snatches the item from its bony grasp before quickly retreating to the others to look it over more closely. "Well now, let's see what's so important here that a dead person felt the need to hold on to this in the process of dying," Garidan says, curiosity lighting his features.
Scrawled upon the parchment is:
"That part of the raven
Not in the sky,
Which swims in the river
And always stays dry."
As the swashbuckler reads through what is apparently a riddle of some sort, his eyes go vacant and his body stills while his mind jumps eagerly onto the puzzle before it. Several moments of utter silence and stillness later, Garidan blinks, looks at the parchment, and smiles. "Reflection. The answer is reflection." Turning to the others, he waves the parchment with a cheerful expression entirely out of place for their surroundings. "I think our unfortunate corpse here might have given us a useful bit of help. If I'm right about this riddle's answer, then somewhere on the path to what we seek is something that involves reflections in some meaningful way."
"We're supposed to come across a looking-glass to find this staff?" Every step leads into more unanswered questions. "This place would be annoying if it weren't so deadly. Keep an eye out for yourselves."
Maybe you're right, Querkus; sometimes, the works of man are futile compared to that of nature. Especially when purpose is concerned.
Niyut will spend a few moments creating duplicates of herself and blurring her outlines with shadows. She will then cross the room and press the glyph.
Malz waits, his perpetual frown falling over the room. "Riddles and corpses and traps. It's like a story come to life."