Nevai raised his holy symbol and stepped forward to unleash his god's fury upon the shambling corpses.
Erei will move to stand behind the front line and stab the nearest moving enemy with his longspear once his turn comes around.
Leto´s gonna shoot the nearest foes.
Between your assault and the holy blast of Horus, you make short work of the zombies. A quick search of the area reveals that the cubicle in the center of the chamber is a privy. The acolytes probably used magic to keep the privy clean, but it has not been used in over 2,000 years.
Tunar eyes the undead corpses with a mixture of disappointment and distaste before noticing the privy and peering in with little shame.
"Does anyone need to take care of any business? Now would be the time, last stop till we hit Undeadville... or wait, I guess we are there already. ." Laughing a little at wht was a funny joke to him, Tunar shoulders his hammer and waits, ready to keep moving.
"No thank you Tunar. I get the feeling that anyone that drops their pants to sit in there will have some undead creature fly up the drain and bite them on the arse."
Althea moves to check the footlockers in the room. "I doubt that any of the acolytes would rate much in the way of gear or wealth, but let's give this room a thorough looking over and then be on our way. I still can't shake the feeling that someone else is still here and don't want to sit in one place for too long."
After a thorough search of the area you do, indeed, find nothing. Not only nothing of value, but nothing at all. The insides of the footlockers are free of not only items, but dust or anything else. Beside the large amount of insects in the bedding in each of the rooms, the rest of the room is quite clean.
Setesh frowns.
"This is most peculiar..."
With a shrug, he moves on to the next room.
As you head out of the room to the north a short hallway connects a shallow, empty pool to the west to two curtained cubicles to the east. A wooden bench is bolted to the floor in a small alcove across from the pool. A set of stone doors marked with hieroglyphs stands to the north. The cubicles are much like the ones in the previous area, including the bed frames, footlockers, and rotted bedding, but they are slightly bigger, less crowded, and farther from the privy. The bathing pool is a simple tiled affair with a drain in the floor.
Two corpses have been dragged into the northern cubicle here. One is a pile of bare bones kicked unceremoniously out of the way, and the other is a rotting, but still intact, cadaver. An old, broken scimitar lies nearby.
"Looks like these were more undead guardians, but someone beat me to their destruction. It seems that whoever wandered in here ahead of us has no love for the undead, and very recently burned this skeleton. Whether it was with magic or alchemy, I don't know, but the bones are still warm, so they must be close," Nevai explained after a quick inspection of the bodies.
"Well then, let us hurry up and catch whomever is trying to poach our tomb."
Setesh nods.
"Agreed."
On general principle, he quickly searches the room...
...before moving on.
There is nothing else in the room. The double doors to the north are inscribed with Ancient Osiriani hieroglyphs that read, “High Priest Only—All Others Forbidden.” They are also locked.
Erei points to the lock and tries to whisper, Whoever they were, they went this way. The lock was picked recently.
"Thea, I would expect the quarters of the high priest of Nethys to be warded by magic. Is there any evidence of that before we go barging in?" Nevai asked as he adjusted his shield.
Tunar stands several feet from the doors hearing Nevai's comment, waiting to know if there is magic afoot or not.
Setesh thoroughly searches the door for traps, and if it is untrapped, opens it, to check-out the area beyond.
Leto stands nearby, watching out for surprises and scowls at the mention of magic being at work...again.
The door isn't trapped but it is locked. The lock is simple and Setesh manages to open it easily.
This sparsely furnished room contains a bed frame bolted to the floor in the southwest corner next to a lacquered end table. On the opposite side of the room, a wooden desk has partially collapsed against the wall. Doors exit the room to the north, east, and south (the one you came through).
A quick search of the room reveals nothing of interest. The north door is locked, but the one to the east is not. In fact, it is slightly ajar. You can see the remains of what looks like a small library beyond.
Well it seems somebody was already here and took the best pieces. Perhaps someone should go over that again though. There might still be something valuable.
Setesh nods.
"Agreed."
He then begins to carefully search the room.
Almathea will cast Detect Magic as she looks around. This includes looking at doors in case of any magical traps.
Nevai helped Setesh in his search of the room.
Leto helps Setesh shearch the room.
Tunar moves towards the collapsed wooden desk while helping search.
After a thorough search of the room you find...nothing. It seems like someone else searched the room before you did. You do, however, hear the sound of footsteps echo from the main hall to the east.
Footsteps of one or more persons?
Leto draws an arrow, nocking his bow and turning his head, listening to the sounds.
One? Two? Maybe more, but they are faint and fade after a moment.
Leto signals his team to follow silently, as he begins to sneak towards the source of the noises, looking out for traps, foes and ambushes, bow drawn.
Almathea follows, wanting to find the source of the footsteps.
Tunar shakes his head in disappointment at the groups sneaky tactics and hangs back a step before following about 30 feet behind the others while keeping his ears open.
Going to the east you pass through a crowded room with rows of stone shelves. Most of the books and scrolls once stored here have disintegrated over time, but a few volumes engraved on more durable materials still endure. Numerous scroll tubes litter the floor of the room amid the dusty remains of ruined paper and papyrus. The room opens up into the main hall and across it you see someone, or something, in dirty white robes close the doors across the way. They don't seem to have noticed you, but you can't be sure given you only saw them briefly.
"Who, or what, was that?" Nevai asked as he checked his equipment again, torn between rushing to catch the extra intruder and approaching more cautiously.
"We could just go and ask them." Tunar responds, somewhat serious, somewhat joking.
The cathedral is quiet. The door across the main hall remains closed as you approach.
Well, guess we might as well search here first.
Erei, you find an unrolled papyrus scroll discarded on the floor. It describes, in Ancient Osiriani, how magicians of Osirion’s First Age could alter elementals to new forms and purposes. The text describes the concept of something called an ahkhat and the “keystone” that binds it to a building and pacifies it. The scroll further mentions that such keystones were frequently built into the foundations of the structure and often concealed by secret doors.
Ahkhats are bound to their structures via a special keystone that’s intrinsically attuned to the ahkhat, and they cannot leave the premises of their own volition. Furthermore, ahkhats cannot move through or manipulate structurally damaged parts of their attuned buildings, so they have a vested interest in maintaining the integrity of their demesnes.
You find two scrolls that appear to be magical, with some scrutiny the party discovers that they are a scroll of detect secret doors and a scroll of remove paralysis[.
The remaining tablets and scrolls among the discarded scroll tubes are interesting, but probably only of value to a collector.
There is also a secret panel in the western wall of the library.
Setesh remains oblivious, and moves over to inspect the secret panel.
Leto follows with bow drawn.
Nevai picked up the scroll of remove paralysis and gave it a quick read with read magic before returning the scroll to its tube and strapping it to his pack. "Let's hope we don't end up needing this, but it's always nice to be prepared for everything."
"I wonder if the panel leads to just a room or a whole new corridor to explore?"
There don't appear to be any traps on the panel. It seems large enough to beh hiding a few books or two. After a little searching you find the latch and manage to open it. As the stone panel scrapes open two scrolls fly out and start whipping around slashing at those standing in the area!
The two scrolls burst out and attack those standing near the panel.
The first flits out and slashes at Setesh...and wraps around his head!
The second slashes at Nevai...and wraps him up too!
Tunar moves, dropping his hammer and tries to pry one of the scrolls off of Nevai. "Why in the bloody hell is paper attacking us!?"
Erei will cast Grease on Nevai to assist him in defending against grapples.
Reacting quickly, Leto shoots one scroll: