"Well, BMO has a point, I suppose, that this crypt can probably get boring after a few thousand years... But let's not draw any conclusions just yet; we still have some issues to deal with down here, beyond the moral conundrum of a sentient undead. In any case, BMO, remember that the deal we got from upstairs is that we get an additional 250 gold if we kill everything down here. For the record, I am perfectly fine with either lying about not having killed everything, or simply foregoing the bonus, by which I mean, you can count yourself safe from my bow (that does not really hit much anyway), Eseme."
"By Gorum, I am not so sure about that lying, there, but, aye, I see no reason to exchange a living soul, though trapped in a dead body, for a mere pouch of gold, you are safe from my sword as well. But, pray tell, would you be able to help me pick out some acid or some other thing that could make it easier to disperse a swarm of cockroaches? We have come across one a ways west, and we carry neither acid nor fire ourselves."
Eseme is able to point out 2 flasks each of acid and alchemists fire amongst the vials Dolgrin took off the alchemist's body. When one of the Two finally remembers that their primary mission was to put a stop to whatever was stealing bodies, She can confirm that Svilennius was stealing them from the upper levels of the crypt for his experiments using the secret door at the top of the spiral staircase just south of the lab. There's a secret door on the western wall of the lab between the south hallway and the worktables that leads to a crypt he was using to store his creations.
In addition to some of the creatures the Two have already dealt with, She volunteers that there is an alchemical skeleton and an alchemical zombie guarding the room at the south end of the hallway south of the lab. She's heard Svilennius muttering about something letting the flapping head out of the pit room and that adventurers and grave robbers occasionally get into this level through a dug-out passage in the south-western corner.
"Well, anyway, let's discuss this later. With the acid and alchemist's fire we can at least deal with the cockroaches. Do you guys think we should take the roaches first, just to get it over with?"
BMO and Dolgrin nod, and the Two head off with the newly acquired weaponry.
The walk north, so they come down to the cockroaches from the southern entrance to the chamber in which they scurry (inside the armor to begin with, I assume).
Davina holds on to the acid, while BMO sneaks towards the corner with the alchemist's fire. His short bow is at the ready, and he carefully peeks around the corner, and fires an arrow that just grazes the armor, trying to rouse the roaches within;
When BMO has a clear shot at the roaches, that will avoid hitting the armor, he throws his alchemist's fire at the swarm;
Dolgrin, not having any fancy chemicals, hangs back a bit, ready to intervene if things get out of hand.
BMO's arrow rouses the flesh-eating cockroaches an they come spilling out of the armor. He tosses a vial of alchemist's fire as soon as he has a clear shot.
-> +50% = 12
Dolgrin:
Davina:
BMO:
swarm:
BMO, having thrown his one vial of AlchFire, steps back a bit, and otherwise does nothing, as Davina comes past him with the acid.
Davina moves up right in front of BMO, around the corner, and tosses her vial of acid at the swarm;
,
but since this, ultimately, is a ranged attack, she misses, and the vial breaks off somewhere in the corner of the room or some s~@!...
Dolgrin sees that Davina fumbles the acid, and figures it's time to retreat. He starts to move away from the swarm, back towards the lab.
BMO remains in place, despite the icky swarm headed his way, and throws his second vial of AlchFire;
+ 50% -> 7
Dolgrin, while unable to do much, takes a tentative step closer, to try and catch a better glimpse of the action.
Davina's throw barely makes into the room, splattering acid all over the floor between herself and BMO and the bugs.
Now that they're aware of the fresh flesh in the room, the swarm swarms over Davina and BMO, with Davina obviously the tastier one.
Having only a single vial of acid left with which to hurt the roaches, Davina goes for the hail Mary. She lets BMO know, and he steps sideways a tad, and she simply just drops the vial on the floor, even if it will hurt her as well;
BMO steps to the side as Davina drops the acid .
If the swarm is still alive, he will retreat, since his daggers are completely useless against the swarm .
Dolgrin remains his useless self in his useless position for now.
+50% ->
+50% ->
Since BMO's second alch fire burns away the rest of the roaches, so Davina doesn't need to self-destruct with the final vial of acid.
Now that the Two are able to search this room without being eaten alive...The armor is an elaborate suit of mw banded mail and completely empty other than roach poop. There's a mw bastard sword at the armor's feet and a mw light mace on the back of the armor's belt. Two mw curved daggers lie beneath the skeleton.
Dolgrin decides that the mace is a good addition to his anti-skeleton kit, and takes it for his own.
Davina has no direct interest in any of the gear, while BMO gets his hands on the daggers, even if he might not actually have a use for them. He tentatively tries to wield all four of them at the same time, but decides against it when he sees that holding two daggers in one hand severely reduces his agility with the knives.
What they don't take to use is kept for selling.
After looking through their loot, to BMO's immense pleasure, seeing as they have not been looting merely as much as he would like, given that this is a frickin' crypt, and also taking a bit of a rest, the Two turn to exploring again.
They first start at the door leading to the west right north of the roach chamber;
If neither of them can hear anything peculiar, BMO will carefully try to push the door open, and peek inside;
BMO is confident that there is nothing moving on the other side of the door while Davina is distracted by Dolgrin admiring his new toy. BMO cracks the door to peek into a long oval-shaped room. Floating balls of fire illuminate walls covered with a bewildering array of runes, sigils, and glyphs. Beneath these carvings, stacks of engraved stone tablets rest in recessed niches in the walls.
BMO, intrigued more intrigued by the tablets and floating fires, steps into the room, dragging Davina in with her.
He walks up to the largest tablet he can find, and studies it.
Davina follows suit, kneeling down to read another.
Dolgrin catches on, and comes in as well. He pokes his mace at one of the fireballs.
BMO quickly realize that all the writing in this room (walls and tablets) is in Thassilonian. So BMO can pick up enough here and there to reach the conclusion that this is some type of library or record room. The nooks in the walls seem to have some extra-dimensional properties since there are enough tablets in each one to fill a room several times the size of this entire room. The fireballs ignore Dolgrin's poking, though he quickly realizes that although they're as bright as a torch, they produce no heat.
Davina notices that one of the symbols on the wall looks somewhat different from the rest. But before she can inspect it more closely, another symbol detaches itself from the wall behind her and engulfs her in a cone of flames.
Dolgrin:
Davina:
BMO:
Flying rune thingy:
This is a rune guardian, an animated construct from ancient Thassilon. They were usually created to guard places like laboratories, ossuaries, and repositories of lore. Each one is dedicated to one of the seven rewards of rule (i.e. the seven sins) and empowered with that sin's associated school of magic.
Davina shouts to BMO and Dolgrin what little she knows about this construct, and tries to strike it with her dagger;
, but misses...
BMO steps towards Davina and the rune, and unleashes his dagger ;
and he barely connects;
Dolgrin also comes towards Davina and the rune, and hits it with his greatsword ;
He hits the rune, without hitting Davina or BMO;
Davina also knows that a rune guardian can cast one spell associated with its sin/school and would be vulnerable to spells of its opposition schools. This particular one has burning hands so it's associated with wrath and would be vulnerable to abjuration and conjuration spells.
BMO obliterates the rune leaving the Two to continue exploring the room uninterrupted.
Now that they can safely inspect the room, BMO and Davina manage to find several tablets with the magic of scrolls inscribed into them: hold portal, identify, remove disease, shatter. They also find another glyph that can be detached from the wall that matches the strange symbol in the carved 'doors' in the room east of the entrance.
Dolgrin quickly heals Davina a bit , and the Two head towards the barred eastern door, behind which Dolgrin seems to remember BMO or Davina saying, there was some audible breathing noises.
Since Dolgrin is crazy strong, and never suffers the effects of encumbrance, he brings with him the 20 pounds worth of stone tablets.
Davina brings the glyph that matches the doors to the southeast.
Once by the barred door, BMO first listens again , and unless BMO quickly tells Dolgrin to not break down the door, he does so;
.
He bruises his shoulder.
After this rather hefty knock, both Davina and BMO pay extra attention to what might be going on on the other side of the door;
If they still think it is safe enough for Dolgrin to try and make a fool of himself again, they let him;
.
Davina and BMO don't hear anything from the other side of the door, and motion for Dolgrin to try again. This time he manages to dislodge whatever had been blocking the door enough to force it most of the way open. Religious carvings depicting the judgement of souls cover the walls of this room. A stone pedestal with a bowl-shaped depression on top stands in the northwest corner. Wooden cabinets and a chest of drawers line the walls. As Dolgrin pushes the door open enough to get in, the room seems to get a shade or two darker.
When Davina and BMO get a look in the room, they see a small humanoid wrapped in filthy black rags with only it's pale hands and white nose visible crouching behind a chest of drawers.
This is a Dark Creeper. They usually live in places deep below the surface and venture out at night to steel things and/or cause mayhem when they get board. They can see perfectly in any darkness and can create darkness around them at will.
BMO looks at the creature, puzzled, ; "What are you doing this close to the surface? Oh, you prally don't know common. I only learned common a thousand years or so ago, so it's not that strange you don't...".
BMO carefully steps into the room, and, making sure Creepo sees him, he slowly makes his way over to him/her, to shake his/her hand in greeting. BMO motions for Dav and Dol to remain where they are for now.
If all goes well, BMO then hands Creepo the hilt of one of his old daggers as a gift, since he knows that Creepo probably likes daggers about as much as BMO does
BMO knows that dark creepers have their own language called "dark folk". If he knew undercommon rather than just drow sign language, he could perhaps try to communicate simple ideas more easily. Since he doesn't, I think a lingustics and/or diplomacy check is in order to see how this comes across. BMO and/or Davina can roll sense motive to asses the creeper attitude (I expect Doglrin probably doesn't know who/what BMO is talking to). Go ahead and roll any other skill checks you think could be appropriate and we'll see how this goes.
Seeing that communication might not be working so well, BMO wreaks his coggy brain for hints and old insights into the "dark folk" language; , but does not really come up with much of use.
He then reattempts his gift offering, , but this too seems quite futile.
Davina peeks her head in the door, at about BMO's level, so as to not appear enormous, and quickly sees that Creepo is probably in some sort of specific mood. ; she suggests that they give Creepo something to eat, rather than a dagger .
Davina can tell that the creeper is scared and very uncertain of herself and BMO. He keeps glancing at the door as if he really wants to go through it but is scared of the Two. He relaxes a bit when BMO offers him some of the Two's rations and moves away from BMO to eat it in a direction that puts BMO less between him and the door.
While Creepo eats, BMO carefully makes his way around the perimeter of the room so as to end up at the door that leads east. Unless Creepo somehow signals that the door is unsafe or that BMO should not move at all, BMO then proceeds to listen at it .
If everything seems safe, he will crack the door open to look inside.
Davina, in the meantime, sits down on the floor, in view of Creepo, holding some more food for him, otherwise doing nothing. She takes care not to block the door, sitting a little bit away from it (in good view of Creepo).
Creepo doesn't make any sign or gesture that would discourage BMO from proceeding with the door. He does continue to watch both BMO and Davina carefully, and eye the food Davina is holding but seems undecided as to whether the food is worth approaching her.
BMO does not hear anything prior to opening the door. As he cracks it, he hears a hissing whisper coming from under a wide table covered in a heavy black cloth, "Greetingssss Sssseeking One. How ssshall I draw back the veilsss of mysssteryss that cloak thissss sssacred placssse and reveal all the sssecretsss of the Ancientssss?" The only other furnature in the room is a single candle burning in ia tall iron candlestick in the southwest corner. The walls are adorned with carvings of judgements in the afterlife.
"Hello, Mister Table. Let's put a pin in that until we know the price you intend to charge for the information; after being alive for a few thousand years, I've learnt that unveiling of mysteries rarely comes for free."
BMO remains where he is, looking and speaking into the crack in the door.
In Azlant he starts saying something to Davina, but quickly corrects himself; "Dammit... Davina, do you know anything about this?"
BMO does try to squeeze something out of his Whirry mind, though;
.
Since Creepo seems apprehensive to approach her, she decides to go and help BMO instead, and carefully makes her way into the room and over to BMO by the next door. In the process she hands Creepo some of the food that she tried to coax him out with, but not all of it. She keeps the remaining pieces in sight of him, hoping that perhaps he will want to get a little closer.
Davina also cycles through her Detect Alignments, to gain any information she can about what is going on.
"I sssimply assssk for a few coinsss here and there. Sssurly a little gold is a sssmall pricsssse to pay for my sssecrets?"
Davina can't sense the presence of any particularly aligned auras.
Creepo takes advantage of Davina's split attention to make a dash for the door.
[ooc]If any of the Two want to try to stop him, they need to beat his initative (since this isn't combat exactly, I'm giving a -2 to BMO for being busy talking and a -5 to Davina for being focused on casting spells)
Creepo dashes out the door as soon as Davina's attention is on her spells, dodges around Dolgrin, and runs down the hallway. He takes the northern passage at the 4-way intersection.
You round the first corner in time to see creepo slip west around the next corner. You arrive at that intersection as creepo slips through the sihedron-empblazened door and close it firmly behind him.
"Oh, but that seems alright! I've got one coin here, and then there is one over there as well," as BMO says this, he tosses a gold piece to the other side of the table, while holding out his hand with the first one in it.
A black greasy-scaled snake with a fanged goblin's head slithers out from under the table and coils herself into a sitting position. The end of her tail comes up and curls around to form a make-shift palm. "Placssse your coin in my tail and assssk your firssst quesssstion."
Not feeling particularly threatened by the cultured Goblin Snake, BMO walks into the room to pick back up the coin he threw. He proceeds to place the coin in (?) her tail.
"Do you contribute somehow to the disappearance of bodies from within this crypt or any of the other areas above this where there might be bodies to take?"
Regardless of the answer to that question, he immediately places the second coin where he put the first, and asks,
"What's up with Creepo, the little guy that was sitting scared in the room right there? You know, the Dark Creeper."
Davina does not make a move to spend any of her own coins on this, but pays close attention.
Dolgrin slowly comes walking into the first room, trying to catch a glimpse of what is happening.
With a quick flick of her tail, the snake creature stashes BMO's coins under the table.
"The human and his undead creations live beyond the Great Pit. There are many sources of bodies in these caverns, some in plain sight and others are well hidden. The little man wrapped in rags has lost himself. He needs to find himself again before he can find his way home."
"Ooooo! More, more!" BMO digs out three more coins from his stash, and places one and then the other, asking a new question at each placement;
"How long have you been in this room, exactly?"
"What are you saving up all these gold pieces for?"
"What do you eat to sustain yourself?"
He digs around some more, but finds no more coins. For good reason. Davina is mostly in charge of the finances for The Two, precisely because both BMO and Dolgrin are liable to, in their own unique ways, to waste money on not-so-valuable goods and services.
Upon acceptance of monetary defeat, BMO no longer finds the snake interesting and moves to inspect the door to the south-east;
If he sees nor hears anything indicative of peril, he will open and peek beyond.
Davina remains in the room, mulling over the snake's answers, and rolling her eyes at BMO's suboptimal use of funds.
"For assss long as thisssss room has been around me."
"I, like most physsssical creaturesssss, require the meansssss to sssssusssstain myssself"
"oh...jusssst whatever tassssty morsssssels wander through"
As BMO moves towards the door the goblin snake hisses softly and says "Crossssing through that door will cosssst you five more of the golden coinssss. Per persssson. Otherwisssse I can't dissssarm the deadly trapsssss."
Davina thinks something fishy is going on ; "Are you sure there are deadly traps here?"
BMO, having not spotted any traps is not particularly inclined to take heed of the goblin snake's words, especially since what she has said is completely useless up until that point.
He opens the door.
Dolgrin is starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the snake when she starts talking about eating morsels, and moves closer just in case.
"Sssstop! You mussst not open it! I haven't disssabled the trapppsssss!" the goblin snake hisses as BMO reaches for the door. "Your deathsss are on you!" she spits as she slithers back under the table. The Two hear continued mostly inaudible hissing about the "nasssty humanssss" and their "little pettsss" "dissssturbing me". Davina is fairly sure that the goblin snake is primarily interested in accumulating wealth (thus the charging for non-information and going through the door). While she'd probably like someone to eat, she's not dumb enough to try to attack all three of the Two. Though if she had a chance at only Davina, that might tempt her.
Behind the door, BMO finds short hallway that ends in a stone stairway winding further down. It is covered in a thick layer of dust which is marred only by a single sinuous track.
"We have a problem, coin snake," says Dolgrin. "We are salaried by the proprietors of this crypt to clear it of creatures that have their way with the dead bodies laid to rest here, or creatures that otherwise disturb the peace; and by Gorum shall this will be done!" Dolgrin gets a bit excited and loses his train of thought, but after Davina gently elbows him in the side, he continues. "Essentially, you have two simple choices, no more, no less. You can either flee from this place, out of the crypt altogether, or you can accept the challenge of facing all three of us in what adventurers in general consider fair combat. There will be no discussion on the nature of the choices; you leave or you die."
Davina stares at Dolgrin, almost in disbelief, as he lays down this rather grim tirade, but to be fair, Davina absolutely hates snakes , and sees little wrong with turning this annoying one into a handbag or something else.
BMO has his daggers up, although it is hard to tell if he's just waving them for the purpose of being imposing, or if it is to simply wave them purposelessly in the air.
The annoyed/sulky hissing very quickly turns angry, "I have the uptmosssst resssspect for thosssse who have passssed beyond the veilsssss and would never defile their mortal remainssss. But it tisss you who disturbssss the peacsssse! You who come barging into my chambersssss uninvited! And when I kindly offer to ansssswer your quesssstions and ssssell you ssssafe passssage through thissss room you repay me by disssregarding cssssivil behavior and making threatssss to me in my home! Begone from thisssss placssssse oh Evil Onessss and do not trouble me again!" After this directive the hissing stops abruptly.
One side of the black cloth on the table moves slightly, seemingly of it own volition.
An invisible creature is slithering out the now open south door.