"I fear the restless spirits in the area will return at a later time, but we should be safe for a bit of time. Until those gates are fixed, this area will continue to be haunted," Chephren says as he points to the broken gates.
"Maybe the Pharasmians will allow workers to enter with us, if we have to return. In any case we should include a note of this, when we report back our findings to the Grand Mausoleum."
"Are you guys seeing things? What mob? What spirits? I ain't a construction worker, bub. These hands were made for knife fighting, not holding a hammer. Still, if you want to make a report, fine by me. Now, let's look at these doors."
He was interrupted as he listened to Elneiros' explanation for the centipede and shrugged. "Easier to stay alive if you don't get hit in the first place. Let's just watch ourselves."
Malik looks uneasily to the west, more than happy to bypass the danger if that is his companions' wish. He moves behind Brennan, keeping his eye out for danger on many legs.
Gabriel gives Chephren a confused look. Then he moves to have a look at the centipede.
Brennan, also looking at the doors that appear to lead into the manor proper, finds no sign of danger on them like Suru.
Gabriel looks to where Elneiros and Suru see the centipede, but finds no sign of this great beast they say is coiled in the pool. Regardless, if it is a whiptail centipede like Elneiros says, the abilities he attributes to it are spot on.
"Let us continue on before the creature has a chance to decide if our group is food or not. Malik longs for the indoors." Malik keeps casting glances to the left, making sure the creature stays put.
"Let's just go on inside, shall we?" Brennan tried the main doors to the north.
Malik nods to Brennan, and will follow the surly man inside should he get the doors open. Once in, he closes the doors behind them. "Malik does not fancy that centipede thing getting curious and following us."
Chephren will also follow, once the doors are open.
Surubi prepares and lights a torch, then says "Yes, this one will watch the rear and close the doors behind us." Surubi steps up to the doors and waits as the others pass through, then steps inside and closes the door.
Gabriel follows the others in still detecting the presence of evil. He keeps one hand free close to his morningstar.
Opening the unlocked and unwarded door to the estate, and moving into it, the group is able to see a fair amount of the interior. Brightly colored columns stand in the four corners of this foyer. Hieroglyphs cover the walls and tiled floors, obscured in places by piles of dust and sand. Strewn about the chamber are the skeletal remains of three humans, dressed in rotted leather, and rusted khopeshes in hand. Open archways lead to the north, east, and west.
To the north, a beam of sunlight shines down, illuminating the room beneath it. A tiled walkway surrounds a square patch of earth and sand in this high atrium. A balcony on the second floor overlooks the courtyard, from above this is where the sunlight originates. Columns in the corners of the atrium support the roof above, and the walls are decorated with symbols and hieroglyphs depicting animals, celestial creatures, and the sun and moon. In the center of the atrium is the statue of a beautiful woman, looking to be made from exquisitely-carved sandstone.
Beyond the atrium, a stone table runs parallel to the north wall of this large room.
Through the archway to the west a large staircase climbs to the second floor from this room. Sand and dust cover the floor, and painted columns stand in all but one of the corners. Pieces of broken wood, shattered pottery, and disintegrating fabric litter the room’s perimeter.
When looking to the east, a large tiled pool sits in the center of this chamber, surrounded by sloping tiled floors. A few steps descend into the basin, which has accumulated a deep layer of sand on its bottom. Faded murals on the walls depict scenes of life along a river, with recurring themes of running water and aquatic life running through the artwork. In the northeast corner, a tarnished bronze spigot juts from the wall just above head level. Archways lead north and west, and a stone door stands in the eastern wall.
Gabriel notices the presence of evil in the foyer, but there is no time to worry about focusing on it, as it becomes evident when the skeletons rise in a cruel mockery of the home's failed defenders. There isn't even any time for those in the back to close the doors.
"Bones and ashes, it's a trap, the door is closing!" Gabriel shouts.
"And now is when Master Gabriel shows us what he is here for, I think," said Brennan. As he spoke, he dropped a knife into his left hand, his right already clutching a dagger. Glancing backwards, he saw the doors closing behind the group. "And it doesn't look like we're getting out of here without a least a little trouble."
As the skeletons become animated, at the same time the door begins to close, Brennan readies himself for a fight based on where their newfound party member decides to strike.
The skeletons each pick themselves up off the sand-covered interior floor, malice oddly recognizable on faces that no longer even have the flesh to be able to emote. The one closest to Brennan allows the man opportunity to strike as it rattles to its feet, swinging at the man with its old blade. The rickety thing nearly topples over itself as the swing goes wide. It seems the ages have taken their toll on the thing, despite the negative energies animating it.
The other two skeltons climb and lurch to their feet, using the nearby walls to assist them, before ech one of them takes a step forward to go after the men before them. The first of them is now the second skeleton to face off against Brennan, while the last one sets its sightless eye sockets on Elneiros. They perform just as poorly as the first, if even only slightly better, creaking and sprinkling dust from their joints as they move.
Malik steps to his left, a worried expression on his face. "It is ok, risen ones. Malik does not intend to harm your masters. Malik is just here to plunder historical artifacts. You're still attacking Brennan and Elneiros..."
The skeletons keep attacking, so Malik hurls a glob of acid at the one on the left.
Brennan halfheartedly lashed out with a dagger at the nearest skeleton as it rose from the ground. Daggers really weren't the best things to use against skeletons, were they?
Seeing the enemy moving to attack, Gabriel drops his detection ability and closes with the undead, drawing his well crafted morningstar. As two of the abominations attack Brennan, he decides his help is most needed by the sour man side.
He uses his shield for better protection and aims for the skeleton's head with his swing.
Round 1
Seeing skeletons rise from the floor, Chephren tries to recalls what he knows about the animated bones of dead.
Stepping forward with raised flail, Chephren joins the line of defense his group has made, and brings the weapon of Anubis against the skull of the skeleton.
+
As Eleinos and Gabriel moved forward to attack, Brennan leaped forward in a spin. He pushed past one of the skeletons and dodged around another, making sure to avoid the waving bones and rusted weapons. He prodded Gabriel's target in the back, but his strike skipped off the old bones.
"Everyone be careful, these skeletons are hard to harm unless you hit with a blunt weapon!" Surubi drops the sacks she had slung over her shoulders to the ground and moves carefully into the fray with her morning star.
;
Elneiros draws his mace and takes arms against the skeleton directly in front of him. He takes a large swing and brings the mace down upon the skeleton.
His blow though doesn't connect quite as hard as he swung and he glances the mace off of the skeleton.
Chephren, Gabriel, and Suru all easily recognize the creatures as no more than common animated skeletons. Like most undead they are immune to most things that affect living flesh or thinking minds, to include the cold of death itself. Animated either by spell or powerful traumatic events, they are nothing more than bones held together and moving by negative energy alone. As such, they are hard to cause damage to unless using wide surfaces to break the few brittle bones holding them upright.
As the decrepit bones rattle to life and strike out against the group, the group quickly moves to strike back. First, Chephren steps up beside Elneiros and shatters the fragile form of the barely held together skeleton.
With Chephren's shattering of the one directly in front of him, Elneiros has to switch targets soon after. The adjustment doesn't throw off his swing completely, but he only glances a blow off the ribcage, dislodging a few as he does.
Suru quickly doffs the bundle carried and steps into the gap left empty by Chephren's forceful strike. With morningstar in hand, she bashes the skull of the one hit by Elneiros, and the thing crumples into a heap on the floor.
Gabriel then rushes past Malik to bring his own morningstar to bear on the single remaining skeleton. The force of the blow, centered on the sternum, sends pieces of skeleton flying in multiple directions.
Before Brennan and Malik have a chance to do anything, the fight has ended, and the fragile skeletons have returned to the floor where they were on the group's arrival.
Suddenly, the doors finish their speedy close, slamming hard in the frame. As soon as they do, a woman's voice calls out again in Ancient Osiriani, yet you all understand her words. "They're inside! Protect the family!" A second voice calls out, this time a male, "It's too late! Save yourselves!" Then screams and the clash of arms fills the air. A wave of uncertainty and confusion washes over the group. Feelings of fleeing, fighting, or hysteria all rush to the fore.
Brennan was about to make a quip about the ease with which the skeletons were destroyed when a voice rang out in a strange language, yet one that Brennan somehow understood. Feelings of panic flooded through him, and though the rogue was brash and confident in a fight, this feeling completely overwhelmed him.
Round 2
Chephren looks around the room for the source of the voice, but begins to suspect the presence of another haunt, thinking that the closing doors where the telling signs of it's beginning.
He calls upon the glory of Anubis once more to neutralize the energy in the room, as he raises his holy symbol in the air.
"Great Guardian of the Tomb, once more you humble servant asks for the power and means to end the sufferings of these souls."
Then he moves to the closed doors, thinking they are directly connected to the haunt and may shed some insight on how to end the room's negative energy.
Surubi looks around the room for a moment, then begins to speak rapidly, "A-buh. Atey dih jumb rumpl feeliga!" She spins in a short circle and then somewhat crumples into a ball, holding her knees and continuing to gibber.
Chephren is right to assume that there is a haunt present. With the voice that manifested in the courtyard sounding again to try and make a last stand. He is easily able to shake off the effects of the are, only to see it affect so many of his allies.
Channeling the power of Anubis, Chephren affects the haunting force, the feeling of chaos waning slightly, but not enough to release everyone from its effects.
Elneiros is awash with confusion, and he begins swinging chaotically at nothing, like he's trying to wave off a swarm around him. In the violence, he swings wrong and catches himself in the knee with the mace in hand. The hit seems to bring him to his senses, if not briefly.
Suru, calls out, but she spits nothing but inane gibberish. In the end she is on the floor crumpled into a ball.
Gabriel seems unaffected by the haunt, and just watches the others as they start acting crazy.
Brennan's normal anger gets the better of him with the insanity that is going on around him. As such, he lashes out at one of the nearby members of the group. Luckily for Malik, the man's anger had caused just a blind thrust.
Malik doesn't understand why Brennan attacked him, but he decides to try to hit back. Normally, he wouldn't think of it, but there was something about this man outright trying to stab him that set him off. So he steps back, and launches a ball of acid he had planned for a skeleton at Brennan. Luckily, he is far from the mark.
Malik blinks, then wonders why Brennan is trying to stab him, or why he hurled a ball of acid at the man. He moves to his right, coming to rest beside Chephren, who seems to know what is going on.
Brennan snarled and lashed out at Malik, taking offense at the wizard's attack. His blade went wide as the conjurer was quicker on his feet than he seemed.
Round 3
"Steel you mind and fears from the echoes of the past, friends," Chephren pleads to the party.
Once more he hold the symbol of his god before him as he calls out, "Anubis, end the fears of these spirits. Comfort their bodies with the knowledge they will be laid to rest.
"Gabriel, if Pharasma does not grant you the power to channel her energies to the area of this room, maybe you can focus her energy onto the closed door, as they were the last defensive obstacle to the mob.
Gabriel feel some power truing to affect his mind, but he resists.
He sees his colleagues are not that lucky. As he is a man of action first, he takes an active approach to solve the situation.
"Hey, snap out of it, knifeboy!" he shouts and attempts to strike Brennan without wounding him.
He misses but hopes that he will atract Brennan's attention nonetheless.
He takes a moment to answer Chephren. "I am not a priest. The only energy I can direct at the door is the one provided by my mace."
Surubi, still in a ball, starts to make a little bit of sense again. "They're all around us coming in... they're going to..." as the madness fades, her trembling slows and she shakily gets to her feet. "What in Pharasma's Great Fields just happened?"
She moves, still visibly fazed by the experience, to the door.
As the group devolves into chaos all around, they are lucky to have Chephren and his knowledge and experience with these types of manifestations. With another burst of channeled energy, a soothing wave of calm settles over the group. They no longer suffer from unknown urges that they cannot rationalize.
"Very good, friend Chephren. Malik feared for Malik's sanity, for a moment there." Breathing a sigh of relief, the wizard inspects his surroundings, now that he is not being stabbed by skeletons or scared to death of a phantom crowd.
"If we fix the gates and bury the household servants, I believe both of these haunts can be ended. I can channel the power of Anubis once more today, incase we encounter another of these restless spirits, and then I will be limited to using my healing magics. If I can determine a focal point of the haunt, I can attempt to focus positive energy with me curing spells."
"I am not sure how much help I will be to the group, if we have to deal with another haunt today," Chephren finishes explaining.
Chephren turns to Gabriel and asks, "Gabriel, you are unable to use healing magics? I did not think Pharasma denied those spells to her faithful. If this is true, then I will need to prepare myself differently in the evening."
"Damn those haunts, anyways. Can't even let a man brood in peace. Now, what's about?"
Gabriel feels the mental pressure cease, but he stands ready to react just in case.
He looks at Chephren. "Oh, I can use those. Although my spellcasting is somewhat limited, there is a healing spell I konw how to produce. I just have not realised that was what you were aiming for. As far as I remember, I do not have any experience using this spell on anything other than a wounded person. I do know they work against undead, but that kind of sums up my knowledge..." He shrugs.
Chephren attends to Elneiros wounds, as the group decides on a direction to go.
"Please remind me to see if we can aquire a wand of curing when next we leave the Necropolis," asks Chephren.
"Mister Darkblade, can you come help me with this door? I'm not sure if those... ghosts? did something to it." Surubi continues to fiddle with the door, apparently trying to see if it would still open properly. [b]"What was that anyway? Is it going to keep on happening in here? Can we do anything against it?"[b]
Brennan moved over to Surubi, and began examining the door. With his tools in hand, he began to poke and prod at the mechanism there. "Maybe...maybe..."
Malik drifts over to behind Surubi and Brennan, his expertise definitely not unlocking doors. He keeps looking around warily, expecting another attack at any moment.
Suru and Brennan investigate the doors as Chephren tends to wounds and others peek into the doorways of the adjoining rooms. The exterior doors are held fast, yet they are not locked or barred in any way. Despite the effect having been ended by Chephren, the doors remain closed, most likely magically.