Seeing the dwarf not moving, Vyshael enters the the room, sword in one hand, held spell in the other, scanning for any sign that we've been detected.
Rutter drops the silent cobblestone, and then drags the frozen dwarf off the trapdoor, in the direction of Neva and Jethro at the door. In the magical silence, he points at Neva and motions 'come here' and then points at Jethro and points at Felgar. He then rushes back to the trapdoor, and while the silence persists, he throws open the trapdoor without a sound and drops into the crawlspace.
Neva helps quickly put the manacles on Felgar, and gag the helpless dwarf.
Helping Neva restrain Felgar, Jethro fights with the awkwardness of the magical silence. ' Is this what it is like to go deaf?' He thought, 'Surely there is not much worse to live with than the lack of sound.'
Looking down on the paralyzed Dwarf, 'Actually, I can think of worse fates.'
Turning his eyes to Neva Jethro mouths "What are we to do now?" before turns and sees the trap door propped open and Rutter gone. He knew the plan, of course, though the reality of what he was doing was hitting harder than he had previously expected.
Once Felgar was completely restrained and gagged, Neva answered Jethro's silent question.
She pulled out her stake and motioned to Jethro and Vyshael to do the same. Then she motioned them to the trapdoor, and she moved to follow Rutter.
Rutter moves to the far wall between the two coffins against the west wall. He opens the northernmost coffin and draws his hammer and stake.
Seeing Neva go into the hole Jethro briefly considers abandoning his part. 'I am no hero,'his thoughts were racing as he considered the plan. Taking a deep breath to steady his hand, finally, he follows the rest into the hole.
With Felgar trussed and gagged, the four of you rush off to the space beneath the shop. Just as the unnatural quiet fades, all is left is the eerie quiet of the four 'sleeping' forms laying in their coffins. Arms across their chests, eyes closed, pale skin and lack of the rise and fall of breath make them appear to be calmly at their final rest. As Rutter drives his stake into the first one, the shrieking and thrashing causes the whole place to erupt with activity. Dead eyes fly open, but there is no time to act as the rest of you drive home the wooden stakes. Each one of the undead shrieking and thrashing like the first. The violence of it all ends almost as abruptly as the bodies lie still, before they rot and crumble into ash. All except for their bones that is, those remain, the stake lodged firmly between the ribs.
As the unnatural silence is replaced by the stifling silence of the vampire's home Jethro breathes slightly easier. Only slightly though, the current danger still played at the front of his mind.
When Rutter drives home the stake and his prey cries out, the room beginning to explode into life Jethro flinches with the sudden noise. Panicked he slams the mallet down on the flat end of his stake. His own targets cries added to the awful wailing in the room.
Though the sound faded quickly, as the vampires died, Jethro's ears rang with their death screams. He stood quietly for many moments seeming shaken from the suddenness of it all before quietly speaking :
"Four went below to the Devil's door,
To bring back one whom was lost before,
Silent as mice creeping on their way,
Bold as a lion stalking its prey,
They four slayed the Devils in their sleep,
Praying their friend's soul was theirs to keep."
Slowly turning to the halfling Jethro congratulates Rutter, "It was a good plan, though I must admit I am surprised we were able to do it so easily. Given what I know of Vampires I thought this would be a much more difficult battle." Adding to everyone, "Well done."
"Yeah... I guess if you know what you're dealing with, it's a lot easier... kind of anticlimactic, though I'm not complaining. So are we supposed to cut off their skulls and anoint them with the holy water?"
"Let's go check on Felgar. Borrow his axe if he's not back with us yet."
Rutter climbs out of the crawlspace to the ground floor, and nudges the prone Felgar with his boot. "Oi! Are you you again?"
Relief swept over Neva and once she was convinced the vampires were destroyed, she scrambled past Rutter to check on Felgar.
Vyshael says, "Are we? Well, I'll start the decapitation if someone wants to annoit them."
Jethro nods grimly at Vyshael. "Yes, by all means, begin that process. Though I believe Rutter was carrying the holy water, let me go and fetch it from him." Turning for the ladder a disturbing thought creeps into Jethro's head. Stopping at the bottom rung he adds, "I don't think these are the only vampire in the area. I'll explain when everyone is back in the same room."
Hurrying up the ladder he summons Neva and Rutter back to the trap door. "There is more to this than we thought. You two should come back so we can fully explore what is going on here. Do not worry for your Dwarven friend just now, Felgar will likely not be all himself until tomorrows sunset."
Pausing for a moment Jethro remembers why he climbed the ladder in the first place, "Besides, Rutter, we need the holy water to fully destroy these creatures."
Vyshael nods and grits his teeth at Jethro's last comment, More? That's.... unfortunate. I can't imagine that we'll be able to come upon them unawares, especially if they learn of the destruction of these...
He sighs, and then sets about the grim job, taking a small dose of satisfaction as he does it, Seems an appropriate task for a paladin's blade. He cleanly takes the heads off each vampire and then steps back, wiping the blade clean of their foul essence.
As he waits for the annointing to begin, his eyes start to scan the area, no longer looking for threats, but for clues, Maybe there's some sign of where or who the others might be in here...
Rutter hands the vials of holy water to the two newcomers. "Thanks. I'll start searching for loot up here, first. Then, we'll check the crawlspace when y'all are done."
After Vyshael removes the heads, the anointing with holy water seems to finally do the trick. When poured over the skulls, there is a hiss almost like the sound right before a tea kettle whistles. The skulls smoke and then the whole skeletons turn to ash. While he goes through the procedure with Jethro's help, Rutter scours the building for anything worth grabbing, be it clue or coin.
Rutter finds amongst the workshop, a rusty, pathetically jingling lockbox behind the counter. Using one of the earlier found keys on the ring, opening the box reveals two gold, eight silver, twenty-two copper, a silver tooth, and a brass key shaped like the symbol of Abadar and bearing the number 261.
After moving his investigation to the crawlspace, he finds in the now bodyless coffins of dirt, three small leather pouches. The combined contents of which equal three hundred gold, and fifteen platinum, all of Ustalavic minting. There is also a ring sculpted to look like intertwined brass spider legs and a set of pan pipes made from what appear to be human bones.
Vyshael suggests, "That appears to be a deposit box key. As Lord of the First Vault, large temples of Abadar often provide such a service."
Neva began to feel a bit woozy as they finished up exploring the toy shop and basement. And she noticed that Rutter, too, seemed a bit flushed.
Sighing at the tell-tale signs of the plague, she set herself to prayer over the afflicted halfling.
"Hold still and take the Lady's healing", she scolded.
Rutter steps over the still-dominated dwarf and returns to the front room. He lays the pouches out onto one of the work benches and starts dividing up the coins into 5 equal portions while Neva prays over him.
"Any ideas about the ring or the pipes? And why do you think there's more vampires around?"
Vyshael takes the items and studies them , then says, "It's a ring of jumping, one of the lesser ones, but still quite useful. The pipes are called pipes of haunting -- when played properly, they cause fear in those that hear the tune."
Neva looked worriedly at Rutter, distressed to see no signs of healing.
Sighing, she turned to the others. "Let's worry about the treasure later. Right now, we should further secure Felgar, report back to Kroft and then get some rest. I need...I don't know...some tea, maybe."
She ended sounding tired, but she put a hand on Jethro's back as a way to say thank you. She gave a wan smile and a nod to Vyshael as well.
Jethro, having been dismissed earlier by Rutter, was brooding somewhat over the implications he saw with the vampire spawn. What sort of danger might they or others be in if there was a vampire powerful enough to have at least four of these minions? Where was it? And more importantly, was he now going to have to be part of destroying it?
Neva's touch awakened Jethro from his thoughts. Reigning him back to the present he sees everyone gathered around for the moment.
Speaking firmly, he says "We would do well to gather what we can before leaving my Lady. These vampires we have slain were only pawns, as it were, with as much control over themselves as your friend Felgar had for himself."
"With all the happenings as of late I can only imagine the implications but there is an even more powerful being somewhere in the city that created these creatures and likely left them here for a reason. I dread to think of what the need for them to be here was and I do not think it would be overly wise to come back once we've left."
Jethro finishes his little speech looking worriedly at Neva, believing she of everyone gathered would understand the implications the best.
Picking up the key Jethro adds :
"Perhaps, once we leave here, we could pay a visit to the Temple of Adabar not too far away - that key there is to a lock box in one of the Temples. Seems safe to say they wouldn't stray too far from home.
Vyshael nods, "I agree that we should search thoroughly, if only to try to find clues that lead us to the greater evil. I also think we should head to the Vault sooner rather than later -- something may realize what's happened here and retrieve the items -- but at the same time, it would be difficult to visit with a dominated dwarf in tow."
"We met a priest of Abadar, so he might be willing to let us check this out without too many questions. The key was in a box that looked to belong to the shopkeeper, though, so I don't know that it'll shed any light on any more vampires." He turns to Neva, a thought occurring to him, "We've met that priest during the day, haven't we?"
"Aside from the coins appearing to be from Ustalav, I didn't find any other clues. The queen's from Cheliax, so I guess we can't pin them on her."
Neva acquiesced wearily. "Let's search this place, then get Felgar secured somewhere, then the Vault of Abadar, then Kroft."
"But THEN I get tea."
A thorough investigation of the premises turns up nothing more than the valuables already found by Rutter.
Vyshael chuckles and nods, "Sounds like someone has a good set of priorities."
Neva then hurried everyone as best as she could towards the hideout where they'd spent the night before.
"We'll stay here again, to await Felgar's recovery. I suppose I should go to the Vault of Abadar, to better ensure that we follow the proper protocols. Who wants to stay here with Felgar?"
Neva quickly made the dwarf as comfortable as she could, and left for the Vault with the key.
Vyshael suggests gently, "Probably best if it's one of you. A friendly face, as it were, rather than coming out of the domination with only a stranger looking after him."
"I do not know him any more thoroughly than you do, Vyshael," Jethro says, speaking carefully as to not possibly offend. "I'm not sure what sort of state he will be in when he does recover though I admit it would be best for him if he had a friend here to greet him."
Looking directly at Neva, "I would think you would be the best to wait for him, your concern for him makes me believe he would be happiest to see you."
"There's no rush on visiting the vault. We can go tomorrow. That, or we take Felgar to Cressida and let her leave him in a jail cell overnight. I'm trying to figure out if Cressida will believe us about the vampires."
Neva nodded. "Let's keep him here. I can make tea. And soup. And tend to our fevers, Rutter."
Neva set about making Felgar as comfortable as possible. She also put on some water to boil and began putting out the supplies necessary to tend to herself and Rutter.
Rutter checked Felgar's restraints again before he lay down. At least it was a new ceiling to stare at while he waited for the illness to run its course. "There's no way I'm missing that lockbox, though."
The group decides to stick it out while waiting for Felgar to recover his senses, and hopefully allow Neva and Rutter to recover from the illness.
Sadly, the world doesn't always live by the plans of the few, and a night's rest actually does worse by the two of them. Both seem to have a nagging cough, and are peppered with red pustules.
Neva spent the evening tending to herself and Rutter, finally finding time for that long-desired cup of tea.
Confident that she'd done her best, she forced Rutter into bed and, after shooing the others off to less-infected locations, went to sleep herself.
Whilst the two others rest, Jethro and Vyshael accompany Felgar to the Church of Abadar. The crowds are not much less than they were before, but after the first time they came, Felgar has learned to not imply any healers are nearby and just push through the crowd instead.
After forcing their way through the crowd, the three of you manage to arrange to collect the things from the appropriate lockbox via one of the priests of the Grand Vault. He returns with a small square chest, and allows you to use one of the private vestibules. Using the vault key, and looking inside the box, you gather sixty-eight gold pieces, a really nice set of lock picks, a finely crafted pair of boots, and a sheaf of papers detailing the creation of dozens of poorly designed toys.
When Felgar awakes, he is visibly shaken at the turn of events. he addresses the companions that saved his life.
I cannot be tellin' ya all how happy I be fer ya savin' me hide. I owe all of ya big time! I also be sorry fer any pain or sufferin' I may have caused while under the spell of those Torag-forsaken vamps.
Rutter reluctantly gives up the vault key, "Ugh... fine, as long as Felgar's going with y'all."
He goes back to checking his red-pocked face in the steel mirror he'd bought to help defeat the vampire spawn.
"Tired of getting sick. Maybe we should get some of those stupid bird-masks that the doctors wear, if they really work."