Thanks to Neva's spell, Pravlox kicks the disease, and with a day's rest is able to start feeling a lot better.
The high walls of the surrounding buildings throw this awkwardly bent alley into constant shadow. Although littered with garbage and filth, the refuse isn't the most stomach-turning trait of this rundown sideway. Heaped against a bent wooden wall rises a pile of more than three dozen plague victims, their faces blistered and flushed, eyes open and staring. The scent of death is overpowered by the reek of rot, suggesting that some of these corpses have lain here for days.
Neva took a few gasping gulps in an effort to keep her gorge down.
"Oh Lady, we seek to bring these..." Suddenly, Neva turned her head to give a shoulder-shrugging dry heave.
After an apologetic grimace at her friends, she regained her composure.
"We seek to bring these poor bodies to proper rest. Please bless us with your guidance, strength and will."
Pravlox seems much less ruffled than some of the others at the sight; after all, he grew up in alleys like this. He quickly summons Rex, and mounting the serpent creature, starts looking for a good place to climb up and watch from above.
Upon arriving at the alley, it is easy to see why it would be used as a dumping spot. The city wall at the south end of the alley, the height of the two buildings on either side, and the inset of the building where one roof overhangs, put the place it what appears to be almost perpetual shadow. Pravlox mounts Rex and climbs the building just west of the alley, some twenty feet up, allowing a look into the overhung portion.
Neva loaded and hoisted her crossbow.
"Come on Felgar. Let's see if there is anything down here besides corpses."
Felgar hefts his axe and leads the way towards the stench to protect Neva.
Copper stands back, giving room for those more experienced in the matters of sickness and death. He tries to keep an eye on both the goings on in the alley, and on the passers-by on the street. He bites down on the inside of his cheek, trying to disguise his unease with the situation.
"No point in staying with the dead in this condition. Maybe we can find a place to hide outside and watch for a cart to enter the alley. Then we cut them off and... what, arrest them?" Man, I keep forgetting to get manacles, or whatever.
As Neva and Felgar approach the bodies toward the end of the alleyway, they can tell that the number piled there is easily in the forties.
I am approaching the pile slowly with my axe drawn.
Neva blanched at the pile of corpses. She couldn't decide, however, if she should try to address the desecration of these corpses, or lie in wait for the perpetrators as Rutter suggested.
While she fretted, she scanned the surrounding walls and rooftops for signs of foes or witnesses.
Rutter sees the conflict on Neva's face that he watching out for. "I knew you wouldn't like it. We'll make sure they're all taken care of, if we have to bury them ourselves. But we can't let these carters see us here or they'll just find another dumping ground. Let's catch them first."
Neva took a trembling breath as she nodded in agreement to Rutter. She made sure that Felgar joined her as she moved back towards the other and find a place to hide.
Felgar follows Neva back to the others.
"So, whisper trick, Copper? I'll take one end, you take the other, and we can keep in touch? Can you get Pravlox, too, since he's taking the view from the Shingles?"
Rutter then heads to the end with the most traffic, and finds a spot to blend in.
As they have a quick look over the bodies, and prepare to turn back toward the end of the alley, Felgar notices something out of the ordinary. What first looked like signs of Blood Veil on the necks of some of the bodies, more closely resemble twin puncture marks. He also catches sight of a previously unnoticed hole in the wall behind the pile, leading into the side of the building they are piled beside.
Whoa! There be somethin' ya need t'see over here.
Felgar points out the hole andf puncture marks on the bodies.
Neva walked back to Felgar, hoping to provide him cover. Peering past him, she tried to spot the puncture marks the dwarf had mentioned.
Neva, returning to investigate what Felgar noticed, easily spots the things he noticed when he points them out. The puncture wounds are indeed equally spaced on many of the necks of the dead here. With a closer inspection, the hole in the wall looks to be big enough to climb through, if one were to clear away the bodies that look almost as if they were piled up to hide it.
You be wantin' me to clear those bodies away from that hole?
Rutter watches Neva and Felgar investigate the bodies. He looks at the bodies and the hole they conceal, confused. "They tryin' to hide that hole? Dead bodies seems a stupid cover. I mean, I can see that most folks wouldn't try to move them, but eventually someone would come investigate them. 'Less that's what they wanted." Rutter looks around for anyone watching them.
"And they ain't died of the plague? Did some of them die of the plague, or all of them from those holes in their neck? This still some lazy city workers, or is this something else?" Rutter turns, and keeps his eyes open for anyone coming, while Neva continues to examine the bodies, or Felgar clears the hole.
Neva waved everyone over impatiently, her nervousness getting the better of her. She whispered harshly "Gather up! I don't think it's lazy city workers."
She tried to determine whether these were victims of the plague or if the puncture wounds had caused the deaths.
Neva can tell that the victims with punctures do not share a lot of the same symptoms, and likely didn't die from the disease. Their skin is pale, but not blotchy, just red around the puncture wounds. It looks as if they had been exsanguinated.
Rutter looks up for Pravlox and Rex on the roof, and waves them to come down. "I guess we should check out the hole. Dang, I should've bought some o' them sunrod things." He draws both kukri and waits for Felgar to clear enough of the hole for everyone else to follow him in.
Neva tried to scour her memory for any tales, rumors or teachings that covered such a horrific act, but she just couldn't get past the terror she felt.
"This is the stuff I didn't want to listen to at church school! Pharasma knows all the creatures that feed on people. But I didn't want to learn those parts. Who would want to learn those parts!? she thought defensively.
She turned to the others angrily, as if they were at fault for these wounds and her own ignorance.
"Gods dammit! I'm a midwife not a...not a...whatever!", she finished with a wave of her arm.
Her anger broke and she hung her head. "I'm sorry. I just don't know who or what would do this. I should, but I don't."
Pravlox and Rex come down, ready to proceed however the party wishes.
Rutter quietly enters the darkness of the building with his glowing kukri.
All Neva knows is that there are undead creatures called Vampires that drink the blood of their live victims via a pair of fangs. They are not mindless undead, and are often said to fear the light of day.
Neva cast light on her headband and followed Rutter into the breach.
Felgar will lead the way with his axe drawn.
Copper casts a light spell onto Felgar's axe before the company travels down into the hole. Copper follows along, though he does his best to keep from actually touching any of the bodies.
Through the shifting of rotting bodies, a hole is cleared enough for you all to scramble into the opening. When you enter, the light from Felgar's axe and Rutter's blade reveals the contents of the room. Dozens of crooked glass eyes—hollow and crazed—glare from the heads of malformed and half-carved dolls lining skewed workroom shelves. Rat-gnawed stuffed aurochs, disembodied doll limbs, miniature rolling elephants, unseaworthy wooden ships, and crooked blocks illustrated with deformed or poorly painted animals fill bins and racks about the room. A cracked wooden door leads to the north, while a rickety trap door breaks the sawdust-covered floor to the east. In one corner lies the drying corpse of an old bald man amid the wood chips, rusty tools, and oily rags of a scored workbench.
"Shhh...
Silently, Rutter listens at the door, then the trapdoor, and then points at the body. He pads over to it, and uses a kukri to tilt its head so he can check the neck for fang marks. He then moves back to the north door and checks it for traps before opening it.
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Copper tries to stand by as silently as possible while Rutter investigates. Looking about the room, he notices one doll in particular that seems particularly creepy, even given it's current location. He reaches over, and turns the head the other way, so it isnt staring at him.
Pravlox will quickly do a detect magic over the room as Rex moves into a position to strike at anything that might be on the other side of the door.
As he looks over the neck of the desiccated dead man, there are fairly obvious puncture wounds up and down his neck, eight of them to be exact. At his waist hangs a ring of small keys. The rest of the room bears nothing worth noting beyond the ever staring eyes of the shelved dolls.
Pravlox, scanning the place as Rutter examines the physical evidence, notices the presence of magic under the floor. With continued focus, he discerns that there are two auras, both of them faint. He can't really tell much more about them without actually examining the objects personally.
"Something down below bearing magic. Someone should investigate." Pravlox points to the general location.
Rutter takes the keys. After listening at the north door, he follows Pravlox's suggestion, and moves to the trap door. He checks it for traps and opens it quietly.
At Rutter's investigation, he can tell that neither the door or the trapdoor appear to be hiding any traps on them. It almost makes the very name, trapdoor, a pointless moniker.
Neva moved over to help with the trapdoor.
You be needin' a strong arm on that door?