Walia says, "OK, the most injured of us is still willing to risk it, then I agree "
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The party passes through areas they have explored before until they come to the hallway they have yet to explore.
Not far beyond the point at which they stopped the previous day, the passage branches off into two. One branch continues running west, while the other turns north, and after 10' it narrows to a 5' wide passage.
No sound comes from either direction.
Walia says, "For thoroughness, I suggest we go North."
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The party passes through the narrow section. At this point, the corridor turns west, parallel to the one they were in before.
40' along, there is another narrow passage leading south (the end of which is very close to the end of the previous corridor), and the main corridor continues to the west.
As before, no sound comes from either direction.
"I recommend that we go west," Ana states decisively.
Ferrous continues walking down the tunnel towards the West.
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The group continues carefully down the hall, checking for traps and secret doors and other hazards as they go. Everything remains eerily silent.
The hallway continues in a straight line for 100'. After that, a narrow passage branches off to the south. Then, 10' further the westward hallway turns north and continues out of sight.
Walia says, "Let's try south."
"South it is."
Brathas continues searching for traps and secret doors.
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The group turns down the southern branch. The narrow section widens after 10' and then runs another 10' before turning back east again. However, in the west wall facing the east corridor, there is a door.
The party examines the door and finds no traps, magic, evil, nor does anyone hear any noise coming from the other side. The door seems to be unlocked.
"Let's try this door."
"I agree."
Ferrous opens the door cautiously with his axe in his other hand.
Waits, with sword in hand, while Ferrous opens the door.
Zynazyr impatiently walks with the group, anxious to get back to the wizard's tomb to scribe spells and study the items more.
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Ferrous quietly opens the door.
Within is a 30' wide chamber, though your feeble beetle-light only lights the near end of the room, and the rest fades away into darkness. Unlike most of the rooms you have seen, the walls of this room are bare stone and not covered with plaster.
Straight ahead is the end of an old table. On top of the table stand several small clay jars, and there are a few yellowed strips of cloth scattered haphazardly among the jars.
At the north and south ends of the room you can see a low stone bier, perhaps 7' long and 4' wide. After a small gap you can see the end of another such bier fading into the darkness.
Lying on the Bier to the north is a male figure, dressed in dark robes and wearing a skull mask. His hands are bandaged and no skin is visible. To the south on the bier that is only partly lit you can see a mask covering a head and it is likely that this is another such figure.
The figures are completely still; they do not even seem to be breathing. Their masks and clothing closely resemble that of the four undead creatures you fought the previous day.
Walia produces his holy symbol and starts speaking in his prophetic tongues giving a silent prayer to turn undead ,
Initiative
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Without entering the room, Wallia presents his holy symbol, but there seems to be no response from the figures lying on the biers.
Yeah, lets just shut this door and move on
Zynazyr nods in agreement. "I agree. We can come back another time."
Walia says, "We may as well go East"
"East sounds good to me."
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The party turns east and heads down the corridor.
The corridor only runs about 50 feet before coming to a dead end, but there is a door in the wall at the end. The party examines the door but finds no evidence of traps, magic, or evil. No sound comes from the door.
Since there is no other way to go, the group opens the door and looks inside.
This room is filled with skeletons. The bones lie in piles on the floor. They cover the floor so thickly that it is impossible to walk across the floor without stepping on the bones.
All is quiet and the bones do not stir. Wallia does not detect any evil.
Walia detects evil.
"We should at least map this room. It is possible that amidst all these bones there is another door or something of interest."
Brathas will poke his head in the door and peer around while Walia is doing his detection. Though not yet go in.
If there are undead, he expects that Walia will want to destroy them sooner rather than later.
Grunts and stands by the door with his sword and shield at ready 'just in case'.
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Wallia spends ten minutes concentrating with his holy symbol, but he still does not detect anything evil here.
Brathas pokes his head in the room and looks around. The wall the door is in is about 30' wide, with the door in the middle, aand you can see out about 20' into the room.
The bones remain quiet.
Walia says, "I don't detect any evil in here, there may be something interesting inside here. Do you want to see?"
"What happened here? Were these people all killed in this room, or did they die at different times and have their remains brought here?
It is a grisly site either way. But I do think we should investigate. If the skeletons come to life, we can withdraw and close the door."
Walia solemnly nods and makes sure his holy symbol is out and in view as he walks into the room, prepared to turn the undead if necessary.
He says, "This is a frightful sight. as he crosses the threshold.
Walia gives a quiet prayer for those who have perished and then says, "I think we ought to search the room, thoroughly."
Ana shrugs and begins the process of searching.
Brathas will also search the room thoroughly.
He will try to be gentle and respectful moving the bones and is willing to take even longer to reduce damage to the remains.
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Once the light is moved into the room, it is revealed to be 30' square, with a door on the far side opposite the one you came in.
The group begins carefully picking through the bones.
Brathas wants to avoid disturbing the remains as much as possible, though when handled the bones prove very brittle; clearly they are very old. Many of them shatter into dust when handled too roughly.
Wallia suspects that considering the other tombs on this floor, the people here were likely people of low class, possibly slaves, and is an indoor "mass grave."
No magic or evil is detected in the room.
After about twenty minutes of searching, Ferrous finds a trap door in the floor on the south side of the room.
The group examines the trap door but detects no traps and hears no noise.
There seems to be nothing else of interest here.
I suspect that the door leads back to 'B'. Maybe we should see where the trap door leads?
"Let's open the door on the far side to verify that it does connect. I'm a stickler for finishing maps. Then I would be happy to explore where this trap door leads."
Walia says, "It could go to a lower floor like the first way we came to this level. I think we should open it just to see if it mayhap holds a cache of something. But if not we can go back to the other branch."
Look I don't think we should be going down anymore when we have to go up at the end of this day. Let's take a quick look though.
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Brathas peeks out of the door opposite the one they came in. As expected, it connects to the passages they have already seen. The party emerges to make sure there are no secret doors in the area they have not explored, but they find none.
They return to the room, and the party manages to pry up the edge of the trap door and peer down.
Below is a 20' x 20' chamber, which seems to be empty. The light does not reach the floor, but lowering the beetle glands on a rope a little bit reveals that the floor is 25' down (which is the same distance between levels that you have seen so far). The trap door is close to the south wall of the room, and a rungs of a ladder emerge from the wall below the trap door. The small chamber has one small exit, a narrow 5' tunnel to the east of the ladder.
Walia says, "We should probably go to the branch and now we know that there is a fifth level. I wonder if this was the original bottom floor of this structure or if it goes even deeper below the sand. I suggest we go to that are just north of where we had been unless you want to see if those people are ok."
Zynazyr rolls his eyes when the group decides to search the mass grave. "Why would anyone leave something of value in here? If these people were important and wealthy, they'd have their own tomb - like the wizard's where we should be getting back to," he thinks to himself, trying his best to hide his frustration.
He stands near the middle of the room as the others search, moving as needed to provide light. He shuffles his feet to see if there is anything near him but mostly thinks about the items they found earlier.
He is about to protest the suggestion to go to the next level when wiser heads prevail. Relieved that the fighter and thief are satisfied with a peek at the level below and happy that the trap door led to an empty room, Zynazyr gets ready to head back into the hallway.
"As we get further away from our base today, I think it's important to try to avoid encounters if possible since Ferrous is not fully healed. I suppose we can go down the hall to the north but I don't think we should enter that room with the bodies. For all we know, entering the room might bring them to life," he chimes in to the discussion of where to go next.
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The party returns to the corridor leading north.
From the turn the passage runs 70' to the north, and then another narrow passage runs west for 10'. The passage widens again and then turns north. In the south wall facing the northern passage is another door.
The party examines the door. No traps are found and no sounds are heard from within.
The group quietly opens the door. The room is thirty feet wide, and the walls are painted with scenes from court life, focusing on the life of ladies in waiting attending a queen. Other than that the area you can see is empty.
The dim light of the beetle glands only illuminates the area within 20' of the door' the rest of the room is shrouded in darkness.
If we move the beetle lights away, how far could Ana and Ferrous see with their infravision?
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If we move the beetle lights away, how far could Ana and Ferrous see with their infravision?
Zynazyr and the humans fall back around the corner to give Ana and Ferrous' infravision a chance to work. After a moment, their eyes adjust, and they look into the room.
The room is 40' deep. They can see a large box that is probably another sarcophagus in a niche in the south wall, and against the west wall towards the far end there is some kind of furniture up against the wall, perhaps a desk. A large object that looks like a chair sits in front of it.
They cannot see anything moving or any sources of heat.
Walia says, "We may as well enter the room."