|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A little embarrassed, or maybe still a little disturbed by the weight of the just heard voice in his head, Teehax turns back to the device not wanting to fail is new found friends.
Try 1:
Teehax mutters to himself, "Time and age has not been kind to this lock."
Try 2:
"Almost got it. Right...."
Try 3:
".... There!" Click. "It would appear that 'practice' makes perfect.
Teehax carefully swings open the top.
On his fourth attempt, Teehax succeeds in opening the lock! Lifting the lid of the chest, he finds that it holds dozens of small, dull gray stones with no apparent value. Many of the stones have cracks, divots, and pockmarks. Mixed in amongst the gray stones are four onyx gemstones, worth perhaps thirty gold apiece.
Teehax, curious about why someone would keep something so worthless in a locked chest, picks up a stone. He finds it to be fairly soft and brittle, capable of being scratched by a fingernail. He scrapes the surface of the rock for a moment, and is surprised to see that the dust scraped off the stone falls into patterns on the floor that look like writing!
|
|
Teehax carefully takes inventory of the chest, and examines gems and gray stones.
The except for the dust gray stones appear to be unremarkable, but then Teehax's feet come into focus, and the dust has settled into a pattern next to this right foot.
"Curious, come see... the dust has fallen into some characters that I do not recognize. Does anyone know what to make of this?"
|
The tall elf approaches the motley assortment of stones, his face thoughtful. Reaching down, he selects three of them and picks them up, handling them gingerly as he turns them over and over in front of him.
After a few such turns, he shakes his head slightly and speaks in a serious tone. "Dark magic was worked upon these stones; they were once bright and valuable. I do not believe the necromancy was successful; if so, that is fortunate for us."
As Kelevan explains the nature of the strange gray stones, Mogok's curiosity gets the best of him and he peers up the narrow stairs to the north. He can't see much, but can tell that the room is littered with debris.
Advancing up the stairs, the Pathfinders can see that detritus litters this room, including bits of metal, broken furniture, crushed glass, leather strips, and shredded parchment. The walls, ceiling, and floor are covered in deep gouges forming words and phrases in multiple languages.
Investigating the room a bit more thoroughly, Kelevan finds a sturdy box that holds eight flasks of alchemist’s fire. Studying the debris and the layout of the room leads Teehax to conclude that the room once contained a table with thick leather restraints, a single stool, and a small writing desk.
Looking down the hall leading west out of this room, the ever-curious Mogok can see a wide hallway lined with alcoves, with a passage leaving it to the north.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Emmylou picks her way into the room.
Anyone else hear a voice back there? She was a might grumpy, wouldn't you say?
What was she talkin' about? Slaves and immortality! Nobody likes talk like that.
Emmylou picks up the dusty onyxes.
You know I wouldn't say anything mean about nobody, but these remind me of my 17th grandson's wife's biscuits. Bless her heart!
Emmylou continues to tsk tsk these sad little onyxes.
The next room is a more of a broad passage leading nowhere, with a bend partway along. Over a dozen small alcoves line this hallway, each containing rusted shackles bolted to the walls and copious amounts of dust. Three of the alcoves contain brittle skeletons hanging from the shackles. Frantic, unintelligible whispers echo around the otherwise silent chamber, seemingly originating from the skulls of the deceased.
|
|
"These poor bastards. I know not what ended them, but dignity should have pulled them down, and buried them. Gods knows how long they've been down here," Teehax eyes darts about as the soft voices wash through the chamber. "Again, voices speaking to us... When we are done, we should send a priest to help put them to rest."
|
|
Mafisadi steps over to the skeletons and gives them a closer look.
”Clearly these were humanoids of some sort. From the discoloration on their bones, they suffered from many and several horrific and fatal diseases all at one time. Not even an elf could live long enough to suffer through so many diseases at one time. Some sort of magic or divine energy must have keep them alive.”
He scratches his chin with his lizard-like tail, thinking.
”They may not have been prisoners so much as test subjects. What an even more horrible thought.”
Retracing their steps, the Pathfinders return to the entry chamber and head west. Broken marble litters the southern corners of the next room, where a pair of huge, toppled statues brandishing curved stone swords must once have reached nearly to the ceiling twenty feet above. Many broken weapons lie scattered about the room. A set of broad stairs leads to a platform in the northwest corner.
As the party enters, three skeletal figures, standing stock still, stir to life, shaking off centuries of dust and raising rusty blades!
Mogok's bomb strikes the skeleton and explodes, sending bone fragments flying! As Teehax gets into position, Mafisadi misses with a high kick, but lands a punch! His fist goes right under the breastplate hanging on the bony shoulders, through the spot where the gut once was, and smashes into the creature's spine!
|
"Cousin, you've always had a way with knocking skulls. I need to bone up on that, if you know what I mean." Hansee bumps into Mafisadi as he makes his way around the bony fellow, as well as the skeleton — provoking clan rivalry from the former, provoking an attack of opportunity from the latter.
He strikes out with his staff once he's in flank.
The skeleton is caught flat-footed by Hansee's nimble movements and fails to react in time, but Hansee's staff also fails to penetrate the skeletal warrior's armor. The fleshless foe focuses his undead ire on the only opponent in reach who's actually harmed him, swinging his sword at Mafisadi!
Emmylou is able to identify the underfed foe as a skeletal champion, a sort of super-charged version of the garden-variety animated skeleton. She knows it is resistant to all but bludgeoning weapons, such as the fists and quarterstaffs of her companions, and that cold does not bother it in the slightest.
Kelevan’s glob of positive energy strikes the skeleton, causing many of its bones to crack and turn to dust, and draining it of much of the unholy power that animates it! Emmylou and Hansee make twin whistling sounds as their staffs swish through empty air!
Mafisadi’s punch takes off not only the skeleton’s jaw, but its entire head! It falls to the floor in a clatter of bones, its well-made blade ringing off the stone!
|
|
"Interesting," remarks the elf, studying the fallen columns. "See here, and here? These runes would introduce a weakness into this system, and might even cause the magical control to be lost... as if you were to intentionally use poor-quality flour or leaven in your grandmother's cranberry walnut cookie recipe."
He proceeds to explain the meaning of this to the others, trying to make it understandable even for Hansee and Emmylou.
Once Kelevan has completed his tutelage about cookie-making, as an extended metaphor for a craftsman intentionally sabotaging his work, the party heads up the stairs. Strangely, they lead to a broad hallway into the next room, where a flight of stairs leads down again. This room is relatively bare, but for a statue of an armed man with a hyena head blocking the passage leading north from it.
Mafisadi moves into position, stumbling a bit on the stairs but still moving quickly enough to avoid any hazards. An instant later, the hyena-headed stone figure begins to move, the layers of dust on it, cracking and sloughing off! At the same moment, Mogok lets fly an alchemical explosive, which strikes the animated carving in a ball of fire, sending chunks of stone flying!
As the smoke clears, the statue steps toward Mafisadi and strikes at the vanara with a stone fist!