Nieve puts the lantern down on the floor, as he attempts to channel more of his healing energies to heal the man - though the body seems to resist the effort. He lowers his head slightly, double-checking the bandages, tightening them and correcting the pressure as best he can. "You did a good job with the bandage - I would like to take a look at it tomorrow, and heal it proper, if you permit."
He looks up at the half-orc, and at Ser Karlan and Kanyk and Thumper - and the kobold over by the entrance. "We're all alive," he nods to himself. "Mr. Harry, please don't strain yourself further - only if you must."
Brushing some hair off of his face, he peers at the mutated goblin. Elyn seems to stray away from it utterly. After picking up the lantern, he peers through the door from which it came.
Harry watches Nieve work very attentively trying to make note of the differing methods and techniques.
"Thank you Mr Nieve, I picked up what I could watching the sawbones in Riddleport, although normally I only had to deal with scrapes and bruises. This sort of thing was a bit rare for me and mine. My lack of knowledge let that girl die in the invasion, and now I could have found myself in dire straits. Perhaps skills with a bandage are going to become as imporant as an axe"
Harry removes the weapons from the dead body, and then stabs it in the neck twice with his Cold Iron dagger.
Nieve smiles meekly as he peers into the southern corridor. "I...I know how to tend to wounds. I could teach you one day, if... if you want to learn."
Emil stays at the rear of the group after the creature is dead, letting his song cease. He keeps an eye out, oddly quiet after singing.
Karlan gags and coughs spitting out curse words and black ichor. "Ugh, gods! I think some of its brain landed in my mouth! Inheritor's mercy that one died messy."
Karlan muttered as he flicked and scraped the gore off his shield. Then turned to see Harry equally covered in blood and gore. "Sorry about that."
Even though the goblin mutant Koruvus has died, the pits from which the shuffling sounds and low moanings echo, are still around you. So the momentary feeling of victory soon ceases and is replaced by stressing anxiousness.
Harry cautiously stands back, Axe at the ready...
Kanyk retrieves his bow and spear and returns to stand with the group.
"Well that was unpleasant, have any of you ever seen a Goblin with that many arms and feet growing out of it's head? I do not like the feel of this place at all. Also, what is making those horrible noises."
Using the head of his hammer, Kanyk carefully pushes one of the the wooden covers off the pits before leaning very carefully over the hole to get a better look at whatever is at the bottom.
As you look down the narrow opening you're taken aback by the sight.
The walls of the shaft are full of scratch marks and about 8 feet below you is human corpse moving from one wall to the other always slamming its head against it, then changing direction. While most of the living dead has decayed and rotten away, some clothes and green patches of flesh have remained.
Karlan looks into the pit and grimaces. "Well, that's a sight that'll haunt my nightmares for a while."
Kanyk kicks the lids off a few more pits to see if they all contain the same grisly inhabitant and then grimacing at the stench, unslings his bow and fits another arrow to the string.
"And I thought yon splattered goblin was bad. What shall we do? Leave em or put them out of their misery? Be easy to put an arrow through each of their skulls but seems like a bit of a waste of an arrow."
Karlan still grimacing shook his head. "Burn em. Only way to be sure."
That could turn out prolematic. You made enough campfires to know that without some kind of fume hood, the whole dungeon will be filled with smoke.
"Wouldn't advise it, this place'd fill up with smoke in no time and we'd choke to death on burning zombie."
Kanyk takes careful aim and then looses an arrow at the head of the pitiful pit-bound thing.
Harry just stays back out of the way, leaving the job of culling to those with a good ranged weapon.
Nieve feels sick to his stomach as the living corpse that wanders aimlessly about is brought to view, and he only barely manages to keep from retching - he walks a couple of feet away from the scene, rubbing his arms. This place is evil...
After two well aimed arrows the creature slumps to the ground, now lying still.
"We may as well keep going as we are and come around the circle, through this door here on the South wall... hopefully anyone lying in wait will suspect we will be coming the other direction from the caves entrance and not from behind them."
"I don't want to stay here for much longer... I dislike this place." Nieve peers at the stairway from which they came, with a longing glance. Elyn is tucked up underneath his hair. "But...but we're in this together. And I couldn't live with myself if you were to perish."
He spots the rubble up in the corner and walks closer to it. Where is the rubble coming from? Is it the wall...? Or the ceiling...?
He begins kicking the debris away, gently, wading through the rocks, trying to keep his mind away from all the sights that had occured today. Anything for a distraction...
"I for one am glad we came down here." Karlan states emphatically. "I can't help but think we're right underneath everyone else's feet."
Since Nieve does not find anything interesting underneath or in the debris which has broken from the wall, you follow Harry's advice and cautiously leave the room southwards.
East of the corridor you find a spiral staircase that leads up, to the south is a heavy iron door.
"I agree Sir Karlan, we should push forwards and clear this place out, the good people of Sandpoint should not have this sort of evil left unchecked in their midst"
With a creaking sound you slowly open the heavy iron door. The strange room beyond it consists of a fifteen-foot-diameter sphere. Several objects float in the room, spinning lazily in space - a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of floating and writhing maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Yet perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the room is the walls, for they are plated in sheets of strange red meatal that ripple every once in a while with silent black electricity that seems to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance.
Nieve stares at the floating objects and the strange walls - he is particularly disturbed by the dead raven, which is oddly mesmerising. He glances at Harry and Kanyk and Ser Karlan, and then tries to make something out of the runes that on occasion occur. "Is this normal occurrence in Riddleport, Mr. Harry?"
There's a nervous tinge to his voice.
"No, I think this one might be more at home... well I don't know where"
Assuming he finds it safe to do so, he will tie a rope off around his waist (in case there IS a trap - so he can be retrieved) and moves into the room to retrieve the floating objects, with the exception of the raven (and the maggots)
The sensation of floating is weird at first, but soon it becomes not unpleasant. It's a bit like swimming and you are able to grab all the things and even return to the corridor safely in les than two minutes.
The others notice that your hair is totally spiky, but besides that, you feel very good.
Harry examines the items carefully to determine what they might be, sharing them with Mr Nieve who seems to have an eye for books.
The bottle of wine is a two year old red wine from Absalom, the book, bound in stained old leather contains strange writings in a language you've never seen before and nightmarish illustrations of various monsters.
The scroll is written in another foreign language and what the metal rod is for you don't have any idea.
Harry happily hands all the items over, "Maybe that rod is a key or a lever for something"
"Couldn't say." Karlan says. "The way of wizards is a mystery to me. I don't even know what that room is."
Nieve takes all the items as they are handed to him - struggling to juggle them properly, he drops to his knees and scatters it all over the floor. He weaves his fingers together, muttering a swift incantation.
The wand and the scroll possess magical auras. Your read magic scroll unearthes that the scroll is a scroll of "burning hands" (CL3).
The book is non-magic.
"This is a wand," Nieve announces, raising the wand. "A...a magical one, I mean. I "
A flush blossoms on his cheeks as he buries his palm in his face. He shakes off the embarrassment and holds up the scroll. "This is a spell scroll, containing a flame incantation."
He glances through the book again. "I can try to figure out what this wand does tomorrow, when we have time...would anybody mind if I took care of these while we explore?"
Nieve glances at the others.
Your knowledge of the Celestial alphabet helps you to realize that the book is actually written in Abyssal.
You also are able to discern the wand's properties, it's a wand of shocking grasp (28 charges Cl 3).
"By all means Mr Nieve, those aren't items I'd have a lot if use for, with the exception of the wine of course, but I don't know if I'd be keen to eat or drink anything found in a place like this..." Harry pokes his thumb at the surroundings.
Emil seems content to simply follow along.
"Looks like we've come as far as we can go this way, lets head back around... I suppose up the guts is the way its going to have to be..."
Harry leads the party back the way they came, then pushes East...
You make your way back and pass the abominations you've already killed in this strange dungeon.
You follow the tunnel and after a couple of meters it widens into what appears to have once been a small shrine, for to the northeast steps lead up to a platform of grey stone. Sitting atop the platform is an ancient altar, little more than a jagged block of black marble with a shallow concavity on top of it. This basin is filled with what appears to be filty water.
"The biggest door we have seen since arriving at the place... after you Sir Karlan..."
Kanyk keeps well out of the metal walled room with the floating objects, not trusting this unnatural place to act as he expects at all and not wanting to risk being mutated as the room's aggressive guardian had been.
As the group passes back through the pit room he stoops to pick up the weapons used by the horrifically mutated Goblin, wiping them clean and then tucking them into his belt for later examination.
Upon entering the strange shrine Kanyk walks up and examines the alter, sniffing at the foul smelling water and looking for it's source in a completely dry underground complex.
Not able to see anything of interest on the black alter Kanyk moves across to the double doors at the other end of the shrine and hammer at the ready, kicks one of the doors open and steps through.
The foul-smelling, mirky water does not flow in or out of the concavity, maybe it's already in there for aeons, strangely not evaporating.
The huge room behind the double doors looks like nothing more than an immense underground cathedral. Stone doors stand to either side of the main entrance, but beyond this, the walls are carved with strange spiky runes. In the centre of the room is a large pool, a ring of polished human skulls balanced on stone spikes arranged in a circle around the deeper midsection. At the far end of the room, a pair of stone stairways leads up to a pulpit on which sits a second pool, this one triangular and filled with churning, bubbling water that almost looks like translucent lava. Yet while wisps of what look like heat and steam rise from the strange orange liquid, the room itself is deathly cold.
Karlan pushes past Harry patting him on the shoulder as he does so.
Then he looked about the cathedral trying to decide which horrific monstrous deity it was dedicated to.
Knowledge Religion
Nieve glances around the cathedral, wondering how somebody could ever worship something so...ghastly. If this even was a place of worship. He stays in the back, casting the light of his lantern as far as it goes, and peering, looking for whatever danger there may be...
@ Karlan:
You cannot come up with a plausibe suggestion to whom the temple was dedicated.
@ All:
As you cuatiously enter the strange room, you suddenly notice a small figure at the ceiling. It's not more than two feet tall and definitely female.
With a high pitched voice the strange flying thing screams
Who dares to enter mother's sanctum?
The next thing the winged little monster does is cutting its own wrists open with a jagged dagger and letting its blood dripple into the strange cold lava pool.
Harry notices hes a lot less injured than the bloody mess on him would normally indicate... amazed at the magical healing from his friends.
As he enters the room, he spies the horrible creature and readies his axe moving wide of the party...
"What is that thing? not another twisted Goblin...surely?"
@ Karlan:
You cannot come up with a plausibe suggestion to whom the temple was dedicated.
@ All:
As you cuatiously enter the strange room, you suddenly notice a small figure at the ceiling. It's not more than two feet tall and definitely female.
With a high pitched voice the strange flying thing screams
Who dares to enter mother's sanctum?
The next thing the winged little monster does is cutting its own wrists open with a jagged dagger and letting its blood dripple into the strange cold lava pool.
Karlan goes pale for a moment before takin a deep breathe in and then out. Considering his options he defaulted to the one he knew.
"We are here under Sandpoint Legal Code 145678 granting civil authority, that's us, the power to enter any place of business, religious sanctum, or place of residence if there is reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity within the premises. Under this code we are empowered to detain and question any occupants to determine any wrong doing. If you would be willing to submit to a formal interrogation we may be on our way. If you wish to resist we are empowered to take drastic action to ensure the safety of Sandpoint and any of its citizens. If you would like to withhold any answers you may have to our inquiries until you may speak with a legal representative or a witness you are within your rights to do so. Keep in mind however that you will be detained until such a representative can be arranged. Would you like to submit to the interrogation now or do you require a lawyer?"
The creature roll its eyes after Karlan has tried to impress it with the full force of law and order. In return it shrieks
My minions will flail and defile you, will eat your flesh and grind your skulls.