The other wolves are hungry, but the bigger wolf is the leader. He enjoys hunting the few humans that come around here. If he is taken down than the other ones can be appeased with food.
Koross imposed himself between the large wolf and Thantor. The wolf's attention is drawn and he leaped upon Koross with a powerful bite.
The other two wolves leaped upon Artemis one of them is brushed away with a shield and the other one manages to close his jaw around Artemis' leg with a quick snap.
Erwin seeing the big wolf attacking Koross freezes for a moment before decides it his time to do something. Moving forward towards the biggest threat and slashing with his axe towards its huge body
Gnobby tries to attack a wolf from his crouch and go for the hindquarters.
Koross grunts as the large wolf chews into his arm.
Flinging the canine away, Koross flips his polearm through the air and attempts to skewer the animal.
Artemis finds the dogs head a good target for his hand axe.
"Heel!"
Hand axe
Between the combined efforts of Erwin and Gnobby the large wolf goes down. Leaving the remaining two wolves to consider their life choices without their alpha.
Seeing as how easy the bigger wolf went down Erwin regained some self-confidence, and with that he turned towards other wolves, attacking the smaller wolf, which also attacked Koross
Koross nods to Erwin and Gnobby's success where he had failed, an with a snap brought his polearm back ...then forward again, targetting one of the other wolves...
Artemis readjust his grip on his hand axe.
"Careful now."
Hand axe
Gnobby moves off to ready another leap from surprise.
With a flurry of blows from the party, the Wolf is finally hit by Artemis. It responses with a yelp and growl as it attempts to return the blow with a bite. The other one turns to face Erwin who comes in close and is rewarded with an attempted bite.
Artemis' manages to deflect the blow with his shield. Erwin isn't as lucky as he sweeps the shield in only to expose his arm to the teeth of the creature.
The wolves look around with low growls as they become more and more surrounded.
The pain affecting him Erwin curses, which is unlikely of him, and with a scream and adrenaline pumping inside him slashes towards wolf, whom bit him
Artemis watched as the muzzle of the beast slipped past Erwin's shield, however he was unable to tell if the fighter had been bitten or merely nipped....
"Now we have these dirty dogs! We are in for fine eating tonight lads!"
Artemis laughs
Hand axe
Koross uses the momentum from his last miss, his polearm whistling through the air, descending upon one if the remaining wolves...
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Gnobby attacks the same one as Koross, trying to impress his new companions.
His strike his off the mark, and her narrowly avoids hitting the monk first with a sword, then with a follow up dagger.
Though an unfortunate series of events, that party does not manage to land a single blow upon the wolves. Emblazening them to renew their assault on their desired prey as they continue to snap at their chosen targets of Erwin and Artemis.
Artemis has very little to worry about as the wolf lunches forward to snap his jaws upon his flesh, but comes up short as it hops back.
Erwin, however, isn't as lucky as he moves the wolf gets around armor and shield to close his sharp teeth into the man again.
The wolves look like they are intending on continuing the fight.
Artemis focuses on keeping his shield in place as the dog snaps at him.....
Seeing an opening he attempts to hit the dog once again....
Hand axe
"This is where we get our feet under us and work as a team."
Erwin feeling bad and seeing white and black as he is loosing blood in huge amount. In a desperate attemp he musters his strenght to one hit, trying to kill the wolf attacking him
Gnobby slashes again.
In desperation Erwin manages to muster the strength required to defeat the wolf with a final blow. This left Gnobby the Gnome opened to attack the remaining wolf with a pair of blows from his longsword and dagger. The longsword nearly cripples the wolf and the dagger ends the creatures existence.
The first battle of the Whispering Cairn had been completed... everyone survived (though some worse for where).
"Great job guys."
Helps ease Erwin to a sitting position against the tunnel wall.
"That's a terrible bite, I hope Thantor can fix it."
"Ah, well struck, my little friend." Koross says to Gnobby, "And you as well, Erwin." he continues, pressing a palm against the other forearm, stemming the blood welling there.
"That was a little dicey, glad we handled them."
@Erwin
"Normally I would say you are looking at several days to recover at least."
@Group
"Unless someone else knows more about healing than me."
"Uff, I am afraid that I am in no condition to advance further forward" frowning as he helds his bleeding and mangled arm "I will most likely just hold you guys down plus these wounds could be infected if I keep going" sighing as his facial expression cringes from time to time due to pain
"I will take point and try to surprise any guardians."
Koross approaches Thantor where he tends to Erwin, saying in an embarassed tone, "If you may, Thantor?" , holding out his own injured arm.
The Druid was not exactly a healer, but he did the best he could with herbs and the knowledge that he learned of the wildlife. It wasn't nearly as effective as the divine healing offered by stronger clerics, but it would have to be sufficient or the expedition in the Whispering Cairn was doomed before it had even gotten underway.
In the wolf den the group of would-be explorers will find an old leather backpack half-buried under a pile of bones of roughly humanoid bones. Inside is an elaborate lantern of indigo metal inset with indigo glass panes. An armband of unmistakable elven craftsmanship, bearing a repeating leaf motif and among the rubble is what appears to be a marble index finger cracked off a statue.
Across from the wolves den is a wide dias spanning the back half of the western wing calls attention to a faded fresco upon the south, west, and north walls. From a vantage point at the center of the dais, the wall painting makes it look like you stand within a massive room with seven short hallways radiating outward from a central point. A chain dangles from the ceiling at the end of each hallway, and each chain bears a gleaming colored lantern. Clockwise, the colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
The fire from the webbing has started to burn out as the last of the webbing burns away.
Artemis had hoped to find at least bandages within the old pack, the armband was interesting in design and reminded him of all the ways it was better to be outside rather than inside in this type of situation.
"Looks like a lantern, a pack and an armband, no bandages or herbs."
The finger is out of place completely, and Artemis is not able to find any sign of the remainder of a statue...
He hands off the finger to Gnobby..."Does this make sense to you?"
Artemis has a satisfied look seeing the druid apply healing to Erwin.
"It looks like your at least not going to bleed out on us, yet!"
Koross nods to Thrantor, after he had finished wrapping the monk's arm.
Flexing his hand, Koross could feel the cooling herbs dulling the pain from his torn flesh. "Thank you, I'll try to be more careful in the future." he says with thanks.
Crouching beside Artemis, Koross looks from the indigo lantern in the pack, to the other lanterns , "There are two indigo lanterns..." he says looking up, smiling , delighted by the apparent riddle.
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Koross coughs, then looks more sharply at the wall...."Uh, oh.... it's a painting! Fooled me!" he says a bit sheepishly, but still intrigued by the mystery.
Following others and staying a bit behind with his damaged arm, although feeling a bit better after that treatment from the druid "Thank you. It feels so much better now although will take time until it is completely fine" Erwin thanks him from the bottom of his heart
Looking around and astonished by the look of the place, forgetting just for a moment about his wound, Erwin carefully approaches the middle-point of the room "What meaning does this place have? What should these colors do? Should we try doing something with that lantern or?"
Artemis inspects the new lantern, smelling to see if it has any oil remaining in it or if it even runs on oil at all.
"This is a fine lantern, who can tell anything about any of these things?"
"Rainbow colors. This is a puzzle."
The cobwebs burned away has revealed the tunnel to another chamber. A wide stairway descends into an immense domed chamber. Seven short tunnels branch from the room in all directions, extending some thirty feet before ending in rounded walls. At the terminus of each passage, a thick chain dangles from an unseen high ceiling. Five of the chains bear colorful lanterns, but two hold nothing at all. Opposite the entry stairs, a bright green lantern containing what looks like a torch casts a weird, murky light about the room. Countless chips of glass and shiny metal inset into the chamber's domed ceiling reflect this light, giving the impression of starlight and falling snow. The dome starts about ten feet of the ground and reaches an apex about thirty feet over the center of the room.
Below the dome's peak, a long dais holds what appears to be a marble sarcophagus. A milky white bas-relief figure, perhaps of a human, rest passively upon the sarcophagus lid. Unlike the rest of the tomb, this room is completely silent.
"Looks like there is more than one lantern. Was this room meant to be calming or for respite at one time?"
nudges Gnobby
"What do you think, want to take a look around?"
Artemis nods to Thantor and Koross as they move forward to look around and check out the marble sarcophagus.
Erwin you and Gnobby hang back while we make sure nothing is lurking in any of those openings."
Gnobby adds: "This place reflects light. We may need to light more lanterns and fill them up. Did anyone bring any lamp oil and lamps? We may find some if we look around."
Koross looks about the domed room, noting whether the actual lanterns match the mosaics in the room above.
"Five lanterns, two missing. We have one from above, it stands to reason that another may be found." he turns to Gnobby, "I have only torches, no oil."
Approaching the sarcophagus, he stops a distance away and tries to determine if the bas-relief was missing a finger.
"I do not have any of them" Erwin mutters apologetically "I never though that there could be such a situation plus my condition also hinders others" sighing with a worry in his voice and thinking his options, how could he help others
"I have oil though filling all of these lamps seems a waste of lots of oil. What about this part in the middle maybe there are inscriptions...."
Artemis inspects the central area ...DM is the sarcophagus opened, closed?
At the center of the chamber is a raised platform, upon which sits a sealed sarcophagus. The lid bears a white stone relief of a tall figure cloaked in a simple garment of flowing cloth. It's difficult to say why, exactly, but the outfit conjures the thoughts of ancient times. The figure at first appears to be human, but a cursory examination reveals it is about 7 feet tall, is completely hairless, and is of indeterminate sex. Its arms and hands rest at its side. The left hand curls upon itself in a fist, but the right is placed palm up, with the thumb turned in and all but the index finger held parallel to the arm. The index finger, which looks to have originally curled under the thumb, appears to have been broken off. The figure wears a scarab-like amulet around its neck, inscribed with a glyph that is similar in nature, but different to the one from the Arcane Apparatus.
carved in the shape of a stylistic arrow, with the tip aligned with the head of the relief figure upon the lid and a shortThe sarcophagus rests upon a small raised platform "shaft" extending from the foot of the sarcophagus. The arrow's tip points to the orange lantern.