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"They were burning her alive! Malusha exclaimed, disbelief on his face. How barbaric! "Did his son know?". Then something Skelg said, about the lantern, triggered a thought. Was it a magic device? The wall outside didn't show any magic, but maybe there was something here.
He turned to Tyros and asked quietly "Would it be ok if I used some magic to see if your master is being afflicted by a magical curse?"
"H-h-haldyr was no Lord of m-mine." Skelg growls, offended at Tchak's insinuation. "W-w-was b-barely l-lord of his own."
"Oh, and the tapestry!" Tyros suddenly adds. "There's the tapestry too!"
"And poor Tirfyr." He adds meekly, looking down apologetically for interrupting Skelg.
Skelg snorts, ignoring Tyros' interruption. "Did B-b-bengeirr know? Who kn-kn-knows. P-p-probably." He mutters. "L-l-like his f-f-father, that one."
"Except f-f-for b-being dead, that is." He adds with a growl clearly hoping to get the chance to give him that in common as well.
"Of course he is!" Tyros interjects at Malusha's query. "Just look at him!"
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"No...I can't tell what it is either," she sighs after studying the warrior for a moment. She looks at the others, Phoebee in particular. "Do any of you know anything about magic? Since neither Malusha or I can make heads or tails of it I'm pretty sure it's not divine in nature, but that's about all I can say on it."
You can see the aura they're talking about, but with your arcane training, you can also tell it appears to be some sort of conjuration magic, though you can not tell exactly what sort.
"Th-th-thought it was... j-just a l-lantern...." Skelg starts to say, but then his voice trails off and he appears to fall asleep. His eyes closed and his breath coming in raspy gasps.
"That's it. Enough." Tyros says in an exaggerated whisper, "Everyone out. He needs to rest."
He waves everyone towards the hallway, as he goes about quickly straightening some of the blankets and furs covering the sick Skelg. Then he tosses another log onto the already blazing fire, and follows you out.
"He's such a strong man." He says, with a worried frown as he closes the bedroom door. "But I fear even he can't hold on much longer. A few more days at most."
Even though the rest of the house is still unbearably hot, it almost feels cool compared to the Skelg's room.
"Come, I will show you where it happened..." Tyros says, as he starts downstairs. "And you should see the tapestry." He adds cryptically.
"They came through here." He explains, as you go through the foyer. "No one was home at the time, but they started grabbing everything of value."
You start to notice voids on tables where there were probably items at one time, and spaces on the walls where picture probably once hang.
Tyros continues to another door, which he opens with a key, then leads you downstairs into a basement area.
You notice the smell right away. The smell of death.
"Rorrick and Bodi." Tyros says, wrinkling his nose. "Those bastards murdered them when they came back the second time, and just threw them down here. Those ones at the door wouldn't let me bury them."
He leads you into a room, with shelves and chests, all empty and barren. Two corpses lay haphazardly on the floor, there hands bound behind their backs and throats slit. Flies are everywhere.
"The lantern was on that shelf there. It was really big," His hands gesture to indicate something almost three feet in height. "All silver and gold, quite fancy. None of us knew it was anything more."
"When Master Skelg returned, he caught them looting in here. He fought them off, killing a few, and they eventually fled. But the damage was done."
"Here." He says, stepping back out into the hallway leading into the vault. "This tapestry here." He points to a hanging on the wall, depicting an Ulfen longship on a rolling sea, mostly encased in an iceberg.
"When the rest of us returned home, we found him laying here on the floor, and there was a large ... silvery portal here, on the tapestry."
"We didn't know what it was at the time, but Tirfyr." He pauses for a moment. "He was the head of Master Skelg's guards. Tirfyr elected to walk through it, thinking whatever curse plagued the Master might be cured on the other side."
He shakes his head slightly at the folly. "He returned a minute later and said it led to a ship encased in ice. He then went back to investigate further, but about half an hour later, the portal went away! And poor Tirfyr never returned."
He points again at the tapestry. "All that remained was that... and it'd changed." His voice drops to a whisper, as if fearing whatever magic might linger. "It was a meadow with grazing elk before the portal opened. Master Skelg said he saw the lantern do that during the fight."
"We need to get the lantern back." He finishes, echoing Tchak's thought from earlier.
"But Bengeirr has it now." He wrings his hands anxiously.
"I don't know. He could be anywhere." Tyros says despondently. "Though probably still in the city, waiting for Master Skelg to die."
Tyros suddenly looks fearful. "You think he might come back?!" He says, clearly not having considered that.
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"Sounds to me like the lantern and this tapestry here are connected somehow," Nella observes, covering her nose and mouth to block out the worst of the stench. "We need that lantern back for sure, but beyond that I haven't the foggiest. We need more information."
She looks over at Jones and nods. "Let's try seeing what our friend knows before we go trying to hunt Bengeirr all over this city."
"And between the heat and the smell in here I don't think I'll have my appetite back for some time," she adds in response to Phoebee. "You must have an iron stomach or something!"
You can indeed go haul in the unconscious guard from outside. But he remains unconscious and will require healing before he is able to answer any questions.
After making sure the man is tied securely to a chair, Malusha calls upon the healing powers of the Dawnflower to bring the man back from the brink of death.
You watch as some of his wounds close up and heal, but the bruises from Jones' beating only partially fade, and the man remains unconscious, the prayer not quite enough to bring him around.
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"Hey, nice work Malusha," Nella nods appreciatively. "That should make it so I'll only need to use a tiny portion of this wand power to finish waking him up. Isn't it amazing how each god powers their faithful in different ways? I know that whatever you just did is something that I've never been able to manage - not in the same way, anyway."
Taking Jones' offered wand, the priestess gently taps the unconscious man on the shoulder and activates the command word.
"There you go," she smiles as the man begins to come around. She carefully passes the wand back to Jones. "All yours," she nods at Jones and the others.
Nella uses Jones' wand on the unconscious guard, and not only brings him back to consciousness, but completely heals all of his wounds, like he was fresh on the job.
Well, except for the copious amounts of blood on his clothes.
And the fact his weapons are missing.
And that he's tied to a chair.
He looks wildly around the room for a moment, trying to get his bearings, before seeing the Pathfinders standing before him.
He pauses for a moment, scowling, then spits and starts talking in a foreign language, as he struggling against the ropes that bind him. Although you're not sure about the words themselves, its not hard to guess they include a lot of swear words and insults.
After a minute he stops with the struggling, though only slows down with the insults.
The guard merely watches those trying to talk to him contemptuously, as they try to to appeal to his better nature.
He says some more things in his foreign tongue. None of them sound complimentary.
The guard glares at Masym defiantly for a moment, then spits once more.
"I am not one of those Taldor boot-lickers like that dog, Skelg." He finally says, in thickly accented common. "I choose to use the language of the Ulfen people because it is mine."
He continues to glare as he clams up again, dropping into a sullen silence.
Though at least he's stopped the insults for now.
The man seems unimpressed by Tchak's threats to eat him.
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Malusha glares at the man and gives him is best 'evil eye' look. He moves in closer attempting to intimidate the impudent guard. "Do you know where I'm from?" he says with as much menace as he can muster. "I'm from the desert sands of Garund, master of the ancient Osiriani kings, keeping of the corrupt secrets, lord of curses!" He steps back, raises his hands to the sky, and shouts, "Ki momotou vou dou tashi sihlte toukut zhou." I hope this childhood jest sounds menacing enough, Malusha thinks to himself.
Then he turns back to the captive. "I have afflicted you with an ancient curse. In minutes tiny spiders will begin to coalesce in your blood. And only a few minutes later they will turn to sand. As your blood vessels fill with sand you will experience the most extreme pain. Until you die. But if you cooperate and answer our questions. I will remove the curse."
The Ulfen man sits tight-lipped, glaring at you, despite your best efforts to win him over.
Malusha's attempts to scare him into cooperating with threats of death curses, just causes him to sneer as he sees through the priest's bluff. (Phoebee trying to stifle giggles in the background does not help)
He says something in Skald, then adds in his accented common. "Your pathetic desert gods do not scare me. Your Dawnflower only makes Taldan's quiver in fright. The northern gods breed hardier stock!" He says. If he could thump his chest, you're pretty sure he would.
Finally, fed up with trying to 'convince' him nicely, Masym puts his spear to the man's throat... a weapon he saw put to good use earlier when his companion was gutted by it.
There is a noticeable hesitation to his boldness.
But it is the followup, Jones' drawing his bow equally done playing, that for the first time causes a little uncertainty in his eyes.
Even then, he tries to respond with bravado.
"My Brothers, even now, raise mugs of the Rosy Fingers' best, celebrating the inevitable coward's death of that cur Skelg. They will raise glasses to honor my sacrifice as well, and sail home victorious!" He yells, defiantly.
He goes back to speaking only in Skald refusing to say anything more beyond insults and sullen defiance of his fate.
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Nella watches the attempts to get the man to talk with some concern as it doesn't seem like they're getting anywhere. But when the man finally slips up and mentions a name...her eyes light up.
Ah ha! Now we've got something we can work with.
"Okay look," she finally says as the guard returns to grumbling and muttering in his native language. "Skelg did ask us for help but I don't like leaping without looking, either. You and your friend said that Skelg is a thief, his man claims that he was given permission to take what was stolen."
She holds up her hands, palms up. "I'm sorry about your friend, I am. I tried to stabilize him too but he was too far gone," she sighs. "I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but I'd like to solve this without anyone else losing their lives. Is there no way at all that we can help put things right without more bloodshed?"
Although she wasn't sure if the man would listen to reason after being threatened with another beating, she felt compelled to try.