Dench continues on to the door of the side buildings connected to the southern end of the church.
"Hey," Ezequiel waves to Gordon. "You're alone? Where are the others? They have to see what we found back there. You would not believe!"
Dench will check the door to see if it's locked, if it's unlocked, he'll open it. If it's locked he'll take a look in the window.
Hmm...
Shellin pauses for a moment, kneeling by the door. Then, a sudden smile splitting his face, he stand and turns to Argus. "I think I have solution for this trap. I'd stand back."
Gordon follows Dench to the church. If the door is locked, he will motion Dench to look in a window, if available, while he unlocks the door.
Argus looks up at the man and gives a frown before grunting wordlessly and moving back. the dwarf standing in the front doorway and waiting to see what happens to the human.
The door isn't locked. Pushing it open reveals a corpse, face-down, with its head leaning against an interior door. Past it, a table set complete with chairs, silver dining utensils and plates, and a spilt bottle of booze sit quite un-orderly as if a person would had jarred the table by knocking into it. The body is indeed human, with multiple stab wounds in the head and back. He is quite rotted and in shambled clothing.
The door across the street creaks and closes shut...
The door does open away from you. Shellin's idea gives way to both of you getting to a relatively safe distance. Shellin casts MageHand on the door knob. Before he could even chuck the prepared stone, the door is blown into chunks, set a light, and goes up in smoke within a few seconds. The rig that was prepped had affixed multiple screws to the door, that was was then each pulled against with a spring mechanism and twine. The door was weakened on one side to allow easy breakage. When opened, the door was to be thrown, in chunks, at the opener. How it got set on fire or why it was needed is a mystery to you. Past the smoldering door parts lies a large bed trunk filled with sealed foods and smoked/salted meats and a much smaller stone box containing a set of 6 gold figurines that would all fit within one's hand. Seems like someone was looking to be coming back here...
"...He just ignored me," Ezequiel muttered half to himself, half to Dwight.
Maybe there's something really important there! Lighthouse offered.
"Maybe you're right, Lighthouse. Come on, Mr. Dwight, let's go see what's so important!"
Cautiously entering the room with his shield raised Gurthock kicks over the body with his boot.
"Wounds of cowardice. But what was he fleeing from?"
Shellin pumps his fist victoriously at the door's explosion. "Ha!" He exclaims triumphantly, a hapless grin splitting his face.
Shellin continues into the room, inspects the chests, and turns to Argus.
"There are 6 of these statues, but there are 7 in our little band. The food we should definitely share with the others, but in the interest of preserving peace, what say we split these betwixt ourselves?"
Dench enters the room, falchion in one hand and casts Detect Magic.
"Maybe he has something on his mind?"
The body on the front is stabbed much the same, but in much excess as the wounds you see would've killed anyone long before. In the wounds lie a broken knife, a few pieces of glass, and a wooden stake.
Nothing magical i'm afraid.
Dench listens at the next door, then opens it if he doesn't hear anything.
Shrugging at Argus's silence, Shellin will take 3 of the statues, leaving 3 for Argus, and take his leave of the building. He will head to the crossroads, and if he sees the others will move to join them. If not, he will stay in the crossroads, waiting for a sign of the others.
Argus still mulling the decision grunts onces as the human leaves. The dwarf glancing to the three remaining statues and shrugging.
"Short lived impaitience's gonna kill that one sooner." Argus mutters as he drops the statues into his pack.
"Lets see if the corner has it."
The stocky man then walks toward the unpillaged home toward the far wall of the village, hammer over a shoulder as he goes to repeat his search of the last building.
You hear nothing from the door, however, across the street a thump sounds...
Then you will stay in the crossroads... ... You see a figure moving in the purplish mists past the red-energy gate. It is staggering forward.
The door swings in at the slightest touch. The insides of the room are ghastly... that is, if a couple dozen rotting and fetid corpses are up your alley for ghastly. A black sticky substance covers the floor. You can assume with much certainty that it is blood.
Argus flinches as he sees the carnage in front of him planting the head of his recently obtained hammer onto the ground and leaning against it.
"Damn that is one bloody mess." The dwarf sighs and glances back over in the direction he had left.
"Oi! Wizard! You got any of that cleaning magic Bull@#$#? I'm not gonna be able to find #@$#-all in this mess, looks like half the town died in here."
At the sound of the "thump" Dench pauses for a second, then continues through the next door.
Ezequiel seems dissatisfied as he walks over to the others. "Would it kill you to listen for a moment? I said we found something interesting in the church."
A really big magic thing!
"You left your telepathy on, Lighthouse, they can't hear you. But yes, a magical, obsidian..." Ezequiel begins to explain but stops when he sees the corpse inside.
"...You guys... sure don't waste any time with hostages. Was he anyone important?"
"Important enough that many people wanted him dead very badly." Gurthock says plainly. With nothing left of interest in the room Gurthock follows Dench to the next door.
Within the next room are the following things: A bed with a corpse resting under the blankets, a footlocker, a cabinet, and a lit fireplace. Everything inside the room seems to have been kept quite tidy despite the events that have transpired within the city.
Dench looks over at the rogue, "Hey Gordon, do you want to check the footlocker for traps, and the closet too." While he's waiting for Gordon to do his thing, Dench will cast Detect Magic, scanning the whole room.
Dwight, walking in with Koon, spots the body, "Um.... what's the stiff doing here?"
Dwight looks the body over, but not too closely.
Noticing the figure, Shellin cocks his head, a bemused expression on his face. Well, we never did see what effect the mist had...
Shellin will move closer to the gate, moving no closer than 2 arms length of glowing structure. He will then try to get a better look at the figure:
Quickly surveying the room, you find multiple, diminutive sized bodies of magic within the cabinet and a tiny sized object of magic within the footlocker.
The body is riddled with slash marks and broken, jagged debris consisting of glass and metal. He has been turned face up just earlier by one of your comrades.
You move forward, trying to peek a better look. However, the mist obscures him. That doesn't particularly matter for long though as he bursts forth from the mist, teeth gnashing, arms outstretched, fingers bloody, and puss and other rotten bodily substances drip from his face and body. Rags and foul pieces of rotting flesh drag from his form, some of his organs tangled in the mix. He almost caught you off guard but the magical red-energy gate keeps him at bay. He desperately tries to grab at you, swaying one of his arms in a fashion to try and snag you. The gate grows small tendrils that wrap around his forearms and pull him back over to where he is completely on his side of the gate. There is a brutish red color in his eyes as he opens his mouth and wails a terribly loud scream.
The air becomes shiverish, even more so. The day slowly shifts over to dusk. A horde of screams answer in response to the one before. Bellows and howls hang in the sky... They are quite a way away right now but you believe a few of them are getting closer.
At the sound of the scream Ezequiel shivers. "What was that? Lighthouse!"
On it!
Lighthouse dashes out of the building and towards the sound of the cream as its summoner steps out and looks around cautiously.
Yuk! Some gibberbush from the mist! Lighthouse communicates in an attempt to describe the being.
"Everyone, you may want to come outside. Visual on one potential enemy, sounds like there's more," Ezequiel advises his companions. Is it getting chilly here? I don't like this...
Ah, shit
Shellin turns and bolts back up the street to the crossroads, he shouts
Seeing Koon from the crossroads, Shellin continues running and skids to a halt in front of Koon, doubled over and heaving. He gasps out "Undead... lots... incoming...gotta hole up." He gasps another breath and mutters something.
I should remember to run more
He points at the storehouse Fwarth had led them to, and continues, alittle less breathy, "Storehouse south of here, no windows, locking door. Downside is one way in, one way out. Argus and I found some rations in the home next to it."
Dwight readies his soul bolt and asks, "Potential? Do you know what it is? I have a bad feeling about that scream...
Dwight will keep is wits about him, taking a position facing the entrance of the building and looking out onto the street.
"And be trapped like rats waiting to starve or die?" Gurthock says raising an eyebrow but not his voice. "Better to keep moving and flee this alley. Get this challenge over quickly and move north. After all how do we know we're not on a time limit?"
Gripping his axe and moving casually across the street
Argus sighs in disgust as his request gets forgotten in the chaos, leaving the gore soaked home alone for a few minutes the Dwarf then walks over to the red gate and stands in front of the zombie.
The creature attempting and failing to break the gate.
"The @#$# are you talking about you brittlebeaked S@#$splint? The rekilled @#$#'s trapped on the other side of the big glow-y doom gate."
With that he glances over to the grey skinned devil man
"Horns over there is right, that greasy @#$# and his Witch already said this place was some kind of challenge and that we had to find something to leave. Any of you find something I dunno.. "challenging" heard shouts earlier about a sword hilt. The building in that bottom corner is covered in gore and has something like twelve dead people in it. Might be something useful there but I can't tell with all the blood."
Dench will concentrate on the footlocker.
"I agree, let's finish this challenge, but there's something magical in the footlocker and in the closet. I was hoping a certain rogue like character would check the locker for traps, but he seems to not be listening."
Dench will then open the closet, and see what's inside there.
In the building opposite, you hear a not-so-subtle scraping sound.
In the building opposite, you hear a not-so-subtle scraping sound.
You move onto the street. Looking down towards the gate, you cannot see the figure, or 'Undead', that is being talked about. The gates red, sparkling energy may be preventing you from seeing it this far away.
In the building opposite, you hear a not-so-subtle scraping sound.
You begin your casual walk down the street.
In the building behind you to the right (bottom left of map), you hear a not-so-subtle scraping sound.
Gordan quickly searches each area for traps.
Gordan assures you, Dench, that there are no traps on either of the containers.
Concentrating on the footlocker, you see a faint aura with divination properties.
Inside the cabinet are a few sparse pieces of ingrediants used in alchemy, a few unlabeled flasks filled with liquids, and 2 bottled substances marked with price tags. It doesn't take a genius to determine the marked bottles are potions.
"Did you hear that? An enemy in the building? Lighthouse, scout."
Lighthouse dashes towards the building where the sound of the scraping came from.
Dench will grab anything magical in the closet, then open the trunk and grab anything magical in there. Then he'll rush out to meet back up with Gurthock outside.
A bit flustered by his larger comrades' lack of caution, he will follow shortly behind the group and continue, "If we aren't going to safeguard ourselves, Might I suggest that we then quickly check the remaining houses for the objective and, should we not find it, leave this crossroads and continue through the town?"
Argus shrugs and points to the building he'd been at a moment ago.
"Something like that might be in there. Seems like this city is following a pattern of -Dead people means useful stuff- and there is a couple dozen dead people in there."
LightHouse goes to try and open the door. It opens inward but not fully; only giving so much. It looks as though its hitting against something.
Grabbing everything you could get your hands on that's magical, you swipe your hands around the shelves taking most of the materials along with flasks and 2 unidentified potions. Inside the Footlocker is a bauble (magical). On the inside is something like a shattered jewel of red and green. Packing it all up, your outside now in stride with Gurthok.
The scraping sounds (from the lower left-hand building) have ceased now.
Argus moves back to the house he had been searching to pick through the remains in hopes to finding something.
Dwight will follow after Koon with his soul bolt ready.
"...Who wants to open the door?"