Kipa teased with Sander, enjoying the more upright halfling's anguish just a little too much, even as he searched the area immediately around the doorway. If only he had spent more time examining the door and less time looking at the cocooned dwarfs, he might have spared Sander the embarrassment. He didn't find anything of note nearby, and stepped aside for Storn to Storn forward.
Sander enters -- after Storn -- and looks at the translucent section of floor.
Entering after the others, Kipa starts to look around for any traps that can spring up. "Be careful guys. A translucent floor is usually a sign of trouble.
Storn and Sander entered the room, peering about, and looking at the translucent floor - an oddity in any dungeon. Kipa scuttled into the room after the others and peered about. The room seemed to be free of immediate dangers, with known openings leading from the north and south walls.
Finally Kipa knelt down to the translucent panel and used a small hand to brush aside centuries of grime and dust. Below is another chamber, one that holds a sarcophagus. The sarcophagus is open, its lid pushed to the side. Inside is the form of a shriveled dwarf, dressed in a suit of scale mail armor. To one side is a broken cage.
Molly kneels down by the translucent floor and peeks through the area Kipa cleared.
"Alright, that doesn't look good. Whatever was in that cage seems to've got out and chowed down on the dead Dwarf. Or it got out anyway and opened up the coffin."
"Ooh, armour," says Storn. "Scale male is more for beginners, but can't hurt for Quill. Wonder why it's transparent. Oh wait. No I don't."
With that Storn goes to check the north door. After it's been tested for traps he pushes on.
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"Huh? How are the dead not-dead? What kind of tomb is this, anyway?" Quill asks, suddenly feeling more unease as the prospects for a happy and safe tomb visit seem to 'die' away.
Quill refuses to stand on the transparent floor, instead moving carefully to G7 and awaiting someone to open the doors. He will look for traps.
Perception - north door
"I dont know if he can carry that much on him, Storn."
Walking around the floor to the door. "Lets see what we can find here, huh Quill". Kipa starts to look for the normal traps and so forth.
"I hope the giants didn't get here first. It doesn't seem like they did, but I don't think the dwarves would have left the sarcophagus open..." Sander observes.
He avoids stepping on the translucent floor and follows along next to Quill.
"Look on the bright side, it probably means we have to kill something extremely dangerous," says Storn cheerfully.
The door was neither trapped nor locked, and Kipa and Quill stepped aside to let a combat-hungry Storn do the honors. Beyond was a large rectangular room. Huge stone panels line the walls of this chamber, each depicting a carved scene, but all of the panels have been damaged or defaced in some way. Hundreds
of footprints crisscross the dusty floor. Two doors exit the room to the south.
It was clear that the carvings commemorated Nargrym's life, especially his battles. But the carvings had all been defaced. Especially the final panel, which depicts what appears to be Nargrym's betrayal and murder by a close associate. Each of the panels has an engraved bronze plaque above it identifying the scene with titles such as "The Slaying of Drogmalak the Terrible" and "Victory at Hrothbad's Mines". The final plaque is covered with what looks like dried feces, rendering the title illegible.
The tracks are all the same size and shape.
"Something's down here," Sander observes, "or at least it used to be... And it doesn't seem to like Nargrym, or agree with the story about his life."
Sander wonders that while some of the tracks look dust free, others are coated in a thick patina of dust.
"Well, he was in that shitty sewer already, so I guess not that different?"
If no one sees anything, Sander will let Storn and Kipa go into the room and follow after them.
"What I want to know is... what was that thing eating so it could defecate later?"
Not even paying attention to the tracks, Kipa stares up at the artwork. With a wistle "Would you look at those. I am sure a few dwarves or historians would love to get their hands on these. "
WIth that Kipa gets back to work looking out for anything that can cause trouble for them.
Storn sighs as he looks around the room. "Can't say I'm too excited about a shit monster, but I will smash what my God commands me to smash."
He stalks in and starts investigating the tracks.
"Hrmph, these tracks are all from the same person? Creature? Maybe have been trapped in here."
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Storn joins the others in looking at the tracks, noticing that they are definitely humanoid in nature, and sized for a smallish medium-sized creature, or a large small one. He tried to explain this to the others, but got all tongue tied and ended up insisting that a large, medium, dwarf was indeed a thing.
There were no signs of traps int he room, or on the remaining door.
Kipa signals to the other that the room is clear as well as the door. He presses an ear to the door to see if he can hear anything on the other side before standing out of the way for Storn.
Molly calmly loads and winds up her crossbow, then follows after the others.
"Hrmph. Whatever went on here is weird. Some dwarf flinging his poop around. I thought only elves did that."
With that Storn boots the door and presses on.
Sander waits with Quill, hoping whatever they find chooses to focus on Storn.
He rubs the brand on his head when he thinks no one is looking, hoping the others are wrong and that it will come off.
When they have a moment that the others are focused else where, Kipa whispers to Sanders "Dont worry. When we get done with all of this we will figure out what to do about that. Remind me to tell you about getting dyed blue once. Took a week to get back to normal" With that, he follows the others through the door.
The room is dusty, but empty of any foes. What is does have is four statues of larger-than-life dwarves, of especially epic stature and noble bearing. Beside each statue is the dry stone basin of a fount. A massive stone panel on the eastern wall contains a bas-relief of a dwarven warrior garbed in a suit of scale mail and wielding an oversized spear. The carved figure is plain stone, except for the right hand, which is leafed with silver.
The four statues depict dwarven deities - specifically Torag and his younger siblings: Angradd, the Forge Fire; Dranngvit, the dwarven goddess of vengeance; and Magrim the Taskmaster, guardian of the underworld.
You notice a small gap between the bas-relief panel and the wall.
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Know (Religion)
Perception
Quill takes a careful gander. He not completely useless in spiritual matters and knows a lot about other gods (though, strangely not is own too well).
"Oh, Torag, and Angradd, and Dranngvit, and Magrim," Quill points out the statues one after the other. "Oh, and I think there is a gap there, between wall and bas-relief."
Quill points his out, but waits for Kipa to inspect as well or for Storn to face punch it first.
"Hrmph. Sure. What Quill said." Storn stalks over to the panel and gives it a push. If nothing happens he then wanders over to poke at the silver-leafed hand of the statue, twisting and pulling at it although not so hard as to break anything.
The hand moves slightly, and the crack in the wall opens just a bit more as Storn twiddles with it.
"Might be a fair fit for some of our uh, vertically disadvantaged friends?" Molly suggests.
Storn gives the hand a proper twist. "Maybe we can get it a lot wider...."
Sander stays away from the statues, as far as the room allows.
"We're hardly going to go on alone," Sander points out, as he waits for Storn to get the doorway open more and Kipa to make sure it's safe before Storn trips the next trap.
Soon, Storn had the wall opened up enough for you to all get through. Ahead seems a set of stairs heading downwards.
Walking over to what Storn found. "Looks like this could be interesting... lets see what we can see." Kipa starts to trail off as he goes into rouge mode.
"There we go every one."
There are no traps to be found, just a winding staircase heading down, likely to the level that you saw through the translucent block of glass in the first room.
"Hrmph, let's go explore the rest of this level. We're here for loot and it'd be unbefitting of me before my God to not steal everything I can from these dead dwarves."
Sander sighs, eyes rolling up in his head as he tries to see the blatantly unfair brands on his head and compare them to Storn's words.
Nonetheless, he follows the man's lead while in this horrible tomb.
"Well they may not be using the stuff. Lets at least leave their holy items, shall we?"
Following behind Storn. Kipa slips a head to do the rouge duties before slipping back behind them.
GM: Here are 5 sets of rolls for trap finding and dismantling.
The southern door led to a short hallway, which in turn led to another door. Kipa found no evidence of traps or danger, so once more Storn kicked open the door. He looked into a room filled with wreckage. A nauseating stench of filth fills this chamber. Various items of broken furniture are sloppily piled into curious arrangements throughout the room. Among the piles of wreckage are toppled statuettes of jade and serpentine, shards of clay and porcelain urns, and several crushed drinking steins. The western wall of the room bears several large cracks and a few small holes where it meets the floor.
Storn felt a piercing pain in his chest as a pair of crossbow bolts sprouted from his torso. The pain was followed by a fiery sensation spreading through his body that could mean only one thing...poison!
Give me 2 DC19 Fort saves, please, or take and/or Con damage.
Looking around the room, fighting off the poison, Storn sees no sign of an enemy.
Sander pushes forward to try to help Storn with the poison; he may not know much about looting ancient dwarven tombs, but he does know poisons.
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Quill watches as Sander bravely tries to suck out the poison, trying to help the wounded Storn (if Storn says something). He looks into the room, looking for more traps.
Perception - moving up and then back
”Oh man, this must be there the shit monster lives. Must be around here somewhere,” Quill asks aloud. ”Wow, this monster sure ruins a place.”
Looking into the room, Quill notices another door on the north wall. The door is slightly ajar.
Storn grunts, stumbling backwards as the two crossbow bolts sprout in his chest. "Not again. These are poisoned," he grumbles. With his hand shuddering violently, he grabs his wands and cures himself up.
He clenches and unclenches his gauntleted hand and nods at Sander. "Fox testicles help with that, next time. Hard to find a fox down here."
He stalks into the room, swinging Gorum's Thorn around a bit, the light spell on the blade moving the room from shadow to light. "I really want to kill whatever is doing this. I don't get bothered by smell very often."
"Fox testacles? That's not going to help anything!" Sander says, despairing of ever teaching Storn really healing craft.