Quintus has an easy smile on his face as Um'bala mentions exploring old ruins.
"Well if you consider exploring a tavern as an old ruin then I think I might be the master explorer of ruins."
"The sleeping Tower Girls are back in the next room. If you want a heavier weapon, I also have a heavy flail, but that may be a bit beyond you."
Petronicus takes the weapon from its back holster and swings it about to demonstrate.
"Go get yourself outfitted, sir. I'm going to try and figure out a way to get us up the side of the Crow safely." Mach wanders back outside to do just that.
"We Shoanti use traditional weapons most of the time, which might be quite simple compared to yours. If one of you has a longspear or a normal one, that would be quite nice."
Standing Bear walks back to take one of the studded leathers and a short sword.
"We Shoanti use traditional weapons most of the time, which might be quite simple compared to yours. If one of you has a longspear or a normal one, that would be quite nice."
Petronicus shows Standing Bear his guisarme. "This is the only longspear I carry. It's called a guisarme and is of fine Chelish manufacture."
Seeing Mach head out, he accompanies him while the Shoanti strips one of the Tower Girls of her gear. "Let me cover you while you find our way out of this place," he says to the tiefling
"Go get yourself outfitted, sir. I'm going to try and figure out a way to get us up the side of the Crow safely." Mach wanders back outside to do just that.
Mach takes a few moments to consider the strange contraption hanging from the top of the outdoor shaft. It has obviously recently been rigged up by the Tower Girls. He momentarily looks down and realizes when the fog clears that it must easily by 180 feet to the bottom of the piling. Even though he would fall into water, a drop from that height would sure kill him. He's heard rumors that water feels no different than flagstone from this far up.
Mach examines the ceiling above the hanging platform ( ), and notices the outline of a hidden trap door in the ceiling just above it. The spike that is driven into it must act as some kind of handle.
Swinging to the platform should be pretty straightforward (), and from there it should be possible to open the trapdoor above.
The Shoanti man uses another charge on himself, removing most of his bruises instantly.
Mach returns, his face paler than usual. "Found a trapdoor that'll lead us up further into the Crow. It's perched over a sheer drop--don't fall, or you're as good as dead."
...and the Tower Girls have their headquarters HERE?
Petronicus draws a weapon from a boot holster and casually tosses a masterwork silvered dagger to the Shoanti. "Here you go, shaman. This is good against wererats, which at least some of the Tower Girls seem to be."
The Chelaxian then goes out near the ledge and carefully looks down. He then carefully examines the platform Mach had described, before coming back in.
"I see what you mean, Mach. One false step and by-by life. Want to scout ahead?"
Standing Bear accepts the dagger gladly with a nod.
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Mach nods and (hesitantly) creeps out across to the platform.
Once he's in position, he starts working on the trapdoor's spike. He silently curses the fact that he didn't bring any rope to tie off for the others.
His hands slip and fumble with the spike before he manages to get a good enough grip for another try.
Mack carefully moves the spike around until he sees how the hinges of the trapdoor operate. He pulls the trapdoor down a bit and peeks inside, where he can see nothing but metal gears. Opening the door just a few inches further, he inspects it for few moments, and comes to the conclusion that opening the trapdoor completely will extend a metal ladder that reaches toward the edge of the platform, allowing almost anymore to climb up with minimal effort ().
Mach opens the trapdoor fully and extends the ladder across to the other platform.
Mach opens the trapdoor fully and extends the ladder across to the other platform.
Looking up, Mach sees the stairs leading up into a darkened hallway. He can make out faint murals on the wall, but from his angle so far below, it is impossible to tell their subject matter. He hears or sees no guards or other dangers.
Quintus climbs up after Mach keeping himself ready. He looks around at the darkened hallway and he conjures up some dancing lights to help him see better.
"Good job Mach. This seems like a pretty enough place."
Quintus bravely takes the lead, moving up the stairway into the upper hallway. The walls along this short passage bear murals showing strangely dressed Thassilonian priests placing bodies into crypts. Several niches in the walls may have once been burial crypts themselves, but today, the hall is strewn with bones and the niches lay empty; all except for one. This niche contains a large burlap bag with several bulky items inside.
Far off down the hallway to the west, Quintus can detect another light source even though it is out of sight a good ways down another hallway.
The Shoanti shaman moves behind after Mach and looks down the hallway. He studies the murals for a moment and nods. "Yes I can see that grandfather, we are in the right place after all." He says to no one in particular.
He turns to the others and shrugs "Grandfather and the other spirits speak to me, so if I talk out loud and it doesn't make sense...well you have met Grandfather already." He turns back to the murals and advances through the hall.
Seeing the burlap bag he takes a peek inside.
Looking inside the burlap bag, Standing Bear is greeted by all of the equipment he brought with him on his journey from his homeland, which miraculously all seems to be there.
"Ah my equipment. Thankfully they did not sell or break it. I am quite attached to them." Standing Bear says relieved and starts to put his own armor on.
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Quintus seeming curious about the other light source continues on towards it.
Mach taps Quintus on the shoulder as he starts forward. "Wait. Let me take point."
He creeps in front of Quintus, keeping an eye out for any environmental hazards that may be lying in wait.
Mach creeps down the hallway ahead of the rest of the group who are still making their way up the staircase while Standing Bear reacquaints himself with the possessions that were taken from him a few days earlier.
The light that is somewhere ahead and out of sight around a corner to the right gets brighter as Mach advances. Just as he is about to come to a corner of the hallway, Mach notices a well-disguised trip wire at ankle-height connected to a carefully hidden brass bell on the northeast corner.
Mach smirks and sets about disarming the alarm trap.
How amateurish. Ya know, the first break & enter job I did had better alarm measures than this. The guy actually got a mage to ward his strongbox with an alarm spell. Good thing the sod was an apprentice mage, or it might have actually been difficult... this ought to be easy.
Standing Bear moves up to where Mach is fiddling with the trap. He nods approvingly and whispers. "Trouble or a camp up ahead I would guess." He grabs his decorated Earthbreaker with two hands and gives it a slight swing, he rolls his shoulder a little afterwards, the injuries not completely gone.
Mach snips the trip wire with ease, after first making sure that the bell won't ring.
Mach turns and nods at Standing Bear. "Shh. Might want to get ready for trouble. Stay right here."
He then starts creeping forward, keeping his eyes & ears open for trouble and his feet stepping as lightly as possible on the stone floor.
Mach creeps close to the corner of the passageway and peeks around toward where the light is coming from. Approximately 20 feet ahead the passageway opens into a small room, about 25 feet by 30 feet. A hooded lantern sits on the lip of a fountain in the west wall. A tinkling rill of water runs from a demon-shaped mouth on the wall into the fountain. A bedroll and several bags of rations sit on the floor just to the north of the fountain. A prone figure that is not moving lies on one of these bedrolls. Mach watches for a moment ( ) and notices the rise and fall of a sleeping person.
Past the fountain room, the passageway continues northwesterly out of sight.
Mach creeps up to the sleeping person, sheathing his short sword and drawing his sap as he moves.
Once he reaches the sleeper, he whacks her over the head.
"Sorry about that."
Standing Bear moves in after Mach as quietly as possible. After he has taken out the figure he studies the body for a moment and removes any weapons from it, just to be sure. He looks at the hooded lantern and with a shrug grabs it for personal use.
The sleeping woman is completely unaware of Mach's approach, and cries out briefly as his sap blow strikes home, knocking her unconscious. Judging by the half-played game of solitaire next to the sleeping pad, Mach and Standing Bear surmise that another person was until very recently on duty here.
A quick search of the guard post finds similar equipment to what you discovered on the previous Tower Girl: 2 tanglefoot bags, a smokestick, studded leather armor, a hand crossbow with 10 bolts, and a shortsword, along with the hooded lantern the Shoanti already acquired.
Mach's other side grumbles as he non-lethally neutralizes her. Come on. Just put a knife in her neck and be done with it already.
"Easy." Mach starts dragging the body off into the shadows, setting her down in a dark corner. He then returns to the girl's sleeping pad and notices the half-played game of Solitaire.
"...you know, she could have put the red Queen on the black King and gotten some progress made." He whispers to himself before turning to Standing Bear. "Go get the others. Let them know this room's clear. I'm going to scout a bit ahead."
He readies his sap and gets back into the shadows.
Mach sneaks ahead, letting the new addition to the party bring back the good news of the easy defeat of the Tower Girl.
Moving head carefully, the tiefling comes to a short corridor off to the right, while the main corridor continues straight. Quickly looking to the right, he sees that the hallway ends after 10 feet, opening up into a collapsed chamber. The eastern wall of this room is buried under an ancient pile of rubble. Sitting near the entrance is a wooden crate and a dull grey amphora; the room is otherwise empty and has no other exits.
Standing Bear reports back to the group and with them he moves to the room with the unconscious girl.
Quintus also travels forward to the room with the knocked out woman, and then he waits for Mach to report back anything.
Mach moves back to the room the rest of the party is regrouping in.
"The corridor keeps going, but branches off to the right a little. There's a crate and a dull grey tall jar down the right corridor. I didn't see anyone down the straight corridor."
Mach examines the crate & jar in closer detail as Um'bala looks at them with his magic sight. He pops the crate open first.
The jar or amphora looks very old, and seems to be filled with old coins. You would have to dump them out to gauge their true value.
The crate looks to be loot stored here by the Tower Girls, probably for later transport to Magnimar for sale. Most of the crate is filled with straw for protection and contains a statue of a warrior in full battle regalia.
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"Not a bad haul," Um'bala whispers as he examines the treasure. "The amphora's an antique, and would be worth a bit by itself, to say nothing of the coins. The statue's a giant of some sort, and probably worth a few thousand gold! No reason to take any of this with us right now, though - we can come back for it once we deal with the rest of the Girls." Just to be sure, Um'bala takes a second glance at the statue for auras once it is free from the confines of the crate.
Even outside of the crate, the statue of the giant does not detect as being magical.
Quintus takes a particular interest in the statue when Um'Bala mentions that it is worth thousands of gold pieces.
Looking back at Um'bala Quintus seems unconvinced.
"Are you sure it is worth thousands of gold pieces Um'bala? The statue may be old and well made, but my friends in the city would only give a little bit more than three hundred gold pieces for such a statue, and I'm talking about the ones who are interested in this sort of art."