Lark starts thinking out loud, "The key is a musical instrument, right, a horn? I wonder if we can imitate the sound?" He turns toward Thren, then suddenly perks up and spins back to the wall, "That reminds me of the music in my parents hymnals!" Lark points to the runes and lines, "Are those the notes we need to play? Or sing? Thren, can you read that like it was music?"
The tiefling woman's eyes light up as she realizes what Lark's talking about. "I can try! I'm rusty at the sheet music stuff...but I have just the spell to imitate a horn!"
Once Lark suggests "notes" Threnody can easily see that yes, the runes must be ancient musical notation.
Imitating the sound of a large ancient shofar will be difficult, but certainly doable.
Lee also notices that there are abjuration auras on the floor--likely related to what triggers the statue trap--and milder evocation auras also on the door.
Thren casts ghost sound and tries out the music she sees. "Maybe I was a bit too enthusiastic, instruments were never really my strong point...."
Lark looks around carefully to see if sounding the wrong notes triggered anything.
Lark says, "I'd offer to help, but me trying to hum along would probably make things worse."
Focusing both on pitch and timbre is a challenge, and the notes go a little sour right at the last moment. As the noise reverberates against the door, the doors respond with a loud, unpleasant, vibrating "clang" that makes your ears throb in pain.
Lark very definitely notices this.
Thren instinctively covers her ears at the loud clang, not that it stops her from feeling pain. As she recovers, she shakes her head to clear the ringing and looks over the music again.
"Okay, not my best," she admits. Then she tries it again.
This time as Threnody tries to create the right sound and music, a more harmonic tone answers her efforts, followed by an ancient creaking and grinding. The eyes of each statue grow brightly once--and then fade to a calm yellow.
The doors slowly slide open into the wall.
Beyond you can see in to a very wide entry hall with 20-foot-high ceilings. The sunlight behind you, filtered by the waterfall, just barely illuminates the corridor, though you can see carved images of cyclops engaged in various activities on the walls. The hall quickly disappears into darkness, and Lark and Lee cannot see where it leads.
Threnody can see it stretches just about to the edge of her darkvision, ending at a T-intersection. More statues occasionally flank the hallway.
Once the doors fully open, whether you have stepped through or not, a clicking noise persists for a few seconds before the grinding commences again, and you see that the doors very slowly begin to slide shut again. You probably have about a minute to get through the doorway before the doors shut completely.
Lark winces in pain and rubs his left ear, but he nods encouragement to Threnody as she tries again. As the doors open he claps and says, "Your audience always likes an encore!"
When the doors start to grind close Lark walks past the threshold and gestures for his friends to follow.
Thren follows Lark. "That wasn't an encore. The first was a warm-up." She corrects him with a grin. "But we're making a lot of noise, warmup or not."
Lee picks up Muffin before he he speaks to his friends ,"Try to not trample me because, well...
And Lee casts Invisibility on himself.
"I'll be in my usual spot between you two. The clock is officially running. Time is precious."
The group steps across the threshold. The muddy footprints end abruptly halfway down the hall--they must have cleaned their feet before progressing.
The door slides shut behind the group after about a minute. Threnody can see more relief art and statues up the hall. Lee and Lark see nothing but darkness.
Lark looks at the empty space that formerly held a halfling, "Speed and surprise sound good to me. If you can make some of those fancy lights we'll get moving."
Once he can see Lark will lead the way at a jog.
Presuming either Threnody casts dancing lights or Lee casts light on something, the group walks past carved walls and statues to where the corridor ends in what looks like a crumbled stone obelisk sporting more incomprehensible runes.
The corridor in turn leads right and left (northeast and southwest), though each hallway then turns so you cannot immediately see where each leads.
Lying amid the rubble is a 10 foot tall desiccated corpse, wrapped in shroud-cloth. While it looks to have been dead for a centuries, it was recently and clearly badly damaged by a gunpowder blasts, pistol shot, and a large puncture or two. The ground, covered in a mix of rubble and blood spatters, shows a good deal of movement took place here recently. Telling what exactly happened or where the people you are following went next is difficult based on the mess, at least at a glance.
Lee casts Light on a copper piece and slips it into Lark's hand.
Rather than voting, Lee will just follow along.
Lark stops at the signs of violence. "OK, now I'm kind of glad Varossa's ahead of us. The more fighting they do for us the better." He starts examining the ground closely. "I'll try and find their trail. Do y'all have any other ways of telling which way they went?"
"Looks like something that shouldn't be moving got reminded not to walk around by Varossa," Thren opines. She looks around a bit.
Unhelpfully, footsteps appear to lead in both directions. It's too messy to determine which are the fresher tracks.
Threnody can hear movement toward the right-hand corridor, but it's too distant to determine what it might be.
"I hear something off to our right a ways, but I don't know what."
"Hard to starboard, then. Let's go." Lark sets off again and heads to the right.
The party follows the hall to the right. It opens into a chamber with two diamond-shaped alcoves containing statues. Stairs leads to a smaller room in the back of the chamber containing a stone table without chairs. Bits of debris are scattered here and there, long ago reminders the room was once used for something.
As the magically lit coin illuminates the room, you see a shadow approach--a large one. Another desiccated, shrouded corpse like the the one you saw in the intersection appears from near one of the statues. While this one is also damaged--one arm is blown clean off--it is very definitely still moving. And now it moves toward you!
Thren:
Lee:
Lark:
Gholdako:
Lark for once is caught slightly off guard, but Threnody and Lee are ready to react as the creature lurches toward the party.
Thren slides up beside Lark, whipping her sword out and to the ready as she moves. Then she begins to sing.
Round 1
Lee will open up with a Web spell to try to slow our adversary down.
The ghol-gani mummy--a gholdako--moves forward. The large, powerful creature easily snaps strands of the magical web as it goes, though it is slowed by the sticky substance.
It only just manages to push past the web ( but the slowing effects of the web ensures it cannot immediately attack.
After Lark's cautious swipe at the gholdako misses he takes a careful step backward.
Thren notices Lark stepping back but continues to hold her ground as she sings. Then she waits for just the right moment as the creature regains its balance from staggering through the web and slams her rapier into its leg. Her magic washes down the blade and pours into the creature with deadly force. She twists her sword as she pulls it free, her blood-red magic fading and leaving her smiling grimly up at her foe.
Threnody stabs the creature good and hard with her glowing blade. The wound still closes slightly as she retracts her lunge, but she struck a key joint enough to have still done notable damage.
Round 2
Lee 5' steps SE.
Lee casts Scorching Ray at the Gholdako.
Lee gets The Cheeseknife out.
Lee's invisible form fades, and he appears behind Thren as Flames strike the chest of the gholdako true... but the mystically treated wraps glow and absorb a good deal of the flame. The flesh is merely a bit seared.
It swings its one claw at the one that has so far done it the most harm so far: Threnody, while snapping its teeth at her shoulder. The claw misses.
It carves a good chunk out of Thren.
"Thren, change of plans! Let's back off this thing." Lark begins backpedaling and says, "Lee, can you slow it down again?"
The bard nods to let Lark know she heard him. She tries to roll backward away from the towering mummy-like creature, but isn't canny enough to avoid its attack.
Our daring warrior then pulls back to put some distance between her and the thing trying to kill her.
The gholdako lumbers after the retreating party, catching up to Lark and Threnody.
Lark drops the glowing coin and draws his second sword as he steps to the side. His first strike lands while his second slices only the creature's bandages.
Thren sees Lark rally to the fight and steps close. She takes aim at the monster's other leg this time and rams her blade in. While the blow isn't as deep as her previous attack, it does sink deep. Thren sings a bit more loudly and confidently as she pulls her blade back into position.
Round 3
Lee lays down a Fireball spell.
"Well, that's pretty okay..."
Lee, eager to try his new spellcasting capabilities, tosses a large ball of fire at the gholdako. While again the creature absorbs some of the flame, the edges of its wrappings catch aflame and the stump of its lost arm starts to burn away at it, appearing to have dealt a good deal of damage. Some bits of dust and blood and debris turn to ash, but the damp cold stone cavern otherwise remains undamaged.
The creature presses its attack against Threnody, the closest serious damage dealer to it.
The bad news is that Threnody falls to the ground, blood pouring from the slashing wounds.
The good news is that the icky festering gunk upon the claw wound is washed away by the blood and does not enter her system.
A few moments after Threnody falls and her song ends... comes a beautiful melody on played upon a very familiar-sounding-flute. Though you can't pinpoint the source of the sound, the music buoys your courage just as Threnody's song did.
Lark shouts in dismay when he sees Threnody fall. He struggles of focus on finishing the fight quickly for his friend's sake and manages to land a solid blow.
Lee sees that the Gholdako is on the verge of dropping and elects to go for the sure thing.
He walks SE then E then E. He stops there to cast Magic Missile at the Gholdako.
The magic missile indeed serves as the tipping point and the gholdako crumbles to ash. It leaves behind a part of its shroud, a dark robe embroidered with the symbol of an ancient fiend lord; magical examination shows it to be a cassock of the clergy. It should re-fit itself to the wearer both in terms of the wearer's size and faith.
The flute-playing ends, and light footsteps echo through the room, and a glowing blue light appears above Threnody's worst wounds--which close a little, bringing her to consciousness.
And a familiar tenor voice resonates near Threnody once she wakens: "Look I know you wouldn't be happy to see me, so... ha, well. But seriously, in truth I am rather wounded myself by this same accursed creature--obviously, it hates bards--and Varossa and Vancid have left me behind. So could we--before this little spell runs out--perhaps please come to an agreement that involves not killing me?"
Muffin approaches the sound of the voice, sniffing cautiously.
Lark kneels by Threnody to be sure her wounds have closed and she's stable. "You OK? You almost had me scared, there."
Lark cocks his head up and says, "That's Hinsin, right? Well, we got past Horemheb without killing anyone. So, yes, we can have a friendly parley."
"I'd accuse you of being sent to delay us, but leaving people alone in dangerous places is practically Varossa's signature move."
"If not friendly, we can at least guarantee that our parlay will be honorable and probably merciful."
To Lark: "Once Thren is back on her feet we should see if the gholdako was guarding anything. Any advantage would be in our best interest. But we need to do it quickly. No treasure hunting. No dawdling."
Having had her name mentioned a few times, Thren opens her eyes, groans, and peels herself up off the ground. "For a while there I hated boarding pikes as much I as hated the undead. Now the undead are the top of the list." She looks around. "So how am I not a smear on the ground?"
Hinsin's body begins to slowly appear into view as he speaks. He does indeed look about as bad off as Threnody, with massive, barely-closed claw-marks raking him from one side of his head to along one arm, and a badly mangled leg.
"Well, dragging my unconscious carcass behind them wasn't going to do them any good. That beast of a mummy hits very hard, it turns out. The last thing I remember is that thing's face bearing down at me with an open maw... and then waking up in the dark over there." He points to the as-yet-unexplored cavern.
"I was just in the process of healing myself and lighting the room, when I heard Threnody's singing echoing through the tunnels. Unmistakable in its beauty," he sighs, "So I realized you were about to get into the same predicament we did."
He gestures at himself. "I only have a few spells left and am in no shape for fighting. What I'd really like to do is go back--but I'm also not very keen on remaining alone. We could just all begone from this place and I could perhaps loot a few treasure maps from Varossa's quarters and give them to you and you might seek your fortune in a safer place on your own ship--I assume that was you managing to conjure a ship and chase us. No? Or..." He sighs, "Alright, I'm willing to help you find whatever route the others found deeper into this complex--in exchange of course for my life and freedom. I won't attack Varossa or Vancid if we come across them, but I won't stop you from whatever it is you intend to do." He waves to his deeply wounded form. "I obviously couldn't even try."