GM Foxy's Carrion Crown

Game Master Foxy Quickpaw

Kendra steels herself, but then nothing seems to happen. "That seems kind of anti-climactic." She says as she looks around questioningly, not really sure if nothing is happening indeed.

Jominda steps back with disgust on her face kicking the bones away from her. "How about you do your holy flash thing anyway?" she asks. "Or can you check somehow if that ghost is hiding somewhere?" she adds dropping the chain and looking under the sleeping board.

"I would rather save that for an emergency." Vauran explains, "I also did not prepare that spell today." He explains feeling very bad at his preperation

"Then we move on?" Jominda asks and leaves the cell.

On this floor are some more cells, a kitchen and storage and two more rooms with exits. One would lead out onto the western balcony through a very sturdy and locked door. The other is a trapdoor in the ceiling with a ladder leading up.

Jorfa takes a look at the sturdy door (4b) bt decides that it is not worth the hassle. "If we want to check the balcony we can go around the building and come up these stairs.

She then moves on to the other room (4a) to climb the ladder and open the trap door.

The trap door resists the attempts to open it. But it's not locked. Something seems to lie on top. With a determined push Jorfa manages to open it.

As soon as it opens the rubble that blocked the door falls down.
Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 3
All but Jorfa who are in the room get a DC15 Reflex save to avoid that damage

After the rubble you hear buzzing again and another stirge but this time a huge specimen comes down and attacks the first one in sight.
Attack: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (19) + 8 = 271d4 - 1 ⇒ (2) - 1 = 1
Grab: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16

Jorfa lets herself slide down the ladder to get out of reach of the stirge and to stand on solid ground.

Retreat

Grimburrow quickly channels energy to heal everyone.
Channel: 4d6 ⇒ (3, 6, 3, 2) = 14

Reflex Save: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (2) + 5 = 7
Jominda stands in the door but the scratch from debris that jumps from the floor at her is removed by the channeling. She pulls out a vial and throws it up at the stirge.
Bomb: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (13) + 4 = 171d6 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7

Kendra was still behind, pondering the chained skeleton, as she hears the tumult in the other room. She once again grabs her crossbow and runs towards them. "What's wrong?" she yells in advance so she can prepare herself as she would run into the room.

"There is one of those stirges but it's huge." Jominda replies.

The now burning stirge tries to put out the fire.
Reflex Save: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22
Successfully.

Kendra braces the crossbow against her shoulder, takes aim at the smoking Stirge, and lets loose a bolt.

Attack: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 1 = 15
damage: 1d8 ⇒ 6

Kendra places a bolt into the vermin. But it still flutters around.

Jominda throws another bomb at the stirge.
Bomb: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (11) + 4 = 151d6 + 4 ⇒ (1) + 4 = 5

"I hope we're soon done here. My resources are limited." Jominda tells.

Jorfa readies an attack with her morning star in case the stirge comes into reach.

The again burning stirge tries again to put out the fire.
Reflex Save: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (2) + 7 = 9
This time failing.
Fire: 1d6 ⇒ 6
Which leads to a burning stirge falling to the ground not moving any more.

Kendra reloads her crossbow. "Was that the only one?" She looks at the burning corpse. "It was indeed quite large."

Jominda looks up through the trap door into the sky. "I hope so. I that was the mum I don't want to find the dad. Or any of their kin. Who is going up to check that?"

"I guess I do." Jorfa replies and climbs the ladder again.

Climbing the ladder and through the trap door leads to the partly collapsed central tower. The area is full of rubble. An empty doorway leads outside. The wooden floor of this walkway over the roof seems intact, although here and there the moldy, sodden timbers sag ominously.

From there one has a good view over the back area of the Harrowstone grounds. But at the moment there is nothing of interest. Neither on the grounds nor in this area.

"Opening the door only got us that stirge." Jorfa tells before she climbs down again.

"So this floor is done. What shall we do now? Visit Vesorianna again, search for an entrance into the basement or go home for a rest and continue tomorrow?" Jominda asks.

"I have lost all track of time..." Kendra says. "There should still be time left to look for an entrance down below, shouldn't there?"

"Time isn't the issue. It's still bright day. If you feel like you can still face some of these undead we can search for that." Jominda replies offering Kendra the lead.

On the map of the first floor there are two rooms left we haven't visited yet. S18 and S19. S14 is where the poltergeist still lives. You decide which way to go as I know what will come and don't want to make the bad choice ;)

"I am 'up for that'." Kendra says, smiling.
She leads the way back downstairs, and checks some of the areas they have already been to to make sure that they haven't missed any avenues.
"I don't really fancy going past that ghost who cut me again," She says. "So unless you've got an idea on how to combat that one, Father," She turns from Vauran Grimburrow to Jorfa "I would kindly like to ask you to lead the way through here." Pointing at the door from S2 to S15, to move further on to S18

"I will." Jorfa replies and leads through the area. After the bad experience with the cold spot from earlier she does so quickly. She opens the door and moves into the next room.

You move past several rows of wooden benches, all spotted with mold and
sagging with neglect that face a stage walled off from the rest of
the room by a wall of iron bars. You've seen this from the other side of the bars already.

The northeast wall of this room has partially fallen, revealing the dark, murky waters of the pond outside. Moldering training dummies and other similar equipment hint that this room may have once been a training area for the guards. In the northeast part of the room, the floor around a dark, jagged hole is surrounded by black scorch marks.

As you look around three burning skulls emerge from the hole in the ground shrieking.
Initiative Skull: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 1 = 19
Initiative Skull: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (16) + 1 = 17
Initiative Skull: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 1 = 15
Initiative Jorfa: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23
Initiative Vauran: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (11) - 2 = 9
Initiative Jominda: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 2 = 15
Initiative Kendra: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 1 = 19

Jorfa moves closer and swings her waraxe at one of the skulls
Attack: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (8) + 8 = 161d10 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5

This ends one of the skulls.

Kendra moves her hands and speaks her spell. A ray of light erupts from her fingertips.
Disrupt undead ranged touch: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (9) + 1 = 10
Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 3

"These things again!"

That misses by far and so the skulls attack. One Jorfa and one Kendra.
Which leads to attacks of opportunities if you wield a melee weapon

Slam Kendra (+1d6 fire): 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 1 = 151d2 - 1 + 1d6 ⇒ (2) - 1 + (2) = 3
Slam Jorfa (+1d6 fire): 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7

Jorfa hacks at the skull approaching her.
Axe: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (1) + 8 = 9
But misses

Jominda tries to help Kendra to get rid of this thing. She swats at it with her mace like at a fly with a flyswatter.
Mace: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7
"Gaah!" She is to much concerned to not come in contact with it to be effective.

"Aagh!" Kendra exclaims as she is burned by the undead.
She backs out of range of the flaming skull and focuses fully on dodging its next charge 5-foot step and total defense

Jorfa steps to Kendra to aid her hoping to get the other skull when it tries to go after her again.
Axe: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (13) + 8 = 211d10 + 3 ⇒ (10) + 3 = 13

AoO: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (20) + 8 = 281d10 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11

Jorfa makes short work of the remaining skulls. First she shatters the one attacking Kendra and once the other comes at her again she dispatches that one too.

Kendra walks up to the hole. "I wonder what's down here."

There was someone who lit a sunrod as we entered the prison. It lasts for 6 hours, so you hold the solution to your question in hand. If your wondering is caused by the darkness. If not there is only one way to find out.

Jominda approaches the hole too. "I don't. I'm sure there are more of these undead. Be it animated bones or ghosts." Jominda comments. "And if that's the way down then I don't like to go there. Because it will hurt a lot to get there and it looks as it was designed to never get back out."

oh yea, that sunrod was me. I forgot where I kept it...
Kendra agrees "It does look like getting in will be easier then getting out. Before we do anything down there we need to make a way to get back up again."
Looking around for a moment, she says "Barring anyone having brought a ladder, maybe we can use the benches from back there to build some kind of scaffold or stairs?" She gestures to the previous room

To be fair - I remembered when I checked Kendra's spell list for light and saw the rod in the equipment.

"Uhm... I'm no carpenter. Are you?" Jominda asks. "Or do you mean to throw them all in and see how we can pile them up? Because that would again require someone to go down there to try to build that before we know if it works." The "I'm not volunteering for that." is not spoken but it is obvious.

"I didn't even bring a rope." Jorfa states as she thinks about what to use for that.

"Neither did I." Kendra replies to Jorfa. "But..." She thinks for a moment.
"Weren't there chains in the room that your found those artifacts from the murderers in?"

"The only chains I remember are the ones that lie on the skeleton upstairs. And those are far from long enough. I don't know what you have seen." Jominda replies.

"There were some more in one room with shackles and bolted to the wall. But also too short." Jorfa adds.

I guess you remember that: There are a dozen holy symbols on fine silver chains.