Jominda sits down on one of the chairs. "Has someone still a headache? I have some willow bark here. If you chew that it relieves them a bit."
"It tastes not really good. Maybe I should try to extract the acetylsalicylic acid and make a potion of it."
"I'm fine, thank you" says Kendra. She looks around the room for anything of interest.
"What are you looking for?" Jominda asks looking what Kendra might be after.
"Any useful item - potions, scrolls, magical artifacts - but mostly Hawkran's badge." Jominda says.
"Owww this headache. I take one of this bark thing." Jorfa tells.
"But you might want to look behind that secret door there in the wall."
"What? Where?" Kendra looks at what Jorfa's pointing at.
"I don't see anything."
Jominda hands Jorfa some willow bark.
Jorfa takes it and chews on it.
"Hey it works. The headache is gone!" Then she gets up and walks to the wall where she pushes hard. But it doesn't move. "It is locked."
"How do you unlock a secret door? Is there a keyhole, or a switch somewhere?" She looks around carefully thinking where she would place a switch. "I reckon it would be either in this room or the guardroom across."
"It is a keyhole." Jorfa tells, pointing to it.
"ah, I see it now. So... we need to find a key." She looks around for a key in the room.
"Perhaps it is on the corpse of a guardsman. Or on the bottom of the oubliette."
"We waned to check on the oubliette anyway." Jominda replies and leaves towards the oubliette with her sunrod in hand.
There she pulls at the grate that lies on top of it.
Jorfa knots the rope to the bars at a door and pulls at it to check that it holds. "Who is going down?" she asks.
"Aren't Dwarfs used to climb in dark and tight places? How about you go?" Jominda suggests. She is not fond of the idea of climbing into that hole with bones at the bottom, which might be dead or not.
"How well can you climb, Jorfa?"
"Not that good in my armor." Jorfa replies. "But I don't think you two are going to pull me back up if something happens. So either you send an old man down" which is funny as Jorfa is older than Father Grimburrow will ever get "Or you two agree on who of you is going down."
"Are you volunteering, or shall we toss a coin?" Jominda asks.
Kendra's reminded of how badly Jominda's been handling the area. She takes a deep breath, and relents.
"I'll go." she says. "But you guys better keep talking all the time through, I don't want to feel like I'm being forgotten at the bottom of a pit." She raises a finger to emphasise this.
"And I'll want that sunrod, Jominda."
Jominda hands over the sunrod, but gets out the other one immediately. Just in case. "How you're going to hold it while you're climbing down the rope?" Jominda asks.
Kendra smiles at Jominda as she moves to the edge of the pit.
"I don't have to hold it on the way down." she says, and lets the rod drop to the bottom of the pit.
"You just worry on what to talk about, and about giving me some light from up here, and I'll worry about how I'll get it up."
While Kendra grabs the rope and climbs down Jominda starts telling gossip about the town. "Oh, talking is no problem. I can tell you all the ailments of the people of Revengro if you're interested. At least the ones that come to the apothecary. Don't know what the people have that go to Father Grimburrow. But once I'm out of stuff to tell he can continue with that. But to be true, most of that is pretty boring. A done back here, some constipation there. Or some vain old hag, that asks for something to get rid of her wrinkles. Where the biggest beauty problem is with her character. But smile and take the gold I say."
"But what really bothers me is that there is nothing to cure the Sheriff from being an ass. Half of Ravengro believes am trading poisons or drugs or something else that is illegal. And only because he comes over every second day and warns me of the dangers of doing so. In front of my customers! Can you believe it? If he ever goes missing I probably poisoned and buried him in the basement of the apothecary. It's ridiculous. My apothecary is vice versa to his office. If he had any real suspicion he could set up a watch and arrest every foreign customer and search them. Or do a search of the apothecary. Not that he would know the difference between a herbal tea and poison. It's a pity. The men in this town..."
"What about you? The men in this town are really a mess. Either they are old. Like Father Grimburrow here, or Alendru Ghoroven, or your Father. Well some of the council men also have some brains, but they aren't young either. Besides that there are only farmers who have their head mostly to have something to hold their hats. Did you think about getting married? You're already on the verge to get listed as old maid you know. But with what this town has to offer it is to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. But what do I expect from a village whose biggest thing is a cursed burned down prison."
"I wonder what the Silk Purse lives from. I mean don't you need people who have something to bring to a pawn shop? And to be in financial need? I know of no ten people who would match that description in Ravengro. How do they make a living? Or is it ex-rich people from Lepidstadt who are too embarrassed to get a loan in their home town? I have to go and ask Luramin Taigh and Quess Yearburn about that."
"Are you done done already, or shall I continue?"
Kendra looks around, and decides to put the gold in her purse, the weapons in her pack or on her belt, the stone in a belt pouch and the ring of keys on her belt.
"I found a bunch of gold down here. We'll split it once I'm back up?"
And, as she's done packing, she grabs firm hold of the rope in one hand, and the sunrod in the other.
"Ok, I'm quite a bit heavier than I was going down. Is it an idea to pull the rope up along with me?" She looks up, clamps the sunrod between her teeth, and grabs hold of the rope with her other hand too now.
Jorfa pulls at the rope which saves Kendra the hassle of pulling herself up, but she still has to walk up the wall.
"What is it you found down there?" Jominda asks, curiously ogling all the stuff dangling from Kendra's belt.
Kendra climbs out of the oubliette without much trouble.
"Wow, I'm certainly glad to be out of there!" Kendra says as she takes the sunrod out from between her teeth.
She catches her breath for a moment, glad to be amongst her new friends again, before she continues on.
"I found some weapons. No idea what exactly, I just stuffed everything in the pack. Some gold, as I said, and some key." She smiles broadly as she hands the keys over to Jorfa. "Think they'll fit the secret door?"
Lastly, she gets out the stone with symbols. "And look, an alarm stone. Wonder what it was doing down there."
"Just like you told! The key in the Oubliette! I know a sure way to find out." Jominda replies pointing the key in direction of the hallway. But she waits for Kendra to look through the stuff she hastily collected and brought up.
As Kendra notices the mace is magical as well, she takes a closer look at it.
"The mace is magical as well, but I don't know what exactly. I don't think it's cursed though. And this crossbow seems broken."
Kendra stuffs things back in her pack and starts to walk into the hallways as well.
"Let's test the key?"
"Yessss!" Jominda replies excitedly. She walks hurriedly to the room and tries the keys in the hole. The third one fits the lock and can be turned. After it sounds like unlocked she pushes at the door.
Kendra stands at the ready, although she belatedly realizes that Vauran hadn't detected any more undead down here, so it should be relatively safe.
Jorfa walks in with a blissful smile. She stops at the chainmail and strokes over the metal. "Still perfect. After all these years."
Kendra recognizes some of the items. "This is... a wonderous find."
"Did you bring the treasure cart like I told you?" Jominda jokes. "Who would have thought to find this after all these years with everything else rotten."
She searches through all the magical stuff. "I guess the potions will be most useful to us."
Kendra looks to see if a badge is behind the secret door. Perhaps this was the guardmen's equipment stash
Then her eyes fall onto Jorfa.
"What is it, Jorfa? You look as if... I don't know."
"It's a shame they didn't get used. But it's also nice to see they're still as perfect as on the day I handed them over to Warden Hawkran." Jorfa replies.
"You made these?" Kendra says incredulously
"Yes." Jorfa replies. "Ravengro was founded to support the prison. And I was and still am the weapons-smith in Ravengro. It earned me the reputation and the customers that allow me to do real stuff until today. And not only farm tool repair."
Kendra nods in respect. "I believe that you should take them back home then. They're yours, after all."
"They are not really mine, as I got paid for them. But I for sure won't let them hang here. As their rightful owners are all dead." Jorfa replies. "But a cart would be necessary for that."
"Wait... you said... you handed them over to the warden? Did you know him? And his wife?"
"I had to do with him now and then. Wouldn't say I knew him. But from what I heard and saw I'd say he was an honourable man."
"His wife was a poor thing. Moving from the big city to Ravengro and then onto the prison grounds. She came to town for grocery shopping and such. But she didn't get in with the people. I suppose it was a lonely life she led." Jorfa tells what she remembers about them.
Kendra can relate to that. Not fitting in with the rest of the town, feeling lonely...
"It's good to know we're helping the ghosts of good people."
"Is there any way in which you can help us? Do you know anything else about this place?"
"It wasn't a nice place even when it was a new building. And All I saw of the inside was the Warden's office when I got the payment for my first deliveries. Later on he sent some guard to my forge if he needed something."
"And some of them were not the nice guys. That kind of work attracts very special people." Jorfa tells. "But I now next to nothing about the prisoners. And as they are undead now the expert to ask is Father Grimburrow."
Jominda listens carefully. Once Jorfa is done she asks the obvious question. "How old are you?"
"I'm older than you will ever become." Jorfa replies making it clear that she won't tell numbers.