Spidre moves over towards the bard, whose name was apparently forgotten, and attempts to administer medical care.
Pietro also tries to administer aid.
Pietro manages to fend off Spidre long enough to stabilize Mirrel, giving you all enough time to murderize the sleeping snakes.
A rest - we are in sore need of a rest... and I have used my most potent magics for the day. I will need to be cautious moving forward until I can sleep
"Aye, rest, I'll guard tha door." Thyra will look at the snakes, disgusted at what she is about to ask "Spidre, there a way ta milk these snakes' venom. Poison's a foul weapon but we fight a foul enemy."
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- that brings me back to full.
After he has rested to regain his strength, Mirrel sees Spidre examining the poisonous snakes. As his companions begin trying to extract the venom, Mirrel offers words of encouragement and advice.
Spidre pulls out his dagger and begins examining the snakes for intact poison glands.
After taking some time to tend your wounds and harvest some venom, you resume your exploration of the crypt. In the very next room, you find a structure not unlike an altar: a raised stone dais supports basin in which rest several coins of various denominations. A stone likeness of Koriszegy's face is mounted above the basin.
This structure sits in the center of a large room, about 30 feet wide and about 50 feet to the opposite end, with high vaulted ceilings that peak about 30 feet above you. The stone buttresses house multiple statues of winged, vaguely-humanoid monsters; the walls bear graven images of various undead creatures. In the center of the far wall (50ft away) is a rather ornate door.
When you enter this room, a disembodied voice booms from the face overlooking the basin of money:
"Children of the night, welcome to my home. I ask that you make a donation to our cause. With your help, we will raise an army and defeat all who dare oppose us."
"What exactly are we supposed to donate?"
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Spidre shakes his head slowly. He points one sword at the ornate door.
Mirrel enters the room and moves towards the altar, being wary for any mechanical triggers in the floor. Keeping one eye on the stone image, he'll peer into the bowl to see how much is in there and examine the base of the altar for secret compartments.
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I think its a trick... look in the bowl closely
"Careful of an ambush, let's not get too apart!"
Thyra has her battleaxe and shield, ready for an ambush, after snakes came from the ceiling, she is expecting the unexpected.
Investigating the basin and surrounding area, Mirrel finds no signs of mechanisms of any sort. The basin contains gold pieces, silver pieces, and copper pieces. There also don't appear to be any blood stains on the altar or in the basin.
"We should press on. Keep focussed on our goal," Mirrel says, his gaze lingering slightly on the coins, "but, perhaps we need to contribute in order to pass through safely....What do you think? Shall we leave couple of coins each, just in case?"
One gold coin from each of us should do it, Halsere says making his offering.
"Torm wouldn't approve of me offering up nothing to some some.dark necromanca'
Thyra will watch Halsere and any others put coins in but she adamantly refuses..
Halsere flips in a coin for Thyra.
"You can count me out as well."
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Ever the pragmatist Halsere throws in another gold coin
Mirrel will also drop two coins into the bowl, offering Thyra an apologetic smile.
"I'm hoping Torm will forgive me once we put an end to this cult. By then I expect we'll have taken much more than I'm giving."
Spidre ignores the offering of the others, unwilling even to turn his gaze towards the stone visage.
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After some of you drop some money in the bowl, the voice speaks again:
"Thank you for helping our cause. You will be remembered in the new order."
Nothing else seems to happen, so you cross the room toward the ornate door. On the other side is a smallish chamber. In the center of the floor is a small pool, no more than a foot or two wide and maybe a few inches deep, filled with a steaming, boiling red liquid.
In front of the pool is a placard on the floor which reads, "If to pass the red door is what you desire, place the staff of life within the pool of fire."
One wonders how they passed the door while the staff was with the wolf... Here's hoping this works. He places the staff of life in the pool, end first so it can be pulled out easily.
"This staff does seem ratha useful. Careful with tha staff."
Thyra watches Halsere as he dips the staff into what appears to be liquid fire.
It might be lava, we used lava to power our forges back home
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Spidre stands back and shakes his head, by this point a token gesture as his companions do something stupid anyway.
When Halsere dips the end of the Staff of Life into the red pool, the liquid bubbles violently. The shaft of the staff turns red and then bright orange, glowing faintly as though it were hot iron straight out of a forge, but doesn't burn his hands. In fact, it still feels no warmer than room temperature.
"Looks like we passed the first test. Let's head back to the red door."
Peeking into the bugbear's room on your way, you see him slouched lazily in the corner, gnawing absentmindedly on what his people might consider something like jerky and half-heartedly flipping you some sort of obscene gesture without bothering to make eye contact.
Continuing with your backtracking, you reach the chamber with the colored doors and approach the one with the red mark and the red mist. As soon as you touch the tip of the staff to the center of the red circle, the mist by the door dissipates, and the door retracts into the wall, opening a new passage.
Continuing your exploration, you pass through a hallway and an empty room toward a door which seems to carry a foul stench of rotting meat.
Just as Thyra is about to step to the door to open it, Mirrel notices something strange about the floor in front of the door: it's slighty uneven, with a hairline seam parallel to the door. You'd guess that upon opening the door, the section of floor in front of it would swing down and drop into who-knows-what.
The resident spy busies himself with his thieves tools and sees if he can deactivate the trap.
Examining the setup, Halsere finds a wire attached to the door that runs through a hole in the wall to the floor, presumably to pull a latch when the door is opened. He cuts it, and now believes that the lack of any connection between the door and the floor means it's safe to proceed.
Opening the door, it seems Halsere has done good work. However, in the room, you see the source of the nasty smell:
The room is 20ft by 20ft, with a floor that's about 5ft below the floor of the hallway you're standing in. Filling this pit is a swarming mass of walking corpses, their rotting flesh putrefying the air. Seems that had the trap gone off, whoever was standing by the door would have been fed to the undead.
Seeing you, the undead begin to reach for the platform, looking like they intend to either climb up or pull you down!
The gross ones with the flesh hanging off their bones are zombies. They tend to mindlessly grab and eat still-living prey, rather than trying to beat you to death first. Their soft-but-unnecessary fleshy bits make them resistant to bludgeoning and piercing weapons. Fire and radiant damage work well, though.
The two that look the most intact are ghouls. They're cunning and vicious, able to plan and problem-solve more than skeletons or zombies. Their corpse bodies are filled with necromantic energy, and their attacks sap the life force from their victims.
In a thunderous cacophony, all the skeletons and two of the zombies explode, with bone fragments and deathmeat flying all over the room and bouncing off the walls.
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Unslinging his mandolin, Mirrel once more begins his atonal strumming, focussing his attention primarily on the ghouls.
Mirrel's spell takes hold on a ghoul and a zombie!
Spidre positions himself in the doorway and casts a spell on one of the ghouls, manifesting a ghastly hand that grabs onto the undead.
,
Halsere sends forth a bolt of fire at the other ghoul before heading away from the pits edge.
for
Spidre's spell fells a ghoul, but Halsere's misses!
The zombies crowd forward and begin grabbing and pulling at Spidre's legs!
Spider is pulled from the ledge, and grabbed tightly by the hungry dead!
Seeing an opportunity, the ghoul pushes his way forward toward Spidre, raises a fist that crackles with dark energy, and punches!
, +
It's a miss!
bunch a undead bastards, let go of him!"
Thyra will jump down into the pit with the lot of them and battle axe one of the zombies fighting Spidre and then action surge to attack another.
Spidre becomes a whirl of blades as the undead congregate around him.
,
,
,
Thyra leaps into the pit and kills two zombies! Spidre then kills the other two before finishing off the ghoul!
Spidre cuts down the two zombies and stabs the ghoul, leaving his shortsword implanted in its chest as he uses his free hand to readjust his mask, slouching under his hood to keep his face obscured. He finishes and reaches out for his sword, plucking it from the re-dead body of the foul creature, then he surveys the room.
A bit of looking around reveals nothing of interest in this room, making you suspect the whole thing is just a trap to kill intruders.
Continuing to explore, you find more uninhabited rooms and barren hallways. After a few minutes, all that's left is a spiral staircase, which leads both up and down from this floor.
All the legends speak of worse things in the cellars and dungeons. For now? I vote up