The siblings can't help but grin in response to Frankie's enthusiasm and unlike many of the folks you've encountered in your travels, they don't seem inclined to question or judge his presence in your group. Instead, they take it for what it is as return his fist bumps as he introduces everyone.
"A pleasure to meet you, though it's a shame about the circumstances," Olivia replies.
"Aye, that's right!" Jacek agrees. "A shame we couldn't be makin' deals of a different sort, eh? But them's the breaks sometimes, innit?"
Olivia coughs. "To answer your questions Miss Meredith, as we are one of the smaller 'families' in the area, we've recently gone on a recruiting drive to solidify our position here in the city's underworld, perhaps even more into more lucrative markets such as narcotics."
"We was contacted by a swain who claimed to be our cousin, a man named Titus Terliss," Jacek continues. "He told us that his gang was on the hunt for a perch in Magnimar to hide out for a season, and one of his fellows was a savvy alchemist, could help us cut in on the trade."
Here, the two siblings glance at each other and then back to you, both looking a bit sheepish. "Admittedly we've never actually made the acquaintance of this alchemist, but his underlings contend that he is a fearsome and feral individual," Olivia admits.
"Anyways, it all seemed to be on the level so's we allowed 'em to set up in an old crypt underneath Two-Lights," Jacek explains. "And for awhile, everything was comin' up roses. They set up their little alchemical shop and did a good job makin' product for us. But then they started doin' their own jobs on the side, jobs we didn't give no permission for - robberies and the like, for gods only know what reasons. And conscriptin' the rest of our people to help 'em!"
Olivia scowls. "They are indiscreet and coarse and their antics have caused nothing but trouble. If you eject them, you can help yourself to whatever spoils they’ve accumulated. Our excursion into the soporific trade has not been profitable, and we wish it - and our association with Titus Terliss and his people - ended."
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Quang Chi smiles inwardly at the "fearsome" Shoanti guard's show of aggression. The man has no idea whom he faces. Likely Benedict or even the boy could take him out by themselves. He certainly does not compare to Turo, wraiths, samurai vampires, exploding diseased bears, or lightning dogs. I think perhaps he lacks the wisdom to know his place in the world. I hope we do not have to educate him. For his sake.
The potential trouble at the entrance avoided, Quang Chi listens attentively to the siblings.
"Fearsome and feral," they contend. Again, it is all relative to so many other more fearsome and far more feral things out there, he thinks.
"Apologies," he begins with a slight bow, "but you have not explained completely why they attacked Mr. Chert. Did this alchemist see him as competition, in spite of his alliance with you?"
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Meredith can't help but grin at Chi's question. That was pretty spicy. "Glad to see you know the whole drug trade doesn't really work. Your er, cousin, tried to blame us for attacking Mr. Chert. That's why we're here. For your sake you'd better hope we flush him out, or our organization is going to come back with reinforcements."
Was this what you had to deal with, Frankie? She looks at the kid and shudders.
"That is the thing, we have no idea why they have been targeting these people and businesses," Olivia answers. "Perhaps you will uncover something in their laboratory to explain it. To us, there is no rhyme or reason for any of it that we can see."
She looks at Meredith. "But you say they have attempted to frame you and your organization, hmm? Then perhaps it is with you that their true business lies?"
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"She makes a good point, Meredith. They left a wayfinder. Do they have a grudge against the Society, or was it simply an item of convenience? Either way, I suppose this alchemist explains the potions we found."
Quang Chi looks back to the siblings and makes another very shallow bow before turning away. He opens the tent flap and holds it for the others in a sign that he at least is ready to move along.
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An aspiring gang! How fortuitous, perhaps after this mess we can come to a few arrangements. Fairly chuffed at the latest developments, Vosk ducks under the tent flap and waits for the others to file out.
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Meredith wrinkles her nose and shakes her head slightly. Denair knows what that means: The Boss is annoyed again.
Seeing that you've come to an agreement of sorts, Ylandria and Eun hurry out of the tent after you. "Here, we'll show you where you need t' go."
The pair lead you over to a corner of Two-Lights where access to the ancient crypt may be had. Buttresses jut crookedly from the ground, between piles of shrub-covered stone. A narrow gap in one of the standing stone columns - just wide enough for a person to pass through - leads to a small, cylindrical chamber within. A sturdy block and tackle is mounted above a five-foot-wide pit, leading into the darkness below.
"Alright, here's where we go down," Ylandria remarks as she kneels next to the pit. "There's some handholds carved into th' stone so climbin' down won't be a problem. One of you got a light?"
Those among you that are blessed with natural darkvision and wish to take a look into the pit can see that Ylandria is correct; stone handholds jut out from the walls of the pit, which descends about 20 feet down into a dank-looking chamber below.
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Vosk sighs a little at the pit. Heaven and Hell forbid we use stairs like civilized people. "I've a light. I'll bear it as well, unless someone else wishes to," he offers.
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Quang Chi picks a small stone from a pouch on his belt and tosses it into the air with a flick of his fingers. As it lazily orbits his head it sheds light like a torch and reveals the subtle change to his physiology as the Tiger fades away to be replaced by the Mouse. Handing one of his wands to Meredith, he asks her to activate it for him as they've done so many times before.
Preparations complete, Quang Chi gently and respectfully scoops up Benedict, and with his bow in his other hand, the monk simply jumps into the pit...
but he misjudges the landing in the dark. His right foot comes down squarely on a sharp rock and he winces as he steps away from the opening to set the wolverine down.
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"Exploring an old temple hideout?" Frankie asks, looking up at the others before leaping up off the ground, fist in the air "Wooo! Let's GOOOoOOO!" He races out of the tent as only someone with the self given moniker of 'Flash' could do. "Bye new friends!" He waves at the Twin Candles, both the leaders and the pair they rescued from the sinkhole.
Once they get to the old temple Frankie tries to be first in line, getting out his own orbiting glow stone and a potion vial. In large print across the front of the potion reads SooPeR FlaSh! in a mix of upper and lower case letters. He looks it over, nods to himself then drinks it down, climbing down into the pit, his superhero cape whipping in the breeze behind him.
Before he heads down Frankie tries to heal himself discreetly.
Denair buzzes about and scoops up Meredith, airlifting her to the bottom of the ladder.
She flies back to the top. "I can carry everyone else down if they want."
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Vosk shrugs and raises his arms in the air like a toddler waiting to be plucked off the ground.
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"Whee! You're a lot heavier than the Boss. Oops, she said I shouldn't say that out loud!"
Whether you opt to jump in, as Quang Chi does, climb down like Ylandria and Eun, or take up Denair on her offer to fly folks down to the bottom, it doesn't take long before each of you have descended the 20 foot shaft and stand in the chamber below. This 15-foot-by-20-foot chamber’s low ceiling is supported by an array of recently installed wooden spars. The room’s only point of interest is at the easternmost end, where a 6-foot stone stele, seemingly part of the chamber wall, stands. It’s etched with an eroded relief of a humanoid figure, positioned above a slightly less eroded inscription.
Ylandria gestures to the stele. "There’s a doorway here. When the Twincandles took over this camp, this door was open, and point a’ fact, we couldn’t figure how to move it at all. When the cousins came, that Terliss spent a little while tryin’ to read this writing. After that, this door was closed whenever we came down here. We were locked out."
What Ylandria says is true - the stele is actually a secret door.
The message here is written in an ancient Varisian dialect: ‘As the storm’s fury bends the strongest tree, so can the wrath of man turn aside all obstacles.’
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Frankie pokes around the stele (whatever that is) "I'd bet two cookies there's a door here.. three if they're Vosk's!" He looks over the weird writing and wrinkles his nose "What's that say Vosk?" He waves the man closer and points.
Nom Nom Nom "Whatcha find out?" As crumbs bounce off the man's shoes.
Denair buzzes up to the door, hovering near the ceiling.
She definitely sees the outline of a secret door.
Meredith casts Detect Magic, focusing on the door itself.
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Vosk steps in to read the inscription. And then the crumbs fall. On his shoes. Crumbs from his cookies. Looking at Frankie, he recites it with fervor. "As the storm’s fury bends the strongest tree, so can the wrath of man turn aside all obstacles!"
"All obstacles, Frankie," he whispers to the boy, staring him right in the eyes. He looks to his other companions. "Presumably anger of some kind is the key," he concludes for the weak minded and steps away from his "ally."
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"A wise man does not poke the dragon," Quang Chi says with a laugh to "no one in particular." Then adds in a stage whisper and wide smile to Frankie, "Nor steal the Dragon's cookies."
He turns from the shenanigans at the turn to Meredith. "What about that potion we found at Mr. Chert's? Does it not cause one to rage as the warriors of Hongal and the Linorn lands do?"
"Or as wolverines might?" he asks Benedict with an acknowledging bow.
Even with Frankie committing grand theft cookies against him - or maybe it helped, as anger sometimes brings clarity - Vosk is certain that he's hit upon the key point of the writing on the stele. Some manner of heightened anger or rage should be enough to get the passage open...though it might be possible for Frankie to open it using his usual methods, too. But Frankie himself can tell that going that route will be tricky.
Meredith can also confirm that there's a magical aura upon the door - a very powerful magical aura. But it might be possible to dispel the magic and open the door that way.
There's an Arcane Lock on the door, clearly cast by a powerful individual.
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Frankie leans back away from the angry looking Vosk, holding out the remains of a half eaten cookie while he hides the other two nonchalantly in his 'pilfer pocket' along side some day old taffy, a biscuit from Meredith's breakfast, and a few tasteless things he's picked up from Mr Chi over the weeks.
"Sorry!" He says, you're pretty sure he meant it. Frankie can be quite apologetic when he puts his mind to it. Regardless, thanks to the insight from Vosk, Frankie puts on his meanest face and growls at the secret door, then accidentally/luckily flings some spittle on just the right plate and the door lock releases.
"Last one in is a rotten egg!" He whispers before heading inside as far as the group's light will go.
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Benedict tilts his head and narrows his eyes at Quang Chi as the man begins looking downright mouse-like... but a moment later he gives a shake of his head and seems to remind himself that the monk isn't actually a delicious mouse. He allows the man to pick him up for the ride down, though at the rough landing he emits a sound almost like a sniff of annoyance...
Zirt, meanwhile, accepts Denair's offer of a flying trip down, calling out "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" right when it will echo the most.
Zirt grins conspiratorially at Frankie's prank, then starts off on a long-winded description of the cookies and tea that her aunt Salnivarinoskrznurt—Aunt Var, for short—used to prepare. The tea, it turns out, had a secret ingredient that Zirt spent years trying to discover, only to learn that it was actually just a pinch of oregano. Normal, plain old, everyday oregano, mind you! And that launches the wee gnome into a tale of long ago, when there were fifty different types of oregano, and how at one point the son of the Oregano King became enamored of a girl named Rosemary...
As Frankie pops the door open - no real rage required - Ylandria coughs. "Alright, this's as far as we go. Some of our gang are likely down there. If they are, they might not’ve been able to get out, with this door in the way. I’ll keep it open so you can send them up."
"A shame...I wanted to hear the rest of the story..." Eun sighs.
Ever curious, Frankie is the first into the passage though he's mindful to stay close to the rest of you. He can see that a dark, damp stairway leads down to the south, slowly curving westward as it descends. Its walls are reinforced with wooden supports, and the western wall is set with empty alcoves, each several inches deep, suitable for displaying religious icons or similar small relics.
He quickly notices that there seems to be a secret door hidden behind a wooden support on the passage's eastern wall. But...the wooden support is in the way, blocking access.
After looking around you realize that many of the installed supports are precautionary, and removing one or two will not unduly increase the risk of collapse. You should be able to simply remove the wooden support beam that blocks access to the secret door.
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"And so just when the inventor of slippers was about to succeed, why—" the gnome stops, frowning thoughtfully at the beams and timbers propping up various sections of the crypt. "Now, that's interesting, isn't it?" she asks rhetorically. "I mean the way those two beams are just a little bit redundant, like the Towers of Trindol. I think we could move one just a little bit, and... err, move one of the beams, I mean, not one of the Towers! Rinalt the Fool tried that once, and everyone knows how that turned out. But we wouldn't be like him. I think if we were to move the left beam just a hair..."
Zirt frowns thoughtfully, her fine eyebrows drawing together, her head tilted as she pictures the new arrangement of the beams. After a moment, she nods as if to herself, and looks around at her companions as if to ask, Well?
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Vosk snags the half-eaten cookie and scarfs it down. Little twerp, if this weren't a Society mission, he'd have one hell of a reckoning for screwing with a noble wizard like that!
Dusting his hands of any crumbs, he gestures for the others to enter before him while he casts a spell over himself. Suddenly, there are four of the big fellow.
When Zirt asserts that the removal of the beam would be safe, he looks expectantly at the better-muscled of the group.
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"Wait, if we move the beam, what happens?" Denair is confused, but really curious about moving the beam.
While Denair and Vosk decide to wait for the beefier members of the group to move the beam - should they deem it a good idea - Frankie decides to go ahead and scout out the rest of the small stairwell. He makes his way down until it opens up into a fairly sizeable chamber that runs from north to south. This sturdy 10-foot-by-40-foot stone chamber appears less damaged by the wet conditions than the damper areas of the crypt, and no supports are positioned here to hold the roof up. Eighteen standing crypts are set into the walls here, with several indistinct names inscribed upon each lid. A short passageway at the southeast corner leads to a sturdy, unlocked wooden door.
You recognize this as being an effigy crypt, a memorial for long-dead sailors whose bodies were either disposed of, or lost, at sea.
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Noticing Vosk and the others looking at him expectantly, Quang Chi raises one eyebrow but says nothing. He steps up to the beams in question and consults with Zirt as to exactly what needs moved where. The monk focuses on the image of a bull and centers his mind. He puts his back into it...
With the beam moved, he shifts his focus back to the mouse.
"Likely they have a trap set along the "obvious" entry route if they also have a hidden secret entrance. Perhaps we take this way," he gestures to the now unobstructed door.
"Yay, doors! Come on, Frankie!" Denair buzzes down the corridor. Meredith follows closely.
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Huh. Frankie mumbles to himself as he looks in on the hallway before heading back to the others now that they have the other door open.
He quietly tip toes back, getting down on one knee to peak into the room under Mr Chi's legs. He pokes and prods and tries to open the door a crack while he shushes the others.
Quang Chi easily lifts the beam out and away from the secret door, allowing Frankie to give it a good once-over before gently cracking it open and revealing another small chamber. This dark, 5-foot-square room contains one remarkable feature: a 3-foot-wide window resembling the inside of a humanoid’s mouth, which provides an excellent view of what appears to be a large, open chamber to the south. On each side of the window is an inscription, both written in an ancient Varisian dialect.
‘May the lightning raze the lands of my enemies, while the tempest churns his ships to flotsam.’
‘May the storm spare us in our humility.’
Frankie also spots yet another secret door hidden in the opposite wall that seems to lead further to the east.
Frankie is the first to see it, as he peeps into the open room before waving the rest of you in, but the view from the small window reveals the entirety of a very large chamber below. This massive room’s most striking feature is its thirty-foot-high vaulted ceiling, decorated with faded frescoes of storm clouds. Motes of flickering light occasionally flash into being within the painted thunderheads, giving the imperfect impression of watching a distant storm.
Centered on the north wall of the chamber is a massive sculpture of a wrathful feminine face, mouth open in a silent roar. The sculpted curls of her wild hair seamlessly merge with the painted storm clouds above, creating the impression that the howling face emerges from a storm-filled sky. On the room’s south side is a similarly positioned face, resembling an ancient, bearded man. From between his defiantly clenched teeth issues a trickle of murky fluid, which runs down the knotted coils of his beard to pool onto the stone floor, which has been cut to resemble a fanciful variety of coastlines and islands, each raised an inch above the rest of the stone surface.
The fluid pouring onto the floor fills the low-lying areas between these “islands,” which function as eccentrically positioned stepping stones across the center of the room. The water and islands create another illusion - that of looking out across a great reflective seascape from the peak of an incredibly high mountain.
The grandeur of the room is somewhat undone by the two makeshift worktables positioned in its center, surrounded by benches and stools. The worktables are littered with a variety of small objects, statues, bits of pottery, and assorted relics. On the east side of the room, a split staircase leads to a wide platform ten feet above the floor, where a similarly cluttered worktable stands. Sturdy wooden doors are set into the east and west walls.
The chamber is also very much occupied. Six sallow youths dressed in Twincandles colors work silently at the two tables, using soft brushes to clean and sort the bits of ephemera laid before them. Several of what must be Terliss' men oversee the work from the raised dais on the room’s eastern end, each dressed in a chain shirt and bearing a crossbow.
As Frankie goes to inspect the secret door on the opposite side of the small room you're currently in, he doesn't detect any traps or anything else amiss. But as he carefully cracks it open to have a look he's greeted by the sight of piles and piles of stone rubble that look to be impassable.
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Meredith comes to take a look. First she smiles, impressed with the mural's beauty...
But then she bares her teeth as she watches the overseers. Frankie could have wound up like this. She backs up.
"I can turn a few of us invisible. It will end once you attack, but we won't be a sitting duck on the approach." She turns to her friends. "Unless someone has a better plan..."
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Zirt stands quietly, staring at the inscriptions and tilting her head this way and that, clearly deep in thought. Finally, after at least a full thirty seconds, the little gnome shakes her head. "These don't make any sense," she opines. "'May the lightning raze the lands of my enemies'? What does that even mean?! Was this some temple created after two warring lands were forced to make peace with each other, but neither one wanted to and so they left this as a permanent monument to their war? Or perhaps two brothers, sons of a great king who split his kingdom..."
"Zirt, there are innumerable storm and destruction-based dieties, perhaps it is one of them they beseech?" Vosk suggests with a shrug.
"I've a nasty spell to open up with as well, but your invisibility is best served on the others!"
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Quang Chi kneels down by the mouth-window and leans over Frankie's shoulder to take a good look at the strange room. He nods to Frankie and jerks his head to signal that they should move back into the main hallway to discuss tactics.
"I am concerned that there may be some kind of magical or ancient mechanical trap in the room. I cannot imagine how or what, but the inscriptions give me pause. Perhaps humility is required to pass safely," he adds with a shrug.
Or maybe I'm just worrying too much. Maybe my desire to return home after this mission could be making me overly cautious.
"That said, I think it best for me to stay up here and simply pick them off."
Frankie tries really hard to squeeze himself through the rubble in this newest passageway but finds that nooks and crannies and cracks are too small, even for him.
Maybe there's another way to wherever it might lead?
Denair manages to keep herself from bouncing giddy at the idea. Meredith just sighs and casts Invisibility on Denair, then Frankie.
Once everyone is ready, Meredith casts Shield on herself.