Quinn heads to the southeast door and asks Mathias "Is it safe?"
The door easily opens.
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 hit 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.
Quinn walks over to the hole minding his footing as he gets near the edge to look in.
Caelynn stepped foreword, hand outstretched. "Careful Quinn, don't get too close. After the doors and stand I don't think we should risk too much by a large dark hole." Caelynn said.
Quinn looks down the hole and sees three flames about the size of a torch head. The seem to be about 20 feet down in the darkness. The light reveals a stone floor strewn with debris.
Mathias walks up to the hole before peering down. "Ominous" Mathias looks over at the group "So what are thinking? Do we descend the pit or do we try some other doors?"
"I say we finish the doors first." Caelynn answered as she crossed her arms. "But then again I'm not too keen on jumping down there."
"I would agree lass, don't be needin' anythin' creepin' up on us from behind when descending into the unknown." Burgen states while folding his arms across his chest.
Rego enters the rom after his search of the podium.
Looking around the room he seeks a place to set up his grapple for a climb down into the hole.
"I'll set up my rope and grappling hook while the rest of you search the place, if you run into trouble call out, if I see anything down there I'll do likewise. If something is down there, I don't want that creeping up one us, we've got the advantage of the high ground, let's not abandon it. Course, I'll not drop the rope down till you all arrive back here once more".
Quinn voices his concerns to Rego "We shouldn't split up, and I don't want your grappling hook to go missing because some ghost or cultist has sticky fingers. We should wait to set that up for when we are ready to descend. First though lets give this room a more thorough look."
"Splitting up in this place is likely a bad idea."
A search of the room reveals nothing of value.
"I think that settles it, well explore the rest of the prison first before decending." Mathias moves back into the the room with two unopened doors, avoiding the podium as he goes.
Fallowing Mathias, Quinn suggests "There's not much prison left this way. We should finish that first." With a jerk of the thumb he indicates the south east door.
Quinn indicate the solid metal door that remains quite sound.
The door is locked.
Rego shrugs and follow along, "As you all wish, I suppose I am so used to be alone that I had not thought anything odd about splitting up..."
As the group approaches the door Rego shakes his head, "If we cannot pick the lock any chance we could simply knock it down?"
"I can open it, it'll just take me some time."
Mathias retrieves his thieves tool set from his bag, then begins working on the door
"If we break it the building may come down on top if us." Caelynn pointed out. "Let Mathias do his work." She said with a small nod.
Mathias takes a few minutes and gets the door unlocked. Inside you find a bizarre collection of antique goods resting on wooden shelves that line the room. Most of the items have tiny tags with labels written in careful script.
Quinn asks the group at large "What are the odds its haunted and all those fly around and hit you like in a tornado?"
"A fair likely thing." Caelynn said with a solid nod.
Perception checks all around please.
Quinn eyes the room suspiciously.
Nothing seems to be haunted. This is the obviously the property room of the prison. The tags on the items show the owners name, the date they entered the prison, and the date that they would have been released.
Most of it is mundane items but a careful search finds the following items to be of some value:
Set of Masterwork Thieves Tools
Bronze War Medallion from the Shining Crusade (40 gp)
Unframed Taldon painting of Stavian I (100 gp)
Silver hair clips (35 gp)
MW punching dagger
Pouch of 12 MW Shurikens
MW silver war razor
Wand of Lesser Restoration with 12 charges
Mathias and Ingrid both notice a secret vault door in the east wall.
Mathias moves over to the east wall "There's a hidden door here."
"Hay, my old teacher might like this."Quinn says picking up the Bronze Medallion.
He also takes the war razor, Shuriken, and punching dagger if no one else takes them.
The vault door opens easily and you find that there are 5 items located inside. Each is tagged with a date, the owner, and a description of the owners crime.
The Looper's bloodstained axe (+1 handaxe)
Father Charlantan's collection of holy symbols. The collection of 12 represents all of the major faiths. The collection is tangled together with a silver chain that cannot seem to be untangled.
The Splaterman's moldy spellbook.
The Mosswater Maurader's Smith's Hammer. (MW light hammer/+2 to crafting skill checks)
The Piper of Illmarsh's tarnished silver flute.
Burgen comes over to examine the contents of the vault, coming to stand behind Mathias. He spots the hammer and whistles in appreciation. "Tha' there hammer is a work o' art." Burgen states, "Iffin' no one else objects, I'll be takin' that."
Watch it, that hammer might be cursed you know..
"Let me see if so." Caelynn said as she stepped foreword and moved the vial from her marked eye. She blinked twice before looking at all of the items before her.
"Ingrid may have been correct." Caelynn said as she covered her eye once more. "There is a necromantic aura around each of these items. I do not suggest picking any of them up."
Quinn asks "Is it one necromantic aura over all of them, or a different one for each object?"
"Hmmmm, this be quite the conundrum. I don't be thinkin' we should leave any o' these lyin' about, but it seems that grabbin' may cause us further trouble," Burgen states, his arms crossed and brows furrowed.
"He's a question for us to pawnder; Will we need evil to fight evil here?
Cause for all we know these cursed items could be a bane to themselves?"
"Evil only begets more evil and I've never heard of a good curse. If those items are cursed or evil we should destroy them or leave them be tell we safely can.",Quinn says. It is hard to tell from his inflection whether this was an opinion or instruction.
"We may not have the power to destroy them." Caelynn pointed out. "As each has its own aura, I'd need more time to try and figure them out. So for now I suggest we leave them be."
True, evil begets evil.
But also look at it like this;
A righteous Knight slays an group of bandits,
After killing them all the Knight has done evil by killing the bandits.
Just as a Evil bandit group takes out another evil bandit group brings out a good result.
Something that is Good can be used for ill, something used for Ill can be used for good.
It is the actions and will of the user that determines whether something is for good or ill.
Rego cocks his head as the group investigates the cursed items, "Perhaps we can use these items to speak with the Haunts that curse this town?"
Quinn responds to Ivy,"If the knight acted righteous and had to kill the bandits with only good intentions, Then I contend it was not an evil act to kill them. If the bandits killed more bandits and,it was with evil such as greed or malice in the bandits hearts they have not gotten rid of evil only taken it upon themselves to commit it. If the righteous knight kills the bandits with evil in his heart then it will be that much easier to kill anyone not just the unrepentantly evil. If the bandits kill each other it is just more death. But we both agree that intent maters. What nice warm intentions can a man have for using magic that spits in the face of nature, and the goddess Pharasma?"
"Intent is only half of it, The Action itself is the other half.
Every intent and action for good or evil has both good and evil in it, for one can not exist without the other."
"I enjoy a good philosophical debate as much as the next man, but this may not be the best environment to discuss this." Mathias says examining the items "I think I stand with Caelynn and Quinn on this issue. Someone with understanding of the arcane could probably tell us, but as is they're unknown quantities that i'm not willing to gamble on." Mathias then steps out of the room to keep watch