"Ugh." Yasu grunts, looking around for an improvised weapon.
half damage
half damage
Yasu looks around for an improvised weapon and finds a good sized branch that might be good.
Laufey advances next to Wenona and swings at the skeleton that emerged from the wall. Unfortunately, she hits an abnormally slick patch on the ground and her attack goes wide as she recovers her balance.
Isabella moves forward and prays to Reymenda, sending forth a burst of pure holy energy. The two visible skeletons shudder, but seem to hold together. The scratching noise being made behind the illusory wall by the other stops entirely.
Skeleton 1 1/4
Skeleton 2 1/4
Skeleton 3 Dead
"Hah!" Wenona makes a shout of effort as she swings her fist at the skeleton before her a second time.
Talia holds the club and carefully moves up to the last Skeleton.
Rasmorn moves forward a little (though not very far, because ick), and stops about 25ft away from the closest skeleton. As he does so, his wall slowly fades from existence. He points a finger at the skeleton and causes a glob of acid to fire at the creature.
With a shout of effort, Wenona swings her fist at the skeleton again, this time towards its midsection. Unfortunately, she misses the ribs and goes to the side of the spine.
Talia carefully moves in on the skeletons and swings the borrowed club. Unfortunately, her unfamiliarity with the weapon causes her to miss the intended target.
Rasmorn moves forward a bit, although he finds the walking dead repugnant, and flicks a glob of acid at one of them. It hits and dissolves a bit of spinal column, causing the creature to collapse into a pile of bones as the illusory wall slowly fades from existence, revealing another pile of bones from the other trapped skeleton.
The lone standing skeleton lashes out at Wenona and Laufey with scimitar and claw, missing each of them.
Skeleton 1 1/4
Skeleton 2 Dead
Skeleton 3 Dead
Laufey swipes at the remaining skeleton with her club.
Yasu finds an opening to slip into the tomb and hops into attack range, bringing his weight and considerable strength into the swing. The club hits with considerable force.
Isabella pauses to see if she needs to keep anyone on their feet.
Yasu finds an opening to strike at the remaining skeleton, smacking the undead creature's head so hard it flies off and bounces off the wall before rolling to a stop. The remaining bones collapse into a heap. As you watch, the three skeletal remnants slowly fade away, as though to nothing.
The rest of the mausoleum seems to be undisturbed apart from the one overturned coffin and a black robe lying crumpled on the floor. The coffin lid says "Father Ezakia Tobyn". The remains that were within the coffin are gone.
"That is strange." Laufey mutters while looking around the dim room. "Why would the bones disappear? If they were created from the dead would the bones not remain? If the skeletons were created from the remains in here, whose? Only one tomb is opened"...
"Quite strange" Rasmorn agrees. "Perhaps they were summoned?" He looks again to the robe on the floor. He casts a spell while looking at it, then examines it for a few seconds.
"The door was opened from the outside, right? So... someone took them?"
Wenona eyes the empty coffin, holding her chin in her hand as she thinks.
"I'm no goblin expert, but this feels awfully odd for them. I mean, you saw 'em running hog wild through the town, this place should have busted coffins and bones everywhere."
You are able to ascertain, based on the faint, lingering magical aura, that this was a robe of bones. The aura is fading, however, and it will likely be only a very nice black robe shortly.
Sheriff Hemlock looks concerned. "Father Tobyn's remains have been stolen? Truly there are dark tidings afoot. I will tell Father Zantus. If you are able to find anything else, please let me know."
Talia nods at the Sheriff's request.
Giving the area a search.
"Hey Yasu, I know we've messed the room up, but can you check for tracks?"
Rasmorn bends and picks up the robe, running the fine material through his fingers. "This was once an item of necromantic magic known as a Robe of Bones. It allows it's wearer to summon a fixed number of undead, after which it returns to a normal robe. So, it would appear that someone snuck in here, and took the precaution of summoning up a personal army to guard them while they did. I wonder why those three were left behind?"
The gnome turns his attention to investigating the rest of the tomb with the others, particularly paying attention to the empty coffin, to see if there were any clues left behind there.
"Hey Yasu, I know we've messed the room up, but can you check for tracks?"
"I can try." he says resolutely. Deciding to keep this club for later refinement and weaponization.
Despite the fact that the party had messed up the dust and it was stone, you are able to determine that the Medium-sized humanoid definitely came in here, along with the six Goblins, and walked up to Father Tobyn's coffin before leaving. The skeletons have likely been sitting in here since the raid last night, and likely would have attacked the first person to walk in.
You find a broken dogslicer under the disturbed coffin. Clearly Goblins were in here.
The only part of the tomb that is disturbed is Father Tobyn's coffin. All of the rest of the coffins are untouched, as though whoever - or whatever - did this was specifically looking at this one coffin.
Talia waves the broken Dogslicer around for the other to see. "Not that we really needed any confirmation." She says dryly.
"There was a medium humanoid here." Yasu declares, standing from the tracks in the floor. "Came up to the coffin. left."
"So someone other than the goblins. Possibly the architect of all of this. Was the goblin invasion just a distraction?"
"What is the importance of this priest? If a body was needed for some reason, why not a new one? Or, if one was needed from the cemetery, why not just sneak in and take an easier one to get at night? The attack as a distraction for this seems like a lot of effort for very little unless he was a powerful man? Was he entombed with great wealth?"
While Father Tobyn was well-respected by the townsfolk, he could hardly be called a "powerful man". Nor was he buried with any wealth in particular, as he was not one to accumulate a great deal of such, and any he did have was likely destroyed in the fire that consumed the previous temple.
Isabella shakes her head. "Father Tobyn was not really powerful or wealthy... just a parish priest, really. A... stern man. Respected, but not loved, if that makes sense."
She looks over at the scraps of the robe of bones and says, "He never collected wealth for himself -- the cathedral wasn't built until after his demise, remember; the town had just a small temple before. But... someone spent a lot of effort on getting in here and used up a valuable magical item to leave something dangerous in their wake."
"That means this wasn't about money. It was personal."
Isabella frowns, thinking, but can't seem to deduce anything more.
Wenona chuckles in response to Isabella's supposition: "That's a hell of a vendetta, to hire a gang of ankle-biters. How stern was Tobyn?"
And who would have such an overwhelming hate for him that they would be happy to attack a town full of people just to hide what they were really doing?" Talia asks Isabella.
"In fact who would hate Sandpoint that much? It would have been easy just to slip in and take the body. Whoever it was wanted Sandpoint hurt as well."
"Could it have something to do with the new cathedral? Perhaps they wanted to cause as much chaos as they could on opening day, ruin the ceremonies, and then tarnish the memory of a respected priest to boot? Note they also left the skeletons behind; presumably to hurt anybody who happened in here. More questions than answers here, really."
"Father Tobyn was a nice man. He was one of the few who took care of me when I was sick as a child." Yasu adds. "Though I spent most of my life on the farm outside of town so I don't know much about him other than that."
Laufey searches her memory for anything her mother might have mentioned about possible necromantic uses for a priest's remains but can think of nothing.
"Yes, very mysterious."
"I don't know..." says Isabella. "Father Tobyn was stern, but generous. He was very... driven. Rule-oriented. Strict, but fair, and he tried to help people, serve as a good leader and example of adhering to the expectations of society. I can't quite figure this out, but someone must have had a reason."
"Perhaps we should go talk to Father Zantus, and see if he can give us any additional insights."
Having examined the tomb and found more questions than answers, your little group heads back to the Cathedral. There, a white-faced acolyte admits you and takes you into the chapel of Desna, where Father Zantus rises from prayer and turns to face you.
"Thank you for coming to investigate the tomb. I worry what may have happened to one of the acolytes had they been the ones to stumble upon it. We don't typically carry weapons here, and those abominations may have caused as much fear as the Goblins did. Let us adjourn to a more comfortable location."
He leads you to a small sitting area after instructing the acolyte to bring some tea. The chairs are comfortable, although by no means are they luxurious. Bidding you to take a seat, he says, "The Sheriff told me that Father Tobyn's remains had been stolen. Were you able to find any further evidence of who may have taken them?"
"Yeah." Yasu relays what he found. "Many goblin tracks, plus one set of tracks belonging to a humanoid of some sort; had on footwear. About our size. They came for the priests bones, and near as I can tell did it while we were under attack."
-Posted with Wayfinder
"Also, since they left behind those animated skeletons as guards, they were clearly possessed of notable resources and willing to use them. This person knew what they wanted, knew where to get it, and was ready to deploy uncommon magic to do so," adds Isabella.
Laufey listens as the others discuss the findings with the priest.
Not what I came for, but this is beginning to seem like an interesting mystery itself
Rasmorn sits down in the offered chair. "Quite comfortable chair, sir, I quite enjoy it." Sipping from the offered tea, he lets out a low sigh. "and this tea is fantastic."
Listening to the others report, he simply sits there and nods along, seemingly content to just enjoy the experience. After Isabella mentions the skeletons, he adds:
"They left behind the tool used to summon the skeletons, a robe of bones, which had been completely expended; an uncommon and valuable tool to use for such a task, and unusual, particularly with goblin guards already present and no resistance given. Why not wait to summon the beasts only if they were needed? And why leave them behind?" The gnome frowns ever so slightly in puzzlement over this.
Wenona sipped her tea, fidgeting in her seat as the others talked. Sussing out the mysterious plot they had stumbled upon was important, but until someone asked her to hit something she didn't have much to contribute to the conversation.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"They left the Skeletons for two reasons as far as I can see." Talia speaks up, looking around hopefully for cakes or cookies to go with the tea?
When she sees none she pouts a little. "Firstly they seem to hold a great deal of spite for Sandpoint and this chapel. They wanted to cause harm to whoever found the theft. Which as you have told us would most likely have been an unarmed acolyte."
Sipping her tea. "And secondly, leaving Goblins would have gone badly. How long before the little pests got bored and wandered to cause trouble. Drawing attention to the theft too early. Skeletons are mindless, they could be trusted to wait as long as required."
Drinking down the last of his tea, and setting the cup down with a content sigh, Rasmorn asks "So where do we go from here? Do we have any means to track down the ones responsible for this theft?"
Wenona turns to Yasu. "You seem to have a knack for tracking. Do you think we'd be able to follow whatever goblins managed to retreat back to where they crawled out of?"
"It is likely they came from one of the local goblin tribes in the area. Which one it was, and where they are... well, I don't know. But we can try to find out. Yes." Yasu answers.
"Do you think you might be able to find them? I fear for whatever madness they might attempt with Father Tobyn's remains."
Yasu nods resolutely. "I will get on it." he assures. "Unless there's anything else, I'll get on it rightaway."
-Posted with Wayfinder
Laufey looks about at the others and the conversation winds down.
"Are we done here?" she asks as she stands up.
The gnome hops down off his chair and says "Thank you for the lovely tea, Father. We'll see to these bones right away." He then looks to Yasu, ready to follow him out.
Yasu moves steadily but not necessarily quickly along the tracks, following them with a focus that blocks out everything going on around him. He starts to follow them out of the town, moving forward cautiously once they lead into any kind of wilderness.
Exiting out the North Gate, Yasu walks along the wall until he finds the spot where the ladder was used to climb over the wall. Finding the tracks. He carefully follows them through the thickly wooded forest, carefully following them as they lead north, paralleling but not stepping on the Lost Coast Road.
Low is encounter.
Will-o-wisp is too deadly. Reroll!
Dire bat...that doesn't make sense. One more!
Goblin dogs!