Grethe and Kimiya find nothing out of the ordinary in their searches and head to join Velen who makes an announcement he's found a "a bell" in the chapel.
Alrathien detects magic as he had hoped he would, confirming his suspicion that this is much more than a regular bell. Using his vision he finds an inscription that reads Through obedience we find peace.
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"Ah, Alrathien sees that there is indeed magic here. And see, the inscription reads Through obedience we find peace. It seems that this may indeed be the bell we were sent to look for."
Alrathien dropped his pack and pulled out a stick of charcoal and some thin paper. Then, he started forward to make rubbings of the bell.
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Grethe joins the gang in the room while Alrathien copies the inscriptions on the bell. He stands there, staring at the bell when suddenly "Guys guys! Dis bell he said makes dem persons do what it says to right? RIGHT???? How dis work?"
Grethe slams the hilt of his greatsword on the bell causing a loud ring. As the bell lets out a loud booming ring, he turns to Jeffrey and says "Stand on your head!"
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Grethe starts laughing hysterically at both Kimiya and Jeffrey attempt the handstand. Listening to Jeffrey he then gets down and attempts to do a split.
Ahhhhhhhhh an orcs legs are not supposed to bend like dat!
After attempting the split he falls over landing on his ass letting out another overbearing laugh.
He looks up towards Alrathien. Hey Robey! You almos finished dere?
Alrathien wraps ups rubbing one off and joins the group once more. They set forth to check out the remainder of the area and head north into the prison yard. Rusted, iron flakes dust the ground around a series of thick gates. Within the keep’s yard, four derro corpses surround an insectile quadruped. Countless barbed crossbow bolts penetrate the strange beast’s hide, and where its head should be, thick ichors moisten the ground around two separated feathered antennae. Dozens of rats feed on the dead and scurry about the yard.
The party splits up and loots the derros’ corpses and gain the following bounty: four suits of leather armor, four short swords, four repeating light crossbows, and 40 poisoned bolts (Medium spider venom). Jeffrey moves forward to check the door to the next room when a hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone explodes up from the earth, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes.
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Grethe yells out to the party. Der is some dirty, uhhh, rocky, uhh dirty rock guy here! He does not look happy.
Grethe continues to delay until the creature takes a move.
Grethe readies an attack in case the creature advances into range. If the creature does not move on his turn, grethe will 5' in and then attack.
Grethe bides his time, waiting for the creature to move.
Velen moves up and readies an action to attack if it comes in range, his swords at his side.
Jeffrey's hammer blast into the rock creature and punches a hole clean through to the other side that sends stones and earth exploding all around it. The creature seems not to notice and prepares to move forward to attack.
When the creature steps forward to strike, Grethe strikes first and finishes what Jeffrey started and obliterates the creature.
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Alrathien, still perusing his notes on the bell, looked up at the combat to see the creature fall. Shrugging, he went back to his rubbings.
"Perhaps Alrathien's friends can continue keeping the distractions to the minimum while he ponders the arcane symbology here. Extracting the nuances of the warp and weft of arcane powers isn't like swinging a sword about, after all. One wrong calculation and we could call a star into being right in this very room, and that would end all our problems quite quickly."
He gestured for the next set of doors and continued, "Lead on."
All that remains of their foe are ordinary clumps of dirt and rock.
Jeffrey opens the doors and finds that broken furniture litters the room: parts of a stool, a modest writing table battered in twain, and several smashed chairs sprawl across the keep’s wooden floor. Two sets of stairs, one in the northeast corner and one in the northwest corner.
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"It looks as if there was quite a stir here during the raid. Alrathien doubts there is any more to see here. Perhaps we should see where the stairs go? Alrathien believes, and his thoughts will likely be substantiated, that the derros would have come from an entrance below ground, as they have in our previous encounters. Shall we see if the stairs lead downwards towards our goal? Friend Jeffery, perhaps you should take the lead?"
Alrathien motions towards the nearest set of stairs.
Sounds good, though steps a 5' wide, so single file.
Both party members descend down the steps single file. They keep an eye out for danger, but both manage to miss the trap on the stairs until an arrow fires out from under a tread!
Acid dripping from its tip, the arrow buries into each of their chests.
Continuing down up the stairs, the party enters the lower level of the keep. In this area you see four large pens in the corners, constructed like containment or jail cells. Searching this room, in one cell you find a diary, and its last passage details a horrific abduction. Several pages after the last entry appear to be torn out.
Finding nothing else of interest, the party ascends to the lowermost floor. The second level of the Fair, like the room above, is stripped of nearly everything metal, leaving what was once a tangle of dank, solitary confinement cages transformed into a tumbled mess of furniture and prisoner odds and ends. A collection of broken furniture in the southeast corner suggests a struggle, and Grethe finds a splattering of blood on the floor in front of a closed door in the southeast corner of the room.
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As Jeffrey pulls the arrow from his chest and tosses it aside, Alrathien swoops down to pick it up. "Ah, ye, see the pitting? Acid for certain, though what kind would be difficult to tell without an alchemical lab. Still, it is interesting that a prison would be so outfitted, don't you think, friend Jeffrey? I mean, if you want to torture prisoners, you don't need a trap to do that. And if it's not for the prisoners, then who? Interesting, indeed."
Upon reading the diary left in the cell, Alrathien made the obvious suggestion, and once more followed Jeffrey and the others down the stairs.
"Ah! Friend Grethe found blood - and not the cool wine Alrathien was hoping for. Alrathien suggests that he and his friends prepare themselves for a sight most gruesome. Too gruesome, perhaps, to bear looking upon. Friend Jeffery should steel himself before opening the door, yes, that is what Alrathien recommends."
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as Grethe descends down the stairs, his darkvision eyes are able to pick up all the tiniest nuisances in these stairs, except of course his giant feet stepping on the clear trap sending an arrow straight towards his chest. He lets out a shout Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! in a volume that can only be that of Grethe.
When he reaches the bottom he joins the rest of the party and finds the blood splattered door. He turns to the party while ripping out the arrow from his chest. As he does, out with it comes a chunk of his flesh, and he screams in pain once again.
Uhhhh guys, dere be blood here, and its not mine
the action of ripping out the arrow causes Grethe to bleed profusely, a red fountain, all over the door.
No wait. now dere some of mine. I dun feel so gud at all.
Behind the door you find your good friend, the Crazy Painter. The Crazed Painter stands before you contently painting a large mural. The mural depicts two large snakes carrying a bell into Cassomir’s sewers and portrays in great detail what is clearly you all chasing after the snakes.
He looks to Jeffrey and smiles, "Ah! Groetus told me you would come, and he asks that you rid his shrine of the derros. But I warn you, do not interfere with his shrine or Groetus’s anger will be swift. Groetus has grander plans for me. In fact, he has grand plans for you as well. The bell was taken. They have such plans for it. They interfere with my lord’s plans and he wants them dead."
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Alrathien was indeed set to start talking, especially as his paintings had not yet arrived at the Pathfinder Lodge, but as Jeffrey rarely spoke up, the mage decided it would be good for the man to get some practice using more than three or four words together. Maybe later they could practice words with more than one syllable. Did the fighter even know what a syllable was...?
At this point, the Crazed Painter points to the floor beneath him and says, “Down, down, deeper, and down, follow my map to the underground.”
"Bell, bell, who can tell?"
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Alrathien decided to count to two, but lost patience with Jeffrey's attempts halfway there. "My good fellow, Alrathien sees that you are once again gracing this dreary place with your prodigious skills. In fact, this mural looks on par with those lovely items Alrathien purchased to decorate the halls of his lodgings recently. Now, you speak of a map, but alas, Alrathien's friends cannot see the grand design in your head. Perhaps you have painted this map on a canvas for us already? If not, perhaps Alrathien could be persuaded to become a patron, and commission you to do so."
Continuing his earlier reverie, he adds "Yes the bell. The bell was taken. They have such plans for it. You are plans for it! Hahaha!”
Turning to Alrathien he hands him a piece of paper with garble of stick figures on it and says, "Understand the map and you find the grotto."
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"This looks more like my drawing," Jeffrey comments while looking at the stick figures, "and an awful lot like what we were doing while next to the bell."
"What are those squares they're holding?" he asks the crazed painter, not really expecting a useful reply. "They're supposed to form a pattern together?"
Jeffrey turns to Alrathien. "Maybe they're dots, and each stick dude's a letter? The dots separating words?"
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"Or perhaps, the Mad Painter is, you know, quite mad. Someone is supposed to be leaving a trail of paper scraps for us to find. Perhaps Friend Jeffery wouldn't mind looking about for a way downwards from here, and for this trail of breadcrumbs that are actually not bread at all."
Alrathien began to follow his own advice, then snatched the paper back from Jeffery and looked at it some more...just in case.
"They're supposed to form a pattern together?"
The painter returns to his work and continues painting on the wall. While doing so he responds casually, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
Whom whom he is speaking and what about, he doesn't clarify.
Alrathien's cursory search of the room reveals nothing additional. There does not seem to be any obvious way down.
The painter looks over at Jeffrey questioningly, "Hmmm? Oh. Why certainly. Don't you know though, it's a trap door."
He moves off the trap door which Jeffrey opens easily revealing a ladder that descends down 5 feet into darkness. The sound of running water can be heard below.