As Illya steps across the room, the bones start to move, jerking and clicking into shape. Six skeletons, armed with scimitars and patched in bits of broken chain, rise from the bone pile.
Harken charges forward with his shield to strike at the closest skeleton...
..
"There you go! Problem solved! Oif! There are more oft these buggers!"
Irgal frets, sadness and rage rising within him. With all alacrity, he looks at the skeletons and calls out, "Erastil remove these abominations!"
Irgal takes a step back and prepares his bow.
Harken slams into the first skeleton with such force that it crumples on the spot, back into the pile of bones that scatter the room.
Irgal, after his blessing, is briefly bathed in an aura of white light, swirling with bright yellow striations. The light radiates from him in beams that touch each of the skeletons. All of them at least crack but two collapse completely, in the same manner as Harken's target.
This leaves three skeletons still standing, one of them already next to Illya. The other two move forward to engage Harken, both swinging wildly but, after his initial charge, catching him off balance. The broken scimitars both penetrate his mail, drawing blood. The remaining creature, wheels its own scimitar at Illya, but she manages to dodge sufficiently that it misses.
At the rear of the party, still by the crypt entrance, Bardan drops his pack and looks about to load his sling. But he hesitates, and starts to mumble nervously, apparently to himself:
"This ... this isn't what I signed up ... they said ... they didn't say ... Ahhh, friends, look I'm sorry but this isn't ..."
He doesn't finish his sentence. Leaving his pack on the ground, he turns and runs out of the crypt. As he does so, he passes Jaer, still waiting by the door. A look of surprised recognition passes across his face. He stops briefly, his hands held apart in a look of apologetic "what else could I do" supplication. Then he continues to run, scrambling up the path and back towards the gorge.
As the sound of combat comes to Jaer's ears, the Halfling's hand holds stiff to the handle of her as-yet-unsheathed shortsword, but holds off on withdrawing the blade.
"Skeletons?" she mutters to herself, chewing on a lip, nerves on edge. They'll handle it, she thinks, hearing Harken burst one such undead apart and Irgal introduce the rest to Erastil's cleansing light. They'll be fffiiine...
Then Bardan sprints past her, blasted coward, and the Halfling can only gawk in return. This far, and now the man turns tail? Her tongue clicks, eyes rolling in their sockets as she loosens her own pack from her shoulders with a sigh. Suppose if y' want a job doin' right...!
With a flick of the wrist, Jaer's own sling and a bullet fall into her hands, and she wastes no time in lining up a shot at their unwelcome hosts.
"Heads down in front!" she calls into the Crypt, a hint of laughter in her voice as the sling whips above her head, letting loose of its stone with a crack.
Keshys eye narrow at the sight of the bones joining to life. Watching Bardan run he clutches his curved blade in hand tighter. If his knuckle skin was visible, it would be white. For the first time his voice is actually serious.
Never scare my friends like that!
Move action
Swift action to activate Arcane strike
And standard attack...The dice hate me
Watching Bardan bolt into the distance, Ka'narg is momentarily stunned. In the years he has known the lad, cowardice has never struck him as one of Bardan's defining traits. Torn between running after Bardan or helping the rest complete their quest, he decides and hopes that once the fear subsides, Armana's training will kick in and Bardan will be able to eventually make it back to Kassen safely.
He locks gazes with the halfling in the doorframe for a moment before turning to one of the remaining skeletons and stepping towards it, swinging at it with the double axe.
Jaer's bullet zings past Irgal's ear and hits one of the skeletons in the skull, smashing it and bringing it down. Keshy's scythe cuts another in half, and, despite Illya's attack missing completely, Ka'narg brings down the last skeleton with a blow of his axe.
"I feel not well at all..."
Keshy looks over Harken who he quickly notices seems to be bleeding under and over his armor.
*deep gasp* Kenny! Quick, I have something for that. He reaches into his pack and hands Harken a CLW potion. Or rather the CLW potion, since he only has the one.
Turning to the doorway with the new arrival
Hi there! You didn't happen to see where our friend went did you?
A short cry of success flies free of the Halfling's mouth as her bullet finds its target and the rest of its bones clatter to the ground. Followed in no great deal of time by its undead fellows, Jaer tucks away her second shot and hooks an arm back through her gear before turning to the matter at hand.
"Weellll...Y' friend's sort of bolted," she explains to Keshik, thumbing over a shoulder into the wilderness beyond. "A few brittle bones and he damn near sets a landspeed record...J.J.'s gonna love that..."
Dragging along Bardan's abandoned pack a few feet into the Crypt, Jaer opens her mouth to jest that at least the coward was considerate in his retreat, but one look at Harken's wound and the Halfling is particularly disturbed. "Ow. Wow, 'kay, that looks...yeah."
"Name's Jaer," she manages, still cringing. "And for what it's worth, seems like I'm your new locksmith."
Oh. But he... Keshik looks down for a second.
Maybe, it's for the best he left, then? I guess he is safer now. He looks up smiling. The lizardman walks over to the new arrival and extends his hand for a good old fashioned shake.
Hi there! My names Keshik, but my friends call me Keshy. Everyone want to introduce yourselves?
Irgal barely stifles a chuckle as he approaches. "Hello Jaer. The name's Irgal. Fancy meeting a new face, here!"
Irgal looks Harken over, and adds, "Let me know how you feel after that draught. A quick prayer will finish healing your wounds, should any remain."
Jaer candidly takes hold of Keshy's hand with her own two, giving the Lizardman's grip a more than enthusiastic shake in return.
"Pleasure's all mine," she says, mouth breaking into a grin as she lets loose of his hands and turns to Irgal. "Aaaaa, but not too new though, Brother Zeth. My cousin speaks well of ya. As much as Jimes speaks well of anyone, at least." Her eyes glance to the piles of bone at their feet; a good portion blown apart by divine energy. "Can't imagine why."
To the rest of the party, Jaer gives a quick headcount, starting with the wounded northerner. "Harken, ye? Gregor's lad? Which would make you," she points to Ka'narg, "Lady Lastrid's other scion? I'm...sorry 'bout Bardan. J.J. did say he seemed a bit on edge, ya know? Sorta why I'm here. No one's ever failed this damn thing so...Better one fails than the lot of you."
To Illya, Jaer comes to a pause; brief and suspicious, but the Halfling has no reason to be less than cordial and soon shrugs it off. "'Too dangerous to keep around'," she sniggers, repeating words said by a mad old man of magic. "Awesome."
No big loss we don't need cowards. I'm Illya, nice to meet you She sheathes her blade smiling at the compliment
Ka'narg frowns deeply at Illya's comment about Bardan, but bites his tongue for the time being, instead making his way to the two bodies that had been encircled by the skeletons. he kneels by the first one and starts to look over the corpse for signs of what had killed him and why he may have been here, as well as for anything that might be useful for the group to continue with.
It looks like there was a fight here previously. The bodies - which have been badly damaged - are the remains of two human males, covered in similar wounds to those the skeletons inflicted on Harken, and those you saw on the animals outside. They seem to have at least put up a fight: although six skeletons rose to fight the party, there are a further two smashed sets of bones here alongside the more recent dead.
The bodies are wearing clothing similar to that worn by the citizens of Kassen. The faces seem almost familiar but you can't quite place them, especially as they have been slashed near to the point of un-recognisability. As you roll aside the first body, you are distracted from the bloody face by the glint of something underneath, attached to an otherwise empty back-pack. It's a silver lantern, similar to that used in the opening ceremony in Kassen. That lantern - the one given and collected by the mayor - had been a replica, the idea being that the group would find the real lantern - and light it - alongside the Everflame, at the centre of the crypt. It's normally not allowed to travel with the adventurers to the crypt, because it's so precious a relic to the town.
Also, as you move the first body you realise the second is also lying on top of a back-pack, apparently full.
The wailing continues to emanate from the south-east.
"Greetings little sister. Hopefully you have more iron in your blood than Barden." Harken says to the newcomer...
Ka'narg plucks up the lantern from the empty backpack, turning the silver item overin his hands. "If nobody has failed the trial, Jaer, then what do you make of these fellows?" he asks as he tosses the lantern in the direction of their newest member. "Grave-robbers, maybe?"
He turns his attention back to the second backpack, opening it and pulling its contents out slowly to place them in front of him.
Harken decides to drink the potion offered to him...
The second backpack contains a large pillow and two quivers (each in turn containing 10 blunted arrows). Beneath the pack, apparently spilled from the first, are 2 days’ worth of rations, a full waterskin and a pair of smokesticks.
Irgal looks Harken over. "No, not nearly enough. Erastil watch over you."
"Many thanks little brother. I feel better all ready." Harken says to the halfling in almost a moment of social weakness, then scruffles the clerics hair just to prove he is not getting soft.
Though caught off-guard by the toss, Jaer nevertheless manages to catch the lantern, juggling the object only once before clenching it firm in her grip and giving the item a once over. After a moment, she scratches her head. "Well...I think we can rule out a genuine party. Kassen'd never know the end of it were that true. Pillagers though..."
At that Jaer comes closer, inspecting the bodies with her own eyes and a raised brow. "There's...been some talk. Bandits in the region, or something like it. Figured they'd long cast their anchors outta here myself but...J.J.'s got it in his head that the Woodcutters and their lot had some kind of business. Maybe something stuck around?" She shrugs, rubbing dust from the silver lantern in her hands. "And I mean if you'll raid a body while it's warm, an old crypt must seem easy picking, ey?"
or once again it could just be a trap or trick to scare us, do you really think Gregor or the other town guards would let bandits defile the crypt? We should keep moving that wailing needs to be stopped
As the group around him discuss the situation, Ka'narg places the one of the two smokesticks into his backpack as well as the additional trail rations, and pushes the two quivers of arrows and remaining smokestick to Irgal. "These might come in handy for you," he says quietly, not wanting to disrupt the conversation around him.
He picks up the water skin and tips it, squeezing a little of the contents into his hand before sniffing at it. He dabs his finger into it and presses his finger to his tongue, attempting to determine if the water skin is useable to supplement their own water stocks. "Agreed - we should investigate it at least, and determine whether it can be stopped."
"Now that we are all ready shall we continue?"
Is it me, or would our packs just weigh us down at this point? We're leaving this way, right? Keshik asks Ka'Narg, him seeming the most experienced survivalist in the group.
Otherwise, we should carry on. Should I do rear guard? More generally asked this time.
"If I were certain that these two," Ka'narg says, indicating to the two bodies at his feet, "did not have friends who might come in here behind us, I would say we could leave our packs behind with relative safety. But for now, we should keep them with us."
He takes a swig of water from the bandit's waterskin, passing it around to the rest of the group. "The waters fine, which means they weren't here long. And the wailing that Illya is intent on investigating is beyond the door to the back, I believe. So we should get this done so that we can make sure Bardan is ok. Even with Armana's training, he won't last long in the wilds without a tent or blanket."
"Or with a backbone..." mutters Harken...
Ka'narg stops short and narrows his eyes, jutting his jaw forward as he grinds his teeth together. "Focus on the job at hand, Harken." His voice is low and rumbles like a peal of thunder in the distance, and has none of his usual friendly tone. "Whatever his reasons for running, Barden is still a friend and may need help when we are done with this place."
Having latched the silver lantern to her pack, Jaer draws out a short roll of leather from the bag, sliding it open to reveal a kit worthy of any reasonably worthy locksmith, all meticulously ordered and shined to a mirror finish. Stuffing the collection into her belt for ease of access, the Halfling unsheathes her sword with a flourish, declining Ka'narg's offer of water but thanking him nonetheless.
"On that note, if we're all set; I volunteer the vanguard," she announces with pride, juggling her blade from hand to hand, eager to get on before their martially inclined comrades fall pray to each other, never-mind the crypt. "Smaller figures cast fewer shadows and all that."
The door to the southeast is unlocked. Beyond it is a large chamber, containing a maze of pillars that obscure the far side of the room. Next to the door from the entry hall, on the inside of the pillared room, is a pile of empty saddlebags and three brooms.
The faint wailing can still be heard, roughly to the south of this chamber, but obviously not in the chamber itself.
No more fighting. Whats done is done. Moving now. Keshy speaks abruptly, indicating to the direction of the wailing sound.
Irgal takes the smokestick and offers to carry the rest of Bardan's pack. "We won't need the extra tent and blanket, necessarily, but waste not, want not."
Eyeing the brooms, Irgal adds, "Is there something to sweep here, perchance?"
"Suppose if we're followin' that racket to the source..." Seeing the pillar ridden space, Jaer stops for a moment, a hand once again rifling through her backpack until she finds what it is she seeks: an odd, well-battered pole in three parts, which she screws together with ample familiarity.
As Irgal makes his comment on the brooms, Jaer cracks a smirk, one end of the large pole against her shoulder, the other touching the space that they might walk over in front. "That's what we're gonna find out!" she says, explaining, "My eyes are good, not perfect. Jimes once pulled a pressure plate prank on me. Got stuck with a six week sprain and a broken toe. Never been in the interest of an encore with that one."
As you continue on the lower path, Jaer suddenly notices a pit trap in front of her. The pit is impassable and the group will need to take a different route. The pit is about 10 feet deep and Jaer can clearly see that a number of pillows have been placed at the bottom. Additionally, in the alcove to the south, a switch plate in the floor is clearly visible.
This could just be another illusion, more tricks and traps
Nothing, for now, let move
"Why put pillows in a trap....does not make much sense to me..."
"Well ain't that charmin'," Jaer mutters in respect of the fluff-endowed trap. The pressure plate she's curious for, and draws out a tool to disarm the trigger, just in case.
Jaer tries to disable the plate, but can't figure out the mechanism. It seems to be linked to other devices, through various cables running through the ceiling, and which can't be reached without dismantling the ceiling.
Turning, Jaer fails to notice a second pit trap on her new route, and the second pit opens before her. Lucky she was using the pole: she feels the floor ahead giving way before actually being over it, and manages to jump out of the way.
This pit is again impassable, and again the bottom is padded with a mound of pillows, apparently there to soften the blow for anyone falling.
"Yikes!" Jaer exclaims, backing away before the second pit sends her tumbling down.
"Figures that'd be the case..." she says, rolling a sleeve with determination as she doubles back. Thinking about it, she could probably leap the distance herself...but looking at the brick wall that is Harken, she doesn't see that being too practical a solution.
...There's gotta be a clear path through here...
The group doubles back and takes the next eastward path. A few steps along, Jaer notices a further pit trap - this one hasn't been triggered and could potentially be disabled (such that it wouldn't fall through, and therefore would be passable).
She also notices a similar untriggered trap to the south. Beyond that, Jaer can see a door, potentially out of the maze, but it's closed. The wailing seems to be coming from some way beyond this door.