Shadow: With the singleminded determination of the undead, the shadow keeps focussing on Araklifest.
At the shadow's touch, Araklifest feels the strength draining out of his body.
Heir: Manages to connect to...something... with his right paw, but it seems to barely damage the shadow.
Initiative round 2
Jurgen
Araklifest
Zoma-Khat
Shadow
Jurgen and Araklifest are up.
Please make a fortitude save before your actions.
The smoke is starting to get real irritated. If you do not make the save you are overcome with coughing fits (treat as nauseated) for 1d4 rounds
Jurgen: Continues his song, bolstering his allies. But the pain in his hand is distracting, and he misses the shadow.
Araklifest: Is sure he'd piereced the creature trough the heart... only to discover that it doesnt have a heart.
Zoma-khat:
Shadow: Unrelenting, the shadow reaches out to Araklifest again.
Initiative round 2
Jurgen 3 damage
Araklifest
Zoma-Khat
Shadow 15 damage
Jurgen and Araklifest are up!
Jurgen plunges the dagger into the heart of the shade. It writhes for a moment, then dissipates.
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Even further weakened by the second touch of the shadow, Araklifest stands for a moment to gather his wits on this. He turns to the others: "I feel strangely weakened. Does one of you has a spell or a potion to fight this weakness?" While he waits for an answer he then looks at what they had found in the fire.
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"I don't... those are pretty expensive potions. Hopefully it'll pass in time."
Jurgen looks around the room, noting no other exits.
"A dead end.. Well, at least we were able to destroy that abomination, maybe give this guy some rest?"
Jurgen carefully tries to get the remains of the corpse out of the fire, using Prestidigitation to clean and cool stuff. Then he examines it, looking for any identifying marks or gear.
Jurgen carefully sifts trough whatever is left in the fire. With respect he places the brittle bones to the side. Nothing identifying remains. But perhaps if the bones are brought back to the village, a priest could tell more.
The only item that has survived the fire is a key.
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"I don't recognize him.. and by the tally we have, we're only short a girl. I'm no expert in reconstructing skeletons, but I'm thinking this might have been a He. So people were in here and then everything went to hell. And it got our people killed." A certain finality creeps into Jurgen's voice. "I intend to find out who is responsible for this."
He picks up the key and examines it.
[b]"I wonder where it leads? Somewhere inside this crypt maybe? There was a door, behind that suspicious-looking statue. Maybe it's meant for that?"[b]
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Jurgen considers for a while
"We could go to the statue room, it's sort of at the back. It's where I'd put a tunnel downward I suppose. But with all the cushions, it's like my folks had a particular route planned through this place. Maybe we'll miss out on something important if we try to cut straight to the finish. I think we should go through the other door in the front room."
And seeing that nobody else is very decisive he drives everyone in that direction.
In the center of this room is a large pool of clear water, fed by a fountain on the wall above it. The fountain has a stone statue of a weeping maiden holding the slain body of Kassen, but his head has been broken off and is nowhere to be seen. A voice booms out from the darkness, saying, “Magic is the key.” The voice slowly fades, leaving a dreadful silence.
There are two doors in the south wall.
There is a clear magic aura above the door. Studying it for a moment, you think its a magic mouth spell.
Sending lights down into the pool, Jurgen finds that it is surprisingly deep. It appears to go down about 40 feet. Its hard to make out exactly trough the moving water, but there are definitely items scattered on the bottom.
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"I wonder if there's anything down there that's important? 40ft deep pools don't just appear for no reason. I think with my breastplate I'm heavy enough to sink to the bottom but I could use some assistance getting back to the surface again."
Jurgen starts taking out some rope so he can be helped back up and improvising some plugs for his ears. He also tosses down a pebble with a Light cantrip on it down there so he'll have light to work with.
Then he thinks of something.
"The voice said magic was important and this room has only one big feature in it to interact with. I mean, there's two doors but they're not magical. So I think we're supposed to investigate the pool with magic..."
He casts Detect Magic and peers into the pool, looking for auras apart from his pebble.
Checking out the pool from above, nothing appears magical, but the items on the bottom are too far away for the detect magic spell.
The water in the pool is very cold. With his armor, Jurgen is heavy enough to slowly but steadily sink to the bottom.
The bottom of the pool is covered in dozens of keys of all shapes and sizes. Using the light off the pebble Jurgen investigates.
Bobbing around at the bottom, Jurgen starts scanning the keys with Detect magic.
One of them clearly gives off a magical aura. Picking it up, Jurgen gives a few tugs on the rope to signal that he wants to be pulled up.
Even with the aid of the rope, Jurgen struggles with the last 10 feet, but after a few seconds more, manages to surface.
The key from the pond is magical. The other key you found is mundane.
They both differ in style, most likely made by different blacksmiths.
The two doors are simple, without markings or decoration. Nothing hints at which key should be used at which door.
Finding no traps, Jurgen tries both keys in the door. The key found in the fire clicks and the door unlocks.
A small stone bench sits in the center of this dusty chamber. On the far wall is a faded mural depicting the hero Kassen defeating the mercenaries at the entrance to this crypt, with his blade piercing the chest of the mercenary leader. These figures stand alone in the center of a scene of carnage, with dead villagers and mercenaries all around them.
Jurgen notices that both Kassen and the mercenary leader are wearing golden necklaces, each made up of a simple golden chain, from which hangs an oddly shaped medallion. While not identical, the amulets look similar.
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"Hunh. I don't remember the story exactly.. Kassen was an adventurer of some kind, made his fortune, and then settled down to found the village. And I think he had a big falling-out with one of his mates..." He points at the mural "I was a bit young at the time so I don't understand the whole thing. I wonder what the significance of the amulet is?"
After giving the room a good look he moves further down the hallway to study the next door. If there's nothing threatening about it, he'll push it open a bit to look into the room.
Opening the door, Jurgen sees a single pillar in the center of the room that supports a wide, domed chamber. The pillar is surrounded by a pit, but a stone bridge crosses the pit on the south side. Dozens of arrows jut from holes in the pillar, facing every direction.
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"Yeah, it does look rather suspicious doesn't it? Home and Family are our shield? Sounds like that's the intended setup. Do you think we can just grab them from the statue?"
Jurgen consults a quick sketch of the layout of the crypt he'd been making ("report").
"So do you think the western door leads from the pool room to the statue room? It's a bit weird if we can just walk around it like that, feels like we're missing part of the puzzle. Maybe there's something in there we need to properly handle the statue?"
Jurgen leads the group to face the other door, subjecting it to the usual inspection.
Inspecting the door reveals nothing out of the ordinary. The key Jurgen retrieved from the bottom of the pool unlocks it.
Carefully opening the door, you see a long corridor flanked by a row of human statues, set into alcoves on each side. The statues look like Kassen, and each one holds a longsword out in front of it. The blades of
roughly half the statues are wrapped in leather padding.
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Jurgen looks hard at the statues, trying to figure out what the point is.
"Well, if that other room looked like a trap, so does this one. My folks padded some of those swords, so they clearly do something. But they were also not entirely done putting cushions in all the pits. So I'm not sure the ones with bare swords here won't do anything. And I'm not going to bare my neck to those swords walking under them. Let's take the long safe way around, we can come back here if it turns out we're missing something that could be hidden here."
He looks puzzled.
"I just don't really understand the purpose of this corridor, since there's that other way around."
Then he sheperds them the long way around into the room with the shield statue.
"I'm totally expecting something to happen any moment.." as he pauses with the group on the higher platform, waiting to see if he statue will come after them.
One half of this lofty chamber has a lowered floor, with stairs on either side to reach the bottom. Standing opposite the door is a tall wooden statue of Kassen grasping a gigantic wooden shield in each hand. One of the shields is inscribed with the word “home,” while the other reads “family.”
Standing at the edge of the stairs, nothing happens.
You make your way down the stairs.
The moment Jurgen touches the bottom, the head of the statue turns. There is a loud click, and the steps rotate, forming a smooth surface, turning the stairway into a slide.
Initiative
Round 1
Jurgen
Zoma-Khat
Araklifest
Statue,
Heir
Jurgen and Araklifest are up!
Its a know. Arcana check to identify the statue.
Araklifest has to make a DC10 acrobatics check or fall prone.
Araklifest: Manages to keep his footing sliding down the stairs. His rapier expertly finds its mark, but the rapiers slim profile doesnt do as much damage as you would expect.
Jurgen: The attack misses, but bearly. The golem, while tough, is slow to dodge.
Zoma-Khat: "No magic? But that is all I got?!"
Golem: Sensing two enemies, the golem divides its attacks.
But both ist slams miss.
Initiative
Round 1
Jurgen
Zoma-Khat
Araklifest
Statue
Heir
Heir is up!