Crom, will take a look at the hospital beds while Glorik scouts the stairs.
Crom finds in the plague room...
an ornate hope knife, 63 silver coins, and gold locket.
Glorik values the hope knife at 100gp and the locket at 45gp.
Nothing further is found in the loft that was a sanctuary.
You consider how to tackle the downstairs or bringing the gnome to the temple for healing. It may cost a few platinum pieces to heal him.
If you rifle through the gnome's pockets (to pay for healing, of course!), you find that he has 29 gold pieces and a few silver.
Crom packs away the valuables and then turns to the group, "We better get Tam to a healer. We can come back tomorrow. I got a bad feeling about the basement."
Returning to temple in town, you visit the Sanctuary, a temple to Iomedae. The priestess greets you at the door and personally comes to heal Tam. One spell and Tam is on his feet right as rain.
The priestess introduces herself as Tyari Varvatos. She is quite young for her office, and hair is braided with silver fibers woven into her blonde tresses. She mentions: "I heard you met Katezra, the local oracle. He is touched with divine sight. You may be interested in knowing I have seen him conferring with the patrol captain. I am not an eavesdropper, by heard the words: hopeknife, ghosts, half-orcs, and white swords."
She excuses herself, and says: "If I have helped you, feel free to leave a donation with Josiah here."
A young acolyte, clearly smitten my the priestess, continues to follow you around, and escorts you to the door when you are ready to leave.
|
Belir smiles. Many thanks priestess. Some spiders got the best of him am afraid. Belir helps Tam to his feet. All better?
Hopeknife? Ghosts? Whiteswords? what have I gotten myself into?
Belir waves his axe about. Ye ain't got to worry bout no orc's round me.
After a few moments he begins to calm himself. You lot ready to check out the basement.
Belir begins to head back to the Plague House.
"Oooh. I think that spider was bigger than I am. Thank you, my friends, for seeing to my safety," Tamxander says. "And to you as well, priestess."
The gnome adjusts his belt and continues, "Did you learn anything while I was out?" As he does so he fishes around in his pouch and leaves a small donation with the young priest.
"I'm glad you are well, my friend!"
Glorik smiles, and clasps Tamxander's arm in friendship.
"We explored a little, but we need to head back to explore the basement. We were worried about you!"
"No more need to worry! I'm eager and ready to help again!" replies Tamxander. "Amazing what a little ensorceled healing can do."
Dolgrym address the Priestess as she starts to leave, "Excuse me my lady, would you be able to use some of your healing powers on me? I'm barely standing myself. I don't have much to donate, but will gladly donate all I have."
Crom drops another 20gp into the donation box and thanks the priestess.
"It sounds like we need to speak to the patrol captain. Shall we do that now or return to the house?"
Before departing, the lady touches Dolgrym, and heals him to full health.
Josiah asks: "There is white graffiti around town. I saw the Guard Captain trying to clean it up. He was quite distraught."
Dolgrym leaves a donation of 19 gp 8 sp as they leave.
"I think maybe we should stop real quickly and see the guard captain and let him know what we have found and then finish off searching the Plague House, that way should anything happen to us they know what we found so far and it shouldn't delay us long."
"That's a very good idea, Dolgrym. Assuming the captain wasn't in on this whole sordid scandal in some way."
Crom nods, "Let's talk to the captain on our way to the Plague House."
Glorik nods.
"It's agreed then. Let's head out, boys!"
You arrive at the south tower to find Omast Frum, the guard sergeant, dangling from a harness and trying to scrub what look to be crossed swords in a white paint from the tower. The graffiti is ten feet wide and twenty feet tall. Those of you tactically inclined point out the graffiti would be visible for miles to the south.
"Whaddya want?" Omast says as he looks down. He has a big bucket of lye and smells of the corrosive cleaning agent. He seems to making very little impact on the graffiti.
Tamxander looks over the graffiti with some concentration, as if trying to figure something out. Then he looks back in the direction of the south, then back to the wall.
Crom will introduce himself to the patrol captain, "Greetings, we're investigating Rodrik's death. We understand that Katezra has been talking to you. Mind sharing with us what he told you?"
The guardsman pulls himself up his harness and climbs down the tower.
"He says these swords are bad news. He said ghosts are in the plague house. And to be on the lookout for Rodrik's hopeknife."
"Now tell me what you know!!"
"Good captain, we've been looking into the business at the plague house. Spiders, mostly, but it looks like someone else was there recently -- possibly someone related to this sordid business," Tam interjects smoothly.
"Perhaps I could help with those marks. I can conjure some magical acid that would erode the paint, but the stone itself is probably too hard to be damaged by it," he adds helpfully.
Glorik speaks up.
"Is this his hopeknife?"
He pulls out the knife found in the house.
Crom shrugs at the guard, "There mostly be vermin in that house from what we can tell."
He recounts what they have discovered so far at the plague house.
Omast looks at the dagger and wipes away some tears.
"I think I got some lye in my eyes. Yes, that is Rodrik's hopeknife. It proves he was murdered by Cracky. Well, there is more going on there he was sure."
Omast seems to appreciate the help, though even the acid doesn't do much to help.
Omast shrugs: "I am off to have a foamy mug. Thanks for your help."
You consider returning to the Plague House or back to Chams, your headquarters while in town.
"This paint is resistant to my acid somehow... that tells me that it will need more research on my part. It also makes me suspicious that someone is doing this to... I don't know... send a message? Send a signal to some outsider?"
The return to the Plague House is uneventful. You consider moving into the basement by the two means, the annex stairwell or the climb down the slope in the spider room.
"Stairwell, anyone? Hopefully not as risky as clambering down a slope," Tamxander suggests.
Following Tam's suggestion you find yourself in the basement. A door to the west, a portcullis to the north west, and a passage to the north east are the obvious choices.
Around the corner to the south a load statue with a sword stands guard.
Glorik examines the sword closely and discovers it comes loose and is a masterwork longsword !!
Tam inspects (but does not touch) the door and the portcullis, to see if they look locked.
Glorik inspects the door and portcullis along with Tamxander.
The door is unlocked, the portcullis locked. Peeking through the closed portcullis.
Embedded into the floor of this chamber is ten foot diameter granite emblem of a faded gold and white longsword. Four passages lead out in different directions. Sturdy wooden door leads west, ladder in south corner goes up, and a small chest and decrepit bookshelf.
Inside the room near the portcullis is a lever out of reach.
Crom follows Belir into the room.
He nods at Belir, "Aye, it appears to be the same."
He opens the west door and peers down the remaining passage.
Belir stops Crom on the brink of the E-W corridor, having discovered a series of THREE cleverly concealed and connected bear traps lining the corridor. It will take a skilled person to disable these traps, obviously there to catch those stopped by the portcullis into thinking they had an easy way around.
"Not my specialty, but now I'm beginning to think that Rodrik's death was because of what he discovered in here."
"I can give it a shot!"
Glorik sets about attempting to disable the first trap. Unfortunatly, he triggers the trap, and it snaps closed on his chest.
He falls to the floor unconscious, blood seeping from the wound.
Dolgrym rushes forward, "This place is going to kill us all! Can someone help me stop his bleeding?"
Tamxander leans over nervously, trying to see what he can. "We should get a few poles for triggering the traps once Glorik is secured," he suggests nervously.
The bleeding stops, and Glorik is stabilized but snagged in the trap.
Dolgrym unsuccessfully tries to pry open the bear trap closed on Glorik's left arm and shoulder.
Without the right tools and a feat of strength, you would think moving him could be dangerous without getting him out of the trap.
Crom will continue up the northwest passage to see if there is a way to bypass the traps.
Finding no traps from his search, Crom cracks the door to the north.
He sees a once grand flagstone hall now filled with statues of many different celestial creatures in each corner. An old fire pit in the center of the room is bordered on all sides by moth-eaten bedrolls, while shovels, picks, and other digging equipment is strewn around a tunnel bored into the northeastern wall. The ceiling has collapsed leaving a hole open to the sky above a pile of burnt rubble.
The hole leads to the room above you fought the spiders in.
"Maybe we can use some of those digging tools to get this trap off of Glorik?" suggests Tam.
Leaving Glorik stable and covered in a nice bedroll, you visit the temple of Iomedae. It takes little convincing to get the high priest to visit what appears to be a former shrine of Iomedae, with painted swords past the portcullis and everything. The statue in the basement is of particular interest to her. You hand her the masterwork longsword that the statue held, the sacred weapon of her Goddess.
She quickly rouses Glorik after touching her holy symbol. She also leaves you with a wand of healing.
"Be careful down here, it appears this is a dangerous place."