Scrabbler cannot quite mount the writhing arachnid, and perhaps infuriated by Scrabbler's attempt to mount it one spider gnashes its mandibles at him, but cannot catch the nimble goblin. The other rebounds from Edwin's shield spell.
Daseem noticed Edwin rush past the spiders, both lunged and both missed. He reflected, 'If he can do that so can I.' Feeling serene he followed Edwin and with an economy of motion like a dancer he turned to face the eight legged monstrosity putting it in between himself and Scrabbler.
He raised six feet of steel towards the roof above the spider and let it fall with carapace splitting force!
Both spiders snap at Daseem as he lunges past, but neither can penetrate his armor! And he badly wounds one in exchange.
AC 16, HP 22/22 and 16/22 for the blue one. CMD 17 (29 vs Trip) Fort +6 Ref +6 Will +3.
Menrozzar gritted his teeth after his miss. He'd rushed it and been hasty, and had failed to even hit the spiders. He needed to keep his focus. Fortunately, the spiders hadn't hurt anyone thus far. He needed to keep it that way, as the only full-time member of the militia in the group. Keeping his attention on the one Scrabbler had attempted to climb on, Menrozzar again swung his lucerne hammer to try and squash the spider.
Unfortunately, he swung far wide, smashing the floor next to it as he tried to make sure he didn't accidentally hit Ivan. Cursing his failure, he again tried to refocus himself.
Ivan lets out a bellow as he shrugs his shield over slightly, just allowing him to strike at the injured spider. He brings his warhammer down on the creatures midsection with a satisfying crunch.
Oh, I bet ye felt that ye eight legged bastard, bwahahaha!
he hefts the hammer up again and starts spinning it by the small bit of leather around his write tied at the end of its pommel. Once again shrugging the tower shield in front of him.
Scrabbler stabbed down again!
Bupkis moved forward again, wound up, and threw another mighty telekinetic punch, yelling, "Pow!"
As the fight rages on Edwin begins his assault swinging his scythe in a wide arc at the spider,
But his attack misses as his swing is to high and soars over the spider.
Edgar runs up to the second spider, standing firmly between Ivan and scrabbler, and brings his starknife down in a backhanded swing,
But stumbles on his way up and misses completely as well.
Climbing atop the spider now badly injured by Daseem and Ivan's heavy blows Scrabbler skewers it and it collapses falling from the bookshelf to the floor with Scrabbler atop it riding it down the few feet easily.
Reeling from Bupkis's telekinetic punch the remaining spider tries to catch the goblin in its mandibles, but fails yet again.
Ivan lets out a bellow as he moves away from the squashed spider.
An' now you! Ye little bugger!
he keeps his hammer spinning as he moves up to the spider, before sliding his shield over and bringing his hammer down on the carapace of the spider. Using the momentum of the hammers spin to augment the strength of his arm.
Hah! That'll learn ye!
If the spider falls, Ivan will spit on the remains as he cleans the remaining web strands from his armor. He will then make his way over to the hopeknife to inspect it, and to take a look at the writing the goblins had pointed out before they the attempt to turn them into food.
Studying the Hopeknife its blade bears the inscription, “For Rodrik, my love.”
Examining it closer you grow surer of your conviction and pressing against it the wood pivot in with a creak of rusty hinges revealing an ornate gold coffer studded with numerous gems. Sadly the coffer is empty, but is has to be worth hundreds of gold pieces.
"Whew, those big spiders!", Bupkis declared after the last one fell. He looked at the Hopeknife, and said, "Rodrik Hopeknife from Brinya found! Bupkis wonder why Rodrik not find."
After looking around some more, he decided to open the cabinet, standing back and using his telekinetic powers.
Menrozzar stowed his hammer and recovered his torch from the floor of the Plague House, using the motion to hide his embarrassment at utterly failing to hit anything in the fight against the spiders.
As he hefts his torch, he spots above the carving in the beam, a look of sorrow on his face. Poor Rodrik and Brinya. I wonder if they knew that would be the last time they were here.
Going over to examine the hopeknife, he answers Bupkis's question, "Because this might not be the hopeknife that was lost. Daseem, Ivan, you both have experience in blacksmithing. Can you tell how recently this was forged?"
Menrozzar looks at the cabinet as Bupkis opens the doors, hoping nothing comes out of them.
When the spiders where defeated, Dameem was suddenly taken by an oddity in the construction of the nearby bookcase, 'Oh look at that, the backing to the left isn't quite flush.' He nodded absently at the excited Bupkis, 'The knife is an important find, but what's that...' He ran his hand along the right edge, it seemed to be misaligned in the opposite direction. On impulse he pushed and he felt the bookcase pivot "Ohhh!" he cried as the rusty hinges squealed in complaint. He looked behind in the space and came out bearing an ornate golden coffer, empty but still valuable.
"Because this might not be the hopeknife that was lost. Daseem, Ivan, you both have experience in blacksmithing. Can you tell how recently this was forged?"
"Hmmm", Daseem wasn't even sure that was possible but he considered what he knew of how steel wore with time and of course there had been stylistic changes over the years.
Daseem's best guess makes the Hopeknife between 5 and ten years old, not heavily used, but with a few incidental scuffs and marks.
Bupkis concentrated and manifested a shield of force around him. Bupkis finally make protection stay up!
He walked up to the open cabinet doors and stood on tiptoes, looking inside.
Scrabbler rode the dying spider to the ground with a mad cackle. He stabbed it one extra time to be sure before he hopped up and looked around.
"Me's rided a spider!" He didn't bring up the fact that he only barely rode the spider, mostly just managing to hang onto it as it died.
Then he started picking through the spider's nest looking for treasures.
Pushing aside the rotted boards in the cabinet with his telekenesis Bupkis reveals an iron flask containing some kind of oil, and another holding a sweet smelling liquid, a beatup steel scroll case holding two scrolls and, and two vials of what appears to be holy water judging by the now familiar sword symbol of Iomedae etched into each vial.
Ivan reads over the runes. Hmm. The writin' here says "Skreed" An' that's it. Perhaps tis a name? for somethin' O' someone. And I agree, I be thinkin' that the knife is tha' original one. It seems too old ta' not be.
Ivan ponders holding the hope knife. Best ta' take it back to the lass, she would likely know fer sure. Well, where to next? Is there a basement O' sorts? Ivan glances around the room.
Bupkis walked over to the other side of the room. "Is big hole in ground," he replied to Ivan. He looked at the opening where the floor appeared to have given way, trying to judge how stable the surrounding structure was.
"Alright, then. I wonder if someone else recovered it and set it on the shelf there - I imagine Rodrik would have found it otherwise. Let's collect those other things Bupkis found, then check this room here," Menrozzar says, indicating the double doors across from him .
Skreed...Skreed...have I ever heard the name Skreed before? Something seems familiar about it...
Shaking his head, he walks up to the doors and listens at them, to see if he hears anyone or anything on the other side.
Bupkis called to the rest of the group, "Oh, forgot to say: writings and liquids in cabinet. Bupkis not thirsty now!"
Based on the runes scrawled on the rock it seemed to Dasseem that, 'The half orcs have clearly been here. This place is quite a mess, I bet they left some tracks. Lets see what I can find...'
Diligently he searched the area looking for footprints or other signs of passage that might have come from the half orcs. Perhaps this would shed some light on what happened here.
Noting Menrozarr studying the door to the west intently, Daseem calmly walks to his side with his sword over his shoulder. He cocks his head as he listens carefully before inspecting the door.
All Daseem can hear at the door is the sound of the rain, which has reduced to a steady drizzle, but still penetrates the ruined Plague House lending dampness to the dank interior. This hall seems to be the best preserved area and little damp gets in, but the loft Bupkis saw earlier and ruined stair are all sodden.
Bupkis is unsure about the stability of the floor, but with his dark vision can make out that there is a worked wall below indicating a basement of some kind.
"Basement below, but maybe we find stairs?", Bupkis told the others. He returned to the cabinet, and seeing that no-one had taken the items yet, floated them out with telekinesis and placed them on the floor. "Someone examines these? Bukis not know such things!"
Menrozzar goes to the cabinet and looks things over. "These two vials are holy water - that will be useful if there are ghosts here, I think. This iron flask is some kind of oil, and this sweet-smelling liquid. I don't know what these scrolls are - could anyone else take a look?"
Bupkis moved over to the double doors and listened.
"We checks in here?", he asked.
Scrabbler was a little disappointed that no one else was impressed (or even noticed) his amazing spider riding trick, but he quickly got distracted and followed the group.
He scrabbled up next to Bupkis and checked the locks while Bupkis listened for anything on the other side of the door. "Whatcho hears?"
Daseem looked briefly at the flask and the scrolls, they didn't mean much to him. A little uncertainty Daseem said, "I c-can tell if they're enchanted..." He then whispered a prayer which he claimed would reaveal the presence of enchantments.
Detecting magic Daseem is able to see that both the oil and the sweet smelling liquid are magical, but having no skill in the craft of spells he can only discern that the oil has an aura of faint transmutation, and the liquid an aura of faint abdjuration.
The scrolls have faint auras of transmutation, and conjuration respectively.
There are no locks on the doors, and even Bupkis and Scrabbler's keen ears fail to discern anything of note other than the relentless pattering of the rain.
"Bupkis hears nothing — opens doors now," Bupkis announced. He opened the doors with telekinesis, and looked into the room.
Two rows of scorched iron bed frames take up most of the space in this soaring chamber, resting between a fire blackened altar to the southwest and double doors to the northeast. A second set of double doors leads to the northwest and a single iron door exits the chamber to the southeast. Brightly colored holy figures stare down from the stained glass windows built into the blackened stone walls, their visages noticeably less damaged than the rest of the room.
The battle frightened Edgar, and even though he acted swiftly it shook him to his core. The combination of the fear of the House from his youth and the exiliration of the battle froze him while his allies took to searching the house. Bupkis opening the door finally snapped him out of it.
Come on Edgar...pull it together...
”sorry guys, I...I wasn’t quite ready for that...” he says shakily. ”lets see what I can find.” he says as he begins waving his hands and his eyes begin glowing in a fiery purplish light as he looks around the rooms they have opened up so far.
Edgar discovers no new magical auras, but he can attempt to discern the nature of the items found in the cabinet.
Edgars recognizes an oil of magic weapon, a potion of shield of faith, but he is unable to discern the nature of either scroll.
Bupkis scampered halfway down the right side row of beds and crouched down. "Something under bed! Bupkis looks!"
Menrozzar winces as Bupkis goes scampering across the floor. The little goblin could get hurt if he ran too far head - so far he'd proven deft at avoiding harm, but it was only a matter of time before his luck ran out. Nevertheless, he moves after Bupkis and says, "I'll cover you in case something jumps out at you. After those spiders, I don't know that I want to see what else might be hiding here."
Daseem glanced under the bed Bupkis was next to. Not noticing anything lurking right underneath he glanced at Menrozzar as he went to try and push the bed aside. 'Oh! What have we got here?!' he thought as the dilapidated bed screeched and protested at being moved.
Scrabbler kept pace with Bupkis, feeding off of his enthusiasm and ramping up his own energy to match. The two goblins crawled under the bed.
Scrabbler should have been being more careful, but as anyone can tell you, put any two goblins together and they both lose any kind of danger sense they might have had before. He was just happy to be doing things with others. For the first time in quite a while, he didn't feel lonely. Turns out, being happy is a pretty good distraction.
As the group move in making a beeline for the trap door, they begin to hear agonized moaning from all around. The burnt and rusted iron bedframes begins rocking violently back and forth, and suddenly they are occupied by terrible buring corpses trashing in agony as they struggle to release themselves from leather restraints. Buboes and eyeballs burst in the heat and, the corpses mouths are full of flame and ashes!
Bupkis' eye's grew wide with fear. "Aagh! Run for lives! Must get out!" He ran as fast as he could out of the room, around the corner and down the hall towards the exit.
The sudden haunting very nearly unmanned Daseem, his heart lurched and he started sweating bullets. For a panicky moment he turned to face the exit but then something stubborn inside said NO! He took another proper look at the visitation, scary yes, but activity harmful? That remained to be seen. He drew his sword and waited.
Scrabbler ran, shaking and trembling, but keeping his wits about him enough to not make a sound. He ran around the corner and pressed his back to the wall, forcing himself to take slow, shuddering breaths and try to listen for what was happening with all the fire and death.
Noesnoesnoes. Not again. Please noes.
The ghostly corpses burning and moaning and flailing cause Menrozzar to scream in fear, dropping his hammer to the ground and running from the room. On some level, he was surprised Bupkis ran at the same pace he did as they both fled the Plague House - but his mind barely registered it over the sheer feeling of terror he felt. He only knew he had to get away before he joined them - before he, too, burned or died from fire and plague.
Before- Mind if I take the oil? Don't really care who uses it ta' be fair, but figured I'd ask. he looks back to the spider.
Hopefully, we won't be needin' it, long as the dead don't try ta' rear their heads.
Ivan looks about at the scene. Likely, this be a vision of what happened to these poor souls when this place burned down again. I wouldn't wish it on much O anyone.. Ivan looks around solemnly, the scene, while quite different, reminded him of how he lost his home and family.
He hefts his axe, and steadies his shield, in case any real danger present itself. Before walking towards a flame, trying to determine if it gives off any heat.
Oye! Menrozzar, goblins! Git' back 'ere! He shouts after the others as they flee.
Scrabbler peeked around the corner, only one big eye and one big ear visible. He looked worried and skeptical.
Where'sza fire? Where'd it go? Me sawed it.
Flames flicker and the corpses continue to howl, a terrifying spectacle, but one that is demonstrably causing no harm to those able to brave it out. Some three minutes later the beds stop shaking and the restless dead fade back into nothingness leaving only the burnt and twisted bedframes in their wake.
An examination of the trapdoor shows it to be a rickety thing, it looks like a firm blow might put paid to it. Without trying it it is impossible to tell whether it is locked or not from below, but there are no locks on top.
"Me go finds Bupkis." Scrabbler said. He was trying to put on a brave face, but the firy vision had shaken him badly and he wanted to get out of the bad house for a bit.
He hopped down out the front door and looked around for the other goblin.
Bupkis ran out of the Plague House, finally stopping about 100 ft away. The terror subsided, and after catching his breath for a moment, he cautiously moved back to rejoin his friends. "What was scary thing?", he asked.