There's really no telling how long it's been since this ruin happened. Months or years? Long enough that the bodies have decomposed to so much filth. There are six articulated bodies entangled together in the heap of gore. Two of the bodies are missing their heads. All of them are wearing soiled white robes.
The leering skull atop the defaced statue has a symbol of some kind painted on its forehead in flaking brown.
There are no sources of magic in this chamber apparent to Tassira's scan.
Once she's done looking around the room for sources of magic, Tassira takes a closer look at the skull on top of the statue.
Regeris moves over to the skull, looking over it curiously.
"This may be a religious symbol or a part of a ritual. Somebody came here to desecrate this place."
Kayleigh takes a quick peek at the strange skull, trying to recall anything from her days amongst the priests at the Pantheon of Many.
"So if there's nothing here, can we go home now?" Nebbin asks plaintively.
He fidgets nervously as the others look around.
They all seem to know what to do. I wish I did too.
All you can really deduce is that the symbol references some kind of power that was used as part of the defilement of this once hallowed ground. It's not a symbol of any deity that any of you recognize, nor is it a symbol from any magic language that Tassira recalls. Perhaps with access to another expert or a source of deep lore you could learn more.
Examination of the narrow hole in the wall shows that there's probably a second chamber at the end of the passage. Just enough masonry has been pulled down that a normal sized-human could squeeze through the opening into the low tunnel. Nebbin might need to contort himself to squeeze through.
Emi peers into the small tunnel and then turns to the others.
"It looks like this goes on to something else, maybe another room. I guess we're not done looking around yet. It's a tight squeeze though, do you want the front Nebbin or should I take it? I'd need a light though."
Kayleigh looks at Nebbin, then at the narrow passageway, and then back at Nebbin again.
"Maybe we should let Nebbin try to go first," the priestess says uncertainly. "If someone else goes first and gets attacked, he might get stuck and block the way when he charges to the rescue." She shrugs her shoulders and gives the big fellow a slight smile.
"And whoever goes first...you might want to have a small, stabby-type weapon ready in case you need to fight in close quarters."
To Emileva, she adds, "If necessary, I can cast light on your weapon, though that'll dispel the one on Nebbin's sword."
"I'll go first, but I don't really have a small stabby weapon," Nebbin says.
Despite that, he begins pushing his way through, glad for a change the girls aren't rushing off to get themselves hurt.
Kayleigh makes a noise sort of like Eeep! as Nebbin suddenly takes the initiative and moves into the confined corridor. Switching her morningstar to her buckler hand, she digs out her dagger before following after him.
Regeris starts to produce a dagger and then sighs as Nebbin charges ahead. He looks at the others sadly.
"Good thing he's pretty because he's not too clever."
Regeris takes up the rear, pulling out a dagger.
Tassira swallows nervously and follows the others in.
Emi follows Kayleigh.
Nebbin has to turn sideways to squeeze his massive frame through the opening. After ten feet of this, he comes into a small chamber with a sarcophagus. Its lid lies broken on the ground and the contents of the container are exposed. Within lays a beautiful elven woman lying in state, her golden tresses arrayed in braids around her. Her elegant features seem untouched by the years, almost as if she might open her eyes any moment and rise from her deathbed.
No sooner does this odd thought cross Nebbin's mind then she seems to do exactly that. Her blue eyes snap open, her body goes rigid, her back arching and her mouth opening in a sudden scream. As he watches her smooth skin seems to wither and decay before his eyes and the piercing note of her scream turns into a horrible buzzing that fills the room. A flood of golden wasps erupts from her mouth and attacks the huge warrior and the line of others emerging from the tunnel.
Nebbin draws in a long breath as he sees the beautiful woman.
"Wow. She's so pret-- wait! What's happening? Oh my Gods, it's bees! Bees! Bees everywhere! Run!"
He tries to push Kayleigh back toward the hole.
Kayleigh, having no power against undead, is slow to realize what the group is facing in the hidden crypt. She allows Nebbin to drive her through the tight tunnel and into the equally spooky but larger room back the way they came.
Nebbin and Kayleigh force their way through the crowd, urging the others to follow their lead back into the larger room. The wasps swarm after them, stinging the folks in the tunnel badly.
When the wasps come buzzing down the tunnel, Tassira yelps in surprise and backs away, fumbling through her spellbook for something...
Come on come on come on where is it--there it is! There it is! Oh, I wish I prepared it sooner!
With a wave of her hand and a single arcane word, Tassira's eyes flash a brilliant blue. No longer is the incantation for evocative sprays of colour in her mind--in its place, an incantation to send a great gout of flame at her opponents.
"Everyone, get back! I've got a spell to deal with those bugs!"
Emi hears the sound of the wasp swarm before Nebbin calls out confirming the bad news. There's absolutely nothing she can do against the swarm except try to move people.
Emi turns and cries "Back! Back! Wasp swarm!"
She moves out of the passageway, tugging at Lefty's arm as she passes him, trying to clear people for Nebbin and Kayleigh's exit.
The party beats a hasty retreat in the face of the swarm and the wasps come boiling out of the tunnel after them. Spike flees to the north end of the chamber and hides behind the defiled statue. Helvara and Lefty flee almost to the chamber door, then turn in morbid curiosity as the supernatural swarm engulfs the party.
HP 18/34
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 1/-
Fort +5, Ref +3 (+1 vs. traps), Will +1 (+2 Will when raging)
CMD 19 (21 vs. grapple)
Rage: 1/13; Harrow points: 3/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6) 0/1
Effects:
Nebbin cries out in pain as the wasps sting and sting, feeling the poison again start to make his muscles stiffen .
Pulling Kayleigh with him, he retreats again, trying to get away . [b]"Get behind me,"[b] he tells her, tears filling his eyes.
Emi swats at the wasps to no effect, and keeps moving toward the doorway out. When Helvara and her bodyguard stop to watch the swarm like idiots, she yells at them. "Get out of here! Outside the shrine, go!"
She doesn't know much about it, but it occurs to her the just maybe there are limits to the distance the swarm will travel away from the shrine if it has a magical origin.
Kayleigh doesn't resist as Nebbin moves her away from the stinging swarm...but it's not fast enough. Even with his bulk partially shielding her, the wasps find every inch of exposed or lightly-protected flesh and sting and sting and sting again. The priestess doesn't notice Nebbin crying through her own torrent of tears; she shrieks as she experiences a level of pain she'd never even imagined could exist. As soon as she's able, Kayleigh escapes from the swarm. Still wailing, she moves to the center of the room and channels positive energy. Though her positioning proves that she instinctively cares for the well-being of her friends, in this particular instance her healing burst is a selfish thing...anything to lessen the pain!
Armed with absolutely nothing that can harm a swarm of wasps, Regeris bolts out into the room. Then seeing the swarm enveloping Nebbin, Kayleigh, and Emi he looks back over his shoulder and swears before bolting over to check out the sarcophagus.
"KEEP MOVING! I'll be fine, lead them out of here."
Regeris squeezes through the cramped tunnel into the tomb. As Nebbin found, the slab that once sealed the sarcophagus is broken into pieces and lies within the box and around it on the floor. The body within is a desiccated corpse - nothing like the fair elven woman that Nebbin saw when he peered over the edge. The garment she was buried in has rotted to tatters and anything valuable that might have been interred with her has been removed. It seems there's nothing left here to recover. This trip underground has been a boondoggle.
Emileva herds Lefty and Helvara through the door and back out into the cavern without. True to her suspicions, none of the stinging pests follow them through the door and down the steps. Spike continues to huddle in the corner behind the statue, searching his meager possessions for something to combat the swarm.
Tassira takes a step back (don't want to catch Kayleigh or Nebbin in the blast), brings her fingertips together, splays her hands outward, and speaks.
"ESTUANS MANUS!"
A fan of orange flames leaps from her outstretched fingertips to engulf the wasps!
Tassira's flames tear into the swarm of bugs. A cascade of the little beasts fall flaming to the ground. The swarm instinctively surges away from the flame, engulfing Spike and taking their revenge upon the unfortunate lackey. He swats at them madly, screeching in pain as they sting him repeatedly.
Tassira's eyes light up when she sees dozens upon dozens of wasps fall, burning to cinders. She strides forward with renewed purpose, taking careful aim as she touches her fingertips together and splays open her palms once more...
"ESTUANS MANUS!"
...and, making sure not to catch the poor, stung-to-high-heaven Spike, unleashes another gout of orange flames.
HP 24/34
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 1/-
Fort +5, Ref +3 (+1 vs. traps), Will +1 (+2 Will when raging)
CMD 19 (21 vs. grapple)
Rage: 1/13; Harrow points: 3/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6) 0/1
Effects:
"Come on," Nebbin urges, ready to flee as everyone's suggesting.
Pulling Kayleigh with him, he moves behind Tassira and out of the room.
Regeris looks incredulously at the looted sarcophagus and while the group tries to deal with the swarm, he frantically searches the place while calling out.
"THERE'S NOTHING OF VALUE IN THE SARCOPHAGUS! TRYING TO SEE IF ANYTHING WAS MISSED! IF I FIND NOTHING, JUST RUN!"
Kayleigh follows behind Nebbin , yelling for Spike to follow, saying that she'll heal the group once they're free from the wasp swarm.
Regeris's more exhaustive search still turns up nothing. This place has been thoroughly pillaged and defiled, and he sees no clues to any further caches or points of curiosity. There's a building sense of dread in the tomb, like the horror that expressed itself as a swarm of stinging wasps might be somehow reconstituting.
In the main chamber, the will to fight increasingly turns to flight. Spike follows Nebbin and Kayleigh, barreling for the exit and swatting at the wasps with his hands. Tassira's gout of flame effectively covers their retreat, but fails to completely disperse the swarm. The cloud of vengeful insects envelops the mage and the stinging begins.
Tassira starts running pell-mell out of the swarm, somehow not getting stung as badly as she thought she would.
HP 24/34
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 1/-
Fort +5, Ref +3 (+1 vs. traps), Will +1 (+2 Will when raging)
CMD 19 (21 vs. grapple)
Rage: 1/13; Harrow points: 3/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6) 0/1
Effects:
Nebbin waits for Tassira and the others to get behind him, and then retreats, keeping himself between the girls and the bees.
Emi keeps Madmae Helvara Lefty outside, moving them back from the door some more just in case. Then she waits.
Each one of you in turn comes swatting their way back through the archway, down the steps and into the exterior chamber - everyone except Regeris. As the light-bearers pass the arch, the foyer room grows dark again except for the flicker of Regeris's light, reflecting down the tunnel. The wasps buzz furiously within the shrine but stop short of the threshold and the steps.
Within the inner tomb, Regeris sees the same wicked rune painted in flaking blood on the broken sarcophagus lid. He's sure he's seen the rune before. He's also sure it's obscure. The buzzing grows louder down the tunnel as the party flees beyond the power of the haunting here.
Tassira grimaces and looks back at the threshold of the ruined temple. "Well, that... that was decidedly more unpleasant than I anticipated."
"So are we done here," Nebbin asks, confused. "I don't understand. Who was here before us?"
Regeris gives the rune a very good stare before he turns and bolts out of the chamber, angry at leaving a problem unsolved.
Once everyone's gathered outside the crypt and beyond the pursuit of the summoned wasps, Kayleigh takes a deep breath, trying to concentrate through the pain of what feels like a hundred wasp stings. When she feels a calm, she again channels positive energy to heal herself and the others who got stung by the angry swarm. Then she turns to Helvara for an answer to Nebbin's question.
HP 30/34
AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (-2 to all when raging), DR 1/-
Fort +5, Ref +3 (+1 vs. traps), Will +1 (+2 Will when raging)
CMD 19 (21 vs. grapple)
Rage: 1/13; Harrow points: 3/3; Auspicious Mark (1d6) 0/1; One-time anniversary reroll []
Effects: -2 Dex
Nebbin's still moving stiffly, but most of the stings seems to have faded, so he looks like he now merely has a slight rash of red marks.
Emi follows up Nebbin's question to Halvara with one of her own.
"You said the elf, Camina?, was betrayed and murdered... What exactly were the circumstances? Who did it, and why?"
"She was murdered by a paramour. Baron Chantrel Viamio of that infamous house. Of course he was done-in with the rest of his lot in the Cousin's War just a few years later, but the story I heard said he was the worst of that whole clan. A sadist and a killer."
"I have the best collection of these stories," she cuts her eyes, an attempt to catch Tassira's. "They would probably be worth a look, in case any more of them contain hints of truth."
She shrugs and re-stows the manual she's been waving around in the bag over her shoulder.
"I'm sorry this didn't turn out to be the great discovery I thought it might. You've earned Carawyn's freedom as far as I'm concerned, and if you're ever looking for work or a good word in Devargo's ear, you've earned my gratitude."
"Just get me safely out of here. I've had enough bugs for one day."
Helvara is successful in catching Tassira's eyes.
"Hmm... that could be interesting." Her cheeks turn pink. It could be from Kayleigh's healing energy, or from something else...
"But for now, I've only got a couple of castings left in me. Here's hoping we don't run into any more trouble."
Ravnos pokes her head out of Tassira's backpack and twitches her whiskers. She gives a little *meow!* as she ducks back in and squirms about inside, trying to get comfortable.