Adoven and Ellantera both slay the krenshars they face. As the sounds of battle die away, only the sibilant whispering can be heard behind the heavy breathing of the victorious combatants.
"Well, kinda sorta wild dogs, right? Can you tell why I'm such a great policeman? Anyway, good job, everybody."
"Those were, not nice." Adoven sheaths his rapier and continues to look around. "With all this noise things will find it easy to sneak up on us like that. Is anyone hurt?"
Ellantera stands, hammer head on the ground and haft straight up, considering the lessons learned from the fight as she stares at the vanquished. She's far from Dohrlok's level of student of combat, but she is making an effort.
At Adoven's question, she glances at her forearm where the creature scratched her, but she says nothing.
Stanley shook his head in response to Adoven's question, "There may be a minor scratch or two, but I saw no one take any wound worthy of either binding or calling forth magics." He walks over to Ellantera, holding a hand out as if expecting her to place something in it, while holding her gaze "However, being that they are animals of a sort, active in a place for interring the dead, the threat of infection from even a scratch is always a risk."
She looks at the man with a slight frown, uncertain of what he wants until he gestures again. Still uncertain, she puts her hand in his and lets him draw her 'round so he can see the scratch.
"That? Jus' a scratch, aye?"
Stanley thinks it prudent to clean the wound, but can see no sign that the animals carry any disease.
Verrik sheathes his rapier and picks his bow back up. "Moving on, then?"
With the wound assessed, Ellantera moves to check on her mentor, expecting some critique of her fighting skills, but he chooses to withhold judgment for the moment.
With Verrik's query, she falls back into her place in line, ready to proceed, still thinking over what she should have done differently.
Stanley looks pensive as he takes in the animals and then the group, "If you wish to ensure that these, our fallen enemy, do not recover enough to seek us out, someone should hurry them to their final rest."
Ellantera complies, using her dagger to mercifully finish off the two creatures that remain alive. Dohrlok's is well beyond recovery.
While Ellantera ensures that the beasts are truly dead, Verrik retrieves his lost torch, Adoven and Stanley renew their light spells.
The group continues forward down the main corridor, heading north. Very soon the central hallway opens into a large chamber with wings extending east and west. Across the chamber to the north yawns a twenty-foot-wide open arch draped from top to bottom in translucent cobwebs. An eerie green light flickers from beyond the webs, casting strange shadows about this chamber. The place smells of animal spoor and wet fur.
The sibilant, almost human whispers present in the passage become a chorus in this massive chamber, eerily echoing off the walls.
The lights only illuminate a part of the large chamber – which appears to be mainly empty – but Dohrlok and Tyvall with their darkvision and Adoven with his low light vision can see more. To the west, three short stairs lead to a wide marble dais, but the far end of the wing is obscured by darkness. Huge slabs of cracked masonry and irregular piles of scattered debris choke the eastern wing, giving the appearance of complete collapse.
"Cannot see it all," rumbles Dohrlok, "North or east."
Stanley focuses his thoughts on the energies about the chamber, seeking any that mark an arcane aura is present. He looks first to the west, then the east, before looking forward. "Well, the cobwebs would indicate that is little to no passage to the north. I say we discern the safety of the east and west alcoves prior to embarking into places undisturbed."
Adovan nods at Stanley's assessment, and allows others to use their skills before proceeding into the room.
"Hmm. It seems unlikely that the walking dead The Lodge is looking for came from here. The wildcats aren't entirely natural but I don't think they would have made a den here if it reeked of the undead. Still, we are here and I could be wrong so..." Tyval wanders a bit toward the western alcove, "Why the dais? I wonder what this used to be?"
Stanley detects no magical auras within the range of his spell.
Tyvall moves towards the western alcove, close enough that he can see the extents of it with his darkvision. A few low steps lead up to the somewhat raised floor of the alcove. Tyvall can see that there appears to be something painted on the walls at the back of the alcove, but he can’t make out a great deal of detail from this vantage point, relying only on darkvision.
Dohrlok moves after Tyvall. "Find something?"
Tyvall moves in to get a better look. "Maybe nothing. Just a painting, but I'm curious who built this place and what it was for."
Adoven keeps his weapon ready, and keeps watch while the others investigate.
Ellantera sees the elf's watchful stance and moves to him, thinking to do the same. "Back to back? Then we can focus in different directions."
"Yes, this place has me on edge in a way I wasn't expecting."
She nods, "It feels like someone is watching us."
Adovan and Ellantera stand back to back, keeping watch, seeing little apart from the flickering green light, its source obscured behind the webs, and hearing only the sighing and whispering that haunts this chamber.
Tyvall and Dohrlok investigate the raised area at the western end of the hall. A faded fresco appears to adorn the entire area – western, southern and northern walls – but Tyvall has trouble making out much detail even on closer inspection with his dark vision. He realises that the fresco must be in colour, and calls Verrik over to illuminate the area with his torch, revealing the detail of the ancient painting.
From a vantage point at the centre of the raised dais, the wall painting makes it look like you stand within a massive room with seven short hallways radiating outward from a central point. A chain dangles from the ceiling at the end of each hallway, and each chain bears a gleaming coloured lantern. Clockwise, the colours are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Dohrlok looks at the different coloured lanterns in the painting. "Some sort of puzzle?" he wonders out loud. "The colours of the rainbow..." He wanders over to inspect the fresco more closely.
With the level of interest the two dwarves are paying to the western end of the room, Stanley moves over and redirects his spell to encompass the entirety of the space. "First the pedestal bore a connection to elemental air, and now an image of a rainbow. I feel that something about this place may bear some sort of reverence for the sky."
The fresco is a bit faded, but is in remarkably good shape given its apparent age. The colours seem somehow impregnated into the stone rather than painted onto the surface. The brightly lit lanterns in the image are of a stylised and distinct design, shaped somewhat like fat spindles.
Dohrlok doesn’t notice any moving parts or secret passages or anything of the sort.
Stanley detects no magic from the fresco or elsewhere in the large room.
With the level of interest the two dwarves are paying to the western end of the room, Stanley moves over and redirects his spell to encompass the entirety of the space. "First the pedestal bore a connection to elemental air, and now an image of a rainbow. I feel that something about this place may bear some sort of reverence for the sky."
"Well spotted Stanley, I wonder if this sighing and wind are connected too?"
Are these collections of things likely to have any magical significance?
Adoven knows that some traditions of magic relate to the classic elements. It is possible that whoever created this cairn had some affinity with the magic of elemental air – not that Stanley has actually detected any hint of active magic in this place so far.
"Huh. Well its interesting, but just a painting. Nothing much to do here. Let's see how deep this place goes." Tyvall heads toward the webs, stops to light a torch and slowly waves it around to burn away the sheets of webbing. While the webbing shrivels away from the flame he keeps an eye out above for signs of movement.
Tyvall puts his torch to the webs, which quickly begin shrivelling and collapsing as the flames spread amongst them. There are several ~pops~ as hazily seen objects suspended amongst the webbing burst. All of a sudden half a dozen big brown spiders the size of large cats scuttle out of the tunnel, heading towards and past Tyvall, mandibles clicking.
"Huh, some druid..." growls Dohrlok as he adopts a fighting stance.
Tyvall fends off descending arachnids with the torch, "Bah! Vermin play by their own rules. They don't much like me and the feeling is mutual."
[dice=Initiative]1d20 + 1
"Oh for the love of Ehlonna, is there anything in this place that doesn't want to kill us!"