Nak’T picks his glaive up once again and slashes its blade are the foe near him!
Ai'sha and Aliva luckily finish off the other two men who were already injured from Nak'ts breath quickly putting an end to the fight before it could have gotten much worse.
As the fighting stops Ptemenib comes in and is surprised "You made quick work of them." He see's Nak't is injured and asks in the ancient tongue, having heard him use it but nothing else "You are injured, would you like me to tend your wounds?"
Nak’T turns to the man and nods, resting the butt of his glaive on the floor as he sizes up the rest of the room. He then turns to him and says I. The ancient language ”Thank you, priest.”
Gathering everyone around and making sure they are clear of the hostiles, he channels positive energy over the group.
Nearly all of Nak't's wounds heal up. Checking out the room and the bodies you find some things of interest. The masked man has a suit of studded leather, acomposite shortbow (+3 Str) with 20 arrows, a masterwork kukri, a magically enchanted blade, a brass key, a gold funerary mask (worth 50 gp), and 21 gold.
The other three men each have a potion, a scroll wind, some strange oil, a dagger, 5 darts , a short sword, a magically enchanted cloak, a spell component pouch, a spellbook, thieves’ tools, brass funerary mask (worth 25 gp), 3 turquoises (worth 10 gp each), and 4 gold.
In the room the group finds a large iron chest. The chest appears to be locked, but searching around a bit you find another key hidden in bed that fits the chest. Inside the chest, is a magical bag. Reaching inside you pull out various items and you keep reaching in to pull out more and more. All together it contains an assortment of gemstones, necklaces, rings, statuettes, and other items worth a total of 3,765 gp.
One of the tables holds a quill pen, a vial of ink, and several small slips of parchment, along with a curious figurine of a bird made out of tin, with three actual feathers forming its tail. The feathers are all magically enchanted. A cursory inspection of the figurine reveals space for four feathers; one is clearly missing.
"Hmmmm....I don't seem to know what any of these items do."
"Here, let me try."
Ai'sha recognizes the potions of undetectable alignment, the oil is not magical but some mundane alchemical concoction, the cloaks of resistance +1, the bag of holding, and the feather token (bird) feathers. Neither Khufu nor Ai'sha are sue what sort of enchantment the blade holds.
"Ah, I recognize some of these.", she says. "The bag and the cloaks seem very useful.
She quickly explains what every item does, then points at the bird figurine's missing feather. "It's possible that they were communicating with someone, maybe their master or something like that?"
Ptemenib nods to Ai'sha's words "That would make sense. I don't know who these men were but they seem more than just members of the silver chain gang. I fear something deeper is afoot here, it is too bad you didn't save any of them for questioning."
With little else of interest in the room you head back out toward the main hall. Ptemenib stops and notes "I will head back to the temple, should you ever be in need of assistance please seek me out. It is the least I could do after you saved me from whatever fated awaited me here."
Qasin chimes in "Yes, yes! Thank-fulnessitude for the saving of my friend of all friend-ness. Qasin will give you gift. Will give to Mr. Ptemenib for your great-nesses to retrieve later. Qasin is full of thank-fulness for your help!"
Unless otherwise stopped the pair head back up stairs, jumping across the open pit, to depart.
"Ah, hmm. I might be able to help with these things too." Irakelesh takes the oil to inspect it.
"And let me look at that blade. I probably can figure it out."
"Before we leave we should check out that other room to the west."
Irakelesh eyes the curious figurine on the table, noting the missing feather. "Hey Qasin, what would happen if you put one of your feathers in that thing there?"
Irekelesh recognizes the sword as a narton fang. Carved from a single chunk of magically strengthened mineral salts, a natron fang is a + 1 khopesh forged to combat the undead, specifically mummies and incorporeal undead. A natron fang overcomes the damage reduction of mummies, mummified creatures, and other mummy-like creatures. Once per day on a successful strike against an incorporeal undead creature, a natron fang also deals 1d6 points of Charisma damage (Will DC 13 half) in addition to the weapon’s normal damage.
He also identifies the oil as oil of taggit, a type of poison that when ingested causes the victim to go unconscious for 1 to 3 hours.
"Thank you Ptemenib for your assistance, it will save us some of our resources and allow us to push further in if necessary.?" Aliva says as she watches Ptemenib leave. "So do we think we have cleared this place out? Who would like to wield that blade?"
"Would anyone mind if I took one of those cloaks?" Khufu asks the others.
"While we are here, we should probably investigate everything."
He waves goodbye to Ptemenib and Qasin.
"Sure, you can have the cloak Khufukhaf. Aliva, I don't know who wants that. I think I'm good with the morningstar."
As the primitives talk in their gibberish, Nak’T moves on to make certain the room to the west is clear.
"I'm fine with my scimitar as well, thank you. Though I'd like a cloak as well.", Ai'sha says. "Let's stuff everything else in the bag of holding and move on before our scaly friend picks a fight with something he can't handle."
Nak't moves to the closed door to the west. Opening it, the gentle lapping of water echoes through this chamber. Stone stairs descend from a raised platform into a subterranean canal that leads west. Another set of boarded up doors leads to the south.
"Whoa! What's this? An underground canal? We have to investigate this!" Irakelesh can barely contain his excitement.
Nak’T holds up a hand and stops the rest, seeing their eagerness to descend. He says in the Old Tongue ”Boarded door first. Finish searching up here so nothing can get behind us.”
It takes a few minutes to pull the boards off the door before being able to open it up but once you do you see beakers, cauldrons, and other alchemical equipment crowd several tables in this cramped room. A decomposing body sprawls across the floor, its face concealed behind a brass funerary mask similar to those you found on the men in the other room.
Irakelesh frowns only for a moment as Nak'T holds him back. "Oh, Ok. I guess you're right. So this other room then."
He helps pull off the boards and then enters the newly exposed room. The smell of gas assaults him. "Oh! Whew! Something smells like gas in here. I don't think it's these alchemical items. Must be something else."
Irakelesh steps into the room trying to find the source of the smell and see if there might be a secret door somewhere. The smell only gets worse once he is inside.
He gags a bit but is able to push past it. There doesn't seem to be any secret doors and the odor appears to be emanating from the wooden tables where Irakelesh can see multiple chemicals have seeped into the the wood some time ago.
"Any idea of what smells so bad?" Khufu asks.
Aliva takes the weird sword and gives it a few test swings. "I will try this out if no one minds." She smiles before she realizes that the weapon's balance is weird and puts it into the bag. and Follows Nak't to the west. "What do you think is behind that door?"
"This is interesting, isn't it. I mean, sometimes things that smell bad are really good. Like cheese. Have you ever smelled really smelly cheese. But then you eat it and it's great." While he's talking, Irakelesh moves further into the room. He approaches the table and tries to determine the nature of the chemicals creating the smell.
Ai'sha keeps a healthy distance from the smell and waits for Irakelesh.
"I haven't smelled really smelly cheese no, that is an interesting comparison. Do they have cheeses like that down here? How do you cool them?" Aliva responds
Irakelesh gets closer to the tables as he talks about stinky cheese, still breathing in the fumes.
He thinks on what it could be but is uncertain. As he bends down and takes a whiff close to the table, his eyes roll back in his head momentarily and then he suddenly just bashes his head into the table as hard as he can.
He stands up straight, a bit of blood dripping down his forehead and is very confused as to why he just did that.
"Something seems to be wrong."
"Grab him and get him out of there."
Irakelesh looks down at the table then back out the doorway to his friends. "Huh. That's weird."
Irakelesh seems really confused at what is going on when he suddenly pulls out his weapon and rushes toward Khufu, screaming wildly.
He smacks Khufu hard in the chest with his weapon, and then drops it to the ground as he shakes his head hazily, getting over whatever had a hold on him, likely helpful to be out of the strong fumes.
Nak’T lunges at the confused man, trying to hold him in his claws until whatever was setting him off against his companions was clear.
"Irakelesh, are you...fine?", Ai'sha asks, trying to hide her concern.
"What the devil???!!!" Khufu exclaims as he takes a step back away.
"Has he gone mad?"
Irakelesh tries to squirm out of Nak'T's grasp but the dragon creature keeps a hole of him. He shakes his head to clear the air. "What? What was that?" He looks at Khufukhaf with a little dismissive smile. "Whoops. Sorry about that. You understand, right?"
He looks at Nak'T. "You can let go now. I promise I won't attack you. At least I don't think I will." He winks at Ai'sha. "By the way, I heard you. So, someone seems to care a little bit huh?"
"So you're saying 'Temporary Madness'?"
Irakelesh seems to shake off whatever had a hold on him after his brief attack on Khufu. It's pretty apparent that any sort of prolonged exposure to the gas in the room is likely to cause issue, making it more clear why the area was boarded up.
"Maybe we just block this door off and leave it be?" Aliva says as she sees Irakelesh Khuf and strike him.
"Burn it with fire?" Kufu suggests his go-to solution.
"You guys? Really? Just burn it all up? Come on now. A mystery like this can't be passed up." Irakelesh's chipper voice gives no indication of the confusion he suffered only a few moments ago. "I'm going to see if I can figure anything out in there. But I'll hold my breath this time."
Without waiting for permission, he takes deep breath then moves back into the room. He heads straight for the table to continue his investigation.
Irakelesh ventures back into the poisonous room, holding his breath this time. He gets a good look at the table, and the various stains therein. That combined with the fumes he guess that whoever had been working here likely was trying to create mumia, but things apparently went wrong.
As he turns to say something he forgets about holding his breath and breaths the chemicals in once more. With an erratic scream he charges at Khufu once again.
Luckily this time Khufu is half expecting it and dodges out of the way.
"What are you doing!?!" Khufu shouts.
"Somebody grab him."
"I told him not to go back in there." Aliva says pinning Irakelesh to the wall with her Shield.
"Oh no! What have I done? I must stop it." Irakelesh slams his head against the wall.
"Stop! We all have to stop."
Irakelesh swings ineffectively at Aliva then, with a curious grin, he raises a finger in the air. "Aha! I figured it out." He falls to the floor unconscious.
After loosing his mind until finally passing out it is clear that this room was boarded up for a good reason and is likely the reason the current corpse is still laying there today.
"By the Gods man what are you doing?" Aliva says as she dodges a swing, watching Irakelesh hit the floor finally Aliva takes his hand and pull him away from the door. "Fixing this will be coming out of his cut." A slight smile on her face.
"Nobody should go back in that room." Khufu says seriously.