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Grey growing bored as his companions try to solve the mystery of the tomb starts to a wrestling match with Lucy, growing louder and more rambunctious with time. Eventually the match comes to a sudden halt as Grey finds himself on his back with Lucy on his chest and a snout full of drool in his face.
"Enough. Enough! You win again!"
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Even when assembled as best possible, the papyrus is too fragmentary to provide a meaningful translation. Most of the surface you can find is occupied by numbers or drawings, rather than text, and the text appears to be mostly names or individual words that suggest these were working notes rather than a journal. The best you can figure is that Tahari used this room to perform necromantic or alchemical experiments of some kind, probably involving test subjects who had to be restrained using the leather straps on the table.
Having exhausted the mysteries of the small laboratory, the pathfinders turn their exploration to what turns out to be the final room of this small complex. (Incidentally, none of these rooms looks anything like the hallways you recall seeing in the visions from the horns.)
Over a dozen small alcoves line this hallway, each containing rusted shackles bolted to the walls and copious amounts of dust. Three of the alcoves contain brittle skeletons hanging from the shackles. Frantic whispers echo around the otherwise-silent chamber, seemingly originating from the skulls of the deceased.
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Peturbed by his inability to identify the crystalline substance Mekhu scrapes a little into a flask for further study later, before stashing the flask and the papyrus fragments into his backpack.
The next chamber is more horrific than any of those they had seen so far. The skeletons stare with empty eye sockets and their mouths hang open in silent screams. Mekhu steels himself against the faint whispering seems to emanate from the skulls and moves to look over the bodies.
"The deformities of these otherwise fully-grown bones suggests that these unfortunates were suffering from more than one very unpleasant and very dangerous contagion. I do not know how or why it was achieved, but I suspect that these people met very grim ends."
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Grey displaying a rare moment of interest in the investigation nods in aggreement with Mekhu, than adds "The dead lay restlessly." he takes a deep breath and continues "They should cause no trouble, but their deaths had to be beyond imagine...their lives should have ended but some used tainted magic keep them kicking and screaming far past their time and now a remenant of that bloody magic now perserves what we see."
Turning to Ash "Bloody hate might be too good for this place."
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"This one ... ehhh ... sorry Shin, Shin ... you have to try this, too! Touch the wall! And then we can go!" Andor says with a smile.
"This one must humbly decline. This one still remembers your tasting and it'll always be in this one's mind." Shinis definitely not willing to touch the wall on Andor's request.
Who knows what else might happen.
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"Oh come on Shin! I will just ignore you making fun of me and assume this will end when we enjoy our retirement with our Elven ladies and our Half-Elven kids playing next to us." Andor says smiling.
"Okay, then let us check out the other hints we got!
Andor takes out his notes and reads again and says "Let us check out the woman with the Sarenites first." and moves out.
Quote:
—A woman under the care of Sarenites at the Temple of the Redeeming Sun started raving in Ancient Osiriani, and no one can cure her. The creature could be responsible. See what she has to say.
—A young alchemist is suspected of poisoning his customers. Offcial reports state he blubbered about a “demonic face.” Insuffcient evidence for an arrest, so they closed his shop. Talk to him—get more details. Could be related.
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Leaving the ruins, you find Obahar waiting for your report. He listens carefully as you describe what you found below, taking notes, and nods thoughtfully. "I should research connections to these clues in my records, and those of the Venture Captain. My home is at the Pathfinder Lodge, and you may find me there when you have completed your own investigations. You are investigating the reports of the alchemist, and the young lady at the temple, are you not? Have you discovered any other leads you intend to follow?"
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"Well, we destroyed one moving statue that assaulted us, and one tasty undead fellow. There are also a lot of spirits trapped inside. I'm not an expert, but the guys say you might need a few buckets of holy water of a holy man to consecrate the place and let them free."
He pauses and thinks. "Oh, did you show him the horns?"
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Mekhu nods in agreement as Andor and Ash give their reports. He pulls out his notebook and provides Obahar with a short summary of their activities in the cavern below, including a brief description of the foul rituals conducted by Aryana Tahari and her Ahriman-worshipping cult. He holds back some of the more unpleasant details, however.
At Ash's prompt, he shows Obahar the three horns. "We found these in a chest. They have some kind of residual magic imprinted upon them. Touching them reveals visions of the past. They are not for the faint-hearted," he warns.
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Obahar touches each horn in turn, seeing the visions you shared earlier.
"Fascinating! And yes, disturbing, to be sure. You can leave the box with me so that you are unencumbered by it while you go chase down these other leads. I will keep it safe, and make sure you are credited for its discovery, of course. Hmm... the last vision mentioned something about Pharasma, the Lady of Graves. A dark necromancer would have been opposed to her -- but nonetheless, the priests of the Gray Lady could know something. After you visit the Temple of the Redeeming Sun, you might visit the Thrice-Shrouded Necropolis. They're not far from each other."
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Obahar nods thoughtfully and writes down the report from Andor. "Wait, you tasted... screams? How on Golarion... oh, nevermind."
He takes the box and returns to the Pathfinder lodge .
The Temple of the Redeeming Sun is the largest temple in the city. It boasts a massive courtyard where the faithful congregate to pray under the open sun. The gold plating on the surrounding buildings focuses the rays of the sun inward on a tremendous altar at the center of the courtyard—the heat at the apex is so intense that the priests require protective magic to survive giving their sermons.
The morning is moving on towards noon, but it's yet to reach the hottest part of the day, so the courtyard is bearable. You pass through it quickly on the way to the hospice, the eastern wing of the building, where a priest is waiting at a broad, sandstone desk. "Welcome. Sun's blessing upon you all. I am Herhut, how may I help you?" (It's not entirely clear whether Herhut is male or female, as their face is androgynous and their robes are voluminous and cover most of their body.)
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"Greetings Herhut, Sun's blessing upon you also. I am Mekhu Inebni, and my colleagues and I are representatives of the Pathfinder Society. We are investigating a spate of strange occurrences that began with the discovery of an ancient site during construction work nearby," Mekhu explains, attempting to be clear and honest about their purpose for visiting.
"We understand that you have a young lady under your care who speaks only in Ancient Osiriani and may have been in contact with the creature we believe to be the cause of many of these occurrences. With your permission, we would like to speak with her. We hope she may hold some clue to stopping the malign force plaguing the city."
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"Oh, Mauta. Yes, of course." Herhut reaches out to a series of prisms sitting in a sunbeam, and turns one of them, resulting in a beam of colored light shining through a hole in the wall. Shortly thereafter, a young page arrives in a rush. "Take these gentlepeople to room 6A."
A nurse is tending to Mauta when you arrive in the small but comfortable room, separated from other patients. You were able to tell how close you were as you approached, because a constant, babbling din of words, screams, cries, and moans echoes through the corridors.
"Eh, you've come to see her? This one is a difficult case. She started babbling in Ancient Osiriani as soon as she arrived. Not really making any sense, even for those who understand the old dialects. We're doing our best, but we can't get her to stop having these hallucinations and rambling on about them."
Those of you who speak Ancient Osiriani understand that Mauta is making no sense at all, just as the nurse has said. She is babbling nonstop, repeating several words over and over along with other nonsense syllables. These include “seek,” “she,” “spiral,” and “death.”
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Andor approaches young Mauta and tries to calm her speaking in common and ancient osiriani.
After having talked to her for a while and having calmed her a bit he turns towards his companions.
"I do not know what this is all about but this is what she is saying: 'I seek she who wears the spiral of death! I sense her presence! The Servants of the Sun tried to hide the Dungeons, but they remain! Where are they?!'”
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Mauta says nothing that's any more coherent.
Leaving the temple, after informing the priests about the minor haunting in the ruins, the pathfinders head to the shop of the alchemist who was accused of poisoning his customers. The tiny, hole-in-the-wall establishment sits between larger, more profitable businesses in a small plaza off a main boulevard. "Sokari's Alchemy" is printed in both Osiriani and Taldane above a smaller sign saying, "Closed by order of Ilepodus, Patron of Merab."
Knocking on the door results in a bleary, "We're closed, can't you read?" from within.