The skulk shakes his head. "I don't go wandering around if I can avoid it. The kobolds warned me that they'd lost some members to a spider just out that way, and that howling noise gives me the creeps! And the second door's busted out the other way, so I never bothered."
He gestures to the well behind the draconic statue. "There's a ladder that leads right down to the bottom of that well. There's a shallow underground stream that follows a cavern and heads outside. The kobolds and I use that to get out when we need to."
To Arithas, the skulk shrugs non-committally. "Nope. Like I said, I don't go sniffing around here if I can avoid it."
To Elysia, however, he is slightly more helpful. "Ah, that out there's the kobolds' store-room. The door that leads out of that - the other door, I mean - is the one that's stuck."
He explains to Trig that he just found the katana inside a rather decorative chest hidden away in the back corner of the kobolds' store-room. "They'd found it here behind the well, apparently, but they couldn't figure out how to get it open and wound up forgetting about it."
Tarka tentatively confirms that everything 'the Fire Speaker' says is true, although you can see she shoots the skulk rather sullen looks. "Knew he lies. Can't believe got take Tarka tribe by pretends. Ugh! Wish I thought of that..."
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He explains to Trig that he just found the katana inside a rather decorative chest hidden away in the back corner of the kobolds' store-room. "They'd found it here behind the well, apparently, but they couldn't figure out how to get it open and wound up forgetting about it."
Tarka tentatively confirms that everything 'the Fire Speaker' says is true, although you can see she shoots the skulk rather sullen looks. "Knew he lies. Can't believe got take Tarka tribe by pretends. Ugh! Wish I thought of that..."
Trig thanks Tarka for the information.
"Can we see this chest? Was there anything else in it?"
"Nope, that was it. Except for a cushy pillow thing, I guess."
The skulk directs you to have a look in the store-room if you're so interested. It's clear that he's feeling rather antsy and wants to leave; he keeps glancing over his shoulder at the well behind the draconic statue.
The store-room has a wide corridor exiting it towards the north; it looks to stretch out for about forty feet before ending in a solid stone wall. Barrels and boxes of supplies fill the cramped chamber. At a glance, the contents largely appear to be food rations and trap-making supplies, most worthless, rotten, or too bulky to be moved around without considerable effort.
The aforementioned box is rather fancy, painted in white and gold and decorated with Tian script and leaping kirins. It's currently stacked up with spoiled potatoes and some filthy, mud-stained kobold-sized shovels.
The skulk is happy to drop all his gear for you and then get the hell out of there, hurriedly climbing down the ladder in the well. The last remaining "enemy" kobold skitters behind you into the room with Tarka and the others, whereupon he is immediately lambasted with a mixture of loving epithets and mocking insults. The overall feeling out there is rather buoyant, however.
- Dagger
- A spellbook
The group moves into the storage room, shifting aside a couple of crates in order to get to the door leading west. It seems to be well and truly stuck, although with a bit of elbow grease Khale is able to break it open.
Beyond is a crossroad of stairs; you stand at the top of one set of them. A crumbled statue stands in the southeast corner, once the image of a proud warrior chiselled roughly in granite. The statue's helmeted head now rests on the floor, its lifeless stone eyes gazing towards the south. On the helmet, a single Kelish word is carved in the stone: মাটি.
The wide stairway to the north leeds to a passage that ends in a cave-in ten feet past the foot of the stairs.
The stairs lead down into a large, mostly empty room, although from your current angle at the top of the stairs you can only see so much. Cracked and crumbling frescoes line the walls; those sections not destroyed by the passing ages show Qadiran men engaged in battle. A rough stone tunnel leads off to the northwest, as if the ground simply cleft in two ages ago. A large pile of bones rests just inside the passage, looking to be a collection of the remains of miscellaneous prey animals.
- burning hands
- color spray
- disguise self
- magic aura
- magic missile
- silent image
- ventriloquism
Trig's pretty sure there's a variety of different creatures mixed in to the pile, anything from deer and sheep through to rabbits and rats.
Initiative: Skeleton | Bendaxalon | Triccio | Elysia | Arithas | Li | Khale
Status
Triccio: 7/9 HPOOC
Arithas, you can take a single action in the surprise round, although your action comes after the skeleton stands.
The curious bard approaches the pile of bones, curious of the make-up of the presumed predator's meals. As he's humming and harring over them, Arithas notices that one of the femurs poking out of the bottom of the pile rattles, just a little - but he's too far away to do much as the entire pile suddenly lurches to life. A human skeleton rises up from within the bones and wordlessly screams in Trig's face, clawing him across the lower jaw.
Defend yourselves! Everyone is up.
Trig smacks the skeleton about quite fiercely with his quarterstaff, breaking a couple of its ribs. Unfortunately, Khale puts too much force behind his blow and can't readjust his strike until it's too late to hit the skeleton at all.
Elysia and Bendaxalion come up behind the others and spray the skeleton with acid, burning away its marrow and causing it to collapse back into the pile of bones it spawned from.
There doesn't seem to be any other immediate threats in the room.
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Trig wipes his forehead with relief. "Thank you all. I wasn't expecting that at all."
Perception
A silvery glint catches Trig's eye. He looks down at the pile of bones and nudges some aside with his quarterstaff.
Well, what have we here? Coin, a crown, a sword and a tube."
Detect magic on the lot too, please
The room you're currently in appears to be adjunct to another large, quiet room towards the south. A strange draft flows through the dank space, carrying with it a foul odour that you can detect upon approaching. Rubble is strewn here and there - mostly crumbling stone and mortar, as well as the battered and ancient remains of a wooden chair. A strange, slimy slick glistens down the western wall. Near the slick is an old, wooden door. The only sound in this room is a faint drip echoing from deeper in the dungeon. At a guess, you'd say the room connects out to the front entrance to Asad's Keep.
As you move towards it, you can get a look up a nearby hallway as well. At the end of the corridor sits a sinister-looking fountain in a rounded alcove. A four-headed hydra, displayed in cross formation, protrudes from the middle of the rounded wall. The hydra's heads all face directly down the hallway. Its top head's mouth is firmly shut, its socketed eyes staring darkly down the corridor, and its head fin is flared and up. On that head fin, a single Kelish word is carved into the stone: জল. The other three heads have toothy mouths open wide and reclined head fins; these obviously served as spouts for the fountain. Just below the mouths is a ceramic basin. The basin has been dry for many long centuries now.
There are two doors along the corridor - one to the north and one to the south.