Grinley strikes out with his staff again.
Flint darts around the snack Kiril is focused on, stepping on its tail at critical moments before jumping away from it.
Round 3, wrap up…
Kiril plucks a piece of snake flesh off his armor and stuffs it into his mouth as his weapon comes down and smashes the snake attacking Sandy
Brunnar’s eyes grow wide as he pauses for a moment and looks at the wound. A hiss escapes his lips a s he draws in breath expecting to feel the venom burn through his veins, and then he laughs when he realizes that these snakes do not know what it means to be a dwarf. With a drop of his hammer he crushes one of the snakes attacking him
At that moment Kayne stabs at the air where that snake used to be.
Grinley realizes that Brunnar is outnumber and Kayne simply attacked the wrong snake, and then with a swish of his staff, Grinley catches the last snake and hurls it across the room where it slams into the wall and dies.
All of the snakes are now dead.
Kiril - takes 2 damage
Snakes Killed – 1 (5)
Round 2
Sandy - takes 1 damage
Grinley – takes 1 damage
Snakes Killed – 2 (3)
Round 3
Brunar – takes 1 damage
Snakes killed – 3 (0 remain)
Snakes , AC 13, hp 2, +5 bite, 1 damage + poison
With the last snake dead, Flint immediately hops toward the immobile, dead dwarves at the table, brandishing his sword and wooping aggressively. "YAH YAH!! You'll not sneak up at ME while distracted!"
He narrows his eyes at them, holding his sword out ready to stab any one should it move, and thumping on his drum steadily with his free hand.
Brunar makes sure the snake he killed is dead by stepping on its head, Stinkin' Snakes! Brunar looks up, "Everyon' alright?!" Then he looks at Sandy to make sure she is ok.
Without looking back, Kiril steps over the dead snakes and picks up the gold statue, turning to show it to the group. "Finally, some treasure!"
Grinley takes one step closer to the snake he flung against the wall, curious to see if he did in fact kill it, and is relieved to see that the snake is merely stunned.
The statue of the snake in the small room behind the secret door is about nineteen inches tall, at first Kiril eyes it suspiciously, and then when he goes to lift it with both hands he is surprised to find it is much lighter than he expected it to be. He turns it over in his hand and sees that from the bottom he can tell it is a wooden statue plated in gold.
However, the gold plating is not thin. There is enough gold here to make this still a valuable find. Then when he is about to show it to the others he notices that the snake has two very small green gem stones for eyes.
Brunar looks at Kiril and the statue, "What ya got there Kiril?"
"Careful" Flint says, glancing at what Kiril is doing between long stares at the unmoving dwarves. He lowers his sword as they don't react to his antics, just a bit...
"It's probably cursed or something. Those snakes were probably groups like us turns INTO snake by looking into its eyes or somethin'. Give Kayne a look. He's an inscrutable bastard, and can figure out if the thing is cursed or not." Flint gives Kayne a quick grin, as if he had just been complementing the warlock.
"Inscrutable, hmm. I suppose that's good enough to not turn you into a snake." Kayne's voice doesn't clearly give away whether or not the warlock is joking, but he does move forward to examine the statue.
Brunar laughs at Kayne's statement, HA HA HA, good my shadowy friend!" He looks Kiril, "Imagine being a scaly worm Kiril?"
With no one speaking up, Brunar casts a heal on himself, "Most Holy Yerina, please give me your healing touch"
Kayne examines the statue for a moment
While Ballar encourages Kayne as he tends to his own wounds, before checking the bites Sandy received and assuring her that she will be alright.
The warlock sniffs. "Not magical, not cursed. Worth a fair amount of gold, assuming a buyer with the proper funds. Likely we'd need to take it to a larger city than Cipenny for a good price." He shrugs. "I'd say keep it for sale when we have the opportunity, or as a curiosity. But there's no sense in wondering over it. Just art."
Kiril looks disappointed when he hefts it up. "F&*! me. It's just gold plating, not solid--these gems for eyes look valuable though," he listens to Kayne, then nods. "Right, good thinking."
He stuffs it into his backpack and calls out to Grinley, "You saving that one as a snack for later?"
Brunar waves his hand in anger, "BAH! That thang should be solid gold after fighting all of Kiril's friends and tried to poison me! Is the statute religious in nature?"
Brunar tries to get a glimpse of the statue before they put it away to see if it is a religious artifact of some kind.
As Kiril stows the small statue in his back pack, Brunar peeks around the big man to get a good look at it.
Flint watches the party's group with their antics, trying to keep an eye both on the 'cursed' object and the unmoving dead.
"Nothin' hurt you yet?" he says after it's put away, and looks at the dead bandits. "Good, good." he says without looking at the others.
"How 'bout we find another path, or haul these guys, tied up, outside and do the fire or bury or whatever we need to do. AT least, let's stop turning our backs to em, huh?!"
Then in a low growl to the table of clearly non-undeads. "I'm onto you lot... Don't think I'm not! We're going to slowly, one by one, bind your hands you see. Keep playing stiffs if you want, but that'll just make it easier to get you outside. Where we can burn you! And if you decide to stop your ruse, I'll be there, with my sword at yer necks. Don't think you've got a chance that way boys. Oh no. You don't want to mess with Flint. I'll put a true death in you like a song stuck in your head. I'll put my blade in your hearts like fat in yer mums. Your best bet is to play it quiet and let us tie you up, you better f@@&in' believe. We'll take you outside, and who knows, maybe we'll start buyin' it and you'll sneak away while we aren't looking. Fight us now and I'll cut you all down as Sure as Iron. Take the cowards path, and stay still."
He growls all of this at the table of dead, still assuming they are already animate and deadly. He means every word, and is trying to provoke them into fighting them right now rather than playing the quiet trick, so he can end their undeath at this moment.
His hand shakes a bit, and he readies an attack for the first one to move an inch. If nothing does, he'll continue to guard them while the others let their guards down. He means menace, and firmly knocks slow, strong beats against his drum, slowly enough to be actually daunting.
P
Kiril is still grinning toothily about having found treasure when he gets distracted by Flint's growling threats at the corpses.
"Alright alright," Kiril goes over to Flint, convinced at least that he's not going to let it go. "They won't be much threat without heads, don't you think? Imagine them stumbling around blindly!" He swings a handaxe at the back of one's neck.
He'll get to work decapitating the rest of the corpses, offering Flint a handaxe if he wants it.
Brunar smiles, "Maybe we should spread their heads 'round the castle so they need to stumble further to find them or is there a window?" Brunar laughs then he stops realizing they were once kin, "However, first, we should bless their souls." Brunar goes about blessing each Dwarf as Flint and Kiril do their handy work.
If they don't rouse during the intimidation...
"Sounds good." Flint grins, and takes the axe after sheathing his rapier. He assists Kiril in beheading them, and giggles at Brunar's comment.
"I still think dragging them outside and burning them would be the best solution, but do as you will." Kayne sniffs and spends the few scant moments going back over his newfound tome.
Brunar shrugs, "Aye! Why not if we can get out the same way we came in?!"
"Bah, fine. But I'm not carrying them," Kiril kicks a severed head across the room.
"Bah! You afraid Kiril of man handling a couple of Dwarven vamps?!" Brunar smiles as he teases his new Half-Orc colleage.
"Why not behead them AND drag them outside?" Flint asks, behind one of the corpses and waiting. "I'm normally not a fan of desecrating corpses, but I can't know these aren't not corpses..."
With Sandy, Gwendolyn, and Kristyd’s help the party drags the five dwarven corpses straight back down the wide central passageway to the outside of the Palace.
Blinking at the bright light of the morning sun, and feeling the crisp morning air of spring reminds everyone of just how dark and unpleasant the Palace can be.
A moment is taken to set up a small bon fire, and all of the corpses, including their severed heads, are thrown into the fire
When the grisly work is done, the party turns back again to the Palace and heads in.
Where do you want to go now?
Kiril watches with arms crossed as they work, stubborn, but eventually sighs. "Yeah fine. I'd look like a f&@~ing idiot if these things attacked us later," he finally starts helping carry the bodies and work goes a lot quicker.
Flint watches the corpses burn, ready for them to jump out at any moment. He was now beginning to accept that they might not have been vampires the whole time after all.
"Well... That's done with." he says with no embarrassment. He nudges Grinley with an elbow. "Hey, know any prayers? Those poor bastards deserve something."
Kiril watches the pyre with Flint. He has a distant look in his eyes, the smell of burning flesh bringing back memories. When Flint nudges Grinley about a prayer, Kiril takes a deep inhalation of the dead's smoke and begins to pray in a deep murmur before the dwarf can respond.
"These fallen belong not to Crow nor Lion--they have no conqueror, robbed of a good death in battle, no one has claim to their remains. Let the flames take them, let them be ash, let them rest--while we carry on their fight. Vitheras see them avenged."
He slaps Flint's shoulder and walks back to the palace.
Grinley shrugs when Flint asks him about a prayer. "I really don't know much about undead or burial rites. Regardless of what they were before, they have become a perversion of the natural order -- burning seems the best thing to do to help cleanse their ashes and return their elements to a more natural state."
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Brunar begins to say a prayer for them;
"The night is dark, the sky is blotted out, we have left the holds of our fathers,
And the nameless kin have returned to the Maker. The light becomes dark,
The night and again night, the day with sorrow tomorrow
For nameless have returned to the Maker."
"The Old Ones have passed away, their homes are the stones far off, below,
Their spirits are laboring free. Where are their spirits laboring?
Only the rocks know, or the passing wind.
And the nameless have returned to the Maker."
"Are they below, the Old Ones? Are they here?
Do they labor warm by his forge, do they see our offering?
Tomorrow is naked and empty, for the nameless kin are gone
They are no longer seated with our kin at the fire."
Flint stands a bit transfixed by Brunar's poem prayer, and drums slowly along with it, like a dirge.
Prayers done, and Flint appeased, he turns his eyes away from the smouldering corpses and back to the temple.
As Flint turns to return to the palace...
He trips over the outstretched hand of one of the corpses as it rolls out of the fire, accidentally...
or was it???????
Kiril looks over the map with Gwendolyn as they walk, pointing with meaty fingers. "East as far as we can, down this main corridor, then try one of these two doors at the end?"
Flint looks at the charred hand with confirmed suspicion. "Oh no you don't! You're too late for THAT, bastard!" he skewers the hand quickly on the point of his rapier, and flicks it back into the fire to finish burning.
Brunar laughs at Flint's slaying, "Aye! A little jumpy me friend? Did you slay the beast?
He follows Kiril when the group moves out.
Kiril sets the pace, another torch is lit and the party hurries back along familiar ground, thankful that there is no fog today.
When the group reaches the intersection where the great doors lead to the Dining Hall, the party turns right, and marches another dozen feet or so further when they come to a ten foot wide passageway heading to the north on the left. In the shadows further east it appears that, perhaps seventy, maybe eighty feet further down there might be more doors.
Flint takes a look at the hole that crosses over to their little base inside the palace , and thinks to himself that it's good they're clearing out the threats near their little rest spot.
He points to the door on their right. "Let's check this one out." Flint says, meaning for someone to give it a glance over (to which he'll assist with their perception), but still expecting Kiril will probably just kick it open (Which he'll also assist with).
Brunar waits for Kiril to open the door Flint pointed out with his axe cocked and ready to take rotten flesh off rotten bone.
Kiril kicks the door in, as expected.
Grinley will stand in the back of the group, with a magical flame in his hand, ready to be thrown.
Kayne sighs and readies his rapier, by now used to the brutish methods employed in the party's search.
Kiril places his foot in the center of the two stone doors, where they come together and shoves. The doors swing open slowly revealing what appears to be a large empty chamber. Against the far wall, in a pile on the floor is either the remains of a person, or a few crumpled sacks.
Sandy comes up behind Kiril holding her staff high shedding some light into the room, and then you can all see skeletal remains on the floor against the far wall. The bones are dislodged, not being held together any more, the skull of this corpse is at least a foot away from the body, which appears to be still wearing leather armor.
Flint looks down at the bones. "I miss goblins and bandits. At least then you know when something is done trying to kill ya."