No matter what was thought of the undead Samurai in front of them, two things were obvious. He was very fast, and he was very skilled.
The wazikashi snapped over in a rolling parry, knocking aside Lirrathan's morningstar, allowing himself to take a small hit that seemed to do nothing to faze him, and placing him perfectly for his next move.
Walthus's arrow flies and the samurai pivots on his back foot, his sword windmilling in an arc close to his body as he batters the arrow from the air and then rushes his weight forward, pushing into Daemon to throw the inquisitor off balance and depriving the human warrior of his room to move for his attacks,
"Foolish young pup," the Samurai rasps in Lirrathan's direction, but to himself. "Was I so bullheaded when Rokuro found me..."
He shoves his free hand into Daemon, using the inquisitor's body as leverage to push himself towards Lirrathan. His foot snaps up in a high kick that catches the elf's sword arm by the elbow. Another shift in weight and his sword hilt collides with Lir's jaw, "What good is living if you've no measure of your own worth? What good is surviving if you've done nothing to better the world around you?"
His blade moves like lightning, battering away Lirrathan's defenses. A wide turning slash knocks away the sword and morningstar, and then a quick spin puts him nose to nose with Lirrathan...
... The blade of his Wazikashi buries itself deep into Lirrathan's gut, and then is wrenched out in a spray of blood. The younger Andosana collapses to the dirt.
As the world goes hazy around Lir, he hears the skeleton's raspy voice, "Whatever honor you have pup, I will allow you to keep it." and he raises his blade high above his head.
"No!" Koveluss shouts, leaping forward with his sword held high with both hands. But the undead warrior snatches him from the air and tosses him aside, never losing his position over Lirrathan.
No matter what was thought of the undead Samurai in front of them, two things were obvious. He was very fast, and he was very skilled.
The wazikashi snapped over in a rolling parry, knocking aside Lirrathan's morningstar, allowing himself to take a small hit that seemed to do nothing to faze him, and placing him perfectly for his next move.
Walthus's arrow flies and the samurai pivots on his back foot, his sword windmilling in an arc close to his body as he batters the arrow from the air and then rushes his weight forward, pushing into Daemon to throw the inquisitor off balance and depriving the human warrior of his room to move for his attacks,
"Foolish young pup," the Samurai rasps in Lirrathan's direction, but to himself. "Was I so bullheaded when Rokuro found me..."
He shoves his free hand into Daemon, using the inquisitor's body as leverage to push himself towards Lirrathan. His foot snaps up in a high kick that catches the elf's sword arm by the elbow. Another shift in weight and his sword hilt collides with Lir's jaw, "What good is living if you've no measure of your own worth? What good is surviving if you've done nothing to better the world around you?"
His blade moves like lightning, battering away Lirrathan's defenses. A wide turning slash knocks away the sword and morningstar, and then a quick spin puts him nose to nose with Lirrathan...
... The blade of his Wazikashi buries itself drives for Lirrathan's gut, and the young elven warrior feels his heart leap to his chest, he can't maneuver to block it!
When some unseen force, an energy that fills Lirrathan with warmth, drives the skeleton's blade to the side, just missing its mark.
Yosrick, seemingly seeing two parallel futures unveiled in front of him, makes up his mind. He grits his teeth and moves to 15 feet away from the undead samurai. Calling upon any luck he might have, he snaps his whip at the samurai's sword, trying to disarm him!
Disarm CMB: vs CMD
Lirrathan has a foreboding sense that this guy may be tougher than he seems, imagining what could have happened had that blade gotten through whatever Andrin did. He decides that his short sword is doing him no good. He drops the smaller blade, and decides to cinch up his grip on the heavy-ended morningstar, using a two-handed hold. He levels a solid swing at the thing, but it just may be harder to hit than it looks.
Andrin briefly touches Lirrathan's shoulder again, his voice still strangely melodic and alien.
He then shifts around to be nearer to Daemon, making sure to stay beyond the deft skeleton's reach.
With great frustration, Daemon squares himself with the undead samurai. His mouth curling into a slight frown at the being's obvious turmoil of his past. He speaks in a soothing yet demandingly forceful voice, "You keep speaking of this perpetual 'honor' and bullheadedness, you must realize your own ignorance. YOU are the one who is still holding a grudge or an irrelevant anger to your past - "
Daemon is obviously getting angered by his own words, fueling his next attack, the hair on his neck standing tall as the goosebumps from battle build over his skin. His previous judgement building once again as he maneuvers back into the fray, swinging his Morning star towards the, once old warriors, skeleton ribcage.
The morningstars of Daemon and Lirrathan each land solid blows on the warrior, cracking bone and denting rusted armor, but the Skeleton hardly seems to be slowed,
"Typical Xijan," The Skeletal Warrior rasps at Daemon's remarks, and unlike the Inquistor, he seems to have full composure. "I am not this way because I choose, simply because I must. Because I am bound to protect a legacy and an Empire, and those are what I shall do."
As if to emphasize his words, his sword flashes a zigzag of steel, moving between their blocks like water, to slash deep into Lirrathan's skin.
Lirrathan winces as the blade cuts him, a line of red coloring his armor. "What do you think you protect? You are dead in a swamp cave, sitting on a box. I think your sanity deteriorated with your flesh." He mocks, angry that the thing is being so hard to kill. His anger fueling him, he swings the spiked ball again, and finds that he has grown a little more used to the feel of where its weight lies. He lands a solid blow on the undead thing jabbering on at him.
Seeing that their skeletal foe has little for Daemon besides words and that it still focuses its attacks upon Lirrathan, Andrin rushes back over to his elven companion. His hand touches Lir's shoulder again and the wound just inflicted nearly closes itself entirely.
Yosrick, feeling his luck still burning, attempts again to disarm the samurai!
Disarm: vs CMD
The Samurai's sword snaps in, knocking away a swing from Lirrathan, before taking a hard blow from the elf right to the gut, shattering three of its ribs.
"Of... of course," his raspy unnatural voice wheezes out, seemingly in pain, "Because the only things of value are locked away in vaults or kept in gilded cities..."
A Swing from Daemon's morningstar is rolled to the side harmlessly before the Samurai steps back in towards Lirrathan again, "Hmph, I'd thought you elves smarter than that."
The Wazikashi flashes up again for another strike before it is blocked by the base of Yosrick's rapier, sliding his way up the blade Yos twists his arm around and with a solid wrench pulls the sword from the Skeleton's grasp, sending it clattering across the stones.
"NO!!" He howls, his bony arm reaching out for the blade. Even as he does an arrow from Walthus' bow buries itself deep between the disks of his spinal column, and Koveluss brings his bastard sword up and then down with a bone shattering strike that cleaves into the skeleton from collarbone to sternum.
The Skeleton falls to its knees, its finger weakly grasping at Lir and Yosrick's tunics. "Please..." It wheezes, it's voice sounding lik e a dying man's rattle, "Please, be worthy..."
And then it clatters to the ground, its bones and armor dissolving away into dust, leaving only the Cherrywood chest and the creature's sword.
"Well now. That was odd." Yosrick stares at the spot where the undead warrior fell, still a little shaken by his last words. "What do you think he meant? Legacies, Empires and worthiness? Worthy of what?" Yosrick looks over to the chest and goes to examine it.
Perception:
With a slow breath, Andrin's eyes fade back to their normal brown. He turns to Yosrick, "You understood the creature? If you were able to understand it, does that mean you recognized what it was? All the tales I've heard of skeletons and the lesser undead mark them all as utterly mindless."
"Understanding its language and understanding its meaning are two different things! It spoke Common, but accented, but I don't know what it was talking about. Maybe whatever is in this chest will give us some answers?"
"That was Common?" Andrin shakes his head, then regards the cherrywood chest as Yosrick examines it. "That didn't sound like a heavy accent to me, but rather an utterly alien tongue. Strange..." The noble's words trail off as he crosses his arms and strokes his goatee in deep reflection.
Lirrathan dusts remnants of skeleton from his clothing, and turns to Andrin, testing the weight of the morningstar again. "Huh, this is a pretty handy weapon, I may need to get me one." He hands it back to Andrin, picks up his short sword and sheathes it. Looking back at where the thing died, his interest is piqued by its sword, so he picks it up.
"This is an odd piece. The thing made some pretty precise cuts with it. You guys mind if I give this a go, see if I can make use of it any better than my own blades?" He looks the length of the blade, feeling its heft, and moving through a few basic practice swings. He tries one and two handed, in his off-hand, and in conjunction with each of his other blades. Finally, he decides it would be best suited to replace his short sword, but it will still take plenty of practice to really use well.
Shaken from his reverie, Andrin accepts his weapon from Lirrathan with a nod then watches the elf test the skeleton's blade, "Indeed. It will be far more at home in your hands than in mine, my friend."
"Sure, have fun. Now, what's in here?" Yosrick checks the chest to see if it's locked. If it's not, he takes a deep breath and opens it.
Daemon seems oddly quiet, a solemn demeanor in his posture. He kneels beside the dust on the ground, running a hand through the coarse, grimy material, letting it slowly fall from his enclosed hand. Almost as if muttering a prayer to Iomedae, he whispers to himself:
He stands shortly after, looking to rest of the group, seeing an ever curious Yosrick fiddling with the cherrywood chest. He clears his throat slightly before speaking aloud, all while returning his shield to his back and his Morningstar to his belt. "What do we have, Yosrick?"
Sifting through the dust that was the Samurai, Daemon finds a single key. At the same time Yosrick, examining the chest, finds a lock.
The key slides in and with an audible 'click' the lid of the cherrywood chest - itself a work of art - swings open.
Its obvious that many of the chest's contents have been removed from the numerous slots of the velvet lined interior. However there remains five small vials of a light blue liquid, three bottles of an emerald green brew, two larger vials of a darker blue potion, as well as a ring that looks like two thin pieces of wood entwined together and a slim black wand.
There is also a shirt of fine mail that looks expertly crafted, as well as a wakizashi shortsword made of cold iron. The last contents of the chest are a number of fireworks. Four Skyrockets and eleven Desnan Candles.
The Wakizashi Lirrathan now holds is surely the better crafted of the two. a Work of art as much as a weapon and finely balanced as well. However there was a loose rattle to the hilt of the blade. He would need to have it fixed before he could properly learn to use it.
Yosrick uses detect magic on the contents of the chest, as well as on the chest itself and the disarmed wakizashi.
After giving up the key he had found, Daemon decides to take a different route of approach as the group settles on their material infatuations. He turns his attention to the room around him, looking to see if he can figure out who, or what, this samurai used to be. Where is he from, What was he guarding, Why choose undeath to protect it?
He scans the walls of the room giving it a good look as Yosrick works to identify the containers content. He would even include the container, if possible, in his 'search'.
"It seems this creature was guarding several finely crafted items. Surely the contents of this meager chest cannot be all of it though." He then turns to Yosrick, "Did you previously identify thier armor as being Tian in origin? I find it unlikely that these men travelled such a vast distance just to sit atop an ornate box."
"Definitely Tian armor. I don't know. I think we should take the whole box back with us. I might be able to identify this stuff, but I think I'd need some time and space to do so. Also, if that skeleton's spirit is tied to this box, I'd feel better being back there if we need to do battle with it again." Yosrick closes the chest and starts to pick it up. "Anyone want to give me a hand with this? It's kind of heavy."
Excited at the sight of a second new blade, Lirrathan decides to lend a hand, "Oh, no problem Yos, let me carry that other blade for you. I know how the weight of the weapons can bog one down." With ill-disguised surprise he adds, "Hmmm, there are two of these blades, and I happen to be a two-bladed practitioner of combat. I think it may be easier to get a handle on this new weapon's style with more opportunity to mirror how I already fight. I think it would be wise for me to hold on to this one as well, as I'm sure you'll all agree." As an afterthought he suggests, "Oh, Daemon, you don't mind helping him with carrying the rest of it would you, it seems I've got my hands full with all these different weapons?"
Chuckling at Lirrathan's sudden enthusiasm, Andrin addresses the group, "Is anyone wounded?" If so, he'll channel for of healing.
Daemons head twitches and he puts a finger to his lips giving a frightened look to the group, hinting to be quiet. Once they comply, he'll say, "Did you all hear that?".
Yosrick frowns. "No, what is it?"
He grins before answering, "The foundation cracking from Lirrathan's massive ego." He continues back to his investigation.
Andrin pauses a moment after Daemon's joke, then the humor and relief of having survived the undead guardian's wrath crash over him all at once. He laughs heartily, clapping Lirrathan on the back in good humor. He'll then assist Daemon in looking over the rest of the area. Occasionally, a soft chuckle escapes him as the two work together.
Lirrathan cocks his head, squinting, "That doesn't make any sense. My ego isn't a solid object, and the size of my ego wouldn't have weight. So, how it... would.. Ah! I get it." He shrugs, unconcerned "A large ego is only a problem when it's unwarranted. So, I'm perfectly comfortable with my sense of self."
He looks over at the stuff Yos needs help with, "What kind of armor is that? I could probably carry that too. I mean, if no one else is offering to help, that is." He shoots Daemon a look.
"Truly elf, your self-sacrifice knows no bounds. I swoon at your helpfulness." Yosrick manages to keep a straight face, but it's clearly a struggle. Hoisting the chest with help from anyone who wants to give it, he heads back out the way they came in, ready to get out of the swamp and back to a warm bed and a bath.
Daemon and Andrin's search of the cavern itself reveals no new passages or secrets. It appears to be nothing more than a simple cavern.
The chest is an ornate piece of artwork in and of itself. It's corners, hinges and handles are gilded in jade stone. It's structure is made of a deep cherrywood with intricate patterns scrawled into it, that depict pictures of cranes in flight, lily pads, two men fishing in a pond, and an elongated dragon-like creature unlike anything you've heard of in this part of the world.
As Yosrick can easily confirm, the chest is obviously of Tian build, most likely Minkai.
Hefting the chest between them, the friends head back the way they came and exit the caverns into the near blinding light of the sun, still fresh in the sky. It would take most of the day, but getting back to Sandpoint without the need to camp seemed within the realm of possibility.
Helping Yosrick carry the heavy wooden container, he concentrates on the past events of the fallen undead warrior. Contemplating his downfall, wondering if he, himself, wouldn't be adverse to such a fate.
He quickly shakes it off his mind, deciding to start up a conversation. "You were rather quick to discern this chests Origin's, Yosrick. Have you been to Tian Xai?!"
A few minutes after they begin their long walk back to Sandpoint, all the discomforts of the journey return to Andrin. He begins favoring his right foot again though to his credit he continues to bear his grief silently. He is, however, bound and determined to remember to purchase more suitable attire should he ever venture out of the town again.
"Ha! Not so grand, Daemon. I've hung around Ameiko enough to know a little about that side of the world. Plus history is my thing. You know, between the drinks."
Seeing Andrin limp again, Yosrick grins, then clears his face and says, "You know, Daemon, I've heard that by the time your feet are already hurting, gangrene has set in. In fact it's when they stop hurting that you need to amputate."
Andrin's only response to Yosrick's attempt at humor is to arch his left eyebrow and regard the half-elf with a glance out of the corner of his eye. His limp is slightly less noticeable afterward, but the grimace on his face is also slightly more pronounced.
Lirrathan, true to form, returns to his position of scurrying about near the front. Slipping about to and fro, eyes peeled, ducking from cover to cover. He pops up to address Yos' little joke with Andrin, "Is that what all the drink does for you Yos, keep the gangrene away? If that's the case I think you've saved twice as many limbs as you posess."
Yosrick smiles at the elf. "I'm saving up for future bouts, elf. And who knows? Maybe my sacrifice will allow Andrin to keep his feet."
Daemon's eyes follow Lirrathan as he maneuvers through the brush ahead of the group. He chuckles in his head, but shows only a sly grin as he watches the elf, unable to help but think he tries to hard sometimes.
"I suppose that's true. And no, I do not believe gangrene is a concern. Don't hassle him too much, at least he isn't complaining." He tries his hardest not to pant as he talks, due to the hefty weight of the chest.
As the band walks, Yosrick begins to sing a hopelessly out of tune version of a few local bar songs he knows well. Well, mostly knows. Truth be told, he's often way too drunk to remember all the words. So he improvises. Toward the end of a song about a lost love gone soldiering, an amorous ogre named Pattycakes makes a rather disturbing but humorous entrance...
The soft murmur of his companions' conversation fades from Andrin's recollection as he begins thinking of their return to Sandpoint. A faint smile ghosts across his face as he imagines himself with his feet in a hot soak while enjoying a fine cup of imported coffee. He is shaken from his day dreaming by Yosrick's bawdy tune.
Having missed most of it and only just caught the entrance of Pattycake, Andrin arches a dark eyebrow inquisitively as he regards the half-elf. He sidles over to Daemon, quietly whispering,
The trek to Sandpoint was a long one. Made longer still by hauling the heavy chest back with them, but after many hours, with muscles on fire from the strain, the groups returns to Sandpoint.
The sun has long since set and the moon is high in the sky, but light burns in almost every window, and life is still abuzz in the small town during the early evening.
After returning to town, Andrin briefly excuses himself from his companions but agrees to meet with them a short while later at the Rusty Dragon. He then returns to his family's estate and with as little delay as possible proceeds to wash as much evidence of the swamp from his person as is possible.
After bathing and having his foot tended to and bandaged, he changes into clothes more closely in line with his noble heritage. He enters the Dragon wearing a fine pair of supple calfskin boots, unadorned but fairly expensive leather breeches, and a burgundy silk shirt with a black, short-sleeved vest over top. It's a dramatic change from his sweat-stained, swamp-smelling travelling clothes and it seems to have done the man some good; his eyes shine brightly as he looks about the room for his companions.
Yosrick heads straight to the Rusty Dragon, wearing his stinking clothing like a badge of honor. He immediately orders a drink and if Ameiko is around, says loudly, "Well, Miko, have we got something to show you!"
Lirrathan follows Yos, also not caring about his general appearance. "We sure do! Yos managed to remain sober enough to keep from sleeping face down in his own drool. We're so proud of him." looking around the inn he tries to spot anyone sitting down to a game of cards.
"Humor from an elf! Next we'll find out that dogs can talk and pigs can fly!" Yosrick loudly proclaims. "Of course, it's remarkable that he has the energy to jest at all, considering the heavy burden he helped us carry all the way back from Walthus' swamp. Did the swords weigh you down too much, Lirrathan? Shall we order a bath and warm oil to sooth your worn muscles?"
Revelling in the sport of the back and forth, he plays back "Oh, Yos, that's unnecessary, my muscles are familiar to use. I hear it is a lot tougher when your most used muscle is the gullet you use to inhale whole pints."
