The follow-through on Triel's blow causes her to lean against the wall of the mausoleum. A sharp pain shoots through her, causing her to bite her lip to avoid crying out.
She looks down at her side, at the blood seeping through her armour. Not pleasant. Needs healing. Preferably before Father Zantus sees me like this.
She presses a mailed hand to her wound, summoning up the energy to will it closed...
...and clearly Gorum was impressed by her attack. If nothing else, the healing energy she calls upon closes her wound completely.
"Now..." She straightens herself up, sheathing her greatsword on her back. "...what were skeletons doing here, anyway?"
"Skeletons come from the dead, right? So, perhaps those were the dead who were buried...um, no that's not right..anyway, they were here, they were dead, then they were not. Now they are at rest again?" Artemis asks as he rubs his chin.
"I meant to ask why skeletons were walking around in the first place." Triel glances at Artemis, abruptly squeezing her eyes shut as the sunlight hits them again.
"Good shooting, by the way."
Artemis nods.
"Thanks, nice hit, you almost exploded that other one. I'd say we best ask the Father about that, my area of expertise, so to speak is the woods and giants to some degree."
Triel smirks behind her helmet.
"Come on--there may be more inside." She pulls her club from her belt and walks further into the mausoleum, relieved to be out of the sunlight.
Her darkvision allows her to see where she's going without the need for light of any sort.
Vanya is glad to see that Triel can take care of her obviously painful wounds. "Are you going to be ok? And that is a good question! Were these skeletons here by normal-ish supernatural means, or by someone's will?"
Triel nods at Vanya. "I will."
Strength through adversity.
"And if you're wondering whether the skeletons rose up because of grave robbers or necromancy... I'm wondering that myself." She readies her club and keeps moving forward.
Artemis looks around.
Whatever it is I don't like it. Never fought skeletons before, anything special I should know? They only die when you hit them in the head, burn them with fire or acid, throw them into a volcano?
Jack speaks a bit louder than normal, hoping that if there are more they find him first, his previous swing was rather embarrassing.
As Triel demolished the second one, Ithylia slowly lowered her fiddle? "Are all the скелети gone?" She shifted foot to foot, uneasy.
Ithylia was still uneasy as she peeked inside again.
Following close to Triel, Vanya's eyes adjsut quickly to the dim light. "How funny. Why would you have an arrow that doesn't have a head?" She bends over and picks up the blunt arrow from the ruined skeleton.
Triel shrugs (*clink*). "Skeletons are vulnerable enough to being hit with a blade, Jack."
"Plenty of reasons to not use a full broadhead on an enemy. For example, small game, things you don't want to kill. For some reason, maybe overheard it, figured it was best way. Besides no meat for the regular arrow to puncture. There are other arrows too. Probably pick some up if we are going to end up fighting things." Artemis says matter-of-factly.
Smiling at Artemis, Vanya says "Oh, well, I've never done any hunting. But I suppose what you say makes sense." She listens attentively to Triel's dissertation and asks, "But what if I don't shoot blunt arrows or use healing magic? My fire spell didn't seem to do too much to them, either. Any suggestions?"
As you all begin to enter the room, your eyes adjust to the darkness of it as the room is dimly lighted from the opening of the door. And you find, thankfully to your ease of mind, that there are no other skeletons in the room.
Triel turns to Vanya. "Then hit them very hard with the nearest blunt object you can find, be it a stick or a big rock."
"And if that doesn't work, blame Gorum. And run like hell."
She looks around the mausoleum, noting the disturbed sarcophagus in the corner. Arching an eyebrow behind her helmet, she walks over to investigate it, her club still readied for trouble.
At least there aren't more skeletons in here...
Vanya nervously looks about for a big rock. Knives won't cut it now! The waif smiles at her own joke and follows Triel over to the sarcophagus.
As Triel begins to inspect the sarcophagus, it becomes apparent that this sarcophagus contained the bones of someone who was important.
"Huh." Triel looks around the sarcophagus, searching for an epitaph or inscription that would tell her who was buried here.
Triel's eyes widen behind her helmet. "Here..." She beckons the other party members over. "Look at this."
She points out the inscription she just found. "You don't suppose Father Tobyn was one of the skeletons on walkabout, do you?"
"I suspect we should get the Father involved, he might know." Artemis says.
"Maybe we should see if we can figure out what made these skeletons go on walkabout? Father Zantus asked us to help, not bring him more questions."
"I suspect it was those human tracks that helped, but I'll admit this kinda thing is out of my normal experience."
"If it was, where did the tracks head off to?"
Ithylia, seeing no danger moved over to the cloth she saw in the back of the room. Fiddle under her left arm, she held her bow and the scroll of the instrument to keep it out of the way but ready to play again at a moments notice. With her other hand, she carefully picked up the cloth, inspecting it and the area all around it. Her attention so focused on examining it she only half-heard Triel calling her over.
"Do we follow the tracks? We should at least let the guards know, right?"
Triel nods at Cian's suggestion.
She glances over at Ithylia as she wanders over with some sort of cloth in her hands. "Oh? Ithylia, what did you find?"
Ithylia hummed a little tune and looked for magic.
"A robe... Someone cast spells from patches sewn to the inside..."
Triel arches an eyebrow and utters an incantation, briefly squeezing her eyes shut before she opens them once more. Her eyes briefly flash blue under her helmet as she examines the robe in Ithylia's hands.
Vanya offers to help figure out what the wrinkled black fabric is...
"Well, it seems to be a..."
"There are a few threads from the different patches here... and here... and this one here."
Triel's eyes widen. "A robe of bones... it's a robe that normally carries several patches depicting various skeletons and zombies. A skilled necromancer can use the patches to summon skeletons or the like to do her bidding."
Talice never liked these sorts of robes--she always felt they covered up too much. Like you were trying to hide physical flaws. Of course, with her leg...
She glances at Ithylia after nodding at Cian and Vanya. "You found this just lying around in here?"
If it can't do than no more someone should wear the thing. Maybe our dark magic user lives in town. Let him know someone's tracing him down, panic him a little. Maybe he'll even be dumb enough to attack one of us.
Jack then holds out his hand I'll do it if there are no other takers
"No offense meant, but isn't the robe rather poorly sized for you?" Cian asks, looking from the robe to the Halfling.
"Yeah, in the floor right over there." She points to where she found it in the back of the room.
Triel looks over to where Ithylia found the robe. "Just lying there..." She starts bundling up the robe. "Almost as if someone did indeed leave it there."
She glances at Jack, nodding. "Astute of you. Now, come on." She sheathes her club at her side, certain that there are no lingering threats in the mausoleum. "I believe Father Zantus should be informed of what happened here."
And he'll owe me a favour. Another step towards gaining acceptance here.
She smirks under her helmet. She still does so as the sunlight forces her eyes closed once she gets outdoors.
"So we are done with the skeletons now? All done?"
"If they know what's good for them, yes. We're done with them, Ithylia." Triel glances back at the bardess. "Don't worry so much about them--I'll keep you safe."
Ithylia gives Triel a grateful smile and skips after her.
in response to Cain
All the better, should they mistake me for a weak target that got lucky, they learn swiftly what happen to the last person who thought they could take me because I'm smaller.
If no one objects Jack takes the cloak puts it on, looks at his probably ridiculous self, smiles and walks out.
Triel waits for Ithylia to catch up before walking on.
"Still feel like performing today?"
Artemis takes one last look around before following the group.