Some of the dead men -- like the one the crabs were eating -- are relatively recent. You have no idea what Penkus looked like, but none of the corpses have ID tags or government-issued wallet IDs or anything, so it's hard to tell.
The zombies are a lot more putrid, and have obviously been in the tunnels for a much longer period of time -- from long before Penkus disappeared.
Gotcha. Uro will focus on the recently dead then. If that doesn't turn up any clues we'll have to start digging around the rest of the tunnels.
To the east, there are some more pillared rooms, the easternmost of which is past a slope downward; it's partly flooded but has no tunnels or other openings to it.
You'll remember that the crab room (P2) had a door in the west wall, leading to the following:
Gwlybwr opens the far door and notices that the sloshing sound was coming from the churning waters of a sea cave. There's a sandy slope leading down to the water's edge. Fueled by what must be powerful submerged currents, the water laps and splashes against the walls of a twisting natural cavern that leads to the west. Dozens of purple and red sea urchins glisten in the shallow divots along the ground and lower walls, their spines glittering with water. Gwl estimates that the depth of the water ranges from 0 (near the door) to 8 or 10 feet deep.
Gwlybwr thinks there's probably some distance before the bay. Without swimming a ways into it, he's not certain if the twisty cavern has another shore in another air-filled room, or dead-ends into a wall, or just continues the whole way to the bay.
"Gwl, did these tunnels lead anywhere other than out to the sea? Maybe our man tried to escape and is stuck in an air pocket or dead end under there." After his own close brush with drowning, Uro shudders at such a fate.
"Wil, if you'd be so kind as to investigate these tunnels further, we can keep watch on our side for any more zombies. Maybe Penkus will visit us while you're away," Korynne suggests. This last part is obviously an attempted joke to lighten the mood and lessen her own tension, at least. Her smirk fades quickly as she nervously glances around, her gambit proving minimally effective. She clutches her knife closely in preparation.
"There is a tunnel that leads out to sea in one of the rooms. There was a pool in another room but I didn't explore it, since we were attacked by the drowned. I'll go check it out now."
Gwl proceeds to the room with the other water feature and explores it.
Past the urchins, which he avoids by virtue of his thick scales, steady footing, and diving capacity, Gwl swims to the bottom of the unexplored pool and enters the twisty tunnels at the bottom. These quickly branch off, one angling slightly upward and almost straight ahead, and others downward and away; it is from these that the strong currents come surging.
Keeping straight, Gwl breaks the surface in another sandy room and finds a door. If you try and open it, you find it's not only swollen shut from the moisture, but also barred shut from the other side.
Gwl will press against the door and listen for a minute or so. He'll also search the sandy room for any other noteworthy features before returning to the group to report.
No sound through the door, although you suspect there's some kind of stench in there. Unless you consider rocks, sand, and red and purple sea urchins to be noteworthy features, there are none.
"There's a water-swollen door down this tunnel. Some kind of rot smell seeping through the door, and nothing else of note. Were there any other passageways we haven't checked?"
"There was that room full of pillars... I'd like to stay dry for as long as possible, so let's take a look over there first," Korynne suggests. She makes a magnanimous sweeping gesture at the unexplored side of the halls with a polite bow toward Uro and Gwlybwr. "After you!"
Gwl takes point in the direction Korynne directed, stealthily padding forward on wet webbed feet, peering into the darkness with his beady red eyes.
The pillared rooms are all unremarkable -- evidence of zombie activity, and another dead man or two, sum up what's there.
Yep -- in its entirety.
"Looks like that swollen door is the last stop. Anyone else feel up to the swim there? I can always go back and try to chop the door down. You have a smaller ax I could borrow, Uro?"
Uro nods. "Let's take care of this door." He'll lend Gwl one of his smaller hand axes.
Korynne hesitates at the waters edge, but takes a deep breath and steels herself for the trip through the submerged tunnels. "Wil, I'm not... the strongest swimmer. A little help?" She ensures that the reading light spell on her hat is refreshed before entering the water and doing her best to swim with assistance, rather than just being a deadweight for Gwlybwr to lug.
Uro is fine. Korynne gets yanked by the undertow and scraped along the sea urchins, aquiring a number of spine pricks, and also takes a painful rap on the head from forceful contact with one of the tunnel walls. Gwl is able to drag her up in front of the stuck door.
Korynne rubs the newly forming lumps on her head from hitting the tunnel wall, meeting little curses and wincing. She turns over one hand and sees the urchin punctures in her skin, just as her head trauma becomes a dull ache. "Uh oh."
Jym eats a magic pastry.
Korynne is nauseated; she can walk, but not fight or cast spells or do other stuff requiring exertion. She also takes 1 point of Strength damage.
Eveyone is now in front of the stuck door except Jym, who is all by himself in the crab room in the pitch dark, eating pastries and hoping not to be eaten by a grue. A dancing lights spell will take care of the darkness problem (for a minute, at least).
Gwl returns to see if Jym wants to make the swim.
Jym sighs at the inevitability of the entropic decay of the universe as manifested by sloshing waves, pointy sea urchins, and the slimy clawed man urging him forward. Wiping pastry from his lips, he nods and casts dancing lights. He accepts Gwlybwr's hand and jumps into the water.
Jym's experience is unfortunately similar to Korynne's. Luckily, with Gwl's help, he emerges in front of the door, instead of being dragged into the deeper tunnels and drowned there.
"I remember getting stung with urchins as a child. Hurts like someone put a hot poker through your leg, then pissed fire in your belly. It wears off after a time, but it feels like forever. Wish I knew the cure, but ..." Gwl shrugs in sympathy.
"Maybe there's another exit from the room behind this door. Guessing you'd rather mend back at the inn than here in these rotten tunnels. Lets have a look, Uro."
Gwl takes the ax in both hands and lines up a strike on the door.
Uro nods and in sync with Gwl, smashes down on the door with his great axe.
Uro smashes the door asunder, with only minor help from Gwl. You're almost unable to finish the job, once the stench from the room beyond hits you. With the door destroyed, you can see that the source of the gagging reek is a bloated, seeping body slumped in the middle of the floor. The corpse's dark, almost black flesh bulges against its armor, and appears ready to burst at a touch. Clutched in one fist is a scroll.
Looking more closely, you can see an intricate tattoo on one shoulder, barely visible against the diseased flesh. It appears to depict a sinuous dragon, clutching a flower.
"Ugh, what a smell. That's gotta be Penkus. I'll give him a look-over."
Gwl cautiously approaches the corpse and inspects it, trying to avoid touching the bulging black flesh.
Korynne, already queasy from the urchin venom - Poison? Venom? Eurgh, who cares... - winces at the blast of stench that pours out of the next room. The taste of bile rises in her throat, and she staggers over to the water's edge, squatting. She takes a few deep breaths and seems about to stand up, but then empties her stomach's contents into the water. After a little bit, when she's finished, she scoots along the edge to a clear section of the water to clean off her face, and rinses out her mouth with salt water. Rejoining the group with a wet sleeve covering her nose, she offers a strained "Sorry."
Peeking into the room, Korynne eyes the body warily. "Hm. I guess the tattoo means they were a Lotus Dragon. A bit on the nose with the design. Could be Penkus. Looks like this one's just dead. Who wants to go first?"
If Korynne isn't grossing him out too much, Jym will see if he can snag and then read the scroll in Penkus' hand.
Jym and Korynne, already nauseated by the urchins' venom, are pretty much reduced to walking and vomiting. Retrieving scrolls and complex conversation, for example, are things they think about starting, then fail to follow through when another gout of bile hits them.
If someone in slightly less distress grabs the scroll, you can see what it says: Handout #3 on page 6.
Uro pats Korynne on the back, trying awkwardly to comfort her. "Um, there there. We will leave this place soon."
He'll step over a pile of Jyms magic pastries and pull the scroll from the cadavers clenched fist.
Gwl will peer at the scroll, but realizing there are no pictures, he will wait for someone else to reading.
"Just those squigglies on the scrap that he was holding. Maybe one of you can make sense of it."
Uro will read it out to the party.
.... afterward....
"Sounds like Vanthus is under some taxidermy shop. Let's get back to town and get the two of you fixed up, then pay him a visit."
Obligatory!
"Sounds like Vanthus is under some taxidermy shop."
"Actually," *hork* "it sounds like a specific" *gag* "place, not just any shop. It's probably a part of the" *retch* Lotus Dragons' hideout, or" *chunder* "a more recognizable place nearby it." *urp*
Jym takes a bite of magic pastry, regrets it immediately, but then takes another bite.
[dice=Streetwise, any place called "The Taxidermist's Hall"]1d20+9+2[/dice]
Jym's brain works, even when his stomach is in full rebellion. The taxidermists in Sasserine are all affiliated with a guild, and pay dues, etc. (This is actually a city requirement, enacted as part of a set of laws intended to reduce the illicit trade in wild animals/monsters. Ostensibly, the idea was to make it easier to keep tabs on the end products of illegal poaching; realistically, it just meant more tax revenue for the city, which collects 10% of membership dues.) In any event, the Taxidermists' Guild Hall has a Water Street address -- but, suspiciously, abuts Dead Dog Plaza at one end.
"Well... it sounds like... we should pay a... visit," Korynne manages to get out between pained expressions and pungent burps. "How long... does this... last...? The *hurk*... poison...?"
Vanthus is going to pay for everything he's put me - well, us, I suppose - through.
After 10 rounds in the room, Korynne and Jym have recovered enough that they can at least attempt to swim.
Korynne sits clutching her stomach for a bit, staying as far away from Penkus and his rotting smell as she can. When the riot in her gut settles down, she takes a deep breath and stands. She adjusts her hat and shakes out her wet sleeves. She raises her holy symbol and blasts out some healing to dull the pain of the urchins and hitting her head on the stone.
"Just one thing I wanna check before we go..." She stands in the doorway, hesitant to enter, and so retrieves her holy symbol. She casts a spell, scanning the room with focused intent. "Hmm. Los like we've got a hidden surprise back there." She sidles around the edge of the room to the secret door on the back wall. She pulls out her thieves' tools, checking the portal for traps before attempting to open it.
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It has often been said, by the wisest of sages, that the location of a secret door is one of the rare things that cannot be accomplished by magic alone -- that the stone of the walls and construction of the door combine to make it proof against divination. Certainly, one can summon a genie skilled in construction, who can then find secret doors through brute, mundane skill -- but simply casting a spell and having a door "ping," as it were? Sheer fantasy.
Those sages are unfamiliar with the god Olidammara, and others of his ilk. When the clergy are more larcenous than the thieves, the line between magic and mundane blurs!
Korynne is an heir to that tradition. She quickly and matter-of-factly ascertains the existence and location of a secret door, then sets about investigating it.
In this case, she finds no traps, but also finds no obvious way to open the hidden slab. However, the age and salt air have corroded some of the bearings and other hardware, allowing a partial success to overstrain their strength and cause the door to sag open
Beyond is a small, musty chamber containing three old sea chests.
Korynne slips in past the sagging door, and stands before the chests with a smile spreading over her face until she's beaming. She checks the chests for traps as well before she starts dragging them out of the room, carefully moving around the late Penkus.
"I don't think I've been particularly explicit about this before, but are you all very familiar with Olidammara?" she asks as she drags a chest to the water's edge before stretching out her back. "In any case, thank old Oli for this one! I really hope this is one of Vanthus' personal caches..." she says idly with barely contained delight as she goes back in for another chest. "Poor Penkus. I should give him some last rites at least for everything he's helped us out with, post mortem."
"Good find Korynne. I'm not sure who Oli is, but thank him for me. Do you think that we should open these here or try to haul them out and open them closer to town? If they're trapped, we may want to be close to a doctor..."
You're not sure how you're going to drag chests of that size, weight, and bulk through the twisty tunnels, underwater. Korynne was unable to move them without help.
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On a serious note, are there locks on the chest?