'Maybe they caught that illness that's hit the town? Dwarves are pretty hearty, but that looked like a bad sick.' Dugan slips his way forward and into the first door along the hallway.
Old cobweb-covered racks and armor stands dominate much of this small chamber.
What must have once been a well-tended armory is now devoid of arms and armor.
'Well, we found the armory. No metal, no mushrooms.' Dugan returns to the hallway and moves to the next door down.
”Are you sure? Let me take another look before we move on.”
Ulark notices two things as he examines the room more closely.
Firstly, some long forgotten looter overturned a bolt case, spilling its contents on the floor.
Although they likely grabbed most of the bolts, they missed a couple that clattered beneath one of the racks.
The 4 crossbow bolts are undeniably of uncommon craftsmanship, and when Ulark picks them up, oddly enough, he detects a whiff of sulfur.
Secondly, as he crouches down to retrieve the bolts, an unexpected draft of air from across the room bristles the hair on the back of his neck.
Pointing it out to Dugan, the dwarf crosses to the other side of the room. Now aware of the peculiarity to be found, Dugan discovers that a portion of the wall is in fact a disguised door!
”Well done Dugan! I’d never have noticed that. Let’s expkore in there. I think we are unlikely to find anything else here. Well...except for these crossbow bolts. They smell odd. Anyone able to tell what’s up with them?”
'Good eye, Ulark. I never would have noticed this.' Dugan takes the time to examine the door to see if he can figure out how it opens.
Ulark laughed, as the two spoke nearly the same sentence at the same time.
The secret door is not locked, and there is no complex mechanism to open it. Evidently, the architects of this monastery thought that camouflaging the door with the rest of the neighboring stone would be protection enough.
Dugan finds a recess in the stone and applies a slight amount of force to swing the door open on its concealed hinge.
The light from the hallway and cracks in the walls do not reach into this hidden place, but owing to their Darkvision, Dugan and Ulark can see inside.
What is revealed beyond is less of a room and more of a short corridor with a number of adjoining cells.
Gates of rusted bars enclose four cramped cells.
The locks on the doors have long since rusted away.
Inside each cell are the dusty, moldering bones of a dwarf.
Most are laid out on the cots inside the cells, but one is heaped against the wall of its cell - seemingly having died while in prayer.
'Wonder what these fellas did to get locked up?' Dugan does a cursory examination of each corpse for anything useful.
”Oh...this is horrible.” Ulark’s face fell as he looked at the bodies. ”What happened here? Who could deserve to die like this? To be hidden away?” He felt himself getting angry, at the apparent injustice. His face started to twist, unconsciously barring his fangs. With a deep breath he calmed himself, though he still glared.
”We should bury them.”
Inconnu takes the bolts and studies them with detect magic. "Maybe this place was more than just a monastery?"
"It does seem very odd for a monastery to have a jail." Bastian agrees with Inconnu, "Perhaps they held 'heretics' here?" It is obvious by the way he says it that Bastian finds the term heretic ridiculous.
The dwarven skeleton in the fourth cell, the one still posed in prayer, catches Ulark's eye in the darkness.
Not only do a pair of squat, broad gray mushrooms grow within its ribcage - from Laurel's description, clearly the Ironblooms you were sent to retrieve - but a finely made ring still clings to one of the dwarf's bony fingers.
Ulark walked over to the corpse. Kneeling, he said ”I do not know what crime you committed, but nobody deserves this fate. Know that I will wear this ring with pride, so that your spirit may know that you will not be forgotten. I will bury your corpse, and I thank you for these mushrooms. Know that in death you have saved many lives.” With that, Ulark our the ring on and called his companions over.
Bastian attempts to stop Ulark from putting on the ring so hastily, but before he can even get a word out the other man has done so, "I really hope that ring isn't cursed."
'Wasn't much luck for it's last owner, anyway.' Dugan's face shows no humor.
Ulark turned around with anger on his face. ”These were you’re people. Show some respect.”
Dugan scoffs as he looks around the hidden jail. 'These weren't my people. None of my kin ever been locked up and left to die.' Dugan spits on the floor and spins on his heel, making his way back to the corridor to open the next door.
”By the grace of the gods, so go we!” Ulark yells at the dwarf as he leaves. He then turns back to the bodies and prepares to bury them.
Removing the ring disturbs the last of the skeleton's integrity, and its dusty bones clatter loudly against the bare stone floor as it collapses.
In his darkvision, Ulark cannot distinguish the metal of the ring or the type of stone that tops it, but he is sure of its remarkable craftsmanship.
As you open the other cell doors, your muscles straining against the rusty hinges, it soon becomes clear that the other dwarfs imprisoned here did not find nearly as peaceful of a final rest.
At first it blends in with the groan of metal, but soon another creaking distinguishes itself as the other three skeletons rise from their cots.
They turn and glare with empty sockets, their jaws hanging slack.
Tiny pinpoints of dull reddish light glint inside their hollow eyes, seeming infinitely distant but bespeaking malice harbored within.
The middle animated skeleton lunges forward out of the shadows within its cell and grasps for Bastian, its short arm shooting out from between the bars.
Fortunately, the bard leans back just in time to avoid its bony grasp.
Pressing his back against the cold stone wall, Bastian watches the stout skeleton's brittle digits reach futilely for him.
At the skeleton's rising
"This is one reason we should not take from the dead..."
'Looks like I'll be helping you put them to rest after all ' Dugan looses his earth breaker and swings it overhead at the skeleton.
Bastian steps back from the undead startled, but then draws his lute. With a single strum of the strings the others can already feel themselves uplifted. My arrows are not much use against bone walkers like these.
Dugan's strike pulverizes the ancient bones, reducing the skeleton to a pile of splintered bones and dust.
Joanne moves to one of the skeletons and kicks it.
Frustrated Ulark brought his axe down on the nearest walking skeleton with all of his strength. As he did so he roared ”I do not apologize for doing the right thing!” An axe might not have been the best tool for fighting a skeleton, but with that kind of force, anything would feel it.
Inconnu draws his sword and moves forward to support the others... if the skeletons last that long.
Joanne's kick knocks the skeleton against the side of its cell, and the impact disjoints the ancient forces keeping the bones together.
Ulark's axe decimates the last skeleton, leaving only a little more intact remnants of the old bones than Dugan's crushing blow.
This dark, hidden prison becomes a still, silent tomb once more.
"I don't think anyone got hurt did they?" Inconnu looks around as things grow calm once more. It seemed even the original inhabitants weren't taking too kindly.
”No.” Ulark said bitterly, as he looked down on the piles of shattered bones.
"I don't think anyone got even a scratch."
'Just the one's that were already dead, once.' Dugan says, breathing heavily and leaning against the bars of the cell.
Bastian lets out a sigh of relief, "It definitely appears something more is at foot here than a simple ruined monastery. Should we investigate or return now that we have the ironblooms?"
Ulark looked at the corpses for a long moment, before saying "The dead are dead. The living still need assistance. We can always return here later, after we have done what we have come to do."
"I have to agree and I should be recovered enough to properly help out with any combat."
Dugan quickly regains his breath and stretches his back. 'So long as we come back. I'd certainly like to take another look around this place. We have to save the ale after all.'
"We'll need more then just two mushrooms, at a minimum we need 7 mushrooms."
"Very well I guess we keep going then. No point sticking around here needlessly."
The party returns to the hallway, motes of dust floating in the errant shafts of light that creep in through cracks and broken windows.
Out of the shadows, you can now see that the ring found on the last skeleton - the one who remained in repose, rather than attacking - is forged from a split band of gold and set with a large red gemstone that seems to glint with an inner fire.
There is one more closed door set in this branch of the hallway before it turns off to the left.
Inconnu will cast detect magic and if it has a magical aura try to figure out what it is.
"The next door on the northern side of the corridor perhaps."
The ring radiates faintly with abjuration magic. After a few moments of inspection, Inconnu identifies that the ring provides protection from fire.
However, the nature of the enchantment requires the bearer to wear the ring for a day before the magic becomes attuned to them and properly functions.
Opening the door reveals a small study that looks like it has been lived in recently, but not by anything humanoid.
Gnawed bones litter the floor and tufts of gray fur can be seen here and there.
An old stone desk sits in the center of the chamber, scratched and cracked in many places. The stench of wet fur hangs heavy in the air.
'You think the wolves been living in here? Sure smells like it.' He waves a hand in front of his nose as he looks over the desk.
"I wouldn't place a wager against it. This ring has been imbued with protective wards against magical fire effects in particular and to a lesser extend more mundane fires as well."
Ulark looked at the ring. ”Beautiful ring. But I’m already resistant to fire. I once out my hand in a fire and didn’t even notice for a good minute. Weird, I know. But this ring obviously isn’t meant for my hand.” Handing it over to Inconnu he said ”You’re still injured. Maybe it would be best for you to have the extra protection.”
"Judging by the tracks I found outside I find it very likely that you are right Dugan." Bastian enters the room hesitantly and goes to the stone desk, searching it for drawers, items, or anything else of interest.
Bastian can hear the sounds of sleeping animals in the room adjoining this study, just past an opening in the western wall of the room.