The Dark is Rising - WotW Part II (Inactive)

Game Master Darkness Rising

Tkaara smiles as the tree falls, burning, to the ground. She then spits the foul tasting bark she bit off the tree into the fire.

Worthless, not even any blood to heal me.

With that, she calls on the darkness of the night to infuse her body with its unholy touch, which reduces the lacerations and mends some of her broken bones.

Let me know if there is not enough time to cast all three spells.

Felrin roars in triumph as he slays the holy treant, sinking his still-burning claws into the blessed creature's heartwood and marking it with sharp, blackened wounds. He draws a dagger with his other hand and roughly hacks free a chunk of the wood that carried Jurak's vital essence, intent on crafting himself a new Asmodean star as soon as time allows. Placing the wood into his backpack, he turns from his task and says, "Well fought, all, well fought indeed. Tatienne, that was an inspired move, setting my claw alight - and it gives a nice touch of fire to the symbol I will carve from that thing's heart."

With a glance at Etna, he asks, "Do you still carry that healing wand? Though the thing's first strike missed anything thing vital - my heart was not where he expected, at least not today- he still hit me hard enough."

As the smoke from the wreck of the fallen, burning treants dies down, and Tkaara's fog cloud disappears, you see movement from the base of the Horn of Abbadon: carrying torches which burn with a fell, evil, silvery light, a collection of just over a dozen monstrous, twisted shapes approaches. Their odd, springy gait takes them right up to the fallen treant (not the one which Felrin is currently harvesting for its heartwood) and their leader jumps on top of the fallen foe, with a triumphant cry: "Waaaaarrrrk! Waark waaaarka WAAAARRRRRRK!"

Its followers, a few yards behind, take up the cry: "Waaaaarrrrk! Waark waaaarka WAAAARRRRRRK!" Now that you can see them more clearly, they look like hideous walking toads: bulging eyes, gashed green skin alight with festering boils, and gaping mouths drooling a horrid viscous saliva.

Brandishing an enormous, silvery greatsword in a single clenched fist, the leader turns to face you: "Waaaaaaaaaaark?"

After a moment's tense standoff, when both sides gaze at one another uncomprehendingly, the thing with the greatsword points to his followers: "Waaaaaaaaaaaark! Waaarkawark!"

From out of the crowd, an ancient, near-albino thing with heavy tattoos and scars shuffles slowly along towards you. His milk-white eyes peer at you dimly, before he speaks:

"Well, I warned you, Tkaara." the Ifrit smiles, catching her breath. "And I'll heal you in a moment, Felrin. Let me just..." the woman starts to search her purse for the Healing wand, before the creatures quickly rush toward the dead treant.

"I don't suppose anyone here talks Savage?" Etna whispers to her companions before the leader approaches. After the creature with the silver sword produces sounds in their direction, Etna tries to address him.
"Can you understand me-?" the ifrit starts to try a couple of languages, but the albino thing interjects.
Hearing a "familiar" language, Etna curtsies and prepares herself mentally to discourse in Abyssal: lately, she had found harder and harder to talk in the tongue of Demons.

Italics is Abyssal.
"I didn't know that those grunts were pro-" Etna starts, stopping herself mid sentence before saying something she should have kept in her head: Abyssal had so many words to express rage, fury, hate, and spite that made it somewhat hard to be diplomatic while talking in it (And it seems that the mere act of uttering words in Abyssal was causing physical pain in the ifrit).
"Of course we do, Sir." she restarts, smiling trough gritted teeth. "I am Etna, and these are my associates." the ifrit gestures to her companions "We were venturing toward the Horn, but that blasted tree attacked us. I sincerely feel that having to listen to its slow drivel was more painful than its attacks." the ifrit says, hoping to have not accidentally inserted any insults in her speech.
Or at least to have referred them to Jurak and not them. Wait, considering this was Abyssal, what if I used too few?

Tatienne sighs, a sigh full of annoyance. Boggards. Why did it have to be Boggards?

"Boggards. Dreadful beasts, really. Dim, silly demon-worshipping twits, with a horrible croaking tongue that I've never deigned worth my time to learn. We could probably wipe their tribe out of existence like one swats a shoe-fly, but this one at least," Taty continues, waving her hand towards the albino Boggard, "speaks the tongue of its patrons. And, judging by all the jiggling and bug-eyed-ness - well, more than usual, anyways - it doesn't like the chief very much."

Turning to the albino, Taty looks the creature up and down. Tatooed, old, educated. Probably holds a position of power in this tribe.

Clicking her tongue off the roof of her mouth, something else comes to the relic-hunter's mind. "Ah, yes. Their initiation into adulthood involves the hunting and killing of a sentient humanoid. Hopefully, we're not part of that particular custom."

"Indeed, Taty, the pale one seems to have nothing but contempt for his chief," Felrin concurs, "could be useful information, though I hope we don't spend enough time with these frogs for it to matter to us."

Though he doesn't understand what's being said, Felrin can read the situation well enough that he's able to nod and smile at the appropriate moments to help in making a good impression.

Tkaara knows that these are Bogards, although not having them in Talingarde, or so she recalls reading, they were not a race she spent much time investigating.

At Felrin and Taty's comments, Tkaara decides that perhaps these frog men understand fear. Thus, while her companions speak and attempt some diplomacy, Tkaara decides to drop her disguise, something that she has not done among the Ninth in many moons, since they first found her in her feral form.

When she dismisses the disguise from the circlet, before the group, and before the Bogards, stands the form that was once an up and coming barrister. Now, her pale emaciated form, which makes even Taty look well fed, together with the sunken red eyes and elongated canines, makes it readily apparent to any other than the least intelligent, that it is no living human facing the Bogards, and assisting the Ninth.

It's hard to tell, but the old boggard's milky eyes seem to glint with malicious amusement.

The albino scowls, as best you can tell.

He grins.

He holds up a hand.

Even as the older one is speaking, the boss-frog is clearly working himself up into a state: his mouth opens and his neck and cheek pouches bulge as he puffs up his size, before once more pointing that greatsword at you with an enormous bellow.

Tkaara looks over at Etna and Taty. Speaking in dwarven, she asks the other ladies.
What is the old thing saying?

"The pale one says the chief is going to challenge one of us to a duel. We can anoint a champion for the duel, or go to war with the tribe. As you can see, chief Turnip-head is working himself into a frenzy as we speak. The pale one thinks our champion can win. Then our champion will be chief, and can install the pale one as "respected elder" to be in charge of the tribe. So, who's going to be our champion? Not me!"

Turning to the elder, Taty continues.

Etna nods at Tatienne's explanation. "I don't really know what I should do with a tribe of savages following me, really. But if we can avoid dirtying our hands cutting down frogs, then I've no problems playing along. Anyone wants to try? Felrin? Erevan? Doctor?"

The wizened albino frog-thing grins at Tatienne's question.

The Beast lopes forward, its lupine appearance, as always, at odds with its genteel clothing and the almost ludicrous sight of the Doctor's spectacles still perched on its snout. "I would be more than happy to rend this frog limb from limb. I wonder what it tastes like... If they do not honor their side and attack us after, we can always kill them then. If not, they might prove useful..." The Beast's grin, if that is indeed what it is, is a ghastly sight to behold. It's amber eyes reflect the starlight hungrily as it stares intently at the bellowing chief.

Looking to Felrin and then to the others, Tatienne shrugs. "The pale one - Zimoko - he says no tricks. I'll assure him that the Doctor is as honest as the day is long."

As anyone that knows Tatienne could say, the woman is very precise with her speech. That she tells Zimoko that Wilken will not be duplicitous is exactly what she means - and the omission of Tatienne herself from the agreement is likewise intended.

Moving to the Doctor, Tatienne hugs the man, a quick and frail embrace. Then, standing on her toes, the relic hunter reaches up and touches the Beast's snout, delicately, her dark brown eyes peering out at Wilken from behind her tragicomic mask. Thinking of the Beast's teeth clamped on the boggard chief's neck, Tatienne smiles, the smile itself hidden but her voice warm, if a bit muffled. "Good luck, love. No doubt the chief is fearsome, but I'm sure your jaw will find itself more than up to the task. For the next minute or so, anyways."

The meaning is obvious to Wilken: You're bite will be the bane of the chief's short existance, for the next minute.

Withdrawing quickly, Taty backs off and stands next to Felrin, in case he needs to jump in on the Doctor's behalf.

"Well, my good Doctor," Erevan quips as he leans against his spear, hurt but mostly well enough, "you should then go for the legs. I hear they are quite the delicacy, at least when they are cooked."

As usual with him, the golden-eyed man uses the time spent in idle chit-chat to better study these new enemies of theirs. From what they say and how they act it does not take him long to conclude that some of his abilities would probably not work against them, as they are hardly on the side of Light. Others would though, and besides, if it does come to a fight, he is not alone, his companions formidable in their own right and even more so when bolstered by each others' abilities.

'Still, it would be... difficult,' he ponders.

The albino frog looks at you with a certain amount of derision.

The frogling chief blinks uncertainly as the Beast grins at him: "Waaark!". The older one chuckles throatily.

Eventually, it is agreed that Ottakar will face off against Kumanda. Zikomo gestures, and a circle some 30 feet across appears on the ground just beyond the two burning treants; the duel will take place there. In accordance with ancient custom, anyone who leaves the circle forfeits the duel. The Beast and Kumanda start within arms length, intently waiting for the signal, which Zikomo gives by dropping a branch taken from one of the treants; perhaps a subliminal signal reminding Kumanda who killed it, and who did not.

Kumanda is astonishingly quick for his size: the instant the branch lands, he reacts, stepping smartly away from the Beast, before lunging forwards and slashing with his greatsword.

Not bothering with a map, it's open terrain and there's just two of you

The Beast roars in anger more than pain at the unexpected quickness of his opponent's strike. Not planning to give him a second chance, it steps forward and attacks with tooth and claw. The results are quite bloody.

The frogling chief reels under the Beast's assault, but its return strikes are savage - or they would be, if they weren't deflected by the magical protection of Ottakar's extract. Kumanda bellows in fury at the albino shaman, who replies in the same language before turning to you.

Unable to understand the frog's jabbering, and uncaring anyway, the Beast again unleashes its fury upon the Chieftain.

Tkaara looks over at Etna, licking her lips, a deep need apparent in her unliving eyes:
Even for the Doctor, that is a lot of sweet gore.

"That is a lot, yes." Etna replies, as usual taken a little aback by the Beast's brutality "I can't imagine that they taste any good, tough."

The Beast sinks a claw deep into both of Kumanda's shoulders, before clamping its jaws down and tearing off the frogling's head (he tastes revolting, just FYI).

Kumanda's body collapses in a fountain of gore, and Zikomo loses no time whatsoever. Even before the corpse has stopped twitching, he is verbally haranguing the others in their unknown language, before eventually pointing to you:

His blind, milky eyes gleam with intensity.

He gestures at the Horn of Abaddon. You see, just beyond where the tribe is standing, a vast, cavernous opening, like a gaping maw of some vaguely-imagined, half remembered horror.

Tatienne reaches up to her neck and flicks a little chief-splatter from her countenance. Pulling her mask off, she turns to the albino.

Turning to Felrin, the relic hunter translates. "It says it had a dream that we'd come and rebuild 'Father's' temple."

"and that we're the 'patrons' of the Bane-wog. There's a staircase over there."

When the former chief falls, Tkaara can no longer resist the urge of the smell of fresh blood. She moves in behind the Doctor, falls to her knees and begins to scoop up the pooling blood in her hands and sucking the fishy tasting blood down, her tree battered body healing as she does.

When Taty mentions a staircase, she looks up, but with the smell of fresh blood around her, she does not pay much attention to the Horn, and instead returns to her feast. Blood now coating her face and clothes.

"Thank you for the translation, Taty," Felrin replies, with a congratulatory nod the the doctor. "Though in fact there are two staircases climbing the Horn, one clockwise and one counterclockwise."

On decapitating its foe, the Beast throws back its head and lets forth a piercing howl that clearly sends a message straight to the primitive part of the brain of all present: hide in your caves, huddle around your fires, cling to the lies that are civilization; I am nature, red in tooth and claw, and I will hunt you down and devour you.

Only when it has finished exulting in the carnage wrought does the Beast pay any mind to the sizable gash in its flank left by the ex-chieftain's lucky sword blow. It absent-mindedly procures and quaffs an extract while watching the albino and the spy babble on in an unknown language. Pointing is universal, however, and the Beast's keen eyesight easily makes out the shape of the staircases beyond.

So this is the horn...I am not looking forward to dealing with a Daemon that goes around by the name Eats-the-Eyes. I wonder how strong the seal the Mitrans put on him is...

"Soooooooo then... who's the scout?"

Or guinea pig, depending on your viewpoint...

"They invited us: it would be uncouth to decline." Etna says with a tinge of irony.
"That, and if they were plotting something such as an ambush (I personally doubt they are capable of such subtleties), it would be wiser if we moved as a group." the ifrit continues, smiling gesturing to Erevan, Felrin and Ottakar "Our gentlemen here will have to lead the way, of course."

As they walk toward the entrance, Etna uses the wand on Infernal Healing on whoever in the group needs it.

Tkaara looks to Etna.
Felrin is likely the stealthiest, but I can scout if you want. Or, we can move a a group. As a group we are strongest, but also most susceptible to ambush.

"Forgive me for asking, Miss Flakben, but you are susceptible to traditional healing magics, while cured by necromantic energies, yes? If so..."

Tatienne reaches out and places her hand on Tkarra's wounds, thinking of the darkest night and the foulest energies of unlife. The light around Taty's hand seems to be sucked out of the air, as darkness cloaks Tkaara's wounds and her emaciated skin stitches back together.

"By all means, we would not want to prove... impolite," Erevan cannot help but quip after Etna's comment about declining an invitation, his eyes all but pointing towards Tkaara's and the Doctor's -or rather the Beast's- states.

"If Felrin does want to scout ahead, and such an idea does have merit, I am fairly certain I could join him in that endeavor," he offers, leaning against his spear. "I would appreciate some healing first though. If we do decide on that course of action, it would be wise if both of us are as healthy as possible."

"When we explore the Horn, We stay together," Felrin says simply. "We may learn a little from scouting ahead, but we're more likely to just die one by one. For the time being, though, I agree with Etna, there's no reason to be impolite to our gracious hosts." He moves toward the Horn with the others, gratefully accepting a couple of healing touches from Etna's wand as they approach the natural-looking structure.

As they get closer, he suggests an approach, "When we're done with the boggards, I say we take the stair rising counter-clockwise. Not only does it go against the established order of things, as we aim to do, but it is better hidden, suggesting the obvious staircase is a trap of some sort."

Tatienne nods in agreement with Felrin. "Sounds good. Strength is best found in numbers after all. If we need a door opened or a hallway traversed, let me know. The High Templar Rogarvia would be happy to lead the way."

Looking out at the assembled Boggards, Tatienne continues. "I must admit I'm the tiniest bit excited to see what their society is like. I bet it is simply dreadful. Do they eat bugs? I imagine their bathing rituals are... little to nonexistent. Judging by the albino's jealousy, the chief gets all the best mates, but that's the case anywhere, isn't it? There's probably a paper to be written here somewhere..."

Tkaara looks over at Taty.
They are tools, just like the bugbears. Tools to be used until no longer needed, and then thrown away.

She then turns to Felrin:
We can see what the boggard's lair holds. Perhaps it will be a place to rest and recover. I would not trust them, but at least we would know what to expect.

Tatienne gives Tkaara an earnest look. "Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I'll not be sticking around once we've achieved our objective, going native and all that nonsense. But, for history's sake, its a shame we won't be able to study them more in the meantime..."

Following the boggard tribe, you head towards the cavern entrance. The many stalactites, stalagmites, and columns of wet living stone resemble nothing so much as fangs contained inside a large loathsome grin. The cave (C1) is covered by countless pools of standing fetid water and ubiquitous slicks of mud that make the entire surface of the maw slippery; it is difficult to keep your footing and you move slowly. The boggards do not seem to be bothered at all by this.

The cavern is vast, and contains a myriad of branched passageways. Again, Zikomo gestures at you and you turn right, down a narrow shaft (C1a) in the stone that you might have missed otherwise. A pair of boggards stand sentry, gaping at you; but Zikomo's harsh croaking means that they quickly snap to attention and bow to you.

The narrow passageway opens up into a much bigger space (C4), strewn with mud and dotted with stalagmites and stalactites. Zikomo frowns.

Indeed, a few boggards splattered with mud could hide here almost unseen by any intruder - until it was too late.

Taking a sharp left, you end up in an open cavern (C9), festooned with crudely-made huts: clearly, this is the village where the Bane-Wogs live. Zikomo proudly makes his way up to the chief's hut (now his), and gives a long, rambling speech in the boggard tongue. You don't speak Boggard, but your guess is that it follows the usual pattern: former leader bad, good times just around the corner.

As if remembering you, Zikomo then gestures toward your group; the remaining boggards do not accompany you this time. Following him, you tread through a foul-smelling cave almost completely covered with manure and evil-looking toadstools (C16) before arriving at your destination (C23), a large and high-vaulted cave that drips with water so constantly it seems as if it is perpetually raining.

Fetid pools and luminescent algae combine to give the chamber an ominous greenish glow and a lingering stench. The chamber is dominated by a large and impressive mud and stick hut that is surprisingly sturdy.

The entrance is decorated with bones and leather strips cut from dozens of creatures (many sentient).The temple itself is a single room almost thirty feet across. Inside, countless bones from those who have died upon Father's altar decorate the place. A crude stone block is encrusted with old dried blood. Above the block, drawn in vibrant luminescent paint distilled from rare marsh plants, is a mad spiral rune, surrounded by countless scribbles of daemonic iconography.

A fire pit burns in the center of the temple. Zikomo Hears-the-Father enters his hut, drawing out a flagon of juice and drinking its contents.

The effect is dramatic. The albino shaman arches his back, before spasming on the floor, thrashing his legs furiously. He speaks, once, in perfect Abyssal.

Suddenly the drug induced fatigue seems to lift from him in one manic burst of energy. He leaps to his feat and starts dancing and screaming his terrifying croaks about blue slime and the fury of the master. The fire that burns at the center of the temple changes color to blue in response to his frenzied abyss-born prayer.

Zikomo laughs like a mad fiend.

Tkaara silently follows the new albino Bane-Wog leader silently, watching each of the fetid rooms they pass through, simultaneously without caring, yet with some of her former self still fighting the undead nature, with disgust at the slime and refuse covered rooms they pass through.

When the party arrives at the temple area, she looks at the iconography and the rune with a questioning look.

Unable to understand the Abyssal babbling, she turns to Flerin.
Odd. The iconography is daemonic, yet the runes are demonic. I would say a new player seeks to influence this tribe, and this land.

Pulling from her pack a fine quarter-bound calf-leather book filled with blank sheets of parchment paper, Tatienne follows along with the others, murmuring to herself. She alternates between looking around and writing in the book, oftentimes having to catch up with the group as something particularly interesting catches her eye.

- The entryway to the Spire is slicked with mud, which the boggards move through easily enough. I surely would have fallen, if not for the enhancements to my coordination from the sacrificial athame. Curse this frail vessel I'm to spend my life in!

(C4)

"The albino says this is a good ambush sight, and that the former chief was lazy."

(C9)

- The albino, Zikomo is his name, seems to have consolidated his power quickly. No doubt we're the muscle that keeps the others in line.

(C16)

Stopping at the cave with the toadstools, Tatienne crouches and examines one, wracking her brain for what they could be. She doesn't touch any of them, however.

(C23)

Pausing at the entrance to the temple, Tatienne summons the High Templar, and pulling a light blue parasol from her pack, the relic hunter hands the umbrella to the Templar Rogarvia, who holds it over Taty's head, protecting the smaller woman from the rainfall.

- Temple. Dagon. Daemonic iconography. Sacrificial altar.

"Excellent deduction, Ms. Fiakben. The spiral is the symbol of Dagon, demon lord of the Sea and Sea Monsters."

When Zikomo drinks the hallucinogen, Tatienne steps back behind the High Templar, and peering out from behind the skeleton, continues scribbling her notes.

- The albino is mad, or perhaps touched by his demon lord. Dangerous. Dagon speaks to him through drugs, or so the boggard thinks. 'I... I see what you require. The cave of the blue slime conceals your future. Learns its secret or fail at your master’s charge.'

"I, Etna? I'm not sure what the albino means, or if I'm understanding it correctly? What secret?"

As they venture trough the Bane-Wog's domain, Etna fails to hide her disgust at the general state of the caverns: she had not expected much, but the place was even filthier than she thought.
I can't fathom how even a bunch of savages could live in this condition!
On the other hand, the fire-haired woman is slightly comforted by the fact that Tkaara was feeling the same: the barrister had been showing less and less humane traits in the last months, and this at least showed that she wasn't completely turning in something not much different than the Beast. Not yet, at least.

"I am not really, sure, Tatienne." the Ifrit replies, before she can ask the Albino frog anything "Maybe he he's referring to that...disgusting liquid we saw in some of the caverns while we passed here. The Boggards probably settled here after Vetra-Kali was sealed here: maybe we'll find something that will aid us if we search for this 'Blue Slime'."

While the Boggard is doing his frantic dance, Etna tries to see if she can discern any particular message in the Daemonic runes around the glowing spiral.

Do they mean something or they're just some weird street art by a Boggard version of Bansky?

Felrin follows along behind the albino boggard, occasionally turning to Taty for a translation of the thing's speech. Arriving at the ritual room, he sneers at the demonic name and daemonic writing both, knowing them both to be inferior to the devilish ways of Asmodeus.

As Zikomo performs his hallucinatory ritual, Felrin shakes his head in disdain. "These demon-worshipers will kneel before our Lord, like the rest of Talingarde," he comments, "but in the meantime it seems this cave of blue slime might be of use to us. If he's going to keep dancing like that, let's take a look around."

He gestures across the room and says, "We know what's behind us, let's see what lies ahead," then walks to the far tunnel and out of the room, his eyes and ears alert.

Tkaara listens to the others. Her lack of deep knowledge of foreign languages causing her to loose interest in the babbling of the albino.

When Felrin speaks, she motions to the sky, despite not being seen, and a moment later a shimmering pattern of sparkling lights appears around her solidifying into an immaterial armor which makes her slightly more difficult to hit.

Waiting in this cesspool is certainly not going to make this any more enjoyable. Might as well see what else is here.

With that she follows behind Felrin.

The passageway Felrin heads down is drier than most, and leads to what is obviously some sort of holding pen (C22); presumably for any prisoners the boggards capture. Felrin finds the door (A) extremely interesting - it's several pieces of well-crafted metal lashed together. Far beyond anything the boggards could make, the door is clearly salvaged from somewhere; but where?

Continuing around your circuit, you pass through another damp and disgustingly smelly cave (C21) which would appear to be another fungus farm. From there, you reach an empty nondescript wet cavern (C20) with a pool of stagnant (but vaguely drinkable) water, before ending up at the fungus farm you were in before (C16).

From here, a myriad passageways run, carved through the rock of the Horn. Which way will you go now?

Felrin considers the question of where the boggards would have come upon the artisan-crafted metal that makes up the door in the wilds of the Caer Bryr, "They seem to have salvaged this, makes me wonder what else they've gotten into. We should keep an eye out, in case they've made off with anything important to our mission."

He continues the exploration of the caverns, turning sharply right to the area they have not visited before, scanning everything attentively as they move through the passageways.

Taty wrinkles her nose and makes a note in her notebook.

C16

- Food, apparently fertilized with their own feces. They eat from their toilet, evidently.

C23

Nodding, Tatienne put her pack into Rogarvia's free hand, and pulls from it a suit of armor, in pieces, and then drops the pieces to the ground. "High Templar Rogarvia, let's get you into your armor. We're going exploring today!"

The High Templar just stands there, slack-jawed, empty eyes staring at Tatienne, holding the pack and parasol.

"Very well, Templar, I'll hold my pack and umbrella. Get dressed!"

While the High Templar puts on his armor and dons his weapon, Tatienne makes a few notes in her journal, drawing a quick sketch of the altar, and examining it closer, eventually placing her hand on it and closing her eyes in concentration.

Moving along, Taty jots more notes in her book.

C23

- Prison. Wooden pens. Likely where the sacrifices are kept. Contains door made of metal. Well-crafted, likely salvaged from the Horn somewhere. Ask Zikomo about this.

Tatienne pauses, placing her hand on the door.

C21

- Toilet farm.

C20

- Water source. Potable.

"These don't make any sense: they have probably copied the symbols from somewhere else on the Horn just because they liked it." Etna says, tracing her fingers along the Daemonic scribbles.

Following after Felrin, Etna looks around the caverns, trying to spot something that could be connected to the "blue slime".
"Winston, do you smell anything strange?"

Perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 10

Winston replies with a low whimper, asking mistress Etna what she meant with "anything strange": they were walking around a cave full of slimy frog-people that used weird glowing fungi to draw on feces-covered walls.
Smelling something normal would have been weird.

Still, the Basset Hound gets to work immediately, sniffing around as he follows the Ifrit, eager to show to be much more useful than that macabre excuse of a butler that Lady Taty was carrying around.
Really, she should have just brought along a dog, like himself! Rotten opposable thumbs are no match for a proud exponent of the canine race! What could a zombie possibly do that a dog couldn't?

Perception with Scent: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (1) + 5 = 6

Apparently, noticing something useful instead of losing himself in a personal growled rant.