"Dunno about the paintings. Should we go east or west first? I'm gonna say east just at random," suggests Leng.
"One's as good as the other" Pavo said before heading over to join Leng towards the east.
Maellyra reaches through the gaps in the locked case as if she could absorb a fraction of the knowledge the rare texts hold by touch, but even her long, spindly fingers aren't quite long enough to reach them. She realizes that the key that might unlock the bookcase could very well be the second key on the brass ring Shayn still has, but as her companions make to move on from the library the witch also realizes she doesn't have the time to peruse any of the tomes anyway. Resigned, Maellyra leaves the books and follows her companions to the next room, nodding her agreement with Pavo's simple wisdom.
As Maellyra withdraws her hand, she jostles the case slightly. A needle shoots out and pricks her. It does no real harm, but is coated with a viscous purple fluid.
Maellyra hisses more from surprise than pain as her finger is nicked. Frowning, she peers at the ironbound bookcase to determine what she cut herself on in her carelessness when she spots the little needle jutting out. She notes with some worry the purple liquid coating the projection, but as usual her inexpressive countenance belies her concern. "I think I may have found one of those traps."
Spitter immediately turns with a frown.
"Blightscale! What have you done now pink-skin!"
Maellyra's vision narrows to a pinpoint as she numbly stares at the bead of blood that wells up from the wound before slowly rolling down the length of her finger. She hears Spitter speaking to her as if from a great distance away, but, before she can respond, her tongue suddenly feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. The witch takes a wobbly step away from the iron bookcase before her pale grey eyes roll back into her skull and she promptly collapses, breathing shallowly.
Leng steps up smoothly and catches Maellyra before she can hit the floor.
"This is a bad one," he says. "Um, let's get her out of here."
Spitting to the side in frustration, Spitter growls slightly.
"Purple Wyrm venom! Highly potent! She is only paralyzed at worst, weak as a hatchling at best. This wizard is cruel! We should all be more careful! We need to see what is inside that book-holder however. The protections it has leads me to believe they are more valuable than they appear."
Leng continues to hold Maellyra carefully and says, "All right, but we must be extra cautious, and we shouldn't stay. I can't fight and hold Maellyra at the same time."
Spitter nods.
"Understood. Should try and get a potion or spell from the local priest or oracle to restore her partially at least? Maybe the queen of this place will pay? If you can give me a day-or two- and I can make her right as rain once Gozreh gives me the magic to aid her. However that will deplete my stronger magics quickly each day."
"Maellyra, what do you want us to do? I can help you back to town so you can rest in bed," says Leng. "I'm willing to wait if necessary to get her back on her own two feet."
"Whatever treasures and traps have remained in this place will wait another day or two. We go back."
Pavo didn't wait for an answer. He turned around and headed back down the stairs, his ears and eyes even more wary than before.
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The crew bursts into the House of Abadar with an unconscious Maellyra. Acolytes and lay people spring into action as a priest comes to do triage.
"Oh, my! She is so pale, she must have lost a lot of blood!" the young woman says before realizing there is no blood on her clothes. After some examination and questions for the others, she summons a higher ranking priest to cure the damage left by the poison.
"This should be enough" Pavo said as he tossed an overstuffed belt pouch onto the lap of a priest. The man had been writing furiously on a piece of paper strapped to a thin wooden board, which he almost dropped as the small sack thumped into his lap.
"Just uh...just take care of her would ya." It wasn't a question.
Maellyra's pale eyes flutter open and the witch recoils from the unfamiliar face that's bowed over her. Before she can worry too much about who the stranger is and what they were doing over her while she was unconscious, her eyes alight on the symbol of the golden key hanging around their neck. Pushing herself to sit up on still shaky limbs, she briefly glances around at the faces of her companions before settling her gaze on her lap while she comes to grips with this strange new emotion that's making it feel like her face is about to catch fire. "Thanks," she croaks after a few moments of awkward silence.
Craning her neck to look back at the priest that had been ministering to her—for some reason the only person in the room she feels comfortable looking at—Maellyra asks, "How much do I owe you?"
Maellyra swings her legs over the edge of the altar and hops down, ready to make up for the time lost due to her carelessness. She sways unsteadily on her feet thanks to her hastiness but manages to stay upright. Emptying her coinpurse onto the altar, Maellyra counts out the amount owed and leaves the glittering gold coins in a small pile in front of the priest. Nodding her thanks, the witch collects her remaining funds and stows her purse away in one of the folds of her dress. Hoping to avoid any admonishing looks—particularly from Pavo—Maellyra continues pointedly not making eye contact with any of her teammates. "I'll be more careful next time."
Leng smiles broadly as Maellyra returns to her feet. "You're feeling better already! That's great. Glad that this went so smoothly."
Spitter stays behind the bulk of Pavo mostly muttering quietly to himself and trying not to meet the eyes of the priests...just in case.
"I told the pinks that she would be fine! Waste of good gold says me..."
"Don't worry Spitter. There is plenty of gold yet to be had, and now that Maellyra is back on her feet to make me a giant again, there is nothing that can stop us" the man said with a wink.
"Except maybe dinner. Anyone else hungry? We could grab a bite to eat before heading back..."
Back in the comfort of Talia's, the adventurers make it inside as wind and rain begin outside. Lightning flashes and peals of thunder cause most of the patrons to leave before the rain becomes driving, and for those who remain to be morose and quiet.
Mid-way through the meal a woman dressed entirely in black and soaked head to toe seems to almost materialize beside the heroes. "Spittah? " The woman has muscles almost as big as Pavo's and is nearly as pale as Maellyra. Her black hair is tied back in a simple ponytail. "Saw ya go inta Hunclay's, reckoned it safe to recovah the kobold on the stoop. Could ya tell me how ta bury 'im right? Respectful an' all, so he don come back ta haunt us. So the Lady can judge 'im right?" Rain water drips off her wide-brimmed black hat, leaving a puddle below her. She stares at the kobold with dead eyes, patient and still.
Spitter squints and shrugs.
"Each tribe is different. Most of my kind however are used to death as failure for almost anything. My tribe usually just fed the dead to our pets. Fresh meat. You know pink-skin?"
Maellyra peers up at the newcomer with a guarded expression, finding the woman odd even by her standards. But once she's explained her reason for seeking Spitter out, the witch calms, realizing that this must be the gravedigger Bassy and the Baroness had told her about. Feeling sympathetic to her after hearing Spitter's answer, Maellyra suggests, "We could see if the tribe would like to claim the body. Bodies, actually. There were a few of them in the Witch Tower as well. But if time is a factor, a small grave on the outskirts of town would do, I think." She glances to Spitter as if for confirmation before meeting the (what others might find) unnerving gaze of the digger.
"Are you Calladastina? The Baroness mentioned you were interested in recovering the human remains we found in the Tower. If you haven't yet, I can show you where they are, but at least one of them has already begun haunting the place."
"Ayup, thas me. Ya shuah Hunclay's evil magic ain't gon make the wee kobold comes back? I always say a prayer ta the Lady, but I ain't no preachah." Her accent is thick and her eyes seem to never blink. "The dead in the Witch Towah need thah rest, but if ya got a ghost, I will need help."
Maellyra cants her head to the side at the woman's question. She wasn't one to make assumptions when it came to magic, especially those forms of magic so different from her own. But that didn't mean she couldn't make an educated guess. "A few days have already passed and it hasn't happened yet. I think it unlikely at this point," Maellyra says, which is perhaps not the most reassuring answer she can give. "I can help you recover the remains in the Tower, but it will have to wait until we've finished clearing out Hunclay's manor. Perhaps tomorrow?" she offers, eager to put the spirits to rest. Maellyra is looking forward to using the Witch Tower for her own personal alchemy lab without feeling the need to look over her shoulder every five minutes, after all.
"Speaking of Hunclay's, we should be getting back soon."
Spitter rubs his scaled hands together eagerly.
"Yes! Treasure possibilities abound!"
"Just come by when youah ready." She turns slowly about and walks toward the door. A blinding flash of lightning momentarily dazzles the tavern. A crack of thunder causes gasps of surprise. The strange woman is gone.
Spitter's eyes narrow as he grips his new staff closely.
"What kind of pink-skin was that?!"
Spitter's enthusiasm is mirrored by Maellyra (not that anyone could tell) even if their motives differed. Whereas the acquisitive kobold looks forward to accumulating more wealth, the witch is eager to prove herself stronger and wiser than her previous shortcoming may have demonstrated. "Right." Without thinking she nods her agreement to Spitter's idea, pauses, looks thoughtful for a moment, and finally settles on something approaching an apologetic look. "Except we did promise not to take anything from the manor," she reminds Spitter as well as herself. Perhaps she would be less inclined to find traps the hard way if she stopped looking at Hunclay's possessions as potential spoils.
Maellyra's pale eye's flick almost lazily to the door and back when Spitter asks his question, the woman's dramatic exit lost on the witch. "A gravedigger," she answers, flipping up the deep hood of her cloak as she prepares to brave the weather outside. "Ready?"
Looking perplexed, Spitter scratches his scaled head with a rasping sound.
"Strange grave-digger. She moves around like a powerful wizard. BOOM! FLASH! CRASH! FEAR-ME! BA-ba-ba. Hruumpph."
Spitter waves his little hand as he exclaims each word at the end, gesturing in a purposeful manner.
Leng blinks once, twice, then shrugs. He brings his straw hat back up and says, "I'm ready to brave the tower once more if you all are."
Pavo grinned and chuckled at Spitter's impersonation of the woman.
"Yup. Time to get back to work. This tower isn't going to clear itself. Now if we can just get some people to think before they go off doing foolish things" he said, turning red and unable to hide his smile in the process as he looked at Maellyra.
"Maybe this time you'll let me be the one to trigger all the traps, yes?"
The group trudges through the rain and mud across town back to Hunclay's manor. The storm shows no sign of letting up and lightning flashes randomly. The scorched kobold's body is indeed gone and the driving rain seems to have washed most of the charred bits away. Inside everyone is protected from the rain and the warm, dry air is welcome. However, this place is far from safe.
Spitter waves Pavo forward.
"We've seen that Hunclay's traps reset themselves so we should double check again before entering. My people have a saying: 'Skin me once, and I'll wear it, skin me twice and I deserve it.' Much of the connotation is lost in the translation from the draconic...but I think you can get what I I mean here."
Maellyra seems to shrink into her cloak at Pavo's comments, the witch grateful for the cover the garment offers when she feels the tips of her ears burning. His question pulls a reluctant, almost sulky "...yes" from the shadowed depths of her hood. Maellyra wonders how long this feeling of mortification is going to last as the group trudges through the storm. As sporadic lightning flashes through the sky, the witch almost hopes for a stray bolt to find her. That has to be less painful.
Inside the manor, Maellyra shakes off her dripping cloak and looks around for a hook to drape it on. Then she thinks twice about, and decides to leave the cloak in a soaking pile on the floor next to the entrance. After muttering an incantation, Maellyra looks around in an attempt to detect any magical auras.
Leng moves up with Spitter, remaining cautious, careful not to touch anything, keeping his eyes open for any traps that may have reset.
Once inside, Pavo immediately heads up back the steps and returns to the ironbound bookcase, intent to find her secrets and share them. He stands in front of the bookcase, his attention focused squarely on it. His eyes wander over every inch of it looking for anything that may seem out of place.
Spitter revels in the rain and lighting, dancing a little and smiling as the others prepare to breach the door.
"We are blessed! Gozreh is smiling on us and our endeavors pink-skins! Listen to him rumble and laugh!"
Still dripping, Maellyra remains in the doorway, patiently searching the manor's interior for traces of magic and looking for all the world like a wet albino cat. "I feel blessed."
Maellyra cannot pick up any fresh traces of magic. Pavo notes that the needle that pricked the pale woman is still extended, the poison dried to a deep purple crust. He sees no other dangers on the case.
Once inside, Spitter pats the head of the bear rug on the floor gently.
"Sad. Such an end for such a powerful creature."
This time around, Maellyra shies away from the cursed bookcase and all of the other bookcases in the library just to be safe. She stays in the doorway this time, once more searching her surroundings for magical auras.
Pavo finds himself staring at the bookcase. While he briefly considers opening and handing the contents to Maellyra, he remembers their agreed job. He sighs, and turns heading back to the eastern door. He gives the door a quick once-over before trying to open it.
Pavo, seeing nothing unusual about the interior door, reaches for the handle only to find it won't budge. Furthermore, the handle emits an ear-shattering screech at him when touched.