"I think I'm starting to get a clearer picture of just what happened here," Eostre says to no one in particular. "Aldern and Iesha move up here, something happens that causes Aldern to kill Iesha. Mad with grief or maybe panic, he starts digging up the floor down here to hide her body, and finds a bunch of ghouls buried under the house. They tear into him and make him one of them, while Iesha becomes a revenant. So falls the House of Foxglove, I guess."
It's clear she's trying to keep her mind occupied in the face of the sheer horror they've gotten wrapped up in.
"Uh, guys? Is Conner okay?" Nicat asks. "He looks like he's being attacked, but I don't see anything here to attack him."
Gritting his teeth, Nicat takes a few steps toward the injured warrior and lays a hand on one of his wounds, to see if the blood is real or an illusion. At the same time, he waves a hand through the air, feeling for magic.
Eostre thinks on whether she's read anything about this phenomenon they're witnessing.
Whatever was gripping Conner passes, but his wounds still remain.
"Looks like it was a haunt, just as I suspected. Though usually the hallucinations they cause drive people to self-harm, rather than causing the harm directly. Whatever happened here was either incredibly violent, powerful magic was involved...or both."
Conner actually takes a step back, wincing as wounds appear from nowhere. "That...hurt a bit. We might want to take this more carefully, our undead friend doesn't seem to trigger the same traps, assuming that's what this was."
"Not a bad idea, Conner." Sympathetic
"Presumably because he was the source of them. Of course it wouldn't harm its originator, much like how I wouldn't be harmed by spells I cast," Eostre replies.
"Let's get you fixed up. No sense in fighting the enemy with pre-existing wounds."
Evelyn quietly approaches Conner and calls upon Desna's power to heal him.
The wounds inflicted by the haunt heal over, and in moments it's as if they never existed to begin with.
Iesha's ranting grows quieter with distance... before fading altogether. The party hurries down the stairs in the hole after her.
The stairs end in a limestone cavern. The walls drip with moisture, and swaths of black and dark blue mold grow in spiralling, tangled patterns on the floor, ceiling, and walls. Rubble and broken bones clutter the floor, and a rhythmic sound-like the breathing of some immense creature-echoes through the cave from three tunnels, one to the north and two to the west. Of the two western tunnels, the southernmost one seems to be a relatively new creation.
At the bottom of the stairs, Nicat looks around, trying to guess where Iesha might have gone. He points at the various passages and mutters something - perhaps a spell, or a children's game? - that begins with "Eeny meeny miney mo..." and goes on for a surprisingly long time. When he finishes his incantation, he points at the newer-looking tunnel to the west and says, "Let's go that way, it's where Desna has pointed me."
Noticing her arcane lights fading, Eostre snaps her fingers a few times with an annoyed look on her face, and they flicker back into brightness.
"This is more for your lot's benefit than mine. Dwarves can see in the dark just fine."
When Nicat suggests picking the southwest tunnel, Eostre purses her lips.
"You sure, Nicat? Might want to try and scout ahead or something. I'd hate to face down Foxglove only for our escape to be cut off by something from these other tunnels we ignored."
"The light is appreciated, Eostre, thank you"
Conner nods in thanks for the healing. "It's as good a way as any other."
Eostre looks at the others expectantly, as this has apparently become a vote.
The party sets off down the narrow, uninviting passageway to the west. It curves to the north for a few feet before opening up into a foul-smelling cavern.
The long cave the party reaches stinks of rotten meat. The source of the horrific smell is readily apparent--a swath of carcasses is strewn about the floor of this place.
And hanging from the ceiling, with its back turned to the party, is... what appears to be a massive, decayed bat. The sound of *crunching* and *snapping* bones fills the air as it feasts upon a meal in its rotted wings...
Nicat stares in horror at the awful creature hanging from the ceiling for a long moment, but then his attention is caught by something else in the room. Holding a finger to his lips for quiet - though he's sure a giant bat can hear anything it wants - he points past the bat, down a tight passage, to where he sees something shining in the darkness.
Waving his hands to get his companions' attention, he then looks around the room as if searching for something, shrugs to indicate that he can't find it, and then pantomimes walking away. His friends scratch their heads a bit, but ultimately come to understand his message is "Iesha isn't here, let's go back the way we came."
"Skaveling..." He mutters though the others can hear him.
Eostre grimaces at the sight of the monster and listens to Ekan's statement, knowing exactly what he meant from that one word.
She is so repulsed by the skaveling's gory meal that she doesn't see beyond it.
Conner whispers, "Back out, slowly."
With a nod to Conner, Nicat moves slowly and quietly back the way they’ve come, gesturing to his friends to come along.
If we’re going to fight that thing, we can do it later, after we’ve dealt with Foxglove.
Eostre nods, following Nicat's and Conner's instructions.
Oh likewise.
The massive undead bat pauses in its meal, twitching its ears.
Then it goes back to devouring whatever hapless meal is in its clutches.
"Lets try the north one," Eostre whispers.
"Okay, sounds good to me," Nicat whispers back.
The party leaves the undead bat to its feast before returning to the entrance and heading north.
The mould seems to grow particularly thick in this portion of the tunnel. Several pickaxes have been tossed into the corner of the room-one of them looks particularly well made.
A large patch of sickly yellow mould covers the southernmost portion of this tunnel.
"Watch your step!" Eostre cautions. "I don't know what that mold is, but it doesn't look like it'd be good for our health."
"Ick! That stuff is gross!" Nicat cries out when he sees the yellow mold. "Don't you know what it is, Sis? Just look at it, it's mold, and it's yellow - so it's yellow mold! It's really bad for you, and it's flammable, which I always thought was strange - but it means we could destroy it with fire. Anyway, we shouldn't go near it."
Nicat addresses the group, squaring his shoulders and doing his best to look every bit the stalwart - though small - adventuring hero, "Going near this could really hurt us, and be pretty gross. I say we bravely look to see if there's another way around. We might be able to destroy it with fire, but we'd have to get pretty close to it to do that, the way the hallway turns. Let's try the next passage."
Eostre frowns as Nicat chides her.
"I'm an archaeologist, not a botanist!"
Eostre looks at the particularly well-made pickaxe and back at Conner, who she notices eyeing it.
"I think it we hug the wall we can avoid getting too close to the mold and grab those tools. Even I know how to swing a pickaxe...though my glaive is still my preferred weapon."
"Do we know how far out it might send its ah..mold? A ranged attack from a distance perhaps?"
Eostre looks over at Nicat.
"You're the expert here, not me."
Nicat scratches his head. "Well, sis... this kind of mould doesn't send its spores out very far."
"Can't you summon that big ball of fire and torch it that way? Because Desna knows I certainly can't do it--" He chuckles as if remembering a funny memory. "--well, not without--"
"Nicat, focus," Eostre says, trying not to get too annoyed.
"Given all the haunted sh!t relating to previous fires in this house, do you really think more fire is a good idea?"
Feeling the need to clarify, Eostre adds "What I mean is if I torch that stuff with a spell, the ensuing fire might spread out of control and bring the whole house down on our heads."
Nicat looks at the earthen tunnels surrounding the party.
"...you sure, sis? This tunnel doesn't look too flammable to me."
Nicat rolls his eyes at Conner and his apparent fascination with pickaxes, before moving into the chamber with the horrid mold. Keeping his back against the wall and moving carefully to keep as much distance between himself and the spore-flinging horror, Nicat gets to the pickaxes. He scans them for the presence of magic, then collects the shiny-looking one and any others that radiate magic, carrying them carefully back and dumping them at Conner’s feet.
Nicat shimmies along the wall, keeping his distance from the mould with such ease that he doesn't even set off one spore.
One of the pickaxes does radiate magic--he plucks it from its resting place and brings it back for examination.
"Well, if it is not flamable..." Ekan says
Eostre gives an annoyed sigh.
"Fine! But don't blame me if this manor falls down on our heads and that fortune of platinum up there is all ruined and melted!"
Eostre waits for the others to get clear of the tunnel and then conjures her flaming sphere. Then, she rolls the sphere down the tunnel directly into the mold patch.
In the span of a few moments, the patch of yellow mould catches on fire and smoke begins to fill the tunnel. It doesn't take long for it to be completely consumed.
The smoke still lingers a bit.
Nicat studies the fancy pickaxe a moment, then lifts his eyes to focus on his friends - and notices that everyone else is focused on a great, big ball of fire rolling down the hallway! "Whoah, you weren't kidding, sis!" he exclaims, as Eostre torches the mold. "Glad you waited until I was out of there to do that!"
Once he can get Conner's attention, Nicat holds out the pick to him and says, "Here you go, hope you get some use out of the thing. Seems kind of heavy to me..." For some reason, he's grinning a bit as he says this.
He waits a moment for the smoke to clear, then says, "So, I guess we go this way, where the mold was, now that the way is clear?"
Eostre rolls her eyes, but doesn't say anything, grateful that Nicat seemed to ignore the opportunity to rub it in. She takes a deep breath and begins to enter the smoke-filled tunnel.
Conner looks over the pick then stows it in his pack for later. "It's not so much the picks, as the digging. Someone was doing a lot of digging down here but also in several places, which means they were looking for different things, or didn't know just where to look. Makes me wonder what prompted it in the first place."