At the bottom of the short stairs, Mythrydyr finds detritus littering this room, including bits of metal, broken furniture, crushed glass, leather strips, and shredded parchment. The walls, ceiling, and floor are covered in deep gouges forming words and phrases in multiple languages. The same phrase seem to be repeated over and over.
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Following behind the scout, Jamir looks around the room. Ignoring the apparently random gouges in the walls, ceiling, and floor, he makes a quick pass at checking the detritus for anything of interest.
"It appears that someone was here before us, looking for something. Let us hope they did not find it!"
Jamir is able to determine the room once contained a table with thick leather restraints, a single stool, and a small writing desk. He finds enough scraps of parchment to determine that the pages contained some form of ancient writing, including arcane symbols and sketches of gemstones and
humanoid skulls.
Jamir also locates a sturdy box with its contents still intact: 8 alchemist fires.
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"Fascinating...wait, I know these characters. This is Ancient Osiriani." Katswiri drops down to examine the dust fallen from the stones. "Pain is a virtue....did I remember to douse the hearth...pretty clouds. Hm. A somewhat odd selection of phrases for the dust from a necromantic stone. Random thoughts from the spirit that the stone attempted to bind, perhaps?" Katswiri will grab a pinch of the dust and rub it between her fingers, feeling it to see if there is anything unusual about it beyond its penchant for spelling and examine it closely through her magnifying glass before standing back up.
"Onyx is commonly used as a material component to animate the dead or call undead spirits. I suspect this was once used in such a ritual, long, long ago."
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When Katswiri enters the room behind Jamir, she stops, staring intently at the gouges on the walls. "That...that's also Ancient Osirian, etched with deep anger. 'I will seek the Dungeons, find the screams, remember your name, KILL YOU!!!'. Hm..." She looks around at the other scratches. "I can't read these, but I think they may belong to one of the planar tongues. Can anyone else read the other phrasing, or should we employ magical aid?"
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Katswiri will help examine the materials in the room, becoming more excited as the scraps of parchment are brought together. "Look, these are written in Ancient Osirian as well! And the content...this dates to the Age of Destiny, over seven thousand years ago." Katswiri will unpack her journal and her painting set, and begin recording as much information as she can carefully replicate from the parchment scraps.
Both Katswiri and Aroden are fairly certain that the other 2 languages say something similar to the Ancient Osiriani gouged into the floor, ceiling and walls of the room---certainly they're just repeating a few short phrases like the others.
Mythryndyr spies a small room with some alcoves and a hallway leading west. It's difficult to see into the alcoves from his current location, although the two nearest in the western wall clearly do not contain anything bigger than a breadbox.
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"Those of you who do not command magic may wish to take some of these flasks that Jamir found, as Mythryndyr has done. They can be useful not only against swarms, but also against other creatures resistant to weapons. I will try to let you know if anything we should encounter is resistant to fire."
At Katswiri's observation, the wizard looks lost in thought for a moment. "The Age of Destiny... yes, after the Age of Darkness and the Age of Anguish... He walked, ageless but not yet a god..."
"Ahem. Oh yes! Very old. Thank you, Katwsiri."
He likewise grabs some of the dust and rubs its between his fingers, listening for the sound.
The wizard takes his glowing sword in hand and prepares to move on.
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Jamir, already hooking two of the vials onto his belt, nods at Aroden's advice. "That is an excellent suggestion, my amiable arcanist!"
Jamir gives Craggark a wink and mouths, Wizards! with a quick shake of his head.
He moves up to behind Mythryndyr, waiting for the scout to give him an "all clear" signal before moving into the next room.
Over a dozen small alcoves line this hallway, each containing rusted shackles bolted to the walls and copious amounts of dust. Three of the alcoves contain brittle skeletons hanging from the shackles. Frantic whispers echo around the otherwise-silent chamber, seemingly originating from the skulls of the deceased.
Aroden detects a faint aura of necromancy and conjuration (healing).
He can tell the skeletons belonged to adult humanoids who suffered from multiple horrific and fatal diseases. He is also able to deduce that only magic or divine energies could have kept these people alive long enough to contract so many deadly diseases, and whatever it was that kept them alive is likely what preserved the bones all these thousands of years.
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Jamir nods and unconsciously moves his rapier into en garde position as he continues behind Myth. He fingers one of the new vials of alchemist's fire with his off hand.
"Aroden, Katswiri, Robyyn, you have the expertise here. Should we put these poor souls to rest once and for all?" He turns back to the spellcasters when he asks, so that Katswiri can read his lips.
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Katswiri finishes transcribing what notes she can from the parchment and comes to join the group. "What souls?" She moves up to inspect the skeletons, and consults with Aroden and Robbyn on their status before turning back to Jamir. "Perhaps...though, this may be the key to learning what happened here. These skeletons are in remarkably good shape. There are magics that can speak with the dead, though the body needs to be somewhat whole. These skeletons were magically preserved. Few bodies would be found in such condition from a time so long ago."
Kaswiri reaches out and comes close to touching one of the skulls before thinking better of it and withdrawing her hand. "Who knows what mysteries you know, what history you've seen."
As a divine caster, Katswiri is familiar with spells such as bless, consecrate, hallow, etc, many of which involve using holy water as a spell component. As would anyone with Kn-Religion and/or spellcraft.
The whispering voices subside and fade...
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Jamir shrugs, then shakes his head.
"I do not think so, my friend. I believe the spellcasters are concerned that smashing the haunted whispering skulls would be ... disrespectful? But Katswiri seems to have put them to rest, at least for the moment, which is most impressive. If unsatisfying for some of us."
Turning to the rest of the group, he adds, "Yes, I agree with Mythryndyr. Let us move on!"
He follows behind Myth so his light doesn't interfere with the scout's stealth.
Mythryndyr peers into the chamber and sees 3 skeletal warriors whose red glowing eyesockets bore in on his glowing wayfinder and a raspy rattle of hatred rolls through the chamber.
The skeletal warrior wearing the tattered remnants of a green tunic moves forward and attacks Jamir with a rather nice looking longsword. His blow does not quite connect.
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Robyyn rushes over to where he has a view into the room. Not much I can do against these... His mind races, searching for something... undead always perplexed him. "They've got no minds... there's little I can do!"
He finally settles on the one wand he has that might do something... but he was going to have to find a way closer first, and the scrum at the door currently left him no opening.
The skeleton in the tattered remains of a red tunic charges forward, attacking the halfling. This one's blade bites deep, leaving a profusely bleeding gash in the halfling's side.
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The skeletal warrior wearing the tattered remnants of a green tunic moves forward and attacks Jamir with a rather nice looking longsword. His blow does not quite connect.
[dice=att]1d20[dice=dmg]1d8
While the mouser is within her foe’s space, the foe takes a –4 penalty on all attack rolls and combat maneuver checks not made against the mouser, and all of the mouser’s allies that are adjacent to both the foe and the mouser are considered to be flanking the foe. The mouser is considered to be flanking the foe whose space she is within if she is adjacent to an ally who is also adjacent to the foe. The mouser can move within her foe’s space and leave the foe’s space unhindered and without provoking attacks of opportunity, but if the foe attempts to move to a position where the mouser is no longer in its space, the movement provokes an attack of opportunity from the mouser. This deed replaces opportune parry and riposte.
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"You will obey me."
Aroden moves up and uses his bonded item to cast a spell from his spellbook that he has not prepared... Command Undead.
As a free action, he spends 2 points from his Arcane Reservoir to boost the DC by 2.
Red needs to make a DC 19 Will save (if it is intelligent, no save if it isn't).
The red skeleton hisses and rattles at Aroden, ignoring his commands. The one wearing the tattered remnants of a blue tunic rushes forward, attacking the halfling, who takes another vicious slice from a masterwork blade.
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"What...?" Katswiri looks in confusion as Aroden and Robbyn suddenly go running into the other room. Pulling herself together, she follows quickly and gasps when she sees the combat raging in the other room.
"Skeletal Champions! Those are no ordinary skeletons."
She gestures as she speaks, and a booming blast of sound manifests, blasting two of the creatures.
The oracle moves forward silently (well, at least seems silently to herself). Then she unleashes a blast of sound that stuns the blue and red skeleton.
Your sniper steps up and--despite its breastplate and heavy steel sheild--nails the blue skeletal champion with one of his blunt arrows, cracking a few of his ribs.
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"Ha HA!" Jamir's laughter echoes through the room, as blood leaks from the site of another lucky strike, this time by the blue-garbed skeleton. "You think the living will go down so easily, monstrous warrior of unlife?"
Moving his rapier about almost lazily, the halfling stabs at the green-garbed skeleton, then ducks between its legs and pops up behind it.
The halfling mouser darts about the green skeletal warrior's feet, picking his moment to attack, poking out a couple of ribs from its right side.
It's almost comical watching the skeleton try and deal with the dextrous halfling vexingly dodging around it...if death weren't at stake. It stabs through itself to try and hit the halfling, with predictable lack of success.