Grace will throw a magical shuriken at a creature :
Doing
The last of the creatures falls to the magical shuriken thrown by Moves with Grace as she emerges from underground, toppling over with a loud splash.
Wolfram watches the strange creatures crumble at the feet of the company. He feels real pity for them.
"Karl, what's taking so long down there?" he shouts into the crypt after his steward.
Karl's head emerges from the staircase. He looks around at the fallen creatures and everyone heaving from exertion, remarking: "Hmm, must have missed something."
"Only the point of what you were sent to do. Out of the way, man." Wolfram brushes past Karl - no easy task - down the stairs to investigate.
Karl and Wolfram moved down the winding bone white stairs below the earth, encrusted with muck and vegetation and weeping swamp water. The staircase finally opened up into a small, unlit chamber presenting a grizzly sight: four flayed bodies laying on the floor, each in a state of advanced decomposition. They were naked except for a pendant hung around each of their necks. Their belongings lay neatly folded in a corner of the chamber.
Three exits lead from this room: one to the left, one to the right, and one further down.
Grace says to Wolfram "Don't be too hard on Karl, I brought him back up the stairs to help in the fight."
As soon as Wolfram barges down the stairs, Grace motions to Karl to follow her down.
= 10, a Raise
"I don't know much about religions, but I happened to have dealt with this one in the past - they worship Tharizdun, an insane god."
Katherine follows the others, only to blanch at the sight of the bodies. She suppresses an urge to vomit and turns away from the grisly scene.
Wolfram nods at Grace. Then, as the group amasses but has yet to take action, he chooses a door and opens it.
The tunnel to the left heads up into a small chamber that seems to have been recently excavated. At the far end sits a small stone shrine clustered about with shoves, picks and hand-operated water pumps. On top of the shrine sits a foot-tall depiction of a pillar made of an off-white substance.
"Karl, what is your assessment?"
"Of what?"
"Of this room - of that pedestal."
Karl chews his face in thought effort. "Dunno. It's too tiny to be very useful."
Wolfram shakes his head. "Of course, but perhaps something would sit atop it. What do you think that could be?"
"An apple."
"Really, Karl? You think that in this horrific place, where we have just stepped over four naked murder victims, and encountered this strange little altar, that an apple should be placed atop of it? That is it's purpose?"
Karl shrugs.
The Reverend retrieves a shovel and a pick and hands both to his steward. "In case of, well, what could possibly happen in a mine."
"Ivory..." Katherine says off-handedly, running her hand over the pillar. "And look at these walls. Why is there no growth on them?" She reaches out to touch the wall and then draws back as if she had received an electric shock. "It's bone," she says in astonishment.
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Isagoras runs his eyes over the pillar and wall, his head nodding sagely in confirmation of what the halfling has stated.
"This is, of course, quite impossible. Bone does not form in dimensions long enough to be used as walling material. However, with such gruesome rites, one can not imagine what horrible magicks can be summoned and played with like fools dancing about a volcano's rim.
That the ivory seems to play a role in this awful ritual makes me want to take it with us, this depriving the shrine of its power, but we can tarry on that until we are ready to be quits with this place."
"Perhaps we will discover the secret of this room as we explore. Let's away, Karl."
Unless anyone objects, Wolfram is keen on a hasty departure from the creepy bone-room. Upon returning to the first room, he decides to go forward into the passage leading to the right from the landing.
Leaving the small chamber with the ivory pillar behind, you return once again to the first chamber holding the corpses of the four flayed bodies. You quickly pass through it and move down the other corridor, ignoring for the moment the passage that leads further down.
The corridor here is much like the other one: the walls are less covered in growths and it is clear that they are made out of solid bone, as are the floor and the ceiling. It continues for less than twenty feet and opens into another strange and grizzly chamber.
Eight life-sized statues are placed at random around the room, made of iron or another similar metal. Each is clutching a different massive iron weapon or weapons and six of them seem to be wrapped in something that looks like skin. The expressions carved or molded into each of the statues is one of torment or madness, as if they are witnessing (or are about to commit) an act of unspeakable violence.
There do not seem to be any other exits to the room.
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Isagoras frowns palpably.
"I would that we either exit this room forthwith, or else try to destroy the statues--taking out a knee on each, I should think.
Many are the stories that speak of statues coming to life, as some kind of trap for the unwary.
I would much like to not see these particular ones come to life. So too, if they are as benign as rocks, I do not think any would want to look upon them for pleasure as they are, at any rate."
"Since they have not come to life yet, perhaps we should leave them alone. Maybe attacking them is what activates them."
As the group seems to have no intention of interacting with the statues - a sentiment he shares - Wolfram leads them back out of the room and heads down the last remaining passageway.
Katherine follows Wolfram in ailence. Her thoughts her own.
The group returns to the room with the flayed people on the floor and from there descend the bone stairs.
Twenty or so steps below, the group enters another bone chamber with two exits to the left and right and another set of steps going even farther down. This one is strewn with sharp blades, arrows, spikes, and saw blades that lie seemingly at random among several skeletons. The chamber is quite cluttered.
"I would be on the alert for traps in this room, these many weapons may have come from the room itself."
= Success
Katherine nods, suddenly very glad that she is small.
MWG is checking the floors for trap triggers and the walls and ceiling for places from which weapons could come out.
MWG looks around at the floor, walls, and ceiling, and finds the places the original traps were released from or triggered by, but it seems they have all been spent ... at least as far as she is able to discern.
"It looks like all the traps have been sprung, but everyone be careful, there could still be some hidden ones that haven't been sprung."
"Let's explore further, then. Karl, lead the way down those steps."
Karl turns around to Wolfram and gives him a "Why don't you lead the way down into the trap- and corpse-filled darkness" look before grumbling something under his breath and hefting his shield. He carefully picks his way down a few the bone stairs before remarking: "Hey, somebody up there heft that torch a bit higher. I can't see my own feet down here."
He grumbles along as he descends, finally emerging in a large chamber whose center contains a large pool of murky water. As Karl looks around and the rest of the group exits the staircase, a single metal platform coated in rust and swamp-scum with a large lever built into it rises from below the surface of the water in the middle of the pool while large shapes begin moving beneath the surface. Despite being hidden beneath the turgid waves, it is clear that the shapes are at least six to eight feet in length and that there are at least four of them, possibly more.
"Alligators... or worse." Katherine gasps.
"Well done, Karl. Now step aside, man."
From behind the heavy set ward, Wolfram raises his hands, fingers crackling with energy. Then a swath of electricity arcs into the churning water at the creatures agitating below the surface.
Total 17 damage to each.
The electricity shoots into the murky water, causing the shapes beneath it to writhe in pain. Four of them stop moving , while the other two move from the water to attack! They appear to have once been alligators, but have been twisted into undead mockeries of themselves, their skin fall off them in chunks and their eyes burning with a bluish glow.
Katherine: Ace of Hearts
Isagoras: Queen of Clubs
Men-at-Arms: 7 of Spades
MWG: 5 of Spades
Undead alligators: 5 of Diamonds
Wolfram: 4 of Clubs
Katherine decides to try her hand at electrocuting the watchers in the water, aiming for the nearest.
MWG advances towards one of the alligator creatures and attacks it with her sword:
Isagoras lashes out with his magic, enveloping them in a scintillating miasma. Their movements slow noticeably as a result and they seem to snap at the thin air.
The Men-at-arms move forward, slashing at the distracted creatures and manage to dispatch one of them. Now only one remains!
The remaining undead alligator snaps at the soldiers, catches one of them in the leg and nearly pulls it off as it jerks back. , ,