Earlier
Allandír gently extricates Talitha from the game of tag she appears to be enjoying with Small Peeper, giving a grateful nod to Pril for her oversight of them while he was otherwise engaged. He lifts the small warglet up, and allows her to sniff at Bruynarth, and vice versa. Once it's clear that the two of them won't immediately start a fight and/or see the other as a threat or a meal, he puts her back where she was, nestling in the hood of his cloak. It's a convenient mode of transport, and the small yips and growls that she makes are a welcome interruption to his somewhat solitary musings.
Now
The tall elf is surprised to find undead here. "I have heard much said about the Hellknights that is, ah, unflattering - but I've never heard a convincing tale that they dabbled in necromancy." He gives Alak a quizzical look, before turning his attention to the enemy, focusing his fire on the leader - to devastating effect.
Allandir fires with deadly precision, sending an arrow into each of the skeletal Hellknight's eye sockets. Its skull falls off its body, which crumples to the floor! His third shot skips off another skeleton's armor,
Without their leader, the lesser skeletons revert to mindless undead. They hack at Alak, only one scoring a good strike.
With determination to demonstrate that she's capable with her skills, Pril steps up next to Alak and kicks at the skeleton in front of her .
Only Pril's last strike hits, but it is enough to shatter a skeleton!
"This why Gull Peeper wanted to open coffins," they grouse, nervously approaching the skellingtons, "make sure bodies still where they supposed to be."
Allandír raises a sharp eyebrow at the goblin's complaint: "And indulge in a little light theft of unattended objects at the same time, perhaps?"
With the main enemy down, he changes focus to another skeleton.
Bruynarth growls and moves forward, biting at another skeleton with crushing jaws, although the absence of flesh on the bones seems to confuse the young animal.
Gull Peeper and Allandir take down a skeleton each, then Alak smashes the two remaining undead to bone fragments!
The Hellknight armiger places a hand to his wounds and grimaces. He turns to Allandir. "You are correct. The modern members of the Order of the Nail do not normally employ necromancers. However, in the early days of the Hellknights, they used to ward their crypts against those who sought to raise their fallen as undead. The necromantic ward was designed to beat would-be necromancers to the punch, as it were, and animate the bodies as undead guardians in an attempt to fight fire with fire. The skeletons' presence here likely means somebody recently tried to use necromancy within these chambers. There may be more undead guardians ahead."
"The cult has necromancers?" Pril asks, her large eyes growing even larger. She looks around the tomb from a new perspective - that of threats behind every engraved stone.
"Let's not stay here long," she says in a shaky voice. She moves along the grave markers quickly towards the eastern door.
Rows of large, metal-and-stone lockboxes line the winding walls of this storeroom, as do occasional shelves and what look like filing cabinets intended for the storage of documents. The lockboxes hang ajar, having been opened and emptied long ago. A set of obvious tracks in the dusty floor suggest someone recently moved about in here. A pile of ashes and a few melted candle stubs lie atop a low table in the center of the room.
"This is the Vault," Alak says reverently. "My father's signet ring must be here somewhere." The armiger begins to look around the room.
Allandír carefully examines the tracks before announcing his conclusions: "Whoever left these tracks arrived via the north door and went to the center of the room where the ashes and melted candles are, before moving to the door that we entered from. At that point, the tracks retreat to the north door — these tracks indicate the unknown person was running. I suspect whatever ritual they tried woke those skeletons and made them run away. Which, ah, suggests that they aren't that powerful."
He hopes that sounds more reassuring to the others than it does to him. Anyone who can perform this sort of ritual certainly has more magic than most people he has encountered.
"They were raising undead," Pril counters. "In my mind that makes them pretty darn scary." She eyes the northern door. "Does that mean that they're still here?" she asks in a whisper.
"Getting free things just a bonus," Gull Peeper shakes their head. "Practicality and caution main reason."
The goblin lifts its hat/wig up off its head and scratches their bald scalp, curious. "Could ash-prints have been mean man on the rooftops?"
"That halfling?!" Allandír scoffs, before remembering that he is - at least in theory - supposed to be trying to make some sort of truce with goblinkind in general, and this goblin in particular.
"That is, ah, I don't believe that particular individual had the capability to do this. He struck me as being of rather, ah, limited intellect: had he worn them, I would have doubted his ability to tie his shoes. But this individual here wore footwear, so I think we can rule out Calmont on all grounds."
"Does that mean that they're still here?" she asks in a whisper.
The elf narrows his eyes. "That is a very valid point." He draws his bow and points it at the door. "Shall we go and find out? I will cover you."
Alak ignores the banter as he continues to search the room. After a few moments, he reverently pulls a small box out from a vault with a false bottom. He pulls a key from his belt, unlocks the box, and finds his family's signet ring placed carefully there on a bed of crushed velvet. The armiger slips the ring on a finger and is quiet for several minutes.
At length, he looks up with a wistful smile. "I remember sitting on my father's lap and turning this ring on his finger when I was but a boy," the armiger says, his voice solemn, rich, and deep. "Thank you for reuniting me with those memories, my friends. You have the Order of the Nail's gratitude—and mine. I will continue to accompany you until we finish exploring this level of the citadel."
Taking several minutes to search the room uncovers loose papers on a shelf in the corner containing four magical items: a scroll of darkness, a scroll of darkvision, a scroll of heal, and a scroll of magic missile. A silver religious symbol depicting two faces in profile sits atop these scrolls like a paperweight. The symbol is finely crafted and worth 8 gp.
Pril moves closer to the northern door.
"Yes, that's all well and good," she says with a gesture towards the door. "But is he still here?" she hisses with even more intensity.
|
"These look like the components for a ritual, necromantic if what Hellknight Alak says is true." Lucius comments, examining the paraphernalia with distaste. "I can't tell what the exact purpose was however - it might have been communicative, or simply to raise the bodies as soldiers. This is not an area I have studied..."
Ervan calmly regards his surroundings and takes it in one impression at a time. This does mean that unlike some of the others, it takes a little longer for the wizard to add his findings to the conversation. "You are correct, sir Lucius, in your assessment that the ritual could've been communicative in nature. It was. Whoever passed by here performed a spell that allowed him or her to talk with the dead. So, from that we can conclude that said person isn't entirely familiar with these surroundings and or is trying to find something specific."
Pril rolls her eyes in frustration and steps up the northern door and opens it, fully expecting to be assaulted by hordes of undead commanded by an evil necromancer.
Various storage racks and cabinets clutter this long, narrow space. Some are empty, though others still contain dusty banners with the Order of the Nail’s sunburst insignia, stylized Asmodean paraphernalia, and other trappings clearly designed for formal funerals. Curiously, in the back of the room, a dirt-walled tunnel opens in the wall and stretches into the gloom; and a set of tracks leads from this tunnel to the door leading back into the vaults.
The gnome stands looking at the tunnel open-mouthed for a moment before saying anything. "That wasn't original, was it?" she asks no one in particular.
Ervan collects a stylized engraved amulet and puts it away. "A souvenir, if you will." Other than that, he has little to add. Perhaps the tunnel ought to trigger some of his mining-arcana-and-fortification knowledge, but alas, Ervan fails to register any of it.
Allandír makes some calculated guesses about their location and facing. Away from the sky and the sun, this is harder work than usual, but he tentatively shares his eventual conclusion.
"That tunnel heads back in the direction of Breachill." He clears his throat. "Probably."
Pril frowns. "I guess that means that we'll have to eventually see where it comes out," she says, clearly not happy about this turn of events. "We should finish the rooms we have here, though. I don't think we've found all the cultists."
Thankful to get away from the dirt tunnel, Pril heads back to the southern door leading out of the records room.
If they pass back through the rooms with the sarcophagi, Gull Peeper examines them to see if they've been tampered with in any way.
The sarcophagi do not appear to have been tampered with.
Narrow stone walls lled with coffiin-sized compartments stretch from the floor to the ceiling in this dark, claustrophobic chamber. Most of the compartments are occupied with shroud-covered bodies, though some of them are conspicuously empty.
As you look around, four haunted helmets rise from the niches. Pinpoints of light gleam within thee eye sockets of each one, and shadowy spines seem to dangle beneath!
As the haunted helmets rise from the walls, Nell steps forward to defend the party.
Gull Peeper gets their teeth around one of them, chomping on down angrily.
Ervan zaps the two helmets on the north side of the room. Gull Peeper bites one of them, but Nell misses her target.
The helmets fire a barrage of nails at Nell and Gull Peeper. Only one hits the goblin.
Pril moves up to assist Nell with her target.
The toothy and dexterous goblin catches a nail with its teeth, spitting it out and redoubling its assault against the floating head.
Allandír marks one of the creepy floating skulls as his target, and fires. He watches over Bruynarth as the beast ambles after one of the other skulls, but the young bear is still evidently suffering the after-effects of his confinement and fails to land a blow on the target.
Nell slashes back and forth at the skull in front of her.
Allandir shoots the helmet Gull Peeper is fighting. Alak destroys it with a slice of his greatsword.
Pril and Lucius each hit Nell's foe, then Nell finishes it off. She moves to strike the next one, and Gull attacks a new target as well. Ervan zaps both enemies.
The helmets fire more nails. Nell is struck twice!
Getting some satisfaction from finally hitting something, Pril charges forward to the next opponent.
"Quick, finish it! But try not to ..." The wizard is about to say 'destroy it', but the sheer amount of violence projected towards the one remaining animated helmet gives him little hope there will be anything left to study.
The tall elf switches to another target, firing his bow as before. One arrow strikes true, piercing the skeletal eye socket before exiting from the back of the skull, and still speeding on before it hits the wall with extreme force, and shatters.
The other arrow... well, best not to pay attention to that shot really.
Bruynarth ambles over to another hovering skull and bats one paw at it inquisitively.
Even a small grizzly bear has a booming growl.
The remaining undead quickly fall to your attacks.
Although few of these Hellknights were entombed with valuables, in some cases loved ones have left valuable mementoes here. Spending several minutes searching the ossuary, you find a wand of heal (1st level), plus mundane rings, amulets, bracelets, and other trinkets worth 12 gp total.
Not a fan of robbing the dead, Pril refrains from searching the tombs, but doesn't step in to prevent anyone else.
"That just leaves that dead-end hallway and the eastern doors," Pril says with anticipation. "Let's look at the hallway first. I can't believe that someone would spend all the effort to dig a symmetrical tunnel and do nothing with it."
A dedicated search uncovers the secret door Pril anticipated being at the end of the hall. Beyond it, six looming raised daises stretch from east to west in this chamber, each bearing a massive stone coffin with a carving of a fully armed and armored Hellknight lying in stately repose. Upon closer inspection, the details of the various weapons and minor variations in the armor of the figures distinguish these tombs. Two of the coffins loom ominously open. The east wall bears a complex series of inscriptions composed of faintly glowing pale blue runes.
Two withered undead Helknights stand here, eyes glowing with red light. Black tendrils of energy crackle on their fingertips as they reach for you with clawed hands!
At the sight of the two empty tombs, Pril frowns. "Oh, that can't be good," she says before her eyes shift to the two skeletal Hellknights. "Really not good."
Alerted to trouble by the soft growling of the tiny warglet who is nestling in the hood of his cloak, Allandír nods in agreement with Pril's assessment of the situation. "Not good at all," he echoes softly.
Drawing an arrow from his quiver, he sends it speeding towards the nearest enemy. Bruynarth follows it up, but the young bear has yet to take the full measure of his strength and the bite misses.
Also moves to try to finish off the undead Allandir shot, but the creature still stands after his heavy blow. Both undead converge on the armiger, slashing him with draining claws and drawing some of his life force away to bolster their own vitality.
"I haven't spent a lot of time in my studies reading about undead things like this," Pril feels compelled to point out as she moves to a better position to strike at one of the creatures.
The tall elf shrugs one shoulder, laconically. "What's to study? I haven't met anything yet that's immune to an arrow through the eye."
He continues his attempt to do just that.
Bruynarth continues to attack, with bite and claw, but the young bear hasn't encountered creatures like this before and snarls in frustration.