Highness loses the dog's tracks in the brush and scrub almost immediately.
Well, if we can't tell where the dogs went, one way is as good as another. But we should try something else first before we pick a direction. he thinks, standing in the road outside the Citadel's main door, after finding no obvious pathway from quick inspection of the nearby ground.
He turned back to the doors and called back into the darkness with a sharp bark of command: "Uyge! Uyge!" and waited a moment, curious if the pups would comply.
The goblin dogs look at Highness curiously, hopeful that another morsel of food will be tossed, but they make no move to obey his command, either because they don't know it or because they don't (yet) recognize him as master.
With a shrug, the goblin sets out toward the north, looking for another way into the citadel. Jonagher and Ragna continue to search for tracks, while Ren and Shaserai keep their eyes out for anything unusual. As the group nears the northeast corner of the castle, they see that a section of the wall has collapsed, providing a way into the interior of the castle. Jonagher and Ragna don't see any telltale signs of goblin tracks, however.
"This isn't the kind of damage I'd expect to see done to stone after just eight years." Ragna says, approaching the collapsed portion of wall. "Is this the kind of construction goblins engage in, Highness?" she asks, though she doubts a people with a penchant for hiding away in their burrows would go about adding additional entrances. Picking a path through the debris to avoid the potentially ankle-turning larger rocks, she reenters the citadel and looks around.
As Ragna approaches the collapsed portion of wall, the ground underfoot grows wet and spongy though the ground they've been traveling over is dry and there haven't been any recent rains. Peering in, she sees a large room, its floor thickly littered with the smashed remains of wooden furniture. The few pieces of furniture still intact -- a judge's bench, a witness stand, a few tables -- indicate that this was once a courtroom; a low divided partition on the west sets off what used to be the audience gallery, though any seating that was once there is presumably now part of the debris scattered across the floor.
"This isn't the kind of damage I'd expect to see done to stone after just eight years." Ragna says, approaching the collapsed portion of wall. "Is this the kind of construction goblins engage in, Highness?"
Actually, the wet ground underfoot indicates that there is most likely a hidden spring somewhere underneath this corner of the citadel. In the absence of anyone performing regular upkeep to divert the water, the foundation has shifted and sunk, resulting in the wall's collapse.
"Looks more like they built the fortress the same way that a tribe would, fast." Highness barked a high pitched short laugh. "They built this section of wall on a spring, the constant seep softened the ground and nature just did the rest."
"No tracks here though, lets keep going." he said as he continued onward.
Shaserai follows Highness, looking curiously at the hole in the wall for a moment, but then focusing on their surroundings once more, hoping to not miss anything important.
"Well...this would seem to be no more of an entrance than the front door. I don't see any sign of goblin tracks. Ragna? Can you see anything inside that's worth investigating?"
"No." Ragna replies, stomping back through the soggy ground. "Just another entrance to the citadel. If the goblins aren't using this area, I wouldn't mind coming back and seeing if anything interesting's found its way inside over the years. I wonder how livable the rest of the citadel will be with this spring here, especially any basement or underground caves. Maybe that's why no one's decided to move in for good. A very expensive problem to deal with." She rejoins Highness on the search and adds "If nothing else it's large enough to sleep in tonight if we need to, and we'll have plenty of fresh water."
"A courtroom," Alak comments, peering in as he follows the party around the corner. "Badly vandalized. Perhaps some criminals who were sentenced in that courtroom decided to come back and take some petty revenge, once the Hellknights had vacated the place and they ran no risk in doing so."
The group rounds the northern corner of the citadel, the ground getting wetter by the step. Immediately around the corner, the citadel wall has collapsed again on the other side of a sizeable puddle; this must be where the spring has found an outlet. In the puddle a corpse, not at all fresh, lies on a muddy lump protruding from the surface, tarnished armor glinting in the sun.
Trying to avoid the mud as much as he can -and inwardly sighing in relief for his choice of clothing more practical than the average wizard's robe- Irenaeus approaches the armored corpse carefully to get a better look of it. Not so much out of any squeamishness, but just in case it is some sort of trap or bait.
"A Hellknight of old perhaps?"
"Hold up, Ren! Jonagher calls out a warning as he kneels down next to the ground, "Hellknight or no, there's a good chance that corpse ran afoul of something big." The half-elf indicates a large footprint in the mud and then gestures toward the collapsed wall. "Something heavy moved through here...and most likely through there. I don't know if it brought down the wall or simply took advantage of it to create a lair for itself. Either way, that poor fellow probably ran afoul of it. And it may still be around. Consequently, I'd lay odds the goblins don't use this entrance either..."
"A Hellknight of old perhaps?"
"That's not Hellknight armor," Alak responds dismissively. "Just a cheap chain shirt. Probably just an unlucky looter."
"Hold up, Ren! Jonagher calls out a warning as he kneels down next to the ground, "Hellknight or no, there's a good chance that corpse ran afoul of something big." The half-elf indicates a large footprint in the mud and then gestures toward the collapsed wall. "Something heavy moved through here...and most likely through there. I don't know if it brought down the wall or simply took advantage of it to create a lair for itself. Either way, that poor fellow probably ran afoul of it. And it may still be around. Consequently, I'd lay odds the goblins don't use this entrance either..."
Indeed, neither Jonagher nor Ragna find signs of goblin footprints in the mud.
"We should probably check this out and make sure there isn't a big monster stomping around." Ragna says, edging along the wall towards the gap and peering into the dim interior. "Could be a bear, this would be a fine den, but it's too close to town. Maybe we can scare it away."
"I agree with the red one...Ragnhild." Highness says a giant toothy grin spreading across his face, flexing his hands, seemingly eager.
too much for the tribe to handle on its own...this could be useful, and I certainly couldn't take this creature on by myself.
"We don't want to leave a large unknown creature snuffing around behind us. We will keep looking over our shoulders when we should have our eyes forward."
"heh...Crooks and the Short Walk...hahahahaha..."Highness burbles to himself as he moves quietly forward to the pool and the hole in the wall.
"This adventuring business is more complicated than I realized, luckily, the others seem to know what to do." Shaserai muses to himself.
"Good thinking, I for one wouldn't enjoy getting jumped by a bear or other critter." He keeps close to Ragna and also attempts to discern details of the interior from outside the opening. When Highness goes in, he follows as quietly as possible, clutching his holy symbol of Torag, ready to use his magic to assist as necessary.
Jonagher stoically strings his bow an nocks and arrow, preferring to keep at range against any large beasts. While the others move ahead, he takes up a position where he has a good sight line past them so he can target anything that emerges from the citadel or the pool. If possible, he moves to a higher vantage point among the rubble from the collapsed wall.
"Be careful," he advises everyone, "If we're in over our heads, be ready for a tactical retreat and I'll cover you."
As the party begins to approach the puddle and the corpse, the group notices a slight movement from behind a pile of rubble at the east end of the puddle; a pair of yellow eyes is watching hungrily from a bald head the same rough shape and color as the tumbled stones it is hiding behind.
Shaserai raises his holy symbol and with a prayer of protection weaves a bond between the creature and Ragnhild, hindering any hostile action it may take against her.
As he holds the spell in place, he tries to remember if he has ever come across such a beast in the texts he has studied and alert the party as to what they are facing.
Shaserai places divine protection on Ragna before warning the rest of the party about their opponent.
"Lies!" the graveshell visibly replies to Shaserai's words from behind the pile of rubble. "Is just a floaty corpse with lots of shinies."
"W-w-w-what?!" Ragna stammers at the monsters unexpected words, shock making her fumble with the axe and shield she had begun drawing when the yellow eyes appeared. "Is it sentient?" She asks, glancing back at Shaserai as she raises her shield. The large, round shield covers her from chin to thigh, but she silently questions how effective it will be against the creatures massive jaws. She holds her ground though, content with her current position. The monster would have to move through the muddy ground created by the spring, possibly opening it to attack.
Ragna arms herself and takes up a defensive position.
Shaserai remembers reading about such creature in the treatise "Never trust a rabbit on a tree stump: How to not get eaten alive." by the dwarven naturist Morgrym Brightsteel.
"We face a graveshell, an ambush predator. They're slow so it's likely it was using the corpse to lure in prey."
"Turtle soup, turtle soup, made inside its shell. Eat up all the floaty bits, lick the inside well." Highness sings as he continues along the wall, looking for a pathway to get behind the creature.
Highness easily scrambles up the loose stones piled at the edge of the puddle but is unable to find secure handholds to pull himself up onto the part of the wall that is still intact above.
"Is it sentient?"
"Sentient, perhaps," Alak quips, drawing a javelin. "Intelligent, obviously not." He waits for a clean shot at the enemy.
"A trap indeed then," Irenaeus mutters, giving voice to the thoughts that guided his wariness when approaching the armored corpse. Taking a few steps back to distance himself even more from the creature, he utters a brief and simple incantation followed by a basic gesture before an orange rune appears in front of his outstretched hand. Turning to green, it disappears and its place is taken by a glob of acid that speeds towards their foe.
"Nice shot, Ren!
Jonagher scurries to the west, hoping to do some damage of his own now that the creature has shown itself. Spotting a small boulder or piece of rubble from the broken wall, he steps up onto it for a slightly higher view to line up a shot. He then launches an arrow to test the beast's mettle.
Ren backs to a safer distance before splashing a glob of acid directly onto the face of the graveshell peering around the rubble.
Jonagher seeks higher ground, climbing atop a tumbled bit of brickwork before shooting an arrow that misses the graveshell and buries itself in the rubble.
Shaserai joins Ren and Jonagher in attacking the graveshell while maintaining the protective spell upon Ragna. Hoping that it's limited intelligence is a result of a weak mind, the priest attempts to overwhelm it with the might of Torag.
While maintaining his ward on Ragna, Shaserai reaches out with his mind and delivers a mental jolt to the tortoise.
"Ow, my head," the creature whines under the combined assault of the two spellcasters. It drags its heavy body out from behind the rubble and through the puddle to get at the people hurting it, revealing a spiked shell that looks as dangerous as its jaws and claws.
Alak takes the chance to throw his javelin, which pierces the creature's front leg.
"Ow!" The graveshell snaps at Ragna and, despite Shaserai's protection, tears away a bloody gobbet of flesh before withdrawing its head and legs into its shell protectively.
The next moment, the corpse in the puddle lurches upward as the muddy lump it is lying on resolves itself into a second creature's shell. The dead man's extremities flop loosely as the second graveshell demands with exasperation, "What's going on up here? Why you talking to the food again?" It either doesn't see Highness above its head or knows it can't reach that high; instead it heads toward Jonagher perched on the broken masonry, snapping with its powerful jaws and following up with a swipe of its claw.
Ragna tries to jam the shield into the turtles mouth as it lunges for her. As expected it lacks efficacy against the monster but it does prevent the massive jaws from severing her arm clean off. Rage boils up inside her and demands she lash out at the one that hurt her, muting the shock she would otherwise feel as the second turtle emerges from the mud. Her training tells her it would be pointless to try and chop into the spiked shell of the one that bit her. Training wins out and as much as she doesn't want to be between the two turtles, she charges the second one using her shield to bat the protective spikes on its shell away and make a clear path for her axe to one of its exposed rear legs.
Ragna deflects most of the power behind the graveshell's bite with her shield before moving to a risky position between the two beasts. Her boldness pays off, however, as her attack cleaves the second graveshell's leg open to the bone.
Seeing the spiked shells, Highness re-thinks his original plan of jumping on the creatures to pummel them. He dropped down onto the rocks below, then lept across the small pond into the room beyond, looking to move around and flank the shelled beast.
The would-be goblin-king springs over the muddy puddle into the interior of the citadel. Finding an open doorway, he scurries over the debris-filled floor and ducks back into another cubby-like room behind the graveshell.
Alak draws a greatsword from a scabbard on his back and steps between Ren and the graveshell. "It'll have to get past me to get to you, wizard," he assures Ren, swinging a blade that deflects off the spiky shell.
"Good to know," Irenaeus replies simply to Alak's words before once again bringing a simple spell to mind. Its words simple enough, he makes a sweeping gesture with one hand from one creature to the other, orange red runes trailing it momentarily before turning light blue and disappearing. As soon as he is done a surge of electricity jolts one of the graveshells before jumping to the other to do the same.
Ragna's scalp prickles as Ren bends a lightning bolt around her. A smell not unlike turtle soup permeates the air.
Rather than waste time nocking another arrow, Jonagher uses his free hand to draw his shortsword, hoping to strike a swift blow while Alak and Ragna seem to have the graveshell occupied.
The half-elf uses the meager height of the rock he's standing on to lean in and jab with his blade.
Unfortunately, his precarious position overbalances him and he misses widely.
Jonagher stabs down at the graveshell wildly.
As he sees the first graveshell go down to Ren's spell, Shaserai feels the ward he'd placed on Ragna unravel. Intending to finish the fight quickly he shouts at the creature "By Torag's might, you shall be put down!" before lashing out at it's mind with his own magic, hoping to disrupt it's attacks.
Shaserai denounces the graveshell in the name of his god and follows up with another mental jolt, at which the creature collapses, as senseless as the dead man it still carries on its back.
Jumping down from his ertwhile perch, Jonagher sheaths his sword and nocks another arrow as he puts some distance between him and the graveshells, intent on covering anyone who approaches them in case they're not fully incapacitated or dead.
"Excellent spellcraft, Shase and Ren!" he congratulates the wizard and priest, "Seems you and Ragna made short work of them...but, is there a chance there's any more hiding about?"
Highness kicks the corpse of the graveshell closest to him, just to be certain the creature is dead, then eyes it speculatively.
"I don't know what sort of magic that was, but it cooked the turtle nice. What do we do now? I think that thing over there might still be alive." Highness finishes, pointing at the other turtle.
Indeed, the graveshell with the corpse on its back appears to be unconscious from Shaserai's mental attack.
Jonagher spots no other immediate danger in the area.
Shaserai let's go of his holy symbol after a quick prayer of thanks to Torag.
"Thank you." He responds to the half-elf. "It feels good to be useful."
The priest turns to Ragna "Do you need healing? That bite look like it hurt."
At Highness's words he eyes the graveshell "My spell only incapacitates, but I'm leery of leaving around a creature that wanted to eat us and might seek revenge." With a gesture and an arcane word he calls the fire from his mind to his hand. "I can finish it off if there's no objection."
"By all means...finish it," Jonagher replies, "Here I thought it was already dead...and we surely would be if that thing had its way. It's an evil, dangerous monster. I say put it down and make this area that much safer for us and the goblins who live in the citadel. In fact, maybe it'll help win them over if we let them know we removed this menace."
"Jonagher's idea sounds like a good one," Irenaeus agrees with a nod of his head. "After all, the enemy of my enemy and all that..."