Tybalt opens the double doors, and then swing into another large room.
A couple iron braziers burn away in the middle, between three sorts of pits.
Against the wall to the right of the door, there a lot of old jars and pots and other crockery receptacles.
Most are broken.
All have different hues and colors.
You see other such items here and there, in the room.
The light of braziers shines off something inside the shallow pits, past the thick stone rims.
This gives off some color... red, green, and blue.
Tybalt goes down the main corridor that seems to lead back to the large corridor leading out of the entryway—
JR looks around, and realizes that the pits were once filled with embalming fluids, but the liquid within has evaporated over the centuries, leaving a powdery residue.
Hearing about fluids, Fumbus has a look, and thinks that by adding water to the powdery residue in the pools--
________________________
With Seeker at Tybalt's back, you first see that there was just an alcove with a brazier, burning away, with coal stocked in it.
The corridor leads down - past the intersection with the entrance - to another set of double doors - and another alcove with a brazier also giving light, just before it.
Before you there also are the double doors facing the entryway.
Hearing about fluids, Fumbus has a look, and thinks that by adding water to the powdery residue in the pools--
--one could make mud.
Fumbus can paint himself with them, would be nice and colorful!
______
As Tybalt swings the majestic doors open, he discovers a room as large as the entryway, like a mirror image of it.
There are many pillars going to the ceiling, and raised area in the back, covered in statues, some small, one big.
It is an elaborate shrine.
The centerpiece of the shrine is a 10-foot-tall statue of a man with a canine head, holding a brazier of lit coals.
There are many other braziers burning away in the room.
All over the place you explored, braziers fight the darkness!
Variel sees nothing... yet.
"No worry. Statues not kill people. People dropping statues on top of people kills people." explains Fumbus.
So far, nobody knows who this dog-headed God is.
For Fumbus this is probably a curse, having a dog head!
And JR's sketch of it does not seem that great... it is a bit dark in there, after all, with the braziers casting shadows.
Arrus shrugs "So many different Osirian gods, they are too hard to keep track of."
|
"Drogo, you got any ideas here? If not I guess we're going to have to ask the guard upstairs after. Maybe she can figure it out from this sketch of mine..." He holds it up to the light then looks back and forth at it a few times then shakes his head slowly in the negative. "Eh, not so great with noses... or eyes." He quietly slips the paper back in his pack.
Which door?
Do you follow Eldon up to the door in the entryway?
Or do you go with Variel down to the double door at the end of the corridor?
Tybalt opens the double door, and sees a room, with two wide corridors leaving from it...
You first start to explore the one to your right, the West side.
Which is a long winding corridor, that you move along carefully... finally ending up in front of some stairs going down deeper into the structure.
But excavation has not been done here yet, though it seems scheduled, since a lot of new tools lie around - pickaxes, shovels...
Thus you double back to where you entered, and, go East.
The corridor doubles up there, and you explore the various paths, finding one dead end with a brazier burning, and then realize that you end up facing a door, which is the one leading into the--
--entrance hall!
Where you now all end up.
At least you know you have explored a big part of the complex.
Where to know? Back through the first side door, down past the main corridor again?
Fumbus follows the dwarf, occasionally hopping, backtracking, or changing his steps so to avoid making any in inadvertent scrawls that could resemble writing in the dust.
|
|
Junior follows along, inspecting things for anything of interest along the way. He shakes his head in annoyance at the dead ends they reach but is relieved to see the lower level unexcavated just yet.
After observing the greenskin's weird ways down here he finally figures out just what he's doing. "You know Fumbus, I can't imagine accidentally, or even purposely making symbols will do you any harm. Do goblins create maps at all?" He says as he makes sure to keep Tybalt in view.
"Of course, goblins do, Longshanks." Fumbus responds dismissively. "Maps not need... writing ."
Arrus nods at Variel's observation "Good point, I still wish I knew who that interloper was though."
Following Tybalt once more, you circle back to where you left the room with the vats, and move down the unexplored corridor, some watching Fumbus leave Goblin Glyphs in the sand.
As Tybalt opens the door, you see that the corridor continues a bit to the South, where it opens into a room with no door, where a brazier is burning away and shedding light, just at the corner of the entrance.
As the door opens into the room Tybalt just stopped before, Arrus realizes his wish will know be fulfilled - maybe he should have wished for something greater?
For you see a man in the room.
The room itself is illuminated by a couple braziers that are burning away, and you see here also a bag of coal, used to fill them up.
The North side of the room makes this area look like a mockery of a traditional burial chamber.
The weapon, armor, and shield in the North-West corner of the room were of poor quality even when they were placed here, and they are now rusted beyond any hope of repairing them.
And there are other old odds and ends on stone shelves along the Northern wall.
That is where the man is.
With the olive hued skin of an Osiriani, seemingly well kept, with short dark hair and a nice blue robe, the man has his back to you and is nervously looking at the objects on the shelves.
As you think about entering or not, you also see that three stone slabs in the center of the room seem slightly loose.
Arrus steps in and starts to level his crossbow at the man before seeing the symbol hanging from his chest.
"Pathfinder?" asks Arrus.
The man nearly jumps out of his skin, and spins around with a scared look on his face, but calms down and even shows a faint smile upon hearing the word Arrus just pronounced.
"Oh, thankfully! Yes, yes!"
The man touches the compass-like symbol hanging from his neck.
"Pathfinder I am! And you?"
"Pathfinder, Fumbus is! Wayfinder that is not!" notes the goblin as he points to the man's compass, noting its flaking paint and rusted hinges. "Fumbus can make better fake, if Longshanks want."
"Oh, I am happy to see friendly faces! Ha ha, yes, my Wayfinder is old and seen so much action." He laughs, but casts glances all around the room.
"And here it is at work again, in this... dark place. Where, yes, some objects are not great, and are like fakes.
But have you come to help me, Nefaram Subeli? Help me explore, report, and corroborate?!"
When Variel starts looking at the walls, the man stares where Variel is looking: "The darkness? You see it!"
The man becomes very agitated.
He looks all around where Variel looks... but does not seem worried, or try to stop, about where Variel is going.
"So... something corrupt still lurks within this place.
When... when I first arrived, it all went pitch-black, and there was an eerie moaning sound in the walls.
You... you must keep the braziers lit at all times!"
Eldon does not feel there is deceit here.
|
|
JR makes his way into the room cautiously, looking back and forth among the others as they start questioning the man. He's no craftsman, he can't tell if that Wayfinder if real or not. Truth be told he doesn't have one yet himself since this is his first assignment.
"This darkness, it explains why you have all the braziers lit and well stocked." He leans against the nearby wall as he tries to get a bead on the man.
"How long have you been down here and what are you doing? We know you aren't with the Pathfinder Society so you can give up that ruse." He doesn't start to press the man yet, but if it comes to that he won't hesitate to intimidate him into cooperation.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"WHAT?! Not a Path... LISTEN you raw recruit upstart! I am--"
But the man's infuriated answer is suddenly cut short, not by Tybalt's intimidating words, but as all lights in the sanctum fail for a moment.
Both the braziers and... the spell you cast!
All go out, and everything is totally black, even to any sort of darkvision.
An eerie moaning sound fills the sanctum.
And then, before you can react to try and counter this situation, the lights come right back on as if nothing had happened, and-- the three stone slabs in the center of this room slide to the side with a screeching sound, revealing a group of... mummies!
The three mummies, lying on their back in some sort of depression in the rock, like a tomb carved out of the stone, are male, have bright red eyes, and some sort of head-dress.
The man in the room is about to react, when the ground seems to disappear below his feet, as a better hidden slab slips to the side revealing a more ornate stone tomb, in which lies a female mummy, with a better preserved body, with nearly natural arms, legs and... face!
She too has a head-dress, a more colorful one, and some sort of scepter.
From her prone position, she lashes out with the scepter, cracking the man's spine, felling him on the spot!
The man goes down, collapsing without another sound, on top of the female mummy.
What the...?!
Tybalty and Seeker are the first to react.
JR is surprised...
While Seeker moves in and sizes up the mummy with the yellow hued bandages, sending an arrow right into its face!
The arrow rips into the mummy, knocking a chunk of its jawbone out, with critical and deadly force, and, despite the fact that it lacks living vital organs, the precise shot hurts more.