Excavations, day 3
... Baran and Lupi got a chance to witness the professor's reaction from close by. He didn't say a single word nor would be answer any questions or join in speculation, but the way how his face blanched spoke volumes. Clearly, he had a very good idea what the ship's appearance signified.
While everyone rushed to ask the professor questions Baran held back and watched ir'Morain's avoidances and non-answers intently, as well as any shared looks between himself and his assistant.
Alua watched the other airship land. Looking for Baran, she asked the young scholar, "Can you ask the professor - should we scout the other ship? Might be unfriendly, or might be VERY unfriendly."
"He wasn't being forthcoming with any details but he's clearly very concerned. Competitors? There is a great deal of competition with expeditions to Xen'drik. why not here?" Baran tells Alua all of his suspicions. 'Are we racing to some particular find?'
-----Excavations, day 4
Knowing full well what Erix meant, Phin smirked and quipped, ”What do you mean? Baran is right here with us.”
Baran did what he could to help out and he had a little more lift than the next person but he ran out of gas faster than most as well. He watched the others work and was becoming a little more aware of Phin's carefulness with her hands. "I'm here 'huff-huff' I only lift like I'm in charge ..." He smiled playfully "Phin, you should think about applying for a management position. I think you have the qualifications." He managed a wink then went back to work.
Finally taking the time to speculate on the arrival of the hobgoblins, she asked Lupi and Baran, "What's going on? Did you know those two were coming? Who are they?"
Baran simply shook his head no.
"Phin, you should think about applying for a management position. I think you have the qualifications."
Phin raised her hands to the heavens for emphasis, a smile on her face, ”Finally! Someone who has vision. I don’t suppose that means I can start my training early and take my leave to think about how best to delegate?”
Alua spent some time that evening healing blisters, easing sore muscles, and curing one seriously misaligned spine. Her gaze kept drifting to the big tent. She was curious about the hobgoblins, but realized it wasn't her place to ask for more information.
She also spent some time with their new warforged friends. She offered up some healing to them as well. Her healing energies didn't work nearly as well with warforged as it did with fleshy folk, but it did a little good. As she watched fibre and tendon knit together, she wondered if they felt pain the same way she did. And, for the first time, she wondered why she'd never seen a warforged spirit.
That night, she stared at the night sky, sleepless for some reason. A faint glow of lights came from over the ridge. Obviously not enemies of the fighting kind. Another dig? I wonder if they know something that our professor doesn't. Is there something specific that we're after?
Pondering those thoughts, she finally drifted off to sleep.
Lupi was itching with her curiousness. The hobgoblins, the new ship, ancient goblin spirits on the site. Too many things tickling her mind at the same time. After a long thought she considered there wasn't much she could do about the hobgoblins and the new ship, but a connection to ancient spirits with her Detect Thoughts spell was too tempting to pass. She tagged with Alua, and when Alua saw a spirit, Lupi immediately cast her Detect Thoughts spell. She was ready to hear the secrets of the ancient Dhakaani Empire...
"Absolutely we should not investigate." Erix announced "Never volunteer. If you're really keen then go and suggest that someone else should go have a look."
Erix snorted a laugh at the banter, good humour restored. "I fear it's officer school for you two, if you're not careful." he warned. "Condemned to a life of boring paperwork and catered meals. Stay here with us grunts, where the exercise is plentiful, the food reliable, and with the ability to work in the great outdoors all day!"
Excavations, day 5
The fifth day dawned with a mix of hope and uncertainty. The Gallant Storm's arrival had brought relief to the supply shortage the camp had just began to suffer, and the extra shipment of winter gear and firewood that had delayed the airship had helped deal with the worst of the problems caused by the rare planar alignment situation. The sudden appearance of the three Warforged lost to time, on the other hand, was something few seemed sure what to do - or think - about. So far the three had kept to themselves, when not availing themselves to the camp's resident magewright's services or getting interviewed by the professor's assistant - the old archeologist himself couldn't resist spending his time in the obelisk chamber, until the last of the artifacts had been catalogued and packed away for transport and later study. As far as you knew, no-one had dared to break the news about Cyre's demise to the three soldiers, as there was no telling how they may react, although there was the chance of them finding out nevertheless, as talk about not telling them was quite the popular topic among the expedition crew.
Then there was the other mysterious expedition - these seemed little else the light in the distance could have been, and while the professor or his aide were still refusing to comment, suggesting anyone who had the time to worry also had time to work harder, they hadn't refuted the rumors either.
And finally, the two hobgoblin visitors. That mystery at least was addressed at the communal breakfast - Kallaad Draa'kash's and his bodyguard's presence here was part of the arrangement professor ir'Morain had struck with the high warlord, for the right to dig at this site - expeditions themselves were nothing unusual in Darguun, although most were led by the Kech Volaar, goblins researching goblin history for their own reasons, historians of the Morgrave and Korranberg universities, the high warlord had correctly recognized the professor's rush and the fact he'd be willing to pay whatever price Lhesh Haruuc named. And the price had been the right to reserve judgement on artifacts unearthed - anything the high warlord's representative declared integral of Darguuni interest was theirs by right, although the professor was guaranteed ample time and opportunities to study the artifacts, even if Lhesh Haruucwere to claim them for his own people.
Breakfast eaten and the morning meeting concluded. you returned to the obelisk chamber, staring at the once-mortared-shut stone doors, the only route remaining to you as other team's exploratory digs had declared the caved-in sections you had ran into unsuitable for mining...
"So. I've been thinking... I think we need to tell the 'Forged about Cyre. Assuming we don't get ground up by whatever's in these..." Erix tapped on the doors, more loudly than he intended "I plan to tell them tonight. who's with me?"
Phin scarfed her breakfast in anticipation of getting the door open in the obelisk room. She was finally given the green light to do something interesting rather than manual labor. She knew there was a lot of other gossip spreading throughout their camp about the other airship and the hobgoblins but they were of secondary importance to the elf.
The rogue pushed to the front of the group entering the obelisk chamber and she moved straight towards the doors she had seen earlier. She took a good long look at the doors to see if there was anywhere she could leverage to make their opening easier.
"I plan to tell them tonight. who's with me?"
Lupi was still uneasy with the Warforged "They are like unstable machines ready to blow apart at any moment. And Erix wants to take an unnecessary risk." but on the other hand Lupi had always been supporting the freedom of people "Some consider Warforged as persons, not machines, so they should be as free as anybody else."
After a long thought Lupi gave Erix a silent nod.
Lupi was certainly not the one with muscles, but she was very curious about the stone doors. "What's on the other side, maybe more goblin graves, maybe a grave of a warlord or something. There has to be another one of those obelisks too, I guess." She tried looking into the immediate future to see, if she could help Erix on prying the doors open.
Even with Lupi and Phin providing guidance to Erix’s and Alua’s efforts to force the doors open, it took a backbreaking hour for you to get the massive stone slabs moving. The door that had remained closed for millennia resisted you every inch of the way, but persistence won in the end and with one enormous crunch of pulverizing gravel you managed to force the doors open wide enough to allow you to squeeze through. The darkness was absolute on the far side, but even before Baran maneuvered his light in place Erix’s and Lupi’s eyes – well accustomed to extreme darkness, had seen what laid beyond the portal.
A wide hall opened into a partially collapsed chamber, its southern extent buried beneath rubble. To the southwest, you glimpsed an area with worked stone walls. The crumbling of that part of the chamber revealed another level below, although from your position by the door, you could tell nothing more than that the floor suddenly fell into darkness in that direction. The floor and walls of the upper level visible to you were stained black as if by fire, and you see half-dozen or so dusty skeletons strewn across the floor.
"So. I've been thinking... I think we need to tell the 'Forged about Cyre. Assuming we don't get ground up by whatever's in these..." Erix tapped on the doors, more loudly than he intended "I plan to tell them tonight. who's with me?"
"Of course they must be told. It's sad that it falls to our lot to tell them. The question is how to tell them. They will be angry that we have waited this long, with warforged, one must be earnest."
-----As the door opened Baran tried to pierce the dark but nothing. He soon began his now familiar narrative. "With skillful deliberation they talked their way past the three statuesque guards of and ancient site only to have mystery answered with mystery. Please, let these words shed a little light on the present darkness." The familiar four lanterns appeared and moved into the room as if carried by a sober processional. Baran went to step into the space but remembering himself turned to Phin to check the way.
"Of course they must be told. It's sad that it falls to our lot to tell them. The question is how to tell them. They will be angry that we have waited this long, with warforged, one must be earnest."
Alua shuddered, then shuddered again. Wrapping her hands around herself, she squeezed her arms alternately, trying to distract her mind. Now was not the time or place to fall into her memories of the Day of Mourning. Her voice soft, she said, "I don't know if it's a good idea."
***
Alua wiped sweat from her brow and shook the cramps out of her shoulders. "That door was heavy." She was starting to feel nostalgic for the days when she spent her time in the office, not sweating.
As the lights moved in, the oracle narrowed her eyes. Calling upon her helpful goblin friend, she asked him to go check on the state of the skeletons. Anticipating her request, the shimmering form of the goblin danced through the room, kicking at bones, checking to see if they had any life clinging to them.
Phin clapped Erix and Alua on the back before gracefully squeezing between them to glimpse through the doors. "Great job you two. You've just earned an extra bun at supper to share."
Phin leaned through the doorway and whispered, almost in awe, "I wonder when these doors were opened last. We'll definitely need Karola in here to check the soundness of the structure considering there was a fire."
The elf took a few careful steps into the room, keeping an eye on her surroundings to make sure they were safe.
Lupi peeked at the new area with interest safely behind Erix's massive back. She took a bit of time to prepare herself in case the skeletons would turn out to be lively sort and cast a spell. An invisible force surrounded her.
As Phin took her few careful steps into the new room she suddenly froze. In the light of Baran's conuration, she had just realized a few bits and pieces of shadow refused to be banished - indeed, in some places, dark stains on the floor and walls rippled like black water in the reflected light.
Baran's narrative went down to a whisper as he stepped forward cautiously, "The greyness of forgotten time yawned with horizontal vertigo as the investigators made their way into the underworld itself, where the ruins of Darguun have grown spiteful in their loneliness. The team felt themselves bring something into these halls it hasn't seen for an age. Camaraderie." The boy did his best to look out for architectural dangers of collapse as Karola would have done.
"What do oo you mean, Alua? I mean, you know more about it than me right?"
Erix turned to Baran "They're not going to get less angry if we wait. We should probably get them to down weapons, though."
"Oi!" Erix snatched for Phin "You've had one too many bun yourself to go walking on a floor that might have had the supports burned out! If nothing else, you go in with a rope attacjed - an anchored one - and near the walls!"
Baran stepped past Phin into the dark room, but stopped short as something to his left suddenly caught his eye - a ripple in the air, revealed by his magical light, as if a curtain of inky black water was gently stroked by a breeze. He had come within touching distance of something unnatural.
Lupi saw the strange curtains of inky black waters and her heart jumped. She remembered seeing a picture in some old book she had read a long while ago, "Keep away of those things, I think they are Shadowseed. They move very slowly, but if somebody touches them they will drain away our life energy."
Alua grimaced at Lupi's words. "Sounds nasty. Do we need to kill them, or just stay away from them?"
"I read they can move, but only very very slowly. Maybe it is better just avoid them and go carefully around", Lupi said.
Baran froze in place and listened to Lupi's warning. He considered the room and sent the lights to the area of collapse where traces of a lower floor could be seen. "If these 'emanations' can move then we can get cornered if we're not careful. Could they be cancelled out with some form of positive energy?" The boy gave the strange shadow some space.
Erix whistled quietly. "Nasty." He shrugged "That sounds like it'd take a lot of positive energy. Maybe we could try flame? Most things that live, burn." He pauses "How fast can they move?"
Alua came into the room, and studied the strange phenomenon from what she hoped was a safe distance. "If they can't chase us, maybe better to just mark the area as dangerous and then move on. Fire could draw the attention of other dangers."
Digging around in her excavation kit, she found some chalk, and carefully circled all the dangerous places, giving them a wide berth. She then added the symbols for danger and death. Pulling out a torch, she left it burning nearby. "There, that should keep us, and anybody stumbing in after us, safe."
Looking up at Phin, she said, "Ready to move on?"
Phin gives the Shadowseed a concerned look. "I guess avoiding them would be the best option. I agree with Baran in that you'd think positive energy would be the best counter to negative energy but Erix has a point - who knows how much positive energy would be needed to negate the negative. They seem fairly visible in direct light and since we know they're here, coming back we'll need to make sure that the cavern is properly lit. But how do we make sure no one else comes in and disturbs them?"
The rogue ties the rope offered by Erix around her waist and then moves further into the room, keeping along the wall and away from the marked shadowseed areas.
Looking up at Phin, she said, "Ready to move on?"
The elf nods hesitantly, "Practically invisible negative energy hazards and a crumbling structure is still preferable to doing manual labour in the camp. So yes, ready to keep going."
"How fast can they move?"
Lupi tried to remember the old texts she read"Ummm.. Very very very slowly. I don't think they could block our way back," and continued,"Maybe the ones who filled the gaps of the stone door wanted to keep the Shadowseed in this room and had no method to remove them." Lupi took a step into the room and waited until the others went past the Shadowseed and then very carefully went past them too.
As Phin crept past the closest seed that Alua was kneeling next to, a piece of chalk in hand, she became aware of a strange sound – a sort of sloshing and sucking sound like someone treating through mud or deep swamp, the thick liquid sticking to one’s boots, reluctant to let go. It seemed to be coming from the lower level, which was slowly coming into the elf’s view as she approached the edge. The level laid some 20 feet below you, the edges of the slope steep and treacherous-looking. You also noted another bit of collapsed floor in the south-eastern corner of the room, although where this one led was not obvious from where you stood.
Instead, your attention was drawn to the west, to the strange noises. The room below was steeped in darkness, as Baran’s light could not properly reach from there, but for Phin’s keen elven eyes it was enough. Down below, several dark forms were stirring, crawling, almost seeming to swim through sewage that clung to their rotting forms, clawed, skeletal hands raised as if in longing, eyeless skulls unerringly turning to stare straight at Phin.
Feast your eyes on these beauties
Feast your eyes on these beauties
Shivers ran down Phin's spine and created a cold pit of dread in her stomach. It was unnerving how the empty eye sockets of the undead seemed to look directly at her, almost through her. She had a feeling that all those eyeless skulls would be haunting her dreams for the next little while.
She was at a loss for what to do. She was adept at fighting the living, not the undead. She had her bow but what good would arrows do when there was no flesh to pierce? And she had the same problem with her bladed weapons - what good would they do? The only thing she could think was that maybe fire could do some damage. She retrieved one of her torches and proceeded to light it with the plan to drop it down on the creatures.
Erix tugged once on the secured rope. "Oi! You okay, Auntie Phin?" he asked, and his voice boomed in the quiet. "Memory trouble?"
As Phin struggled to get a torch lit everyone else got to see what had so startled her as the four strange figures moved towards you, into the zone of light cast by Baran's spell. The way the creatures moved seemed rather peculiar - it was as if part of their bodies was always submerged in some liquid, parts of their bodies vanishing from sight under the murky darkness that flowed like tar they dragged with them as they moved towards you. They were half swimming, half wading forward as if through deep water, their bodies seeming to phase through solid stone beneath them. Slowly, but with no apparent regard for things like gravity as Phin's elven eyes saw them flow up the steep cliff at the same pace they made on level ground.
Alua moved sideways on her knees, making a rough but visible warning line with the chalk. She was aware of the others exploring further into the cave, and assumed they'd let her know if they needed her.
Phin's eyes widened in surprise and terror as the hideously disgusting undead creatures that she thought would be trapped below were slowly making their way towards her.
Oi! You okay, Auntie Phin?" he asked, and his voice boomed in the quiet. "Memory trouble?"
The rogue finally finds her voice, "So...not...okay...Undead!" she squeaked, "And they're moving through the floor like someone swims through water."
She scrambled backwards as far as she was able, keeping enough sense of her surroundings to avoid the Shadowseed. "I saw four of them." She drew her weapons even though she was highly doubtful they'll be of any use. "Do we think it's too late to just re-seal the doors and call it a day?"
As the Tar-Skeletons closed to Phin Lupi was also able to see them. In her curiosity she even took a step towards them. She looked at the immediate future to see, if trying recognise the Tar-Skeletons would be a good idea...
..."I think, I have seen these in some old tome. In any case they are not here to negotiate", she thought and said the last words of a prepared spell. Two faintly shimmering missiles came into existence and flew to hit the first Tar-Skeleton straight into its skull.
Erix swore with the inventiveness of a lifelong soldier. "Right. Anyone know how to kill them? What happens if they touch the dark spots? Explode? For now, like Phin says, everyone back behind the doors. I'll shut one, and we can team up on them as they come through!"
Erix stepped forward, grabbing hold of Lupi's shoulder and dragging the 'goblin' back. "Back behind the line, Lupi. No-one's expendable here. Think of poor Baran's paperwork!"
"Right. Anyone know how to kill them? What happens if they touch the dark spots? Explode?"
Lupi peeked as closely as possible the first Rotted Corpse "Oh yes... I know these... They are Rotted Corpses... They grab you and then try to drown you... I guess into the puddle they seem to be in..." Then she was snapped out of old memories as Erix grabbed her.
Re-positioned she continued "Touch the black spots? Not sure, but Shadowseed burst is necrotic energy and that heals undead. A kind of symbiotic thing really... How to kill them, I don't know, I would try bludgeoning weapons..."
In the flurry of activity, Alua raised her head and jumped to her feet in alarm. "What?!" she cried, not knowing what she was looking at.
The spirit of the goblin was still kicking uselessly at the bones nearby, and she shot him a glare. He shrugged, clearly not feeling guilty about not noticing the undead further in.
Backing out the door, Alua drew her mace, ready for action.
"Back behind the line, Lupi. No-one's expendable here. Think of poor Baran's paperwork!"
"Ha! And remember, anyone found dead on the job will have their salary drastically reduced!" Baran glanced back and thought to warn the archeologists working in the obelisk room but his friends came first. He stood his ground, his voice heightened as he attempted to bolster their hearts. "The shadows awoke with aeons old death. With steely resolve the investigators met eyes with the decrepit foe. Watching as corpse's ichorous anima moved with foul intention. Having not yet learned to fear the strength and cunning of the ir'Brock team. But let all shadows recede before them."
Lupi's darts of force snapped the closest undead’s head back as they struck, but they were not enough to destroy the creature, who didn’t seem to notice the damage even though half of its skull had just been blasted into shards. Instead, the creature kept on its approach, one claw reaching for Phin’s foot a few moments too late as the rogue decided prudence trumped valor in this instance. Alua joined the dancer in backing away from the danger, while Erix dragged the slender self-styled goblin mage beyond the stone doors before stepping to close ranks with Baran, barring enemy advance.
Then the bard’s lights moved to illuminate the battlefield. The undead ignored them after a single half-hearted swipe from one to whom the conjured lanterns came closest to, but then, the last of the quartet dove into the closest shadowseed. The pustule of inky darkness seemed to flinch, then suddenly burst apart in an explosion of negative energy that cast tatters of darkness all around the hallway, invigorating the corpse damaged by Lupi’s missiles – you could see the pieces of its skull putting themselves together, the darkness that flowed like thick water around the undead rising up to cover the pale bone. And again, the undead creatures ignore what happened to and around them. All they cared for was the living.