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Antarah sees they crypt very impressed. He renews the magical lights and ponders. After exploring without moving himself, but the lights, he says "Careful. Disturbing the dead can be dangerous. I will save my combat magic for when we are close to the door by the end of the corridor." Along with Tariq, the garundi man explores the sideways (West-East) corridors.
Antarah makes sure there isn't a trap there.
A pile of skeletons bearing terrible broken bones lies at the terminus of this passage. A +1 mace is still clutched in the bony grip of a skeleton here.
A corpse of a man in yellowing leather armor—clearly not a member of the monastic community—lies at the end of this passage. He wears a suit of masterwork leather armor and bears a +1 dagger.
A jumble of bones lies at the end of this passage.
Yasmeena also checks carefully for traps before they proceed.
The door isn't locked and doesn't seem trapped. Which proves to be true, once the door is opened.
This chamber seems to be an enormous laboratory. Against the north and south walls are two identical daises raised about five feet from the laboratory floor, each accessed by a wide set of curved stairs. Atop each dais is a wide workbench covered in a bewildering series of glass beakers, tubes, alembics, athanors, and other alchemical tools. Some of these containers are filled with a murky green substance.
A massive mold-encrusted basalt table dominates the entrance of the room, flanked by two small tables to the east and west containing surgical tools and sheaves of old parchment. The walls of the subterranean lab were clearly fashioned from the living rock under the monastery, but carefully cut mold-encrusted tiles line the floor, interrupted occasionally by metal drains the size of dinner plates.
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At the sight of the underground laboratory, Antarah says "I have a bad feeling about this. Who would build an alchemical laboratory under a temple to Sarenrae?"
He chants some words of power and looks around without walking too much.
"Walk carefully, this old floor might break.", he says as he walks slowly towards the center table. As he gets there, he focuses one of his dancing lights to hover over it and he tries reading the parchments without actually touching them.
Tariq walks by the table and the flasks, also, trying to smell what the substance might be. "It could be something used in the rites... I've never been the kind of priest to impart the mass, though..."
Yasmeena continues to check for traps or areas of instability as they go.
“Praise be to Alseta,” Aithaloessa breathes, repeating herself and settling into something a bit like a litany as the secret passage opens up into the catacombs. “Praise be to the Welcomer, she who opens the way…” The wicked part of her brain briefly preens that her muttered prayer is, strictly speaking, not sung, so she’s keeping her promise. Impertinent subconscious aside, she does mean it: and the elven goddess of doors and ways is also a suitable power to invoke over the remains of the last transition most mortals make from this worldly existence.
She’s quiet through the rest of the passage grave.
That changes once the further door opens onto a laboratory. Aithaloessa stops short for a second, eyes wide, and even as Antarah voices his misgivings, darts forward with what is certainly not a soft squee of excitement. It very definitely doesn’t sound at all like a childlike expression of Elven glee, “<Mine!>”
Recalling herself with difficulty, Aithaloessa moves quickly but marginally more properly around the room, a certain twitchiness betraying her enthusiasm. She flickers from eyeing the piled parchments to giving one of the beakers filled with green stuff a curious shake.
“Get rid of this mold and this could be wonderful,” she enthuses, her delight finally bubbling over irrepressibly. She beams at the others, her gaze sweeping the room. As she does so, cut into the west wall she notices… well, Aithaloessa’s not a dwarf, but she grew up with enough of them around, in Alkenstar, that she’s got a fairly good sense of distance even underground. I’ll bet that answers what’s behind that other door upstairs!
The green stuff jumps out of the tubes and attacks Tariq and Aithaloessa. Tariq manages to turn away at the last moment, making the slimy stuff slide off of him and disappearing into one of the plate sized drains.
The one on Aithaloessa spreads all around her, engulfing her in a thin green layer of goo.
"Damn!"
Tariq tries to react, but he doesn't know what to do to remove the goo from Aith without harming her.
He tears a piece of cloth from his robes and tries to clean the goo from the elf's body.
Whatever Aith was expecting, it wasn’t that the contents of the alchemical apparatus would slurp and lurch out at her!
The sight rapidly goes from queasy to worse as the puddle of slime manages to jump onto her. Trying not to panic as a gagging gurgle escapes her, Aithaloessa tears her dagger from its sheath and starts trying desperately to scrape the green stuff off with the flat of the blade, but not fretting about the unavoidable nicks and scrapes where the edges catch and slip through her armour.
Kill it with fire! Burn the <(unprintable Elven profanity)> place down! An uncharacteristic arsonical streak is rapidly beginning to develop in the guardswoman, even as part of her hopes something useful can still be recovered from the tattered notes and infested apparatus.
All the washing and scraping has no real effect on the thing.
But it is still better than the other solution, where the slime kills the victim.
Yasmeena quickly draws her bow, but she cannot see any way to attack the slime without attacking Aithaloessa as well! She decides to nock one of her blunted arrows, and spins gracefully as she shoots!
Ibhrim claws at the goo to rip it off of Aithaloessa. This has the not obvious negative effect of hurting her too. This leaves Atihaloessa and the goo unconscious on the floor. The goo slowly drips off her.
The other goo comes up from another drain and attacks Ibhrim. But to no avail.
The revolted guardswoman only barely catches the bard drawing a bead on her as she tries desperately to get the animate goo off. The significance doesn’t register until…
Oh my gods, she shot me, Aithaloessa has just time to think, before toppling over with the impact into oblivion. It’s a mercy, really, since that way she doesn’t feel Ibhrim clawing the goop off her.
Tariq is about to help Aith, but he glimpses the other jello crawling around and decides it's better to end the threat and then cure it's damage.
Looking at the clumsy attacks one wonders if there are pugwampis around - with no one hitting anything.
As the battle rages, the prostrate, slime-slick elf twitches in her blackout, her body trying to recover from whatever was in the goo, and the battering it took to dislodge it.
Ibhrim dispatches the other slime.
Tariq quickly kneels beside Aith, praying for divine help.
"Sadly, that's all I can do without long term care or rest to recover my prayers."
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Antarah picks Aithaloessa up and puts her on one of the tables so she isn't thrown down as they finish searching the room. Antarah makes sure to check everything he can think of.
Afterwards, if there is nothing of note, he goes up the stairs to check if, indeed, there is a door to the sleeping area of the temple.
A sheaf of paperwork on the eastern table flanking the basalt block contains several alchemical formulae of great value to an alchemist. These include instructions covering the construction of restorative ointment and marvelous pigments.
Up the stairs is the other side of the molded door that Antarah has seen from sleeping chamber. The door is stuck.
From his place beside Aith, Tariq shouts "Hey Antarah! Careful with any more mold you might find there!"
Aithaloessa twitches and stirs in her swoon despite the terrible bruising that Tariq’s intervention has prevented from getting any worse, as her body revolts against whatever’s in the goo.
Ibhrim picks up Aithaloessa and carries her upstairs. There is nothing obvious left to explore so the party decides to call it a day. The ape bedroom is still the safest room so far so Aithaloessa is put into one of the beds.
After a few hours Aithaloessa comes to, eyes wide in disorientation for a moment until she realizes where she is. While her bruises open into full bloom, she maintains a stiff upper lip, but it’s clear that she’s taken quite a beating.
She resigns herself to concentrating on her recovery with only a minimum of fuss, though she does ask, before settling in with the tome that is the companion to most of her quiet time, “I hope we didn’t make a complete mess of the apparatus downstairs, but that’s not what I started out to say. What I meant was, anything interesting in the papers down there, before we were so rudely interrupted?”
After spending the rest of the day quietly, and despite her condition, Aithaloessa has an unquiet night. Midway through it, whoever’s on watch can see her tossing and turning in her sleep, her dreaming murmurs suggesting that she’s reliving even earlier battles on top of the ones from the day just past. She wakes distracted, with shadowed eyes, surprisingly restless given the shape she’s still in.
Tariq sees that Aith and the others get the rest they deserve and takes care of their bruises.
Tariq sees that Aith and the others get the rest they deserve and takes care of their bruises.
[dice=Heal, Guidance]1d20+6+1
As he hears Aithaloessa awoke, Antarah comes check on her. He says "How are you feeling?" As she is curious about the items downstairs, he says "I don't know much of alchemy, but there seems to be many useful items to those curious about it."
“Believe it or not, I’ve had worse,” Aithaloessa says, with a tiny, wry grin. It soon fades as she extends her arms, giving them a long, hard look down to her hands as she adds softly, “I really don’t like the idea of anything growing on me.”
Rubbing her arms down as if to remove a lingering memory of the angry goo, she forces a bit more brightness into her voice. “Or in, even if it’s sometimes useful. Have you ever had the misfortune of requiring troll styptic? Nasty stuff, though a life-saver.”
It’s as good a segue as any to other alchemical experiments, and Aithaloessa taps the sheaf of papers recovered from the lab. “But, on a related note, if I’m reading these right, you would be a march ahead of me here. These recipes must call for magic beyond the usual experiments – some sort of conjuration, maybe?”
“Silver, salt, and sulphur,” she mutters abstractedly to herself, before shaking herself again, though there seems to be something else still on her mind. She doesn’t quite wiggle in frustrated excitement – elves, officers, and at least certain kinds of gentlewomen generally don’t – but she’s obviously not looking forward to spending much more time off her feet.
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Antarah takes a second look at the papers Aithaloessa shows him. He says "My magical training hasn't been as focused as what my father would like. I admit I don't recognize most of these. I think they would be more useful to an alchemist."
Sometime during the day, Antarah takes a break from reading the book and nibs at some trail ration and says "I think it would be a good idea to try to rid that door of the mold. Does anyone have any thought about doing that? I was thinking fire again, but maybe it's because I've been reading too much about fire genies."
Any character who spends more than a day studying the book learns the names of all five of the Templars of the Five Winds, their associated weapons, and the aspect of wind with which they are associated. The book also contains a brief entry on Jhavhul, who is listed as a shamed member of the efreet nobility of the City of Brass, a famed location on the Plane of Fire. The entry suggests that he ventured to the Material Plane in search of an army and a legacy to raise his standing, during which time he and his armies warred against the Templars of the Five Winds, but that he was never seen in the City of Brass again.
Davashuum
Wields a powerful quarterstaff.
He represents the fury of winds from all directions
Kardswann
Wields an elaborate greataxe.
He represents the south wind, the most well-traveled and worldly of the winds.
Pazhvann
Wields a tremendous burning flail.
He represents the east wind, upon which the whispers of the gods and the advice of elders is carried.
Vardishal
Wields an ice spitting pepperbox.
He represents the north wind, a wind said to carry the battle cries of all armies.
Zayifid.
Wields a delicate but razor-sharp scimitar.
He represents the west wind, upon which secrets thought hidden were carried.
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This is very cool. I've added the book to my character sheet under equipment. I do intend to read it thoroughly, but it hasn't passed a day since we've found it this morning.
So, do I RP my reaction to it now, or wait until I've spent more than a day reading it? I mean, assuming I don't get sneaked on by a huge spider or blood sucking ceiling creature again.
Wounded as she is, Aithaloessa lets the mask slip just a little bit, allowing the depth of her fascination for all things arcane to show through, as she continues to peruse the alchemical lab notes, though most of them are far beyond her abilities at the moment. “Hmm, the marriage of the noble lion and the quick snake … oh, and it calls for cinnabar here! Of course! ... Calcined and sublimed…”
Sometime during the day, Antarah takes a break from reading the book and nibs at some trail ration and says "I think it would be a good idea to try to rid that door of the mold. Does anyone have any thought about doing that? I was thinking fire again, but maybe it's because I've been reading too much about fire genies."
She is able to surface periodically to greet and chat with the others, at one point trying to remember what her dwarven colleagues in Alkenstar would occasionally share about keeping underground installations free of dangerous slimes and fungi. “I think fire would do the trick, under the circumstances.”
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In one moment during the day while reading the book, Antarah gets up and absent mindedly walks to the garden area of the monastery. He starts pointing at the various images, then checks the book again. Then looks at the images, then walks and points again before checking the book.
A few moments later, he walks to the rooms flanking the ruined nave and looks at the ceiling and the image on the east wall. He returns to the garden room and checks the statue that opened up to the secret passage earlier.
Antarah looks up, as though thinking and returns to the garden room. To anyone nearby, he says making an excited face "I think I have some insights on these figures here. It might be a coincidence, but maybe it isn't."
Walking over to the north section , he says "If my take on this is correct, these five warriors are called the Templars of the Five Winds from the elemental plane of fire. So, this would be Kardswann", he says, pointing to the man with the axe. Then, regarding the man with the staff, he turns a few pages and says "And this should be Davashuum. The other three would then be called, Pazhvann who uses a burning flail, Vardishal with a magical ice throwing box and Zayifid who carries a very sharp scimitar. Now, each of these.... personalities... is associated with a specific wind."
He moves on to the east wall and says "Now, you can see here in the background that there are two people fighting over the eastern mountain. The evil looking efreeti could be Jhavhul, an outcast from the City of Brass' nobility. But that would be some sort of a stretch. There aren't many mentions of him in this book. However this beautiful woman I have no idea who she could be."
Moving on to the south section , he points to the bearded figure who was left behind by the other four and says "Now, one of the five Templars was left behind for some reason, maybe he was supposed to guard a region. Or maybe he left without the approval of the others, that much is unclear."
He moves on to say "Now it seems this person was struck down by this snake-man creature. It is unclear to me why he appears looking down at his slain body. Did he ascend somewhere? Or did he reincarnate? What could it be?" He thinks to himself for a moment, then continues on to the west wall and says "Now it seems this person oversees the construction of this temple. Whether he is the same man who was slain by the snake-man creature is unclear to me, but that's what it seems like." Walking to the last image, he says "Well, this one seems to have been scupted 30 years ago. When is the next coming of the bearded man supposed to be, I wonder?" He looks at the dates and tries to find a pattern.
Without moving on, he looks to the east and says "Now, as to the identity of the overseer of the temple's construction, I would take him to be Pazhvann, who represents the east wind and carries the whispers of the gods. He is the one with the burning flail. Now, not only is the mountains to the east constantly depicted in these images, including the ones near the nave, but a god's temple is very fitting for one who 'carries the whispers of the gods', wouldn't you think?"
In the few free time Tariq has for himself, he contemplated the altar room and checks the damages caused by the fallen balcony. He tries to make the place more decent, though this he will only be able to do with a lot of help.
Between her own workbook and the notes from the crypt lab, Aithaloessa is able to keep out of too much trouble for most of the morning. Eventually though, she thinks she notices something she was hardly expecting just yet, that quickly turns into not a bee but a whole hive in her bonnet. She begins to pace, slowly and somewhat off-kilter given how off-balance she still is, and with a feverish gleam in her eyes.
She’s catching her breath from her restless wanderings in the cloisters just when Antarah begins his art-historical disquisition, and it’s fascinating. “Five winds? I’ve heard of four, and sometimes eight, but… Could it be related to eastern elemental theory, towards Casmaron, or Tian Xia?”
Fire, and ice, and, well, I would think air, but maybe … metal? And then that would leave earth, and- Something else occurs to her. “A magical ice-throwing box? Now that sounds almost Irriseni. Did this Vardishal ride it like a sieve?” Or, there are stories about magic powders and things being pulled out of bags! Why not boxes?
Her tone makes it clear that Aithaloessa isn’t teasing: that she was starved for magic in her girlhood is painfully clear as she bounces between earnest theory and fairy tale.
He moves on to say "Now it seems this person was struck down by this snake-man creature. It is unclear to me why he appears looking down at his slain body. Did he ascend somewhere? Or did he reincarnate? What could it be?" He thinks to himself for a moment, then continues on to the west wall and says "Now it seems this person oversees the construction of this temple. Whether he is the same man who was slain by the snake-man creature is unclear to me, but that's what it seems like." Walking to the last image, he says "Well, this one seems to have been scupted 30 years ago. When is the next coming of the bearded man supposed to be, I wonder?" He looks at the dates and tries to find a pattern.
Intelligence: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6
“Wait, that monument, closer to the chapel. You don’t think … could something go wrong with a spiritual visitation?”
Mind whirling, the curious guardswoman hurries as quickly as her wounds allow to check the date on the exorcism memorial, as a shiver runs down her spine. Or she would, but that shiver, or something, makes her drag her heels in the ash of the burnt courtyard garden, until she collects herself.
She checks – 4691 ar. – and muses about the specific sanctity (or not) of ghosts. She makes sure to check in with Tariq too, asking him politely, but somewhat abstractedly, about his healing prayers. She’s not angling for one: she only listens to his words and watches his gestures with perhaps shockingly ecumenical curiosity. She offers to come back and help with clearing the chapel when the exertion won’t knock her out all over again, but for now…
Strangely, Aithaloessa finds herself back in the ashes of the courtyard, drawn by the mysteries still left after Antarah’s explication of the cloisters’ decoration. Or perhaps her lingering guilt for destroying the garden? Whatever it is, even if it means getting ashes up to her knees and above, she stands almost dazedly in the wreckage, digging the toe of one boot into the ashes with bizarre determination.
What starts as kicking some ash around quickly escalates into a digging frenzy. Aithaloessa shoves some ashes around with her feet, and then some earth, but as the dense ground below won't give way she kneels down digging with her hands. Which also is frustratingly slow.
In the end she stabs the ground in a rage with her elven thorned blade - which is an outrageous abuse of this elegant and delicate weapon - excavating the then loose ground with the other hand. One foot, maybe two feet deep.
Finally she stabs the ground a last time and drops the blade carelessly into the ashes. Lying on her belly with both her arms in the hole and her face in the dirt, she grabs something and pulls it out.
A bundle of oiled cloths, covered in dirt. The elf quickly turns it around in her hands to find a loose end and unwrap it. The first dirty layer finds its way to the ahes next to the blade. The next layer Aithaloessa hurriedly unfolds until she sees.
It's like time stands still. Peace comes back to the elf. The morning sun reflects on the golden contraption she holds in her hands. Not many would know what it is. But Aithaloessa does. It's like she has waited her whole life to hold this item in her hands. As her fingers close around the pistol's grip, a patchy, uneven growth of mold appears on her arm, but she doesn't even notice in her blissful state.
Now that the group is confident that there are no more monsters hiding in the area, Yasmeena turns her attention to the temple. She painstakingly assists Tariq by carrying rubble and refuse out of the building, and scrubs clean the stones once he can conjure water for them to use. "I regret, master Tariq, that my only contribution is my dedication, but at least I can make the restful moments between our labors more enjoyable," she says, plucking the strings of her instrument and laughing.
At night she encourages Antarah to set down the legends he is discovering in verse, so she can accompany him on the oud or dance around their cookfire while clapping her hands in time. Likewise she composes a rhythmic telling of their fight against the gremlins in the temple, to recount the battle for the others in the caravan when they catch up.
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Antarah has a hard time letting go of the book. He is close by when Aithaloessa is drawn to the ground in the courtyard but doesn't pay her any attention, and doesn't answer her wondering on the nature of the five winds. Only after she retrieves an item from the ground that he pays some attention to it.
He makes sure that she can hear him and says "That.... That looks exactly like the description of Vardishal's magic box. How did you know it was down there? Oh, what's that?" He goes into the hole and pulls out a wooden box. It seems it has about two dozens of cartridges.
He puts everything down to sit by the fire at Yasmeena's invitation, but is too focused on the mysteries appearing to pay her any mind.
"Yes, it looks like our friend here managed to discover a nice treasure, even in her status. Congratulations, Aith - I'm glad I have you and this pistol in my team."
Tariq gladly accepts Yasmeena's help, even if scarce. "Don't worry. I'm no expert restorer either, and Sarenrae will appreciate the effort knowing we'll do what we can."
When attending the wounded, he realises this is too big a job for him. He was not trained to act as a medic, and now he's paying for it. If he doesn't get any help in the future, things are going to go South for them soon.
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Eventually during the rest, Antarah says "We should go back to the princess in the morning and bring her here. I would recommend not telling her everything we've found. I intend to keep this book, and I'm sure Aithaloessa will have more use for this magic box... or pistol was it?, than the princess. We've even found magical weapons in the crypt which we could sell."