Iniquity's glaive slices twice into the creature. It screams in frustration! Gurmire moves in to provide a flank for Packet… Packet connects all three times, thanks to his agile weapon and his goblin friend! The creature collapses into a pile of ancient dust.
As you look down, you can see the component parts of the thing reforming… it will take a while, but the undead here will reform unless you can somehow sanctify this area.
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Gurmire gives a shout of joy as the last of the undead go down. His elation is short lived as he sees them start to reform. “Not fair!”
Nodding agreement with Iniquity, he asks “Climb or walk in?” Glancing towards the stream, he says “Think all underwater ones taken care of.” as he gestures towards the remains of the skeletons.
Smiling, he adds “Like new bomb! Hurt undead, safe for friends!”
Pip and Packet use Read Aura to determine that the barrow is the source of the necromantic energies — it's a curse! It was stronger… much stronger… when Voth was here but has weakened over the centuries. It's weak enough now that you could break the curse permanently if you can do so while the undead are vanquished.
You can suppress it in a number of ways (as I read it, you get this info automatically with detect magic/read aura):
- Dispel Magic with a successful Counteract check (DC 18)
- A Heal Spell
- Turn Undead
- Performing a prayer and a Religion check (DC 18)
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Packet thinks about a certain forgotten place below Absalom, where he first met Pip and Gurmire. How terrible that tomb was, full of things people wanted to forget or contain… but how there was also a glimmer of hope to be found there.
He performs a ritual, with the help of iniquity and Gurmire and Pip, and suddenly the sunshine seems a bit brighter, like a cloud moving away from the sun. The bones of the undead cease coalescing, turn to ash, and float away on a breeze.
★★★
Inside the barrow, you find your prize: it's filled with valuable coins, jewelry, and gems. You feel fine taking them now that the area is hallowed once again.
A stone has been pried loose and then set back in its place… backward. Hidden inside, wrapped in waxed cloth, is a small, brassy knob with a rotatable viewport. The cloth also has an encoded note from Gregaro Voth written on it. It contains a secondary decoding cipher and a request that the future generations of Pathfinders cleanse this barrow, as Voth was unable to do so when he was alive.
With the primary cipher, it's clear that the log is hinting at a fourth site, but the Pathfinder Society won’t be able to confirm its existence or location until the documents have been fully decoded.
★★★
You rest and relax at the outpost — drinking cider with old craftspeople, performing morality plays in the tavern, learning about these peoples' culture, or spinning more and more outrageous tales at the Cracked Egg with the other neer-do-wells.
Soon enough, a Pathfinder transporter arrives along the trail you marked and uses teleportation magic to carry you back to the coast and the Risen Albatross.
Venture-Captain Stella Fane smiles as she clinks her glass full of run against each of yours. Once them eggheads figure where to go next, ye shall indeed receive an offer to participate!