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Chapter 2: The Forgotten Dungeon
You descend the stairs to the keep's lower level, determined now to explore this area in earnest. The door you have chosen opens into a large room. Broken-down torture instruments lie in half-collapsed heaps on the floor here. To the north slumps a ruined stretching rack, while to the south a pillory lies fallen on the floor. Rusty tongs and chains, frayed and rotten whips, and other instruments of torture lie on shelves that look about to collapse.
Little of use remains here, but Toska notices a secret door to the south, which opens when a rusted ring on the wall is pulled down sharply. Beyond is a short T-junction hall. There is a door to the west, while only a blank wall to the south. Further searching uncovers another secret door there, however.
"So many secret passages in here, one is bound to be lost." Zin remarks as he pulls down on the rusted ring. Entering the corridor he looks to the west. "Let's try here."
The walls of this circular room are smooth and gray. A ribbon of pale blue light coils and slithers through the air, connecting the floor at the center of the room to the ceiling fifteen feet above. The points where this light touches the stone above and below seethe and writhe, as if the stone itself were suffering from an infection. The desiccated remains of an enormous worm lie slumped around the ribbon, forming a crescent of shriveled and tattered purple flesh.
Akkaboo detects the presence of magic in this room.
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"Hold it!" Mazul holds out her hands as if to physically prevent anyone from entering the room. "We do not want to wake that thing up, if that's what the creepy blue light might do. Which it might. We have bad luck with creepy blue lights."
She glares at the light from the doorway, trying to will it into sharing its secrets.
You're unsure if the light could animate the corpse, but the worm looks like its been dead for a long, long time. There are no tracks or anything to indicate that anything has moved in this room in all that time.
Mazul tentatively steps forward, ready to jump backwards at the slightest hint of animation. Assuming there is none, she searches the room. Carefully.
"Hey, uh, Akkaboo? See anything weird? I mean, other than the obvious."
Thinking about his interest in the strange Nexian practice of fleshwarping (and seeing how the ceiling and floor are warped where the blue light hits), makes Wan consider things in a different.....
Light.
!!!!!!
Nothing happens when Mazul enters the room.
Unfortunately, despite his interests in the matter, this doesn’t appear to be related to fleshwarping. Based on your position, you think you might be directly under Gauntlight now. Perhaps this energy is related to the power that allowed it to animate the dead and teleport monsters?
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"Um, no?" Akkaboo answers hesitantly. "What do you think, Mister Legs?" She lifts her hat to reveal a blue-and-pink blob perched atop her head that wriggles and wobbles gently - though not quite in time with her movement.
"Well, I have not a whit of wit about the matter!" Wan announces melodramatically, popping Proto's helm in order to show his expression of disdain.
The tengu moves about the room, examining the corpse of the purple-coloured worm. "Fascinating..." He stops abruptly, looks back at his team by turning his head 180 degrees, then pops Proto's helm back down and rotates his head back.
The slime sniffs around the room and pinpoints the source of the magic aura as somewhere inside the worm’s body...
Wan is unable to reach any definite conclusions about the light in this room.
”Mister Legs thinks there’s magic inside the snake,” Akkaboo announces. ”Maybe it are something bad and died.” She doesn’t step any closer, even as Wan prances around the room.
Wan returns to examining the corpse of the purple worm at Akkaboo's suggestion.
Digging into the dried worm’s carcass, Wan finds the remains of its last meal: a duergar skeleton still clutching a +1 warhammer. It seems the bludgeoning weapon didn’t help him cut his way out of the worm’s gut.
”What in the Nine Rings of Shin-Tzu are dead duergar doing in this place?” Wan calls with alarm, his voice muffled by the corpse of the purple worm in which he digs. The tengu emerges with the skull of the duergar, along with a shining warhammer. ”’Tis a fun weapon, though, I’ll admit, but this bodes badly for the lighthouse possessing surface-level dungeons only - duergar live deep in the Darklands.”
He peers at the hammer greedily. ”It’s a lovely weapon, though. Magical, too.”
"Lighthouse. In The Darklands. Makes sense." Toska thinks aloud as he visualizes an inverted lighthouse going down into a deep dark place.
While taking care to avoid the creepy blue light. "Gumdrop ain't gonna be happy to hear that."
"Ewww..." Mazul is very thankful that Wan is willing to go digging around in the worm's corpse. Magic item or no magic item, she wouldn't want to do that herself.
The realization that the lighthouse must be much, much deeper than they thought fills her with some alarm. "Are we going to be exploring this place for the next decade or so?! The Darklands are not my idea of a nice vacation spot." She'd been hoping the three levels they'd already seen were all there was to the dungeons, but apparently there was more. Potentially a lot more.
She sighs. "I guess we'd better keep moving then. Seems like we've still got a long way to go." Moving across the room, (and carefully avoiding stepping on any worm guts), she opens the southern door.
This five-foot-wide hallway features three alcoves along each side. Stone sarcophagi stand upright within each.
As you enter the crypt and start looking around, a shadowy figure emerges from the central sarcophagus on the west wall. The feminine shade's eyes burn with white light as she floats towards you menacingly!
Moving just before you can react, the shadow flies up to Mazul and reaches for the half-orc. The rogue dodges at first, but the second strike connects, negative energy coursing through her body.
Mazul shrieks in both pain and surprise as the shadow somehow hits her despite seemingly being incorporeal. "I don't know what this thing is but kill it! Kill it with fire!" She punctuates her words by drawing her new shiny rapier.
Conscious of the small space, she nimbly dodges around the shadow to allow others to move forward and attack. Or more accurately, through it. Once on the other side, she quickly stabs at where its vital organs would be...if it had any.
"Eeeek!" Akkaboo's familiar shriek fills the air. "What is that!?" Taking Mazul's request literally, the goblin hurls a burst of flame at the shadowy creature.
Zin looks on in horror as this shade of a woman wrenches her hand through Mazul. "Are you alright?" He stumbles back over the worm's carcass, nearly falling onto his back trying to get out of the tight hallway.
Calming himself a moment he sends a ray of moonlight down the hall into the shade.
AC 17 ; Curse Stage: Minor
HP 22/22 | Resistance Physical 3; Harm 5
Hero Points 2/3
Focus Points 2/3
Spells (1) 2/3 |
Wand of Heal (1st) 0/1
Curse Benefit: Resistance: All Physical 3
Minor - (Enfeebled 1; -2 to saves, Grapple, Shoved and Forced Movement)
Moderate - (Enfeebled 2; -3 to saves, Grapple, Shoved and Forced Movement)
”It appears that my purchase was prescient!” Wan announces, pulling out his newest vial. ”Steady on there, Mazul! This might feel good!”
"More undead. I'm shocked. This is my shocked face." Toska grumbles as he wills himself against the encroaching necrosis in the air before sauntering up to the shade.
◆ Interact (Draw Greatsword)
◆ Rage (positive)
◆ Stride
Wan's ghost charge only ends up splashing the shade. Mazul moves through creature and stabs it from behind, scoring a critical hit, but it resists some of the damage she deals. The thing dodges both Akkaboo's fire and Zin's moonbeam.
Akkaboo recognizes it as an undead creature called a shadow. Shadows resist most damage except for force, ghost touch, or positive energy, and are more resistant against nonmagical weapons. An object shedding magical light (such as from the light spell) is treated as magical when used to attack the shadow. They can weaken their prey with a touch and steal their shadows, turning them into spawn under their control.
The creature turns on Mazul again and pulls at her shadow, then drives its hand deep into her chest. The half-orc falls!
"Not enough fire!" Akkaboo yells. "Zin, it's going to steal her shadow and make her like it! Hurry and heal her! Or heal the ghostie!" Her limbs trembling, the goblin makes her way through Wan's armored legs and ducks into an alcove. Quickly she starts scribbling in the air again, drawing a small figure holding a massive sword in one hand that radiates a bunch of squiggly lines. Again she slaps the artwork onto Toska's sword where it glows brightly on both sides of the blade.
Zin quickly pulls a bit of force from the stars above and shines the healing light at Mazul. "Hopefully I got to her in time!"
AC 17 ; Curse Stage: Minor
HP 22/22 | Resistance Physical 3; Harm 5
Hero Points 2/3
Focus Points 2/3
Spells (1) 1/3 |
Wand of Heal (1st) 0/1
Curse Benefit: Resistance: All Physical 3
Minor - (Enfeebled 1; -2 to saves, Grapple, Shoved and Forced Movement)
Moderate - (Enfeebled 2; -3 to saves, Grapple, Shoved and Forced Movement)
"Guh" Mazul blinks her eyes open, unsurprised to see herself staring at the floor. She doesn't feel hurt exactly, just strangely weak. And cold. Like her life is being stolen away.
Which is probably exactly what's happening.
Time to get to work. She forces herself up off the ground and takes another shaky stab at the shadow.
"No!" Akkaboo shrieks as Mazul stabs at the ghostie. "Run away Mazul before it steals your shadow!"
Wan pulls out his last ghost charge!
"Ahem! Incoming positive energy to blast the baddies and potentially heal some of your woes, if you're ailing, that is." Wan cackles as he lobs the vial lazily over Toska's head.
The familiar whir of his engineered marvel kicks in as Wan attempts to put Proto into overdrive.
The motor coughs and wheezes before sputtering out.
"Nevermind that! Toska, once you've completed your pokes, step to the side, sweet-ling!"
Toska roars, in as much as a Kobold can, when the shadow fells Mazul, prompting him to begin hacking and failing into it before hopping over to Mazul's side and roaring again.
◆
◆
◆ Stride
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The shadow flickers as Wan strikes it with the ghost charge, then Toska comes swinging with his empowered ghost-killing blade. The first swing misses, but his second strike cleaves completely through the shadow, and with a strained cry, the undead dissolves into nothingness!
There doesn't seem to be anything of value left in the crypt, though there is a secret door at the end of the hall.
Toska snarls triumphantly before turning to Mazul ”You okay?”
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"A strange shadow monster just reached inside my chest and tried to steal my shadow." Mazul leans against the nearest sarcophagus, breathing heavily. "Yep, I'm absolutely fine. Doing great. Just...give me a moment here."
She pulls a book out of her bag and starts flipping through it. "Satyrs, Scorpions, Sea Drakes...Shadows. 'What to do when your own shadow betrays you...'
"Rest for at least an hour? How the hell is that helpful?!" She glares at The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You (And How To Survive Them), then roughly shoves it back into her bag.
"Um. So, while I am of course perfectly fine, thank you Zin for your timely healing and Toska for killing the thing, on a completely unrelated note I'd like to study these sarcophagi a bit longer. Say...one hour?"
”... how about you just nap for a bit?” Toska suggests, though he was relieved to see her back to her usual antics.
"That was....what's a pithy saying that suggests something is dark and shadowy but that we were triumphant over it...?" Wan titters to (mainly) himself as he pops Proto's helm to survey the scene in person.
He spies Mazul consulting a text. "Oooooh! Story time? Sweet Mazul, I will do your hands - and trust me, your claws need some serious archaeological digging if you know what I mean, but there's no shame between us nest-mates, right - and we can take a breather!"
Wan produces a vial from within Proto.
"Or we could just have a drink."
"It was a shadow, you say, Akkaboo? I wonder how IT wound up here along with the dead purple worm and the dead duergar and the blood blob and the mitflits and the skeletons and the reported sea dragon and everything else under the encyclopaedic sun."
"Is a shadow still a shadow when it is alone in the dark down here?" Zin wonders aloud as he kneels down to help Mazul.
The mysterious undead known as shadows lurk in dark places and feed on those who stray too far from the light. Rampant covetousness and grasping greed lead some people down the dark path of evil and betrayal, eventually ending in a reprehensible death scene or a lonely expiration. While most such petty and despicable souls travel on to their final rewards the same way everyone else does, in some cases gluttons, misers, and thieves waste away into nothing but shadows—undead things that reach and grab, but cannot hold. Over time, spellcasters have discovered that these avaricious souls make perfect servants and guardians, immortal creatures doomed to watch over “their” treasure for all eternity.
Mazul blinks blearily at Wan, not having the mental energy to follow his unique turns of phrase. "Are you offering me a manicure? That sounds nice, actually. So does a nap." She idly waves a hand towards the offered potion. "Keep it, keep it. I'm sure I'll be fine in an hour. The book said so."
With that she leans up against a nearby sarcophagus and promptly passes out.
One hour and some treatment from Zin later, she's feeling much better. "Sorry about that, but a short break was badly needed. Are we ready to press on through the secret door?"
While it’s apparent that this large room was originally a kitchen, the furnishings have been rebuilt and repositioned to create an improvised shrine. The western end of the hall, where a large fireplace for cooking food once stood, now serves as an altar of sorts. Looming over a human corpse is a towering statue in a feminine shape made of bones, covered in sheets of moldering cloth and hanging moss. This side of the secret door has been decorated with mud and blood to depict the same feminine form as the statue. It vaguely resembles the ghostly haunt that attacked you in the lighthouse.
The body is that of a human man, with a bird tattoo on his right shoulder. While the dead
man has no treasure on him, there are a few valuable offerings strewn around the base of the statue, including a bloodstone worth 10 gp, a softly glowing +1 weapon potency rune, and a sickly green fear gem.
Zin holds up the small rune and adds it to the stash with the warhammer. "When we get back to town we will have to etch it to our weapons."
He looks up curiously at the altar. "Any of you know who this is?" He runs a finger along the bird tattoo.
"Do you mean the bird tattoo on this corpse?" Wan asks Zin bluntly. "I don't know if staring at stars too much makes you see things, but there's no bird on the altar, Zin. And you're touching a dead guy. Gross."
Wan focuses on the effigy of a female form. "That is a very odd thing to be focused on in the last few moments of your life." The tengu cocks his head at the woman, then immediately back to the bird on the shoulder of the dead man.
Studying the shrine, Wan surmises that the “divinity” worshipped here isn’t a well-known goddess, but that the bloody scrawl on the wall over the secret door is likely meant to illustrate someone of importance.
The tengu recognizes the dead man's tattoo as the mark of the Osprey Club, identifying him as a member of Otari's thieves' guild.
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"Nice rune." Mazul admires rune that Zin is adding to their stash. "You should put it on your sword, Zin. Toska's got his blade of pointy death, Wan took the warhammer, and I took this." She places a hand on the hilt of her shiny new rapier. "Only fair you get something nice for a change. Unless Akkaboo wants it, but you don't seem to like using weapons. Do you?" The question seems rhetorical, but she does look at Akkaboo while she asks it.
She studies the 'goddess' on top of the altar. "Hmm, she looks like that blood thing we fought at the top of the lighthouse. Think whoever created this shrine worshipped it? I mean, I wouldn't worship a shape made out of blood that attacked me, but maybe other people are less discriminating in their gods."
"How old do you think this corpse is?" Mazul kneels down next to him. "Think he was in a party with our friend from the Ghost Temple? If so, there may be more. Adventuring parties like this usually have at least four people."
"He is the rogue of the group, if he were operating as part of a band of treasure-seekers," Wan sniffs. "That tattoo marks him as part of the Osprey Club - that would be Otari's thieves' guild. Regardless, he thought very highly of this woman that he scrawled into the wall in his own blood, apparently," Wan says with disdain.
The corpse here looks only a few weeks old, while the one in the temple upstairs was much older. It looks like this man was bludgeoned to death. It’s unlikely he was the one who made the drawing on the wall.
”Or not,” Wan says, concluding that the Osprey Club member hadn’t drawn the depiction of the woman in the statue.
"I am sure he will have no complaint Wan." Zin smiles as he slides the rune from his pocket. "Thank you Mazul. Are any of you able to etch it to my blade?" He holds the rune stone out.
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”Not at present, sweetling. Once we return to somewhere that isn’t trying to obliterate our existences, then I might be able to take the time and effort to do so.”
"I wonder if he was part of the group that showed up a week ago? Boss Skrawng said they'd headed towards the swamp dragon, but it's possible one of them made it here." Mazul pulls out a piece of paper and jots down a brief description of the dead rogue. "We'll have to see if we can find his family later. Yinyasmera might know who he was."
"Are we ready to move on?" She tilts her head towards the eastern doors. "I'd vote for continuing to go left. We might end up on the other side of that secret door we found."
"I wonder what beat him to death," Wan muses in an unreassuring way as he follows the rest of the team at Mazul's direction. "Yes, Yinyasmera will likely be able to tell us something - she keeps tabs on her employees."