"Here, Briar, let me help you." Venelle bends down and starts picking through the bones with a frown. Unfortunately, she seems stumped as well.
All Briar can tell is that one of the skeletons is taller than the others, and that their bones have strange deformities around the bases of their necks.
"We should go," Kata says, her voice soft. I hope it isn't her family. I hope that we find them, still whole and... unsullied.
"The necromancer may be aware of us. Let's get them, and worry about Caith's family later."
The door opens into a pair of intersecting hallways. Doors with rotting wood and freshly-polished doorknobs line the northern wall, and the rounded rough-hewn stone wall of the adjacent tower cuts through the northwestern corner. To the southwest, a door has been painted a vivid red, striking against the dust, mold and lichen covering everything else in this defiled place.
"Shou' we check'm all, 'r jus' guess'n go with'eh door?"[b] Broccan asks. [b]"I've m' doubts'eh'bou'th' re'door. Why's'eh wizard got'eh mark doors'in'is'own house?"
"Should we check them all or just guess, and go with a door? I have my doubts about the red door. Why does a wizard have to mark doors in his own house?"
Venelle smiles awkwardly, advancing into the room with her hands clasped behind her back as if she's not sure what to do with them. "Why do wizards do anything?"
Kata blinks and turns away from the red door. Why indeed? "Seems ominous. The red door. I think we should leave no door unopened, though I fear to see what lies hidden behind them."
The elegist gestures towards the nearest door, pointing at it with her spear. The red door was either the necromancer's domain or a trap. Time would tell...
This simple chamber hosts a plain bed, a small open footlocker, and an unremarkable wooden dresser. Each of the northern doors leads to a room that's much the same, though each with minor differences and flourishes--the first has many burnt-down scented candles staining the dresser, while the second smells rather strongly of cat urine. The third contains a small now-emptied bookshelf, and the fourth, closest to the red door, seems to have once been furnished rather nicely with tattered hanging tapestries and a lovely blue quilt, as if whoever once lived here--monk or squatter--was a little bit better-off than most. Their dresser is now in the worst shape, of course, the wood around the bottom drawer in particular battered and scratched up.
“If my oldest brother is at all representative, to get more magic, or avoid something that would interfere with that,” Alaïs quips, resigning herself to the evaporation of her previous spell – a circumstance which is, after all, a bit of a mercy.
Following the others as they check the less sinisterly marked rooms, the elf casts a jaundiced eye over the footlocker and dresser in the first room before the contents of the next cells provoke a bit of inspiration. She stoops to consider the scratches and the contents of the bottom drawer of the dresser in the last room. “You don’t think someone’s had kittens, do you? Apart from our necromancer, once we’re through with him.”
Edrukk follows the others after some healing, moving deliberately from door to door, axe and shield at the ready.
"The draw'r cou' just' be use'da'lot'n thas why it's got all th' scratches," Broccan suggests.
"The drawer could just be used a lot, and that's why it's got all of the scratches."
Neither Alais nor Edrukk notice anything of note. Two doors remain--the old door to the tower and the red door.
Alaïs tries the red door, ready to put her shoulder into it if it looks like it's stuck. Now I'm curious, she admits to herself, though if it is a case of a necromancer deliberately avoiding something, she belatedly thinks maybe it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.
Pushing open the old warped wooden door to the southern chamber requires some serious effort. The room appears to have once been an office, but it does not look like it's been used in years.
As Alaïs pokes her head into another empty room that seems to have gone undisturbed for quite some time, she tries not to think of what the implications might be, as her fruitful imagination extrapolates based on her memories of the results of her older brothers reappearing after vanishing into their research for days on end.
The quick circle she swings her sword through with a flick of her wrist does little to conceal her jumpiness, but she hurries back to the last door to check for now, and hesitates for only a moment with a glance back to the others. “Any last preparations? And then we can press on.”
As soon as she gets an affirmative chorus, Alaïs tests the red door, nervous, but sure that a grave-robbing, skeleton-animating necromancer isn’t something to leave unattended about one’s town.
Alais slowly opens the red wide. The revolting stench of rotting flesh roils from within.
In the room beyond, ten chairs surround an oblong dining table situated parallel to the door. Along the north wall, a wide staircase leads to an upper floor. A wooden door below the stairs presumably leads to a closet. Two doors line the south wall, while a sagging antique wooden shelf dominates the west wall, looking like it might collapse at any moment.
Three tall low-burning candles on the dining table illuminate a sight of terror. With the exception of the place at the western end, each of the chairs surrounding the table holds an awkwardly seated humanoid figure. The nine bodies are in various stages of decomposition. Some sit with splendid posture, paused as if midway through a sumptuous feast. Others slump treacherously close to the floor.
Heaping plates of apparently fresh food sit before each of the diners, but the empty place setting features a clean plate and set of utensils. Several bottles of red wine rest upon the table, and each of the corpses sits before a half-finished glass.
A fly passes nearby, its there-not-there buzz breaking the eerie silence.
Edrukk's eyes narrow in anger. He focuses on the corpses that seem to be sitting well, expecting them to rise to attack.
He mutters, "Mind th' 'ole ones don' stand 'p t' greet ye 's ye move in, aye?"
"I can fix up that food n' drink if you want." She waves her finger about in a circle. She then pats Edd on the shoulder, giving him a touch of Guidance.
“I think I’ll stick with my berries, thanks,” Alaïs demurs as she takes in the horrid tableau.
Kind of her to offer, though, she thinks, but before she can continue a bit of banter, her nervousness starts to freeze into something harder, and the elf nods sternly in acknowledgement of Edrukk’s words.
She raises her sword and shield in preparation for any of the predictable necromantic trickery, and starts to cautiously circle the table sunwise from the nearest corner, keeping an especially wary eye on the corpses that are more intact.
If any of them so much as twitches, she braces herself, always keeping her swordpoint where she has an easy thrust if the nearest body turns out to be an undead thing lying in wait.
Edrukk nods. As the elven skald circles the table, the dwarf follows suit, but in the other direction, likewise watching the corpses for any movement.
Venelle enters as well, her eyes trained on the corpses, an arrow nocked in her bow. She seems full of nervous energy, and suddenly goes stiff, eyes widening. "That one twitched!" she squeaks.
"Not dead. Let's form up a wall while someone moves t' th' door 'n opens 't." He cautiously moves back around to where Alais stands, preparing to shield their friends in case opening a door will cause the dead ones to attack.
Broccan draws his axe from his belt and moves into the room, ready to fight. He watches to see if any of the corpses are about to rise from their seats.
"Maybe we shou' cut off thei'r'eads, jus' t' be sure," he suggests.
"Maybe we should cut off their heads, just to be sure."
The dead do not react.
Alaïs is only just self-collected enough not to lunge at her zombie’s? ghoul’s? general-flesh-eating-monstrosity’s? throat when, as Venelle says, it twitches. After all, it’s subtle enough that she almost missed it, and the thing doesn’t seem to be getting up to attack, so.
Instead, it just leaves her skin crawling as she completes her circuit with Edrukk. She tries to remember what she’s gleaned about such things from her general studies in magic so far. If they’re fully animate and not sapient, if they’re not attacking, they must be under command, no? Some awful attempt at humour? Or what are they waiting for?
Fine. We’ll play your little game, Filge, Alaïs thinks, approaching the empty place setting.
Broccan draws his axe from his belt and moves into the room, ready to fight. He watches to see if any of the corpses are about to rise from their seats.
"Maybe we shou' cut off thei'r'eads, jus' t' be sure," he suggests.
“Does anyone recognize any of the guests?” she asks, as she cautiously lays her sword alongside the other cutlery and reaches for the nearest bottle. After all, she never knew Caith in life, and with the condition all these (un)dead folk are in, she’s not sure if she can pick out any family resemblances. “It would be nice if we could avoid sending extremities flying across the room, just in case. Healing magic would do the trick, I think, but that would be a bit extravagant. Perhaps a bit of gentle knocking about, as far as it goes.”
It’s a shame that Edrukk’s not that sort of priest , if she’s understood the facts of the matter correctly, and while Kata seems to have an eminently suitable temperament, she’s not sure the elegist can just take charge of or dissolve the magic making these bodies, well, not dance, exactly, but stringing them along, certainly.
Alaïs pops the cork and gives the contents a discerning and dubious sniff as she tries to keep one eye on her restless table companions. “On second thought, if you would be so kind, Briar, I think that might be wisest.”
She has learned something from her sweetheart far to the east, witch and – oh, let’s say herbalist that she is, even without the additional warning signs of undead things around the table. It takes the combined weight of fondness in absence, the reassuring ritual of good manners, and the grounding of her vinous expertise to keep Alaïs from freaking out entirely, and even so, her voice shakes just that little bit despite her efforts to keep a brave face on as she pours.
Kata pales, well turns paler, and grips her longspear tightly. The elegist stays at the edge of the room, anger washing over her, an ever-increasing tide. What a cruel parody of life! What a senseless - and stomach turning - desecration of the dead! Were any of them Caith's family? How, Kata wonders, could they lay these animated corpses to rest, as gently and respectfully as possible? And hopefully not through violence, unless it came to that? In her role with the church, Kata had read the answers to just these questions, she was sure of it. It was just a matter of recalling them.
As her antics fail to provoke a response from those seated around the table, Alaïs feels her brow furrow. Before she has a chance to think better of it , she downs the drink she’s poured, and takes her blade up again. No sense in letting the noble sacrifice of some poor grapes go to waste, after all.
“Right,” she says, feeling she’s rather lost the moment. Resigning herself to the ludicrous, she points with her sword at the bodies that are more restless than they ought to be by rights. “Those are zombies, at the very least. I’m no necromancer, but this feels very much like one’s very first rabble of raised horrors, or at least the sort of thing that the most basic animating spell can do, like in all the stories with a baby crypt-scrabbler.”
Suddenly, disgust rolls off of her as she braces herself for what seems like the necessary next step. “They’re waiting for something to set them off, but whatever it is, it’s more than my stepping up to the cup and plate, and I, for one, am rather disinclined to take this guessing game much further.”
“I think you’re right, Broccan. Still, I think another good clean blow should be enough to disrupt the magic, so hopefully we won’t make things all the more horrific when we get these poor bodies home. Shall we pair off, just in case?”
Demonstrating, she repositions herself back beside the nearest zombie(?), and carefully lines up a ruthlessly precise cut just deep enough across its throat. And with that…
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Edrukk watches, ready to leap into action if the situation warrants.
As Alais sips from her glass, she bends down to sit in the chair at the foot of the bed.
All of the bodies spring to life.
They don't rise to attack, though. They move slowly and deliberately. A male elf corpse reaches for his knife, while the tattered remains of what must once have been a human woman wearing a fine dress takes a fork and mimes spearing a slice of overcooked veal, stopping just short of the action, and a once well-dressed human man uses a spoon to scoop up air in his bowl. Wine drips down the chin of a woman dressed in a loose approximation of Chelaxian Hellknight armor. She seems unable to actually muster the fine motor skills to drink it.
The whole thing has the atmosphere of a grotesque pantomime.
Shortly after the feast begins, the well-dressed corpse turns to Alais. "Once again, milord has provided a delicious meal," it says in a posh Taldan accent. "It is an honor to dine in your august presence."
After another few seconds of eating, the elf corpse turns to her as well. "The Magaambye was wrong to turn you out," it remarks. "You ought to show them like you showed me."
The especially tattered woman raises a forkful of nothing to her mouth and delicately chews. "I shouldn't have ever doubted you, Filge," it says earnestly. "I always loved you when we were together. Now I will love you forever."
A well of sadness, depths like a cold lake, springs into Kata, jousting with her rage.
"Can anyone infuse them with positive energy? If not, we'll have to cut them. To pieces. They didn't deserve this fate, no matter who they were in life..."
And then the corpses speak, and the rage wins; Kata's cheeks and forhead flush hot, the room spins, her knuckles whiten on the grip of her spear.
"They seem harmless and they need to be put to rest. But before that, let's not waste any time? Let's find Filge." Kata's brow creases, a hard quality creeps into her usually soft murmur. "And make sure he earns every hard thing he deserves."
Broccan nods in agreement, glancing with disgust at the macabre, rotten meat-puppet show.
"Upstairs I'spose. Let's find'em and end'm."
The miner seems resolute in this course of action.
Edrukk’s jaw clenches, ”Aye.”
Alaïs almost pouts a bit when nothing happens at first, but once she curls into her seat and the morbid spectacle begins, her jaw drops. Things start to become clear as the things begin to speak, and there’s a horrid moment when her brain runs away with her and she thinks, Oh, now the wine makes sense.
Before the aristocrat can make a needlessly catty remark, under the circumstances, the corpse of one of the women around the table rehearses its speech in turn, and the nightmarish scene somehow manages to get worse. Alaïs decides to save her words for trying to get under the necromancer's guard, if she can. For now, she can only agree with the assessment of Kata and the others, and she rises from her seat with grim resolve.
She hesitates only for a brief moment on the way to the stairs up, as it occurs to her…
“The thing is, zombies tend to be tougher than skeletons, in some ways,” she opines, drawing on what she knows of the theory behind the sort of spell that could produce such creatures. “If we cut Filge down outright, these will just get murderously loose, and if he sees the tide turn, he might redirect them anyway.”
She does her best to keep her voice steady even as her implication gives her pause.
“I could be wrong,” Alaïs concedes. “Maybe this wretch is a misunderstood genius, and has a point – technically – about the Magaambya.”
Voicing even that remotest possibility makes it look like the only thing keeping her from spitting is her upbringing as a proper lady. Instead, her displeasure comes out as a venomous hiss, “Although I very much doubt that the Magaambya’s objections were on points of technique.”
Her sword-hand clenches tighter around the hilt, as she glances towards the stairs in case the undead flattery could be heard up there.
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"Let's go," Venelle says, her voice quavering slightly. "None of these are from the Land family."
The party proceeds upstairs, leaving the ghastly dinner party scene behind them.
The stairs lead to a massive bedchamber that fills an entire floor of the observatory tower. Light filtering in from the tall windows ringing the chamber catches motes of dust in the calm air. A fine bed with plump red linen sheets squats upon a dais along the southeast cradle of the tower's arc. A nightstand next to the bed holds a wax-choked candlestick and a black book bound with brown and red leather.
At the midpoint of the eastern wall a strange form stands rigid atop a short wooden stool, as tall as a halfling and clothed in a fine black suit and tophat. Clean cloth bandages wrap every inch of the sentry's skin. A pair of ash-tinted spectacles rests upon a long skinny nose. The diminutive dandy holds a silver platter as if presenting a meal, and upon the tray rests the freshly preserved severed head of a middle-aged human woman. A platinum piece sits upon her outstretched, purple tongue.
A messy desk rests against the opposite wall, piled high with loose papers. An apparatus holding four long tubes filled with colored liquid peeks out from the clutter. Doors on the north and west walls appear to lead to small closets.
Wide stairs lead above and below. A massive white stone statue of a thin human man with outstretched angelic wings and a beatific look upon his idealized face looms large in the northwest arc of the tower wall. The angel holds a sword in one hand and cradles a harp with the other. The presentation conjures thoughts of mausoleum peaks or the graves of important men. Tall letters etched upon the statue's base spell out a single word: Filge.
”My guess? Don’t touch the coin. It’s a trap to catch whatever goon comes by. Great way to get your finger off so.” Briar has her dagger out and low as they enter. She moves for the nightstand and the book, flipping it open with her dagger if possible.
The pages of the book crawl with mystical script, scratched illuminated text, clumsy sketches. Briar can't make sense of it. The writings almost seem to literally crawl whenever she takes her eyes off it.
”Books be important t’ wizard folk. Mebbe best t’ deprive ‘im of it, aye? But first, t’ be findin’ ’im.”
Points to the statue, ”’is ego needs n’ ‘elp, Ah see.”
Joining the procession up the stairs, Alaïs goggles at the sight of the next floor’s contents, shocked into silence (at least briefly), as she wonders if she’s actually still sleeping, and just in a very vivid nightmare. She talks a big game, knows a bit of history and legend about great (and terrible) deeds of the past, has seen some relics, even, but it’s moments like this that bring home how sheltered her life has been, really. She stares at the furnishings as if a step this way or that will produce an angle that will betray them as something like theatrical props.
Briar and Edrukk’s comments shake her out of it, and the elf nods her head sagely in acknowledgement.
”My guess? Don’t touch the coin. It’s a trap to catch whatever goon comes by. Great way to get your finger off so.” Briar has her dagger out and low as they enter. She moves for the nightstand and the book, flipping it open with her dagger if possible.
“Right,” she says, addressing Briar’s remark first, “and we’re certainly not as silly as that.” The way her eyes track the young woman’s approach to the book by the bed suggest that if the weird statue were holding the tome instead of its gruesome burden, Alaïs’ fingers would definitely be at risk. If that really is his spellbook, Edrukk’s right, and I want it, she thinks, trying to find a way of saying so that doesn’t sound too off-putting.
In the meantime, she moves to consider the desk, glancing over the papers scattered about to get just an inkling of their contents, for now, and likewise for the glasswork. Any idea of what the wizard’s up to here would be welcome.
Points to the statue, ”’is ego needs n’ ‘elp, Ah see.”
Nothing she finds leads Alaïs to believe she needs to modify her assessment from the floor below. Though she doesn’t have to look up, having taken in the unfortunate results of this room’s layout from her first look around, as she voices her agreement with Edrukk’s dry observation, the aristocrat takes the tasteless self-aggrandizing décor in again out of morbid curiosity. “Goddesses help us, we’re not just dealing with a madman, but an arriviste. Mind, the preciously middling wine downstairs said as much.” At least it's not a mirrored ceiling, but the way the statue is in the perfect place to 'admire' from the bed is something else.
"Any'o' thi'stuff goo' fer kill'n dead things?" Broccan asks, figuring that a wizard who deals with walking dead would have something to counteract them if he lost control.
"Right," Kata murmurs, thankful for Briar's advice - the elegist's first instinct being to remove the head from its gruesome and blasphemous display. Instead Kata casts a simple incantation, a mere small fish in the ocean of magical effects in the known world, but one imminently useful. Pausing, Kata slowly surveys the room, turning in place, looking for magical auras. She pauses especially at the head and the diminutive form holding the platter it is placed upon, and then again at the book by the bedside, and lastly at the contraption on the desk, paying them special attention.
2nd Round: Number of different magical auras and the power of the most potent aura.
3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura emanates from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties (see Spellcraft).