Horm watches warily, waiting while Rajuna works.
Nervous but trying not to show it, Zhandar collects three stones from the ground and casts a spell upon them, charging them with magic, before stowing them in her belt pouch.
This guardroom contains a single large table with two chairs astride it and a single sagging cot pushed up against the eastern wall. Several battered cabinets line the northern wall, with a few arrows and bits of chainmail lying scattered on the floor nearby, yet the most eerie sight are the three fractured skulls sitting on the table next to a heavy hammer. It looks as if someone has arranged the fragments of the skulls in some sort of pattern, as if an attempt had been made to construct a fourth skull from the broken fragments of the trio on the table. The leathery body of a long-dead dwarf, his wiry red hair and beard still strangely vibrant in death, lies slumped on the ground behind the table.
Park spots the secret door in the stone wall behind the dwarf's long-dead corpse, which appears to not have been opened.
Park casts Detect Magic and moves in to examine the skulls and the hammer. He holds his machete ready just in case something moves.
Considering Vesorianna's information, Raj concludes, "Looks like we're near the Marauder's lair." He pulls his blade and moves toward the dwarf's corpse...
Zhandar looks at the strange items on the table, peering past Park. "It almost seems that someone was attempting to assemble a fourth skull from the fragments of these three. Was that the Marauder? Perhaps we can undermine his power by destroying these skulls, possibly with his silver hammer." She looks at them distastefully, and then looks over at the dead dwarf. "That corpse looks promising," she says. "Could it be that the spirit has already been vanquished? Vesiorianna seemed to think otherwise."
"Probably the Marauder. The skulls would be him trying to remake his wife's skull somehow thinking that would undo him killing her. Almost a sad tale. His insanity turned him into a mass murderer."
He glances at the corpse. "Possible. But I doubt he was the only dwarf here. Vesorianna indicated that his spirit is still bound here. I trust her. Be ready."
Seeing the others move in without being attacked, Horm lowers his bow. He had been holding an arrow knocked. "I fear that smashing these skulls would be unwise, especially with the very weapon the Marauder used in his own killing spree. We would only be stepping into his shoes." Horm looks around the room once more. "Shall we try the other room?" He gestures across the hall to the door on the North side.
"Not sure I agree with your guess, there. In life, the Marauder obsessed on finding a perfect skull piece for his wife. If we start smashing skulls, the jumble of pieces might distract him. Which is why I'm going to do this..."
The pushes the skulls into his bag and then uses his butterfly sword to hack off the dwarf's head for good measure and pack it as well. He looks to the half-orc, "Sorry."
"I suspect we'll find our ghost somewhere beyond this secret door... but I don't mind checking the other room first to be thorough."
Horm watches Rajuna carefully as he hacks off the dead dwarf's head. "Grim work," he remarks, weapon in his hands. Unsure if the group will indeed encounter the Marauder here, Horm decides not to cast any spells.
Something bad does happen immediately, as it turns out.
As Rajuna goes to swipe the skulls off the table, they animate with a cacophony of screeches and fly into the air, their eyes white and blank. At the same moment, the entire group feels a sudden splitting headache begin to manifest, and the fragments of skull that didn't animate begin to shake.
Iniiative:
22- Horm and Park
18- Rajuna
14- skulls
10- Haunt
7- Zhandar
Round 1
The thief doesn’t hesitate. He aligns his ki and delivers a set of rabbit punches to at least one of the skulls.
Stunning Fist (3):
Ki Pool (3): xxx
Shuriken (20): xxx
AoOs (6):
Effects:
Park sees three bony targets and the one haunt. He holds his sword ready but instead of attacking immediately he sings out a battle song to inspire everybody.
Rajuna's first strike takes one of the skulls down easily, and it smashes apart into a dust of skull fragments. The second one misses as the skull deftly dances out of the way.
One of the skulls (red) unhinges its jaw and lets out an unnatural scream, evoking fear in everyone that can hear it.
The other skull (green) lashes out at Rajuna in retaliation for his violence, but misses and flies by him wildly.
Right after the skulls act, the dwarf's spirit seems to rise out of the corpse that Rajuna was going to behead, appearing as a sobbing dwarf wielding a ghostly hammer. A ghostly skull floats in the air nearby, its cranium laced with cracks and missing a knife-shaped shard of bone along the side.
The ghostly apparition flies towards Rajuna and launches its hammer towards his head, but Rajuna is ready for the 'surprise' and dodges easily enough.
Initiative:
22- Horm and Park
18- Rajuna
14- skulls
10- Haunt
7- Zhandar
Zhandar is briefly startled when the skulls rise and animate, but she tries to rally herself as she looks about for additional threats. Using her tail, she draws out the enchanted canister that Park called a haunt siphon and activates it as the ghostly presence of the marauder manifests.
She wrinkles her nose. Newfangled things, she thinks with disgust. That hardly did anything at all! My healing draughts would be more effective than that.
She draws one of her potions of cure light wounds in preparation for throwing it with her staff.
Between the haunt and the clacking-jawed skulls floating around, Horm channels the power of his deity to hammer every vaguely undead thing in the room at once.
Clutching at his holy symbol, Horm does his best to avoid the flying skulls.
As Horm raises his holy symbol and channels his gods' power through the room. The two skulls blast apart in pieces under the force, but the splitting headache doesn't relent.
That is, until Zhandar pulls one of the siphons out, and uses it to effectively destroy the last remnants of the Mosswater Marauder.
”Nice work. One more left.” the thief acknowledges before trying to pop open the secret door.
"Hmm." Horm moves forward slowly, taking another look at the desiccated dwarf. He looks the group over for injuries and finds none. "Will the last one be harder?" He wonders aloud.
"Dunno. But he was a spellslinger in life, so my guess is 'yes'."
Park rubs his head and wonders the same as the others. "If he was a wizard he'll probably be devious. In life they usually try to stay back from battle to use their magic. In death...." He shrugs. "I wonder if showing him his book might drive him into a rage?"
The thief considers it. "I've known a few spellslingers... and their spellbook is their pride and their weakness. If we can't manage him, be ready to tear out a page and see how that sits with him. That'd make a living wizard weep."
"Do you suspect that secret door leads to the final spirit?" Zhandar asks, as she casts detect magic and looks curiously through the more passive things in the room.
"I kind of doubt it, but I don't know. I like to be thorough... and this scene is strange. It looks like the marauder survived the fire, maybe hiding in the secret passages. Then he emerged and started collecting skull bits and eventually starved."
Zhandar makes a soft harrumph sound, possibly of agreement. "Let us see what is in these cabinets. If this was some sort of guard room, perhaps there is some method of disabling that portcullis."
"The controls may be in the room north of us."
"Zhandar's right though. There's no danger and we're not in a hurry. Let's search this room, then the one across the hall. Never know where we'll find the warden's badge."
The secret door is actually locked, but a quick look at the lock tells you that the key you found at the bottom of the oubliette fits the hole exactly. Opening it reveals an extremely dusty alcove, which appears to be some sort of reserve armory.
It contains six suits of masterwork chainmail, six suits of masterwork studded leather armor, four masterwork longswords, four masterwork heavy maces, two masterwork heavy crossbows, 120 crossbow bolts split up among many quivers, a case of 10 +1 crossbow bolts in a separate thinly gilded case, a wand of hold person (11 charges), 4 potions of cure moderate wounds, and a silvery rope of climbing that appears to be untouched by the dust.
It doesn't look like the fire or the prisoners (or even the guards for that matter) were able to pierce the secret door to get to this store of weaponry and gear.
Raj smiles at the assembled wealth. "This is how we fund a fight against the Whispering Way. We should take what we can use right now to deal with the Splatter Man. We can haul it all out when we leave."
Horm draws a longsword and eyes it closely. It is sharper than his own sword, but also smaller. "Agreed," he says, taking the potions and handing one to each member of the party. He gives two to Rajuna. "Zhandar, if you do not want this wand, I will take it."
Horm watches to make sure that someone is taking the magical items before turning to cross the hallway.
Raj nods his thanks and puts the potion in his bandolier.
Park accepts the potion. He still has the wand but the potion might be important if he needed faster healing. He examines the wand, "Not any use against undead. But I'm sure we'll see living opponents too. Just not here."
Zhandar accepts the potion from Horm. "I cannot use the wand as effectively as you can," she avers, "and though I am familiar with these mechanical bows, I would prefer to use my throwing staff. But I will carry one just in case. I pray I will not be required to use it."
Her familiar peers curiously at the weapon, and she indulgently lets it poke at the stock and pull the trigger, making it twang. It screeches happily, and pouts when she puts it away with a disapproving expression.
The northern door leads to a guard room decorated similarly to the others, with a table, a few chairs, and a pair of cots, yet unlike the others, no undead or haunts lurk within.
A winch affixed to the wall clearly opens the gate to the western wing of the lower prisons.
Park looks at the mechanical workings.
"Rajuna? What do you think? It looks to me like it will work. But do you see any traps? I don't...."
”Keepin’ in mind the history and purpose of this place, I doubt the winch is trapped… but no sense in ignoring the possibility.” Raj looks over the device with a professional eye. If everything checks out, he turns the winch experimentally.
"More likely to be haunted than trapped," says Horm in agreement. He has pocketed the wand, keeping it near at hand, just in case.
Rajuna stands next to the winch, carefully examining every inch of the metal device before deciding it is safe. He turns it easily and you hear the sound of the gate outside opening slowly, the metal chains clanking and scraping against each other.
A brass nameplate, its face caked with soot, hangs above a portcullis leading into a large cellblock. Many of the iron doors along the walls within the cellblock hang open, revealing empty cells within.
Rajuna wipes the soot from the nameplate, curious what this wing of the prison is called. After his curiosity is satisfied, he creeps forward into the unexplored corridor and stops at the first set of doors.
Stunning Fist (3):
Ki Pool (3):
Shuriken (20): xxx
AoOs (6/rnd)
Effects:
Park follows along with Rajuna, scanning the area with detect magic and looking in each of the cells. "I think we can bypass any of the locked cells and empty ones. Just try to be ready for any haunts. Lots of prisoners died here and could be attached to anything here."
Zhandar brings up the rear, seemingly unperturbed by the ghostly activity, or perhaps she is just lost in thought.
The nameplate says "Reaper's Hold". The first few cells you can see are mostly empty, with no sign of either more undead or haunts. In fact, it seems as if this wing of the prison is blissfully empty of any threat at all, which somehow makes you feel even more ill at ease.
Every door in the area is a cell door, with most of them having been smashed or opened in other ways. The one exception to this is the door in the southern-most corner, which is instead a sturdy riveted metal door.
"An extra-sturdy and sealed door this deep in a prison? That's not ominous."
Being thorough, Rajuna checks if the door is trapped or locked.
The door isn't locked or trapped, and opens easily enough.
Numerous grisly tools of torment decorate this room, from cages to hanging chains along the walls to a stretching rack, a large wooden tank, and a fire pit in the middle of the room. To the east stands a grim iron maiden, the lid closed and presenting a stern decoration of a tormented woman upon its face. The broken, twisted skeleton of a human dressed in a tattered guard’s uniform lies upon the stretching rack in the middle of the room; the body is surrounded by several discarded knives, branding irons, and pliers. A large, bloodstained wicker basket sits at the head of the rack.
Park steps in to the room and halts, unable to believe what he is seeing. Torture equipment in a prison? "I know the prisoners were monsters. But torture equipment? This is disgusting!"
Glancing into the room, Raj is tempted to shut the door and pretend it is an unbreakable lock. But, he had a job to do. He enters the room and moves counter-clockwise slowly.
"Looks like a guard on the rack. Guess the tables got turned." His eyes lock on the bloody basket, reasonably sure he doesn't want to know what's in it. Nevertheless, he presses forward, senses alert for trouble.