Yasami pulls her hands out of the innards and sits on the floor, disappointed. "No. No bones, no rings, nothing.", she looks around the cave. At the same time, Dario pours water to help with the cleaning. "Thank you."
"We might have to look for piles of dung. Unless the barghest consumed and absorbed whatever it ate into its being, I'm not sure how that works. Or if it is the case."
"We did spend a week preparing for this. We might as well have a few hours to find our boy. I doubt the creature chewed on metal plates, so that would be a good starting point."
"He saved our lives and died in the process. I say we give Alak a proper burial."
"That is a good point, Yasami. Alak's armor should still be around somewhere."
"I'm going to check out what's in this little gap."
Sulee jumps down and makes her way over to the narrow little crevice and starts working her way through it.
Although dingy and moist, the constructed room Sulee enters is more a cellar than a cave, lumpy mounds of...something... covered in oilcloth tarps lending it an unpleasant air.
Sulee comes back out of the room. "Well, there is something in there. Something put there deliberately. It's going to take someone bigger than me to figure out what though."
"Coming!", Yasamina tries to squeeze through the narrow passage.
Yasami makes her way through the claustrophobic entryway to find the chamber Sulee saw, with mounds covered in tarps. There's a second equally narrow exit ahead.
Under the tarps are stacks and stacks of bones and skulls. Most are goblinoid in origin, with some human, elf, and orc bones included in the mix. Most of the bones are loose, although there are a few rib cages that still wear armor or pouches in the pile, some of it rather pristine looking, but none of it looks like Hellknight regalia.
Oh my... That's gross."
Yasami calls back to the group as she looks around. "There's bones and skulls and- I don't even want to know what that is. But there's another entrance."
She goes deeper through the other passage, exiting near the throne, and looks at the bunch.
"Hey there. This way to the bone dust, if that's what you're into.", she gestures to the others to follow.
Dario follows Yasami as she calls ahead, making his way down to where the tarps laid and the many bodies of Ralldar's victims laid. The gunslinger looked them over for a moment, whispering a prayer before he crouched down beside a torso that still had a pouch on it.
"Poor souls. That bastard must've been here for quite some time to have such a collection. See if there is anything useful; we should take every advantage that we can get."
Dario's search soon produces a gleaming , a that seems pristine despite the much it rested in, an odd , a slightly translucent roiling with smoke inside, a pair of clean, that looked freshly bleached, a long wooden , a , and a strange . It seems a number of adventuring sorts met their end over a long period of time.
"Looks like these folks weren't as prepared as we are. Overconfident bastard didn't even use these tools. Anyone able to figure out what they could be quickly? Maybe we can use some of them." Dario offers as he brings his grave goods back to the others. The thought makes him think of Alak back in the crypt and the pleasant memory is quickly replaced with anger.
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Caiten takes a quick look at the things that Dario brought out. "Several of these could be very useful. It would take me quite a while to analyze all of them. Probably at least an hour"
"Not gonna lie, some of that stuff does look useful. That breastplate looks mighty useful for sure. Just look how it shines. I'm tempted to switch it out with my own." He looks at it for a long second, seriously considering it. Eventually, he looks down at his own armor. "Although, I do like the owlbear on this one." He shrugs.
+1 breastplate
+1 chain shirt
fan feather token
fear gem
healer's gloves
wand of web
lifting belt
energized cartridge
Caiten takes a quick look at the things that Dario brought out. "Several of these could be very useful. It would take me quite a while to analyze all of them. Probably at least an hour"
"I wouldn't say no to a new breastplate, if you're good with yours Joran. But first, there's something that I need to tell all of you. I had another dream. I saw Voz. Somehow, she made it past that thing, because of course she did. She's digging towards Alseta's Ring and she has help, although maybe less since apparently they have to eat each other. Now as much as I'd like to just go back to the Grace and wait until they eat each other, Voz knows that we have what she needs to access Alseta's Ring and she has something that she thinks will serve as leverage against us. I don't know what it is, but we should be prepared."
Caiten listens to Cevendyll as he announces the purposes of the various items found. "Nothing that I am much interested in."
He also listens with interest to Oren's declarations. "Interesting. What does Voz have that she thinks we would be interested in so much that we would be willing to trade the safety of this entire area for?"
"I suppose there is only one way to find out. Are we ready to continue on?"
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"I wouldn't say no to a new breastplate, if you're good with yours Joran. But first, there's something that I need to tell all of you. I had another dream. I saw Voz. Somehow, she made it past that thing, because of course she did. She's digging towards Alseta's Ring and she has help, although maybe less since apparently they have to eat each other. Now as much as I'd like to just go back to the Grace and wait until they eat each other, Voz knows that we have what she needs to access Alseta's Ring and she has something that she thinks will serve as leverage against us. I don't know what it is, but we should be prepared."
Smiling, he claps him on the shoulder and says, "Go for it, buddy. I sure don't want to see what happened to you the first time we met the barghest to happen to you again. It's all yours."
Joran then turns to thinking about what it is Voz could possibly have that she could use against them. "What do you suppose it could be?" he asks, crossing his arms in thought. "You don't suppose she's kidnapped Warbal, do you?" His eyes then go wide, and he holds up a finger before exploding with, "WAIT A MINUTE! WAIT A MINUTE! I think I know what she has as leverage! Or better yet, 'who'! It's a long shot, okay! It is! But it's a possibility!" He holds a hand up, angling his face down as he ponders on whether or not to say it, but, eventually, he looks back up at the others and says:
"I think she has Alak."
Oren thinks for a moment. "While I don't want anyone to get their hopes up, I can't think of anyone else that Voz would have anyone else in her custody that she would be confident that she can use as a bargaining chip. It's not like she knows who our friends and loved ones are."
"She might know who we spend most of our time with in town. But we would have checked on them when we were in town this morning."
"It is possible, if Alak ran fast enough, that he could have encountered something that allowed him to escape from the Barghest."
"Though Voz must be truly desperate to think that we would be willing to trade the safety of the entire population of Breachill for one person."
"Logic assumes the easiest explanation; Alak ain't dead. His armor isn't here, his ring ain't in the beast's gullet, even his sword is gone. I don't think he met his end here." Dario adds, looking through the various magical equipment that they have. He holds up the energized cartridge, marveling at it. "I think Joran's right. She has to have Alak."
"I think she assumes we are bleeding hearts; look what we did for the goblins. What would we be willing to do for a friend? Foolish heroes try to save everyone..." The gunslinger says softly, knowing too many stories of good intentions that went bad. Yet an idea clicks into his mind and a sly grin comes across his face.
"So let's do what we just did then. Let's lie."
"I think she knows we have the key but does she know what the key looks like? I don't think she does. Hell, this lovely piece of magic could be the key for all she knows. We try and trick her with a piece of magic, make her think its the key, and we get Alak. Then we blow her and her fools to kingdom come." Dario says with excitement, looking between his friends. "Even if she detects our duplicity, she can't kill him. We still have what she wants. She kills him and everything comes to blows and she saw exactly how that goes. She got away with her life."
"So what do you all think? Think we can do it?"
Cutting his attention to Dario, Joran waits until he finishes before calmly striding over to the gunslinger, towering over him when he nears. Crossing his mighty forearms as he looks dead in the man's eyes, he smiles. "HELL YEAH we can do it!" he exclaims, awarding Dario a friendly slap on the shoulder. "If we can fool that stupid barghest, we can fool her! I think we should give it a go." Giving one big clap in excitement, Joran rubs his hands together anticipatorily.
Caiten analyzes what he knows of the various other groups and organizations that are vying for control of the gate. "It is actually possible. The frog-men and monkey-men from Renali's area of the world were the ones using the gate key. Voz may not be working with them directly, and so may not know what the key looks like. The plan still has a low probability of success though. But so did successfully poisoning a Barghest."
Yasamina listens while continuing to look into the cave depths. "Well - that woman is getting me more irritated by the hour. It's like she WANTS me to help with her suicide. Well... wants -US- to help her."
"So-", she gestures for everyone to move on. "Let's go kill us a necromancer?"
After slapping on the lifting belt, "What are we waiting for? Let's move." Resting his war flail upon his shoulder, Joran leads the way onward.
Feeling hope swelling at the notion Alak might live, but still cautious about letting those hopes get too high in case they are dashed, you all continue down the tunnel.
The passageway widens ahead, then drops away in a series of ten-foot-high cliffs into a chamber filled with fine, hair-like filaments and mushrooms. The filaments look like bleached grass and wave erratically with the cave’s natural air currents. The mushrooms glow slightly, giving the cave a strange, dreamlike feel. To the south, a seven-foot-wide hole in the floor drops down into a chamber below.
"The hole there drops about twenty feet, into some ruined rooms. The portal room is right beyond those. I was able to climb, in my true form -- those below had no way of securing a rope, and have been trapped down there. Be cautious. The fungus is dangerous. I found out the hard way, the spores are incredibly itchy." Renali speaks quietly, so her voice does not echo down the hole to alert those below.
"Hmm... Dropping in from the ceiling isn't the most inconspicuous way of arriving in the room."
Caiten ponders things for a moment. "Though this would explain how Alak could have survived. It doesn't look like the Barghest would fit through there in his natural form."
"These itchy mushrooms make me a bit nervous. Any thoughts on them, Lisi?"
"Hole in the ground, itchy mushrooms, legion of cultists. Right." Dario said, checking his firearm again before looking at the hole. It was a drop for sure. "They likely heard the gun as well. Doubt Voz forgot that sound." Dario added, looking around carefully for a place to secure a rope.
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"Let me see if there's some way to counteract them. Sometimes fungi release spores after the rain..."
Lisi looks at the fungi from afar. "And are these hyphae? Who has a spear, or a ten foot pole, to poke those things? Oh, sorry, that was a story I once heard from Kyonin...I'm not sure anyone actually carries a ten foot pole any more."
He beckons the warglets and whispers to them.
"Rocco, Shadow, I've been meaning to ask you--have you scented Alak anywhere around here? He was probably running, or perhaps at this point carried by the undead, so it may not be so easy to detect."
Lisi recognized the fungus as gloomglow mushrooms. The spores are released when someone touches them, and that person is coated in a glow that makes hiding nigh impossible. The spores are horribly itchy, and induce nausea, the sensations leading to intense distraction that addles the mind. He also knows they are susceptible to frost.
The warg pups sniff the immediate area. "Many new smells.." Rocco said.
"I think I smell him," Shadow confirmed. Her diction had gotten much better over the last week. She was a fast learned. Rocco was...well, cute. But a bit slower on the uptake. "The smell is old. Faint."
Yasami looks into the pit, and at her torch.
"Well, I have a bow now, so- We can shoot them? Just need some light. Renali, how deep is this hole, approximately?"
Renali frowned as she considered. "The drop is only twenty feet or so. But it will be difficult to fire from above -- the top five feet of said drop are through a chimney of rock, so unless they were foolish enough to said directly beneath you, knowing we are coming as Dario said..." she gave a shrug.
"There is not much room to maneuver down their, either. The footing is poor in many places from rubble, and whatever the place used to be, it was a collection of smaller rooms. Positioning may prove difficult."
No, no. I mean shooting the fungus. Twenty feet is not that much. Want to jump?
She pulls out her rope and tosses the torch down to see the landing, and starts tying knots every foot of the rope. "Let's make a ladder and go."
Assuming there is a rock nearby, she ties it around. "See you at the bottom.
She jumps into the pit.
Well, she doesn't jump. YET.
"Okay, well... let's burn them?", Yasami shrugs. "There was some semi-dry hay back with the armours and ... things. Pretty sure that would deal with the spores."
"OR - dismantle the fat barghest throne and toss it over so we can just walk through? Or we burn them first, then bring the pieces of the throne to move over."
She snaps her fingers and smiles. "Now THAT sounds like a plan!"
"If they are just mushrooms, I'm with burning them and getting it over with."
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Lisi looks at Yasami and Joran.
"They're susceptible to cold. We're in a cave. Let's not choke ourselves with smoke, and it's not like fungus burns easily. Yasami, let me eradicate them with frost."
Caiten clips the Alchemist Fire bottle back onto his belt.
Lisi looks at Yasami and Joran.
"They're susceptible to cold. We're in a cave. Let's not choke ourselves with smoke, and it's not like fungus burns easily. Yasami, let me eradicate them with frost."
" and Ray of Frost is actually a practice spell at the temple; I can cast it all day if needed, and it has a pretty long range. I will back Lisi up to get this done."
Looking back to Lis, the barbarian simply shrugs. "Fire, cold. Whatever. Just get rid of 'em so we can get going, Nature boy. Chop chop!" He claps in tandem with that, smiling.
"And Ray of Frost is actually a practice spell at the temple; I can cast it all day if needed, and it has a pretty long range. I will back Lisi up to get this done."
Cutting his eyes over to Cev, "Or Champ. Whichever. Nature boy, Champ, doesn't matter who gives these mushrooms the heave-ho. We just need them gone so we can move forward." He winks, grinning wryly.
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Lisi winks at Cev.
"just in case, let's shoot them from afar. And Bravestone, you're the chopper--I generally let plants grow. Don't even start--fungi aren't plants. They're dikaryotic. Now spend a few minutes trying to spell that word while the half-elves work."
He starts to spray the fungi with Ray of Frost, ready to stop if the spores start to spread towards the Heroes.
Smiling, he grins wryly at the druid. "Are you kidding? I don't even know what you said. And don't say it again 'cause I don't care!" He warns with that same grin, pointing and glaring at him through one eye.
Lisi and Cev carved out a path in the gloomglow mushrooms from a safe distance. The ray of frost caused the delicate tendrils to snap apart, raining pieces onto the capped mushrooms, several of which you all witnessed spraying bioluminescent spores in a large area around them. From your vantage point, it was pretty, but walking through the stuff would not have been pleasant if they itched as Lisi said.
You imagine that Alak, running from the barghest, probably wasn't the expert on weird glowing fungus that Lisi was. If he'd stumbled into the cavern, he'd have absolutely been coated in the stuff. Distracted thusly, it wasn't hard to imagine him falling unawares through the hole that was now before you.
Yasamina observes the fireworks happen. "There's beauty in that. Like a festival of colours. When we're done with this business, I will try to organise one in Breachill. The town could use it after the fire."
Caiten carefully walks the path made through the mushrooms and stands over the hole in the floor. He peers down it for a bit. "Does anyone have any better plan than to just go down there and see what we find? It is hard to make accurate plans when I don't have any information."
Joran looks over at Lis, "I don't suppose you can turn into some type of flying creature and check it out, could you Lis?"
"That's not a bad idea Joran. I can fly down there."
Sulee jumps down the hole.
Caiten is just a bit slow on recognizing what Sulee has planned. "Sulee hold on... Fine. But be careful."
He glares at Joran for a couple of seconds before watching expectantly for Sulee to return.
Caiten is just a bit slow on recognizing what Sulee has planned. "Sulee hold on... Fine. But be careful."
He glares at Joran for a couple of seconds before watching expectantly for Sulee to return.
Joran simply shrugs and grins.
Sulee quickly flies back up through the hole in the floor - or ceiling depending on how you look at it.
"Yeah... that's an ambush. Whoever goes through that hole first is going to get shot repeatedly."