Arabella raises her brow, absorbing the information, but doing her best not to look perturbed. Instead, she gave out a rather overly dramatic laugh that might be mostly that way to hide her nervousness, "Hah, is that all?" She brings up a hand to stroke her chin, "This is your amazingly valuable idea? Magic doors sitting in a ruined castle that haven't been used in who knows how many centuries? You do realize doors go both ways, right? And yet nobody's come through from the other sides of these doors in all that time, else they would have headed to the stores in Breachill and the rest of Isger to trade their exotic goods for tidy profits."
Chuckling, she carries on, her words starting to turn into biting mockery, even as she was voicing the implications she was thinking of out loud, "Take it from this sales broker, dear. Rich people would love the idea, sure, but they hate an honest day's work. They wouldn't pay for anything less than a properly proven and protected route. But surely, it has occurred to the brilliant Calmont that if he find these lost elf gates, they probably don't lead anywhere particularly safe? And so, to secure your venture, after vanquishing every single one of us as well as all of the goblins here, you are thus bravely prepared to go forth into the unknown of every single one of these long unused doors, by yourself, without any help, to make sure they are indeed harmless and inexplicably abandoned passageways that pose no difficulty at all to access and are in beneficial locations that would facilitate trade and resource extraction. How audacious! I applaud your courage, sir." She even follows that up with a very slow clap.
Calmont’s slight amusement shifts to a rant as Bunnit asks about Voz he
begins to rant. “Voz is my employer, but she thinks she’s my god. Always bossin’ me around! ‘Calmont do this, Calmont read that, Calmont that’s not how you pronounce Norgorber!’ She’s a jerk! I hate her! I’ve been digging around her stuff for weeks, trying to find something I could sell to buy my way out of this stupid job. Didn’t find any goodies. But I did find her notes about Alseta’s Ring. What’s she planning to do with that information? Don’t care! I just want to get paid!”
As Arabella interferes further, he slackens his grip on the goblin, who squeals and takes the opportunity to run behind you for safety, rubbing her throat as she does so.
Calmont sighs and throws up his hands in frustration. "Look what you did!" He says, pointing his knife at Arabella. "You went and distracted me! You don't know if people haven't already come through the gates but haven't said - I want my payday and this was going to be IT!"
He drops his hand to his side, his face full of fury.
"We can come to an agreement." Orchid offers from her position in Anabella's belt, her voice warm and confident. "Nothing has happened and no-one has been hurt so far. If we can all calm down and you help us find this ring then I'm sure we can arrange for fair compensation for you. But Calmont," Her little voice hardens somewhat. "If you hurt someone then the deal is off. Do you understand? If you try something like you did with that poor goblin again then..." She trails off without actually making a threat but the implication is clear.
...oh my, never heard anyone pronounce Norgorber with a soft "g" before...
"Oh, I get it now, Calmont." Larachelle smiles with relief as the captive goblin escapes the halfling's grip, realizing that the poor shopkeper's assistant is now mostly harmless. "You took some, shall I say, unnecessarily inconsiderate steps about it, but what you're really looking to do is become an adventurer!"
The wizard places her hands on her hips, and her green-and-white robes seem to flutter gently in the wind all of a sudden.
"There's plenty of hidden treasures waiting to be found and mysteries waiting to be solved around the world; and when you've got the right mindset for it, it can provide you both with material wealth and a trove of stories to tell, too! But there's really no need to hurt innocents or steal or commit arson to get there. Enough treasure for everyone, you just have to know where to look!"
Arabella stares back at the knife pointed at her, suppressing the impulse to pull her own weapon out or flinch. With Orchid talking, she decides it was best to keep quiet and maybe try not to look so smug. She even leaned back just a little to try to avoid like she was looming over the shorter halfling.
"This is insanity, Calmont. You can't fight us all, and you will have to atone for the fire, but you can move forward from here without any more violence." Bunnit is angry, his little girl's could have been hurt, but he is trying to keep that out of his voice.
"But if you insist on violence, we won't hesitate to respond in kind," Valda adds coldly, her bow still trained on the treacherous Calmont.
Calmont deflates visibly. "Fine. Give me fifty gold pieces and I'll tell you what I know. Then none of us need to see each other again."
"We'll give you twenty five now, in coin." Orchid replies, no stranger to bargaining. "You help us find the gate and then you get the rest of your money. You might have to take it in items though."
"Deal." Calmont says sullenly. Once the money is handed over he counts it slowly and then scowls. "We need to get down below the keep. That's where the Ring is. They were going to tell me how." He adds, scowling at the goblins.
Arabella sullenly continues to stare at Calmont, so that Orchid could talk, even as she glances over at the goblins now and then, wondering if they would actually have better fortune getting information from them than Calmont had. It seemed like avoiding violence was the best way to get that information, as far as she could tell.
Softly, she asks the others, even as Orchid sealed her agreement, "So, I don't think we've anybody who actually speaks Goblin, do we?"
Bunnit shakes his head at the question of language, though his eyes never leave the other male halfling. It seems he might not be in complete agreement with Orchid's plan but respects her greatly so doesn't step all over it.
"Never got around to studying Goblin, no," Larachelle replies, growing slightly red at the face. "There's surprisingly few books on the subject, for such a common and useful language. You bet there was no shortage of Draconic learning material though."
Arabella nods, then turns and calls over to the goblins, "Ah, so, does any of you speak Taldane then, perchance?"
Briefly, ever so briefly, Bunnit's scowl turns into a slight grin at the word 'perchance'.
Even after the agreement with Calmont is reached, Valda keeps her bow at the ready, keeping a wary eye on the other halfling for any signs of treachery.
"Warbal speaks Taldane, so it stands to reason some of the other Bramblebashers will as well," she observes.
As the dust from the drama on the battlements settles and your discussion reaches an impasse, you hear a distinctive, garbled throat-clearing coming from nearby. Soon, the short, slight goblin woman who’d been held hostage by Calmont approaches, although she's careful to stay well away from the halfling. “Excuse me,” she says, in a voice like that of a hoarse bird. “Excuse me, and thank you, friends. You are friends? You must be friends, because you’ve just saved the Bumblebrashers from that man. So much flailing! And shrieking! Ack!
“I am Helba, and I am the Bumblebrashers’ chieftain. We have been stuck up here for so long—days it feels like! Maybe even weeks? Hard to keep track. First those awful monsters chased us from our comfy basement, then that dragon-dog came, and then that awful halfling man showed up talking about elves and other nonsense! No elves live here! Just us Bumblebrashers!”
Helba looks back at her people, and a deeply morose look settles upon her face. “I just want to protect my people. But everything—everyone—wants us dead. Angry people - Cinderclaws! Drove us from home! They said our home was their home now. They threatened to roast us! To peel us and eat us! Ack! And they had dragon monsters with them! So we ran from the vaults. Then so many monsters on the ground floor, so we ran up here, to the battlements. That dragon thing down in the courtyard kept us from getting away! It wanted to eat us! But you brave! You killed it! Go to vaults? Make home safe again? We show you how! Is secret door down the hill, to the west. It’s not hard to find when you look, but I can show it to you! It goes right to the vaults, where we used to live; we used the door all the time to go out and hunt for food.”
She looks pleadingly at you all and the other goblins behind her adopt similar postures with varying degrees of success.
"You help us?"
Orchid looks up and then down from her position, giving reproachful eyes to everyone she can. The right thing to do is obvious but the poppet is self-aware enough to know that someone else needs to make this decision. On her own she won't be much help to the Bumblebrashers, no matter how willing she may be.
"Of course we will" Bunnit says without pause. Just after noticing Orchid's look. "We're heroes, its why we all came here, and even if we weren't, this is the right thing to do. We're neighbors, and if neighbors won't help you, who will?" he smiled. An honest smile, with a slight wiggle of his nose, betraying that while he believed every single word he said, he was scared. Two little girls waited on them back home, and the most wonderful woman in the world was with him right now, and could die in the hands of cinderclaws, this assmunch of a halfling or dragon monsters... '
but it had to be done.
"Indeed, we will lend you our aid," Valda says. "Please show us this secret door, and if you can, tell us more about these... Cinderclaws?"
"Yes, what sort of people are the Cinderclaws? My size? Bigger or smaller? But yes, we'll work to clear out the vaults for you, then we can go see this door."
She glances at Calmont then, before adding with a slightly suppressed grin, "And certainly we'll not shriek and flail to see those doors, yes."
Helba is as good as her word and leads the small group to a partially concealed door in the hill behind the citadel.
"When inside be careful." She says, sketching roughly in the dirt. "Monsters here, and dead people there. Also be careful, Big Bumble will be hungry." Further questioning reveals that Big Bumble is in fact a grizzly bear that the goblins lured underground and attempted to tame. "Now we feed it from far away." Helba concludes, which says rather clearly how well the taming attempts went. "If you let him out he'll fight really well! Just... don't stand in front?"
With that cheerful advice she hurries away, followed by the rest of the Bumblebrashers in a rag-tag mob. Through the doors is a wide, empty stone hallway that is oppressive and dark after the bright light outside. To the east, the hall ends at three separate open doorways, while six additional corridors branch off to the north and south. A mass of rubble spills out of a clogged archway in the northeastern portion of the room.
"I appreciate the advice, but letting loose a hungry, untamed bear, sound rather... risky."
Beyond the secret door, Larachelle peers into the corridors on each side, shining torchlight into the dark hallways.
"Maybe we should've asked what we can expect to find in each of the chambers here. Should we check these branches out, or go straight for those," Larachelle asks, pointing at the three doors on the other end of the wide hallway.
"Let's follow what's gotten us here so far, right being right and all..." Arabella says, unslinging her mace again, as she starts stepping that way. She was still a little grumpy about not knowing what a Cinderclaw was though.
Bunnit looks at Calmont "Stick to the middle. For your saftey." he adds the last part, not wanting that man behind his wife. He stays beside her in the rear, grasping her hand for a moment and then moves after the others on the Right path.
Orchid slips out of Arabella's belt, since the tall woman is probably going to need all her movement available and Orchid herself would rather not be carried straight into the thick of the battle. She walks alongside Calmont, ready to act if anyone gets hurt or does something foolish.
Following the first passage to the roof the heroes proceed through the darkness and find four monuments looming in a dark and somber room, each with prominent carvings of black-winged angels and various stylized pentagrams. Burnished plaques along the floor next to each sepulcher bear the names of those interred within, while atop the northern wall near the ceiling the words “Sepulcher of the Nail” are carved in prominent relief.
Each sarcophagus is carved with details of the residents deeds and actions, telling of their heroism and service to the order which earned their honoured burial. One sarcophagus, that of Master of Blades Renten Viselli, is partially open and a feather step stone can be found inside. This prompts an investigation of the other tombs which contain bracers of missile deflection, a pair of doubling rings and a monkey pin.
The room beyond is equally gloomy but even then along the southern wall a large relief carving of a sunburst made of nails is visible. Instead of typical flagstones, the floor is made up of headstones with names and dates.
Curiously, six of the headstones seem to be pried open to reveal empty graves within. Unfortunately their occupants are still present in the rooms - six skeletons, one of whom is dressed in a partial suit of armor.
Valda, Orchid and Arabella may act
Valda marks the skeletal Hellknight and opens fire, scoring a hit!
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Freed of having to bear Orchid again, Arabella was free to advance upon the new enemies, intent on barring their advance on her companions, whirling her long mace to strike the closest foe.
(Also functions as a Recall Knowledge on orange skeletons)
+ Personal Weakness 2/Highest Existing Enemy Weakness
Orchid realises that she might be able to do quite a lot, but only if all the skeletons come closer. So she shuffles forwards and tries to help Arabella with her target.
Valda hits with two arrows, although the skeleton seems largely impervious to such pointed weapons. Orchid however has no such issues and her bolt shatters the skeleton's skull, dropping the undead creature.
Arabella meanwhile moves up and, remembering how skeletons are best dealt with by main force, smashes a second one into tiny, irrecoverable pieces.
The armoured skeleton strides forwards and retaliates against the thaumaturge with its halberd before directing its skeletal minions into the attack. The skeletons hurry forwards, one circling around behind her in a surprising display of tactical capability. It doesn't help their accuracy though.
Valda fires several more arrows, but only one finds its mark.
Bunnit is not a name for a hero, and the small father of two in truth isn't much of one despite his desire to be. Arabella being stabbed does make him ignore all that for a moment, allowing him to charge forth into the fray, if nothing else to be a distraction.
"G-aaah!" Arabella cries out, as the halberd manages to hit her outside her cuirass, even though the other skeletons fail to land their blows. She seems a little dazed by the pain as she recovers the chain she had whirled.
Gritting her teeth, as she blinks some tears clear from her eyes, she then glares back at her armoured foe, trying to find any openings in his stance and swings her flailing mace in response.
(Also counts as Recall Knowledge)
+ Personal Weakness 2/Highest Existing Enemy Weakness
Moving to the corner of the room to get a better view of the battlefield, Larachelle quickly conjures up a bolt of fire and sends it at the skeleton flanked by Bunnit.
,
Orchid takes a deep breath and for a moment the gloomy crypt is illuminated as though the midday sun has emerged above. The light pulses out from Orchid in a wave of twinkling starlight and leaves behind a soft and rather pleasant scent of roses.
The starlight wave crumbles one skeleton into dust and a second resists it just long enough for Bunnit to sever its spine for good. The third resists the effects entirely and neither Larachelle's flames nor Valda's arrow achieves anything of note.
Arabella meanwhile recognises her foe as a skeletal champion, probably deliberately interred here to watch over the worthy dead whose bodies rested here. Sadly he was buried in his half-plate which turns her flail without difficulty.
The champion strikes twice at Arabella before stepping back warily, while the one remaining skeleton turns on the most dangerous target - the tiny form of Orchid and does its best to bisect her. The poppet is struck hard but manages to duck under the skeleton's follow-up blows.
Valda continues to shoot, hoping for a lucky hit.
Bunnit rushes over to the skeleton attacking the little doll. He really didn't know if Orchid could really die, since his understanding of magic is that it is magic and does things.
As the skeleton swings his weapon in a wide arc, the rabbit nosed floppy eared halfling (since he is scared without question) rolls under the blade, right in front of the torn Orchid, and stabs the CUR into jaw. "Don't worry, I'm hear to help." he assures the nursemaid of all good children of the village, though the assurance would be better if it came out more confident, instead of through clenched teeth.
Orchid scampers backwards, away from the skeleton just as Bunnit comes leaping to her defense. Thankfully pain is a foreign concept to her so she simply pulls needle and thread from her pouch to undo some of the damage. For the moment though a simple defensive cantrip has to do.
Arabella's injury closes but briefly before another swipe digs deeply into her armour, causing her to stagger again, and she only manages to put forth a single swing, before raising her buckler to try and protect herself from further harm, the tall redhead not looking particularly energetic as the skeletal knight withdrew its halberd.
+ Personal Weakness 2
"Now is not the time for my spells to fail me! Well, if fire doesn't cut it... here goes nothing!"
Larachelle darts deeper into the hallway, stopping just short of the skeletal champion's reach. She takes a deep breath and light begins to coalesce around the tip of her staff, before bursting forward in a prismatic flash of colours.
"Be dazzled by my light!"
Bunnit looks behind him to the implacable Ms. Orchid and gives her a grin, then lets his eyes drift back to his amazingly breathtaking wife, letting his heart beat a thud or two in wonder, then pulls his attention BACK to the creature that might cut him in two.
Valda's arrows continue to be ineffective, simply lacking the stopping power required to halt creatures of metal and bone. Bunnit on the other hand has much more success, leaping into battle and severing the skeleton's spine with a precise thrust that collapses the undead creature into inert fragments once more.
Orchid sensibly falls back from danger, but with Arabella taking a nasty battering the poppet's skills seem likely to be called upon once more. The thaumaturge keeps her shield high at the cost of damage but the skeletal champion is assailed by Larachelle the Dazzling who, if nothing else, is always good as a distraction!
Completely unprepared for the magical attack the skeleton reels as it is assailed by bright lights!
Arabella peers around her small buckler, trying to find an opening, but frustrated by the halberd...until she sees her foe startled by Larachelle's wonderful magic. She gives rather inarticulate voice to her frustration with a growl, before finally managing to chide, just before she swings her mace wildly at the foe before her, "Your underlings are all gone. Down, dead thing!"
+ Weakness 2
+ Weakness 2
Orchid steps forwards and focuses on Arabella. The young woman is going to pass out from blood loss in moments if she isn't careful.
Valda continues to shoot.
Now that Orchid has safely backed away, the halfling father jumps forward, to roll through the bony fighter's legs, and tries to stab him in the bottom, while flanking with Arabella.
Larachelle smiles triumphantly when her spells fades and leaves behind a stunned enemy. Following up from the color spray she casts another fire projectile, hoping that the party's combined assault will be enough to finish off the undead knight before it can snap back to its senses.
,
Arabella lands a strong blow and Bunnit another, although the skeleton's nature resistance proves yet again that piercing weapons are little and less use against it.
Still the creature looks much more battered than it has been until now and, without allies (as Arabella so kindly points out), begins to act a little more... cautiously. Unable to strike Bunnit at such close quarters it strikes at Arabella with the halberd and then claws at the dashing bunny-swordsman.