As his muscles unlock, Shaggar emerges with a snarl. Whatever his frozen face communicated before, now it reads as ‘angry’. He neither resists – nor returns – Kiley’s hug. He leans over to whisper something to her.
That conversation concluded (so far as he is concerned), he strides over to the halfling and offers his large clawed hand to the little man. ”That was a brave act. I have thanks for you.”
"I do not normally like getting up close, but... whew, glad it worked."
That conversation concluded (so far as he is concerned), he strides over to the halfling and offers his large clawed hand to the little man. ”That was a brave act. I have thanks for you.”
He checks his hand as if to make sure no more static shock lingers, then shakes the Ranger's paw..err hand "I'm just glad you're okay, big fella." He looks to see if a certain cat is okay too
”We live… that is all that matters.” After an awkward moment of silence, Shaggar retrieves his sling from the harpy's lair and leaves it for the others to search. Axe at the ready, he heads over to the other stable where the worm creature emerged – to make sure it wasn’t a mother with more mandibles to feed.
Bullets (20): xx
Arisen 3HP (1):
Moonmaid Reroll: x
Effects:
Arisen - Die at -18 HP
Diehard
Kiley winces at whatever it is that Shaggar says to her. Chastened, she lets go while squashing the temptation to give an apology she knows her friend doesn't want to hear.
Not disagreeing with Shaggar's assessment of things, Ari is happy to remain silent and let the conversation unfold. She busies herself with looking around the harpy's quarters.
Kiley follows along behind Shaggar, thinking that it would be a good idea for there to be at least two of them in case they find trouble.
Sasha rushes up once the creature stops moving, puts another bolt through where she hopes its brain is, and then goes to try and coax some movement from Pheliks. It's about twenty seconds later before the big cat moves again, during which time Sasha tries to control herself but is obviously struggling.
Then her friend licks her face - roughly, as his tongue is meant to strip flesh from bone - and moves to smell the big bug that attacked it. "Oh thank the goddess!" Sasha exclaims, paying no (obvious) attention to Shaggar and Kiley's conversation. She does, however, go and retrieve Kiley's sword with a grunt and brings it to the other woman as she says, "Good job, buddy, but try not to scare me like that!"
As the others begin to look around again, Sasha speaks up again. "Ari needed some triage back there - is everyone else alright? Do we need to camp and recover before continuing? Or it not safe enough here?"
"I have no idea where IS safe. This was one hell of an illusion" The hin sounds impressed "There goes our night at a nice inn."
”I’m back to my dazzling best now, or somewhere close to, thanks to you,” Ari says to Sasha with a smile, momentarily dropping character.
She agrees with Rutilix’s assessment. It was an excellent illusion and that means that Leira probably had a hand in it. Ari doesn’t take it personally though, at least not too much - she understands her goddess is mysterious, if not usually capricious, at the best of times.
”Good work is good work,” she agrees, back as Haliyouna. ”But to what end? Lot of effort to cover up your hull if it’s got a leak. Are they trying to hide faded glory or simply want to lure unwary sailors onto the rocks with a fresh coat of paint?”
She busies herself with looking around the harpy's quarters.
The lower floor of the caravanserai consists of the front end stables and the tavern and kitchen behind it. Unfortunately that night at the nice inn Rutilux mentioned does indeed seem to be nonexistent. The bar still exists, sure, but only in the sense that the physical bar is still (mostly) there. All of the food has spoiled many years ago and the ale and other barrels have long been cracked open. The stairs leading to the second floor are actually intact somehow, miraculously.
The harpy's lair occupies the top floor of the building, which appears to have once been a collection of guest rooms. Rotten wooden beds fill each of the five rooms with a scattering of various rubble and fallen shingles. Her main lair seems to be in the hallway outside the rooms, as it's the most stable building part. The window leading outside isn't really a window, instead more of a hole in the wall. Ari searches the lair, and finds a small hoard of collected baubles and treasures the harpy has likely collected over its time here.
to make sure it wasn’t a mother with more mandibles to feed.
Shaggar makes his way over to the larger livery and discovers that unfortunately, it was a mother. The overwhelming stench of death is his first warning of what awaits him. Several corpses of what look to have once been humanoids sit atop a pile of refuse and waste, and around half a dozen large green eggs can be seen settled inside this pile as if placed carefully by their mother.
"Some sort of haunting in Illusion form?" He wonders "A phantasm projected by a dying illusionist? " The sorceror has no idea but it's amazing to speculate upon.
When the hoard is shown, he checks it for magic, of course but is quite impressed, "Oh these could get some very nice prices." He'll roll the dice several times to make sure they aren't loaded, and advising "Never throw dice against a halfling named High Roll."
Seeing the eggs, Kiley readies her sword.
"I guess we need to take care of those."
Shaggar debates which weapon will be easiest to clean... and settles on his prized axe.
"Have an eye for hatchlings." Without further comment he systematically starts hatcheting the eggs.
Kiley nods and keeps an eye out for any hatchlings while Shaggar destroys the eggs.
Sasha gives Kiley and Shaggar space, instead keeping watch on the ground floor while the others explore the second story. "If the floor is unstable I can help - please don't ask me how, I don't understand it myself," she offers, though it appears unnecessary. "I'll have to show off my new revelation later, I guess. Let's go check on the others," she suggests when Rutilux and Ari/Haliyouna return from looting the harpy's treasure.
Ari nods and sweeps out of the room with a satisfying sweep of her coat. ”Understanding can wait but can you explain what you mean?” she asks. ”Do you mean you can remove obstacles, keep it stable like a swaying ship or help us to keep our balance if a storm is raging?”
Rutilux finds the wealth ironic We could perhaps BUY an Inn with this, or at least make a good downpayment, but we can't FIND one that's still operating for the night.
"I believe I could make a moonlight-platform or bridge strong enough to walk on safely," replies Sasha. "I don't know how to better explain it - oracular revelations are mysterious, I guess..."
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The eggs don't put up a fight, and no other crawling things come out of them. Seems as if the mother worm was a relatively new mother.
With the harpy slain and her hoard cleaned out, you're free to investigate the rest of the small trading post. Unfortunately for Rutilux and his elegant tastes, the rest of the buildings are in a similar state to the silk shop and main building. The rest of the larger buildings include a shrine to some dwarven god that has obviously seen better days (area 4), a handful of other traders that have unfortunately been raided for all they had (areas 8, 11, 12, and 13), and a large warehouse that has remained locked and closed throughout the many years since its last use.
A pair of barrels and a single crate are all that has anything of use, with the barrels containing a fine dwarven ale and the crate holding 20 rations worth of salted dried meat.
With the trading post finally explored to the fullest, that leaves just the path forward to the several story tall gates of Brazenthrone.
Kiley feels like she's seen the iconography in the dwarven shrine before, but can't quite place it. She has much better luck helping the others get into the warehouse. Despite being petite and lean, she's almost as strong as Shaggar and the ease with which she breaks down the door proves it.
Sadly, there's little to find inside, save enough dried rations to let the part last another few days and a couple of barrels that they might be able to trade if they can find someone to trade with down here.
"I think that's our only way forward," she says as she stays near Shaggar, wanting to be there if someone comes after him and needing the comfort his presence brings her now that the adrenaline of the fight has worn off and the oppressiveness of the stone overhead has returned.
"Do--Do you think there's anyone there," she asks much more timidly.
"We could scream at our lungs and find out, but that's as like to cause trouble as bring help." The halfling is eying the shrine, but has no clue to whom it would belong. Seems a pity though.
When attention is bought to the fine ale and salted meat, he says "Oh, fine dwarven ale is always in demand."
"Marthammor Duin, a lesser dwarven god of traveling dwarves who leave their homes and families to see the rest of Toril. It's in bad shape, but if we were to clean up a bit we might inspire his favor while we are down here beyond the moon's light..." Sasha suggests, looking around for anything like a broom or cloth that might be used to help clear and clean up the worst of the trash and detritus. "I'd say we could afford the additional support on this journey. Anyone else willing to help for a couple of minutes?"
"Do--Do you think there's anyone there," she asks much more timidly.
Shaggar looks down at his smaller companion, not sure to what she is referring. ”In Brazenthrone? There must be people – fighting or avoiding this sickness.”
[dice=Knowledge (Religion)]1d20+7
"Marthammor Duin, a lesser dwarven god of traveling dwarves who leave their homes and families to see the rest of Toril. It's in bad shape, but if we were to clean up a bit we might inspire his favor while we are down here beyond the moon's light..." Sasha suggests, looking around for anything like a broom or cloth that might be used to help clear and clean up the worst of the trash and detritus. "I'd say we could afford the additional support on this journey. Anyone else willing to help for a couple of minutes?"
"Well, I can respect the traveling attitude." The merchant's son says, "Allow me, Sasha."
Rutilux mutters low and a small cleansing thunder cloud, almost absurdly tiny, flows over the shrine, seeming to drench the crud, then have a dimunative wind blow it off... and then odd dweomer lightning no bigger than a thumb dry it off. Layer by layer, until it is clean.
"There you go, Marthammor Duin. No kindly god deserves to have his things treated so." A look about him "Or his people."
Kiley nods when Shaggar asks if she means Brazenthrone.
"The mechanisms to get the lift to work were almost seized up and then there's this place," she says as she gestures around at the ruins. "It just seems like it's been abandoned."
Kiley helps with the cleaning, more so they can be on their way more quickly than anything else.
Sasha and Rutilux's work on the shrine brings a small bit of respect back to this shrine, and the dwarven god evidently appreciates it as a translucent blue hand appears over the altar for a split second before disappearing. A gust of wind blows through the trading post, and all of you feel a little bit faster.
Leaving the trading post with your new found supplies dispersed between the group, you make your way down the road towards the two-story tall city gate that leads into Brazenthrone. The gates aren't actually gold, now that you've gotten closet you can see that they're bronze covered metal. A faint greenish patina spreads across the bronze, testifying to the long years since they last opened.
Above the gates, a massive lintel bears an inscription in Dwarven, partially obscured by cracks and creeping lichen. The once-proud words are faded but still legible: ”Honor the Stone, Serve the Throne.”
A second floor holds a balcony above, and flanking the broken, collapsing gates are statues of dwarven warriors, their massive warhammers held in readiness. The craftsmanship is exquisite—so lifelike that it almost feels as though they might come alive at any moment. One statue is marred by a deep crack that runs down its face, while another's hammer has crumbled to the ground, leaving it an empty-handed sentinel.
The lower gates themselves are sealed shut, but look as if they could be pushed open with enough force applied.
Shaggar considers knocking but given the signs of disuse, he throws a shoulder into the gate, trying to muscle it open.
As Shaggar opens the door, Kiley keeps an eye out for any danger that might come their way.
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Shaggar pushes open the gate after just a little bit of effort, the decades since its last use obviously having weakened its strength as a defense. He shortly learns why the harpy hadn't tried to make the city proper its home, however, as the door opens upon a terrible horror.
The strange visage of a horrible tusked beast leers out from the darkness in front of the group, presenting a fearsome grimace as you stare into its empty skull-like face. You prepare yourself for the inevitable strike, only to realize that it isn't skull-like, it actually is a skull. The tusks of the skull are as large as greatswords, and appear to be as sharp. The badly damaged bars of an ancient portcullis have smashed through the giant skull, leaving holes as wide around as Shaggar's arm in the bone as it pins it to the floor. There doesn't appear to be any way to open the portcullis from this side, but the damage from the hardened skull has left an opening wide enough for a small character (such as your local friendly halfling perhaps) to squeeze through and hunt for a lever, and you can see four different doorways set in the wall.
The tusked skull sits at the head of a massive snake-like skeletal outline, but that isn't even the worst part. You can see the pile of bones nearly to Shaggar's waist covers the floor on the other side of the skull, and a serpentine skeleton connected to the giant skull weaves through the hoard of bones scattered in the entrance hall. There must be hundreds of skeletons in all, most of them seeming to be intact.
A persistent haunting quiet drapes over the entrance hall, broken only by the faint sound of wind now entering the tunnel from behind you and your own noises.
"You want me to go through there , don't you?" He whispers.
Kiley looks at the gap.
"I--I think I might be able to get through," she says as she takes her pack off her shoulders.
Through the bars, Shaggar surveys the carnage silently. He has never seen such a vast swathe of death. Though morbid, it is impressive. He pats the large skull before trying to lift the portcullis, hoping whatever locks may have been in place, have failed the test of time. Perhaps he can lift it enough for one of the women to get through.
”’Wants’ don’t matter. We are here and this stands in our way.”
After an aborted attempt at worming her way through, Kiley tries to help Shaggar with lifting the portcullis.
"Give me a moment. He moves through but tries to be sneaky about it.
Sasha gasps and kneels in prayer, the horror incredible and the sorrow for the lost lives nearly overwhelming her. "Gods and goddesses of good people everywhere - bless the dead and bring them peace..." is about all she can get out as she struggles to handle the immensity of the scene before them.
As they consider how to proceed forward and the others deliberate, she wonders out loud, "How long ago must this have happened? We were following others, weren't we? How did they get past this massacre?"
As she waits for Rutilux to find the lever, Kiley tries not to look at the bones scattered all about.
"This happened long ago. I fear that whatever the Mistress of the Glade may have known was here has long since vanished. I hope and pray that your prayer reaches the ears of the gods, and that the dead stay dead," she says while not meeting anyone's eyes. The fur on her tail stands on end, and the tension in her shoulders show that she's not so calm as her tone might suggest.
"We know they can still others' skins," she adds, answering the question that Sasha had asked. "Some of their number are already dead, killed by the stirges in the nest. we passed through. Perhaps they had some magic of their own to get through here."
She pauses, a thought coming to her. Were there any more dead cultists among the corpses that awful worm thing had turned into a nest for its brood?
Even Shaggar and Kiley working together can’t manage to get the portcullis to budge even an inch. The massive weight of the metal that allowed it to crush through the tusked skull and presumably kill the beast also means they can’t budge it. Rutilux will have to find some other way of opening the gate.
As he makes his way up towards the skull that is nearly as large as he is and scrambles up it to climb towards the gap in the bar above the head, the halfling finds himself staring down the long hallway full of bones beyond and under the large serpentine body. The entrance hall carries on for at least several hundred feet past the portcullis and the carpet of bones don’t fill up the entire hallway, stopping shortly after the first hundred or so feet.
The tusked skull is yellowed and ancient, but still strong enough to support the halflings’ weight as he climbs up one of the tusks and scales up across the top of the head to the hole in the portcullis. Pushing down his anxiety about what is waiting for him on the other side, Rutilux pushes himself through the hole (even he has to squeeze to fit) and finds his way through. He can see the four doors closer up now, all of them seeming to be good candidates for a wench room or the like.
All of the bones on the floor are skeletons without gear, with no sign of any recently deceased cultists or the like. Now that he’s closer to the unsettling pile, Rutilux can see that they are all of smaller stature, but appear to be (mostly) fully grown dwarf skeletons. Would take deeper digging into the sea of bones to discover any more specific information on that front.
"Pardon, gents. No disrespect meant to you." Rutilux now through looks at the four doors with indecision , taking a risk, he casts detect magic on each door as it comes into range of the cantrip to see what results he gets.
If nothing lights up, he'll apply his ear to the first door on his left and see if he hears anything.
Ari lets out a low whistle at the corridor of bones. "If that's your greeting, might be telling us something. Not sure anyone's here to appreciate my new style either," she sasy to herself, running a hand through he slicked down hair. Although she's not exactly desperate to go through, Ari does have a look at squeezing through the bars to accompany Rutilux. Unfortunately, despite her slim build, she can't get more than an arm and shoulder through. "As I said before, not my favourite thing, but if you find any kind of mechanism let me know before you start prodding at it," she calls to the halfling. "I trust your self-preservation instincts will stop you doing that anyway."
"I wish we could go with him," Kiley says, her dislike for this place growing with each moment. Her imagination has always been vivid, and it insists on picturing the skeletons rising up to tear them apart, starting with Rutilux. She shakes the mental image away, only for it to be replaced by the memory of the night the Zhentarim attacked her family's home. Her hands tighten on the hilt of her sword as what happened to Lucina causes her to wonder if her parents were now haunting the burned out husk of their home.
"Selune, please let them be at peace," she prays, unable to stand the thought of her parents turning into undead monsters.
None of the doors or anything in the hallway detects as magical, and Rutilux makes his way over to the first door on the left. The bone carpet makes eerie crunching and cracking sounds as he walks over it; no matter how hard he tries to avoid stepping on any, it's basically impossible to not step on bones.
He finds that most of the doors (all except one) aren't locked, actually, which makes for a quicker exploration than the halfling expected. The first door on the left opens to what looks to be a staircase leading up, but the upper floor seems to have collapsed long ago and the room is filled with rubble. Clearing it out is likely a fools' errand, given how long it would take and how dangerous it would be. (Rutilux will eventually discover an identical rubble-filled staircase on the other side of the hallway).
The second room on the left is a little more promising, the unlocked door opening into a room full of short tables, and a few of them have been knocked over. A single desk sits alone in a corner, and four more doors grace the walls of the room.
As he's investigating the table-filled room, Rutilux takes a glance across the hallway to the last remaining door of the four and sees something that strikes him as quite unsettling. It looks like the door is held fast, but a hole about the size of a human hand has been smashed through the wood of the door directly above the handle. Looks like it used to be/still is locked and someone decided they needed to get in.
While Rutilux is busy exploring the hallway in splendid isolation, Ari finds herself jittery and full of nervous energy. "I know what you mean," she reassures Kiley, before adding "Just need a minute, shout if you need me," and taking herself slightly away from the others. Once around the corner and out of sight she can pad up and and down freely, lest she infect the remainder of the group with her nerves and inability to stay still.
Looking NERVOUSLY at the hole, Rutlilux returns to the desk in the second room and carefully checks out the desk, seeing if there is anything in it, or if , somewhere behind it, is a lever?
Kiley reaches out to stop Ari from walking off on her own, but isn't fast enough to do it before the other woman is out of sight.
We shouldn't go off on our own. Rutilux was the only one that could fight through the hole, but I wish one of us could have gone with him.
Sasha leans against Pheliks, patiently waiting as best she can while she comforts herself with his steady presence and thick fur.
Rutilux finds a bunch of old crinkly documents in dwarven, columns of separated items with numbers in another set of columns. Seems to be some sort of ledger or other financial/trade documents, but Rutilux can't read dwarven and can't make exact sense of anything. A handful of gold coins (7 to be precise) sit amongst the paper, made in mints that the halfling has never seen. A face of a handsome dwarven king decorates one half of the coin, while a golden gauntlet underneath a crown occupies the other.
The more obviously important discovery, however, is a secret compartment in the back of the desk. A classic cliche, perhaps, but it seems as if it worked to keep the key inside hidden. He takes the key and finds that it, in fact, the key to the door across the hallway. It unlocks easily, and swings open to reveal that which he is seeking: a gate wench that is surprisingly still in good condition.
Luckily for the smallest member of the party, he won't need to use any of Shaggar's great strength to open the gate. The wench was setup to make it easy to use, and a simple lever pull sets the entire opening in motion. A loud grinding sound echoes through the long hallway after Rutilux pulls the lever and the portcullis slowly starts to lift out of the ground towards the ceiling.
For a moment the tusked skull follows along, stuck on the portcullis' spikes, and you think it'll go all the way up to the top. But not a second later it slips off of the spikes and lands right back in front of Shaggar with a loud crash and the sound of several snapping bones, both from it and the ones it crushes beneath its weight.
The portcullis is open and the long dark tunnel into Brazenthrone awaits you, bone welcome carpet and all.
Rutilux admires the coinage , there's an artistry to trade coins if they're done right. Then, SCORE, the very lever he hoped to find! He pulls it and...
A loud grinding sound echoes through the long hallway after Rutilux pulls the lever and the portcullis slowly starts to lift out of the ground towards the ceiling.
"Did it work?" He calls out taking a risk, but figuring enough noise has been made.
At the unholy sound of metal heaving against metal, Ari is back with the others in a flash. Knives in hand she’s there just in time to witness the destructive force of the heavy skull landing on the bones. In the aftermath, with the portcullis open, she replies, ”Assuming that was your intention, I’d say so. Nice work.”
Sasha steps back as the portcullis rises, pulling Pheliks with her. As the skull falls she flinches but stands her ground, waiting for signs that Rutilux is alright. With a sigh of relief she smiles and looks to the others to lead the way forward. "This is going to be grim, isn't it?" she asks the others, not really expecting a response as they begin to step over the bones in the entrance...