Donimah, frustrated, begins reloading her crossbow.
Persephone glances up from digging out her rope to call out to her Tribe engaged with the strange, mutant goblin.
Bless dears!
Once the crossbow is reloaded, Donimah lifts it and takes another shot, her view of the creature now clear!
The goblin is taking a beating, but despite everything he is still fighting, resolute.
In his desperation, the goblin lands some powerful blows. He shrieks something unintelligible.
Arrian strikes at the goblin again while flanking with Ano and then pops back to his previous spot to open the way for Juriya!
Arrian manages to pierce the goblin's chest and goes straight to his heart. He falls down after a screech, dead.
After the panting sounds and painful grunts are over, melancholic groans can be heard coming from each of the wooden plates on the floor. To the south there is a closed door.
Arrian asks the others, "Since one of these holes has a zombie I suspect all of them do. Should we check them one by one?"
Arrian also checks the odd goblin for any possessions.
"I personally wouldn't," Juriya says, "but if you really want to, we could bomb them and fire arrows at them from above where they can't retaliate."
"I personally wouldn't," Juriya says, "but if you really want to, we could bomb them and fire arrows at them from above where they can't retaliate."
"I don't like leaving possible enemies behind us. Plus who knows who or what else is down here which might release these creatures?"
Donimah sighs through her nose.
"We could have interrogated it. At least figured out who it was jabbering about."
She nods at Arrian's words, though.
"Can't miss with this," she says, hefting the crossbow. "Literally like shooting fish in a barrel. In fact, easier, fish are all wriggly."
Persephone smiles as Zel is back top side. The Shaman shakes her Varisian curls at the blood billowing out of Ano...again.
Dears, please keep an eye out for some full plate armor for our poor Amurun. Her beautiful white coat is absolutely ruined by the blood. Desna be warned.
Persophone glides over to the down Ano, places a white gloved hand on her.
The Tribe Shaman then glances at Arrian.
You are correct, but, I had faith she wouldn't go down.
Juriya hefts her own crossbow, replies to Donimah, "Agreed. Probably not a good idea to waste the few bombs I can prepare on zombies. Crossbows it is. "
Arrian sees that the goblin had nothing on him except his three weapons and some rags to cover his body. The weapons are interesting, however. All three, the longsword, handaxe and dagger, are exceptionally well made. The dagger seems to be made of silver.
All wooden plates have a 20 foot pit under them with a human zombie inside each. The pits seem to be littered with different sort of junk and burn marks. Juriya and Donimah spend some time shooting zombies while Arrian checks out the weapons. It takes a while, but all zombies eventually die.
Ano screamed when she felt the blade cut deeply into her side. She was prepared to strike again, but by the time she looked back at the goblin, it was dead. She almost didn't see Persephone by her side until she felt her healing spell on her, partially tending to her wound.
"Thank you, Persephone," the catfolk murmured. Cherry flittered to her and chirped sadly, "Jeez, Ano...you're just getting scar after scar after-" He stopped when she glared at him. "Sorry," the bird said softly.
Ano looked in disgust as they took care of the zombies. She sat down in a corner, trying to control her breathing.
Arrian also tends to Ano's wounds.
Donimah punctuates killing the last zombie by spitting on it.
"Right...now that we've secured the premises, time to investigate just what in Hell was going on in here."
She begins taking a look around.
Juriya begins looking around as well. "Yeah. If anyone finds something, as the expert in the group on Thassilonian matters, Donimah ahould probably look at it."
Upon careful analysis, Donimah and Juriya conclude that this is probably an extension of the prisoner room to the west. Whether experiments on necromancy were performed or this was just a place to torment prisoners, it is not clear.
There does seem to be a hidden compartment in one of the zombie pits. A cloak is there.
Donimah picks up the cloak and eyes it curiously.
"Wouldn't hide something this way if it wasn't valuable," she mutters, examining it with her arcane senses.
Her eyes light up as the cloak lights up with a magical aura, and she looks at it more closely, trying to sus out the nature of its enchantment.
And then her expression sours as she fails to grasp it.
"This cloak IS magical, that much I can tell, but I'm...struggling to discern how," she confesses. "Persephone, if you would?" she asks, holding it out to her.
His hooves finally finding purchase on the crumbling Thassilonian bricks, Zeldrith finally clambers out of the pit, dusting himself off. "This place is a deathtrap! These old Thassilonian ruins are practically coming apart at the edges - still, it's impressive they've stood so long." As the other adventurers eliminate the zombies in the pits, Zeldrith steps forward to help, blasting the pits with his ice magic.
When Donimah examines the cloak, Zeldrith looks around at the pits. "What sort of structure was this, I wonder? There can't be many Thassilonian structures that had zombies in pits."
Turning to Zel, Arrian says, "I don't know about Thassilon and necromancy but I can envision this being a prison or some sort of holding facility. Perhaps a 'storehouse' for experiments?"
Persephone gracefully glides over to Donimah. The Shaman casts Detect Magic, as she examines the Cloak with Isabel aid.
Both Varisians shake their heads.
Not certain actually.
Ano glares at both Zeldrith and Arrian. "I don't know how you two can have any interest in this place? It's a nightmare!"
Zeldrith recalls that the Thassilon empires were ruled by magocracies, and experimentations were widely applied and highly regarded. Little regard for others' well being was also common, which is why torture was a valid method of experiment. For this room in particular, there is nothing to explain it further, but linking it with the fact that the runelord of wrath's statue was seen here, one can guess that this was more of a tormenting room than anything scientific.
Ano glares at both Zeldrith and Arrian. "I don't know how you two can have any interest in this place? It's a nightmare!"
"I don't have an interest. I'm just trying to understand what these things are here for and if there are any living prisoners somewhere. It would also be nice if the goblins left a map with their battle plan behind..."
Ano glares at both Zeldrith and Arrian. "I don't know how you two can have any interest in this place? It's a nightmare!"
"It is part of our history!" Donimah retorts. "And we've lost so much of it already...if we don't confront it, how can we stop from repeating its mistakes or learn how to be better than they were?"
"I don't know how you two can have any interest in this place? It's a nightmare!"
Zeldrith glances apologetically at Ano. "This place is horrible, it's true - but there's... something about it that feels familiar. Like I should be here. Like I have been here. Or someplace very much like here, in any case. My ancestors were kings, they say, perhaps in this very land - they left it behind to sell trinkets in a squalid Magnimaran warren. You spoke of your ancestor from Tian Xia, the great priest who fought the vicious tyrant, yes? Horrible as it may be, this is my history - I'd like to know it, if I can."
"Don't you dare talk about my family right now!" Ano hissed, her fur bristling and fangs bared, "History be damned, how can either of you still hold interest with how this place is showing how horrible the runelords were! Exactly like...like my..."
She took a deep breath in and sighed hard, "I'm sorry about that. I just...Gods, all I wanted to do was see if Ameiko is okay...I wasn't expecting all of," she waved her hands around to signify the entire catacombs, "this."
Donimah jumps at Ano's stern response.
"None of us were expecting this," she says. She's about to say more, but thinks better of it and just shuts her mouth.
As Donimah and Persephone examine the cloak, they also detect another source of magic in the room. The longsword the goblin was carrying is magic!
This is a +1 longsword.
After an awkward silence, Arrian decides to open the southern door. He leads the party through a corridor that opens to the left (east) and ends in a door. The eastern passage leads to a staircase down, but it it completely buried in rubble, and it is impossible to get down without spending months of work clearing it.
You are certain you spotted the handwritten words "you will die" in Thassilonian on the wall. As you blink to look at it better, it is gone as soon as it appeared.
The word "murder" appears to you in Thassilonian written on the wall, but it shifts its place and melts before you can utter a sound.
You hear some distant and muted dog howls.
You think they're coming from below.
You hear some distant and muted dog howls.
You think they're coming from below.
You hear some distant and muted dog howls.
You think they're coming from below.
You have a vision. You are about to talk to a very powerful demon lord. You are excited and anxious. Your plan will come to fruition.
Some time passes, and the world is in chaos, and you know it is due to your actions.
You awaken from your vision and the others are confused. Not by you, but they are also affected by something.
As the group travels down the southern passage, Zeldrith glances at the blocked-off staircase, raising his eyebrows. "Looks like this old place is falling apart. Probably for the best - after all, we..." As he talks, his crimson eye flashes white with arcane power again, and he staggers, bracing himself against the wall. Strange emotions and otherworldly memories race through his head - fear, anticipation, then, as he looks from on high at the cities below sliding into ruin, he feels only... pride?
Shaking his head to clear it as he returns to reality, he gives a loud sneeze, which dislodges his floppy hat from his head and sends it fluttering to the ground below. Blinking, the pitborn glances around at the rest of the group, noting their confusion. "Laizhyk asilo shikna, it happened again, didn't it? Okay, what did I say this time?" He shakes his head, kneeling to pick up his wide-brimmed hat from where it fell. "I'm starting to come around to Ano's point of view on this - having your wicked great-great-whatever-grandfather's words coming out of your mouth every five steps starts to get old fast."
Arrian holds up his hand to stop the group, "Did you hear that? Dog howls although distant and muted."
Persephone gently picks up the magical longsword. The Shaman begins to examine it
This would improve ones striking abilities a bit.
She holds it out...
Juriya jumps a good few inches in the air, shouting in Sylvan "ACK! DOGS!", before remembering which form she's in...
"DOGS! Does anyone else here that, or am I just going insane in this spooky old place?!"
Juriya jumps a good few inches in the air, shouting in Sylvan "ACK! DOGS!", before remembering which form she's in...
"DOGS! Does anyone else here that, or am I just going insane in this spooky old place?!"
Nodding at Juriya, "I heard them too!"
Ano’s ears flattened at Arrian and Juriya mentioning dogs. “What dogs? What are you-” She stops herself as she sees Zeldrith in another trance. “What is happening right now?” she asked in distress.
Donimah blinks a bit at the red words on the wall, and makes a dismissive noise.
"Of course I will, we all do," she mutters. "Gonna have to try a lot harder than that to scare me."
She looks at the others jumping and reacting to things that aren't there, and she sighs through her nose.
"More psychic residue from what happened here," she comments. "Likely reacting to our agitated mental states. If there were actual ghosts here, they'd be trying to get us to panic, so our wills are more vulnerable."
"What is happening right now?"
Zeldrith blinks, glancing around at the rest of the group. "Wait, did the rest of you see it, too? The supplicant before the demon lord? The bloodshed in the valley?" He shakes his head, rubbing at the back of his skull with his seven-fingered hand. "What Donimah says sounds right, I guess - I don't know enough one way or the other."
After a moment, he clears his throat. "...Maybe I should take point down here - might be for the best. A couple years back, I met some scholar who had a sword strung up on top of his cottage - said when the lightning started looking for somewhere to land, it would hit the sword instead of setting fire to his home." He taps the side of his head, raising his eyebrows. "I was the only one to get the visions earlier, and the one I had this time was a bit bigger than a bunch of angry dogs. Maybe the 'psykill' stuff Donimah's talking about sees that little piece of Great-Granddad buzzing around my head, thinks it's a good place to land. If I go ahead, I'll soak up all the 'psykill' stuff and there won't be any left to bother you, right?"
Persephone hands the magical longsword to Zel, as her mixed matched blue and green eyes follow the word across the walls.
Or there may have been something special in this mornings breakfast. The Thassilonian word for Murder had just appeared written on the wall. Seems a bit on the nose for this place.
Arrian nods and calms himself enough to search the closed door to see if it is locked or trapped.
The distracted Varisian finally notices the group interest in the shut door. Persephone and Isabel turn their attention to it also.
Both Arrian and Persephone don't find any traps on the door, which they also find is unlocked. This strange room is a fifteen-foot-diameter sphere. Several objects float in the room, spinning lazily in space: a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of floating and writhing maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Yet perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the room is the walls, for they are plated in sheets of strange red metal that ripple every once in a while with silent black electricity that seems to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance.
When Arrian opens the door into the strange room, Zeldrith's mouth twists into a doubtful expression as he raises one eyebrow. "...This room's pretty ominous - I don't think we should linger in this area. Some of those things do look interesting, though - could be important." After a moment, he grins. "I think I've got a solution. ದೂರದ ಕೈ!"
With a shouted word in Thassilonian, the tiefling extends his seven-fingered hand, and wand stirs, flying into his hand as though pulled by some unseen force.