"I wonder who from town may have seen that." Morga muses grimly as she looks for a way to stash or pose the body so nothing looks suspicious from afar.
"Unfortunate they've been infiltrated. I was really hoping they were being Gorumites and just doing their duty... Apparently we're known to these people too. Lets see if we can find Ordwi first and Lord Ragnulf second. There's a chance he's been removed from his position and still alive. Fingers crossed there's something to be salvaged here."
San finally takes a moment to check out where he thought he deflected the rusty blade and sees a wound where it hit. "Morga, think I can get patched up?"
"Right!" Morga clasps her wooden holy symbol and sends healing light across to San's wound.
"I wonder who from town may have seen that."
“Town?” Autumn arches an eyebrow at Morga’s odd worry. “It was hard enough to spot the guard through a spyglass from the crow’s nest of a tall ship. I’d be more worried about the people inside Stonehome. Let’s hurry inside before someone comes.”
Vildran takes the lead with the copied key, and with a little jiggling gets it turning in the large lock at the center of the gate. He pushes the doors open to reveal Stonehome's courtyard. Large open space is covered in dirt and weeds. Stonehome proper, a two-story keep, looms to the north, it's entrance doors closed. A wooden archer’s walkway stands against the inside of the outer wall you're currently passing through, allowing a view of anyone foolish enough to besiege the keep. The eastern portion of the courtyard holds a large roof-covered well, while a small stable stands against the west wall of the valley. The impression the courtyard gives is of abandonment and disrepair.
To the west side, the door to the stables is open and you can see it holds at least two large pens. The smell of hay and animal refuse wafts through the air from them. You can also hear the braying of some animal from the stables, though the beast not visible from the entrance.
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Vildran notes the well, knowing where the bottom leads.
That's another way out, if need be.
He motions for the others to join him inside. After they do he carefully pushes the gate closed again, and quietly approaches the pens to see what animals are braying inside.
San keeps a lookout while Vildran is investigating the animals. It would help to have advanced notice of approaching threats in this auxiliary cult stronghold.
Shield up, Morga hustles to get in front of Vildran, in case the braying is coming from horses dismayed by the presence of a cythnigot. Gods, I hope they only have one of them! She shoots a glance up at the archer's walkway as she strides, checking to see how many arrows she should expect from that quarter.
Autumn cautiously follows Vildran inside, while scanning the entire area for any Gorumites or other threats. She shudders involuntarily at the sight of the well, remembering the icy water awaiting within. There’s another exit I hope we never have to take.
She silently follows Morga and Vildran inside the stables, thought part of her mind is still on the guard’s rusty blade. Through her magical messaging spell, she whispers her thoughts to the others. “Do you think the cultists used to be normal people, like the Gorumites, but then the disease warped their minds too, turning them into raving fanatics? Is that the ultimate fate of this disease?”
Vildran and Autumn head into the stables and find evidence that there were more animals kept here in the past, but not very recently. The only remaining animal is the source of the unhappy braying. Backed into the corner of the northern pen is an adult rosethorn ram, with its distinctive twisted horns. The beast's fur is matted and it looks severely weakened and malnourished. It cries its panic as you show your faces.
Vildran also spots something else in the stables. He notices a rope hanging from the ceiling that connects to the northern wall, as well as a seam in the wall. It seems pulling the rope might open up a hidden passage that way.
While you investigate the stables, Morga and San note that there still doesn't seem to be anyone coming to respond to the call for help.
"No one's coming... Are they all sick? I suppose that's the best case scenario here." Morga growls as she pokes around, trying to find some food for the ram. Poor thing.
When Vildran points out the secret door, she muses aloud: "I wonder if that connects to the ruins at Rusthenge. You know, that dark tunnel we didn't go down? Seems to reason that they'd have a secret underground passage, considering that no one in town has noticed anyone going back and forth between the two."
"No one's coming... Are they all sick?"
“Let’s hope so,” Autumn replies uncharitably. She gives the pitiful ram a sympathetic look, but otherwise avoids it, her interest piqued by Vildran’s discovery.
"I wonder if that connects to the ruins at Rusthenge. You know, that dark tunnel we didn't go down?”
“That would be a long tunnel. But it makes sense. They might have sacrificed all the other animals here to that weird metal apparatus. Maybe that’s why the ram is so scared?” She shudders at the memory of the apparatus come to life, then steels herself and reaches for the rope. “Only one way to find out.” She pulls the rope and stands back.
Autumn pulls the rope and the hidden door slides open to reveal a narrow passageway between the wall of the keep and the steep rocky cliff. The passage winds around to the back side of the building, no more than a few feet wide the whole way around. There's no windows or other access to the building. At the far end of the passage at the rear of the building is a mossy mound and an old burial marker. The text on the marker has faded with time and is now illegible, but an etching with Gorum's symbol can be faintly made out.
Vildran realizes that he has leftover rations from their trip from Sandpoint stuff into his pack. He hadn't thought about it since they arrived but the emaciated ram reminds him.
He takes out about a days worth of dried meets, cheeses, and bread and drops them into its pen.
If they intend to make this one a sacrifice, let's put some fight back in it.
When it approaches the food he tries to look closer for clues about its sickness.
As the group investigates the stables, San becomes curious as to why no one has come to confront them yet. He starts trying to peek into the keep itself to investigate the interior. Hopefully without revealing the group to whomever is inside.
“Not a tunnel,” Autumn says, “but maybe this passage leads to a back door?” She cautiously follows the narrow passageway to the back, stepping softly and keeping her eyes open for a hidden entrance or anything else. At the end she relays her findings back to Vildran through her magical messaging spell.
“No back door, but there’s an old grave. Gorum’s symbol, of course. Maybe the founder of Stonehome?”
Vildran's musing mutterings with the ram reach Morga's ears, so she steps over to see if she can tell if it has Rust Creep, too.
When she's finished diagnosing the ram and Autumn has reported her findings, Morga suggests: "All this quiet is unnerving. Let's go inside and see what's really going on." When the team is ready, she approaches the front door of the building with her shield raised. She checks for traps along the way and before trying the latch.
In the back alleyway, Autumn searches but doesn't see anything else hidden.
Morga identifies that the rosethorn ram is suffering from some kind of chronic illness that has left it with blistering sores. To the best of her knowledge it isn't contagious to humanoids. She also knows that certain alchemical cures can treat it. It doesn't have any connection to the rust creep you've been seeing (and have picked up).
Turning to the front door, Morga checks for traps on the outside and the grounds nearby as spots nothing to alarm her. She opens the door.
The walls and edges of this wide hallway are covered in dried, spattered blood, while a clean woven reed mat has been placed over the central path from the entrance to the far door. The sides of the hallway are covered in more arrow slits along their length. A rusty grate set into the ceiling gives a limited view into the room above, showing a stone ceiling on the fort's second floor. The far end of the entrance hallway has a grand set of wooden doors that are currently closed.
Vildran looks towards the passage around the side of Stonehome as Autumn relays her findings to him.
Seeing Morga inspect the front door he follows cautiously, padding his feet quietly and holding his staff off of the ground for now.
Noticing the room above through the great he stops to listen , and detect any magic that might be present.
"This doesn't look like a good room in which to linger." San waits for Autumn to get back from her investigation around the other side of the keep and then investigates the next door in preparation to open it.
Dried blood. Hm. Morga leans close to a splatter, trying to gauge how long it's been there.
Her progress through the hallway is painfully slow, as she stops before each arrow slit to check for archers before moving forward. When she finally reaches the double doors and everyone is ready (presuming San found no traps), she opens them as quietly as possible.
Autumn rejoins the others but waits just outside the blood-splattered entrance hall. “So not good,” she mutters quietly under her breath, not daring to enter a gauntlet lined with arrow slits on either side and topped by a grate through which one could pour boiling oil. She eyes the blood stains warily while waiting to see what happens to those who venture ahead first. Should it prove safe, she cautiously moves the woven reed mat to see if it’s hiding anything underneath.
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Agreeing with Autumn, San nods "So not fetch"
---
You move in cautiously, ears open and eyes checking the arrow slits as you walk by. From the entrance Vildran scans the space for magic auras and finds none. When he tries to hear anything from the room above, he hears a few muffled sounds, though they sound like something from deeper within rather than from above. A rhythmic clanking suggests someone working a forge, while the muffled play of a stringed instrument seems to also come from somewhere ahead.
Morga steps in and eyes the dried blood. It looks at least several days old, maybe longer. Her inspection of the arrow slits only gives small glimpses into small adjoining rooms that appear mostly empty. They're the same ones San saw from the front. Autumn can confirm Morga's analysis as she waits warily from the entrance.
As San reaches the door leading further in and starts to inspect it his foot lands upon a spot on the woven mat that yields a little. There's a click, and then a dozen stone spears lance up through the mat and into San and Morga! San is immediately skewered by three of them, the traumatic impact knocking him out before he can so much as gasp. The spears hoist his limp body several feet into the air as a horrifying amount of his blood splatters across the mat, the spears, the floor and the walls. Morga is stabbed only once in the side, but her injury is no light scratch either.
You hear a bell peal thrice in the adjoining room behind the arrow slits to the west.
Drat! Dratdratdrat!! Morga starts panicking. Healing San while he's still impaled seems pointless, but how to remove him from the spears? Trying to buy him some time, she casts Rousing Splash on him and looks back to the other two. "Help me get him down!"
Autumn instinctively leaps backward when the spears thrust upward, even though she’s out of range. “Heinous …” she gasps at the deluge of blood. But when Morga appeals for help, she simply exchanges a look with Vildran, then looks back at the dwarf with an incredulous ‘Who, me?’ expression upon her face. True, she’s taller than the dwarf, but to venture into the middle of a field of giant stone skewers? The ringing bell does nothing to inspire confidence; indeed, the sorceress seems ready to bolt.
She looks back towards the front gate, hesitates, then frowns. With a frustrated sigh, she turns with a grim look and carefully navigates her way through the deadly spears. “Fine ... maybe no one will respond to this alarm either. But you need to heal him—I’m not doing this for a corpse.” She reaches up high and pushes San off the spears, sending his broken body tumbling down to the ground.
As she finds herself next to the door anyway, Autumn breathes deeply and mutters “In for a copper …” She cautiously opens the door a few inches and peeks out to see if anyone is coming.
Autumn's words act like a much-needed slap on the cheek to Morga, snapping her out of her panic and helping her focus on immediate needs. She sends an intense wave of healing directly into San, supporting his body as he slides off the skewer so he doesn't hit his head if he falls to the ground.
Vildran freezes as events unfold in front of him. Each of his antennae frozen, and pointed in opposite directions. Only when Morga shouts does he snap out of it and spring into action to help, though he is quite clumsy. He helps Autumn nudge the body down the spear shafts.
Calming his nerves further, he assesses
We need to move a little more slowly, and cautiously. I think if a body is taken apart much more than that... no amount of magic will help.
Very carefully skirting around the edge of the trap boundaries, he joins Autumn at the door, looking out for more trouble.
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San has a moment of dread as he hears a click and his foot doesn't quite reach the ground. The moment is short lived though as the spears quiet his thoughts in the most violent ways. The darkness seems to last forever and only a moment as Morga's magic infuses him and brings him back from the brink.
"Never using your catch phrase again..." He opens his eyes and surveys the room as he climbs to his feet. He finds and retrieves his bow that fell next to him and shakes off the feeling of impeding doom. Unfortunately the sound continues and turns out the be the tolling of a bell. "That can't be good."
Autumn’s immediate instinct is to slam the door shut, but she forces herself to close it slowly and gently. Quickly she turns around, one finger held up to her lips as a warning. Her other hand holds up two meaningful fingers, even as she starts retreating urgently but carefully through the miniature forest of stone spears. “Two Gorumites coming,” she whispers anxiously to her companions, greeting San’s return from near death with a relieved look but not daring to say anything more.
Only once she is in the courtyard does she risk further whispers. “Hide in the stable?”
Vildran whispers back to Autumn.
I think they'd find us there once they see the evidence. We should get out of here!
He gestures towards the gate.
Autumn furrows her brow as her mind races furiously. If they left the entire complex, another guard would be posted and they would have to go through all that again. She shakes her head.
“We could hide in the secret passage, at the back. If needed, we could then climb onto the roof and hide there?” The rusty greatswords would be much less frightening when out of reach.
Torn between not having to re-enter and navigate the spear room and not wanting to be in close quarters with the Gorumites, San nods at the suggestion to retreat. "Let's hope they follow us out instead of resetting the trap and monitoring the arrow slits this time." On the way out, San pulls back the mat to try to reveal the button that sprung the spears.
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Morga nods and takes the rear-most position in the group. Shield up and ready to swing around to guard against an attack from the rear, she draws her starknife and breathes a prayer: Please let us live to die another day. As she follows the group out of the entry hall, she strains to listen for the approaching Gorumites so she knows how much time they have.
Vildran is very unsure about Autumns suggestion, but he feels the weight of his friends' not wanting to solve what will be a very difficult re-entry.
He gives Autumn a very unsure look that seeks assurance as he concedes.
Around back... the secret passage? Okay...
He will follow her in that direction quietly, his antennae twitching the whole while.
Sensing Vildran’s reluctance, Autumn whispers her thoughts as she hurries towards the secret passage. “If I was a Gorumite, the first thing I’d do if there were intruders is check with the guard at the front gate. So that’s where we don’t want to go.”
You retreat out into the courtyard, with an open door to the south leading to the presumed safety of the town, vs. the much less safe avenue of retreat into the stables and past the hidden door. As you pause and briefly mull over your options, you don't see any sign of the Gorumites trying to open the door from the meeting hall to the entryway. But you do hear some movement within, along with shouts of "Intruders! The ones he warned about!" The Gorumites appear to be mobilizing somehow, but with no good view inside it's not clear what route they're taking or how much time you have. On the other hand, if you can't see them they probably can't see you, so you may have the cover to retreat in your direction of choice now without alerting them.
San keeps a sharp eye looking for any signs of pursuit as he steps toward the stables.
You rush through the hidden door in the stables, disturbing the ram again as you do. You close the door behind you and then wait.
As the minutes pass, you can hear the Gorumites searching about, though from the sound of things they give the stables only a cursory look. There are fewer of them than you might expect. You hear less than a half dozen voices all together. Eventually you hear them return to the courtyard and discuss the situation between themselves.
"Lord Ragnulf will be mad. We were supposed to apprehend them."
"They learned their lesson, didn't they? One of them bled well. I'm surprised they were able to get out with a wound like that."
"Injured or not, they're dangerous. You saw what they did to Karan. Should we look for them in town? The townsfolk will turn them in if we say its a proclamation from the Lord, won't they?"
"We're not to agitate the town. We stay here, keep an eye out. Make sure the inner walls are manned. Someone go try to convince Trygve again - we need him on our side rather than in the smithy."
"Trygve? Not me. Man's a mule."
They grumble for a bit before one finally agrees to speak with this Trygve. The impromptu leader of this group speaks up again.
"Alright, back to positions, in case they try something later today."
After eavesdropping with bated breath, Autumn waits for the Gorumites to disperse, then waits for a minute longer, just in case, before quietly heading to the back of the building where they can all talk a bit more freely. “Let’s rest here and wait for things to die down,” she whispers. “Morga, let me help you with that wound.”
While helping the dwarf tend her injury, she quietly discusses their next move. “Thank gods there aren’t many of them. If they post one outside the gate, and another on the inner walls, that should be at most four left inside by my count. Can someone climb up to the roof? Look for another way in, but watch out for windows or arrow slits.” She pulls some rope and a grappling hook out from her pack. “I think our best bet is finding this Trygve. We might be able to get him on our side. But where would the smithy be in this place?”
Vildran actually calms down as they listen from behind the secret door, when it becomes evident that the guards aren't focusing very much on the goat's pen. Further, they didn't even notice evidence of the extra food given to it.
Surely they know about this door... maybe they don't?
Should we post someone at this door at all times, just in case? We don't want to be caught off guard.
When Autumn mentions "climbing" Vildran looks towards San.
How are you feeling after that... trap. It's okay to take our time now.
Morga nods at Autumns suggestion to patch up wounds while they have time to spare.
Unfortunately, her mind is elsewhere, wheeling about all the possibilities without landing on anything particularly useful. Even with Autumn's help, nothing good comes of it. "Bah! I need my mind clear!" She utters in disgust, then grumbles: "I'll go listen at the door. San, I'll check your dressing in an hour and see what else I can do." She stalks off to stand guard, gloomy as can be. I'll still come, Great-Aunt Hilga. I know it's taking too long. I'm sorry... We're trying... We'll keep trying.
San feels around where the spear took a chunk out of him. "Morga's magic seems to have patches most of the holes. I think I can hack it." He then looks for ways to climb up onto the second floor outside the keep to gather further intel.
You spend some time trying to patch up the remaining wounds, but the unusual punctures vex Morga for now. She moves to the secret door and listens in afterward, but hears nothing except the ram gradually calming and returning to its new food. She thinks back to her time in town, but the name Trygve doesn't ring any bells. To be fair she hasn't been in town long, and if this is one of the Gorumites they may not have spent much time in town.
While Morga is serving as lookout, San braces himself against the cliff and worms his way up the walls of the keep to the second floor. He pulls himself over the railing and drops into a large balcony. This space features a narrow sand pit thirty-five feet long with small rope partitions marking the last five feet on each end . A rusty iron ladder on the southwest portion of the balcony leads up to the roof, while a door to the south leads inside the keep.
"It's clear for now. There's a door and a ladder to get to the roof. I don't think the front door is a good plan, get Morga and come on up." San secures his rope to the railing to help others climb. Once that's done, he investigates the windows before the door. Checking out if there's any adversaries in the immediate vicinity. Thinking of the spears, he is careful to check where he's stepping and sneaks around the mysterious sand pit. It's too bad Sidonie wanted to be elsewhere... we could use her expertise.