Thalumilali draws and fires another arrow only to once again miss his target.
Lofnaiali nocks and fires another arrow at the remaining pugwampi only to miss once again.
Ohrmizd breaths relieved when he catches one of the pugwampis "Sarenrae, be your home not desecrated. Guide my scimitar to punish this irreverence"
He then looks around trying to determine how the choir balcony over their heads is normally accessed.
The remaining pugwampi flees to the ladder and climbs up.
"Look! A ladder!" Ohrmizd just finds out the way to climb when the remaining pugwampi darts towards it. The Keleshite decides to run after "Can someone shot that one down before he makes it up?!"
Ohrmizd points to the pugwampi with his scimitar while he runs through the central aisle as fast as he can.
"Aaaaaaaaahrg!" the pugwampi voices, while falling off the ladder, followed by the sound of a breaking neck.
The breaking neck sounds like celestial trumpets on Ohrmizd ears as the pugwampi collapses just a few feet in front of him "Good shot Manuun. Again, where did you said you learnt to shot like that?"
Ohrmizd sheathes his scimitar and approaches the fallen pugwampi trying to find out anything of interest, perhaps some clue of whether they have taken the old monastery as their lair or if they where here on a mission.
Then he looks up the ladder "I think I saw one of those critters retreat into that balcony. We should check it before he takes us by surprise later" the Keleshite looks up trying to determine how the rafters and balcony are, and if they are in good condition for them to climb up.
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"Gotcha, you ugly Dog!". The small man rises up, takes ashort luck on the fading cloud tattoo on the back of his end and carefully unwinds the crossbow. "Is everybody all right?". He looks worried at Soraya, who has a few of the tiny arrows sticking out of her arms, but is not sure what to do.
Then he decides to check up in the rafters and the balcony if there are any more Pugwampis around and search their nest.
While going through the pugwampi's possesions, Ohrmizd finds the tiny bow, 16 arrows and a dagger. All nice and good if you want to stuff out a dollhouse. And a diary. At least that is what it tells on the cover - in gnoll - smeared in blood over the original cover.
But you don't need to guess what it means, as it starts glowing and inflicts horrible pain into Ohrmizd.
There is nothing to be seen about more pugwampis or a next from down here. But there is still the ladder to check above.
Going through the pugwampi possessions Ohrmizd discards most of it "Does anyone want a filthy razor?" when he finds the diary he immediately opens it to check what might have happened in this place "Now... this is interesting... I do not understand it at its fullest... my Gnoll is still raspy... it seems this pugwampi was somehow obsessed with the gnolls, like in love or something... and... mmm... he liked the roof of the place. We definitely want to check upstairs. And what is this symbol..." Ohrmizd tries to analyze it but as soon as he places his eyes on it the man falls down to the ground retorting and screaming in pain.
"Ah! Noooo! Aaaahm" he tries to be strong and hold himself without screaming, but trembling, he is unable to articulate a word. Ohrmizd barely manages to throw away the diary while he still coils out of pain on the floor.
A thin balcony overlooks the chapel floor some twenty feet below. Two rows of tall-backed wooden choir chairs dominate the southern reach of the balcony, which hugs the chapel’s concave walls. The balcony falls away—collapsed for a span of perhaps fifteen feet—just on the other side of the choir area.
Severn feet above that are rickety time-worn wooden rafters that stretch across the whole chapel. It was a ceiling to the chapel once, but it's broken away in many places to reveal the underlying woodwork. Two huge sections of these rafters have been engulfed in a sort of nest comprised of a patchwork of random bits of cloth.
You see two more pugwampis up there and an area of this attic is walled of with crude made up walls.
As the pain washes away of his body, Ohrmizd stands up not without effort. The man holds himself against the walls still breathing with difficulty "Ah... what kind of black art was that?"
The Keleshite eyes around to the altar and the remaining images of the chapel, but notices Manuun has already started to climb up the ladder "Ei! Wait for me. You are a fast one eh!"
Once they reach the balcony over the chapel ceiling, Ohrmizd braces his shield once more, and draws his scimitar after casting a light spell on it that brings Sarenrae's light to the roof level.
Moving forward some feet he notices the pugwampi there and having found the diary was written in Gnoll, he decides to try speak them up in his raspy Gnoll "<Why are you here in this Sarenrae monastery? Did the gnolls told you to come? Who commanded you?>"
Ohrmizd smiles at the mention of the donkey "Hell's teeth! What did you gave Gara for breakfast? That donkey just blessed the chapel with its profane droppings"
"Terrible pain" the man answers with remorse while he keeps an eye at the pugwampis casting the light of his scimitar over the despicable creatures "I cannot understand, but after reading one symbol in the pugwampi diary my whole body went out of control with an intense pain. I cannot explain it, but it felt like dark necromantic magic. Or at least that is how I imagine it from listening Keleshite dark tales. Do you have necromancer dark tales at your home land Manuun?" Ohrmizd shivers remembering the recent experience.
He waits for the pugwampis to answer him or otherwise react.
”I’m gonna see what those two ran into up there.” Tahlumilali says to Lofnaiali and Soraya and heads to the ladder. ”You to find any...never mind.” He starts to ask them a question but upon seeing them at the ready he finishes climbing up the ladder quickly drawing his blade as soon as he’s up. ”How many are there?”
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Manuun replies to Ohrmizd " Well my uncle once told me a story from his youth. He was paid by a rich merchant from Osirion to explore an ancient pyramid, but when he arrived their he found out that it was the tomb of an necromancer. My uncle only entered the first chambers before fleeing in horror but he told me could not sleep for two weeks after that day."
When Tahlumilali appears, he answers: "So far we have seen those two. But I fear there might be even more. I would had to climb up there under the effect of their aura of bad luck. Ohrmizd is trying to talk to them but so far they have been silent."
"Your uncle is a sage man Manuun. The arts of the Osirion mummyfiers are dark and dangerous. Is your family from the lands of the Pharaohns?" Ohrmizd nods to Tahl at his arrival up to the balcony "There are those two we are trying to..."
Ohrmizd barely has time to deflect the arrow rising his wooden shield "F$!*ers! Is that your response? Ok, you wanted this!" the man charges forward to slash at the first pugwampi with his scimitar!
Ohrmizd runs towards the pugwampi, but never arrives. The ceiling brakes beneath him.
Ohrmizd luck ends when he makes a bad move during his charge and his foot stomps a weak board. With an impressively silent fall the man disappears from the roof.
Meters bellow the flying body precipitates over the broken pews in his strikingly silent fall.
The clash against the rows of pews is brutal. Yet Ohrmizd somehow manages to absorb part of the impact with his wooden shield.
Miraculously alive, he turns over his back looking up still in shock.
Ohrmizd slowly tries to slowly sit up "Mmm... fair point. Oh... that is painful"
Then looking at Soraya "So... do you have any plans for that choir balcony in the monastery restoration? Because right now my only desire is to burn it down in the holy cleansing flames of Sarenrae with all those f%!$ing critters inside!"
Soraya hurries to see if Ohrmizd is alright when he falls. She's relieved he's not seriously injured, but the fall is bad enough to make her unenthusiastic about the idea of climbing up to chase the pugwampis.
"Burning the balcony seems like a good idea to me. The wood is obviously no longer sound. But if we do, would any of the stonework collapse?"
Soraya takes look at the construction of the large room trying to figure out if the wood serves a structural purpose, or if is just added on to the structure.
"Mmmm... ok... I guess you are right, without the wood we do not know if the walls might collapse... maybe we should just walk around and explore the rest of the monastery while we think how to better face the problem up in that wooden balcony... sigh, how much I would like to have wings like a bird right now..." Ohrmizd stands up, not without effort, and shouts upstairs "If you fed up being humiliated by a group of mongrels as I do we can explore the rest of the structure Tahl and Manuun!!!"
Then, looking around, Ohrmizd decides to approach the altar and start to explore there "Is it true you use wine during the ceremonies Soraya? Maybe there is some left here somewhere..."
Tahlumilali seeing Ormmizd fall decides to drop his sword and fire an arrow instead of moving around on the clearly unsafe wood.
After witnessing the spectacle with the balcony, Lofnaiali began to tread as carefully as she could afraid that anything else could collapse around her. [b]“Ohrmizd I’m glad you are alright!”[\b] She was afraid he could have have gotten hurt...or worse. She nodded at Ohrmizd when he mentioned exploring the structure, a welcomed break from hunting those foul creatures. Lofnaiali could use a bit of the wine he mentioned as well. Hopefully it hasn’t turned to vinegar from sitting in a cellar too long. She calls out to Tahlumilali and Manuun [b]”perhaps it is best you un perch yourself like good little pigeons before you fall through it too!”[\b]
Thalumilali successfully shoots one of the fey. Manuun not so much. The last visible pugwampi runs away and slips through some tiny hole into the part that is hidden from sight.
A closer look at the book reveals that it once was a spellbook. And the pugwampi must have used it as a notebook to paint stupid stuff and write insults into it. But that's not what ruined the book. It fell into water at some time and that made it swell up and washed most of the text out. The only thing magic that surely has survived is the symbol Ohrmizd painfully discovered.
Ohrmizd smiles and tries to disguise his pain when Lofna approaches interesting herself on his health "Well, I guess that is the closest to flying as a bird I have ever been, hahaha! Have you ever flight Lofna?"
Ohrmizd shrugs at Manuun's questions "Who knows. Perhaps he saw the sign on a dream or copied it from something he saw in other area of the monastery"
"Well, while Tahl descends, why don't we have a walk around to see what more is left from the temple? Perhaps we find some means to tackle the pugwampis at the rafters..." Ohrmizd walks by and looks at the cloisters of the monastery.
Ohrmizd finds the torn-out pages of a copy of The Birth of Light and Truth strewn about the altar, which has been smeared with excrement. But he finds no wine.
Ohrmizd cleans the excrement at the holy tome "Oh really... this is shameful... I... am... getting... very... angry... now..." the man looks up at the ceiling and frowns "Sarenrae, sorry for what your holy name has had to suffer in here. Please, give me faith, because I do not know how to provide mercy to so disgusting and out of manners critters..."
Once clean, Ohrmizd takes the tome for further reading once they have time for it.
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Thalumilali clicks his tongue in annoyance as the last of the little demons runs out of sight he knows better than trying to follow on thew rotted wood so he reslings his bow and sheaths his sword and follows Manuun down the ladder.
"I swear I'm going to have one of these things skinned and turned into a rug and I'm going to make sure my boots are extra dirty when I wipe them off."
A sweeping bas-relief sculpture along the north wall depicts five bearded, larger-than-life humans riding the wind with triumph carved upon their faces. Though some of their arms and hands are missing, each is clearly meant to wield a distinctive weapon. One of the five warriors holds a large axe, while another holds a fragment of what must once have been a regal staff. In the distance, an ominous mountain looms over the quintet. East of the wall decoration, two open arches lead into small rooms off the north wall. The south wall is little more than a series of open arches that look out into an open-air courtyard.
the broken staff, while Kardswann wields the strange axe. No other weapons can be seen on the other damaged statues.
You notice a garden in the midst of this gallery.
Huge branches and overgrown weeds clog the central open- air courtyard of the monastery’s cloister walk. In better times, the monastic priests would have contemplated the open space while circling the cloister, but today it is barely possible to see a few feet into the tangled mess, let alone all the way to the opposite cloister walk. Here and there the brush thins out enough that a dedicated explorer might be able to create a sort of passage, but mostly it is an impassable mess.
Ohrmizd chuckles at Tahl's comment slowly getting into better mood despite his bones are still in terrible pain "Count me interested in a rug for myself. My place in the caravan would benefit of having where to lay down comfortably during the night"
Before continuing any further Ohrmizd grasp his holy symbol and makes a prayer "Sarenrae, please tend to my battered bones. And protect me from my own stupid boldness going forward"
Magically, most of the Keleshite's bruises disappear and he smiles satisfied.
Ohrmizd examines the bass-relief in humble marvel "That is an astonishing piece of art. I cannot really believe this has been here forgotten for so many years... The Templars of the Five Winds you say? What were their names? I wonder what are the goals and relation to Sarenrae of these Wind Templars" the man looks back at Manuun "Actually... you seem to know a lot about wind and air, how that comes?"
He eyes the garden mess, then walks by the first archway to the north "Ok. Let's see what other marvels hide this corner of the monastery..."
The stone carving bears a name for each genie, engraved near their feet. They are, from left to right, Kardswann, Pazhvann, Vardishal, Zayifid, and Davashuum.
This is a small antechamber. Carvings of religious significance to the cult of Sarenrae line the walls, but none seem to involve Vardishal or help in any way to lessen the mystery of the abandoned monastery.
Ohrmizd reads aloud the names found in the bass relief "Kardswann, Pazhvann, Vardishal, Zayifid, and Davashuum... mmm... interesting, I have never heard of them. I wonder why are they here, in a monastery to Sarenrae"
Getting into the small antechamber Ohrmizd says a small prayer while touching his scimitar "Sarenrae, bring your light to your old chambers, bath once again this place with your healing presence" and the blade burst in sudden light bringing back the darkness.
The man approaches the lightened scimitar to the carvings in order to observe and read them more carefully "Interesting... some of the most relevant teachings of the Healing Flame are here inscribed. Nothing about Vardishal or the other Wind Templars though"
Taking attention to the door leaving to the north, Ohrmizd steps closer and brings the light of his scimitar forward to have a look on what is inside the octagonal chamber.