Farrukh carefully looks around the room for traps and valuables.
If it's safe, he pops a coffin open and stakes the vampire inside.
Farrukh notices a lever hidden on the north wall of the coffin room. He's pretty sure it opens a secret door.
"Ooh, secret door!"
*Pulls lever*
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A secret door slides open. Entering, Farrukh sees a flight of stairs. They seem to lead up to a wine cellar in the Understructure, though he doesn't go all the way up. What a convenient access point!
"Huh. Looks like there WAS a secret entrance."
Tanith scoffs as he wrings the excrement out of his kilt.
"Well, THAT would've been helpful to know several minutes ago." Carina grouses. "So, what's in the coffins?"
You peer inside. There's nothing in here.
Eben clambers up the rope after the others, looking around cautiously for more Kyuss spawn to pop out of somewhere and drag him off behind closed doors. "Remind me to grab a bottle from there on the way back..." he says drily when the wine cellar entrance is revealed. He points to the severed hand. "Gross, and I hate to ask, but anyone want to detect that for magic?" He is more interested by the implications of the third coffin, though. "Okay, if spawn one and spawn two came from those first two coffins, and this one hasn't been opened in a long time, then where's the body?"
Rodrigo climbs out of the s*+&ty hole, looking to me permanently traumatized by the experience. He nods to Eben, and chants a cantrip. Once his eyes start glowing a soft purple color, he examines the room for magical auras.
The hand—or perhaps the gauntlet—radiates a Strong magical aura.
Now that everyone is on the surface and getting relatively clean, they begin to notice an extremely foul odor permeating this level. It's a smell not unlike that of a charnel house.
"I smell dead people." says Farrukh, breathily.
Carina sighs and looks all around. The smell of death was becoming too familiar to her. At least it didn't smell of burnt corpses.
Yet. Just give me a minute.
Rodrigo is completely flummoxed, though it's definitely the hand radiating the aura.
Eben takes his longsword and pokes around the interior of the third coffin, just in case there's something not-quite visible inside. "Well, we're in a room with coffins and just encountered a couple of wrom-ridden corpses. What's it supposed to smell like, a pine forest?"
There is nothing inside the coffin.
Eben takes his longsword and pokes around the interior of the third coffin, just in case there's something not-quite visible inside. "Well, we're in a room with coffins and just encountered a couple of wrom-ridden corpses. What's it supposed to smell like, a pine forest?"
"It was just a reference to a play I saw once about a little boy who had a supernatural mutation that let him smell when ghosts were around. Turned out his best friend had been one all along."
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"Oh, I know that one..." Eben says. "People had such high hopes for that playwright. Boy, did he blow it with future plays. There was one about some farmers being attacked by these aberrations, but they turned out to have a weakness to water..." Eben sheathes his sword. "So..." he says, using mage hand to levitate the disgusting, rotting, but apparently quite potently magical hand out of the coffin and into a pouch, "Where next? North or east?"
Farrukh refuses to believe there is anything that exists and does not know that twist, so starts poking around to make sure there aren't really false bottoms.
using mage hand to levitate the disgusting, rotting, but apparently quite potently magical hand out of the coffin and into a pouch,
There are in fact no false bottoms. Farrukh is proven to be correct.
Eben is able to safely (but not tidily) extract the rotten hand from the gauntlet and place it in his pouch.
"Let's check East first."
Carina keeps quiet and readies her bombs for more trouble.
At the end of the hallway is a fairly modern-looking wooden door. It does not appear to be locked or trapped.
Though almost everyone makes a surprisingly good show of it, especially Farrukh, stealth just isn't really Tanith's style. Farrukh opens the door and the creatures beyond are ready to greet him.
The air in this large hall is particularly noisome. The northern wall is almost completely covered by the remains of a wooden bookshelf, whose contents have long ago crumbled to dust. The southern part of the aisle is occupied by dusty pieces of ancient, ruined machinery that may have once comprised sets of semi-automated combat dummies. Some of the machinery has the barely visible symbol of Kord engraved in the rusty metal frames and carved into the rusty wood.
There is a set of double doors to the north, which, like the door Farrukh just opened, look like fairly modern additions.
A multitude of undead stand within.
Six spawn of Kyuss stand behind two other skeletons—both fairly short and both wearing tattered robes. The robed skeletons resemble any other fleshless corpses...save for the tangled masses of discolored entrails writhing within the ribcages, coming out through their mouths like taloned tongues.
The spawn themselves are arrayed fairly far back. Several lurk behind the exercise machines, and one spawn even stands on top of one. They are wrapped in old bandages, and almost look like mummies.
One of the skeletons turns and gurgles something, barely even words, pointing at one of the spawn.
The two creatures then turn back to Farrukh and lunge. The first's "tongue" swings out as it leaps forward, then quickly darts back. The second runs forward all the way, clawing into the slayer.
The clawed tongue rakes almost gently along Farrukh's neck. He feels his shoulders growing numb.
Carina and Rodrigo are craning their heads, as always struggling to see what's happening in the front lines, when a shadow man steps out of the wall.
He or she is mostly comprised of formless shadow. They blur along the edges, almost like a watercolor painting someone didn't finish. Beneath a dark cowl is the top half of the skull, missing the bottom jaw. They clutch a ghostly lantern that, despite its apparent glow, gives off no light. Two pinpricks of red light eye Carina with amusement. It whispers something in a foul tongue.
It continues drifting past, through the wall, and exits again—this time behind Rodrigo.
The creature barely lands a hit, and Rodrigo feels his life force draining away.
Two spawn advance, as two others—including the one up on the equipment—hurl handfuls of worms at Farrukh and Tanith. Another rushes for the door and opens it. The sixth just stands there, looking completely surprised, as if it had been quietly enjoying...whatever it is undead enjoy, completely unaware of the adventurers' impending arrival.
Worms fly around the still-flat-footed Farrukh and Tanith, completely missing them. One actually hits the lead entrailed skeleton hard in the back of the head, somehow chipping off a bit of bone.
"This thing just LICKED ME! Ach!"
Eben looks around; they're surrounded by undead. He draws a breath and casts a spell. "I believe in us all...". Then he closes his eyes and begins his litany of the joys of being alive once again.
Both the skeletal undead, the incorporeal creature, and the two nearest spawn seem to hesitate slightly, repulsed by Eben's song.
Rodrigo shrieks as the undead sees through his invisibility and touches his private inside places. The foppish summoner goes pale as his lifeforce drains away.
"Tanith, I'll try and clear some space for you to get out. If this doesn't work, maybe go help Rodrigo?" Astraden runs forward, drawing her rapier, and releases another burst of light from her mask. Shadows around her turn to utter darkness, but white gleams from Farrukh's sword and the undead's bones.
As soon as Astraden moves, Eben steps back into her former spot, bringing himself a little closer to the fighting.
One of the strange skeletons, the ghostlike figure, and one of the spawn of Kyuss cringe away from Astraden's bright light.
Tanith strikes a menacing pose.
Carina steps forward, spins on her heel, and lobs a fire bomb at the ghost that just attacked Rodrigo!
The bomb's magical contents burn into the ghostly figure, who shivers—though he doesn't seem too badly hurt.
Rodrigo steps back and casts haste.
One of the skeleton creatures turns and bolts through the door.
The other darts forward and attacks.
The tongue trails along Farrukh's cheek as the creature claws him again.
The lantern-carrier backs away from Astraden's bright light, hissing. It leaps back into the wall and disappears from sight.
One of the spawn flees, screaming, from the lore warden's symbol. The one that was on its way out instead turns and rushes to take its companion's place.
Farrukh is caught off-guard by the new spawn's arrival, and nearly takes one nasty hit—as well as a new little friend.
The three spawn in the back eye Astraden with pure hate. One of them, one with a mostly intact jaw, hisses at her in wheezing, archaic Flan.
One of the worms wriggles beneath Astraden's sleeve.
Astraden smashes at the worm with the basket of her rapier, then stabs for the eye socket of the worm-eaten horror to her right.
Tanith strikes a menacing pose.
Farrukh continues whacking the Mohrg.
"Overbite" is a wraith, a potent incorporeal undead that senses living beings—demonstrated by its making a beeline for the invisible Rodrigo. They are powerless in sunlight (not daylight) and sap victim's life force. Animals will not willingly approach a wraith, even if they shouldn't even know it's there. Astraden has heard that soul wardens can tap into this unnatural aura to sense the creatures, though it's hit or miss . Anything killed by a wraith rises a few seconds later as a lesser wraith under the original's control.
Astraden has heard vaguely about a very old secret Kordian shrine built underneath the original arena. Supposedly, it originally served as a secret shrine for worship of Kord by the original builders of the arena, but when the above-ground structure changed ownership and was rebuilt into its current configuration, knowledge of this hidden shrine passed from view. Most suspect it all to be an urban legend, but Astraden is beginning to suspect there might be some truth to it. It looks like the place has seen better days.
Farrukh slashes and slams into the mohrg, badly injuring it and nearly hitting it all the way into the wall. He continues inward to keep pressing the attack, but it's nimble enough to dodge two of his swings.
Astraden clumsily misses the worm, but jabs the spawn in the chest. It glares at her, full of hatred.