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The Earth, It Cares Not!
Tomb Robbery One
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The Seekers are able, after shoveling a few inches of soil away, to reveal a large, four-foot diameter plug of stone capping the apex of the mound on which they stand. A few feet away, Brother Jasyn observes as the two younger men take turns, one wielding the sledgehammer while the other guards against wandering monsters (and intentional predators).
It takes almost half an hour to bust through the thick stone capstone and enlarge the opening to the crypt. The sun has moved appreciably along its path toward its noon zenith when Aury resecures the sledgehammer horizontally across the top of his pack, and takes a lit torch from Mattie in one hand. Grabbing a taut length of rope in the other hand, he leans carefully, looking down into the hole.
Party Info Table
"Now remember," Brother Jasyn reminds the Seekers as he double checks the rope that is knotted around a sizable spruce less than twenty feet from the crypt opening, "we don't know how far down the drop will be. We can't preclude the possibility of injury on the descent, or that a marsh denizen or opportunistic band of tomb robbers might cut the rope and leave us stranded down there. What do you see?"
"Not much," comes Aury's reply, as he gazes down into the opening. "But there's definitely standing water. I can see the reflected torch light."
"All right," says the guide, checking his pack and weapons as he approaches the top of the mound. He draws up next to Mattie where the mage stands a good yard from the edge of the opening, on the side opposite Aury. "I don't suppose you have a spell that could get us down there more easily?" asks Brother Jasyn.
"No, I'm afraid not." Mattie grimaces. "No do I have magic to get us out of the crypt. I'm afraid we're reliant on our wits and mundane means."
"Understood," adds Aury from across the hole. "Well then, let's light this candle..."
Brother Jasyn descends into the crypt first. Despite having at least two decades on the Seekers, he shimmies down the rope with alacrity and then deftly catches the burning torch dropped to him by Aury.
Aury holds the rope where it exits the hole and is stretched taut to where it is tied to a spruce tree. He's placed a smooth chunk of stone so that the rope lies atop it, protecting it from friction damage at the lip of the hole. Mattie descends the rope — more slowly than Jasyn but ably enough. And then it's Aury's turn. His descent is slower still. The rope moves more than with Mattie and Jasyn, but holds.
As Aury finds his footing thirty feet beneath the lip of the hole, he is — not for the first time — glad for Jasyn's insistence on hip-waders. The water in the entrance chamber is over knee-high, and fetid. He accepts the torch from Brother Jasyn just as Mattie causes the tip of his staff to shed a white illumination.
The section of the chamber our adventurers are in is ten by ten feet and brightly lit, thanks to the pair of light sources. To the north are steps that lead down. Thankfully, Brother Jasyn is an experienced dungeoneer and leads the way, so the submerged steps are detected and therefore negotiated safely.
The trio enters a larger chamber more than twenty by twenty feet. A tapestry hangs on the eastern wall, faded with age but surprisingly intact and apparently untouched by mildew or rot. "What is this depicting?" Mattie asks, leaning forward and lifting his free hand—
The trio enters a larger chamber more than twenty by twenty feet. A tapestry hangs on the eastern wall, faded with age but surprisingly intact and apparently untouched by mildew or rot. "What is this depicting?" Mattie asks, leaning forward and lifting his free hand—
"No! Don't touch th—"
But Brother Jasyn's warning it too late. Matthias' hand makes contact with the tapestry and there is movement in the chamber's northeastern corner as a humanoid skeleton lunges upright from where it had been concealed beneath the knee-deep water. A jewel set into its skull burns with sapphire light as it jerks forward to close the distance and attack the tomb interlopers.
There is a 20% base (plus 10% cumulative) chance per round that Brother Jasyn will realize the nature of this particular type of undead. Aury has a 10% base (plus 5% cumulative) chance per round of the same realization.
"I've got this," Aury says, lifting his mace and taking a sloshing step forward in his hip-waders. His first swing (melee to-hit) misses, but on the backswing he connects (Fray Die) and then Mattie's wave of eldritch energy impacts (Fray Die) it from the side, shattering the skeleton, which collapses.
"Well, that was easy enough," Mattie observes and he moves back toward the tapestry to resume inspecting it by the light shed by the tip of his staff. "Hmm, this appears to be a depiction of some sort of necromantic ritua—"
The skull of the skeleton pops back up above the dark water, the red jewel in its forehead still burning brightly. A second later, the rest of the skeleton rises, and Aury groans, "Crap, there's two of them." He readies his mace once again. The scenario plays itself out again. This time, Aury's mace shatters the skeleton with a pair of blows.
"See if you can find the skull," Brother Jasyn suggests. "That gem looked valuable. I'll check down this hallway," he says, gesturing to the west. The dungeoneer begins sloshing that direction, checking each step ahead of him with a long stick, hoping to detect and floor traps.
Up pops another skeleton out of the water. Aury sighs, "I wonder how many of them there are..."
The skeleton rakes claws at Aury. Fortunately, his scale armor protects him. In a conversational tone Matthias comments matter-of-factly, "It's the same skeleton, the same one we've put down twice already. It keeps reconstituting itself."
"Oomph!" Aury grunts as the skeleton lands a hard blow and the cleric struggles momentarily to regain his balance. He lifts his mace again, "Great! How do I destroy it?"
"Beats me," Mattie answers honestly. "Do you need my help?"
"Try to destroy the gem in its skull..." Brother Jasyn's suggestion echoes to you from down the western passage.
The battle continues for several long seconds before Aury manages to land a solid blow on the skeleton's forehead and the gem embedded there, and the skeleton instantly falls apart.
"Ooh, did you shatter the gem, or just knock it off the skull?" asks the mage, bringing the light of his staff nearer.
"I don't know," Aury says, irritably. "It happened fast, and there are shadows, and—"
"Well, feel around..." Mattie encourages, gesturing to the water. "See if you can find the gem. It may be valuable!"
"I'm not reaching around under there! There could be ... parasites! Disease! Or, or more skeletons. I don't exactly want to lose fingers to a submerged skull."
"Oh for Petrarkan's Sake, I'll search myself..." says Mattie, rolling his eyes. He pushes up the sleeve of his right arm and plunges his hand beneath the fetid water, grimacing. Aury entertains the idea of spooking his fellow Seeker, but doesn't want to arouse the dungeoneer's ire. The older man to the west feels strongly about Delve Discipline.
"Aha!" Mattie exclaims, standing with a large fragment of sapphire in hand. "The gem was shattered but even this fragment is worth a fair amount."
"Was the door trapped?" Aury asks, as he and Mattie enter the ten by fifteen foot second chamber. Even with the double illumination of Brother Jasyn's torch and Mattie's staff, it's apparent that the blue-green lichen adorning the walls and ceiling of this chamber is phosphorescent.
"Yes, poison needle," brother Jasyn answers. "And it actually got me. I must be getting rusty."
"Aury swings around in concern. "Do you need an antidote? I bought the best I could afford from Athelbyn."
"Nah, I'm okay," the guide assures the young cleric. "I've built up a lifetime of resistance. Plus, there's no telling how many decades old the poison is. It's potency has undoubtedly diminished with the passing years."
Mattie moves deeper into the room, studying the walls. When his eyes alight upon a neshralk, he moves toward it purposefully. "Try not to touch anything until I've had a chance to look at it first," Brother Jasyn warns, and then he resumes probing the perimeter of the room with stick.
The water in this chamber only comes up to mid-calf, thanks to a riser at the door to this chamber. "What are you searching for?" Aury asks the man.
"Traps. There could be pit traps, animal traps, hidden glyphs."
"This neshralk radiates magic," Mattie says. "Care to check it for traps? I want to try something."
"Uh-oh," Aury says.
Mattie just rolls his eyes, then steps aside to make room for Brother Jasyn. "Looks untrapped," says the guide. "You can go ahead and handle it."
"You first," Mattie returns. "Just in case you're wrong."
"Oh, I see!" sneers the guide. "I'm not hired solely for my expertise. You also want me to be your canary in a coal mine, your ten-foot pole, eh? Sure, I'll play Trapspringer. It'll run you fifty royals each time."
"All right, all right. Calm yourself," Matthias rejoins, and as Brother Jasyn huffs back to resume his perimeter checking, the mage winks at his burly fellow Seeker.
Matthias reaches out and gingerly touches the neshralk. The waxy figure is about six inches in height and isn't very detailed — thought it is recognizable as a man. A wick comes out of the head.
The mage picks up the neshralk and reads an inscription, bringing his extensive training as a linguist to bear: "'I light the way into eternity.' It's in a Cumerian dialect, which would suggest this funerary figure is somewhere between two-hundred fifty and three hundred years old."
Brother Jasyn, having finished his prodding about with his stick, steps up next to Matthias. "Probably worth a few royals to a collector."
Mattie turns it over in hands a few more times, studying it from different angles. "True. And, who knows? It might be enchanted." The scholar-mage wraps the figure in a cloth and secures it in his pack for better identification later, back at the Chapterhouse.
"Given the funerary figure, this is probably the antechamber to a burial chamber. The Cumerians held their ancestors and their dead deeply sacred," the guide explains, "so if this is a Cumerian barrow, I would expect to find this next chamber well-guarded." He squats before the closed, brass-plated wooden door to the next chamber.
"What are you doing now?" Aury asks their guide.
"Checking for air movement," Brother Jasyn answers. "Make a note of it: when you're in a dungeon-like setting, if you can feel any air movement coming from beneath a door or portal, chances are good that whatever area beyond the door is occupied or frequented by living creatures."
"Because they seek out fresh air, and because air movement can also indicate you're near an exit to the surface," Mattie adds.
Brother Jason glances up at the scholar-mage. "There may be hope for you yet," he says, grinning. He then places his palms about an inch from a brass plate that adorns the door, explaining, "And now I'm sensing for any hint of a dweomer and also letting my dungeoneer's sixth sense probe beyond the door and into the next chamber. I'm sensing for traps on the door, and hazards in the room beyond."
"And?" Aury prompts.
"No traps on the door, but it's swollen with moisture and will be hard to open."
"Fascinating," Mattie comments, and there is no trace of sarcasm in his voice. "I may have to apprentice myself to you if we're going to be doing a lot of tomb-raiding."
"An apprenticeship would run you a hundred royals a month, but that includes me providing meals, any needed healing, and incidentals," Brother Jasyn responds, focused on the door. "And it's 'tomb robbing', not 'raiding'. You raid the living, not the dead."
"Well then, my profuse apologies to the dead. Perhaps they'll be willing to excu—" Mattie's rejoinder is interrupted by Brother Jasyn's quickly raised right hand. After a few more quiet seconds, he stands, knees popping, and addresses the younger Seekers more quietly than before. "There's a significant threat beyond this door."
Aury pulls his mace from his belt, but maintains some skepticism about how much of Brother Jason's performance reflects real insight and how much may just be grandstanding.
"Care to do the honors, Aury?" Matthias asks.
"Sure. Step aside and weapons ready, please," answers the cleric before throwing his left shoulder and full weight against the door. There is the loud grate of his scale mail against the bronze plating, a second shouldering of the door, and it gives way and our trio is through the doorway in a hurry, Aury leading the way with mace held high, Matthias bringing up the rear and his staff's illumination adding to that provided by Brother Jasyn's torch.
Aury sustains 3 damage from a deadfall trap as a heavy rock falls on him. He grunts in pain but hurriedly moves on into the chamber to make room for his comrades. On a stone bier reposes a skeleton, still wearing a suit of what once must have been a nice masterwork suit of chained mail but is now rusting, the underlying leather mouldered. There isn't time to study it because a wood golem strides forward from where it has stood silent watch for untold decades, and battle is joined!
Party Info Table
The small chamber is crowded: with the stone bier in its center, there is barely adequate room for the three tomb robbers and the wood golem. Consequently, only Aury is close enough to attack the golem and be attacked in return in the first round of combat.
In round 1, both Aury's regular melee attack and his Fray Die attack inflict damage, but it's clear that the golem has resistance to bludgeoning damage. Even after three rounds, and with Mattie layering on damage from his Fray Die, the golem is still up. Still standing adjacent to the chamber's door and hallway eastward, Brother Jasyn cleans under his fingernails with a small knife and reminds the Seekers, "No area of effect spells, please. The area is too constrained."
In round 4, Aury only delivers a glancing blow, but then his backhand swing cracks bark and pith and another eldritch bolt from Matthias strikes the golem on its other side. "We don't have any area effect spells — yet, at least," Matthias informs their guide. "But thanks for the reminder, and please don't over-exert yourself, Brother Jasyn!" The golem slams Aury and the cleric bounces off the crypt wall, partially goes down, but then rights himself. He's now at 12/17 HP.
"Oh! I beg your pardon," Brother Jason replies drolly. "Do you need me to step in and assist?"
"No! We've ... got (ugh!) ... this!" supplies Aury. But the cleric not only misses with an overcommitted swing, but also loses his grip on his weapon, and his mace goes skittering along, disappearing beneath a few inches of water, somewhere within the golem's 5'-space. "Petrarkian's Poxed Privates!" the cleric swears. The golem, perhaps sensing its advantage, attempts to put Aury out of the fight, but Matthias' well-timed eldritch bolt causes it to miss.
"A little relief, please?" Aury asks, backing away. "I'm on it!" shouts Matthias as he comes bounding over the stone bier, upsetting the skeleton's repose and nearly getting tripped up in its rib cage. But he manages to land a heavy blow on the golem, and the construct goes down. Thanks to the magical damage from several of Matthias' Fray Die attacks, the golem won't be reconstituting itself.
"Well, well, well..." says Brother Jasyn, now clapping his hands slowly in applause. "Good show, you two! I believe I may make true tomb robbers of you yet! Let's see what we can find, shall we?" And the trio begins searching through the skeletal remains, beneath the shallow water in the room, on and surrounding the defeated wood golem.
Treasure collected from chamber #4 of 1st crypt plundered in Barrowmaze 23 Oct. 204 PR (the characters don't yet know information shown in italics):
Rusty chainmail atop mouldering leather from chamber 4
Skeleton's electrum scarab on a leather thong (Aury) from chamber 4 skeleton (25 GP)
Silver necklace with pearls on skeleton in chamber 4 (Matthias, 400 GP)
Gold ring with fire opal on golem in chamber 4 (Matthias, min 400 GP) ring of fire resistance
Skeleton's platinum necklace in chamber 4 (Aury, 300 GP)
Skeleton's electrum ring in chamber 4 (Matthias, min 300 GP) ring of protection +1
4 SP, 6 GP, 12 Shiny cuprous from chamber 4 (Mattie)
As the trio finishes searching the room, Brother Jasyn accepts another torch from Matthias and manages to light it from his existing torch before it dies.
A short time later, they find themselves back in the original chamber. "Do you see anything else you want to investigate before we leave?" asks Brother Jasyn.
"Leave?" Aury asks. "It couldn't be much past high-sun."
"Correct," Mattie agrees, "but it'll take time to get out of the crypt, then a few hours to make it back to Helix."
"And believe me," adds Brother Jasyn, "you don't want to be caught in the Barrowmoor after nightfall."
Aury shrugs. "Fine. We're ready to leave, then."
"You sure about that?" asks Brother Jasyn.
"Look," Aury says, hands on hips, "I'm dirty. I'm tired. And I think I may have a couple of cracked ribs, so why don't you tell us what we're missing here."
"Follow me, please," says the guide, and the three traipse through the knee-deep water of the entry chamber to the northern wall. "See these cracks, and how the stones don't line up the same way they do elsewhere in the chamber? This was a secret door, but settling over the untold years have left tell-tale signs for the practiced eye."
Ah," says Mattie. "So, there's another chamber beyond, then."
By the time the trio clears enough stone to get past the no longer functional door, and by the time they defeat the ten skeletons that rise from their burial alcoves, twenty minutes have elapsed. And by the time the three manage to climb the rope and exit the crypt, another fifteen minutes have passed.
Treasure collected from chamber #3 of 1st crypt plundered in Barrowmaze 23 Oct. 204 PR (the characters don't yet know information shown in italics):
cloak of protection +1
110 SP, 120 GP, 90 Shiny cuprous
Standing outside the crypt, Aury and Mattie grin at each other while Brother Jasyn goes about untying and the rolling the length of rope the three used to descend earlier into the crypt. He rejoins them and adds his smile to theirs. "Nicely done, gents. What do say we get back to Helix, clean up, and then I'll treat you both to a meal at The Brazen Strumpet?" Mattie claps the older guide on the shoulder. "Let's do it!"
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