They came to another heavy looking door with dark iron studs and no visible lock or handle on it which concerned Delde. Dal took point as custom and gave it the usual investigation. After a couple of moments, he gave the door a gentle push and it swung open with ease with a slight “click” the only noise it made.
Looking into the room they could see that it was shaped differently than all the others they had been in so far, it was a massive circular chamber with a deep pit in the centre of it. And emerging forth from the pit was a single pillar covered with blunted arrows all pointing forwards.
‘Everyone, don’t panic, but I think this room might be trapped’.
Dal said with a grin.
‘Dinnie suppose yie can disarm that one can yie?’.
‘Not unless you can safely get me to the bottom of that pit and back out again. Even then if I’m honest I don’t know if I could do it, that looks like a pretty nasty piece of work. Wonder who built this place anyways?’.
‘Wonder later, deal wae it noo! Will it go off as soon as we step in tae the room?’.
‘Maybe? Either that or its set to go off a certain amount of time after the door opened. I think that click the door made was just because it’s designed to only be opened one way but… I’m not sure’.
‘Whit!? Hoo in the nine hells are we meant tae get through there waeoot getting’ peppered half tae death by arrows! Blunt or no they’ll still hurt, an enough’ll be a real problem!’.
He was correct Delde realised. She could protect everyone with her mage armour wand to a degree but even that lacked the power to fully defend everyone, they’d need something much more substantial than that to-.
‘The Shields!’
Delde and Igmar called out at once. It was painfully simple, but it would be an effect protection from the arrows, especially if both were held next to each other. Excitedly, Igmar turned to Adriana as Delde rummaged in her pockets for her map of the crypt.
‘Aw right Adriana you an me’ll stand next tae each other wea the tower shields facin’ the arrow pillar. Everyone else can stay behind us as we go past it’.
He looked into the chamber, ignoring the obvious threat as he examined it in greater detail. His natural dark vison let him see further into the unlit chamber than any of the rest of them could. Stroking his beard, the dwarf turned back to the rest of the group.
‘Looks like there’s two other exits to the room. One right across from us an another tae oor right. Whit one dae yies think we should make a go fer?’.
‘The one to our right, the southern exit’. Delde replied immediately, bringing out her hand drawn map for all to see. ‘You see? The door right across from us will just take us to the corridor connecting the pitfall trap room, Roldares room and the one we fought that giant bug in. The one to the south though should take us… somewhere else. Presumably to the lower level at some point’.
‘So, we’ve got a plan. What are we waiting for?’.
At Bayes prompting Igmar and Adriana both took up their massive and unwieldy looking shields in both hands, neither choosing to wield a weapon with it. They then entered the chamber one after another to get through the doorway with their shields before standing next to each other, a mobile wall that would hopefully protect them from any errant arrows fired from the pillar. That said, the pillar didn’t react at all to their entering, and no undead or other monsters appeared either. Seeing no immediate threats, the other party members entered after them and stood behind their companions and then they all made their way towards the southern door.
It was a slow and somewhat awkward process of movement, as the cleric and fighter while both the most physically strong of all of them, found it difficult to move the heavy and cumbersome shields whilst continuing to face the pillar. They wound up having to perform a sluggish shuffle to ensure that they were providing the best protection for everyone, but it was also difficult for the ones behind them. This was because as Adriana and Igmar were moving slower than normal pace, everyone else had to slow themselves down to match said pace. And as they were all very much aware that they were in a room with a large trap just waiting to go off at any moment, moving slowly felt very unintuitive.
CRACK!
The loud noise jolted all of them out of the stupor their monotonous walk had put them in. Everyone looked about for the source of the sound, and more importantly what it meant for them. Thanks to a light cantrip from Adriana they had a light source, but in the circular chamber their own distorted shadows on the walls made picking out details harder than it would otherwise have been.
Delde, with her low light vison was able to see slightly better in the chamber than some of her companions and while she couldn’t see the source of the sound, she did notice some other interesting features that she hadn’t seen when she first looked in on the room. The first was that there was no mural on these walls, something she hadn’t seen anywhere else in the crypt. The other was that the bare, grey, stone walls were all pitted and chipped, the floor closest to the wall was also covered with stone fragments that had clearly come from the walls.
CRACK!
This time Delde saw what had caused the sound as she had been staring at the wall when it happened. One of the arrows from the pillar had been fired out of the pillar and had slammed into the wall with such force that it had shattered on impact, fracturing the stone wall in the process.
‘Everyone, the traps activating now!’.
She pointed towards the evidence of the splintered remains of the arrow.
‘That’s not good’.
‘Oh come on! What’s even the point of putting blunt arrows in that thing if it’s just going to fire them off that hard! If one of those hits us it doesn’t matter if its head is sharp or blunt, it’s still going to knock us off our feet!’.
‘Difference is in how easy you can get back on your feet’.
Baye quipped back at her adoptive brother.
‘Let’s hurry things up then folks!’.
Igmar bellowed as he and Adriana began a swifter shuffle that was almost at a normal walking speed for the rest of them. They were more than halfway to their goal, so despite the trap now being active things didn’t seem too bad for them.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
At least that was what Delde had thought until she heard the arrows being fired off in growing speed. There didn’t appear to be any pattern to where the arrows were being fired which was a minor boon as that meant they weren’t being struck with all the arrows at once and getting overwhelmed. But from what she could see from the way the towering shields shuttered every time an arrow did hit them, if the number of arrows being fired continued to rise, their being overwhelmed would be inevitable.
But even with the increasing number of arrows being fired by the pillar, Adriana and Igmar were able to get to the southern door, planting the bases of their shields firmly on the floor. But as Delde tried to open the door her heart sank.
‘It’s locked!’.
‘What! Oh you’ve got to be kidding! We’ve been through the whole level of this crypt, and we’ve searched it all! If they expect us to go and dredge up every key from that giant pool, they’ve got another thing coming!’.
‘Dae we need tae head back!?’.
‘No! I’m going to pick the lock, doesn’t look that complex anyways’.
Almost by magic, a set of lockpicks appeared in Dals hands and he dived into the task of unlocking their escape from the intensifying trap.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The arrows were practically flowing forth from the pillar now and the tower shields protecting them all from them were constantly shuttering from the seemingly endless waves of arrows striking them. Dal didn’t even seem to register them though, not even when one arrow shattered perilously close to his head when he tilted it.
‘DAL! Stay behind the shields!’.
‘Need to get a better angle on this tumbler Baye. The lock isn’t that complex, but it’s not been maintained well so there’s some rust here I need to be careful with otherwise I’ll snap – ‘.
‘– Just unlock it!’.
‘AHH!’
Delde cried out in as much out of shock as pain. A stabbing pain shot through her left leg, and she could feel warm blood already starting to trickle into her shoe. Looking down she could see that a large splinter of an arrow had ricocheted off the nearby wall and managed to wound her left shin. It didn’t look too bad, but the agonising sensation made thinking about anything else a chore.
‘Delde! Are you all right!? Do you need me to try and use some of my magic?’.
‘I’ll be fine, honest. Just keep that shield in place, you can look me over when we get out of here’.
It struck Delde that this was the first injury that she had taken since she started out on the “Quest for the Everflame” with the others. While there was something to be said for being able to bond with the rest of her teammates over shared war wounds, Delde personally hoped that she wouldn’t get hurt anymore for the rest of their trial-cum-rescue. The wizard tried to take her mind off the burning pain in her leg by remembering her days back in the safety of Holgasts library reading through the old tomes, the comforting warmth of the fire, the faint cloying smell of her mentor’s pipe smoke infused to the room.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Unfortunately, her present circumstances made losing herself in such memories imposable. It was probably for the best she figured, if she didn’t pay attention to what was happening there was a good chance she would end up with much worse that an injured leg.
‘Ony time noo Dal!’
‘Working on it, working on it. Who designed this lock anyway? The tumblers just keep jamming in all the wrong places and the rusting inside is terrible. I could have made a better lock myself, hell you could have made a better lock, even with the actual key it would be tricky to open, and I just guarantee you that if we had it that key would just break in the lock as soon as we turned it – ‘.
‘– Dal! Focus!’.
‘I am! Which is why I. Can. Do. This!’.
And with a small flourish, likely stopped from being any grander because of a score of arrows traveling at high velocity shattered into the wall alarming close to his location, the gnome swung open the door. Without looking inside it the rest of them rushed inside, Delde using her staff as a makeshift cane to help her move quickly enough despite her injured leg. Adriana and Igmar were the final two to enter as they slammed the door shut behind them. As they both dropped their weighty shields to the ground Delde saw that the fronts of them were scored and pitted from having been struck by so many arrows being fired at such strength and in such numbers. She hoped that the lower level would have either an alternate exit or otherwise some means of disabling the trap. She doubted that the shields would be able to withstand such a barrage a second time.
Adriana rushed to her side and quickly dropped to get a better view of her injury. The incessant sound of blunted arrows hammering on the door and the throbbing of her wound both annoyed Delde and a part of her wanted to just ask the cleric to use her healing magics to remove her injury so she could get on with progressing through the crypt, but she didn’t. Her sense of reason refused to allow herself to act so childish and irresponsible to willing expend a potentially vital resource solely for her own comfort. But she was tempted.
‘It will be all right Delde, the wound is not too bad and had missed any important arteries. I’ll bandage it up just now and then look over it with more care when we next take a rest’.
‘No time for that! We’ve got company!’.
Delde whipped her head up and looked around for what Baye was warning them about. The chamber they were now in was triangular and larger than any other room they had been in since entering the crypt. She couldn’t quite make out what was at the bottom of the room, the base of the triangle, as the light didn’t extend that far, but she could make out four wide cylindrical stone pillars making a square formation in the middle of the room. The walls here had a mural on them in contrast to the previous room, but unlike the rest of the crypt it did not portray a battle scene. Instead, it showed a great many people, all dressed in the same manner of the forces of Kassen in the other mural, in mourning. Delde could see that few of the figures had weapons and some of them seemed to be children, all the individuals in the mural though were all facing in the same direction, down towards the bottom of the room, where she assumed that there would be a passageway down to the lower level. But Delde couldn’t make out what had gotten the ranger so worked up.
Until she saw it.
From behind one of the pillars, a figure leaned out eerily. For a moment Delde wondered if I was perhaps another survivor, then she got a better view of it in the dim light. A skeleton, a blood-soaked skeleton. It began to walk towards them. Slowly. Methodically. It moved differently than the skeletons they had fought when they had first entered the crypt, less jerkily and more purposefully. As it walked past the pillar a sharp screeching sound joined the noise coming from the door of the arrows still pelting it. Delde thought that it was the skeleton itself at first, but then saw its arm outstretched, its fingers scratching against the pillar to make the awful noise. No, not fingers, claws. Blood drenched claws.
‘Dal! Adriana! Yer with me! We’ll go up an surround the thing, flank it, stop it frea getting tae Baye an Delde. They can fire frea range if they get a gid shot. It’s only the one so we should be aw right’.
Almost in direct response to Igmars words another bloody skeleton walked out from behind a pillar. Then another. And another. One from behind each of the pillars, four foes in total. Had their presence in the chamber somehow caused the creatures to be spawned by the necromantic magics in the crypt? Or had they been waiting there the entire time since they entered the crypt, since before then? The unnatural resolve of the undead unnerved the wizard.
She began to wrack her mind for any clue as to what sort of undead these creatures could be. And more importantly what weaknesses they had that they could exploit. Because if the sound coming from the door, they had just entered was anything to go by, retreat was no longer an option for them. And although they made no attempt at communication as they approached, the outstretched claws made their violent intent clear to see.
Not enough flesh to be ghouls, ghasts or zombies. Clearly tangible, so not Shadows, wraiths, or ghosts. Not showing any spellcasting ability or overt intelligence so not liches thank the gods. From their physical appearances alone Delde could only identify them as skeletons, but they were clearly more advanced than the ones they had first fought. There were variations of the more traditional necromantic skeletal construct that she was aware of, but she had little in the way of specific knowledge of them. Damn it! There were dozens of books back in Holgasts library that would have been perfect for telling her about what they were facing but she couldn’t think back to anything specific. If she had known what they would have been facing she could have prepared properly, as things were Delde reluctantly looked towards Adriana to see if she could shed some light on their opponents.
The clerics brow was furrowed in concentration, clearly already doing what Delde was about to ask of her. The lack of confidence in her manner led the half elf to begin to assume the worst.
‘I believe I read about something similar to this type of monster in one of the treatises on how Sarenrae’s clergy protect others against the undead. It was called a “bloody bones” and alongside the typical foul nature of normal skeletal undead it also possessed the power to slowly regenerate from harm. The only way to grant it final rest was to strike down the monster with divine power. Anything less and the creature would inevitably reassemble itself and continue to attack’.
‘So, you can kill them with your magic. Right?’
‘I believe I can, however, I expended a great deal of my reserves in our battle against the Shadow. I think that I may only have the power to perform another channelling once more this day. I do have some spells that I could use, but I don’t think any of them would be suitable to permanently destroy these undead’.
‘But if you did perform another channelling of holy power, it would be over a wide area of effect, correct? You could harm all of them at once?’.
Delde had a plan growing in her mind. Igmar was the most tactically experienced out of all of them, but she had been paying attention to how their fights had turned out so far and prided herself on being a good student. And she had found that the threat of death was an excellent motivator for self-improvement.
‘I believe it would affect them all if we could insure they all clustered together in the same spot close to me. But these “bloody bones”, if they’re anything like the undead that I read about… then they will be much stronger than the skeletons we fought before. I don’t know if I could kill them outright with a single invocation to the Dawnflower. And if any of them survived we would have no way of defeating them’.
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‘Aw right then, here’s ma plan. Me, Adriana an Dal rush doon an gang up on one o them. We beat it doon as best we can an move on tae the next. Meanwhile, Baye an Delde concentrate fire on whitever ones we’re no attackin’. Once their all as close tae death as we can get them, Adriana calls tae her goddess an finishes them off. Agreed?’.
Delde had been conceiving of a similar plan herself and was a little annoyed that Igmar had pre-empted her, but to be fair it was a task that have very much been hoisted on him by the rest of the group early on. She had thought that all of them attacking at the same target at once might be more effective, but it was probably better to minimise the chances of friendly fire.
She frowned and leaned more heavily on her staff so as to minimise the pressure on her injured leg. Delde wanted this fight to be over with as soon as posable so that she could have Adriana see to her wound quickly. She didn’t thing that it had any chance of proving fatal, but the throbbing pain was unending and made it difficult for her to concentrate. It popped into her head that if she was close enough then the magics Adriana called forth would heal her just as much as they harmed the undead, but she decided against getting too close. She didn’t want to risk greater harm just to get rid of a minor one.
‘Let’s do it. They’re getting closer’.
Baye had already notched a blunted arrow and was taking aim at the furthest Bloody Bones.
‘Remember their skeletons so try to use blunted weapons to do the most damage!’.
Delde called out to remind everyone as she gathered herself and begun to cast a minor cantrip. She may have expended all her most powerful spells for the day, but she was in no way defenceless. Igmar had drawn his wooden club and was pointing out to the first Bloody Bones that had started walking towards them.
‘We’ll focus on that one first! You two attack whitever yie can get a good shot o!’.
With that Igmar went charging off towards his designated target, Dal and Adriana in tow. The Bloody Bones for their part had continued to walk towards them in an almost relaxed pace as they had been franticly talking among themselves. It occurred to Delde that it may have been a poor idea to be discussing tactics right in front of their opponents, but if the undead before them had been paying any attention to what they were saying they didn’t let it be known. She couldn’t tell if they were intelligent or not, but they gave off a distinct impression of violent maliciousness just from their presence.
Whilst Igmar and the rest were charging towards their foe Baye sent an arrow soaring through the chamber which struck on of the Bloody Bones squarely on the chest with a CRACK that echoed throughout the room. It carried on moving forward as if it hadn’t been injured at all though. That worried Delde, but in the pale light shed from the enchanted light of Adrianas cantrip the half elf could just make out the faint signs of fracturing cracks on its ribcage. The undead may not have reacted to getting injured, but it didn’t mean that their attacks weren’t having an effect on them. Following the ranger’s que Delde pushed the pain in her leg to the side for the moment and cast her acid splash cantrip at the same Bloody Bones that she had attacked. The glob of green acid flew through the air and struck the undead on its left leg, hissing and creating a small gout of steam as it did so. She had been aiming for its chest, but a hit was a hit, and she had made a point to use a spell that inflicted a form of damage that the skeleton was not resistant towards. She had no intention of repeating earlier mistakes from her first fight with skeletons.
Out of the three melee specialists rushing into battle it was the lightly armoured rogue who reached the designated Bloody Bones before the other two. He had already drawn his magic dagger in lew of having any blunt weapons and used the momentum from his charge to plunge it deep into the skeleton’s pelvis. Either the daggers enchantment or the charge behind it was so powerful that it actually tore through the bone leaving a visible chunk missing from it. Before the creature could even react to what had happened Igmar arrived next slamming his club on the collar bone of the undead, breaking bones with a nasty SNAP. The fighter then grabbed one of the creatures’ arms and yanked it downwards throwing it off balance and straight into Adriana’s path. With her two hands gripping tightly onto the hilt of her scimitar the cleric swung her blade down upon the skull of the monster before her, splitting it clean through at which point the rest of the skeletons form collapsed into a pile of broken, bloodstained bones.
‘One doon, three tae go!’
Igmar barrelled toward the Bloody Bones that was coming up from behind the one they had just defeated and smashed into its fanged skull with his club. He then grabbed the lower part of its ribcage and yanked it down, throwing the creature off balance even more. Dal took advantage of the opening to plunge his dagger deep into the already fractured skull of the skeleton and Adriana swung her scimitar down upon the spine of the creature. It crumpled into pieces of gore-stained bones just as quick as the previous one had.
‘Two for two! Hurry up sis or we’ll end up beating you!’.
‘Not a competition Dal!’.
Baye responded as she fired off another blunt headed arrows towards the Bloody Bones she had already hit. With a solid CRACK! It struck the undead monster’s skull with such force that it broke through and became lodged inside of it. Th injury was apparently too much for it as the necromantic magics holding the skeleton began to fail and it began to collapse into a third pile of broken bloody bones.
A smile began to creep onto Delde face as she bore witness to the scene before her. Her pleasure didn’t come from watching the violent carnage unfold, at least she didn’t perceive it as such. Rather Delde enjoyed seeing just how quickly they had grown in effectiveness in only a short period of time. She didn’t feel like some child being sent out on a pointless test to prove herself, no, in the few days since setting out they had all become battle hardened veterans. Not perhaps to the point where she would consider any of them a match to an experienced adventurer, but they knew how to work together efficiently and how to best make use of their own skills and abilities. Pride welled in her chest as she doubted that there were many back in Kassen who would have been able to overcome such odds as these, and none of whom were their own age.
Focusing on the last remaining target Delde, prepared to launch another acid smash cantrip to weaken it before the others got too close for her to be able to comfortably hit it without worrying about accidentally harming any of her companions. But out of the corner of her eye she spotted some movement coming from the remains of the first Bloody Bones that they had destroyed. As if a switch had been flipped, they were all vibrating at once and she could see some bones slowly shifting about to reconnect themselves.
On the one hand it proved that Adriana’s assessment on the Bloody Bones was accurate, but Delde still couldn’t take much comfort in knowing that they were facing an enemy that would not stay dead for long. She swiftly switched targets seeing this and lobbed her acid splash towards the trembling bones. They struck with a hiss and splashed over the remains of the other Bloody Bones that the melee fighters had taken down as well.
‘The Bloody Bones are starting to reassemble! We need to group them up and keep them injured so Adriana can finish them off!’.
The bones that she had struck had stopped reassembling themselves but still vibrated slightly, and the other remains were now beginning to shake as well. The one that Baye and Delde had destroyed was still just a pile of bones for the moment, but Delde suspected they wouldn’t stay that way for long.
‘Delde! Baye! Try an hammer doon on the bones when they start tae move again! We’ll finish oof this one! Then me an Dal’ll help try an keep em doon while Adriana uses her magic!’.
The dwarf rushed to the sole standing Bloody Bones and took a wild swing at its skull, presumably trying to finish off the creature as quick as he could. Unfortunately for them this one had either learnt from watching them attack its fellow undead or simply got luck, because as Igmar began his swing the Bloody Bones leapt forward and dug both of its clawed hands into his chest. The fighter’s armour was sturdy and Delde couldn’t make out exactly what had taken place, but from the dwarf’s cry of pain at least a couple of the clawed appendages seemed to reach his flesh.
The rogue and cleric both came up on the Bloody Bones from either side of it, flanking the undead and attacking while its attentions were on Igmar. Dal slashed his enchanted dagger down the blood red skeletons spine as Adriana swung her blade down on the creature’s shoulder blades, the large triangular room echoing with the sounds of breaking and splintering bone. As badly as they had injured the creature though it remained firmly gripped onto Igmar.
The Bloody Bones that Delde and Baye had managed to defeat was now beginning to reassemble itself as well, with the creature already beginning to lift itself off the ground. The wizard threw another acid splash cantrip at the monster and once again it landed true. The creatures right arm fell to the ground causing it to lose its balance and fall. But the process of reconstruction was still happening even if it was slowed. Delde knew that if things continued at this rate they would inevitably be overwhelmed. She did not feel fear at her circumstances though. She knew that she was fighting alongside her companions, they had face worse when fighting the Wood Golem and the Shadow. These Bloody Bones, while dangerous were nothing compared to what they were capable of.
CRASH!
A blunt headed arrow smashed through the fanged skull of the remaining Bloody Bones grappling with Igmar and shattered the left side of it. Finally, the creature collapsed into a pile of broken, blood-stained bones with a clatter and released the dwarf from its death grip. The other Bloody Bones were all in some form of reassembly though; their battle was not yet over. The dwarf kicked the remains of the creature that had been attempting to kill him only seconds ago in what Delde initially took to be a surprisingly childish act for him. It then occurred to her that it was important to ensure that all the remains were near each other when Adriana unleashed her final burst of healing magics. She didn’t know enough about divine magic and the intricacies on how it functioned to know if the power of the magic was affected by distance, but it would still be a good idea to ensure that all the Bloody Bones were in the area of effect of her magic.
‘Aw right, everyone but Adriana try an stop these buggers frae getting’ back up! We’ll try an keep em close together so yie can get em aw in the one go!’.
Igmar and Dal took to hacking and smashing away at the ever-mending Bloody Bones while trying to gradually push them closer towards each other. Baye and Delde also carried on their attacks on the other two remains to prevent them from fully reassembling. It was a difficult task to do on her part, avoiding harming anyone but the undead they were attacking. Especially as her most effective cantrip was one that would hurt anyone that got too close to it. As they all began to gather their foes into one spot in the centre of the room, she was forced to turn to her ray of frost cantrip. It was more precise and didn’t affect anything other than what she targeted, but it had little effect on the Bloody Bones either. She needed Adriana to finish them off quickly.
The cleric had sheathed her scimitar now and held the sacred ankh of her goddess above her head, standing in the middle of four piles of gore encrusted bones that the rest of her companions were in the process of smashing. Delde thought to herself that anyone looking in on the scene without context would find what was happening surreal in the extreme. But despite how things may have looked everything was going according to their plan.
‘Sarenrae! Goddess of Redemption and Retribution, in this place far from the warm light of the sun please hear my plea! Grant me the power to end the existence of these foul creatures and grant rest to whom they once were! For yours is the power of the sun! Yours is the fire that both warms and burns! Yours is the light that banishes the shadow! And I! Am! Your! Cleric!’.
With her final declaration the familiar pulse of warmth erupted forth from Adriana and at once all the Bloody Bones that were once shifting and contorting to reassemble themselves began to hiss, crack and spewed a white smoke. By the time the smoke had passed the bones were bleached white, all trace of blood gone from them as if it was never there. The ever-regenerating undead were nothing more than piles of broken, brittle bones now, much to everyone’s relief.
Whilst Adriana had been giving her speech to her goddess Delde had crept forwards a few feet to ensure that she was within range of her healing magic. She didn’t feel proud about it but in her mind, it would be wasteful to just let the opportunity for herself to be healed just evaporate away before her. Besides, this way they would save time as Adriana wouldn’t have to waste any time dressing her wound. And as Delde tentatively put weight back on her previously injured leg she had to admit that it felt good to not have to worry about being hurt anymore.
She looked round at the rest of her companions. They were tired, breathing hard, a thin sheen of sweat covering all of them from their exertions, but they were all grinning. Delde was the same, she had never felt a sensation like this before in her life. The feeling of fighting for one’s own life, for the lives of those around her, and coming up victorious; there was an undeniable exhilaration that accompanied such a feat. Before entering the crypt, she had never understood why some wizards and other learned people would ever become adventurers when they could just as easily find comfortable positions in civilisation. But as she stood in the undead infested crypt, blood pumping after a successful battle, she had to confess she saw the appeal.
Clap!
‘Welp! Good job team! And judging from what I can make out over there it looks like we’ve finally found the way to the lower level as well. Here’s hoping that its smaller than this one!’.
Dal seemed especially enthusiastic over their victory over the Bloody Bones as he practically bounced on his feet. Adriana meanwhile was saying quiet prayers over the remains of the undead, or rather the human remains that were no longer undead creatures. Igmar and Baye were already walking towards the other end of the room, presumable to examine the passage down that Dal had been talking about. Delde herself couldn’t see it through the darkness that engulfed the room despite their light source, but as Dal was both closer to it and had dark vision, she had no reason to doubt him.
The group took a moment to collect themselves and Adriana looked over them all for injuries. Fortunately for Delde her leg was entirely healed thanks to being close enough to the burst of positive energy that the cleric had created. However, Igmar, even with being much closer to Adriana, still had some wounds on his chest from where the Bloody Bones was able to slip its claws past or break through his armour. They were not life threatening but given how they were still noticeable even after being healed with magic Delde could only imagine at how serois they must have been when they were first inflicted. She felt slightly ashamed that she had been struggling so much with a comparatively minor injury in comparison.
Adriana bandaged up Igmars chest to the best of her abilities while Dal poked around at the remains of the fallen undead. After a moment he rushed over to Delde with something in his hands.
‘Hey Delde!’ He hissed in a whisper to her. ‘Look at this! What do you make of it? I mean it looks like solid silver to me, I know, even if it is a bit tarnished. I reckon it’d go for a few gold when we get back to town, but do you know anything about it? I mean is it magical or special in some way?’.
The half elf knew that Dal was trying to keep things as quiet as he could while Adriana was tending to Igmars wounds, she doubted the moralistic cleric would take a warm view of taking items from the dead, even in their present circumstances. She didn’t want to get in the middle of some debate on ethics, but she was curious over what it was that the gnome rogue had found. She took the item he offered for her examination into her hands and studied it.
It was an amulet on a slim chain, rather plain and had rather simplistic designs of trees on one side, with some farm animals on the other. Dal was correct in his initial assessment, it appeared to be solid silver, and only somewhat tarnished. Jewellery had never interested Delde before and she had never read any books on the subject, but she was a voracious reader of history books. Those long days pouring over such books in Holgasts library paid off for her as she quickly assessed that the specific design of the amulet was local, but in a style that was most prominent around over a hundred and fifty years ago. Around the time Kassen was first founded then attacked.
‘It looks to me that this amulet dates from the founding of Kassen. Early farmers and homesteaders wore them for good fortune in their endeavours. If you could find a collector you could probably get a good price for it, although I don’t know that much about that sort of thing. You know more about that than me I suspect’.
The gnome had a wide smile on his face as he rubbed his hands together before taking the amulet back from Delde.
‘Thanks for that! I know exactly who I can sell this off to, there’s this merchant that goes through Kassen fairly regularly on the barges. Goes by Smenk, big guy, likes to show off his money, decent tipper. He really likes old stuff like this from what I remember, has a collection of it, makes him look distinguished he says. I can get twenty gold coins off him easy for this!’.
‘Twenty gold coins for what pray tell?’.
Adriana had appeared from behind Dal whilst Delde and him had been engrossed in the amulet. The gnome gave a deflated sigh and the half elf felt apprehensive as she feared an argument was about to break out just as they were getting ready to head deeper into danger.
‘Ugh, I found this amulet off of one of the murderous undead that was going to kill us before we killed it first. I was just asking Delde if there was anything special about it like magic or something. It’s worth a decent amount of money and I have a good idea who I could sell it to, I’ll give everyone a cut of the profits so its fine right?’.
‘No! It is not fine! You cannot steal from the dead and defile their rest more than it has already been! How would you feel if someone you cared about had their grave robbed and their precious belongings that they were buried with were ripped from them!? We are here to rescue whoever has managed to survive, not to loot the corpses of the dead!’.
‘Hey! These corpses were just attacking us a few minutes ago, as far as I’m concerned anything that they have on them is ours by right’.
‘That is beside the point! For all we know the remains here might have once been people from Kassen! The forces that reanimate the dead are indiscriminate in their wickedness and can easily create an undead monster from the body of a saint just as easily as that of a sinner. You should leave the amulet with the remains of the person you took it from’.
Dal looked at the amulet in his hand and seemed to be seriously considering following Adriana’s demand. Delde, Igmar and Baye were all standing nearby trying to overhear what was going on whilst staying out of the growing argument. Just as it looked like Dal was going to drop his treasure he looked up at the human cleric with a curious glint in his eye.
‘Now wait a minute, you’re saying that this might be from one of the townspeople we’re looking for, but I reckon that it isn’t. Delde says that it’s something that was popular here over a hundred years ago’.
The gnome and human both looked to Delde for confirmation which she gave with a nod. She didn’t want to get in the middle of this or pick a side, but not saying anything when questioned would be picking sides by default. Besides, she wasn’t lying or anything, as far as she could tell it was as old as she said it was. She wondered what Dal was angling towards though.
‘See! Now, maybe this was someone’s heirloom that they kept in the family for all those years, but if it is, why would they wear it to a place they know they’re going to be doing manual labour for a few days? And if anyone from town did own this then I’m certain that we’d have heard about it, nobody would’ve kept quiet about owning something like this, and talk travels quick in Kassen’.
Dals bravado grew as he expounded his case for keeping the amulet while Adriana looked less certain in the face of his argument. Both Igmar and Baye seemed to agree with what he was saying, based off their facial expressions, Delde figured that she was probably the one person in town who wouldn’t have known about the amulet even if it was common knowledge, but she could see the logic behind Dals argument so didn’t speak out.
‘And the Bloody Bones couldn’t have been a person who fought on Kassen’s side of the old battle because besides Kassen himself, all the people entombed here were bandits. If anything, this was probably stolen from one of the old Kassen townsfolk back in the day and they just never saw it when they were burying the thief. So really – ‘. He was twirling the amulet around his finger on its chain. ‘We’ve got more of a right to it than this guy has’.
The argument was sound to Delde and judging from Adriana’s conflicted expression she seemed to find it compelling as well.
‘If you are certain about it being as old as you claim and are willing to hold off on selling it when we get back until such a time that we determine that it is not the property of one of the townsfolk, then I am willing to let you hold onto it for now’.
Adriana seemed willing to walk back from her hard-line stance, but Delde noticed that she still placed herself in a position of authority as she did so. She said that she would let him hold on to it as if she was in charge of their group; Delde wasn’t sure if this was an affectation, she had developed through being the daughter of the mayor or if was a more significant part of her personality. In either case, she hoped that this wouldn’t lead to further troubles later down the line, they were preparing to descend deeper into danger, interparty conflicts were the last thing they needed now.
With the argument abated the group headed towards the passageway deeper underground, all of them examining it in detail, hunting for any clue that might reveal a trap or hidden threat. The passageway was the size of a single doorway, wide enough for them to get down it easily enough, but they would need to travel in single file. It was a rather steep descent from what Delde could see, and with no handrails she found herself hoping that nobody slipped and fell, cascading into everyone falling to the bottom. Delde noticed that the walls on the passage down were barren of any mural or other forms of decoration. As she staired at the bare walls it occurred to her that there were no light sconces or any other place for a source of light to be fitted in either the passage or any other part of the crypt. Did this mean that the original creators of it possessed dark vision like Igmar and Dal? Or were they an advanced magical society that made ubiquitous use of spells such as the light cantrip, to the point where there didn’t need to be a physical location for the light source to be?
It was irrelevant for the time being, but Delde filed those thoughts away for a later, safer time. She hadn’t noticed anything of concern from the stairway down and neither had anyone else. They decided on a single file formation of Dal, Igmar, herself, Baye and Adriana protecting the rear. This formation also conveniently enough made it that Dal and Adriana were as far apart from each other as posable. Nobody commented on that fact.