Sunna has extinguished and revived Holly.

Holly recovers 4 HP and is now conscious, but disoriented.

By my count Sunna has used her last CLW potion.

This fight took a lot out of the party.  Glumr is the only one among you who hasn't been shocked or burned within one magic healing of death.  You finally have a time to take a deep breath, rest, and regroup.

The cavern you are in is quite large.  It's natural for the most part, but the floor has been flattened out with hard packed dirt and there are six stone pillars reinforcing the ceiling.  All along the perimeter of the cavern ropes hang chaotically from iron rings.  All manner of object dangle from the haphazard web of rope including a large painting hanging from the ceiling.  Items and furniture are scattered around the sides of the room in stacks and piles.  There is another exit directly across from where you entered the cavern.

Sunna takes a closer look at the painting hanging from the ceiling.
"I don't know how you feel, but I'd prefer a rest soon." For all she knows there are still undead walking around, even though the two most dangerous inhabitants of the tower have left.
"But maybe we could take a short look at where the exit is leading." Sunna looks at Glumr with this words, since he's the only one who doesn't look like he's in bad need of a rest right now.

You can only get so close while still standing on the ground.  However, there's a lot of furniture around.  You could probably find something to move and climb on for a better look.  For now I'll assume Sunna is just standing on the dirt floor.  In fact she has to move around some while viewing it because a light wind causes the painting to turn slowly one way before the rope forces it back slowly the other way.

The painting is of two women and a boy on horses.  It is quite large, easily the height of a man, allowing you to make out the details at a distance.  The women have similar features and look familiar.  It's possible that one or both of them were in the ghostly vision of the dinner party you saw earlier.  While they are both lovely and bear some resemblance to her, neither woman has the sheer radiance of Kelney Sowell.  Both women are riding uncommon white horses.  The boy is years younger than the women, possibly a son to one of them.  His horse is grey and thin.  It's very hard to tell without closer examination, but it looks different from the rest of the painting as if done by a different artist.  The landscape is expansive grasslands common to Triplefang lands.  It's daytime, but darkness is beginning to rise from the horizon.  Wait... it doesn't work that way.  You find this disturbing now that you've noticed the unnatural sky.
The painting is square, which also assaults your artistic sensibilities.  A landscape like this should be rectangular, not square.  Additionally, some vandal has punched a hole in the corner of the canvas to thread a rope through.  That aside, the painting is in unbelievably good condition if it's anywhere near as old as you suspect.

Sunna visually follows the rope suspending the painting through a tangled mess to a point where she could cut to bring down the painting.  It would be a two man job (one to cut and feed slack to the rope and one to guide the framed painting gently to rest) if you wanted to do it without damaging the artwork.

"On the other hand", Sunna continues, "we could first get this painting down carefully. Something about it strikes me as odd and I'd like to take a closer look at it." Be thorough in your search Reynard had said. Best not to overlook something. "But let me see if there's magic on this one, first." Sunna takes a look around and decides on a reasonably sturdy looking table to drag over and place under the painting for a better view.

Holly listens, but doesn't pay much attention to her cousins as she sits recovering from the flames that nearly claimed her life. For now she is content to sit and wait for the others to say it is time to move on. It takes Holly a while to recover her thoughts, and then slips her hand into her backpack. Holly takes out one of her potions, knowing that she is of no use to anyone without spells, and even less use being so close to death. Drinking the potion, Holly lets to conforting warmth flow through her before she again relaxes.

[Holly uses one of her two CLW potions.]

Holly recovers another 8 HP.

The furniture looks to be very finely crafted and very old.  Some of it is still in good condition and some of it is rotted away to uselessness.  Some of the furniture has been intentionally defaced.  For example there is a cabinet with the doors torn off and the words "hundred sons for one" scratched in the wood in several places, maybe by small claws.  There are a lot of items strewn about here.  Some of it looks quite valuable, but it's so disorganized.  Sunna finds a sturdy, well preserved, lacquered wood table.  She and Farden move it into the center of the cavern and Sunna climbs on to scrutinize the painting.

Sure enough there's something wrong with the boy's horse.  While looking to see if the brush strokes match the rest of the painting she's puzzled to find there aren't any brush strokes at all.  That part of the painting is smooth and a little warped.  The boy is facing away and to the side, so you cannot make out his features.  The horse is emaciated.  You can see its bones.

Sunna plays a little song of magical inquiry.

Glumr looks at the painting with his companions.  It indeed strikes him as odd as it's nothing he's ever really seen before, not that he's seen a lot of art work.

"I dont like it.  Something is wrong with it." he says to nobody as much as Sunna.

"I'll scout the way out in a bit, I want to see what happens here." Glumr tells them as Sunna examines the painting.

Glumr looks through the room, looking for anything of value, while the others eyeball the painting.


Glumr searches
Glumr rolled 17 using 1d20+8. Search.

The original purpose for making this journey and braving the horrors of this haunted tower was to find treasure.  There's bound to be something in all this clutter.  Glumr mentally sections the cavern off into quarters and starts his search of it in the quarter with a big pile of silver coins.  He finds 4 metal buckets, dumping out nails, sand, and a large disgusting collection dried dead bugs, to fill them with silver coins.  There are thousands of them, too many to count now.  There coins are old and don't look familiar, but they're silver and about the right size, so you can spend them.  There are also some gold coins and some other, possibly worthless coins mixed in.  You can sift through them later.

There's a large chest of drawers with over 20 drawers in it.  Each drawer is full of sorted bones all the same type, with different bones in different drawers.  Glumr holds a few up to his own body.  Are these all human bones?  Nothing of value here except an engraved brass ring found in the finger bone drawer.

Glumr scrounges up 6 books.  He knows these can be valuable and/or useful, but its best to leave closer examination of them to someone else.

There is a collection of very deeply tarnished silver bowls, spoons, saucers, cups, goblets, and a large carafe.  Glumr also finds nine intact corked and waxed bottles larger than quart bottles with no labels .  Others have been cracked and the liquid inside has run out or smashed completely.  Hundreds of pointy broken glass shards have been glued to a statue of a young naked woman and the whole thing has been coated with a thick crimson stain.

He finds two rectangular locked wooden boxes that might be map cases or boxes for dueling weapons.  One of the boxes' hinges are so badly rusted and deteriorated that Glumr is able to pop the box open from the back side.  It contains 2 finely crafted thin, ornate wooden shafts about 18 inches long.  It's likely the other box holds something similar, but it's in better shape and won't open so easily.

Rounding out the list of possibily valuable goodies in this quarter are more candles here than you could ever want, 4 full sets of neck, wrist, elbow, waist, and ankle manacles with the keys, and a brass gong.

Three quarters of the cavern's junk is still untouched.

Possibly valuable
-----------------
4 buckets full of silver coins
engraved brass ring
6 books
tarnished silver cups, bowls, etc
9 sealed bottles
2 wooden lock boxes
limitless candles
4 sets of manacles and keys
brass gong

"I don't like it, either", Sunna says and examines the boy on the strange horse more closely.

"I found a bunch of odds and ends... and silvers."  Glumr says with a grin.

"There are some odds that I dont know about.  Some books too.  I'm not learned to read, so I didnt look in them, but I heard books can have magic words in them.

Can one of you ladies tell if there are magics on these items?  Considering this family was full of magic users, I would think they would have lots of magic items.

Likewise I have to believe this random, almost unwanted, trove of coins and odds are not the treasure rumored to be on this island.""

Glumr continues rummaging through the collection of oddities and mundane items in search of valuables.  At first the search goes poorly.  He finds tattered, near useless sacks of dust, unknown powder, scraps of metal, and gravel.  He finds a collection of 13 small stone fetishes that might be of some value, and a lot of moth-eaten clothing.  There's clothing for children and adults of both genders.  Some of it looks to have been quite regal, but time and neglect to reduced them to rags, with the exception of 3 remarkably preserved items.

One is a very flirty, ruffly purple minidress.  This style of dress strikes you as something Coal might wear.  Purple is a very rare fabric dye and this color is more vibrant than any purple garment you've seen.  It's still soft and in perfect condition.  There is a second dress.  It's a long, slinky, full length blue dress.  The blue dress is made of a clingy, shimmering fabrick.  It's backless and wide open on the sides.  It's also seemingly untouched by time.  The third garment is a thick fur trimmed black, red, and silver leather coat.  It is wide in the chest and shoulders, almost certainly to fit an adult male.  The interior is lined with a very thin, cool grey material you've never seen before.  The coat looks like it has never been worn.

Glumr opens a battered wardrobe expecting to find more clothes, but instead  he is greeted by a *POMF* and a cloud of greyish green spores.  The spores instantly fill his eyes, nose, and throat.  He staggers back, blinded and coughing, waving his hands to try to clear the cloud.  It's no use, so he goes into a full retreat, red faced and choking.

This interrupts his search before he finished the second quarter of the cavern.

Glumr, please make two DC16 FORT saves.

Possibly valuable
-----------------
13 small stone fetishes
2 dresses
leather coat

Sunna turns around to Glumr. "I'm sorry, but I need some rest before I can use magic again. It was a pretty exhausting day." Not only that, with almost all members of the group having been rescued from near death. Sunna hops from the table, just as the greyish green cloud explodes in Glumrs face.
"Glumr! Are you alright?" Sunna hurries over to him but avoids to come near the cloud.

"We will look at the books, but I would need some rest before moving on. My spells are almost down to providing light only." Holly says from her seated position. She takes a moment to clean and then sharpen her new sickle, glad it had worked well in their time in the tower and wondering more about its connection to the spirit world.

"COUGH!!! GASP!!!!  BLARG!!!!"  Glumr stumbles back with a mouth full of spores


Glumr rolled 17 using 1d20+4. Spores!!!!!!
Glumr rolled 8 using 1d20+4. Spores!!!!

Glumr kneels down and tries to get a few breaths of clean air.  The room dips and sways.  He feels very queasy, but manages to keep his lunch down.  Sunna gives him some water to rinse out his eyes.  After a couple of minutes of coughing and spitting out spores, Glumr feels like he can return to searching the cavern.  His eyes are bloodshot but he can see normally.  His throat is sore and his lungs burn a little.

Assuming there are no other mishaps it'll probably take Glumr about 40 minutes to search through the rest of the stuff.  Other than resting, does anyone want to do anything during this time?

Glumr gathers himself.  He does not feel good, but there's work to be done.  More valuables must be found.

Skipping over the disgusting wardrobe full of spores he continues searching the 2nd quarter of the cavern.  He finds several solid, well made melee weapons - a flail, a morningstar, and two maces.  All four weapons were made by the same smith as is evidenced by the craftsman's mark on the hilts.  He also finds a two foot tall silvered mirror which is sure to be valuable.

Then... Jackpot!  Dumped under rotten wool blankets and a torn velvet artwork there's a statue knocked over and resting face down.  The statue is wearing some sort of shoulder pads with bejeweled chains hanging from them.  There are incredible gems of all sorts inlayed into the chains, dozens of them!  Them gems alone have to be worth a fortune.  Farden helps him lift the statue enough to get the shoulder pads off.  Not too far away he also finds a matching jeweled circlet.  Are these the fabled Sowell jewels?  Glumr was expecting something more feminine.  Strangely, he hasn't found any of Kelney's jewelry yet, unless the circlet is hers.

Possibly valuable
-----------------
2 maces
flail
morningstar
mirror
jeweled chain shoulder pads
jeweled circlet

The next quarter of the cavern isn't nearly as bountiful.  It's a vast sea of mundane items, detritus, and decayed or broken items.  Glumr finds only a plain looking, but remarkably well preserved leather belt with a handsome buckle, and a set of glass chimes that somehow avoided being shattered like so many bottles, glasses, flasks, and tubes have been.

Possibly valuable
-----------------
belt
glass chimes

Holly enjoys the rest as Glumr does the searching, although she becomes concerned by his possible ingestion of spores. She determines to check the spores out after a decent rest, and a chance to renew her spells. Being underground doesn't worry her as much as it had in the land of the dwarves, and she knows they will hopefully be off the island soon. The magic item they had recovered should at least allow them off the island without being molested by any other undead, assuming someone was willing to take a chance on using it.

Glad that Glumr isn't seriously injured by the spores Sunna would like to get the painting down - with Fardens help most likely - and then sit down near Holly to get some rest herself. She'd like to help Glumr with the search, but it feels right to just sit down and rest the legs a little.

The last quarter of the cavern smells of sulfur and litharge.  There is powder all over the ground and on nearly every surface.  It's too bad you couldn't recover some of the wasted sulfur or find some quicksilver.  They are very valuable to alchemists and enchanters.  Litharge, on the other hand is worthless to the best of your knowledge. Never-the-less Sunna and Glumr do find a few intact containers.  9 of them have green symbols etched into the glass.  There are 5 bulb shaped flasks sealed with glass stoppers etched with one symbol and 4 cylindrical vials with the other symbol.  There are also two unmarked classically potion style corked flasks.

Sunna finds two intricate clockwork horses about 8 inches tall that appear to have been part of a now lost larger set.  There are also some armless crude wooden figurines and metal puzzle blocks that strike her as too mundane to be worth taking, but a ceramic nesting doll might be unique enough to sell.

The last two items Glumr scrounges up are a light and well decorated buckler, and a deeply tarnished, but well made 6 valved horn.


Possibly valuable
-----------------
5 flasks
4 vials
2 potions
clockwork horses
nesting dolls
buckler
horn
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:32, Wed 28 Jan 2015.

Summary of loot:

large painting of riders *
4 buckets full of silver coins **
engraved brass ring
6 books
tarnished silver cups, bowls, etc  **
9 sealed bottles
2 wooden lock boxes
limitless candles
4 sets of manacles and keys
brass gong
13 small stone fetishes
2 dresses
leather coat
2 maces
flail
morningstar
mirror
jeweled chain shoulder pads **
jeweled circlet **
belt
glass chimes
5 flasks
4 vials
2 potions **
clockwork horses
nesting dolls
buckler
horn

* Magical
** These items are treasure for sure!

After you finish searching the cavern you rest for about half hour more before you turn your attention towards moving on, what you are going to take now, what you are going to come back for, and what you are going to leave behind completely.

Don't know if we're able to carry everything right away, but I vote for taking at least everything marked as treasure for sure plus the painting and the books... and the dresses! :) also I'm interested in the content of the bottles, wooden boxes, vials and flasks.

OK.  Who is taking what?  The painting will take two hands to carry.  All 6 books could be carried in two hands.   A bucket of silver coins will take one hand.  The silver bowls, potions, circlet, jeweled chain shoulder pads, and dresses can be loaded into sacks (if anyone brought any) and backpacks.

Sunna, what would you like to do to investigate the liquids?  The contents of one of the boxes is easy enough to examine.  It looks to contain 2 wands.  Detect magic would be able to tell for sure, but if they aren't magical, what use are small ornate wooden shafts in a fancy box?  For that matter you could just try casting spells with them to find out.  The other box is locked.

After you guys scoop this stuff up are you handing off to investigate the other exit and leaving the rest of the loot?

Holly calls everyone together and says, "I am out of spells, so I'd like to suggest we take this as a base camp and rest up for enough time for me and Sunna to recover our spells. We don't know if we will run into anything else dangerous if we go off searching for another route out of here, and being weighed down with treasure if that happens will just add to the damage we take. We nearly lost Farden and myself in that last fight, and I'd rather have magic on my side. Perhaps Glumr can scout out our route without bringing in trouble."