In later days over a glass of wine beside a comfortable fire, Malivoire would often be heard to say, "After all, who was I to disagree with the rest?"

In the moment of the apparition's screaming immolation, consideration for what the rest were doing was the furthest thing from his mind.  Though he managed to withstand the spectral terror for a few moments, his will lasted no longer than that.  With his insides turned to jelly Malivoire spun and raced from the room, easily outpacing his more heavily armoured companions, all the while the stone tablet from the crypt clutched in his hands.

OOC:
13:23, Today: Malivoire rolled 13 using 1d20-1.  Save vs Spells (TN14).  Missed by 1!
13:24, Today: Malivoire rolled 52 using 1d100.  Failed save.

06:57, Today: Ishmael rolled 14 using 1d20-1.  save vs spells vs 10.

"Fah!" The dwarf exclaimed in distress as the terror began to overtake the group.  Perhaps it was because he wasn't so foolish as to rush into the room, or perhaps just the stalwart nature of dwarves.

It was different than the fleeing from the crypt lord.  And expecting it futile, he made no move to stop them,  The dwarf paused, collecting himself waiting for all to either flee or stay as the others fled into the darkness.   His torchlight fluttered in his hand, making the party's shadows dance along ahead of them.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:17, Wed 26 Oct 2022.

Ynes takes in a sharp breath as the apparition becomes visible and undergoes its hideous transformation. She grips her axe firmly, braced for any attack from the restless spirit.

Her attention riveted on the translucent figure, she does not initially realize that several of her companions have fled.

14:17, Today: Ynes rolled 17 using 1d20-1.  Save vs Spells.

Lampert’s eyes widen and his teeth audibly chatter when the deathly figure appears within the gloomy crypt. Perhaps recalling the last time he was faced with an undead terror and fled in fear, the lantern bearer remains in his place, his knuckles white as he holds the light source aloft.

As several of the adventurers flee, Lampert turns to watch them vanish into the shadows. He blinks in surprise, gripped by uncertainty about what course he should choose.

14:17, Today: Lampert rolled 19 using 1d20-1.  Save vs Spells.

21:35, Today: Dilemma rolled 18 using 1d20-1 ((19)).
Saving Throw versus Spells (14), remembering bless...!

 In the face of the off-putting sights and sounds, Dilemma stands strong!  Seeing Lampert standing and not fleeing, she ignites the flask of oil in her hand and readies a throw.  "CATCH, MOTHER[REDACTED]!"

 She attempts to throw the flask at the corpse-creature...

21:44, Today: Dilemma rolled 1 using 1d20 ((1)).
 Igniting oil flask, and hurling it at the corpse-thing!

Dilemma launches her vial at the ghostly figure. The container sails past its right side, smashing against the crypt’s western wall and bathing the stone in flame.

The spectral skeleton takes a pair of halting steps forward, them vanishes from sight, its eerie scream still lingering in the ears of the adventurers. Those that remained in the gloomy chamber wait for a few moments, but the unsettling presence does not return.

Moving over near the slab the skeleton rests upon, Ynes crouches down and retrieves Dax’s sword.

The adventurers who fled quickly reach the entrance chamber, Barnabus having been roughly led through the darkness by one of his companions. Moments after the rope and pulley come into view, the terror that gripped each of the explorers releases its hold on them, leaving them shaken and out of breath.

Searlait, a lantern in one hand, peers down into the room from above. She frowns. ”Ready to come up? Where…where are the others?”

"No, no," puffs Barnabus. "Smoke break. No smoking permitted beyond here. Carry on."

After the party's composure has been recovered (for those believed to have lost it) with totally convincing explanations having been offered for its temporary misplacement (again for those mistakenly believed to have misplaced it), the priest produces an explanation for the just witnessed spectral phenomenon.

"Sometimes horrible things die horribly at the hands of the righteous. Sometimes it's the righteous who are are horrible and do horrible things to the truly righteous. Such events leave a seemingly indelible imprint. We shall know more after Mal studies the tablet. For now, we should remove the skeleton and the tablet from that tomb. I do not think the remains belong there."

After that is done in one fashion or another, let's proceed down the main eastern artery, past room #4, stopping at the first door, etc. etc. While there are some other holes in our map, I want to push further east before filling them.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:57, Fri 28 Oct 2022.

The voice from above seems to shake the fear from Dax's mind. Looking up, he says, "No. Thanks Searlait. We have to return to the others...some sort of spirit appeared...terrifying."

The ranger gasps in air, as he calms himself.

"We need to go back," he says to the others. Reaching for his sword, he realises his scabbard is empty. "Damn it all to the hells!" Instead he draws a dagger and prepares to leads the runners back to the rest of the party.

Then he realises that they have no light source. "By the gods! Lampert steeled himself to stay put! And I ran like a scared deer! Searlait drop me a torch!"

Dax hands the torch to Barnabus, and starts back to the haunted tomb.

Slowly, yet surely Caine's mage training finally came to the fore and helped him reclaim his will, subsuming the unnatural fear that had consumed him.

Shaking his head he gathered along with the others, not trusting himself to speak just yet. He saw them move in the darkness, their shapes clearly visible to Caine with his infravision.

Caine had dropped his crossbow somewhere back there, likely in the chamber, and wanted to reclaim it before it was lost. "I shall join you, come let us reclaim our weapons together," he said to Dax as the ranger waited for a torch.

Searlait drops a lit torch down for Dax, the wavering flames casting long, unsteady shadows on the high walls.

The group of adventurers encounter no danger as they return to the crypt where the hellish vision was seen. As they walk, from somewhere southward the silence is broken by a pair of harsh vocalizations from a dry, hollow voice that does not sound as though it belongs to one of the living. The words sound similar to the ancient tongue spoken by the possessed man at The Foul Pheasant, their meaning unknown to the explorers, though the tone in which they are spoken suggests sternness, or anger. Quiet overtakes the dark corridors once again as the last echoes of the speech fade from hearing.

Unnatural cold retains its grip on the tomb, but those who remained near the chamber report that the apparition has not returned. The crypt appears to have received some fresh vandalism, the western wall having been blackened with soot. Ynes returns Dax’s blade to him with an understanding smile and Lampert, having located Caine’s crossbow, offers it to the adventurer respectfully.

---

Returning to the eastward traveling corridor, the adventurers pass the doorways where they faced the huecuva and the swarm of enormous rats. The passageway ahead is especially dark, seeming to greedily swallow much of the light from Lampert’s lantern as the party presses forward.

They travel only another fifty feet before the end of the hallway comes into view. Thirty feet ahead, the corridor halts at a stone door marked with runes. Immediately to the left of the door, on the northern wall, is another stone portal, this one etched with the image of a stronghold surrounded by dense forest. Both doors are closed.

A few feet ahead, broken pieces of stone and the fine powder of old mortar litter the floor. Ten feet away, on the left, the party can see a portion of the northern wall that has been destroyed, a shadowed chamber just visible beyond the opening. The scattered debris leaves the unshakable impression that something broke out of a crypt that had once been sealed.

Twenty feet ahead, on the southern wall, lies the entrance to another crypt which has been walled off with brick and mortar. The barrier of this tomb appears undisturbed.

Surveying all that is before him, ten feet ahead of him, ten feet further, and a final ten feet beyond that, the expedition's would-be cicerone motions for the stoutest among them to have a look in the newly opened tomb up on the left.

Responding to an unvoiced objection, he states, "No, no, we're not going haring after whatever escaped from its entombment. We'll get to know each other later." Off to see that Lord of the Night? Doesn't know that we released him days ago?

(1) Check out the exposed chamber. (2) Draw a conclusion about how long it would take to expose the next brick & mortared one. (3) Advance to look at the runes.

Lampert approaches the fallen section of wall alongside Dax, Caine, and Ynes. The illumination shows a twenty by twenty chamber that was once undoubtedly a crypt, but could now be best described as a broken ruin. Scattered about the floor are jagged fragments of what was once presumably a sarcophagus, now shattered like glass. The walls all show signs of impact, powerful blows that have powdered most of the frescoes that once adorned them. What little the adventurers can discern from the remaining sculptures seem to depict armored soldiers at war. Nothing of value can be found within.

Studying the bricked up entrance to the south, Barnabus estimates that if three of the party’s strongest members joined the effort, breaking down the barrier would require approximately ten minutes.

The inscription on the stone door at the end of the corridor is deeply chiseled and clear, the characters plainly those of the dwarven language. [Language unknown: ”Est la prte encughiouant acut-ioce in unen Manichprolat Mant u et Venee Wian'peca, usek man sichro aswaol hianenat wil choson eccant fies enc teelaren reaticineati.”]

Dax looks at the runes carved into the stone door, and shakes his head.

"No idea what this says. Anyone else able to read this?"

Caine shook his head, being unable to read the dwarven tongue. "It is dwarfish, as is the construction, but I am unable to read it," he replied quickly, somewhat on edge due to the recent events as well as the broken crypt; he gazed furtively this way and that as well as up, as if he half expected whatever had broken out of the crypt to jump down upon them.

"Breaking this down will make a lot of noise, likely attracting anything in the area. Perhaps we should investigate there first, then come back here and break this down," he said softly, inclining his head towards the shadowy chamber visible beyond the shattered northern wall.

"Dwarfish? Ishmael can you decipher this?"

"Caine has it right. There's many more doors in this place to open before we have to break down brick walls."

 As the others deliberate, Dilemma peers from where she stands, doing her best to penetrate the darkness with her cat-enhanced vision alone.

"I also do not speak the dwarven tongue," Malivoire noted aloud, making room for Ishamel to come forward if he would.  In the meantime, he joined Caine in watching as many directions as he could for whatever escaped the ruined tomb.  Knowing they had the kind of strength and power to demolish a wall like that was not encouraging in the least!

Mystically, Barnabus the Priest avers, "I can steal the silence of the tomb and make it my own."

He stands before the sealed aperture, ten feet away from the ruptured one, considering it and then reasoning aloud, "The necromancy of the barrow is such that what's in there might soon burst forth full of malign intent. Best to meet its occupant fully occupied in its dormancy."

"But first..."

Door to left of runed door first, the one with the stronghold/forest.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:05, Wed 02 Nov 2022.

Ishmael brings himself and his light to the fore.  "It says..." He runs his hands along the carved words, his fingers following the stone surface. Then his voice hardens a bit.  "It says you'll be more reverent with this tomb, and what's found will still belong ta dwarves."  He turns back around, facing the others, "It contains heroes of Breldiln Clan of the Iron Mountains." He adds, as if that explained everything.

He then turns his attentions to the door carved in stronghold and woods.

The carved stone door bears no evidence of traps and Ishmael quickly determines that it is not locked.

Pushing it open, the adventurers can see that beyond the doorway lies an austere crypt, the floor of which has been carved with the same image that adorned the door. A pair of tall iron candelabras holding dusty, half burned candles flank the northern wall, which holds a dozen triangular shaped burial alcoves, arranged in three rows.

The crypt is otherwise empty. Only swirls of dust disturb the stale air.

Barnabus pauses in midstride towards the burial archives, his mind caught by an arresting voice.

Though he knows that he could communicate telepathically with the speaker, he chooses not to do so. Like any priest, he is no stranger to debates of theology, liturgy, and conduct. When he debates, he prefers to declaim ... aloud.

"It would be both easy and true to defend my conduct with an appeal to ethics and logic. When there are two goods, the greater one must be served. It is good to leave the dead undisturbed. Even more so, it is a greater good to ensure that they don't rise again. To ensure this, I must become more than I am now. Ergo, I need what they can no longer bring to bear."

To reinforce his argument, he raises his cudgel as if presenting it to an unseen viewer.

"But it also true that I do so with a gusto that if not restrained could be ... sacrilegious. And this might all be a cover for my own lust for power. But you know it is not."

Having said his peace, the priest has a look in the alcoves, albeit with less alacrity than is usual for him.

The alcoves each contain what appear to be human remains, each body covered in a dark red shroud, embroidered with the symbol of a mountain circled by a crown, indicative of funeral rites associated with the deity of strength and battle, Crom.

Next to a body in one of the topmost alcoves is a coffer, crafted from ebony and banded with iron.


Quite suddenly, a tremor shakes the catacombs, the rumble within the earth shattering the silence of the underground. For an instant, the stones of the tombs groan with strain, dust raining down from the cracks between them, and the adventurers are forced to struggle for balance.

As abruptly as it started, it ends, quiet shrouding the Barrowmaze once more.

The Priest of Equivocation nods his assent.

After the party has taken the coffer into its possession, Barnabus admits that he must have removed "that green robe" in error and that they must return it to the spider's tomb "immediately."

"It would appear," he offers, "that the dedicated of Sylvanus prefer not to frolic about in the altogether."

Back to 27 for some cosplay with the skeleton than return here for the door routine with the runed door.