Rise of the Runelords: The Skinsaw Murders, Part II [IC]

[ClassyCrow]

"I agree Balazar, knowledge forges a path through the unknown, and we have certainly come across the unknown today." Aubrine nods to Balazar, then faces the bookshelf. "Someone catch me if I feint please." Aubrine reaches their hand to touch one of the tomes, bracing for whatever visions may occur.

[Qazgir]

Evaro wrinkles his nose at Huseina's words, and, once Aubrine has touched the tome, speaks up, "it sounds as if the man depicted on the window is this Vorel. I do wonder who made the windows, but that is not important now. We should search the room behind us, and make our way upstairs. While we should not be overly hasty, neither should we dawdle."

[lostsole31]

"Looks like a passage and not a room to the south," says Torviruv of the door.

Meanwhile, absolutely nothing interesting happens when Aubrine touches the books.

[Qazgir]

"Fair enough" Evaro says, then gestures towards the door, "shall we?"

[lostsole31]

Assuming Aubrine steps past the door, it is only 10' long before a door that is opened and continues to a set of stairs heading downwards.

[Qazgir]

Looking past Aubrine and seeing the stairs, Evaro turns towards Huseina and Torviruv and speaks, "well, would the two of you like to do the honors of going down first?"

[lostsole31]

They nod, and she goes in the lead with Torviruv behind her, and Aubrine, Edaro, and the rest filling in.

Piles of broken stone, dirt, and a few ruined pickaxes line the edges of this room. The floor in the middle of the room has been torn up to reveal an ancient set of stone spiral stairs, obviously of much older construction than the surrounding basement, winding deep into the bedrock below. A foul stink, like that of rotten meat, wafts up on a cold breeze from the darkness.

Now what?

[Qazgir]

Surveying the scene with his eyeglasses, Evaro speaks up, "that certainly defies any expectations I may have had about this place. I'd rather head back up to finish exploring the rest of the house before descending down into whatever that is. What do the rest of you think?" If he detect any magic, he will let the party know.

Spoiler: Action!

Show

Evaro will use the Eyeglasses of Magic Sight to search for unexpected magic auras.

[lostsole31]

The only NPC with a (dissenting) opinion is Balazar. "The door to the stairwell here was open. I think the rest of Misgivings is haunts and lore, but what we really seek - the fate of the last team - is down yonder terrifying and yawning portal."

Evaro gets too many "false" positives (meaning, not useful)from all of the magic owned, held, and worn by the group clumped in here.

[Qazgir]

Evaro will nod, "a fair point, perhaps I am too wary of being ambushed from behind." He turns, addressing Aubrine, "well, what do you think?"

[ClassyCrow]

"I would tend to agree with Balazar." Aubrine thinks for a moment. "There is no indication of any significant conflict before this point. There is a high likelihood that whatever sealed the fate of the previous party is beyond this door."

[lostsole31]

It is assumed, then, that the party begins to descend the spiral staircase.

In the lead, Huseina notices a significant and sudden increase in the stink of rotten flesh.

[lostsole31]

The party begins their descent down the spiral ladder and into the yawning darkness below ...

Aubrine, about 20' down the long set of spiral stairs, that smell of rotten, stinking flesh reaches a crescendo in your nostrils. Roll a Will save!

[ClassyCrow]

Aubrine breaths in the stench and...

Spoiler: Crunch

Show

Will save (1d20+6)[23]
Use a point of inspiration on a die roll between 8 and 12: (1d6)[1]
If an enchantment spell or affect (unlikely) a plus +2

[lostsole31]

Spoiler: Aubrine

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Aubrine experiences a sudden vision of Aldern Foxglove, sweaty, filthy, and wild-eyed, digging away at the stone floor of the room you just left with a pickaxe. With each swing, he grunts out two words: “For you.”

The PC knows that Aldern is speaking of her. As the vision ends, Aldern breaks through into the room beyond, and a horde of shrieking ghouls rises up to pull him into the darkness below before they turn their lambent eyes to Aubrine.

At that point, Aubrine's mighty mind kicks in and she resists the attempt of the haunt to do more to her, and with that ...the haunt ends.

[ClassyCrow]

"For me..." Aubrine says under their breath.With an upward glance to Evaro, "I just had a vision of Aldern Foxglove. I think, while I am not particularly familiar with the hauntings, Aldern was trying to tell me something." Aubrine does their best to explain the vision they had while halting the march down the stairs. "In the room upstairs I saw Aldern, he was hitting the floor in the room with a pick axe as if trying to get to something. He was repeating the words 'for you' as if directed at me. Soon after he was absorbed by ghouls who crawled from the floor from below, quite possibly where we're going. After Aldern was grasped by the ghouls, they turned to me." Aubrine readies their blade. "While I don't know if we're walking into a trap exactly, we definitely seem to be walking into danger. At the end of this staircase may erupt in violence, so now would be the time to change our marching order and make any final preparations."

[lostsole31]

Mind you, this is 20' down on the long spiral staircase.

"We've all signed onto danger," says Deadeye (Huseina). "There's little room above to move about, and none on the stairs, let's keep going."

And to to force the issue, she and Torviruv do just that. At that point, there is little left but to follow them.

The stairs end in a limestone cavern. The walls drip with moisture, and swaths of black and dark blue mold grow in spiraling, tangled patterns on the floor, ceiling, and walls. Rubble and broken bones clutter the floor, and a rhythmic sound—like the breathing of some immense creature—echoes through the cave from three tunnels, one to the north and two to the west. Of the two western tunnels, the southernmost one seems to be a relatively new creation.

[Qazgir]

Taking in the surrounding cavern, Evaro addresses the group, "yet another set of branching paths. Perhaps that tunnel," he indicates the southern most tunnel, "was built by the subject of your vision Aubrine. I say we investigate that one first." Evaro then draws his sword.

Spoiler: Action!

Show

If there are no objections from the party, Evaro will begin to advance down the southernmost passage.

[lostsole31]

With Evaro advancing in the front, Torviruv gets behind him, and Huseina behind him before everyone else falls in behind, so as to provide light to the half-giant.

No sooner do you get into the tunnel than there is a patch of scorched ground by an alcove. Some 30-35' farther in, there is is a much larger area of scorched ground in the cave. The group discusses what this could mean with each other, and given that the scorch marks are relatively fresh, it seems that a medium-sized undead was destroyed on the first spot, and a larger undead was destroyed farther in.

Finally, the narrow, natural passageway opens up to a cavern. This long cave stinks of rotten meat. The source of the horrific smell is readily apparent—a swath of carcasses is strewn about the floor of this place.

A two-minute search of this area doesn't reveal anything here, other than the fact - a clue itself, perhaps - that the bones were recently overturned and picked through in the past few days themselves.

There is no apparent egress other than an extremely tight well shaft.

[Qazgir]

Evaro will shake his head at the pile of carcasses, "well, since I doubt any of us are making it through that, let us examine the next tunnel."

[lostsole31]

Of the two tunnels from the first hub, the larger tunnel is the "next" tunnel which wraps around and goes to the west. Only 15' in, there is a fork. Do you take the south or north fork?

[Qazgir]

Taking in the two paths, Evaro ponders the forked path before speaking, "lets take the southern fork first."

[lostsole31]

As Torviruv passes, since he is holding the torch, he has a better angle and says, "I guess it didn't matter. This is less of a fork but more of a massive column split in the same larger passage."

As Aubrine passes, they see what Torviruv meant (see map).

They move a little more, and Torviruv calls out, "I got a body here!"

No sooner does Evaro get to the first party, then Torviruv calls out, "I see another!"

The closer corpse you gather around belonged to a shoanti trans-male shaman named Zada of the Stone Tales.

[Qazgir]

Sighting the bodies Evaro will curse under his breath. Turning to the rest of the party, he speaks, "that is not a good sign. We should check the body in case we can quickly discern anything useful. We should be ready for a fight, should whatever slew them still remain in these tunnels."

[lostsole31]

You quickly find that Azel and Huseina are your most knowledgeable in matters of medicine. It turns out that Zada was killed by having been savaged by multiple bites and claw marks.

[Qazgir]

Evaro warily scans his surroundings, "we should check the last tunnel. Hopefully whatever caused this," he gestures to the bodies, "is long gone."

[lostsole31]

Evaro, guided by Torviruv's torch, lights up a small passage to the southeast, though you know that is just a secondary path to where you came from around a large column of some sort. It's the larger passage to the east that is of interest. After only a few feet of movement, the tunnel opens up some. The mold seems to grow particularly thick in this portion of the tunnel. Several pickaxes have been tossed into the corner of the room—one of them looks particularly well made.

Evaro, what do you do?

[Qazgir]

Evaro looks around, searching for any signs of mining, as well as using his eyeglasses to check for magic auras.

Spoiler: Action!

Show

Evaro will use the Eyeglasses of Magic Sight to search for unexpected magic auras.

[lostsole31]

Evaro's magic sight detects nothing of the sort, and in fact, these seem like they were naturally formed caves.

[Qazgir]

Seeing nothing, Evaro moves to pick up the particularly well made pickaxe. As he moves, he speaks, "well, it looks like whatever killed those two isn't here. I'm not sure whether I'm relieved or worried by that, after all I'd hate for whatever did that to be roaming around outside, possibly lying in wait to ambush us when we leave."